"I want justice. There’s an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, "Wanted: Dead or Alive.""
George W. Bush
—September 19th, 2001
nyc
Return of the Corn
After
![[info]](https://i0.wp.com/stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?resize=17%2C17){kind=small}
returned from South Dakota on Friday around Midnight, we managed to get a few hours of sleep in before piling into Hawkeye and heading down to NJ.
was visiting from TN, and I hadn’t seen her in quite awhile (Christmas?). I also used the opportunity to trade cars with mom for the week and bring the crap I’ve kept in their basement to the new place now that there’s room for it. It was a really busy 36 hours or whatever… Saturday night we all went out to Outback to celebrate Father’s Day a little early (since we were all in town at the same time).
was accompanied by Stosh and her “stepkids” (she and Stosh aren’t married, but she lives with him and helps take care of the kids when they are with Stosh). They are cute kids, but a handful, and totally reminded me why having kids is a bad idea… =)
Anyway, I was in the basement with Mom and Dad, who were helping me spelunk the basement for my stuff, and helping me bring it out to the car. My dad was bringing out a box to the car when I looked into my plastic Rubbermaid coffin and noticed the infamous can of corn. I quickly sprung into action, grabbing the can and bringing it out to the car with the intention of hiding it in his car.. Unfortunately, he caught me as I entered the garage, and quickly proclaimed “Damn it!!” Apparently, he had just put the can in the coffin a few minutes prior.. This was extra special, because this is EXACTLY how this whole can fiasco started almost 10 years ago when I was packing up to move to RIT (in late August or early September 1997). The ball is back in my court… for now…
On the way back from NJ we stopped over in Manhattan for a few hours to visit with Sara, Dave, Sappha, and Finn… To save time, I drove directly to their place down by Battery Park, so we could just blast up the FDR when we were done as opposed to taking the PATH back to NJ then driving from there… The Holland Tunnel was awful, but the TomTom got us there without too much hassle… Sara made some awesome baked Mac & Cheese, and we caught up for an hour or two before we hit the road… Mom’s Honda Pilot treated us pretty well, but I really don’t like driving such a big car, especially when I can’t see out the back.. Fortunately I didn’t have to do all that much backing up…
We got back to Watertown around midnight, and we quickly settled in for the final episode of The Sopranos.. What a way to go out, it was everything I could have hoped for… Exactly the kind of way I had hoped the series would end, I mean, I wasn’t “expecting” how it turned out, but I really hoped many of the “all wrapped up nicely” theories that were floating around leading up to the finale were wrong… I’ll leave this spoiler free for awhile, but I’ll try and come back to it at some point…
Even if the terrorists don’t win, we still fuck it up
Last weekend
Saturday, we parked in Hoboken and took the PATH up to 33rd. We grabbed a slice of mediocre pizza (Presto) and split up. I headed over to the Javits Center.. To be honest, NextFest was kind of a bummer.. There were some interesting things, but it really didn’t grab me… After seeing Gib’s panel discussion, I headed over to meet up with Corinna over at Sara & Dave’s place. They live down near Battery Park, so I took the opportunity to head over to the World Trade Center for the first time since 2001. It was really tough for me; I bounced back and forth between sadness and anger. I can’t believe it’s still a fucking hole in the ground. WTC7 has been completely rebuilt, but the crater looks like it hasn’t changed in ages.. I moped my way over to Sara & Dave’s, which gave me time to bounce back, and we hung out with those guys all night, eating some Indian food from Baluchi’s and catching up. We made it back to Hopatcong around 11am, and I passed out pretty quickly.
Sunday we hung out a bit for hitting the road.. Corinna plowed through another 5 episodes… She skipped out on the film club, but I headed over to Harvard Square to catch The Science of Sleep. It was enjoyable, but not great… I think Gael Garcia Bernal is overrated, and kind of annoys me, to be honest..
Armed Audio Warfare
This weekend was hectic! I left Saturday at 5pm with Jon Whitney to go down to Manhattan for the midnight Meat Beat Manifesto show at BB King’s in Times Square. Jon hosts the official MBM website over at Brainwashed, so we had VIP passes which was cool. We rolled into town and met up with
We got to the show just as the doors were opening, god it was cold in NYC… Went backstage to say hi to Jack, but I don’t get off on the whole backstage thing, so I just said hi and then went back out to the room to catch the opening act, Dalek. I guess they split with their DJ (whose name was “Still”). To be honest, without Still I just wasn’t interested in the band.. It’s a shame, because they are really nice guys and I’ve really enjoyed them the other times I’ve seen them… This time I was just waiting for them to leave the stage. When Jack and crew got on stage, though, it was like magic. I saw them back in June and it was amazing, and this was no different… Similar setlist, but the crowd was much larger at this show so the whole room just had more energy… The venue sucked (would have been great for old white people listening to Jazz or Blues), but the show was out of control… After the show we said thanks to Jack and Jon got a live CD for Luke as a thanks for his hospitality and we rolled back to Luke’s place at like 3:30am..
Sunday morning we caught breakfast with Luke a few blocks from his place and then parted ways with him… I’ve got to get down there more often to visit my friends in (or, in Kyle’s case, near) the city.. When I go back to NJ I usually plan on making it into NYC but because I am having so much fun with my friends and family there that I usually don’t make it. I think the plan needs to be seperate trips for NJ and NYC, because otherwise it’s too hectic. That way
Corinna and I immediately turned around to go to the film club to see Kairo (Pulse), which is the original Japanese movie that the upcoming (disaster) Pulse was based on. Oh my god was it terrible… It never felt like it went anywhere, and there were so many unresolved or unexplained plot points.. It seems like they were constantly rewriting the script.. So many things were never paid off… And christ, shouldn’t a horror film be at least SOMEWHAT scary? At some point Corinna gave up grabbing my arm when tension was building just because she realized that nothing was actually going to happen.. But even though the movie was shitty we had a great group of people show up last night, including a few new faces. We’re getting more regulars and semi-regulars coming, which is awesome because it means I’m not scaring people off anymore. ;)