This will make everyone want to visit me

So apparently I did see a body on the sidewalk when I was getting home from Atlantic City. He was apparently murdered in broad daylight 2 BLOCKS FROM MY APARTMENT.

If you're curious, you can go here. It's the PDF for Aug 29th, go to page 4, top of the page.

Of course, if I just continue to work 12 hour days and never leave the office, I'll always be safe and not have to worry about crazy people trying to stab me.

I'm also starving, despite the fact that I only ate dinner about like 3.5 hours ago. Of course, what do you really expect from eating Chinese?

The AC Baby!

Good times all around. We decided to start by drinking. So we went to a place called the Beach Bar were we had about 7 pitchers of beer. After many drunk dials to former otters and Carrie, we decided to go get some food. This took us to Hooters where we had another two pitchers, and probably the heaviest Hooters waitress I've ever seen.

By this point in time we were obviously feeling pretty good so we decided to finally start gambling. I'm not sure where Nick and Steve went off too, but Rory and I went to play some poker. We did the $2-4 limit hold 'em table. I hate limit hold 'em, but we both ended up, with Rory being up about 50%, and me more than doubling what I started with.

By around midnight we decided to head back to Rory's outside of Philly. (Yes we were all sober by this point.) This ended up being a bad decision since there was some traffic accident and we ended up going about 3 miles in 45 minutes. Plan A was to drink at Rory's but we were all too tired by that point so Nick went home and Steve and I crashed on Rory's couches.

In the morning we had pancakes and beer (Rory was out of milk), and then Steve and I departed for Newark and NYC, respectively. The weekend sort of ended on a downer when I got out of the subway by my apartment and the police had the street taped off, and I saw what looked like two bodies on the sidewalk. Why they didn't tape off that subway entrance sort of confuses me, but oh well.

All in all it was a pretty good weekend. A return trip in the not so distant future is definitely needed.

I peed out my window.

Last night, per my regular Wednesday ritual, I went and played softball with my company, and then went to Mo's Caribbean Tavern afterwards. The night started well with 3 wins at the beer pong table, then my partner decided to willingly give up our spot to some cute girls. The alcoholic in me would never do such a thing, but since they were cute, and I hadn't eaten any dinner, I didn't argue too much. That, and there was no way I was going to win the argument with my considerably drunker partner. OF course, this is supposed to be something to entertain clients as well, and one of the zillion reason I'm not suited for sales is that I won't be nice to people and give them a chance to do something. I'll tell them to wait in line and talk smack all night long. Anyway, the night goes on, I drink more, and around 11 cups starts. There were sufficient numbers on each side of the table, and knowing that I was planning on working a long day today, I decided to take my leave so I didn't get completely hammered.

I manage to catch the cross-town bus so I can skip the $20 cab ride home. Now the m79 that I took, doesn't go completely straight like most of the cross-towns do. It turns off and goes down a block or two before running east west again. Of course, I think I was drunker than I realized, and I thought the bus had looped around, and promptly lost all sense of direction. Anyway, I walk to the subway, (because I got off a block too early) and get on. I sit down and don't really pay attention because I have a long ride home. Thankfully the conductor spoke loud enough so that stop announcements could be heard, because my brain got a bit of a wake up when he announce 72nd. Of course my reaction was too slow to get out at that stop so I got out at 66th. (For those of you that are wondering. I live at about 170th). At this point in time I say fuck it, get out and just take a cab, which cost me $19. Yes I save myself one whole dollar in my drunker than I realized state.

Anyway, I get home shower, drink lots of water, blah blah blah and go through my nightly routine and go to bed by 12:30ish. I thought I was pretty much sober by this point in time. At some point in time after going to bed, I got out of bed and sleepwalked/drunkenly decided that I needed to pee. In my sleepy haze, I guess I decided that it would be easier to open my blind, and my window, and take a piss. Now my apartment is a decent size, but its only one floor. It's all of maybe 30 feet from my bed to the bathroom. Nope, definitely easier to open the window. It's kind of odd reflecting back on it, because it was very much like a dream. The only reason I'm even sure I peed out the window was the fact that my blinds were kind of messed up this morning. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I live on the 6th floor, and was pissing on the street side.

Peeing out the window is one of things that I've thought about doing and thought, "Man that would be fun!" but then the little good angel my shoulder sits me down and tells me that pissing out a window from 6 floors up is kind of a dick move. I can't even see myself doing this drunk, which is why I think I was sort of sleep walking/peeing. Of course those of you that know me also know that I've had these sorts of bladder issues in the past, which account for the two times I peed on my desk in college. Those times I was most definitely plastered.

In other news of me getting into trouble, I will be going to Atlantic City this weekend with Steve, Rory, and Nick. The first time I peed on my desk was a result of Rory's 21st birthday party.

Tuesday I went to the Mets-Cards game at Shea. IT was a hell of a game with Delgado hitting 2 home runs, including his 400th which was a grand slam, Pujols hitting 2 home runs and getting 7RBIs, and Beltran hitting a walk-off in the ninth. It was everything you could ask for in a game. Anyway, I've heard Shea is a dump, but I honostly didn't think it was that bad. It's a helluva lot better than the Meadowlands. Giants’ stadium is a dump. Shea is just a little old. Though it doesn't really have a personality, and isn’t really nice like PNC or SafeCo, and if a stadium doesn’t have a personality after its been around for almost 40 years, its probably never going to have one. Now I just need to get to Yankee stadium.

My Brain is Off

My brain was turned off today. I didn't realize it until late afternoon, but it suddenly become quite obvious to me. I had the first fantasy draft of the season with some coworkers ('cause I’m a sports freak like that) in the afternoon. I told a friend of mine that we'd meet up at 6:45 in front of the theater for "Chicago" tonight. I look at my analog watch in my coworker's apartment and at about "6:15" I head out to catch the subway. I get to the corner the theater is as and give me friend a call, since I didn't see the theater right away. She confirms the location and then says, "By the way, you realize you're way early." I take a look at my watch again, and yup, sure enough its 5:45. Good one.

So I decide to join up with her a little early. I walk to 9th and 43rd where she says she's at. I give her another call and ask her what restaurant. She gives me the name and says it’s between 43rd and 42nd, across the street from the Starbucks. Now, I must point out, I'm staring at a Starbucks, but my brain is off so clear thought patterns don't exist for me. I decide to start walking east. I'm a little confused why there is a Starbucks on every block, but then I'm like hey, this is actually pretty normal. (For those of you unfamiliar with the NYC layout the avenues such as 9th run north south while the streets such as 43thrd run east west.) So I walk east (uh, along 43rd) and get to just about 8th avenue when my brain finally puts all the pieces together, and I say, she said "between 43rd and 42nd, across the street form Starbucks." In other word, about 50 feet form where I was standing a block ago.

So yeah, the brain was off this evening, or as my friend Sarah put it, I was having a "special" day. I blame it on working yesterday. Yes I sat down and did actually work for the company yesterday, because this week is going to suck a whole lot and I didn't want work to kick my ass the much. That and one of the few advantages of being an Ass. Prod. is that I get paid hourly, and was making some good overtime for myself yesterday. However, my brain isn't used to having to function on the high a level on the weekend, and was subsequently broken this evening. Oh well, lets hope its back up and running tomorrow.

A sad day

Yesterday I learned that one of my favorite sports columns is going to be ended on August 31st. The Daily Quickie was a column I started reading when I first started at ESPN doing customer service. I read it almost every single day and covers everything in the world of sports in 50 word sections. It's perfect if you have a short attention span, or are compiling code and you need something to Alt+Tab to while you wait 30 seconds. If I was still in Bristol I might get to know the real reason behind it ending other than "the site has changed a lot in 4 years." I need to figure out the number of hits it gets per day, though I don't think I can legally post the numbers, its something I need to look at in order to ponder. Maybe someone higher up in NY knows what's going on...

Graffiti Practice

When I got in line to order my lunch at the cafeteria, the "chef" (I use the term very loosely here) was using the permanent marker used to mark the wrapping for meals to write on a paper towel to write what I swear was graffiti practice. I guess you can take the kid out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the kid.

Speaking of ghettos, I have a story about buy shoes this past weekend. Now, you all need to keep in mind that AT LEAST 75% of my neighborhood doesn't speak English as a first language (and is probably Dominican). Anyway, I pay for my shoes with a credit card, which in my neighborhood you're usually requires you to present and ID as well. (If you pay with a debit card that is directly tied to your bank account, you don't need one, but the credit card that legally protects you from paying fraudulent charges you need an ID for. Go figure.)

While looking at my NY State dirver's liscense and comparing the names on the cards the girl/woman asks "Where are you from?"

While resisting the urge to say "White Suburbia" I answer "Uh, Connecticut."

She responds, "Well what's your nationality?"

I again resist the asinine response of "Typical American mutt" and say "I'm more Irish than anything, but my last name is Dutch."

I guess they're just not used to last names that don't end in a vowel or Z.

What a beautiful day for an 'Ah shit.'

So, with the weather being gorgeous, all of my errands taken care of, and the fact that my doctor says I need to do some more aerobic activity, I decided to go for a bike ride. I started at my apartment, biked down Riverside Park to Battery Park. The bike path ended there so I went back up to the Word Financial Plaza for a Starbucks break. After my break, I started back North. With my legs getting tried and home approaching, around the 16th mile, I ran into some hills that required actual gear changes. Unfortunately my 10ish year old bike did some interested in shifting and all of a sudden I heard a crunch beneath me. I stop and take a look down, and see my gearshift through the spokes of my bike, on the opposite that it should be. Oh this isn't good. The real cool part about this is I just bought myself a bike helmet a couple of weeks ago so I could go do some biking. Apparently it will be time to invest in a new bike as well. I also must add the I popped my back tire as I was dragging my back home, since I didn't really have the energy to carry my bike the last 15 blocks home. *sigh*

I've discovered that I'm getting older. Getting older may be inevitable for most people, but I've been doing what I can to stubbornly resist. Anyway, you may be wondering how I've discovered this. It has to do with the fact that 6 hours of sleep 5 nights a week is no longer sufficient. I'm dragging all day long at work with only 6 hours. However last week I did the intelligent thing and went to bed early in order to get myself 7 hours, and I was on my game all day long. *sigh* I don't wanna grow up.

Yesterday was my first shoe shopping experience in the city. I needed some good walking shoes so my feet don’t hate me when I walk around the city all day. In the suburbs, you go to your store of choice, and they have all the shoes there, and you can try them on, and figure out what size you are, and not have to ever talk to anyone. It’s very nice. In the city however, you have a wall of shoes, and you have to point at what you want (with prices listed only like half the time) and talk to a sales person and have them run in the back and get shoes for you to try on. I don't like this system. But I suppose I did end up buying some DAMN comfortable shoes I otherwise wouldn’t have looked at.

Ok, I'm ready for my nap now.

Non-committal wine.

So I have this bottle of wine. I am entirely capable of drinking this by myself, but I'd prefer not to. True, I could just go buy a stopper & vacuum set, and drink half the bottle, and save the rest for later, but said stopper would make an excellent Christmas gift, and is also easy to transport in a suitcase. These are the things I'll have to keep in mind as long as my parents are living in Canada. At any rate, this bottle needs to be drunk, and ideally would be shared with another person. Along with said sharing would be a meal. Of course, this is the sort of thing one does with a girlfriend, and I'm still the better part of a year way from even considering going on a date that is not explicitly stated as being "friends" only. I could just make myself a meal that I eat two days in a row, but that's just not satisfying. I find wine to be something that is much better when enjoyed with company. Unfortunately, I am not at the point with the new friends I have created to say "come over, I'll cook a meal, and we can split a bottle of wine." If I had a way of storing said wine, this wouldn't be that big of an issue, unfortunately NYC apartments frequently don’t come with wine cellars. Alas!

In other news, I recently started watching "Dead Like Me." It's an enjoyable show. The main character is a little reminiscent of "Daria," which I would argue is the best show MTV ever made, but I'd be willing to hear other arguments. (If you're even thinking of saying Real World to counter of this, you will be shot on sight.) Anyway, I think "Dead Like Me" could end up being my favorite syndicated show. Time will tell.

This Monday I had two different phone calls offering me jobs. Um thanks. Where the hell are you getting my resume from? I haven’t even been to a job site since like February. I thought they showed potential employers like last log in date? Or perhaps the fact that my résumé mysteriously stops at the end of last year? Whatever. It's good to know in the future it looks like I'll have some options. Maybe I should finally get around to studying for the next actuarial exam.

Sports: Ok, the Red Sox are officially done. After starting catcher and captain goes on the DL for 6 weeks, our back proceeds to hurt his ankle and is out for at least a week himself. Nothing against Javy Lopez, but it takes time to work with a staff and get to know them and how they operate. That, and um, yeah, we just got swept by the Royals.

Someday my mind will catch up to my blogging

OK, half this shit happened like a week ago. I'm a space cadet. Deal with it.

I've always been under the impression that I get a discount at the ESPNZone so when my parents go in town on Saturday we went there since they wanted a beer and there aren't a whole lot of pubs floating around Times Square. Apparenlty however, my discount only is good for Monday through Friday. Fuck you ESPN. Fuck you.

In said Zone, they happened to be playing the Women's British Open. He watched a few of the golfers and said "They're all wearing knickers!" No Dad, those are capris. Yeah, he got off the fashion train a long time ago.

Last night I discovered, that while my beer pong skills have definitely eroded since college, my [flip] cups skills are still pretty solid. Party on.

Catsup blog

I've been meaning to review Clerks II for a few days but I'm a little absent minded so it ended up not happening until now. Anyway, this film was f-ing hilarious. Any film that tackles that major issues like ass to mouth and bestiality gets an A in my book. While nothing can compete with the original genius of Clerks, Clerks II does it justice. Of course, one could argue that I have a slight man-crush on Kevin Smith, so I suppose my opinion might be slightly biased. Anyway, I'm still buying this as soon as it comes out on DVD.

As previously mentioned, my parents were in town this weekend. I got a lot of the "touristy" things done this weekend. Went on one of the city bus tours. That was nice since we did the downtown loop, which is a part of the city I almost never go to. It was good to get to know that part of the city a little bit, but the tour guides kinda sucked, and we hopped on and off a few times so we saw/heard a few of them. The guides we had when we visited DC were a helluva lot better.

I learned that if I want cheap shady shit, I need to go to China town. *mental note* While there, my Mom saw a shawl she liked for $5, and she was like, what the hell, can' beat that price. The first thing she asked was "Is there tax?" The guy selling laughed a little. I laughed a lot. Apparently in Canada even the shady vendors apply sales tax, either that or my Mom doesn’t visit those shady areas quite as often as I tend to do. Of course my whole neighborhood is a little on the shady side, so maybe I'm just used to it now.

My Dad very much wanted to see the WTC site, despite me telling him "it's a concrete slab." We walked all the way around it so he got multiple views and a chance to see the building they have in mind.

At night we went to a restaurant called Josephina that I walk by almost every day on the way to work, and I really wanted to go to. It was good, and it was nice to site in some decent air conditioning, particularly after running home, changing and running back down to the West Side. (#$#@#4 weekend trains).

Coming home from dinner there was a woman carrying a Conway and a Victoria's secret bag. An interesting combination.

Sunday the parents come over to check my digs, and then we headed to the Met. for a while. We spent most of our time checking the "Art of the Mayan Kings" (or something like that) exhibit. That was kinda nifty. I'm not really a big art person, but that definitely qualifies as a good activity for parents being in town. After the Met I discovered myself on the East Side, which is another part of the city I pretty much don’t know at all. Most of the time I'm over there, I'm going east west, and we needed to go south. This prompted a call to Kat since I couldn't remember where the 4,5,6 trains were without a map. We went down to Pier 17 and relaxed and had a drink before going back up to Times Square to change into decent dinner clothes. We went to a place called Tony Di______ in Times Square. It had a good atmosphere and good food, but was really loud, which kinda took away form the meal. OF course I got leftovers so I'm not complaining that much.

So yeah, that was the weekend in a nutshell. Good times.

Not awake enough to think of a title

But g it's 11:30? Yeah, well, when I say I'm not a morning person I really mean it.

Yesterday, I got a call from my friend Krista yesterday saying that she would be in town for the night and that they would be going out somewhere. Of course I accepted said invitation. We started at some shady Irish Pub that I think was originally chosen because the under 21 members of the group could get in. We had a drink here, but then a group of people very interested in grinding on each other (uh, pretty much right next to us) decided to show up, and as the under 21 members of our party had left, we decided to find another bar. We went to another significantly less shady Irish pub and had a few drinks and hung out. I left around 1:20 or so since my friend was falling asleep, and I was kind of tired myself since I'm not smart enough to get the sleep I should during the week.

Anyway, with it being the weekend, and I not in a particular hurry to get home, I decided to subway it home. Unfortunately as I got into the station the A train was just pulling away. grrr. OK, so there’s a 20-minute wait. Well, once one finally arrived, I take my seat and decide to doze a little since the late night train is local and I'm 140 blocks from my stop. I wake up occasionally and see I'm still not where I need to be yet. Well, apparently one of these naps when longer than I expected, and I woke up just as we were pulling away from the 190th St. station. Ah shit, I don't live this far north. I get off at the next stop (200th) and debate walking home 30 blocks, or potentially waiting 20 minutes for the next train, but thankfully luck was on my side. This station thankfully allows one to cross from the uptown track to the downtown track without leaving the station (its like they’re designed to help drunk idiots like me!), and I heard another train start to approach the station. I run over to the other side and make the train a few seconds to spare. So yeah, that added a good 20 minutes to the ride home. Fun times.

My parents are in town this weekend, so I'm going to knock a lot of the NY tourist things of my list, and have my parents pay for everything:-) Also, for future reference, you need to by tickets to see the statue of liberty at least 48 hours ahead of time, just in case you were wondering.

After midnight blog, you know i'm not sober:-)

I have to start with sports. Losing Vartitek is awful for the Sox. He may have been having a down offensive year, but he knows what to do with the pitching staff. It's not that I don't have faith in Mirabelli, who is an excellent defensive catcher, but he hasn't played every day, in possibly ever. Calling up our AAA catcher, who was batting a whopping .207 in AAA, is far from sufficient. Theo, if your long-term plan doesn't work, I will kill you.

Before I bare my sole, lets go with a fun thought. Beer pong on the company tab, f-ing rules!

Ok, now for serious shit. Growing up (as much as it pains me) has definitely made me realize a few things about myself. As I was out on the company tab, a certain realization occurred to me. First of all, I can't deal with completely corporate girls. While I certainly know that I belong in the corporate world, I could never date a corporate girl. It has also allowed me to realize that the one person I ever fell in love with was not someone that was purely corporate. She struck the hybrid crazy artistic (we all know she really wants to write) and secure job (i.e. corporation) that fits perfectly with me. It also helps me realize why most of my new friends are actresses/actors, since I find them far more entertaining/interesting than corporate people, who, at least in my company, seem petrified of letting anyone know they may take a few risks and actually enjoy life every now and then.

Long Days and Sports

I had to stay a little late at work today. Something I'll probably have to start doing a lot for the next two months. Not that this is such a bad thing. One of the only advantages of having a job title of "Ass. Prod." is that I get paid for overtime. It's still a little weird though, when everyone around you has gone home, and the only people walking in the hallways are the shady custodians. Mind you I'm not calling all custodians shady, just the one's that seem to work the night shifts. The daytime custodians seem like perfectly normal people.

I watched the Sox/Indians game last night. (This is gloating alert.) Its good to see the Sox can at least beat crappy teams like the Indians. It was a fun game to watch too. Back and forth for the beginning, and solid middle relief. I hope Snyder pitches like that the rest of the season. Cleveland is capable of hitting the ball and he shut them down, which was good to see. With Wakefield out, Clement still a head case, and Wells 3 inconsistent starts away from the DL again, we could use someone who could be a 5th starter and eat up 5 innings. It's not that I don’t have faith in Ortiz to hit walk off home run's every night, its just that eventually the law of averages will have to play in, and the Yankees (much to my chagrin) made some good deadline deals while we did a whole lot of nothing.

I was alerted to a new rule in college football to shorten games. Hey assholes at the NCAA, why don't you do something like limit commercials or the lengths of commercial breaks. That’s why the games last 4 hours! (The most egregious offender being NBC, and domers you KNOW what I'm talking about). I generally support the NCAA's rules governing athletes, but when they don't take care of the OBVIOUS problem that just happens to line their own pocket books, my support starts to fade.