Athens Pie

modern art

2005-03-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

i read in a certain newsletter that shall remain nameless, that in germany there was a situation where some sanitation workers inadvertently threw away some "important" pieces of modern art. apparently, the garbage company had to hold a class to teach its employees how to tell the difference between modern art and trash. this was quite interesting, and not because i think all modern art is garbage, but some of it seems to be.

i understand that after photography became popular, "real" things needed not be captured on canvas, at least not exclusively, so artists' focus would not be the same. but then, some magazine (details or esquire, i think) published 4 pictures of a similar splatter painting by 4 different artists: (1) a modern artist (2) a toddler (3) elephant (4) monkey... all quite similar paintings. anyway, i think it's time to get schooled in the art medium which has thus eluded me. i'm thinking, afternoon audio tour at the museum of modern art. taking other suggestions, as well.

perros

2005-02-11T12:17:00.001-08:00

what do you do when your stealth, waddling daschund eats up your finnicky, slow-eating maltese's food?

a whiskey to dime

2004-12-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

like most people, i was stunned to hear about the murder of darrell abbott (the incredible guitarist for pantera and damage plan). i've read several reports about it so far... one in particular featured a quote from a friend of his saying that he lived and died by his guitar. seems like probably the only thing somewhat pleasant to be said about this tragedy. but how horrible for vinnie (his brother/drummer)... what a horrible thing for him to see. anyway. it's just so incredibly sad. i think i still have the dimebag darrell guitar pick from that pantera concert in 10th grade. after that show we listened to cemetary gates all the way home, on repeat.

i can't believe someone would engage in such a senseless crime.

pixar

2004-11-07T17:55:00.000-08:00

i joined blockbuster online... it's sort of like netflix; they send you dvd's in the mail and you send them back (no postage fees)... except that with blockbuster, you also get two free in-store movies or video games each month. i would like to rent the sims for game cube.

in the blockbuster queue are david copperfield, super size me, goodbye lenin, and the butterfly effect. we received all i want (don't really recommend this one) and chasing liberty (haven't watched it yet)...

saw THE INCREDIBLES last night, freeeeeking awesome. you must go see it.

sorry i haven't blogged here in awhile, was messing around with myspace.

i'm going to go play keyboard.

pfffffffffttttt!

2004-10-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

gah! i know a small brown pickle that just farted... *opens up window*

instead of eukanuba, it should be called you-can-poo-ba...

that's according to ashok, anyway... and i'm inclined to agree.

quote of the day

2004-10-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

"I dutifully read The Catcher in the Rye as a teenager, with no sense whatsoever of the irony involved in dutifully reading a novel about the dangers of being thoughtlessly dutiful."

the after effects of college...

2004-10-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

you know, i wonder how long it takes to kick that post-college feeling of obligation, as though after work and on the weekends you should be doing something productive, (e.g. writing a paper, reading for class, etc.) i'm going to go to starbucks and read for personal enrichment. ooh and jim carey became a U.S. citizen, but refused to say for whom he was going to vote, which i think in hollywood that means bush-but-i'm-not-going-to-get-red-listed-yo-so-i-won't-say.

we met sean hannity a couple of weeks ago. just for a moment, long enough to take a pic with him. also, andrew wk. we took a pic with him at this ramones tribute show, where lots of big names played, including joan jett, blondie, the strokes, sonic youth, andrew wk, and the singer of queens of the stone age, and also tommy and cj ramone, and bill stevenson from the descendents/all. i'm recording one of his songs, too, incidentally.

last night, we went to the mitch hedburg/stephen lynch show and saw one of the strokes there. mitch hedburg was awesome! but the audience was rather obnoxious... i wonder if that was similar to the audience in austin...? drunk people who have seen him perform in the past yelling out jokes and punchlines... they wanted to hear certain jokes, they weren't giving him cues, it was really obnoxious. but he was great, and he said the turtleneck/backpack one!

it's getting cold here already. i must purchase some warm socks, tights, and such.

you seen team america yet? it was funny, especially the songs. i read that sean penn got mad at them.

the running bulldog

2004-10-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

haha i took pickle and draco out this morning, and we started to cross the street toward the park when this adorable bulldog (all by himself) goes trotting along around the corner and crosses the street from the park and he beelines toward the door of our building, and when he reaches the door, the doorman opens it up for this beefy little bulldog and he goes inside. finally a lady with a stroller comes around the corner laughing cuz the bulldog was cold and wanted to go back inside. it was so funny...

"when first i saw thee thou didst sweetly play the gentle thief and stolst my heart away"

2004-10-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

so i didn't mention yet that ashok and i got to meet sean hannity. just for a moment, but we got a picture with him! hehe. also, i've been reading Arthurian legend stories, which i'm really enjoying. so i look up on the internet and some people speculate that some of king arthur's stories may be actually taken from lucius (roman emporer), the guy he defeats. kind of interesting, when you compare this to the animosity between arthur weasley and lucius malfoy from you-know-which-septology. anyway, i really liked the sir gawain and the green knight story.

i went to a medieval street faire here. it was free and accordingly, not quite as good as the renaissance festival in plantersville. it just seemed not-very-authentic. election booths instead of the king's olde ale, plain street booths instead of little merchant shops, too much pavement, not enough musicians and actors, no jugglers, hot dogs instead of elephant ears... you know what i mean. but it was fun. made me want to record some 16th century madrigals!

i've played a couple of times up here. some clubs here have drums and amps (marshall half-stacks!) and stuff so you can just go the clubs with your guitars. (ahem, huff rally people.) i know you (jenn) are super busy with school and your thesis and reading, but surely you miss performing! anyway, probably not monetarily feasible right now, but maybe some time.

dog & his old tricks

2004-09-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

those of you who know pickle won't be surprised to hear that he is back to his old tricks. trying to bark, bite, and intimidate strangers, especially strangers of canine origin. he must use the scmuzzle again, i guess. there's a really good trainer who once taught him to sit in 10 minutes - he said you wouldn't recognize the dog after a few days training with him. (too bad he costs 150 dollars a day for training!) any ideas?

what are you dressing as for halloween? also, name some costumes you wore in the past.

some of my halloween costumes:

BATGIRL - 2003
BALLERINA - 2002
PIRATE WENCH - 1999
BUNNIES WITH ANDREA & HOLLY - 1998
TRICK-OR-TREATING COWGIRL - 1996
PINK BUTTERFLY - 1984?

hahaha

2004-09-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."

-Alice Cooper, of "School's Out" fame

For bearance is the hallmark Of your creed (mary poppins)

2004-09-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

during the week you see a lot of babies going for stroller rides, and they are being pushed along by ladies that are, presumably by appearance, nannies. (on sundays you'll see the babies with their actual parents going for walks.) yesterday when i got home from work, i was walking toward the elevator when i saw a nanny with a baby and his mummy talking. this is what the baby did today, his nose was runny or whatever... which made me think of dr. laura and her i-am-my-kid's-mom movement among her listeners. dr. laura was incredulously commenting on a story she'd heard about a mummy picking up her day-care baby and a piece of paper that informed her how many times the kid went poopy. she was shocked because a mother should mother, and accordingly should have known that sort of thing. wouldn't it be great for professional work to include part time employees, too? i'm so glad that johanna is able to stay home with baby joseph and still teach dance a few evenings a week! she said she's making her own baby food from fruits and vegetables. in mary poppins, the children had a nanny (obviously) and their mother didn't work, she did society things, political activism. but i wonder if she spent much time with jane and michael banks. just a thought.

what's in your bag, darlings

2004-09-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

it seems that a lot of nyc chicks carry around two bags: (1) their purses, and (2) their other bag, which is a shopping bag from the weekend or something. you know, the heavy, good quality bags from Saks, Tiffany, Victoria's Secret, etc. In them, I guess they put their lunches and work papers. I think there is a market for some fashionable femme-briefcase that looks more like a shopping bag. hehehe. i own a mini-ipod now. it's awesome, but i need to download more songs.

went to a green day show the other night. their new album is really quite interesting. some of the songs have like 5 movements.

2000 census rearranged electoral votes

2004-09-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

this morning, i read an article about north carolina voting republican since 1976; it also stated that as north carolina's population in the census increased, it now has 15 electoral votes. these will likely go to bush again this election, but you never know. accordingly to the article, the kerry-edwards campaign isn't going to focus much effort there in edwards' home state unless they start to gain higher in the polls.

this is interesting, so i looked up how many electoral votes are available for each state this election and compared it to how many votes were available at the 2000 election.

TEXAS (R) and NEW YORK (D) have close to the same number of electoral votes. But in the 2000 election, NY had more electoral votes than TX; in this election, TX has more votes.

The states with the most electoral votes (15 or more):

California (55)
Florida (27)
Georgia (15)
Illinois (21)
Michigan (17)
New Jersey (15)
New York (31)
North Carolina (15)
Ohio (20)
Pennsylvania (21)
Texas (34 votes)

vegas

2004-09-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

money is no longer real when you're in las vegas. for example, i was playing some slots with 20 dollars, and won a few games and then that was 80 dollars. now, usually, i would think, hmm, yeah 80 dollars cold buy a few things more than 20 dollars. the gap between the two monetary values usually seems much more significant. but no, not in vegas. you just pump your winnings back into the slot machine so maybe you could win big money! on the last morning in vegas, we walked back through the casino with our luggage, on our way out, ashok pulled out a 20 dollar bill and we played more wheel slot. we didn't win anything and suddenly the 20 dollars down the drain wasn't so much monopoly money. we both agreed it was starting to feel like real money again.

anyway, went to see dennis miller live comedy show, ate at a huge vegas buffet, fell in love with a betsey johnson coat, and went to hard rock cafe and paris hilton and mischa barton were there. they weren't there together, though. oh yeah, i also finally tried blackjack and roulette. i am not good at blackjack. i think the way to enjoy yourself at a casino is to save up a lot of money before you go, and then in your mind equate the "play" money with the above-mentioned monopoly money.

do you like gambling?

the convention

2004-09-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

met one of my favorite morning talk show hosts, mike gallagher, saw the bush twins speak, saw barbara bush (the enforcer) going by in a vehicle after attending a broadway show, and saw george w's entourage drive by during my lunch break. also saw newt gingrich twice in one day.

i wanted to ask mike gallagher about the book he's writing, but i didn't think of that until later. argh. why didn't i think of asking him that, then? oh well, i told him i liked his show, and that's enough.

the mickey mouse club

2004-08-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

the oh so tolerant liberal-democrats strike again... last night there was a report of these goons pushing old ladies coming out of broadway shows. why, you might ask, would they push old ladies?? well, because they think they might be delegates to the republican convention out having a good time, and how dare these old women have an opinion and purpose that differs from the mickey mouse club!!

and today in some protest-the-right-to-assemble-if-you're-not-ultra-liberal publication, they advertised for more of this absurd behavior. it asked you to wear your mickey mouse ears and go stand outside the disney broadway musicals' exits to yell at the people who exit since they might be delegates in town enjoying some entertainment.

it's disgusting.

but it did yield a very clever game.

yesterday at one of these protest marches, we played protester bingo. ashok created it for an article he wrote for politicalstorm. it's like a bingo card with things you must look for among the protesters... (e.g. birkenstocks, communist che shirt, someone yelling fascist!, poster advocating physical harm to bush, save the whales or something else passe, protester protesting the protest, etc.) it got some attention, i think 3 separate newspapers asked for copies of protester bingo and asked him questions.

also we went to a party called "flirting with the enemy" where democrats drank out of blue cups and republicans drank out of red cups. it seemed as though everyone had fun without resorting to pushing people and name-calling.

doing chores...

2004-08-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

1. walking the dogs - very fun. a weekend walk through Central Park, just me, pickle, draco, and an ipod. lots of people, lots of sports, lots of green...

2. doing the dishes - yuck! i would rather clean a toy-lette with a stick. it's an issue of proximity with the dirty thing, i think.

3. vacuuming - haha nope. we don't have carpet here. if we did, pickle probably would have given it a good bath. *shifty eyes*

4. washing clothes - don't mind this one, though i wouldn't say no to my own washer and dryer in the apartment. must go down to the 4th floor to do laundry.

5. folding/hanging clothes - yuck, this is tedious, and for some reason, i would rather clean a toy-lette with a stick.

6. giving dogs a bath - enjoyable, easy, don't have to give a smooth (short-haired) pickle a bath more than maybe once a month or so. draco goes to grooming sometimes. they need a bath today, though. pfft.

7. dusting, mopping, sweeping, cleaning counters, and a good, thorough scrubbing of the bathroom and kitchen - for 50 dollars could get the apartpent's cleaning person to come in once a month and do a better job at this than i would. we must note that this is cheaper than a phone bill.

please feel free to post your thoughts.

i ate sushi

2004-08-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

So, I sold 3 items off of Ebay so far. It's sort of addicting, really.

Pickle learned how to sit on command yesterday.

Someone wrote "The Anti-Chomsky Reader" isn't that funny?

I saw a vending machine that included beer.

I'm trying to decide which book to read next: any of the Robert A. Heinlein books, Shut up and Sing (by Laura Ingraham), or maybe book 3 of the Lemony Snicket books.

I'm thinking about sitting on the couch and watching LOTR all night, stopping periodically to eat or maybe take the doggies out.

While looking for pet-sitting services, I saw a classified ad that said "Will pay you 20 bucks and a 6-pack of beer to clean my bathroom. I don't really like scrubbing. Will throw in a pack of dungarees."

MJ is a pretty cool comic book, sort of Smallville-ish. High school antics and relationships between those Spiderman characters. I do like the art.

Speaking of art, I read in The Enemy Within, that tax payers unknowingly pay for a lot of perverted "performance" art on college campuses and via endowments for the "arts."

if someone splatters bodily fluids on a canvus or pees in a jar with a holy figure in it, that is not art, in my opinion. it's social deviance. and also religous intolerance annoys me.

speaking of first amendment hypocrits... there are going to be lots of "protesters" using the guise of "free speech" in order to silence the unacceptable "free speech" of those silly republicans gathering in their "freedom to assemble."

i ate sushi today.

got your indie cred right here

2004-08-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

hmm, patrick should be pleased... i bought some comic books. they always seem so intriguing placed ever so neatly on their little wooden shelves, but i was hesitant about buying them... you know it's like video games, primarily for males, but not exclusively so. perhaps just not marketed correctly to the vast female shopping base. so i bought the first 3 Mary Jane comic books. mary jane is mj from spiderman. this series is about mj, harry, flash, peter, et al. in high school. i also bought the ghost world story, even though i never saw the movie that was based on it. i think it was compared to daria, wasn't it? maybe that's what jimmy said. anyway, i read the first 2 mary jane's already.

i also saw some more comedians, including that dave attel guy from comedy central. and ashok and i saw a couple at a stoplight with two dogs: a pickle and a draco! hahaha... this evening we went to this dock thing by the river and practiced our roller skating... did anyone else see garden state yet?

for replies, i want you all to post about your pets. and if you're almonetto, you don't own a draco yet, so you should post about jezminda. ooh family guy is on the tv.... g2g!

Guilty Pleasures

2004-08-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

Admit them.

I'll start with WWE wrestling.

shpadoinkle!

2004-08-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

well, i got paid on friday, so i bought a few things this weekend.

on saturday, ashok, chris, and i hung out most of the day. (chris goes to fordham with ashok, he lives by us now.) we took draco and pickle for a walk and to brunch. we sat on the patio next to a sort of 2 or 3 foot high gate thing (the restaurant rule was that doggies must stay outside of the gate thing). pickle was very good during the walk, especially for a busy day, but we had to warn a few people not to pet him and he barked a couple of times. then we went to a street fair in midtown for a little while, and later to an upstairs dive with a definite indie ambience for the semifinals of a sketch comedy competition. that was awesome and only 8 bucks.

today i went shopping for some things i needed/wanted. i went to saks and got a free makeover at the lancome counter. i purchased 3 makeup items there. and i bought a pair of ballerina flats at a little discount shoe shop. and i went to h&m for some short-sleeved office shirts that are not sweaters (it's pretty humid right now...)

we're going to watch the south park movie. i heard they might remake cannibal the musical. i don't know, would some of their lines "work" with the higher budget?? (e.g. "Niiiice hat!") anyway, needless to say, i can't wait to see their puppets. do you think that trey parker was cuter as orgazmo or as alferd packer? joe young's boyish charm was nicely accentuated by his endearing use of "cupcake," but there's just nothing like a pensive traveling gold minor that sings... *sigh*

excuse me, but you're standing on my darkness

2004-08-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

haha thanks to brandon for that quote...

today i would like to talk about a thing in Texas that we like to call "elbow room." i don't know how it was in iowa, chicago, or st. louis, but there's just no such thing here. if you don't like people bumping into you and dodging folks, you probably could get quite frazzled here. i don't really mind, though, i'm actually probably one of the people dodging and getting impatient with the slow walkers. heh. but anyway, inevitably you will be touched, unlike in most public places in texas (not including concerts). there is a crowd at the stoplight, a crowd crossing the street together, crowds in a shop, packed like sardines on the subway, at the train station, etc. at many restaurants, your table is so close to the next table that (1) it is as though you are sitting at the same table with the people next to you, (2) you will definitely hear their conversation, and (3) probably will have to squeeze your butt through a small gap between tables to get in and out. haha. also, often when you are meeting up with people you don't see everyday, *kiss, kiss*... interesting. i'm used to hugz.

what idiosyncrasies did you guys note among the people in other cities in which you've resided?

OMGz a POiNTLESS Survey!

2004-08-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

1. What magazines do you like to read? Why? Newstand or subscription?

2. Do you have a default breakfast standby? (e.g. toasted bagel, OJ) Describe, in detail.

3. What have you worked on today, as far as work and school go?

4. Describe your nightly facial cleansing regimen.

5. What color dresses for your bridesmaids?

6. Favorite dog breed(s)? Why?

7. Name something you like from each of the following cuisines: Mexican? Italian? Chinese? Indian? Sushi? Greek? Seafood? Thai? BBQ? Vegetarian?

8. What do you like to do when you go to gym? What exercises do you usually do? What do you listen to or watch on tv or read?

9. Jobs you wanted to do when you were a little kid.

10. Name like 5 of your elementary school pals. Who was the tallest, at that time?

11. Name 3 desserts that it is hard for you to say no to them.

12. What flavor do you like in your oatmeal?

a paul smith toothbrush costs 8 dollars

2004-08-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

today i'm obsessed with ebay. i can't stop browsing it! i've looked up shoes, clinique, mary kay, betsey johnson, marc jacobs, lacoste, steve madden, etc.

i also watched legally blonde 2, solely for the purpose of the glimpse of legislative process... just kidding. i like pink. did you know?

i ate a gyro for dinner. as jimmy would say, it was delicious.

i want to see team america.

there is a country song called Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.