I’m learning the ancient and eldritch art of mixology right now. It’s a fun thing to learn. There’s a ton to keep track of. There are probably a few hundred beverages to learn, and we go in units, so some I’ve know for several days now, and some are newer and harder. I feel like I’m forging some serious new synaptic patterns, because it’s an entirely new type of learning for me.

They suggested we make recipe (read: flash) cards of all the drinks they teach us, and I was going to ignore that because I like to think of myself as a pretty intelligent chap, but I now seem to be falling behind some of the other people in the class. Which is weird because a lot of them have a tough time with basic fractions, it would seem (all the measures are in counts, a count is about a quarter of an ounce, meaning a four-count is one ounce–there’s been a lot of unintentional fraction-comedy coming from these kids).

Anyways, it’s a totally sweet new knowledge set I’m gaining. All the stuff behind bars is becoming markedly less mysterious to me, and even though I’d never order 90% of the drinks I’m learning to make, knowing what’s in a Fuzzy Navel or a Singapore Sling is a satisfying conceit. As of tomorrow I’ll be half way toward being a licensed mixologist, and then I CAN TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

Posted: June 30th, 2005 under Miscellaneous.
Comments: none

Your Drafts: Nameless and Kneebone, Racism.

Right now I’m in my super secret admin area for my website, where I compose all my blog posts etc. I’ve come up with two new comics since last Friday, when I launched the inaugural Friday Comic post. Its Wednesday and I’m dying to post these. Dying. But alas I must wait, for they are Friday comics. I guess there’s something to be said for building up a good supply of them so that I’ll have some to post on the crazy weeks…Sigh.

Need another sentence. I refuse to end a blog post in the word ’sigh.’

Posted: June 29th, 2005 under Miscellaneous.
Comments: 1

I designed a shirt! Threadless.com is currently taking votes to see if it’s awesome enough. If enough people vote for my shirt, then I win some cash! I could use the cash! I’d use it to end world hunger. Promise. Vote for me!!!

You must register on the site to vote, but they don’t send spam, so it’s not a big deal.

Posted: June 27th, 2005 under Miscellaneous.
Comments: 1

Across the street from Veselka, the Ukranian restaurant legendary among weary East Village party people, and across second avenue from the most unabashedly prison-looking Starbucks I’ve ever seen is a gem of a coffee shop, known as Mud.

New Yorkers who traverse the village may have noticed the bright orange Mud Trucks serving hurried New Yorkers better-than-average caffein infusions to drug their day up to full speed, but most I’ve asked have not discovered the brick and mortar counterpart to these trucks. It’s a great place to chill.

I think the thing that I like most about Mud is its courtyard. You enter the shop and snake your way through the deliciously gloomy dining room, past a chaise longue with yeterday’s edition of the Times spread out on it, and you’re in an excellent little open-air, brick paved dining area that can probably accomodate 25-30 people, but always seems to have some available seating. You take your seat, you’re handed a menu and you’re set. They play an awesome mixture of music. They have no fear of good hip-hop, but you’re just as likely to hear some awesome twangy country singer crooning for 45 minutes in between the soundtrack from Boogie Nights and Common’s new album.

The folks at Mud are in no hurry, which is part of the formula that makes it distinctly not lame. You can have a complete brunch experience and go, or you can come in and nurse a cup of their namesake product for 3 hours and they won’t begrudge you the table (good luck maintaining a consistent wifi connection during that time, though). I think if they tried to turn the tables over in a proactive way the shop wouldn’t really work. It’s first and foremost a coffee shop, built to hang out in with friends or write or read. The restaurant aspect is secondary.

That’s not to impune the food. The food is very good in my experience. I’ve heard rave reviews of theri huevos rancheros, and I can personally attest to the quality of most of their other vegetarien-friendly brunch items (do not despair, carnivores, prechutto and bacon are also on the menu). The portions are a little smaller than most places, giving them a sort of european feel. You’re not going to stuff yourself silly on a single plate, but expect to pay like you are. That’s one of my few criticisms of Mud: it’s on the pricey side of things.

Ideally I’d like to be able to walk in to a coffee shop with $5 and be able to buy myself a beverage and something to snack on with relative ease, but if I want that same snack at Mud I plan to have at least seven bucks, and if I’m getting full blown brunch I might be better off with fifteen. You get what you pay for, for the most part, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

As for the coffee, I think its better than average. Their regular drip-coffee, their marquee product, is merely better than most—certainly not the best I’ve ever had. It’s got a nice smokey flavor, and goes easy on the chocolatey undertones. Their iced coffee has been a little bit weak in my experience. Their cappuccino is the best I’ve ever had. I wish I was a bigger cappuccino drinker, and this one might help me become one.

Overall I give the joint an enthusiastic thumbs-up. They have a cool clientele, and half their wait-staff is friendly and cool too (the other half being aloof and occasionally bitchy, which is mildly irritating). There are very few reasons not to enjoy yourself at Mud and if you manage to find them you’re probably looking too hard, so lighten up, enjoy some good food, and stay cool.

Salient Facts about Mud

Pro: Sweet outdoor dining, laid back environment, good food, above-average drink, attractive and/or interesting clientele

Con: A little bit pricey, lame shaky wifi situation, the occasional snippy or unaware waitress

Location:9th street off 2nd Avenue, New York, NY

Website

Posted: June 26th, 2005 under Coffee Shops.
Comments: none

I joined the NY Central Park Ultimate Frisbee League. We play in what I hear being referred to as the ‘dust bowl.’ That’s an appropriate name, I think. It’s basically a patch of fine, gritty, broken glass-scattered dirt just off 97th street on the 5th avenue side of Central Park. One of the dudes on my team plays with a painter’s mask, evidently to avoid the detrimental effects of black lung. I was sort of hoping it would be the kind of field that you can play on in bare feet, but alas, it’s totally heinous. I have a good team, though, and the people on it are more than happy to help guide me on the strategy aspect of the game, to which I am entirely new.

The point of this post is to drive home just how dirty I am after a game. I’m really really dirty. I have pictures to prove it.

Posted: June 26th, 2005 under Miscellaneous.
Comments: none

Yesterday the improbable happened while I was having some Mexican food with my buddy Joe. Now keep in mind that while there are probably millions of pigeons on it, the island of Manhattan is 23 square miles. It’s huge. The island’s area is approximately 15,388,876,800 times that of the opening of a narrow-neck bottle of Pacifico Cerveza. So like I said, I was having some Mexican food with my buddy Joe, and I chose to have a bottle of the previously mentioned cerveza with my quesadilla. We were sitting there in the sidewalk dining area of Cosmic Cantina when a bird shit into my beer.

Now I know what you’re thinking. We were sitting on the sidewalk, under the eves of a building, and the eves of a building are the sorts of places that pigeons congregate, so while that’s not likely, it’s not all that improbable. Well we did a little investigation, and we happened to be sitting well removed from the building and there was nothing overhanging us. This, we surmise, means that the pigeon either shat off the edge of the top of the building with enough force to get it the 3 or 4 feet it needed to fly to hit my cerveza, or it was a case of aerial bombardment. Either of which is so mind-bogglingly improbable I don’t even want to think about it.

Anyways we laughed our asses off and the waitress hooked me up with a replacement beer and all was well. But man, was that improbable or what?

Posted: June 25th, 2005 under Miscellaneous.
Comments: none

I thought I’d start a little tradition of posting up a comic every Friday. So that’s what this is. The first friday comic. Bling.

Posted: June 24th, 2005 under Friday Comic.
Comments: none

NYU is a school uncommonly rich in elevators and there is an uncommonly well-established elevator culture here as a result. There are some basic, unwritten rules that all seasoned NYU students seem to be able to follow without difficulty:

• You may only take the elevator to floors higher than 4
• You may only take the elevator down from floors higher than 4
• You must observe a 4 floor interval to use the elevator for other intra-building transport
• You may transport loads that take more than one hand to carry fewer than 4 floors on elevators

The thing is, however, this is the summer, and people from midwestern states that don’t have electricity much less elevators are staying in NYU housing for the summer. They violate these rules all the time. It classes them. They get on the elevator and before they even hit a button you can tell from their clothing and demeanor that they’re going to the third floor and deserve to be hated.

Unfortunately the fifth rule of the unspoken code is that you can’t really criticise anyone who breaks the rules if you don’t know them. Your only statisfaction must come from fantasizing about brutalizinig them with the flat side of a shovel or shoving their stupid cornfed face against the elevators brushed steel wall. These images can temporarily allay rage, but in the end are only a substitute for real action. But how do you make these proto-hicks wise up to the code when they have no cultural reference for why it exists?

Do you just wait til they’ve had enough 1st-to-18th floor trips to take that were interrupted by a disrespectful 1st-to-3rd? I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation since they all seem to have been assigned rooms on the first few floors of their buildings, the upper floors reserved for real NYU students who are staying the whole summer. I’ve not had much luck with attempting to burn holes in the backs of violator’s heads with my mind. It would seem that the death-ray gene skips a generation in my family. What alternative is there?

Holy war. It’s pretty much clear that anyone willing to offend God by riding an elevator a short distance does not deserve the life God gave them. That’s why I’ve made it a matter of habit to strap plastic explosives to my midsection under my popped-collar polo shirt. I’ve sucessfully suicide bombed at least three people who were in violation. Here’s basically how it works:

1. I’m waiting in the lobby along with a few other people waiting for an elevator.
2. The elevator arrives. Everyone gets on. I hit 13. Someone hits 3.
3. I shout some sort of battlecry/praise of the Lord at the top of my lungs and pull the firing pin as the doors close.
4. The entire contents of the elevator are vaporised except for me because I’m made out of wood, and that shit is tough.
5. When the doors open at floor 3 I push all the gore out of the elevator and into the 3rd floor elevator lobby as an example to all the other filthy infidels on that floor.
6. I arrive on floor 13 and apply some wood polish to clean up any soot or scorching of my body and then put on a new polo (my old one got destroyed because it was in-between my explosion and its target, remember?)
7. I check my email and send out a few innane instant messages to relax after the mayhem I’ve unleashed.

I’d have to say it’s working. I’m not sure if people are getting the message or I’m just explosion-deathing all the people that would be otherwise likely to take an elevator for an unacceptably brief interval, thereby adding up to 10 seconds to my ride.

Some people think my methods are excessive and stupid. After all, they say, it’s only an extra ten seconds. Why suicide bomb these people? They’re only guilty of being lazy and inconsiderate. Oh yeah, I say, well what if the people are wearing too much Axe body spray or shitty midwestern perfume? (They’re always wearing too much Axe body spray or shitty midwestern perfume.) I can’t just stand there and breathe that. And they’re inconveniencing me also? And they’re just made out of stupid meat and bones and stuff. Wood is better. That shit is sturdy. You can’t mess with a good solid piece of wood. Lazy bitches.

My detractors soon see the error of their decision to be made out of meat and then cross me. Suicide bombing ain’t just for elevators, you know.

Posted: June 22nd, 2005 under Miscellaneous.
Comments: 2

I’m hopping on the bandwagon by setting up feedburner. If you have any desire to syndicate me blog you can get the entirety of its contents from this feed:

In other news I put a SiteMeter on there so I can see how much traffic I’m getting to just the blog. (The Lifeboat makes it hard to reckon.)

Posted: June 17th, 2005 under Miscellaneous.
Comments: none

So I’ve been doing the Summer Blockbuster Movie rounds, and two of my big popcorn-throwers so far have been Star Wars III and Batman Begins. They both rocked my world for different reasons, but something that occurred to me lately is that their central characters have very suspicious similarities. Its so suspicious that if they ever met, I think Darth Vader and Batman might have to fight to prove who was the toughest. If it came to that, who would win the fight? The dudes are undeniably similar in sensibility, both parading around in black machine-suits with capes and black helmet-masks. One is an accomplished swordsman but sort of a slow-mover, the other is a totally sweet ninja who could probably kick some ass with a light saber if he had one, but sadly doesn’t. One commands The Force and arguably has the best control over it of anyone in the Universe, whereas the other has all types of nifty gadgetry and ropes and shit so he can fly and jump all over the place. I mean, it’s a pretty even match.

Here’s a side by side comparison:

Key Features:	Batman	Vader
black suit, cape, helmet
good with a sword
has sweet lightsaber
has sweet utility belt
really really wealthy
rad car
ability to blow planet up
can choke you at a distance (creative use of grappling hook acceptable)
hangs out with creepy old man
prissy whiteboy alter-ego
deceived by a lie
cave hideout
ability to go into ninja stealth mode
got fooled by gay space-cowboy and his furry bitch
cried like a bitch when parents bought the farm
does own voice

So I think it’s a really tough call. On the one hand Vader has all that supernatural shit going for him, on the other hand, he has a history of being duped by dudes who don’t sound like blacksmith’s bellows when they breathe. Remember when Luke was under that staircase and vader couldn’t figure out where the hell he was? Imagine if Luke had hppened to have a batarang and some ninja skills in that scene. Awesome mental image, right? Right.

Also Luke was woefully underbriefed on the ways of the dark side, whereas for all intents and purposes Batman was trained by the dark side but had the moral fortitude and compassion not to embrace its insane doctrines. He didn’t get the Force part, but he got all that using your anger and fear for strength shit, and that’s got to be half the battle right there.

So I’m leaning toward Batman unless the fight happened to start while Vader was on the Death Star and Batman was on a planet, but that justs seems really unlikely. Comment if you disagree, but I might have to go ninja on your ass.

Posted: June 16th, 2005 under Miscellaneous.
Comments: none