Tag: interesting facts

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What is home if not the people that call it that?

Never having a home

Speaking of home, movies like the Warriors – which is based on a true story that happened almost 3,000 years ago – can be countlessly retold because the themes of longing, home, and survival are universal.

Hold that thought.

While I enjoy the modern takes on the Incredible Hulk – particularly the 2008 Ed Norton reboot – for someone that grew up with the 1978 television series, The Incredible Hulk, it’s very different.

Not just in terms of technology, production values, and the like, but the thrust of the show itself.

Essentially, the modern movies make stories about a god-like/monster-like hero, the television show was mainly about the other part of the Hulk, Dr. Banner.

There, Banner is shown as a drifter, and I thought that the show was the story of a man with a mindless monster inside of him.

As I got older, I got wiser and thought it was the story of a man searching for a home with a monster inside of him.

But this was wrong also, I realized.

It was the story of man that can never have a home, ever. He must always be on the run and can never relax or settle down.

Not my copyright, obvs.

Because the moment he finds someone to create a home with, that person will forever be in danger of the monster inside him.

So, he can’t have any relationships – no friends, no lovers, no children, no one.

Which is why the ending scene was always of Banner walking alone, to nowhere, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a duffle bag.

Banner can never go home because he can never have a home. He will never have a home.

So, there’s no home to find.

Because what is home if not the people that call it that along with you?

And he has no one to call it that with him.

It’s such a tragic story and can probably explain how a primetime television series about a big, green, comic book character in the 70s lasted five years.

In any case, just a random thought.

Think I’m finally starting to understand the world a bit.

Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Oh, by the way, my son’s home.

Him: I’m home!
Me: (laughing) Yes you are!

Location: NJ, getting my treasure
Mood: steamy
Music: There’s a monster in me who shut down (Spotify)
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Tent or Cave?

Troglodyte

Me: I think all housing is either a tent or a cave. Like a modern home is a modern tent and a modern apartment is just a modern cave.
Firecracker: What would you call a stone house then?
Me: That’s still a cave. It’s like when you say all foods are soups or sandwiches, although I think that there’s a third category of salads.
Her: (shaking head) No those are soups. But I think there are a lot more things than tents and caves.
Me: Disagree on both points!

For years, I lived in my parents’ basement and then lived in my own basement for a while.

Told someone once that I was an actual troglodyte – which is someone that lives in a cave – in that an apartment is essentially a modern cave.

She disagreed as well.

But really, people have been living in caves since the dawn of time and things don’t really change, we just get used to things.

Like I live in a cave in the middle of Manhattan.

There are worse places to be.

The kid’s coming back this week and I’m super excited. There was a long time where I thought that home was wherever Alison was.

Suppose that’s a major reason I become unmoored after she died. I lost my sense of self.

But I’ve gotten better all these years because home is where the kid is now.

And the Firecracker and her son round out what home now means to me.

In fact, the Firecracker and I talk a lot about maybe getting a trailer and a car and traveling across the country when the kids go off to college.

Someday, maybe.

Until then, think I’ll make the kid some pancakes when he comes back for brekkie in our little cave we call home.

Me: You’re back in two days!
Him: I know! I can’t wait.
Me: Me neither, kiddo. Me neither.

Location: almost home
Mood: hot, hot, hot, hot
Music: don’t matter where we go, we always find our way back home (Spotify)
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The 8th Category

Poop Cruise!

We did binge Andor – which you should really do as well, honestly excellent writing – but we also saw Poop Cruise.

Now, if you were ever hesitant to go on a cruise, I would strongly recommend that you not watch it.

But it was pretty compelling, and we both found ourselves – probably because we were killing an entire bottle of wine between the two of us – randomly yelling out, Poop Cruise! for no real reason.

Me: Can I pay you a compliment?
Her: Sure!
Me: I always waaay overestimate how much time something will take when you help me out.

One of the reasons we could watch both was that we massively upgraded the home network.

One of the first things that Buckley did when he moved into the pad with me over a quarter-of-a-century ago was hardwire the whole pad for ethernet.

At the time, the fastest speed was gigabit, or 1,000 megabits per second (Mbps), which you could only get with Cat5e, the fastest commercially available ethernet cable at the time.

Regular Cat5 could do something called “Fast Ethernet,” which is about 100 Mbps.

We wired the pad with a combo of the two – with a couplea branches using Cat4 – never dreaming we’d ever need gigabit speeds or greater.

This is roughly what my room looked like 24 years ago – I saw 9/11 unfold sitting on that bed, watching that TV.

Then, during COVID, I decided to rip out all the Cat5 and Cat4 and just do Cat5e everywhere.

Well, we had a lightning strike here about a month ago that dropped us from roughly 500 Mbps to 80 Mbps, which was just awful (it’s less than 1/10th a gigabit)

So, this past weekend, the Firecracker and I both tore out every single centimeter of cable that Buckley and I laid out 25+ years ago and replaced it with 90% Cat8 cable, which has a theoretical maximum speed of 40,000 Mbps (!!!!).

AND because the Firecracker’s just so damn organized and focused, what we thought was gonna take the whole day, we were able to bang out in just four hours.

Afterwards, I tested everything and was pleasantly surprised at the results: While the cabling can handle up to 40,000 Mbps, with our current routers, we topped out at “only” 113 MB/s, which is just under a gigabit at 904 Mbps.

This is compared to the 80 Mbps that we were working with the past month.

Honestly, this was the best possible outcome since we were approaching theoretical limits on the current hardware we had.

This is roughly what it looked like 15 years ago when Alison was here and kept it tidy.

Because we finished so quickly, we also decided to clean out TWO closets, and managed to replace the hoses on the washer/dryer as well (you’re supposed to change your washer hoses every five years, so if you’ve not done that, you should).

In return for her help, I picked up some Xi’an Famous Food, from around the way – it just opened up less than a year ago and I’d been to the more famous one in Flushing and wanted to try it out.

The food was absolutely killer, and it was a great way to close out the day.

Me: Hey, thanks so much for all the help today.
Her: For you? Anytime.

Location: the gym, taking an elbow to my hose
Mood: ache-y
Music: got sunshine even on a cloudy day (Spotify)
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Tribute

Its name is *not* “Bear”

Him: What is it, papa?
Me: You tell me.
Him: It’s a bear! A little bear.
Me: Actually…


A song I’ve always enjoyed was Tribute by Tenacious D.

If you don’t know the conceit of the song, essentially the lyrics tell a story about the band meeting a demon that demands that the two play the best song in the world—or risk losing their souls.

So, Tenacious D improvises a tune that is so good that – miraculously – the demon’s defeated.

Unfortunately, however, they later forget how it went, leaving only a pale shadow memory of that legendary performance, which they call Tribute as it’s merely a tribute to a much better song.

Now, did you know that the word “bear” isn’t the word for the animal?

The animals we call “bears,” were such a horror to Europeans, they would never say the actual name of the animal, only calling it names like “The Honey Eater,” “The Destroyer,” or – and I love this – “The Brown One,” or…”Bear.”

And guess what they never wrote down?

The actual name of the animal they called, “The Brown One,” out of fear that it would be summoned when it heard its name.

So, when you call something a “bear,” you’re not actually calling it the name that those people who coined the word actually called the animal, you’re calling it the codeword of that name.

It’s a tribute to the actual name of the animal.

My point is that there are so many things that we think we know that aren’t actually what we think they are, like penguins and bananas.

Her: Your son was really nice to my daughter, tell him thanks. You and your wife are doing a great job raising him.
Me: Oh, that…she’s my fiance. My wife died not soon after he was born.
Her: (shocked) Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I…
Me: (interrupting) It’s ok. We don’t need to dwell on it.

I think I’m doing an ok job raising the kid mainly on my own, with help from my family, Alison’s family, and the Firecracker.

But, in the end, how I’m able to raise him is all just a tribute to the life he coulda had if things were different and Alison and my dad were still here.

It’s not the actual life I wanted for him but – if he’s a good, happy, and healthy kid – I think it’ll be good enough.

Well, that’s the hope, anywho.

His life is my tribute to her and my dad.

So, here’s hoping it’s an amazing one.

Location: my kitchen, quickly cooking dinner so I can get back to work
Mood: like college-finals-level busy
Music: You gotta believe it – and I wish you were there! (Spotify)
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The exciting UWS

Deer, water, and the UWS

I like my neighborhood precisely because it isn’t exciting – at all.

There are cool things like the Beacon Theatre and Lincoln Center but it’s still relatively quiet around here.

Well, last week was a doozy of a week for the UWS for a number of reasons.

Me: What’s going on?
Buddy: A deer got hit by a car.
Me: No, seriously, what happened?
Him: That’s what happened!

Didn’t believe my friend I ran into around it when he told but it seems that a deer that somehow ended up in the Upper West Side and got hit by a car.

It then sought shelter in a townhouse courtyard that I regularly walk past on the way to/from my gym.

The cops shoo-ed me away when I tried to take some pics…

…but a fella I didn’t know came up to me.

Him: Hey, I got some pics if you want to see what’s going on.
Me: That’d be great, thanks!

He ended up sending them to me so I could show the Firecracker, who was definitely not gonna believe me because I could barely believe it myself.

He was definitely wounded and bleeding profusely.

Yes, that’s the deer’s blood. It was really that colour.

They shot it with a tranq but had to put it down, I heard.

NYC’s a rough place if you’re not used it to.

Poor guy.

The other thing that’s been happening is that my tiny building is dealing with more water issues.

Couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out where it was coming in from so, I hired a pro, whom I’d worked with in the past.

Damn if he didn’t go to the other side of the guardrail – the side where you fall to your death – hold onto the potentially unstable guardrail with his left hand…

…balance on one lege, and dangle OVER the gutter and take a picture of a 25 foot long, one inch gash underneath my gutter.

Him: I think I found your problem. There’s…
Me: Come back first!

He survived and I definitely needed a drink after all that.

Like I said, I like living where I live precisely because it isn’t exciting.

Here’s hoping things go back to being boring next week.

The X is where his foot was and the dot is where his head was.

Location: Not dangling over my roof, I can tell ya that
Mood: insanely busy
Music: standing ’round this corner, tall enough to touch the New York sky (Spotify)
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Showerheads and Siblings

Main Character Syndrome

Reading about the psychopath that blew up the IVF center in California gave me so many mixed emotions, least of which this asshole decided his opinion of the world trumped everyone else’s opinion of the world.

I don’t get how people think it’s ok, or even reasonable, to force their worldviews on others.

Like, that’s the ultimate in main character syndrome I can imagine.

But I digress.

Perfect Circles dropped me a line recently.

Her: Pregnant again! Number three joining us in August. Plainly we’ve lost our minds but it just felt like the gang wasn’t all here yet.
Me: That’s amazing, congrats!! Oh man, that was my dream, to have three kids. Alison only ever wanted to have two. Sigh.

Told her that I was thrilled for her, which is true.

But then that got me thinking: I’ve got a few embryos out in the world that I’m still struggling to figure out what to do with.

I’ve always wanted another child but that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.

In any case, one idea was to donate them to couples in need – ie, a couple that can’t produce a child on their own.

I seriously considered it in the past, but there’s an interesting phenomenon where people that are biologically related – a fact that they often don’t know initially – find each other and fall in love.

There’re a buncha stories like this:

    • Reddit reported revealed that a woman found out her six-year relationship with her boyfriend was really a six-year relationship with her biological brother after taking a DNA.
    • A Mississippi couple found out that – not only were they brother and sister – they were also twins!
    • A lesbian couple have suspicions that they might be half-siblings but plan on remaining a couple.
    • A couple from Brazil – with a six-year-old child – found out that they were actually brother and sister, both of whom were abandoned by their mother as children. The kicker is that they found this out together and live on the radio.

It’s not hard to see how they might fall in love; after all, we’re equal parts nature and nurture.

In fact, you can see how a hypothetical conversation might go:

Him: I love 80s music.
Her: Me too, my favourite band is Duran Duran.
Him: OMG, me too! I went to their last concert in London back in 2022.
Her: Wait, I was there too!

I’d read about this phenomenon ages ago but I was recently reminded of it when I visited my sister the other day.

I never told her that I fixed my bathroom but when I went to use her newly renovated bathroom, I found out that:

We both picked the same shower head – in the same colour to boot!

The one on the left is my sisters and mine is on the right. They’re the same colour – it’s just the lighting that makes it look different.

AND we picked the exact same tiles!

These are hers…

…and these are mine.

Again, we both did our bathrooms without discussing it with the other.

Anywho, yeah, I don’t think I’ll give those embryos away…

Location: the wet rain
Mood: brrrrrrr
Music: Tell me all the things that you like (Spotify)
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I was born before…

…a lot of major historical events

With the warming weather, the Firecracker and I hit up TikiChick for drinks and their killer chix sammies recently but the place was packed, so we just ordered three chix to go.

We went to another of our fave dive bars, Jake’s Dilemma, and realized they only gave us two, so I had to head back to get the missing one.

The lady there was so apologetic that she gave us three freshly made ones that were hot, so we had five total.

I may or may not have eaten alla them.

Told the kid recently that I was born before Google. He was floored.

So, that got the Firecracker and me to talking.

Me: I was born before all websites.
Her: I was born before mp3s.
Me: I was born before the Metrocard.
Her: I was born before streaming shows
Me: I was born before flat screen TVs.
Her: I was born before mobile phones.
Me: I was born before the Russian Federation.
Her: I was born before The Backstreet Boys.
Me: I was born before the third brakelight was a thing, man that was stupidly controversial as a kid.
Her: I was born before wifi.
Me: I was born before the Euro.
Her: I was born before the Czech Republic.
Me: I was born before the UFC.
Her: I was born before the Berlin Wall fell.
Me: I was born before the Challenger explosion.
Her: Oh, I was not!

The above is the first commercial for a flat-screen TV.

I believe that it’s at least $20,000 if adjusted for today’s dollars.

It was released in 1998, when I was still working at Cnet and I remember (a) this commercial and (b) speaking to LG about their plans to make their own flat screen TVs.

Crazy, alla these things were years/decades ago, and yet, they feel like just a few years ago to me.

Me: I was born before Diet Coke.
Her: WHAT?! When did it come out?
Me: Early 80s? The only real option before that was Tab. (thinking) Wait, *THAT’S* where you draw the line at my age?!
Her: (shakes head) I cannot believe you’re so old…

Not my pic – this is the original can of diet coke that someone is trying to sell for $425.

Location: home, with an impromptu kid’s pizza party
Mood: achy
Music: I know we’ve changed but change can be so good (Spotify)
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Pilate washed his hands

All the sinners, saints

Easter just passed, not too long ago.

While I’m now a devout atheist, you’d probably be surprised to know I was once deeply religious.

Interestingly, it was my repeated reading of the bible that really started me onto the path of being an atheist.

It’s not so much alla the insanely fucked up things the bible does and says, so much as the inconsistencies and repeated illogical situations that make me no believe.

But that’s neither here nor there.

On the topic of Easter, the story goes that Pilate didn’t kill Jesus, despite being the highest legal authority in the area.

Rather, he merely stepped aside so others could do it and he could have clean hands, literally, as he washed his hands of the entire affair (Matthew 27:24).

The best interpretation of this event, IMHO, comes from my fave Rolling Stones song, Sympathy for the Devil – I’ve mentioned it here more than once.

There’s a line that goes:

I was ’round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Strictly speaking, it’s unclear whose fate was sealed by this action:

    • Yes, Pilate sealed Jesus’s fate by not doing anything; he effectively made it so that the mob was able to have Jesus killed for standing up to the wealthy class.
    • But Pilate also sealed his own fate as well, once he let an innocent man die for doing the right thing, he was forever damned. Because he knew he was letting an innocent man die and no amount of hand washing could clean his hands of the stain.

The wealthiest in America are on track to kill off:

    • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – these are somehow bad things and bad words now.
    • USAID
    • Medicaid
    • Social Security
    • Education
    • etc.

And, it seems, we’ve sealed their fates, the fates of hundreds of thousands of people – and our own – by doing nothing.

Every time I think I can’t be any more disappointed in the world, I’m proven wrong yet again.

Location: Home Depot, picking up bullnose tiles
Mood: disappointed
Music: after all it was you and me (Spotify)
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Sneak Preview: Thunderbolts*

The Bay…of Kips

Me: Dude – I got invited to a sneak peak for Thunderbolts for next Tuesday at 7PM. The Firecracker can’t make it; interested? Kips Bay at 7PM.
Him: Oh yeah can totally make it. Thanks for the invite!

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know I’m not really a movie theatre person.

But being part of Scenic Fights means that I get invited to showings all the time now.

Last week, I got to catch a sneak preview of the new Marvel flick, Thunderbolts* and, I gotta say, it was so entertaining.

Honestly, after Endgame, I’ve not really been all that interested in the Marvel offerings.

But this was free, and I like the Red Guardian and the Winter Soldier, so I went.

The Firecracker couldn’t make it, so I invited the Frenchman, who was happy to come.

It was playing at the movie theatre at a place called “Kips Bay,” on the East Side of Manhattan.

I have so many fond memories of that neighborhood because I used to visit my brother alla time when he was in med school and I was in college.

One of my favourite cuisines is Indian food and I still remember so clearly, my brother bringing me to a restaurant in Kips Bay where I had it for the first time.

Cannot believe that was – holy shitballs – 34 years ago.

Goddamn…

I digress.

The Frenchman was already queuing when I arrived.

I went ahead of him and managed to bypass the line – which you can see in the pic above was substantial – and float us in.

I went to wait in line to get some snacki-snacks but it turns out that I didn’t have to, as there was unlimited popcorn and unlimited drinks for us.

The movie itself was excellent, I gotta say.

Probably one of the more entertaining movies I’ve seen courtesy of Scenic Fights.

It was over two hours long, but the movie just sped by because it was so well-written.

I particularly liked that it touched upon mental health, which is a topic very near and dear to me – and it did it with class and heart, something very surprising for a comic book action flick.

If you get a chance, I would definitely see it.

Afterward, I dashed back home to spend a little time with the kid…

Him: (sleepily) You’re home. Did you like it?
Me: (quietly) It was good. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, ok, kiddo?
Him: (nodding) Ok, papa…night…

…and the Firecracker.

Her: How was it?
Me: Really good, actually. But I wanted to spend a little time with you.
Her: (smiles) Great.
Me: Made it home in less than 20 minutes!
Her: Even better!

Location: the gym, getting demolished
Mood: so tired
Music: don’t know where my path will lead, but I’ll follow my feet (Spotify)
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Building up the opposition

Letter vs Spirit

When I was a kid, I loved the Support your local… films  with Support your Local Sheriff as my favourite of the two.

There’s a scene where an old crook named Pa Danby is trying to bust his middle-aged son Joe Danby outta jail.

Couldn’t find that scene but the above scene is before the bars are put in.

After the bars are installed, the dad tries to yank them out with Joe’s brothers and three horses, but the men are all flung from their horses and the bars don’t budge.

Joe: I could’ve told you it wouldn’t work.
Pa: Why not?
Joe: Because they set these bars in too solid.
Pa: What do you know about anything?
Joe: I helped to set ’em in.
Pa: You helped ’em put in those bars?!
Joe: I didn’t have nothin’ else to do.

Hold that thought.

Did you know that Jefferson Davis was the Secretary of War for the US right before he became the President of the Confederate States?

He built up and – vastly – improved the very army that he would face himself.

[Davis] suggested that the size of the regular army was too small and that its salaries were too meagre. Congress agreed and authorized four new regiments and increased its pay scale. He ended the manufacture of smoothbore muskets and shifted production to rifles, working to develop the tactics that accompany them. Id.

Been thinking about that fact and Support your Local Sheriff a lot lately because the kid and I’ve been arguing a lot lately.

He pushes back with me on a ton of things.

Me: You were supposed to call me.
Him: But you said call when I get out of school, you didn’t say right when I got out.
Me: True, but the point of your calling me was so I would know when to pick you up.

And I realize that it’s a delicate balance with having him be independent but also compliant – two wholly incompatible but necessary things to successfully function in society.

Balancing it properly leads me to no end of stress and us to no end of disagreements.

But this is my job, so I do it.

After all, my dad did it for me – and I’m sure he regretted teaching me to challenge everything.

Unlike Jefferson Davis, however, I’m fully aware that however I train him to behave, I’m gonna have to deal with myself, one way or another.

Because it’s the destiny of all fathers and sons to be adversarial on some things down the line, no matter how much we support and care for one another.

That’s just how things are.

But I’ll always be on his side, whether he realizes it or not.

Here’s hoping that I’m doing it right.

Him: You didn’t say that! You just said to call you after school.
Me: (sighing) Fine. But the next thing we gotta chat about is the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law…

Not looking forward to the teenage years.

Location: My incredibly dusty room sans bathroom
Mood: beat tired
Music: you start me up before breakfast – how about we fight fire with fire? (Spotify)
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