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11 comments (closed), posted on january 29, 2003, tags: new york

Well, that would have been bad. You see, we found a place on the Lower East Side (I wrote about it vaguely in my last entry as the "place we found today"), but it wasn't all that great. With our price range and the other apartments we'd seen, we figured it was the best of the lot and decided to settle for it... even though it had a bedroom that literally measured 9'x7'.

As I wrote, we decided to visit two final places in Williamsburg before going 100% with the LES apartment. The first place sounded fantastic, but unrealistic. As if we would get there and it would be a horrible misprint and a waste of our time. But it wasn't. At all.

In fact, it was the most fantastic place we had seen. The moment we walked in I knew it was the perfect place, and instantly began mumbling "I want it, I want it, I want it," under my breath. That mumbling didn't stop until today when we signed the lease.

It's ours. I am now officially a resident of Brooklyn.

Look Out New York

posted on january 25, 2003, tags: new york

For the last few weeks, I have privy to the absolutely painful task of attempting to find residence in New York City. She's a rough, harsh bitch, and she doesn't want to be inhabited without a serious fight. After many visits to many places (most of which instantly screamed "Fuck you, pal!" to me), today we finally found what will most likely become our home for at least the next year.

Tomorrow we travel to Williamsburg for a look at two more places, and if neither beats the place we found today, we're done. If one of the two places tomorrow is better, we're done. Basically, we're done. Thank god.

And so, with that, the next process will begin shortly: moving. Yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Here I come, New York.

On the Subject of Smoking

33 comments (closed), posted on january 25, 2003, tags: new york

I haven't written anything about Dictator Bloomberg's NYC smoking ban. I haven't really felt it was necessary, as many other people have put my thoughts into their own words anyway and said basically what I was going to say. That is, until two days ago.

Because I've been commuting from New Jersey again, I've been in close proximity to a lot of the places I spent a great deal of time in during college and high school. One of the places I frequented (more than frequented—I almost lived there) was a diner in Madison called Nautilus. Two days ago, Katia and I decided to visit the diner for some pancakes. We sat in the smoking section and ate our food, talking about my college days and other nonsense. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a sign over the soda fountain. It read, in short, that as of March 1, 2003, the Nautilus diner would be 100% non-smoking due to the (loose quote) "request of our valued patrons."

Am I not valued? Because I smoke do I somehow register as less important to this diner? Furthermore, do they assign less value to all of the college students from two universities that visit this diner day in and day out? Apparently. I asked one of the staff members why they decided to take this drastic step. He told me, "The boss wants it this way." I asked why and he replied, "I don't know. Doesn't make sense to me." He smokes. I don't know if a non-smoking employee would have said something different, but I doubt it since a majority of the daily income is from the smoking section (midday the non-smoking section is completely empty).

The reason I bring this up is that I feel Bloomberg's mission to rid New York of smokers is now, for some reason, making it acceptable for other places outside the city to do the same. Soon we won't be allowed to smoke on the street, in our cars or in our houses. But, like Dennis Leary says, you can jack the prices sky-high, you can make all black packs with a skull and cross bones on it, call them poison, and we'll still fucking smoke them. You can outlaw smoking in restaurants, and we'll eat quickly and then loiter in front of the building smoking to our hearts' content. You can outlaw smoking in my car and I'll stick my head out the window like Ace Ventura. You can make it illegal to smoke on the planet Earth and I'll steal a fucking spaceship and smoke on the Moon.

À La Craig's 'Missed Connections'

posted on january 23, 2003, tags: random

You: Three women and one man. About 35 years a piece. One of you looked a bit younger, though. You were the stupid douchebags talking extremely loudly about your stupid fucking lives at 8:30AM on the New York-bound NJ Transit train. You didn't realize you were the only fuckoffs talking on the whole train you fucking bastards.

Specifically She: The loudest of you cocksuckers. The one wearing a skiing hat from the early nineties and a shit-eating grin, who kept saying, "I was like..." and "I mean, like..." wherein the ellipses lead to her laughing by herself at nothing.

Me: A guy, tired as all hell, trying to get an extra hour of sleep on a normally peaceful and quiet train. I was wearing the Gap shirt and the "Fuck off you motherfuckers" face.

Them: Everyone else on the train who now knows that one of you got ripped off by a contractor, and the other guy had a pseudo-humorous battle with a raccoon the other night in his attic.

[I went ahead and actually posted this to Craig's List as well. — Ed.]

Use CH Elsewhere

5 comments (closed), posted on january 18, 2003, tags: plugin

One of the nice things about CurrentlyHearing is that you can take the information provided by the plugin and use it in unconventional ways. I've got two tutorials here for those of you that want to use CH for more than just showing information on your website.

Using PHP, you can utilize CH to create a dynamic image (GD Library required) and use it as a signature for forum systems, or use CH to display what you're hearing in your AIM profile. Read on!

» Continue reading Use CH Elsewhere

Write For the Movies

4 comments (closed), posted on january 14, 2003, tags: entertainment

Dear Michael Crichton,

I've just finished reading your latest novel, Prey. I thought I would take a few moments to give you my opinions and thoughts on this book.

First of all, we know it's a novel. I'm sure you had nothing to do with the cover design, but maybe you could get in touch with Harper Collins Publishers next time you have them publish a book and tell them it's not necessary to write "A Novel" on the cover. I don't think anyone is picking up the book and asking others what it is. "Is this a shovel?" "No, I believe that's a novel." "Well, I won't believe that until I see proof." I think you get my point. If not, just consider the fact that most film posters or covers tend not to say "A Film" on them. Granted, there are probably a few people in the world that occasionally walk into Blockbuster looking for cat litter, but I think it's still safe to assume most people know about these things. Also, on a related subject, could you please ask shampoo companies to stop putting directions on their bottles? Lather, rinse, repeat. We get it. Homeless people get it.

Anyway, about the book:

We all know Prey will be made into a film. Hell, it's probably in production right now. But let me guess—you didn't write the screenplay, did you? I knew it. See, the problem is, you did. The damned book is a screenplay! Front to back, the thing reads so much like a film that I actually found myself yelling "Cut!" when I didn't like the way things were going.

You have this problem with writing excellent novels that get turned into shitty movies. And they're all written by other people. And you're a writer. That seems odd. Do you lack the ability to write in screenplay format? Do INT and EXT confuse and/or frighten you? If so, I think a forty dollar community college course could set you straight. Hell, I'll teach you for free. The problem is, it's so easy that people who shouldn't be writing your book to film translations are! They know the structure, sure, but not the material. I have an idea: hire a college dropout to type the screenplay as you walk around your house in your boxer shorts drinking vodka and spitting it out.

Also: The picture on the back cover isn't fooling anyone. You were born in 1942 (as it says opposite the picture), yet that photo makes you look like you are 25. You're turning 61 this year, Mike—it's okay to look it. Stop letting them airbrush you into a smiling robot from the late eighties. I mean, for chrissakes they did such a heavy job this time getting the wrinkles and sagging flesh out of your neck and forehead that you look like you're made of plastic! Are you a cyborg?

On the subject of robots, though, the book was good. It was a bit shorter than usual, and I feel you're less accurate at telling a story when you use first-person. But that's okay. It was nice to have a shot back to Rising Sun. Same format, yeah? Asians were replaced with nano-machines, though. That was smart.

And they were too (smart, that is (the nano-machines)). You've got such an ability to take a subject and, no matter how complicated, make it seem completely understandable. Not in a dumbed-down way, either, which is nice. You choose topics that are entirely interesting and present them in an even more interesting fasion. Your themes are great (humans are ill prepared, lots of little mistakes can cause horrible outcomes, people don't think, technology can be our enemy, etcetera). I love you.

While it's true that the cover image of a nano-machine "swarm" looks like an illustration from a Shel Silverstein book (was Prey a disgustingly funny tribute to that rhyming bastard?), I liked the "novel" none the less. Maybe even more. Now all you have to do is write the screenplay and give those homeless people a break.

Good work, Mike.

Your friend,
Garrett Murray

FADE TO BLACK. (See, it's easy!)

Graphical Date Tutorial

16 comments (closed), posted on january 12, 2003, tags: movable type

I have a feeling eventually someone who uses MT will ask me how I did the dates on this site. In a preemptive response (and also because it's something I think people would use if they knew how to do it), I have compiled a simple tutorial. To do this, all you need is to be running Movable Type. Many thanks to James who pointed out how complicated I made this the first time around. The tutorial has been updated and is significantly easier...

» Continue reading Graphical Date Tutorial

Newest New

7 comments (closed), posted on january 12, 2003, tags: site

If I had a dollar for every time I redesigned this site over the last 3 years, I would have at least twelve dollars. This version goes back to (ugh) tables, rather than a 100% CSS layout. I just didn't want to deal with that this time, and I wanted this layout to work the same in Mozilla and IE. And it does (almost 100%). It looks best in Chimera (OS X) and IE 6 (Win). Besides, those are the best browsers for each platform anyway. It looks damn near right in almost every other browser too, though. That's a good thing. And I figure, if it's standards compliant (and it is: XHTML, CSS), the all-CSS thing isn't necessary.

Also note that Shawn has also just redesigned. This is the second time we've both redesigned within days of each other... scary.

No More Wondering

3 comments (closed), posted on january 8, 2003, tags: entertainment

A few months ago, I read Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys and absolutely loved it. Since then, I have been dying to see the film starrring Michael Douglas. I'd been told, by plenty of people, that the film was great. I asked how it stood in relation to the book, and was told that even though the film was slightly different, it was still excellent.

They were wrong.

Granted, if I hadn't read the book I think I would have liked the film quite a lot. But after having read the terrific book, I couldn't stand the movie. There was so much left out—damned near all of the narrative—and some of the most interesting parts were changed to fit a film setting. In a few cases, this actually removed entire character stories, some that were really great in print.

The problem with a book like Wonder Boys is that it's a great read, but it was clear throughout that read that it wouldn't come across on film. Apparently Hollywood decided that with all their talent and money they could get around that. But you have to ask yourself if it's worth getting around... I mean, can't some great books just stay books?

If you've seen the film but haven't read the book, please do. And if you haven't experienced either, skip the film and just read the book. Yes, I know, reading is harder than sitting in front of a television smoking cigarettes and drifting off—but it's worth it in this case.