Alas, I have given in and started a blog. We'll have to see how this goes. I'm still getting used to the software and all that, so this will be a bit of an adventure. Hopefully this won't become one of those never-updated blogs out there in the "internet graveyard." More to follow (hopefully)!
This tuesday marked the continuation of a very nice, new, routine of attending Bluegrass Night at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge. I highly recommend it, and anyone around is welcome to join in the fun on tuesday nights. The opening band seemed like they weren't even old enough to legally be present in the bar, but were fairly decent.
The main act was "Durango Reinhardt," and they were fantastic. Matt Glaser on the fiddle, and John McGann (a regular fixture of late on the stage at the Cantab) with the guitar. And a very very nice female vocalist, who's name escapes me at the moment. Scott's contention was that -- If she were president, she'd be "Babe"raham Lincoln. After imbibing a fair amount of Miller High Life, I took some fairly cruddy pictures -- but you get the basic idea.
So, as a pre valentines-day fancy dinner, I made reservations for two at Morton's of Chicago (yes, they have a Boston location). Some of you may already know that I'm a big fan of the local steakhouse Grill 23 , and have also enjoyed the local branch of another chain: The Capital Grille . I originally intended to make reservations for the abovementioned Grill 23, or perhaps even to try the (newly opened) local branch of Ruth's Chris. But, alas, it being the Sunday before Valentine's day, and me being a procrastinator, there were no available reservations on Open Table for an early dinner. By the way, I highly recommend Open Table as a way to not only make reservations, but peruse the list of local fine dining establishments. But, I digress.
It turns out that all that business about limited reservations being available became a moot point, as a major snowstorm, or "noreaster" as we call them here, blew in and kept everyone at home. But, that's for another blog entry. I was somewhat skeptical about Morton's, mainly due to the fact that it is a chain, and that it was not as well reviewed as Ruth's Chris or Grill 23. I was very pleasantly surprised. The crabcakes were of the largest lumps that I have ever seen (which is noteable since I did live in Maryland for a few summers and have had my share of crabcakes). The Lyonnaise potatoes were cooked in some sort of bacon grease, which made them all the more yummy. And the steak, well, it was just fantastic. I won't go as far as saying it was as good as Grill 23, but I'll highly recommend this place. I can't really comment on the atmosphere, since we were one of only two couples that were able to brave the "blizzard of '06" to make it out. Oh, and for dessert, the molton chocolate cake was quite delicious as well.
So I've finally gotten around to substantially re-doing my home page. The page has been essentially untouched since sometime in 1998, when I first fired up Microsoft Frontpage and threw it on the web. Sure, there have been content updates since then (updating my address, my job, some pictures). The problem was that a lot of those updates were done by hand, so I was stuck with some strange congolmeration of Frontpage crap and hand-edited stuff.
What I'm doing is using nvu, a nice editing helper available for Linux, OSX and Windows, to actually set up a page with style sheets, no frames, and a minimum of kludgy table layouts and FrontPage bots. This is my first time at actually really editing a web page this century, so a lot of this CSS stuff is new to me. It doesn't seem so bad. Anyway, the basic work on the website is done, now I just need to fine-tune and get it looking pretty.
Hopefully, now that the site is set up in a sane fashion, I'll find it easier to keep up to date, and add more photo albums, etc.
And, no, I don't mean the planet. I'm getting regular car maintenance done this morning, and hopefully they're going to fix a binding ignition key problem (their current thinking is that the keys are worn and they are going to cut a couple new ones). But it's nice that they have free wireless internet here while I wait. I'm also informed that my serpentine belt needs to be replaced. This jives with the intermittent squeaking sound heard when turning before the car warms up.
So, pretty much ever since I've learned that ringtones can be composed and distributed, I've wanted to have the Engineer's Drinking Song as a ringtone. For those not in the know of the MIT lore, there is some background info and lyrics here, here and here.
The ringtone itself was composed as part of some MIT ringtone competition at H-Lounge. Get it here. When I got it, it was free, but they supposedly will start charging a few bucks to send it to you. The way it worked for me, was to give them my phone number, and they sent a text message with the audio file attached. I was able to save the attachment and optionally set it as my ringtone. It's actually a fairly good rendition.
My former co-worker, and all around stand-up guy, CK, somehow found quite a neat picture and posted an entry in his blog.
That's quite the crew there. Names I immediately recognize include Heisenberg, Scroedinger, Pauli, Bohn, Einstein, Lorentz, Curie and Planck. All in one picture!
Incidentally, I've been reading 1/2 grim dude's many recent recipes, and am impressed. I've just whipped up a batch of chili (which I've been known to do from time to time), and I'll post the recipe as soon as I can find it. I must say it's pretty good.
At the wonderful learning institution that is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, there are many students who like to drink. A lot. Unfortunately for them, the ultimate drinking holiday (St. Patrick's Day) often falls during spring break, thus depriving them of the pleasure of getting trashed for the holiday. But, in a remarkable show of cleverness and business-savvy, the local bar owners created a holiday of their own. It's called "Unofficial St. Patrick's Day" and it is today.
link.link.
Some rube's photo album.
Some other rube's photo album.
(pictures courtesy of the Daily Illini)
Well, those pictures were both taken, most likely, sometime in the early afternoon, and that's what "unofficial" is all about. It's a day for freshmen to stumble drunkedly across campus in the middle of the day, instead of in the middle of the night as usual. It's also a day for the cops to make an annual "show of force" and ticket a few dozen people for underaged drinking. Their reasoning is probably that if they actually work on the problem for one day out of the year, they can feel better about not doing anything the other 364 days.
This year, the office of the Provost even got into the act. They sent out a massmail, warning people that today was the day, and that "student behavior ... may disrupt classes." CK has posted a full copy of the letter, which seems to actually make "unofficial" a little bit more "official." The bar owners should be sending the provost fruit baskets in return for the free advertising. For more general, and hilarious, information about the UI drinking lifestyle, check out The Booze News. It's one of the few aspects of living in Champaign-Urbana that I actually might miss.
A certain Grim Dude put up a similar list, and I have nothing else that I feel like blogging about at the moment so here goes. It's a somewhat interesting list, and I'm not sure if it has any real correlation to my actual musical tastes or not, but there are some gems in there. My current top 15 most frequently played songs on iTunes:
I'm aware that during my 4-year-long "exile" in Champaign, Illinois, I did a lot of complaining and whining about being there. Some of the negatives that come to mind include the ever-present bizarre odor from the Kraft factory, the lack of really good grub (you couldn't drop $100 on a good, extravagant dinner for two even if you tried), and the overall grimness of the surroundings and local residents. I pretty much did everything but put up a big calendar and cross off the days with a big red magic marker until we finally moved back to Boston this past May. And, don't misunderstand me here, I'm wayyyy glad to be back. But, here are some things I miss about those four long years in the midwest:
Honorable mention: Big badass thunderstorms, closeness to the in-laws, the scenery on the UI campus, the free and always on time CUMTD bus, being able to have satellite TV instead of paying wayyy too much for digital cable, and Barack Obama.
I was going through some old files, cleaning up, the other day, when I came across the invoice for my computer. It's been roughly two and a half years since I "switched." I'm speaking of course, of buying a Mac to replace my windows/linux primary desktop. This makes me a "switcher," in the parlance of our times.
Looking back, I'm not entirely sure what it was that made me switch. It was probably a combination of things: having some extra money around, dealing with just one too many frustrations with my computer, getting a Playstation2 so windows gaming wasn't so important anymore, and hearing and experiencing good things about OSX. So, I took the leap, ordering a PowerMac G4 from apple.com with my educational discount. This wasn't my first experience with MacOS. I've owned a few MacSE's over time, and still have one in working order even. On the first day the iMac was released way back in 1998, I went to CompUSA and bought one. I enjoyed it for a few weeks, and then returned it. This was my plan all along, since there was no way I could spend $1500 on a new computer at that point. But, this time it was for real.
I'm happy to say that two and a half years later, my life is better for having made the move. The original vision of a "personal computer" was as a tool for our betterment. It was supposed to increase our productivity, open up new possibilities, and generally lead to the "betterment of civilization." Quite immediately upon my purchase, I found that I was swearing at my computer a lot less. I was pounding my desk and banging on my keyboard a lot less also. I was able to actually get things done with my computer -- surf the web, check my email, write and read documents, listen to music, watch videos -- without feeling like I was embroiled in a constant Man vs. Machine struggle.
The trend continues to this day. Whenever I turn on my Windows PC these days, I find that I'm constantly pressing F9. Mac users will recognize this as the key sequence for Expose -- It's a one of the most amazing things ever, a visual way to navigate through all of your open windows that's pretty hard to describe with words. Invariably, I'll end up cursing at the computer for not doing what I want it to, or forcing me to jump through stupid hoops in order to get a certain game to run. Maybe I'll need to upgrade my video driver, or downgrade it. Or I'll need to disable the antivirus software, or scan the system for spyware, or (my favorite) edit the registry to prevent all sorts of stupid stubs from starting up on reboot and filling my taskbar (e.g. RealPlayer, Quicktime, Java Updater, Macromedia Flash Updater, some crappy useless tool that came with my sound card, some other crappy useless tool that came with my video card). But, that's enough of that rant. Suffice it to say, I'm much happier when I'm back in Mac-land.
Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely up to the "challenge" of getting my Windows PC (or linux, with it's own counterpart listing of frustrations) working and doing what I want to do. Actually, it's not much of a challenge at all -- I'm no moron after all. When I need/want a challenge, I can boot into Linux and play around. My mail/web/fileserver at home still runs Linux, of course. But, you see, somewhere along the line, something changed in me. After working on computers for 8 hours a day and making a career out of it, I no longer got any thrill or satisfaction out of getting my computer to do something for me. I no longer felt the need to "play around" with my computer all the time. Now, I can relax, knowing that the struggle has already been won. The computer is not there to put obstacles between me and my objectives, or to force me to conform to its way of doing things. It is a tool, at my service. It increases my productivity and opens up new possibilities -- Finally!.
Evacuation Day weekend is drawing to a close here in Boston. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it down to see the parade today, but there were already more than enough festivities.
Photos from parties at Quinn's place and my place.
Ryan Pierce made a surprise appearance at Quinn's place on Friday night. That whole affair reminded me of some of the old MIT parties of 'yore. Lots of "interesting" people. It seemed like all of the residents of that apartment worked at iRobot, so there were Roombas and Scoobas present as well to help clean up spilled beverages. At my place on Saturday, plenty of Guinness, boiled meat and vegetables were had by all. Some new faces were there, and a good time was had by all. Laurie gets a point for making the irish soda bread, and LeVaur gets one for making an appropriate "Naked Lady" comment at the local british-style pub afterwards. Beyond that, I don't recall too much!
I turned on the TV upon arriving at home from work yesterday, and after flipping through the stations was greeted by familiar voices. Baseball is back, and so are Don and Jerry. All is right with the world after all, and of course "hope springs eternal," as they say. I was also greeted by some cleanly-shaven schmo in a Yankee's uniform, but that hardly spoiled my evening.
So I decided to "bite the bullet" today and get a new cell phone. Actually, it wasn't that much of a decision, since my employer is paying for it. I picked up my Treo 650 smartphone from my friendly local verizon dealer and have already gotten it syncing with my mac with minimal problems.
It's not a piece of cake, and palm's sync software really is a flaming pile of shit -- especially on Mac OS. Luckily, many others out there on the internet have worked out the kinks and I was able to get my contacts and calendar working. I've also set up "versamail" on it so I can check my email (IMAP) when I'm not with a computer. On the down side, it's not a real "cell phone," so all of Verizon's "get it now" apps aren't available for it. However, it's a Palm Pilot, so many apps are out there for it. It also has a web browser, so checking sports scores, etc. can probably be done that way, although I really liked ESPN's MLB GameCast on my old phone.
The Pickin' Tuesdays photo album has been updated with some recent acts and good Cantab Lounge ambiance.
Also, there is a new Out and About photo album for random pictures taken out with friends and strangers at various times. This has been updated with some pictures from last night, when Jeff returned to Boston from Oxford. His plan was to surprise his ladyfriend for her birthday tonight. I'm sure the romantic gesture was well appreciated and all went well.
So we'll be on a caribbean cruise this next week having one heck of a vacation. Maybe if I have the time and want to expend the effort, this blog might get updated from the middle of the sea at some point next week. In the mean time, the Out and About photo album has been updated with some pictures from the birthday party last night.
Well, the vacation is over and I'm back in town. I apologize for the blog being unavailable over the past couple of days. It's one of the things I have to suffer through since switching from static business-class ISP service to cable modem. Of course the one time my IP address gets changed is while I'm out of town and don't notice it. Pictures and updates from the vacation will follow eventually. I do have some catching up to do in the mean time though, like figuring out how the Sox are 5-1 already.
Well I finally got around to putting up the Pictures from the cruse. We were on a 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise aboard Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas. Some highlights of the trip include:
Well, I just realized that I had a bunch of comments to this wonderful blog marked as "junk." It appears that I set my sensitivity too high. They have been released. I suppose I've learned my lesson. Good thing I checked the junk folder. I was wondering why I wasn't getting any comments.
Apologies for the lack of blogging lately. I've been off this week at the USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC). So far, there have been interesting sessions on VMware ESX Server, public key cryptography and nuclear weapons control, and I'm currently in a keynote speech about systems at Pixar.
Joining us this week at the conference has been CK. This is his first time in Boston; he has gotten to see several sights in boston this week, including restaurants, bars, music, visiting MIT, some friends, and a decent taste of driving around here.
I don't feel like writing much about the activities and notable events of the week thus far, so go ahead and check out CK's multiple blog entries, and what a grim dude had to say about this.
We love TiVo. It's been about a year and a half since that day in late november 2004 when something (I don't remember what, exactly) pushed me over the edge into buying our 80-hour TiVo box from the Sam's club. It's not too much of a stretch to say that our lives have not been the same since. Our television-watching habits have certainly not been the same, and it really is interesting to consider how a profound change in the way we watch television can trickle through to the way the rest of our lives are carried out. When you're able to amass a library of wanted television to watch at your leisure, rather than scheduling around the TV season and schedule, it makes a big difference in how you can spend your evenings at home. Being able to automatically pick up reruns of shows that I may have missed, or shows featuring a specific actor, or shows automatically suggested to me based on viewing habit, has given us a virtual fountain of television at our disposal.
And, no, I'm not talking about the cable DVR. I'm talking about a real TiVo box. It pains me somewhat to see so many people settling for the generic cable-company-supplied video recorder, and thinking that they have somehow joined the "TiVo revolution." That is, sadly, not the case. I am currently forced to use the Comcast DVR for some programming, because it has the ability to record in High Definition -- a feature sadly lacking on the Tivo (at least at this time). For those of you using regular DVRs, or (heaven forbid!) not using any sort of DVR at all, let me just run down just SOME of what I generally like about the TiVo:
So we're going away for a romantic weekend to Foxwoods, the "world's largest casino and resort," this weekend. Even though it's supposedly only less than two hours away, this will be the first trip to Foxwoods for both of us, so it should be interesting. We've got a fancy dinner reservation for friday night, and some sort of brunch buffet on sunday. Other than that, I plan to hit the tables a bit, and maybe catch a lounge act or something. We might also make a trip to Mystic if we run out of things to do. I hear that there's a nice waterfront there, an aquarium, and some sort of museum. Any advice from regular visitors to Foxwoods would, of course, be welcome. We're staying in an area hotel, since the prices at the actual hotels in Foxwoods are exorbitant, but maybe that's just because we were trying to reserve with less than a week's advance.
Some good hangin' and chillin' last night at the Dockside, even though we are still mourning the Sox getting their asses swept out of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. This was only, of course, after we left the dreadful "Sam's Place" tourist trap craphole. Whose idea was that anyway?
And here are some hilarious webcomics. "Lunacy Abounds!"
http://www.marriedtothesea.com
http://www.alienlovespredator.com
I highly recommend both of them for some good chuckles.
Went to the Summer Shack (up in Alewife) for my "going-away" lunch with the folks from work yesterday. It was tasty. I had the clam chowder (very fresh, chunky, and fantastic), and the Rhode Island style calamari (crispy, not too greasy, hint of hotness with jalapeno peppers). Oh, and a well-executed blueberry pie for dessert. Should go back sometime. Thank you, that is all.
I must admit that I am often intrigued by new products, and succumb to the impulse to try out wacky new things. A few weeks ago, I was in our favorite Shaws (on Western Ave.) and saw this unusual-looking new beverage called Blak, produced by our friends at the Coca-Cola company ( press release ). At that point in time, I was intrigued, but able to resist. A few weeks later, however, as I was strolling through LaVerdes at MIT during my lunch break, I gave in to temptation.
Let me summarize the experience by saying that Blak is one of the grimmest beverages ever invented. Here's how they must make it at the factory: start with an empty can; add one half of the can's volume of coca-cola that is slightly flat from a 2-liter bottle that's been opened up for a while; fill the rest of the can up with a mug of slightly burnt and strong coffee that's been sitting in the coffee maker for about two days and is room temperature; add approximately 4 packets of sweet-n-low; mix. It boggles the mind how anyone thought this drink was a good idea. It's not that I don't like coffee or coffee drinks in general. I enjoy the Starbucks bottled coffee-flavored beverages very much. Anyway, is there anyone out there who actually has tried Blak and has not found it to be completely repulsive?
Supposedly, the roll-out started in France. One student said, probably in a typically French snooty accent: (quoted from this article) "I don't think it's a good idea. We are artisans in France, we are used to things like good coffee and fine wines, not things like this."
So I was in lovely Rochester, N.Y. this past weekend for my 10th high-school reunion and an event honoring a retiring english teacher. Rochester seems to be a little bit different every time I go there. There's a new soccer stadium, built with city/county funds in the hopes of being able to get the Rochester Raging Rhinos to become an MLS club. Kodak Park is mostly a wasteland now that they've pretty much laid everyone off and don't really make much film anymore. It's possible that I'll come up with some more things, but here are some notable things for now:
Back in school it was a tradition to build various flotation devices to get people out into the middle of the charles river to watch the 4th of July fireworks spectacular (e.g. the infamous cruftamaran incident). At some point last year, Scott decided that he was going to go all out and somehow turn a car into a boat for such use. Here are some pictures from last year, and here is a lengthy log with links to more pictures.
After the disappointment of last year, everyone was all the more determined to get the carboat launched and up the river for the fireworks this time around. The vessel was officially registered with the commonwealth of Massachusetts. The interior was cleaned and refinished, propulsion added in the form of a bicycle-driven-paddlewheel, steering system constructed, flotation foam added and shaped, and many other things were touched-up and/or improved upon. Unfortunately, several gears wore down early in the transit, sending the paddlewheel system into the weeds. Scott and Steve had actually spent the night on the boat earlier after a late-night launch to avoid the disappoinment of last year.
They got the boat to Josh's mooring by the Sonesta hotel in Cambridge, and after a good deal of work there on the sidewalk with hammer, file, drill, blowtorch, wrenches, etc., the paddlewheel was working again -- to the cheer of several bemused onlookers. We loaded up with refreshments and took the trip under the Longfellow bridge all the way past the MIT sailing pavillion (where we sang a rousing verse of the Engineer's Drinking Song), and to a spot near the Harvard Bridge for a good veiw of the fireworks. All in all, it made for one of the best July 4ths ever. Here is an album of pictures that I snapped this year during the work and launch of the vessel.
So this Sunday, July 10th, was a sports-packed day. The World Cup final and the Red Sox vs. White Sox marathon 19-inning game were going on at the same time through the afternoon. It was a great use for the picture-in-picture feature on the tube.
The Sox game was a good one. It was damn long though, and the outcome was not exactly to my liking. The Remdawg summed it up at one point by saying: "This game could go on until Thursday for all I care; this is great!" Papelbon blew the save, and the White Sox bullpen outlasted us. Good thing it wasn't a night game, or I would have been watching until 1:30am or something.
I tuned into the cup final somewhere around the 45th minute or so, and it was already deadlocked in a 1-1 tie. I had the feeling right away that this was at least going to be going into overtime. Of course I was rooting for the Italians, and just about fell off the couch after Zidane's no-class head-butt move. And then I just about fell off the couch again when the ref's got together and made the right call, giving him the red card. That right there pretty much sealed the fate of the French. Still, that's quite an ignominious way to go in the last game of your career as one of the game's "greats". Over at 2GD there's a great entry on the subject. With a hilarious gif animation.
And now onto the carboat. Foon as finally gotten around to putting up his account of the festivities, as well as some wonderful photos of the work. Some good ones of the thing in water, as well as a couple featuring your's truly.
Over this past weekend we stopped by our new apartment to sign the lease and fork over a truckload of money for first month's rent and the security deposit. While we were there, we got to don some hardhats and take a trip to our mostly-finished but still under construction unit (#1504). It turns out that the observations I had made from the cambridge side of the river and the harvard bridge were correct, and that the 15th floor is really the optimal level to get a view that includes MIT and Cambridge. Also, as predicted, the veiw of Fenway Park does indeed include the scoreboard, and the Citgo sign is featured front and center. Unfortunately, when snapping the pictures below, I neglected to turn slightly to the right and capture the view of the city of Boston proper (Prudential and Hancock towers and downtown).
The view from our windows (all of them face the same way, so this is the veiw out of any window):
What one sees when standing at the kitchen counter looking across the living room:
So at some point this afternoon, this server took it's well-worn uptime of 250+ days into the weeds. I was at work at the time, so could only speculate as to what may have happened. It would take a prolonged power outage to knock it completely offline, since it's protected by UPS, and that was definitely not what happened -- the router is plugged into the same UPS, and it had not gone down. My next guess was that the heat had gotten to be too much (it was about 101 degrees here today) and the AC had failed and there was some sort of fan failure and/or thermal shutdown.
I started the troubleshooting when I got home around 5pm, and immediately ruled out thermal shutdown since the fans were still all spinning and things didn't seem too warm in there. It had been warmer than usual in that room, so it's possible that the heat had taken out some other random component. Plugging in a monitor and keyboard and rebooting, I could see that the system would engage the monitor, and then beep wildly and/or fill the screen with garbage characters. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've had to do any PC hardware troubleshooting, so I started barking up the wrong tree by replacing the processor, and then the entire motherboard and video card (I have spares of each for the server). Now, with most everything unplugged, and the new motherboard in there, I could get it to at least POST and get into the BIOS, but as soon as it started to initialize the SATA card in there, it would hang and the drives would make funny noises. Can you guess what the problem was? So as not to spoil the "surprise" and how the rest of my evening went, I'll continue this in section 2.
...Is in progress. Packers are here packing up a storm. We started painting the new place yesterday (actually she did most of the work), taking more measurements, and figuring out how all of our stuff is going to fit. We were even there for the first part of the ballgame. I verified that I could clearly see the jumbotron and follow the action of the game through that, the crowd noise, and the announcer (all audible from our living room). Stay tuned for more updates...
So I was on my treo today looking at pictures that I had stored on there, and up popped two that we took at our old apartment building on the day we moved out. Beautiful luxury condominiums at Longwood Towers! It spurred me on to finish up this blog entry that I've been working on for a while:
Yes, if you want to pay $700,000 or so you too can live behind the same leaky, crumbling edifice that we were only paying $1950/month for before some clueless out-of-town real-estate mogul moved in and decided to "convert" to overpriced luxury condos. Yeah, yeah, they are "patching" the brickwork outside, and replacing the old windows with new (but still leaky from what I hear) windows, but it's all just a surface wash. "Lipstick on a pig" is a good description of what they've been trying to do. Spending millions of dollars on a fancy-pants lobby renovation -- which still includes, by the way, an unintentional, but sizable, water feature whenever it rains heavily -- and putting paint, plaster, hardwood floors and new appliances into old apartment units is probably not going to convince enough people to pay the abnormally high price, even for Brookline. My only hope is that sanity will prevail, and most people will probably see through the facade the moment they realize that most units don't even have laundry, and they would have to slum it down to the basement just like us poor apartment dwellers used to.
To Norman Radow and "The RADCO companies": I hope you go broke. You've taken a great historic building, one of the last bastions of pseudo-afforable housing in Brookline, and defecated all over it. I didn't really bear them too much ill will while we were happily residing there. Even though they used heavy-handed and questionable legal tactics in unsuccessful attempts to push current residents aside to make way for the "renovations," I still somewhat respected their right to make a buck or two. But now, when I take into account the thousands of dollars that we had to spend in order to move (into a much nicer and cheaper place, by the way), and multiply that by the hundreds of other residents who probably went through a similar process and may not have been as financially secure as us, I think they deserve every bit of what's coming to them.
They spent $110 million to buy the old dame, and then what's estimated as another $30 millon to "renovate" it. Those costs have probably skyrocketed since then. Since they couldn't just bully us residents and kick us out, a one-year facade repair project has balooned to 2.5 years and is still less than 75% complete. "Historic Longwood Towers just two years away from opening!" is the latest news. Professional designers were brought in to pick out the thousand dollar chairs for the lobby, the ugly artwork, stupid chandelier, marble floor, gay-looking sconces, and other trappings of artificial wealth. Yes, you heard me right, artificial. It's like 1999 all over again, and the bubble is about to burst. See, the awful truth is that not enough people actually want to pay $700,000+ for what is really a $2500/month apartment in a crappy old building. It doesn't matter if the valets have walkie-talkies or if there might be a driving range, or an indoor putting range put in at some point in the future (yeah, like that's ever going to happen).
The bell is tolling for all of the condo moguls. Not just Radow. "The increasingly troubled Bay State home and condo sales market is racing into a downturn that could take years, not months, to work itself out," according to the Herald. So, brace yourselves, home owners, buyers, and sellers. And most importantly of all: buyer beware!
Tenant discontent complicates Longwood conversion -- Boston Business Journal Article
Longwood Towers Tenants Association -- website
Longwood Towers Condominiums -- official website
Longwood Towers (brookline) to go condo over coming months (hehe, months? yeah...) -- blog entry
Summer technically ended over a week ago, but I think that this weekend can be considered the effective last weekend of summer here in New England. The Red Sox finish their pitifully disappointing season today, and the weather will quickly take a turn to fall and winter. This dude known as Lopez, Mike's friend from college, was in town this weekend with his lady friend, who introduced us to another friend of hers that happens to live in the area, and there was much fun to be had -- including the Scottographer and LBJ as well.
Friday night, we joined up in the north end for some good times, ending up at Hurricane O'Reilly's for the evening. For some reason, lately I've been driving to places lately instead of taking the subway. This is probably because I have no desire to necessarily worry about rushing to the station by 12:30am, when the trains stop running. There was much drinking, and certain members of our party may have over-indulged a bit, but shall remain nameless. Luckily, I had driven and laid off the booze, so was able to shuttle said partygoers back home safely.
I had no idea that Harpoon had a brewery here in Boston, and Saturday started with a long afternoon of beer and music at the Harpoon Oktoberfest ("poonfest" in first picture below). We met up with Melissa (in picture below with Mike) and had several beers of various varieties after taking a stroll through the brewery. I was a fan of the UFO Hefeweizen, but I know that certain folks bear some sort of animosity towards unfiltered wheat beer. After the poonfest we ventured back to the North Station area and were able to just get to Harp early enough to get in before the line stopped moving. This was good, because The Zoo was (were?) playing, and it was a heck of a good show. Unfortunately, a downside was that Kristy (my wife) was working this weekend, so missed all the festivities. Alas, it's back to work tomorrow, and onwards to fall.
It's extremely rare that I meet someone who hails from my hometown (Rochester, N.Y.). Last night I did, and we briefly reminisced about Nick Tahoe's garbage plates, good chicken wings, The Distillery, R.I.T. (all bricks, no chicks), The Alexander St. Pub, and other hangouts and such. Brought to mind a funny list that I had come across a while ago. What follows are some selections from "You Know You're From Rochester, NY When...":
That Monday Night Football game (Bears vs. Cardinals) was a head-scratcher. Don't get me wrong, it was one of the most notable games I've ever had the pleasure of watching. It was a freaky game, just not a very good game. A 20-point-late-third-quarter comeback with no offensive scoring at all (first time that's happened in the history of the NFL, by the way)? Winning a game where Rex Grossman threw four interceptions, and lost two fumbles? That missed field goal at the end? Wacky stuff. Team of destiny, or did the Cardinals just send this one into the weeds? Who knows. One could actually understand why Dennis Green was so tweaked in his postgame "interview" though. Here's the clip on youtube.
Kristy and I saw The Departed over the weekend at some point. It was a fine movie. Probably one of the better flicks I've seen in a while. Damon, Nicholson, Wahlberg, Sheen, Baldwin, etc. made up a great cast. The authentic Boston flavor made it even better (real scenery, since it was mostly filmed here, and some Dropkick Murphys rocking out as well). I highly recommend it. I didn't even mind the ending that some other people I know have took some issue with. I will not spoil it for anyone though.
Well, I'm off to Champaign-Urbana for a few days to visit niece, nephew, brother-in-law, etc. and also to visit with some former colleagues at the UIUC. Also, I can't exactly put my finger on it, but for some reason I dislike the Cardinals. I'm mostly ambivalent towards the National League in general, but maybe it's because the Cardinals fans in Champaign-Urbana (and there actually were a decent amount of them, being only two hours or so from St. Lous) when we lived there had the reputation of being the "hicks" compared to the more populous Cubs and White Sox fans. Just a thought.
If you notice a lack of entries on this fine blog lately, it's because I'm bitter. I spent a good amount of time the other day writing up quite a nice new entry, only to accidentally close my browser window and lose everything. Makes me not want to enter anything in text fields on the interweb for a little while.
So starting on Saturday, we'll be on a week's vacation. This will involve a nice drive all the way from Boston to Champaign, IL (Tolono actually), and then a drive back from there to Boston, stopping at my mom's place in western New York on the way back. Should be loads of holiday fun! Maybe I'll have some time to blog a bit while on the road?
Well, that trip's over and it seemed long. Some highlights included seeing some people in Champaign (At Joe's no less) that I hadn't seen in a while (see picture below), and visiting the Original Candy Kitchen in small-town Williamson, NY for lunch, some candy, and plenty of Americana.
Here's me at Joe's with (from L to R) Warner, Charley and Mike. Apparently Brian and Paul didn't make it into the picture, and it was taken before Kristy arrived. I got to try out a few exotic shots, including the "CCSO," which apparently consists of Cuervo, Blue Curacao, Sour mix, and Orange Juice.
Apparently, I've only seen five (12,25,84, 88 and 99). Although it's possible if the planned vacation next year pans out I'll be adding at least another three. Looks like there's a lot more traveling to do for anyone who wants to catch all 100.
So, this past weekend was the world famous annual MIT IAP Mystery Hunt, and for the second year in a row I participated whole-heartedly. Our team, The Chaotic-Neutral Mid-Afternoon Archers What Arch At Teatime, did fairly well. Apparently we finished in approximately 6th place ordered by how many puzzles were completed, but we were really only two or three hard puzzles and maybe a couple of "a-ha!" moments away from being right up there.
The hunt is now archived online, so you can go ahead and try your hand at some puzzles. I'd recommend taking a peek at Blather, and I Love These 80. I suppose that those are two of my favorites, but it's hard to remember or keep track with so many puzzles over the course of the 2.5-day or so event.
Quinn was kind enough to take and put up some pictures from the weekend, including several of us toiling away in our enclave in Building 56, as well as us partying afterwards at putz (EC 2nd west), where several of us spent our undergraduate days. There was some nice reminiscing to go around, as well as plenty of "back in the day" stories. Supposedly the hall is putting up a wiki so we can document some of the oral and written history of putz, but I suppose that's for another blog entry.
Picture it: voters have just elected Bill Clinton to a second term in the white house, the 100th olympic games are over and the images of Kerri Strug winning the gold medal for the US in gymnastics on a dislocated ankle, and Mohammad Ali lighting the torch are fading, and the Unabomber turned out to be some crazy dude named Ted Kaczynski.
It's the fall of 1996, I'm a freshman in college, and although my memory is fuzzy (it being over a decade ago), this is when I discovered the Border Cafe in Harvard Square. There's not quite anything like the warm feeling we get from comfort and long-term familiarity. See: comfortable old shoes, your favorite old t-shirt, the brand of cereal that you've been eating since before you could walk, your best friend from childhood, your hometown, etc. For me, you can add to that list the Border Cafe. It's a crowded, wait-outside-in-the-cold-on-weekends type place with a loud, umm..."rustic?" atmosphere. The drinks are sort of watered down, the service quality is hit-or-miss, and I've had somewhat better mexican food (even in Boston, which seems to lack mexicans for some reason as compared to Champaign IL). Irregardless, I've developed a strange attachment to the place at some point over the past decade.
My standby until very recently (thanks to the scottographer), were the "Shredded Beef Enchiladas." Actually, at one point they used to be called "Jose's Shredded Beef Enchiladas," but apparently Jose is no longer with us. These days, the chimichurri steak has caught my fancy. The portions, in general, are excellent, and the homemade chips and salsa are delightful. Also, I'd like to give two more points to Mrhe for introducing me to a concoction known as the "blue margarita." It's just what it sounds like -- a margarita that is blue (presumably because of the addition of Blue Curacao). On that note, actually I'll also give two points to the blue margarita itself, on the basis of it being so darn tasty. One predictable and consistent downside, however, is that, for example, I was there last night and over 24 hours later my coat still smells of mexican food and spices.
Anyway, writing a full review of the Border Cafe would be like trying to write a review of Nick Tahoes (another favorite institution of mine, and many other western New Yorkers). It's a place I've been going to with old and new friends for years -- no I didn't meet my wife there, but we sure went on, and continue to go on plenty of dinner dates there. So lets raise a glass (filled with a bright blue margarita, if you wish) to the Border Cafe.
See you at the b0rd3r!
With a nod to foonyor, who used to send these out occasionally back in the day.
16 ~60GB Maxtor ATA hard drives up for grabs today. I'll bring them over to 2ndwest at some point after work with the cart and TV. There has been some interest, so as to avoid a brawl upon my arrival, please comment here if you want to reserve one or more. First come first served.
I'm not exactly sure why, but there are a whole bunch of new shows that have become season passes on the TiVo and DVR recently:
Well, here it is, entry #100. I had no idea that I'd be so prolific with this blog. In fact, I think my original prediction was that I'd start out like a house on fire, and then at some point stop writing altogether. Instead, the blog has turned into a neat place to jot down ideas and stuff as they come to mind. Lots of interesting things that pop into my head end up here that would otherwise get forgotten and I wouldn't ever get to collate them, much less share them with you fair readers.
So, here's to at least a few hundred more in 2007!
So, at some point a couple of weeks ago, I started re-playing GTA San Andreas from the beginning. Having already gone through the game once when it first came out, I can take the time to appreciate some of its finer points. The first word one has to use to describe this game is "epic." I don't have my stats handy here, but I think it took somewhere between 100-200 hours of playing time to beat it, and that may not count restoring from save spots. So, I've been playing for a couple weeks now, a few hours on sporadic nights, and I think I might be just about 25-33% through the main plot of the game.
I've also got