philly

This weekend was particularly packed with goings on. On Friday at work, I was 3 different people: 2 people were out and I also had to be me, which is a handful by itself. I was running all over the place within the office and up and down Illy. And in the end, I made a wrong turn and ended up on I-95 South during rush hour and it took me about 40 minutes to travel the 1/4 mile to the next exit. I would've just gone on the shoulder the entire way, but there was a cop in that lane [bastard].

After work Friday, I was just relieved after a particularly stressful day at work, so I took Kate out for some good eats- we ended up at Maggiano's. Maggiano's would be my favorite chain restaurant if there were more of them to go to, but there are only a handful, one of which was the venue of my infamous 21st birthday bonanza. I will never forget all of you who were in on getting me that double shot of tequila because you knew I'd puke after that. Anyways, this Maggiano's was a little different than DC's Maggiano's. The food was spectacular like DC's, but the decor just felt different. Frank Sinatra's photo wasn't there to greet me as I walked into the dining room and those cool irregularly hanging lamps were not to be found except for one single bundle of them in the middle of the room. I, of course, had the gnocchi; Kate had the ravioli. We both had a glass of chianti classico and ended the feast with some great tiramisu.

Needless to say, we had leftovers, after all it is family style portions. After dinner, we headed to Tower Records in search of the movie Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader. This was quite the steamy flick. Maggie took it up a few notches in this film. I also picked up The Spanish Prisoner, a film I had seen about 5 or 6 years ago and loved. I've been meaning to get this one for the longest time, but I just never got around to it, but I saw it there on the shelf and I had to get it.

On our way out, we passed by somebody down on his luck and I told Kate I was gonna give him my leftovers and she told me to give him her's as well. I used to do this all of the time, but I only recently started to go out for meals more and more often, so I shall start doing it again. I just have to remember to ask them for some plastic flatware if they got some in the restaurants when they pack up the stuff.

Saturday was our big journey to the largest mall I've ever seen or been to, King of Prussia Mall; it has its own zip code. I was later told that it is the largest mall based on square footage of the actual stores. While The Mall of America may be larger in size, take away the amusement park and the crazy high ceilings and measure only the stores, that one is smaller than KoP. We were there for about 4 hours or so. KoP sprawls over 3 sets of HUGE buildings. There are 2 different complete sets of The Gap. When I say complete sets, I mean Baby Gap, Gap Kids and normal Gap. Every time we turned a corner, we were greeted by another 1/2 mile long corridor of endless stores. It was insane. I made out very well with a trip to The New Balance Store. I got a cool ninja shirt and a wind breaker for a total of $70, they were both half off. I say ninja shirt, because it's one of those long sleeve shirts with holes in the end for your thumbs to stick out of while running in colder weather. It's pretty sweet. Kate came out of there with an entire new wardrobe for her new job she starts on Monday.

Later that night, while out for a walk in our neighborhood, we ran into one of my co-workers who was getting out of Swan Lake with his girlfriend. They were headed out to a bar to meet up with another co-worker. We told them we'd go home [3 blocks], change and cab it over to the bar. We had a bunch of drinks and since I had only eated a burrito for early dinner and I haven't really been drinking for the past few months, I was pretty drunk after 4/5 drinks. Good times. Then, after the bars closed at 2 am [why can't every city be like NYC and not close?] I suggested walking home, all 15 or 20 blocks. Why? I was nearing sloppy drunkenes. Kate, for some reason, obliged and off we were. I collapsed on the bed after ripping out my contacts [anyone want to buy me some lasic?] and passed out until Meet the Press came on at 10.30 am.

Which brings us to today. I threw around the disc with a kid from craigslist for a couple of hours then went home to watch the France v. England EuroCup 2004 match. Much to my pleasure, Kate saw that it was on pay-per-view on our digital cable. This way, I wouldn't have to schlep it on over to the bar. France took the game away in extra time, with captain Zizou scoring 2 goals in about 3 minutes of ET to take the match from England. Beckham's missed PK cost them 2 points in the tourney. I'm gonna try to head over to the bar for lunch and catch at least the end of one game each day for the week.

I also biked around a bit today. I went over to West Philly to check out Drexel University's campus a bit. I snapped the photo of my bike [below] on Chestnut St. Bridge overlooking the Schuylkill River, pronounced Shu-kill. I love riding my bike around. I feel free, like I'm flying around the city, going in and out of traffic as I please. Blending in on the sidewalk or slashing onto the street and biking next to the cars.

I also biked over to the Women's Way area [above] to snap a few photos. Illy has this crazy extensive mural project all over the city that I'm sure I'll do a photo essay on, in depth, which will be posted on my photo site to be. I swear I'm gonna get my act together, part II, and buy a domain and arrange for a hosting service for my photo site sometime soon. Maybe after I get a little more settled at my job.

OK. Time to recharge to do it all over again.

Now, I'm not talking about another bicycle, but a motorcycle. I saw this beautiful chopper on South St. last week sometime on one of my walks. I had seen it pass me by and I hoped that it would stop down the road somewhere for me to snap some pics and sure enough, there it was, a few blocks down the way. I've watched the West Coast Choppers show with Jesse James and the Orange County Choppers show with Teutl fam as well, but I've never actually seen a chopper up close and personal.

And let me tell you, they blow you away. Even if you don't like bikes, you'll just appreciate the effor that goes into one of these badboys. Every single one is a unique original- nothing else like it out there. Built by hand, these choppers can run you 20 large easy. How nice are they you ask? Well, as I was taking photos, a cop walked over to the bike and said, "Wow, this thing must go fast, don't you think?" Now, coming from a cop, I thought that was pretty crazy. I thought he was gonna write a ticket or something, but nope, he just stood there and admired it for a sec then continued on his beat.

But I don't think a chopper is for me. For me, there is only one bike, and I've mentioned its name before on this blog. But until I cut down on my credit card debt, school loans, etc… I'm gonna wait until I sink 7K into a bike. Before I get a bike, I gotta get a new computer. This one is just asking to be retired. I've been through 3 keyboards, 3 hard drives, 3 batteries, tons of RAM upgrades and I even melted a RAM module on the motherboard so instead of running on an optimal 512 MB RAM, I've got only 256 running the show. Sooner or later, this workhorse I've had for around 4 years now, it's gonna die and I need to lift all of my data off of it. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't go kaput with all of my precious photos on the hard drive. I guess I could always recover the data from the hard drive with a few cables, but that would just be some more hassle I don't really want to deal with. I'd rater transfer all this data straight onto another computer.

Now that you non-techies have all fallen asleep reading that last paragraph, I bid you adieu as I pick out my bidniss attire to wear tomorrow to the office.

peas.

So, I bought me a mountain bike. This will help me explore Illy quicker and get my largesse some exercise at the same time- amazing. I took my bike to Bicycle Therapy for some air and to buy an allen wrench multi-tool. I've already bought me a Kryptonite Gorgon bike lock to protect my investment as well as a Bell Arc helmet to protect my noggin. I also added a gel bikeseat cover to protect my arse and a little zipper pouch that attaches to the underside of the seat so I can take my keys and some cash or whatever with me on a ride around town.

So, getting back to my trip to the bike shop… I put some much needed air into my tires and bought the allen wrenches to adjust the seat for my oddly short legs [in comparison to my overly long torso]. When I got back home, I promptly changed and went out for a ride. I rode across town to the Real World House and I saw 2 crew members walking into the side entrance. Perhaps they were taking a quick smoke break as the Real Worlders were doing something stupid and scandalous. While we're talking about the Real World, I'd like to bring it to everyone's attention that I either am or will be too old to ever be on the Real World. My plans to be the first Asian male on the show, down the drain. And I attribute most of the fault to a poor decision to go to Nation one night for a Buzz party and then going to IHOP at 7 am and not getting back to sleep until 8.30 am or so and totally missing the Washington, DC casting call at 9.30 am. Oh well. I'm sure I had a blast at Buzz and who knows what stupid stuff I would've done on that show that I may/may not have regretted doing. Another lifetime…

And changing gears…

One of the first things I noticed about Illy is these little metal things next to almost every single rowhouse in Illy. I plan to do a photographic essay on them in due time, but above is a close-up of one of them. From what I can deduce just by looking at it and the juxtapositioning of it next to the steps leading into buildings, I can only assume that it is/was a shoe scraper. Way back in tha day, they used horsies to get all around town and horsies, well, they like to crap everywhere. I'm assuming that even if you tried really hard, you were gonna step in some crap along the way back to your house and this shoe scraping thingie helped get that horse crap off of your nice shoes. And of course, the mud/dirt/whatever else gets on one's shoes during the course of the day. My favorite one I've seen so far is in the shape of a daschund which I haven't taken a photo of just yet because everytime I pass it, it is right after it rains so it's all yucky or I don't have my camera on me, but rest assured, it will be a part of my photo essay in due time.

Sorry for the lack of posts folks, it's been tiring at PW lately catching up on stuff and getting to know how everything works. I'll have more to say and more photos posted very soon.

Today [yesterday], most of my day was spent in Rittenhouse Square Park, sorta like Central Park West, to put it in NYC terms, because that's what I know best. People showing off their dogs, hipsters gathering around talking about hipster stuff and crazy people talking to themselves- yes, we have those down here too.

My day started off with a play date of sorts. I put up a posting on craigslist to see if anyone wanted to start up some pick up soccer or ultimate games around the area. This one guy got back to me and we decided to meet up and throw around the disc on Sunday. We met up and threw around for like 2 hours. It was cool. I haven't touched my disc in oh so long. I don't think I've taken it out in about a year or so. We talked for awhile about Philly and how we both ended up here and he gave me some pointers, he having 6 months of experience in this city and me with only 3 weeks or so.

Later in the day, I headed back to the Park to check out a mountain bike- also found on craigslist. What I really want is a motorcycle, specifically, a Ducati Monster 620. And the worst thing is, there's this guy riding around where I live who has the very bike I crave. Arg. But I digress. So, I decided I'd buy this mountian bike to explore Illy a little quicker than my two feet will carry me. While I was waiting for the lady to show up, I snapped a few shots of the people in the park: the trumpet & drum duo, the kids doing hackey-sack, pepole doing capoeira and the usual fare. Here are 9 photos from my day at the Park.

So, I took the bike for a stroll and it's quite a beauty. It's a Diamondback Sorrento SE: 21 speeds, front 3" shocks, grip shifters- it's a really nice bike. It just needs some air in the rear tire, a rear red reflector and some oil and I need a helmet and I'd like to get a nice gel seat for my ass too. I plunked down $150 for it. For a 3 year old bike that hasn't been ridden in the past 1+ year [the girl tore a ligament in her ankle or something] that used to retail at $400, I thought it was a decent deal. And considering there are crappy bikes on sale for like $100 at Wal-Mart, I figured the extra $50 would go a long way in this case.

So after I bought the bike, I rode it home to drop off some of my stuff and then headed back out on the road. I biked around for about 30-40 minutes and I had enough of the hard pedaling I was doing with the flat rear tire and I decided to park it in the basement of my building until I could take it to the bike shop and get some air next week sometime.

And at the tail end of the day, I had dinner at Pico de Gallo, this Mexican place Kate and I have been talking about going to on the end of our block. It was very very good, albeit the service was crappy, I think that they were short one server. It took forever for her to come over, but the food came out remarkably quick. And she gave us the check just in time for me to get home to watch The Sopranos season finale, the penultimate season. And it was a great episode. I don't know how I wait a year and a half in between each season, but I get through it somehow, and I'll do it again. This season, on the whole, was so much better than last season and there were so many huge things that they brought up and solved in this David Chase lead written episode- they weren't messing around with this one.

And tomorrow is the beginning of week 2 at PW, off I go.

I gave myself a style change into "business clothes" today with a $604.96 shopping spree at Jos. A. Bank Clothiers today. Having one pair of black pants and 2 pair of khaki pants plus 4 shirts weren't gonna cut it in the sales section of PW for me. So, I went out and bought 6 really nice shirts and 3 pairs of really nice pants. Now, I gotta get them badboys tailored for my short legs, which will run me another $10 apiece.

Also on the docket for today was a haircut. One of the most annoying things about moving to Illy was finding a new barber. First off, I had been buzzing my head with my Sharper Image Ultra Groomer for the past 3 years until Kate got me a "real" haircut. So since then, I've been going to barbers. That was all good while I was in NY 'cause I'd just go to my old barber in Tuckahoe and get my haircut. But in Illy, I had to find a whole new barber and that was quite the daunting task. Today, I walked around all over the place, in the rain, looking for a barber. What did I find? A million salons where they'd probably charge me like $50 or so and I was not about to do that. I'd rather buy another shirt with that kind of cash. I turned to the phonebook and found Maxamillion's Gentlemans Barber Shop, the very barber shop I had passed and forgotten where it was a week ago. I went in and they did me good. So I found me a new barber for my new city.

And later on in the day, the publisher of The PW had a party at her house. A work/Smarty Jones Party. For those of you who don't know who Smarty Jones is, click here. Well, Illy is Smarty Jones crazy because, apparently, he was raised/trained here and he has become the darling of the city. On the news, there are crazy people all freaked out about Smarty Jones and how he is the Illy savior or whatever. Whatever. So, I watched my first horserace. Smarty Jones lost. It was kinda exciting for 5 seconds when the other horse caught up to Smarty and passed it in the last 100 yards or so, but besides that, it was like watching paint dry, not much going on.

But the rest of the party was pretty cool. Lots of drinks and food. She [the publisher] even went out and bought a hot dog roller, similar to #8223 14, probably the most over the top, but pretty cool thing to have I've seen in awhile. The funny thing is, they had a regular grill. They also used the grill to cook hot dogs and burgers which I thought was especially funny. But hey, she's got the funds.

It was cool to see a good amount of my co-workers in a relaxed environment outside of the office. Not to say that my office is stuffy or anything, but you know what I mean. And it was especially nice to have this kind of event so soon after I started to work there so that I could get a better grasp on everyone's personality. And I also got some good eats out of it as well, so it was a win win situation for me and my belly [which despite my efforts, seems to be getting larger].

To counteract my largesse, I may buy a mountain bike tomorrow. I found this person on craigslist with a great bike [I did a little research] and I may buy it off of of this person tomorrow. We're gonna meet up at the park and I'll take it for a spin. S/he wants $160, but I'll try to get it for like $125. New, this bike goes for $300-$400, but it's a few years old. Let's see how that goes.

I saw this beauty on a van on South Street, yes, the very South Street where Boyz II Men used to hang out in a "jet black Benz, plenty of friends, and all the Philly steaks you can eat." Damn, they used to be so good. I'll make it over to Cooley High sometime and round out my Boyz II Men experience down here.

South Street is a funny place. It's part Brooklyn, part Union Square and part Times Square. You have to see it to believe it. It's totally commonplace to see a guy walking down the street with his girl trailing behind him on a chain leash and in a collar and then pass by a quaint family eating "water ice" [what the rest of the world calls Italian Ice] standing with their backs to The Erogenous Zone fetish-wear and sex toy shop. And then on the next block, step into one of the better sports bars in Illy and order up a basket of 10&cent wings and watch the NBA Playoffs.

I think South Street is one my favorite neighborhoods so far. There's just so much going on down there: bars, stores, steaks, ice cream and much much more. There's not much to dislike about it. But it does get pretty crowded down there on Friday and Saturday nights.

And one last thing, check out the trailer to Michael Moore's newest film, Fahrenheit 9/11. It opens on June 25th and everyone should go see it and then tell their friends about it and tell all those people who think Gov. Bush is doing such a great job in office; he's too busy being on vacation [40% of his time as President has been spent on vacation] to give a crap.

Pictured above are the Liberty Towers, completed in 1987, they are the tallest buildings in Illy. They make a nice addition to the otherwise bleak skyline. Coming from the New York City area, it's kinda weird not seeing huge, gigantic skyskrapers everywhere in the middle of the city. I'm not sure which I like better, the huge skyskrapers or the more moderately sized buildings. I was walking around the other day, the same day as my Geno's outing and it was pretty overcast. I got to Washington Street and this great panorama was in front of me with the clouds running over the tops of the Towers. You can't really make out the full shape of the famous towers, but I'll surely find another spot to take some shots of them in the nice sunlight as well.

Up to this point, my favorite view of the Towers, and Illy in general, is from the Rocky Steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. After watching Rocky I Kate pointed out that the Towers weren't in the skyline from the steps, and sure enough, with the movie coming out in 1976, the towers were a decade away and the skyline, well, lacking.

Changing gears…

Today was my second day at the new office. I got my own desk/cubicle, computer/email, phone and personalized fax cover sheets. Soon, I will be in posession of the prized business cards I've longed for and I will be oh so happy. This weekend, I'll be going to a party at the Publisher's house in the 'burbs of Illy. I'll get to see how the rich live over here and rub elbows with my co-workers outside of work, albeit in a pseudo-work setting.

Hello folks and welcome to June in Philly. A new month and I've now decided to start using CAPS when they should be used on this here blog of mine. Well, today was my first day at the new office, Philadelphia Weekly, for those who aren't caught up. It started bright and early and was busy from the minute I was in the office. One annoying thing about the office that I've discovered already is that it's too hot in the office. Now, not HOT hot, but hotter than I feel it should be, but I do know that I like things to be colder than most people. But it is annoying to be sweating for the first 15 minutes in the office after walking there in pants and a button down shirt (even though I'm only 6 blocks away- I sweat a lot). There are about 45 people in the office, I'd say 30 or so on my side of the office- the Sales/Classifieds/Production team; the Editorial staff is about 15 or so. Everyone is pretty young, as expected at an alternative weekly.

I'll have my own cubicle, phone line and business cards. I'm oh so excited about having my own phone line and business cards- I've never had either before. In my three consecutive summers at VIBE they never even so much as gave me a dinky email address. And at Spring Street Networks, where I worked for over a year before they canned my ass, no phone line and no business cards, arg. Why am I so excited about business cards? I've always wanted to drop my card into those bins at restaurants and stuff for a chance to win a stupid breakfast or a free meal or something. It's the little things in life that make me happy, oh yeah, along with this stuff (hint hint, nudge nudge).

I'll save you all from the mundane duties I do at work, but needless to say, I was hit by a deluge of stuff the first day AND, it was the busiest day of the week- Late Ad day where I am to run around and get all the late ads proofed and stuff.

But after work, I had a celebratory dinner at the Nodding Head. It has quite the menu, everything from vegan fare to a rack of BBQ ribs and great in-house brewed beers. I had the Grog which is in between a Newcastle and a Guinness.

After dinner, I passed by Striped Bass [entrance pictured] which is where the Real Worlders are working this season. It's a bit pricey, but if anyone is in town and would like to take me out to a schmancy dinner, feel free! I'm game. Perhaps at some point, as I'm leaving my office at 6pm and walking south on 15th St., I'll pass by Striped Bass on Walnut St. and watch camera crews capture one of the cast members breaking down because s/he got stiffed on a $400 table or something. I'd take out my camera and start snapping away, holding back tears and laughter.