Deluge Will Be In The Crossword

Ever been woken up from a peaceful nights sleep by a screaming woman? And when you jumped up to find what the fuss was you realized your feet were wet? I have. Very wet. And cold. And you in your "nighttime attire". And then the water was pouring thru the ceiling into the kitchen. I pulled the pots down off the rack and got an eyeful of freezing liquid. We had to move the fridge. It was 3:45am. At least we found all those magnet letters that had mysteriously disappeared. Now I can do a crossword again.

Anyhow, I'm off to take care of business and deliver the goods, one... last... time. I'll be at 450 West 41st street between 9th & 10th, if you're in the area. Stop by. Have a laugh. But first we gotta get outta here... and waffles with Amon.

I'd Like To Thank My Face

All acceptance speeches should be so awesome...

Swim To Reach The End

this is why I'm happy to not live in the city anymore

Meatful

We got a lot of meat in the freezer!

Falling Fast And Lovely

We thought the snow was over....






Guess not.

They Are Scientists Once Again

This probably will not interest any of you at all but one of the most revered and influential bands on the early to mid 90's, Cap'n Jazz, reformed last Friday night at Chicago's Empty Bottle under the guise "Local Cover Band". Clever, but there's no mistaking that voice of Mike Kinsellas.

Brief history; Cap'n Jazz was a band from 1989-1995, mostly the years the members were in high school or fresh out. As the legend goes, they were young and bratty, a beautiful mess of a band, never rehearsing and barely writing songs together but just showing up at venues or house parties and tearing the roof off. They broke up on stage during a show, probably in a drunken or drug-induced stupor and for reasons none of them could remember the following day. They only released one album and a few limited release vinyl singles, that are all but impossible to track down. All five members went on to form different bands and made some of my favorite music of the end of the 21st century. Albums by the Promise Ring and American Football practically burned themselves into my portable discman. More recently Owen and Make Believe are bands that Laura & I have become permanently attached to as well, all stemming from this ragtag crew of Cap'n Jazz.

So hard times and personal disagreements and brain tumors aside, they're back together, or at least they were Friday night. And rumor is they're booking some more appearances. Is there an album in the works? Is there a worldwide tour brewing? Maybe some things are left best undiscovered but there's a whole slew of people who, since Cap'n Jazz's notorious status only came to be posthumously, never got the chance to see these songs played live, so, I guess that'd be cool.

Cap'n Jazz performs for the first time in 15 years, since they were 19. Songlist:

Little League
Oh Messy Life
We Are Scientists
Que Suerte!

All The Cool Cats Are Doing It

Aww man we found these awesome new collars that all the cool cats are wearing! They're so stylish and the cats seem to really like them! It doesn't make it hard for them to eat or drink or not walk in to walls or anything! The price is pretty steep but you can't put a price on comfort. And the best part is, when you buy one collar you get a free ovariohysterectomy! Bargain!!!

This Was Today's Yesterday

things put off done to acclaim

an event a decade in the making makes us wonder why we waited so long

treasures stumbled upon, like the case always seems to be

future plans crumble and reform within the same breath

best case scenarios present themselves

and we still can't find that magazine.

The New Look: 80's Synth

...specifically the keyboardists...

When I Was A Mello

To this day I don't know how we didn't win the championship that year.

Breathing & Bagels In Buckets

Man Alive! it rained a lot today. Laura had a doctor's appointment this morning for her rub. She's been taking medicine that's seemed to work for the most part but the past couple days the rub has made a heroic return, so we went in at 8:30, in the downpour.

Doctor prescribed her an inhaler saying she may have a minor form of acute asthma, but overall didn't seem too concerned. She's to come back in about seven months, for no reason in particular.

We had an hour or so to kill before she had to jet off thru the Water Gap so, in lieu of me getting a haircut, we hit the main drag in the cats & dogs and stopped in at Grandpa Pete's for a little morning pastry and warm beverage.

Grandpa Pete's is a quaint little shop on downtown Stroudsburg's Main Street that functions under the guise of anything belonging to 1920's culture. They have a sandwich menu that reads like this: The Charlie Chaplin, The Little Rascals, The 23 Skidoo & The Greta. We instead went for the apple danish and hot tea (me) and the french toast bagel with a can of Pepsi throwback (Laura & company).

With a few minutes left on the meter we stalked who we thought was the doctor at the holistic center (it wasn't her) and then braved the rain once again just to flip thru a few records at the local vinyl dive (also a strikeout).

Rain aside, or not, more mornings should be like this.

We Are The Lambing Season

We've been published!!

Much to our surprise Laura's Mom submitted one of our wedding photos to Country magazine and a year later, they published it. On the bottom right hand corner, see it? No, I don't know who that horse girl is either. Celebrating the coming of spring, its budding rhubarb, and the subsequent act of taking a knife to that very rhubarb. I am a fan of the stuff. We were also informed that as an ancillary award we will receive a dinner bell with our names emblazoned on the side. I have a feeling that "dinner" bell will soon be renamed the "breakfast/lunch/dinner/dessert/snack/wake up/come here/rub my feet/get away from me/do the laundry" bell. Just a prediction.

I highly recommend that you click on the photo for the full size so you can read the article and our caption especially.

So everyone run out to your local magazine retailer and pick up the February/March edition of Country magazine. And if you can't find it don't bother trying to call the number found on the website because they will just transfer you to someone else who speaks broken English and has absolutely no idea how magazine sales work. Five times.

Salvaging It Takes An Oversight

Another weekend at Sitao. Started off bad. Got out of my truck and Brian told me one of the kids quit. That's really obnoxious, only because we spent the entire last weekend staging the show and once that's done, it's really hard to just remove one person and have it all make sense. The kid had two months to figure out if he wanted to do it, and chose the worst possible weekend to figure out that he didn't. I have no sympathy for people like that. Moving on.

I think the kids had a good weekend. I think they like the show. Any show that challenges them is good enough to me. And I think this show is challenging. Specifically, this weekend we worked on a little partner section, which normally I'm totally against because of the usual total lack of creativity and continuity, but I think we got something here. Now if they can just get thru it.

We had very little left to actually stage and most of that went pretty quickly. had we had the correct props that house the equipment efficiently we could've done a complete run. That's pretty good for two weekends work. It also means we're onto the cleaning and refining process, which can be tedious. I'm hoping that the next two weekends are sufficient.

Here's some photos I took outside the gym on Sunday morning. It's was rainy, but I managed.

My new mantra: Peace, Love & Dollar Signs

I call this one "Who Doesn't Love A Butterfly Spacecraft?"

So that's what everyone's doing with their Yellow Pages.

The long climb to rehearsal.

I was gonna save this one for Valentine's but I didn't want him to get the wrong idea.

(I highly doubt you notice but most everytime I write about SITAO I entitle the post using the guard's name as an acronym. Mainly I did this because the name originally derived from an acronym itself that I find at the very least distasteful to the point that I will not type it here (again). Instead I chose to explore the possibilities that could someday replace this unfortunate label. I don't this one's making the cut.)

Winner Winner Gumbo Dinner

I don't necessarily like finding so much pleasure in someone else's pain, but man was I satisfied by last nights NFC Championship outcome. I was worried for a couple minutes there towards the end of the 4th quarter but, they pulled it out with the luck of a coin toss and sent the Saints to their first Super Bowl ever. Good for them. Now I'm gonna be able to sit back and simply enjoy the game without having to be concerned with the outcome. I'd like to see the Saints win their first ever, but I enjoy the thought of the Colts winning again since I think Peyton Manning deserves it. He's good. But that's all two weeks off, so we got some time. For now, in honor of the Saints win, I'm making myself some Zatarain's red beans & rice for dinner. Best I could do on short notice.

Very Mary Kate

This actually looks funny...

Missing The Championships

Gonna miss both games this weekend. Might be able to catch most of the NFC show on the ride home, undoubtedly battling static every turn of the way. Damn mountain pass. Hoping for a Jets/Saints thing. For a gaggle of reasons but mainly because it's always nice to see underdogs win and new teams in the bowl. But if I were a betting man my cash'd be on Manning and Favre. What will be will be. At this point I'm just hoping to be able to watch the Super Bowl. I think I'd like to see the Saints win it all. Manning's been there, lord knows Favre doesn't need any encouragement and Sanchez winning would be too much too soon.

Put simply:

Our Drew, who art in New Orleans, hallowed be thy name. Thy bowl will come, it will be won, in Miami as it is in the Dome. Give us this next game, our weekly win and give us many touchdown passes, but do not let others pass against us. Lead us not into frustration, but deliver us to the Super Bowl.

Intent On Ambidexterity

I've been trying to become ambidextrous for a couple weeks now, in secret. So far I've tried eating with my left hand, opening doors, washing dishes, throwing rocks, playing guitar, changing channels, brushing my teeth (that was the hardest (I stabbed myself in the gums)) & cleaning the kitty litter box. I even wrote out a few notes today with my left hand. They're actually more legible than my normal penmanship, but I'm told I have sloppy handwriting so... jury's still out on that one. Tonight I ate entire bowl of beef barley with my left hand. Granted most of it ended up on my white waffle weave thermal but, I think I'm getting the hang of it.

I think the most interesting part of becoming ambidextrous so far is when I googled the word today I got some awesome photos that, for the life of me, I cannot figure out what on Earth they have to do with being both left handed and right handed, but they're worth sharing.

Maybe he's gonna do the peanut butter with the left hand.

This guy might be ambi-ambidextrous, but it's still unclear.

That's not ambidextrous. He's trying to keep from catching on fire! It's a survival skill.

Seems a little confrontational.

This one's just confusing and should never have happened.

Back To Big Chin

Tonight's Conans last night hosting the Tonight Show. I'll probably watch, if I'm awake. I'm sure he won't be gone for long. He'll pop up on Fox or something and hopefully beat the crap out of whatever turd of a program NBC ends up with.



Hope NBC enjoys their return to mediocrity and substandard middle school comedy. Sad part is, I'm sure it'll be back to #1 within a month. Stupid Americans.

Big Marketing Push

While I would like to see a Jets vs. Saints Super Bowl, I think it's a little early to be selling their respective conference championship gear on their website til, saaaayyyy, they actually play and win the game. But it's not only them, the Colts and Vikings have their versions up on their website for pre-order too. What's the big frigin hurry?! I wouldn't buy one before the game out of fear I'd jinks my team. I guess it's kinda like how they're already selling Valentine's Day cards in the stores on January 22nd, as if anybody buys one of those before February 13th. Someone should kill that thing already.

Bay In Beirut

Peter Gammons on December 23rd 2009...

"I think [Jason Bay]'d rather be playing in Beirut than Queens."

January 5th 2010....

The New York Mets today announced that they have signed outfielder Jason Bay to a four-year contract with a vesting option for a fifth year.

Bay hit .267 with a career-high 36 home runs, 119 RBI, and scored 103 runs with the Boston Red Sox in 2009. It was his second consecutive season of at least 30 home runs, 100 RBI, and 100 runs.

Bay, 31, was second in the American League in RBI and tied for third in home runs last season. Among major league outfielders, Bay finished with the most RBI, tied for first in home runs with the Phillies' Jayson Werth, and was third with a .537 slugging percentage and a .921 OPS.

"Jason provides us with a big bat in the middle of our lineup, which will help us score more runs," said Mets General Manager Omar Minaya. "He has pull power and that will play well at Citi Field. Jason has excelled in a big-city environment, and we look forward to adding his winning attitude and grit to our clubhouse."

"It's exciting for me to come to New York to join Carlos Beltran, David Wright, and Jose Reyes in the lineup to help the Mets get back to the postseason," said Bay. "I'm looking forward to returning to the National League and playing at Citi Field in front of passionate fans who care about winning."

works for me

Fawsjzilla

Thank God It's Creepy

Man I love biscoff!

We've noticed the snow receding. What better time to make a day out on the town. We had a gift card bestowed upon us by one of the RxHS girls that we hadn't used yet, so even tho it was Tuesday we thanked God for Friday.

We meant to take in a film at the little downtown theater house, but our bellies were so full of pork (pot stickers), chicken (quesadilla), steak (10 oz. classic) and fish (honey salmon), not to mention our brownie desserts that we didn't want to just sit around and let it fester so we opted to head over to Peddler's Village to see if someone had bought our jelly cabinet.

Someone had, but we didn't let that ruin our afternoon for antique shops are full of wondrous and creepy things for girls and boys alike. So we explored til they locked the doors.

Antiquing makes Laura... well... see for yourself.