#35 - weenie howla.

i was at the local better-than-average for my area grocery store earlier this evening purchasing a lil' snack & couple of frosty beverages for a night of chillin' at my apartment. when i got to the beer section there were two girls from the neighborhood there, picking out a six-pack for the night. i grabbed my beers & snack & got behind them in line at the register. the guy behind the counter, who was probably in his mid-to-late twenties, was flirting with the girls, offering them halloween candy from the festive pale white bucket at the end of the register.

they left with a goodbye & as soon as they were on the other side of the sliding doors, he turned to me, smiled & said, "man, there are tons of hotties out tonight," to which i replied, "i bet the candy helps, huh?" the sad thing is that both of our statements are true.

for me, this scenario illustrates that which, as an adult with no kids, makes me both hate & love halloween. on halloween, adults do & get away with the stupidest of things.

females: a majority of the women (at least in nyc) dress up in the sluttiest outfits possible. as long as you are wearing a normally inappropriate amount of makeup & all black & you slap on a pair of cat ears/devil horns, you have a costume...but why stop there? there are a wide range of sexy costumes that you can wear, from a sexy cave woman to a sexy nurse to a sexy cop to a sexy sarah palin, which is basically a u.s. flag bikini with glasses & a ms alaska sash (hunting rifle not included). unfortunately, the costume's only available in up to size a 10, so sorry ladies who are over that size. apparently it's not possible for you to be sexy and/or the vice president.

males: this is your night to act like a jackass, especially to women, who will be flocking to you for the first time since sometime around last halloween because, well, girls love hugging and/or having their picture taken with chewbacca. if you're lucky, you might get to grab a boob or something. too bad your hoglike sweating inside the chewbacca suit has made you as moist as a gym towel...my halloween hero...the office's jim halpert, who in this week's episode, went as "dave."

i can't wait for the day to come when i might have a child of my own to take out trick or treating & subdue my hatred for halloween...& that'll be fine, because halloween is for kids.

#35 - weenie howla.

snack: cheddar beer flavor kettle chips
drink: southern tier brewing co harvest ale / brooklyn brewing co oktoberfest

you'd expect that since it's halloween, i'd be snacking on some sort of candy or treat, but nope...i decided to go with a bag of chips & a bag of chips that have the word "beer" in the flavor to boot--cheddar beer flavor kettle chips. they're pretty tasty overall. since they're kettle chips, they're nice & crunchy. the flavor's akin to cheddar flavored tato skins. you know the ones. the ones with baked potato appeal, cause they're made with potatoes & skins that are real. they're no longer made by keebler (who is now owned by the kellogg co) & are now made by the inventure group & also marketed as a t.g.i.friday's snack. i don't really taste the beer in these kettle chips, but that's okay, because i have two actual beers right here.

the first beer is from southern tier brewing co, out of lakewood, ny, which is about an hour & 45 min down route 90 from buffalo. it's an extra special bitter hoppy beer, but not too much so. enjoyable enough. the second is a brooklyn brewing co oktoberfest. there was a time when i was actually excited by brooklyn brewing co, but as happened with my former favorite local beers before brooklyn--harpoon & sam adams--i've drank so many of them over the years that they've lost their luster...seems like a theme, doesn't it?

in attempting to close, i'd like to draw a desperate parallel between my feelings toward brooklyn beers & what happened with me & halloween...they've both lost their luster. end transmission.

#34 - you ruined it.

i used to love magazines...grew up on them & junk. i read highlights, boy's life, yankees magazine (go sox), sports illustrated, a bunch of wrestling mags, spin, rolling stone (who changed size last issue...weird?), guitar world & whole bunch of other mags that fueled my sport & music obsessions. many of them are still in boxes in the attic of my parents' house, likely drying up from the heat or becoming nests for crafty nh chipmunks.

my all time favorite magazine = punk planet. a friend introduced me to it back in the summer of 2003, when i was on the cusp of thirtydom & the magazine was already on its 56th issue & had totally un-punk binding. every other month, when i thought there might be a new issue out, i'd head into the city like a twelve-year old & drop into kim's or universal news, hoping to find a new issue on the stand. 90% of the time, if there was a new issue out, i'd buy it & take it to a bench somewhere in the city to just sit out, flipping through it, skipping to the back to check out the d.i.y. files & countless album reviews, taking in an article here or there. i bought every single copy from that point until their demise in 2007, a demise that was mostly due to the usual suspects in the demises of independent publishers everywhere, notably lacking ad revenue/subscribers, the stuff that major mags are better positioned to deal with...so it turns out by making a bi-monthly event out of buying it on the newsstand, my non-subscriber ass partially contributed to the death of punk planet.

since its death, i haven't had another mag i've cared about that much. it sort of ruined magazines for me...although i suppose vice magazine probably had something to do with tainting (pun totally intended) magazines for me...that rag.

now, earlier this evening, i stumbled across a blog with a post about portland, oregon based (didn't it used to be san fran?) bitch magazine having financial woes. like i said, i've been out of touch with magazines recently, but i love bitch. it's another mag that i've had newsstand fever over in the past. turns out that back about a month-and-a-half ago, they made a plea to their readers & supporters when the need arose to raise $40K by october 15th to stay alive. within three days, they'd raised $46K. that in itself gives me cause to believe that the independent magazine isn't completely dead yet...i just wish worthwhile publications didn't have to resort to bake sales to remain viable...but, hey if you happen to like the cookies bitch is baking, go here.

#34 - you ruined it.
snack: cherry jello
drink: water

who in his or her life has never had a jello shot? not me, i say. you you say? liar. everyone on the planet who is not allergic to jello has had a jello shot & even some of those jello-allergy-inflicted folks have had at least one or two shots out of peer pressure/a need to live life on the edge. it's a scientific fact. look it up, liar.

myself, i was in both college & a fraternity & as noted previously, love consuming connective tissue & love supporting planters/kraft/altria/philip morris, so i have consumed tubfuls of jello shots in my day. not in one sitting, of course...or out of an actual tub...at least that i can recall. in fact, i have consumed so many jello shots in my day that i sort of hate jello now. jello shots pretty much ruined jello for me. like, right now, i'm spooning a bowlful of this cherry jello into my mouth & my brain is all "are you sure there's no vodka in this? i swear i can taste the vodka."

& since it's officially past midnight, with my bowl of jello, i'm going with a tall glass of water...trying to cut back on drinking a liter's worth of mountain dew after midnight, especially whilst inhaling a bowlful of gelatinous sugar. anyway, this is water's second appearance on the blog, so let's hear it for water & let's hear it for its right hand man, the brita, without whom none of this would be possible. and while we're at it, let's hear it for the boy as well. seriously, let's give that boy a hand. you'd better, or kevin bacon will be forced to give you the noogie of your life.

#33 - cmj at 33.

the annual cmj music marathon returned to nyc this past week, with its thousands of music peeps & their badges & bands & occasional film/other art events taking over the city from tuesday to saturday.

my first cmj was back in 2005, when i was overseeing the advertising for ny press' music section & doing some writing for it as well. i had me a badge that allowed me entry to any venue in the city for any show. it was the year of clap your hands say yeah. remember them? for the shawn circa 05 curious, my blog ramblings about the 2005 cmj festival can be found here & my ny press ramblings can be found via here.

when cmj came back round the next year, i was no longer with ny press & badgeless. same deal in 2007. both years, i caught a show or two. this year, after being slightly anti-social & slightly broke & relatively concert-free for the past few months & after being inspired again about live music because of a couple of shows by the albertans in the weeks leading up to cmj, i decided to try making it to a few cmj events this year.

on tuesday night, i met up with a friend at the paste magazine party at the red bull space...gotta love indie rock shows sponsored like football stadiums. when i got to the door, i was asked for my name...a list. didn't know that, but talked my way in aided by the ny press sweatshirt i happened to be wearing. apparently, it made me look like press. missed gringo star but caught sets by wild light, cheeseburger and the vivian girls. turns out wild light is from nh. they were ok. through the years, i've seen cheeseburger more times than i can count, often at random parties & art galleries & crap & they're pretty much the same thing every time--bad-ass party rock riffs, a few tossed beers & guaranteed ass crack. the vivian girls were pretty much what i expected--quick, solid rock songs...probably better suited for a non-red bull inspired space. i will say one thing for paste magazine...they pull indie rock hotties.

on wednesday, i planned to head to gallery bar to see the stone throw records showcase, featuring arabian prince (yeah n.w.a.!), peanut butter wolf & madlib. before i even made it to the train to go to the show, i was warned of a three to four person deep line wrapping around the block. i'm way too old for that magnitude of a line. pass.

thursday night was a no-go due to other obligations.

on friday, i attended a shalloween party at the village lantern, on bleecker. everyone was so thin & had the most awesomest clothes & sunglasses! omg! it wasn't officially a cmj event, but i went there to see a concert by the missing teens, a band who i had heard much about but never seen live & whose live show is definitely interesting & whose songs are full of saucy lyrics.

on saturday afternoon, i was on tha intrawebz checking out the gothamist website. as part of cmj, gothamist had transformed the bell house (a sweet-looking venue that i had no idea existed although it's a mere 15 blocks north of my house near the gowanus canal) into "gothamist house." every day, they had 6-7 bands play from early in the afternoon to early in the evening, pretty much during the time i was doing things like working. i noticed that the saturday lineup included the forms, a band who had coincidentally been recommended to me by the sister of girlfriend of a friend a few days earlier, so i decided to make my way down there for their 6pm set. when i arrived at 6:05, the forms had either gone on early or decided not to play (boo), so i stuck around to watch the next performer, sharon van etten. she's your average singer songwriter type with some emotion most of the time (eh). she had to deal with a loud conversational girl at the bar stage left, so props for that. on the way out, i grabbed a schwag bag, all environmentally sound & donated by whole foods & containing a tin of embittermints.

so that was my 2008 cmj. on a totally unrelated note, i turn 34 in three weeks.

#33 - cmj at 33.
snack: sensible portions pizzetta italiano pita bites
drink: 4c white iced tea antioxidant blueberry flavor

so last night, i was pooped beyond belief from the week & stayed in my apartment for the most part, consuming everything that wasn't nailed down & watching the final episode of the first season of breaking bad (check out that link if you have a few moments & sound...oh & bryan cranston is so deserving of the emmy he won for best actor...sorry jon hamm). i finished off the rest of a box of sensible portions pizzetta italiano pita bites. they're pretty good with a weird & slightly pizzalike aftertaste & the box suggests putting cheese & cucumber slices & herbs & junk on them. whatever, rockefeller.

i also drank a ton of 4c white tea during the eve. as mentioned in my first ever blog entry, iced tea's been the beverage i've had the longest-standing relationship with & 4c's been the powdered iced tea of choice for a lot of it. in recent years, the powder flavors have branched out from the standard lemon fare to include flavors such as the white & red teas. i enjoy the white tea for the most part, although the sweetness can be a bit much at times. it also goes well with white wine. i've yet to try the red tea, as it goes for something like $7 a can. i'll get that some day, rockefeller.

#32 - boobs.

tonight was a night of chillin' at home & catching up on a few of my fave tv shows--true blood, mad men, dexter and the life & times of tim. these shows occupy various pleasure zones in my brain for varied reasons--crazy twists, social commentaries, crude humor--and all of them share one dominant trait, a favorite of heterosexual males worldwide...boobs.

i've been pleasantly surprised by true blood. other than the unarguably awesometacular film that was lost boys, i've never been the biggest fan of stories about the undead. i never watched buffy, read anne rice or cared for bram stoker, but i enjoy true blood so far. one of the reasons is anna paquin's boobs & her sun dresses/louisiana wardrobe (apparently designed by a friend of a friend!). she's just amazingly cute is all...and as both last sunday & this sunday's episodes clearly show, she is comfortable with nudity. boobs...oh & lizzy caplan (of cloverfield fame) joined the cast during this week's episode & is apparently also comfortable with, well...boobs.

i've also started watching hbo's new show the life & times of tim, brought to you by the same guy who brought you the budweiser lizards. remember how much we all loved those lizards & their hilariously dry wit? after a while, we didn't even remember the budweiser frogs. well, the life & times of tim is soaking in the same hilariously dry wit as those commercials. how witty is it? let's just say that last sunday's episode featured a scenario where tim ends up squeezing his girlfriend's grandmother's boobs...boobs.

mad men features many conical 1960s boobs & perhaps the largest boobs in television today, owned by actress christina hendricks, who is quite the sassy badass as the character of joan holloway, the ad agency's office manager...boobs.

i hate all the female characters on dexter. boobs unimportant. the end.

#32 - boobs.

snack: ghirardelli dark chocolate with raspberry
drink: canada dry sparkling green tea ginger ale

as i watched these shows & thoughts of boobs floated through my head, i snacked on a few pieces of ghirardelli dark chocolate with raspberry. after living through a childhood that included the wonders of tidal wave gum & gushers & and adulthood that has brought both jalapeno poppers & salmon roe to my pallette, i've always been a sucker for foods that squirt junk when you bite into them. the ghirardelli don't exactly squirt junk, but they have an inner mushiness that is accented by what i hope are raspberry seeds.

at the atlantic center target earlier today, i was determined to find a good sized bottle of some unique beverage to enjoy over the next few days. for those who know this place, it often resembles a soviet-era grocery store, with its long lines & empty shelves. today, the soda aisle was stripped fairly bare on one side, but when i looked up, the top shelf featured a bottle of pepsi & some relatively clear foreign soda whose label was facing away from me. i reached for it & to my surprise, discovered a new soda invention...canada dry sparkling green tea ginger ale. this soda has antioxidants & is yummy. the green tea flavor goes well with the ginger ale & they both work nicely with the chocolate & raspberry. well done, canada...for once.

in conclusion...boobs.

#31 - asian rim of terror.

please note that for the duration of this entry, all uses & offshoots of the word terror should probably have quotes around them. you can thank dubya for that.

hey, remember his 2002 state of the union address? it was his first one, four months after 911, the one where he took occasion to throw down the gauntlet to iraq, iran & north korea. AXIS OF EVIL BITCHES!!! Y'ALL ARE GOING ON THE TERROR LIST!!!

we all know what happened to iraq & well, if w just had a little more time, he'd get to iran (fingers crossed for mick & the pale in a few weeks! maybe mccain can co-opt more beach boys songs for the cause!). as for north korea, when we began dragging our feet again about removing them from the terror list & began trying to change our negotiated terms, they raised a stink that eventually led to them deploying missiles to their west coast last thursday. as a result, we up & took em off the terror list two days later, just before your beloved college football squads took the field for their saturday competitions.

you see, back to june, north korea very publicly destroyed a water cooling tower at their nuclear facility in yongbyon & in exchange, it was expected that they'd be taken off our terror list, leaving iran as the lone remainder in the axis. you may remember that in recent years, we removed libya from the list after they made "amends" for some of their terrorist actions, which included blowing up a pan am flight over scotland.

as for north korea, they kidnapped anywhere from 16-80 japanese citizens in the late 70s & early 80s & used them to teach north korean spies how to be japanese. in 2002, after denying for a long time that they had done so, north korea eventually admitted to & apologized for kidnapping 13 japanese. they've abducted south korean citizens as well & their more notable act of terror was in 1987, when north korean agents blew up a korean air flight, the largest act of terror ever against south korea. pretty sure they never had to apologize for that though...& then there's the whole nuclear proliferation thing.

...so north korea, congrats. you're off the list. that's how it works round here. themz dubya rules.

#31 - asian rim of terror.
snack: newton's naturals wasabi blazing peas
drink: 22 oz. sapporo reserve

whew, boy do i love wasabi peas. these ones are made in malaysia, which means they might have been made with love by a 10-year old...although "newton's naturals" does seem like a pretty harmless company, at least in name, so i should probably avoid the needless slander. wasabi peas are awesome at clearing you up. i need to learn how to apply moderation to them though. many a time, i've found myself continuing to shove pea after pea into my mouth even though i'm past the point where my eyes & nose are leaking in unison.

luckily, i have a tall can of sapporo reserve to wash them down with. the sapporo can & its inordinate weightiness intrigues me to no end. it makes it so that you think there's a bunch more beer left down there in the can & then out of nowhere, you've got no more beer, sucker. sapporo was the first japanese beer i ever tried, back in my freshman year of college, when a few of us discovered a sushi restaurant in kenmore square that would serve us plucky 18 & 19 year olds. it was also the first time i tried sushi. it's probably a mall now. i mean, kenmore's pretty much one big mall now anyhow.