The Oncoming Oooh's and Aaah's

Amid the busy weekend, I focused on getting shitloads done out and about as well as within these four walls. In the real world, my 19-year-old Mitsubishi bedroom TV sort-of died; it works really well, except when it flushes the picture and depicts white noise for a few minutes at a time. I had my cable company come in to check it out, and the guy told me it was the TV, not the cable. Skeptical, I asked him to replace my box just to be sure, and that night, sho'nuff, the new box's green digits glowing in the night, the TV was fine for a few minutes and then -- BOOM -- right back into white noise. The next day I went to Best Buy and scored a new Sharp AQUOS flat-screen EDTV. EDTV isn't a Matthew McConaughey vehicle; it's a TV format that's somewhere between standard, boring, squarish TV and those newfangled HDTV's. In fact, once I score one of them new HDTV boxes from my cable company, I'll have a picture on the new TV that's a lot closer to HDTV than plain-ol' regular TV. The biggest problem is deciding whether I want to watch TV in bed at a super-high resolution or in the living room on the bigger TV. What was strange -- sort of -- was watching the Cinemax Star Wars Marathon -- each of the six movies, in release order -- on the little screen and then on the bigger screen. The bottom line -- people spend way too much time worrying about resolution, screen size, what the cabinet looks like, and how deep -- two-point-three inches -- the new screen actually is. It's nice having a new TV in the house, but the truth is I wouldn't have bothered -- not really -- if the old one didn't die on me. I'm waiting to procure a Samsung big-screen HDTV for when Kaia and I co-habitate. In the meantime, as long as I can watch the Yankees, the Rangers and the Giants, I'm not worried about how many pixels are pouring out of the screen in order for me to do so.

On top of that, the (positive) post-party fall-out continues. I'm getting lots of positive responses from friends, both new and old, that made it to the Poobah B-Day Fest, and I'm getting all sorts of requests for our next shindig -- dates, locations, suggestions (genres of music, costume themes, etc.) -- which are always (smirk) appreciated. It's interesting, on some level, that almost all of the "constructive suggestions" seem to come from people who haven't made it to one of our parties. Or, as they say in France, those who know, know, and those who don't, should. We're shooting for sometime in early February -- most likely President's Day Weekend, which insures all the teachers that may want to be there are around, and anyone who may need to take an off-day to travel to/from NYC can do so with as little penalty vis-a-vis work as possible. The only problem is that that weekend might be tighter in terms of scheduling at places that might suggest we'll have to guarantee 200 attendees in order to not have to come up with any monies to secure the room. We might return to Iguana, but since the room opened to the public at midnight, we have reached the consensus that if the next party is at Iguana, we'll need until 1:30 or 2AM to insure everyone is drunk, smiling and ready to pass out before the public streams in. Tune in for more info.

Today, work-wise, was a mix of busy, really busy and really, really busy. I finished two mini-projects that needed to be out the door by 11 and another which needed to be finished by EOB (end of business) before I headed downtown around noon to address a variety of other projects. By the time 4PM rolled around I was on my way back to the office after completing most of what I had intended. Hopping off the train, it was raining and extremely windy so I ducked into the Time Warner Center, a short twenty-step walk under covered walkway, to take a quick jaunt through Whole Foods, which is one of the largest markets I have ever visited.

Whole Foods, at least at Columbus Circle, is an experience all its own. Most of the items in the market are natural or organic, so I didn't expect to find any food items that were overly vulgar or chemical in nature. However, I was similarly non-plussed when I saw mounds of granola, wheat germ and other products I wouldn't feed to a horse, let alone a human being. In either case, my main goal was to procure Tazo Passion tea, which is a tea I discovered (thanks to Kaia) at Starbucks. They sell it in both hot and cold forms, and the last time I visited Starbucks -- a rarity, considering I don't drink coffee and dislike tea -- I had a sore throat and opted for hot passion tea, and really liked it. So I decided to go buy a box or two, but since Whole Foods is the only place I can get it in NYC, I figured visiting Whole Foods in person -- only a few blocks from my office -- was a good idea.

I got two boxes of Passion tea, some sliced turkey for tomorrow's lunch, a Japanese pear (awesome), and some other stuff. The biggest surprise for me wasn't the fact that everything in the store seemed exorbitantly priced, but that it took me longer waiting on line to pay than it did to get everything I wanted to buy and get on line. Oh well -- if it wasn't worth waiting for then no one would bother waiting. It's similar to Eli's Vinegar Factory, which is right near my place, so I wasn't as shocked by the prices as much as I was by the fact that people were willing to wait on lines so patiently to pay excessively for organic groceries. Looks like I'll get most of my staples -- chicken, veggies, pasta, and household stuff -- at markets like Gristedes and Associated -- and the high-end stuff like fish and other exotic items at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Eli's. If anyone has any suggestions as to what stuff is really worth waiting for at Whole Foods, lemme know. Otherwise, don't expect to read much more of my experiences waiting on line at Whole Foods because -- if you hadn't guessed -- it won't be happening again anytime soon.

Finally, you may notice slight changes here at the HoB. We've moved to a newly-created server with lots more space and lots of comfy new features. It's still part of Blogspot, and for the time being we'll stay put. But soon the entire blog will be picked up and moved across the internet to its own new home. One of the nicer features is being able to block specific users and/or IP addresses, so I'll start tinkering with that in the next few days. For the most part, I try to welcome all visitors with aplomb and attitude, but there are those who manage to find their way here who should instead be in therapy or rehab or AA -- and some who should be regular visitors in all three -- and for them, I'll investigate how to encourage them to go elsewhere. There are other features which are somewhat complicated and not worth explaining; suffice to say that this space will get a slight makeover before the full-blown revamping I've been contemplating -- and promising -- for some time now. The new layout -- burgundy, charcoal, orange, et al -- is a nice interim change of pace, but I am guessing it will only be temporary and around for a little while longer. Once we make the jump, I'll be sure and leave a trail of bread-crumbs for all who wish to follow us to the new digs. In the meantime, if you're still awake and reading this, my congratulations and thanks -- now please consider cutting caffeine from your daily routine.

-B-