New Way Home

Wednesday night, and we picked up the keys to the new place. Couldn't go in that night due to the second coat on the floors. So we went yesterday instead. Or rather, I went, got off the train, walked into C-Town, which I imagine is other-worldly and awesome, similar to the Big A my brother frequents, except it was way more King of the Hill Puerto Rican: signs are in Spanish, as is the radio station and commercials, as is the staff and most of its inhabitants. Dedicated sections to Goya foods. In other words, welcome to Bushwick!

When I realized they didn't have cerveza fria for sale, I walked into the bodega right at the corner of our street. 24 oz tall boy of Coors Gold for $1.25, hot damn!

So let's see the new place...

1. Here's me in the living room. The crap on the left was cabinets for the other unit. It's not there. Towards the ceiling, its now got the A/C venting. Stairs to the roof on the wall. Chandelier suspended from the 10' ceiling, with recessed lights.


The other guys in this picture are presumably the guys moving next door. Because, they were there to sign the lease. Only we were too, and technically they should have never seen it because we had told the landlord the night before we wanted it, and agreed to pay the deposit the next day. Only it got listed anyway, and these guys jumped on it via a broker, who got more money from them, and wanted to appease them (because they paid more!). But we were insistent, we found it first, claimed it, and the landlord was able to talk them into the other unit. Good for us!

2. The stairs. They go to the roof. The top is so bright because we have a sun roof, that is brighter than the sun. Hence, white! I really like the single bar going up the middle.


3. The kitchen. Featuring double appliances in this picture (sadly, they're gone, went next door I assume.) All new everything: stainless appliances, cabinets, floors. Added to ceiling now are the pipes across the top for A/C.


4. Front door. Look up: in addition to the window and skylight, there's an extra door up there. Which sharply drops off! Gotta watch out for these sorta things.


So that's the first round. We're starting to mobilize and get some stuff up there this Sunday, then next Saturday is the big moving day. Excited!

On the L

On the L train this morning:

The rider next to me, a portly gal with some interesting fashion trends, was blasting Windowlicker. One of my favorite beats of all time, well, it sounded really funny coming through the tinny exposure of her factory iphone earbuds. I guess I was proud of myself that I could pick it out - how many times have you heard someone else's music and tried to figure it out? And hear what you think is one thing when it's totally not? No mistaking this one!

And then, gramps got on board, sporting the ever awesome old person VR visors. And, couple that with his huge headphones and it looked like something you might see on a "Take me to your leader" or something. yeah. awesome. Viva old person visors!

Moving Again

So, after the taxing 3-week search to find a new home, it's decided. Signed the lease on Monday night. Get to pick up the keys next Monday. We're officially moving to Bushwick.

The decision, like most moving decisions, was a hard one to make. Compound that with the cost of rent in NY and it's all the more a harder decision to make. And then you've got the fact that folks seem to love paying Broker's Fees (who the fuck thought that would be a good idea?) and you can really get yourself into a corner. The whole endeavor has is bittersweet but we're moving on.

In the end, it came down to what we want vs. what we could get for our money. We really like the our neck of the woods in Prospect Heights right now; 5 blocks to an awesomely awesome park is going to be hard to let go. I don't think I'll miss the 7th and 5th Ave crowds and double-wide strollers as much, nor outrageous $12/lb. bacon, but it was nice having the variety around.

But that's just it. We've been priced out of our neighborhood. Without getting too much into the financial side of things, if we were to stay where we're at, what we want runs for a good $500+ more per month than we're willing to spend. Obviously, people will pay that, as it just seems to have become an acceptable rate for the area. I will not, I can not. Can't just say goodbye to my hard earned monies so easily.

A key component for me was the outdoor space. It's hard to describe how pissed off I've been about not being able to use our existing yard due to landlord negligence. My grill currently sits parked next to the fridge in the kitchen. We lazily leave shit like papers and loaves of bread on its side rack. Meanwhile, he just sits there, mocking me for not turning on the gas and throwing some ribs on. Enough! That's so going up on the new roof.

The place we've found is the shit though. 2BR, full gut renovation: all new electric, water lines, windows / insulation / dry wall, individual hot water heater, deep bathtub, stainless kitchen appliances, full cabinets / drawers, oriental paper lighting (round in the bedrooms, cool squarish in the stairs), private stairs to the huge roof (shared just with whomever ends up next to us), view of the city, 2 blocks to the Jefferson L station. Renovation style was done as a "modern old building": they've kept brick exposed, all hard-wood floors, and even left some original ceiling rafters in place. It's not fully completed, but I've seen enough at this point to be won over and then some. And it's brand spanking new on the inside.

To all the naysayers who are like "ewwww.... bushwick? are you fucking serious? you're gonna like, get killed!" ..... well, i highly doubt that. Basically its a straight up Puerto Rican block, kids running around outside, and the good news is you can't hear any of that from our floor. I think our block is smack in the middle of a transitional neighborhood on the rise, so it's interesting to see how this will grow.

To all the Park Slopians we're leaving behind: I'm serious about joining BKB this fall so look for me there. And I hear (and can vouch from one ride last Friday) the G is running more frequently now. So we'll head down there, and you can head up here, we'll rock.

Zombie Blasting & the Power Shot

Cashed in some amazon credit and picked up House of the Dead: Overkill and a Nyko Power Shot on the cheap the other day. It's rare that I can find a game to play with R, but the thought of a handgun with unlimited ammo flew with flying colors. So beers in hand, we sat out last night to see what this B-movie knock-off was all about.

Let me preface my quick review by stating that I didn't have high expectations for this game from the start. In fact, I was looking for something with potentially shallow depth, good for a one-time romp, and then perhaps pass it along to the ages. Found it here. The story, which intentionally tries to be ridiculous, is only made more annoying by the fact that I can't figure out how to skip the cut scenes, which revolve around an African-American spewing the f-word as if it was going out of style. Nice.

As for the game, it's mostly fun, but my major complaints are this: slowdown when more than three enemies are on screen, and the gun cursors are both white (with colored tracers when moving). The latter of which wasn't as much of a problem for me but it got R pretty lost feeling at times.

Also ran into a technical glitch during the first boss. Had him at about 3/4 destroyed when one shot into him locked up everything. My wiimote was stuck buzzing, with a high-pitched stuck sound coming through the stereo. Really annoying bug, wonder how many other people have seen it?

Made it through 3 stages last night, hopefully the game picks up a bit. The carny stage was pretty sweet now that I think about it. One thing's for sure, the game definitely needs to be played 2-player, because otherwise it'd feel way too much like a chore to complete.

Bodyboarding Jones Beach

Woke up, hit the market, hopped on the LIRR and went to Jones Beach the other day. Awesome day with a nice hot sun and clear skies, and 5 foot waves made for a hella good weather. I always wondered about the beaches here and if they'd get warm enough to swim and play around in the surf. Good news is, they do!

By the time we got there, the beach was getting a little bit crowded, too much for surfing at least. So what's left? Body boarding. Had to buy one but a small investment for some good rides. Or maybe.

In actuality, the waves were fiercer than anything I tried to ride in the past with a board, and relentless too. The kind where, after recovering from the last wave, you're about back to where you were before the next big wave comes in and sweeps you back. It's like putting your finger in front of an ant always. The little guy's just gonna lose, every time, but eventually he'll make it somewhere. Here, these waves? Trying to fight mother nature? No no no no ... not gonna happen. Even diving through, especially with the body board, was a bit tricky.

To tell the story, I busted out the water paints. Reiko added the pen work. Here's me waiting for a wave...


So basically, I noted that there were three kinds of waves I was getting for potential rides. The best and of course hardest to find was what I would consider the good ride wave: the incoming wave picks you up and pushes you in for a good slick ride that can be 25-30 yards or more on a good boosty. These are the reason to ride waves obviously.



The second kind, a new phenomenon to me was what I call the "alley-oop", which essentially pops you up on the brink of the wave, giving you maximum view over everyone else in the surf, a peak-a-boo if you will, before pulling you back, behind the wave. An interesting view, but a cheap thrill, and usually wasted because the one after it might have been "the one".




Third, and most common, was "the dredger": you get locked in and perhaps a good ride for the first half a second, and then shit! the wave spills over with a sharp push that brings you straight under, and drags you to shore, underwater in the wake. These are not only disorienting, but downright dangerous because you get the shit kicked out of you, can't breathe, snapped neck, and even scraped knees. And there were lots of them. I let my buddy Chris try out my board, who promptly returned it to me after getting caught in one of these. And this is the kind of chaos you'd have to make it through to get out to the breakers.



The other thing that was interesting about the beach was that it would see weird cycles of relentless surf, followed by a calm patch, and then the waves would start breaking way out there. Wrecking any chance for a ride, of course, but at least giving something to play with.



All and all, the surf was awesome but a bit rough for riding. Felt awesome for swimming, and I could easily dive through the waves. But I bought the board and will definitely hit it up once more before summer's over. The beach man. It's there. It's eternal.

The Triple Entendre ... in Japanese

As a fan of general linguistics and conversation, I'm all about the casual use of double entendres. I mean, talk about spicing up a conversation! Even rarer to this I would say would be a triple entendre, though for this rare gem I'm going to say that you have to cross multiple languages and semantics for it to get in play. Obviously, the context and listeners language abilities also comes into play in this case, making it that more of a well-played item when it shows up.

So what the hell am I talking about? I'm talking about something I said the other day that managed to link up a discussion about Honda CRV productions and itchy girl's parts. All by accident!

Down at Brighton Beach last Sunday, and a Cadillac Escalade followed by an Acura RDX turned past us. Reiko made the comment "looks expensive...", and I asked which one. She meant the Cadillac, which I later found out has a starting sticker price of $62K. I though she meant the RDX, which is actually much less at $33K, but started the discussion that the RDX is basically the deluxe version of the CR-V and that my previous company gained a lot of business from the model change project (codenamed the WQ & ZQ) for both vehicles. Essentially, we designed and implemented the manufacturing systems for Honda's partners.

And on and on I go, explaining in a mix of Japanese and English:

We had a partner who purchased equipment from us that had interchangeable tooling so that they could run 10,000 parts for one model and then 10,000 parts for the other model.

And that's where I got busted.
Reiko:

Chotto matte! Ima manko o itta desho!? (Wait a minute... you just said manko, didn't you!?)

The last part I said while counting the car parts, in Japanese, got me in trouble. In Japanese, 10,000 parts would be ICHI MAN KO (一万個), which is like counting 1 x 10,000, then the counter for items, ko (個). Double entendre: manko is slang for a girl's parts, on par with the p-word in English. So ichi manko, then, would be "1 girls' parts" (一つのマンコ?). But then we have the double play on ichi - literally, itchy, which can also be applied as a modifying adjective in context. So the triple entendre was an "itchy girls' parts" (痒いマンコ).

Anyway, we had a good laugh. The more I thought about it, it was an amazing slip, though I don't know if it could be considered Freudian.

Garlic Scapes

More things on my list of new things, smelly, that rock: garlic scapes.

All over our market right now, garlic scapes are the rage. Never seen 'em before, but really, they look fresh from the garden. Kinda like the little feelers on the end of a squid, but green and garlicy. So we started buying them recently, and they're great. Cook like you'd expect and fit into any corner of your meal. Buy 'em today, I say!

One tasty recipe we just had:

Cut the garlic scapes like green beans. Saute in light olive oil, and add whatever. Tonight, we green pepper and double smoked sausage. Served it with corn starch based sticky flavor juice, it was awesome when served over white rice. It's pretty much up to you to give it the flavor, but just think of them as awesome garlic spikes for your dish.