Left Coast Bloke Report : SF Edition

There's not been much to report from San Francisco largely due to a vicious case of intestinal flu that had this bloke contributor bed ridden for three days over the holidays. Which is not to say I haven't learnt anything.

- The left coast knows how to do Mexican food. Don't visit SF without trying a burrito in the Mission. I'm still baffled you can't get this in New York. Burrito rolling is an art - these guys must be trained like Cuban cigar rollers and the guys on the East coast just don't get it.

- Puking Mexican food is, surprisingly, much less traumatic than puking booze.

- Few decision are harder than deciding what to do when faced with impending digestive explosions on two fronts.

Next stop - Portland Oregon.

Get out of Town

On the weekend I went to Connecticut for a Christmas party. I think Connecticut is somewhere north of Manhattan – I just took a Metro North train (the north) being the giveaway. Things are different out there. This is Merritt 7 station; at least they called it a station. Trains run every 3 hours on this line. The train conductor warned me to watch my step as I had to negotiate icy steps down to the ground. You couldn’t call it a platform as such.  My friend visited from Maine to go to the party with me. We had a good time, but then because of inclement weather she wasn’t able to make it back home in the north. We stayed in Norwalk overnight (great hotel rates out there – not surprisingly) and looked for breakfast at a diner in the morning. Not a lot open in Norwalk Sunday morning. So we headed back to NYC and have bunkered down since. Who needs more than a Chinese takeout restaurant, high speed cable and internet and a phone? It’s a jungle out there, up north.

Nixta is heading west for Christmas. That involves catching planes today :) Lucky Nixta.....

We have our first spin-off...

Jess has created http://thewifeofablokeonthedole.blogspot.com/

...and no, I'm not going to go watch any romantic comedies

Going to the Movies

Going to the movies, while being on the dole and with the luxury of time, is an obvious pastime time that one can enjoy. Of course while we might have the luxury of time, we don’t always have the luxury of cash to go with it (yes, unemployed). NYC has a veritable plethora of movie theaters; however they seem to charge $12.50 a show nowadays. My motto is that there has to be a more cost effective way. Some of my previous wives have chastised me for being cheap – I prefer to think of it as frugal. And it turned out now that was good training.

So with that in mind what angles can we bring to going to the movies? Frequent movie watcher cards are one way to go. Yep, they exist. While Nixta and James had to fork out their readies when we saw the earth nearly creamed yesterday I used one of my reward movie passes. FOC, gratis, nothing better. It makes the popcorn taste so good when you don’t pay for the movie. I like AMC theaters and use AMC Movie Watcher but Regal have their Regal Crown Club and even the more boutique Clearview Cinemas has Clear Advantage.

But yes, you need to pay for tickets to have them give you free ones. There is a way for the well prepared to do that too without having to pay the full price. Many of the cinema chains will sell movie passes in advance at significant discounts. My personal favorite is the AMC Silver Experience, which costs $6.50. What a deal. Sure you can’t use it for a movie in the first 2 weeks of its release, but I can be patient for a 46% saving! Ironically I ordered my Silver Experience tickets through Working Advantage, a corporate sponsored discount program for employees…….

The Day The Earth Stood Still

So, whilst it was definitely fun to see Giants Stadium destroyed, I can't say I enjoyed the film all that much, it barely kept me awake after my lunch of wings and Guinness.  Will Smith's son Jaden was pretty good though, Keanu was a little wooden - not that it should be much of a shock to anyone.

Tasks for tonight:

1)  Head to Brooklyn for good sushi and CSI:

Tasks for tomorrow:

1)  Start PvPing with my lvl 80 Death Knight (World of Warcraft)

2)  More wings and Guinness for lunch

3)  Throw snowballs at Nixta

New York Must Die : The Day the Earth Stood Still

No city in the world is destroyed quite so frequently as New York (e.g. "Independence Day", "Cloverfield", "The Day after Tomorrow", "Escape from New York"), and there's nothing quite like sitting in front of a big arsed cinema screen watching the combined efforts of a few million CPUs render New York to a smoldering ruin. Bonus points if you're actually watching the movie in New York. Extra bonus points if you see the location you're actually sitting in obliterated on screen.

Today's feature, "the Day the Earth Stood Still",  was as anticipated, truly a stinker of a movie. Sure, if you need someone to depict a lifeless alien Keanu Reeves is clearly your go-to guy, but why weave moralistic environmental themes into what could have been a perfectly serviceable invasion flick? The concept (spoiler alert) of having a swarm of nanobot locusts eat New York has potential (who hasn't been looking forward to the nanobot "grey ooze" doomsday scenario?) but the fact that they pretty much quit snacking before they reach midtown was a big dissappointment. Bye bye Upper West Side but by movie's end all significant New York landmarks are still standing and my thirst for metropolitan destruction is unslaked.

I rate this movie 1 out of 5 decimated Chrysler buildings. 

Priorities for the Day

1) Get out of bed and get some greasy food (note to self - Toblerone
does not equal breakfast).

2) Check out the Karaoke disc selection at Colony in Times Square.

3) Go watch the Earth be destroyed on the largest movie screen
available (hoping for IMAX).

No More Firings

From : Rod 

To : James, Nick

Date : Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 9:57 AM

Subject : No more Firings

Gents, I hope this finds you well. As I woke with a fuzzy head this morning I came to a resolution. If any more of our colleagues gets the axe then they will have to go drinking alone. My constitution can’t take it anymore. AFD for me today.

Catch you later