Game Six of the 1986 World Series

Watching this (link to Google Video) makes me want to get this.

Trip to Vermont

I went to the 2006 Sprint US Freestyle Championship in Killington, VT.

Here is a summary of my trip:

• +2 free days of skiing
• +3 free lunches
• +1 free dinner
• +An uncountable number of Nature's Valley granola bars
  
• -1 Toyota Tercel

See Mark's pictures

Two Songs

This is a great song: Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See a Darkness.
So is this: Animal Collective - Grass.

Idiotarod!

Some friends of mine and I were planning on competing in the Great Trans-Borough Race of 'Aught Six, also know as the Idiotarod. It's much like the Iditarod, except the sleds are replaced by shopping carts, and sled dogs are replaced by costumed idiots.

I was going to compete as part of "Team Axis of Evil," but our frantic last-minute planning came to naught due to a dearth of stray shopping carts in Williamsburg.

Instead, we ran around and took some pictures. Here are the better ones, along with other random pictures I took.

Go here for all the photos.


A small crowd gathered at this corner to see the racers, but were disappointed.

River St. and Metropolitan Ave.

Going incognito.

Crossing the Williamsburg Bridge.

Primary School 142 is overwhelmed when it is turned into a checkpoint for the race.

You could track the race by following the banana peels left behind by this team.

The Mayo Clinic strikes.

Team C.O.B.R.A. and their fire-breathing viper.

The race ended in East River Park as one big dance party.

Voice in the Headphones

Claremont and LaSalle

Riverside Church at night

More photos

I went to a jazz club the other day. I attempted to take some pictures, but it was very dark, so most of the photos are plagued with camera shake and/or underexposure. Maybe I'll have to invest in one of these.

Click here to see some of the better ones.

All the photos can be seen here.

Death Valley Photos

I went to Death Valley NP in the first week of January. Here are some photos, mostly of Death Valley, and some of Grant's Tomb in New York City.

Death Valley Photos

Click here to see some of the less sucky ones.


From the steps of Grant's Tomb

Grant's Tomb

Riverside Church

Rainy day at Isabella Lake

Storm clouds over the Panamints

Early morning at Zabriske Point

Sharp shadows in the morning sun



Red Cathedral

Badwater (-282 ft.)

Badwater salt flats

Joe, examining the Devil's Golf Course

Detail of salt filaments at the Devil's Golf Course

Sunset in Death Valley

Death Valley Dunes

More Death Valley Dunes

Flowers at the bottom of Ubehebe Crater

Eastern Sierras as we enter the Owens Valley

20 movies

My favorites of those I've seen in the past year:

1. Last Life in the Universe (2003)
2. Before Sunset (2004)
3. Raging Bull (1980)
4. Infernal Affairs (2002)
5. The Twilight Samurai (2002)
6. Sideways (2004)
7. A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
8. Nausicaa, of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
9. Band of Outsiders (1964)
10. Unforgiven (1992)

Also, I liked A History of Violence (2005), Batman Begins (2005), The Battle of Algiers(1965), Gattaca (1997), Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), Nobody Knows (2004), Spring in a Small Town (1948), Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, ... and Spring (2003), and Yojimbo (1961),

9 of these 20 movies were made in East Asia (Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan). I guess I like Asian movies.

Somewhere in the Swamps of New Jersey

Lifetime, the Sandy Koufax of 90s punk rock, are announcing more tour dates on the West Coast, after playing two reunion shows in Asbury Park and Philadelphia. Lifetime broke up in 1997, at the height of their powers. Their influence can be heard in several punk bands that emerged from the New Jersey punk scene around the time of Lifetime's demise, including Thursday and Saves the Day.

There was a time not so far in the past where I would have seriously considered flying across the country at the prospect of a Lifetime reunion show. Somehow, I managed to miss both shows during the summer. I the band is giving me a chance at redemption.

As a special treat, here's an mp3 of the hard-to-find "Somewhere in the Swamps of New Jersey", one of Lifetime's best songs. It was released in 1996 as the B-side of the long out-of-print The Boys No Good 7".

Somewhere in the Swamps of New Jersey (mp3)

More Lifetime info:
basic function has photos (and video) of Lifetime's reunion show in Philly
Lifetime's page at Jade Tree Records
Pitchfork reviewed Jersey's Best Dancers in 1997

More photos

I uploaded some photos I took this past weekend.

11-08-05 - New York City Marathon and Prospect Park.

Pictures

About a month ago, I purchased a new digital camera, the Canon S2 IS. Just about every weekend, I have walked around New York and taken a bunch of pictures. So far, it has been great, a big step up over my old camera, the Canon A80.

I organized some of my pictures and put them on the web. I used someone's Perl script to generate the image galleries. It works pretty well as a temporary hack while I decide how I want to lay things out. These galleries contain all my images - the (few) successes and the (mostly) failures. I'll try to pick out the best of these pictures and add some new categories, sorted by subject and with commentary.

I haven't had time to process these pictures. I think I'll be using GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation) and ImageMagick to edit my pictures. From what I have read, these utilities seem decent. Any other suggestions?

Here are the image galleries:

10-24-05 - Cornfield Maze, Menchanko-Tei, MOMA, and Roosevelt Island
10-31-05 - Union Square Greenmarket and Central Park Conservatory Garden
Iceland - Some pictures I have lying around from last year's trip to Iceland

PLEASE Critique either in the comments or by email.