Tag: discussion

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personal

Making, Moving or Thinking

Location: in fronta three glowing things again
Mood: busy
Music: don’t wanna be damned, oh, hell

clocks in NYC

Me: Can’t speak for you but I spend 80-90% of my waking hours in fronta something that glows.
Her: What?
Me: The times I’m not in fronta something that glows – a phone, ipod, television, computer screen, camera screen – is vastly outnumbered by the times that I am.

In the last entry, told you that I had dinner with a buddy. During that dinner, mentioned this change in the law and how it affects ISPs. He’s a reporter and he actually wrote an article about it this week and he just told me that it’s their top tech/legal story.

Unfortunately, I’m not permitted to discuss the matter. But it’s strange reading your own words as an anonymous contributor to a decent-sized story.

Speakinga dinners, had dinner with someone else this week and I mentioned this quote by David Allen. Said that 50 years ago, 80% of us made our living by making or moving something. Y’knew when the job was done when there was nuthin left to make or move.

Now, something like 90% of us think for work. Or try to look like we’re thinking.

Point being that, it’s harder to know how to do the job and when the job’s done without having a final work product. Like if I write a legal memo, the thinking never ends.

Guess that’s why I like fencing or wrestling – cause, y’know right away if y’got the job done or not. There’s a definitiveness that I don’t get anywhere else.

So despite bein old’n creaky, get up every few days for some kid to beat the snot outta me.

In related news, I’m outta ibuprofen.

YASYCTAI: See if there’s a kali school near you. Y’might like it. (45 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Haiti/Pat, you viper

Location: in front of a busted HD
Mood: still annoyed
Music: baby stay with me, I love it

Snow on the 72nd Street Pier in NYC

If y’read the bible, you’ll see that Jesus only got pissed – seriously pissed – with one group, the Pharisees. They were the religious elite, the ones who looked down on those that weren’t doing the willa God. They said who was good and evil.

And he said to them, You’re nuthin but snakes and the childrena snakes. And you’re going to hell.

This isn’t a religious entry, just an observation of many of the world’s holy – irrespective of religion.

Which brings me to Pat Robertson saying that Haiti’s paying fora “pact to the devil.”

Pat, you self-righteous SOB:

  1. you snake, who the #$@! do you think you are?
  2. you’re going to hell.

Either help in some way or get outta the way.

———-

On the topic of help, how’s this for easy-peasy: text HAITI to 90999 and you send $10 for aid to Haiti.

Do it for yourself, if for nuthin else. $10 in exchange for feeling like you’ve helped in some way is a bargain, man. It’s a steal.

———-

Returning to our regularly scheduled nuthin, feel like I let y’down Jaerik, writing two ranty blog entires in a row.

Sorry dude. I’ll stop now. To make it up to you, I’m gonna pimp your new game – which is honestly, quite awesome.

If you’re on FB, do a search for “islandlife” and prepare to be impressed.

Speakinga pimping; had this hidden entry where I asked people to send in a pic of themselves singing for Caffeineguy, who also let me know of the Snopes link above.

Here’s what he did with it, the talented bastard:

The chick at 0:12 is my fave part of the vid.

YASYCTAI: $10 bucks! The costa two burgers and fries at McD. Do it. (1 min/2 pt)

Categories
personal

Bully/I remember you

Me 25 years ago

Was recently mocked for being a 36 year-old man that carries the baggage of his 17 year-old self. Probably true.

Heard on the news that the woman that Roman Polanski raped when she was a child forgives him. Wonder what the child version of her would’ve thought.

There’s this line in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that says of kids tormenting other kids, exactly as they themselves were, They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.

To paraphrase my friend Somena, the hard part of life’s knowing much of your past to bring with you into your future. Enough so that you’re better for it, not so much that it hollows you out.

Finally realized why I detest Heartgirl’s creepy friend, Shawn.

Cause he’s a minority and, I suspect, probably a geek as a kid. And we minority geeks are bullied in the most spectacular fashion. Emmy award winning. Yet he’s learned nothing from it.

Never did tell you what happened, did I?

Without her knowing, he picked up HG’s phone and randomly dialed numbers to make them think that HG was calling. And when they’d pick up, he’d essentially just laugh at them for thinking a pretty girl would call them.

Recall saying to him, Not sure y’know who I am.

Guessing he didn’t think I’d end up her boyfriend.

He’s awfully brave for someone on the phone. Told him I hoped that he’d get the opportunity to say to my face what he said on the phone. And of course, he’ll say what they all say, I was drunk, I was kidding, blah-blah-blah.

Funny – been hammered enough times, and yet not once did I turn into a lout.

Still, just to refresh his memory – and cause he just happened to move a block from me – he’s said I’m not a man. And he’d show me what a real man’s like. OK, I’m in.

Cause an old bully’s the worst kind; the kind that’s taken none of his torment with him.

Evidently, the socially correct way to deal with this type of situation is to just let it slide. Not mention it again. As luck would have it, never had many friends growing up so I never learned that.

Look, can’t let it slide. Cause I owe that fat kid y’see up there. Call it stupid or insane, but I owe it to him to remember what it was like to be tormented. I owe it to him to remember him.

So yes, Shawn. Show me what a real man’s like.

Without a hint of sarcasm or irony, I’d like to see that.

ME now

Location: a block away
Mood: indignant
Music: Somewhere inside my childhood I missed

Categories
personal

Finding things that are appropriate for you

Client meetings all morning. 2011 is busy already.

Student: Where do you want him at?
Instructor: (stopping class) “Where do you want him at?” We don’t end sentences with a preposition here.

There’s a nerdiness that permeates my life. Take my wrestling class. Buncha sweating guys ostensibly trying to do harm to each other. But our instructor’s a Jewish guy that’s a Japanese scholar with an masters from Columbia University. And he’s a monster on the mat. He scolded someone for cursing the other day and again for the above (more in a funny manner than a mean one).

There’re wrestling classes much closer to home for me and some that’re cheaper but there’re none that are as appropriate for me. Finding stuff that’s appropriate for you in life is a bigger thing than y’might realize.

———-

Jon Rognerud, the author of Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Optimization wrote me an email thanking me for my review. Nice fella.

My last book review made the front page of the New York Journal of Books. It’s spurring me on to finish that manuscript this month.

Gotta get it done; there’s a fine line between a writer and a nutjob that just tells himself stories all day.

Location: 11 AM, surrounded by papers on all sides
Mood: relaxed
Music: yeah, I’ve got to go home, ten minutes to go
YASYCTAI: How are we doing on those resolutions/goals? (time/1 pt)
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Categories
personal

Juggling

Location: 23:00 yest, an orange chair
Mood: tired
Music: I don’t have a simple answer

Have y’noticed the disturbing trend in commercials and movies where people’re in a car and then another car comes outta nowhere and just smashes them up? I can relate.

S’for the shock value, yeah. But it does illustrate a point: y’never can tell what’s gonna happen, good or bad.

Finally got some significant scratch from a gig I did ages ago. Cannot tell you how excited I was about that.

But then another, unpleasant, thing popped up unexpectedly from a different area of my life. And I’m back to square one.

Juggling your health, wealth and relationships‘s never easy.

Sorry this post’s late, been busy. Juggling, y’see…

YASYCTAI: Get a prioritization system. (45 mins/1 pt)

Categories
dating personal

Fridays Online

Location: 19:00 yest, cooking pork for the first time in kitch
Mood: inspired
Music: we the stars Steady rockin’ on y’alls boulevards

Picture of a bike in a park on the west side of NYC

Paul stopped by my place the other night. There was a time when I’d spend mosta my time with him chatting about Heartgirl rather than the other way round.

He’s still (kinda) living the life of a singleton – he’s got his front-runner – as’re lotsa my other friends. S’funny, the charm of being single’s the potential to meet someone that makes you not.

This salesman named Alan Stillman was tired of being single so he started a bar to pick up girlies on 63rd Street and 1st Ave back in 1965. Dunno if it worked but kinda shows what people’ll do to not be by their lonesome.

Which kinda makes me wonder why people don’t explore the avenues out there to meet someone appropriate.

Like online dating – dunno why anyone’s got anything against it. The actual meeting of a body makes it just as normal as anything else. Sides, how’s it any more likely you’re gonna meet your better half in some smoky bar?

Said it before, it’s like y’got this aunt named Match or something like that, who says to you, “I know that guy/girl that y’might like.” Plus, how often when you go out and about do you also get a resume of the person in front of your face?

Oh, the name of the joint that that guy Stillman started was TGI Friday’s – he also started Smith & Wollensky’s, the joint that HG brought me on my bday.

Y’probably aren’t gonna meet someone right for you in TGI Friday’s but you get my point.

YASYCTAI: Try cooking something completely new today. (30 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Still (sorta) Goal-Oriented

Location: 13:00 yest, Allen and Stanton
Mood: busy
Music: Comment faire verrai-je un jour la fin de ce calvaire

girl in a cat costume hula hooping in Central Park

Back to our regularly scheduled nonsense. Told y’about the pic above, yeah?

Him: Can I tell y’something?
Me: Y’know me, I’m a vault. Nuthin you’ve ever told me in a decade’s ever come out.
Him: (sarcastically) Yeah right, what about that time you got hammered on Scotch and you told everyone about…wait a sec, that was me.
Me: Sheyeah…

Ran around Chinatown today and stopped by Rain’s. He and I’re somewhat unique in that we both got enormous NYC pads despite, or perhaps resulting in, our never having any coin.

Now he’s got dogs now running all over the joint. Not a dog person myself. Not an animal person in general – unless they’re slow roasting with some lemon and salt. Kidding! (sorta)

Y’know, this book Animals Make Us Human says that all animals are wired to feel four emotions – three negative and one positive. They wanna avoid:

  1. pain
  2. fear; and
  3. panic; but they desire
  4. a goal. Any goal.

Cattle, apparently, are pretty happy cause they got all four.

Think we’re the same way. Said it before, the purpose of life is to have purpose. Realized tonight that my best friend was missing having a goal and that was getting to her.

Back to Rain, we (sorta) got a new goal – pitched him another non-income producing art project along the lines of Bachelor Cooking and 72nd to Canal – and he seemed to be pretty positive about it.

Lemme piece something together and we’ll see what happens.

———-

Also in the book is that, apparently, we never know what cats’re thinking cause they don’t have eyebrows.

YASYCTAI: What are your goals for the day? Week? Month? Year? (60 mins/2 pts)

Categories
personal

Lovely Tupperware

Location: 23:00 yest, with a large knife in my small bathroom
Mood: ill
Music: Too late for the young gun This is the year of the knife

(c) bernard chatreau

Old NYC graffti subway car by bernard chatreau

Me: That’s not how it looks.
Her: How does it look?
Me: At dusk, the 7 train would be packed with Asian teenagers. That’s totally fake.

Just saw the remake of Pelham 123 – the last scene shows someone riding the 7 train pretty much by his lonesome. The 7 train, in the early evening, is never that empty. Moreover, even when it is slightly empty, there’s always a dozen or so Asian teenagers on board at any given time.

I should know, I was onea them growing up.

1 hour 14 minutes into the film, there was a single shot of an Asian for a second.

Not onea those Asian activists – in fact this may be my only post in three years that even discusses what I am and not who I am – but it does bug me when we’re completely figuratively whitewashed outta of a movie.

Then again, it doesn’t really matter to me. Cause film’s all fantasy anywho. Reality is, we’re all up in this joint.

Funny thing is, who’s fantasy is it where you see onea us for only a second?

Have you met us? We’re lovely.

And when you order food from us, we give you tupperware.

———-

Me: Got a small abscess in my leg like last time and just spent the last 20 minutes digging it out with a knife and toothpicks. Question, do I have to keep hacking at my leg until I see blood?
Him: You may be the dumbest smart person I know.

Word of advice: If you find yourself low on rum, with a painful wound, a large hunting knife, several toothpicks, some gauze and alcohol, it’s never rarely a good idea to do self-surgery. A conference with the Professor indicates that perhaps the wrong course of action was chosen.

I’m my own worst enemy, a danger to myself. In other news, I’ll be visiting the pharmacy tomorrow. Purpose: Painkillers and antibiotics.

Said we’re lovely, never said we’re particularly bright. I mean, we’ll stomp all over that curve but still…

YASYCTAI: If you had to, would you know how to take care of a wound? If not, pick up a book. (120 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Clear

 

Went for a walk with my girl downtown this past weekend. Maybe that’s what made me sick again. Was worth it though. There’re few things in life as a walk down Central Park and Broadway on a nice day. Saw a girl in a cat costume with a hula hoop.

Been taking all of the junk I found cleaning my cellar and selling it on ebay, craigslist, you name it. Found this one dress with a price tag that said $14,000 in there and more computers than y’can shake a stick at.

Some things I remember, some things I have no idea how they got there. Story of my life, yeah?

In A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes said to Watson that the mind’s like an attic – you can only have so much crap in it before you run outta room.

Einstein echoed this when he said that, Never memorize what you can look up in books.

But I digress, point is that I’m tossing a lotta old stuff to make room for new stuff.

Still sick – my head’s stuffy. But I’m trying to clear things out. Wanna unclutter my mind and suppose that starts with uncluttering everything else.

Location: 16:00 yest, Grand Central
Mood: still @#$@#$ sick
Music: Singing to my pillow, I woke up out of tune.

Categories
personal

Words

Location: having a gyro with my pop east of 11354
Mood: still sick
Music: lemme light your candle, cause mama I’m sure hard to handle


Her: You getting closer to normal.
Me: You mean, “normalcy.”
Her: (shaking head) Well, you just took a step back.

Woke up this morning and fixed myself a killer filtered ground bean soup with cow-baby food. But just cause I can’t go a day without it, also had some roasted mashed peas with pre-digested insect vomit and baked wet flour along with it. Big fan of insect vomit. Especially when I’m sick. Wish I had liquid from a citrus reproductive unit to go with it but no luck.

Heartgirl just boiled some water with vegetables and dissolved insect vomit cause my cold’s coming back.

Stupid cold.

———-

Agree with Obama’s assertion that the phrase, Just words, is insulting. Words’re how we organize the world around us, not just to other people but to ourselves.

Was out with my girl the other day and we heard a guy just screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs in middle of Columbus Circle. And the people around him were visibly uncomfortable.

Look, sometimes few things match the situation better than expletive. And sometimes, y’gotta cut some people slack cause it’s the only vocabulary they got.

But what if it’s not? Cause, sometimes cursing’s just cursing, and that’s fine. But sometimes cursing’s showing the other person how y’process the world.

And that might not be what y’want.

———-

Woke up this morning and fixed myself a killer cafe au lait. But just cause I can’t go a day without it, also had some peanut butter and honey on a biscuit with it. Big fan of honey. Especially when I’m sick. Wish I had some lemon juice to go with it but no luck

Heartgirl just made me some tea with honey cause my cold’s coming back.

Damn cold.

YASYCTAI: Clean up that stack of magazine: read or toss. (240 mins/2 pts)