Month: October 2003

On the day of his opening game as coach of the Detroit Pistons, the murmuring around Larry Brown reverted to his previous team, the Philadelphia 76ers. Asked why he left after six years, Brown told the Detroit Free Press: “I can’t coach assholes anymore, I guess.” You can bet that set real well with his little buddy Allen Iverson.

Thanks a lot Larry – and I used to think you were a class act. It’s amazing how much a scrawny little “thug” like AI constantly shows you up. I’m sure Detroit will really begin to appreciate you when you again fail to win an NBA title while surrounded by so much talent and threaten to quit at the end of every season.

I eventually want to have a calendar up here to keep track of all the music happenings that I may or may not be attending. Until then, I figure I’ll just post the latest since there are a few things going on the next couple of nights. In case you couldn’t figure it out, everything (except the Sunday night show at Southpaw) is in Hoboken.

Wednesday, Oct 29
Rodeo-Ristra (230 Washington St.)
9pm – Hindsight
10 pm – High Speed Chase

The Goldhawk (Park Ave and 10th St.)
9:30ish pm – Adam Wade (Comedy Night)

Thursday, October 30th
Willie McBride’s (61 Grand Street)
9:00pm – My Pocket Zoo

Friday, October 31st
Frozen Monkey Cafe (526 Washington St)
8pm til Closing – Halloween Party / Art Opening Party for Alison Silva
Live Music by Las Vandelas

The Shannon (1st Bet. Washington & Bloomfield) – $5
10:30 – Latch
11:15 – Crewman #6
12:00 – High Speed Chase
12:45 – eugene

Sunday, November 2
Southpaw (125 fifth avenue, Brooklyn) – $7
8pm – The Domestics
9pm – Pantsuit (with Nan from Schwervon!)
10pm – The Color Guard

I’ve been looking for a decent Pinot Grigio off and on with my various wine purchases. I don’t like many white wines (mainly Chardonnay), so I concentrate on Pinot Grigio and Riesling. My last attempt was with the Turning Leaf varietal and, as with any other wine of theirs I’ve tried, it was dissappointing. Last night, however, I hit upon a definite winner. Danzante (a partner winery of Robert Mondavi) puts out an excellent Pinot Grigio that just happens to be on sale at A&P. I picked it up on a whim and it turned out to be a lovely wine with a light, yet fruity taste. It was easy enough to drink that Lisa even had 1 and a half glasses :smile:. Anywho, just a suggestion for others, and a reminder for myself.

I’ve barely been posting lately and I don’t really know why. Usually it’s a matter of me having tons of things to say, and only getting the opportunity to post about a quarter of them when I get the chance. There’s currently two posts in Draft that I want to finish up, but one is from about a month ago (about a couple movies I watched). I mean, I could mention the fun time I had at lunch on Friday at work (Sheela invited us all to an Indian restaurant for the Hindu Festival of Lights). There’s also the fact that Lisa and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary (more or less) with a wonderful dinner at Les Bisous that included very fresh drinks (a mango margarita for the lady, and a pomegranate cosmopolitan for myself). Actually, I probably should have mentioned that one earlier :grin:. Instead I’ll move onto the big weekend of shopping at BJ’s (where you buy Goldfish by the pound) and an overall fun win by my Birds.

The odd thing is, even though I’ve barely been posting (this will break my streak of 4 months with 13 days of posting), my stats are up this month. In the month of October, neverhood.net has already passed September’s total sites, kilobytes transferred, and pages, and will soon surpass visits, etc. It’s all very exciting for me. I think I might try to analyze my older log files, from before I had to rebuild thebox. It would be interesting to me, at least :grin:.

I’m semi-interested in Mel Gibson‘s The Passion. Sure all the religious leaders are trying to make a big stink about it, but I’m not convinced that it truly is anti-Semitic. It seems to me that portraying some people of a race or ethnic group in a poor light does not mean that you feel all of them should be judged that way. In other words, we’ve got no problem blaming the Nazis for World War II and separating them from the German people as a whole; so why can’t we look at the Jewish leaders of the first century and recognize that they did the Jewish people a great disservice in many ways but not be accused of anti-Semitism? It’s a similar issue as Rush Limbaugh’s comments about McNabb. They actually weren’t racist, simply stupid. What he did was try to accuse other people of a form of reverse racism. While he was wrong, he never actually judged McNabb based on the color of his skin – merely the media’s reaction to it. Basically, I’m interested in the film because I used to be a student of The Bible, and I’m curious about how “accurate” this film will be – controversy by damned.

Before I got lost in political correction, I actually had a humorous post in mind. It turns out that Jim Caviezel, who portrays Jesus in the movie, was STRUCK BY LIGHTNING on the set. I don’t care if you’re an atheist – at that point I start wondering if this film is supposed to be finished :smile:.

Thank God for Brian Westbrook. I really don’t know what else to say about my Birds right now except they dodged a bullet yesterday and kept the season alive. What really burns me is that had they won last week (which they should have), they’d be 4-2 right now and tied with the Cowboys for the division lead. Instead they’re 2 games behind them and currently down in the tie-breakers. With the Jets and Falcons coming up, this could be the real turning point for their season.

So I was just poking around Google, doin’ my whole “let’s see where I am on the net” thing. I spell my first name with an ‘h’, but I did a quick check with ‘Tom Slattery‘ and the top links are still the CS guy from Arizona, an odd writer who discusses public housing and pornography, and of course the one who sells Flying Squrrels. Since one of my primary curiosities is whether or not old friends/acquaintances could find me I went with ‘Thomas Slattery‘ next. Much to my surprise, the top link is a definition for my name in a slang dictionary. Personally I don’t think the definition really fits:

One that has a long face and is very very arrogant about picking girls (that are ugly) and about his sport and well being.

I just don’t think my face is that long.

P.S.(After poking around a bit it appears that a few guys were posting various definitions for each others’ names on the site. I still find it odd that mine came up and it’s number one on Google.)

I’m sure most of you in my legions of adoring fans have noticed the gallery I maintain on this website – just look at the menu to your right if you’re lost. It’s a delightful little romp through my drunken experiences around Hoboken… oh yeah, and some shots of my family. Since I bought my Canon PowerShot A40 last year I’ve taken over 7000 pictures in a quest to document my rather mundane existence. I love this little guy and have recommended it, and its successors, to everybody whose asked me about digital cameras. But as my “abilities” have grown and my inclinations have branched out into more “sophisticated” photography, I have noticed shortcomings that prevent a $300 from being what I want now. I’ll get shots from Tuesday’s OpenMic up soon enough and you can see that the photos, while generally well laid out and planned, do not have proper lighting and look a tad grainy. The Ristra tends to have lowlighting, and Tuesday was really bad which meant I was forced to use the flash all night with a 200 ISO setting. Enter digital SLR.
Continue reading “Digital photography”

No, this isn’t a Star Wars post. That’s my new nephew’s name – Lucas George Jackson. Before anybody accuses my sister and brother-in-law of being major geeks, the middle name George is for Alex’s father, just as their first born (Caleb Thomas) was named for Suzanne’s father (my father, too!). And just in case you wanted to see just how cute he is, here’s a picture along with his big brother.

I would like to read more. I have piles of books that I’ve purchased over the past few years (many with bookmarks buried inside) and very few that I’ve actually read. Yet I am still looking for more to buy. Most recently I’ve been considering Al Franken’s liberal-minded Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and possibly even Ann Coulter’s freak fest for a look at the other side (and a good laugh). For some odd reason I decided to read a few reviews. We all know my general take on Internet reviews, so I’m not sure why I thought this would be any different. I don’t see a way to link directly to the reviews on Amazon.com, so I’ll simply quote them.
Continue reading “Double negation and the art of reviews”