In case you needed more proof that the Alamo Drafthouse was the greatest movie theater ever, then you should check this out. Last week I watched The Warriors at Coney Island, followed by a Q&A with a number of the cast members. I even got to hear Cyrus say “CAN YOU DIG IT?” in person. Daren is jealous, I can feel it. It was totally worth the three hours I spent on the subway. Now if Ice-T, Chris Rock, and Wesley Snipes will just get together and host a screening of New Jack City…

After a 28 day hiatus, I finally got a chance to play soccer again. I signed up for a soccer league I found on the internets which is just as shady as their website makes them appear. To say that the organization is poorly run would be a horrible understatement. I’ll give you all the gory details: I was given almost no instruction and after getting a bunch of run-around through email from the guy who runs the league, I was told to show up at the rooftop field promptly at 8:15 where someone in an “official shirt” would be there to tell me where to go. Seriously, “official shirt”. That makes sense.

The field is at Pier 40, though the google maps image is a bit out of date and still shows it as a shipping pier – the center in the satellite image is actually two full size soccer fields. We’re talking 70+ yards wide. You can still make out the rooftop field(s) in the bottom right corner. There’s a fence that’s about 30 ft tall to keep the ball from going into the Hudson or onto Westside Highway. It’s actually kind of cool to play on the rooftop field there. The games take place after dark and every now and then when I stop to take a breath, I can look out at the downtown skyline. Pretty cool. The fields themselves are not grass (of course). They are actually very similar material to the stuff they use at the indoor arena in Austin. Fake turf with the small rubber pieces.

Back to how terrible the “league” is. First off, I’m in a coed league (which is fine) but the rules are strange. You have to have two females on the field at all times – excluding the goalkeeper. I’ve never played anywhere where they use these rules. It flat doesn’t make sense. If you have a female keeper (generally considered a disadvantage) you still have to field two girls. Strange. The gameplay is much like indoor (free subbing, continuous running clock) with two important differences – the field is much smaller (almost half the size of the indoor arena I’m used to playing at) and there are no fucking walls or nets. Now this might not seem like a terrible inconvenience, but consider that you have to chace the ball every time someone misses a shot and once you’ve gone 10 yards, you’re almost close enough to shoot. I’d estimate that 3-5 minutes of each 20 minute half is spent chasing the ball after someone misses a shot. On top of that, the league is always running behind and rarely sure of what field each team is supposed to play on because there are no field numbers. So every time you show up it’s just a free-for-all for the first 15 minutes. I should mention that I’m paying $15 for this per game. $150 for a ten-game season. This league is still dramatically cheaper than the Chelsea Piers league, which is a ridiculous $225 per season.

My team is a “house” team – that is, it’s all the people that signed up to play as individuals. Somehow we’re the best house team I’ve ever played with. We have one of the best female soccer players I’ve ever played with (apparently she currently plays soccer for some college team), some other players that are pretty good, a keeper that is also very good (strange that he doesn’t already have a team; it’s rare to find a keeper that is both good and doesn’t already have a team), and this guy. Yeah, one of my team members is a freelance writer that writes about the competitive eating circuit. He’s pretty good at soccer too.

Our season is about to enter the playoffs (funny, I started writing this post over a month ago) so I’ll keep you (and by you I mean the thousands of regular readers of this blog) posted on how the season works out for us.

Thanks to everyone who made it out last weekend on such short notice. It was good to see you all. For those of you that I didn’t get to see, I’ll be back in September for ACL and will likely be making it down a day early to go to the Thievery Corporation show at Stubb’s. Let me know if you’re interested in going. I had limited time in Austin, but I managed to make the most of my 48 hr stay, hitting the four most important locations on the north side: Freebirds, Trudy’s, the Hideout, and (of course) the Canary Roost. We’ll be doing it all over again ACL weekend (Sept 14th-17th), so mark your calendars.

Business cards serve two functions: 1) To prove to other business people that you are a legitimate employee of a company¹ and 2) To serve as a cheesy parting gift to go along with the cheesy pickup line you used at that awesome happy hour when you were wearing your favorite striped shirt.

I just got my new business cards in the mail and they have a little extra something to help out with both purposes. First, they are obnoxiously orange (the back is at least). It hurts your eyes if you stare at them for too long. This business card will stand out in a sea of business cards. I think it’s time to start putting my cards in those free weekly drawing fish bowls. Mine is so bright it would have to get chosen.

The second feature is really the best. On the back of my business cards they have one of six different business slogans. Of course, whoever was in charge of coming up with these slogans has a tremendous sense of humor and came up with slogans that could serve well as cheesy pickup lines. Here’s my top three²:

1. GO FURTHER FASTER
2. SUPREME SERVICE
3. EXPERTISE BEYOND EXPECTATION

They read even better as fortune cookies.

¹ Some might argue that business cards are a useful way of trading information as opposed to having to write someone’s phone number down. Don’t buy it. I’m more likely to throw away a business card than I am someone’s information that I’ve jotted down myself.
² Yes, they are in all caps on the business cards. The bright orange isn’t enough, we’ve got to send the message home.

Yet somehow happen to read this, I’m going to be in Austin tomorrow. Errrr…make that tonight. Doesn’t matter where I am, I still can’t sleep.

Someone must really hate Stereogum. When I just went to their site to try to figure out why bloglines wasn’t reading the feed, I saw this:

“SUFJAN” really isn’t a good password, since Stereogum is crazy for Sufjan Stevens like Spin is for the Strokes and the White Stripes.

I held out. For six weeks I had no home internet access. I have to be honest, it was fucking painful. There were moments when I was going through withdrawls, the latenight reading (crazy, I know), the saturdays spent staring at the wall. And just to come clean, I did consider buying a laptop. I even picked one out. But I pushed through it and I’m a better person for it. The uninternet days are all behind me now. I’m back on the wagon. Or is it off the wagon? That’s not important.

What is important is that last week when Kat came to visit in addition to getting to see her for the first time in a month, she also brought my computer. Combine that with my new sublet location (which includes internet) and I’m finally back in the civilized world.

And with one click of the mouse…

I actually live here now.

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.