I've been a bit to busy working on an entire overhaul of the pwc.com site and system to update this (or anything rather than a random tweet or facebook status). A few weeks left of this and things might lighten up.
With all the plane crashes that have been happening lately I found this to be an incredible story I found on cnn.com today about a woman who fell over 2 miles when her plane crashed in 1971. It's worth a quick read.
Our hearts go out to my Dad and stepmom for the loss of their very sweet pug Molly. She will be missed.
Ernie went on another trip with Amanda and Sean to Italy. Check out his latest adventure here.
Today is Tony's sisters birthday (ahem -- 40th to be exact)! And we want to wish her a very happy birthday!
So I watched the Yankees lose again tonite to the Red Sux (I love Jacoby Ellsbury but the rest of them suck), and hung out at White Star all afternoon and evening. I've got to say it was horribly hot out today and will be hotter on Sunday (90ish--really why even bother living in the north of it sucks this bad). So I should have worked more today but here's how the day actually went...This is more like our old Calendar:
8am-11am..Greg was a little hungover but did 4 webpages and watched some spongebob, Tony walked the dogs and started doing more cleanup downstairs.
12-3pm. Tony went and got parrot food and Burger king for us (i love their old school chicken sammy) i did one more page but was annoyed with my progress so stopped.
3pm-now I went back to White Star and drank alot (it's what I do) and watched the Yanks lose, the Phillies win and hung out with friends. Tony went up for an hour or so and came home. He had me bring dessert home.
I did give Tony a nice little Asus Aspire Netbook last night (because i'm friggin awesome) and I'm hoping he may participate more in things -- he's now on twitter because i made him...follow him at tonyfrier.
I'm going to do something awesome this week. Just a goal.
OMG there are so many animals on me right now...Willy calm down.
Thanks Pennie for hooking me up with these.
Viigo - a news/rss/feed reader app that I haven't played with much yet but it looks pretty good. You can also manage your feeds online which is handy. www.viigo.com
&
Vlingo - so awesome. No need to type much anymore, a fantastic cross-application speech program. It recognized my garbled speech and sent Tony an email, updated Facebook, etc. I'll try it drunk later and let you know how that goes. www.vlingo.com or you can download it by texting vlingo to 95495
Give them a try - I am.
OK after two very disappointing losses watched from home (very disappointed in Cheeseburger Cheeseburger's opening day start), we're going to try to change their luck by watching the game from White Star this afternoon, so I'm packing up my laptop to work while we watch the game! Last year they won more games while I was out so hopefully this will help. It can't hurt, if nothing but get me happier while watching.
Also just a quick note to say sorry to hear that the Angels rookie pitcher from last night's game, Adenhart, was killed in a car accident early this morning.
As we all go about our normal daily routines...Ernie hopped a ride with our neighbor Amanda and posted 7 pix today:
So we went and had a couple drinks at White Star and then Tony came back home...It was fun. Susie and Jay (my new scissor-man) showed up around 11pm, so me, Carol, George, etc...had probably 6 shots (Mix of Jameson, Jager, etc) and then I finally got a cab back home. Was a good night in a bad week. Yankees play at 1pm tomorrow so will go back to White star and work and watch....
Nite! (disclaimer for this entry -- I just looked at my 2 checks tonite and I had 9 Bacardi and Cokes and 5 shots so gimme a break!)
I'm still working so much and seem to lose track of other things far too easily now. I got a text just before 7:30 from Jaci seeing if I was going to make it to book club tonite. She had sent a reminder note out on Tuesday and even though I read it, I still worked right through it. UGH, there went one of my pleasure's that actually forces me to read, which I don't make enough time to do on my own.
She said that so far only her and her sister (Hi Tara) showed up, so maybe we can reschedule or I can at least begin a book for next month.
I'm stopping work for the night now and hopefully will get some sleep soon.
Quick update as I finish up some work.
Odd sign of the times, I suppose but it bothered me as an invasion a bit today (which is tough to do to me today). So I got my October/Nov paychecks in today and Tony went and deposited them and by the time he got home and was giving me the deposit slip my cell phone was ringing; i picked it up and it was Wachovia, saying that they got flagged when people made deposits to see if they wanted to open higher yield accounts. I was freaked out a bit and said that my first deposit in a while would be going to pay bills. I just thought it was A. way too immediate/desperate a response over a simple deposit; and B. very very invasive. I'm not a fan anyway.
Anyways after that, we went up to Ale house and met Lou and Joe (and Kelli came too) for drinks and dinner. I still can't catch up with work at all so I had to take my laptop and do a bit, but it's always fun hanging out with the gang and Rob at the Ale House is a great guy!
I'm finishing up work now and am going to get some sleep. I have so many deadlines this week and have meetings in the city tomorrow afternoon.
Happy Mardi Gras and I'm updating here alot now and hope to continue if even a bullet list like our old daily calendar!
Greg
Congrats to both Milk and Slumdog Millionaire for winning big in the Oscar's tonite. Loved Sean Penn's speech and I wish people would take it to heart. We went to White Star to watch the Oscar's for their annual party and although we lost for the ballot competition (and how bad is that since I do the PricewaterhouseCoopers website for their balloting), we both won (for different answers) on their quiz sheets and each won $20 Gift Cards, so I guess we'll be going back (surprise, suprise)!
Before that, today, I got a good solid 10 hours of work done. Still nowhere near being caught up but it helped alot. This week is going to be extra tough with shitty deadlines.
Also just want to wish my sister good luck for her appointment later today and our thoughts are with her!
So here was our activities of the day
A short update after way too long. It has been absolutely insane with work this year and it's not stopping anytime soon. I'm used to working a lot of hours as it is, but it seems like they've almost doubled and on top of it I'm doing many of them at the office, which can be both fun and annoying.
Anyway, things have been going pretty well, we've been doing a lot (besides working too). Last weekend we had a great turnout for our Mardi Gras party (on Valentine's Day), this afternoon we are going to our friend Jaci's housewarming (and maybe Tara will finally make a mention in the blog <-- Oh wait, she just did). Tonight we are going to see Kathy Griffen at Madison Square and tomorrow night we are going to the White Star Oscar's party. I've somehow got to fit in 10-15 hours of work around all that this weekend. I've done a couple this morning and I think I can do alot during the day tomorrow.
I'm going to do my best to write a little more in here every week (and maybe get Tony to again).
Not alot of entries (altho I always try to twitter to the right). I've been working insane, non-stop hours since the beginning of this year, and probably won't get much of a break until after July? I postponed my Survivor entry until after July, but think about it alot and am going to work on that even harder now! Me and Tony are doing (scarily) great this year and in the past year, I can't pay the attention that I should to him and our pets but I think he understands about the over-work thing (to give an example...I went to the office a few weeks ago on a project and here's how it went...)
Friday 13:00 (3 hours more work at home)
Sat 15:00 (2 hours more work at home)
Sun 17:00 (2 hours more work at home)
Mon 19:00 (2 hours more work at home)
Tues 22:00 (and I hallucinated on the way home walking in a huge snowstorm) then had to get up 2 hours later to do our Oscars balloting site, a meeting an hour late rand then regular work...
anyways... Last night we had a great (early) Mardi gras party and had maybe 60 people here and then relaxed some and then went to White Star tonite for dinner with Lou and Joe. I loved that a couple of our friends last night (that hadn't been here) went on and on about our place and said it must be nice to live in a mansion (it is so not a mansion but it made me feel good!)
I'll try to get back to regular posts now and let everyone know how lame and average everything is now =)
So yeah I probably made Tony sick to his stomach and whatever, but I'm working hard and I gave up a couple of my goals for the year for other goals, so I went for it...and this is typical me but I hadn't done it in awhile...
I prepared at the office today and got an extra ketchup packet at lunch and stowed it in my bag...we got home tonite, he walked the dogs and came in -- I was Mr. Greg (ass in other words) so then I came in the bedroom and made a huge slamming noise on the floor (and bonus that the dogs went crazy barking) then ran out into the living room with ketchup on my face and looking all mutant...Yeah I scared the Bitch out of him...well naw he's still a bitch but I scared him bad...I gotta say it gave me alot of pleasure so he's gotta expect alot more of it this year...just a warning because I forgot that my favorite thing to do is to freak out the love of my life!
Happy 13th Anniversary to my sister Angela and her husband Barry.
And Happy New year!
I'm thinking that we have a lot of things going on in the upcoming year, and this is just a quicky blog reaching out for a little help (I plan on doing a year-end summary in the next couple days).
One thing that I'm very ready for finally (and causing a bit of controversy here at home), is to apply for and hopefully Rule the TV show Survivor. I've talked my talk for as many years as it's been on and really think now is the time. I'm need to submit my application (video and written) within the next couple weeks and am not taking it lightly at all. Earlier this evening we made our regular trek to White Star where we hung out with alot of our friends.
One of the questions on the application is how others would describe you. I, of course, will list what I think but thought it might be nice to include exactly what a cross-section of people that know me would really say (Good or bad, I'm not fragile at all in this way so please list both). They gave me a full sheet of paper of adjectives and ideas (very good and equally as bad), that I am actually thinking about adding to my application as an attachment. If anyone has any comments please either comment on here or email me at greg@gregandtony.com . And also if anyone has any ideas about a knock-me right into the competition short truthful video application feel free to email that too (so noone steals it).
No pressure and I don't expect much but I really want to do this and do it right!
Tony's been working on our turkey and dinner all afternoon so I updated the site a lot more. Last night we went to Rockefeller Center to see the sites and have dinner and had a great time. Tony took a lot of pictures and some videos (so did Ernie). I'm listing all of the recent updates below so they are easy to find. We hope everyone is having a wonderful Holiday!
The New York area got greeted this morning by the Jersey City Mayor singing on his new Christmas CD (paid for by his campaign for reelection. You can judge for yourself and listen here.
Today's a pretty normal work day for me, although a lot of the offices abroad are closed this week so it's thankfully a bit slower, next week and especially next month are going to be some of the busiest days I've ever had, I'm afraid.
A few catching-up things that I got done today:
Our snow and ice on the ground should be greatly diminished or disappear today since it's rainy and getting into the upper 40's but it shouldn't rid us of our Christmas cheer. Tonight Tony and I are heading over to the city to have dinner at Rock Centre Cafe, looking out at the ice and tree in Rockefeller Center.
Hopefully in the next couple days I can load up some pictures of that, our party last Saturday and many others that I've been meaning to load up for the last couple months!
Have a great Christmas Eve and Hanukkah and anything else you may celebrate!
Greg (& Tony)
We lost our huge sweet lovable cat Weirdo today. I found him this morning at feeding time in a very bad state and when Tony got him to the vet they were able to stabilize him some and told us it was heart disease, a little while later they called and said he took a turn for the worse and we weren't able to save him.
I found him in a snowstorm years ago in a cat carrier beside the road--some asshole had ditched him declawed in the snow and very sick. After we brought him home and got him well (after many thousands of dollars and operations) he fit in well at the house, except for his overeating. He had to stay separated from the others most of the time or he would eat everything. He was always a big cat and very sweet and we loved him terribly and will miss him very badly. It's a very bad day today..
So even though I'm working super overtime and can't find time to blog much even (altho now that it's below freezing outside I think people may start slowing down?) I still try to find time to leave little surprises in unexpected places for Tony...
Well today is our 17th anniversary so i just thought I'd post that nice little factoid. I'm still head over heels in love with him even if i don't show it all the time, or as much as i should. But Happy Anniversary to us.
I still have so many cool things to blog about (like us seeing Joan Rivers at a club on Friday night and getting to banter with her in her act a little bit), but I'm just finishing up some work and want to get a few hours sleep before it starts in again too much. Man I think I've been busier than maybe ever lately and it's not letting up...It's good in a way but very bad in others...
I have so many blogs I need to post and a slew of photos but have been working so much lately I don't have a chance -- Hopefully I can start some very soon...Bear with me and have a Happy Halloween!
How entertaining should the Palin/Biden debate be tonight? I'm guessing SNL will have much more to work with this Saturday night.
We've update some stuff the last couple days as well...click on the bullets below to see:
Well yesterday Tony finally made another Blog entry (see below this one), and lo and behold - today he turns a year older.
Last night we went up to Simple for our regular Monday night outing but alot of people came in to wish him a Happy Birthday (and many of them -- yeah many of them, bought him a drink -- he's a bit drunk now). But he said he had a great time and was glad for everyone that showed up.
Later tonite we (with our friend Lou) are heading up to Ruth's Chris in Weehawken for a nicer Birthday dinner. I will post pics from both nights in a couple of days (when I get a moment - I have to go to meetings Wed-Fri and my mom gets here on Sat).
I did add 2 blog entries and pictures on the Ernie site today as well, you can see them here.
OK at least it didn't surprise me much at all -- I headed out to Hamilton Park Ale House (about 1 block from what I'm about to introduce)...and of course they were still outta Bacardi silver (I think I drank it all on Tuesday)...Anyways I gotta crappy drink and then I smelled a lot of smoke and burning metal...so here's what happened (<--click back there if you cannot figure that out). I'm sure it was a woman driver? (j/k)
So then I headed to Simple and watched the Yankees lose and watched 2 more great episodes of my FAV show "It's always sunny in Philadelphia" and then came home...
Not so exciting but a blog nonetheless...
I think that the title says it all, but if not read more...
So early Friday I left to go to a group building exercise with PwC (and it was a lot of fun) at a restaurant upstate and then to the Cloisters ... I will post our's and Ernie's pics this weekend. But then I went to Simple and watched them get busted in a bad way by ABC and get a strike against their license (because a partial owner was very messed up...I couldn't leave and had to watch it thru...)
Finally I got away after a couple phone calls from Tony...so I was almost home and I saw 3 little baby Skunks running across the road. I have a soft spot for skunks because we had a pet "Petunia" growing up. I parked the car by the nursing home and ran thru the little grassy area...the parents saw me and stopped and sprayed (cmon stupid skunks I was 4 meters away)... I saw the babies run into a tunnel...I sorta got one on camera but it looks like a streak of white on a piece of moldy bread...so I am going tomorrow after a kickbal tournament and photographing these babies!
BTW..I've seen at least 4 baby skunks dead on the road in the area lately...that sucks ass.
Yesterday we started the day by watching the 9/11 memorial on TV as we have every year (as much as I could take anyway -- it's so sad). Then after work was over we went down to the Jersey City waterfront to see the Towers of Light to pay our respects.
When we got up yesterday our angelfish that we had for years had died, she wasn't looking good the last few days so it wasn't unexpected but it was still sad. Last week before we left for the Cape, I noticed little eggs all over some of the plants in the same tank, I've seen them before but they've always disappeared (I assume other fishys eating them) so I grabbed a bunch of leaves and water from that tank and put them in a separate little tank. I was watching it every day but the eggs were looking icky so I gave it up and hadn't checked on them for a couple days. Last night I decided to empty the tank and turned on the light and we have a bunch of little baby albino catfish in there now.
Lastly, before we left last night to go to the waterfront (and get some dinner at Iron Monkey) our road was blocked off by firetrucks and police. Well a little girl had fallen out of her unattended window on the corner...click here to read about it.
Tomorrow is a large community sale at Riverview/Fisk Park on Palisades Ave here in the Heights and Tony is going to have a couple of tables in our neverending quest to get rid of some of our belongings (nice antique china, pet items from the old stores and alot of other personal belongings)...
Last night we went over to our neighbor's (Greg and Robin) for a get-together. It was Greg's brother-in-Law, Tim's, birthday so we celebrated that. But it was also a Fringe premiere party since Robin does the props for the show. We had a nice time and stayed until about 10pm then walked back next door, finished the Yankee game and got some sleep.
Tonite I was able to update pictures from last week's wedding trip to Cape Cod, so here they are:
Friday I took off work early and we headed out to go to a wedding on Cape Cod (Falmouth, MA). My friend and coworker Joe Breen was getting married to Cristi and our friend Jackie was flying out from New Mexico as well. We had a really nice 4 hour drive up and got there just after Jackie did. We met up for a quick lunch at the Inn restaurant, did a little work and then the 3 of us went over to the B&B that Joe was staying at for cocktails.
Later that night Jackie, Tony and me went across the street to a restaurant on the beach and sat outside and had dinner. Tony went back to the room and Jackie and I stayed out a few more hours (where I had lots more to drink, found a jacket on a park bench, etc etc)...
Saturday morning we got up to get ready for the 10:30am wedding, when I found out that I had a major wardrobe malfunction. I brought the wrong pants and there is no way they would fit. Tony almost stayed while I wore his pants but Jackie talked up into wearing jeans and nice shirts. It turned out fine since it was a semi-casual wedding and we didn't stand out too much.
The wedding was alot of fun, we sat at a table with other coworkers who were great and stayed until about 5pm, drinking and getting to know alot of the other guests. We were going to meet them later for more drinks but since there was a new guest (Tropical storm Hannah), Jackie had to leave at 4am to catch a flight and we had already drank so much we decided to stay in and go to bed early. The storm knocked out the power during the night and it stayed out til after we left at 9am to drive home.
We had a great time on the trip and took alot of pictures. I'm going to post those today or tomorrow when I get a break (Ernie's and our pictures together).
Of course, Ernie went along for the trip as well (Joe invited him) and he got to know alot of people and see alot of new things. Wait until you see those pictures -- I should get them posted separately today or tomorrow as well.
What a week. We had a great time on Sunday, after brunch we went down to the local Italian festival on 6th street and then back to White Star for awhile. Ernie wrote about it and posted a ton of photos here. We had a good time, and I of course was the only winner from our group in the basketball toss, so I gave my winning toy to a little dog we know, Morty.
When we got home I went to start working on a deadline for Monday morning and I got the Blue Screen of death on my work laptop. I took it to the office on Monday and they couldn't do anything with it, so they gave me another new one on Tuesday with very little of my archived information and none of my needed software. After I got somewhat caught up on work and got enough of my own archive and software loaded back up, we needed to go to a small fundraiser.
Our local City Councilman, Steven Fulop is trying to get a couple important referendums on the November ballot but needed to raise some funds for legal costs. Tony, Lou & I went down to Lucky 7's (another local watering hole) and paid our $25 and ended up staying about 20 minutes. It was very very crowded (which is great for fund raising) but also hot and too crowded to have fun, so we scooted back down to Simple for some drinks and to watch the Yankees lose ... again. Let's see what happens tonite - I have the feeling I won't feel guilty at all about changing the station from the Yankees at PM to Project Runway for their Drag Queen design show tonite.
We went to Simple (as always on Monday evening) to hang out and watch the Yankees suck again, but while I was there I managed to take a couple more short videos, so I put them here on our bar video page.
Also this weekend we found one of my long-lost friends, Ernie!!! We used to send him on trips with a friend (he's been to Hong Kong) to have his pic taken, so I figured why not take him to see everything we see. He can explain more here.
Here's an artsy photo of Lou and Tony from the evening as well...
This morning before we went to brunch, I ran up to Target to get a few things and OMG...I got a shopping cart like you would not believe! I didn't want to let it go. I didn't hear a wheel squeak the entire time I pushed it, it was such an incredibly smooth ride, I have never had a more pleasurable shopping experience in my life. I did find myself looking back at the cart longingly as I walked to a product down a crowded aisle, being sure noone else found my little piece of heaven.
When I left her in the corral in the parking lot, I wanted to mark her so I could be reunited onn my next visit but I know that the next shopper would not realize the beauty that she was and would gradually wear her down so that it would never be the same. I can only hope that I meet up with another cart that can prove to be half as good as it treated me today. I found another reason to shop at Target today and I will not stop until I meet it's match. I've tasted the best and I will no longer settle for a wobbly, squeaky, ungodly cart again.
A couple of weeks ago we went to a fund raiser/pet adoption fair in the city hosted by Mary Tyler Moore and Bernadette Peters. I posted up pictures (& videos) from it tonite, you should be able to see people like Mario Lopez, Joel Grey, Glenn Close, Bebe Neuwirth and lots more...
So the latest gadget I bought was the Amazon Kindle, it's pretty much a book reader designed to download everything to read and stop wasting paper. I had it about 30min and downloaded my book club book (on the machines own free whispernet network) for $6.99. It's very intuitive, easy and small to hold and I am in so love with it.
The same night I got it, my friend Lou wanted it and ordered it. (you can see him singing on our video gallery page). So I transferred my NY Times newspaper to it (it gets delivered every morning, 7 days, on the network and it's $13.99 a month, I was paying over $300 for Thurs-Sun physical delivery). It again is so easy and cool to read online, so I also got the WallStreet Journal. I guess I will read more in the morning so I will just be more about myself? Nah.
Anyways..I also downloaded a nice free book this morning that won't be out on print til next week, and a Fantasy book company had many many free ones for download so I selected about 12 of them to get and they all download in about 30sec...again you don't need to be on a network..the kindle has its own)
This is the best gadget yet. It is saving me so much space shelf (you can hold 100's on the Kindle, put them on a card, your pc or laptop, download music on it to listen to, it has a free text web browser, etc...anyway a great machine.
That is my review...If you read more than 5 or 6 books a year or have a newspaper subscription...DO IT! Saves money and paper...it's $350 up front and so much worth it.
Tony's been taking a heckuva lot of pictures lately. So I loaded up some from May & June today. I still have alot more and lots of videos to add in as well, but it's a start.
Also be excited -- I got a new gadget yesterday and will review it after I use it a few days!
Monday and Tuesday I started posting some videos in our galleries (I still have so many more of those and a ton of fotos to catch up on too). So check it out if you get a chance and let me know what you think. We have more from the Yankees game on Tuesday and lots of others (Tony's been filing up a storm lately)...Good segue into the Yankees game that we went to Tuesday night.
I got us tickets last week, so we took the Yankees Clipper (boat) over to the game. We had 9th row seats behind homeplate. Really great seats, although not really something you should buy every week... The Yankees kicked the Ray's Ass too so that made it even better. Was a great evening, and like I said I will post photos and video soon, I'm just swamped with work again right now.
I've always been the biggest un-fan of Roger Federrer -- He's a prick. It was a great match he played today with Nadal (and see how I love him but find him a freak as well in a blog in June), but great that Nadal beat him.
Not sure why I love sports so much but my Yanks kicked ass tonite! I got me and Tony "behind home plate" tix on Tuesday night against Tampa Bay...so if you can TIVO it or anything we'll be behind homeplate and hopefully winning...
that me & Woohoo walked down to the park alone in the rain and enjoyed Macy's fireworks together.
OK so this cracked me up to no end! Tony was looking at some BS on his laptop so I ran to the fridge and grabbed a big old blob of Ketchup and then ran to the bathroom...I slathered it up good on my eye and face and then slammed my fist to the bathroom door and then ran out with my "bloody face". He fucking punched my forearm so hard, and still doesn't think it's funny (yet he loves Scare tactics)...Ok I always take it a bit far, but this one was funny as hell ( and I think that he was just upset that he didn't rip my eye out)
Damn I'm awesome!
Sidenote: I kept harping on him -- (to his credit I am THE most accident prone person ever)...But this was the best fake hurt to date...I will try again in the next few weeks I'm sure ... but he did stop hitting me finally and realized that it was awesome and finally smiled. He does love me, it just isn't constant - I guess.
I so Love Tony -- and thanks for putting up with my BS..I will scare him until we are 90 (Ok he will be 90 and I will be 87...)
Tonite was a good one. Of course, it was my book that I recommended but it was a very good read. It was very religiously based, Jersey City based, socially based, etc etc etc. I had no idea how cool this book would be. My Catholisism helped me with the religion part (I'm such an atheist tho, obviously), this book deals with so much..and I wish I could have lived a life like this...
First: our bookclub meeting...It was just me and Kelly and Jaci that showed up, that didn't diminish our conversation at all. We all agreed that this book was great, it actually excited all of us to do more writing that we love, and maybe stalk the author a bit. I personally found the book to maybe bridge a little gap in my personal life (I am gonna sorta force Tony to read this one). It's about someone that I wish we could be--someone special that knows everyone and fits in everywhere...A bit of American Royalty...and Tony so identifies with it that I think we could see this together (and we need a baby)...
Anyways...we had a great discussion about it (while the Yankees fucked up badly...yeah I'm talking more like I do in reality now swearing hateful everything) and I cannot wait to read some of the books mentioned by her (her mothers especially). This is a good one -- The Bishop's Daughter by Honor Moore -- seriously -- it deals with everything.
Next months book -- I'm very excited about -- The Girls, about conjoined twin chicks!
This pisses me off to no end...Fine that someone has more money than anyone you or anyone else knows. I am furious at this. I have noone to give our money to except my partner and our pets. So say we die in a great (and it would be something to talk about trust me) way...together or separately...I'm not sure what our value is but I guarantee if you sold all of our our crap...houses, art, porn, etc. bullshit...we have noone except our pets yet to leave all of our shit to.
We want kids and stuff but they aren't exactly knocking down our doors...I'm very disturbed that Leona's last wishes didn't go to her dog...Everything was hers...she left it to what she wanted to. That's SO FUCKED UP! Love the whatevers that decided her last wishes weren't good enough so her being is invalidated ... so fucked up....
I feel like if I die tomorrow or next week, anything I want to do with everything that could be mine would never be respected. Nice way to feel about the non-existent afterlife. I have no idea how to make our life better for anyone because everythign can be overturned...I'm pretty sure the answer is to have more to drink and buy more shoes. I swear this is the worst feeling ever...Me and Tony should be daddies to leave something to...I'm just going to waste it all now...I mean cmon...If I die and want to give everything to a dog or Wink or whatever It's so wrong that it will never be respected. Death sucks now...I'm so going to waste my life even more!!!
So -- I was late registering for the Corvette auction. Crazy if I have cash in hand but whatever. I found a couple other ones that were just as good or better than the one I posted last night and the auction is next week so I'm in plenty of time for them, but now I'm not sure why I need more cars...Help me out people, they are of course, awesome, but I have the best car ever made in my eyes (My SLK)..I realise that I'm never happy with anything and I'm sure it will be the same, but I really want a car of the 50's or 60's.
BTW -- I'm so freaky in Love with Tony still after 17 years and I would so marry him if it was allowed here (yeah we did our DP years ago here) but I'm weirdly thinking of him all if the time like a schoolboy in love again now...ARGH...
And please, if you are going to throw your baby in a dumpster please think twice and just ship it to us -- we would be such good daddies and need kids (at least 1 preferably 2)...
Sorry for the rambling tonite but I drank quite a bit today and am so fucking in love with Tony for no good reason =)
It's been awhile since i've been online. It's been a long while since I got paid...so fortunately this week I got some awesome paychecks (the first time since January) Anyhow. I was at meetings all week in the city and it was great to see my global friends (Adam, Tiffany, etc).
Tonite me and Tony went out with Karen (a neighbor upstairs) for a late birthday drink (me and her are both 6/11).
So here is my huge issue -- I'm a lover of cars ... CRAP and a huge lover of old Corvettes... (CRAP) and I just got paid (CRAP) and so yeah I just put a ncie bid on this car and I totally hope I don't win but if I do and anyone wants to buy our Saturn....Cause I refuse to sell the Benz convertible...OMG I want about 7 of these Corvettes...this one is cheaper and attainable...CRAP...
As I'm watching the French open, I can't help be reminded of a character from the movie "The Lady in the Water". And this is in no way meant to detract from Nadal's (I hope) Victory over Federer. I really do not like Federer, as great a tennis player as he is, and hope he goes down like Big Brown!
But as I watch Nadal, as ackwardly hot as he is, I'm still reminded of this character...
Check out how much bigger Nadal's left arm is than his right...It's very creepy!
Saw a very nice Dance performance at Grace church tonite (I met Tim & Tracy at Skinner's Loft at 7:40pm). It lasted until a little after 10pm (it was 96 today in JC and more than that in Grace Church), then Tim and everyone wanted to go out for drinks so we went down to OX. Service was horrible but the food was great (I brought 4 deviled eggs home). We chatted about their dances and about our work. I left them about 12:30 at the bar and came home (filled up on the way home for $67.50 at a non EXXON station because that is the worst company in the world) and then got home, walked and fed the animals...None are dead yet altho for the last 2 years one always dies on my bday or in my bday week.
Anyways...I am going to have to network from hell anymore to try to get back on top of things so expect more bitching on here.
Something just fell in the kitchen -- I can only hope it's garbage.
So I've been trying to give my review on Nintendo Wii Fit, I may as well do a start of one tonite.
I got it a couple of weeks ago and I pretty religiously at leaswt do my daily body check. I do alot of the exercises as well but have been lax for a few days here and there. It's really interesting, the wide rang of exercises that you can do with it. I really enjoy the step training (which is the obvious one). I finally unlocked boxing training, which I love (the longer you exercise the more you unlock). There are also alot of balance, strength, yoga poses, and sports (Skiing, snowboard and more). I find it interesting that you can put the remote in your pocket and jog in place (not on the board) and it reads your speed and calories.
The first week I actually gained a couple pounds, but this week I actually lost 4. I don't think it would replace most persons exercise, but for someone like me that is stuck working and home all the time, it definitely makes me want to get up and do something. I think this weekend I will add little weights with the step class.
Tony tried it the first day and never went back...it keeps telling me to tell him to go back, so I may just end up deleting him, it would be pretty fun to have other people to match up against on it though.
I highly recommend it. I think the Wii is about the best game system (and I have most) and this enhances it so much more -- I really do think it will be a valuable tool for alot of people that don't get exercise other ways, and it makes you want to keep coming back!
That being said, Tony, our neighbor Martha and I did head down to Simple for an hour or so and had drinks and Chicken fingers (OMG so good there!!) and french fries...so definitely no help on staying fit, but it was fun and that counts more anyways!
Tony is heading down to FL tomorrow for a couple days and I'm sure I will blog more this weekend. I'm trying to make it a habit...maybe even tell my really screwed up dream from last night, maybe not...
So I'm finally gonna get back into it and start an entry the same night as it was last week with Bookclub..I'll start with that and carry on and then later...
I went to White Star and met my friend Lou and then we went to Embankment for Bookclub, in hindsite--Lou gave me awesome feedback saying I was the one interested in the book and letting my views be known everything about it -- so that was cool...he's not in bookclub but watched the whole thing.
So the book was "The unbearable lightness of being". Side note--I found a first edition, first english printing (mispelled on ebay) and bought for $22. It had never been opened...the next copy was about $99. anyways I like to own nice books.
As far as the group went, almost noone finished the book. I could understand because it was a tough Czech book to read...I didn't want to finish it, but the last section--it brought the entire book home to me, I cried alot and the book finally made sense. I think 2 of us got through the book and both of us were huge fans. It maybe took me 7 hours for the book. I didnt understand (or because I'm lame that way) the first 6 hours of it but the last 1 hour -- OMG it brought the book home and with the Dog and everything I LOVED IT!
So this is a huge Blog already...I'll hint about the next (I LOVE Jaci's sister!...I also love Nintendo Wii) etc...
The last thing I wanted to say is Congrats to Joe and Dom on their third kid on the way. We love Logan and Lucas...their first 2...and I could not be happier (unless they gave me and Tony one of their babies!) but their third is now on the way and I could not be happier for them (again unless they give us one)
UGH...Tired now...more about Wii fit (Great -- wears me out, and work has been so killing me...etc etc etc).
BTW -- I had 6 drinks tonite at Simple and watched the Yankees win, so I'm a little chatty -- sorry about that, but i'm all about drinks and chatting
Thanks again Jaci, Noelle, Lou, Joe, Carrie, Emilia, Joe (the father one)...etc etc...I love you guys!
I have a few blogs to report on tonite...Wii Fit, Bookclub, City visits and stuff.. But am not going to because....
Recently at Simple a new kitchen staff took over. A nice younger guy named Corey was head of the kitchen and I saw him for a few hours on Saturday when I went over for brunch. Later that day he couldn't find anything to live for and hung himself. I'm very upset about this. He was a young guy with great culinery skills. Simple was having a hard time with their kitchen and he recently took over. I spoke to him playfully as he attacked me playfully for liking the Yanks. I just wanna give him respect tonite and let Simple lay low and closed a couple of days outta respect. I'm pretty upset about this because he was so young and nice and made excellent food and I saw him a few hours before he did what he did...It sucks and is upsetting and noone should go though what he did!
I will blog again tomorrow about bookclub and Wii and more....
I have so much to blog about tonite but will narrow this one down to Baseball and White Star Bar. Will Blog more about Wii Fit (AWESOME) and seamonkeys tomorrow or this weekend (plus Fleet Week).
First for the Baseball fans...What a great game tonite. OK closer than it needed to be but Kennedy was a little better. Unfortunately my play of the game went to (one of the best RF) Markakis (he's in both my fantasy leagues...read that how you will). He ran the ball down, grabbed it before CF and threw out a double play at second. Nick has to have one of the best arms in MLB and his accuracy is frightening (which is why when he threw ARod's taken away homer last night it was obvious)..Anyways props to him tonite. Also a great play was the Yanks (finally) double play. The best and most exciting the to me tonite was that Girardi finally showed some passion (and altho it was a 1-1 game) went out and fought for his team--he still picked up his hat knowing that accessories like that look good on him. Anyway I think that made the 9th inning batters come to attention, I actually thought Damon would do it, but Cano came through. Very entertaining game.
The small part of this blog that I thought was awesome is that it was so crowded at White Star tonite and a total asshole that basically fagbashed me in a jokingly way at the bar a few weeks ago came up to me and bought me a drink, asked me to step outside (which I did immediately) and then apoligised for being a drunken asshole. I, of course forgave him because we all do stupid things when we drink, and I'm sure I woulda str8 bashed him. But then he came back inside and bought my whole dinner/drink tab. Anyways thanks for Anthony for being a man and stepping up.
I have a couple more things to write about now (Seamonkeys and Wii Fit) but I also have a luncheon to go to in the city and need some sleep before then so I'll leave you hanging...I have a feeling it will be awesome in the city tomorrow so I will write about that as well I guess.
Saturday night we went to our friend's wedding out in Ho-Ho-Kus (yes to our friends in remote places -- the real name of the town, hyphens and all). Susie and Jay got married at 5:30 at his parents beautiful home. We drove out with Lou and Sal and had a great time. We finally pulled Tony off of the dance floor and had another drink when we dropped Lou off at his home by Simple and got home around midnite.
Sunday I went up to Simple and watched the mess of the Subway series game (11-2 Mets--damn them, and it actually should have been 14-2, with the foul ball fiasco)...with Sal and Lou. Simple has their food game back on with their re-addition of Wally (he always made good specials there but left and is now back) -- I had the best chicken special ever there!
Anyways then today I got 2 new projects for the week and finished them both about 4 days too early. I went back up to Simple to do my normal Monday night hangout with my friends (and I'm gonna list their names so they will be google-able) Lou Hampton and Mike Strothers (bartender) and tonite Joe Calhoun hung out as well. I of course had the chicken dinner again and brought Tony their new pulled pork sandwich home (he bailed as usual on hanging out). Good stuff and the Yankees were off so I didn't have to watch them lose finally
As a side note--one of the regulars at Simple tonite was hanging out with us chatting (he may do some flash work for me) but he said I should do a gay, jersey city, local, sports blog since I am so into baseball. I never really thought about it, but he said as a straight father of a 9 year old, baseball fan who chats with me alot, he thinks i know my stuff and there may be a little market for it...so I may think about it and see where that leads. We'll see--something more to do anyways, but may be something fun to do with a different perspective?
PS..I also put a little webcam on my laptop that I turn on occasionally (altho it's framed by 10 seconds or so and I can't have it on when my work firewall is on) but I caught a great photo of Wiggum on it today when I had it on for 10 minutes or so..it's on the webcam page now until I upload again but here it is as well:
OK I will start with a disclaimer. I was a big fan in High School, and to be fair it was raining today, it was their first Live appearance, and it was on the Today Show stage, but...
New Kids on the Block (NKOTB) sorta sounded sucky this morning for their Today Show premiere. Vocals were pretty bad and I kept watching them look at each other to try to get their dance cues. I'll give them another chance, whatever that means, but so far it's a NO.
I do have hopes for something old becoming something new soon though (again I have my doubts) but 90210 is coming out soon on CW, with original cast members. When it was on (again in High School and college) I never missed it. I will be sure to catch the new episodes and see how they play it out, Campy? Dramatic? Who knows...stay tuned.
Lastly -- these guys are really old (well sort of) but they have been making music over the times...This morning I got reserved Balcony tickets at Hammerstein Ballroom on July 30th 2008 for Collective Soul, Blues Traveller and...my Favorite and reason for going, "Live". I'm going to try to drag Tony with me since I got us seats instead of being in the general admission Mosh Pit, so hopefully he will go (and we both get autographed posters for getting good seats) but I may have an extra ticket if I cannot talk him into it.
So Tony was running around in the city today and saw Jack from Project Runway go into a bank. He stalked him a bit outside and the grabbed him on his way out and snapped a foto of he and Jack on his cell phone.
Of course I was the one dedicated to watching it weekly, jeez. Some people live a lucked out life...
So I know I'm a dinosaur as a Corporate contractor and I'm ok with that and knowing it's going away but in the last month I lost the 2 elder people than me. I'm the longest outsider in my department (10 yrs 2 months) by far but my friend in the careers division last month had to leave after 12 years (he's in Boston and probably the smartest database guy ever so no worries he can be the biggest mind in any company but still...) Anyway today (Happy Cinco De Mayo), Tom told me that they weren't renewing his contract again after 15 years (HUGE Outsider in the Firm) within the Real Estate group. Anyway he's such an awesome guy and I've enjoyed working with them both for the 10 years i've known them.
I'm sure I will be around for a bit with a few of my internal clients (I have about 30 separate) all is ok today with at least half (fiscal year is up in a month)...except I will miss my coworkers that I have respected throughout the years...I know I won't last forever but I'm glad I'm still around for a little bit more.
Thanks Tom for making US FS Real Estate a pleasure to deal with since 1998!
Started the day off by going to Simple and watching the Yankees, battered and on the DL as alot of them are, win against the Mariners (6-1 for the second game in a row)...(Last nite we went and saw Al Gore at Radio City and just caught the last 2 innings at a bar across the street).
So tonite me and Tony went over to Times Square and decided to do a touristy thing that we've never done...We went to Mars 2112 and had dinner and drinks. We both had a couple drinks and burgers...and they were pretty good and not overly priced, we had a couple pics of Martians and us taken (will post as soon as Tony sends them to me). Then I made Tony head down to ESPN Zone because Oscar De La Hoya was boxing tonite. We watched the match there and altho Tony was tired and ready to head home, he lasted all 12 rounds (and De La Hoya kicked ASS) and Tony still said he had a good time. We got home and now are waiting to sleep! Nite!
Greg
So tonight we headed over to Carnegie Hall to attend the 25th Anniversary Gala for the New York Pops. We parked a few blocks away in a garage since traffic was a little slow and hurrried over to the Hall. We had 3 minutes to spare so ran to the restroom and then found our seats.
They were pretty good parquet seats (orchestra) and we were very happy with the quality of the evening. The "Hosts" were Liz Smith, Denis Leary and Kathleen Turner. They were honouring the Yankees and Peter Max painted a piece of art to honour the Steinbrenners (Peter was there, which is pretty cool since we own an original of his). A few of the more famous performers and speakers were: Reggie Jackson, the aforementioned hosts, Cathy Rigby, Steve Tyrell, The Gatlin Brothers, Ana Gasteyer, & Tony Bennet.
All in all a very fun night. Our next outing is this friday night when we see Al Gore speak at Radio City Music Hall.
Well I just checked the online flight status of my family, returning to FL and it looks like they are somewhere above Virginia now. I dropped them off at Newark airport around 11:30 this morning as their flight was leaving at 12:55pm. We had a really good time with them here and hopefully they did as well. You can check out their pictures from their visit in our galleries. There are alot of them. Here are the ones from my Aunt Pam's camera. Here are the ones from my Mom's camera. And last but nowhere near least, here are the one's from my sister's camera (note that there are 4 galleries under the menu for her because she took so many).
Now Tony is out at the garage having a garage sale and I'm hanging out doing some dishes and laundry (altho should be working as I have quite a bit to do sometime this weekend) until around 3pm when I'm going to run up to White Star and watch the Yankees game with some rum and cokes.
I picked up my mom, sister and Aunt at the airport around 10am this morning off a Continental flight from Tampa, FL. We walked around the neighborhood with the dogs, down to the park and such and then we went down to White Star for a pleasant brunch. Now watching the Yankees (winning in the 9th 4-1) while my Sister relaxes in the massage chair and my mom and Aunt are doing something with a plant and soil?
Tony and I are going to see Rufus Wainwright at BergenPac at 7pm, so we're in the process of getting ready for that too.
First we both want to wish my Brother-in-Law a very Happy Birthday--we hope you are having a great one!
Next I'll try to catch up a little on the last week's events.
Last Sunday Tony had a fairly-last minute Hillary fundraiser here at our home. It was alot of fun and a city councilman came for awhile.
The next night we went down to Simple to have dinner, where Tony left around 7pm and I stayed around to watch the Yankees game. Right after first pitch Tony called and let me know that while he was turning a corner a motorcycle ran into the rear passenger side of the Saturn. It dented in the side near the taillight but nothing real major. The guy on the motorcycle seemed fine but he went away in an ambulance anyways. I got there a few minutes after he called me and then about 7 cop cars, 2 firetrucks and 2 ambulances (plus many spectators then), it was all a bit unnecessary and embarrassing. Anyway we'll see how much that ding will cost us soon.
Last wednesday Tony went to see Elton John at Radio City Music Hall for another Hillary fundraiser where Bill, Hillary and Chelsea all appeared and spoke.
I've been really allergy ridden and had a huge project that's been keeping me busy (it finally went live last night--whew). Saturday we had brunch with our neighbors Karen and JT, and afterwards I stayed at Simple and watched the Yankees.
Sunday I went to White Star for a Breast Cancer Brunch Bingo fundraiser (where I won a candle and a $35GC to York Street Tavern), then went to Target and came home. Tony dropped me back off at White Star and I drank more and watched the Yankees again before catching a cab home.
Of course meanwhile our AC went out and we needed to get the downstairs shower fixed before we get our company this weekend...so $3307 later brings us up to date.
I think now I'm going to close up my work projects for the evening and head down to White Star to watch the Yankees hopefully win the 2nd game against Tampa Bay!
Well since the Yankees season opener was postponed until tomorrow night (because of rain), I took some of the time that I was going to spend watching it and did a few other things...
I managed to post a bunch more photos, more of the pets, some of Tony, and some of Earth Hour 2008, you can check them out here. Speaking of Earth Hour, we went dark for about 4 hours here at home. We went to Simple to meet our friend Debbie for dinner, and the owner didn't know about Earth Hour but gladly lit up candles for the tables and bar, and turned out all the lights and TV for the hour. It was great! My sister and brother-in-law also went with no power for 3 hours down in Lakeland, FL, so we managed to spread it up and down the East Coast!
I also finally started putting some stuff that I don't need (mostly new stuff) on Ebay. You can check that out here. I hope to keep putting lots more on there.
Tony started a Team Hillary blog today, I'm proud of him, he seems to be getting pretty handy at doing web stuff. Maybe I'll make him start doing my job. You can peruse his entry here. I'm sure he's going to update it daily, or at least frequently.
I guess tonite, I'll make another Target run (they have batteries 75% off in their dollar bins, so $.25 for 4-packs--we usually get rechargeable but these are sooo cheap). Then to Simple to hang out with my friend Lou, and then maybe if they are screening a good one and Tony doesn't mind I'll watch the Monday Movie at White Star. Hopefully tomorrow night the Yankees will be able to make up their game, I have a business dinner on Wednesday night and meetings in the city all day Thursday.
Although it doesn't seem like many people in the NYC metro area have jumped on board for Earth Hour 2008 like other cities (San Fran & Chicago) and countries (Australia), it will be interesting to see how many people participate. I know Tony is planning on dimming our lights for the hour. I know it has its critics (people say that it won't help much and is gimmicky) but it definitely brinjgs further awareness to the problems and might show people that it is possible to do things without lights blaring constantly.
I know quite a few bars around the country are staying dark tonite (for more than just the hour) and serving drink specials with glow sticks and such to celebrate. All they are asking for is an hour, and it's a good way to not only participate but maybe even save a buck on your power bill, if that's more motivation. I think people should take it a step further and maybe turn off the TV's and other things as well.
Tony finally got home from his Florida trip on Saturday night, so things are getting back to normal more around here and maybe I can make some more updates on this website. It's tough to run the household alone and get to all the other details.
We had a pretty nice Easter yesterday, we colored our eggs and exchaged some gifts, then we went down to Simple and met our friends Kim (and her mom from California), Rich and their kids, Sofia and Luca for brunch. Afterwards we all walked in the park for an hour or so and let the kids play on the playground. Tony saw a turtle painting at Simple that he liked so we went back up for dinner and a couple drinks and bought it (and brought it home since he was taking his art down Wednesday anyway--you usually have to wait until the show is over).
We still can't find our missing camera with all of the Christmas pictures and the beginning of the year, but I did get a different one that I had and took some fresh pictures of the pets and Easter and loaded them up this morning here.
Woohoo also was able to update their blog this morning, and you can check that out here.
So today is my Dad's 75th Birthday (yeah he was born the same year King Kong was made). We wish him the happiest of birthdays.
Saturday, we drove down to Richmond to take him to dinner (4.5 hours....a new record driving time, altho at the fastest I only hit 115mph, someone on the Susquehuana bridge blocked me so I had to do it on the restricted lanes South of DC--don't tell the cops...but look for a better clock in a minute on the way back). Anyway we got to their new house (beautiful large 2 story home in a new 55+ community in Glen Alan, VA), we were amazed at how much they had settled in and finished since 02/01. The restaurant of choice was full so we went and had a nice dinner at Outback, then drove to Best Buy to get a wireless router for me to set them up (which i did nicely..whew)..we chatted all nite then went to brunch on Sunday. Chatted some more and left around 2:30. I've gotta say here that Dad and Claudia love me & Tony and I prolly respect him more than anything ever. It was great to be able to take him to dinner for his 75th Birthday, and me and Tony had such a nice time as well -- it was just great. Oh btw on the way back as Tony dozed I hit 122 on the Susquehuana bridge...still 7 mph below my record but AWESOME!!!
I love my Dad, I love my Stepmom, I love Tony to no end...Great weekend...See what Ladee thought about it though, here.
I'm sure few will get the song reference in the title but anyways...Not alot of time to do a big entry today so just a few links:
More soon!
Greg
(Don't forget it's the Project Runway reunion episode tonite before the Finale next week!)
Happy Darwin Day! (He would have been 199y/o today, beat my sister by 158 years 364 days I guess, Oh President Lincoln as well since he would have been 199 today too).
It just started snowing a bit and there's finally a thin coating on the ground (we may get a couple inches tonite to match the 2 that we've had this season, altho it's supposed to wash away in the morning in rain).
Woohoo was a little bored today so she decided to introduce herself more a little to the world...
Another long day of website work, but at least it was broken up some by the Giants Super Bowl parade here and the Election coverage. Tony and I did our part (and in the majority it seems her in the NorthEast) and voted for Hillary. A couple of our neighbors, both from our building and from our street, got signs for her campaign from Tony. He did his part spreading the word and campaign buttons.
I also got a late Christmas present from Tony, it's a really neat laser/holographic bluetooth keyboard. It works with my laptop, phone and pc (plus more I assume)...You can check it out here. They have some nice photos of it (and in action). If we can ever find my camera, I'll upload all of our Christmas pix finally and take some of me and my gadget.
Woofer, LaDee and Woohoo are also trying to get back in the swing of thing and revive their column that they used to write (altho then it was called Barkoff, you can see some examples of it here). You can see they actually had started their column years before alot of people had even heard of a Blog. Now they will have their own site (with a slight name change since BarkOff was taken it will now be Barking Out). They are just starting to work on it now, but it's at www.barkingout.com. It will probably take them a week or 2 to get into the swing of it and may it look nicer but at least they are finally doing something.
I have an early London conference call tomorrow so I'm gonna try to get some ZZZ's soon, so I can try not to sound as clueless as I really am. I'll try to post again soon, and maybe Tony will make another appearance soon.
So tonite we met (jclinkedin.com) for a game night before Project Runway at Simple...and it turned out, Project Runway was a friggin repeat, so I played Life (heh remember that Aggie), Uno, Jenga, Connect 4 and more. It was so much fun! I had already ran by Target and got our Milk, OJ, bread, etc (it's 20degrees tonite so it was cool in the trunk).
Anyways ... I wanted to write something tonite =)
Got on the party bus at 9:25 this morning with the White Star crew and headed down to AC. Got there about 12:30 *too late to hit the big poker game, prolly better that way...
Anyways I chose to drink more than gamble, but nice afternoon...I totally got in trouble in Ripleys Believe it or not, but was ok. We had a few cocktails at Blue Note in Bally's...Chrissy treated me to $40 in slots and then we got back on the party bus (my knee was bleeding again all day--long story, my jeans are an awesome red now). Met a couple nice new friends and held my own in the party world. Yeah Tony is sorta mad at me but just cause he didnt go and participate, I was good, bloody, drunk and didn't spend alot (and brought my man a nice present), so overrall it's good. I'm going to sleep now =) Doing alot this week...
Ha--I so washed all my dogs last night and cut my rabbits nails and played with her. I so should be a daddy.
Couple quick points before the point...I friggin love Drew Barrymore--Watching a movie now with her in it, she's just perfect. Secondly I'm heading to Atlantic City in the morning with White Star on the party bus(cowboy theme -- i bought awesome FRY cowboy boots today for it) so I'm sure all will be a mess, lastly (thirdly?) I so friggin love my man Tony it is ridiculous -- i mean c'mon after 16.5 years i think it shoudl subside, but it doesn't...and btw here is his latest mass email/make it rick something or another that he emailed (he's still not blogging as he should)...
This is a mass email, but I wanted to share this website with you. For
those of you who shop online this is a great way to get discounts at
1000's of online retailers and to earn cash back and travel rewards. I
did the majority of my Christmas shopping through this website and I
saved over $600.00. I just received my Continental Onepass statement and
I earned 4300 Onepass points just for doing what I always do. SHOP!
Sometimes it can take up to 8 weeks for you to receive credit for your
purchase so I still have a few more bucks coming back to me in a few
more weeks. The reason this company can do this is because the retailer
pays a fee to them for basically advertising. This company then
passes a potion of the fee along to the consumer in the form of a discount
or coupon. The following in the link for you to sign up:
http://www.bigcrumbs.com/crumbs/frontpage.jsp?r=tfrier
Now for everyone of you who signs up I get a $4.00 referral bonus. For
every referral bonus I receive I am going to donate $1.00 of it to my
animal foundation, The Animal Relief Foundation Fund. So even if you
don't think you will use it sign up anyway because there is no
obligation or risk.
And one more website to go to to save and earn even more is:
http://evreward.com/
Sorry if the email was long, but I really wanted to try and demonstrate
the savings and rewards I've earned. Trust me if you sign up you will
not be disappointed.
You can thank me later.
Tony
Already getting near 1am and I'm tossing and turning as usual. I have a meeting and afternoon workday at the 300 Madison ave office so I would like to get some sleep tonite. Tony tossed me an ambien, but no relief yet. I don't have to be there until 11am so at least I still have some time. I really don't know what the meeting is about (I think it's to learn some new internal-web form technology), but they wanted to get me in the office this week anyway so we could get a good head start on the new Global CEO survey site that comes out on the 22nd (I know not a big deal, but it is for PwC.com).
I guess a few of us will head out after 5 to have a couple drinks and bitch about office things, but I have to run back over to Jersey City before it gets too late. I can't miss my night at Simple to watch Project Runway after all.
(BTW Barry--The Bad Bar Hop was so much fun the other night, about 20 of us went and everyone was very welcoming (if not surprised) at all of us coming in--something we are definitely going to do more often).
There's a Giant's game night at Pop Merrigan's on Sunday that I may attend with that group. And White Star has a party bus on the 27th down to Atlantic City for the day that I'm going on.
So today we went to our friend Lucas' 1st bday (they live by Simple and Joe's 39th bday is coming up as well on the 16th) and then headed out to Maplewood for Rick's birthday party (he turned 45 Holy Crap). Anyways we stayed there a couple hours and had a great time (and watched the Giants spank the Cowboys). I dropped Tony back off at home at 8:15 and headed to White Star. Watched Oceans 13 (even tho i didn't watch 11 or 12)--it was pretty ok and came home when it started to snow.
A couple GR8?? news-stories for pet lovers: (check these out)
So we had such a good time hanging out with my friends and going to the underbelly of society, I so fit in there =)
Honestly, as bad as Tony was mad at me for hanging out with the friends, I had such a good time and now I think people actually might like me a little bit =)
I did give the cabby a big tip to shut up (he was a talker and I hate that), but anyways...good time today, I wanna see Orphanage now but I will wait,.
Holy crap...I'm such not a great guy, but i'm not the worst (maybe) ...Good friggin nite!
So it was our "monthly" bookclub on Thursday night...a couple weeks late because of the Holidaze, but was it ever worth it. Such a stunningly good book. Although I want to hate it since Oprah recommends it, it's one of the best written novels I've read in a long time--great writing style, excellent character development. Everyone loved it--so if you get a chance, and haven't yet, check out Middlesex .
We just had brunch at Simple and came home for awhile. Tony is going to drop me off downtown after awhile to meet some friends from the neighborhood (they started a local social site-- JC linked). Tonite we're going to hop around and get to know some of the lesser known, maybe even seedy bars around town...should be interesting...
Yeah--it totally is always too late so ignore the tagline. I was going to take an ambien and sleep thru the turn of the year, but a couple of my friends (Scott, Natalie, and Paula) texted me enough to make me feel like a jerk. I wanted to see Tony, but he wanted to stay at home. I ended up going to White Star to meet my friends and as I sat there and drank, lo and behold--Tony walked in shortly before midnite. He made my year! Not only did people finally believe that he was real but we got to bring in the New Year together. It was so nice of him to do that. He left and I stayed out with our friends for a little longer -- has a great start to what I am assuming is going to be a horrible horrible horrible year...We'll see.
I wish I had a St. Bernard to snuggle with,
OK so to end the new year, I thought I'd sum up the last couple days at least. Hopefully tomorrow nite Tony will run down to White Star and bring in the New Year (and then he can come back home as always).
So I drank an exhorbitant (sp?) amount this weekend. I got a new phone finally (a global blackerry) and saw "I am legend" (which i cried like a girly bitch during--c'mon). I'm sorta sad this week and hope Tony wants to Ring in the New Year tomorrow with me....
I'll post up some fotos from our FL trip on XMas and such in the next couple of days, Barry I'm sorry we missed seeing you on XMasa it was close but I understand (being a loner)..Next time -- definetly.
(PS -- Pan's Labyrinth is on right now--1 of the 2 best movies ever (other is Children of Men)--both from 2007 -- I swear to your God if you haven't seen them, there is no reason for us to chat anymore--Watch them and love the cinema again!)
I know it's expected for me to be a little irreverant and such but I'd rather just wish everyone to grab a little bit of good cheer and something nice if possible for the season. Happy Holidays, merry Xmas and such...I'll post some fotos from Rcok center and the city and more in a couple days!
So yesterday I made the trek to the movies to see the new Depp/Burton musical, Sweeney Todd. GO SEE IT! It is utterly fantastic...very bloody, very funny, very awesome. A crosscut of Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow set to music. Not only do Johnny and Helena rise to the Singing occasion but the kid in the movie can really belt out a tune...if he finds no other work soon, I'm definitely going to hire him to walk around behind me and sing what I'm doing as a narration.
Fantastic Movie--GO SEE IT!
So I watched a pretty spooky new show on A&E tonite, in the tradition of GhostHunters (my fav), called Paranormal State. They play up the religious theme a bit too much for my taste but the first episode gave me chills, 2 new ones come on Monday night as well.
Since we're on the subject of TV...Man I cannot stand Carson Kressley, Al Roker or Paula Deen. They all drive me crazy!
Also I've been on the 25 Days of Christmas kick on ABC Family -- rewatching all the old Christmas favs (my personal favorite being Nestor, the long-eared Christmas donkey). But as I watched Frosty's Winter Wonderland (again) today--I can't help but wonder what they did with the Good SnowParson that they built to wed Frosty and Crystal. He didn't go to the North Pole with them, so I'm assuming that they either let him melt a slow death or dismembered him right away? Pretty gruesome, I guess that's real life tho!
I found my camera (actually had already found it but forgot--don't ask). So I added 53 new photos to our December Gallery.
I also made Tony a little Play-Doh Christmas Tree:
She got way more awesome than me recently. She totally elfed herself...Dammit.....( I'm still slightly more awesome in real life--yeah not really but c'mon)
OK no blood that i know of, but at least my avid reader, Barry wa caught up on things tonite. Looks like the new webcam is still working (and wanting to be expanded--i will i will)...It also has its standalone site here with a chat function if you want to chat with others watching our street (it has a lag but a chat function--i'm sure i will interact on it soon since it's new). (I plan for some better ones on our pets or while im working on me or something, but until then....
Tonite i watched me some XMas oldies on ABC family and then met Tony and a contractor neighbor at the new store, they have alot of work to do but i hope they do it quickly and nicely, it can definitley work out there with a little bit of dedication and care, it has some cool features.
Then I went to White Star for a little while and saw alot of my hang out friends (Joe, Jimmy, Susie, Katie, Curtis, Matt, Noelle, Joshy, Katie, Bryan). Good time and still got home early enough to be good and take care of the pets without getting into trouble =) It snowed a little; nice to see the flakes as they fell (albeit to their melted death), some were larger and tried to hang on but were unable in the breeze and the ground warmth...I rooted for them to stick but realized that inevitably they too would all pass.
Also posted 3 new pics in the gallery from Tonys camera (I can't find my camera right now).
Finally gonna try to quickly catch up on a few things.
Thanksgiving
We drove down to Richmond to go to my stepsisters, with my Dad and step-mom for dinner. We (Me, Tony & Dillon) drove down Wednesday night--got there around midnight, visited with Dad awhile then went to bed. Got up the next morning and headed over to dinner around 1. Visited the rest of the evening and then Tony & Dillon got up around 6am and did a little shopping. We all went to Red Robin for burgers for lunch and then headed home afterwards, we got home around 7, I think on Friday.
While coming home, Tony got a call the Edith, the elderly woman he takes care of, was in the hospital with pneumonia and won't be able to live on her own anymore. This put a big crimp in our living situation, so unfortunately Dillon had to return to GA. Tony dropped him off at the airport on Saturday morning (Dec 1).
Wedding
After Tony dropped Dylan off, we met our friends Susie, Jay and Lou at Simple quickly and then we all headed down to Baltimore for our Friends wedding (Kelly and Sammy). It was a great wedding and we had so much fun. Jay and Susie had to drive back that night so we stayed overnight, met up with Lou in the morning and us 3 drove home yesterday. The windshield and wipers kept freezing up in the sleet and snow, but it was a good trip. We were pleasantly surprised to have a nice 1/2 inch of pretty snow on the ground when we got back.
Last night I went up to Simple and hung out a little while with Kelly, Sammy (the newly weds--they left for ST. Thomas today) and 6 or so other people that had gone to the wedding.
Today is was back working as normal, altho I did manage to get Christmas Lights in the windows (I know alot of people think they are tacky, but they are old fashioned wonderment to me)...The large multicolour bulbs. Our windows are about 8' tall and 4' wide so a long string fits almost perfectly.
Oh I did manage to get a webcam finally working, overlooking our street on the side. That should remain on most of the time. I'm going to try to hook up another 1 or 2 sometime soon to add to the page as well, eventually.
Whew -- done catchin up for now.
I'm sew creeped out with myself. A few weeks ago I had brunch at Simple and PJ and Alex were watching Project Runway (Season 2) marathon and they got me hooked. Well the premiere is tonite (yeah they are going to have it on at Simple again, so guess where I'm gonna be--showing my horrificness to the world) and of course there's a marathon on right now as well, so while I work I'm catching up on Season 3. My only hope is that I can get Tony hooked on it as well so I'm not alone in it.
Oh a couple news stories of interest:
I forgot how awesome George Clooney was in From Dusk Til Dawn, it's on TV right now.
It's been a fairly horrible few days, we were supposed to leave yesterday to go to Houston for a wedding tomorrow, but Tony got sick and an earache so he canceled us, he's still not feeling well tonite, so I Advil PM'd him up and am getting lots of work done. I had a semi-out of office note up for work, but I think I ended up working more the last couple days than I have in awhile--it's been pretty non-stop.
Our ferret Rascal passed away last night (in his sleep), it was expected soon but still very upsetting. I'm going to miss him, he was very sweet (one night last week when Tony was in FL still he slept with me wrapped up in a towel all night).
I think I'll do a couple more hours of work and then try to catchup on September / October invoicing to my clients over the weekend, no not try--I have to.
I posted up pictures from my Halloween night, last night. Click here to take a look.
I think Tony finally gets home today, he usually keeps that a closely guarded secret. It's nice and chilly and fall-like today here, I think a high of 56.
Saw Joe Torre on David Letterman by mistake tonite...he was on when I came in the hotel room....Anyways one of the nest interviews I've seen, such a nice guy....Yeah Ron Gidry I'm ready for cause he's good and nice to look at, but Torre was so respectful and nice and everything....I'll miss him.
Heading back to Home in the morning -- Tony is staying for a couple more days--I'm ready to get back home, it's so not right in FL no matter how much you enjoy and love your mom and sister.....(s)
OK so the Red Sux won...whatever, we know it's an inferior everything.
Sitting at the Hyatt Lounge right now after having a nice afternoon visiting with my mom and sister (Barry ask Aggie about my concussion she knows the story know). Great dinner tonite here with Tony's father for his 60th BDay, 20 people showed up--very nice. Trying to finish up a web page that has to be posted shortly but Hyatt blocks down the Verizon speed on my aircard a bit since they partner with TMobile--yeah total conspiracy. Can you hear me now?
Crap I hate that the Red Sux won...so badly...no more sports for me for awhile unless someone takes me to a Devils game or a boxing match in AC and I get re-hooked on those....
Barry -- this blog took a bit to post because of the access but you are an avid reader I hear and definitely worth the wait =)
Gude-out
So I cannot stip watchin SciFi or AMC classics or anything with horror on since it's close to Halloween...just was out with my friends Susie and Jay at White Star til (too late but been home since 1:40ish)....anyways...Creepshow 2 is on now and watchin while I update a page (not the best scary move -- but sometimes things stick in your head, specially when it was a story from years back--Plus The Rock was in the Indian Statue story so it had to have some credibility...um yeah). I remember the orginal short by Stephen King (The Raft), and moreso I remember my first year of college when one late late night my friends Stephanie, Mitch and Bryan went swimming in Lake Thonotosassa and then I remembered this story (shoulda prolly worried more for alligators--especially now watchin this movie and it just looks like a tarp under the water) and made us get the hell outta there, you can almost feel the water tryin to kill you. Sweet...Not sure they knew why I freaked out, but yeah the sludge almost got us, I know that for a fact now.
drinking...good
concussion and bloody bar crawl shirt...bad
So, tomorrow starts the Jersey City art tour. Yeah I should probably do that instead but...here's what I'm a level 3 participant of instead (go ahead and call the ambulance now...If you wanna join in tho--be there):
We will have final registration for the crawl at the Hamilton Ale House between 12pm – 1pm. Between that time, we will also be handing out t-shirts, 1 camera per team, score cards and taking last minute payments. The race will begin at 1pm. The order of the crawl is as follows:
1. Hamilton Ale House - 708 Jersey Ave and 10th Street
2. White Star - 230 Brunswick St and Pavonia
3. Abby's - 407 Monmouth St and 3rd
4. Pop Merrigans - 281 Newark Ave and Monmouth
5. Lamp Post - 382 2nd St and Brunswick
6. Barrow Street - 292 Barrow St and Mercer
7. Rolon's - 242 Bay St and Erie
8. Lucky 7 - 322 2nd St and Coles
Some Unofficial Rules:
Stay with your team! You cannot leave the bar until everyone in your group has finished drinking
Tier 3s drink 3 drinks per bar, tier 2s drink 2 and tier 1s drink 1. A tier 1 can drink on behalf of another team player
Your team must follow the bar order
Scoring goes on the honor system you don’t have to use the score card, you can have bartenders sign your shirts, keep receipts, etc. Whatever works for you (the prize isn't that good, so no need to cheat)
Again, the prize isn't that good and we don't actually expect anyone to finish… so please, don't hurt yourselves know your limit and drink responsibly (we're not responsible/liable for anything that may or may not happen to you during the crawl).
Regardless of where you are at 7:00 pay your tab and head over to Lucky 7
OK I think this is fantastic albeit depressing, Tony disagrees and finds it boring. Look deep and be amused and saddened...(plus good music)
So for some reason (she was looking to buy in the building they tell me) Sally Jesse Rafael was standing outside tonite when I got home from watching the Yankees (win 12-0!!!! NICE)...but anyways, she asked me if it was a safe building/area, so I told her I remembered back in 2000 when a prostitute from the neighborhood threw a muskrat at my face but I sideswiped it and it ran across the street and it then went on to build a nice little Bodega, which I kept trying to go into it and they said no non-muskrats allowed so I was like WTF, You are the only muskrat in the hood and you tried to eat my face. He went in the backroom (i think embarrased but we'll never know)...He never came back out so I climbed up the hill over the ocean next door and smacked the bluebird (I was told to do this a few nites ago by a spatula hanging over something that I could never recognise but it's better that way)...and damned if I didn't end up in bed with a nice orange soda perfectly chilled on ice, typing this....screwy eh?
True Story....TBC
I finally uploaded a bunch of more photos in our gallery. And am all caught up, after doing a few hundred. Here's the new ones:
I'm really going to try to keep up on them.
I finally updated the gallery with some fotos that we took back in April. Click to see them. I'll be all caught up with a new gallery in a couple of days.
So the Yankees won part 1 of the double header...
As I was screwing around with the Tarantula tank (adding more dirt, and a little lettuce for the crickets), I noticed that there were little crickets, almost the size of the small ones when we but those instead of the large ones. We haven't bought them in a long long time so I guess they've been breeding in the tank, Sounds like a cheap way to keep a tarantula fed? Then if that wasn't enough I was playing with Wuzzy (we tap each others fingers) and I noticed some of the dirt was moving--as I looked closer I saw that there were lots of even smaller crickets, about the size of pinheads (Not Pinhead from Hellraiser, actual tiny heads of pins).
Review from Thursday & Friday:
Thursday: Got up and started working, only for my laptop to crash--I was able to reboot a few times, but had to take it into the office where they said I needed to leave it overnight. Not good with the amount of projects I have in the mix right now, but nothing I can do about it. Came home and fiddled around. Missed the Yankees lose at the afternoon game so I watched the movie "The Messengers" -- A little obvious and spooky but not a horrible flick. I started "Blood and Chocolate", but only got into it for :25 and gave into sleep around midnite.
Friday: I got up and called the office--no response, kept calling until about 1pm when they answered and said they'd check into it. Called back about an hour later and said my contractor status was listed as terminated so even though the laptop was fixed, they couldn't reset up my ID. I had a partner and couple directors call them (especially since I have big meetings on monday and tuesday in the city) and was able to pick up my laptop about an hour later. Needless to say it was set up wrong, and all of my info was gone (programs as well). It took me a couple hours to reset up my account, and then had to grab what I could from my own back up here at home. Did a little work and then watched the Yankees lose BAD (14-4)...Damn Tampa Bay for that too! Fell asleep somewhere around midnite.
Saturday: Woke up this morning around 7am and walked the dogs and took care of the feedings of the pets and then went to the grocery store. Just got back from there. Was supposed to go and see the Yankees for their 1pm game, but felt the need to skip it, so will flick it on the TV in an hour when it comes on. Not sure if I'll sit here through the double header or not, let's see if they can make it thru the 1st one.
so, ok....Sunday breakdown....Got up and went to meet Tony at Simple for Brunch before I met Susie. Had a runin with the british stripper, Tony finally got there (:45 late only for a change). We had brunch, Susie finally got there (during the Yanks game) and we made some plans...
Jay and Christine met us there, we left near 5pm and went and met Mel at Pop Merrigans (where se bartends on some sundays...). Played a Fucked up game of pool and left and had some fun at Abbys with Curly Sue and others...We left there, went to Christine's and tthen later went to White Star--everyone left me there and Tony came and picked me up at 2am.
Monday--slept in a bit and then worked all day, watched the Yanks in bed, took alot of Ambiem and slept in.
Tuesday--Slept not so far in, worked all day--left around 6:30 and went to Simple to watch the Yanks...Turned a bit purple (no more Vodka for me, back to Bacardi), was very depressed so Susie and Jay came and hugged me (John and Pete were nice as well). Went to the pet store and picked up Tony's pet store deposit, went and fed Stretch (Michale and Joyce's cat) then came home.
Wedesday--slept in and was depressed, lost alot of clients, who cares. Got up worked finally, Tony fell asleep so I went to White Star and had dinner and watched the Yankees, went to Simple then back to White Star then went to pick up Tony's deposit. Got home around 1:30am.
Just walked in the door and settled into bed...Here's today:
Woke up at 12ish...grabbed the paper and went to the pet store to return stuff and see what's up (Tony was asleep but it's saturday so sorta ok)...went to Staples and got bags and paper towels for the store and took them back and grabbed a leash for Holly at White Star that she needed for a benefit. Went and took care of Stretch (Michael and Joyce's cat--they are in Spain) and then made my way to White Star to drop off the leash--Ordered tacos there and read the paper and had a couple Ketel/Crans until Tony called me saying he was lookin for me at Simple. So I left White Star went and had another drink with him (and stole a couple pieces of his brunch bacon) and hung out with him for a half hour. We went to Target in the convertible to get stuff..went back and got the replacement Jeep and came home (at 5pm)
At 6:30 I left and went back to White Star to watch the Yankees (innings 1-4) had chips/guac and a couple drinks...then went to Simple and met up with Scott...finished the Yanks game (they won...yeah)...we got bored and it was Fugly there so we walked back to White Star...he ate I had one drink...we got bored again and walked back to Simple....
Still boring but we chatted with chatty bitches there....then I dropped him off and then went by the pet store to pick up deposits and Dog food (tony called and said to)...and then here I am. Time for bed obviously at 3:21...
REMINDER: I HAVE TO MEET SUSIE TO PLAN SOMETHING TOMORROW AT 2:30!!!!
Peace and Suck!
So I think I'm just gonna start rambling on to get things off my chest now...seems like a good way to do it where noone will see it or maybe I'll get some feedback..
Last nite i had horrible nightmares about trying to find a burial space for my cat ... and everytime i dug into our (nonexitnet...but dreamworld) yard I hit a fuckin sewer drain or something. Fortunatley enuf there was a party goin on so I could walk in from the rain and ask again where i should dig more.....so that was the dream...
today was more like this (after i woke up).
Still a little bit of sore throat and stuffed...worked for most of the day, even tho i put a sick notice on my email...Felt alot better in the afternoon so I went to Simple to watch the game (Yankees/Devil Rays...Yeah Tampa won the asses). Met Tony and friends Jimmy/Peter at White Star for some for the game and food. I walked back to Simple to finish watching the Yankees lose, drank some more, listened to people's shit ... went to my friend's (Michael and Joyce) to take care of their cat while they are in Spain and then came home feeling creeped out at life...so here it is.
i'm way too lazy and depressed to make them up myself...this one is nice tho:
You can live for many causes, but you can only die for one. Pick that one very carefully.
This is always just very awesome...but many many species are doing this now...so Virgin birth is everywhere....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6681793.stm
Death becomes him...
"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" -- Rev. Jerry Falwell, commenting on 9/11
Just alot better and more talented. I went and saw him last nite (Sat) at Radio City Music Hall. Front Row in the Pitt in the very middle. I've been a fan of his since before When Harry Met Sally. Unfortunately Tony's back was out again so I had to go it alone, and it was a little unnerving being 3 feet away from a performer that you worship, but DAMN it was the best concert and he is just the coolest guy ever!
GOOD TIMES! btw I don't at all mind going to things like that by myself and was confy with it, but I really wanted Tony to be there with me. I Love him ya know.
Just bought a couple more tickets from an online broker so we have a few concerts coming up in the near future:
April 6: Diana Ross -- Orchestra Right Row C
April 21: Harry Connick Jr -- Orchestra Pit Row AAA
June 18th: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper, Erasure and more) -- 10th row back or so, i can't remember - I bought them awhile back.
This is pretty wild!
Scientists have revealed details of the world's only known case of "semi-identical" twins. Read more...
So I'm walking the dogs at 3:25 today and there's this guy unwrapping a UPS package on the corner of Hutton and New York in the Heights (a block from where we live). He must love his new Land Rover (temporary tags BBV8850) because in the box was his new floor mats. As he took each out of their plastic covering he let the plastic blow eloquently across the street, not to let them have a place to return to in case they need - he thoughtfully left the UPS box on the side of the street.
What a piece of trash...The guy (Mr. Roger Rodriguez...I checked the box) no disrespect meant to the box or plastic. I hope he never flips his gas guzzler and gets blood on his nice new mats.
Polar bears are completely dependent on Arctic sea ice to survive, but 80 percent of that ice could be gone in 20 years and all of it by 2040. Polar bears are already suffering the effects: birth rates are falling, fewer cubs are surviving, and more bears are drowning. The Bush Administration's proposal to list the polar bear as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act is a crucial first step toward ensuring a future for these magnificent Arctic creatures. Yet the administration's proposal does not designate "critical habitat" for protection, even though melting habitat from global warming is the main threat to the polar bear's survival.
Submit your Official Citizen Comment urging the Fish and Wildlife Service to finalize the listing of the polar bear and designate its critical habitat.
I wanted to wish my sister, who lives in FL, a very Happy 39th Birthday. I hope you got to celebrate alot!
Also, I posted new pix up in our Gallery today of the HRC NYC Fundraiser that we went to last night.
Our cat Whisper passed away yesterday..Needless to say we are heartbroken. She's been my faithful companion for a month shy of 17years (& of course Tony's as well for the last 15). She slept by me every night and followed me around non-stop even when her arthritis didn't want her to. She had an embolism yesterday that paralyzed her back legs. We didn't allow her to be in any pain but did everything we could to save her. I'm having an especially hard time with it right now, but I know it will get better.
Whisper in 1990:
I missed the premiere but have caught the other episodes of "Dirt" on FX...I've always liked Courtney Cox and David Arquette, but this show is right and tight up my alley. In the gutter but with a perfect Strike! "Hold the goddam foot up and don't close your eyes..look at me...I'm sorry" Classic, maybe only because I'm sure that was one of our friends, if we knew what went on at their home.
Watch - it if you haven't.
Continue reading "(proclaimers be damned)...i would drive 5000 miles..." »
Continue reading "(proclaimers be damned)...i would drive 5000 miles..." »
Our friends/neighbors filmed the sexy part of this segment (of a longer movie about a retarded serial killer) in our Trading Spaces room downstairs...
Pretty much caught up on all of my work and now just waiting for my Ambien to kick in to give me my good 5 or so hours of sleep that it can usually get me--but it's taking forever tonite.
Pretty dull start to the new year so you'd think i could drift off anytime without it. Watched some TV last nite to bring in the new year (actually i may have been in the shower at the actual turn of the dial). I think Tony was watchin TV downstairs or something, didn't see him til this morning. Then watched some more TV and worked on the web til my New Year ambien helped me out.
Woke up this morning and continued my TV watchin, but also worked most of the day on finishing up some web projects. Tony made a nice lunch, I guess a New Year's lunch altho Happy New Year hasn't been mentioned in the house as far as I know -- otherwise been doing the same til now...and waiting now for some zzz's. Guess I'll sign off and wait without my brain scanning this thing.
Good Nite!
Had a really nice Christmas this year. Started off nice and quiet and I got to sleep in until about 11am.
to even bring up...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6161691.stm
Sitting in my London hotel room and hoping my ambien kicks in at least before I have to leave for a big meeting in the morning, doin a little catchup work and browsing some news to catch up on the world. And knowing that I find space things so damn cool...this is extra cool when you make note that it says in the last few years - not the last few thousand or million.
Conincidence?
So I picked up my tarantula from the guy in Hoboken that had rescued it, and then when i got home i logged onto stumbleupon and this was the first page that came up: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-10447559,00.html
A little freaky/creepy, no?
Conincidence?
So I picked up my tarantula from the guy in Hoboken that had rescued it, and then when i got home i logged onto stumbleupon and this was the first page that came up: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-10447559,00.html
A little freaky/creepy, no?
Well I know i said how I had flown down to surprise my mom for her 60th birthday, well to say I suprised her is putting it very mildly - I thought to show just how much I would post up a little photo of her expression (sorry mom) - click here for a larger version.
Anyway after that was all finished we went back to my mother's house - and since I always express an interest in keeping all of our family "history" (fotos, clippings, scrapbook stuff), my mother had a second copy of a newspaper clipping of my sister, Angela, and I, so i brought it home and scanned it in for your viewing pleasure. (Again click here for the full sized image)
As my mom is able she's going to start getting our family photos to me so I can scan them and put them on DVD. I'll of course post some of the more interesting of them.
Back from Vegas & D.C. finally and trying to get all caught up on work and life. Hoping to post some of the fotos tonite or tomorrow from DC - already posted alot of Vegas. Overall a fantastic time on both with only a couple minor skirmishes.
Had a good time meeting the boys (and the girls) of Nemesis in Vegas and hanging with them as well at thr HRC National Dinner and afterparty at Halo in DC. (Yeah I peed next to Noah in the bathroom at the dinner as well). Hello to everyone at our table!! Eric & Brendan (um hi u 2--yum), Lorna, Joshua, Bruce, John, Tim, crap I'm forgettin 2 but will re-edit you in!
Just posted up some of the photos from the reunion and the HRC dinner...
Drug 'may reverse liver disease'
A cheap and readily available drug could reverse severe liver disease, even in patients who find it impossible to give up booze, research suggests.
i think that's what i should be called anyway? i'm known to hang out at "Simple" at least 3 or 4 times a week...and the more i drink, of course, the longer i stay. You know they gotta love me there. At least it gets me out of the house alot and i have some semi-people to hang out with - In fact one of my friends that works there, Kat. Invited us to go along to Vegas with her at the end of the month and since that is Tony's bday as well, we decided to join her.
cmon people...how much more can we just hate anyone for anything...fuckin move against all these states and move to an accepting one? It would be the strongest richest gay nation ever.
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/09/090606colorado.htm
i mean, really this is all jnust stupid..noone respects us here so lets just buy the fuckin country and do what we want. I fuckin hate america and life anymore.
so yeah today is our 2 year NJ legal domestic partnership anniversary, which is awesome from a legality standpoint. And personally I don't care if they ever call anything marriage or whatever, because America, as well as most places is a bigoted hateful place and we could have it worse, so whatever. But whenever states like Nebraska yesterday, and NY last week put people down for whatever reason, or exclude people from basic rights, just stop spending money there. Geez cmon guys they don't want us there so move to Massachussettes or hopefully NJ or Canada or where the fuck ever, but fuckin boycott these states that dont let you live as you should. Groups always boycott businesses for gay rights or whatever (think Disney Gay Days, Viacom benefit rights, etc)...so spend your money elsewhere and fuck all the stupid backwards Bush lovin-idiots that America is so infamous for. Cmon wake up.
Well ok I guess we should say Happy 4th to keep up a front. but not sure our Independence day is all it used to be cracked up to be, how many of us are really that proud right now of how things are handled,
And the saddest thing...the 2nd of the only 2 lowland gorillas at the National Zoo died within a week today. He was 34 and died of heart failure. Meanwhile the first dies a couple of days ago during heart surgery.
Sooo miserably hot this past weekend and today, could barely keep the roof down on the car without the ac blasting, I know I know, what a friggin hardship i had to go thru. Independence Day or Co-dependents day, tomorrow? Not sure any of it matters.
Great Quote from Oswald on Drew Cary - "That excuse is as useless as FDR's legs."
Been back working way too much and still lots to do, one day i'll say nope to a webproject and fall over from a heart attack b4 the client is. Did get a couple shoppin breaks this weekend so I picked up a 320Gig external hard drive to put all of our home/store computers stuff on to back up, yeah ok quite a few new Guess clothes and some Bombay co stuff. Still no new shoes yet and it's been weeks! Altho i do have my eyes on the next 2 pairs, im gonna try to restrain. Had a pretty party weekend as we went out to clubs in the city thursday, friday and saturday - i think. Same life different week, so nothing too exciting. Trying to get our household under some sort of organised control before we have lots of family visitors at the end of next month, and Madonna Center Floor seats tomorrow nite.
even tho i never swear or think odd in anyway...Still gotta say this is sorta my anthem -- even if it is, ah crap, 12 years old now....damn that's harsh to think about...
It took so long to remember just what happened.
I was so young and vestal then,
you know it hurt me,
but I'm breathing so I guess I'm still alive
even if signs seem to tell me otherwise.
I've got my hands bound,
my head down , my eyes closed,
and my throat wide open.
Do unto others what has been done to me
Do unto others what has been done to you
I'm treading water,
I need to sleep a while.
My lamb and martyre, you look so precious.
Won't you come a bit closer,
close enough so I can smell you.
I need you to feel this,
I can't stand to burn too long.
Released in this sodomy.
For one sweet moment I am whole.
Do unto me now what has been done to me.
Do unto me now what had been done.
You're breathing so I guess you're still alive
even if signs seem to tell me otherwise.
Won't you come just a bit closer,
close enough so I can smell you.
I need you to feel this.
I need this to make me whole.
There's release in this sodomy.
For I am your witness that
blood and flesh can be trusted.
only this one holy medium brings me piece of mind.
Got your hands bound, your head down,
your eyes closed.
You look so precious now.
I have found some kind of temporary sanity in this
shit blood and cum on my hands.
I've come round full circle.
My lamb and martyr, this will be over soon.
You look so precious,
You look so precious,
You look so precious,
You look so precious now,
You look so precious...
So I was reading this news story on yahoo news. Pretty self explanatory, we as a Nation can't keep alive the babies that are being born as it is, Yet the Bush in his Almighty Holy wisdom would rather take choice away from mothers. I guess rather than ending a life before it is born, we should maybe just stack the baby bodies a little higher after they suffer a little while outside of the womb. Maybe we can start adding them with the worldwide death toll Bush has created...
That's it - I'm so not outwardly political but damn.
Topday we went down to Paulus Hook and I bought a shirt from Life then we had a late lunch at Light-Horse Tavern. After that we took the PATH over to Century 21 (The Department Store), and bought some clothes (i think my bill was about $1250..Tony's $300). I got a nice Versace suit, and Tony got a cool Kenneth Cole one.
Shopped out, we headed back to Jersey City, ran by the pet stores and picked up the deposits, and had dinner and a couple drinks at White Star Bar, where they were having an AIDS Walk fundraiser. Then Tony wanted to go home and nap so we could hit a club tonite. And then wouldn't wake up, so I did some online browsin around, lookin at some new gadgets, and decided to work a bit. It's 1:17am now, so i'm gonna go ahead and do an hour of work or so before get some sleep. Have to go into the city Monday and Tuesday for meetings and workshops, so prolly no goin out tomorrow either. My liver should thank me i'm guessin, a couple extra days for some regeneration.
Well I have a couple of big projects to do for work, but I really don't feel like workin on them too much, but since I'm just sitting here bored, I thought I'd finally update a bit of this site. I finally added some new photos to the gallery. And started updating the styles of a couple other pages, thinking i may redo the site to look more like this blog...I also updated the home page as well, even tho I plan on updating the design soon.
Someone did something so disgusting and heinous today at the building i'm so pissed off, but i'll talk about that after awhile. Fuckin asshole people in the world you know. I think i should be allowed to fuckin throw people against a wall and crack open their chest with a pickaxe. I'd make the world a better place. Well maybe worse, but it'd be my kind of bad.
Well not bound by ropes, well as far as i know yet. Heading down to Atlantic City today and tomorrow for the Spring Pet Convention to see new products and get some deals for the stores, hopefully. In other words spend lots of money on the pet stores. We don't really gamble at all, so most of the city scene is wasted on us, but there is a club...we'll see...
So we decided to do something cool that goes to a charity every year, and i just got us tickets to a very cool one...including the after concert reception and stuff.
The Empire State Pride Agenda Foundation invites you to an intimate evening with Rufus Wainwright as he performs Judy Garland's legendary 1961 Carnegie Hall performance - at Carnegie Hall!
Wednesday, June 14, 2006, 8:00 pm
Carnegie Hall
Additionally, the June 14th performance will be followed by a post-concert reception with Rufus at a fabulous location overlooking Central Park. If you are a true Rufus fan, you don't want to miss your opportunity to hang out with him after the show.
Host Committee: Alan Cumming, Rick Gove, Steven Green,
Kimberly Kakerbeck, Tony Kushner, Mark Paviluk, Frank Selvaggi
Nice Job:
"My argument to Democrats has been that we need to cling to the core values that make us Democrats, the belief in universal health care, the belief in universal education, and then we should be agnostic in terms of how to achieve those values."
-Sen. Barack Obama
Since life sucks 82% of the time, dreams may be more interesting, so here's mine from last nite (of course edited for time/space and so as not to give people nightmares as mine tend to be graphic and violent):
There was a huge flood which killed so many people, and then there was no drinking water hardly because it was all contaminated, and i kept giving children and Hotties that were left my share, and the lack of water caused me to have a condition not unlike what I would think that a mind of a Down's Syndrome sufferer might experience without the physical abnormalities. Throughout the rest of the entire dream I was thinking like that and not able to think and especially express myself like i wanted .... it was very frustrating and creepy...so of course i would wake up and start right back to it...I found i was very good at building natural habitats for vietnamese guinea pigs, however the whole of the new society didnt see that as important and since i was wasting more of their precious resources they tried everyway they could to kill me and my guinea pigs. I did make it through the night with a small band of companions tho.
somehow i doubt it...Man what a cool pop!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060309/ap_on_re_eu/france_tennis_death
I drove down to Richmond for a quick visit to my Dad's for his 73rd Birthday (which was sunday)...He's such a cool person and my Stepmom was able to keep it a surprise--which it seemed to be a pleasant one. I left about 10:30am, got there in the 3 oclock hour and we (me, dad, claudia, my step-sister, her hubby and their 2 boys)...we ate at Brio Tuscan Grill and honestly had the best Filet Minon of my life.
We went home and chatted til 11ish when they retired for the evening, I went upstairs and did some work on the Oscar's foto contest on the pet store website (we've been getting some cool entries). I fell asleep sometime and was able to get about 7 hours sleep...more than in a long long time. They got home from church (what the hell are you kidding me...me go with them? I didnt wanna start any fires on my dad's bday) and we went and dropped off our benz at the tire store to get a new tire (it had a bubble on it), then went to Red Lobster for lunch (another steak, lots of biscuits and iced tea), picked up the car and i headed home, where i relaxed for an hour or so, then worked til about 4am...
So things are back to normal...just waiting on the insurance company to let me know when they will let the dealership shop start fixing my little new wrecked baby (oh don't know that story from last week...i miss him right now as it's supposed to get warm - good top down weather later this week and he's broken...sigh)
scary but i guess it's better than any other way i would be put in the newspaper.
http://www.nj.com/columns/jjournal/behrens/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1141121638156610.xml&coll=3
i always say it but maybe i should follow thru..noone to talk to of any certain sorts, so rather than just bleeding, maybe i'll write more on here and then only "sometimes i bleed"...
or well yeha i dunno either....
ok working 21 or so hours a week since i last entered...over last weekend i did work a couple hours a day at the pet store sat and sunday then we had our artist of the month's reception at http://www.fetchitbythepark.com 6:30-10:00 on sunday, which Tony came to and then we went to Chilis for a quick dinner. couple nights this week did inventory swaps between the 2 stores and loaded software on the computers so i can work on them directly from home.
tonite i think Tony wants to go to Outback for dinner, he asked me to wake him up at 7pm - there's usually a 50/50 chance that he'll actually get up and go, but he seemed like he really night tonite. there's still so much straightening out of house crap we need to do around here, but im feeling pretty damn hopeless about it and try as i might the more i do the less seems to get done, ah well that's my basic feelings in general right now...work is a neverending abyss, the mess around here is like a lid on top of it right when my fingers reach the edge...oh well, i think maybe right now i'll go and do 1 thing for the house to completion. even if it's small it'll be complete...now the hard spot - what will it be ??
er wait that's the weather, The Jefferson's was just interrupted to let us know there's a Tornado Warning out...Odd in January especially. they said between 1-2 inches of rain today and tonite, and 1-3 inches of snow sunday morning, then warm again on Tuesday.
Still working away but only 18 of the first set of pages left to edit and approve...blah i wanted to get a couple hours sleep, but lookin less likely. I did post up the new artist page on the pet store site too. Laying here in bed with my while i work are LaDee (as always--she's my workin pal consistently for the last few weeks), Willy and Weirdo, so the bed is pretty empty for a change. Tony zonked out at about 7:30pm since he cleaned all nite thursday and went to Target and Staples.
My Camera got back from the shop yesterday (my new one that i dropped in DC), of course now I can't find the battery charger, but i know it's around here somewhere. I'll try to find it before Rick's birthday dinner tonite to grab some candids at least. Still gotta shoot some of the new car too. And if we ever get this place cleaned back up and the remainder of the XMas crap stored, i'll take some of the Loft and the work we've been doin on it lately.
readded some more iceland fotos that i had accidentally removed...i'll try to get the remaining ones off the cameras and add them as well sometime tonite.
I am gonna try to take an hour break in a little while to break the monotony if to do nothing else then try to sort thru the shit piled on my desk, or maybe take a shower? I guess I should probably do a couple more invoices for clients, getting paid and getting some cash would make it seem a little worth it...yeah yeah whine whine boohoo, i know noone listens or cares anyways.
Ahhh i did spy something in the newspaper that i had been wondering about, i see the 2 little Mars Rovers are still going strong a year and a half after their demise was predicted! I dunno why but i love those little rovers...
Ok so first the "who the hell cares everyday stuff"?:
Greg's day: Did all the morning animal stuff except the dogs; Laundry 4 loads; animal cage cleaning: 3; general cleanup: 2 hours give or take; PwC work: finished and sent 2 invoices from November (yea!); US home page: 1hr; press room: 45min; 2 conference calls; 2 new Financial Services pages; renewing/fixing pages about to expire: 9; HRI pages: 2. Did the night animal work, walked the dogs and fed them. Went to both Pet stores, backed up the computers, picked up all the deposits from when we were gone and transfered stuff from 2nd street to the park. Then caught up on this journal. That's all the bitchy stuff I can think of...so after I give Tony's (what i know of) i'll talk of nicer thoughts...
Tony's (again only what I saw, so he doesnt yell at me saying he does more): Walked the dogs; got us breakfast from McD's; took Woofer to the Vet; walked the dogs and ordered us dinner which we went upstairs and ate with Rick & Brad.
OK whatever..if you feel like skipping the above, i think i may just list the crap like that then tell of other crap or thoughts or maybe sing a little ditty down here...
Hmmm Stuff: I did get a call today that PwC wants me to continue on a website manual that i've been working on, so that they can publish it internally, which is pretty cool, guess i'm not doin such a sucky job as i thought. Got to finally drive the new car around to the Pet Stores tonite, which was good - I missed my baby while we were gone and although it was a great time with Tony and we NEVER EVEN FOUGHT!!!! I mean Shit! That's a miracle, we went to London for 4 days once and never even spoke!---anyway although it was a great time, i still missed my little black convertible boy here waiting for me in the garage just to rev him up and take him out on the town.
It's also cool how you can visibly see how much all of our kids missed us while we were gone, it's heartening to know that they really do love us, since it seems like they are the only ones most of the time, I looked in the mirror before we ran up to Rick and Brads' and pretty much shoulda puked but i didn't have enough moisture in my system, so i just darted my eyes and shaved and showered and cleaned up ok. I need to do alot of work on myself again, i'm not feeling very able to go out in public anymore, really, and i have a meeting and work dinner tomorrow, which sucks when you are self depracating, I'll have a drink or 2 or find a faunt of happiness somewhere to get me thru it. I'm still almost on top of work since i did work some on my vacation, but it was a tuff day to keep it under control and if it stays this way i'll be buried under again b4 you know it. I want to post a few more Iceland fotos on here so i'm gonna sign offa typin on here tonite. Yeah these are all rated g fotos, can't believe noone has found that secret little password form yet)
Not wanting to start off the new year too differently than those past...
I went up to the pet store to do some late night work, before we leave for our trip tomorrow to Iceland. I stopped by the 2nd street store and grabbed their Xmas decorations to store in the basement at the Park. I lug them inside, open the basement door, step back and picked them up, got the back of my shoe caught on the ledge and twisted around dropping my right leg down into the basement, catching myself from falling totally in, which twisted my leg around and allowed for the door to slam (like this--> BAM) onto the bag of my knee. I lay there relishing the pain for awhile, before getting up and admiring my new cut and bruise. Nothing broken yet so it could be worse. We'll see how far I get into 2006 with that record tho.
OK it's the 3rd, so I missed saying it: Happy New Year, so there everyone can just go back to head nodding and grunting on the sidewalks instead of saying that all the time. It's over now. Just a quick update on my exciting life since the last entry:
NY EVE: I went shopping at Target and Tony had a store manager meeting at FBTP with Jen & Sandy. Then he came home and cleaned up some and got stuff ready to take up to Rick & Brad's for dinner and the ball drop, while I planted my saved Target plants (i hate seeing their clearance christmas plants sit there, so i bought a bunch of their paperwhite, amaryllis, etc kits and planted them). Then I started setting up my new Musica. Went to Rick & Brad's (3A) and had dinner along with Greg (1B) & Rich & Sofie (1A) and watched the ball drop with "good old"? Dick. We came home after midnite and went up to the Cage til about 5am-ish? (not totally sure as i didn't check the time, and wouldnt remember had i done so. We stayed up a little longer than zonked out.
NY Day: Mostly laid around all day, Tony went and took care of Edith a couple hours and I did some work. Then nitefall, Tony went to bed and I did alot of pwc.com work overnite.
2nd of Jan: Our 2nd Street Employee Cat didn't show up so Tony went and covered her til Edwin got there. I did alot of PwC work during the day and worked on the laundry a little bit that Tony had started before he got called away. I took the wreaths out of the windows to put away. Tony got home around 6:30, we ordered pizza around 10pm and then I went to the ATM and the 2nd Street store, after I dropped stuff off at home, I went back to FBTP and fixed a computer register problem that we had been dealing with until about 2am then I came home and worked on pwc.com work until 4:30.
Today, finally: We got moving around at about 10:30am but Tony woke up sick so stayed on the couch under covers. I got alot of new PwC.com work so worked on it after taking care of the animals. Tony wanted some vitamin C, so I ran to Stop & Shop and got that for him, went to the bank and deposited a rent check from FL and then mailed out an order we had gotten from Fetch-It Online before returning home to do more work and finish the laundry, which is where I am at right now with LaDee snoring here beside me on bed and Weirdo, Whispen, Willy and Wexler scattered about the bed. It looks like it's stopped snowing/raining/icing outside now as well. I'm gonna grab a little bit of food now and get back to work.
Lots of not alot happened yesterday and today. Did some work and finally invoiced a couple clients that I hadn't since September, not alot of new work coming through this week with PwC US Firm closed, but did get one project yesterday that will take awhile.
Wednesday we drove into the city with Uncle Gary and his twin boys, but it was packed for some event everywhere and every parking garage was fu8ll, so we drove around a couple hours in wall to wall people/traffic then just made our way home. Went to Uno's for dinner then Tony brought them home and I went and took store inventory from the 2nd street store to the Park store. (5 trips in the new Benz)...Then Tony and I went out for a few drinks (until 2am).
Thursday, I woke up with a bad headache (not exactly from drinking), so i tried to do some work and sleep in a bit. Tony worked on Rick & Brad's loan and then we took a Jitney bus over to the city and met Uncle Gary and the boys at Trump Tower. Walked up to Central Park & FAO Schwarz and then took the train back downtown and had a couple drinks/appetizers at TGI Fridays before catching the ferry back to Jersey. Ordered some pizza at home, I did a website update for PwC Retail and then went up to the stores to back up the data and do a little work. (Also watched my first episode of ER ever...and it was pretty good and creepy - Cynthia Nixon played a stroke patient--so that's what everyone's been talking about these last 10 years =)
Now it's 3am and i'm gonna do a little bit a work and try to get some sleep, maybe, My relatives leave in the morning between 9-10am.
Boring entry, eh? I'll try to soup em up a bit in the new year!
Woke up late again (but went to bed at 6am). Slept til 11:30, Tony was still sleepin. Took care of the animals and then did some work. About 4:00pm I went to Pier One, Linens & Things and Target for some after-xmas shoppin. (spent about $450--not bad for me )
After that went by Fetch-It to see if Cat needed anything or help, then went to FBTP and did an order with Jen and went over some stuff. Then came home and unpacked my goods, only to come in here and work a little watch Futurama and a couple episodes of Frasier & Family Guy. Tony slept pretty much all day although was up to eat around 7:30-8:30 or so.
I also updated our website with pictures from Christmas and spoke to my Uncle Gary, from VA Beach. He and his twins are driving up tomorrow to stay a couple days. I'm not going to worry with hiding any severed heads from them, I think they are cool with them on the floor as long as they aren'r smelling up the place, and with a little Febreze it's amazing how scent free things remain.
Think i'll finish up part of another PwC site that I'm working on and get a couple hours of sleep. Getting worn out again but then again, when am i not...WWGD after all (yeah G is for greg - don't get any religious ideas anywhere from me--i mean c'mon what the Hell??)
-batgod