Month: June 2007

fake steve on the iphone, consumerism

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

day in and day out, fake steve jobs for my money has the funniest blog on the web. even if you aren’t an apple fan, it’s still worth a read. his takes on apple, technology, current events, and miscellany are consistently hilarious.

and often insightful as well.

as was the case with a recent post: 29 june 2007, the day the world changed. it’s set up as a fake message to the apple faithful, on the occasion of the release of the iphone. but here’s what he has to say about the thousands of people lined up for hours, or days, for their iphone:

It’s about saying, Look, I realize there’s something bad happening in Darfur, and there’s some kind of AIDS epidemic in Africa, and there’s some crazies who want to blow us all up, and there’s a war in Iraq where thousands of people are dying for no reason — and yes, those things are important, and someday we may take to the streets to say something about them, if we can think of anything to say about them, but for now we Americans take to the streets for this cause.

i can’t recall reading a better summary of the times in which we currently live.

iphone: want, not buying

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

i’m not going to bother to link to any of the 35,000 articles flogging, explaining, bashing, hyping, or excoriating the iphone. google iphone if you want. there are lots of reviews and opinions out there.

here’s mine.

it [seems to be] revolutionary, user friendly, cost-effective (when you consider the total investment of more expensive phone + less expensive monthly plan), ultra-cool, and a great all-in-one replacement for a lot of separate older gadgets i have. i like that it is basically a small computer, so upgrades will be software based — that means that improving the phone won’t mean replacing the phone, as it does now. i like the form factor, the idea of the touch screen, the utility of the included apps. i’m on at&t (the new cingular) anyway, so i wouldn’t have to switch phone providers.

it all makes sense. the sole major drawback, the slow speed of at&t’s edge network, is not an issue for me in new york city, as i’d be on speedy wi-fi nearly all the time i’d use it.

i’m not getting one anytime soon, though. three reasons:

» i just bought a coop. no extra money in the budget right now for a frilly phone.

» it’s 1.0 hardware. never, never, never buy 1.0 hardware. that’s my personal rule. let the early adopters sort out the issues.

» i get a corporate discount through my employer on my at&t cell phone service. that’s a no-no for the iphone…you lose your discount. that’ll change eventually, i’d bet.

so, strike three. iphone is out. for now.

6 months from now? we’ll see.

of course, i work with some people who’ll get one pretty quickly. if i see one in person, i reserve the right to satisfy my wanton iphone lust at any time.

new apartment–exhausted and exhilarated

~ jamie ~ 3 Comments

well it happened. we closed on thursday and have spent the last two days tearing out the kitchen and getting ready for the renovation.

we’ve pulled out all the kitchen cabinets and flooring, we’ve prepped the walls for priming and painting, we’ve scheduled the plaster guys to come in next week and redo the ceiling, we’ve scheduled some tile guys to come in and redo the kitchen floor, and we’ve scheduled a floor guy to come in and redo the wood floors.

whew. not bad for two days, but that’s the exhausted part.

the exhilarated part? we’re doing it all for our very own home. amazing.

you want details? kirk wrote a great post about the closing process, and we have pictures of the empty apartment before the renovation started, and pictures of the apartment after everything was pulled out. along with some bonus pictures of the view, the closing and some other stuff.

tomorrow we take the day off (sort of) and go to ikea to buy kitchen cabinets. and in the afternoon we have a block party with our new neighbors. good timing for us.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

via digg, a wikipedia story about this grammatically correct sentence using only the word buffalo.

from the site:

Preserving the meaning more closely, substituting the synonym “bison” for “buffalo” (animal), “bully” for “buffalo” (verb) and leaving “Buffalo” to mean the city, yields

‘Buffalo bison Buffalo bison bully bully Buffalo bison’, or:
‘Buffalo bison whom other Buffalo bison bully themselves bully Buffalo bison’.

needless to say, i absolutely love this.

michelle shocked, my other favorite artist

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

amy, a commenter on one of my kristen hall posts, asked me about some of my other musical favorites.

i blab on so much about kristen hall, and kiki and herb, that you might think that’s all i like. but you’d be wrong.

although i don’t listen to music nearly as much as i did when i was younger, and although most of the music i do listen to when i listen to it was made before 1990, and although i very infrequently attend live music concerts, and although when i do attend them the artists giving the concert most likely got their start long before said year 1990, i do have some current musical opinions.

even though the subjects of my current musical opinions aren’t themselves very current.

back in the day, when being emo meant you were merely just another black-clad youth, i listened to my cure, and my smiths, and my siouxsie, and my pil, and my depeche mode, and my sisters of mercy.

and i listened to my skinny puppy, and my ministry, and my severed heads, and my moev, and my nine inch nails, and my legendary pink dots.

and i listened to my r.e.m., and my fetchin bones, and my love tractor, and my dbs, and my connells, and my royal crescent mob, and my mojo nixon.

and i listened to my alphaville, and my the the, and my new order, and my cabaret voltaire.

and i listened to my nirvana, and my mudhoney, and my sonic youth, and my dinosaur jr., and my jane’s addiction.

and i listened to my kristen hall, and my michelle malone, and my ani difranco, and my utah phillips, and my michelle shocked.

and of all those, the one i still listen to, and listen to the most, and go see whenever she plays in new york city, is michelle shocked.

she, and her music, is a little bit of everything and constantly surprising and enjoyable. she’s a bit of a troubadour and a story-telling raconteur (like utah phillips), and a bit of a brilliant acoustic musician (like ani difranco), and a bit of an incredible lyricist (like kristen hall), and a bit of a political animal (like michael stipe).

except that it’s all in one package. and she’s creative (each of her albums is completely different), uncompromising (she gave her label the stiff middle finger better than nearly anyone else ever has), and entertaining (self-effacing, spontaneous, and explosive).

not familiar with michelle shocked? if you like acoustic, start with texas campfire tapes; if you like folk, start with arkansas traveler; if you like protest rock, start with short sharp shocked.

but you’ll end up listening to all of them anyway, so start wherever you damn well please, or with whatever is accessible or handy.

big apple bbq block party roundup

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

yet another return to the big apple bbq block party held each year in madison square park, although a little birdie told me it may not be located there next year.

we again had a bubba pass — a stored value card that lets you skip the long lines and go “behind the scenes” and in special lines to get your bbq. this worked like a breeze this year — they made it a punch card, so the lines moved quickly with no snafus.

i was there on saturday june 9 — my sense is that the crowds were slightly smaller than in previous years. in fact, i’d say that for some stands, you might have gotten your bbq more quickly in the public lines than in the “bubba pass” lines. and many stands had no lines at all.

that meant more bbq for me, of course. in years past, we’d have to return on sunday to get to all the stands. this year, the combination of smaller crowds and better organization meant that we could hit all the stands in one day. great for my day planning, but not so great for my waistline.

at any rate, here’s a quick roundup of my favorites:

» best sausage, best brisket — southside market & bbq, elgin, texas, my consistent favorite year after year. their sausage is, for me, always the best thing at the entire event. but this year, their brisket was my favorite as well. it had the largest smoke ring, and was the tenderest and most flavorful. bonus points for the slice of cheese and the raw onion. sausage runner up was the salt lick bbq in driftwood, texas — it’s more kielbasa-y than sausage-y, but really juicy and good. brisket runner up was baker’s ribs in dallas, texas — nice flavor and outsanding fall-apart consistency. gotta mention this, though — the baker’s ribs beans tasted like liquid smoke. not positive of that, but if true, a big big no-no. that stuff is cancer in a bottle.

» best pulled/chopped pork was mitchell’s bbq, wilson, nc — whole hog chopped up. it’s good, but what makes it great is the vinegary sauce. it’s in a squirt bottle and not obvious, so while i knew to put it on, not everyone might. the sauce makes the whole taste come together, for me.

» best cole slaw — my favorite was big bob gibson, from decatur, alabama. it was mustardy and rough chopped and delicious. kirk and our friend stephen preferred the coleslaw from the salt lick bbq in driftwood, texas, which had beaucoup celery seeds.

» best beans — the multi bean mix from 17th street bar & grill, murphysboro, illinois was outstanding. honorable mention goes to ubon’s champion’s choice from yazoo, mississippi, for the inclusion of tasty burned-y bits.

» best ribs — hands down, 17th street. honorable mention to rack & soul, nyc, for great baby back ribs. jake’s boss bbq from boston had ribs as well, but they were way too saucy for me. didn’t see any dry-rub ribs, which was odd — maybe i just missed them.

» best surprise — the brunswick stew from the proclamation stew crew from lawrenceville, virginia. didn’t expect to see it there, and loved every last bite.

and damn did i miss the smoki o’s people. no pig snoot for me this year. i guess i’m going to have to go to st. louis.

puppet 1, kiki and herb 0

~ jamie ~ Leave a comment

aaaaargh. my worst fears have come true. the puppet that replaced kiki and herb at the helen hayes theater won the tony.

words cannot express my fury, and my sadness.

on the positive side, justin bond looked stunning, classy, and totally beautiful on tv last night. for the two seconds we saw him. simple and elegant makeup, hair and dress. perfect. and kenny mellman looked good too — classy (if a bit standard) in his tux.

it would have been a treat to see them onstage, as winners.

i’m sure miss du rane will have many comments about this.

lunch today at the olive garden

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

i shouldn’t admit this, as (i say sarcastically) i’m supposed to be a sophisticated new yorker with an impeccable palate, who has dined in some of the world’s best restaurants both here and in europe.

and i live in a city with perhaps more outstanding restaurants per capita than anywhere else on earth. and some of those restaurants are actually affordable and accessible.

as is the olive garden, where i’m having lunch today.

to clarify, i mean that the olive garden is accessible (in times square) and affordable (by new york standards, though i’m sure tourists blanch at the prices on the menu as compared to the olive garden in their hometown). i don’t mean that the olive garden is counted among that number of outstanding new york city restaurants.

but, i have to admit, they make a mean salad. and the soup is passable, though it might as well be a bowl of salted water when compared to the sublime soups that my friend mark makes at red cafe.

so i go, with some co-workers, to the olive garden. occasionally. for lunch. for the soup and salad.

and i like it. so there. yummo, as rachael ray might say. since we’re talking about the olive garden, she’s a good one to quote, i figure.

hey, it’ll tide me over until this weekend, when the big apple bbq hits madison park. fifteen or so of the best barbecue makers on the planet, selling their varied and excellent plates to me via my “bubba pass” (a stored value card that lets you skip the long lines).

now that’s yummo, with a capital “yum”.

but today, i’ll fight the wednesday theater matinee crowd for a table at the olive garden.

pins and needles

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

that’s what i’m on, waiting for the closing date for our apartment. kirk and i, if you haven’t heard, are buying a coop in riverdale, in the bronx, in new york city. we’ll be homo-wners.

sorry — old, bad, joke.

i’ve done everything i can do, which is the big problem. when there’s something i can do to manage the process, or move it forward, or coordinate efforts, or whatever, then i feel like i’m accomplishing something.

but when i’ve done everything there is to do, and the waiting game sets in, that’s when it gets bad for me. i have to make a concentrated effort not to drive everyone to distraction with constant fruitless pushing. that’s the stage i’m at now.

if all goes right, we’ll be closing on the place next week. the bank does its last bit, and then we get the closing date. i can distract myself for that long, and not drive everyone bonkers.

i hope.

weird firefox smiley at bottom of my page

~ jamie ~ 5 Comments

here’s what the bottom left corner of my site’s pages looks like in firefox on the mac:

macintosh firefox

here’s what it looks like using every other browser:

every other browser

what’s up with that smiley thing? is it a part of the creative commons image that only shows on that specific browser? it’s not on the bottom of any other page i can see on the mac using firefox.

i’m not paranoid or anything — i’d just like an explanation and google isn’t coughing it up.

any ideas?

thestagingarea.com up and running

~ jamie ~ 1 Comment

kirk’s had that url — “thestagingarea.com” — for quite a while, and it has gone through various iterations. the latest, and perhaps the best so far, is a wordpress blog.

it’s different from mine, in a good way. there are actual graphics on the page, for one thing. i was jealous of that, for a few minutes, but then kirk pointed out that the text-based spareness of this site matches my personality, and the graphics matches his. in addition, my site has been text-based since 1998, originally because i hated slow-loading graphics-heavy pages that took forever to load over dialup. but now, it’s just part of the history of the site. my trademark, if you will.

so text-based it is.

anyway, back to kirk. it’s a great beginning, and i think he’ll post and keep up with it, so it’s worth bookmarking or adding his rss feed. and he has a crapload of content in the vaults — all of the sites he designed for various broadway and off-broadway shows, including the original hedwig.com site. if he gets all that up and running, it would be very cool.

one note of response to his first real post. he says:

Jamie has also said that I think too much. There will be no argument here; I do think too much. This is why I can’t sleep. This is why when he’s calling me from the other room, I don’t hear him. I admit it, my head is obsessively caught up in thought.

except of course he uses capital letters. show-off.

with me, though, there are vast stretches of time where there’s literally nothing going on in my head. i don’t mean that flippantly or facetiously; i mean that i just don’t think of anything. i don’t hum a song, or do sums, or even think about not thinking, although at some point i become aware that i’m not thinking again, which of course is thinking in itself.

it’s probably better to think too much than to not think enough.

one closing promise, as i reread what i’ve written.

my blog will not become an insufferable dialogue between my blog and kirk’s blog. i’ll keep the cross-commenting to a minimum.

mister rogers, armando benitez, and more

~ jamie ~ 2 Comments

a few this-and-that things for a friday:

» 15 reasons why mister rogers was the best neighbor ever. i got all teary reading this and had to take a walk to the pantry at work. i’m convinced that watching his show every day as a kid, and hearing him tell me that he loved me “just the way you are”, helped me accept being gay, even if that took a while longer than it should have. thanks, mister rogers.

» giants deal armando benitez to marlins. the best news a mets fan could hear. since the marlins play in our division, we’ll get lots of chances to rattle him and win games. or maybe he’ll rise to the occasion. i wonder what mister rogers would have to say about that?

» the apple tv is getting better and better. i wanted one of these before it came out, changed my mind when it did come out, and i’m now back on the fence a bit. there’s a new model, with a bigger hard drive. and it seems that they are opening it up a bit, with you tube access coming. i can watch you tube on my hdtv using my wii right now, so no need to buy an apple tv yet. but when i can use an apple tv to surf the internet and watch iptv, they may have a buyer. unless nintendo gets going and opens up the wii a bit, which would be smart for them.

» i can has cheezburger? is my favorite new site. so much for intellectual pursuits. now i have to get my daily fix of cute kittens with funny captions.