Archive | January, 2008

Swedish Goodness

19 Jan

I really need to move. I say that not because of my annoying neighbors but because I went to IKEA today and I wanted to buy so much stuff. I almost bought a new rug for the bedroom and new pictures for my wall and a knife set to sit on my kitchen counter and a new desk chair and this, that, and the other. Why not, right? It’s all so cheap. Of course, I didn’t buy any of it, and I kept my purchases to just the glasses I went for and a feather duster (random). But I know I have to ramp up my search so I can buy that stuff.

Not that the trip was a waste. After all, I ate well: Swedish meatballs and mac ‘n’ cheese for lunch, a cinnamon roll on the way out … all the essentials. And it’s always a fun (and easy) trip out to Stoughton. But yeah, I hope I move soon so I can go back and fill my new place with all kinds of IKEA crap.

Victory!

19 Jan

The scoreboard now reads Martin: 1, Neighbors: 0. This morning, just after 9 a.m., my upstairs neighbor began to play her piano in the room right above my bedroom. Annoying. But then a violin joined in. Soon it sounded like there was a veritable chamber orchestra playing above my head, as I was trying to sleep in. So since my patience had finally run out, I decided to do what I should have done with my other neighbors a long, long time ago: I fought back. I grabbed a mop and banged on the ceiling three times. And what do you know, they stopped instantly. Minutes later, I looked out my window and saw my neighbor and her violin-playing friend (who, by the way, was not a violin-playing neighbor I knew about) scurry out of the building; they got in a car and drove away — most likely to a practice space at B.U., which if you ask me, is where they should have gone to begin with. What happened to common courtesy? I mean, do people really think that sort of thing is alright and that they won’t be disturbing anyone? ARGH!!! So call me happy this morning, even if I got up earlier than I would have liked. That’s the last time my neighbors will use this building to play their music. I hope they got the message.

I Am Your BROTHER … !

16 Jan


Aw jeez … in a moment of weakness, that show can really crack me up. Check out this clip from Wednesday night’s show — and then try to get the song out of your head.

Nice Jobs

16 Jan

What is it about Steve Jobs that makes his annual Macworld keynote address so damned engaging? I spent an hour and a half Tuesday night — after American Idol, of course — watching the video of his presentation while reading along with Engadget’s running commentary. And I’ll tell you, it was really fun. Yes, that’s in spite of that fact that Steve didn’t even announce anything nearly as exciting as the iPhone, like he did last year. (And I still have last year’s keynote saved as a podcast in my iTunes.) But the point is, it’s a keynote address, one that runs an hour and a half long, and it’s about technology stuff, and it’s very self-congratulatory. That’s not supposed to be exciting. But believe me when I tell you it’s really cool. If you love your iPod or your MacBook or your iMac (like I do), or you want one, I recommend watching. I doubt Steve will be remixed this year. Still, the real thing is pretty great.

She’s Still My Idol

15 Jan

American Idol starts tonight, so I thought I’d take a moment to play a quick game of “Where Is She Now?” with my favorite contestant from last year, Haley Scarnato.

Thanks to Haley Source and MySA.com (and my crack team of Interweb researchers), I’ve learned that Haley is now living in Nashville working on a “country pop” album that’ll be out sometime in 2008. On her allegedly official MySpace page you can hear one of her recent recordings.

And apparently, she’s still tight with Blake Lewis, Jordin Sparks, and Chris Richardson, and she’s going to be in Gina Glocksen’s wedding. Actually, she’s friends with Blake, Jordin, Gina, and Melinda Doolittle on MySpace.

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There Will Be Milkshakes

14 Jan

Thanks to Jeff Wells, who tipped me off to this pretty funny (albeit totally predictable and inevitable) mock trailer/music video for There Will Be Blood, a movie that I loved.

Dark Day

14 Jan

This year I’m right on schedule. Finally. For the first time in the three years I’ve been keeping this blog, I’m actually going to have a post up about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 on the actual anniversary day, which is tomorrow, January 15. Longtime readers of this blog know that this is one of my all-time favorite stories, historical or otherwise. Basically, if you’ve never heard of it before, 89 years ago, a huge tank of molasses — we’re talking 50 feet tall and 240 feet wide — exploded, spilling 2.5 million gallons of molasses into Boston’s North End. But it didn’t just spill. It did so in the form of a wave about 10 feet tall that moved at a speed of 35 mph and exerted a pressure of 2 tons/foot. Years later, a book about the subject was written and it was called, of all things, Dark Tide. Sure, it’s a tragic story (21 people were killed and 150 were injured) but don’t you just love the visual of a giant wave of molasses plowing its way through the North End? Classic stuff right there.

Actually, last year Todd and I wrote our own little parody of the classic Paul Revere rhyme. It begins like this:
Gather my children and you shall smell
the scent of molasses — now run like hell!
We’re also working (verrrry slowly) on a movie adaptation of the Dark Tide book. Anyone want to produce it?

For more about the flood, click here to read my post from two years ago. I’ll be eating a molasses cookie in honor of this special day. You should too. Happy anniversary!

Snow Day!

14 Jan


I took my camera with me to work today, so here are some snowy shots of my ‘hood. Click on each one to see a bigger version.



Tarnished Globes

13 Jan

Forget the winners — tonight’s Golden Globe awards press conference was awful. Between Mary Hart’s lame commentary, and all the other entertainment show hosts trying to one-up each other, the press conference itself sucked. And the TV coverage? Even worse. NBC didn’t even show the press conference live, relying on Billy Bush and Nancy O’Dell to announce the winners in their own mock press conference that trailed the real thing — thus rendering it instantly behind-the-curve and irrelevant. E! showed the press conference, but cut away every now and then to reaction from Ryan Seacrest and other folks in the E! studios. And the sound on CNN kept going out of synch, no doubt because Larry King kept making completely stupid comments after each announcement about how one movie or another was great or one of the year’s best. (Of course they are, Larry. Why do you think they’re nominated?) And the worst thing of all was when Johnny Depp won for best actor in a film, musical or comedy, and Larry King said something about how it was wrong that Daniel Day-Lewis wasn’t nominated. Duh. He was nominated — in the category of best actor in a film, drama. (And he won for it, too.) But because CNN was the only network of the three that actually showed the press conference as it unfolded, without interruption, I stuck with CNN. And by 9:30, a half hour after it began, the whole thing was over. At that point, NBC was still half-way through making their announcements and discussing the winners. Oh, and did Billy Bush really dismiss Cate Blanchett’s award-winning performance in I’m Not There by saying, “At the end of the day it’s a woman imitating a man?” That guy has no business being an entertainment journalist. He’s lame. NBC’s coverage was lame. The whole thing was lame. And it wasn’t even disappointing. Rather, as a film fan, a television fan, and a film awards show fan, it just made me angry. I really really hope this writers strike ends ASAP so we can get back our TV shows and the Oscars can go on as they should be going on, not like this awful attempt at television.

No Swing Is a Real Miss

13 Jan

I’m really missing baseball these days. I miss coming home from work and knowing there’s a game on (especially with there being not much else good on TV anymore). I miss reading about the Sox in the Globe every day. I miss making fun of Dice-K. I miss Papi and Mike Lowell and all the boys, whether it’s news about them or just their smiling, happy faces in the newspaper every morning. I miss the whole thing. It’s not like there’s a void in the Boston sports world or anything, and football’s exciting, but those games only happen on Sundays (or Saturday nights), and basketball and hockey do nothing for me. Baseball’s something you can count on, for at least eight months of the year. From March to October there’s a baseball game on most every night of the week. This gap between the seasons is just too long, especially with there being no significant trade or contract talks going on lately (even a possible Santana deal isn’t all that buzzworthy right now). Jeez, pitchers and catchers report to Fort Myers in about a month, and I’m already antsy. Bring it on!

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