How did people get here?

(click to enlarge)

Apparently, through obscene and nonsensical search terms. I think this just proved how full of crap this shack is ... which I guess, sorta fulfills the point of this blog?!

Selected highlights from my NY trip

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Kinda the real reason why I went to New York (besides finally visiting the MoMA). Though in hindsight, I really shouldn't travel to New York on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving since I-95 is literally the highway to hell that day, stretching a 4-hour trip to over 6-hours. Anyway, after I dropped everything off at the hostel, I headed to the Museum of Natural History. That's the site where the balloons were filled up. It's quite the sight with all the over-sized balloons weighted down along two streets. Even the most jaded New Yorker and their over-privileged children were enjoying this. Also funny was when a very upset little girl asking if Dora the Explorer was dead on account of it lying face down and her mom trying to calm her down and telling her that it's just a freakin' balloon.

The next day, a guy from the hostel and I checked out the parade. He has a name, like Liek or something, but I forgot, since I've been secretly calling him faux!Smiz in my head.
As you can see from the picture, he doesn't look too much like our Smiz. But he has the exact same mannerisms as Smiz and the sideburns and he kinda dressed like Smiz, too. Faux!Smiz is also doing his MBA in Maryland (though he's an industrial engineer on top of that, so that's a bit different than our Smiz). Also, he's from Germany and with the real!Smiz dating Catrin, who's also from Germany, the tenuous six-degrees sorta works. In my head.

Anyway, German!Smiz and I went to grab a prime-viewing spot an hour ahead of the parade because we heard how horribly crowded it gets. Of course, we didn't factor in the shitty weather and we ended up standing in the rain for an hour in addition to the two hours of parade. We did grab a pretty good spot though behind a family, who had been to the parade for 14 years. The parents were pretty excited. The dad even knew which balloons debut in which year off the top of his head. The 5 kids in tow though, were understandably less enthused. In fact, pretty whinny and bitchy even when the parents got them hot chocolate and warm egg sandwiches. (Oh how I'd like the snatch that hot chocolate from their ungrateful little hands!)

That's the Dad in that picture. He made boderline icky comments like "Twhirl that baton, kids!"

I still couldn't figure out if the parade was worth the 3 hours of rain and the 6-hour bus trip. The balloons were pretty rad. Though they flew them pretty low because of the wind and because some accident ten years ago. Some of the floats were pretty intricate and cool. But there were also a lot of marching bands accompanied by cheerleaders in sequined leotards. A lot of sequined leotards. But it was entertaining to differentiate the real cheerleader, who'd smile and wave their pom poms energetically, as opposed to the other kind who just wanted to get out of the rain and go home.

German!Smiz and I got into a slight arguement when I told him about the Big Bird balloon I saw the night before and he's all like, I don't remember there's a Big Bird in the Seasame Street that I grew up watching. And I was like, how can there be a Seasame Street without Big Bird? What kind of crazy Seasame Street were they showing in Germany? When the balloon came out though, he recognized Big Bird. But he told me that the character wasn't called Big Bird in Germany, which, I think was a flimsy explaination.

There were also some C-list celebrities, like Gloria Estefan and Barry Mannilow and non-C-list celebrity Julie Andrews. The parade would be much more exciting if Stephan Colbert popped out of nowhere and deck Barry Mannilow. Alas, that didn't happen.

Cupcakes

What's a New York trip without visiting a cupcake bakery? However, I don't want to do what everybody did and go to Magnolia. So I went to Billy's instead (my New Yorker friend said Billy's makes better cupcake anyway). I bought a chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting. Besides making divine cupcakes, I also wanted to check out Billy's because I read from InStyle that the bakery has the dubious honour of being the favourite cupcake purveyor of the pre-Scientology brainwashed Kat(i)e Holmes. I doubt that she'll be eating Billy's cupcakes anymore though. If the Scientologist didn't brainwash her into hating cupcakes, befriending Victoria Beckham would surely put her cupcakes days to an end for good.

Anyway, back to my delicious and beautifully decorated cupcake! Look at that decorated pick on top of the cake! It's a pilgrim (with a fetching Anna Wintour-esque haircut) holding a freshly slaughtered turkey/duck/chicken. So festive! So Thanksgiving!

Then I walked all the way from Chelsea, through SoHo, through Chinatown, to the WTC site to burn off that cupcake.

Parsons
I just happened to walk by Parson's. I wanted to pop in and see if Tim Gunn was there. I'd die happy to hear Tim Gunn say to me, "I don't really see where you're going with this. But anyway, make it work." But Parsons was closed and the only people hanging out in the front porch/deck area was a few homeless people. I was tempted to tell them to "make it work" though.

The unadorned giant Christmas tree
My dad totally lied when he told me years ago that the tree was not one tree, but in fact, many smaller trees cut and paste into a big tree. I checked, it was just one freakin' huge tree. Myth=busted.

Store windows

Another famous NYC Christmas tradition.

At a random silverware store on fifth ave. That's a turkey made with spoons. It even had a wattle. Pretty neat.
The department store windows were pretty uneven though. I think Macy's was going with a oompa loompa/sugar plum fairy/Kylie Minogue concert set design with their windows. Which was whack. Also, how pretentious was it to put out velvet ropes in front of the windows so people had to line up to see the decorations. I just held my phone between people to take the picture.
The Bergdorf Goodman windows were pretty safe—in Bergdorf terms anyway. They were pretty to look at.






















Times Square

Seeing that the entire country was holed up at home enjoying their tyrptophan-induced post-turkey nap—if they haven't erupted into a drunken fist-fight with some relative that they only see once a year—most stores, except for the odd bodega and bagel shop, were close. Not Times Square though. God forbid if Times Square ever shuts down! That was great because the weather remained shitty throughout Thursday and the Sephora at Times Square was open, resulting in an hour of me trying on 50 different kinds of lip gloss as I tried to warm up my rain-soaked fingers.

After I left Sephora, I tried looking for this. But I could't tell where they hung him. Whatever. I hate David Blaine anyway. Also, I think that's when I dropped my Metro Card, which still had ten bucks on it. So because of David Blaine, I'm out ten dollars. Fucking jerk!

Then, I wandered pass this:
Possibly the greatest stroke of advertising genius there ever is. A roomful of super clean washrooms in the busy Times Square filled with Midwestern parents and their kids who needed to go pee every 30 minutes. The downside: the cha-cha-cha-Charmin! song was on a continual loop here. But did I mention how the place is SUPER clean?! Once the previous person finished using it, one of the staff will scurry into the stall and clean and fabreeze the place. Pretty awesome.

What's even awesomer, is that the place has a little stage and there's a guy dancing the Charmin dance on it. (Yes, there's a Charmin dance!) He also encouraged the patrons to dance with him.
I have a feeling that he's one of the many aspiring-Broadway performers in the area that has to work embarrassinging jobs in order to pay rent. That's cool. I respect that. But I can't help but wonder if this little jig is considered off-Broadway or not since it's literally on Broadway. I think he's not too bad and he looks pretty into it. You'll be the judge.


PS: I also popped by the Nintendo World after I visited the MoMA. However, the line to try out the Wii was ridiculously long. I couldn't even shoehorn my way to one of the millions of DS lying around. So Dan, I hope that you'll let me do that when I'm home for the break.

Welcome to nerd world.Population: 55

This past Thursday night after going to the Oilers game (thanks for the hookup, Robin), I got in my car and jetted home, grabbed my camera, threw on some long johns and ventured over to the west end Best Buy for 11:30pm. I got there to find a slew of tents, Tim Horton's, laptops, PSP's and more than 50 people who were willing to drop $700 on the PS3.

I spent the next 9 hours in the parking lot, where I wrote a story for Ed on the anatomy of the lineup. Here's the highlights:



The campers. The guys in the front tent had set up on Wednesday night at 10:30pm. They sat through a hail and windstorm in order to hold spots 1-4 in the line. Inside, they had a generator that powered their 17" TV and gamecube.


At 5am, Best Buy staff started showing up. They gave the 50 people in line, all of who had been there a minimum of 17 hours by now, tickets that entitled them to come back at the store's opening. Everyone packed up their tents and probably went to Denny's for breakfast. While he was waiting for his ticket, Jordan, the first guy in line, told me that he had a dream on Wednesday night where he had a Duck Hunt gun in his coat and he was using it to protect his spot in line.


The store managers let me in at 7:15, before everyone else so that I could take picutres of the customers coming in at 8. I wanted to get a pic of the people in line waiting for the cage to come up, but it didn't really work out.


A reseller's wet dream

I got tons of pics with the people inside, but this is one of my favourites. I call it nerd jubilation.


One of my favourite parts of the night were how tall tales made their way through the lineup. I heard rumours of PS3's selling on eBay for anywhere from $4100 to $30,000 US; I heard about a girl in the line who was supposedly selling her PS3 online to pay her tuition. I looked for her, but never found her. There were stories of Wal-Mart raffling off tickets for the 12 systems they had to over 300 people at random--I called two different Wal-Marts when I got home Friday morning, who said they didn't do this.

I didn't get asleep until 5pm on Friday, but the campout story was totally worth it. I can't wait to do one for a sneaker release; maybe this spring/summer for Slam.

What Not to Wear

There are many good bits about Project Runway that make the show so addictive. The fact that Bravo! decides to rerun the show like 7 times a day in lieu of any other original programming (because it has none), basically just reinforces any addiction that I have towards the show. The highlight of this season's Project Runway was undoubtly a scene where Catherine Malandrino was the guest judge for the Paris couture challenge and upon seeing Vincent's crime against fashion (it has these fugly, unfinished-looking sleeves and the skirt looked like it was recycled from Zsa Zsa Gabor's couch, circa 1940 and it has this flower right on the butt), the fabulous Ms Malandrino wrote on her card, "No, no, no." That was bitchy, straightforward and awesome! She also said it in a thick French accent. Thus, awesomer!

But that was nothing compared to my reaction upon seeing this monstrosity walking towards me on Commonwealth Ave:

The hair was classic pre-divorce-I-can't-afford-to-
get-new-hair-extensions-because-my-deadbeat-
husband-is-buying-weed-and-getting-hookers-
with-all-of-my-Hit-Me-Baby-One-More-Time-
royalty-money Britney Spears. (Who, btw, is bring the fierce back and making all the right moves since filing the divorce papers. Kudos, brit brit. I never knew you could rebound this fast and this well.)

My drawing made it look like it was a letterman jacket. But it's actually a velour Juicy hoodie, with a letterman pattern. WTF?!

As for the boots, those are perhaps the most accurately drawn object in this artist's rendition since Ugg boots actually look like that. (Don't even get me started on how Ugg boots are the most useless footwear in this wet New England weather.) What made it worse was that those were pale pink and blue stripped pajama pants stuffed into the Uggs. I think those were faded raggy pajama pants, too.

OMG! My eyes hurt. I actually had to do a stop and catch my breath after seeing that. I would've taken a picture with my phone had I not want this image to sully my sexy black phone.

And the sad thing was that that's not a homeless person. That's a student. She was actually clutching a stack of books as she walked past me.

Mon dieu!

A slice of heaven...if child labour laws are ignored there too

After weeks of waiting and various types of internet hype, I finally was able to go to the Fresh Kicks event at Halo last night. For those of you who haven't had to listen to my ramblings about the event, it was a sneaker showcase that celebrated hip-hop culture.

Having never been to this kind of show, I didn't know what to expect when I walked in (special thanks to Chloe for letting me drag her along). What I found inside was one component of my own personal heaven. My own personal heaven will have to wait for another post.

I saw at least five jaw-dropping shoes last night that made the wait more than worth it. Below are some of the highlights.


Air Jordan X (1995) Orlando Magic colourway


Air Jordan X (1995) Seattle Sonics colourway


Air Penny I retro (2005) New York Knicks colourway


Air Jordan Defining Moments Pack, released in select US cities this past January.


My newest shoe, the LeBron IV


And my personal favourite, an original Air Jordan XIV (1999) black/indigo with ribbing. The shoe was widely released without the ribbing (I have a pair) in '99, but the only time I've ever seen the ribbed shoe is in a Jordan DVD where he had one in his home. I can't even imagine what the owner of this shoe paid for it.

Finally, I wore my brown/brown suede Air Force One low, but caught no one's eye with them. Chloe got more attention with what she wore:

Tyson, I failed you!

Amy Sedaris came into town and I missed out on her talk and book signing.

Look, I tried, okay. I even offer to pay for somebody's ticket ... which is actually free but is in limited supply. I had such high hopes, too, thinking I can get you an autographed cheeseball or something. Instead I couldn't even get you a picture of the event on Google image search. (The accompanying picture is obviously not taken at the event. Though it is no less funny.)

Really, I blame it on this liberal university town. Actually, the talk was held in Cambridge. So really, I blame it on the Harvard kids.

(I apologise for the exclamation marks in back-to-back titles. I think they're appropriate though given the gravity of the events.)

Also, The Crap Shack has become the top search result for "top ten songs of 1987" (quotation marks must be included) without ever including any of the top ten song of the 1987 in any of our posts. The phrase appeared in Dave's comment on the spinner rims post. Thanks Dave for capitulating us to cultural relevance and top of the Google search!

My roommate is a big fucking retard!

I just finished the cathartic experience of typing a long detailed post of how crappy my apartment is (the last straw happened today as I was walking home and I just happened to look up and noticed that some workers have ripped out big chunks out of our balcony ... why?!!!! I don't know!!! ) when I decided to grab a late night snack—which led me to this:
Now, I have alluded to my roommate's general inaptitude in all things culinary many times through my MSN nickname, MSN conversations with many of you guys, posts on this blog and the not-so-secret facebook wall post. But I never had any evidence to back me up. Until now.

Yeah. I know.

And what grossed me out even more is that underneath that blanket of fuzz, I think that's the curry that she hopelessly burnt, found out that it tasted like shit, and decided that it tasted shitty was because "there wasn't enough salt." Also, I think that's more than a month ago! I swear this mould is so far along in its evolutionary timeline that it just proved intelligent design wrong! Seriously, you can't get more retarded at cooking than this.

Look, I know I can't expect people to have the culinary skills to make turduckens. After all, that's my MO and I'd like to keep it that way. But basic understanding of expiry dates shouldn't be that difficult. This is honestly a new low. Even lower than the bacon burning. I'm going to passive-aggressively encourage her to eat out from now on.

On the bright side, she found a boyfriend recently and has since been sleeping over there almost every night (she mentioned that she should rent out her room on a day-to-day/hourly basis ... except Emily and I weren't sure if she's joking or not) and according to his roommate, they have been "cooking." I'm using the quotation marks because his roommate told me that to Chad, Celine's boyfriend, cooking is equivalent to making a sandwich and we have proved beyond any doubt that Celine fucking sucks at anything that requires a stove. Unfortunately, Chad's roommate is a fellow Sci Jo student, so I feel sorry for her. Fortunately, I'm glad she's no longer a liability at our house.

I've since left her a very non-passive-aggressive note:
I hope she'll read it when she spend the 15 minutes in the apartment changing into a fresh set of clothes between classes.

(And I'm not ashamed if she ever finds out about this post/invite to public humilation)

P.S. The apartment post is still coming! Later this week perhaps.

Wait ... Dose still exists?

Sorry to interrupt the latest, and no doubt, fascinating, development on Chris's hair. But this is the most hilarious and round-about shoutout to Dose I've seen in a while. Actually, ever.

Considering the rich history between Dose and Gateway, I cannot resist bringing this forward. Also, I think this filled up all the cultural relevance quota that has been missing since the first issue.

(I don't really know what's going on with the caption bubble though ... )