Happy Valentino's Day

Valentino's was a pizzeria by my parents house that I used to frequent when I was in elementary school. In sixth grade, we were allowed to go out for lunch, a privilege and freedom for kids that age that undoubtedly no longer exists. Valentine's day that year, I decided I was going to ask my childhood crush, Erin, out to lunch. I got all prepared, asking my friends for advice, and was set to be the ultimate gentleman; I was going to pay for the pizza AND pull her chair out for her. Somewhere along the line, our signals got crossed, and she ended up at McDonald's while I ate a slice alone.

But I'm not bitter. Valentine's Day marked the beginning of one of my relationships, senior year in high school. I cleared my parents out of the apartment for the night with my wiles and cooked up a nice dinner in my fanciest sweater. This led to a two year relationship, and to me attending SUNY Albany freshman year even though I didn't really want to.

Like most guys, I'm not huge on Valentine's Day anymore. Cliched notions like it's too commercial a holiday aside, I've subscribed to Human Dynamo's thinking. If you love someone, you should show it all year round, not just on a specific chosen date. He feels the same way about birthdays, though does enjoy the weekend long celebrations that have become common in our crew, and also about President's day, as every month or so he sends a love letter to Abraham Lincoln.

As far as romance goes, I've always thought the holiday season was far more romantic. With temperatures that are at least tolerable, festive lights everywhere, everyone in a happy mood and the chance of a magical white Christmas, this is the time of year I wish most for a girlfriend and romantic dinners in front of a fire place.

The End.

Back in the Saddle

So I had my first job interview in almost three years today, to be a part time photography teacher for elementary school and junior high kids at a non profit after school center. It started off not so great, as I somehow got lost in the city and walked the wrong way, ending up 5-10 minutes late for a position that was close to being filled anyway. I spoke with the Director of the Media Center for a few minutes, and then she sprung on me teaching the kids, who are of all different skill levels and already know how to print black and white, how to print. Oh, and then she enhanced my resume for me, telling the kids they were lucky to have a professional photographer and graphic designer on hand as their visiting artist and teacher. I don't think I'm really a professional at this point, but it sounded cool to all the kids, so I had to go with it. Thankfully I wasn't quizzed, but I feel secure I could mostly outsmart 12 year olds if it came to it. It's like on a first date though. I try to be interesting and myself, only better, funnier and more charming. However, I would never say I have my own detective agency or I once climbed Mt. Everest, because she's going to be disappointed enough after the second date without finding out I'm a liar also.

Four hours and many headlocks broken up later and I couldn't help feeling I'd just been suckered into working for free. Interview, my ass. It ended with the director and I speaking about how the day went, and before I could stop myself, I was taking off my shoes and changing to basketball sneakers. In my defense, the back of my feet were all cut up. Hey, if a date ends with me taking off my shoes, that's a good night right?

****************

Tonight I started to appreciate the value of living alone. Walking in the apartment, I was able to throw everything down, shed my pants, sit down on the couch and turn on whatever I wanted, with no fear of Suze Orman raising her ugly head, or anyone being disturbed by my less than fully clothed state. I also learned a valuable lesson: drinking a liter of Dr. Pepper before bedtime will probably lead to nervousness, twitching, anxious energy and most likely render bedtime useless.

Average Expectations

For the last two days, I've resolved to be quite productive and find a job as well as a future ex-wife, but only so long as I can do both online and conveniently. In fact, if there's no "Apply Now" button for the job on monster.com, I move on to the next one. I'm finding both of these tasks rather difficult, but also noticing that surprisingly, they share some similarities.

With so many people applying for the attractive options, it's really hard to differentiate yourself. You have to come in with the mindset that at least 50 other people want this. What makes me better than any of them? I just am. You'll have to take my word for it. And don't ask any questions that put me on the spot, like what's my best quality or what quality do I not like about myself that I'm working on.

I'm tired of trying to market and sell myself to strangers when I know I'm a perfectly adequate choice and would perform moderately well as boyfriend or employee. I know what I can and can't do, and don't apply for things out of my league. Hotbibella79, who likes big muscled guys with tattoos, I'm sorry but I don't fit the bill. AvantiCreativeDirector08, I just don't have the experience or skill set to head up your department. I understand this, and am ok with it. With more experience and less fear of needles, maybe one day, but for now I'm okay with where I'm searching. Unfortunately, ladies can't see my ginormous biceps and statuesque body through their computers, and jobs can't see me causing huge amounts of dollars to flow in the future by looking at my resume.

Inevitably, 80% of the women and jobs you apply for just won't get back to you. I used to believe it's rudeness, but maybe they do it to keep your dignity in tact. You understand when you don't receive a response that nobody likes you without anyone having to spell it out for you. Hey, rejection hurts. I was just rejected to be a photographer/studio assistant at a hospital, and in fact, they additionally noted I wasn't qualified for the job. I'm pretty sure they were one step away from calling me a stupid cretin and telling me how out of my league they are. How am I not qualified for that job? I'm a photographer, I can assist, I've watched Scrubs and I've been in a hospital before. Perfectly suited. You know what, job, I didn't really want to have you anyway. You were just a backup until a hotter job got back to me.

End of an Era

In between crashed scaffolding and "haha, you're moving to Jersey" jokes, Sunday, me, Dynamo, his quite sick lady friend, and his incomprehensible and constantly plotting cousin moved Dynamo and said lady friend to Jersey City, New Jersey. USA. Why would we do such a thing? Mostly because Dynamo got a job in Parsippany, NJ, USA, making machines emit noise so that something can be tested. Finally getting a chance to pursue his dream career of software engineer without having to sacrifice his morals and help build better tracking devices for military killing machines, he's been waking at 4:00 AM and getting home at 5:30 PM or later, cranky about half the time. Now, thanks to the physics of distance and time, he can comfortably sleep till 5:30 AM and be home much earlier.

Unfortunately, Dynamo had to sacrifice living in the Dr. Seuss wing of the Brooklyn castle we have shared since it's purchase last October. Moving day was odd, dividing cups, plates and silverware and trying to make sure HD left with important things he'd need for the coming week, including bottles of alcohol, the Boondocks book and his electric razor. While I got to keep the rice cooker and I'll probably hide the salsa maker so I don't lose that, I have lost the stainless steel kitchen/prep table, used for eating, cooking and putting things when I walk in the apartment. I'm left with a dining room table which is much less glamorous, and no way to put it together, because Dynamo saw fit to steal the nuts that kept the legs on.

As good friends since 9th grade, I have no doubt we'll stay close despite the distance to Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. However, there's definitely a dynamic change between best friends and roommates. It also means I'm going to have to start leaving the comfort of my home to hang out with a friend, which is mighty inconvenient for me. While helping him pack moving morning, I couldn't help thinking of the episode of Friends when Joey moves out of the apartment him and Chandler share because he has more money now and wants to experience living on his own.

Since I'm too poor to buy out the other half, we're going to continue owning it together and I'm going to get a new roommate. My friend Jamie (who, despite his name, happens to be a guy) is moving in on April 1st. Until then, for the first time in my 26.75 years of living, I find myself living by myself. The first day was definitely lonely and a little weird. There's now this room downstairs (we live in a duplex) where someone used to live that's neither cleaned out nor full. It's almost taboo; I see the stairs that lead down every time I go to the bathroom, but have no reason to go downstairs, so I shun it and pretend it doesn't exist. While I miss Dynamo, at least I'm not staying up late watching the rain on the window and wondering if he is too, a la previously mentioned Friends episode. Besides, I think I miss the Xbox 360 more.

Weather Related Disaster Strikes

This is somewhat more catastrophic than my last post. Jealous that adulthood was getting all the cool headlines, the wind and cold weather decided it needed to strike too. Unfortunately, the target was a scaffolding up the block from my castle. Like the wolf of urban porcine lore, Mr. Puffy Cheeks kept blowing until it forced the mesh netting to topple the 6 story high scaffolding, crushing what lay below. Thankfully no people were injured, despite their best intentions. While live wires carried live electricity and current that could end lives, and sparks flew everywhere, and unlucky tree branches burned, people walked, roller-bladed or drove as close as they could. I couldn't help thinking of the scene in Die Hard With A Vengeance when Bruce Willis shoots at the power line and it hits the helicopter which in turn majorly explodes. Good thing that didn't happen.

Adulthood Strikes

Somewhere between eating candy before/for dinner last night and buying comics today, I realized what an adult I've become. Was it the purchasing of cornbread at Whole Foods, simply because I saw it while waiting in line to pay, mirroring how I bought Haribo Fruit Salad and Fizzy Colas last night? Or could it have been the marshmallows I originally went in to said natural food giant to buy? Maybe it was having two separate conversations with two different people about comics on the subway ride home. Yes, I know there's a new Iron Man movie coming out (and I'll see it, though I'm not positive he had nothing to do with the death of Steve Rogers).* In any case, I'm going to stick with the upper age on Haribo's friendly mantra: "Kids and Grownups love it so."


*P.S. Like I told gold-tooth man, Daredevil, Punisher and the Hulk were all bullshit movies. Though Bullseye is raw.

Arkansans

Things I thought while reflecting on my last blog posting:

• Whatever happened to those fake breasts that were thrown around at my New Year's party?
• If people from Kansas are called Kansans, are those from Arkansas called Arkansans? Arkanoidians? Archangels?
• I wish Gideon Defoe's blog was Americanized. It's hard to follow all his British pop culture references. While researching everything is quite informational and enlightening, it wastes time that could be spent cramming XBox 360 playing before Dynamo departs Brooklyn and absconds with it.
• What was that other thing I thought of while watching the address but then forgot, but wanted to add to yesterday's blog since it was probably funny?
• I still have to discuss with my sister, and eventually divide ownership of, all the plastic dinosaurs bought from the American Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately, I think the Iguanodon rightfully belongs to her. I'll be sad to see it go, because it's funny to make believe he's the Fonz and taunt the other dinosaurs. "Hey, sit on it T-rex."
  
• In light of the fact that no one is stepping forward and volunteering to iron my shirts for me, I need more space-age, futuristical no-wrinkle fabric shirts.
• I HATE washing my socks, cause then I have to match and fold them all.
  
• I think Darks McKnight would be a good alias for me.

Kansans

Things I thought and later remembered while watching the State of the Union address and the Democratic Response:

• I actually missed the first half of the State of the Union. And by missed, I don't mean in the sentimental sense
• Is Kathleen Sebelius, the governor of Kansas, really the best person to represent United States Democrats?
• Man, I'm bored
• Shouldn't Governor Sebelius have shutdown Kansas' Board of Education after they "intelligently" voted on the theory of creationism?
• Yawn
• I had no idea folks from Kansas were called Kansans. I always assumed they were called Kansasistanis, Kansasknights or Kentuckians.
• Later research has shown me where I can finally get a photo of this dreamboat to hang over my bed. They really should increase the contrast on the black and white image; it looks rather flat
• John McCain is really scary looking when he smiles, and his teeth are kind of buttery
• Maybe McCain stole Paul Wall's grill
• Did John really just say he appreciated George Bush's sincerity?
• Chocolate chunks, chips, or a fudge swirl really make chocolate ice cream more appealing to me
• Does anyone notice if you use the same State of the Union address a few years in a row, changing Iraq for Iran? (To "quote" Outkast, "Bombs over....Tehran?")
• The audience at the State of the Union address was a who's who, with Senators, House of Representatives, Supreme Court Justices, even Bob Dole. It reminded me of the scene in the Muppets Take Manhattan when Kermit married Miss Piggy, and the casts from the Muppets Show, Sesame Street and various other muppet related shows came out to celebrate. Oh look, there's Sweetums, Sam the Eagle, Gonzo and oh my gosh, even Bert and Ernie!!

Too Much Time?

Recently, while crudely writing a message from Dynamo to me on an orphaned sock in green permanent marker ("Me want c Hitman - Sherm") to prove my point that he wanted to see Hitman with me, I realized it's been 6 months since I've held a full time job, and I'm still managing to survive. But first, I realized I may have too much free time on my hands. I mean, not only did I have the time to engineer and carry out this masterful plot, but I was able to also blog about my exploits.

Minaya's Lasting Mistake

On Friday, Met's GM Omar Minaya decided to spice up the off-season with a boneheaded move, trading away 22-year old prospect Lastings Milledge for much older and scrubbier players, Ryan Church and Brian Schneider. Way to go!

Marty Noble, Mets beat writer who usually tells it how it is, claimed this falsity:

Milledge remains highly regarded because of his quick bat. But he wasn't as good a fit as Church for the Mets -- at least for 2008 and perhaps '09 -- because he bats right-handed. With Schneider, a left-handed hitter, catching and Church playing right field, the Mets now can have three switch-hitters (Jose Reyes, Luis Castillo and Beltran), two right-handed hitters (David Wright and Moises Alou) and three left-handed hitters (Carlos Delgado and the two new men) in their most regular lineup.

The Mets have trouble hitting lefties...the solution, apparently? Trade for a lefty who can't hit lefties. While Church hits well at Shea, he also hit .229 last year against LHP. At 29, he's in his prime, and that's the problem. A still developing Milledge will post similar numbers to him this year, at 7 years his junior.

In addition, the recently acquired Johnny Estrada is as bad an offensive option as Schneider, but cheaper by a million or two per year. While it's true that Milledge is a better center fielder than corner outfielder, judging by his remarkably superior play in center while filling in for Carlos Beltran, but won't get to play that position for many years, he's still a better option than Church.

Lastings was once mentioned in trades for Manny Ramirez, Roy Oswalt and Dontrelle Willis. Coming off a subpar year, Milledge's trade value had plummeted, but trading him for two scrubs has left the Mets without many bargaining chips. Or Utz chips for that matter. Lastings used to pick them up from the corner bodega on game day. Without proper nutrition derived from crab chips and without good young players, I'm afraid Minaya will be forced into signing subpar Livan Hernandez in an effort to corner the market on old Cuban pitchers named Hernandez.

Mr. Noble, bucking the trend of his fellow writers who denounced the trade, believes that both Schneider and Church will be good fits for the Mets, "the kind of players that make the whole greater than the sum of it parts." Sorry Marty, but sometimes crappy player plus crappy player really just equals a lasting mistake.

Black Boxes

Recently, Human Dynamo got a job as a software engineer at a company that manufactures radio frequencies and puts them into scanners so the supermarket can figure out how much that pear you want to buy costs. He admitted to me that he didn't really understand how RF works, but he doesn't need to; to him, it's a black box. The black box principle is explained in detial here: black box explained, in detail. I admitted to him, I didn't really understand how his job worked, so it was a black box to me, just like the whole black box principle was a black box to me.

It was with this intense scientific background that the following conversation more or less occurred Friday night when Dynamo somehow decided to discuss with me and his lady friend a problem he was working on at work.

Dynamo: So I'm working on this problem at work, and I'd really like to talk to ya'll about what I do every day, since I figure you two, with your sound scientific backgrounds, will understand quite easily. I'm trying to get this machine to emit something or other and so I need a clock pulse to make it happen. See, the way it works, is there's this digital signal. It looks a lot like a sine curve, or the graphs used on the back of transformers figures to denote power ratings, but they're square instead.

Then Dynamo made a drawing, showing us how you can fit a bunch of small, tiny digital signals in the space of a larger, digital signal. Whatever the peak sine thing is called, and all that. I'm still not quite sure why.

Me: Are you having trouble due to the black box theory?

Dynamo's lady friend: What's the black box theory?

Me: It's like when there's a cat inside a box, and you're not sure if it's dead or alive, but it probably isn't alive. Because live cats tend to crap everywhere and make a general mess of things. Or maybe that's Shroeder's principle. Which would probably help clear up the backyard problem.

Dynamo: No, that's not what it is, it's...

DLF: Oh, it's like back in math class, when you have a math problem, and it's 2 + box = 3, and you don't know what's in the box and it could be anything.*

Me: Well, it's always going to be 1, or some form of it at least, like 16 over 16. See, what it actually is, things go into a hypothetical black box, and then come out, and you don't know why they came out as they did or how, but it doesn't matter. You just know that it did. Kinda like a really complicated paper shredder or pasta maker where someone else put in the ingredients.

Dynamo: Ok, yes...well, at least you two didn't talk about parallelograms or wolves. So I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this, and while L Bo I know you're curious about why you can't just create the code once and copy it over and over, attenuator.

Me: What's an attenuator?

Dynamo: Also, actuator.

Me: ....?

Dynamo: It can be anything. It actuates things.

Me: So once you come up with the code, how do you add that onto the computer chip?

Dynamo: See, there's gates, and you can open or close different ones for a reason you won't understand. I use VHDL** to make the program, and then...well, since you probably already know how it's done, why don't you explain?

Me: Ok, so when you're done with all the programming, a giant stamper, similar to the flavor gun used on Cinnamon Toast Crunch, is used to impart all the knowledge onto each individual computer chip that is created, right?

At this point, we went off on a bit of a tangent and discussed the benefits of a stranger...which Dynamo kindly demonstrated the preparation for. Then proceeded to watch Tivo like a stranger. Dynamo's lady friend told us to stop being 7th graders. But honestly, 7th graders don't yet know about the stranger, as they're still infatuated with regular.

Dynamo brought the conversation back on track by explaining to me why a clock pulse was needed to time the increments that his machine emitted something or other, and what a clock pulse (which he had started to explain 2 hours prior at the beginning of the conversation) was.

Dynamo: Ok, well picture a clock...tick, tock, tick, tock.

Me: Oh, so it's like a clock. With a pulse. Hey, that's why they call it a clock pulse. Makes sense.

Dynamo, lying on the floor after falling off the couch: Ouch.

*DLF stands for Dynamo's Lady Friend. And she almost always speaks in mathematical symbols.

**"VHDL clearly stands for Voltron Hyper Markup Text Language," I knowingly interrupted with at that point.

Veggiestein

Last night for Hinduzilla's (thus named for his hinduism as well as propensity to swipe helicopters out of the sky and breathe radioactiveness on buildings) birthday we went to Vegetarian's Paradise 2. I was immediately struck by the large menu, that had many food choices...there was chicken dishes, beef, seafood, duck. But how could this be? Dynamo and I, in a show of our true intellect, were both perplexed every time we saw "crab" as an ingredient. Apparently, veggie-heads, as they often call each other, like to play god with their food. They take these vegetables that they so love, and create a Frankenstein like meat out of them. Soy becomes chicken nuggets, or some random protein on a sugarcane to resemble a drumstick, or slices of duck, complete with artificial skin on it. While completely indigestible by the average human body, these dishes were still rather tasty. Despite this, I think I'll remain omnivorous and get my protein the old fashioned, carnivorous way.

On Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce and Dogs

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a Happy Thanksgiving. Look, at least I didn't say Gobble Gobble, or Happy Turkey Day. The turkeys are definitely not happy that day...but they are kind of delicious. However, I tend to flock more towards the stuffing and the homemade cranberry sauce while saving room for the endless amounts of pies that always congregate on my aunt's table. This year, my plan was no different, though the pies didn't quite fulfill my expectations for them. There was a decent pear, a really good custard, a pecan that nobody wanted to eat, and some wack cakes.

The weakness of the dessert wasn't the only surprise this past weekend though. Every year, we head to my mom's sister's house in Medfield, Massachusetts. This year, we didn't need to use any tranquilizer darts on my mom on the ride up or back down. My 16-year old cousin, who in my mind is still 5 and holding a stuffed cloud leopard named Spot, is somehow one year away from graduating and 40 pounds heavier than me. Helping him get so large is a Powertec home gym my uncle bought for him, which is sturdier than most and runs on roll bearings instead of ball bearings, or so I'm told. There's another reason it's so sturdy: it looks like it was made from rejected Caterpillar parts. I swear, it's some sort of wack Constructicon, whose alternate form would be used by Starscream behind Megatron's back to get dynamite pecs in preparation for a coup. Lastly, but definitely not least importantly, I saw no bears on their land. Not that I ever have, but what's the point of owning land if you're not going to attract bears to hang out?

On the way back, my family stopped off at Petco to get some home improvements for my sister's hamster. I looked at pets to buy, but none were large enough to properly be awesome...until I happened upon a book about Rottweilers* and read that they will follow you all around the apartment, guard your stuff with intense courage, and will help you do laundry. An ideal pet if ever I'd heard of one. Logically, I set to work preparing for when I would own one by figuring out what his ideal name would be first. For your astonishment and reading pleasure, I've listed, in no particular order, the names I'm deciding from, thought of while riding shotgun.

• Thor - Obviously, the dog will have to prove himself by being able to lift Mjolnir. Shouldn't be a problem though.
  
• Dr. Doom
• Mo
• Gideon - If he has a proclivity for ham, pirates, lusty wenches and drinking out of the toilet.
• Jasper
• Bear - This doesn't even need explaining, and is tied for #1 choice right now with the Odinson.
  
• HoJo
• Wallace - This would only work if he's a goofy dog, like a sheepdog or something.
• Dwight Freeney - I already have a plant named after him, but that doesn't make it exclusive. If my dog is the best pass rushing dog, then he too can be named after Dwight.
• Rowlf or Ralph - This is a no-brainer if he's a St. Bernard. I named my childhood stuffed dog after Rowlf from the Muppets, but couldn't pronounce it, so he got Anglicized into Ralph.
• Grizzlebee
• Green Lantern
• Spector
• Moon Knight
• Biscuit
• Steve Rogers - Rottweilers are known to be courageous. And they could probably throw a vibranium shield.
• Clint
• Nomad
• Kodiak
• Cliff - After Method Man, not Clifford the big red dog
• Slick Rick - Also not after Clifford the big red dog
• Willis - I actually forget who this would be after
  
• Shea - To honor the Mets
  
• Colossus - To honor the X-Man
  
• Hercules - To honor the ancient Greeks
  
• Jax - To honor...actually, just cause
  
• Optimus
• Jerome
• Barksdale - Avon was a Golden Gloves champ and found with grenades, among much other contraband
  
• Bismarck - I think it's a little much to expect my rottweiler to be the father of modern Germany, but he should appreciate his heritage
  
• Richter
• Marino - Favre stole his record, this may make up for it
  
• Roscoe
• Bruno
• Wyatt
• Doc
  
• Koko B. Ware - I might not be able to resist naming him this, though it'll probably get him laughed at by more legitimate dogs who will frequently get to wrestle in more important matches than him. Time has not been kind to Koko, unfortunately, but apparently, the Birdman is flying again.
  

*Those that know me know that I call them Rockwilderz and believe they can fly. I just didn't want new readers to think I was weird. But, just think about how awesome that would be, for a minute.

Who Currently Holds the Dragon Star Belt?

In speaking with DJ about his Thanksgiving day plans, I think I discovered a fundamental flaw in the way my brain works.

DJ: Yo, call me Tsunami, cause I'm going to tear up thanksgiving dinner. I've been in training, and I'm gonna hit that hard.
Me: My thanksgiving dinners are more a marathon than a sprint man. Gotta train differently. Also, call me Machine, or Superstar.
DJ: *silence*
Me: We were discussing WMAC Masters again, weren't we?

Your Mom's the Speed Limit

A couple months ago, I received a traffic violation ticket for making a left turn onto a road that was left-turn prohibited until a certain time. I didn't see the sign until I was halfway through the turn and in the middle of the intersection. Not wanting to cause an accident, and because I really wanted to go left, I made the turn. Cops immediately pulled me over and notified me of the error of my ways. Eventually, I remembered to dispute the ticket and was granted my day in court.

Thinking it best not to drive to traffic court and worrying about metal detectors and other such delays, I Q-trained it over to the DMV in Coney Island where I ended up waiting for 20 minutes. About 25 of us entered a small room that had what I assumed to be a judge and a clerk, and sat on benches. The judge would call the offenders up one by one, ask them how they plead, let the officer state their case, and if they met their burden of proof, hear the offender's defense. While waiting, I got to be entertained.

"This is my cell phone bill from T-Mobile. You'll see I made no calls during that time. This is my only bill, and I can't have made this up, since it's from T-Mobile, and I don't make their bills. It wasn't a phone in my hand, maybe she saw me scratching my ear."
"She didn't see me do anything, because the car in front of me ran the stop sign, not me, and she made a U-turn so she couldn't have seen me."
"He was following me too closely. I was fine. He should have gotten the ticket for following too close, not me," said the lady, ticketed for following the car in front too closely, about the cop who gave her the ticket. Denial's a fine defense, but when you really want to make your point, turn it back on them. No, you're the one who is guilty!!

Finally it was my turn. The lady cop who was the partner of the male cop who had given me the summons wasn't prepared to argue her case. The judge refused her motion to reschedule, since I was a first time offender and had shown up, and dismissed my case. I wonder if showing up on time always yields such positive results. Freed from charges against me, I celebrated by jaywalking all the way back to the subway.

House Happenings

On a recent trip to Home Depot, I bought a bypass lopper and an axe. Or a hatchet. Which to be honest, they shouldn't have let me buy. I love the loppers. Don't make any Cyndi Lauper jokes, because I've heard them already. I go outside with them (not Cyndi) and I've successfully attacked a mulberry tree, an out of control rose of sharon, and trimmed back my elm tree. They're addictive though; once you feel those blades slicing through wood like it was room temperature butter and you've rolled out of the way to avoid the much larger than expected falling branch, you'll never want to stop. The hatchet, on the other hand, is quite difficult to use. I've managed to chop down some smaller tree-like things, but I'm no George.* I did have a scary moment when I swung and missed, towards my left thigh, but had the presence of mind not to attack myself. Dynamo and I will be taking down the trees later, lumberjack style, probably without any self-inflicted bodily harm. Once that's done, I'll keep the hatchet around to practice my weapon throwing skills, ward off annoying super-intendants, and as a cat deterrent.

*************************************************

Dynamo's lady friend made us merguez (not mirgaz, as originally believed) last night. Merguez is a ground lamb with an exoskeleton of plastic casing, found naturally in the wild. It grows on trees and is picked in the early morning, when it's freshest. Deliciously spiced, it can be used to make just about anything that has merguez as an ingredient. Dynamo and I, being adults and all, petitioned his lady friend until she made our merguez in the shape of a bear, bison and 4 point crown, using cookie cutters which had previously been neglected. I'm now refusing to eat any ground meats unless they've been prepared in an ursine shape.


*As in, "and the cherry tree."

Cutting off my nose to spite my face

As you may have heard on the streets, my mom is really anxious to buy me a winter jacket.* I'm really anxious for her not to. I feel like it's a waste of money, as I have a jacket from 2 years ago that's still in good shape. And by this, I mean it still looks and feels like a jacket, not that it's biceps are impressive. But apparently, especially when compared to my mom and sister, I'm weird for not wanting two to three jackets for every season. I've told her that I don't even need cold weather gear, because I don't even plan on leaving my apartment this winter. I may even hibernate from early January till mid-March. I realize this means I'd miss important and sacred holidays like President's day, but I'm willing to make sacrifices. Anyway, to prove my point (and not just cause I'm lazy and couldn't find anything to do) I didn't leave the apartment Saturday nor Monday, and Sunday only left to pull weeds in the backyard. Take that, mom!

*No, I'm not some little kid letting their mom buy things for me. But I'll be damned if I don't accept handouts!

Heat Check

I think there's something wrong with our heat. More specifically, Dynamo thinks there is, and he'd know before I would. He occupies the parlor level (fancy way of saying his ass is in the basement) of our lovely duplex and relies on the warmth provided by Keyspan energy and some science I won't even pretend to understand a lot more than I do. See, there's this rebellious theory going round that heat rises, and since I occupy the deluxe/main floor, I'm not yet feeling the chill. I'm not saying my temperature's tempura, but I'm mostly comfy. When the cold does set in, I warm up the room in the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly way possible; I turn on the lights in my room, throw on my jacket and leave the apartment. It's kind of like a heating lamp for lizards, and probably what they would do, if they had opposable thumbs, and could reach my light switch.

In the meantime, despite Dynamo's constant obsession with building things out of bamboo, there have been no panda visits. Bamboo flooring, bamboo glued together to make shelves, bamboo under the bed storage, bamboo roboot(s). Not a single panda. Not even a knock on the door, or an inquiry into the availability of pandaing in our apartment. Well, there's only so much luring we can do. I think we should take advantage of the temperature disparity in the house, and instead focus on renting the icebox lower level to more amiable folks who will appreciate the lengths we went to to make them feel accommodated. That's right, it's time to get polar bears!

New York Playa-hating Department

I hate the NYPD towing my vehicle policy. In addition, I've figured out their whole giving my van tickets policy is probably based on jealousy that pimp van is so awesome. I mean, pimp van has been described before as a "giant, white, metallic cheetah" minus whiskers and the ability to sustain its speed for longer periods of time. I'm fairly certain that pimp van can carry me across waters, much like when you try to float your covered wagon across the river in Oregon Trail (minus the possibility of losing a wheel or any oxen or getting diptheria). Finally, 5-0 be hating cause pimp van never has to wait in line at the club.

I could see how if you weren't friends with pimp van, his constant awesomeness would drive you to despair, but giving him tickets all the time for infractions of rules it's too cool for is just wrong. It'd be like telling Fonz not to turn on juke boxes or women by tapping them in the right spot. Not cool.

Anyway, earlier today I was supposed to pick up my mom from her job and she was going to graciously buy me a new, completely unneeded, winter jacket. This plan went horribly wrong when I went to feed the meter and my van was no longer there. Figuring I just couldn't remember where I parked him, I canvassed a few blocks, and when I came to the realization that he should have been where I originally thought, I searched for broken glass.* Finding none, I found out from a friendly uniformed officer that my van had been towed. This led me and my entire family on an adventure to the impound lot, which is always in an area rejected by the rest of humanity.

My mom, worried that the lot would close before we got there, suggested multiple times that I call and let them know I'm coming and to keep the lot open, until I assured her that it wasn't like a restaurant and they'd probably not be interested in taking my reservations. Under a highway and next to a cemetery was where they had kidnapped and brought pimp van to, and I had to ransom him out for 185 one dollar bills. To further insult me, the NYPD left a ticket on pimp van for more moneys. As Pkilla pointed out, I've donated enough to the department of finance in the last six months and they should give me this one for free, like a customer loyalty rewards program.

We ended up going to two different Macy's to find a jacket my mom was fairly insistent on getting me, despite me having never seen a photo of it. It wasn't at either one. To further complicate matters, after seeing photos I noticed it had a fur hood, which I'm vehemently opposed to unless I got to eat the rabbit first. My mom didn't understand this point, and assured me I could take the hood off, which seemed pointless to buy a fur-lined hooded jacket if you were then going to make the hood non-functional. This conversation/debate managed to rage on, in loop fashion, for quite longer than was necessary, but ultimately led me to the following conclusions:

• My parents, particularly my mother, is currently OBSESSED with not buying me a bear cub.
• She should just devote part of the time she spends on looking for a jacket for me on bear catching research.

*everywhere. Find me one person under the age of 35 who can resist saying that.

Justice should be served with real maple syrup

About 6 months ago, Dynamo got Xbox 360 for his birthday, ushering in his self-proclaimed AX age. We decided (or most likely just me, since it doesn't seem he had anything to gain from this) that whoever got 5 games first would own the Xbox, just as whoever gets 5 votes first in the Supreme Court gets to give the other side wedgies after taking away our privacy. For more recap, I suggest re-reading Justice For All.

Well, Dynamo got to 5 games a few weeks ago, but I've been in denial and am planning an appeal. His lady friend suggests a recount, which might involve trashing some of his wacker games. To be fair, that's all of them at this point. Plus, I play Xbox 360 a lot more than he does. Sure, some of that has to do with me "not really having to go to work," but so what? You take advantages where you can get them.

In the spirit of our old contest, I've started a blog war between us. See, Dynamo has been very productive as of late, adding new blogs and what not. At this moment, his 30 blogs eclipses my 28. But with this gem, I'll be at 29, and poised to overtake him. Unless, of course, I forget to write any, and he reads this first and starts to amass blog posting faster than I can. So expect many more, 3rd-rate or lower, words of wisdom from me in the coming weeks.

The first salvo has been fired.

New species discovered

By me. At the Staten Island Zoo. Before you get all uppity and claim that's not very scientific, how many of you have ever found the Staten Island Zoo (or even knew that much maligned borough had a wildlife conservation park) let alone seen a fossa in real life? That's what I thought. Just me, and I really need to work on not contradicting myself.

My sister and I, on our second recent zoo trip together, completed the 5 zoo circuit that is New York City. See my super scientifically rankings immediately below this sentence, after the colon:

1. Bronx Zoo - Variety of bears, tree kangaroo boxing events, constantly sleeping bear cats, overall hugeness, Jungle World and World of Darkness propel the Bronx to numero uno.

2. Propect Park Zoo - Proximity to my apartment (Brooklyn stand up!), kangaroos and wallabies that aren't prevented from crossing over into human land, and being NYC's second most unknown zoo.

3. Central Park Zoo - Snow monkeys are always playful, but never seem to jump on and ride the swans in the water; neurotic polar bear and the rain forest exhibit with birds flying over your head should propel this zoo to 2, but it's not near me and I've always felt it could be and should be better.

4. Queens Zoo - Black bears and sentimental childhood memories along with recent reconstruction and a decently kick ass aviary prevent this from being the worst, though it is quite tiny.

5. Staten Island Zoo - Nobody even knows this zoo exists, and they probably won't until it finishes reconstruction to match the brand new Reptile House. Rare animals like fossas and the ability to stick your fingers inside the wire fence at the Amur Leopard exhibit, plus mostly emptiness during the week, make this a decent choice.

However, all NYC zoos and aquariums are better than...

6. The Mystic Aquarium is a total ripoff for $22 dollars or whatever it is. Rather than taking a trip there with your family, save your money and, on a visit to Chicago, check out their Aquarium. Or, buy some goldfish for your children.

Sorry, once I started reviewing things I got carried away.

To see more images of cute zoo animals, visit my flickr page. Seriously, this is well worth your time.

Nexter (a.k.a. Professional Movie Review #2)

The older I get, the more I find I have in common with my sister. Sure, when we were young, we both liked the staples: pudding, puppies and Saved by the Bell. As adults, our connection has matured as befitting adults: making fun of our parents, liking the same music...and pudding and puppies. One aspect that is never the same is taste in movies. She likes horror and bad action (along with some good movies) and I don't. Mostly because horror movies make me hide under my sheets with my shotgun under my pillow and my bed wrapped in barbed wire to keep out unholy things of the night.

It was with some trepidation I agreed to watch "Next" (starring the unbelievably beautiful Jessica Biel and the equally unbelievably hideous-with-long-hair Nicolas Cage). I didn't need to hear reviews that it was a shitbomb to know instinctually that it was going to be so. But it was this or 23, which would probably give me nightmares. Mostly because I'm terrified of prime numbers.

The premise is that Nicolas Cage, a 2 bit magician, really has actual super-powers and can see what's going to happen in his life 2 minutes into the future. Except, when it comes to Jessica Biel, he can see much further into the future. So, with this awesome power he has, he bets in casinos to make extra money, but not too much, trying to fly beneath the radar, hiding in plain sight. Much like Zatanna did. His exploits lead him to be pursued by FBI agent Julianne Moore, who hopes to use his talent to discover where a nuclear bomb, slated to blow up LA (not the worst thing in the world?), is being held.*

So we go through an hour of the movie, watching "Chris Johnson" escape from people chasing him, bending to tie his shoe at the exact right moment, and generally confounding the authorities. An hour, one of the most painful in my life, goes by in this fashion, during which he also meets Jessica Biel in a diner. Oh, right. He sits in that diner every day, twice a day, drinking a martini for some time before she actually shows up because he has no idea when she's actually going to come. This is creepy. But apparently, not to her, not for long, because when asked to turn him in to the FBI, she hesitates and tells him about it, saving him from being drugged and being all in love with him.

I want to deal with one of the largest issues of the entire movie. It's not the awful acting, or the stupid plot line, or even the fact that there's no action until the last 20 minutes, and even then it's not good. It's Jessica hooking up with Nicolas being more unbelievable than Seth Rogen getting Katherine Heigl in "Knocked Up" (which, by the way, was way too long). I mean, at least Seth is funny, and him and Katherine are around the same age. Definitely the same species. Nicolas and Jessica is at best Beauty and the Beast, and at worst, possibly interspecies romance. I hope he was growing his hair out to make Con Air 2, and not just to prove to people he'll look stupid just cause he can. This is the classic scenario of hideous older man gets beautiful younger woman, usually played out by David Caruso and anybody else.

During Jessica teaching Native American children in the Grand Canyon, one of the kids observes that good ol' Nic likes her, because he's looking at her like her brother looks at his girlfriend. Pan to shot of Senor Cage staring creepily at Jessica. I wouldn't call the look love...it looks more like he's just tasted his Fixodent for the first time and didn't really like it so much. This probably also goes back to the whole bad acting point I kind of glazed over. Don't get me wrong, Nicolas Cage was totally badass in Con Air and Face/Off, and did his part at being a total loser in the lovable hit The Rock, but he has 2 expressions...normal/intense for no reason, and normal/slightly less intense with smile.

Anyway, Jessica gets kidnapped, Nicolas goes with the FBI, they find the terrorists, and kill them all and save Jessica and then, right before the nuclear bomb goes off, Nicolas Cage exclaims he was wrong about something. Not fully explained. Speaking of, I just realized, when did they ever make it into LA? Anyway, the whole thing turns out to be him looking into the future from when he's lying in bed after failing to satisfy Jessica and she's softly weeping to herself that she actually made this movie. I kind of sensed something was up when she said something, and his eyes opened wide, and then the movie kept going, until you find out that everything that happened in the 1/2 hour didn't actually happen in real life, and he's back at that moment and can decide to change the future. Then, in an infinite wisdom moment, the director or writer decided to end the movie with Cage going off with Moore, not actually giving us a real ending. The whole thing left me wishing that I had his ability, and that hour and a half hadn't actually happened and I was still standing with the disc in front of the DVD player, wondering if I should put it in or just punch myself in the brain for a while.**


*Read more about the plot summary

**Much like you're probably doing now after reading this.

Ode to my pumpkin

Driving through upstate New York today with my dad in a 14 foot UHaul truck to collect furniture from a deceased lady's estate for my parent's apartment that has absolutely no chance of fitting, or fitting in with the current furniture either, I noticed that apple and pumpkin season had come upon us. This made me both happy and sad. Happy because I love apples, apple picking, apple pies, apple cider and apple fests. Pumpkins too. But sad because I know I'll never find a pumpkin as beautiful as the one I had 2 years ago. It was large, but not in the over the top porn-style of prize winning pumpkins, smooth and a beautifully rich, deep red-orange color. Best of all, it had a tattoo on the side that said "Boo" to frighten off crows and little children who wanted my candy. I better get started, because I'll probably end up having to visit 4 or 5 patches.

I'm so fashionable

Since June, I've been freelancing. Which includes playing video games, sleeping in, watching Scrubs 4 to 6 times a day, and complaining about how the feral cats in my backyard bring down my quality of life. In my spare time, I collect back-pay from the New York State Dept. of Labor and hope jobs will fall in my lap. These include digital tech, when I go on a shoot with a photographer and art director, hook a camera up to a laptop, and tell them the photos all look good, and doing color correction and retouching for photographers I made contacts with at my old job. It's been swell, and I haven't been too stressed out.

That is until I picked up a job with a fashion photographer named J. Castle Greyskull.* She had placed an ad on Craigslist looking for people who had worked at my company and a few others; I answered, and one short interview that involved playing Spartacus' favorite game (try to bite whatever part of me is near his teeth)**, I was hired. The job involved 10 hour a day shifts, editing and slight color correcting photos at Fashion week. Visions of beautiful models crowding around my laptop and offering to rub my broad shoulders flowed through my mind.

The vision started to blur a little and the women seemed less attentive to that knot in my back on arrival. I was greeted by 6 plus foot tall giraffe women, each weighing maybe 24 pounds, handing out copies of Metro. These weren't even the runway models, yet they made me look fat! Next, everything came to a sudden halt when I realized I was going to be spending 8 hours out of every day sitting in the Kinko's next to Bryant Park with a mostly incompetent partner (and next to a guy playing some first person shooter from the 90's) followed by more hours in Greyskull's apt. with her assistant, Judy Judgemental. Who was a flamboyant gay man who spent as much time as possible discussing how fat Britney was at the VMAs, anal bleaching, and how he didn't have an original opinion of his own. Wow, was this job turning out to be fun.

After 4 days, working 12-13 hours per day plus 3 hours of travel round trip, I ended up getting sick. It was after this that I complained that 13 hours is not the same as 10 and the photographer and her cowering minions laughed at me. Two days later, I had quit from coughing and overt surrounding crappiness. I was blissfully sick for another week, but at least had no reason to leave the apartment.

I realized something then. I'm willing to put up with a lot (such as 18 hour work days when I was in St. Maarten) in pursuit of something I want to do. Greyskull had some terrific connections. Still, I couldn't imagine myself cornering a celebrity and, along with 12 other vultures, asking them to swivel their heads my way "one more time" seventeen times more.


*Part of that name is real. You figure it out.

**Spartacus is a dog.

It's RAIDing on my umbrella (of data storage devices)

Tonight I decided I needed to understand how RAIDs work, so I went to whom wikipedia's technology section would be if it was ever actualized in 3 dimensions: Human Dynamo.

"Dynamo, I do not understand. How do RAIDs work? I'm all confused, cause I thought a RAID was one thing, and it turns out if could be many different things...well, let me use an apt metaphor to describe it. It's like if you see an animal, and you tell someone 'I just saw a grey wolf outside' and they know exactly what you mean. But then you find out people use the word grey wolf like they use the word canine, and so what you saw could have meant red fox, grey wolf, dog, hell even dingo, to many different people."

*stunned silence from Dynamo*

Dynamo's lady friend: "No, I completely understand. It's like when you're in school, right, and your teacher tells you that a square is a parallelogram, but just because something is a parallelogram doesn't mean it's a square."

*High fives for the assist on the metaphor and explanation. Understanding is key to any good relationship.*

"Ok, but that's not...something about a grey wolf could also be a female or a male...so you see," Dynamo possibly said.

"No, Dynamo, that is completely incorrect. Whether it's female or male, it's still a grey wolf," I scientifically explained. "Also, in hindsight, I would like to tell you that there's no way you should get close enough to a live wolf to tell if it's male or female," I said, thinking ahead.

"See, L-Bo, a RAID IS* a bunch of drives all working together like you thought, but there can be different arrays and setups: mirrored, stripey-striped, mirror-stripey-striped and parity check.**"

"Dynamo, despite me being a 12th level intellect, and stunningly handsome, I do not understand."

"Ok, let's say there's a bunch of wolves, and they're out hunting in a pack..."

"WHOA, WHOA!! Why did you go with wolves, and not parallelograms? Huh??!!" Said an angry Dynamo's lady friend.

"Because, silly, parallelograms don't hunt in packs. They prefer to go the solo route."

"Oh, now I understand. Thanks L Bo," said a mollified and still anti-hyphenation Dynamo's lady friend.

"Anyway," began Dynamo, vainly trying to refocus the conversation, "let's say the wolves are out hunting bucks. Big buck hunting, if you will."

"Wolves don't hunt bucks," said a quite contrary D.L.F.

"No, they do." Said I. Quite succinctly.

"Well, a striped array would be like if one wolf went this way, and the other kind of flanked him, and this one went after the buck first and then this one followed."

"Okkkkk. I don't get it," said I, not getting it.

Eventually it was all explained, making me expert enough to write this article for you all to fully understand how a RAID worked, what it does and why they're so important. In case you need further details, however, go here: RAID.



*Is is just capitalized, IS does not stand for anything. RAID on the other hand stands for Redundant Array of Independent Drives.

**Note: I put no actual research into this and just kind of wrote things I thought I remembered.

Commitment to weddings

Mr. Mario Fontana and Ms. Brooke Aldrich exchanged vows and last names (well, except Mario, who stubbornly kept his own) in what was a beautiful ceremony of matrimony and commitment this weekend. Or so I heard. See, I wasn't actually at their wedding. My reasons were threefold, as I explained to many a perturbed wedding fan:

1. I'm here for the free booze only, who are Mario and Brooke?
2. I got an image to maintain... so I do what I do.
3. Jews can't go inside churches, especially Catholic churches. When I tried, it burned.

The truth of the matter was i had the wrong address and got crazy lost, traveling all 4 cardinal directions in my quest to arrive only moderately tardy. That's what happens when the directions tell you to make a left at the intersection, followed by a right on to the street YOU WERE JUST ON! The good news, of course, was my early arrival to the wedding reception, which featured lasted for thirteen hours. Or, at least pouring alcohol down my throat did. I wasn't the only one to miss the ceremony; a friend also missed it, as he was changing into his fancy clothes. Either the vows weren't that long, or he has problems putting on his pants in pressure situations.

Luckily, I have many terrific photos of the wedding reception to preserve it in my memory. You can see all 3 below.





Mario seemed to have the opposite camera problem as I. He decided that when he wasn't getting somehow paler in Hawaii on his honeymoon, he'd read Harry Potter and post all his photos from that day on Facebook. That's some dedication man.

Physics may finally be foiled! (subtitle: research gone astray)

It's no secret that I've been mad for about 2 years now. I don't mean steaming, ready to punch someone in the throat mad. It's more of a low level, constant frustration. The cause? You guessed it, that nasty no-goodnik, Physics. Sure, it reared it's ugly head in 10th grade, when I battled a mostly senile knight who tried to trick me using trajectories of imaginary balls thrown in the air. But it wasn't until 2 years ago that I realized the full extent of this diabolical science when it was pointed out to me Physics was behind one of the biggest travesties of all: namely, my inability to shoot lasers from my eyes.

It was while surfing the internet (note how the title is cleverly tied in to the rest of the story here) that I came across this story: Scientists reveal secret of levitation. Hoping against hope that it had nothing to do with David Blaine, I scoured the article in order to provide a summary for you non-science types who wouldn't be able to understand otherwise:

By using groundbreaking methods, scientists hope to destroy the evil Casimir force, long hated by men in ruffled white lab coats for its almost 50 year refusal to be measured. Furthermore, after watching geckos with malfunctioning toe pads get forcefully repelled away from their glass aquarium walls, these scientists realized that harvesting this mystical force would be beneficial and enable them to levitate tiny objects.

The most enlightening of all, however, was this exact quote from the article: "Scientists have discovered a ground-breaking way of levitating ultra small objects, which may revolutionize the design of micro-machines, a new report says." While Micro Machines haven't been manufactured in the US in quite some time, new models still come out in the far off land known as Europe, which means speed speaker record holder John "Mightymouth" Moschitta, Jr., should be psyched. And, as this can only mean having a green hard light projecting ring powered by willpower is only a few years away, so am I. So am I.

Rock the Bells, yo

This past Saturday I, along with 3 of my cohorts, made the trek to Randall's Island for the 2007 Rock the Bells festival (sponsored by SanDisk, Heineken, Port-A-Potties and the Get Busta Rhymes Lots of Legal Help Fund). The 2-stage lineup was mostly hip-hop oriented, with Rage Against the Machine headlining. I held my head when the beat dropped for Mos Def and Talib Kweli, listened to Flavor Flav blather on about something or other, learned what it meant to be a rock superstar with Cypress Hill, faked dancing to the Roots and threw my W's up for the Clan. Arriving later in the afternoon, I had missed Pharoahe Monch, EPMD, Jedi Mind Tricks and unfortunately Immortal Technique.* Fortunately, that also meant I missed David Banner. Even though my arrival was tardy, I still had plenty of time to conduct research. I was able to prove my theory that high priced rap festivals (according to one rapper, where hip hop lives and not one of those fake hot 97 concerts) are THE place to go if you want to see drunk, shirtless white guys stumbling around.

***
I recently got new glasses, which I was all psyched for. The nice lady at the glasses store told me they were revolutionary, trendy ahead of their time and looked great on me, and recommended them over a more expensive pair. I was hooked and tried them on multiple times. Having picked them up last week, I realized one fatal error I made in judgment: I can't see out the sides of either eye due to a protruding ear piece in the way. This was abundantly clear when I had to yank them off hastily while driving. If these are my "horse blinders," then what the hell was I wearing when I first looked at them?

***
Someone I live with who isn't me recently made a huge, horrible, awful, unforgivable mistake. They bought Aquafresh's Berry Fresh flavor toothpaste. "But L-Bo, what's the big deal? You routinely devour blue, black, rasp, and gooseberries, and love being fresh (to death nothin less)." The big deal is this toothpaste is vile. It's the worst thing I've ever tried to brush my teeth with, it's the Keystone Ice of minty teeth cleaning supplies, and it belongs in the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans box.

***
In light of this article, I got to wondering: is Pacman a troubled football player who may wind up in a jail, or a terrific criminal who sometimes plays defensive back?


*Immortal Technique, aka Felipe, was the terror of the high school playground. I fondly remember Anthony Roque fondly retelling the time he stood up to Felipe. "He was going to put me in the garbage can, but I was like 'nah,' and I jumped in myself. Take that, Felipe!" Now, Immortal Technique is getting shoutouts from Zachk de la Rocha and the only thing he's kickin is nasty rhymes. Word.

St. Lucia Vol. 3 - Back to the Future

In honor of Pkilla's birthday that I managed to miss while stalking crabs on beautiful tropical beaches, I'm going to predict the events of the last day of my trip. This is no easy task, mind you, as I'm figuring out what will happen...in the FUTURE!!

I see...catastrophe. Yes, it's not quite clear what will happen, but I detect broken glass (everywhere) and a sweet smell. There's much buzzing about the place, but for Human Dynamo, there will be nothing sweet.

My bag will be so heavily laden with delicious LLB that it will take 7 porters to carry it 3 feet, and then they'll have to rest. So worth it.

Psychically, I'm deducing I'll spend the short plane ride from St. Lucia to San Juan exactly as I would hope...by reading about Genghis Khan's treasure and lost tomb, and sleeping. Then, I'll have mediocre mexican food at the airport terminal, and on the flight back I'll watch a movie that I will later forget all about.

Despite my best efforts to recreate the Caribbean feel by constantly saying "ye, man," something will feel amiss. Perhaps losing my minority status?

St. Lucia, Vol. 2 - Are You For Scuba?

Things in list form (and not just because I'm too lazy to make proper paragraphs that somehow flow well):

- St. Lucians don't really celebrate the 4th of July. So rather than draping ourselves in the American Flag, setting off fireworks and eating hotdogs, we ate sugar cane and watched Monk. O yeah, and draped ourselves in the St. Lucian flag.

- Sugar cane is amazing! Unfortunately, it evolved so that white people can't eat it. I had to get a waiter to cut mine and then hire a guide to teach me how to eat it. You don't want to swallow the fibrous parts, apparently.

- It's impossible not to watch ALF or Different Strokes once you know they're on!!

- There's many different kinds of mangoes. None of them are called by their real name by St. Lucians, who insist on naming things in their native Creole and then speaking that language, too. Very inconsiderate, guys.

- Despite mangoes being so plentiful that it was impossible to walk on a trail without one falling into your hand at the exact moment you were hungry or thirsty, no country in the Caribbean is actually a world leader in growing them. That honor falls to India, by a huge margin too.

- On Friday, it's Fish Fridays down in Anse le Reye and up in Gros Islet. Mistakenly believing Anse le Reye to be where we snorkeled the previous day, we had a less enjoyable experience, swimming through silt, getting dragged towards large rocks by the current and seeing (but not freaking out about at all) what we mistakenly believed to be a sea snake . Of course, when I calmed down and gave it some real thought, I realized, as everyone knows, that although sea snakes ARE poisonous, there are none in the Caribbean despite many sightings, and it was more likely a snake eel, or even a snake that decided to go for a quick dip. I also befriended a local fisherman named Leroy, who noticed our two names were remarkably similar. After this stunning revelation, he told me how he captured some fishes named BLAOW (ok, actually, ballaowoo) and if I was staying longer, he'd cook them up for me. The story unfortunately has a sad ending, as I walked around the cookout asking if anyone had ballaow, and no one did. After, we went up to Gros Islet, which was a lot more happening, rowdier and with better and cheaper food, but shitty music that you could hear on Z100.

- Everyone in St. Lucia loves Rihanna's Umbrella song.

- Back to fruit knowledge. Supermarkets in St. Lucia carry ripeness charts for bananas, detailing 9 different levels of ripeness and giving colors. That's just being thorough.

- Sunblock is invaluable if you're pale.

- Human Dynamo was able to get everyone on the island to either feed us in their home or volunteer to drive us wherever we wanted to go. Such are the benefits of being St. Lucia's favorite son and not having been back there in 20 years. Family as well as friends of the family treated us to amazing home cooked meals and provided fantastic company, taking me in and treating me like HD's actual brother. My plate overflowedeth with mangoes, plantains, lobster and local fish, and my cup with LLB, aka nectar of the gods. I even learned a patois phrase: ve sala ca plae wae (not actually spelled that way) which means the glass is dirty. Technically, it means the glass is crying (probably gets teased a lot for being dirty) and it was the ONLY creole phrase to stick with me.

- Much of the island's tourist attractions are, oddly enough, built for tourists. But not the cool kind. More the pasty, over-privileged European/middle-American caricatures of tourists in movies from the 1970s kind. The tropical rainforest walk wasn't a hike, but a path carved out, covered in stones. The loud crunching that occurs while walking on the path all but guarantees you won't see any cool wildlife except for omnipresent lizards who have no fear.

- Our rainforest tour guide took us in a sky air-car-thingy (probably called a gondola, but trying to keep the romance out of it) to see the canopy and all the cool tropical trees and some birds. I learned that everything in the rainforest* has medicinal purposes and can be used by science to help cure people. If they're suffering from impotence. Because EVERYTHING in St. Lucia is used to help men have sex. There's not a single female sex aid. But passionfruit? Good for the erection. Sea-moss, which can't even be a real thing? Good for the erection. Turtle penis or shell or whatever part they have? Good for the erection. Tree bark of any tree with leaves and branches and bark? Good for the erection.

- The sulfur springs are hot and really smelly. Nothing can survive in the area. Or so we were told. I definitely saw large, stone like creatures moving about and trying to hide. But I know what I saw.

- "Bus" "drivers" in St. Lucia are something to be avoided for long trips. For your average Rodney Bay to Castries trip, definitely pay the 2 EC and get in and watch Soca videos with your bus driver and try to refrain from asking him to watch the road instead of the new Soca video. Nobody likes a back seat driver. However, for longer trips, like say to Soufriere, stay the hell away from the buses. Not only do you have to sit in a bus and wait 2 hours for the driver to get enough victims in his death machine, but then you have to suffer through hairpin turns. I don't get car sick, but when I looked out the window while driving through St. Lucia's ridiculously omnipresent hills/mountains and saw only 3 of the wheels were firmly on the ground, I got a little worried. Sharp curves are not the place to pass on 1.5 lane roads, and not having guard rails on the side is not a dare to see if you can slip over the edge. I later found out we had the worst driver in St. Lucia (yelp.com???). I refused to drive back along the route, threatening to whole up in Soufriere for the duration of the trip. We met up with a friend of HD's mom at the Diamond Falls and she told us if we ran through the entire garden and only quickly glanced at the falls, we might barely be able to meet her and get on her boat tour for free or close to it. We didn't make it. Luckily, we found a friend of Dynamo's cousin named Ghost** who was the guide on another catamaran. Next paragraph, please!

- Ghost welcomed us on board with open arms that each held alcoholic drinks for us. We traveled to Anse Concho and went snorkeling. Coral and tiny colorful fish were everywhere, and it was beautiful. Peaceful, too, if you forgot about the 7 other identical boats docked there. Funny story about that...we didn't know it was our boat leaving, so we raced to shore, legs cramping up despite our Olympic swimmer abilities, ran across the sand to return our snorkeling equipment and swam back out to the boat, which had forgotten we were on it. And then I bought a conch shell.

- To read actual detailed stories of what we did and see some photos, read HD's many trip summaries here. It's well worth it. But come back to my blog at some point too, so I don't get lonely.

*By rainforest, our tour guide meant all of St. Lucia and probably the whole Caribbean too.

**Actually, probably nicknamed Ghost

St. Lucia, Vol. 1 - A New Beginning

Me and Dynamo's trip to St. Lucia started off super promising. I was well rested from my 3 hours of sleep and in a very good mood when I stepped outside in the inky black of 4 AM to see our cab not in front of the apartment. After all that, there's nothing like the invasive fluorescent lights while waiting on a line at the airport. Nothing, except perhaps being told there's a mechanical problem on the flight, we can't take off yet, the engineer's in the cabin signing some papers and we're going to miss our connecting flight in San Juan. Oh, did I forget to mention the airport security thought my camera's batteries were a magazine for a gun, and all i could think of to say was sorry?

All bad feelings disappeared once we actually made it on to the 2 PM (wait, actually 3 PM since the plane was delayed) stand by flight, met Dynamo's brother (who seemed like a character off 21 Jump Street), were picked up by Dynamo's friend and didn't actually crash when his friend took his eyes off the road when HD demanded cash payouts. Yes, according to him, St. Lucia was basically one giant ATM machine.

We stayed at the Bay Gardens Hotel, deciding to go with a locally owned and run hotel rather than one of those ubiquitously invasive resorts that all the tourists go to (there's a reason it rhymes with Vandals). Arriving to find our twin beds clearly separated, a tropical motif and an A/C that kept out St. Lucia's humidity, we started to unpack.
"I think I will unpack my clothing and put it in the closet so it is well organized and nothing wrinkles."
"I don't think there's anywhere to hang them though."
*checking the closet* "There's hangars man. Like," *counting,* "11."
"So what, like 10?"
"Are you retarded?"
"Maybe. Does it help me?"

After that clever exchange, we headed to the beach, as we had info from our reliable CI that's where the party was. And she was right. Or it could have been he was. If by party, she meant really really dark night with some tourists partying at an overpriced resort and nobody else around. We took a nice, non-romantic stroll up and down the beach, chasing smaller crabs and running like crazy from larger crabs since they'll attack with them claws. It was during this time that I managed to get a shot of the previously elusive (and possibly unheard of) St. Lucian Loch Ness Monster. We also kept hearing this really weird noise, as if there were birdbats* around, which was explained to us by friendly hotel staff as "what we call crickets here." So, they clearly weren't crickets. Using my clever sense of deduction and realizing that lucians call bananas figs (which are clearly much smaller) I extrapolated "crickets" must be Mothra, or at least something comprable. Vacations are a lot more fun when not petrified of encountering giant flying insects.

*"What are you, some sort of weird half-bird, half-bat?"
"No, I'm 100% batbird!"

LLB for the L - B - O

I came across the most delicious drink in St. Lucia, called Lemon, Lime and Bitters. You'd think this would be a Caribbean version of Sprite, but you'd be wrong. Mostly because you, like everyone else in the world, has absolutely no idea what bitters are. The real problem was, despite the abundance of the drink, it was impossible for me to ever get one, because this conversation kept taking place:

Do you have any LLB?
What?
LLB
*confused look, silence*
Ya know, Lemon Lime and Bitters
*more confused look and more silence*
Random good Samaritan: He wants an LLB
OHHH, LLB. Yea man.

After this exchange, I'd end up with an LLB, so I could never be too upset. Plus, I bought a whole bunch and snuck them through customs (haha, a little joke US government, haha), so now, I don't even have to ask for one. I can just take it out the fridge.

Hence, Cuteness Ensues

This morning, I found 2 kittens curled up outside with a larger cat, presumably their mother. But most likely, their body guard cat, like Heathcliff used to have.

I wondered how the mother cat already had kittens, since 6 months ago she was well tiny herself. This line of questioning ended when I saw the kittens playing around my tomato plants. The tabby managed to climb in and sit in one of the pots, which caused the grey one to try and pull the tabby out by it's tail. This chain of events caused me to form my "kittens are easily tricked by dimensions and barriers in regards to semi-translucent materials" theory, which I also then proved. On the spot.

This whole cuteness saga also led me to finally realize the synergy between kittens and tomatoes when Tab the tabby (named after the soda) curled up around my tomato, sheltering him from wind and providing vital love minerals for the fruits to grow.