I’ve just spent about an hour playing Tecmo Bowl, and am now contemplating where I am going to fit Tecmo Super Bowl into my day. Lxe sent the link over, www.everyvideogame.com and now I am finding that I need to get to sleep and have thousands of games yet to play.

I didn’t think this would be a problem once I started school.

Just kidding, it’s not really a problem, especially since I’ve only had two classes so far, but my Film and Media Collections class is going to be pretty cool, I think. Living in NYC hasn’t been so dramatically different yet, but probably because I have spent more time on the internet looking for a job than riding the train. Yet, still, I ride the subway everyday and have seen some weird things. Tonight there was a drunk man from Ben Roethlisburger’s town, which no one in the vicinity could name. I guess I wouldn’t have known if they didn’t beat the ‘Hawks last year. Anyway, he made all the New Yorkers on the train smile and laugh, and he didn’t seem to mind that everyone was laughing at him in addition to with him.

We had some beer and had a kielbasa at the Queens Beer Garden in Astoria with SE and his wife. Man, that guy is nice; thanks J for hooking us up. I had three huge mugs of some pilsner and the sausage was straight off the outdoor charcoal grill. The cheeseburgers come as doubles and the fries, while a little lukewarm and little greasy, complemented well. I piled on some horseradish and something else that I’m not quite sure but it was red and onion-ish. I imagine it’s the same type of onion mixture that they put on the Gray’s Papaya dogs.

I’m going to Owl’s classroom tomorrow and then trying to figure some more financial aid stuff out. I’m trying not to get bummed out about having a class on Saturday mornings, but I bet tomorrow night is going to be kind of sad, seeing as it’s my first night where I have to make an “early” class. Since when was 9:30 early?

I’m gonna play some Super Dodge Ball and hit the sack. Anything good happening elsewhere?

Finally got out into the world a little more on Friday night as we went down to the South Street Seaport to catch Ted Leo and the Pharmacists play. As we stood watching, there were more people talking than listening where we were and I thought that I’d much rather be hanging out with the kids up front pumping their fists and singing along than in the back with the nerdy dudes freaking each other and cool guys drinking beers out of paper bags. But I have space issues, so that didn’t happen. We got closer during the encore, where a lot of the crowd cleared out. The last two songs pre-encore were new and catchy as hell — Much to look forward to on the next record, I’m sure. You can listen to last year’s (2005) SSS show over at archive.org, and a few pictures of the show are here. That guy never lets me down.

Today we went to the East Village and Gramercy, walked through some green markets and went to Strand. A lot like Powell’s in Portland, we could have been there all night, but I think we kept it to around 2 hours. I got some books to send back to Seattle to make up for the ones I had originally brought back from our first trip to NYC and had left on the plane. Jams, look for them in the mail.

We went to Elvie’s Turo-Turo to get some more Filipino food for dinner, and it was pretty good. I kept smiling, because my sinigang was so damn good. I stifled my desire for halo-halo, and then we went home and watched The Rock. That’s right, The Rock. Can I tell you how glad I am that Michael Bay is directing the new Transformers movie?

Hooray! We signed a lease on a place last night and it’s awesome. I put pictures up on flickr for you to check out.

I went to Woodside, Queens, with Noah yesterday to check out Little Manila and to get some sweet Filipino food at Krystal’s Cafe. I forgot my camera, so you’ll have to look at the pictures tagged tocilog on flickr. Tocilog = Tocino, a cured pork that tastes a little like BBQ pork + sinangag, garlic fried rice + itlog, a couple of fried eggs. It was pretty good, but I like my yokes runnier. Noah had some adobong manok, which is chicken adobo, and if any of you have had mine before, you know what I’m talking about. I bought some pan de sal and leche plan to bring home, and bid Noah farewell and good luck back in Seattle. Oh, yeah, we also ran into a crazy lady at Krystal’s that wanted Noah to bring her back to the “hospital” which she voluntarily left.

Speaking of crazy people, Owl saw a woman on the subway the other day on her way to work. The woman stood next to the doors, took off one of her shoes and socks and then rubbed her fingers between her toes. She proceeded to lick her fingers after accumulating whatever toe-jammy goodness lay betwee the cracks of her toes. So gross.

We’re going to see Ted Leo play tonight at the South Street Seaport. Get ready to rock.

So we got here late Sunday night and ended up paying the Lincoln Tunnel toll twice, which was about as bad as it got driving in Manhattanwhich wasn’t too bad. Owl drove, not me, and she did a pretty good job. Yesterday was a busy day for both of us, we went and saw a place to live, she had her first day of work, and I registered for classes and went to my orientation for school. The cats mostly slep under the bed, but Elephant came out and slept in his travel crate again. Apparently he really loves that thing.

So, next thing: time to find a job. There’s a bunch of new pictures up at flickr, check them out.

I could have written more from Fairmont, but nothing really happened other than we were delayed another two hours because of that blasted rack, and killer rainstorms that drenched my Brooks saddle. Yesterday we had delays because of traffic from hell in the Chicago area. Today we’ll get to Josh and Randa’s in State College, I’ll say hi to them for you.

So that’s what’s happening in the midwest. I kind of miss Seattle and am very glad that we no longer have to stay in hotels on the road after today. We get into New York on Sunday, and if I forgot to mention, found a sublet in Morningside/Harlem for a month, which will be nice.

Yesterday was good; a nice drive through the huge state of Montana. Once we got to Wyoming, though, the roads turned pink and Owl saw prairie dogs and the sky was even bigger than in Montana, which led me to believe that Wyoming is really the big sky state.

Billings was annoying. We stopped by because we saw a Costco and thought maybe we could get some cheap slices and hot dogs, but the woman wouldn’t let me in without a card. I noted several times to Owl that the people at Santa Rosa always let us in to get food. Then we went to a crazy mini-mall and had Taco Del Mar. Despite there being a Gap, Old Navy and Famous Footwear, I still could not find any decent flip-flops.

Owl: at this awesome gillette clarion our window looks out onto the carpeted courtyard, complete with a conference area, a lattice-screened pool surrounded by coca-cola umbrellas, and a gift shop with sunflowers painted on the side. honestly, the cats have almost been more interested in looking out this window than climbing under the covers.

We loaded up on Project Runway Podcasts and now are on our way to Minnesota. More from Fairmont!

What a long freaking day. We missed the 7 am ferry from Whidbey, but got the 730 and I went straight to the dentist so they could tell me that my teeth looked better than the last time I saw them.

Thanks to brl for finding us a bike shop in Moses Lake. Our bike rack was moving, which was crappy and we ended up wasting a ton of time trying to get it not to. I said, “I think this rack is some demon trap sent to me from Hell.” That is why I write to you at 148 am Missoula time, even though we left Seattle at 1030 am. That Valerian root worked wonders for the cats though. And also, Spokane is a lot less worse than I thought it would be. We hung out in the parking lot (really, I cussed a lot trying to fix the rack) of the REI near downtown.

Short update, but we’re here, finally, so now I can sleep. Wyoming tomorrow.

Yet another crazy week has passed, but we leave tomorrow morning (really this morning). Our first stop is in Montana, but what better way to kick off the long trip than to go the dentist first thing in the morning, which is what I’m doing. Hooray. More from the road as time, energy and access permits. Pictures from the going away drunken-ness to come. I miss you already.

Last day of work was last week; drove down to California starting on Friday. It took me about 6 hours to get to Eugene, which by any measure is pretty absurd. On my way down, I stopped at Taco Bell, which is disgusting enough, but I also got one of those things that looks like a frisbee and is constantly being advertised during The Simpsons and other such show directly targeted to my demographic. Ashamed, I devoured it like the pawn I am.

I don’t know what the deal is, but my favicon is gone and now all I see is the Apache feather that gracing it’s once prominent spot.

I stopped in Eugene and loaded up on podcasts for the second stage of coast traveling. I haven’t listened to much of The Treatment since leaving LA, but after listening to several baseball podcasts, I realized how uninteresting most of the hosts were. Not Elvis Mitchell.

Elvis had Burt Bacharach on, I think he and Terri Gross are probably amongst the best interviewers on radio right now, but Elvis is in a league of his own. He’s an interesting dude, judging by this NY Metro article about him, but his radio work trumps his written work, as far as I’m concerned.

But, not to get off-track, I really wanted to talk about Bacharach’s most recent album, At This time. It’s hard for a guy to talk about smooth-jazz without getting laughs, but I can’t help it – The album is heavily weighted with politics, and has collaborations with Rufus Wainwright, the to-be-expected Elvis Costello, and the it’s-like-Johnny-Cash-and-Rick-Rubin collaboration with Dr. Dre. The pairings are interesting, for the most part, although hearing Bacharach on The Treatment, in a sense covering his own songs, because they’re being presented without the makeup, without the strings and loops that create the barouqe-ness with which he is so popular for; and his voice is so creaky and piano so solitary – I want that version of the album.