S-E-A-N S-A-I-D, P-L-A-Y

Greeting and salutations!

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately, I had a mad crazy week. A great deal of work, I'll give you the short version:

Monday: Had to be in the city at the Hotel Pierre by 8 AM, so I stayed with Willy and Sam in Summit the night before. Had a quick consultation with a woman who turned out to be Irwin Winkler's wife, producer of such films as Raging Bull and Goodfellas. Then breakfast at Sony Corporate. On to the next appointment where I had to take a plasma off the wall for the hottest chick cause she was moving out of her penthouse apartment. Then it was back to Willy's where we spent 4 hours putting a ceiling fan in (wiring that may actually pre-date electricity).

Tuesday: Back to the city for what was supposed to be a preliminary meeting to decide what I would need to install a plasma in this guy's bedroom and integrate that into his existing system in the adjacent room. I get there and he wants me to get started. So with half my tools, I'm off. 5 1/2 hours later I've go the TV on the wall and his living room pretty much torn apart, and I'm out of there for the day.

Wednesday: Back to this guy's apartment to finish the job. Only I couldn't get there till 4 cause he had to work. I resume my duties, finally calling it quits at 10:30 cause I'm barely vertical at this point. And the kicker is I still have to go back 1 more time. He wants 2 TV's (the regular one in his living room and the new plasma in his bedroom) to work with his new hi-def cable box, TiVo, DVD player, CD recorder, 200 disc CD player, pre-amp, and amplifier. Oh, and he wants to be able to control it all from his Pronto from either room. Definitely wins the Most Complicated Setup To Date award.

Thursday: Drive to Long Island City to switch my car for the biggest fucking van you've ever seen, head back into the city to pick up a 60" plasma at Sony corporate (in a very cool underground loading dock with an elevator that you drive into), and then it's down to LBI to swap it with a customer who currently has the 50" plasma. Apparently, some people really do have more money than they know what to do with. All that takes forever cause the big-ass van isn't exactly the speediest method of transportation ever devised. So no time to make it back to Sony that night so I get to hang on to (and hook up the Xbox to) the 50" plasma.

Friday: Back at Summit so I can make it into the city as fast as possible. Then it's back to Sony to drop off the TV, back to Long Island City to get my car back, and then back to Sparta, so I can pass the fuck out.

So that's where I've been. Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy to be working a lot again, and the money and the toys I get to play with kick ass, but tiring is tiring. I can only hope I'm as busy next week. After not checking my team since...well, I can't remember when, it's nice to see I'm back at 10th place. It's comforting, like coming home again.

One last thing, for those of you who don't know, Netflix rules! DVD's that you want to see just show up in the mail! You just watch them and then drop them back in the mailbox and another one comes! I know I'm about 3 years behind the times with this one, but I don't care. I don't know how the hell they make any money (and I'm pretty sure that they don't) but I intend to ride this gravy train as far as it'll take me.

Oh, and I almost forgot. David, your brother deserves a flogging. It's too bad I missed him in England, I could've had you do it for me. Your mom called me all in a panic the other day because the program was going crazy. So I went over to the shop on Wednesday and sure enough, everything had gone wonky. Things were saving, receipts were printing out wrong, and the program was generally acting like an old version of itself. It took me a while, but I finally figured out why. Way back when, I set up the computer there to boot right into the program when Windows starts, so as to minimize the amount of damage an employee (or frankly, your mom) could do. Well when they got a new computer a month ago old Jonathan set it up. What he did was put the program on the desktop, like it used to be, but he also put a copy in some folder buried in the system. And then for some reason, he created a link to that copy so that the wrong program was starting up with Windows. Well, every once in a while I would make an update to the program, but that was to the version on the desktop, so sometimes they would seem to disappear. The real problem was if the program had to be restarted for some reason, the desktop version would invariably get started (no one knowing about the other version) and it would appear like balances were all off. Fun stuff, but I eventually tracked down the problem. Just something else to do this week I guess :)

- Seacrest out!

Some London tube stops I like and why I like them.

Epping - as in, "I'm not getting on that Epping train"
Mile End - Pulp song of the same name
Victoria - Kinks song of the same name
St. John's Wood - Mentioned in the Rolling Stones' "Play with Fire"
White City - Mentioned in Elliott Smith's "Bled White" (but alas, it's not on the yellow line)
North Acton - Mentioned in Elvis Costello's "Hoover Factory"
Rotherhithe - Mentioned in Elvis Costello's "New Amsterdam"
Goodge St. - Nooge.
Marylebone - Heh Heh. "Le bone."
Bermondsey - Sounds like "Jumanji!"
Mudchute - How cool would it be if this was your home stop?
Cockfosters - Needs no explanation

Cellar door

Hey y'all. I'm back. Jon has moved on to greener pastures (namely, Amsterdam), leaving me with a little time to breathe, rest, and post. Where is everyone else though? Why no posting?

That fundrace thing is fun, Yohei.
Everyone whose last name is Kerry (8 people) gave to Kerry.
Not so with Bush (though, it must be said, there's a ton of people on the list named Bush).
Ross Perot donated $2000 to Bush! (so did Mayor Bloomberg)
John Edwards seems to be the only candidate who donated to himself.
Al Gore gave $1000 to Dean, then gave $2000 to Kerry.
Jonathan Franzen gave $2000 to Kerry.

Sweet, what did I tell you about going to Schwartz's? Do you know how many men have died to get the opportunity you so thoughtlessly spat upon?!!?

Your friends and neighbors...

I've been looking up various people and their campaign donations here

And I've already found out some interesting things about the people I went to high school with. Or actually, their parents.

It looks like the maximum direct contribution an individual can make to a candidate is $2K.

Uma Thurman, Ed Norton, and many others gave the full amount to Kerry.
Puff Daddy - $2,000 to Sharpton! (Money flushed down the toilet, but tax deductible.)
Susan Sarandon - full amount to Dean.
The Donald - $2K to both Kerry AND Bush.
Ben Affleck - $2K to Clark.

I couldn't find too many famous people giving to Bush, 'cept for Kelsey Grammer and some golfers.

It's addictive though.

Uh...Qu'est-ce qui ce passe?

It seems like the initial blogging frenzy is giving way to a more relaxed pace.

I'm reading everywhere that bloggers are getting published: how sorry I feel for the poor souls who, out of curiousity, buy one of these books and sits through something book-length by a blogger, whether it's about their trip to the laundromat or writing a Ethan Hawke type novella.

So without further ado, I'll filibuster to stir Willy into action, telling us all how the housewarming party went and whether that guy's ideal woman was determined that night by whatever system was put into place using Paul's exhaustive list of fuckables:


I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line,
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or pensive mood,
they flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.


OK, no more posting while too stoned to censor myself.

Brah, it is. It so is.

Sorry for the lack of posting lately--my little bro is here visiting, and I've been on full-on hosting duty. What's your excuse?

In the meantime, some reading.

Serious:
The torture of prisoners is not an aberration. It is a direct consequence of the doctrines of world struggle with which the Bush administration has sought to fundamentally change the domestic and foreign policy of the US.

Less serious:
What were all the adjectives I started with? They’re all the way back at the top of the document. Pants! It was getting confusing anyway—silly Nick!—so I’ll just get some new ones.

Everything dies. That's a fact.

Boy, Troy sounds terrible. I never considered seeing it, but now there is no chance I'll even waste the extravagant $5 renting it at Blockbuster.

I am VERY happy and excited to report that after about three years, I've rediscovered Springstein's Nebraska. It was a staple in college, but I had -- foolishly, I might add -- let it collect dust. I heard "Atlantic City" on a jukebox in a bar last night, luckily, just after the bar started getting crowded and loud, and the bartender had gone to the jukebox, fiddled with some dial in the back of the machine, and turned up the volume. So now I'm listening to it and I'm regretful that I had ever neglected it.

About Jordan Capri, you were right, I was wrong. Good times. But I'm still, in general, weary of websites that tout teens -- they always seem to think that if you put an older girl in pigtails and white socks and um, are aggressive with the razor, they'll fool everyone into thinking some late 20 something is a teen.