070829

This is a screen shot from a website called 070829 . See if you can figure it out, maybe there's nothing to figure out.

Contemplate, Belgium brewskis

So I'm continuing on my Belgium brew hunt, diving in sippy-straw first to the world of holy, yeast free beers. According to local folklore, all the beers in Belgium are brewed at the mountainous monasteries by the monks themselves. Also, another fact that hasn't been thoroughly checked out is, the air around the monasteries contains enough yeast that there is none added in the brewing process. HMMMMM or YUMMMM? Well I have always been fond of Leffe beer available at the higher class delis. But recently a local bar called Valhala on 54th & 9th that serves around 30 beers on tap, including Chimay, Leffe, Rodenbach and few others that I can't remember, brought in a special beer on tap called Triple Karmeliet. It's a wonderfully refreshing beer with color similar to Leffe, a little more caramely in flavor but with much more depth. I'm no where close to being a food writer so using words like nutty, caramel, bouquet etc... is a bit foreign, so bare with me. Chris G. was the one who turned me on to Triple Karmeliet and opened my eyes to world of Belgium brew dogs. Last night I ate and drank at a wonderful little restaurant and bar called B. Cafe on 75th btw. 2nd/3rd, I think 'B' stands for Belgium but who knows, the owner's name might be Barney or Barnibus or Bart or Brian or Brice or Bailey or Benny or Basil or Bonnie or Benjamin or Biff. Thea recommended the Redbach Rodenbach, which was delicious! Similar to Lambic but much less sweet! Here's the entire selection of beers:

Draft Beers:
Stella Artois
Hoegaarden Wit Beer
Leffe Blonde
Leffe Dark
St. Bernardus A12

Amber Ales:
Kwak
Delirium Tremens
Kasteel Dark
Kasteel Gouden - Triple D'Or
Tripel Karmelict
De Koninck

Abbey Ales:
Grimbergen Blonde Ale
Grimbergen Brown
Corsendonk Abbey Brown Ale
St. Feuillien Triple Abbey Ale
Maredsous Dark
Maredsous Triple

Trappiste:
Chimay Blue
Chimay Red
Chimay Gold
Westmalle Trappist Ale
Orval
Trappistes Rochefort

High Percentage Alcohol Golden Ales:
La Chouffe Artissanal Belgian Golden Ale
Duvel Belgian Golden Ale

Fruit Beers:
Redbach Rodenbach Kissed by Cherries
Kriek Lambic Cherry Flavor
Gueuze Lambic
Cassis Lambic Black Currants Flavor

By the way the mussels and fries were the best i've ever tasted!!! No joke.
There are a few other Belgium bars that Thea recommended also, Vol De Nuit on W. 4th and Burp Cast in Astor place. Haven't gone to them yet but will report back when I do. By the way, most of the Belgium beers have a higher percentage of alcohol so having more than a few will kick you in the ass! Just like this one below.

kona

Over crowding

Living in NYC, we're use to herds of people in small cramped places. Just like this woman in Russia, who lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with 130 cats. It seems insane, but I guess it's all relative. Below the video is the human version of 130 cats in an apartment. It happen on Friday night at the Luna Lounge in Brooklyn.

We'll take off with this

Most of you probably know this, but you can watch helicopters take off and land on the westside hwy. yeah yeah, I'll reveal cooler stuff soon... weather permitting.

mid-end summer bike

Got a new bike! This one. And i'm just starting to realize that NYC from a biker's view is much different than a pedestrian's.

Scotch Tape Art

Robin sent me these pictures of some amazing tape sculptures. I'm not sure who does them, but they are fuckin cool!

Mercury F#%$in' Retrograde is upon us!

Yesterday my friend Mo said to me, "ok I want to get this done quickly because you know, Mercury Retrograde is starting tomorrow...."

"Hold on, what the hell is Mercury Retrograde?" I asked. To make a long story short Mercury (the planet) is in retrograde when it appears to be moving backward. So in essence it's not actually moving back but looks like it is, which is due to "the illusory planetary motion created by the orbital rotation of the earth, with relation to other planets in our solar system.

"Ok great, so what does that mean?" I will explain this by quoting Mo's email to me:

In Astrology, Mercury rules intellect, communication, perception, transportation, and shipping, as well as all moving parts within machines and electronics. When Mercury retrogrades, it is in resting state and not operating at full force. You will note delays and miscommunications, and you may also notice that you and others become forgetful or more "off" in judgment. Certain appliances, computers, electronic items, and other machines may suddenly show signs of wear and tear, and need repair. It's never a good time to make large purchases when Mercury is retrograde. Back up your computer to protect your data, and for now, put off installing new software.

If you are given a contract to sign, read through it very carefully, as it's likely that you will find clauses to change. Contracts signed while Mercury is retrograde never work out as planned. If you later decide to continue the relationship when the term is up, the deal would have to be renegotiated from top to bottom.

Here's the vital information

The Dates: June 15 - July 9 (yes it's that long....) You still may feel the affect a few day after the end date.

The good side:
It is definitely a very good period for some actions. No time is completely bad for anything, there is a reason in everything happens. The key is the reversed direction of movement: take any known Mercurian action, reverse its flow, consider the keywords "re-doing something", "double-checking", "finish the old projects" and there you are, you've found the good side of Mercury retrograde.

For instance, you may want to read again a book you particularly liked, a subject you studied before, meet and discuss with old friends you haven't met for a long time, travel to places you've already been to before.

This is an excellent time to work on old projects that never got to be finished. So, think about the things you started and never finalized.

Next, you might wish to prevent any bad things to happen to you: so double-check your agenda, call your business partners to confirm that everything goes as planned, have everything ready before the deadline and leave some extra time for unexpected events. Make copies of your important files and documents, save your work more often.

The other solution is to go on vacation or at least slow down the pace of your projects. You will find that going slowly during the Mercury retrograde period will spare you many efforts of redoing the same action that wasn't performed right the first time.

Above all, be generous and compassionate: you are already aware about the influence of this period, but the others aren't aware of it or there may be uncontrollable events. That's why you should have more diligence with the others and give them some more time. It'll be your mental health that you'll be sparing actually.

You don't have to obsess about this or let it rule your life for the next 3 - 1/2 weeks but just beware. As Mo said, "forewarned, forlorn." Just so you know got my first incident of Mercury Retrograde today. This email is a perfect example of miscommunication through machines.

SOFA show

I went to the SOFA (Sculpture Objects & Functional Art) show last weekend at the Armory, and even though it was disappointing, there were a few pieces that stood out from the rest. Here are the highlights. The last pic was Marissa's favorite piece. Feel free to write a comment/caption for it.

This is why I bought the Wii

Rowboats

The Rowboats played a cool show this past weekend in Carol Gardens, Brooklyn. Big ups to Mitch and the rest of the band! Check out one of their tunes below.

Mullet Alert!

I spotted this mullet riding down 9th ave the other day. Show me yours and I'll show you mine.

Lantern Floating

Last night at around 7:15pm in Honolulu, Hawaii there was a Lantern Floating Ceremony held at Alamona Beach park. About 34,000 people attended the event. For those not familiar with lantern floatings, it's an old tradition from Japan where the names of ancestors and those who pasted away are written on lanterns, then set afloat on a body of water. The purpose of this is to send a prayer to the deceased hoping for their happiness, where ever they might be.

Click here to see the local news coverage of the event.

New site

I just finished a portfolio site for a hair & makeup artist. The design is an organized chaos. I used flash and action scripting inspired by guru, Joshua Davis, to create the animations and organic movements. However I think my favorite part has to be the info section. After a photo shoot, Michiel took a bunch of photos doing signature 80's model poses. I think they're fucking awesome and at the same time hysterical! You can see the entire site here.

Edgy marketing

Recently an energy drink called Cocaine was pulled from the shelves because the FDA said that the company was illegally marketing the drink. See full story. Whenever a new product comes out it's success or failure usually depends on how creatively it is being marketed. In the case of Cocaine, the marketing was it's downfall, along with a little shove from the FDA. I'm willing to bet that most people after seeing Cocaine on the shelves, weren't convinced that it actually contained cocaine, which it does not. But apparently the FDA believes there is some direct correlation between drinking a beverage named Cocaine and the promoting use of an illegal narcotic. Some may argue that this may be crossing the lines of the First Amendment, but whatever... A friend of mine just came back from china and sent me a few photos of oddly named/marketed drinks. Sadly, I don't think any of these drinks will ever make it on the shelves in the States.

Not a photographer, (my disclaimer)

I took these 2 photos of my shoes, and are submitting them for a little photo show at the county fair. I can only use 1 image, but can't decide. I feel the bottom photo is more dynamic with the crazy laces and all, but the top photo has make me feel at ease... hmmmm, fart.

The many faces of karaoke.

I'm doing an entry of in tribute to my fellow blogger at Love Hate NYC.

LOVE: Karoke and all the emotions it brings out. These pictures show how music brings out the many faces in our lives. In the last photo, I'm trying to figure out what song these lyrics are from....

I'm back

It's been a month, here's the theme music.

Get a Wii but don't quit the gym

Alright it's been over 2 months since I got the Nintendo Wii. I would like to show my before and after pics but they'd probably look exactly the same.... shizznix! So all the hype and publicity from the Wii experiment got to me – hook, line and sinker. Although I'm NOT going to say that the results from the Wii experiment are false, it's not as a easy and wonderful as it's made out to be. Wii sports is awesome but the games are totally shallow. What i mean is there is no object. For example, in most boxing games your goal is to get beat all the fighters, get to the next level and win the championship, or something like that. Some games take you to different cities with beautiful backdrops while you fight their hometown champion - who by the way looks like the meanest ugliest person to ever come out of their city. With Wii boxing, the fighters do get harder as your skill level goes up. But you're always fighting in the same ring with the same setting... The characters change, but only within the context of the Mii (custom character building), hence everyone looks more or less the same. Lastly you keep on fighting with no goal. There is no championship, no belt, no motivation to keep on playing. Same goes with Tennis, bowling, golf and baseball. Blaahhhhh..... I don't mean to complain, Wii sports does come complementary and it's probably meant to be a starter game, but that's what i think. Anyway I just bought Legend of Zelda and Tiger Woods golf. You probably won't hear me talk about it unless there is something insanely bizzare about it, because this isn't a video game blog!

ps. I'm still unwillingly going to the gym, but it's works better than the Wii. Healthy video games??!?!? common!!

paper flowers

Made a flower wreath with some other peeps this weekend. Surprisingly, it was a lot of fun and they last a lot longer than the real ones.