Late Autumn Update

This is a big update, and late in coming, so just highlights for now. A work in progress...

Nov 14 - 16

• Josh Brolin (Inside the Actor's Studio)
  
• Stand
• Rachel Getting Married
• Conan O'Brien (Inside the Actor's Studio)

Nov 21 - 23

• Astor Place talk, Sous Vide, Thomas Keller
• Butter (restaurant)

Nov 27-30

• Thanksgiving in Queens
• Anthony & Kristi visit
• BLT Burgers & Shakes
• Clark Street Cafe for breakfast
• August Osage County, second viewing
  
• Saul for dinner once again

Dec

• Getting ready for Christmas visit to SJ
  
• Shopping in NYC
• Dinner at Park Avenue Winter for Suzy's birthday
  

Speed the Plow, Dovetail, Central Park, Zack and Miri

On Saturday, we headed for Times Square in the late morning to see about getting some tickets to see "Speed the Plow", the David Mamet play starring Jeremy Piven, Raúl Esparza, and Elisabeth Moss. We had read online that the show has Student Rush tickets on sale, starting two hours before show time,a dn Suzy's Pace ID would get us two for 26 bucks each. We got to the theatre right around noon, and there were already people in line for student tickets. We had no problem getting ours though, and ended up with tickets about ten rows back on the main floor, though way off to the right side, against the wall. However, as we discovered once we got in there, they were still great seats in general, plus it really seemed to me like the three actors were very good at opening themselves up to the sides, and not just playing to middle of the audience.

The play was fantastic, with Esparza probably being the best of the three. Piven was great, and it was good to see him play a character that wasn't as brash as most of his roles, while still being an arrogant go-getter of a character. Moss was good, and had very strong moments, though she just didn't have as strong a performance as either of the two men; she's great on Mad Men, so I'm inclined to blame the script more than her. Mamet's shows (and movies) tend toward the World of Men, and I wonder just how well he can write a female character... Hmm. But I really enjoy the Mamet dialogue when it's done well, and Esparza and Piven do it well. The plot may be a bit thin, but I certainly didn't care at the time, and though the show was ninety minutes with no breaks (other than two black-outs that were just long enough for set-revolves and costume changes) it really flew by. As I was realizing in the final minutes that the show was wrapping up, I was shocked that it was done already. It really clipped along!

After the bows, Piven announced that Esparza and Moss would be waiting by the main exits with buckets for some sort of Broadway AIDS fundraiser, and they bolted off the stage to man their positions. As we filed out of the theater, I pulled some change and my sole dollar bill out of my pocket, and looked around to see where the actors were. Sadly, the flow of the crowd was forcing us out Esparza's door; no offense to him, but I was hoping to go by Ms. Moss so I could make some sort of Mad Men fanboy comment.

We wandered around Times Square for a little while, then hopped a subway to the Upper West Side to make our dinner reservation at Dovetail.

I had crab ravioli appetizer, and an entree that consisted of a cube of sirloin that was seared on all sides and amazingly uniformly medium rare inside, along with a small square of beef cheek lasagna. While the lasagna was good, if unremarkable, the steak was phenomenal, probably one of the best pieces of beef I've ever had: flavourful, tender, and again, perfectly cooked. I don't recall what Suzy had for an appetizer, but her main course was a duck dish, and the taste I had was very good. We both immediately went for the same desert: Brioche bread pudding with caramel-glazed banana and ice cream with candied bacon. It was really good; chalk up another one for the quest to find restaurants whose desserts live up to their savoury dishes.

Sunday was a crisp but not too cool fall day, and sunny, so we headed over to Central Park for a walk. It's no wonder that there's so much hype about Autumn in New York: It was insanely pretty there with the changing trees and the leaves on the ground, and a very pleasant day to walk around. The park was, of course, a popular spot on a nice fall Sunday afternoon, and there were people and dogs everywhere.

We took a subway to Union Square after our walk and headed to a movie theatre to see "Rachel Getting Married", or at least that was the plan. At about fifteen minutes before the movie started (at 5pm on a Sunday, and it being one a 6 showing of the movie that day) it was sold out. So we went to see "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" instead.

It was pretty funny, an odd combination of the View Askew movies, thanks to Kevin Smith writing and directing, and the Apatow comedies, thanks to Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, and others being present. It was cool to see some of the Askew-niverse people like Jay Mewes and Jeff Anderson playing new roles.

This movie was so very raunchy, as is typical of a Smith comedy; but the biggest change, thanks to this being a movie about people having sex, rather than just talking about it, was that there is a huge amount of nudity in the movie, and a couple of "gross-out" or shock comedy moments that were never really common to his movies. But my biggest complaint is probably the ham-handed way that Smith resolves the romantic plot ... he was reaching a little too hard for the emotional conclusion. Luckily, thanks to some great stuff with Mewes, the comedy returned for the final bits. All-in-all, an ejoyable movie experience.

Crocodile Lounge, Jack the Horse, IKEA, Laura Linney

On Friday night, Suzy and I headed over to Manhattan to the Crocodile Lounge, to meet up with some of Suzy's classmates. It was an interesting place. It seemed very pub-ish, though with a heavily 20's-aged crowd. The really unusual thing about the place is that with every drink you buy, you get a ticket. With the ticket, you can get a free 7- or 8-inch fresh-made pizza. For free, it's just a cheese pizza, but if you like, you can add toppings for $2 a piece. There were two guys in a back room of the bar (where we actually hung out all evening) that are constantly making pizzas. It's quite something. Anyhow, it was nice to get out with the Pace crew again -- having some socialization outside of work is good, and they're a nice crew.

Saturday was relatively quiet during the day, as once again Suzy had a lot of reading and course work to do. I frittered away my afternoon trying to make a PC game work on my laptop (still to no avail -- oh well, it's basically a pastime in and of itself at this point...). We headed out for dinner to a nearby restaurant, the Jack the Horse Tavern. It was a nice place, and definitely hopping, but not noisy or crowded. There were lots of families there, which is the first time I've seen that at any of the sit-down restaurants we've tried out.

I opted for a "comfortable" meal, with a mac and cheese appetizer, a burger, and a glass of Honkers Ale. It was all really good. The mac and cheese was made with a very rich, creamy cheese sauce -- I don't remember the cheeses, but they were more on the gourmet end of the cheese spectrum -- over-baked with some bread crumbs on top, and really good. The burger was also really good, on a ciabatta bun with cheese (again, not sure what, but it was white and sharp) and pickled onions, which gave a tangy, relishy taste. Suzy had crispy oysters, which were very different, but quite good with the tangy greens they were served with, and a beef short rib main course that was fantastic. Feeling pretty good about the place, we opted for dessert, and while my ginger and pear upsidedown cake wasn't the best thign ever, it was quite good and, unlike many resturant desserts, it didn't disappoint or bring the feeling of the meal down. Suzy had a tiny chocolate cake, but I don't recall what the verdict was. All in all, Jakc the Horse was definitely a Will Go Again experience.

On Sunday, after the usual ritual of the laundromat for me, we braved the crowds to go to IKEA to pick up a few more odds and ends for the aparment, like more wine glass racks and a new floor lamp for the spare bedroom. Suzy's mom is visiting this week, so we wanted to square a few thigns away in advance of her arrival. I will say that, while the crowds were thick, the cashs were quick and once we had what we wanted, wewe were able to get out easily.

On Monday, I worked through lunch and left the office early so I could get to Pace before the 7pm start time for Inside the Actors Studio. This time around it was Laura Linney. Suzy was quite excited for her, and I was looking forward to it as well. Once things got started I was actually amazed at just how many shows and movies she had been in once Lipton started to list them. Whithough going on and on about it (watch the episode!) I'll just say the Linney is an amazingly professional and dedicated actor, aside from simply being a great one (which I already knew). She had some incredibly interesting and insightful things to say about how to approach roles, how to use your time to great advantage, even if you're stuck in a bad job, and from it all, you could realyl see how she would be a fantastic person to work with. She was simply great.

Nam, Horror Directors, Atlantic Antic, Anthony LaPaglia

While I started the weekend with a quiet night on Friday, Suzy got to go to a talk with Alice Munroe, part of the NewYorker festival, which she said was quite enjoyable.

Saturday started quietly as well, since we had plans for the evening. In the late afternoon, we took a train over to Manhattan to have dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant called Nam. Since we were going to an event at 7:30 that evening, we got to the restaurant for a 5:30 reservation, and when we arrived, they were just opening for supper. The server seemed to think it was funny we were eating so early -- and we were the only people in the restaurant the entire time. It made us think that we're not quite into the NYC groove ... New Yorkers who are out-on-the-town for an early show probably tend to go eat afterward, I think.

Anyhow, we each had a drink (the mohitos are very good) and for appetizers we had a dish of beef and greens (lettuce of some kind and cilantro) in rice paper wraps with peanut dipping sauce, and a dish with spicy grilled shrimp on a bed of vegetables in a vinegar sauce (sort of pickled, but fresh and crisp). Both were very good. For entrees, I had a crispy duck breast, with jasmine rice on the side. Suzy had a dish with grilled pork in a dark broth with noodles, veggies, and leafy greens on the side. Hers was definitely the better dish (though I liked my duck, it wasn't very crispy). All-in-all, Nam had very good food, and very reasonable prices. I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than the Vietnamese place we went to in China Town last month. I think we'll definitely go back.

After Nam, we headed to the IFC Center for another New Yorker Festival event: A panel on horror movies with directors Wes Craven and Hideo Nakata. It was really interesting, hearing both of them answer the same questions about making movies, what inspired them, the differences between horror movies and traditions in the East and West, and so on.

Poor Hideo Nakata had some stumbles with the language barrier at times, but he was still very interesting. The highlight moment for him was after the moderator asked the directors something along the lines of "How young is too young to watch your movies?". Hideo talked briefly about the cultural differences between Japan and the US, but ended up telling a story about how a friend of his watched Ringu (or part of it anyway) while holding his one-year-old son, and the child was frightened by one of the visuals in the movie. This lead to Hideo finishing his story by proudly proclaiming that "it was so scary it even scared a little one-year-old child". Hee hee.

Wes Craven was also fascinating, of course, but one thing I noticed about him is that I think he has a bit of a cheesy sense of humour. He'd often answer the moderator's questions with some sort of fake-out answer or gag. He even stuck a corny, setup-and-punchline joke into one of his answers. It was pretty funny to have this legendary guru of scary cracking goofy jokes like a kid. But he did say at one point that he was a class-clown in school...

There were only a few questions at the end, and one was posed by a woman who sounded extremely eager to talk to Wes. She gushed about how brilliant Scream was, then once he had answered her question, she (having stayed hovering bythe mic apparently) thanked him for his answer and then mentioned how she was writing a script for something similar right now. Heh. I think she was hping he would say: "Well gosh, let me read it!" Anyway, it was cool evening.

Sunday was a another quiet day, with school work for Suzy and, uh, work-work for me. We did go out to see some of the Atlantic Antic street fair that was taking place not far from us. We walked around and had a bite to eat. It was interesting to see. It was sort of like the Canada Day street market in Saint John, but with a lot more people, a lot more food, and less of a giant yard sale vibe.

We headed over to Pace at around 6:00 to see a taping of Inside the Actor's Studio. Thsi first one (for us) was going to feature Anthony LaPagila. Once we got there, Suzy headed in with the other students, while I took my freebie balconey ticket and went in to find a seat. As luck would have it (well, for me, if not for the show) it was a quiet night, and they told the balconey-dwellers that we could go sit in the downstairs audience. I took a seat a few rows back and off to the side at first, but then one of the show-runners came around asking us to move into the center section to fill empty seats in ones and twos. I ended up sitting in the front row of the regular seating, just behind the chairs where many of the students were seated.

Once thigns got rolling, I found it quite interesting, however Anthony LaPaglia, though he certainly seems like a nice guy, had a tendancy to ramble on in his answers, going of on tangents, or giving multiple answers to the same question. It ended up making the taping drag on a bit, and by the time the main segment was finished, we had been there for three and a half hours! They took a short break, then returned for the 10 questions, and the student Q&A. Once again, LaPaglia had some interesting things to say, but tended to take too long with each of the 10 questions. Again, he tended to give multiple answers and change his mind, etc. Then due to the late time (I think), James Lipton cut things off after probably only 5 or 6 questions from the students.

In the end, despite the length of the taping, and a few times where things really dragged*, I found hearing what he had to say interesting for the most part. I'll be interested to watch the finished show, and see how they edit it. I wonder if many guests are really long-winded, rambling, distracted, or otherwise bad at impromptu public speaking, but then end up being saved by editing? Still, cool to be there for a taping.

*The dragging pace wasn't entirely LaPaglia's fault either; the clips they used weren't always the best. They probably showed three or four just from Without Trace, and they were almost all of him getting angry -- hardly demonstrating his range. Plus, the clip they showed from his upcoming movie avout East Timor, called Balibo, was a scene where his character is seeing fields of dead people, victims of genocide, and he is crying and breaking down. The thing is, for a scene like that, you can't got to extreme emotion without the context; it just seemed weird and goofy without any lead-in beyond a brief description.

Neil Gaiman & the Graveyard Book

Tuesday night I went to the Teacher's College at Columbia University to see Neil Gaiman -- one of my favourite writers -- and to hear him read from his new novel, the Graveyard Book.

I got there at 6pm, and followed a long line for about 45 minutes to buy a copy of the new book (pre-signed in redish ink by the man himself); I also picked up a graphic novel of his as well (1602). After getting my books, I headed inside. I lucked out and grabbed a single seat in the middle of the auditorium, about four or five rows back.

I sat there and read my new copy of 1602 for a little while, and then Neil came on at about 7:10, did a hello and a bit of an intro, then stood behind a podium and read the first chapter of the new book (which is the benefit of it being the launch of the tour -- we got to hear the beginning). He was a great reader, very good at the narration, and doing voices (but not too broadly, just right) for most of the characters, including little gestures sometimes to match what they were doing. It was really good, and I can't wait to read the rest of it...

After a short break, they showed a five-or-so-minute-long trailer for the upcoming Coraline stop-motion movie, then Neil came back out to answer questions that people had written down for him.

There was some good stuff in there, such as talking about Doctor Who (with coy answers that he'd love to write an episode if the show-runner asked him, and then saying he'd had a recent conversation with said show-runner, but not what it was about -- "many things" he said).

Due to several similar questions, he said that he had lots of stories floating around about characters or settings that are fan-favourites, from the likes of American Gods, to Stardust, to Neverwhere. Whether they ever get written depends on what else he has going though, but the ideas are there...

He talked a little bit about his recent trip to China, where he had broken his finger, hence no personal signings or hand-shaking that night. He declined to explain how he broke his finger, but did tell an amusing story about a very bad haircut he got -- bad, but mercifully cheap.

He also let slip that there is a Coraline musical being worked one (not connected to the film) and that it should be opening in Brooklyn next year (May, I think?). And that the man behind it was also interested in doing a Gaveyard Book musical now as well.

A funny moment came when gave a girl a hug, after her friend wrote that securing said hug would be the best birthday present she could give, but he also mock-admonished the writer for being cheap and told her she would still have to buy a present.

A somber moment came when someone had written asking if he would collaborate with Terry Pratchett again, which lead to a short, wistful discussion of TP's Alzheimer's. He basically said that he'd love to, that they'd even talked about it, but that it rather depended on how much time there was, what with TP wanting to get as many stories of his own out while he still can ... so sad.

Anyway, wistfulness about one of my other favourite authors aside, it was great time, and very cool to see someone like Neil in the flesh. I'm really glad I went.

Max Brenner, the Met, Henry's End, Burn After Reading

After a couple of quiet weekends, thanks to horrible New York mutant colds, we finally ventured out of the apartment this weekend: Yay!

We went into Manhattan late Saturday morning, heading for the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Suzy needed to check out the Greek and Roman art exhibits for school. On the way there, we stopped for breakfast at Max Brenner, a chocolate-centric cafe/restaurant. The food was OK, but not great (it didn't help that I had to send my eggs back for being nearly raw in the center). The chocolaty items were a different story: we each had a hot chocolate, and the breakfasts came with chocolate spread for the toast, and that stuff was delicious. Based on that, we'll go back some time, but for dessert.

We ended up spending about two hours looking through the Greek and Roman sections of the Met, with Suzy taking some notes for her class. It was interesting, but I found it to be a bit too repetitive -- I can only find so many urns and pots interesting. The highlights for me were the arms and armor, the statues, and a chariot.

We headed back to Brooklyn and made a "brief" stop at the new Trader Joe's grocery store that opened not far from our place. We ended up filling our little cart more than halfway, stocking up the fridge, freezer, and cupboards with a variety of meal and snack items. They have a great selection of foods there, both fresh and packaged, with the majority of it being their own brand. If the quality ends up being good, I can see doing a lot of shopping there, as their prices are fairly low.

Later Saturday evening, we walked to DUMBO to go a restaurant called Henry's End. We were lucky and got seated almost right away. Our server was interesting: the restaurant comes across like a somewhat high-end pub, with a mix of professionals aged about 25-50, but our server (though she certainly was a good one) seemed like someone from a small-town diner. She was probably 55-60, and she called everyone "hun" or something similar, and she would say things like "How did you do?" as she came to clear plates. She was pretty funny, just because she seemed so out of context.

Anyway, the restaurant itself was pretty good, but I don't know if we'll rush back. There are so many places to try, and we've already found one or two, like Saul, that we would definitely go back to, that there isn't much room for return visits to places that just decent-to-good. I will say that my entree, elk chops, was quite good, and they were definitely noticeable for their interesting selections of game: Buffalo steak, elk chops, turtle soup, and more... Different! For the record, the elk seemed like it was somewhere between lamb and beef in flavour, not gamey tasting at all -- a very mild flavour in fact.

On Sunday, it was a quieter day, though we did go see and late afternoon show of Burn After Reading. I enjoyed it, though I found that I didn't laugh a lot, really. I wonder if I will warm to it after multiple viewings, like Fargo or The Big Lebowski? I certainly liked it better than Intolerable Cruelty, and far more than The Ladykillers (which is the only Coen brothers' movie I really dislike).

Nantori and a quiet weekend

Not much to report from this past weekend. Suzy was down and out with a cold, so we mostly hung around the apartment, with lots of reading, computer-use, and watching of The Wire, with a side of laundry for me.

We did try one new restaurant, ordering in from Nantori, a Japanese restaurant, on Friday night. Suzy had a dish with chicken and vegetables on skewers, with rice, and I ordered a sushi plate, and some pork springrolls. My sushi was OK -- it was all very fresh, but it was also sort of bland, which is really odd since it was a Spicy Combo, in theory. Suzy said her dish was quite good, and we both liked the pork springrolls. That said, I'd order from Lichee Nut in a heartbeat before trying Nantori again.

Hopefully, we're both healthy come this weekend and can get over to Manhattan for some adventures.

Almondine, D&D, Fascati, Manhattan

This weekend was a quieter one. For Friday, I'll just mention that we had some take-out from Lichee Nut again for dinner; that place is so fantastic. The food was really good, and with (free) delivery and tax, it was 22 bucks for two dishes, rice, and a side of dumplings, which gave us a huge meal and lunch fr Suzy on Saturday. Awesome restaurant.

Late Saturday morning we walked up to D.U.M.B.O. and went to the Almondine bakery, which was finally open after their summer vacation. I had a tuna sandwich on a little loaf of cheese bread, and Suzy had a croissant, and also got a few pastries to try later. Suzy said her croissant was quite good, and my sandwich was also great -- the bread itself was fantastic, soft and fresh inside and really crusty and crisp on the outside without being chewy.

Around noon, I took the train over to Midtown to go to a meet of an NYC D&D group I found online back in July. There were about 50 people there, playing about 8 different campaigns. I managed to get into a pick-up game of 4th Edition D&D with a guy who was running a game for the first time. There were seven of us playing, and it was ... pretty good. It was definitely kind of weird to just sit down and play with a bunch of strangers though, and I didn't really click with anyone. I think if I go to another meet, I'll try to play with some different people, and see how I do. I do know that compared to playing back in SJ with my friends, this was nowhere near as fun, but I also know that the friends were the source of most of the fun anyway, not the game. I think in order to really enjoy playing, I need to find people I like hanging out with first, and then add in D&D, another pastime altogether, second.

Saturday night, thanks to the driving rain of Hannah, we opted to not go the the store to get stuff for supper and instead had pizza delivered from Fascati's. It took a while to show up, but it was still hot when it did. It was definitely good, but I think my favourite is still Monty Q's.

Sunday we rocked out at the laundromat for most of the morning (booyah!) and then later in the afternoon we took the subway over to Manhattan. We stopped near Wall Street so Suzy could pick up a book for school at a Borders, then walked over to Century 21 and found me a new Pair of shoes for work. We hopped back on the subway to go up to Union Square. From there we walked to City Bakery for a pretzel croissant (yum!) and then headed to Bed Bath & Beyond for a coupel of things for the apartment.

We walked back to Union Square, stopped at Whole Foods for some stuff for supper, and then back on the subway to go home. Like I said, a quieter weekend.

Smith Street, Lobo, The Chocolate Room

We spent the afternoon of our last day of the long weekend walking down Smith Street in Brooklyn, the northern end of which isn't too far from our place. It's been dubbed "Brooklyn's Restaurant Row" in recent years and there are certainly a large number of little restaurants and bars to sustain that title. We walked down the street, then back, over the course of about two and a half hours, then headed over to Court Street to see what was playing at Cobble Hill Cinema.

Not much. There were a couple of shows we were interested in, but the early shows had all started by this time (6pm), so we wandered back up Court and eventually stopped at a resturant called Lobo to have some Tex-Mex for dinner.

We sat on their back patio in the shade and enjoyed some cold drinks (a Corona for me and a marg for Suzy, which she said was very good). The chips and salsa they brought out were good, though rather heavy on the cilantro for Suzy. Suzy ended up having some chicken soft tacos, while I had The Alamo, which consisted of a beef burrito, a chicken enchilada, and a taco with cheese and vegetables. Both dishes had rice and beans on the side, and everything was good. Their prices are also quite good.

I really want to find a place that's known for very good Mexican or Tex-Mex though, since although Lobo was good, it was basically the same as Mexicali Rosa's and any other "south of the border" restuarant I've eaten at.

DUMBO, Soho, R.U.B.

Suzy and I started out the day walking to DUMBO again, this time looking for Almondine Bakery. Sadly, even though their answering machine indicated that they would be open, there were in fact closed for vacation until September 3rd. So we went back to Jacques Torres again, where we sampled a tasty chocolate-filled donut. Fortified by that, we headed back home again before hopping on the subway.

We went to the Soho area of Manhattan to walk around and check out some shops, eventually making our way north to Washington Park (where we saw that famous archway, if only from a distance). We eventually got back on the subway and went to 23rd Street, looking for dinner.

We found what we were looking for at R.U.B., a barbecue joint. We started out with some tasty (though far too expensive it turned out) spiked lemonades while we looked over the menus. Suzy got a platter with pulled pork and ribs, while I tried the smoke brisket and sausage, both of us ordering the onion strings and BBQ baked beans for sides. The food was incredibly good, and there was a huge amount. We ended up taking enough pork and beef home to have a supper and a lunch with it.

We topped off the meal with deep-fried Oreos, which were okay, but (as is typical of restuarant desserts) they did not live up to the meal. That said, we'll definitely go back there, though we'll skip the pricey mixed drinks and the dessert -- and without those items, their prices are very reasonable, especially considering that we basically ended with with three meals worth of food!

Coney Island

After starting our long weekend off with nice quiet morning, Suzy and I decided to head for Coney Island in the afternoon.

We took the R Train subway for about 35 minutes, spotting the famous red metal parachute jump tower as we approached the shore. Once we got the Coney Island boardwalk, we were both immediately struck with just how, well, run down it all looked. It probably didn't help that we were there on a Friday afternoon, but there weren't a lot of people around, and a lot of the boardwalk-fronting shops and stalls were closed with metal shutters.

Still, we were there, it was a nice day, and the sun, sand, and surf were certainly cheering, even if the boardwalk seemed seedy. We grabbed a couple of hotdogs and fries from Nathan's, which were quite good, and then wandered into Astroland to look around. We walked past the ferris wheel and the kiddie rides and ended up in one of the midway arcades, where we played skeeball and some other other games, then traded our bounty of 117 tickets in for a "gold" plastic ring and a harmonica.

We walked out of the midway, and then out of Astroland, somewhat accidentally. It was a good mvoe though, as we happened across the Coney Island Sideshow, and for the bargain of $5 each, we went in to see the show. It was really fun, and definitely a one-of-a-kind experience. (Suzy remarked that she was glad we saw it, since she sort of feels like it will be gone soon, probably along with most fo the rest of the Coney Island experience, never to be seen again. She's probably right.)

There was: An MC who was a blockhead (shoved a drill in his nose -- we missed him nailing his head) and a juggler; a dreadlocked, tattoed girl who snapped pasta sticks out of a man's hand with a whip and ate fire; a snake charmer who danced with a 14-foot white boa; a sword-swallower / contortionist; and a "lobster boy" (a guy with only two fingers on each hand). With the exception of lobster boy (his act was mostly bad stand-up), it was all really cool, and occassionaly freaky. Definitely worth the admission.

After the sideshow, Suzy declared that we had to go on a ride to round out the experience. So we decided to go on the Cyclone, which is a wooden roller coaster first opened in 1927. It. Was. Insane. For the record, it was my first roller coaster ride. It may also be my last. Suzy said it was the scariest coaster she's ever been on. Despite all that, I'm glad we went, since it nicely rounded out our Coney Island day. (Granted, it rounded it out with white-knuckled terror, but I'm still glad.)

Central Park, Nha Trang

After I started the day off with two hours at the laundromat (woo!), in the early afternoon, Suzy and I headed out for our big adventure of the day: Our first visit to Central Park!

We took the R train from Court & Montague, and traveled for about 30 minutes to the 5th Ave stop. As soon as we got out, we could see the trees towering over us, as well as the large, posh-looking apartment buildings that surround the park.

We walked in the park for about an hour, taking in sights like: some of the many ball fields; the 15-acre Sheep Meadow, which was full of sunbathers on towels and blankets; several carnival-like attractions for children with small rides; many face-painters and balloon-animal-makers; a little lake where people were rowing rowboats around, where we also saw some ducks and a swimming turtle; a large zoo (that we walked by but did not go into); and a huge number of people, a fair number of dogs, and lots of birds and squirrels.

Central park is really nice, and we'll be sure to go back again while the weather is still good, and bring our own blanket to lounge on. Maybe next time we'll get more than 1/4 of the way across it too...

After we got out of the park, we hopped back on the R, then got off at Union Square to go into the Virgin Megastore there so we could pick up the second season of The Wire. We also ended up getting the MST3K movie (I didn't know it was on DVD now!) and a copy of Watchmen for Suzy to read in advance of the movie.

We took the R again, getting off in Chinatown this time so we could go to Nha Trang, a Vietnamese restaurant, for some supper. We had two soups (basic chicken pho ga that was tasty, if plain, and a beef satee pho that was spicy and quite good) and a weird-but-good shrimp appetizer, along with a tasty porkchop dish on rice, and a soft shell crab dish that was really good. We took most of the two soups home with us after eating the rest.

It was fast, inexpensive, and really tasty. I didn't find the main dishes were quite as good those we've had from Lichee Nut in Brooklyn, but they were certainly good. The beef satee pho was my favourite though.

Teresa's Restaurant, Jacques Torres, Saul

Today we started out by heading south on the #2 subway to the Prospect Park area, in order to find a weekend Weight Watchers meeting. We did our last lifetime check-ins just before we left Saint John, and there isn't much of August left, so we needed to find ourselves a WW scale.

We had no problems with the subway, but once we got to Grand Army Plaza, we did have some trouble finding the place. After a bit of walking in the wrong direction, a helpful doorman pointed us the right way. We got in, got weighed, and got out. Happily, both of us were well below the danger zone, even after the chaotic first couple of weeks in NYC when we ate out quite a few times. Woot!

We headed back to our neighbourhood, and after a bit of walking around, we went to a place called Teresa's Restaurant to get some breakfast. We ate outside, sitting at a little shaded table in the sidewalk cafe area. I enjoyed my breakfast of eggs, panfried hashbrowns, and Polish sausage, but Suzy's scrambled eggs were far from spectaclular, and we neither of us were very fond of the heavy, dry toast we got. We'll try somewhere else for breakfast next time we've got the urge.

After breakfast, we went for a walk into the DUMBO area (Down Under the Manhattan-Brooklyn Overpass) and ended up stopping in at Jacques Torres Chocolate. There we got a couple of cookies for later and a big ice cream sandwich for ... immediately. It was really good, though for my tastes it was a bit too chocolaty, with chocolate ice cream between two large, loaded chocolate chip cookies. They also have ones with strawberry ice cream, which I'll have to try sometime. Many years from now, once this one is out of my system. It was great, but huge, and the two of use couldn't quite finish it together.

We headed home, stopping outside a large dog park on the way to watch the critters run around and play. Once we got home, we basically crashed after our morning of walking combined with the sugar rush from Jacques Torres.

That night we went to Saul, a restaurant on Smith Street in Brooklyn. It was fantastic! They started us with a chilled cucumber soup, which was spicy (and, sorry Suzy, laced with tasty cilantro); it was quite good. For appetizers, Suzy had foie gras and I had hamachi, which is yellowtail sashimi; both were very good.

Suzy had the special, which was a trio of lamb: a small chop, a lamb sausage, and another tender cut (I can't remember what it was); they were very good, though the sausage didn't match the rest, really. I had a small steak, served with garlic "scented" (the new word for "flavoured" I suppose?) mashed potatoes and oyster mushrooms; it was incredibly good -- probably the best beef dish I've had.

Now, the really impressive thing about this restaurant was that the dessert actually matched up to the meal. Hurray! This hardly ever happens. Most places that do a fantastic meal often have mediocre desserts. Suzy had a mini chocolate cake with a small side of ice cream, which was very good, and I had the Baked Alaska, which is one of their signature dishes; it was really great -- coffee ice cream on a soft chocolate cookies base, with, of course, the merangue over top that was soft on the inside and just slightly crisp on the outside. Outstanding.

All-in-all, Saul was great, and is going to be somewhere we end up going again, for certain.

Tropic Thunder

Just a quickie post to mention that we went to see Tropic Thunder at Cobble Hill Cinema, which is about nine or ten (short) blocks south of us. It's a cool little four or five screen movie theatre, with some nice, old-fashioned trappings. The non-stadium seating is almost weird though. Being so used to stadium seating, it seemed weird at first, but kind of nostalgic, to have all the seats basically on a flat floor, with the screen rising above us. It was a good movie experience, and we'll definitely see more shows there, especially with their $6.50 Tuesday and Thursday shows.

Tropic Thunder itself was quite funny. A good cast, with a lot of good gags. Definitely a ben Stiller style movie though, so be sure you like his comedy style. Stand-out performance: Tom Cruise. Awesome makeup and hilarious character work.

Shake Shack, Pineapple Express

Suzy and I ventured back to Madison Square Park, determined to brave the lineup so that we could sample the Shake Shack burgers.

Once we got there and hopped in the line, we were talking about the crazy line size and a guy infront of us turned and said "This is nothing. This is quiet for a weekend. It shouldn't even take us an hour to get our food."Suzy and I both laughed and I believe Suzy made some sort of comment about how ludicrous it was to wait to long for a burger.

We ended up talking to the guy, and his girlfriend who arrived a few minutes later, for most of the time we were in line. Not surprisingly, neither of them were from NYC, but they seemed to have been there for a few years at least, and recommended some other restaurants we should try.

Once we finally got the front of the line, we each ordered a burger and fries (cheese fries for me), and Suzy got a milkshake, while I got a lemonade. We found ourselves a table. We got our food about ten minutes later.

Summary: Meh. The burgers were certainly good, but nothing outstanding. Five Guys' burgers kick Shake Shack's butt. The fries were also not bad, but again, Five Guys' fries are so much better. All-in-all, I'm glad we tried the place out, but we'll just keep going to Five Guys for a burger fix and save ourselves an hour.

After the burgers, we hopped on the subway and headed for Times Square to hit the AMC theatre there so we could see a movie. We ended up watching Pineapple Express, which I really enjoyed. It wasn't as laugh-out-loud funny as some other Apatow/Seth Green movies, but both Green and Harry Osborne were really good in their roles. Plus, Gary Cole, so bonus. The theatre itself was nice, and huge. Something like 25 screens, over multiple floors. There weren't a lot of people there, given that it was a Sunday afternoon in the summer, so I'd imagine it would be a different experience if the place was packed on a Friday night.

Osage: August County, Flatiron Building

We started our day's adventures by taking the subway over to midtown near Broadway to visit the TKTS booth. Since we were seeking tickets for a non-musical, our line was small and moved quickly (though the whole place was pretty fast, it seemed).

We got matinee tickets for August: Osage County without any problems, and had about 45 minutes to grab a quick lunch and get into the theatre (which was nearby). We grabbed a couple of sandwiches from a Starbucks and eat them standing on the sidewalk outside, watching the throngs of tourists go by.

We hustled into the theatre and sat down. Again, much like the place where we saw Chicago, the firast thing that struck me was how small the theatre seemed compared to the Imperial. The second thing that struck me was how immense the set was! It basically half of the inside of a three-story house. The main area was at stage level, with a study, living room, and dining room, with no real walls between them, plus a kitchen in the back, and a porch off to one side. The mid level had a sort of sitting room and a rear exit to what looked like they would be bedrooms, and the top level was basically an attic bedroom. It was huge and incredible.

The play was phenomenal. Without a doubt the best thing I have ever seen on a stage. It was incredibly long, but I didn't feel like it wasted any of the time it took. Everyone in it was fantastic. I really enjoyed seeing Jim True-Frost, or "Prez" from The Wire, as Little Charles. I don't know why it's somehow cooler to see an actor that's known to me on stage, but it just is.

Once we got out of the theatre, we walked over to Times Square, practically fighting our way through the tourists -- yes, we've been in town two weeks and we're already natives, complaining about the damn tourists -- and popped in to the Virgin Megastore to scope out their extensive DVD selection. We ended up picking up a few cult horror movies for Suzy, and a copy of Clerks II for me (don't know why I never got that before).

We battled our way through the Times Square crowds again to get to the subway, which we took to Madison Square Park, down around 34th Street. We were crossing a street to the park from the subway stop when Suzy suddenly said "Look, it's the Flatiron building." And sure enough, it was. This was probably the single biggest "cool" moment spotting landmarks I've had yet; it was probably a combination of the fact that it's just a really neat, iconic bulding, and the fact that I wasn't expecting to see it.

We got over to the park and looked around for our destination: the Shake Shack. Supposedly a source of some of the best burgers in the city, the Shake Shack is also legendary for its big lines. The legends were true: there was a huge a line. We looked at the line, looked at each other, and opted to get back on the subway for Brooklyn so we could grab something simple for supper at a market near home. The Shake Shack would still be there tomorrow.

Ikea, Lichee Nut

After my first two days commuting to work in Parsippany, I stayed at home this day so that I could go to the Brooklyn Social Security office, in order to apply for a SSN. The company needs me to get one, using my work visa and passport, in order for them to put me properly into the US pay and benefits system.

It only took about two hours, subway rides included, to go to the office, wait in line, and put the application through. Sadly, they apparently need to confirm my work visa (not sure why the card border security attached to my passport isn't proof enough, but whatever) so I didn't get a receipt with a new SSN right away. I'll have to wait for my info to show up in the mail at some point.

Anyhow, once my work day was over, Suzy and I headed to Borough Hall, the major subway hub near our place, and to wait for the Ikea bus. Yes, the Ikea bus. The new Ikea that recently opened in Brooklyn has a couple of buses that run constantly between Borough Hall and the store in Red Hook. Every 15 minutes, a bus arrives to whisk people away to an oasis of assemble-yourself furniture and storage gadgets.

We ended up just getting a few kitchen solutions to help us out with our lack of kitchen storage space: Some hanging wine glass racks, a magnetic knife rack, and some little metal buckets to hang on the wall that we ended up putting utensils in (yeah, our kitchen has no drawers -- weird).

Once we got back to Borough Hall, we wlaked over to Montague Street and stopped in at Lichee Nut, the Chinese retaurant we ordered from on the first night in town. We got take-out, and once again everthing was fantastic. Some of the best Chinese food I've had. That place is a keeper.

Day Two

We all slept in a bit on Monday morning, after a busy day on Sunday. Once we got going, it was afternoon before we got into Manhattan. We walked from the subway to Madison Avenue so that the ladies could check out some stores. On the way, gawked at soem buildings, especially the Empire State Building. We ended up stopping at a diner for lunch, but it was a rnadom choice so i can't remember what it was called. Too bad, since it was quite good. Everyone else had burgers, and I had a Reuben. Tasty!

Once we got to Madison Ave, Stew and I left the ladies to their shopping and headed for Midtown Comics, and wandered through there for a while checking stuff out. Stew picked a few things up, but I decided to pass -- I'm here for the long haul, so no reason to grab the first stuff I see, after all. We saw a bit of Time s Square after we left the shop too.

We walked back to meet up with Jenn and Suzy, and the four of us went to Macy's to look around. As Stew remarked, I now understand those old TV cliches like "Fourth floor: Men's Wear. Fifth Floor: Lingerie." etc. It's a huge store; it has nine floors of stuff, with (I believe) 4 floors of clothes for women. There is even a sort of annex in the basement where they have housewares, electronics, and more.

After Macy's, we hopped on the subway to Colombus Circle, as the restaurant where we had dinner reservations was located there. Once we checked on the restaurant location, he headed across the street to a large mall, where we once again broke into two groups. Stew and I checked out a Borders book store, a neat little shop that sold nothing but shaving supplies (badger hair brushes are the best, it seems) where I picked up a starter kit. It's actually quite good, and I find shaving much better with the stuff I got there, even using the same razors I always have...

We also checked out a cool Samsung demo "store". It was full of cellphones, TVs, and other Samsung prodcuts, even some prototypes. It was an interesting concept, but weird that they didn't seem to actually sell anything.

Once Stew and I met up with the ladies again, we headed over to the restaurant, which was located in Trump Tower. It's called Nougatine, and it's a sort of gourmet cafe attached to a parent restaurant (Jean Georges). I'll sum it up thusly: Good food, but not worth it. It was one of the most expensive places we've ever eaten, but it wasn't spectaular enough to live up to the cost. If it had been 2/3 to 1/2 the price, it would have been a great meal, but I ended up feeling ripped off. Oh well, it was a very nice time anyway, with great company.

After all the walking and lifting of furniture in over the past two days, we called it an early night after dinner and made the trip back to Brooklyn.

Day One

We got up early-ish on this Sunday morning and headed out to a cafe on Montague that I forget the name of. It was pretty good, but not the best breakfast ever -- we probably won't go back there...

Once we got back to the apartment, we spent the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon unloading the U-Haul. It wasn't too bad, excpet for the few really big awkward items, like the couch and one of the bureaus. The biggest pain ended up being the box spring, of all things. It's very light, but unlike the mattress, it is entirely inflexible, and for a while we really thought that we weren't going to be able to get it up the last flight of stair at all. Finally, we unscrewed one of the support bracketts for the banisiter, pulled the banister aside and forced the box spring up.

Once we had everything in the apartment, Stew and I took the U-Haul back to the nearest depot while Suzy and Jenn cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, unpacked a few boxes, and went to the enarby Tru Value Hardware to get a new shower curtain rod.

Stew and I managed to get to the U-Haul depot without much trouble, and the truck return went smoothly, except that there turned out to be a parking ticket tucked into the hood that I hadn't noticed. It seems that you aren't supposed to leave a commercial vehicle on our street overnight. Oops. Oh well, it was worth the cost to have it parked across the street from our front door overnight for easy unloading in the morning. (Though you think that cop who moved his car might have mentioned it...)

Stew and I spent a good half-hour walking back to the apartment from the depot, and by the time we got back and got cleaned up, the four of us were running late for the dinner reservation we had made for an early supper before the show we were going to see that night.

Once we got into Manhattan, we went straight to the theatre to pick up the tickets we had ordered online, then went to the restaurant to see if we could still get in and out before the show.

At Ruby Foo's they had no trouble seating us right away, and we ended up having a nice Japanese meal there, including some good sushi. They were very quick for us too, and we had no trouble getting out of there well before showtime.

We walked down to the theatre and got in line for Chicago! Jenn was, understandably, quite excited as we shuffled toward the door. We got inside and the first thing that struck me about the theatre was how small it seemed! I guess I'm actually quite spoiled by the Imperial.

Our seats were good, only a few rows back, off to one side of the right aisle. Once the show began, I was surprised just how close we were -- the vast amounts of skin and toned muscles going back and forth across the stage was somewhat overwhelming at first. Those were some fit and sexy people, and they weren't wearing much...

Anyway, the show was great, all-around and we all really enjoyed ourselves.

Oh, and I should mention that Billy Flynn was played by none other than Luke Duke himself, Tom Wopat. He was quite good -- maybe not the greatest leading man ever in a musical, and perhaps a tad over-the-hill, but he's LUKE DUKE, so it was cool. Also, the guy who played Amos, Kevin Chamberlain (who is one of those "hey, I know that guy" character actors), was really good. His version of Mr. Cellophane was quite good too.

After the show, we met up with Stephen and Sandra, who were in town fort he weekend and at the show aas well, and the six of us went for a drink and abite to eat -- I don't remember the name of the place, but it was only a few blocks away from Broadway and it was a nice place.

After a few drinks and a lot of talking, S&S went back to their hotel, and the rest of us hopped back on the subway to Brooklyn. A long day, but a good one!

The Move

We left Saint John at around 7:30am AST, heading for the border at St. Stephen in a packed U-Haul, with two cats in their carriers. When we crossed the border, they x-rayed the truck, then we went into the office and signed a customs declaration form. We showed them our passports and visas, and then off we went, no fuss, no muss! Sweet.

We met Jenn and Stew at the Irving just before the Airliner, handed off the kitties, gassed up, and off we went.

The drive to Stamford CT, where Jenn and Stew were leaving their car, was mostly uneventful. We had a GPS unit I borrowed from Steve, plus Suzy and I had made the drive just a few weeks earlier when we went apartment hunting. The weather stayed mostly clear, and cats stayed quiet (I think their spirits had already been crushed after two days stuck in an unfamiliar laundry room). We made several stops along the way for gas and snacks, but made fairly good time, getting to Stamford at around 6pm EST, if I remember correctly.

Jenn and Stew parked their car in the large garage by Stamford Station, and we left them there to get the train into Grand Central, and Suzy, the kitties, and I reprogrammed the GPS for our new apartment and hit the road again.

It didn't take long for the driving to get pretty busy heading into the city. We weren't going into Manhattan at all, but even so, the traffic was nuts. It was getting dark and raining sporadically, but we were still doing okay until the GPS directed us onto a parkway.

See, parkways are special highways near NYC that are for passenger vehicles only. We didn not know this. We saw a coupe of saign indicating no commercial vehicles, but didn't think our U-Haul qualified. We were wrong apparently. A few minutes onto the parkway, and just after passing under a bridge that had only about five inches higher clearance than the truck, a guy drove alongside us and started honking like mad. He also yelled at us to "Get off the road! Get off!" Honk honk honk. Shout shout shout. So we got off the parkway.

He signalled us to pull over, and then jumped out of his car and ran back to shout some more. He wasn't angry, he was just really worked up. I guess our out-of-town stupidity was too much for him. He shouted that we were nuts, that we were lucky we didn't go under a low bridge and wreck the truck or decapitate ourselves, and that we were really lucky the cops didn't see us and ticket us into the poor house.

Anyway, he directed us to the right highway, at which point the GPS didn't try to kill us again, and we eventually (after more nervewracking driving through a thunderstorm and heavy traffic) made our way to our new neighbourhood. We picked up our keys, found a place to illegally park the truck, and took the cats up to the new apartment.

It was grossly hot and muggy inside, thanks to intense heat and post-thunderstorm moisture outside, but we were happy to be there. Jenn and Stew arrived shortly after us, fresh off the subway from Grand Central. Our first priority was to get the AC units we had into the apartment and turn them on. It improved immesely in there after that.

We lucked out and a police officer who lives nearby moved his car for us so that we could pull the U-Haul in and park it properly. We unloaded a few more things from the truck, but quickly began to flag; it was the end of a long day of driving, and it was so hot and sticky outside, plus the stairway in the building was also very hot.

We took a break and ordered some Chinese take-out froma place called Lichee Nut, thanks to the menu left on the fridge by the previous occupants (that menu, along with the free blinds in the main room, almost cancel out the terribly dirty state they left the place in...). It was absolutely fantastic food, and not just because we were exhausted and hungry.

Fortified by the food, Stew and I hauled the matresses and suitcases upstairs and we called it a night.