34

...rabbit. It's going to be a good month.

They weren't too helpful at the Apple Store when it came to repairing my sick iPod , but the new 20gb one I ordered came in the mail today. Marx viewed material fetishism as one of the capital sins of capitalism; I love this thing more than anything, ever.

All in all , a productive day for good over evil.

Well, the Jets suck and the Giants were just ridiculous, and they of course lost to a Vick-less Falcon, but I've got a good feeling about the Cowboys chances this year. I've also had good luck in that all their games have been televised so far... next week's looks to be as well, though who knows with regional blackouts and all. And since reality dictates that the Cowboys really don't have any chance this year, at least I'll have basketball season to get excited about soon.

Here's the veal that I made tonight: -4 or so veal cutlets (or thinnish pork cutlets would probably be good, too) -juice of a lemon -little bit of white wine -minced garlic (use your garlic press, why don't you?) -grated parmesean cheese, or romano cheese, or head cheese for all I care -a sprikle's worth of bread crumbs -some decent olive oil--don't ruin your dinner with crappy olive oil Take the meat and dip it a bowl containing lemon juice, a bit of white wine, and minced garlic. Put a bunch of the grated cheese (with some bread crumbs sprinkled in) on a plate, and dredge the meat in it. Really coat the meat thoroughly. Press the cheese in. That's good. Heat up some of the olive oil in a pan with a medium flame. If you have an electric range, set it on fire, but a medium fire. When the oil's a decent temperature, lay the veal in the pan in a single layer. Allow it to sautee for a while. The goal is to get the veal's coating nice and browned. Once you'r

I don't know anything about colours, so I just picked some with names that sound familiar. So the background of the page is now "linen" and the boxes are "bisque."

There are few things cuter than little kids putting mail in mailboxes. And they're always so proud...

I saw mention of this on the news. The MTA is sinking the Redbird subway cars (old-school 2's and probably some others I'm not familiar with), which have all been taken out of commission, into the Atlantic Ocean. The goal is to create a reef. Of subway cars. For fish to, like, play in. Doesn't that sound like a bad idea? Of course, I'm no expert when it comes to sea matters. Where's Ryan when you need him? Oh yeah–sailing down the Atlantic, right into a man-made reef. Poor Ryan.

I guess the preponderance of Halloween costumes, candy, etc. at the Super Stop & Shop (I think it's an &; I hope it's not an 'n') is to be expected. I mean, sure it's not 31 October right now, but who knows what tomorrow might bring? Never hurts to be prepared. What got me though was that they were selling pre-fabricated jack-o-lanterns. As in, there were pumpkins with faces already painted on them, and they were for sale. At first I thought maybe it was just some no-good kids running around the store with markers, "tagging" (to use the vernacular) random produce. But the faces on the pumpkins were more elaborate (though slightly less grotesque) than your average graffito installation. So someone thought that there is a market for pret-a-effrayer pumpkins, which isn't the whole point of jack-o-lanterns that they're fun to make?

Another Saturday of dim sum and the cinema, which isn't a bad way to spend a Saturday, but leads to concerns of the don't-blow-your-load-all-at-one-place (how's that for a mixed-up mixed metaphor?) variety, in that now what the hell am I going to do tomorrow? Lost in Translation , highly recommended. Hilarious throughout though it's not a comedy. Also a bit sad, for anyone but for me in particular, as it reminded me of my time in London and how difficult it was to be away from everyone in my life. I did not have Scarlett Johansson there to keep me company. But Miranda and the blokes from work were admirable stand-ins. The humour reminded me of The Office , which is a British show that I neglected to watch whilst in London, but which I've caught on BBC America back home. I just saw an advert on BBC America during the airing of Coupling (the British version, obviously, broadcast in preparation for the American Must See TV translation), announcing that the next season

I'm making cacik, which is fun to mispronounce, as part of a big lunch for some relatives tomorrow. It's perfect for summer. a bunch of plain yogurt (maybe two of the big containers... you get the idea) a bit of garlic, minced half a bunch of dill a few sprigs of mint 4 or 5 or more or less cucumbers, preferably seedless, or with the seeds removed if they're seeded ground black pepper a few dashes of good olive oil Dice up the cucumbers, and mix them up with everything else in a bowl. Add some water to thin it out if it's too thick for your demanding standards. Put in the fridge. Eat, eventually.

I avoided the rain, or ignored it, while traveling. When I arrived it had stopped everywhere but in the trees; the rain still poured through the trees, and the trees captured the storm.

Tip of the Day, courtesy of the Yahoo! Mail login screen: Keep email messages short and to the point.

I wish I could read Cantonese, if only to figure out what Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz-Cruise are saying to each other in little (Cantonese) speech bubbles on the back of that newspaper. I didn't realize that they spoke Cantonese... I guess they had to find a common language.

The possibilities: 1. There is a breeze due to (a) your train pulling in (b) your train leaving (c) another's train pulling in (d) another's train leaving 2. There is no breeze at all. 1.,(a) is a positive: your train is arriving, and you get cooled off as it happens 1.,(b) is a negative: you've only just missed your train, and the bitter wind hardly compensates for that 1.,(b) & 1.,(c) are both slight positives: you receive some breeze, but perhaps you've just missed a friend who got on the train traveling in the other direction, or perhaps you just encountered someone unpleasant who got off the arriving train 2. is problematic: when will the next train arrive? When did the last one depart? Will a train traveling in the other direction arrive next, bringing an appreciated breeze but an unpleasant acquaintance? It is the uncertainty that makes you uncomfortable more than the stiffling air.

I begin each weekday morning with a commute. For a while this consisted of a car ride to a subway ride to another subway ride, but for the past few months a bus has taken the car's place. One bus line, the B36, stops a block down from my house. The B36 both terminates and originates at that stop, a property it shares with all looping creatures. When the B36 first sets out, it heads north, then turns east, then south, then east again; my desire is easterly, so I avoid getting on the bus at its last/first stop and instead walk the three blocks east and try to meet a bus after it has completed its loping "U." I sometimes get on the same bus that I saw departing just as I was leaving my house. Pulling this off gives the same gratifying feeling as when the express train I'm on speeds past local trains that I chose not to board; it's the feeling of time travel. More recently I've been taking the B74, which travels in more of a straight line, and has the Stillwell Av

(Scott wrote me the following, and I am posting in as this will perhaps entice him to read my fucking blog, and also to beef up the Music section.) The wonderful thing about Up is, well there's a lot of wonderful things about Up as an album, like the references to fundamental groups. But a wonderful thing about Up is that there's a surprise bonus song on it, but it's not even on the last track like all the other surprise bonus songs in the world, it's on track twelve of fourteen, which is a weird place to find a surprise bonus song. (Jeff'y note: the most salient fact about the secret song is that it's the best song on the album, which is not to disparage some of the other good songs on the album, but there you go.)

Lawrence was a chicken, as he was the first to admit. This was more of a calculated ploy than anything else; best to be upfront with clients, and beat them to the punch in the process. "My name is Larry," he'd say, "and I am a chicken." And he'd offer them his right wing in greeting, unless we were dealing with clients from the Far East, in which case he'd bow a little, always pulling it off with dignity and only conveying the vaguest impression that he was pecking after a kernel of corn on the ground. Sometimes, when he'd feel the need to break the ice he'd squawk a bit, but only comically, and not because he couldn't help himself (he could; he hardly ever squawked around the office), and more often than not the ice would find itself broken. Lawrence was a good guy, remarkably so for a chicken, and a heck of a salesman. We were all sorry when they ate him.

I was using Internet Explorer at work, which I normally don't do (if I have to use Windows I'm going to use Mozilla), and I went to my blog for some reason. To drive up my page hits, I guess. But for some reason the request timed out and it loaded an old cached version of the page, one that had all of the posts I lost due to an incomplete backup-restore after the blackout. So for the sake of completeness in the historical record, what follows are the unearthed posts. Or at least the ones I feel are worth reposting.

So I've finally finshed Infinite Jest . It took me a few hours under six weeks, which I think is about right. I need more people to read it, and no one else will, and Scott and I are not going to be able to figure out what the hell was going on by just talking to each other. If you have a birthday coming up, you're getting Infinite Jest . Just ask Rich. I think Anna's the next winner, but I really doubt she made it through V. , which I gave her late for last Christmas. But then I never made it through The Magic Mountain , which she gave me, so I certainly can't criticize her. Except to say that V. is a good book. But, anyway, Infinite Jest . As mentioned , I'm not one for reviews. Saying that Infinite Jest is about addiction and tennis in like saying that Gravity's Rainbow is about love and rockets–it's true, sort of, but it's not so much the point. There's so much to be had from just the reading the book. Each of the little sections that could st

Hmmm. My blog apparently looked exactly like Atrios , which I gather is an important blog. I wonder how that I happened. I think I've changed the background boxes to a different colour at least, though it's hard to be too certain when you're not good with colours. I wonder if "Eschaton" is an Infinite Jest reference.

I'm on the LIRR right now, blessedly with just enough cell phone service to write this, as I've nothing else to do with my iPod incapicitated. That isn't true, though, because I have Infinite Jest in my bag, and another 100-odd pages to go. I've made it to the last page of footnotes, which is an accomplishment in its own right. I am heading out to see the RHCP play at Jones Beach--hence this post's categorization. I don't have a pre-Music category, depressingly. Erin and her roommate were supposed to go with me and the Meltzers, but they backed out at the last minute because of the rain. I will resist the urge to talk shit about that because Erin is one of the few people who read my blog. But anyway, I find myself on the LIRR alone. Which is not to say that I am on the train by myself. There's a guy sitting two rows in front of me, facing my direction, who's playing the obligatory guy-drinking-beer-on-the-LIRR role. Even before he busted out the Brown B

I found this link on Memepool , which is generally a decent source of weird links. I always hated science fairs back in my school days. I'd come up with ideas like pouring laundry detergent into a jar full of aquatic plants and observing what happened. Or magnetizing a needle and floating it in water to make a compass, a project that I did one year in Junior High and that my mother subsequently did as a class project with the second graders she was teaching. Anyway, for those without the patience or manual dexterity to click on links, some highlights of the Fellowship Baptist Creation Science Fair 2001 include: "My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)" "God Made Kitty" "Pokemon Prove Evolutionism Is False" (my favourite, although the presumed hypothesis seems counter-intuitive [as opposed to "God Made Kitty", which seems overly-obvious]) "Women Were Designed For Homemaking" "Rocks Can't Evolve, Where Did They Come Fr

My iPod is sick. All the partitions on the hard drive are toast. I am hoping that if I take it into the Apple Store and deny that my iPod being sick has to do with gravity and a hard wood floor they'll create some partitions for me. Apparently that's not the sort of thing laypeople can do for themselves, if the Web is to be believed.

The bathroom of a restaurant I was in yesterday had a sign reading "Please do not flush toilet papers Thanks" (emphasis and syntax theirs). So that's not something I really want to think about.

The Daily Show is the best thing on television, I've decided.

After who knows how many months of construction (certainly as many as I've been working in the neighborhood), the Commerce Bank building finally opened for business on the corner of Montague and Court streets. There is an incredible amount of fanfare and assorted hoopla, with a clown on stilts, a caricature artist, and a free(!) hot dog vendor all doing their thing in front of the building, in addition to the more traditional sign-up tables offering free pens or t-shirts. There is an Independence Bank two doors down that got into the act with a Dixieland band and popcorn machine of their own. Me, I find it hard to get excited about free checking, but all the goodies are kind of cool. It's all a throwback to the Great Panini Giveaways of a few months back, where you couldn't walk a block down Montague without being offered a lunch's worth of free panini samples from the Garden of Eden and from City Market. If that's the price of gentrification, hey, sure. Meanwhile,

I don't like reviewing movies (or discussing them at all post-viewing, really), the actual viewing experience being what matters to me. I'm not the sort to put that into words; I'll leave that to the pros . That being said, I am all for recommending movies, so everyone should go see American Splendor . And rent Y Tu Mama Tambien , or buy it, which I recently did for $10 at the Surprise-it's-DVDs-for-$10 Virgin Mega Store sale, never managing to see it when it was in the theatres.

Why the hell is George Bush on television inquiring as to whether I'm quite ready for some football? Jeez. My indignance would be more righteous if I had managed to sit through more than 10 minutes of the Democratic Presidential Debate on PBS, switching to Thursday Night Football as it has more real world ramifications, viz. [sic] my fantasy football league. I need to create a fantasy political league. That would save our country.

(From Scooter [sic], who is becoming more receptive to my blog and will perhaps use it as a wedding registry.) Did you ever notice that more than half the song titles (as well as the album title) of The Who's Who's Next contain apostrophes? In fact, the ten titles (nine songs, one album) contain a total of seven apostrophes. Of the seven, three stand in for final "g"s at the end of verbs in their present participular forms, and one is the crucial glue that binds the "ain" to the "t," without which binding, I'm not sure where our language would be. So statistical analysis would suggest that perhaps Pete, Roger, Keith, and Whoever played the bass (unless Townshend is the bassist, in which case our mystery man is the lead guitarist (all of which is absolutely impossible to find out at our present point in history because trying to find The Who on Google is like trying to find Nemo in Toy Story III--he's not really there, but if you look clo