Catching up

I reviewed Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road for the CityPaper a few months ago. I also put together a Ten Track Mind for the Clog (CP's staff blog) and reviewed shows by Rilo Kiley and The Thermals for Critical Mass (CP's A&E blog). And I'm considering posting here more often.

Quotation marks and photographs

One of my pictures was used in this post on The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks a few days ago, which is neat.

I started putting lots of pictures on Flickr in September. Nearly all of them are pictures of signs, and most fit into one of the following categories: signs with superfluous quotation marks, signs with questionable and/or inconsistent apostrophe usage, signs that would benefit from some copy editing, street signs on buildings, fadings signs painted on brick, bar signs, soda signs, and signs featuring something I've decided to call The Labor Apostrophe. These pictures have also been categorized by neighborhood. I really like signs, apparently.

Falling Man

I reviewed Don DeLillo's new book Falling Man for the City Paper's Book Quarterly a little while back.

An IM transcript

I saw this on Tom's blog and IM'd it to Pat. Here's what happened:

PAT: but
SCOOTER: yeah, some further digging makes the % claim seem very doubtful.
SCOOTER: the conclusion about spellign is silly, too.
(editor's note: yes, the misspelling of "spellign" above was deliberate, and yes, i am lame.)
PAT: "fi" does not have its first and last letters in order
PAT: there are two kinds of misspellings on the page, i can't tell why
SCOOTER: what are the two types?
PAT: type one is you basicall typos "fi yuo cna raed"
PAT: type two, deliberate typos scrambling all but first and last letters: taht the frsit and lsat ltteer
PAT: note that 3 letter words are not scrambled in the long passage
PAT: nor are two letter words
PAT: conclusion: line one is by the blogger; everything else is pasted from a smarter source
SCOOTER: good call.
SCOOTER: also, the author's stated rules don't allow words less than 4 characters long to be misspelled.
SCOOTER: first and last have to stay the same.
SCOOTER: so, 2 letter words stay.
SCOOTER: 3 letter words, the first and last have to stay put, which means the middle one stays put, too.
SCOOTER: and there's only one possible permutation of four letter words, 1-3-2-4.
PAT: this isn't quite clog-worthy, but good times
PAT: we could be like psych! but for blogs
SCOOTER: i really really enjoy that show.
PAT: it gre on me, but it turns out it's better than Monk
PAT: grew
SCOOTER: my strange mind was able to read that word without your correction, thank you very much.
PAT: Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can say taht.
SCOOTER: Thanks, Cambridge!
SCOOTER: also, shouldn't there be something in that blog post about filling in words based on the words that came before and the words that came after, not just on the letters in the given word?
SCOOTER: lots of english words that start and end in the same letter share the same middle parts, too, just in different order.
PAT: that's good point, context is unaccounted for.
SCOOTER: i apologize for sending such a dumb link.
PAT: heh. good times
SCOOTER: mind if i turn this into a post of my own?
PAT: sounds good.
SCOOTER: whirred.
SCOOTER: warning: i might edit the IM's a little.
SCOOTER: you know, just to make me look smart and make you look stupid.
PAT: that's fair

Miscellany

I won the weekly Chinatown poker tournament on Monday. In case you're interested (I know BH won't be), we play no-limit Texas hold 'em, single elimination with no re-buys, and, last night, eleven players. I'm pretty happy about winning, mostly because I hadn't so much as finished in the money before last night in four or five tries.

I haven't posted for a while. Since my last post:

1. I have done stuff.
2. Things have happened.
3. I have had thoughts.

So, here are some items that fall into one or more of the above categories, presented in the popular and accessible Bulleted List form:

• I participated in a soup cookoff, finishing third out of six (or was it seven?). My entry was a mushroom, carrot, and leek soup. The base was equal parts chicken and beef broth, both made from scratch right before making the soup. The carrots and leeks were julienned and the mushrooms (shiitake/white ratio = 4/1) were sliced very thinly, giving each spoonful a long, slender profile. Each bowl was garnished with a sprig of Italian parsley and a few shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano. Speaking of, I still have a chunk of the aforementioned cheese in my refrigerator and I don't know when or how I'm going to use it. Free to a good home -- let me know.
• I grew a beard.
• At the weekly Sunday hockey game, I played goalie two weeks in a row. I had no desire to play goal, but playing any non-goalie position would have been impossible. I tweaked a ligament in my foot the week before my first foray into the crease, leaving me unable to run (thanks for the diagnosis and treatment plan, Bethy). I've been able to play non-goalie for the last couple of weeks, which is good -- I like running around, and goalies don't get to run around much.
• I went to a wedding in the Northeast with Ginneh. Pictures. She was the only person at the wedding I had met previously, which was odd, but I had a good time. Ginneh and I spent about 30 minutes playing tabletop Ms. Pac Man on a very slow machine.
• Bars I've visited in February (I might be missing one (or more than one)): Dirty Frank's, Royal Tavern, Cantina Los Caballitos, South Philly Tap Room, The Dolphin, Vesuvio's (ugh, not my choice), North Bowl, The Abbaye, Tattooed Mom's, Tritone, Grace Tavern, Locust Bar, Jones.
• I still haven't met the courtyard neighbor who moved into Lea's old place five months ago. Weird.
• I picked up a couple of heart-shaped soft pretzels for Tom and delivered them to Emily on his behalf for Valentine's Day. Tom got me a bottle of high-end bourbon as a thank-you, which is much more than my meager efforts deserved. Much appreciated, though.
• Milton Street entered the Philadelphia mayoral race. Let the comedy flow.
• I signed on for another season of soccer, with most of last year's fall team returning.

OK, enough.

Another byline

I wrote a review of the new Refrigerator album Bottles of Make Up for the current issue of the CityPaper.

Top Ten Albums of 2006

My list of the top 10 albums released in 2006 as submitted to the CityPaper for their year-end poll:

1. The Hold Steady -- Boys and Girls in America
2. Neko Case -- Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
3. Art Brut -- Bang Bang Rock & Roll
4. Yo La Tengo -- I Am Not Afraid of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
5. The Pernice Brothers -- Live a Little
6. The Thermals -- The Body The Blood The Machine
7. Beirut -- Gulag Orkestar
8. Cat Power -- The Greatest
9. Lilys -- Everything Wrong is Imaginary
10. TV on the Radio -- Return to Cookie Mountain

My picks can also be found here, between Ashlea Halpern's and Brian Howard's. Looking at my list now, I might move some things around, maybe even replace one of the albums entirely, but the ballots have already been submitted, the votes counted, and the results published, so I'll just leave well enough alone.