MJ @ Cara's

Unfortunately, we did not actually play for money.

QBQ BBQ

Our foray to the Water Taxi Beach for the 2nd QBQ BBQ was sandwiched in between a Mets game (a makeup game for a rainout) and some poker at MC's.

CitiField takes shape

Simpsons (Movie)

Da da da da da da da da dadadada.

We went to the Kwik E Mart beforehand to snap some pics.

Eisenberg's & Violinists

Went to Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop for lunch today, a departure from our usual Thursday forays into Chinatown. My pastrami was pretty tasty, but it still doesn't compare to Katz's Delicatessen.

Another detour on my way home. I took the R/W to Times Squares tonight and got off to transfer to the 7. I usually just stay on the R/W until it gets to Queens, but for some reason I decided to traverse the tunnels of the Times Square subway station and came upon these two girls playing their violins. I stood there for a good twenty minutes while Dilyana and her friend played some Baroque hits by Bach, Vivaldi, and Boccherini.

The Four (Eight) Seasons

Went to the Naumburg Bandshell tonight to check out Lara St. John perform with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. St. John, a noted violin soloist, is perhaps most-well known for the furor over the cover photo of her debut album release Bach Works for Violin Solo. They performed the Four Seasons twice. Actually it was The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi interspersed with the Four Seasons of Buenos Aires by Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla of nuevo tango fame. And right now I just heard this amazing ring tone of Debussy's Arabesque. I totally have to get that for my phone.

Waiting for Higgs

Did someone find the "God Particle"?

Andy Samberg is funny

Went to a preview screening of Hot Rod tonight. It was a very uneven film (my friend was cringing in her seat the entire time, whispering stuff like, "it's terrible, this is terrible"), but the movie did have some ridiculously funny moments, especially the dancing Asian dude. I sort of wish it was even more crazy than it was.

The buzz around Andy Samberg has been building for a while now, first when Lazy Sunday came out, then there was Dick in a Box, and recently NY Mag did a whole spread on him.

Afterwards we argued over the awesomeness (or lack thereof) of the film over some Korean food at the "big house"

Siren Music Festival

This might be the last year for the Siren Music Festival. My crazy day with HP didn't give me much of a chance to enjoy this fest. I got there pretty late and only got to hear We Are Scientists before my queasy stomach got the best of me. I'm not sure if it was the crowd or lack of sleep or Nathan's hot dogs & fries, but I was in no condition to stick around for the rest of the show and made my way back into safe harbor before deciding to call it a night. There's always next year, or not.

Harry Potter Finale (recap)

It was a completely crazy, exhausting day and I loved almost every minute of it. Here are some more flickr sets of the event. (I show up in both of them!)

I'll admit I wasn't always an HP fan. I didn't even know about the series until the 4th book (Goblet of Fire) came out in 2000. One of my co-workers at the time told me that I would love the books whenever I got around to reading them. I've actually only read the first four books so far, having seen the movies before reading each of the books (which might be a 1st in the history of something or other). I'm not sure if I can hold out, now that Deathly Hallows is out and the series is over. My brother started reading it as soon as I brought it home. He'd already read 500 pages by morning and would finish the book by nightfall. I'm going to start reading Order of the Phoenix right now.

Harry Potter Finale (part 3)

...on into the night.

Harry Potter Finale (part 2)

...and continues...

Harry Potter Finale (part 1)

And it begins...

Mein Zwilling???

What do you think?

Just Another Concert in the Park

I love and hate the annual Concerts in the Parks by the NY Philharmonic. I love hearing world-class musicians play for free. I hate all the yuppie scum at the park that won't shut up and just listen when the music is playing. I'm all for picnicking and gabbing with friends, but there's a time and place for everything. *sigh*

Tonight's program featured Conductor Sir Andrew Davis, and Soprano Measha Brueggergosman.

SpongeBob is apparently a fan too.

Harry Potter 5

Started my Harry Potter week by having lunch with a fellow muggle in midtown before I saw Order of the Phoenix with bro at night. The muggle, who will remain nameless, ALMOST spoiled the movie for me, but someone else had already beaten her to it. At least she's not a spoilsport like this bitch.

Lovely midtown Manhattan.

Bastille Day (on 60th)

The fi:af hosted it's annual Bastille Day event.

Had a few tasty treats before I walked down to Grand Central to catch a train home.

(Beer) Potluck

I'm really running out of ideas for these potlucks.

Well more pics then!

I think JB is going to kill me when she sees this.

Non-Cultured

Am I addicted to meeting new people? I haven't met anyone terribly interesting this year (except for the V sisters).

Well time for another party then, this time with the Culture for the Non-Cultured Meetup group. I think I might have been the most outgoing/friendly/drunk person at this party by whatever measure one could devise.

Strange (Aussie) Fruit

Strange Fruit flying thru the air!

More info about these artists.

2007 NFL Supplemental Draft

I know most of you probably don't follow (American) football as closely as I do, but the NFL Supplemental Draft is later today. Teams that select players with a supplemental draft pick this year forfeit their corresponding pick in next year's draft (i.e. if a team uses a 2nd round pick in the 2007 supplemental, they'll lose their 2008 2nd round pick).

The Supplemental Draft is for those players that did not declare in time for the regular draft (in April), but are trying to play in the NFL this season. It's comprised of players that are no longer eligible to play college football between the time of the regular draft and the supplemental draft . Most of these players lose their eligibility involuntarily (e.g. loss of academic eligibility due to poor grades), but some like Chris Patrick actually could have continued their college careers. Ten players will be appearing in the 2007 Supplemental Draft. History would seem to show only a few of these players will be selected and even fewer will have much of an impact on their teams.

More Stuff I Want to Read

The Gregarious Brain

Curd Mentality

Oh yeah, I went to a Gothamist party at Marshall Stack.

The Ice Cream Man was there giving out free (very cold) ice cream.

Krystle Warren

Krystle Warren @ Zebulon!

I don't know where I got the energy to do all this today.

I Love Staten Island

Thwarted in our attempt to find some culture across the water we ventured forth in search of some tasty food. We heard of a pizza place in Staten Island called Denino's. After a few phone calls and searches on Google we found it. We had some fried calamari, an entire pizza (with toppings!), and two pitchers of soda for the price of a couple of slices at Sbarro. It really was tasty, Bruni agrees. After pizza we walked across the street to join the throngs at Ralph's Famous Italian Ices which had maybe a million flavors of ices and ice cream.

Figment of a Festival

We tried to get to the FigmentNYC art festival on Governors Island, but there were way too many already lined up
for the ferry. We made the decision to exit the line after a few minutes, but not before we made a couple of (hoop) friends and possibly one enemy.