What?

Posted on 15th April 2011 in Something Daily

I got the keys to my first apartment today. I wasted a bit of money by neglecting to check the keys before I copied them – it turned out that one of the keys they gave me didn’t work. But the place looks bigger in real life than it does in my memory, which is amazing. The rooms are about the same size, and the floor is completely covered in gross black and white checked linoleum. Something must be done about this. But I’m finally just now getting a break from the skateboarding odyssey that I went on today, between the real estate office, the apartment, and my roommate. I went between all of those places three times, skating the whole way…I’m tired.

Also, since tomorrow is in fact my 20TH BIRTHDAY, my coworker brought me cupcakes made with orange juice this morning at work, which were fantastic. I did accidentally knock them all onto the floor, but I still ate about three floor-cupcakes. They were incredible. And it’s cool that somebody remembered my birthday and cared enough to do something about it. Awesome.

In other news, Odd Future are fantastic. I just downloaded Radical….swag. Sweet, sweet swag.

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Scofflaw

Posted on 4th April 2011 in Something Daily

Sometimes you have a day that you totally expect to go one way, and it totally goes another way. I did a lot of things that I’d never done before today. First of all, at about 10:30 AM, I was skating from Barnes and Noble to Trader Joe’s to do my grocery shopping, and I got stopped by a cop who told me quite authoritatively that “YOU CANNOT RIDE YOUR SKATEBOARD ON A CITY SIDEWALK”, and who, after a few minutes of form-filling and consulting with his partner while I waited nervously, gave me a pink ticket that claimed that I was guilty of the “RECKLESS OPERATION OF A SKATEBOARD”. I was really worried that the guy was going to take my board (the brand new Four Loko Real deck that I just got yesterday), because he was being a total dick. It seemed like he kind of expected me to be as well (probably an assumption made about skateboarders), and I think I made things a lot easier on myself by being “respectful”, as he put it. The thing is, it’s not like it was a full sidewalk, or that I was going particularly fast. It’s just lame. But at least I still have my board, and probably no actual fine.

Also, I went through the process (very new to me) of going to an apartment open house later this afternoon. The guy who was showing the place didn’t give an address, he just said “on the corner of Broome and Elizabeth”, which, to my suburban sensibilities, sounded a little bit sketchy – so I brought my friend along. Of course, it ended up not being sketchy at all, but the apartment was a little bit silly. Being a Manhattan apartment, it’s of course going to be tiny, and it smelled kind of weird, and the shower was in the kitchen, but I was into it. Also, the broker was arguing with the owner while we were there…it was really weird. It started to get better, though, when the broker showed us his own place in the same building, that he’d decorated to actually look quite nice. So I followed him all over the east side attempting to have copies made of the application forms while he told stories about how he and his dad would go around Manhattan together in search of “beautiful girls”. Funny guy. It’s kind of a wack apartment, but the rent is insanely good, and the location is mega prime. A good place for a scofflaw such as myself.

So tomorrow back to reality for a few minutes, as I’m rudely reminded of all the homework I didn’t do while I was too busy being prejudged by an officer of the law and following an Israeli guy who looked like James Franco.

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My Skateboard Will Go On

Posted on 26th March 2011 in Something Daily

I don’t know if I feel like writing about my projects today. I do that all the time. Instead, allow me to write about how skateboarding has been going recently for me. With all the time that I spend in front of a computer (I was about to estimate the number of hours per day, but then I thought better of it), I try to take the opportunity on weekends to get out and skate a little bit. I haven’t really gotten back into skating to class yet, mostly because it’s been really cold, but also because I find it kind of difficult to skateboard with a backpack on. On the weekends, though, I usually manage to get out to one of two places: either the Stuyvesant Town village of apartment buildings or the outdoor concrete park at Chelsea Piers sports complex.

My roommate introduced me to the skatepark some time early last fall, and we usually go together, although I did go there by myself for the first time recently, mainly because I was feeling bold. I go there when I feel like trying something specific, because at my skill level, there’s not a whole lot of stuff there for me to take advantage of. Essentially I can ride the small box off a ramp, ride the hill of downward ramps, and carve around. That’s really about it. The park is a bit tough on weekends, because that’s usually when lots of younger kids show up and mill around on all the ramps, making it difficult or impossible to skate certain routes. That’s what happened last week when I was there; I saw a lot of the more experienced people there getting kind of angry about it. As such, I was trying my subtle best to not be one of the kids who was constantly in the way and clogging up the ramps. I think I did a pretty good job.

In light of my still-developing set of skateboard skills, it’s often more common that I go to Stuyvesant Town. It’s like a little development of apartment buildings, and the street grid doesn’t reach inside it, which means that there are much fewer cars, and much fewer people walking around. With a small amount of care for the occasional car, it’s a good place for me to get some big wide, smooth streets where I can practice 180s and curb ollies endlessly, and not risk getting hurt too badly. It’s a good time. That’s actually where I was today. I landed a few 180s in a row – I still can’t do it reliably, but I’m getting there. And I’m teaching myself to push regular after that one guy called me out on pushing mongo. That’s a little embarrassing, as I feel like I’m back to square one in terms of board control, but I’m constantly getting better at that as well.

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Bit Into Rainbow

Posted on 19th March 2011 in Something Daily

I just made another…I don’t know what’s happening to me.

I spent a good amount of time today Twitter-stalking what I imagine to be a secret society of gif makers, but in reality is probably just a few people who know each other (I’m not willing to completely throw out the secret society idea though). I am currently going through a phase in which I like making things flash lots of colors. True “animation” is still beyond me, but maybe that will change sometime soon.

Today seems to be the last day of work on Spaceratops, which is a quite welcome thought. I’ve been working on this project for far too long, and it’s time for somebody to play it. Namely, you. I’ve decided that once it’s up, I will buy lunch for the first person who finishes all fifty waves. It’s pretty hard (actually even though I’m the one who made it (I can “see the matrix, if you will), I still haven’t gotten to the end), so it might take a little while. But you can do it, I know you can. Very soon. If not tomorrow, then it will be linked to by Monday. Playable in your very own browser. I know, contain yourself. I can’t wait either.

I also took some quite nasty spills at the chelsea skatepark this afternoon, as I was feeling particularly bold and attempted a lot of stuff that I hadn’t before. Specifically, jumping off of ramps and dropping onto them from above, both of which caused me some degree of pants-rippery and knee-skinning. I did, however, eventually succeed in the landing on the ramp part, so now I’m tentatively capable of jumping onto the small box from the ramp, riding it, and then dropping onto the ramp on the other side. I think the box is about a foot, maybe 18 inches tall. So this is an improvement. Of course, it didn’t come without some bruises.

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Yeah But What if I Want to Push Mongo?

Posted on 17th March 2011 in Something Daily

I was skating to Washington Square today, and I was passing Union Square, a guy at one of the merchandise tables saw me and yelled at me to “stop pushing mongo!” It was embarrassing. If you don’t know, pushing mongo is when you use your front foot to push off the ground to get momentum while you’re skating (the generally accepted way is called “regular”, which means using your back foot). There are a few reasons why it’s easier to set up for tricks if you push regular, which are negated if you’re mongo. And, for whatever reason, I push mongo. That’s right, I push mongo. Deal with it. Apparently this guy had a problem with some random person not pushing on his skateboard in the proper way. I know it’s not really a big deal, but I did end up attempting (with very mild success) to push regular for the remainder of my journey. I kept almost falling off and losing my balance, because I’m not used to supporting my weight and balancing on my left foot. Still, by the time I got to Washington Square, I was a little bit better at it than before. I’m getting there.

Also, this morning I modified the perl script I wrote a little while ago to synchronize two directories. Before, the sync was done on the basis of a source/target situation, where one is the master and one is the slave. I changed it this morning to instead create a union of the two directories, similar to how Dropbox operates. It’s a nice useful bit of code that I use pretty much every day for my own purposes.

I found out about @Lulinterweb through Anamanaguchi’s Twitter account recently. She makes awesome old-school video game inspired gif animations. Check out her website. This stuff is fun.

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I Almost Hit an Elderly Man with my Skateboard Today

Posted on 5th March 2011 in Something Daily

I had a somewhat rare day today, in that I was incredibly active for the majority of it. There were three times today when I sat down and started to work, and then for one reason or another, ended up not doing that at all, and instead going out to play in the wonderful weather we had today. At first it was because I realized that it was way too nice out not to go skateboarding, so I headed to Stuyvesant Town again, where I managed to land 3 180s in total – something that I’ve never been able to do before now. I’m definitely getting the hang of it. I also came very close to hitting an old man with my skateboard, and it ended up getting stuck under his little old-man shopping cart thing that old people always seem to have with them on the streets. But I went to go pick it up and I had to go right up in front of him, and as I was getting it he glared at me and said something along the lines of “thats not so smart….I saw a skateboarder get hit by a cab yesterday – the cabs don’t stop….that’s not so smart.” I was embarrassed so I pretty much just said “I’m sorry, I’ll be careful” and kind of skated off…I went home after that. He was a grumpy man.

So I got back and Eric’s friend Rachel was still around, and London was recording in my room. It being a great day, my sometimes-talked about plan to make half shirts was brought up again, and Justin, Eric, and I each made our own halfshirt (mine is sleeveless, and I got an anchor ballpoint tattoo from Eric). Dressed in this ridiculous manner, we went to central park to play frisbee, which was awesome, as it was something that I hadn’t gotten to do in months, it being cold and schooly. But it was a great time. This dad brought his son over to play with us (the son was probably about 3) and they had matching red shoes….awesome! I got back from that and pretty much immediately went for a stroll with Sarah, so this is really the first time that I’m getting a chance to sit down and clear my head today. I don’t regret it though, everything about today was pretty much awesome. It’s good to not worry about work every once in a while, even though that’s something I don’t really like to do too much.

I’m going to learn some more about PHP now, and hopefully also get my data structures homework started, because these things usually take a little while. Oh also I just ate a Blue 9 meal in five minutes, and I kind of feel like I’m going to die. Talk to you guys later.

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Speed Cream

Posted on 6th January 2011 in Something Daily

I skateboarded for the first time since being home today. I wish that wasn’t the case, but there was snow on the ground at the elementary school during pretty much its entire break. Seeing as this is my only real option for skating anywhere near my house, I was forced to test my newly lubricated Reds on the very bumpy and gravelly street out front. There wasn’t much to do other than practice kickflipping (to no avail) and jump over stuff. Nonetheless, it felt awesome just to be back on a board.

As the board I’m using now is the first one I’ve owned since I began skating again in September, I’ve done a lot of things to it that probably shouldn’t be done to a skateboard out of ignorance. I remember a few times when I skated in the pouring rain, and I only recently figured out that the reason my tail is so worn down is that I have a tendency to stop by dragging it on the street. Now, that makes so much sense. I just wish I’d realized it earlier; it might have extended my deck’s life a bit. The few rainy outings had resulted in bearings that were slow, filled with dirt, and beginning to rust – but just today, I learned how to clean them properly from the instructions that came with the Speed Cream that London got me for Christmas. Before, I just sprayed them with some Fantastik – it turns out you have to soak them in it. But after that and a few drops of cream in each one, my bearings are significantly faster and quieter. I just wish it wasn’t so hard to tell the difference on my bumpy street. But I actually jumped over something today (a bucket from my garage), as opposed to just onto it (like curbs). I’m learning to think less when I skate, which I’ve found is my biggest obstacle. I get scared easily. It’s also helpful to fall, because I get less apprehensive the next time I try.

I remember saying at the end of the semester that I thought the winter break was going to go by quite fast, and I feel now like that was pretty optimistic.

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Sleeping in Train Stations

Posted on 24th December 2010 in Something Daily

Let me begin by saying that I don’t really know why I scheduled a 7:30 PM bus from New York to Philadelphia on December 23rd. That strategy probably would have worked awesomely if I had my own car, but since my parents are still my drivers, it wasn’t that great of an idea.

So since I had a late bus to catch and nothing to do yesterday, I spent my time squeezing in some last minute New York-only activities. I woke up far too early (for some reason, maybe it was the sun and the fact that we have no blinds on our windows) and immediately wrote the last post, then skated to Stuyvesant Town. This was at about 9:30 AM, after going to bed at 3 the previous night. Needless to say, my last New York skate of 2010 didn’t go very well, as my fatigue was throwing off my balance and stamina, bringing me close to injury a few times. I didn’t last very long. Even so, I’m glad I took the opportunity to go out that one last time.

So I packed and hung around with Eric and Justin for a while, and got myself some lunch at Yummy House (12th and 3rd) – General Tso’s Chicken: The Spicy Version. Yummy is a little bit expensive to eat there regularly, but every once in a while I find it very hard to resist. I also accompanied my friend Jen to a chocolate restaurant (bistro?) called L. A. Burdick where we got hot chocolate made from milk and melted dark chocolate shavings. This is not an exaggeration: absolutely hands down the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had ever. Of course it was rich and very filling, but apart from that I feel like it’s exactly what hot chocolate is supposed to be.

Check it out: after watching some Arrested Development and feeling a bit like a Mary without a Peter and a Paul, I caught my 7:30 Bolt Bus from Penn Station, and contrary to my expectation, we actually made the trip in under two hours – unheard of even for a Sunday night, let alone Christmas eve eve. So of course I get to the regional rail station in Philadelphia expecting to get right on the train that I’m now just in time for, and I see all of the scheduled departures on the board changing: “10 LATE”, “11 LATE”, “12 LATE”, “22 LATE”, “CANCEL”. Apparently some trees fell down on the tracks and made it impossible to get trains through, according to a stranger who was also in my situation and talking to someone with internet access. So I had to hang out at 30th Street Station and wait for my parents to drive the 45 minutes and pick me up. I listened to all of XO by Elliott Smith (what a great album) and did some reading, as well as some sleeping. And of course I bought my parents donuts for being so nice to pick me up.

So now I’m home and chilling out. I’m going out to buy some last minute presents, and then I’ll eat dinner with some family friends. Sounds good.

Since I’m home, check out the uncharacteristically detailed gingerbread men my family made in my absence:

We’ve got Will Ferrell from “Elf”, Goku, a penguin, a panda, the grinch, the phantom of the opera, a soccer player, Cleopatra, and some kind of mummy or zombie guy.

Also, I missed my kitty even though his hair makes me sneeze. His name is Carrot.

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What the frak

Posted on 23rd December 2010 in Something Daily

Check it out: I got about five hours of sleep last night. This is fairly unusual for me. I have no idea why, but it seems that I’m pretty much incapable of sleeping in past 8:30. I’ve always been kind of a morning person, but it’s mornings like this that really make me wish I had the ability to sleep late. So it’s about 9 AM right now, I woke up an hour ago, and I didn’t write yesterday, so I feel compelled to update now.

Yesterday was my last day involving responsibility for the fall semester, in which my Recording Tech group and I finally presented the bluegrass cover of “Get Low” that we recorded to the class (so I can finally shut up about it! Sweet!). The teacher was late, then called ten minutes after class was to start to say that he was going to be another hour late. That was definitely a bit lame, as I came down to Steinhardt just for that class. But I had a fun lunch with Mr. Kevin Garrett and my class group. The presentation itself was pretty good, despite the fact that my board recall skills need a bit of work. We didn’t present a bounce; that is, we were required to use our multitrack and recall our mix on the board, making sure every knob is set in the position we used during our mix. This is, of course, a process that you need a few minutes to do accurately, and I didn’t really have a few minutes. As a result, the multitrack mix that we presented was a bit different than the one on Soundcloud, but I tweaked along the way. All in all, great project. Everyone actually had a great project in that class. Way to go, people.

Last night, I had resigned myself to not doing anything, as all of my roommates were, at that point, either at their houses, out studying, or asleep. As it’s the end of break, my motivation to do projects is pretty low right now, so I was looking forward to a night of reading the Tao Te Ching and playing Team Fortress…and then Jen showed up! I furthered my goal of getting her into Battlestar Galactica as we watched another episode – the one where Starbuck is stranded on a desert planet. It’s a good one. I remember seeing that episode my first time through the series – I think it’s the first where Starbuck really shreds, and it was also the first one that really made me think “Alright, this show is rad.” So I had a good night. A late one, but a good one.

Today I leave for home on a 7:30 bus. Before that, I need to pack my bags and say goodbye to some friends, as well as find some place to eat some food and hopefully skate around a bit. I just hope I don’t get hurt; I’ve been feeling kind of bold recently. Maybe not bold enough to hurt myself yet, but who knows. I’ll be careful, don’t worry! And hopefully I get to sleep on the bus, because I’m pretty certain I’ve missed my chance to go back to bed this morning.

Have a good Chirstmas eve eve!

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Let me reiterate that Dinosaurs are sweet

Posted on 20th December 2010 in Something Daily

I hope I get more Dragon Ball Z for christmas! I’ve also learned the perils of being too upfront about my love of dinosaurs when I meet new people, which is a bit of a problem…but not really that big of a deal. I mean my computer background is a picture of two dinosaurs making out,

I have a poster of dinosaurs on my wall,

and a dinosaur comic in my wallet. What’s the big deal, right? Also I have a blog called “Three Stegosaurus Moon”…what does that even mean?

I just finished my paper on Zappa’s Joe’s Garage. I think it went really well. At the very least, I got to listen to album two full times while writing it. I feel like listening as I write a paper like this is actually really helpful, albeit sometimes distracting. It gives me a better perspective on what it is that I’m actually writing about. Beside that, I just love the crap out the album, and I pretty frequently jumped up to play the songs along with the record. I still remember a decent amount of the easier ones from when I did Joe’s Garage with the School of Rock (who have an incredible new website, what the heck?). That was a fun show, though. We did the whole album start to finish, with costumes and the Central Scrutinizer with a megaphone and the whole thing. I ended up playing about half of the songs on the album, but I learned all of them for fun (and just in case the opportunity arose to vampire a song from some other keyboardist). What a great album. Seriously, people, go to Grooveshark and type in “Joe’s Garage Frank Zappa” and then listen to the album. You will certainly not regret it.

And now I’m listening to Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots and writing a blog post, having just finished that paper. I have a test tonight, which I’m only a little bit worried about, mainly due to the fact that I went to bed at 11:30 last night and was still awake at 1. I’ve been having trouble sleeping these last few days, I’m not sure what that’s all about. Hopefully that will chill out after finals (only three more to go, two after this evening). I go home on Thursday evening, after presenting the multitrack of our bluegrass “Get Low” cover, which has been finished but unpresented for a while. I’m bringing my skateboard and SNES home, which together will have to be enough to hold me over until the spring semester.

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