Reason # 278 why I love my neighborhood

Random patch of dirt in the sidewalk near my house, from which grow the most mega sunflowers every summer.

-Wrence

Grilled Pizza 2: Electric Boogaloo

Made pies again last night. Lessons were learned from the last time and things went smoother indeed. We ratcheted things up a notch on the awesome-o-meter by making fresh mozzarella a few days before hand. This was the second time I've done the cheese thing, and that whole process certainly is not getting any easier for me. What a junk show! I probably would have given up actually, at one point, were it not for Vanessa's staunch optimism in the face of dripping milk curds everywhere (insert your own dirty joke here)


Anyway, the mozz went well on the pizzas. The special of the night was a peach & prosciutto combo that I had been dreaming about all week, and man was it good.

We (at least, I) ended up getting really hammered too by the end of it. Things actually got kind of blurry towards the end of the night. The last thing I remember is Vanessa standing on the hood of her car, jumping towards me so I could catch her and hold her up over my head a-la Patrick Swayze & What's-her-face at the end of Dirty Dancing. Needless to say, we were not able to accomplish this gymnastic feat. The next thing I was aware of was laying in my bed this morning, wearing two pairs of boxer shorts, for some reason. My only guess is that in my drunken/half-asleep stupor, I was anticipating some sort of radical new fashion trend. Keep your eyes open for that; and remember you heard it here first.

-Wrence

New Office

Some of our loyal readers may remember a post about the re-model of my place of work. Anyway, the work is finally done and I am in a swanky new officle. I thought I'd share this mediocre event with the cyber-web, so here she is:

Meanwhile, RyToy is sitting on his couch, in his pajamas, watching the olympics. Nicely.

-Wrence

RADIOHEAD, Mansfield MA, 13 August 2008

Great show....I was quite close to the stage, as you can see from the above pic, although way off to one side. But it still felt like I was standing on the stage watching the show, interesting. Not the closest I've ever been, but definitely different than staring up at the boys from the pit. RyToy was about 5 or 6 rows right behind me, so we were treated to the fruits of my 3+ hours of excruciating mouse-clicks and head-bashing-into-monitor which is the Radiohead W.A.S.T.E. ticketing process. But so worth it for the kick-awesome seatage.

RyToy & I arrived together, around 7:30. Met up with Diesel & Liz, then the Bones and his girl, as well as a few highschool friends whom I hadn't seen in years. A few brews were consumed parking lot style before the show. Like almost all Radiohead concerts I have attended, I unfortunatley missed another chance to see a great opening band just coming into its own: Grizzly Bear

Here is a list of other bands that I have "seen" open for Radiohead over the years, and what I was doing while they played their set:

The Beta Band - watched their set from the pit
Kid Koala - watched the set from the pit
Four Tet (3 shows!) - was getting drunk in a nearby bar (3 shows!)
Steve Malkmus & The Jicks (2 shows) - was drinking in a parking lot for one, caught the other from the pit
Asian Dub Foundation - getting my ass completely slammed by thousands of angry French fans in the pit (the most intense concert experience of my life, to date)
Willy Mason (2 shows) - I don't even remember hearing this chap's name mentioned at the shows (sorry, Willy!)

Anway, last night I shot a few pics with my phone (see above) and a few crappy videos as well. I was going to post one, but this video from youtube is freakin sweet. This is Reckoner, the opening song....I can almost see myself standing there off to Ed's right.

-Wrence

Quote of the Day

RyToy: "I don't need other people to be partying in order to party."

and with that we are off to Radiohead at the Tweeter Comcast Woods Center/Centre

-Wrence

Wizards

So, I have been away from this goddamn thing for far too fucking long. Apologies are in order, but most of all I want to say sorry to MYSELF. Ok self, do you forgive me? Ok how about you 'Wrence?

So here's what I have been upto in recent times. After my trip to Nantucket I had a few weeks of same-shittery with the orientations and whatnot and then the wheels kinda came off the bus all at once in a little place called Long Beach Island, a slender but long island down on the Jersey shore. It isn't as meathead or fistpumpy as the rest of the Jersey shore. Sure, there are dickheads to be found, but for the most part it is a bunch of old summer houses with families and shit that have been there for a long ass time.

The occasion for my visit was my buddy J'Mann's (ja-MAN) bachelor party. his grandparents have owned the place for like 50 years. The shit was so retro it wasn't even funny. Two bedrooms on the third floor with two sets of bunkbeds in each...so we are talking sleeps eight in two closet sized rooms. On the second floor there was a toilet whose only blockage between the pisser/shitter and the those passing in the hallway was a set of saloon-style swinging doors. Throw in the outdoor shower and the one block walk to the beach/the bar and it is clear that this place was perfect for a bachelor party. At least for the kind of bachelor party we were going to throw.

We got there on Friday afternoon at about 1...plenty of time to hit the beach, throw down a few cans of macro-swill, and chillax a bit. (for the record, I consumed only macro-swill this weekend, more on that later) So while the five or six of us in the first wave chilled on the porch drinking beer and listening to music other bros started to roll in. And since we were sitting there with our shirts off, having just come from the beach, the new arrivals, without being instructed , also went shirtless. Fast forward a bit and we find 20 bros crushing Bud Lights on a porch huddled around a little iTunes stereo thingee, all with no shirts on. Tight right?

So we walked to the bar...The Shell I think it was called. Memories are really hazy, did i mention I had a couple of Sparks? At this point I rely basically on the word of others. After hanging in the bar for a while and making asses of ourselves I am sure, some people left, myself included. After having walked back home apparently, we thought we needed to return to the bar to make sure that the rest of the dudes knew where they were going. Long story short, I wound up passed out in nothing but boxers with my dick hanging out of my pants. My friend Keaves, coming home and finding me in such a state attempted to rouse me so that the next wave of evildoers wouldn't find me like this and fuck with me So after a couple of good leg shakes I rolled over and that was enough for him. I awoke the next morning searching for my cell phone....nowhere to be found. I borrowed my brother's phone to call it and was surprised when a woman answered. Apparently my phone was found inside their beach house...two doors down...away from the direction of the bar....along with the t-shirt and Polo shirt that I had been wearing. No one I was with confessed to planting them there and I have zero ability to recall how the hell they could have wound up there. FLUMMOXING!!!

Saturday, after the hangovers subsided, bagels eaten, and waves surfed, we reconvened in the backyard for grillables and drinkables. It is here that I won hearts and minds my friends. See, what you do is as follows:

1. Drink a beer
2. Take new beer and place it on top of previous beer
3. Affix new beer to old beer with duct tape
4. Finish new beer
5. Go back to step 2
   

In this fashion, before long, you will find yourself holding a staff of beers. At first, your staff will be 5 beers tall, and unwieldy but manageable. Add a few more and it becomes even more daunting a task to lift the beer to your lips. At around 12 or so, you require assistance from a spotter to help lift the bottom half of your staff. When you find that your staff has reached your chin, you are required to switch to Sparks. And once your staff is taller than you are, you have officially achieved Wizard Status. It took me about 6 hours to put down the 17 beers required to make me a wizard, but I am proud to say that I outpaced all of my bros that day and was the first crowned wizard of J'Mann's Bachellor party. I had debilitating heartburn and non-solid shit for three days post-hence and was not able to conjure the correct incantation to drive each malady away, but I was ok with that I think.

&Ry

Radiohead All Points West Festival, Timelapse Video

Time Lapse video of their entire set from night 2 - pretty cool



Fuckin Alien Spaceship is right

-Wrence

NYC, Exhuastion, Great bus deals

Just got back from a day/night in NYC; I forgot how exhausting that town can be.

I arrived at 2pm via the Lucky Star bus, which runs more or less on the hour all day from South Station Boston to Chinatown NY, and runs express (no stops in between) so it only takes about 4 hours. Also: it's stupidly cheap at only $15 one way. Now, ladies and gentelmen of the jury, I may not know much-

But what I DO know, is that this is an amazing deal.

I met up with a somewhat random group of people and managed to party the entire length of Manhattan Island, starting in the upper east side, moving all way up to the tip top of Fort Tryon Park (this place was really dope) which hardly seemed like being in the city at all, then to Soho & the Village for dinner/drinks, and ending up way way downtown to see some band at an Irish pub called Ulyssees, which had only a moderate cheese factor to it. After a night of several personal "firsts," which MAY have included urinating off of a subway platform onto the tracks, I crashed at Diesel's sister's place in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

I am now back at work, after a whole week off (one of the best weeks I've had in a long time, actually) and the only thing keeping me from flinging myself off the roof is the fact that I have Thursday and Friday off -and oh yea, I'M SEEING RADIOHEAD wednesday night. Some of my friends caught their set at the All Points West Festival Saturday night in Liberty Park; I was afterwards treated to possibly the best description of a Radiohead show that I have ever heard.

Damien: "Basically it was like an alien spaceship had landed on the stage."

-'Wrence

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Vermont Rain, Beer, and Pig

So for some time now I have been far, far from cell phone service or access to the interwebicals, due to my taking some well-deserved time off from work to head to my birth-state for some hiking, beer-having, high-fiving, and general hanging out & being awesome.

Saturday I got up early, picked up rental wheels, and drove as fast as I could up to Vermont. The deal was, I meeting Diesel Damien up in Whitingham, where his family friends own a home. Damien said he'd be there by noon, so I of course understood this to mean about 2pm, "Damien Time". I figured, since I was only going to be there for a few days, that I'd head up early, get in a smallish hike somewhere in the middle of the state, and then arrive at the house mid-afternoon after Damien had shown up and settled in a bit.

I arrived in VT around 11:30am and was up on the summit of Styles Peak by around 1 or 2pm. It was a nice little hike, and the rain let up just long enough for me to huck it up to the top & back. The drive back downstate to Whitingham pretty much sucked though, due to the torrents of summer rain pelting the shit out of me and the rental the whole time. I didn't get to the house until 4pm. Fortunately, had I arrived any earlier I would have had to wait in my car as Damien literally pulled in behind me at that very moment. Apparently, the years of separation have caused me to lose touch of just how far-off "Damien Time" can be from actual reality.

That night Damien's cousin Adam showed up with various super-sized chunks of organic pig which were prepared and consumed that night. Adam, righteous dude that he is, brought the meat from the farm at which he works- here, I think -and despite being a vegetarian hippie, he cooked one of the best meals I've had in a long time.

Most of my 4 days there were spent eating, drinking local beer, swimming, kayaking, and of course Croquet on this amazing lawn at the house. I found a nice little 7bbl brewpub in Bennington called Madison Brewing Company; and D & I agreed that almost all of their 8 offerings were decent, with a few being quite good. We bought half a dozen growlers to keep everyone's mouths full of brew back at the house (they were subsequently filled a few more times in effort to maintain this). Later in the week I hiked Mt Ascutney, which admittedly kicked my hungover ass a new...umm....ass, I suppose.

here is what it MAY have looked like if I took a picture myself

Damien's guests included his brother & sister, some cousins, some S.O.s, and a few friends. Damien's family members are all certifiably CRAZY, in a good way. I love hanging out with them. They seem to have accepted me as one of their own over the years; I sort of get treated like a distant cousin, and by that I mean I get token invites to some random get-togethers every so often. It's great. Anyway, I bring lots of beer and they always end up inviting me back. Also, out of the 12 or so people that were there I think that 14 of them were musicians. Do the math: it was a lot of musicians. There were instruments everywhere and lots of singing. I managed not to embarrass myself too badly during my turns at the piano (an instrument on which I am only OF LATE coming into my own). Also I had the pleasure of meeting Oh Dorian, (aka Heather) who in addition to being an amazing musician is also one of the sweetest girls I've ever met. Check out her music here and just TRY not to be moved: I dare you.

Now it's back to Boston & catching up on school stuff. Luckily I only have to show up for work 3 out of the next 9 days. Radiohead is next Wednesday, I think Damien and Liz are staying here in town for that, so any readers who are Balazs fans have another update to look forward to. Chances of a croquet re-match are slim though, mostly I think because Damien is afraid to face me again, but also because it would probably be wicked hard to get the wickets pounded into my driveway. Ideas, anyone?

-'Wrence