Yesterday I saw Joe Jack Talcum (lead singer of the Dead Milkmen) play a solo acoustic set. The Dead Milkmen have been one of my favorite bands forever and I still listen to them alot today. Don’t believe me? Check out my last.fm profile.
Much like Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes, Joe Jack Talcum sounds exactly the same as he does on the early Milkmen albums. The guy is fucking awesome. This makes another band I can cross off the list. And I thought it wasn’t ever going to happen. Rock.
I saw Walter Schreifels (Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand, Rival Schools, Walking Concert) perform an acoustic set at a tiny bar yesterday. I’m talking less than 200 people. He played all the hits, even my current theme song – Dine Alone by Quicksand. That’s another check off the “artists I need to see before they quit playing” list. Apparently, Gorilla Biscuits is re-issuing one of their albums and he’s going to be touring with them later this year. Didn’t get any update on what’s going on with Walking Concert though.
In other news, I had some terrible sushi yesterday before the show. Some place on Ave A around 7th or 8th street. Note to all sushi chefs: don’t put carrots in the dragon roll. Better yet, don’t use carrots in sushi at all; the texture is just flat wrong.
I need to get all these thoughts out at once. They’re all short, don’t worry.
How rich is this company?
My cleaning lady is white. Not Eastern European white, but white. I know because we had an uncomfortable exchange. I was sitting at my desk making sense of some code. I saw out of the corner of my eye that the cleaning lady was emptying the trash can at the desk next to me. I had a bunch of stuff on my desk to throw away, so I started gathering it into the trashcan and without turning around I started with “Aye, perdon deja me tirar esto en …”. And that’s when I turned around and realized she wasn’t hispanic. Situation awkwardo.
In other news, I think I saw Prince today. As I was strolling into work, some guy cut me off. He was short, dark skinned, had his hair kinda braided up, had these huge sunglasses on, was in some goofy/overly trendy clothes, and was walking around like he owned the place. As he walked by, I thought to myself, “who the fuck does this guy think he is, Prince?” Then tonight I ran across this story. And saw the picture. I either saw Prince, or saw his biggest fan.
GVIM users unite! Sorry, not really I still can’t do it. My bold statement goes more like GVIM users attempt to get GVIM to act like a normal fucking application should and not some shitty 133t lame-o leenux sourceforge application.
My company’s application isn’t case sensitive. So being from New York, it does everything in uppercase. Because it isn’t loud enough here as it is. Now I have words on the screen shouting at me all the time. IT’S LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m crazy addicted to TV and internet. I have neither in my apartment. It’s driving me crazy. So, since I’m here alone, I have a ton of free time (without that pesky TV or internets), even if I force myself to work super late. Eventually I hit this point where I just have to get out of the office and walk around or do something. Monday night I had the perfect opportunity to do this. I saw Oklahoma’s own Starlight Mints and Austin’s own The Octopus Project in the same night. I think everyone with a tie to Oklahoma was there. All the bands made multiple references to people from the “405″. Oklahoma shout-outs are the best. And some stranger was wearing a Frontier Country t-shirt (maybe you’d have to be me to really enjoy it). Unfortunately, I didn’t run into anyone I knew, with the exception of the merch guy for the Startlight Mints, who was someone I recognized from college, but didn’t really know personally.
The show rocked. Both Starlight Mints and the Octopus Project, neither of which I had seen in the million times they each played while I lived in Austin. Sometimes it takes a big move to force a change of habit. I also learned some lessons:
It’s like Austin, but I don’t have to drive home. Ever. My liver won’t stop singing:
The attendent did not strap me in
I’m sure that I am going to die
This is my last rollercoaster ride
This is my last rollercoaster ride
This is my last ride….
Kat was in town all week so things I was even shorter on time than I usually am. I don’t have internet access at the temporary place and when I’m at work, I’m …well…working. For real. It’s funny, a number of people said I was going to be working miserable hours. I haven’t really noticed anyone working miserable hours, but I have seen a lot of people who work a SOLID 8 hours. I mean, no fucking around whatsoever. It’s strange. Everyone is running a million miles an hour all the time, but they all leave after working for 8-9 hrs. Strange.
I’m still getting up to speed on everything. Switching back to development is one thing, but moving into a UNIX shop is entirely different. Not to mention the fact that they use all of the programming features that I never used. I remember thinking to myself that I was never going to have to create lists and write fucking sorting algorithms and all sorts of bullshit like that. That’s the crap they teach you in school so you can prove to a company that you can learn to work in their environment. The stuff here actually uses that knowledge. I’ve never had to deal with file I/O and vector manipulation and sorting and all that bullshit. It feels like a going back to academia, only I go to a very big company with free cherry coke and bottled water. And I don’t have to do homework. And I get paid. Other than that, it’s about the same.
We found an apartment and I’ll let Kat explain it all, since she’s really the one that did all the work, giving up a week of vacation just to find us a place. And in the most miserable conditions possible. It rained every single day she was here. June 3rd I was watching the news and it said that for the month of June in NYC we had already surpassed the record rainfall for the month. Three days in. Ridiculous. Demanda was right when she said it rains more in NYC than in Seattle. I thought she was kidding. The apartment is the shit though. Seriously, you’re all going to have to come out to see it.
Unfortunately it’s not going to be available until August, so I’m going to be subletting for another month and a half. On the plus side though, Kat is going to have more time to take care of stuff in Austin. So if there was something you had your eye on at our house, get in touch with Kat soon.
I have reluctantly chosen a side.
I’m a little short on time, so I’m not going to get into my work business, which is what I’ve been spending the majority of my time doing. I just can’t put it into words yet. All I can say now is that it’s awesome and intense and crazy all at the same time. More on that later. Today, you get a new look at NYC.
One of the biggest warnings I got when I told people I was going to move out here was to watch out because people are mean, rude and “they’d rather step on you than help you up”. Well, I haven’t found that to be the case at all. In fact, yesterday when I was walking home a woman stopped me to tell me that I was “the cutest thing”. That’s right, she wasn’t being mean at all, she was just trying to brighten my day. Well, maybe she wasn’t trying to brighten my day. And maybe calling her a “woman” is a bit misleading. She was definitely female, in her mid-fifties and was horribly addicted to crack. But she wasn’t missing that many teeth… Maybe it would be easier to just say that she still had 7 of her teeth left. I can never remember how many teeth humans are supposed to have.
So no, she didn’t have the best of intentions. In fact the look in her eye was downright nerve-racking. I could almost see the cracked-out rat spinning in the wheel in her head, producing one thought – “if I suck on that, it will get me high, right?”
I can taste the vomit coming up the back of my throat again. Time to go home.