Tear him for his bad verses

“Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.” (Kurt Vonnegut)

But surely that also applies to those who rage against the review? I know, somebody read this post back to me in a few months’ time...

PS: And look! A respectable reason for non-gynaecologists to read Playboy!

Coming attractions

Crikey.

not to mention

Ooh, I say.

I could floss with that girl.

Randomly, (nearly) the rest of my New York pictures! We spent the last few days in Brooklyn with Emily & Gene. Sunday we set out for Williamsburg, in search of foodie. Luckily the area was not as yuppie-saturated as we'd been warned.

We got a little turned around at first, and happened upon this place...



We're pretty sure the bakery sign is for laughs...at least we sure didn't see any bread. They had some really great prints and books, though. Emily got me a great print for my birthday and I got Sophia a cool book for her upcoming 5th birthday.

Then it was off to the Brooklyn Brewery...



They had some really great beers; between the three of us I think we managed to sample most of them (esp the unusual ones). We had a small tour over here by the tanks, where they told us about the history of the place.



We saw this board by the tanks as we left the tour, and it amused me, so I took a picture.



Turns out, Monster is their resident mouser! I met him later, but forgot to snap a photo. He was a great cat, but his fur was incredibly filthy! Someone liked rolling in the dirt...

The goal was to find some incredible Brooklyn pizza, so we headed into Manhattan on the trains so we could walk back across the Brooklyn Bridge, where one of better pizza haunts lives.





It was really scenic; there were lots of people but it was never annoyingly crowded. That's Manhattan we're leaving behind. It's rush hour at this point, so all that traffic is heading out, too.



If you look to the left of the city, you can see Lady Liberty!



More Manhattan!



We made it into Brooklyn and got in line at Grimaldi's Pizza. If you enlarge the pic, you can see a green awning way up there. That's the entrance. It was an hour and a half wait (we discovered the hard way), but it was actually worth it!!



I had my usual cheese, the other half was pepperoni. The pepperoni itself was unlike any I'd ever had before. I could have eaten it for days. The pizza itself was made with slices of cheese, rather than shredded. It made a huge difference in taste. I never thought I'd meet a pizza significantly different from the rest (I mean, come on, y'know?), but this was worth the wait.

Apparently it's one of the handful of places left with original coal ovens. (They all tend to burn down.) The old places are grandfathered in, but it's illegal now in the rest of the city.

The place is small inside, so we opted to take our pizza down to the pier.



It was getting to be sunset, so it was very pretty. We hung out for a little longer then hopped back on the trains for the short ride home.



We stayed in that evening; some of their friends had just gotten back from overseas travel. It was nice to sit for the evening and not walk everywhere! (Walking isn't so bad, but the heat was pretty impressive considering the time of year.)

Emily and Isis relax...



...and Chazz does some of his famous burrowing...you can see his little eyes!



The next day we spent in Park Slope, which was gorgeous, but will have to be another post!

No, you did NOT shoot that green shit at me!

Wow, thank you, Veloute. This is...unreal.



I really don't know if this is real, I think it might be. Keep watching, it continues to top itself. NSFW, to say the least.

The wrong sort of clever

“...a thinly veiled comment about how important it is to wrap things up nicely - to write only what you can write in the duration of a Sats exam.”

I think I’ve found the story that encapsulates what’s wrong with education in the UK. Read this.

I like Dickache.

Whoops, kinda neglected this for a while...

Hooray! Had a great birthday this past weekend. Spent the evening at The Granada in Dallas to see a couple bands, and even ate cheese fries at Snuffer's next door beforehand. Shh. But they're so tasty...



(photo credit, Bill Ellison; I didn't want to drag my Rebel around that night, but this was my view!)

One of my favorite local bands, Odis, was headlining, which meant I got to hear absolutely everything on the record (yes, I just said "record," that's how old I am) and the couple faves I have that haven't been recorded yet. It was a great last show--they go on tour now and I'm outta here in two weeks. And of the three bands before, The Campaign was my favorite. I bought their album...only five songs, but quite good! (And also only $5.)

Sunday was very relaxing, spent at the theater. I finally got to see Up in 3D (which I can't really see due to my eyes--strabismus and all--it's mild but it messes with my depth perception) and thought I'd see what the big to-do about The Hangover was all about.



Up was really cute--I think it was pretty sentimental and intense for younger audiences (I could be crazy), but I did enjoy it. (And JESUS, that ten minute montage designed to kick you in the emotional nads...thanks, Pixar.) But certainly worth the matinee price.



The Hangover was certainly funny in parts...on the whole I thought the performances were great (I know, I was pretty surprised myself), but the writing and story just had almost zero effort. Like after the concept they just hoped it would write itself. The two inspired scenes were the photos over the end credits and the initial morning-after scene. Whoever got to deck out the hotel room obviously had a lot of fun.

It was good to see ex-Daily Show correspondent Ed Helms in something big box office. (And it was fun to see him get to be a guest on the show a couple weeks ago, too.)

Also saw Public Enemies opening night, but that will have to be another post! D seems to have gotten temporarily desperate, since he is out watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as I type. You take what Denton gives you.

Putting yourself about

Well, the year’s half done, and it’s customary at times like this to start beating yourself up and griping about all the New Year resolutions you haven’t kept and how you just haven’t achieved anything so far and how life is slipping away and it’s like a record and you’re edging towards the play-out groove and the record seems to be speeding up 33-45-78 and you still haven’t worked out what the tune is.

Well, bollocks to that. I’ve done rather a lot so far this year. And there’s more to come. So there.

But what I haven’t done, for several years, is a job. I mean, a proper, salaried, where-do-you-see-yourself-in-five-years, office party, annual evaluation job job. I sort of miss it. Maybe I should have another go. Except that I’m crap at selling myself (or anything else, for that matter), so I’m rather in awe of people like this:


(by xkcd)