i survived. sunday night i came down with the cold from hell. actually, i have a new theory about it - i was bitten by some heinous insect that caused an allergic reaction and brain swelling. or maybe it was anthrax from the soil i was working with two weeks ago. okay. not really. but i did think i was going to die at least twice in the past four days. my entire head was KILLING me. seriously. somehow, after the worst night last night, i woke up this morning and felt halfway decent. some food, some gatorade, and i've had a somewhat productive day today. i know, if you've read this blog in the past, you're thinking i'm the biggest hypochondriac. and i hate going to the doctor (i was told a million times to go to the doctor the past few days). my last visit was in feb 07 and was absolutely useless.

anyway. i pulled through! i did have to postpone a planned familial florida visit from yesterday to tomorrow. k is currently cruising the bahamas with her mother and brother - a gift for her mom's 65th birthday. what a daughter, eh?

before coming down with plague, we had a nice visit from travis. i took him to see the waterfalls. look closely/enlarge if you must: what? yeah. i'm not so much a fan. they don't do anything for me, really. the one under the brooklyn bridge looked okay. i hear they're nice at night...but, are people really coming to the city to see them? i don't believe they're on the scale of the gates. the gates really changed the landscape and were visually stunning. the waterfalls? whatever.

i'm an obama supporter, don't get me wrong...but he's not as perfect as some would have you thinking. yeah, i was for hillary, and i'm okay with obama as next best. they were practically the same as far as policy and such goes. i had to endure a lot of crap from fanatical obama supporters at work, though. one even believing hillary is plotting obama's assassination. sheesh!
but anyway.
i'm not a fan of ethanol. especially corn ethanol. there's tons of articles on the subject. go read them if you care.

anyway.
instead of purchasing a car, k and i recently joined zipcar. it seems like every couple of years we toy with the idea of having a car again...but really, with the whole gas situation and insurance in NJ still being ridiculous, we couldn't bring ourselves to do it.
zipcar, though, is kinda awesome. it's sorta like we have a car. we hadn't joined sooner because there weren't that many zipcars available in jersey city yet, and the ones that were here were quite a walk away from our place. now, however, there's several just up the street. the only problem i can foresee is dealing with other careless people who leave the cars dirty. i haven't experienced a filthy car yet, but i've heard stories from manhattan zipcar users. it's a shame, too. you'd think people who use zipcars would be of a better personality, right? oh well.

hopefully, by the time we tire of zipcar (if we ever do), hydrogen filling stations will be here and we'll be able to afford a honda clarity!

that there is my new baby. i've been researching machines for years. no really. thing is, i kept justifying my morning purchasing with the fact that i wanted to sip my latte at the office in the morning; i didn't want to down it before heading out the door.
but still, i'd read up on all the different semi-automatic machines. i was never really interested in a super automatic machine. i'm not sure what happened...but, with the prospect of not going into an office every morning for a while and having to work more from home...well, the time was finally right to purchase.
i guess the last minute switch to a super automatic machine was partly because i just couldn't choose between the semi-automatics (rancilio? expobar? pasquini? francis francis?). i honestly thought i'd end up with a francis francis x5 in the end...but when i seriously thought about it, i didn't want to have to be limited to pods, and didn't like the idea of buying a seperate grinder for beans.
anyway. there it is...with the joe beans that it will always be filled with.

and speaking of those joe beans...i recently met the (now) manager of the waverly place joe (she was the manager of the 14th street location when we met). that's like meeting a rock star to me. seriously, i say the dumbest things when trying to talk to her.

omg

this is why i can't sleep.
and why i can't wait until my tomatoes grow already, even if they are transgenic. at least they won't be sprayed with pesticides/herbicides.
i'm not going to eat anything i haven't grown myself...um. until lunch tomorrow.

note: don't bother downloading the documentary - watch it from the site. it downloads as an .flv file...wtf is that?
note #2: i'm guessing that site won't be up too much longer....

to the handclappers that just visited my neighborhood: no, i don't think you're diseased. i was very respectful in declining your literature. after all, it was all about how to deal with and teach your kids about whatever religion it was that you believe in. i explained that i had no children...that there were no children at all in the building. i explained that you should keep your literature for someone who wants to actually read it, as it would just be recycled here, and perhaps by saving it for someone who is interested, you'd be saving a tiny amount of cost for your organization. you thanked me for being honest. i thought it was all good. why the comments after i shut the door? i heard every word - i had to sort the mail that had come through the mail slot and was all over the floor...which was actually the reason i couldn't open the door all the way, too. no, i didn't think you were "diseased," and i don't think i treated you like a leper. it's true, there are no kids in this building (although yes, the girl that lives below us is as messy and dirty as a 13 year old...but still, she's over 25!). why would i lie? why don't you want to save some paper and give your handout to someone with actual children? sheesh. i'm jewish by birth, yet an agnostic existentialist (at the moment) and in a homosexual relationship with no intentions of kids EVER, or of converting to any organized religion that has you going door to door giving out literature on raising kids.
how about next time you ring my buzzer, i hand you literature spelling that out for you? can i fit all of that on a moo card? i won't rag on you for not taking it, if you don't want it, though.

yesterday i got stuck in the rain while waiting to meet a friend in union square. no big deal - i ran across the street and bought an umbrella at the staples (christ, we have too many umbrellas already), and then continued to watch the rescue dogs try to woo possible owners with their cuteness, even in the rain. there was this one old lady who was pacing around on her cell right before the rains came...she was talking to a husband type, describing the black dog she'd been watching and telling him it's okay that he's not there yet, but she's afraid if the rain starts, they'll pack up the dogs and go away...and she really loves the dog. she said she'd been watching him as other dogs walked by, and he had such a great temperament.
when it started raining, she kept waiting by the dog for her friend to show up. i wish i had bought her an umbrella too. how cool is that? a little old lady adopting one of those abandoned pit bull mixes.

seeing that made me feel a little better about the world.

there's a guy i work with who knows a lot about seoul, korea, but he's never actually been there. he knows it from flickr. for two years, he's been looking at, saving and cataloging photos taken in seoul...just for fun. he spends hours pouring over pictures. he gets excited when someone uploads a view he hasn't seen yet. he knows the city like the back of his hand, but still has never set foot inside korea. it's kind of amazing, actually. he saves the photos he likes by day taken/week/month/year...and then even keeps some sort of index card catalog of same (noting the entire flickr link to the particular picture).

being that i'm still obsessed with melbourne, australia, and really wish i could go back - especially now that it's winter there - i decided to see what flickr could offer me in terms of a small escape. interesting for ten minutes, but now i'm just depressed. doh!

somehow, while every other part of my exposed body got slightly more tan while in australia, my legs remained a nice siberian pale. okay, it's hot as hell outside. how can i stay away from here? it gives me an excuse to linger on the couch in the nice cool a/c before having to head out into the city.
k and i have to shop for a bridal shower gift. i don't get the bridal shower. i mean, it's just another opportunity to get a gift, right? i'm so glad i don't actually have to go - it's for one of k's friends, and while i'm invited and all, i'm not really obligated. seriously, i don't have the patience to sit around with a bunch people i don't know (most of them family of the bride to be) and talk about marriage, lingerie and babies or whatever. ugh. i'd rather soak my clothes in gasoline and set fire to myself. well, okay, not really. gas is expensive these days.

anyway. the reward for going bridal shower shopping is that k will go to the good magazine greenmarket with me later. i'm more curious to see solar one than to see the bands or fresh local produce, and since it's free for subscribers, figured it'd be good to take advantage of that.
i want them (solar one) to promote green roofs more than they do. i know, their whole schtick is solar power, but couple those solar panels with a green roof and it'll make those panels even more efficient. for real.

alright. more later. no really.

ah melbourne...i miss you.

i know. i'm never here anymore. i'm not sure at what point i'll completely remove this...perhaps i'll try to figure out how to back it up first. or maybe i'll just come by every once in a while, like now.
work, and the work i'm doing to leave the work i normally do have me busy. everytime i feel like ranting here, it's the same old rants.
i've lost interest in the presidential election (not to say i don't care - i'll most def vote for obama or clinton, whoever gets the nom, but that the their campaigns are a bit embarrassing, becoming more like a high school popularity contest than about the issues).

also, i've fallen into the number 2 position in my fantasy mogul league.

i love this guy.
thank you shirt.woot.

i have the worst jetlag. no, no it's not jetlag. it's just blah.
we got home from australia at about 1am this morning. we had about 19 hours of flying, with a 7 hour layover in LA on top of that. i think the only sleep i got during that time was when i dozed off in the back seat of ian's mini while he was driving us to LAX.
i haven't been able to email anyone back (including work peeps. doh!), and am just uploading photos to flickr in between naps and trips to the bathroom.

australia was awesome. we had the best time in melbourne, which was a last and longest stop (even though i was totally PMSing (oh yeah, that too)).

check out the flickr pics (which are in total random order), and perhaps i'll recap here when i'm feeling a little more up to speed, eh.