With great Blogging comes great responsibility.

This is something I did (relatively) recently.

2011-08-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

First, a riddle:

(ahem)

What has two thumbs and jumped out of an airplane?

Give up?

The answer, of course, is D.B. Cooper.

However, I also would have accepted the vast majority of skydivers, including as of June: Jesse, Kyle and myself.

Partial credit to those of you who guessed Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan.

Because while his latest film, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara did feature a lengthy skydiving sequence, Mr. Roshan actually has THREE THUMBS!

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Oh I guess it's not that bad, he's a handsome, talented millionaire. Mutant.

But back to what I really wanted to talk about, I went skydiving with Jesse and Kyle.

Jesse had decided to get married and has since actually gotten married in a lovely ceremony in the beginning of July. Back in June, however, this was simply "trouble ahead" and so a bachelor party was in order.

Not just any bachelor party, a completely insane, awesome, unforgettable surprise bachelor party.

That's right. Surprise. The day of, the three of us piled into a car with Jesse driving and Kyle giving directions. Keep in mind that Jesse had no idea what we had planned or where we were going, so he grew understandably worried as we drove farther and farther into the country, away from civilization, paved roads, and witnesses.

"Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials!"

Finally we rounded the last corner and there before our eyes was the headquarters of Rochester Skydiving.

He was excited.

Oh Heck, we all were.

There were plenty of waivers to sign and paperwork to file, and then some basic instructions to go over.

Since we were all brand-new to this sort of thing, we would be going on a tandem jump. That means we'd be securely fastened to a veteran skydiver who would do the majority of technical tasks, such as keeping us alive.

I was ok with this, knowing that it is the safest form of skydiving, and also if something went wrong I would welcome the company as I rode his soul all the way to Hell.

Oh, another thing I learned: when your instructor asks you if you have any questions, the answer he is expecting is a confident "no." Failing that, uncomfortable silence is acceptable. He is not in the mood to answer your questions.

Him: Now, any questions?

Me: Now when you say arch my back and tuck my legs behind me, should I cross my ankles or leave them side by side?

Him: Did I say anything about crossing your ankles?

Me: No, which is why I was wondering if-

Him: Well now it's in your head. You're gonna cross 'em as you fall.

Me: Not if you tell me not to.

Him: You're gonna get up there and have cross your ankles stuck in your head. Just do what I tell you. You cross your ankles and land that way, that's how you break your ankles. Any other questions?

Everyone: (uncomfortable silence)

Him: All right.

and scene.

He was also nice enough to explain the proper way of boarding the aircraft, which when it came time to board the aircraft, turned out to be completely wrong.

Oh yes, this was our chariot:

If it looks kind of small, that's because it is. Including the pilot, the capacity is five people. So we had to go up and jump in two groups. But first, it was time to get suited up:

The other guys were clearly jealous of my "prettiest of all jumpsuits." This is what you get to wear if you ask questions during the initial training, I guess.

And then, no more stalling. Get into the plane and get ready to fall back to earth.

Two things. One I expected, and one I did not. First, this was the most terrifying experience I've ever had while awake.

That was expected.

But once the jump happened and I was plummeting rapidly, it was far more peaceful than I thought it would be. I expected a stomach lurching jolt, like in rollercoasters or other amusement park rides. That didn't really happen.

The terror happened at 8,000 feet, once I had been securely buckled to the guy with whom I was to fall. I was kneeling on the floor of the plane, and the side of it opened.

Suddenly I was staring out at two things: the ground, and less far far away, the metal step on the plane's landing gear.

That thing that guy's foot is on.

You see, in order to safely exit the aircraft (oxymoron alert!) I had to willingly extend my leg outside of the craft and put my weight on that step.

I did it, but my brain was not happy about it. It retaliated with an impressive cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins and fear chemicals, which are the body's way of saying "You are being a goddamned idiot."

I managed to conquer all of those feelings, and even let go of the plane itself to cross my arms over my chest, the signal to my tandem buddy that I'm ready for him to throw me into the void.

Which he did.

The freefall was incredible. About 20 seconds that felt like 2. When Jesse and I jumped, it had started to rain, so the exposed areas of my face were being stung by slow moving water droplets, while I was deafened by the rush of the air around us.

Then the canopy opened and... silence.

It was suddenly amazingly quiet. I heard a cackling, maniacal laughter that I gradually realized was being produced by me.

Though we were still dropping at 30 - 40 miles per hour, it felt like floating down like a feather. I looked past my feet at farmland and barns still thousands of feet below.

It was an incredible experience that I don't think I'll ever do again.

Unfortunately, if you haven't guessed by my prose heavy section, I don't have any pictures or video from the falling point of view. What I do have is shot by whoever was on the ground while the others were plummeting. That I took and cobbled together into this video:

Enjoy.

Untitled from therevspecial on Vimeo.

A Love Note to Madison Square Park

2011-06-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

The other day I came to a realization.

I was bored.

This was a Sunday, and evidently I didn't have any more silly videos to put together or blogs that should have been updated, so I looked for something to do. Then it struck me. It had been a long time since I just wandered the streets of Manhattan, dispensing justice.

Pretty much my weekends in '08.

But then something even struckier struck me. The cold, hard reality. At no point in my life could I have ever been described as "dispensing justice." Even when I worked in law enforcement, that's not a phrase that would come anywhere near my daily activities.

Not pictured: Justice.

Be that as it may, I have wandered the streets of Manhattan with a camera, looking for things to write about in this blog right here that you're currently reading right now. Surely I could do that again.

Thus resolved, I grabbed my trusty camera and (after several minutes of internal debate) a trusty pair of pants, and headed out to the 25th Street Flea Market.

A few websites that I won't bother looking up again had proclaimed this modest flea market as a site for some great bargains and interesting items.

Though I had no intention of spending any money I decided to give it a whirl.

Let's get to flea shoppin'!

The first thing you'll notice when you arrive at the flea market is the rows upon rows of high quality merchandise, overseen by trustworthy individuals.

Just kidding! None of that is true. In reality, the first thing you'll notice is all the parking signs.

Once the novelty of those wears off, I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm sure such an establishment as this encourages haggling, which would go a small distance to explain the absurdly high prices on collections of objects that I'm going to assume people died in or on or because of.

Tables that weren't reselling the possessions of the dead had stuff you would expect in New York, including exotic looking statues you could probably pick up for much cheaper in Chinatown.

There was nothing outright filthy or illegal or smutty about the flea market, but I got the distinct sensation that it wasn't very far away. That only a thin veneer of respectability separated the innocent antique hunters from some darker underbelly...

Oh wait, nevermind, I found it.

Made in Germany.

With this discovery of an entire box of Pjur Back Door Anal Comfort Spray, I was both shocked and thrilled to finish my Christmas shopping so early this year.

Oh yes, this too, for the discerning collector:

"Sorry, cardboard box of cheap porno, I have the internet."

I decided to cut my losses and get out of there. It wasn't a complete disaster, though. I did manage to pick up a few things to redecorate my apartment:

The more I think about this picture the more I actually want all of these things in my living room.

The novelty of the flea market imploded, and I was done. That killed about 15 minutes of my day. I found myself right back at my original problem, albeit in a different borough. What else was there for a bored fellow with a camera and internet access to do?

Hmmm.... What, indeed?

Hold on a minute! The 25th Street Flea Market is on 25th Street! What is also on 25th Street? Yes, probably a lot of things, but the answer I'm looking for is Madison Square Park! Hopefully I'd find something good there.

Success!

No not him. Behind him. The whole picture. Gross.

I had stumbled upon Madison Square Eats, a month-long food market that got set up. There was a lot of really great looking food to choose from. The front runner crowd-wise was probably Roberta's Pizza.

No slices here. Individual pan pizzas. Looked great.

However, I was motivated by impatience and an almost pathological resentment of my GI tract, so I settled on this beauty:

Calexico.

I stubbornly ignored my brain's protestations. It was trying to remind me of the fact that the phrase "Gourmet Mexican Street Food" should be used only in the case of a robot uprising; to overpower their logic circuits and cause them to self-destruct.

You know what? I just searched for almost ten minutes for a good picture for that joke and now I give up. That's what you're getting.

I ended up ordering a "Rolled Quesadilla" which looked something like this:

They call that their "crack sauce." I choose to believe the name refers to its addictive properties.

I took a deep breath and resigned myself to two facts:

1) This food would soon be inside of me.

and

2) Yes, I'm one of those dicks who takes pictures of his food.

I gotta tell you, it was pretty amazing. I finished it off in record time and scanned the booths for my second course.

That'll do. And I'll get a pretzel as well.

Ok fine, just the pretzel. But what a pretzel!

Jalapeno Cheddar, I think.

That quickly followed its cheesy quesadilla brethren. At this point I figured I was pretty well into an eating binge, so I might as well let it run its course. Plus, it's a beautiful day, and did I mention I was in Madison Square Park?

That's right, I went there. To the place that's probably the closest thing to Valhalla our sanitized, non-viking-centric excuse for a culture can manage:

The Shake Shack.

The line was enormous. Had I wanted to get a shake or a burger, I'd probably still be there. Fortunately all I wanted was that frozen custard, and quickly infiltrated the B Line, and was out of there in about 10 minutes.

Oooh yeah.

All that remained was to find a bench and eat it.

And I did. And it was incredible.

That's my story. I know, not a very exciting one, but I've got one of those coming. I just wanted to share the fact that there's always something interesting to be found if you look for it, and that Madison Square Park is a fantastic place of wonderment and frozen custard and at least one magical rainbow fountain.

Boom.

All in all, I had a good time in my wanderings, and I hope you had a good time reading about them.

So remember kids, if you ever feel bored, just eat lots of unhealthy food, and then beg people to pay attention to you on the internet!

See you folks later,

Rev

Jerry Lewis - J*** in my Pants

2011-06-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

Real blog post coming soon, but in the meantime, enjoy a video I cobbled together as an editing exercise.

A little while back I made a video for the The Lonely Island song On a Boat featuring the Marx Brothers. I uploaded it to youtube only to find that someone had beaten me to the punch by several months. Whoops. Anyway, I added that song and a few other The Lonely Island songs to my running mix, and decided to follow up by mixing another classic comedian with their contemporary (and filthy) music.

Here's what I came up with:

(Warning: Explicit Lyrics)

I LIVE!!!!

2011-05-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

Bum bum BUMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!

So that's dramatic. And that's good. I'm being trained in Dramatic.

I'm reminded of a saying: "Those who can't do, teach."

Those who can't teach... well, they form Unions, amiright?

There's no burn like a political cartoon burn.

I'll venture my own little saying: Those who can't write, blog.

Anyway, I'm out of school for the summer, and gotta stay sharp with the writing. Sure, I'll be working on a Modern Family spec script and maybe an outline or two for some ridiculous supernatural films, but I figured it's time to dust off the blog. I kid you not, the web page had dust on it. Not my monitor or computer, the actual browser itself.

Maybe there's a little kidding involved.

Get it???

But seriously, sorry for abandoning you these... Seven months! Wow. I went out for a pack of cigarettes, and never came back, just like your good-for-nothing, gambling addicted father did, and now I just show up, hoping everything is going to be ok? I have got some nerve.

I'm sorry. To try to start to make up for it, here's a video of a street performer I paid to play the Sesame Street theme song for A.Rev:

Yeah, I've been holding onto that for a while. Hopefully it put you in a good mood.

Let's see... what else has happened since last time? Just about everything, really. Another round of the major holidays.

My Halloween costume was fantastic, as usual. Kyle and I went as Sonic the Hedgehog and Dr. Robotnik (or Eggman, as I learned he is also called). I spent the better part of a week trying to put my costume together and Kyle whipped his up in an afternoon and it looked great damn him to Hell. Check us out:

We got much praise from the crowd. The kids loved us, and so did a lot of the adults who were sick to death of seeing all the store-bought Mario and Luigi costumes. I also indoctrinated a few of my classmates into the ways of the parade, dragging them into the procession and probably scarring them for life. Mentally, anyway.

After that was Thanksgiving, which went smoothly, then Christmas. Lots of presents and fun, but I don't have much in the way of photos for you.

In January I went to India. Lots of pictures of that. Here's one for a sample:

Sure, I have better photos, but I never said this was a highlight reel. I'll show you more later.

Let's see... after January came the beginning of my second semester of school, and then a HUGE personal triumph for me.

Sadly, no. I'm talking about the return of Shamrock Shakes to New York City and how it was all completely my doing.

I think I may have mentioned my love of these things once or twice, but they got a wide release this year, up from the two locations last year. I had waaay too many of them in March. My stomach is still recovering.

I believe that my autopsy, centuries from now, will show my entire GI tract to be dyed light green.

I also tried to introduce some of my classmates to the joys of Shamrock Shakes, to incredibly mixed reviews. According to one fellow, he "Almost died." I counter this by saying that before he'd tasted a Shamrock Shake, he'd never truly lived.

March then gave way to April, which brought the Easter Parade. I topped myself again this year, pun intended. The Revs came down to visit and witness the spectacle that they've up till now enjoyed through this blog. Behold:

Oh yeah, I grew a beard, too.

Naturally, the Ferris Wheel was functional, and spun the whole time I was walking around.

And that brings us pretty much up to May, where I worked at NYU's Commencement and met Bill Clinton.

Actually I think that's from the Halloween Parade. Wait... Oh yes, at the Commencement, he was wearing a purple robe. That's how I can tell.

Overall, not a bad stretch of time, during which I also wrote 2 plays, 1.5 screenplays, a spec script for Community and a whole bunch of smaller projects.

So I know I've made some pretty empty promises in the past, but I think I figured out the magic formula to keep me blogging. I just have to be bored, and also have no money.

So I think you'll be hearing from me a lot the next few months.

Peace out babies,

Rev

Back 2 Skool

2010-10-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

Oh goodness me. Hello everyone. Remember me? I don't blame you if you've forgotten. I've been a terrible blog host. Bloghost. Blow Ghost?

(normally at this point I'd do an image search and put something silly here. But I'm really just too afraid.)

So yeah. Don't worry I have been writing. Just not in this format. And not anything that you're likely to see incredibly soon. So I admit it's small consolation to you, the blogaudience, but I've not been simply sitting idle.

It was Oscar Wilde who said: "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

For example, Mr Wilde learned that serving two years of hard labor for gross indecency (read: being super gay) really really sucks. I think I could have been taught that. I think I could just guess it, actually.

That being said, I'm finding my classes and professors remarkably good at getting us to learn things ourselves. I'm writing a full length play and a full length screenplay for this semester as well as some other shorter pieces that who knows? Maybe you'll get to see sometime.

However, the best part has got to be my fellow students. I'm in a class of 25 people, and they and their work collectively blow my mind. Even setting aside that they increase my feelings of self worth by adding another 24 people to my facebook friends, they are all incredibly talented writers.

"Sweet! 439 friends! Who's the loser now, Mom?"

In class it sometimes gets to the point where I guess how long it will take for the admissions department to realize their horrible, horrible mistake and throw me back to the dark recesses of the internet where I belong.

But then I remind myself I'm a genius and all is right with the world again.

Oh Dr. Doom. You get me.

The transition from working stiff to insufferable grad student has been a significant one. First off I had to get used to the idea that "weekend clothes" don't really exist anymore. Dress codes are right out. Jeans are the order of the day, along with anything vaguely shirt-shaped to protect my classmates' eyes from the blinding paleness of my torso.

Also, classes are at different times each day. Establishing a routine in the midst of this chaos continues to be a challenge for me. If I don't have to be at work at 9:00 AM, do ANY rules apply to me?

"If there is no pain, is there then no law?" Anyone, anyone?

Clearly the answer must be no.

Everything is super different. A few times I found myself on a strangely spacious train wondering if a plague had struck NYC while I was busy watching three seasons of Mad Men. Then I realized that I was actually commuting two hours after rush hour. All those people weren't dead, they were just at work, wishing they were dead.

"A plague would be so awesome right now."

Laundry is another thing that becomes way easier with fewer people around. Just me and Sophia, the very nice lady who runs the laundromat and sounds exactly like Carol Kane in the Princess Bride.

Also, in a personal victory for me, my laundromat now tunes its TV to Jeopardy instead of Entertainment Tonight or TMZ or whatever the Hell that awfulness was.

So basically good times and smooth sailing all around. I'm sorry I haven't updated more, and will indeed make an effort to do this some more.

At the very very least, we have Halloween to look forward to. I hope all you folks are busy planning out your costumes, because I'll be anxious to see and judge them.

Peace out folks,

Rev

Back in the Saddle.

2010-08-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Hi!

So another month has passed with limited blog action. I would have liked to do a little more, but I've had a whole bunch of stuff going on, so bleh.

In Rev news, I will be leaving my job shortly to begin a full time program of study to get my MFA in Dramatic Writing. Classes start September 7th, so I figured I should reacquaint my fingers with the sensation of a keyboard.

It's nice. Feels clicky.

This blog has always been a handy way to forcefully get my creativity juices flowing again. So here I am, attempting to work out the muscles of my brain... my brain muscles.... my... Brussels.

This might be harder than I thought.

Let's see... what has happened in the past month? Hoo boy. I guess I'll skim over a lot of stuff that doesn't lend itself to comedy and go straight to I went on Vacation!

Kyle and Jesse and I got a bunch of folks together and rented a house on the beach in North Carolina.

There was much dance partying and Silly Bandz to be had.

For more vacation fun with Kyle and Jesse, check out last summer's hiking blog!

But it was a blast. Here's the house we got:

It was across the street from this beach:

It was pretty.

The whole setup was located on Topsail Island, NC. The place has some very colorful local history, as it gets its name from pirate ships lurking in the sound behind the island. Over the trees, only the topsails were visible, and if you didn't spot them quick enough... well I don't have to tell you what pirates do.

That's right. They make you black out and piss yourself.

Topsail Island is also rumored to be where Blackbeard hid a large amount of treasure, which was probably due to Blackbeard having a keen interest in 20th and 21st Century tourism revenue.

"Yarrr... the beaches are lovely this time of year, and buy some tshirts for the kiddies. Yarr!"

It is also the location of a place called "The Gold Hole." They say it's a spot where treasure hunters dug up the beach to try and find the remains of a ship. I say it's an incredibly lazy nickname for a treasure spot, or a delightful new prison nickname for Bernie Madoff.

I tried to feel sorry for him, but it didn't work.

The place was pretty sweet, and the water incredibly warm. Typically, the beach combines the powers of two of my greatest enemies: the Sun and the Ocean.

This time, we all got along pretty well. I had fun boogie boarding and swimming, and only got sunburned a lot! Sharks were a concern of mine, along with every other thing that lives in the Ocean, but I sucked it up.

See? That's a picture of Kyle and I boogie boarding at perfect shark attack depth. According to Wikipedia: The United States has had more reported shark attacks than any other country, with a total of 1,049 attacks (49 fatal) during the past 339 years (1670-2009)

Why? Because SHARKS HATE FREEDOM.

Lousy terrorist.

Or it's because many other countries don't have reliable methods of reporting shark attacks, I don't know. I'm not paid to think.

Of course, the first thing we had to do when we got into town was to go grocery shopping.

Man, I hope we got enough milk. I need my Golden Grahams in the morning.

But we actually ate very well that week. We all took turns pairing up and making dinners for the rest. Kyle and I made lasagna and salad:

Delicious.

I also got a chance to fly my most pimpingest kite:

Aww yeah. Fokker Triplane, bitches!

I did fly it higher than that, but at a certain altitude, photo ops become ridiculous. Like this:

Oh, that's actually pretty cool. Nevermind.

The regular kind of vacation hijinx were had. We played board games, did a lot of wii sports, and oh yeah, We did my hair up like the Jersey Shore.

Yup, that happened. No use pretending it didn't.

I think the general consensus is that I looked like the love child of Eddie Munster and Syndrome, from the Incredibles.

With just an extra dollop of douchebag on the side. That look was quickly disposed of.

We also went to a sea turtle hospital, but they didn't allow us to take pictures... so trust me. I saw sea turtles.

So yeah, it was a great week of fun in the (burning bastard) sun. Thank you to Jesse and Kyle and everyone else there for a fantastic time. I'd name you all, but some people don't like being put into blogs without being told, so I generally try to keep that to a minimum.

That's about all for now folks, I really mean it this time when I say I hope to update this thing more frequently. I guess we'll see how my school workload plays out.

I'll leave you to look at this pretty picture of a sunset:

Peace out folks,

Rev

A Question of Etiquette.

2010-07-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok. So it's been a month and change since I've updated this. A lot of crap has happened, I get it. If you need an excuse, I'm going to have to go with me being in mourning over the end of 24.

My God, what a stupid season.

My sadness naturally progressed to anger over the following points:

1) Set in NYC, clearly not filmed in NYC.

2) What were those stupid 'drones' everyone was talking about? If you have to make up something like that to make the story work, the problem is the story.

3) They did NOT resurrect Curtis.

Unforgivable.

But anyway, what I really want to talk about is what happened to me yesterday at the gym. Yes, I was at the gym. On a bike.

Yeah, that's about right.

My question (mentioned in the title) is this: how bad are you allowed to smell at the gym?

Not for myself, of course.

Anyway, let me set up the scene for you. I was there, peddling away...

Sorry, PEDALING away.

I had my headphones on and passed the first ten minutes listening to my ipod. Then tragedy struck. I was grooving to the soundtrack of Wicked. It was just at the beginning of 'Loathing.'

And my battery died.

"That is so gay," I thought.

I then spent the next 4-5 minutes figuring out all the implications of that comment, particularly as it related to working out to showtunes.

Long story short, I'd been on the bike for some time when a dude came over and took the bike that was unoccupied next to me. My God. I mean, my God.

Full disclosure: I was on that bike for a full 18 minutes, wearing gym clothes that I had not washed since my last workout. How is it possible that this man, beginning his exercise, was several orders of magnitude more putrid than I was?

He seemed to be a well groomed gentleman. He started reading a book from the NYU library. But he stank.

I mean like, homeless stank. The kind of stink that says "Yes, I intentionally soiled myself so you wouldn't touch my bags as I sleep on the subway."

He smelled like the kind of guy Lady Gaga would stab in an alley before sex to help her get an erection.

The funniest thing about Lady Gaga is how long ago the joke stopped being on us.

And the odd thing is, he didn't look like a smelly guy. He exhibited none of the signs that would set off the aroma alarms. He wasn't super sweaty, or obese, or gangrenous, or undead.

My instinct was to pedal faster in a delirious attempt to get away from him. It wasn't working. How could I not escape? I had an 18 minute head start and he was traveling on rolling hills.

My sanity kicked back in several seconds later. I tried to wait it out. Just ignore it. I couldn't. Without music, my mind kept wandering back to it.

I wondered how much money I would have to spend at the grocery store to figure out just which brand of vinegar he smelled like the most.

I'm betting on Heinz Garlic Wine, by the way.

I tried to gain more clues.

The book he was reading was Adam's Tongue, by Derek Bickerton. I looked it up, and it's apparently about the origins of human language. Some pretty decent stuff. Not what I would expect from someone of his stench.

It's certainly not Tinfoil Hats Quarterly or Deodorant: The Silent Killer.

Perhaps he's one of those hipster types I hate so much. Maybe he's intentionally been cultivating this reek to challenge society. He did have a beard, come to think of it... and was wearing a thermal undershirt sort of thing, rather than any kind of contemporary synthetic exercise apparel.

Though I'm also not convinced that he had removed said shirt in the past week. Ok, so NYU $tudent probably is being smelly on purpose or he has some sort of olfactory malfunction.

Not the same thing as an Old Factory Malfunction.

So, mystery man at the gym, we're left at an impasse. If you were genuinely unaware of how the world perceives you as a walking collection of swamp gases and cat sick, then I feel sorry for you. If you do it on purpose to make people think about how they live their lives and why, then mission accomplished. It really did make me think about why I shower. And it turns out I feel pretty good about it.

-Rev

Oh, and soap too. Soap rules.

Load "*",8,1

2010-06-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

Ugh, I'm bad at updating. I know that's the constant call of the casual blogger, but still. May 9th was the last one. And I've done stuff, too. I've seen cool things and have stuff to talk about, but nah. Just didn't feel like it, or want to devote the time.

Well all that's changed now. Now I want to talk about something that I discovered, or rather rediscovered about two weeks ago.

Like many people on the internet, I enjoy video games, and have fond memories of my early gaming experiences. Unlike many people, I never owned a Nintendo.

When it came time for me to learn what video games were, my family turned to the Commodore 64.

64K Memory? Holy Goat Balls!

It's good that we can laugh at the past and the stupid, stupid people that lived there. Certainly future generations won't look back and laugh at our hopelessly obsolete "human race."

"Ha! Organic Neurons. No, I think they're cute."

But I'm afraid I've gone off on another apocalyptic tangent. The Commodore 64 was remarkably versatile and we had a ton of games for it. The best ones included the Epyx series of Olympic games. Summer Games, Winter Games, California Games were all pretty badass.

Maniac Mansion was another fantastic game. However, we couldn't save the game and my brothers and I once got 7-8 hours of playing time into the game when I discovered one of the only ways to get a main character killed. They weren't pleased.

Then there were the arcade classics like Tapper, Spy Hunter, Centipede, BurgerTime. And then there's one game that is tougher to forget. Super Mario Brothers.

We all have embarrassing moments from our childhood. I, like most comedy writers, remember every single one of mine. One day I was talking to some friends in school about Super Mario Brothers. The dialogue went something like this:

Me: Super Mario Brothers is so cool!

Others: Yeah! Ghostbusters! Ninja Turtles!

Other: Mario is tubular! Also, slapwraps!

Me: Yeah, it's radical! You get a mushroom then you start breaking the bricks!

Other: Totally. And then the fireflower lets you shoot fireballs and you kill all the goombas!

Me: Yeah! And then you get the pineapple and your fireballs shoot down the birds that are flying around!

(Record Scratch)

I'll never forget the look of combined confusion and pity that they gave me. We may have only been in first grade, but I was on the receiving end of the "Rev is either crazy or completely full of shit" glance.

My friends tried to set me straight by guaranteeing that neither of those things existed, but I played the game, dammit. I knew for a fact that the end boss was a giant Eagle, not some crazy fire-breathing turtle.

I forget how the conversation ended, but it probably just switched to the topic of how awesome pizza is.

The consensus: Very.

I put the ugly episode out of my mind until recently. Then a random spark just happened to fire up the proper net of brain cells and a question hit me:

What the Eph was I playing?

A few seconds after that hit me, I recalled the fact that from my innocent first-grader self I have evolved into a brilliant and hilarious interzone God. I have all the information of the world wide web at my fingertips, and no question is too stupid to keep me from Googling it during work hours.

I set about to uncover this mystery. What do I remember of the game from so long ago? The label was handwritten on the 5.25 inch disk with felt tipped pen... sounds like an illegal copy to me.

Ok, pay attention nitwits. Using this information I craft a Google search:

Super Mario Brothers bootleg Commodore 64

Would that be enough information?

Yes. Yes it would.

I quickly found that the lie inside my brain was a bastardization of a bastardization. The original rip off was called the Great Giana Sisters.

Call me crazy, but I actually prefer her to a fat Italian plumber.
Also, feel free to leave your own One-eyed monster joke in the comments section!

This opportunistic dupe, produced by Rainbow Arts, enjoyed some popularity before Nintendo actually noticed them and proceeded to sue their balls off.

Why such a reaction? Surely the games aren't that similar, right? We'll get to that.

Anyway, after the suing, someone out in the world decided that The Great Giana Sisters hadn't gone far enough. They proceeded to do a lovely hack job that replaced some of the graphics in the game with more familiar versions. Here's an example of what he (and then I) ended up with.

Warning - I take no responsibility for the soundtrack of this. Truth be told, I haven't even listened to it. My computer is muted right now. I'm on a schedule.

Boom.

So I'm neither crazy nor a liar. Pretty convincing gameplay, all told. Add to that the fact that our C64 was hooked up to a black and white television for the majority of its life, and I'd say the mistake was pretty understandable.

So take that, jeering first graders. I wasn't some attention-starved liar, like that one kid who said he knew where his dad hid his Playboys and that you could "see everything."

My only crime was wanting to believe in a world where my Commodore 64 was every bit the game machine that the NES was. And if that's wrong, then I don't want to be right.

Rev out.

Happy Mother's Day.

2010-05-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

Hello again,

The most wonderful thing happened the other day. It may not be uncommon, or rare, but it had never happened to me before, and it felt wonderful.

This, by contrast, is wonderful felt.

Now for all of you who have your minds in the gutter, good work. But sorry to disappoint, I got a massage. The real kind, not the kind those women outside the hotel were offering me when I was in Beijing.

Funny story: The elderly mother of a man in that tour group ordered a massage from the hotel, and was really puzzled as to why the woman who showed up was wearing such a fancy dress and didn't have any massage supplies with her.

"So, I'm confused... do you do shiatsu or hot stone, or what?"

oh, prostitutes.

Regardless of labels, in my personal experience it was the best experience I've had with someone I paid to touch me. Top five, at least.

That's not to say I wasn't nervous going into it. I actually got this as a sort of congratulatory gift for my grad school acceptance. Left to my own devices I have proven to be really fantastic at not scheduling massages for myself. So I didn't really know what to do.

I gchatted a friend and reader of this blog for some advice. She's an aspiring massage therapist (AMT), so figured she would have some valuable input. I wanted to know about some etiquette. I am going to paraphrase some of this conversation.

Me: They're not going to try to talk to me, are they?

AMT: Well, it depends. Most will ask a few questions at the beginning, to get a sense of any injuries or places that you want them to focus, and then really it's best for both parties to keep quiet and let them focus.

Me: Cool. Flatulence. Apologize, or ignore it?

AMT: Eh, either way... I could tell you some stories that are much grosser than that, but I won't.

Me: Oh thank God. I'm at work anyway. What about eye contact? Can I demand they not make eye contact with me?

AMT: Is that typically a problem?

Me: I sometimes feel threatened by eye contact. Like a gorilla. Like a massive, proud, savage silverback.

AMT: Ok... you'll be facing either the floor or the ceiling for the whole thing. I don't imagine eye contact will be an issue.

Me: What about Happy Endings?

AMT: Oh jesus.

Me: Precisely. How does one request one? Is there a hand signal involved? Would it show up on my credit card statement?

AMT: Rev, I have a lot of stuff to do...

Me: Don't get me wrong, I don't want one. Gross! But if there's a hand signal involved I want to make sure I don't accidentally make it.

AMT: I don't know. I work at a reputable, legal place.

Me: I get it. You can't tell me. Trade secret, huh? I'll guess and then you just type Y or N.

AMT: I'm going now. Goodbye.

Me: So there's this one gesture my Mom makes when she's talking to a telemarketer. Is that it?

AMT: autoresponse from AMT: note to self: stop reading Rev's blog.

Ok, so I embellished a little. But I did feel more comfortable going into the massage. I politely requested my masseuse don the gorilla glasses I brought from home.

I bought a gross of them last month. Also useful for walking through the park during the sunbathing months.

I told the masseuse about my shin pain and the stiff neck I'd had that weekend. Then she left, I disrobed and slipped under the blanket, facing down. What I assume was the same person I had just spoken to came back in and started the massage.

I just now thought of how simple it would have been to switch masseuses on me. If that had occurred to me then I probably wouldn't have been able to relax as much as I did. What if it was some huge hairy dude? What if he wasn't wearing the gorilla glasses? Did he know about my tender shins?

Turns out it was the same person, as most of the time I'm convinced there's an evil conspiracy against me, it turns out that they're really good at covering their tracks.

My life is sort of like a Robert Ludlum novel, except that nothing ever really happens, so it's exactly like a Robert Ludlum novel.

The story of a man and his forbidden love for a gondola.

I kid, I kid. The Bourne Identity is worth reading.

So I won't go into all the details. Suffice to say that the massage was fantastic, I no longer had a stiff neck and for two hours afterwards I felt like I was floating down the sidewalk, even when I wasn't.

I highly recommend getting one for yourself, they're pretty great.

Ok folks that's all for now, I'm going to go for a run on my path to Boilermaker 2010.

Happy Mother's Day, everybody!

Rev

What up?

2010-04-26T06:47:00.000-07:00

Hello. Once again it's been over two weeks without an update on this site. And then some time before that, because the last one was just a video and you didn't have the opportunity to bask in my genius wordplay.

This is my writing outfit.

So here I am to correct my lazy, lazy oversight and to try and kickstart my stagnant brain into making up stuff again. So I guess we'll rewind to Easter, because hey, you're not sick of that yet, right?

We've seen the "what" of the Easter Parade, but we haven't delved into the "how" or "why." I'll get into the "how" a little bit here. If you really need a "why" then I don't think I can explain it properly, but someday you might come around. I'll pray for you.

to Saints Punch and Judy.

So the first order of business in creating my Easter hat was to get an idea. Last year I had my Thomas the Tank Engine Hat which, despite causing horrible neck pain, was a great success. So I had become enamored of hats with some sort of powered movement. I had theorized a hat based upon a cuckoo clock last Spring.

Bright colors, quilt shop theme, what's not to love?

That dream died after a small amount of research revealed that cuckoo clocks are really, really expensive.

It was actually during the summer that inspiration struck for this year. Just before our famed expedition to the summit of Mount Marcy, I was staying at the Camping's house in the guest room. Another frequent occupant of that room is Kyle's young nephew, so there was a nice assortment of auxiliary toys for when he visits.

Among them was a car chase/ramp stairs combo toy that I found to be crazily hypnotic.

Much like infamous Spider-Man villain The Hypno-Hustler. I wish I were making that up.

The cars went up the stairs, down the ramp and started all over again. I then realized I was having a lot of fun, and not interacting with this toy at all. In fact, playing with the cars is only disruptive to the process.

"Perfect." I thought.

Several weeks before Easter I remarkably remembered this incident and set to the internet to get one. I couldn't find the cars, but found both dalmation and penguin-themed variations. I chose penguins, because the set was more colorful and penguins effing rock.

Rock Penguin. Ok fine, Rockhopper Penguin.

I shopped around and ordered one on Amazon.com.

I've yet to rate that transaction as the set I got did not match the picture, and was clearly some sort of unlicensed knock-off, judging from the engrish descriptions on the side of the box.

I put it together to test it out and was rewarded with an ear-splittingly painful rendition of 'Entrance of the Gladiators.'

Fun Fact! That's the title of the circus music running through your head every time you have that nightmare of a clown hiding in the shadows of your bedroom at 4:00 AM.

Something would have to be done about that. I busted out my toolbox and dismantled the casing of the stairs part. After some deliberation and online consulting with Honus, I determined that I could probably disconnect the speaker without losing power to the motor.

I just had to cut the right wire...

"Oh come on, it's a stupid toy"

I took a deep breath and pulled the [insert your favorite color here, seriously, it doesn't make any difference at all to the narrative] wire.

Success! The motor worked, the speaker didn't, and I added 'Electrical Engineer' to my resume.

I then stuck everything back together and realized I didn't have a hat to put it on. I need to make more lists.

A trip to 23rd street and its myriad thrift shops soon fixed that. Inside Goodwill I spotted a hat at considerable distance across the store. I impatiently rushed through racks of donated clothing items and brushed by other shoppers to get to the hat before someone else snatched it up. Only when I closed my hands on it did I let myself recognize the ridiculousness of my logic.

"This is the tallest straw cowboy hat I've ever seen. Even its owner didn't want it. It's probably been here for at least a year. I am the only person on Earth that wants to buy this hat."

Ten seconds prior it was "Oh my God, everyone in this store is five seconds away from looking up and realizing they cannot live without that precious straw diamond in the rough."

So I got it home, wood glued the Hell out of it, cut a strip in the top and crazy glued the stairs in place.

"Don't worry, normal people do things like this sometimes, right?"

It was then time for the decoration. Subastar had chosen a pinwheel theme for hers, going for the eye-catching movement without the need for an internalized power source. It's a smart move. We stocked up on discounted merchandise at K-Mart and Party City.

Here's the (now) traditional workshop photo:

Not so bad.

I also used a two inch corner brace on the inside forepart of the hat to take some of the weight of the stairs off the crazy glue. I used craft glue on the rest of the decor, substituting ducks for penguins around the base, purely because I couldn't find any reasonably priced penguins that would do the trick in the time frame I had.

Front view.

The crystal egg actually came with the bunny that Subastar fixed to the side of her hat. It was in the discard pile when I was looking for something to do with the duck's flailing wings. It originally contained jellybeans but I subbed a few plastic eggs and am pleased with the turnout. I also superglued my fingers together more than once. Twice, to be precise. Subastar saved the day with a recently purchased bottle of nail polish remover.

The bunny in question.

Wearing it proved to be just as tricky as last year, if much lighter and less painful. I must profusely thank Subastar for her patience and understanding in talking me through stalled penguins and head tilting procedures, all the while dealing with an apparently suicidal blue penguin who leaped from the slide no fewer than three times.

Ah yes, the jacket. I got just as many (if not more) compliments on the jacket than I did on my hat. It was a crowd pleaser. A man who was making balloon animals and flowers ran across the street to ask me where I bought it. Many other people asked me the same thing. I'm sure many of you at home are wondering it too. To prevent rioting and frustrating Google searches which will only lead you dead ends and Andrew Lloyd Weber musicals, I must share the bad news.

This is vintage, and probably custom-made. You can't get one like it. It is unique and therefore priceless. Perhaps someday when I'm nearing retirement I'll put it up on ebay, and get enough money to keep me comfortable in my old age and keep the Soylent Green collectors away as long as possible.

Until then you can enjoy it vicariously through my Easter parade photos and other incredibly rare occasions when it would be appropriate. Dr. Rev is quick to suggest Gay Pride Parades, and most of you were thinking it. Hilarious, but I think I'll stick to Easter.

Here's a candid shot I found on flickr.

A few people recognized me as the Thomas the Tank Engine guy from last year, so I guess I'm becoming something of an Easter Parade celebrity. Soon I hope to eclipse the pathetic people who have the giant hats that they have to hold in place with their hands.

There. I said it. You're pathetic. You know who you are. I'm not even posting pictures of you.

Oh yeah, we colored eggs too!

I like the pictures on the splash guards we used.

All right, no more Easter. That's my report and I'll move on in the next entry. All sorts of things have happened since then. I've gotten a massage and watched a championship Cricket match! Weird!

I'll try not to wait too long before the next update, but it's Springtime, I should be outside anyway.

Bye babies,

Rev

Easter Parade 2010: Multimedia

2010-04-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

Easter Parade from therevspecial on Vimeo.

Apologies for the Easter delay. Enjoy this for now. Descriptive post to follow.

For those wondering:

–noun

a photomechanical process by which pictures, typeset matter, etc., are printed from an intaglio copper cylinder.

a print made by this process.

a section of a newspaper consisting of pages printed by the rotogravure process; magazine section.

I think they're going for #3.

Peace,

Rev

April First, but no foolin'

2010-04-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

Boom.

This is where we left off in the last entry about my Birthday/St. Patrick's Day Extravaganza Week. About to celebrate in the most grand fashion...

...By waking up early in the morning and going to work. Just as much fun as it sounds. New York City is one of those hardcore parade towns where they like to have celebrations on the exact day that holidays occur, regardless of my work and hangover schedule.

So I was unable to make it to the St. Pat's parade this year. I put on a green shirt, bought some soda bread and decided to grin and bear it through the day.

I got my coffee and started in on another day of tedium. Then something awesome happened. Bizzy Coy gchatted me.

(Note the high levels of crazy behind the eyes)

While that is a pleasant enough surprise in itself, the content of her message is really what floored me. In addition to apologizing for bailing on my birthday party, she told me about the Shamrock Shakes.

THE SHAMROCK SHAKES.

I think I may have mentioned my quest for these things before. Once or twice.

So I may be a little obsessed. She sent me an article from the Gothamist talking about how the Union Square McDonald's definitely has the Shamrock Shake.

My Brain exploded. I can't take all the credit for the return, but I did create a facebook page about bringing the Shamrock Shake back to New York, and I considered a letter writing campaign back in December which I would have called Operation: Shamrock n' Roll.

So I guess I will take all of the credit. Hooray for me and my almost-effort!

So I thought to myself "This is awesome, I'm going to get out of work, swing by and pick up a Shamrock Shake on the way home and drink it in my apartment." I love a good plan.

I was in the middle of weighing the pros and cons of pantslessness during the Shamrock Shake extravaganza when another thought struck me. "What if they run out while I'm trapped in this office?"

Panic.

I knew I couldn't wait. Thankfully the office had "organized" a St. Patrick's Day Potluck for lunch. As soon as folks started uncovering their dishes and reheating things in the microwave, I was off. I left a Rev-shaped cloud of smoke behind me and was dashing to the subway.

Like this, minus the hilarious ethnic stereotyping.

Months of having just missed trains seemed to have piled up to give me a subway-karma boost. I smoothly stepped off the platform onto an R train. The doors opened at Union Square and I took off again, shoving slow pedestrians out of my way, scattering children and the elderly like tenpins.

Or I wanted to, anyway. "OUT OF MY WAY!" I shouted in my head while politely excusing myself past a pod of land-whales decked in green.

I was back aboveground at last. I darted to the McDonald's, with my heart guarded against some sort of tragedy or sick prank. I opened the door and questioned my sanity. It was still absent, thank God.

I moved into the madness of a Manhattan McDonald's in the midst of the midday meal.

I elbowed (waited patiently) my way to the front of the line. What I saw there set my heart all a-flutter:

Why would you want to hide something this beautiful?

"One large Shamrock Shake, please!" I exclaimed, managing to only think the word "shopkeep."

"The new flavor?" asked the shopkeep.

I thought he said "Any flavor?" so I clarified.

"The Shamrock Shake." He looked at me with eyes drained of life by deaf crazy people shouting orders for fast food.

"Yeah, the new flavor, right?"

Ohhh. Well no, it's not really new. The Shamrock Shake was initially launched in 1970 and has been sold ever since throughout much of the US and Canada. In fact, in the 1980's a character was introduced to market the shake. He took the form of Grimace's delightfully stereotyped Uncle O'Grimacey. It's certainly not a new product, being older than such menu mainstays as the Quarter Pounder (1973), the Egg McMuffin (1975) and even Happy Meals (1979)!

I thought of the best way to distill this information.

"Yeah." I said.

A short wait later and I had it in my hands!

Quick! To the exit before they realize you haven't paid!

I apologize for the lack of exhaustive photos of this mission. I had only the camera on my phone with me.

With my prize in hand it was back to work. I got to the subway platform before I allowed myself to partake.

It was Bliss.

A short jaunt later, and I was back to the potluck. The elapsed time? 19 minutes. Several people hadn't noticed I had left, and looked quizzically at the plastic container of ambrosia in my hand.

Further research would uncover more facts. First, that the Shamrock Shake was only being carried in two locations: Union Square and Times Square. I assume they'll have learned their lesson and will expand the roll out for next season. Second, the Union Square McDonald's was sold out of the Shamrock Shake by 4:00 PM that day. A full hour before I get off of work.

I sometimes have dreams about what would have happened had I waited that day... and wake up screaming.

So that's my story. A bullet was dodged, an evil corporation caved to the almost-pressure of dozens of whiny internet commentators, and you all get to hear a tale with a happy ending instead of listening to me wallow in freakish misery.

Don't. Steal. Phrases.

Ok ok, fine. I hope everyone had a St. Patrick's Day that was just as miraculous and enjoyable. Now get out there and enjoy the almost-Springtime weather!

Peace out babies,

Rev

The Week that Was.

2010-03-22T09:04:00.001-07:00

Hello again.

You might not be aware of this, but we've just come off of a very special week for not just New York City, but also for all of the entire universe.

"Woo-hoo!"

I'm speaking, of course, of the Rev's Birthday/St. Patrick's Day Extravaganza Week.

And it kicked ass.

Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris levels of kicking ass.

That movie happened. It's a fact. Has your head exploded yet? Read on.

First off was the birthday. It started off... well...

Ok, I admit it. I pissed off Thor two posts ago.

"You want weather powers? Happy Birthday, nerd."

So it rained a little. A lot. All day.

Soaking, driving, nonsense rain. So either the Norse God of thunder doesn't like me questioning how he uses his abilities or the Judeo-Christian God decided to finally get around to dealing with New Jersey.

"Start with the small things on your to-do list," thinks God.

At any rate, it was an incredibly soggy birthday. But fun!

In the afternoon, Subastar and I went to Brooklyn to tour the Brooklyn Brewery. Being a former brewery tour guide myself, I was prepared for the whole nine yards. And I got it.

Literally. I mean, the whole brewhouse is about 9 yards squared.

Our guide was funny and knew his stuff. He even freely admitted that all of the bottles of Brooklyn Beer are brewed at the F.X. Matt Brewing Company in Utica, NY.

My Alma Malt-er.

It's good that he was up front about it, because I was totally ready to call him on it, and then he'd look foolish in front of the whole tour and I'd be all smug and he'd start crying and maybe pee his pants a little.

I'm glad we avoided such a scene.

After that we got some lunch and I had a chocolate milkshake, because hey, it was my birthday.

"Barkeep! Give me another and make it a double... I'll tell you when I've had enough!"

After that it was back through the heavy pouring rain to Astoria for a nap.

"A nap?" you say, "Holy S***balls! This birthday had everything!"

I'm just getting started.

Kyle, Subastar and I decided that it was not worth the swim to go all the way into Manhattan for dinner. Well, that and the car service we wanted to have pick us up was booked solid for another two hours.

"Look upon my face, puny mortal, and know the pain of minor inconvenience!"

Yes, Thor, I get it.

So we went to a fantastic restaurant near my house called Bistro 33. I had the Duck Breast and it was out of this world. Then it was time for the party.

We hopped in the car and treated our driver to a completely inappropriate and evil conversation that may have had him debating crashing the car intentionally for the good of the world. Thankfully he did not do that (probably because we look like good tippers), and we arrived at our destination.

I chose for my party a bar called Slate. It's pretty cool as it combines a hip club setting with pool tables and ping-pong. I like it, even though this particular night we were sent straight downstairs, as a pretty bitchin' bar mitzvah was burning up the top floor.

Thank you so much to everyone who waded out to celebrate with us. I know it would've been much easier to stay at home, warm and dry so thank you thank you thank you. I hope you had a good time, because I had a blast.

Hooray!

So just one quick emotional scarring of a cab driver later and I was back home, sleeping soundly in my warm covers.

And that's just the first day of the Extravaganza Week!

Sunday was kind of an off day, I'll admit. There was some brunch, Daylight Savings screwed everybody over and I saw Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

Skip it, it sucks. I don't have time to get into the reasons but let me say that Wonderland is not Oz. Neither is it Narnia, Never Never Land, or even Middle Earth. Don't try to make it be those things, dammit.

But Monday I got a very special phone call!

Ok, not quite that special.

But still, Good news everybody!

I was told that I have been accepted into Grad School for an MFA in Dramatic Writing!

Woo Hoo!

This is pretty awesome, because I'm already good at dramatic writing. Check it out:

The glass on the table was empty, but it was full when we left after hearing the screams! Could it have been emptied by... the killer??

DUM DUM DUMMMM!!!!!

See how dramatic that was? Nice.

So hooray for me and all that rot. The Extravaganza Week was still not over by this point, but the fantasticness that happened next deserves its own entry.

Catch you later, babies.

Rev

I Read So You Don't Have To.

2010-03-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

Monsters Exist. It's true. And I'm not talking about the lurking scary kind of monsters that live under your bed or in your closet.

But those exist too.

Actually, those exist in a far more literal way than I had originally planned to talk about. You see, NY is currently on the losing end of a war on bedbugs.

Trust me, this is the only image you want to see from a google image search for Bedbugs.

When I was little, I kind of lumped bedbugs in together with dustmites, and, thanks to Mercer Mayer, zipperumpazoos.

Everyone with children should own this.

Anyway, the three are not the same thing, as dustmites are (mostly) harmless and zipperumpazoos are (mostly) adorable.

Bedbugs are neither. Everyone in NYC lives in constant fear of them, and spends money on fancy mattress covers and sprays to keep the horrible things from sneaking into their bedrooms and sucking their blood while they sleep.

Stay away, bedbugs!

But no. I'm talking about the kind of monsters that only steal your soul and money. So yes Edward Cullen counts. I knew if I rambled long enough I'd find a segue.

More precisely, Stephanie Meyer. She's kinda what I'm talking about. The same category of people who infest and rot entire genres from the inside out. This leads to an unfair branding of said genres as crap. I'm talking about sci-fi and fantasy.

For a fascinating read and a good discussion of just this problem, pop open a new window and check this out:

Why Science-Fiction Authors Just Can't Win

Sure, there are exceptions. Here's one recently:

Cormac McCarthy won the Pulitzer for The Road, a post-apocalyptic story about a man and his son in a horrifying, brutal dead earth. People were really excited about this book and it was turned into a movie with Viggo Mortenson. Perhaps some of this excitement is because people have seen so much bad post-apocalypse that they're shocked and amazed when they see someone actually think about how real people would react to real situations.

You know, like this.

Sure sure, there's a line between entertainment and art. But the question is where is the line between entertainingly mediocre and damagingly bad? Easy. A romance novel set in a magical alternate Arthurian history that includes time travel as an excuse for pithy pop cultural references.

God I wish I had just fever-dreamed that sentence.

I read this. All of it.

If you're not asking yourself "Why, Rev? Why would you do this to yourself?" then you are either a sadist or have long since given up trying to understand me. Either way, thanks for reading.

I got this book for free at last year's New York Comic-con. Read about that HERE. I accepted without question because, hey, free book. Also because I am a trusting soul and fool, a terrible fool. In my defense, the cover art on my promotional copy is vastly different from the cover that I posted.

It is all black with an inscrutable gold icon on the front. The text reads:

#1 New York Times Bestseller
Sherrilyn Kenyon
writing as
Kinley MacGregor
SWORD OF DARKNESS
Lords of Avalon

I am confused by no fewer than three parts of that.

There's not even a plot summary or anything on the cover to warn me that this is a genre that shouldn't even exist, let alone be read by me.

These days there are two situations in which I do most of my reading: on the subway and at the laundromat. One day I was heading to the laundromat and realized that I had nothing else to read.

"Sigh," I sighed. "I guess I'll take this book that looks awful. Maybe it's not."

I know, I know. I don't need your pity.

But once I started reading I got hooked. I had to follow this through to the end no matter what, and I have no idea why.

I'm going to retrace my steps and see if I can find the exact second I realized something was very very wrong with this book.

Here we go, page 9. A peasant woman (our heroine) is being confronted by two time-traveling knights of the round table:

"He looked confused by her words.
'You're blowing it, Wain,' the other knight said in an aggravated tone.
What strange words to use. She'd never heard such before, and they most certainly didn't apply to their situation since the knight he addressed held nothing to his lips."

Oh jesus. Don't worry, through the rest of the book, Ms. Kenyon/MacGregor doesn't miss an opportunity to awkwardly call out anachronistic dialogue and behavior. It's not so much "oh, see how silly our contemporary english would sound to a middle ages peasant" as it is "Look, just stop talking in front of her because she's going to waste a quarter of a page being as literal as stupidly possible."

Ok fine, let's go with that. Time traveling wizards. They would certainly amass quite an army with the technology of any era available to them, right?

"Just three more months and I'll get to see my eggs again."

Rocket launchers, and explosives in the hands of mythical monsters would be an unstoppable force, like on page 177:

"She followed after him to see what appeared to be a giant tree in the hands of the gargoyles. They flew with it toward the shield, slamming the tree into the invisible wall like a battering ram against the door."

First off Ms. Kengregor, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what a battering ram is.

Also you'll note a complete lack of future weapons. So what do they bring back from the future?

Please consider this paragraph on page 53:

"Kerrigan slid his black gaze to the gathering where his demon knights danced with the fey. Some of them were already sprawling half naked in corners, uncaring of who watched them as they sought to sate their bodies. The loud dance music that played through the room came from CDs that Morgen had brought back from her journeys into the future - like many of the residents here, she loved the grace and style of the medieval, but preferred the conveniences and toys of future societies. And one of her penchants was for a style of early twenty-first-century music known as Dark Wave. Rather fitting, all things considered."

If you survived that paragraph, congrats. It perfectly encapsulates the tone of the entire book. Basically, everyone in the book is a magical, time traveling LARPer.

"Foam swords and jazz hands!"

Morgen, the book's antagonist, enjoys the music of INXS. This is stated several times.

The true face of evil.

So in summary, if you're a Dungeons & Dragons fetishist who is looking for wisecracking gargoyles wearing Star Trek costumes and a whole lot of F-bombs substituting for emotional dialogue, read this book.

As for me, I'm going to put it on my "Angry Shelf" of books I read when I want to get mad at something and throw a book across the room. The other two there right now are Chariots of the Gods and Dianetics.

But Don't Take My Word For It!

But seriously, take my word for it.

Peace out, lovelies.

Rev

Snaux Day

2010-02-26T10:07:00.001-08:00

Well look at that. Two back to back posts brought on by winter weather. I live in NYC, and we're currently experiencing snowfall that some would describe as the wrath of Thor if he got tired of smashing people with that hammer and actually used his weather powers.

Ok, not many people would describe it that way.

My point is that today I have experienced one of the greatest feelings known to man. I used to be able to look forward to such things, but not anymore. Mostly it is the field of of grade school students and their we're-underappreciated-and-we'll-make-sure-you-know-it teachers.

I speak, of course, of the glory that is The Snow Day.

Oh yeah, it was also a terrible Nickelodeon kids' movie where the antagonist was a snowplow driver?

This morning my alarm went off as it inevitably does. I dutifully got out of bed and prepared to face the day. I then looked outside and thought "Damn." Inspired by the amount of snow that I saw, I logged onto my place of employ's website and saw the blessed words:

"All offices are closed"

Since I can't come close to being described as "essential personnel" I have the day off.

Joy filled my heart as I sank back down into the cozy blankets and pillows. The ecstasy of the Snow Day is largely indescribable. The waking fantasy of every day is simply to go back to bed. Today it was a blessed reality! I nestled myself deep in my down comforter.

"Thank you, ThunderGod" I murmured before slipping away to blessed dreamland. And you know... I think he heard me.

"You're welcome, nerd."

So I woke up around 10:30 and decided that I should be productive. Immediately, I watched this week's episode of 24 and admired the hotness of Crazy Renee.

You can stab me 15 times any day... Wait, no, that's not sexy.

I then took some time to admire the new desk I just finished building.

That's not right either. In the interest of accuracy, I finished assembling it last night. My brother Lt. Rev actually builds things.

Like this.

But no, I just bought a desk from Staples the other week in an attempt to get my shtuff together. The assembly stretched over three evenings and was completed last night. I'm sitting at it now, as a matter of fact. It's pretty sexy.

Here's a picture of it from Amazon:

Mine looks a little different because I generally keep the drawers closed and also don't use it in the white room from The Matrix.

"Ok, guns, nice. Now I need a comfortable space to get some good writing done"

After admiring the desk for several minutes this morning, I decided that I should try to organize the rest of the room, which was thrown into considerable chaos with the addition of a large piece of furniture.

In the interest of accuracy, I should say that my room was in a state of considerable chaos even before the new desk got here. My old desk? A TV snack tray. Oh yes. From K-Mart. Let me see if I can pull up a pic of that goodness:

Yeah, pretty much that, but with a laptop instead of a delicious, homecooked meal which is eaten in silence, staring at syndicated episodes of Seinfeld and resenting your family for holding you back and killing your dreams.

So in summation: hooray new desk!

Other stuff happened recently as well.

Kyle, Jesse, Holly, Casey and I rented a camp in Lake Placid and escaped for a weekend of winter fun!

The place was nice and had an awesome large fireplace, of which I made full use:

Pay no attention to the empty beer cans. Or the friendship bracelet kit. That didn't get used AT ALL.

Ok, maybe a little.

We also played snow football twice, which I have little photographic proof of, because I didn't want my camera to be smashed. Oh wait, here's some, courtesy of Holly:

That's me with the ball and Kyle providing coverage.

Since you don't know any better, that pass was completed for a touchdown!

We also went ice skating at the Olympic Center's outdoor Speed Skating Oval.

Not pictured: Speed.

A blurry shot of Jesse and Kyle, but that might be because they were actually moving.

Also, this happened:

I have neither excuse nor explanation.

As an added super bonus, I got to see A.Rev!!!!!!!!!!!

She seemed less enthusiastic than me, at first.

She quickly warmed up though (literally and figuratively) and became much more animated.

So it was a great long weekend.

And now I've got another one ahead of me!

That's all for now folks, I'll leave you with a picture of the mountains I took as we were driving out of Lake Placid.

Peace out,

Rev

The Company's Dime.

2010-02-10T06:39:00.000-08:00

Good morning,

This morning's episode of Rev's Blog is brought to you by crippling snowstorm and the letters N, Y, and C.

Basically, I'm the only person in my entire office right now, so I'm the boss. And the boss says Blog.

"BLOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGGG!"

So yeah. In New York there's lots of snowfall, weather people calling for Armageddon, Public Schools are closed and sent out a memo suggesting cannibalism both for survival and to protect children from the horrors of having to live in a real-life Day After Tomorrow.

Let's be honest, I'd rather be eaten alive than watch it again.

I got to work on time. A few minutes early, actually. I blame my stubbornness, my inescapable work ethic and my Central New York snow belt upbringing.

(sigh) Tuesdays.

I got ready 10 minutes earlier than normal and slipped on my hiking boots.

My God, I had forgotten how comfortable these are. They were still covered in sand from Mount Marcy, but once I got out into the snow and sludge, they proved again that they are worth every penny I spent on them. Walking to the subway was as comfortable as gliding across a carpet made of Angels' sex organs.

This picture represents snow. Or the blinding light of Angeldongs. But mostly it represents my refusal to do a google search for 'Angel Sex Organs' on my work computer.

UPDATE: Ok, now I'm blogging from home, as my work closed early. So, hooray, I suppose. Still I'm not doing that google search. Let it go, man, let it go.

So sometimes I think: "Geez, nothing blogworthy has happened to me lately." It's a sad state of affairs I'm in when my life is reduced to two categories: blogworthy and filler. It's not gotten that drastic yet, but two entries about what to do between places on the subway? Yikes.

Sometimes though, I have an embarrassment of riches. Like recently. In the past two weekends, The Revs came to town and the Superbowl happened.

I'll talk about the first one first. It was a fun visit and I'm glad they made it, but meteorological timing needs to be worked on. As soon as they rolled into Manhattan, the temperature took a nose dive from tolerably chilly to witch's titty right quick.

(not searching for that either).

So that cut down on photos of the trip, as operating a camera would risk exposure and frostbite. We saw Billy Elliot and Rock of Ages. My mom did insist on a photo with Constantine:

Look at that big woman in the background. Ha! Now you can't ignore her.

The next day, we took a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I got one good photo from there. We were walking through the Greek and Roman Statue hall when my Dad whispers to me: "Get your camera out and turn around."

And thank God I did:

New desktop image.

Oh Hercules (or Heracles, not sure which), you're going to fulfill the nudity quota for this post. Also, thanks for making me look good by comparison.

And then the Superbowl. I hope everyone got what they wanted from the game. Whether it be commercials or the Saints winning or whatever. I didn't have much invested in the game at first.

I was invited to a friend's house to watch the game, and that was in Brooklyn. To get there I would take the G train. As far as I can tell, G stands for Ghost train, because it only exists when you're not looking for it. It could also stand for Go to hell, because that's what I feel it's communicating most of the time.

I got all ready to head out. I Grabbed my coat and a freshly baked pumpkin pie, because I'm training to be a fantastic houswife, apparently.

I left the house at 5:30 PM. By 7:00 I had gotten no farther than Queensboro Plaza. For those of you not in the geographic know, if you called me at home and said "Hey I'm at Queensboro Plaza, come meet me." I would say "Cool, I can be there in 20 minutes" (Assuming, of course that I know who you are and/or would want to meet up with you in the first place).

Make that 5 minutes.

Now the observant among you will notice that 20 minutes does not equal 90 minutes, and may wonder what was going on for that hour and ten minutes of missing time.

First off, the G train was not running, a fact that they neglected to post at the first station I sat waiting for the G train to arrive.

Next, I took an R train to the next station, where there is a person on duty. I got off the train, and read the posters that casually mention something to the effect that the G train does not exist for you, sucka. And that fools looking for it would need to transfer to shuttle buses. And that such fools would then be the object of pity.

Putting the T back in MTA.

While I was reading this poster, an E train arrived and left. Let it, I thought. Who wants the E train anyway? I'm taking a shuttle bus from this stop, Queens Plaza. So I headed up to the information booth to find out where I can get on this bus.

The whiteboard inside of the booth had this message scrawled on it: NO SHUTTLE BUSES AT THIS STATION, TAKE THE E TRAIN ONE STOP.

Sonofabitch.

So I waited for the next E train to come around (no small feat for Sunday evening service). When it finally did, I got off at the correct stop and went aboveground. There were plenty of helpful signs pointing out where to go to get on Shuttle Buses that went to the stops for the 7 train.

I'll take this moment to remind you that I did not want the 7 train shuttle buses. The location of the G bus seemed to be a closely guarded secret.

There I was, wandering around in the cold and dark of 6:45 PM at the base of the CITI tower (the tallest building in Queens) with NO idea where I was going.

Nice neighborhood.

It's time for a memory test: did you remember that this entire time I've been carrying a freshly baked pumpkin pie? If so, Gold Star for you and you can come over here and eat some of it with me.

So there's me, scrawny pale young man alone on a desolate street with a fresh pie. I discussed this with my Dad and we decided the only reason I wasn't killed by homeless people is that they thought it was a trap.

I was far too easy and tempting of a target to be for real. After all, the Cheesecake Ambush of '94 was Giuliani's first big success against the homeless population.

I wasn't all stubborn aimless wandering. I asked the driver of the 7 shuttle bus to point me in the direction of the G shuttle. He did, and I thanked him for his straight-faced, sincere-sounding lies and went on my way.

By 7:00 I had found my way back to Queensboro Plaza and said something to the effect of "Eph this, I'm taking my pie and going home."

And so I did. Subastar and I caught part of the game at a bar on Ditmars, and watched the final quarter on the big flatscreen TV at Tasty's Diner. Despite the transit woes, we had a great time and I consider the night to be a success.

But seriously though, come on over. I have a whole pie to get rid of now.

Peace out Folks,

Rev

Some more stuff.

2010-02-03T07:15:00.001-08:00

So last time I updated, I told you of a way to have fun on the subway. That is, playing Texas Hold 'Em. People were cheering me on, and it felt like everyone wanted to be my friend, even with their constructive criticism.

"Go Rev! This pink confetti is for you! You sissy girl! Hooray!"

Umm... thanks.

But the other day I felt the opposite of that. I was going home and it seemed like no one wanted to be my friend. I wasn't playing Texas Hold 'Em, or any game, video or otherwise. I was reading.

Sure, people generally leave you alone when you're reading, but there's always people who like to read over your shoulder.

At least I think that's what's going on in this picture.

It's incredibly common when you're reading a newspaper, but still happens when you have a book. Reading books on the subway is a slightly different experience from reading newspapers.

First off, you don't have to be an origami artist to avoid elbowing people in the face.

"Hey, could I borrow the sports pa- you know what, never mind."

Also, there's sometimes eye contact made with other people who are reading, when you look up from your book at the same time as someone else. It's sort of a silent high five, where in the .25 seconds you both say "Yeah! Reading is awesome!"

So Awesome.

Also, reading a book on the subway makes me feel good about myself. It's more productive than doing nothing, and a lot safer than sleeping.

So the other day I was reading on my way to and from work. But I wasn't getting that sense of camaraderie. People weren't reading over my shoulder for more than a glance. I had no solidarity amongst the other members of the MTA Book Club. In fact, I even received a few glares, or at least wary looks.

This is the best picture I could find of a wary look. The subtext is all wrong, though.

So what was it? What could I be doing wrong? I was being quiet, my pants were on properly, my book was suitably highbrow... oh wait.

Hmmm...

Maybe that's it.

I got similar reactions when I was reading this book at the laundromat, and also at the elementary school playground.

Warning: Fat children on right.

But I guess I understand what's going on. People are super defensive in this town, especially on the subway, and with very very good reason.

One just needs to to listen to the automated sexual assault announcements on the train to know how bad things have been/are:

“Ladies and gentlemen, a crowded subway car is no excuse for sexual misconduct. If you feel you have been the victim of a crime, please notify a police officer or an MTA employee. Remain alert and have a safe day.”

Yikes.

I propose a new one: "Ladies and gentleman, a crowded subway car is no excuse for sexual misconduct. Start screaming: "Pervert! Hey everyone, this perv just grabbed my ______! Let's all kill him! Pervert!"

"I said hands off!"

That being said, we should reserve this treatment for those who actually commit a crime, rather than reading a controversial novel. I understand your concern, subway riders.

I don't have too much more to go on that book, but maybe I should stick to subway books without that kind of subject matter/connotation.

OK, fine. How about something completely innocent and unobjectionable?

Dammit.

Ok, I give up. Back to video games.

Rev

Stuff.

2010-01-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

Hello,

I've not spoken with you folks in a while, and it's mostly because I haven't had a lot to talk about, and also because I've devoted some of my time usually devoted to blogging to working on another writing project. And that, ladies and gentleman, is how you write a run-on sentence.

So I've decided to take some time and catch up with you folks. How's it going? I'm still doing good. I'm adapting to life back at work following my delightful holiday break. Now I've gotten some stuff to talk about. First off, a life lesson.

If you're ever feeling down, and that no one is cheering for you, or has "got your back" as the kids used to say, there's a very simple solution:

Step 1) Go down into the subway.

No, this doesn't involve morlocks.

either kind.

Step 2) take out some sort of mobile gaming device.

jealous?

Step 3) start playing Texas Hold 'Em

You will soon find that everyone is your friend and wants you to win!

I wrote this post from home, so thankfully my work browser history doesn't include my search to find this picture.

On my way in to work this morning, I was playing some virtual hold 'em. It being the morning commute in NYC, the train was pretty crowded, and fairly quiet. I had gotten a seat next to one of the doors and was minding my own business.

from the corner of my eye, I see a hand. People often aren't aware of what their hands are doing on the subway (your honor), so I figured this person was stretching out his fingers or something, and just happened to get in my peripheral vision.

But no! It happened again. He was definitely gesturing. I glanced up, and realized that he was trying to tell me not to bet on the hand I was dealt. Alas, it was too late. I had lost 15 completely imaginary and consequence-free dollars.

I have no real reason to post this picture. But do you really need one?

I felt embarrassed to have lost the hand in front of my newfound buddy. Reeling from my loss, I folded the next hand, a King-Nine unsuited.

"tsk" says my benefactor, "that was gonna be your big hand!"

I let the cards play out, and he was wrong. By the time the river came around I would have been handily defeated by the two pair Aces and 7s that one of my digital nemeses had flopped.

This bolstered my confidence a little. A little too much, it would seem. I got into a betting war with a fake person. The turn came. I was stubbornly considering hanging onto my pair of pocket jacks versus an obvious straight draw. And the bets were piling up.

Finally, I took a deep breath and folded.

"Good Man." Said my coach. I knew what he meant. He meant that sometimes, you just gotta know when you're beat, and live to fight another day.

Usually when someone says that to me on the subway, however, they would mean "I want to have sex with/on you."

At Times Square, Coach had to leave. He headed for the door, then turned and waved.

"Good Luck, man!" he said with a smile.

"Thanks man, have a good one." I returned.

I won that poker game on the ride back home.

Oh, another thing! 24! 24 is back!

I can't get too into my thoughts so far this season, as I'm not fully caught up. Subastar is pumped because a famous Indian actor is playing President Hassan, and I'm pumped because Freddie Prinze Jr. has so far been involved in two explosions.

Hopefully one of them will stick.

Harsh, you say?

Let me remind you of something:

If Matthew Lillard shows up this season I'm going to bite my eyes out.

I'm eagerly anticipating the return (in the next episode I'm about to watch) of Renee Walker.

Both for her hotness, and for the hopes that she will mate with The Jack Bauer, and bring forth superpowered counter-terrorist offspring from her steel-lined uterus of justice.

I'm not going to write a better sentence than that for some time, and so I'll bid you goodnight.

Peace, love and bring back Curtis,

Rev

Angels, Devils, Wizards and all sorts of craziness.

2010-01-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

Hello.

It seems that nearly a month has passed since I last updated this, and I blame the holidays. All of them. Christmas, New Year, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and yeah, even Boxing Day.

Especially Boxing Day.

That doesn't seem right, but I've got a lot of stuff to get through.

So what did you do in the month of December? Here's what I got up to:

Sandstone's and Mr. Morchison's birthday party!

(It was Harry Potter Themed)

That's Sandstone as Luna Lovegood and Mr. Morchison as Gilderoy Lockhart. Yes, his costume was a Snuggie.

Deal with it.

Here's the students of Hogwarts, featuring me as Draco Malfoy:

The looking disgusted with everyone is a happy accident, I didn't even know we were taking a picture.

The party was fun, but riding a gypsy bus in the snow from Jersey to Manhattan at 1:00 AM with your head spray-painted white might be the sort of thing that one would call a "downside."

Also, my cousin Kyle (mentioned before in this post) came down to the greater New York area. Specifically, the much lesser part of the greater New York area, New Jersey. He's a bit of a Devil's fan and decided to take in three games. I was fortunate to accompany him to one of them.

Here's the view from our seats. They were nice.

Kyle was hooked up with two clubhouse seats. We were real close to the ice, but the actual clubhouse was the main benefit, for the two most beautiful words in the english language.

"Cellar Door?"

No, Frank. Stop it. It's Drew Barrymore's character who says that, anyway.

FREE FOOD.

Holders of clubhouse tickets are treated to free food and soft drinks throughout the game. Booze is still cash, though.

But when I say food, I mean food.

Check out the dessert table:

Also check out the guy in the booth glaring at my camera.

They had a coffee table, too. With fancy urns. Fancy coffee urns.

Fancy urns!

How about a carving station? You betcha.

And let me ask you something. What's the one thing that any self respecting hockey rink can't do without?

If you said sushi bar, then you need to get yourself to the Prudential Center.

Seriously, sushi?

I started off the evening thinking that this was a fantastic idea. My mind was quickly changed, however, when this happened:

GROSS!

Who drops a tuna roll and just leaves it on the floor? I'll tell you who.

PEOPLE FROM NEW JERSEY.

It is really uncomfortable walking around with rice wedged in the bottom of your sneaker. It was a weird mass that I did not want to go through the disgustingness to get rid of. I felt as though I was walking around like Verbal Kint in the Usual Suspects.

I felt like that the rest of the night. I felt like that even when we met Chico Resch.

"Hi I'm Chico Resch... do you know you have rice all up in your shoe?"

That's Kyle on the left, by the way.

For those of you not in the know (like me before that game), Chico is a former NHL goalie who is now one of the commentators for the Devils on MSG. I'm also happy to report that he is a really nice guy.

Kids like him too!

So we had a brief conversation with Chico, during which he and Kyle discussed the military and what's really going on over in Iraq. I added, helpfully: "Hello, it's nice to meet you."

Kyle was a fan from the start and so was completely won over, and decided to enlist in Chico's private strike force.

The Chicobra Commandos? The Resch-tafarians?

So thanks Kyle, for the tickets and for a lot of fun.

Let's see, what's next on the December events list?

I went to church one Sunday and saw a Christmas pageant.

My God. If anyone ever doubts the potential for chaos in live theater, send them to one of those. Hilarious.

"We bring you gifts of Gold, Frankincense and MOM! Sit down! You're embarrassing me!"

Hang on a second...

Enhance.

Boom. Angels. All right, I've got the blog's title taken care of so now I can just do what I want.

And that means Christmas!

I took Amtrak home again. This trip went as smoothly as I could have hoped. We got a 10 minute delay, but once they began boarding the train I used some ninja tricks and made sure I had a good seat with a working plug for my A/C adapter.

The train was crowded so I sat next to a woman also bound for Utica. She didn't say a word the entire time. Perfect.

We had two Christmases at the Rev's house this year. The first was real Christmas, which consisted of my parents and I, and was relatively sedate.

Yup, just kinda sat around, reading and being on fire.

Then Christmas 2 brought the great convergence on Monday. Dr Rev, Lt Rev, S.Rev and of course A.Rev all descended on the house for more merrymaking.

As in any Rev Christmas, there were knives:

And presents:

and frightening children:

I LOVE this picture.

And at last it was time to return to the City. Dr Rev came to visit for a bit, shenanigans were had, then it was New Year's Eve with some more shenanigans, including repainting part of the Queens Plaza Subway station and that's pretty much all she wrote for the month of December.

Oh yes, except for one major thing:

CONGRATULATIONS JESSE AND HOLLY!!!!

The sexiest newly engaged couple there is. And what better time to propose than in New York City in the midst of a freak snowstorm.

Give them points for memorable, folks.

Catch you later (sooner than last time),

Rev

A.Rev, Queen of the Indians

2009-12-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

Sorry, Subastar, you've been dethroned.

I mean, you can't compete with this:

And why would you want to?

Yes I got to visit A.Rev and her parents over the Thanksgiving Holiday. The sari was one of the new things she got. Also the finger puppets. But check this out:

That's her chilling out in her brand new inflatable Spider-Man chair. Best uncle ever.

1) Fight all those annoying Disney Princess stereotypes of what girls are supposed to like/play with.

2) Classically condition her to associate Spider-Man with comfort and fun.

C) Foster a lifelong interest in Spider-Man that we can share together.

I am an evil genius.

Muahaha... hahahahahahaha

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Ok.

So yeah, Thanksgiving was great. Subastar and I headed up to Uticaville for fireplace and feasting and lots of sleep. Subastar got a good dose of an American Thanksgiving, and it looked a little something like this:

And pies.

But before I could gorge myself on such a delightful spread, I had to transport my body up to Utica. Given that I apparently have some sort of crippling learning disability, I turned to Amtrak.

"Raping your travel plans since 1971"

I've had mixed experiences while traveling on Amtrak during the holidays. Of course, by 'mixed' I mean 'uniformally terrible'

As opposed to terribly uniformed.

Delays, mostly. Oh, and other passengers. I think most forms of public transportation would be just fine if they could keep everyone nice and isolated from everyone else. For a social species, we often don't play well together.

Indeed the main problem with mass transit is the 'mass' part.

Too easy, and I meant large numbers, not (necessarily) large people.

So I approached the Thanksgiving travel with some trepidation. I am not entirely blameless in this little episode, as I bought the tickets several months back and filed away the pertinent information in my reliable-for-most-trivia-about-marvel-comics-but-certainly-not-railway-ticket-details brain.

Double checking the day before we left I realized that the train was scheduled to leave three hours before I was anticipating being at Penn Station.

"Good to know" I thought, wishing my memory was more reliable, like the Gamma-powered Samuel Sterns, aka The Leader.

Dammit, Marvel trivia...

Anyway, it was a mistake easily corrected and Subastar and I were waiting patiently for the track to be announced in Penn Station so we could get a move on and I could further my research into the effects of pie overdose (see two pictures up).

That's when the lovely people at Amtrak decide to make the announcement that we ain't going nowhere. Where we going?

Nowhere!

I searched for ten minutes to find that picture for a joke maybe two of you will get. Because I love my readers.

Unlike Amtrak. They hate my readers. They love finding inventive ways to toy with me. An "earlier track obstruction" was to blame for this delay. How much earlier? Track where? What kind of obstruction? I didn't know any of these things, but heard from various people wandering about and grumbling that there was no train traffic in either direction across the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge.

I naturally assumed they were making up nonsense words solely to infuriate me. Then my powers of US History kicked in: the Dutch.

Where's your tulips and windmills, you peg-legged bastard?

Alternate caption: But think of the money he saves on wooden shoes!

According to Wikipedia: "Spuyten Duyvil" literally means "Devil's Spout" or Spuitende Duivel in Dutch; a reference to the strong and wild currents found at that location.

It's also the bridge that carries Amtrak trains from Manhattan (an island) to the Bronx (not an island, but probably should be).

Amtrak had an alternative for us. "Passengers will board shuttle buses to go to Grand Central Station and board your train there," they lied.

We waited for shuttle buses to arrive. And waited. Should we have just crawled to Grand Central station on our elbows and saved some time? At long last there was the 'Hooray the buses arrived!' moment.

"Oh one more thing, the buses won't take you to Grand Central, they're going to bring you to Yonkers."

Yonkers? All I really know about Yonkers is that it's the town everyone escapes from at the beginning of Hello Dolly!, and is therefore not to be considered a destination.

Don't look at me like that.

So onto buses we climbed, and sat for the scenic trip up Madison Avenue. Along the way, we were priveleged to see such breathtaking sights as every single red light in Manhattan.

At long long last we got near signs that said Yonkers, only to have to bus driver pull over and admit that he didn't know where he was going.

Was this a joke? Were we being Punk'd? Would I finally get a chance to bathe in the blood of Ashton Kutcher?

Sadly the answer to all of these questions was no. Several passengers volunteered the services of their smartphones with GPS to help out our confused driver. 20 minutes later we arrived at the train.

We secured seats and I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, we're on the train and I can just kick back, plug in my laptop, read my comics and watch the latest Dr. Who special.

Hellz yeah.

Oh wait. That's right, the only seats available to us were the ones with the A/C outlets that DIDN'T WORK.

Cuss my reliance on technology. 'Twill be the end of me someday.

To make a long story short...

"TOO LATE!"

We were originally scheduled to reach Utica at 2:35 or so.

We met Mr. Rev on the platform at 6:32 PM.

Only four hours off. I've had worse.

But all that was soon forgotten in favor of the festivities, and of course:

Catch you later, folks.

Rev

Subastar, Queen of the Indians

2009-11-18T20:03:00.000-08:00

Well, she should be, at least.

Subastar was recently bored. She was looking around for things to fill her time and found a somewhat specific outlet:

The Maaza Miss India New York 2009 Pageant.

I like to think I had something to do with this. Maybe not in organizing the event (though it would have gone off a lot smoother if I had), but maybe just maybe I have had an impact on the people around me with the "Why the Hell not?" attitude that provides so much nonsensical fodder for this very blog.

Of course I could just be trying to take undue credit, as my latest personal accomplishment/adventure involved overcoming a challenging block of cheese.

You may laugh, but we've all been there.

So Subastar found out about this contest about three weeks before it was held, and immediately had to start preparing for the event. This event consisted of:

-Evening Wear:

-Traditional Indian Wear:

And

-the Talent Competition:

I feel that I should take this opportunity to point out that my knowledge of world cultures is based exclusively on the Street Fighter franchise of video games.

Though in retrospect, it doesn't seem right to me that the Brazilian character is the one with the most body hair...

I apologize to anyone with childhood memories of this game who now have to picture Blanka electrocuting his waxer at the spa.

But from a variety of sources and people helping out, Subastar was able to get all her things together and be ready by the start of the pageant on Saturday evening. That is something I can certainly not say for the organizers of the event.

As proof of their sh*t-not-togetherness, I direct you to the first link of this blog post, which lists last Saturday's pageant as an "Upcoming Event" with "Date and venue to be announced shortly. Accepting registrations now!"

Going back in time from the present, but to the future according to their website, the event was held in Flushing, Queens at an Indian Community Center.

It was a pretty nicely sized auditorium.

Did I mention that the planning sucked?

We were told that the pageant would start at 6:00 PM. I was put in charge of distributing the pre-purchased tickets to Subastar's other fans, so I got there at 5:15 PM.

Pictured: Some of Subastar's other fans.

At the exchange of tickets for a painted clay pot (don't ask), I was informed that now the pageant would be starting at 7:00 PM.

Super.

In my confusion about the time difference, however, I checked the printed tickets.

Sure enough, they said that the event was to start at 7:00 PM.
HOWEVER... it also said that November 14th was a Sunday. I suspected Super-villainy.

The reason you've never heard of Calendar man is that he moved out of Gotham City. Presumably to Flushing.

So at long last the pageant got underway shortly after 7:30 PM. Yes, that's right.

In that extra hour and a half they had, you'd think they'd take 30 seconds to learn how to operate the damn curtain. Nope. They had an opening dance than ended with a hugely awkward freeze which lasted well after the applause had ended. Here's some pictures:

The contestants, rockin' out.

There she is.

A little bit of sass for the judges.

That's the sari that she wore for the Traditional Indian Wear portion of the competition. It was designed by her mother and shipped over a few days before the pageant, and it is gorgeous.
Mrs. Subastar knows her stuff.

Next up was the Evening Gown segment. Shazam:

There's another story about the alteration of this dress that we won't get into.

This is probably the best picture I have of this dress... the other ones are a little blurry because I was shouting and cheering while trying to operate the camera.

Here's the back of it, though:

"F this, gals... I'm outta here!"

After the Evening Wear came the Talent Portion. Eventually.

There were several long awkward pauses, a few special performances by local dance schools, and the worst banter I've ever heard from the two worst emcees in history.

One was the winner of the 2007 pageant, and the other was the runner-up to her in that pageant. Their stage time consisted of inconsequential one-upmanship and thinly veiled malice. Don't let their bickering fool you, neither was any better than the other, and the only loser was the audience.

There is probably less bitterness between Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman.

"Hey guys, remember me? No? Damn you SEEEEEACREEEEEST!!!"

But yeah! Talent competition!

There were 23 total contestants, counting the Miss Teen India NY competition. Nearly all of them danced.

It got to the point where everyone wished someone would sing a song instead. And then someone did sing a song and everyone wished to go back to dancing.

Our own Subastar did a dance to the song Ooi Maa Ooi Maa, which is the title and not a result of my keyboard sticking.

Spinning! Not pictured: clay pot.

The judges ate it up, because unlike most of the other contestants, Subastar has heard of something called 'facial expression.'

A huge amount of time later, it came down to announce the Final Five contestants:

The first name called:

SUBASTAR!

Booyah.

Next was the Q&A.

Subastar rocked it. After the first two girls gave awful answers to their questions, she hung in there and knocked one out of the park.

The first girl was asked: "what is the most significant challenge facing India today?"

Her answer: The Recession.

I have thought of others:

and so on...

Subastar's : "What has been the biggest disappointment of your life so far?"

Her (paraphrased) answer: I have not had any disappointments in my life. Every experience you have helps you grow as a person and become who you are. If you live in the past among disappointments and regrets, you'll never move forward."

BOOM!

And then the final selection came.

Despite abusing the Q&A section like Ike Turner, Subastar was ultimately selected as the second runner up.

Pictured here, with two other girls who obviously cheated.

She got flowers and her sash and totally kicks ass and we're all very proud of her!

Pictured here with the girl who cheated less.

"Hi, Mom? Your sari kicks ass! All the girls' eyes started bleeding out of jealousy! Yeah, awesome, I know!"

So congratulations, Subastar. You did a fantastic job.

Catch you later, everyone else.

Rev

Halloween 2009!

2009-11-04T12:55:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody.

Before we get to the main topic of this post, I'd like to take some time to endorse a product/service.

neatorama.com is having a Mystery Sale.

I'd like to express my thanks to neatorama.com for helping me to retain my sanity while at the same time robbing my employers of thousands of hours of productivity.

Anyway, the setup is simple. You pay them $9.95 and they send you something. You won't know what it is, but it will be worth at least $9.95 and will show up in a couple of weeks.

It's great fun. It's like opening a box you woke up next to following a tequila blackout. Actually, it's even better than that, because the neatorama box most likely won't be full of your own sick and a family of angry raccoons.

Worst birthday ever.

I did the mystery sale last time they offered it and got this:

A Beethoven Duck!

It now belongs to my niece, waiting patiently until she's old enough to be terrified of it.

Speaking of terrified...

Once more at October's end we get dressed up like silly people and parade around.

Oach and I had our costume picked out almost immediately after our Calvin & Hobbes triumph last year.

And here it is:

Statler and Waldorf.

Subastar went with us to the parade also. She decided to be ambitious this year, and we constructed for her a Little Mermaid Costume:

I also indoctrinated Subastar in the grand tradition of Jack O'Lantern carving.

I find the "primal scream" technique works best when opening the pumpkin.

Yeah, really get in there...

Knives!

All finished! Mine is the evil one! Quick, turn the lights off!

That's the stuff.

Ok, enough of all that, let's get back to our sweet costumes:

If it looks like we're wet, it's because it was raining on us.

Subastar's costume I built using a plastic wastebasket, pitcher, duct tape, wire, muslin and that turquoise cloth we found in the clearance section of a fabric store on 40th street.

Not this one, but near it. And they all look the same.

The tail came out pretty much exactly how I pictured it, which goes to show how thrown together and amateurish my imagination is.

The wire did make the tail bob up and down when she walked, which helped the whole "swimming" thing.

And check out who we ran into:

Ahh! It's Ursula the Sea Witch!

And before any of you ask, yes, that is a woman.

I gotta say, though, Subastar's costume practically made itself compared to our Statler and Waldorf project.

Oach and I brainstormed how we were going to actually make that thing, and then he did pretty much everything else while I provided moral support.

The assembly got a bit crazy. To satisfy some of your curiosity, the front part of the balcony is made of Oak Tag that Oach painted with the balcony decorations:

Note the mermaid tail shrapnel in the background.

The chair backs were quarter inch luon, similarly painted. The Oak tag bent around and was glued in place on the outer edges of the chair backs.

The chair backs, additionally, had hinges on them so that Oach and I were pinned together when we started walking in the parade. It took a little getting used to. Holding hands helped. Not with balance or anything. It just... helped.

Anyway... The weight of this whole contraption was supported on our shoulders, as the chair backs were physically bolted to the suit coats we were wearing.

After the parade, we folded the thing for easy transport.

Relatively easy, anyway.

Going there was another story. To keep the balcony as pristine as possible, we wore it the whole way from Astoria to the Village.

The train was very crowded, but we had good seats.

The bald caps. Oh God, the bald caps. I hate them. They almost ruined Halloween.

Those things sucked. Due to poor planning and underestimation of how complicated they are, that final piece of the outfit made us nearly two hours late leaving for the parade.

You might point out that it was our own fault for not knowing what we were doing.

I respond to that by pointing out the fact that before I got my suit on, my hair and mustache made me look like Mega Man's nemesis, Dr. Wily.

I rest my case.

But finally we were able to get away and march in the parade after all.

People very much enjoyed the costume. Some didn't know who we were, but they were largely the same people who didn't get Calvin & Hobbes either.

Oach didn't get called Tigger at all this year, so we're moving up in the world.

My favorite quote from the night came right after we exited the parade route.

We were just about to remove the balcony when a woman came up to us

Her : Hey, you're those dudes from the Muppet show that talk shit!

Me: That's right.

Her: That's awesome.

(and scene)

Awesome indeed.

I hope everyone had as much fun as we did this Halloween, and maybe even more, because we got rained on and swore a whole lot before we actually got the party cranking.

Feel free to post links to pics of your costumes, I'm sure you guys did a swell job.

Take it easy folks,

Rev

Indian Summer

2009-10-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

See what I did there? It's a reference to both unseasonably warm weather and... yeah, you get it.

Happy Diwali, everybody!

Diwali is the Hindu Festival of Lights, so that means several things.

First, I went to New Jersey again.

Secondly, pyrotechnics!

Yes, if there's a way to get me to voluntarily return to New Jersey, it's promising me that I'll get the chance to blow part of it up.

Lord knows not enough of it, though...

Subastar and I decided to not drive ourselves, but instead to take New Jersey Transit. That means we did not get lost, but simply menaced and harrassed by the bums that infest the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

But they've got a statue of Ralph Kramden, so it's not all bad.

After we got to NJ we were picked up by our host for the evening. We were then informed that we had to make a quick side trip to pick up some plastic spoons and such for later on. Then came a miracle:

HOLY CRAP, JERSEY HAS WEGMANS????!!!!

I take back precisely one iteration of one negative thing I have said about New Jersey.

I was pumped about being in a Wegman's again after several years. And here's the icing on the cake:

They stocked Saranac Soft Drinks.

No, not like in that picture. That's a stop on the Saranac Brewery Tour, which I highly recommend everyone take at least once in their lifetime. In the interests of full disclosure, I have to say that the most awesomest tour guide they had no longer works there, but is instead currently typing this blog.

So naturally, I bought 3 six packs of Saranac Ginger Beer. This made me feel optimistic about both the rest of the evening and the human experience in general.

I really like Ginger Beer.

After a large dinner of very good food (of which I am tragically lacking a photo) we went to a temple to celebrate things the right way.

First, we went inside the temple proper to pay respects to Lord Krishna.

Here's the "line" to get in.

From what I was able to surmise, the correct way to celebrate Diwali is by creating a ridiculous fire hazard characterized by total lack of order and a proliferation of elbowing people in the ribs.

The utter chaos of the situation prompted me to inquire (hopefully) if this was the first time such a celebration was held at this location. It was not.

There was a shuttle bus service provided to transport people to and from the large parking lots, which showed some forethought in the organization. However, no one could be bothered to get a few yards of plastic chain.

I humbly submit the following website: http://stanchiondepot.com/

Yes, Stanchion Depot. Your one stop shop for all your stanchion needs!

Want a stanchion? Well we're the depot for you!

Stanchions!

Yeah, that word looks silly. Once inside the doorway things were not significantly better. I was not allowed to take pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it. Adding insult to injury was the sign informing me not to take pictures:

PHOTO GRAPHY
STRICKLY FORBIDDEN

I wanted to take a picture of that sign so very badly.

And finally we were outside again, ready to celebrate the noisy, burny, explody way.

And we were not alone:

It was pretty crazy. We got in on the action, setting off a fountain. In the following video, please note "The Man" trying to keep us down.

As you can see from the dude trying to get us to stop lighting things on fire, and the huge amount of room we had, that was right at the end of the time allotted for firecrackers.

After satisfying our pyrolust, it was time to look at some Rangoli.

Rangoli is a type of floor painting that uses dyed grains and foodstuffs to create brightly colored images. Google that sh*t if you don't believe me.

We went inside the tent out front that housed several works:

Lord Ganesh.

Om (with cow.)

Peacock.

Swastika (the good kind).

After that, it was time to leave. All in all, it was a good time, but my needs for personal space would like to see some changes for next year. I prefer to do my grinding on the dance floor.

Peace, Love and Wegman's to all.

Rev

2009-10-15T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!

How are you? Good, I'm glad to hear it.

First things first. Anybody want this?

'Cuz I don't.

I'm thinking of throwing it out. I don't need it anymore and it's metal, so I can't even burn it. I figured I'd offer it to you lovely people before going on craigslist and asking $50 for it.

Think that's unreasonable?

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/fuo/1422410389.html

I wonder how much they're charging for the fourth leg...

The clothing rack has served me well over the past two years, keeping clothes off the ground and generally looking pretty terrible in my closetless room. I decided to upgrade some furniture recently, and now this guy is homeless. If you or anyone you know is interested, you can leave your email and we'll work out when you can come to pick it up.

What? I'm not shipping that. Tell you what... It's got casters that can be attached. You can give me your address, and I'll take it down to the street and give it a shove in your direction.

Hooray for compromise!

"I'm Henry Clay, and I approve of this shoving."

Ok, now that business is out of the way, I can get to pleasure. Two weekends ago, I did the unthinkable.

It's time for a search engine fight! What's the first result when you search for images of "unthinkable?"

Yahoo!:

Yawn.

Google:

Visually more appealing, certainly.

and Bing:

We have a winner!

And yes, it's because of the boobs. I'm actually quite disappointed in all 3.

The unthinkable thing I did was go deep into Enemy Territory, New Jersey.

Buy this t-shirt somewhere.

I actually went to Edison, NJ and made the near fatal error of driving myself. That place blows. It is a mess of freeways and malls and Hell. Mapquest is also not in my good books for giving me vague directions that got me lost. It's tough to tell if this is Mapquest's fault or if it can all be explained by Hell's limitless ever-shifting terrain, designed to prevent souls from escaping.

I knew I should have taken the demon rocket motorcycle.

Subastar and I braved the barbarous savagery of that state to go to the Garba! You may recall my post from last year's Garba, too.

It was held in the same venue with the same performers. I went with a different crowd of people, though. Here's the ladies:

A couple of the guys:

It was pretty bumpin, like last year:

I gotta tell you, not counting security and police, there were twice as many white guys as there were last year.

Of course, by that I mean I saw one who was not my reflection.

I had quickly won the Indians over to my side by awing them with my ability to eat green chili peppers at dinner before we got to the Garba. I further cemented my new rep with some mad dance skillz.

An unfortunate facial expression, surely. But I was groovin'.

I quickly followed that up with some moves that appear in every Bollywood movie ever made.

All of them.

By this time I was exhausted, and had to refresh myself with an ice cold Pepsi.

Pepsi: Refresh Everything.

I have not been paid by Pepsi to say these things. I would accept payment, however. In the form of cash, or simply in sweet, delicious Pepsi Cola.

Back to the dancing:

Subastar is an old pro, quite literally. Again, she grew up in Bombay with it's giant Garbas full of bright colors, twirling dancers, and horrible, horrible paan.

NEVER EAT THIS.

So she was in her element, getting dressed up with as many pins as possible (as is the fashion in Bombay) and twirling away at an alarming rate:

On the way in, I also saw a potential employment opportunity.

It says right on my resume that my range includes 'American girl of Pakistani/Persian origin.'

But seriously, if any Bollywood bigshots are reading this blog, I want to be a Bollywood villain. I'm perfect for the dickish American who is trying to buy the land, or foreclose the mortgage, or lure the protagonist away from his/her home with a lucrative job offer in America, or any of the other evil stuff we do in those films.

And hey, I got the dancing down:

Peace out, folks.

Rev

PS - Happy Diwali!

Invisible Dog Walking

2009-10-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys,

See if you can spot Subastar and me in this video from Improv Everywhere!

Fun!

Rev

2009-09-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

Hello. How was your Labor Day? Good? I hope so. I spent mine at the New York Aquarium, and that's what I want to talk about right now.

Because I'm a member of the Wildlife Conservation Society, I get free access to the New York Aquarium, which is awesome. So why haven't I blogged about this before? It may have something to do with the fact that the Aquarium is located at Coney Island. To get there I take the N train from one end of the track to the other.

The route looks like this:

"Holding the doors open delays this train, as well as all the trains in the hemisphere."

The moral of the story is I don't go to Coney Island a lot. So I had to make this trip count. Subastar was there too, as seen in this picture with Wilford Brimley:

DIABEETUS.

So after several decades of hardship and toil, the train arrived and we approached our objective:

I was a little nervous about entering because, as everyone knows, every resident of the Ocean has no greater aspiration than to kill the surface world.

Yes, even the ones with wings on their ankles. ESPECIALLY them.

Gathering my courage, I went in and immediately came face to face with the enemy.

All he does is swim and dream of murder.

Ok, maybe that one isn't so bad. But how about this guy?

Yeah, that's right.

"Hi!"

And feeding time was something else, too.

Vicious.

But the whole day wasn't all about sharks. There were many other denizens of the deep. Some of them were downright cute. Cute in the way that they're tiny and couldn't possibly hurt me, even though they're straining with all of their willpower to do so.

Like this little guy:

Seahorses always look incredibly nervous to me. I never know why.

Of course, at the other end of the spectrum are the sea creatures that will cause you extreme pain even though they lack the brain capacity to form coherent thoughts.

I should have been more specific...

I was actually talking about jellyfish.

The Aquarium had a special installation devoted exclusively to jellyfish and their millions of stinging cells. It was nice, and I managed to snap several pretty neat photos:

Mrs. Rev was stung by a jellyfish a few days before these pictures were taken. Bastard jellyfish.

Other neat photos include this one:

and this one:

If I had a nickel for every time a child shouted "Nemo!" at this fish, I would have enough nickels to put in a sock and effectively menace those children.

Next, we headed outside to the Touch Tank (giggle), where Subastar got the chance to molest a horseshoe crab.

"Don't pretend you don't like it"

We saw a penguin feeding too!

This was, unsurprisingly, much calmer than the shark feeding. Basically the penguins waited patiently until the woman shoved a fish or two down their throats and then turned away when they felt they had had enough. It was all very orderly. Polite, even.

"May I see the wine list, please?"

My favorite part, however, was an uninvited guest who witnessed the free fish distribution and wanted to get in on the action.

"I'mapenguinI'mapenguinI'mapenguinI'mapenguin..."

Of course he was turned away, as the dining room requires formal wear.

Badoom-Ching!

The real stars of the day were the sea lions, though.

Yes, say hello.

There was a big sea lion performance with lots of neat tricks and flips and such.

"No pictures!"

I like sea lions. To me, they seem to be fishy, 300-pound dogs with flippers.

Flipperpuppies, if I may coin a term.

And so after the show, Subastar and I signed up for a more up-close meet and greet with one of the sea lions. Here's Duke:

He did a few neat tricks for us, blew on a whistle and dispensed fashion advice.

"Psst... You might want to reconsider the pink shirt, given your naturally pale/pinkish skin tone"

And the best part was, he gave us both kisses!

The romance of the smooch was lessened by watching Duke gulp down a whole raw fish between each kiss. It was scratchy and smelled like sushi. I've had worse, though.

So thank you, Duke for the lovely afternoon, and for not biting my face off.

After Subastar and I bid farewell to the Aquarium, we wandered around the boardwalk at Coney Island for a little bit, and bought some street food. Subastar is without fear as far as, shall we say "unlicensed delicacies" are concerned. She grew up having her stomach strengthened at the roadside stalls of Bombay, India. She's got to have developed some sort of gastronomic superpowers as a result.

Oh, Matter Eater Lad, I still hate you.

Even with that extra confidence, we stuck with things we could readily identify and of which we could observe the preparation:

Mango!

and

Corn!

Being thus fed we thanked Coney Island for its hospitality and not giving us tetanus and jumped on the train to head back to civilization (temporarily for Subastar, she unfortunately lives in Jersey).

I had the presence of mind to time the ride back all the way up the N line, and I was home in a scant hour and 35 minutes. It's ok, I had a book.

I think that about does it for my Aquarium adventure. Hope you guys had a good time.

Peace out,

Rev

My Vacation: Part Two, but really one because this happened first.

2009-09-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

Hello again.

Despite the length of the last entry, I am not out of vacation pictures to share with you folks. Don't worry, I won't talk more of hiking (though I do have several videos and dozens more pictures and it was awesome) but instead will talk about what happened earlier on my vacation.

Kaz and Zippy getting married?

Nah.

Well, sure, it happened:

Mr. and Mrs. Kaz, or Mr. and Mrs. Zippy? The polls are open.

And we here at With Great Blogging Comes Great Responsibility love them both dearly and certainly wish them well, but as for varied and colorful pictures and an all day narrative, I'm gonna have to go with the roller coaster park.

(sigh) OK, regular readers of this blog: let's just assume for simplicity's sake that that is a picture of a wholesome family and that the father is wearing pants. Moving on.

Yes, -2 and special guests headed to Sandusky Ohio in search of thrills, chills and hour long waits amidst long lines of Midwesterners.

This ride was open, and then it closed and the majority of the line left. 10 minutes later, it reopened. -2 wins again.

But there I go getting ahead of myself again. Rewind to late the night before, when our weary travelers arrive at Cedar Point's hotel. We collapse into fitful, excited sleep as children do on the the night before Christmas.

Also as children do, we made Jesse sleep on the floor.

Definition of wariness: the girl on the right, dangerously close to -2.

Having been guests of Cedar Point, we got the bonus of having an extra hour's access to the park, before all the other people were allowed in. Here's what that looked like:

I think the husky kid in the muscle shirt is confused.

Oh yes, cast of characters. In addition to Jesse and Kyle, Casey and Michael rocked the house.

Casey (in yellow): Hey, why don't we get nicknames?
Michael (in purple): Yeah, what the Hell?

You may recognize them from past adventures such as 4th of July, 2009.

As soon as we got in the gates we made a dash for the Millenium Force. My word. For some reason as I'm typing this, the best descriptive phrase I have for the Millenium Force is "a big, beautiful blue bitch of a roller coaster."

I'm gonna go with it.

We were understandably excited about the prospect of riding this sucker. According to the official page, it boasts a 300 foot vertical drop and speeds of approximately 92 MPH.

Photoshop contest begins now.

It was amazing. It was and remains my favorite roller coaster, probably of life. Here's a little taste for you:

Now just imagine me next to you doing an incredible impression of a Betsy Wetsy doll. It was fantastic.

Next up was another ride that was also crazy fun. The Top Thrill Dragster.

That tower is 420 feet tall. That is the car near the apex.

This ride is interesting, as it's not really a roller coaster. Basically it is that tower with a length of track leading to it and away from it.

You sit in the car, get strapped in and then are shot towards the tower, reaching approximately 120 MPH. The car goes to the top of the tower and straight down again, and then the ride is over.

The good news is that you're accelerated from 0 to 120 in four seconds.

The bad news is that the ride lasts a total of 17 seconds.

For me, that's a short enough span of time to convince myself that it was all a dream.

Thank GOD!

Exhilarating, but over way too fast. Story of my life.

We went on a bunch of other rides, too.

The Power Tower, besides being a dynamite euphemism, is also a thrill ride (giggle) at Cedar Point. And it looks like, well:

Winner of the 1998 Most Blatantly Phallic Attraction Award!

With the Power Tower you get the choice of being launched up from the bottom, or being slowly raised to the top and dropped down. Choose the second one. It's far more terrifying. The suspense involved in dangling your legs 240 feet off the ground before it drops you to the earth completely takes your mind off the fact that the ride is a giant steel wang.

We went on the park's two wooden roller coasters, the Mean Streak and the Gemini. We also went on one of the newer (and awesome) coasters, the Maverick.

No...

The Maverick is a coaster that throws you around a lot. You get up to about 70 MPH and it has all sorts of twists and turns and a fantastic warning on Cedar Point's webpage:

"May not accommodate Guests of Exceptional Size."

But alas, as seems to be a theme on this vacation, the rains came.

It started drizzling on us as we were in line for the Mantis. We ended up waiting an hour and 15 minutes total in that line. The rain let up just enough for them to send a half dozen carloads of riders through, and we made it just in time.

Because then it really started raining.

Fortunately for all involved we were able to find some shelter and watch people stream towards the exit. Also, as evidenced by our camping trip, a little rain does not bother us in the least. There were some rides that were still operating, regardless of precipitation, so we went on those.

For example, The Wicked Twister:

A cool ride made cooler because you can pretend it's part of a giant Unicorn.

You start in the middle, shoot up in one direction, then fall back and go up the other spiral. Rinse and repeat.

Also, in the heaviest rain we hid in a sheltered area that housed a game of skill/chance. In this game, the prizes were all Zippo lighters. You had to try to push them off the playing field into a slot to win the lighter. I had several quarters and so gave everyone a chance to win. None of us did.

The real entertainment started when a young man came along and decided that he HAD to have one of those lighters. He tried his had a few times, then called in the big guns: his Dad.

Damn you, NASCAR lighter. Stop taunting me!!!

This started out as entertaining, then amusing, then uncomfortable, then downright sad as the man tried time and time again to win one of those lighters, and by extension, the love of his son.

He went through probably five or six bucks, one quarter at a time before he came to his senses and realized the only things that kid needed a Zippo for were to:

1) Start smoking and accidentally burn the house down
2) Look cool in front of his buddies and accidentally burn the house down

or

C) Straight up burn the house down.

They went on to seek their fortunes elsewhere, and so did we.

Our fortunes came in the form of the maXair.

As shiny and neat as this color-enhanced promotional photo looks, it's even cooler to ride in the rain.

I was seated between Kyle and a loud girl who asserted at points on the ride that she was falling out (she wasn't) and that she was going to die (she didn't).

Other than my eardrums being screamed out, another wonderful thing happened as we were on the maXair: It stopped raining.

As soon as the giant rotating pendulum stopped, we unbuckled ourselves and ran off to ride our favorite coasters again.

It was a long and eventful day into night, and we took one last serene look around the park from the top of the Power Tower at all the neon and other lights twinkling on the shore of Lake Erie.

"Thank you, Cedar Point" I thought, "for a lovely day."

And then it dropped us screaming to earth.

See you around, folks

-Rev

P.S.

Dolphin Shirt!

So, almost September, huh?

2009-08-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been a few weeks, and I'm sorry to make you wait that long to hear my soothing, melodic voice inside your head. You're listening to it now, even as you read this. Go ahead, make it say seductive things. I won't tell anyone. Oh yeah.

"Now you're hearing my voice, baby. You know I love you, girl."

There, now you should be too creeped out to be really mad about the lack of posts. And come on, that Chuck E Cheese Stripper picture had to have earned me a little bit of a break. That stuff is gold.

Believe it or not, I didn't post last week because I was on vacation. Yes, I actually do have a job, and my life isn't 100% running around collecting blog fodder. It's more of a 15% blog fodder, 84% wishing I was collecting blog fodder, 0.5% actual work and 0.5% homeostasis.

So I took some time off from that hectic schedule and did several things that you might just hear about coming up. -2 got back together and went to a wedding and the roller coaster park Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.

Roller coasters are awesome.

But more about that later. This post I am going to dedicate to the three days at the end of the week I like to call:

I'm very sad I don't have theme music to play with that. Ah well, we live and learn.

Oach and FH and I went on a three day backpacking trip in the Adirondacks with Oach's dad.

In a rare candid moment, I'm going to drop the pseudonyms for a little bit, because some people might get confused. Chances are if you're a regular reader of this blog you know that Oach's real name is Kyle Camping, director and editor extraordinaire. If you're not a regular reader of this blog, you're unlikely to care either way. As for FH, I'm just going to call him Jesse because that's his name and I confuse myself easily. I will still be Rev, just because that is how I naturally self-identify. Together we are -2, wreakers of havoc and all around silly people.

So let's get to the trip. Kyle and Jesse had never climbed an Adirondack High Peak, and it's been a while since my parents forced me up one at gunpoint, so we decided that we should polish one or two off over a weekend. You know, for fun.

And you know, if a High Peak is fun, then why not go balls out and tackle Mt. Marcy, the highest point in New York State?

I found this incredibly useful map that shows you where Mount Marcy is in relation to Albany, Stittville and Emmanuel Lewis.

So we got our gear all packed up and headed off into the wilderness.

Here's Jesse with his pack on:

Kyle with his:

and me with mine:

"Never let them see you cry..."

Once we were burdened thusly, it was just a quick 6 mile jog in towards Lake Colden, where we were hoping to find an open lean-to.

Piece of cake.

Two point something miles in, we came to the scenic and lovely Marcy Dam.

.

I was feeling good up through this point. Just four more miles to the campsite, through a place called Avalanche Pass.

By the way, if you're ever having a pleasant conversation with my mother, and would like to have it turn ugly, ask her about Avalanche Pass. Boy does she have a story for you.

Things were going along just fine, my new hiking boots were protecting my feet, the pack was well balanced.

And then the rains came.

Just as we reached Avalanche Pass (and Avalanche Lake) it started raining on us. This wouldn't be too worrisome, except that the trail decided to also change. Rather, it went from being a well-worn (if somewhat muddy) footpath to a ridiculous scramble over large rocks, up and down wildly assembled and slippery wooden ladders, and around sheer rock faces on suspended catwalks known as 'Hitch Up Matildas.'

This isn't my picture. I was slightly distracted and opted not to take out my camera in the pouring rain while standing on a slippery rock over a lake. Source: adirondackhikes.blogspot.com

But finally lady luck decided to smile down upon our muddy, wet, miserable little group. The first lean-to we came upon at Lake Colden was unoccupied, and we moved right in out of the rain.

Home sweet three-walled cabin thingy.

We were also fortunate because our temporary domicile had a spectacular view of Lake Colden.

Pretty nice.

Mr. Camping brought along a water filter pump, so we could refill our bottles without loads of bacteria and leeches, which I think is a good thing.

Oh, where are my manners? Let me introduce Mr. Camping to you.

Everyone, this is Mr. Camping. Mr. Camping, this is a motley collection of friends, family, acquaintances and at least two people who have found my blog by searching bing.com for "motorcyle homoerotic."

Mr. Camping is probably the reason Jesse, Kyle and I are alive through this ordeal. Though that sort of makes him responsible for all the awful things we will do in the future, we thank him, even if the world doesn't.

Yes, Mr. Camping is awesome at camping. He's a supreme outdoorsman and all around great guy. It's sort of a chicken-or-the-egg question though, and you can't help but wonder if his surname didn't have some sort of impact on his choice of hobbies.

Philosophical debates aside, he is one of the most appropriately named people ever.

Except for this guy, of course.

Fast forward, we lay out all of our soggy things to pretend to dry, eat some dehydrated food and lock all of our food in bear canisters to hide them away from Jesse.

At this point I'll mention the single most disappointing fact of the trip. Campfires are banned at this particular camping area. Aaah! No Fires! No Fires at all! Aaaaaah!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Ok, let's calm down, breathe and scroll down a little bit so we don't have to look at that picture anymore.

...

...

...

...

Right. So no fire means we were largely unable to dry any of our wet gear, so anything that got rained on remained damp throughout the next two days. This included our hiking boots. That made us sad. But we had shelter, and that made us happy.

The next day we woke up, got our soggy boots on, and switched to lighter packs for the ascent of Mount Marcy. I took this moment to strike an adventurer pose.

This may have to become my facebook profile picture soon.

And we were off. Right away we were confronted by, and survived, the Lake Colden Bridgekeeper.

Ancient Assyria had two capitals: Ninevah and Assur.

We crossed a really fun suspension bridge, too.

Then began the grueling ascent up muddy rocks and streambeds. Mr. Camping set the pace pretty much the entire time, putting us to shame and skittering like a spider with his hiking poles.

Once or twice I thought I heard him wonder out loud whether it would even be worth hunting us for sport when this was all over.

We eventually took a break at Lake Tear of the Clouds, which is the highest source of the Hudson River.

This is also where Vice President Teddy Roosevelt was when he learned that President William McKinley had been assassinated. History comes alive!

Mount Marcy has two main paths that reach the summit. The first goes straight from Marcy Dam, and is very popular amongst day hikers. This is the one that I took with the rest of the Revs the first time I went up. The route that we took last weekend is commonly referred to as "the back way."

My point is, if you think that I had any shortage of delight regarding "taking Marcy up the back way," then you clearly don't get me at all.

I was hiking along, giggling like a schoolgirl even before Mr. Camping announced "All right, just one more big push."

A further burst of immature laughter, and then I quickly sobered when I saw what that really meant.

This crazy rock scramble drained most of my will to live.

But we made it!

And then the rains came. Again.

But then they stopped.

And we decided to also summit Gray Peak.

Gray Peak is exciting because whereas the back way up Marcy (giggle) is steep and poorly maintained (giggle), Gray Peak doesn't have a real trail at all.

You can see where people had gone before, but there was a lot of rock climbing and prayer involved. On the plus side, the sun was out for a few minutes.

At one point, Kyle foresaw his own death.

Apparently a 30-foot drop to sharp rocks and branches is one of his "turnoffs."

But we were triumphant, and reached the summit in time to see a fresh batch of storm clouds roll in.

And so began the trek back down to the lean-to. In the rain.

We arrived there soggy, battered and fundamentally scarred on an emotional level.

Huzzah!

One solid night's sleep later, and it was time to leave our lean-to with its assortment of Crystal Lite-craving Bears, Rape-eager Unicorns and Larry Byrd.

Shouldering our heavy burdens once more, we bid farewell to Lake Colden and trudged away on feet that functioned only because we believed they would.

We took a break again at Marcy Dam.

Crystal Lite and Clif Bars are our friends.

And the final 2.1 miles were a blur. Our relief to be back on relatively flat, well-maintained trails and our anticipation of driving home led to an abrupt increase in speed, and we nearly sprinted down the trail, gleefully oblivious of the protests of weary legs and joints.

And suddenly, we were out. Success! No broken bones, no blisters, no permanent injuries. Granted, we all smelled like homeless people, but it was the good kind of homeless people smell. The one that you don't notice, because it's you, and not some homeless person.

Jesse triumphant:

Kyle triumphant:

Rev triumphant:

Boots, officially broken in:

So thanks again, Mr. Camping for guiding us through that. Never again will we do something like that without guarantees of a campfire.

That was our Adirondack adventure, everyone. Hope you had a good time reading it, and I'll leave you with this picture of flowers that I took:

Pretty.

Peace out, folks.

Rev

Subastar Birthday Part 2: First we sing, then we dance!

2009-08-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm back. If you haven't read the last post, it might help for continuity's sake. Otherwise, whateva. We had just finished up at Karaoke night with a blistering rendition of the murderously over-requested Journey great, Don't Stop Believin'.

So then we went to Dave and Buster's. If you've never been, let me sum up. It's a place with a lot of arcade games and skee ball and a bar. You can win tickets and spend them at the store for stuffed animals and shot glasses and such. It's pretty much Chuck E Cheese's for adults.

"This cost soooo many tickets..."

Ok, maybe it's not for adults, but at least the 21-and-over crowd that grew up with/in video arcades. A lot of people enjoy going and being overstimulated by the blinking lights and loud noises and neon and such. I give it about 45 minutes before I start having a panic attack and need to get out. I have to have some fresh air and space from the flashing screens of those revenants that don't realize video arcades went extinct in 1996.

Not extinct, really, just irrelevant. With home video game technology coming out like the Playstation, what's the point of pumping quarters, really? And so, all over the world, people left the sweaty, dank arcades where they would play video games together for the safer climes of their sweaty, dank basements where they would play video games alone.

Ok, not all over the world, I guess. I forgot about Japan. How do I ever forget about Japan?

Fact: Japan's #1 export is incredulity.

I really am coming back to a point, believe me. As diverting as Dean and Brewster's is to wander around by itself, we had another more specific goal in mind.

Dance.

Dance.

Revolution.

The unholiest of grails.

Fact: DDR (as the kids call it) is Japan's #4 export, behind transport equipment and tentacle rape.

Yes, we went to Diane and Betty's partially for all the other games and such, but mostly for the Dance Dance Revolution machine.

This was due in large part to my fear of the machine and a previous (most likely drunken) boast that I would play DDR on Subastar's birthday.

"What? That's months away! I'll agree to anything!"

Unfortunately I later realized that time has a nasty habit of relentlessly marching onward.

At least I wasn't alone. Subastar, Oach and I were all largely unfamiliar with this recreational oddity.

Woot was more at ease with it, but still a beginner.

Jwoot, though...

Jwoot...

Holy Stereotype, Batman.

warning: the sound is terrible on this video.

Dance Dance Revolution from therevspecial on Vimeo.

As it turns out, JWoot holds several high scores on DDR machines throughout the NYC area, and is a minor celebrity in a specific, small and slightly sad segment of the population.

Here's Oach's and my reaction to the performance:

"That's insane! Good thing we have beer!"

After watching his performance, the ice was broken, as I knew that no matter how I performed I would be considered a failure after that. It was a freeing experience.

I played three rounds, against three challengers:

DDR doubles as a silly face generator.

After we were done there we played a few other games.

We all played about with a racing game. Here's Subastar, "driving."

I was racing against her and won handily by approximately a lap and a half. Based on the rest of the group's observations of her skills, we presume there exists a support group in Bombay titled "Mercilessly Run Down in the Streets By Subastar Anonymous"

Next week's MRDSBSA meeting will discuss how to petition the USA to prevent her ever applying for a driver's license over here.

JWoot and Oach decided to kill some Zombies, while I watched and cheered them on, because Eph Zombies, man. Eph them all to H.

JWoot: The proper response to the undead is stoicism. And Uzis.

Perhaps more noteworthy than the game itself was what we found on the table right next to it. A couple had abandoned their novelty photos taken on 42nd street. Oach and I were willing to give them a new home.

The Magic of Love.

Oach and I were very excited about the prospect of hanging these pictures on our wall and not giving any answers to our guests when they ask about them.

That's a normal reaction, right?

But adoption is one thing, and theft is another, so we decided to take a lap around the floor and see if we could spot the happy couple. If yes, we would remind them that they had neglected their precious moments, and if no, we would take them and giggle all the way home.

We had finished our circuit with no sign of the dynamic duo.

"Yes!" I exclaimed, "We're going to be able to - dammit, there they are."

So yeah, we learned some lessons at Debby and Bianca's.

1) JWoot has an incredibly specific skill set that would end up saving the world if we lived in an 80s Sci-Fi film.

2) You should never let Subastar drive anything, ever. Not even a hard bargain.

C) Oach and I are, deep down, actually fairly decent people.

I'll let you decide which of those lessons is the most disappointing.

Peace out folks, and Happy Birthday again to Subastar

Rev

PS - she LOVES Harry Potter

Happy Birthday Subastar, Let's Make You Wish You Were Deaf.

2009-07-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

Yes it was indeed Subastar's birthday on Monday, and to celebrate we got up to some silliness on Saturday night.

By silliness I mean producing heart-explodingly awful shrieks of soul-castrating noise that I previously believed could only be made by a Banshee forced to watch the films of Ashton Kutcher.

And by that I mean Karaoke.

Now, those of you unfortunate enough to have seen the video evidence left from Oach and my last turn at such a project, rest assured that there will be no video of similar nonsense this go-around.

As for the rest of you, who have presumably never actively sought out an ice pick lobotomy, you can find the motivation to do so HERE.

It was actually a rather sane gathering. Instead of a bar with randoms and chaos and horrible waitresses who didn't know how to put together a bill like last time, we got a karaoke suite for our party of six people.

It was basically a padded cell like you would find in any insane asylum, except that the locks on the doors weren't as effective and demands for beer actually result in someone bringing you beer.

Here's me with the Birthday girl:

I was singing, I think she was just excited. I doubt those two facts had anything to do with each other.

I did get her a nice shirt for her birthday, which many people have agreed is pretty damn near perfect for her.

I'm sure I'm going to pay for this someday.

But where are my manners? I must introduce the rest of the players in this butchery of the musical world.

Myself and Oach you know, unless this is your first visit to my fair blog, in which case welcome, and I'll wait while you read my other 140 posts leading up to this one...

All set? Cool. You now know a lot more about me than I know about you. Right, Oach and Me.

We're delightful and not even drunk yet.

Woot! Has been featured once or twice as well. She's acquired a ducky paper plate since the last time we've seen her, evidently:

Also on hand was her brother, JWoot!

He's very mysterious.

AllDone was the last to arrive, LATE. We chided her for such behavior, and I think she took our constructive criticism to heart.

Or not.

Anyway, it was a good time with dancing

Cake that I made

And songs that spanned many decades and ran from brilliant to just awful.

This one is brilliant.

We laughed, we cried, we learned a few things.

1) We learned that the only lyrics to 'This is How We Do It' by Montel Jordan that anyone knows are "this is how we do it."

2) We learned that AllDone is a musical theater fetishist, and is basically two Chenoweths stacked on top of each other, like how other midgets would try to get into movies.

Wow. That's not at all what I meant.

C) Everyone else learned that I can sing all of Mambo #5 flawlessly without looking at the screen. We all have our secret shames.

Mine is that I own this album.

After the karaoke split up, we headed over to Dave and Buster's, but unfortunately all that happened there and the lessons we learned is a story for another time.

G'night folks,

Rev

Boilermaker 2009

2009-07-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello,

Yes, the rumors you've been hearing are true. Last week I completed the Boilermaker Road Race for the 3rd time. Hat Trick Baby!

Yeah... I don't know what that is, either. I just typed "hat trick" into Google's image search and this is the first result. Let's see how Bing does:

Well, this seems to be a little more on target with the whole "making sense" thing.

What do you have for us, Yahoo?

Ephing YES! That's more like it!

Maybe I should use Yahoo more often...

Getting back to the point, three down. Oach, Subastar and I made the trek to Utica last weekend for this grand spectacle. I was in some doubt as to whether or not I would be successful in my latest attempt at the 15 kilometer (9.3 miles for those of you who hate the metric system) race. Mostly because I hadn't trained properly.

I blame two things:

Shin Splints

Maybe not so much the pretty lady part, though.

and

Laziness

I don't really have a pool. I just couldn't resist this picture.

Long story short, I approached the race with an uneasy feeling. But in all honesty, the race was secondary to what the weekend was all about. Dr. Rev and K'May were running as well, and Lt. Rev and family were down too.

It was a big reunion of the Revenawesome family.

First Utica, then a nap, then... THE WORLD!

A.Rev has gotten big, and learned a few words and is as adorable as a stack of puppies romping with an otterpile.

Here's A.Rev playing with Grandma Rev.

Much of the trip consisted of watching her run around, laugh at Oach and say "no!" whenever you asked her questions. A.Rev was fun, too.

Then, inevitably, the morning of the race came. I felt pretty good. I had loaded up on carbs the night before with my Mom's delicious lasagna. I had mentally prepped myself by hurling verbal abuse at the mirror every morning. Most importantly, I had purchased a sweet new shirt to run in. Check it out:

Yep, REVHS Competitive Eating. I couldn't not show that off.

Basically the only thing I didn't do was run long distances consistently over an extended period of time in order to prepare my body for a rigorous 9.3 mile endurance test.

No biggie.

As I mentioned before, I wasn't the only one who ran.

That's Curly, yours truly, K'May and Dr. Rev.

Curly had promised to run with me, and sympathized with my shin splint pain because he had somehow banged up his knee, presumably whilst playing lacrosse.

K'May is on another running plane of existence altogether, having run several marathons and Dr. Pete is no slouch, either (for a jerkface).

Oach and Subastar went with the remaining Revs to their traditional cheering area, about 5 miles or so into the race.

I enjoy this picture of them.

While waiting for us folks to pass by, Subastar took the opportunity to make sure A.Rev becomes a loyal fan of doughnuts and coffee for the rest of her life without really knowing why.

She'll probably just think it's because her Dad's a cop.

Then they saw K'May and Dr. Pete.

Of course the shirt came off. Of course.

Some time later Curly and I arrived.

I believe I'm trying to say "Woo!" at this point.

So wish I had a picture of the back of Curly's head, because that's all I saw of him shortly after this picture was taken. I think he'd be disappointed if I didn't bitch about this just a little, so here goes.

Apparently our definition of "running with someone" varies greatly. I generally think that it should imply starting at the same time, finishing at the same time, and generally running near each other for motivational support, pointing out acquaintances and the occasional filthy joke/look at that person moment.

Curly took a different approach, and when I veered to a water station to keep myself hydrated/motivated, he got a little ahead and then I lost sight of him completely around mile 6.

We still finished together though, so it was fine. Oh wait, no. He finished 14 minutes before I did.

I don't want to be dramatic, so I'll just say that in Dante's Inferno, there's a special circle of Hell in set aside for such behavior.

PS: it's the lowest one (9th).

Not to be dramatic or anything.

"I don't know where he is, I ditched him when he started crying."

But I suppose I gave away the ending with that rant. Yes, I did finish. I survived it in one hour thirty six minutes and thirty six seconds. That put me just out of the money in 8,353rd place.

And then came the beer, and all was forgiven:

Champions! Wait, we picked up another cow print shirt on the way... ah well.

Of course, A.Rev was absolutely riveted by the spectacle.

Catch you later, folks.

Rev

Happy Birthday, America!

2009-07-09T17:14:00.001-07:00

Rather, happy conception day. Hmmm... now that I think about it, it would be a strange world indeed in which people celebrate the day they were conceived rather than born. I suppose it would lead to a lot of vague approximate celebrations, or an increase in banners reading:

"Happy to-be-honest-I-was-so-drunk-I-

thought-your-mother-was-her-sister Day."

The cake says "It was pretty win-win, actually."

I get that it's the Declaration of Independence, and that took the smartest guys we had using the power of their huge Balls to tell the King just where he could stick his tea, but there's plenty of other milestones. And who doesn't need an excuse to party?

We don't really go nuts over the ratification of the Constitution, though I use it as an excuse to get drunk every June 21st. This goes along with getting drunk celebrating the Articles of Confederation on March 1st, and from January 16th, when the 18th Amendment started Prohibition, through December 5th, when the 21st Amendment ended it.

Unless there's a fraternity pledge in that hole, this is a terrible thing.

I'm pretty sure I had a point to all this... oh yes, I was to tell you what I did over the weekend of the 4th of July. Well good news! It was a lot of fun.

Oach and I were visited by our old college roomie. I just had to look back in time to a previous visit to find out that on this blog I call him FH, for Former Housemate. It's tough keeping track of the nicknames sometimes. Anyway, here they are, looking appropriately crazed.

This was on Friday, when we went to Ellis Island. I was excited about this because despite living in NYC for nearly three years, the last time I visited Ellis Island was a sixth grade bus trip from Whitesboro. So back I went.

Here's FH inside of the main building:

And here's Oach, pretending he knows how to read:

And this is my favorite picture of the day:

Nice.

But as I said, that was Friday. On July 4th itself, we went to the Central Park Zoo!

Penguins!!!!!

Red Panda!!!

Polar Bears!!!

But we all know that the zoo was really just foreplay for what the 4th of July is all about. Fireworks and silly hats.

What? No silly hats?

Communist.

Anyway, to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Henry Hudson blah blah blah the city of New York, along with Macy's, decided to hold the fireworks on the Hudson River this year instead of on the East River, where they're supposed to be. My attitude on this is colored by the fact that I live on the banks of the East River and also by the fact that I hate New Jersey.

Anyway, our crew headed over to 12th Avenue, which was a designated fireworks watching place thingy. We were right at 47th street, up about a block from the Intrepid.

Our crew consisted of me, Oach, FH, Subastar, FH's brother and his boyfriend.

We picked out a nice spot around 5:30 - 6:00 and sat to wait. Subastar and I held down the fort while the others foraged for food.

Holding down the fort.

In that picture you get a good look at the scar on my chin, that I got in a knife fight in which my wrist was tied to my opponent's.

Wait, that was the music video for Beat It.

Anyhow, it was pretty crowded over there.

This is the scene about 3 hours before the fireworks were scheduled to go off. Note the huge amount of sunlight.

People were getting there early because they didn't know what to expect, now that the fireworks were on the wrong side of the island. Regardless of what they expected, what they found was a huge lack of planning and a lot of cops with no real command structure, method of communication and only the vaguest of instructions to work with.

The blocks along 12th Ave were split up by fences. Once the police determined a block was full enough, they closed the fences, keeping people from entering or leaving. There were a few problems with this.

1) They did not tell anyone they would be doing this.

2) When they decided that our block was full, Oach and FH and company were still getting food for us.

C) There were no restrooms inside OR outside the cordoned area.

Thousands of families with small children + No bathrooms + a three hour wait before the fireworks went off = lots of unhappy people.

From my bladderly mighty perspective, the big problem was that it took 45 minutes to beg, plead and cajole the NYPD into letting my four friends back into the space that they had claimed 90 minutes prior. But I succeeded.

I must be one charming son of a gun. That or a mid-20's straight white male who approaches law enforcement officials with politeness and deference. Either way (both), I'm awesome and we all got to sit together.

And we had lots of food.

Really long wait, lots of crowding and don't even get me started on that Chinese family behind Oach and Subastar in that picture.

Still totally worth it.

And no, those aren't reflections. From our vantage point, we could see the fireworks from all six barges in the Hudson. It was great, and a fantastic way to end the day celebrating the Declaration of Independence.

Except that wasn't the end. We went back to the Troll House and had a silly hat party till 5 AM.

Happy 4th of July, Everybody!

Rev

Celebrity Sighting!

2009-06-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Brief but important update.

One thing I love about living in NYC is the celebrity sighting. Just walking down the street, you get an odd feeling that you know that guy/gal, and why is he so familiar? As is often the case with me, the pieces fall together after you're several paces past the time when you could say something without looking like a total spaz.

All that is left is to bug your eyes and do a doubletake in the style of a Tex Avery Cartoon.

This exactly what I did when I saw Droopy in Columbus Circle.

Sightings of mine include:

Peter Dinklage

Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Oscar the Grouch. Surprisingly polite, actually.

Mary Louise Parker. I nearly had a heart attack this time, because I love her.

But not as much as:

Elizabeth Stamatina Fey.

So yeah, I've had a good run.

But I got one more to add to the list on Monday. I was heading from my place of employ to a class I'm taking about Comedy writing for TV.

I was just about to go underground to wait for a train when my Spidey-sense started tingling.

I was looking at a middle aged man with a salt and pepper beard and couldn't place him for .034 seconds. Then it hit me. Every available detail about his life in my vast cinematic trivial library head except his name.

ARGH. Come on Brain, think. Nikita, Leon, Mission: Impossible, Godzilla, Ronin, Pink Panther, Da Vinci Code, for the love of God, he's the only french actor anyone has ever heard of (No, not Gerard Depardieu).

I would feel foolish approaching this man and fan-geeking out without being able to adress him properly, so I let the moment pass. Then I stood on the platform for another few minutes. It was when I stepped through the doors onto the train that my neurons finally aligned and the name hit me.

JEAN RENO

So cool.

Ok, fine. I'm probably more excited by that than anyone reading this (except maybe Honus), but the man is awesome.

That's all I had to say. It was actually longer than I expected.

Jean Reno.

Bangarang.

Rev

Czech yourself before you wreck yourself

2009-06-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago I had a dream that a foul-smelling homeless woman I saw in the Port Authority Bus Terminal crashed my family's tractor into our next-door-neighbor's car. My family has no tractor.

This is my brain.

Another blog post so soon after the previous? Has he lost his mind?

Clearly, I have. Also, the sad truth of it is that I have 8 pages to write for a class I'm taking on Monday, and this blog has become a way of procrastinating on that.

Did I say procrastinate? I meant warm-up exercise...

And so I decided to write a little summary of a fantastic place with much history that is within staggering distance of the Troll-house of myself and Oach.

The Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden in Astoria, NY (a warning, their website appears to be several decades old).

Go ahead, Google it or Bing it if you like. Yes, I said Bing it. No way that's going to catch on. I recommend people use Bing for its superior video search, but there's no competing with googlemaps for your real world needs.

Anyway, many of the recent online reviews of the Garden are getting to be rather lukewarm, and deservedly so. For some reason they've tried to implement table service, which (big breath)

SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS.

I love you, Beer Garden, I really do. But relationships are built on honesty, and you need to hear this.

In the same league:

I told you, Brady. Never getting tired.

Anyway, the waiter service at the beer garden is the pits. The absolute worst. The very nature of the Beer Garden is chaotic, with people grabbing tables willy-nilly and shuffling about. Throwing a handful of waiters and busboys that don't speak English is not going to be an improvement.

Basically it took all the charm of the beer garden, and added cold food and insanely long waits.

"any sign of those curly fries?"

That being said, why the Hell would you go to a Beer Garden in search of something to eat?

Here's a few shots of a visit:

Oach: I give it thumbs down because of the slow waitresses!
Rev: I give it thumbs up, because I know they can't possibly outrun me!

We're smiling because we haven't started playing pitch yet.

For those of you not from Central New York, wikipedia has this to say:

Pitch (also known as Setback) is a card game played with a standard 52-card deck. It is a popular variation of All fours (also known as High-Low Jack) which may be played by three to seven players. Pitch involves bidding and trick-taking, and may include betting or gambling. There are many variations of Pitch. Most variations use slightly different scoring systems, allow teams, or make other changes. Variants seem to develop regionally, and their merits are hotly contested by players.

Basically one of my favorite card games. I once won several hundred Kool-Aid points off of Honus in a pitch game. Used them to buy a Kool-Aid man kite that remains one of my prized possessions.

Another fun card game is Circle of Death. Oach and I were playing once at the Beer Garden when we were both temporarily unemployed. One of us started the category "Episodes of What I Like About You."

Due to our uncanny ability to remember horrible television and the fact that we had nothing better to do every day at 3:00 than watch Amanda Bynes, we kept that category going for well over an hour.

Is there a German word for shameful boasting?

Anyway, here's a shot of the general atmosphere at the Beer Garden:

You may accuse me of poor photography, but this is exactly how I remember most evenings there.

Astoria's Czech Beer Garden: Come for the Beer, Stay Because That Girl You Thought Was Your Waitress Hasn't Been Back for an Hour, and She Made You Give Her Your Debit Card As Collateral.

catchy, huh?

The rest of you, if you take one thing away from this entire blog, let it be this: just drink the beer, which you get yourself from the bar, for the love of God.

A recent story comes to mind. The saga of the Dugan.

The first pleasant weekend of the year, Oach, myself and Oach's brother Ryan (of Songcamp fame) went out to enjoy the nice weather and drink outside.

This we did successfully. We decided to eat there as well, much to our chagrin. Several pitchers of cold beer and three plates of colder dinner later, we began growing restless.

So Pop quiz, hotshot:

What are three handsome, slightly inebriated men-about-town going to do?

Good guess if you said "watch the movie Speed and drink every time Keanu Reeves looks confused."

However, top scores and bonus points go to those of you who said "Wander to the Staples across 31st street and purchase a large piece of office furniture that requires assembly."

Bonus points because you would have to be really familiar with the Beer Garden and Astoria surrounding it, and also because you are clearly insane and possibly dangerous.

Precisely.

So after several minutes of trying out chairs and vigorous (read: loud) debate, I wandered off to find some rubber bands. Not finding any that were sufficiently "big ass," I found my way back to the furniture section.

Oach and Ryan had narrowed the field considerably. An argument ensued with Ryan promoting the high level of comfort of one model, and myself extolling the virtues of a more practical model in which one could do work without falling asleep.

In the end we chose neither of those, and Oach became the proud owner of a Dugan.

Comfort and Professionalism.

The new adventure was to get this monstrosity back to the Troll House [editor's note - this may confuse some of you. The apartment is under a bridge.]

Lacking any sort of wheels, with or without an engine attached, we had to carry the beast. Oach lugged the back part of it the entire way, which is fair, as it belonged to him. Ryan and I switched off carrying the front end until it was decided that we needed more beer and I was sent on a side quest.

"Hey, how's it going? I'm supposed to retrieve ye olde 12 Pack, so... I guess I just leave my gold pieces on the ground, then?"

Much swearing, sprinting and making of change later, the Dugan was safe at home. Next came the assembly.

Oh dear.

Confusion and Rage!

"More beer will help me romance this Dugan."

Here's one of Ryan and I watching Oach assemble the chair.

OH GOD I JUST SAW THE GHOST HEAD BEHIND OACH

And now I know my apartment is haunted.

Damnation, this is way worse than dreams of crazy homeless women. Unless the ghost is causing the dreams.

Off to find an exorcist,

Rev

P.S. You'll be pleased to know that, once assembled, the Dugan is both professional and comfortable.

Shout out

2009-06-11T19:57:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to try a new approach to this blog. I'll have several entries being written simultaneously, and hopefully that will increase the rate of publication, as well as keeping things fresh and relevant in my head. That being said, this'll just be a quick note.

I'm going to dedicate this to a new reader of mine, my cousin Kyle, currently serving in Iraq, helping to build a new infrastructure there.

This is a joke that Kyle told me around a campfire in Vermont, some time ago:

A little boy is in a public restroom. He's just finished washing his hands and is about to leave when a Marine walks in the door.

"Wow!" says the boy, "Are you really a Marine?"

"Sure am," says the Marine "You wanna wear my hat?"

"Sure!" says the boy.

The Marine takes off his hat and gives it to the kid to play with, while the Marine is focused on other matters in the restroom.

The boy has a great time, running around with a pantomime rifle, kicking open stall doors and making fake explosion and gun sounds.

Just then, a Green Beret (Army Special Forces) walks in the bathroom.

The kid goes "Wow! are you really Army Special Forces?"

"Sure am," says the Green Beret, "Want to suck my dick?"

"Nah," says the kid, "I'm not really a Marine, I'm just wearing his hat!"

boo-yah!

Just so you know, that joke kills. No offense to any members of the USMC that might be reading this (Francis), but I have never not gotten a positive response from the telling of it.

Just remember, people, know your audience.

"Please explain again why that's funny."

Ok, that's all for tonight, folks.

Kyle, keep up the good work and be safe.

Catch you later, folks

Rev

It's All Happening at the Zoo

2009-06-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

Hey kids! I'm back! Where have I been all this time, you ask? Well there's a whole long story about me doing stuff and other stuff, and not feeling like blogging and whatnot, but the best answer is at the ZOO!

You see, for my birthday, Mr. and Mrs. Rev bought me a year long membership to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

That means for the next year, I can go to the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Brooklyn Zoo, Queens Zoo and the New York Aquarium as much as I want and NO ONE CAN STOP ME.

Great movie, by the way.

So I've used my membership twice so far, accumulating about 180 pictures worth of zoo animals.

The first time was Memorial Day weekend, when Mr. and Mrs. Rev were visiting. Here they are sitting on a giant caterpillar:

The second time I went with Subastar and Woot and an assemblage of others.

Here they are standing still in an area from which you can see no animals.

A significant percentage of zoo visitation is spent away from animals, I was to learn.

I'll try to stick to just the highlights for you folks.

One highlight: Otterpile.

There are few things on this Earth as cute as a pile of otters.

Need more?

Yep, still fantastic.

There were many other things to be seen, like this video of feeding time for one of the Siberian Tigers:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Tigers are Awesome. We showed up 20 minutes early for this feeding. Totally worth it.

One thing I did not realize about the Bronx Zoo: it has a serious peacock infestation. The place is lousy with them.

This one was nice enough to pose for some pictures.

After the photo shoot, we hung out for a little while.

It quickly grew tired of us and wandered into a food court. I think it was going to try and pick up some scraps of food from the other zoo guests. I didn't see peacock listed anywhere on the menu, at least.

Actually, that's not true. I did see an animal try to eat a peacock. I'll give you three guesses as to which one it was.

No, not a tiger.

No, not the Otterpile.

No, not Mr. Rev.

Give up?

It was a GIRAFFE. Don't believe me?

Where is your God now?

What happened was this: In the giraffe enclosure, there was an ostrich, for some reason. There was also the above peacock because, as I said, they are ephing everywhere in that place.

So I guess the peacock was trying to intimidate the ostrich, or else it's just into big ladies, because he was all puffed up and struttin around like he had just sacked a quarterback.

Oh Tom Brady, I'll never get tired of referencing this game.

Anyway, once those brightly colored back feathers shot into the air, the zoo's youngest giraffe took an interest.

Pictured: Adult giraffe and baby giraffe.
Not Pictured: Insatiable bloodlust.

This inexperienced animal may have thought that the feathers were leaves. Or possibly he was just acting out, rebelling against a deity that would have made him into something as ridiculous looking as a giraffe.

But maybe, just maybe this is a new evolution of carnivorous giraffes that will soon develop a taste for human flesh and wreak havoc on the Earth.

Like this, but with giraffes.

Yes I learned several lessons at the zoo. First, that I should keep an anti-giraffe shotgun in bed with me, next to the anti-zombie shotgun already there.

Second, animals are lazy.

I know, I know, they're in captivity and it's hot out, and there's all that nocturnal/diurnal nonsense, but seriously?

come ON.

I did manage to film a particularly exciting moment, when a polar bear grew tired of sleeping in the sun and moved around the pool to flop down in the shade. While this happens, a small child to my right shouted what I interpreted to be threats at him, so speakers ready:

I suppose part of my disappointment in the lack of movement stems from jealousy. I woke up earlier than usual on a weekend to come watch a bunch of animals do what I would love to be doing.

That is, of course, sitting around naked, eating raw vegetables and shouting at passers-by.

"HA! BET YOU WISH YOU SAVED THAT PLANET OF THE APES REFERENCE!"

I do. Hindsight sucks, and gorillas are notorious blog critics.

"Koko finds your style repetitive"

Also, a lifetime of pop culture trash and cartoon shows has given me a fairly warped expectation of zoo animals.

I was lead to believe that animals engage in human activities, wear non-genitalia concealing clothing and hatch elaborate plans to escape, learning valuable lessons about how the world works in the process.

Also, they're voiced by Don Adams of Get Smart and Inspector Gadget fame.

Instead I get two penguins having a ten minute long conversation about which of them is going to get into the water first.

The answer? Neither of them.

But those are minor complaints when held up against the great time I had on both visits. And who knows, perhaps the animals have a greater sense of showmanship in one of the other 4 facilities that I can tour for free.

Only one way to find out.

Catch you later folks,

Rev

PS - Mr. Rev is this big compared to a Tiger. How big are you?

Adventures in Disappointment

2009-05-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

So hey, remember that list of things I said I was going to write blogs about in my last post? This is none of them.

Instead, I'll share with you another little trip I took last weekend to the Hudson River near 72nd Street. I was drawn by the irresistible allure of a Kite Festival.

Here's something you may not know about me. I balls-out Love Kites.

The best reason to go to the beach and brave the horrific dangers of being near the ocean is to make use of the fantastic breezes that are there.

I flew this one at the Jersey Shore last 4th of July.

Seriously.

Hey, if you think that flying a rainbow Pegasus-Unicorn kite makes a person less of a man, then I'll thank you not to talk to me until you've learned a few things about LIFE.

So when I saw the notice that there was going to be a Kite Festival in Manhattan, well it was all I could do to keep from shouting "Boo-Yah! Suck it, you stupid chumps! I'm going to a kite festival, and you can all sit on it and spin!"

In the interests of full disclosure, I should add that the vast majority of my work day is spent trying to find ways of suppressing some variant of that sentence. This blog happens to be one of the tools in my campaign to keep my soul from bursting out of the prison I've locked it in.

"It rubs the lotion on its skin..."

In this metaphor, I am Buffalo Bill, and Precious the dog is... kites? I guess? I really need to think these things through before I post them.

But anyway... Kites!

Five of these dots are kites. One is a Helicopter.

Sadly, the day was rather overcast. It wasn't totally horrible, because it was pleasantly warm, and you could stare up at the sky without worrying about looking into the sun and having your eyelids burned off, or whatever lies they tell you at school during solar eclipses to get you to use those damn shadowboxes.

This doesn't happen, Mrs. Richards.

Anyway, the clouds weren't so bad. I found myself comfortable and unruffled. Wait - unruffled? That doesn't seem right. Something's missing...

Oh yeah. THE WIND.

It was a bizarrely calm day. The sort of day that you stand on a riverbank and wonder if you've died and woken in Purgatory. Everything is ok, and you're surrounded by dozens of brightly colored and smartly built kites and none of them can get in the air.

It would be like standing in a candy store with no money, or watching a video about a tropical island, or being married.

At least with a lack of wind I got a few up close shots at some of the kites that were there. They had some sort of kite design competition, so there were some pretty neat contraptions there that would have been awesome in the sky. Let's take a look together:

Jealousy, thy name is Rev.

This girl was of the "not the size of the kite, it's how you use it" school. Evidently, she chose to use it poorly. I can relate.

Some more avant-garde kite design, with rows of triangles/pyramids. Yes, I was taking a picture of the kites. Don't look at me like that.

and now for an inside joke:

"Hang on a second, I gotta go agate up this bat"

We now return you to your irregularly scheduled blog.

The event was really for the kids. They had several kite-centric tables for children to learn, presumably about kites. They had a make your own paper kite table for small children:

... and this guy, I guess.

It was fun, but I couldn't help but be let down (ha!) by the lack of wind. It did make me feel a lot better about not bringing a kite of my own. Nothing takes the edge off of a lack of self-actualization like a healthy dose of schadenfreude. While some of you go wander off to dictionary.com, I'm going to treat the rest of you to some free kite trivia:

That was fun!

So yes, I didn't get to fly a kite, and the pickings of kites were actually somewhat slim, and sure, I did get clotheslined by a small girl who was trying to get her tragically malformed paper kite aloft using a combination of prayer, sprinting down a crowded pier, and Rev throat skin. But I also remembered what kite flying is all about to me. Taking some time for quiet reflection. And then imagining throwing a small child into the Hudson River.

At any rate, I like to think I made my mark on that Kite Festival. In fact, I know I did. See?

Peace out folks,

Rev

I've lapsed, again.

2009-05-06T07:53:00.001-07:00

Man, what gives with this time/space thing? I stop paying attention for a little bit and suddenly I've gone 3 weeks without updating this thing.

This is scarily similar to my theory that 11:00 PM doesn't exist. I say this because whenever I want to go to bed earlier than normal, I'll look at the clock at 10:55 PM, and then when I look up again, it's Midnight.

In fact, I'm sure that whole section of the clock is either a blatant lie or simply some sort of optical illusion.

I know you think you know what a clock looks like.

Occam's razor suggests that I'm just a lazy bastard who either focuses best in the late hours, or is dreading the coming of the morning, as it means a return to the menial tediousness of office labor.

Time warp is funnier.

But anyway, let's get to posting. Lots has happened in the last few weeks.

Picking up immediately where I left off last time, Subastar and I went to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. Pictures!

Hooray for spectacle!

It was a good time. I learned that clowns are actually somewhat enjoyable in context. IN CONTEXT. That's an important part.

Clowns : Circus :: Venomous snakes : Reptile house at zoo

There's a sense of separation that is hugely important. The "I'm here and they are there, and that's ok" sense. If they're being all bumbly tumbly in the center of the three rings, rock on. If I round a corner in Manhattan at 1:30 AM and find one staring at me, one of us is going to piss themselves.

Boris Karloff once said "There is nothing so frightening as a clown after midnight."

Yes, that Boris Karloff. The man knew frightening.

But not frightening is a parade of elephants!

or

a cage of tigers!

Please don't tell the tigers I said I wasn't scared of them.

Tigers are graceful, amazing animals. I am in awe of them, and they have found themselves the subject of my incredible artistic talents. Behold:

The Tiger in Winter
2009
Rev

Prints are available at my online store, which probably should exist.

But yes, the circus was a lot of fun, and we got cotton candy (candyfloss) and Subastar got a pretty nice hat:

Also the blue plastic elephant cup in the bottom right corner.

All this took place the same day as the Easter Parade, so it was a wonderful day of many and varied hats.

There's still some time to catch up on, so amongst my upcoming blogging weaponry are such items as:

- Going to both Citi Field and the New Yankee Stadium and developing opinions about each. I will share those with you as soon as I get the photos uploaded.

- Going to the Astoria Beer Garden with Oach and then deciding that's the perfect time to buy office furniture.

- Ruthless efficiency.

- The Brooklyn Botanic Gardens for the Cherry Blossom Festival. Some nice shots of that, certainly.

A-HA!

Don't say you saw that coming, either. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

I'll try not to drag my feet getting those posted. Sorry for the several weeks of silence.

Catch you later, folks

Rev

Thanks, Jesus!

2009-04-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a week or two, mostly because I've been busy working on the project that I'm going to share with you now. If you look at last year's entries, I'm sure you can find my two posts on the 2008 Easter Parade. Well guess what? It's time for the 2009 Easter Parade! A year has flown by already. My stars, how fast that seemed.

Easter, of course, was this past Sunday. Easter is a celebration of when Jesus was resurrected, overcame sin and death and paved the way for eternal salvation. He was promptly mistaken for a gardener by Mary, one of his closest followers. When she realized who He was, she was immediately embarrassed, because just before that she probably told Him to "clean up those grass clippings before I call immigration on your ass." (John 20:15)

But that's enough Bible talk.

Over time, Christ's message of peace, sharing and universal love for all mankind evolved into people wearing their newest clothes and fashions to church on Easter Sunday so that they could feel superior to the other, poorer members of the congregation.

With the invention of fashion week and mass media telling people what to wear, Easter wardrobe display in turn evolved into the wearing of silly hats.

You know who wore a silly hat once?

Jesus. And he did it for you.

Personally, I prefer to think of the building of silly hats as a challenge to my ingenuity and creativity. An exercise of talent that is part celebration and part problem solving goodness. It's an annual craft project that can be shared with people who are in glad spirits, having just completed half of their annual religious obligation, and who are looking forward to sleeping in on Sunday for another 8 months.

You know who got up early on Sunday once?

Jesus. And he did it for you.

Anyway, if I do say so myself, this year's hats kicked ass. I'm going to build a bit of suspense here by showing off what my apartment looked like during the building process:

Oach, working on his hat

Power tools, laptop and dessert.

Shameless product placement.

In actuality, I made two hats this year, one for Subastar and one for myself. I had asked her what she wanted the theme of her hat to be, and she said "fountain." A tough task, but check out what I came up with:

Yes, that is Ariel, the Little Mermaid, and yes, it does squirt water up in the air. Also note the kid in the background to the right. That's a fantastic outfit.

Detail:

Beautiful.

The fountain was built from a Disney Princess plastic bowl and metal and bead Easter Basket (40% off at K-Mart!). I drilled a hole in the bottom of the bowl and glued the two together. About this time I also superglued my fingertips together. After swearing, I glued a nozzle into the bowl as well.

Using plastic tubing "procured" by Woot and JWoot (Jesus was crucified next to two thieves, so it's ok), I managed to connect the nozzle to a water supply by way of the hand pump of a sprayer I bought in the gardening section of K-Mart. The original reservoir is pictured above. However, during the parade Subastar was hooked into a 2 liter bottle strategically stored in her purse.

Every time she squeezed the hand pump, a squirt of water would shoot into the air, delighting onlookers and getting her coat slightly damp. It wasn't a flawless design.

Which brings us to Oach and me:

And Harold. That's Oach's rabbit's name.

My hat's main feature was Thomas the Tank Engine. He circled my head continuously. Let's see some detail of that:

Pretty cool, huh?

It looked like this upon my noggin:

I got the Thomas on Ebay, cut a ring out of a corkboard I found at Kmart, and stuck the whole assemblage with wood glue to the straw hat I picked up at the Ditmars Thrift store. A little spraypaint and some glued plastic eggs later, and we were in business. The Hat Business.

Hats.

It was tricky to walk with, as I had to keep my head level. Also, the hat was quite snug on my head to minimize wobble. On top of that, the die-cast Thomas orbiting my head forced my neck muscles to do some sort of slow hula hoop motion.

This is us on the train going to the parade.

An hour of that and I was ready to go to bed for a sweet threesome with Miss Advil and her young but enthusiastic friend Miss Heating Pad.

I have no regrets, though. And truth be told, both hats I made came out a little better than I expected them to. They were a big hit with the crowd too. Children particularly responded really well to Thomas and Ariel.

Let's see them together:

nice.

Yes, it took some ingenuity, elbow grease and turning things into other things, but it was worth every second.

And hey, you know who turned things into other things once?

MacGyver. And he did it for you.

Happy Easter, Folks

Rev

Horrible Awards Results

2009-04-02T11:01:00.001-07:00

Ta Da!

Thank you, thank you everybody. As you can see from the above banner, Baron Mind was awarded the Fan Fave Horrible Award. I speak for Oach and myself when I say that we're blown away at the amount of support you guys have given us. I want to give every one of you a high-five.

But seriously, I'll take this opportunity to thank everyone that voted for us, both real and imaginary. I would like to thank people who ignored the pleas of the website itself and voted multiple times. And I would especially like to thank the people who didn't even know they voted because someone had just put down their name and email address without their knowledge. You're all very special people.

As far as the judging awards go, things went rather less well than we would have liked. We finished out of the top three. I'm not sure how far out of the top three, but it hardly matters. I'm not going to let it bruise my ego too much, and will offer my congratulations to the videos that nabbed those spots. Check them out, in order of winningness:

Winner

First Runner Up

Second Runner Up

THE GRIMMARIAN! from Kendal Newman on Vimeo.

.

Thanks again,

Rev