Monday, January 29, 2007

on banh mi, crappy mice, and the homeless

we have previously covered the eating of bánh mì, but today i went to a different bánh mì place, this time in chinatown. A Chau Deli is at 82A Mulberry St, between Canal and Bayard. The sandwiches are delicious, large (about twice the size of nicky's) and super cheap; the #1 is $3! It has a variety of vietnamese cold-cuts, some pâté, cucumber, pickled carrots and cilantro. The coldcuts seemed a little less processed and generic than what you get at nicky's. And so cheap was this that I decided to try a sardine sandwich too ($2.75). It was good, but not nearly as good as sandwich #1.

I only ate half of each one, figuring I could give the rest to a homeless person. but let me tell you, today must be a homeless person holiday because there was not a bum to be found between chinatown and the village. seriously, it must have been the first time in 20 years that there were no homeless people in washington square park. what the hell. for you conspiracy theorists, note that today is the day the city starts their annual official homeless census.

finally, coming up to nyu entails, as it so often does, the usage of a mac. i really don't dislike macs on principle (well, the DRM thing doesn't exactly enthrall me) so much as on practice. The keyboards, as previously noted are quite painful to my wrists. and now, the computers here in the library all have mighty mice which want to right click everything until you look it up and find out that it's supposed to sense whether you are clicking on the right or left. but there is nothing about the mouse itself which suggests it does this, so instead I just sit here getting frustrated about how this computer seems to keep getting stuck right-clicking everything making it impossible to use. Then once i figure out the problem, i find i have to lift my right finger up when I click in order to reliably click the way i want to. this is, i hasten to add, exceedingly uncomfortable and I might not even be able to do it if my piano teachers hadn't made me do finger-independence exercises when i was a kid. i appreciate that this might work well with a little getting used to, but for chrissake, stop telling me that everything apple makes is so fucking well designed. attention getting and cool are NOT good design principles, i'm sorry. though i can certainly understand why they are good for sales.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

song obsessions update

soft rock edition apparently.

well, i guess only the first 2 were soft rock. oh well, the list evolved since I wrote that first sentence a couple of days ago.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Thursday, January 18, 2007

this article from the times about congressional roomates is a friggin riot. don't you be eatin' my cereal again, chuck schumer!

Thursday, January 11, 2007

sherlell: hehehehe thanks nerd

bizarre star trek trivia for the day: king abdullah of jordan had a cameo on star trek voyager. no i am not kidding.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

hallowed halls

some comments on un-important a-doings these days.

first up, inductions to the rock and roll hall of fame! Takin' 'em one by one...

Van Halen
Oh god do we really have to? I mean i guess i understand it but i was pretty happy without the various hair-metal bands in the hall. i know van halen isn't technically hair metal but in the ultimate 80's generalized black/white dichotomy of hair vs. new wave, van halen definitely falls on the hair side of the equation. i mean this is the band that made synthpop palatable to new jersey (that's Jump in case you were keeping score). Basically, if Van Halen gets to be in the hall, so should Depeche Mode cause somehow I just decided they're the new wave equivalent.
The Ronettes
YES. yes yes yes. They run a thing on vh1 classic sometimes where 2 of their people discuss who should be in the rock and roll hall of fame and one of the bands they mention is Heart. But lets face it; Heart did not influence anyone like, say, Brian Wilson. So what if they were basically Phil Spector's puppets? Be My Baby, basically the most perfect pop recording ever.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
a good time to remember that hiphop does not have to be about bling or beeatches.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. does not seem old enough to be in the rock and roll hall of fame. but besides that, i kind of have mixed feelings about their inclusion. I really like R.E.M., I think Stipe is a really good songwriter, I think they've done a lot of really good recordings (anthem of my down-period between college and grad-school: Daysleeper). But somehow, their career seems to lack a level of gravitas. i snicker when i read someone write that Van Halen's Runnin' with the Devil is a rock milestone, but I really can't think of any R.E.M. songs that deserve that moniker either.
Patti Smith
She gets namechecked a lot. I mean a lot. I don't really have much to say about her, but her inclusion makes total sense.

then there's the iphone (i refuse to camelcase it, i'm sorry). i've basically been thinking for a long time that apple was going to eventually be putting out an all-in-one this-is-your-life-in-your-pocket kind of a product, but i thought that the ipod would ever-so-slowly evolve into one; instead they've jumped in headfirst. it is shiny and sparkly, but still, this comment attached to david pogue's review in the times really says it all about the media coverage.

and finally, suck it mcgwire!

more about monkeys

this shouldn't really be funny, but it's really funny: Transportation Security Administration on Service Animals.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

why isn't my blog funnier? it should be funnier!!!

statistics about a google image search for the word funny (20 pictures on the first page of links):

  • number of results which were borderline porn: 3.
  • pictures of pets: 4.
  • pictures of cats: 1.
  • pictures of dogs: 3.
  • pictures of pug dogs: 3.
  • number of pictures which were actually funny: 0.

teh google has failed at determining what is funny by algorithmic means. comedians, consider your jobs safe... for now.