Author: rbcp

I like pie!

newold dishes

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Remember that sand Java thingie I was raving about back in December? Well, apparently it’s creator made a new version of it. With Zombies! Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more addictive. Payton has spent at least 3 hours on it today. You just can’t go wrong when you add Zombies to something.

It should be noted that Jammie rules. On Friday, out of nowhere, she sends me a link to a post on the Eugene, Oregon Craigslists about some guy needing to get rid of some old dishes. Just out of nowhere. We hadn’t been talking about my lack of dishes for weeks but apparently she decided to keep an eye on my local Craigslist for me. So on Friday I ended up driving to Springfield, Oregon and got myself a rather large box of mismatched plates, glasses, SILVERWARE (I was tired of using plastic silverware. Hi murd0c.), icecube trays and other miscellaneous kitchen items. This is a very nice change from the paper plates and plastic forks we’ve been using. I didn’t want to buy any of that stuff since I’ll have my old kitchen stuff back hopefully next summer. Anyway, THANKS JAMMIE! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that!

Today is Lazy Sunday. The kids are still in pajamas. This morning Payton and I played Hangman. Which is always fun with a first grader that doesn’t spell very good yet. Emily and I watched Just Like Heaven which was really good. Last night we watched the 1933 version of King Kong which was pretty much exactly like the 2006 version of it. The special effects were really impressive, considering they were done in 1933. The DVD had tons of cool extras. I’m going to watch some more of it today.

Walked to the 12th street park yesterday, then to Dari Mart for snacks. The kids recorded their own radio show on my computer last night. And then, completely without any prompting from me, Emily said I should put it on the internet so everyone would hear it. So I dunno, maybe I’ll set up an RSS for that later. I’m not sure if the world is ready for an exclusive interview with Payton. That reminds me – Emily made some really kickass stop-motion Lego animations a couple weekends ago. I was going to help her add sound effects to it and edit it a little but I forgot.

Hrmmmm, what else. Oh yeah, the weather is kicking ass the past couple days. No rain at all and the last 2 days it’s been in the upper 50’s. The lady at the bank assured me last week that Oregon makes up for all the rainy days with really great Springs. So hopefully that’s on it’s way. But it’s nice that the nonstop 4 month rain has finally stopped.

*points and laughs at all you on the east coast with 2 feet of snow*

Actually, I wish we could have 2 feet of snow. There hasn’t been any here this year.

UPDATE: Just minutes after posting all that, Jammie sent me the following picture message which I think ties in perfectly with at least two parts of my ranting…

9:48pm – That annoying low frequency humming sound coming from the direction of the hospital really needs to stop. Every night, from 9ish until I’m asleep. What the hell is it? The kids don’t complain about it. Maybe only I can hear it. I just started really noticing it last week.

We went for another walk today. To the park on Caloopia. Stayed there awhile, reading. Then we walked towards downtown, admired some kind of dam and waterfall thing, noticed a park off in the distance and walked towards it only to find that the entire park was completely under water. There was a playground area and a picnic shelter which looked like it was under at least a foot of water. It was the size of a small lake. Bryant Park.

Wendys lady

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Camera phone pictures dump:
Me and PaytonHaircut
Goodbye Illinois drivers licenseNew Oregon drivers license
Emily feeding ducksGuitar player at Portland Amtrak station

An hour ago…

Wendys Lady: Here you go sir. *hands me a bag and my drink* I know you said it was for here but I hit the wrong button on the register.
Me: Oh.
Wendys Lady: I have a tendency to do that. I’m sorry.
Me: Oh. Well uh… Could I still have a tray?
Wendys Lady: *thinks about it* Okay! Here you go. I’m sorry about that mixup.
Me: It’s okay. Thanks!

Delays

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8:30am EST: On a plane to Chicago right now. Had to get up at 5am this morning to make it to la guardia by 6am. Jammie made me breakfast – pancakes and scrambled eggs – then took me to the airport.

I’m listening to lots of lame podcasts that I downloaded last night. Right now its the Mary and Karla Show. Before that it was 3 episodes of Digital Flotsam which were all great. Been downloading lots of random podcasts this week to listen to on my train rides to the city. Last week I listened to a group of nerds obsess over Harry Potter movies and theorize over all
kinds of mundane details on Mugglecast. I like Harry Potter but not enough to put that much time and thought into it. Also listened to lots of RBPC (Really Bad Podcast). This is all much more entertaining than the old 1940’s radio plays I downloaded for the plane ride to NYC.

Apparently I get the kids immediately after arriving home tonight, all weekend, all day Monday (no school) and Tuesday morning. Which is nice since I’ve really been missing them the past couple weeks.

Jammie has gotten me completely addicted to American Idol over the past week. This season started last week and we watched all the episodes. I think this will be the first network TV show I’ve been into since the late 90’s. Last show I remember being into was The Pretender. Jammie’s most frequent quote during the shows: “You know that guy is on your forums.” Every time some weird spaz was auditioning.

Captain just announced 50 minutes until Chicago. Now on episode 14 of Mary and Karla.

12:48 EST: After 90 minutes in the airport, now on my way to Portland. Four hour flight. Started reading The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain which Jammie found at a street vendor for me the other day. Already halfway through it since it’s very short. Reminds me of Stephen King’s Needful Things.

Colleen wrote me another email during my layover, asking if I could take the kids until Wednesday morning instead. At this rate, I’ll make up my two weeks absence by the end of this week. So yay!

Just used my Pocket PC to search for other bluetooth devices in range. At least one person has their cell phone on. OMG FAA HAX!

1:15 PST – Made it to Portland. Sitting on a city train, waiting for it to leave for the Amtrak station. If all goes well, I should be in Albany within 3 hours. This day has gone by surprisingly fast. I finished the new Mark Twain book which was a really great read.

2:45pm PST – My Amtrak is running 90 minutes late, of course. Ugh… Saw a cool arcade a few blocks away. Might go there and play some games.

10:30 PST – Man, Amtrak SUCKS. When I got there and bought my ticket, I was happy that I arrived just 5 or 10 minutes before it was scheduled to leave. The guy told me that it was running an hour late. No big deal, I sat around outside and listened to some guy play his guitar for an hour. During that hour they added another 30 minutes. During the 30 minutes, they added another 45 minutes. During the 45 minutes, they added more time. Then more. Then they teased us by calling everyone up to exchange our tickets for boarding passes and had us stand by the door to wait for the train which would be there in about 15 minutes. After 15 minutes passes, they announce that it will be another 20 minutes. It finally left the station 3 1/2 hours after it was scheduled to.

The part that really sucked was the way they kept gradually increasing the delay time. If they could have just told me from the beginning that it was going to be 3 1/2 hours late, I could have found something fun in Portland to do for 3 1/2 hours. Instead I was stuck in the Amtrak station for 3 1/2 hours. Everyone I know who rides Amtrak has these insane delay experiences. Next time I take a trip to Portland, I’m looking into Greyhound. I should find that guy in the Albany Amtrak station and punch him for assuring me that Amtrak is rarely late, nearly making me miss my plane.

It took a little under 2 hours to get to Albany, which is the normal time by train. I started up another book, listened to more Podcasts and chatted on Yahoo for most of the ride. When we arrived in Albany it was drizzling a little and I couldn’t find my unbrella in my suitcase, so I quickly walked home. House was freezing, 55 degrees, since I turned the furnace off for my 2 weeks. Colleen brought the kids over. Stayed up for just a couple hours, watched some ALF, went to bed.

No pants and Billy Joel

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Let’s see…Saturday we were lazy. Slept until after noon, bummed around the house all day, cleaned Jammie’s room, watched House and House II and we declared it no pants day.

Sunday…we were going to go pantsless on the 6 train to be part of some wacky flash mob, but it was too cold for that so we watched Creepshow instead. It’s a good thing, too, since a few people were charged with disorderly conduct for the no-pants thing. Would have been hilarious to get Jammie arrested, though.

After Creepshow, went to a psychic fair. When we got there, we discovered it wasn’t so much a fair, but a very small room to the side of a coffee shop with a few tables. The people hawking their goods at the tables outnumbered the amount of customers there. As we approached each table to look at the merchandise, the new-age hippy-looking 40-something behind the table eyed us like a vulture, pleading with their eyes for us to by something. You could see the disappointment on their faces when we walked away empty handed. This one girl had stacks of her unframed “art” for sale – water color and crayon hippie designs on posterboard. It reminded me the shit kids drew in middle school. She only wanted $40 for each of them. We quickly passed by the 3 psychic reading tables – they wanted $30.00 per reading. Considering the number of $5.00 psychics we see every other block in the city, fuck that.

Walked around for awhile, went to The Container Store, Barnes & Noble and a few street vendors. Then we went for some pizza and to an improv show at the 78th Street Theater Lab. It was a small show – the audience was only double the size of the cast. Pretty slow-paced but occasional bits of hilarity. They asked for the names of fictional movies and Jammie yelled out “Phone Losers of America” and they did a movie review on it – turned out to be a club of serial killers called the Phone Losers of America who murdered people over the phone by making them swallow their cell phones. Or something like that. I recorded the whole act with my cell phone but the quality is too horrible to put up.

Yesterday, I wandered Manhattan for an hour or so before picking up Jammie from work. Then we (Jammie, Rob, Mara and me) went to see Billy Joel in concert at Madison Square Garden! The show was incredible, probably one of the best concerts I’ve been to this century. Oh wait, it’s the only. I don’t think I’ve been to a real concert since Aerosmith in 1999. But yeah, it was great. I thought I was a hard-core Billy Joel fan, but I ended up recognizing only maybe 60% of what he played. And then I only knew the lyrics to about half of those.

Bar hopping

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Last night we went bar hopping. The first was a place called Montien. I got to meet a guy who I was in some kind of massive IRC war 10 years ago that I barely remember. We patched things up by drinking a few shots together and I gave him a PLA button as a peace offering. I guess us PLA types harassed his channel, called #stuy95. Apparently this is chronicled in some old PLA issues.

Next was Coyote Ugly. That’s a blur. It was too crowded but didn’t last very long. Then some other bar for the rest of the night until about 1am. All night people seemed to know me from Jammie’s journal, which was weird for me. At the last bar, a girl greeted me by saying, “You’re the one who gave me Corey Feldman’s cell phone number!” Met lots of people whose names I’ve heard referenced often over the past 7 months. Got home at 2:30am.

This morning I walked around about 8 blocks, looking for the post office. Finally found it. That sure was exciting. Tonight we’re watching some 80’s Eddie Murphy standup thing with Rob and Mara. Guess I’m going to try and finish up my stuff here earlyish and go to the city to wander around for a few hours. Still need to find some kind of souvineer thing for Payton. We found Emily a kickass charm bracelet the other night at a giftshop.

Later that day…

I went to Manhattan and had lunch with Jammie at the Trailer Park Cafe, which murd0c recommended the last time I was in town. I had sloppy joes and tater tots. Took Jammie back to work, then went for long walks. Visited the World Trade Center site. Then walked to Battery Park, hoping to find something for Payton with the vendors. Failed to find anything worth getting. Then decided to walk back to Times Square instead of taking the Subway, with just 90 minutes to get there. I didn’t make it. A little over an hour later, I was only halfway there so I found a Subway and got to Jammie’s work just in time.

We walked to a bar where her employees were all gathered. Stayed for about 30 minutes, then left. Got a Subway home and then napped for an hour. Rob showed up, then we went to Duane Reade to pick up Mara from the Subway. Got junk food, then went home to watch Eddie Murphy’s Delirius. Which was probably one of the best standup shows I’ve ever watched. Somehow I never managed to see it until now. Actually, I’ve never seen anything Eddie Murphy has done from the 80’s, aside from his SNL stuff which I have on VHS.

After that we all drove back into Manhattan (minus Rob) to see Underworld with Anontio, Sergei and some girl whose name I forget. Made it to the theater just as it was starting – to find out that it was sold out. Everything was sold out, in fact. Who’d have thought that the movie theater in Times Square would be sold out on a Friday night?? So instead, we all went to Antonio’s apartment and ended up watching Team America. Left his apartment at 3:30am, got home around 4:30, crashed immediately.

Weird guy at Duane Reade

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Last night I was wandering around Woodside for about an hour, killing time while waiting for Jammie’s train to arrive. Around 8pm, I sit down on a bench in front of Duane Reade and notice a man eyeing me. A minute later he walks over and says hello. I reply, “hi.” He asks how I’m doing and I say something like, “Oh, just fine” in a dismissing tone. Apparently I have a very good dismissing tone because he walks away without asking me for money.

But then he wanders back a minute later and asks if I can spare a dollar. I tell him no and he jokes around with something like, “What happened to the days when they asked you for a quarter? Now it’s always a dollar! Ha ha.” He apologizes for asking, we bid each other farewell and he leaves again. What’s strange about this guy is that he’s clean cut, dressed nice, speaks well and clearly isn’t used to asking strangers for money.

Here’s the bizarre part…he comes back again and apologizes, once again, for asking me for money. Then he tells me, “We’re out here looking for someone” as he walks off, and in a reassuring tone he tells me that I’m not the one “they” are looking for. A few seconds later he’s disappeared around the corner, behind Duane Reade and out of sight. Cop? Crazy man? Homo? All of the above? You be the judge…

Tonight we’re going to see Avenue Q. Last night we watched the American Idol premiere, which is only the 3rd time I’ve ever watched it in the 4 years that it’s been on. I’m having a great time here so far. Over the weekend we visited some motion picture historical place which was lots of fun. I rewired Jammie’s TV and installed shelves in the kitchen. And next week we might see Billy Joel. Here’s a few pictures…

Jammie being a weather girl Jammie being a weather girl on a chromakey screen
some weird animation thing This is some weird strobe light animation thing. It ruled.
OMG HAX! After installing shelves, I OMG HAX some washers on the table.

New York excitement

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I got to experience my very first New York tragedy today! It was so great! A big fuel tanker tipped over on the BQE, eexploded 8,000 gallons of fuel and an overpass collapsed on top of it! All right here in Woodside, near Jammie’s house. They even closed down the #7 train, which the the one we take to get to the city. We heard lots of fire trucks and helicopters so I looked out the window and saw 2 helicopters and thick black smoke. Jammie went out later and told me there were actually 6 helicopters so I turned on the news to find out what was happening. Exciting tragedies should happen more often! (It’s okay, somehow nobody was hurt during all this.) Here’s the news story on it all.

Pranked in Chicago

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Got to the Chicago airport 20 minutes early. They didn’t have any food that I wanted so I settled for chips and cheese and Sprite. Pretty much every flight leaving Chicago was delayed by an hour or two, including mine. At some point I’m talking to Jammie when she gets a call from Nate, wanting to know what my flight number is. After I hang up with Jammie, I eventually end up calling the PLA Voice Bridge and hear Nate and Mgross (and somebody else I think) in a phone call with some airport lady, trying to contact me with some kind of an emergency. Something to do with my wife being pregnant and me being in Chicago to visit my girlfriend.

Eventually I get paged at the airport so I go to the desk and tell them that I’m Brad Carter. This really nice old man seems genuinely concerned and tells me that I got an emergency phone call from a doctor. He tells me the doctor’s name and asks if I know him and I tell him yes. The entire time, I’m on the bridge with my cell phone so everyone can hear me retrieving my message. The old man hands me a note, telling me my doctor’s name and the phone number to the bridge. He tells me good luck and that he hopes it all works out okay. I respond with something like, “Yeah, my wife, when she had her last baby she died so we’re hoping that doesn’t happen again.” Both the old man and the lady next to him give me an, “Oh my!” (or something like that) to let me know they understand what I must be going through. Then I walk away, leaving them to be confused about the statement.

So that was fun. Thanks for making my flight delay a little more interesting!

My flight finally left at 11:20 and got to NYC about 2 hours later. There was a big thunderstorm over the airport so they had to circle around a few times, waiting for the storm to pass which seemed to take forever. We landed at 3:00am. Here’s countykid’s take on last night’s events.

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