All That and a Bag o' Chips

Has it really only been a few days since I last visited the friendly confines of the HoB? Hard to believe. It's also hard to believe that 72 hours can go by so slowly at certain times (say, when you're behind enemy lines with alligator clips attached to, respectively, a Sears-brand car battery and your genitalia) or so quickly (when you're running through a wonderful few days with your other half.

Saturday was our day to run around Soho, just for walking in and down and up and through a variety of stores, stalls, vendors and shops. We made a reservation for Mercer Kitchen for brunch, and as per usual, we wound up spending some face time at the bar downstairs, each of us nursing cocktails (she had some red wine, I had a pomegranate mojito) before we were beckoned upwards to our table to a sense of deja vu -- we each had the same entrees -- and were holding back laughs as we kept sharing an inside joke. The celeb sighting of the day -- although there were many -- was seeing Robin Williams, replete with beret, black microfiber pull-over and sneakers -- slide in and downstairs.

Once we finished our lunch/brunch, we tooled around Soho for awhile; though we enjoyed checking out the variety of artists and their handiwork, we also managed trips to a few stores, including Vuitton, Banana Republic, Pottery Barn and Bloomingdales. It was a nice, non-agenda afternoon/evening. Since we were totally relaxed and meandering, we eventually opted to return to the hotel and just chill for awhile.

Night came fast and we were enjoying the weather and each other. Just lounging around, watching (or trying to watch) Mullholland Drive (the living room DVD was nish good), and getting hungry, we decided to order in rather than dress to go out. About seven restaurant choices later (everything else was either closed or too far away) we opted to do take-out from Smith & Wollensky around the block. I went down and scored din-din and some sodas (after much searching) and finally returned. We sat down on the couch and enjoyed a cozy candlelit dinner (and some SNL, MTV and god knows what else) before we adjourned to the bedroom to watch the DVD and fall asleep.

Once we woke up, we decided we'd go to brunch with my sister and her boyfriend before heading downtown, so we wound up at the Panorama Cafe on the East Side, sat outdoors and soaked in some sun, the air and some more relaxation. By the time we finished and had enough motivation to leave, we nixed going downtown in favor of hitting a pet store near my place, where we four spent an hour or so playing with lhasa apsos, chihuahuas, shitzus and I tried fitting my other half (unsuccessfully) with a muzzle ;-) We discussed possible names for a girl cat and a boy dog -- Elvis -- and opted to keep looking for an eventual pair. Eventually we split with the goal of heading to my apartment and then downtown, but we decided instead to rest and spend some downtime at my place.

Sunday night was Balthazar. Same menu, same choices, different wine (Chateauneuf du Pape 2001 -- rockin') and same result...we had a wonderful dinner, smiled all the way home, fell asleep too quickly and woke up happy and together.

***

There's more on the way, so I'll be back soon...first I need to unplug these alligator clips and the battery...

-B-

...and a Snickers bar...

If it's true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, then I have a feeling that my other half and I have been absent for quite awhile. I managed my way over to the W on Thursday night and, within minutes, we picked up right where we left off. For the most part, I can't see how we've gone for so long and not been sleeping in the same bed every night; when we finally do see each other, the urgency, the fire and the chemistry just comes back and boils up over and over again, leaving us each breathless and muttering "God damn, it just can't get any better."

And yet it does. Each day and each night continue to remind me, with an assorted assortment of gestures, looks, touches, fingers and kisses, that like a fine wine, this "thing" just gets better and better.

We finally fell asleep Thursday night sometime around 1AM EST, and the next morning was, simply, smile-inducing. Every time I wake up with my other half, I find myself captivated by the fact that I am not dreaming and all this is really happening. I'm sure that once she's living in NYC full-time, I might not be amazed on an every-morning basis, but over these five-day lifetimes, whether it's a work day or a play day, I just can't believe how quick -- or how often -- I smile. It's really something to behold; waking up happy and spending your day, your night, your week or your life with someone you love being with makes a lot of difference.

As for the particulars, we did room service Thursday night as neither of us wanted to get dressed again to go out, so we wound up relaxing and enjoying a long, quiet conversation without phones. Friday morning went by quickly; I found my way over to my office and she headed to hers. By the mid-afternoon, we had been in and out of contact; I had gone downtown to pick up some paperwork that was seriously overdue and done some other groundwork, while she was addressing her dead wifi card with an IT dude in her office. She headed out mid-afternoon to meet a friend of hers for a drink, and I continued to plug away at the office. By the time I'd realized it, it was late afternoon so I headed out and over to Bar 41 to hang with the other half and her friend Jim, who, as I expected, was a great, down-to-earth guy. We ended up knocking back two bottles of champagne and a bunch of bar goodies, and sadly, before we knew it it was dusk, Jim had to head home and we to the hotel to prep for that evening's festivities. I gave Jim some info that he needed in connection with a personal situation so I am sure we'll run into each other shortly, either online or in person or both, but it makes me happy to know that all her friends love and think as highly of her as I do. Not a shock, of course, that her friends are fun, funny, intelligent and "good people;" just "previewing" how and where she and I will be in six months from now makes me smile.

But I digress.

We both needed some down time so we headed back to Base Camp W and relaxed for awhile. Our plan to nap before a late dinner didn't quite come off as planned, but at the very least, we made sure we didn't waste any quiet, alone time. And we both lamented the "rug burn" from the W bed's sheets. Weird...the bed is very comfortable but not always conducive to things other than sleeping. Like watching TV and reading (perv). ;-)

Anyhoo, friends of ours had gone to see the revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire" featuring Natasha Richardson & John C. Reilly, both of whom are really high-quality actors. I'd been walking a week or two ago on 54th Street and seen the theater so I was actually considering getting tickets, but then I figured I could always do the last-minute pick-up if we opted to go...and our friends really loved the play, so weather-depending we might wind up seeing it tomorrow (day or night). In either case, we met our post-Streetcar friends at Cafe Luxembourg at 70th and Amsterdam, which is around the corner from a client of mine, and I remembered coming to this restaurant years ago. Happily, I was pleased to discover it's still very much a great place for late-night dinner. We got there a bit before 11 and the place was full -- almost claustrophobically so, incidentally -- but the food was rockin'. Baby artichokes with garlic, oil, flash-fried and served with an olive tapenade; calamari sauteed with panko; free-range chicken, salmon and lamb chops; and for dessert, a french boston cream pie souffle. Worked for me :-) The best part was as I was sharing a joke with my dinner companions about the recent spate of sexual abuse allegations, a guy sitting next to us added to the joke (below, in bold). So by the time we were done, it went like this:

A few boys at a catholic school were waiting in line for confession. Jimmy says "I'm in trouble. I had impure thoughts, swore twice and talked back to my mom." Frank says "That's 46 hail marys." Jimmy says, "Yeah, I know." So Michael says "Well I'm in trouble too. What does the priest give for cheating on a test?" Frank says "25 hail marys, and you need to tell the teacher you cheated." Michael says "Uh oh." So another boy in line says "Well what does Father Flanagan give for oral sex?" Frank turns to him and says "A fiver...and a snickers bar."

All in all, a fun, relaxing, entertaining evening. And by the time we got home, we were almost ready for bed, and wound up passing out soon after from sheer exhaustion and contentment.

Today we're heading downtown to Soho and Mercer Kitchen, then we'll tool around and pop into a few stores: Aldo, Pottery Barn, Banana Republic and Vuitton, and mebbe Mont Blanc and The Broadway Panhandler if we have time. Then tonight we're doing sushi and a movie, either out and about or in the room. I bought Mullholland Drive, a David Lynch film, and since neither of us has seen it in its entirety, we might wind up staying in; otherwise we'll catch a movie downtown and go for drinks afterward.

As per usual, being with her feels like a vacation, whether it's a work day, a play day or a quickie lunch between errands. I don't know if that's a good thing, but when I'm done smiling and feeling this way I'll be sure and let you know.

Be back later.

-B-

Plan of Action

Where to begin...

The other half will be boarding an American Airlines flight that leaves at 10:45 EST, so as she was so rudely awakened by yours truly (at 8:45AM EST), it's a pretty safe bet she won't see this post until she is ensconced on her terrace at the W. The last 18 hours have been a blur, but in a great way, and until I manage to get over to her place tonight my head will be swimming in a sea of excitement, happiness, details and the like.

First off, a heads up to John Lalley: I started the caesar dressing last night. I got a salad and some stuff to go in it: a cucumber, some parmiagiano reggiano (which was already in the fridge), a yellow tomato and some yellow and orange peppers. Anyhoo, I made a dinner out of it -- and the dressing was rockin' -- so now I figure I need to have another 63 dinner salads and I'll finish off the container. If you need some caesar in the meantime, lemme know :-)

Second, I did a mild run-through of the apartment to get it somewhat tolerable for our eventual return. Since we'll be spending a few days at the W but a few days at my place as well, I wanted to make sure La Casa De Boogie wasn't too uninhabitable. Basically, I got the sheets and towels ready to go, cleaned the bathroom pretty thoroughly, and did a run-through of everything to make sure it wasn't too awful. It's actually funny -- I think I'm more stressed about the state of my abode than she is, which is nice. A friend of mine jokingly suggested that when we cohabitate she'll turn into a neurotic, maniacal clean-freak, and while I laughed, I explained to him that she couldn't be neurotic about anything if she tried. Amazingly, thus far I've been unable to get her pissed or seriously riled about anything I've done. She's just super-cool on a lot of levels. Oh well...my motto is: "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again." :-)

Third, while I was doing a mild cleaning/spruce-up, I tried to put a wrap on that DVD movie conversion I've been doing. To catch you all up, I don't normally bother trying to re-invent the wheel; I would have written this movie off long ago, but since it's only available as a UK DVD, there's no way I'll ever be able to get it to legitimately play on my home theater system (with region protection and the PAL/NTSC problem), and while I normally would just say the hell with it, I similarly never caved when the Powers That Be released Goodfellas as a two-sided disc (meaning you had to get up mid-movie and flip it over). I waited until six or so months ago when they released it properly. And it was worth it.

Anyhoo...I think I solved the mystery of the whole process. As we speak it's "transcoding" on my home PC and should be burned and complete by the time I reach the Casa later this evening. I've watched snippets of it now over a four- or five-day period, so I've pretty much seen the entire movie; however, seeing it "live" on the TV with the soundtrack booming from my HK will light me up. And instead of us watching "Fall" on DVD tonight or over the weekend, methinks we'll be watching at least some of "Who Dares Wins" over the next 120 or so hours. We've also got "Napoleon Dynamite" on tap -- it's a great movie, btw -- and we're definitely going to try and squeeze in "Sideways" as well. If it's really a great weekend we'll be shooting for the theater, but if it's rainy and/or cold we might wind up going to see "Sin City." While "Sin City" is supposedly a great movie to see in the theater (the visuals are supposed to be incredible), I dunno if my other half is too into seeing it, only because it's basically a Maxim Magazine-type film; lots o' hotties wearing next-to-nothing, a lot of strippers/hookers/scummy women and a few abusive, bad-guy types (plus Bruce Willis). If anyone reading this has seen it, gimme a holler and lemme know if it's worthwhile.

What else...oh...I also did some packing and some organization, so I am basically ready to go home, get showered and cleaned up, dressed and head down to the hotel. She's due in around four, but odds are she'll need a quickie nap and I'll not see her until about 7. In either case, I'm counting the hours and, as per usual, she has a permanent space in my head and my heart that I can't ignore, so I'm just going to try to get through the day with as little turbulence as I can; in the meantime, I'll try and keep updating this space with posts (both written and photos) when/if I get the chance.

-B-

Last Minute Details & The House of the Rising Blogger

It would have been a bit easier and a lot less harried if I had some time off prior to my other half's visit to NYC; instead, I've been juggling a lot of little stuff and simultaneously keeping my fingers in the holes in the dyke (what imagery that invokes) while everything else keeps rolling right along.

And then, as if by magic, I went to submit a new post to the HoB and, sho'nuff, Blogspot was down, which meant, instead of addressing the other items on my ever-expanding to-do list, I wound up skinning the cat (my apologies to feral cat lovers, as well as to those of you who love feral cats). In essence, trying to use brute force to get a post through and up idn't the way to go. As Dicky V (or was it Magellan?) once said, it's all about finesse, baby. Come to think of it, it was actually Brian Boitano. Nevermind.

So in the meantime, I've been trying to address everything: my apartment, some personal work, the last of the tax stuff, a few call-backs that never happened, some info for a friend who is in and out of Bangkok, an hour or two of update work for a client in my building, the sign-up sheet for a "pick-up" hockey league starting in late May that keeps calling to me; and the best part, getting everything packed and ready to swing by the W tomorrow evening/night to, finally, spend some time with my other half.

Unfortunately, my to-do list started expanding faster than Dom DeLuise's waistline at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and things -- like my laundry -- started piling up. On top of that, my grandmother has a procedure on Friday and my mom is heading out to the Land of Snow to be with her throughout the day or two she'll be "recovering." As I indicated in a prior post herein, she shares the same birthday as the recently-deceased Pope. She's also sweet like the Pope, but that's about the only similarity, however, as she rarely wears funny hats and she doesn't speak Italian unless she's ordering.

Also, sometime this weekend I need to swing by a site called Tubesville; the proprietor of the site, Blackie Pagano, is the tech wizard behind Tigerman Amps, and a friend of mine, knowing I've been using -- what else -- MesaBoogie amps, stacks and heads for a number of years, told me to check it out and maybe swing by his place near Katz's Deli this weekend. I'm not sure if we're going to have time (or the inclination) to swing by this weekend, and I highly doubt Katz's will be on our culinary "must-see" list, but I'm looking forward to seeing Blackie's stuff, both online and in person. If you have a tube amp and you need to replace, repair or augment it, Blackie is the guy to see. Odds are I'll either bring my Strat or a friend's Les Paul to his shop and give his stuff a whirl; but not only does he do guitar/bass amps, he does standard receivers and other tech work for (custom) home systems, both multi-channel and singles as well. And lately he's been doing a lot of custom iPod-related stuff; home docking and networking, multi-room Podcasts, speaker cabinets, docks, and I've heard rumors -- mebbe nothing more, perhaps nothing less than rumors -- that he's working on an in-wall dock that allows you to slide an iPod into the wall-dock and it instantly fires up your system, sets proper volume, and broadcasts a pre-determined playlist throughout the house.

Bitchin'. No other word but bitchin'.

Oh, finally, on a more unique note, I downloaded (what I thought was) Led Zeppelin's performance at Atlantic Records' 40th Anniversary Celebration ('twas in April about six or seven years ago) from a file-sharing network. So I was all excited to see, upon my return home last night, that the download had completed. Unfortunately, I was less-than-thrilled to discover that instead of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham, what actually came through was some kind of porno, except it was completely backward. Not sure how or why someone went to the trouble of reversing it, but it was very short so by the time I realized it wasn't a five-tune Zeppelin reunion, it was over. And I must admit, it was kinda neat.

Boogie's 30-Second Review:
It's a guy and a girl...she looks really, really happy, he looks constipated, then she spits some stuff at him, it hits him in his weenie, he gets dressed, and treats her really nicely. And then the credits roll.

Art imitating life? Or the other way around?

To A Crawl...

Less than a week ago, I opined that using P2P (aka file-sharing) clients would eventually slow our collective systems down so thoroughly that the advantages, ie being able to download any song, video/movie or file/application at a moment's notice was not worth the benefit. In case you don't happen to see a link to the left of this post for "We're Living In A Virtual World And I Am A Virtual Girl," click here.

So in my quest to get a DVD -- a UK pressing of the film "Who Dares Wins" -- compressed, converted (from PAL to NTSC) and stuffed into a recordable format, I downloaded a program called TMPGEnc, which is a -- temporarily -- freeware program which would allow the user to pipe two files -- a video file and an audio file -- into a format which could subsequently be burned onto a blank DVD.

I'd be remiss if I failed to mention that the majority of people trying to convert a variety of VOB (DVD format) files into burnable packages are doing so in connection with pornographic movies. Doesn't matter if it's "Saving Ryan's Privates," "Midget Bondage In Heat" or "The Rabbi's in Love," the short n' long of it is that this realm is dominated by porn. In fact, if you visit any site that's of indeterminable legitimacy -- that is to say, a site which offers up high-end programs (Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) there's a large likelihood that you'll see all sorts of porn-related pop-ups, banners and a lot of other unsavory advertising. Hence why Microsoft integrated a pop-up blocker into its second service pack for Windows XP; many of the sites that feature freebie software is run, and many times overpopulated, with people who (are able to) hack into Internet Explorer and other Microsoft offerings and exploit all sorts of holes that Microsoft didn't bother to plug prior to releasing its software.

What's more worrisome than the ads, the pop-ups and the barrage of porn that these sites ante up is the things that aren't seen; when you browse to a questionable site as described above, the site, as many legitimate sites do, passes to your computer "cookies" -- little documents which let the site know who you are and your site-related info, like your login name and other specific info. For example, when you return to hotmail, gmail or yahoo mail, it "knows" your e-mail address and requires you only type in your password. It knows these things because it stores a bunch of data on your PC in the form of a cookie. Essentially, cookies are what make Amazon.com know who you are when you return to the site.

However, the cookies that come from the non-legit sites aren't merely collections of site-specific data; sometimes they are designed to track and report back to the site where you're going. Other times they're outright malicious, hijacking your browser and filling your favorites list with porn and other garbage that simply appears, as if by magic. However, just like the magician doing half-hour shows at the local Howard Johnson "sawing" a lady in half, things aren't nearly as simple as they appear.

With all this in mind, I downloaded a program by Pegasys Software called TMPG Encoder, which is designed, essentially, to take the by-product of a DVD (the video and audio tracks, respectively) and combine them into a "usable" file. Being that it's a long, convoluted process (much like reading the HoB), the abbreviated, need-to-know summary is that it's a long, arduous process but the final product looks a lot like a film on DVD.

Except when I downloaded the program from a DVD Burning Guide Site, I hit the install button and, within thirty seconds, I experienced total system meltdown. The other system processes halted like a nun seeing Jesus at the 7-11. My browser crapped out, my e-mail program got trounced, and before I knew it, the system was hanging out to dry, with me powerless and observing the virtual carnage.

Keep in mind, by the way, that all of this happened because I wanted to watch a DVD that I OWN on my OWN DAMN TV. WTF...

Now, the fact that "I'm" still here gives away the happy ending to this traumatic episode; and despite the possibility that I ran right out to an Internet Cafe or CompUSA, Best Buy or Radio Shack and quickly purchased a new machine, I did no such thing. Essentially, I rebooted into Safe Mode (I'll 'splain in a sec), ran an anti-spyware program, cleaned out my computer, then did a System Restore. Good as new. Sort of.

Geekrant//On

The geek portion of this post is brought to you, incidentally, by Quaker Oats and Hallmark's new Martha Stewart Greeting Cards Collection, for when you care enough to send the very best, but can't get the very best past those damn guards.

Anytime your machine is going south, quickly, it's best to first stop the bleeding and then repair the wound(s). Had my machine not been totally beyond my control I wouldn't have rebooted, but neither here nor there. I'll say this: anyone who goes online with any regularity needs to get a copy of Ad-Aware by Lavasoft (Lavasoft). It's free, it's easily updated and it roots out the accumulation of crap you acquire by surfing even a half hour a day as efficiently as an angioplasty cleans out cholesterol and plaque. You fire it up, check for updates and then let it scan your entire machine; pretty soon it gives you a list of the bad stuff on your machine and with two clicks it can be easily and permanently removed.

Another program you're going to need in your online travels is a reputable, self-updating anti-virus program. I use Symantec, but offerings by McAfee are as good. Reputable implies a program that will be able to check e-mail as well as incoming cookies on the fly, not merely during your monthly system virus check-up. You need to have the PC self-diagnose every night or every morning, preferably when you're not busy online and/or working. A good time to scan is 3 or 4 in the morning, as most people -- aside from morgue employees -- are sleeping. "Self-updating," incidentally, means the program -- at a time and frequency you dictate -- goes to a specific site and downloads the list of newly-created virii and integrates them into the program, along with all the old ones. That means if some kid in Russia is writing a program which could take down NATO's Cray Supercomputers, so be it; but you'll still be able to go online and play backgammon with LadyVixen337 from Wappinger Falls at 10 tonight.

The final thing with which you need to equip your machine is a good amount of common sense. Too often I've been faced with something while online that just doesn't seem to be right. If it doesn't seem like it makes sense, odds are something bad is happening. Keeping your eyes open and being aware of what's happening is paramount to avoiding stepping in virtual doggie souvenirs on the oft-traveled information superhighway. And it's really not any harder to accomplish than just staying out of harm's way, not downloading any too-good-to-be-true programs, and not signing up for every mailing list relating to your lovely Coca-Cola bottle collection.

Geekrant//off.

So why the excessive mini-treatise pertaining to PC security? Well, for one thing, since I handle my company's IT stuff (networks, upgrades, hardware, software and e-mail), I get a lot of calls from friends and neighbors needing help with their PC's, and 99% of the time it's through no fault of their own that the machine stops working as designed. Boogie's Third Law of Computers: any time you make a simple change to a computer's settings, it's almost always guaranteed to come back to bite you in the ass. It doesn't matter if you're changing the resolution, installing a new program or opting to replace something major, like a hard drive, a video card or the PC itself. Something always goes wrong, it's never like it is on TV, and no one ever -- EVER -- lives happily after; they just go to sleep and assume it'll fix itself. Incidentally, Ad-Aware is one of the exceptions to this rule; otherwise, I wouldn't 'zactly tell you to go download it, if only because I don't want to deal with the e-mails, calls and fruit baskets I'll receive once it's clear that the flyer for your "An Evening of Chess and Dancing" for your local chess club is infected with the virtual equivalent of the ebola virus, and something is now eating away (literally) at your keyboard, your mouse and your genitalia.

All in all, instead of observing my own rules and finishing up some basic work I needed to complete tonight, I spent an hour sifting through the wreckage, cleaning it out, and restoring the PC to its former glory that I could have saved had I just been a little slower in downloading one lil' program. It's common sense, and we all (fail to) do it, but if I fuck up, I have the wherewithall (and the lack of sleep) to make sure the problem is solved ASAP. If you've fucked up, you'd better pray that my girlfriend and I aren't somewhere downtown behaving in a lewd manner in the "P" aisle at Tower Records.

But if all these things do come to pass, and you need to get in touch, remember Boogie's final rule: a friend calling with bail money is a better friend than one without.

I Must Have ESP(N)

A couple days ago I was archiving a bunch of crap off my hard drive and simultaneously doing some clean-up on some family videos we had transferred onto videotape/DVD. Essentially, I was dressing them up, improving the lighting/effects, and combining them from 8 DVD's into about two. As I was doing this, I remembered a DVD I'd bought about five years ago from Amazon.UK, "Who Dares Wins."

The sub-story goes as follows: the aforementioned film is English, but the producers of said film released it over here and re-badged it "The Final Option." In both guises, it's a thriller about the SAS, the elite anti-terrorist TAC squad that is an autonomous sub-unit of the British Special Forces, and it stands for "Special Air Service" (although members thereof use this acronym to embody speed, agression and surprise). The American equivalent is Seal Team Six, which, for the most part, is modeled after the modern SAS, and needless to say, both units are extremely efficient, effective rescue-and-destroy squads. The film's English title is the SAS motto, whereas the American title describes the situation in which the SAS's services are requested. Anyhoo...the dual-titled film has quite a respectable cast, including Lewis Collins, Judy Davis, Edward Woodward and Richard Widmark, to name a few. Casting aside, the action sequences are about as incredible to watch as anything committed to film before or after.

As I mentioned earlier, I'd purchased the film on DVD from the UK and was hoping it would play on my home DVD player; it wouldn't. For those of you not in the know, DVD's are "locked" by region, so any DVD you purchase here will only work in players made for North America; same goes with other nations -- buy a DVD in England and try to play it here and you're SOL. Worse still, which I'll briefly cover later, is that England's televisions are encoded to PAL, whereas American televisions, until very recently, were strictly NTSC (and now are increasingly becoming HD/High Definition). This meant I was able to enjoy it from -- and only from -- the comfort of my desk chair on my PC and not my home shake-the-couch theater. La-dee-frickin'-da. So I spent the better part of a few years watching the film, if at all, on my PC, hoping that one day, with the advent of recordable DVD's, I'd get the opportunity to stuff that sucker into my home DVD player and rouse the neighbors with the sounds of helicopters, SAS personnel crashing through embassy windows, flash-bang grenades, and some bitchin' theme music.

No dice.

So this past weekend, whilst archiving stuff off the PC onto DVD's, I was putzing around the house and cleaning up in preparation for my girlfriend's arrival; as such I came across the copy of Who Dares Wins and the idea hit me that since I was in prep DVD mode I ought to try to get it from a locked UK disc to an unlocked BoogieDisc.

So as I'm ripping, burning and stuffing (damn, why does GeekSpeak always sound like a hemorrhoidal condition?) the disc, I was having no luck. First, it was too large; second, I needed to find a way to get it from PAL to NTSC, which I was desperately (and unsuccessfully) trying to accomplish. Third, I was so busy with everything else it kept being relegated to the bottom of the pile, so to speak. And fourth, everytime I screwed up I wound up watching a few snippets of it, if at least to enjoy the soundtrack ;-) And not to be forgotten, I was on-and-off talking to my girlfriend, happily distracted by her melodious tones while she pursued a commercial venture somewhere across the Golden Gate Bridge...

Forgive the convoluted, regurgitated send-up; the main reason why I mention the film, and why I'm up at this ungodly hour, is because I shared the movie (on videotape, back when such things existed) with a friend of mine while we were at school, and despite the fact we were forced to watch an embassy siege on a 13" television (the speakers were bigger than the TV), we still got off watching it at least once a month. That friend, Ron, and I hadn't spoken for awhile so, as I was trying to get the film onto disc, I was thinking how I'd send him a copy in Hong Kong once I managed to complete the quest.

...Fast-forward to this morning, around 5:15. My phone rings -- and while I am usually in a sleep so deep at that hour that a sumo wrestler could use my head as an ass-pillow and I'd never know it -- I wake up and groggily answer the phone, assuming it was my other half. She's never called me that late/early, and she has rarely woken me up that late/early even when we're sharing the same bed, but I figured she couldn't sleep and wanted to hear my voice. So when I heard Ron's voice on the other end I was a bit puzzled, a bit pissed off and a bit bewildered.

Once I finally got my eyes to focus, we talked a bit -- of course, I thanked him profusely and very enthusiastically for waking me up before sunrise and let him know I would soon return the favor (more on that later). So in the meantime, he let me know his wife was having some health issues and he was a bit drained, so in lieu of speaking to any of his acquaintences in the land of the rising sun (he's a New Yorker but works for a financial organization in Japan), he figured he could (and would) call me.

So needless to say, once I was awake we talked, and it sounds like everything will be okay, but when a loved one's health is up in the air, the worry is palpable, scary and all-encompassing -- unfortunately, I know that all too well. He was privy to the entire debacle of the couple years that culminated in August of this past summer (if you need to know the back story, check the archives or e-mail me a request and I'll re-post it or send you a copy). In short, I told him how well my dad's been doing and how far back he's come since the summer, and I let him know that his other half would be fine as well. After that, we did a bit of catch-up; I told him about how the crazy ex situation was, thankfully, completely in the past tense, how far I'd come vis-a-vis my girlfriend and how happy I was (and how amazed I was that I was in the place I was in); he told me about playing hockey in Japan (most Japanese hockey players are about 5'6; he's 6'2, 260), how he was doing with work and gave me an in-depth description of having "woman sushi." That's a story for another time and place.

By the time I realized it was really fargin' early, we agreed that upon his next visit to NYC, we'd go find a pick-up hockey game and spend some time hangin'.

After a phone call like that, I found it near impossible to get back to bed, so I opted instead to commit the whole experience to blogspeak and jump in the shower. In any case, before I hit the bafroom, it occurred to me that I might have ESP. If not, at the very least, I am glad I have good friends that turn to me, and me to them, when the shit hits the fan.

Or, at the very least, when you're trying to watch a movie showing what happens when, and after, the shit hits the fan.