pestilence

tragedy and danger have befallen the house of lords (which i've recently decided is what i'm calling roddy's 6 gallon tank) in the form of the dread pirate ick*. our brave little hero is currently undergoing treatment that turns his water blue. his only public reaction to the matter thus far, predictably, has been "this is bullshit." he has no further statement at this time and i ask that you respect his privacy as he deals with this matter in the only way he knows how: the manly way.

"this is bullshit."

* ick is really a parasite called Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, not a pirate.

the candy store

one of the main reasons i post less on here these days is that all the things i find myself wanting to write about are better written elsewhere.

there was something that i meant to write about but forgot to, though. when i read yesterday that somebody had died as a result of the same arctic swim i was bragging about, it popped back into my head. if you don't feel like reading the article, he didn't die from being cold or anything. he injured his spinal cord somehow by diving in. it's still a huge tragedy, i only mention that because i don't want my mom to freak out. hi mom.

but reading about something so sad reminded me of something else i saw that day. being that it's winter and coney island is decidedly a summer destination, most of the shops on or around the boardwalk are boarded up. it's a bleak scene, to say the least, when a crowd of over a thousand is gathered on the boardwalk in broad daylight, surrounded by closed shops. but some shops never close (nathan's hot dogs are better than almost everything), and a few seem to make a special effort to open up for coney island's best-attended off-season event.

after the swim, the crowd basically retreats en masse down stillwell avenue, and most seem to stop at nathan's, which is at the corner of stillwell and surf. a little further down surf avenue there is a candy shop. bright colors, candy apples, etc. the kind of candy shop that there probably aren't many left of and that can only still exist in places like coney island. we stopped at nathan's on the way out (even though we had also stopped there on the way in) and walking down surf avenue towards our car, we passed the candy shop.

the shops on either side were closed up, but the candy shop was open, and the owner was just standing in the doorway, looking defeated while throngs of people (including us) walked by with nathan's hot dogs in hand.

anyway. i just got the impression that he had opened the doors specially for the occasion, and not many people appreciated it. and that made me a little sad.

in other news, i wrote about this already for work, but roddy woomble's (he's the singer in idlewild) solo record my secret is my silence blew me away this week. even though it came out months ago. better late than never, right?

oh, and also, i got a big snail to live with roddy and eat algae. his name is spencer and i haven't taken a picture yet. this morning he was all hiding in his shell instead of crawling around and it has me a little worried. please keep him in your thoughts.

nothing to see here

my hair is really long. i'm probably going to cut it soon and i haven't been taking many pictures lately so i figured i would take this to document the longest my hair will probably ever be in my entire life.

monday was sean's birthday. so monday morning before work i trimmed my you-know-where hairs in the shower and i forgot to clean out the drain trap. happy birthday.

i fully expected to be writing you an obituary for roddy by now given the dodgy recent history of my aquarium's inhabitants, but i am happy to report that the little guy is as healthy as can be. but still probably retarded.

which one of you crazy people told bob lefsetz about my sweatshirt?

this weekend i went to the brooklyn museum to see some art. this one guy makes life-like sculptures of people only they're a lot bigger or smaller than in real life. all of them peer suspiciously out of the corners of their eyes which is majorly creepy. this one naked bald guy was huge. his balls were as big as my head! so cool.

but at the brooklyn museum admission is contingent on a "suggested donation" which is total bullshit because when you hand them a $20 bill they don't ask you how much you want back they just give you change for the suggested donation. i'm happy to pay a standard admission price. just call it "admission." god damn.

the new brand new record is pretty good.

driving to work today i was thinking about death. forgive me if this gets heavy. i was wondering what the last thought that passes through my brain will be. i hope it's not "who farted?"

meet roddy

i thought you might like to meet roddy (pictured here becoming sentient of himself, imagine that little brain firing on all cylinders at the wonder of it all). roddy joined the family on an uncharacteristically warm and rainy november day. i named him after roddy woomble from idlewild. he cost $4. you can find a few more pictures of roddy on flickr if you care to. they're blurry because it's really hard to get the little guy to stand still. i think he might be retarded (but i don't love him any less).

here's some geekspeek: as of today i'm publishing this blog with blogger beta (instead of blogger) which basically means i get to tag posts for even greater searchability and category functionality. i'm kinda excited about it, provided that it works. i guess if you're reading this then it does. i'll go back and tag old posts as i find the time. that is to say, i won't. because i got gears of war today and actually i might as well tell you now that you surely won't hear from me again for months because i'll be busy with that. so uh...later.