Ellen :•)

Sweet!

Wes Anderson talks about making movies in an American Express commercial. Hilarious!

Master of Arts

The master needs a haircut and could stand to do some regular exercise.

"Matilda"

100 Things That Make Me Happy

In no particular order and I may have miscounted. I wrote the last line first.

Cookies
Drawing
Pizza
Garage Sales
San Francisco
The Dictionary
Forgotten things rediscovered
Maps
Wheat Beer
PBS
Sleeping
Wind
Bob Dylan
The Portuguese language
Animation
VW Beetles and Microbuses
German Food
Trees
My grandfather's inventions/contraptions
Parks and preserves
The Price Is Right
Barns
Cargo pants/shorts
Asymmetry
Mashed Potatoes
Thinking
The Beatles
Family History
The couch
Canals and canal boats
Orange Soda
Funny hats
Imagining
The first snow of the year
Blackouts (power outages)
Flickr
Construction Paper
Sushi
Myths
Catalogs
Star Trek
Field stones
Tall ships
Paper Airplanes
Shade
Hardware stores
Vespas
Netflix
The Kinks
Bread
Diagrams
Recycling
Nature Shows
Mechanical clocks and watches
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Mama Theresa's
Silence
Hot sauce
Exploring
Old Cameras
Rain in the summer
Leaves in autumn
Classical Music
Hershey's Milk Chocolate
Stone bridges
Alexander Rodchenko
Short socks
Thai Iced Tea
Extraneous knowledge
Gardens
Pirate books/movies
T. Rex
Philodendrons
Cooking Shows
Remembering
Flags
Manhattan
Carvel
LEGOS
Old world architecture
David Bowie
Old Books
Cake
M*A*S*H
Jacques Henri Lartigue
The countryside
Patches
Obsolete machinery
Walking
Biscuits
Blogging
Parties
Disney World
Dagwood sandwiches
Bossa Nova
Futurama
The Encyclopedia
Photography
Ellen

Cooler than ever:

Michael Cho

Screwed The Pooch: Oversold Long Island Beer Festival Disappoints Many

The Long Island Beer Festival was held on Friday evening at the Huntington Hilton. It was supposed to be an all you can eat and drink evening for $45 a ticket, with proceeds going to North Shore Animal League - but many were left with a sour taste.

Throngs of beer and food lovers descended on the Hilton only to find a long line snaking through the filled parking lot. Many were forced to park at an unmarked neighboring hotel facility. As this was not a Hilton property, those that were directed to park there received parking tickets.

Tickets were not properly checked at the door to match the name on the pre-sold ticket with the bearer. The ball room quickly filled and surpassed its capacity for comfort, and then past its capacity for safety.

After waiting on a long line to get in, festival goers crammed in to a the Hilton's grand ballroom, filling it with wall to wall people and creating a fire hazard. The all-you-can-eat food ran out before many festival goers even made it through the door. Beer was also difficult to obtain and was issued in small sample cups. Many vendors ran out of cups and garbage cans overflowed on to the crowded floor.

A number of ticket holders asked to speak to the man in charge, but were told by festival volunteers and Hilton employees that "Stuart" was nowhere to be found. Stuart is most likely an employee, manager or otherwise associated with Shoreline Beverage, which organized the event.

Many festival goers did not even get through the doors. Paying ticket holders were turned away after officials intervened, concerned that there were too many people inside.

The festival was supposed to last until 10 PM, but at 8:45 the fire department closed down the event due to the hazardous overcrowding of the ballroom. Some festival goers were then told to email the organizers to receive free admittance to next years event. Many want refunds and are unlikely to attend future Shoreline events.

The real victim or victims here are not the festival goers, but North Shore Animal League, a not for profit organization that is unlikely to see much of the money that was supposed to have been raised.

This was more bitter than any beer.

Photos of line and crowd (click for larger views):

Grandpa Gabe

At age 17

Portrait

I drew this at a weekend workshop at the Nassau County Art Museum

My grandfather

Attempting to climb a tree. Miami, 1947.

This is a test

This is only a test. There is nothing interesting about this post, so stop reading it. Your continued interest in this post demonstrates incontrovertibly that you, gentle reader, have far too much free time. Or, perhaps you do not realize how valuable your time is. You only have one life, and you are, at this very moment, devoting a portion of it to reading this post and thus denying the use of your time for far more productive pursuits. On the other hand, you may have more than one life, which dilutes the actual amount of time that you are spending reading this post. In that case, your interest in this post would constitute no more than a microscopic fraction of eternity. So, are you using up a portion of your one life or merely whiling away a moment of eternity?

The badge of my appointed office

When a plan comes together

I may have exaggerated a little in an earlier entry about spending all of my beer money on socks, seeing as how I went to Croxley's for dinner. I had maibock stuck in my head since early this morning, since it is the first day of May and mai in German means May. I don't think I have actually ever had a maibock. As luck would have it, there was a poster up in Croxley's advertising HOFBRAU's maibock, which is not a usual resident on the Croxley's menu. It was pleasantly surprising. It started off tasting like something I might drink in October or November, but unlike those beers, it was pleasant and palatable to the very end without any encroaching bitterness at all. This was a lovely sweet amber beer that I would drink all year round without hesitation. It is truly one of the darling buds of May, it is a bock worthy of celebration.

As a side note, I had a HOFBRAU pilsner after my maibock was gone. This was perhaps the least offensive and flavorless beer I have ever had. The Croxley's menu described it as having a dry finish, and that it did. If you have ever wondered how a beer can be dry, you should try a HOFBRAU pilsner. Its so dry, it keeps you drinking.

Down with borders!

I just spent all of my beer money on socks

And not too many socks, mind you. If I ever meet the guy who invented businesswear, I'm going to knock out however many remaining teeth he has (although, this has been my position since well before my recent sock purchase). I don't even care that the socks were that expensive, its that you have to dress a certain way just because its what people wear. Pieces of flair, anyone? I might just wear my white socks with shoes out of protest, Michael Jackson be damned. He kind of ruined that whole look that I tend more to associate with the mods of Quadrophenia (some of them had to be wearing white socks, am I right?).

That aside, I was told I would be taken on as a full time employee on June 1 instead of freelancing. Severely reduced pay for all!