Monthly Archive for April, 2003

Planning

Planning for an event like Field Day is pretty daunt­ing for some­one who has camped less than 5 times in his entire life.

A co-​worker of mine sug­gests buying tents and equip­ment from Build­ing 19, where you can basi­cally find any­thing you never wanted, so long as it fell off the back of a truck. But that seems a bit stupid.

Then there is REI… which has things to make even me drool.

Pres­ley is all into bor­row­ing from friends, which is fine, except it might be nice to own some camp­ing stuff… week­ends on Cape Cod anyone?

So maybe Target is a nice compromise.

April 30, 2003 » Tags: , . » 1 Comment

Looking at the Work Week Through the Eyes of a Gigolo

When I leave work tonight, I will submit a timesheet that, on sum, will be greater than 90 hours for this week. 90 hours. My co-​worker Akiko will exceed 100 hours.

I know we get paid by the hour, but doesn’t that strike you as a high-​tech sweatshop?

April 19, 2003 » Tags: . » 3 Comments

Furniture Wishlist

West ElmSome­one at work had a West Elm cat­a­log, a fur­ni­ture store in Brooklyn… and they’ve got really ter­rific stuff. Pretty com­pa­ra­ble to IKEA in style and qual­ity, but it has more of a Japan­ese modern feel to it.

I think Pres­ley and I should buy a wood head­board for our bed. It’d give her some­thing for her to hang onto…

April 16, 2003 » Tags: . » 2 Comments

Rock’N'Roll MotherFucker

The D4 – Best fuck­ing rock band in the world.

Well, they’re really really good.

April 13, 2003 » Tags: . » Closed

Why I don’t post as much, either

Megnut drew up a little graph to explain why she doesn’t post as much lately.

Me too, but I’m trying…

April 12, 2003 » Tags: . » 5 Comments

Liz Phair – Teenage Slut?

cliky clickyThe state of pop music is gen­er­ally good these days. Rap-​Metal & their Sen­si­tive Progressive-​Rock Crooner bud­dies seem to have relaxed their grip on main­stream radio. MTV is play­ing Inter­pol and Zwan, along with Jaras­sic 5 and Eminem… that is, when they’re actu­ally play­ing videos.

In addi­tion to the new bands get­ting main­stream atten­tion, it seems to me that sev­eral artists are making a come back of sorts. Look at Billy Corgan with Zwan… and look at Liz Phair – who is trying to shed not only her “blow-job Queen” indie cred from the early-90s, but also the boring Lilith Fair mommy rein­car­na­tion of her last album.

Tracks from the new album, posted on her web­site, reveal some inter­est­ing tid­bits about her new album.

1) She wants to sell records Despite being an immensely tal­ented song-​writer and per­former, she’s never sold more than a few hundred-​thousand records. She hired the hit-​makers behind Avril Levi­gne Lav­i­gne to pro­duce, and the result is candy for the under-17 Avril crowd.

2) She sounds like Avril Levi­gne Lav­i­gne! I have no beef with Avril – she’s fun, cool, and all that. But, Liz was real. She had a fragility to her that reminded boys like me of the girl-next-door… She also pos­sessed a unique per­spec­tive on love and rela­tion­ships, which she brought to her song-​writing. The new songs are rock­ing, to be sure, but too care­fully processed, so that they sound like just another L.A. studio job.

(I can’t believe I just used the word ‘fragility’ in a music entry. apologies.)

Still, would I like to hear Liz on main­stream radio, and see her on MTV? Yea. I just wish she’d use some­one like Sheryl Crow as a model, instead of a 17-year old French-​Canadian wanna-​be.

April 12, 2003 » Tags: . » 3 Comments

Obstacle 1 & the River Rave

InterpolMTV is pro­mot­ing the new Inter­pol video, which is a bit odd given their usual diet of the same 10 shitty clips. It’s a ter­rif­i­cally styl­ized video, much like the band and its music. Come to think of it, MTV has done a lot of little cov­er­age items on Inter­pol, so maybe some­body (Loder? Yago?) rec­og­nized their appeal.

Speak­ing of Inter­pol, Pres­ley, Albany Dan and I are head­ing to the WBCN River Rave, held this year at the Tweeter Center. We usu­ally don’t suc­cumb to such over-​hyped “mega-concerts”, but what the hell, it’s out­doors and fea­tures the likes of Inter­pol, Blur, The Donnas, and Beck.

These artists must love these con­certs – 40 min­utes sets, and you get to meet other cool people, spend a day in the sun, drink­ing, or what­ever. And they charge $75 a ticket!

April 12, 2003 » Tags: . » 1 Comment

Phone Madness

When I switched to AT&T Wire­less last year, I gladly took the free Nokia 3360. It was simple, styl­ish, and free.

It did basic text mes­sag­ing, but no inter­net browsing… And, com­pared to all these fancy color phones with cam­eras, it’s pretty stodgy.

I really want some­thing like the Nokia Com­mu­ni­ca­tor, but it’s not avail­able any­where, and it’s $500. So, why not a T-Mobile Side­kick? Seems pretty cool, straight for­ward, and simple. I could text mes­sage, chat, write email, and check my fan­tasy base­ball any­where. One prob­lem – it’s T-Mobile.

Today, I saw that AT&T Wire­less was run­ning a sale on the new Nokia 3650… a wierd look­ing bubbly-​brick of a phone. It has a camera, but no key­board. Is it worth getting?

April 11, 2003 » Tags: . » 3 Comments

Empty Nest

The week­end is over, we’ve lost an hour, and our apart­ment is empty once more. Having Macyme & Jeremy, Kunta, and Albany Dan under one roof was exhil­a­rat­ing and exhausting.

There was debauch­ery on a grand scale, involv­ing bot­tles and bottle of wine, some truly ter­rific thai food cour­tesy Brown Sugar, and a bril­liant port­fo­lio show at Mas­sArt of printmakers’ work.

I have a new appre­ci­a­tion for the work of print­mak­ers – I think they occupy an odd mid­dle­ground between hands-​on artists like painters, and those of us inter­ested in design. Much of the work reminded me of the graphic design exhi­bi­tions I’ve attended in the past.

How­ever, to hear Jeremy describe using copper plates, inks, wood­cuts, and acid, I now realise how phys­i­cal his work is – espe­cially when con­trasted with the mental nature of my work. It makes me want to get my hands dirty.

UPDATE: An arti­cle in the Boston Pheonix, on the con­frence, which was called “Making His­to­ries: Rev­o­lu­tion and Rep­re­sen­ta­tion 2003“.

April 7, 2003 » Tags: . » Closed

And now…

It’s fuck­ing snowing!

April 5, 2003 » » Closed