SeattleCasbah.Com

Hoopfest 2006

Fuuuun weekend in Spokane. I went to my fourth Hoopfest along with two coworkers, Adam and Zach. Its a good experience for them, not just because its hoops, but also because it gives them some time outside of work with Patrick, our VP.

We did well - 2-2 in our bracket, which is 1 game more than 80% of the teams got. More importantly, Hoopfest is my unofficial whistle beginning the summer. 90 and sunny in Spokane, I returned to a Seattle in the midst of an unprecedented June heatwave. Hoops, hiking, camping...its time to play outside!

Milk was a baaaad choice...

Officer #623-5927, I have a healthy respect for the law. I appreciate what you go through and how your life is on the line every day to make sure that people like me can live our lives. What you do is beyond my comprehension and I am thankful that there are people out there who do what you do. So please understand where I'm coming from when I say that you are an complete asshole.

You see, my friend took me out on a belated birthday celebration at Golden Gardens, where we were going to try to cook up some smores with the milk we brought. However, we had just lit our small, single log fire when you came up threatening a ticket for an illegal fire. Just a warning you said. No ticket if we put it out. OK, no problem. Then my friend asked you what a legal fire was. You said a legal fire was one that was put in a pre-built fire place. So she asked you which fires currently on the beach were legal and which were not. When you refused to point them out, she thanked you for being so helpful. You could have just left and let us put out the fire. But you took this as an afront to your authority and chose instead, to site the both of us for an illegal fire. Nevermind that we were next to a 10 foot frat bonfire where underage kids were drinking and ignoring you. We were just two people with a pathetic fire, smores, and milk. Easy targets. I especially liked the part where you said you'd throw us in jail if we argued with you.

Its a $28 ticket. Hardly even worth your issuing, but as you said "I am going to make an example out of you." Fine. I go to bed tonight $28 poorer and tomorrow this will be just a memory. You though, will always be a prick.

Freedom looks like too many choices

I returned from New York on Sunday. When I got to my parent's place, the first thing I did was wish my dad a happy father's day, grab a blanket, and zonk out for hours on the hammock. After two weeks of Vegas and NY, it was startling how quiet even Lakewood was. Just three weeks ago I would go hiking to get away from the chaos and noise that is Seattle. I never would have thought of Seattle as a sanctuary from the chaos and noise that is New York. Not surprisingly, the trip built even more of an appreciation of the outdoors. Being in NY is like hiking in a canyon, where all you see around you is the sky high above, but walls of stone to your left and right for as far as the eye can see. On the one hand, you lose out on seeing crystal-etched mountain ranges or storm clouds raging in the distance. However, there is a certain excitement involved with hiking through a canyon, in that you have no idea where you are going or what lies beyond the next turn. Sure, there are snakes underfoot and you can get lost for a time, but if you give it enough time you'll find that the canyon teems with life and a beauty that you would never have discovered if you stayed in the mountains.

So now, I'm back home in Seattle. One of the fun things about travelling alone is that it forces you to explore places you may normally not visit, even if you lived there. The hotel had a tourist map of places to see in Manhattan and it was filled with cool places to see. Camera-less, I made it to Greenwich Village, NYU, the Museum of Modern Art, Times Square, and Madison Ave. That was all in one day. When I landed at SeaTac, I stopped at the tourism desk and picked up a similar map of downtown Seattle. It certainly had fewer things to see and do, but enough things on it that I felt ashamed for time wasted. A promise was born to use the summer to cross items off this map in Seattle. Hopefully, I can find a working camera to involve the two people who read this blog. I think it would be a fun little homage to these past few weeks.

CON-spiracy

Here's why New York will never make it as a city: last night, I paid $20 for a hamburger. Not a McDonald's burger, but a sit-down restaurant burger. And it was the cheapest thing on the menu. Now, locals will say that's because I bought it in Mid-Town. Much cheaper fare can be found elsewhere in the city. Probably true and therein lies the problem. Its not that New York is expensive. Its that its pricing structure is dyslexic. 15 blocks results in a 100% inflation rate. Its amazing. Retiring New Yorkers don't need to move to Florida to stretch their dollar - they just move across town. In addition to a regular menu pricing scheme, there is also a secondary economy at work in the food sector - the "weigh and pay" method. Deli's here regularly have hot sections, like buffets, but rather than charge per admission or per food item, your plate is weighed and charged appropriatley. On the surface, you may think this makes sense. You eat more, you pay more. Dig under the dried top layer of the macaroni though and you'll find the juicy, racist secret: it discriminates against asians. Think about it - my favorite food stuff is rice. I love rice. Can't eat anything without it. Pound for pound, rice is probably one of the cheapest items of food in the entire world. Yet, when I load up my plate with steamed rice, I'm paying way over its natural value. When steamed, rice becomes heavy and expands, taking up valuable platespace of other, more expensive foods. Whose idea was this? Two words: The Jewish. Think about the deals they get with this weigh-in-pay system. Kosher meat is probably pound for pound the most expensive, yet they can fill up their plate with the stuff. Meanwhile, Asians are getting ripped off, paying the same amount in rice. You get the picture. Now, you can disagree with me and say that no ill-will is involved. But the next time you see video of bags of rice being off-loaded a C-5 during African relief efforts, ask yourself "Where's the pastrami?!"

In New York, feeding the Jewish.

Small fish, big pond

For a 24 hour period yesterday, a man in New York went on a stabbing spree. I remember seeing a news report in the morning about the stabbing of a tourist on the subway. After work the story had grown to three more tourists stabbed, the latest in Times Square. Last night, as I was standing outside the Whiskey Club at the W hotel, I asked a cop if this was the area where the last two people were stabbed. "Right around the corner" he said. You couldn't tell though. There were thousands of people now walking over what had hours earlier been a crime scene. Not only that, but I was standing in the same spot where the man, homeless, had attacked his last victims (all four are alive). On the other hand, so was the cop. So while you can't guarantee that nothing crazy-stupid will happen in a city with 3 million people, its a safe bet that there will be a cop on nearly every street corner in times square.

In the last seven days, I've gone from tourists-are-like-children Seattle to tourists-are-a-pain-Vegas to tourists-are-a-fact-of-life New York. In Vegas, the locals will roll their eyes if they run into you off the strip. To New York though, it makes no difference (which lends itself to a million great fly on the wall stories). Its a very twisted sense of recognition that, even at its most basic level, is still plenty more than in Seattle, where people will fight to ignore you (must...not...make...eye...contact...) UNLESS you are a tourist. In a few days, New York will get on without me. Its really not a fair deal. I leave nothing, but will take a little piece back with me. Come to New York (its not enough for just a weekend, mind you. Stay for a week.). Exhaust yourself. Go home grateful for your own bed, but leave a little envious of those who have theirs here. Its the only way.

No photos :(

My camera broke the other day. I was inside of St. Patrick's Cathedral trying to get a shot when there was a click, a snap, and then a blinking error message. Now, I don't know if this was due to sacrilege...my first trip to a catholic church in years and it was as a tourist, not a parishioner. The shutter still worked, however I think its an error with the auto focus. I'm currently trying to recharge the battery - I read somewhere that the camera is ALWAYS on, so weeks of inactivity will drain the battery. The only purpose of the "off" button is to prevent accidental discharge (which by the way, is a sad-sounding term). If that doesn't work, then my trip to NY will exist only in memories....<sigh>

The church though was amazing. It was impossible for me to stand in that church and not feel the presence of God. Which is weird, if you think about it. My father's church is really a community center. It doesn't feel like it is connected to anything at all, let alone the capital G himself. St. Patrick's though instilled such a sense of awe and wonderment that upon stepping out into the streets of New York City, you felt a little let down. Maybe there is indeed a god in that church. It would make sense given that since some of mankind's most glorious architectural achievements are places of worship (from Stonehenge to Notre Dame), so who is to say that perhaps a greater power enables man to tap into a hidden reservoir of creativity?

If that's the case, then maybe the opposite could be said about small diners in New York. Sitting down at the bar last night for dinner, I was chatting with a very pretty Lithuanian bartender who gave me some tips on good clubs in New York. I put in some time at the Hotel W's Whiskey Bar, a hidden little club off of Times Square. On my way back, I stopped in for a night cap and was treated to two very drunk individuals who were trying to negotiate a drug deal. Now, normally you would be worried. But with these two idiots (imagine Gomer Pile trying to buy crack from Andy Kaufman), it was very funny.

Law and Order

At Rock plaza today was the filming of "the today show" in their "summertime" studio, which is essentially an outdoor studio encased in glass. Kind of funny. I think they are remodelling so they stuck them outside.

NY's newscasts are horribly depressing. The 10pm news is just brutal! Figure 8 million people in the area, 3 million in the metro area alone - crazy sh!t happens all the time. Every night a shooting or stabbing or car accident. Makes it seem common, but really the chances of that happening to you are literally 1 in 8 million. Its pretty safe. You hear sirens constantly, but I figured out that cops will use their sirens like other cars use horns, just to differentiate themselves. Car slow to turn? Sound the siren.

I was watching a few movie previews the other day (16 blocks and a Denzel movie) and it gave me an idea of why New Yorkers are as they are. You know how sometimes you'll watch the news and recognize a store that you shop at or a street that you walk? Now, just imagine that happening to you all the time. And instead of a newscast, its a movie with Bruce Willis. You're going to get a pretty high self-worth of yourself. I walked by an arcade I recognized from an episode of "Law and Order". Not a famous place by any means, just a set piece used for 3 seconds of film. But for the 10 seconds I looked at it, I felt like I owned the place.

The fresh maker

http://eepybird.com/dcm1.html

Holy great video. Mentos and diet coke = fun times.

200 liters of diet coke and hundreds of Mentos and the Bellagio fountain = Mankind has reached its apex.

SEA-LAS-NYC

Little tired right now...work decided that I was needed in our NYC office, so on my last day in Vegas I boarded a JetBlue flight to NYC. I haven't been able to explore anything yet, but when things settle down here a bit I plan on hitting up the city. Shows, tours, and pics - the whole enchilada. I'm staying at the Park Central hotel, only blocks from Times Square and only a 10 minute walk away from the Volt office which sits across St. Patrick's Cathedral. On the way, I walk by Broadway shows, Madison Ave, The Late Show studio, and Rockefeller Plaza. Hundreds of taxi's, take out open early mornings, and the sounds of life literally bursting at the seams.

More to be posted soon.

X3 and Vegas

I watched X3 this past weekend with my buddy, Johnson. As I told him after, "It is what it is." Namely, a subpar summer sequel. The action scenes were great, but the rest of it...ehhh...(it wasn't the acting of Halle Barry that the academy was paying attention to). Anyway, according to the movie there are 5 classes of Mutants. They didn't quite explain the scales, but from what I was able to garner...

Class 2: Mutant army and generics

Class 3: Major mutants (Magneto, Wolverine, Juggernaught, etc)

Class 5: God-like power (Phoenix)

Class 4 as you can guess, is probably somewhere in between. Class 1 though...we're talking mutant powers in the likes of "can grow excessive amounts of toe fungus" and "Unibrow regeneration". In otherwords, the kind I would probably get stuck with. The fact that I'm going to vegas in a couple days made me think about my friends and what their class 1 mutations would be...

Jayson: Can be molded into any pliable material by his wife (or his friends when alcohol is involved - we'll take good care of him, Jess!!!)

Dave: Can deliver homoerotic punchlines at will

Palmer: Any girl within a 10 foot radius instantly feels safe and non-threatened.

Johnson: Ability to project Beergoggles onto others.

Jacob: Attracts 45 year old women like a sale at Penny's.

Ah...Vegas.