I'm Even Blacker in Pennsylvania

Places I Have Found Strands of My Roommate's Hair

2012-01-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

My otherwise lovely roommate Lisa has long and lustrous hair, which either 1. has a mind of its own and travels of its own volition or 2. is strategically placed by Lisa in curious places around our apartment as part of some long-term prank I don't yet understand. Anyway I started keeping track of places in which I have found Lisa's hair (which is unmistakeable; it's long and straight and black, and mine is short and thin and brown, and our other roommate's is Pantone Color F23891 (Conan O'Brien Red)). I don't even really mind it; I'm not grossed out because I know Lisa, and I know she washes her hair even if sometimes it's with a substance known as "dry shampoo" which sounds chemically impossible, and, I don't know, I'm just not grossed out. So it becomes more of a game of "in which part of my bedroom which Lisa has almost certainly never visited will I next find some long black hair?" Here are some places it's already turned up:

1. Wrapped around the left arm of the glasses I am currently wearing.
2. In the toe of a pair of shoes I haven't worn for six months.
3. In the corner of my room next to my desk where I typically keep broken-down Amazon boxes which will be recycled "soon, probably."
4. In the bottom of my laundry basket.
5. Stuck in the incompetent gears of my Roomba.
6. In the smallest pocket of the backpack I use alternately for trips to Trader Joe's and the gym. Mostly Trader Joe's.
7. In the front right corner of my bathroom. I have my own bathroom, which Lisa does not use probably for her own safety. I would estimate the number of times per year she has been in my bathroom at under three.
8. In my sock drawer.
9. In the folded-up cuff of my knit winter cap.
10. In the (closed) storage area of my bedside table in which I keep condoms and micro-USB cables, for the ladies.

I will update this post as I find more examples. Or perhaps this will become a much-loved recurring column, and I can do future articles based on different rooms. This one was limited to my bedroom!

I'm a Pixie Frog!

2011-12-19T14:50:00.001-08:00

The African bullfrog, or Pixie frog as it is often called (because of it's latin name, not because it's as cute as a fairy!), is one of the largest frogs in South Africa. Usually, they hang out in open grassland, and if there are any to be found, they'll sit around in puddles. When startled, these frogs will blow up like balloons to scare away the intruder! In the dry season, they will burrow into the ground. These guys eat lots and lots of really big bugs, fish, mice, lizards, and even other frogs.

What kind of Frog are you?

iPhone 4S Notes

2011-10-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

First of all, how weird is it that I have a blog for things I want to publish but that I don't actually want people to read? Why is there a need to simultaneously share and not share? I could totally have just started a Word document but NO, I need it to be somehow available to the public at large. Anyway, whatever. I just bought an iPhone 4S. It's my first iPhone. Here are my thoughts.

1. It's pretty. The size is perfect, the screen is perfect, little things like the clickiness of the buttons are perfect. It feels good.

2. Setup was very different from what I'm used to. Every other major platform sans BlackBerry is heavily cloud-based, meaning you should hardly ever need to plug your phone into your computer. The iPhone is not like this. I tried to set up the phone without syncing, not to try to trick it or anything but just because that's what I'm used to. I should be able to plug my Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Rdio, Netflix, and Hulu accounts in, and then everything should be there, right? But no, not so much. I had to plug it in to sync my Google contacts. I had to plug it in to get my apps. And even now, it doesn't do things that I assumed were common to all modern smartphones, like taking my friends' pictures from Facebook and adding them to my contacts list.

3. Um why is it so goddamn difficult to select a custom ringtone? Here are the steps on Android, WebOS, and Windows Phone: open music app, browse to the song you want, tap it, select "make my ringtone," done. On iPhone, I had to manually convert, trim the length to under 40 seconds, convert again, delete all other instances of the file from both iTunes and my computer, re-import back into iTunes, go into the advanced preferences and tell iTunes to show my "ringtones" folder, drag new file from into the ringtones folder on my phone, then go into my phone's settings and select it. What the fuck. This makes me feel even more stupid because the ringtone in question is the first 30 seconds of "Gonna Make You Sweat" by C+C Music Factory, aka "Everybody Dance Now."

4. There are many apps. These apps are universally better than apps on other platforms. Android apps look embarrassingly engineer-y and ugly, WebOS apps look dead because they are dead, and Windows Phone apps are sometimes confusing or buggy and in any case are lacking in number.

5. Battery life doesn't suck. Neither my Palm Pre Plus nor any 4G LTE Android phone will actually get you through a day. The iPhone will.

6. Siri is fucked right now. It "can't connect to the network," even though I have five bars and every other part of the phone connects just fine. This is annoying for work because it's the feature of most interest to PopSci, but I personally don't care that much.

7. Notifications are still sort of stupid. The ripped-from-Android notifications shade is nice, but it keeps pestering me to join Wi-Fi networks with that damnable blue bubble.

8. Uh, yeah, the notifications shade is ripped from Android. Not that it's not bad but I always prefer companies steal from WebOS rather than Android. Also there's no way to tell what's in there without swiping it down. That keeps the status bar free of cluttery icons but means you're constantly swiping it and then being disappointed at your lonely life slash notifications shade.

9. Look widgets are mostly a terrible idea, they make Android all cluttered and ugly and inconsistent, but why doesn't the weather icon on the iPhone just update to show the god damn weather instead of always saying 73 degrees like we all live in god damn California.

11. Universal search works well. Not as well as WebOS or Android, because it only searches your phone, but much better than Windows Phone. Also I don't mind so much that it only searches the phone, it feels more concise, even though it's not as functional.

12. The camera is amazing. As amazing as you've heard. Better than my point-and-shoot, for sure.

13. It's interesting when people say it's "fast," because I find that I don't get as much of a sense for speed in it as I do with Windows Phone--there are fewer (though still a bunch) of superfluous animations, not a lot of eye candy overall. But yeah, fuck, it's the most responsive phone I've ever used. What "fast" means here is: I am never waiting.

14. Maybe I should get a Windows Phone. If only the hardware wasn't so...Samsungy. Light and plasticky and cheap-feeling DEAR SAMSUNG STOP WITH THE CHROME COLORED PLASTIC GOOD LORD. If Nokia can make a solid, metal, thin-feeling Windows Phone, and Rdio can get their shit together and fix that app, I would definitely be willing to switch. Or maybe I'll get attached to this thing first.

Writing About Food, or, Do or Dine

2011-08-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

I mostly don't like food writing. I read it, because I'm interested in it, but like the old saying about music writing goes, writing about food is like ~~dancing about architecture~~ diving into a pool filled with Bartlett's Dictionaries of Adjectives, with all the concussions that would likely bring.

Still, I'm compelled to try it, because why the fuck not; I'm posting this on a blog I forgot I had, which I doubt is read by anyone at all. Hell, it's the least popular of my three personal blogs, and that's saying something because one of those is defunct and the other gets about five updates a year. Okay, so: I went to this place last night called Do or Dine, which, believe it or not, is only one of several "ugh" moments involved with this place. That's not to say that I didn't like it--just the opposite, actually, but it has some problems and I think those problems are interesting in a way that's bigger than the restaurant or the food they serve.

So, Do or Dine. The name is a pun on the nickname/slogan for the neighborhood the restaurant marginally falls into, Bed-Stuy. That name is a problem. Bed-Stuy is gentrifying, yes, though not as fast as many other neighborhoods in the city. Historically, it's been one of the most feared and dangerous neighborhoods in what historically was a fairly dangerous borough in a fairly dangerous city. New York City is no longer dangerous, and Brooklyn is something entirely different than it was even twenty years ago, and as go the city and the borough goes the neighborhood. Bed-Stuy isn't so much being gentrified as being shrunk, more blocks swallowed every year by the hungry neighborhoods of Clinton Hill to the west and Bushwick to the north. The "Do or Die Bed-Stuy" that the Notorious BIG rapped about? That's the heart of Clinton Hill now, a neighborhood that for now is pleasantly diverse and very safe. Bed-Stuy is still Bed-Stuy in large chunks, but near its borders, there are oases for white people--between the West African markets and the fried chicken joints (which sounds like a racist stereotype but really is not), a place like Do or Dine can pop up, entirely pleased with itself for being where it is.

The restaurant subscribes to that curious and misguided notion that it is cool to move into a space and retain the awning and signage used by whatever the space was prior to the restaurant moving in. A few blocks further into Clinton Hill, a decent but not exceptional northern Italian spot called Locanda Vini e Olii resides in a beautiful old Brooklyn pharmacy. The restaurant is branded with a huge LEWIS DRUG sign outside, with no accompanying sign to let diners know that um this place is actually serving wild boar meatballs and not bottles of quinine. Do or Dine is the same, marked by a loud red-and-yellow awning proclaiming it as a "West Indian-American Restaurant" of the sort that serves curries in steamer trays and litters that section of Bed-Stuy. In tiny, misaligned letters--like, an inch tall, maybe--under that proclamation, it reads "Do or Dine." Underneath the awning is a carpet or wall hanging or something that reads "Do or Dine" in much bigger, albeit less legible, letters, which you cannot see unless you are standing directly underneath the awning and thus within three feet of the restaurant's front door. This is annoying. I asked our server about it, and I'm pretty sure he thought I was complimenting the awning, which I wasn't, because it's annoying. It's a weird kind of false authenticity, like the name Do or Dine itself, like a white kid bragging about living in Bed-Stuy rather than acknowledging that he lives there because it's cheap.

Do or Dine does not belong in that neighborhood, which is of course not to say that it shouldn't be there; it serves other people like its servers, or like me, to be honest, of which there are a growing number nearby, and it makes some very good food, and I don't begrudge it being there even a little. Any location in which a restaurant can survive is a location in which that restaurant should be. But I don't much like the boasting, the idea that it's cool to live or work in Bed-Stuy. Mostly, I feel uncomfortable with gentrification: I don't know why, but I feel like if I have to participate in the process, the least I can do is refrain from flaunting it. It seems more respectful, somehow. But regardless, this whole idea of race and economics and gentrification is way too big and too sensitive an idea for me to write about, especially at 2AM while slightly drunk. Not that I'd be capable of writing about it at other times, but, you know.

Oh, the food. The food's pretty good. The small plates are mostly very good; the foie gras doughnut with apricot marmalade is excellent, as are the deep-fried deviled eggs with culantro (sic) and bacon, and the lamb belly with cumin and lime. The octopus tacos suck, as all tacos in New York are contractually obligated to do. The beef tartare was laced with some kind of mayo or creme fraiche or something and was creamier and milder than I like, and could have used more croutons, but tasted fine. Curiously, the entrees were mostly not good. The salmon was not only boring but also badly overcooked and dry--a hard thing to do with salmon. It was served with tomatoes and olives and smashed potatoes, which, snore. The beef was fine but dull. The duck with kiwi and fennel (a friend of mine, unaware apparently that the New Zealand bird known as the kiwi is both not a duck and severely endangered, stated he was looking forward to eating some "kiwi breast." Mockery ensued.) is pretty good, but the way to eat at Do or Dine is to order basically every small plate that looks appealing and share them, and drink beer.

The place is nicely cheap, and (thank god) BYOB. At my meal there, I paired, well, everything I ate with a giant, two-dollar can of Yuengling, which I highly recommend. Beer would be better than wine here, I think. The space is nice; there's a fair-sized outdoor area hung with Christmas lights, which is preferable if the weather makes it preferable. Service was attentive and honest--the server admitted the entrees are not the restaurant's strong point, which is very true, and nice to know. For maybe six small plates and three entrees, split between five people, the meal came out to $30 a person, including tip, which I think was about half what we had been expecting.

I'll probably go back. It's two long blocks from my apartment, and the food is sometimes great, and I am easily swayed by offers of BYOB. But I will also probably roll my eyes a little, or point out to any guests that I do not think the misleading awning is cool.

Image via Brownstoner

Nobody Knows What a Dep Is. Don't Be a Dick.

2010-06-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

This morning I went to my local corner store/convenience store/bodega/depanneur/deli for some essentials, unshowered and in yesterday's clothes. (But with clean socks and underwear, so I had already decided to have a lazy day.) I picked out a bottle of Bogle Vineyards pinot noir (2008, from Sonoma Valley), and bought a box of Cheez-Its and one of those 25-cent Lindt chocolate balls (mint) to pair with it. When I brought my bounty up to the counter, the guy who owns the place, with whom I exchange pleasantries or at least friendly nods on a pretty regular basis, asked me what happened to my girlfriend.

It caught me completely off guard. I don't have a girlfriend, haven't had one recently, and have as far as I know never been in his shop with any particular girl more than, at the very most, twice. I couldn't figure out whether to just say "no, you're wrong," because I knew whatever he was thinking was wrong, or to ask "what?" I sort of mumbled something in between, a questioning but negative response.

"Oh, that's not your girlfriend? I haven't seen her in a couple months, was wondering if she'd moved."

That just brings up more questions. So there is, or was, a girl who shops, or shopped, at my local corner store who according to the shopguy could or should be my girlfriend. She must live somewhere very close to me--there are other corner stores on just about every block and mine isn't so spectacular that a non-local would seek it out.

What does this shopguy know that I don't? Who is this mystery girl, who might live in my own building for all I know? Is the shopguy going by her purchases? Does she also find that the greasy and salty faux-cheddar flavor of Cheez-Its matches well with the herbal and fresh berry notes in the Bogle pinot? IS SHE MY SOULMATE?

I'll probably never know. She probably moved away. I just laughed and said no, whoever you're thinking of is not my girlfriend. We talked for maybe a minute, by far our longest conversation in the ten months I've been going to his shop, about how regulars come in and out of his life. He didn't know who my roommates were--we don't normally shop together--and was pleased when I identified four of his other customers as such. But then he mentioned that people usually say goodbye when they leave, which sort of surprised me. I've been a regular at a few different corner stores over the years, and have never said goodbye when I left the neighborhood, city, or country.

I didn't say goodbye to Henry, whose real name was Harry but who I called Henry for reasons I don't remember. Henry had a battered and graffitied dep, or depanneur (Quebecoise for corner store), at the corner of Clark and Duluth which shared a wall with my very first apartment. I used to walk the twenty feet through the snow in my ridiculous-looking bright red slippers to buy four-dollar Labatt 8.1% forty-ouncers and candy bars. Henry was crazy, but as with most everyone I met that year, it was an entertaining and good-natured kind of crazy. I and my roommates found out more about him throughout the year--first that, in addition to French and English (as required in that city and that profession), he also spoke fluent Spanish, which is pretty unusual in Quebec. It turned out Henry hailed from Guyana. He was dark-skinned and I suppose I had assumed he was South Asian, but nope. Guyana. I never found out how he ended up in Montreal. A few months later, I walked into the dep to find Henry speaking Chinese with a dark-skinned five-year-old Chinese boy, who Henry introduced as his son. "I haven't seen him since he was a baby," Henry told me. "He's been living in China with his mother."

We had naturally assumed Henry was dealing drugs in the store, a fact he half-confirmed when he announced one day that he had put a stop to his drug and alcohol habits. This was shortly after I had met his son, and a few months after he hosted an impromptu and illegal after-hours party in the dep. At that party, according to my roommate Mike, he stripped down to his tattered boxers, stood on his counter, and vigorously thrusted into the air, revealing his balls to the crowd while Mike stood awkwardly with a six-pack in his hand, trying to buy it before the 11:00 curfew on alcohol.

Henry remembered me after I moved, or at least he returned my waves when I walked by his dep. I tried to make it a point to buy my booze from him if I was in the neighborhood, but I moved farther and farther away until I graduated and moved to New York. I never said goodbye, and now I wonder if I should have.

I'm moving in a few months. I'll make an effort to say goodbye to my San Francisco shopguy. I'll even make a effort to learn his name before that happens.

I'm still trying to decide if I'll ever ask him which girl he was thinking of.

Let's Bring This Back to Livejournal With Some Whining

2009-07-17T23:23:00.001-07:00

So I'm listening to Mike Doughty sing about walking along the Williamsburg Bridge, leaning over and thinking 'Hey man, this is Babylon.' I've never walked along the Williamsburg Bridge, for the record. Never walked over any of the Brooklyn-Manhattan bridges, actually. I don't even think calling something 'Babylon' is a compliment. And yet here I am, totally fucking nostalgic and bummed about how my immediate future is not in New York City, a place I spent a solid five years of my life absolutely trashing. I even wrote in some entry on Oh Em Gee that NYC is, and here I quote myself (fun!), "huge, loud, rude, dirty, ugly, and dehumanizing," none of which is exactly untrue (although calling it ugly is unfair; it's really only ugly compared to Montreal. It's better-looking than Philly or Chicago, for sure), but which is definitely a way to hide that I miss that fucking place. I've lived in five cities in the past three years, and NYC was the only place where I quite literally got punched in the face. But NYC was also the last place I lived that really felt like home, felt like me--it's partly a geographic thing, I guess, since the city is only a couple hours from where I grew up, but it's also a cultural thing. I felt like the people I met there, the people I knew there, the things I did there, the work I did there, that's who I am.

Maybe it's also because NYC was the last place I lived while I really felt like my life was going somewhere. I was doing my internship at Gizmodo at the time, just out of school, and things were happening very, very quickly. One day I was smoking pot at noon on a Wednesday while a Montreal blizzard raged outside, and the next I was writing my first feature, working with my first editor, making a difference in the first job I've ever really cared about. And then my internship finished, the world economy collapsed, the publishing industry imploded (selfish bastards), and I moved back to Montreal, dispirited and discouraged. Ever since, I've been employed, but never full time; I've been occupied, but never busy; and everything just felt kind of stagnant. So maybe I'm just longing for that feeling, the feeling of doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, exactly when and where I'm supposed to be doing it. Maybe I'll get that feeling in San Francisco, too. I mean, I'll be working full time there, with more responsibility than I've ever had before, doing things I've never done before. But I can't seem to shake the feeling, especially after a couple months in Chicago (where I never even began to feel comfortable, not that it's fair to expect such a thing in two months), that goddammit, NYC is where I should be.

This is a whole lot of fucking whining. I really hope nobody remembers this blog exists. In case anybody does actually read this (and I'll be checking StatCounter, just in case), I'm fully aware that I'm being silly. It's a really nasty recession, and I've been offered an awful lot of money to move to California and write, from home, in my undies, pretty much whatever I want, at age 23. It might not be 100% perfect, but I feel like it's way closer than any other job I could get. Other jobs have pants requirements. Other jobs wouldn't let a snotty writer call Steve Jobs a white supremacist because he, and probably nobody else, thinks it's funny. Other jobs don't let employees call in "sick" with a hangover. And more than a few of my friends, people brighter and more ambitious than I, have gotten absolutely fucked over in the last year. Some haven't been employed in months, some since school finished, and others have had to take jobs they hate. I haven't. I've been lucky. I'm a whiner, what can I say.

I'll have fun in California, I'm sure, even if I may have to live in Oakland to avoid the hippies that bothered me so much the last time I was there. I've even possibly lined up an NYC-expat roommate. I hope this comes off as more introspective musing than insufferable whining. It's a fine line with me sometimes, I think. But I'm interested that I'm having such a strong reaction to seeing NYC removed as a possibility, even just for a year. Anyway, I'm going to post this, and check it in the morning. If I'm embarrassed tomorrow, which I kind of think I will be, I'm pulling it.

Is Babylon a compliment? Wikipedia says it means "Gateway of the Gods" but that my people use it to mean "confusing." Mike Doughty probably meant the latter, even though he's a more vocal New Yorker than anyone I know.

Summer 2008 Timeline

2008-07-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

Montreal.
June 3: Take unbelievably anticlimactic last final exam.
June 4-8: Pack up apartment, tearful goodbyes.
Pennsylvania.
June 8: 10-hour drive to PA with the family.
June 9: Eat cheesesteaks, watch MTV.
NYC.
June 10: Train to NYC, get into new apartment in Bed-Stuy at 11 PM.
June 11: First day of work.
June 12-July 3: Work full-time, though mostly from my own bed.
Pennsylvania.
July 4-6: Celebrate America's birthday by watching acquaintances from high school play beer pong. Feel less than thrilled about the Land of the Free.
NYC.
July 7: Mugged. Sucks.
July 11: Move from serious ghetto Bed-Stuy to serious yuppie Brooklyn Heights.
Photographic evidence:

Skyscrapers and Everything

2008-06-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

Okay so yeah, there are big changes afoot. A list of things I said I'd never do and have now either done or will do:

1. Move to New York City
2. Buy and/or use a Mac
3. Live in a house without a TV
4. Take a job that requires me to start working at 7 AM
5. A fucking Mac? Really? Who am I?

Even though every one of you jerks that reads this knows what I'm doing, I'll write it out because I'm a writer now and that's what I do. I write. Words.

I'm working for that most bloggish of blogrings, Gawker Media, on one of their more respectable sites, the nerd-fest of electronic gadgetry that is Gizmodo. All the Gawker blogs work out of the same office, a giant loft of exposed brick and chrome and black plastic and glass up in Soho, which I've been assured is a real place. I still have no idea where anything is or what it's called, clearly. More exciting is that I'm living not just in Brooklyn but in Bed-Stuy, birthplace of:

1. Illustrious rappers, including Biggie, GZA, Talib Kweli, Busta Rhymes, Fabolous, and Jay-Z
2. Actors, including Chris Rock, Jackie Gleason, and Vanessa Williams
3. Director Spike Lee
4. Judge Judy.

I haven't gotten shot yet, but, you know, fingers crossed!

New York is okay, I think. It's fucking hot as balls and my apartment doesn't have air conditioning, and it's unmanageably big and rent is retarded and I can't leave my bike locked outside overnight and everyone has this attitude like if you don't live in this city you're some country bumpkin. But on the other hand, it kind of is the center of the universe, which is a fun thing to experience. There are lots of silly hipsters to laugh at, the metro is surprisingly solid, the beer is good and the grocery store around the corner sells sofrito and wooden barrels of live crabs from the ocean.

Enn Why See: B+ after four days.

I'd write more about Gawker, and trust me I already have ridiculous stories after only two and a half days of work, but I think they like firing people for talking shit on personal blogs so I'll hold off. I will, however, take a few pictures tomorrow and post them up, so check back. Bye y'all.

WEEKLY "THE HILLS" UPDATE

2007-09-30T23:21:00.000-07:00

A SoCal Christmas!
Heidi is All About Beach Safety
Heidi "Singing" and "Dancing"
With These Clothes and a Few Hundred Headbands, You Can Look Just like LC!

Next week:

The crew goes to Vegas for Brody's birthday in what looks kind of like the house from the Las Vegas Real World season. If I get that right I'll really be more embarrassed than pleased. Expect at least one use of "whatever happens in Vegas..." and probably some great drunken girl-talk between LC and Audrina.

Elodie quits. Heidi seems hurt, although I can't imagine why and it's probably just the editors fucking with me.

LC and Lo don't get along with ol' Jabesy, who's back for another episode (thank god). Audrina then cries about her relationship and defiantly says "I'm done!" just like she did that other time.

And oh shit, the big bombshell of the teaser (that seems to give the entire episode's twist away!): BRODY AND LC BACK TOGETHER! There's some near-autistic dialogue about a birthday kiss and then HOLY FUCK THEY'RE KISSING ON SOME SORT OF DAYBED, OR MAYBE A COUCH WITH LOTS OF PILLOWS OR SOMETHING!

And just in case you're scared of links,

L'SHANA TOVAH

2007-09-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new year, Jews and others! For Rosh Hashanah I mostly got drunk and went through my list of Hebrew phrases to yell at gentiles. It didn't take very long, so by about 9 PM I was just counting from 1 to 10 over and over. Then yesterday I half-fasted (halfasted? halfsted?) by getting drunk AGAIN and then apologizing to G-d for, among other things, dating a Catholic girl and forgetting to floss every day. He says we're cool and that beer doesn't count when you're fasting because it makes you hungrier, thus increasing suffering and making me a really great Jew overall. Then we high-fived in spirit and I watched the hockey game.

I watched the Battlestar Galactica finale with Mollie the other day and really liked it, but I seriously don't know how much more nerditude I can handle before I explode in a flash of pocket protectors and snort-laughs. All the casual drug use and knowledge of gangsta-rap in the world won't help me be cool if I'm talking about the mythology of the final five cylons and their relation to the first cylon-human war on the planet Caprica. Then I push my glasses up my nose and talk about Linux.

I have become functionally illiterate, thanks to my English lit degree. I know some people may think that just because I'm best fucking friends with literary superstars and I talk nonsense about wanting to work in editing that I can or do actually read, but it's not true. I've spent the last three months reading fifty pages of the new Michael Chabon book, which I actually really like but every time I pick it up I just think about how much I'd rather be watching the Hills. Then usually I put it down and watch the Hills. LC, why won't you come to Montreal and fall immediately in love with me?! I can spike my hair in stupid ways and shave my beard into an ugly chinstrap if that's what you want!

I'm gonna start doing a "LINKS!!!!!!" section on here because my life is really not that interesting. So let me direct you to things that are!

LINKS!!!!!!

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/primer_canadian_indie_rock
http://www.avclub.com/content/hater/mary_kate_olsens_voice_is_almost
http://www.mountain-goats.com/forums/read.php?2,11195
http://indieguitartabs.com/

And for fuck's sake, if you're not Mollie, Carolyn, or Byron, click on their links up at the top there.

Things I Like

2007-08-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to turn this blog from an account of my political summer into more standard bloggy territory: an account of things I like! This is partly due to my dishonorable discharge from the employ of not one but TWO liberal political entities, and partly due to my being stuck down here in the deep south. Did I mention that my life in Montreal has caused me to view everything further south than Boston as a disgusting melange of lynchings, white people, fanny packs, and chicken-fried steak?

I've made it my mission to do as many ultra-Amurrican things as I can while I'm here. This includes smoking seriously the most godawful cigarettes I've ever dreamt of in my darkest nightmares, because they cost about three bucks and are covered with American symbols. Flags? Eagles? Minimal health warnings? They're USA brand and they feel like I'm inhaling poisonous, deadly freedom. I should mention that Canadian cigarettes cost as much as a compact car and are plastered with warnings like "THIS PRODUCT WILL KILL YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE," followed by a picture of some malnutritioned Mexican babies. My USA brand cigarettes don't have any of that bullshit, only some tiny print saying "uhhh, hey dude, if you're pregnant, the surgeon general thinks maybe you shouldn't smoke these." Luckily for me, my womb is baby-free and so my lungs are full of nicotine and tar!

Other things I like: watching some TV series I've already seen and spoiling it for other viewers by quoting inane trivia at them until they beg for mercy. Sorry, friends, but the fact that Rob Lowe is first in the West Wing credits because he was originally supposed to be the main character is TOO IMPORTANT to keep secret any longer! I must divulge this information and distract you from whatever banal plot developments are transpiring!

Also liked (by me): defiantly pronouncing the letter Z as "zed." Yeah, I thought at first that this was one more piece of evidence that the Canadians will never tire of sucking the Queen's cock, but it's grown on me. I attribute this growth to the problem of the last letter of my last name. When pronounced in the proper fashion (zee), Canadians think my name is Nosowitc. I've gotten so much fucking mail addressed to Daniel Nosowitc. Who the balls looks at that and thinks it's a real name? So I'm forced to believe that our not-so-tolerant northern neighbors are pressuring me into changing the singsong way I pronounce my name! The most basic parts of me are being taken over by a snowy menace from above! So now, Pennsylvanians give me that look I've grown so used to lately: the "hmm... you ain't from around these parts, is ya?" look of disdain and curiosity. But mostly disdain. Contributing to this problem is the fact that I don't dress like Pennsylvanian college students (no Abercrombie or Hollister? No running shoes? No cargo shorts? WHO IS THIS GUY AND WHAT PLANET DID HE FLY IN FROM?!). The clerk at Trader Joe's asked me my zip code and I said my Canadian one, just for fun (H2X 3H7). She started typing it, then realized that something's odd about it. "Where are you from?" she suspiciously asked. "Oh, um, Montreal," I replied. "Oh. Well, I'll give you a local zip code, okay hun?" she responded. THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY MISS USA!

Honestly though, the Main Line is a pretty attractive place. I'll throw up some pictures to give you guys an idea of the deep-green semi-southern lushness of this humble 'burb. Just as soon as I figure out how to post pictures in this damn adult bloggin-program.

This first picture is taken from the driveway of some woman I canvassed, about ten minutes from my house.

This next one is part of my backyard, taken over by my dad's botanical experiments. That chair is my book-readin' area.

And here are some goddamn fucking deer, or as we salt-of-the-earth folks call them, "overgrown rats." They are a menace to society. I'm not joking about this at all, deer are legitimate man-killing traffic accidents waiting to happen and all my tree-hugging liberalism doesn't stop me from supporting anything that could wipe the furry bastards off the face of the earth.

Click all the pictures to enlarge, and I'd really recommend clicking on the deer picture. That's not bad photography skills that made those deer eyes glow, that's their EVIL INNER NATURE SHINING THROUGH.

I Can Abbreviate "Main Line" With my Fingers

2007-06-17T01:14:00.000-07:00

It's four in the morning and frankly, you people haven't left enough comments to warrant much of an update. You understand that I measure your love for me in number of comments left, right?

I had a pretty Main Line day, including a game of beer pong while Dispatch played in the background, those tree-hugging honky-ass hippies. I found myself mired in the same drama I remember from high school, only now it seems hilarious and not CRUSHINGLY LIFE-CHANGING IMPORTANT ARRRR. Something about the birthday boy doesn't want me at his party, and that I apparently am kind of a cock sometimes. Also everyone thought I had long been hooking up with this friend of mine, which makes me think maybe I could/should have been doing so. And then, in the middle of all this high school nonsense, I met this girl who wanted to talk to me about Don DeLillo and how Invisible Man is seriously fucking awesome and who displayed a proper level of awe when somehow (don't ask me!), McSweeney's came into the discussion. It was an odd little juxtaposition of where I'm at now compared with where I was.

I like myself a lot better now.

I really hope nobody was expecting an in-depth examination of my work field a la Graeme or Mike Dineen. Not that I've been intentionally leaving things out, but because I don't have any insight on the American political/electoral system that I didn't have before. I got called a commie for saying that maybe God wouldn't hate universal health care, and called in sick two days in a row. I wish I was getting my hands dirty dealing with real issues, but that's really not what campaigning's about. It seems so far to be about money above all else, not that I'm idealistic enough to be surprised or offended by that. I got promoted to Field Manager already, which means my pay is slightly less shitty and I have to lead someone even less experienced than myself around some days. I'm really digging for work-related stuff to talk about but it's really not that interesting. If anybody wants to COMMENT and ask a QUESTION because I haven't even really explained what I do all day, I'll answer.

PS: Who else thinks Nithya needs a goddamn blog right now?

2007-06-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

Okay well it's Monday night, and seriously I'm too exhausted to write a real entry. If you include transportation, and I do, I work from 12:30 to midnight. It's pretty hard work, really. I'm walking around, knocking on people's doors, for about five hours a day in steaming hot weather, and I'm feeling beat up by the end. Anyway, here are some hints I've learned to tell Democrats from Republicans just by the outside of their houses.

DEMOCRAT
Mezuzah or anything indicating that JEWS BE INSIDE!
Unkempt lawn (I've been told this only works in the rich-ass suburbs where there's no conservative white trash)
Non-bred animals (mutt dogs, for instance)
Hybrid car
Inhabitants prone to verbose abuse

REPUBLICAN
Pineapple flags, doormats, or wall hangings. No clue why, but this one's just about 100%. Pineapple doormats? What is this shit?
SUVs
Sterile-type front lawn (perfectly sheared grass of a delicate emerald shade, few large shrubs or plants)
Lawn gnomes
Highly polite inhabitants

Also, sorry to disappoint if anybody thought I was doing anything exciting, important, or honestly all that interesting this summer. This job doesn't give me the opportunity to break into carefully-crafted monologues on justice and peace and freedom and AMERICA! Nor do I get to make any decisions about anything, or have any real impact on the American political system. I do talk about politics for eight hours a day, although not from a perspective all that different from what I had before this job. Canvassing works just about the way I thought it would, really, and the DNC isn't anything surprising, although it is way bigger than I expected. I found that if you think Bush-bashing is as embarassing and sort of dangerous as I do, you'll be far in the minority among DNCers. I found that there are a surprising amount of dudebrahs working for the DNC, and few hipsterfags. I found that I am not the only employee of the DNC who is not a registered member of the party, not by a long shot. I found that Republicans are by the by much nicer than Democrats, even when dealing with somebody who just told them "Our country can't handle eight more years of failed leadership and failed policies" before realizing they've got a fucking pineapple flag. And mostly, I found that full-time work is very little fun. I'm falling behind on my internet knowledge, it's depressing.

Also Philly maybe is kind of cool. And even pretty in parts.

My cat's name is Tasha but I say "Tashiiii" and make approving cat-like noises at her

2007-06-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

This is eventually going to be a painfully superior account of my job working for the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, but I haven't started yet so I'm going to talk about my cats and maybe give out some hot fashion tips.

HEY GUYZ, HERE'S A PICTURE OF MY CAT ^_^

My job title is "Official Sellout and Shill for Motherfucking Howard Fucking Dean," and I'll be taking his message to the masses. The masses, by the way, are not going to be pleased with me. I tried to get a more, you know, indoor type job, but they just ignored the line on my resume that reads "WRITERMAN 100% Super A+++!" They also ignored my total lack of political experience or, honestly, interest, so I guess I'll take it. Now I'm sitting in my suburban basement, reading some pamphlets on Dean's exciting new plans for fucking up the Democratic Party, and realizing that inner-city canvassing probably won't be like The West Wing. The people I'm working with aren't nearly as attractive or witty as I'd expected, and I've yet to be introduced to the President, Speaker, or even a measly Supreme Court Justice. There's like twelve of them, not one can spare a weekend to come up and say hi?

Fashion tips to follow!