The poker recap…

Saturday, after gates, I went and played poker with angus’ friends in a nice two bedroom apartment on 66th and 2nd ave.

We played a tournament with 30 minutes of rebuys. I came in fourth on a bad break with a high ace.

This guy john earl, who has won the most at their thing, won again.

With john M coming in second.

After that we played a cash game, just said winner john and me, where he took thirty from each of us.

Then john and me played six games of different calibers where I came up ten.

Monday night, an all of a sudden game appeared at mara’s on Monday and I escaped work, probably making my Tuesday worse, but whatevs.

A very cool space.

You see these fools, even the ones by the window. They are losers. Losers. The lot of them.

But these fine folk. They are winners.

Like me, up two whole dollars. But I did make back the twenty I put in there so hah. John leaves up fifty, Derek up twenty five.

After Saturday and today, I am up sixty, in a steady decline of profit.

Long live the great white hype…

Return of the sis…

Younger sister Caitlin of gibbles66 fame came down to the better city from her BU college bubble perch.

We had lunch with my elder sister Phoebe and her husband Sam at Sarabeth's inside the Whitney.

Caitlin, who now goes by her middle name Anette (it was my paternal gramma’s first name) for the more actorly Annette Stephens feel, also brought two friends down, Julia and Ally.

Together they made this performing trio that reenacted scenes from arrested development verbatim. That acting school energy and banter, almost to the point of hamminess…

And then the gates of course.

I am a strong defender of the gates. Maybe one of the only ones. But I thought it was a marvelously carried out opus. All those paths, at all the varying widths, the complete reframing of a space in a unique way, highly accentuated by its very temporal existence. The park would remain, but you would never see it this way again, with that dash of color blowing in the wind, piercing through the usual gray drabness of winter.

I also enjoy the fact that they made the cloth reachable.

When under a series of them, the slight claustrophobia, achieved in what is one of the most open of spaces, gives you a special tingle.

Of course commercialism, the all mighty god we all pray to, had its settlements.

And there is a daily web stream of the hawk that lives in that building.

After a nice walk, we headed for F.A.O Schwartz, home of the cuddling bear with cub,

And F.A.O Schweetz.

I kid you not, that’s what this little island Sunday shop is really called. How very punny.

We split two Sundays and a milkshake.

It was very contested, but in the end, we all understood that pheebs and me had chosen better ingredients than caikes and sam. For one, we went with no syrup or chocolate for a less soupy result, hit up two kinds of nuts, added the marshmellows for good measure, and stayed away from the bulky rieces pieces. I would have wanted the m and ms, though.

Lil sis was sad to see me go.

What is the sound of one ass slapping?

Look, i finally saw the gates.

Things that happened three days ago…

Bordeaux, the too-aptly named nerve wine party. The invite said cocktail attire, so this is what I came up with.

Nervously entering the most crowded skinny hallway of a bar, I recognized no one, until I found sara and noah at one of the sardined couch sections

Jeff, an internet sales consultant

Hit on me as he told me of his doctor boyfriend in seattle, while also giving me an impromptu verbal mini queer eye makeover.

Then more people I knew showed up

Including dear althea, totally not in cocktail attire

Even though you can’t tell cause the jeans did not appear in the picture.

This is one of the best pictures of the night because it almost has everyone. Unpictured count at only two: sara and noah.

Althea and Noah like to pose in that same chin askew pose allot.

And Derek prefers the philosophical chin grab.

Nerve photographers pranced around, snapping aggressively. Early on, one of them took three picts of our couch room, totally excluding noah and me, so we gave him the finger.

As the night wore on, the vino was less veritas and more animas, getting everyone riled up. Another photo snapper came along and prodded Claire and rukoff into a drunken makeout section.

That pict made it on to the gawker party crash page, but my link no longer works so you will just have to find it yourself.

And don’t worry, I snapped him right back.

Then Al got a bit frisky, attacking aaron,

and then provoking Derek to toss her around like a ragdoll.

This weird guy tried to hit on sara, who just stood up and left, so he came and talked to me, making me snap a pict with him and the waitress.

We then had a thumb war.

Then it was time to leave. Final pict with the hostess had to be shot three times to finally come up with an unblurry, uncropping picture.

If you mix wine and friends, somethings bound to happen.

The train is back in the station...

With the old mitsubishi job gone, the smoking rip is now in session and i am working overtime again loading any cool smoking shot of the last twenty years. The horror, the horror.

The nerve party got hyped up a bit too much in my head, it was really just a regular party, and i got some great picts of it which will be up soon. promise.

Have you ever noticed how many different designs there are for the release "button" on dvds? its got to be as least as many as the shape of a dick, vag, and tits.

Oh, and caitlin, are comments the new email?

i guess nobody ever sent me the memo.

What’s going on…

The super intense crazy job has ended and I got through it with flying colors. I had two nights past one am, a full weekend, and that overtime will look delicious on my pay check, let me tell you.

Twenty minutes of video (really one five minute piece with 5 different versions) dubbed four times plus finalizing time (if you’ve burned a dvd you know the pain I feel, after recording, instead of just being ready like a tape, a dvd must finalize to be able to play) will fuck you nicely. Then you have to watch all of them again, watching every single frame intently looking for a jump or an audio screw up. And remember, this is a video who’s footage you loaded, you rough cut, dubbed off for the mix, commented on, posted, basically something you have already seen about a thousand times. Well, this is the life I have chosen. The burden of video derives from its very anal retentive being. To truly get it right, tons of people have to work on a staggering miasma of details, making sure every tee is crossed and eye is poked. But we love it. The end product still, to this very hyper-technological day, amazes us.

Oh. And I went back to the underground poker club with john as his real first time (he went there once before to play a tournament that got canceled). I lost one hundred in a run of the worst cards I ever had, he came up thirty. Then yesterday I played with john and angus and finally left as the biggest loser, down forty.

The count stands at ninety up.

Now, I’m off to a nerve hoity toity wine party. Hopefully I will have some good times, good pictures and good stories to post about tomorrow.

Peace.

Because war is for pussies.

Fuck you people. You are so nosy. I don't give a shit about you anymore.

Happy Fucking Valentine's Day!

Work it baby, work it…

I have been trudging through this rough work weekend with the aplomb of a Spartan frontliner. In at ten, out at ten or one or eight. Fast forwarding through hours of hey for that needle in the rough.

I will remember these days as the time in my life where I just worked my ass off. It’s been a year or so of this. Late hours weekends, and all at the drop of the hat—I have my coat on a Friday night, ready to enjoy the weekend, and bam, the call comes in and I get swamped with no time off.

As bad as it gets, I feel proud. I have accomplished so much since graduation. My knowledge base has increased technologically one thousand fold. My knowledge of intraoffice politics, how to go up a corporate chain now has actual experience. My psychological strength in times of heavy stress has been tested enough that I can handle whatever impossibility gets thrown my way. Adulthood. Not the full adulthood of mortgage and kids stylee, but definitely a departure from the care free days of the collegiate quasigrown up- still-a-child-really world.

I am a twenty something young professional, working his ass off. And surprise, surprise, it feels good. Whuddathunkit?

i worked from nine thirty to one in the morning yesterday. i got to shadow cut again, this very hard mitsubishi pitch video. now i have to go hunt down some movie with a closeup of wasabi on it, and a nice vanilla shot. wish me luck.