New York Nortons

(line courtesy of David Harris and oft-repeated by Jerry Osborne)

activities

I say double your fun because we had two visits from the Osbornes in January. Jerry and David Harris came up for the weekend to go to a Thrashers/Rangers hockey game. We also went to a really funny sketch comedy at the “Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater”:http://www.ucbtheatre.com/ny/. There was also much Wii playing… naturally.

Jeannie flew up the next weekend to go to a ballet performance with Ashley (for a full review, contact Ashley.) I met them after the performance for some shopping and dinner. Jeannie also had the additional pleasure of staying at the Ritz Carlton in Battery Park City.

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OK, I’m starting a new series of posts (that’s right… a series as in more than one post.) I want to introduce some of the little things that I enjoy about New York that aren’t published in any books. And the first one is that quintessentially nerdy sport that inspired an equally nerdy movie – Dodgeball.

Yeah, you read that correctly. I’ve been playing on a “league” dodgeball team this winter, and it has been a thoroughly enjoyable and humorous experience. Haven’t you ever gotten the urge to hurl something at someone as hard as you can? Well, maybe you haven’t because you are one of those rare and wonderful people who never harbor any negative thoughts toward anyone (I’m looking at you Hatcher.) Well, I certainly have! And in dodgeball, I can even hurl something at girls. I know it sounds vicious and cruel, but it’s actually a lot of fun. This week someone on the other team wore a University of Florida shirt which was a mistake on her part that I tried to help her realize. (OK, I’m not actually a very good aim, but I did throw it at her a lot.)

activities

I didn’t mention this in my last post, but I finished “War and Peace” at about 11:15pm on New Year’s Eve. It was the one New Year’s resolutions that I actually kept. And this year I’ve resolved to not come up with resolutions. They are silly things.

As much as I enjoyed the experience of reading it (yes, Ashley, I did enjoy it,) “War and Peace” is not one of my favorite books from 2006. I managed to read several really entertaining and illuminating books this year, but “War and Peace” was neither illuminating nor generally entertaining. Here are my top five favorite books from 2006. I’ll give a quick summary of what the book is about, but I’m not going to bore everyone with reviews… that would take way too much effort. But I would love to hear what books everyone enjoyed last year.

1. “1491” by Charles C. Mann – North and South America before Columbus. It’s an incredibly complex look at the people who were here before the Europeans
2. “No god but God” by Reza Aslan – a well thought out and rational introduction to Islam.
3. “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer – the fictional story of a boy who lost his father on September 11
4. “Island in the Center of the World” by Russell Shorto – the Dutch founding of New Amsterdam. It’s part of my self taught New York history course.
5. “Motherless Brooklyn” by Jonathan Lethem – a detective story with a tourettic narrator. What a great way for an author to use language to convey subtle meaning.

OK, your turn.

activities

Ashley’s dad has taken up a whole new look ever since he discovered the ATL hip-hop scene.

More pictures after the jump…

Read more…

christmas, family

Attention Everyone! – Have you seen this Christmas Rat?

Last Seen in the vicinity of the Osborne Christmas tree where he was protecting all the Christmas presents from mauraders, pirates, non-Christmas rats, and sundry other ragamuffins. His disappearance occurred shortly after a domestic argument regarding his responsibilities and overall cuteness.

If you have any information about the whereabouts of the Christmas Rat, please fill in the “Emergency Christmas Rat Feedback Section” (aka, “Leave A Reply”)

atlanta, christmas

I just can’t bring myself to call the Georgia Bulldogs “Dawgs.” I always feel like I’m redneck fraud when I write it, and someone will eventually call me out. “You ain’t no redneck, boy.” So, I will put this aside aside and get to my original point. I was at the UGA/GT game this weekend. It was so much sweeter to watch this game and Reggie Ball’s 4th straight implosion than my last game at Sanford Stadium… Vanderbilt.

I was so disappointed with our team after the Kentucky loss. I expected us to finish our season 6-6 with a losing SEC record, but the Bulldogs surprised me. They pulled off upsets over Auburn and Georgia Tech. Redemption! And we may have a shot at the Chick-fil-a Bowl… my fingers are crossed, dawg!

activities

Ashley and I are huge Lost fans. It is really the only show that I absolutely must watch every week. There are other shows that I enjoy, but I never feel compelled to watch them as soon as they air thanks in large part to Tivo. College football is really the only exception to this rule.

I was a bit disappointed and frustrated last night after watching the 6th and final episode for this mini-season for a couple reasons. The first and most frustrating reason is that the show is not schedule to return until Feb 7. The reason for this super extended break is because ABC in all of their TV scheduling savvy decided that this is the best way to ensure high ratings and capture the early TV season numbers – see this USA Today article for more. That does leave hard core fans like us – fans who visit Lost forums, discuss crazy theories, listen to Lost podcasts, etc – with nothing for 3 months. I wish they could have just started lost in January the way 24 does, but that’s just my opinion. The second reason is simply that they didn’t really resolve anything in this mini-season (with the exception of killing off Mr. Ekko who was one of my favorite characters.) I guess we do know that Kate picked Sawyer, but they are still in the same predicament they were in before… maybe worse.

On a positive note, it’s good to see Locke back in hunter form. “Look to the North, John”

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If you are the first person to comment with the correct name of all three people in this picture, you will get a genuine check for 1 US dollar that you can redeem for cash at your nearest bank (provided you have an account with them.)

activities

And now with some interesting offerings from Google, it’s getting easier. I’m writing this post using Google Docs . I can then simply configure my blog settings in Google and send posts directly from it. Google Docs allows me to add collaborators, so Ashley and I can edit posts at the same time.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll take full advantage of this gain in productivity. Everyone knows that I have not been the most loyal blogger in the world, and I tend to overlook writing about stuff that you care about (namely, what life is like in New York.) I think it’s mostly because life in New York is fairly routine. I take the subway to work, sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day writing Java or Perl or C# or whatever is needed for a project. Then I take the subway home, try to work out, eat, and spend time working on my personal projects or watching TV. The routine has taken a pretty fun turn this week though because we got a Macbook – Barney – which is SO much faster than our iMac (although I am still fond of Homer.)

I’ll throw this out there to keep you interested. I’m currently working on a redesign for this site because the current look is getting a little old. I promise to give the blog a clean and modern look, and we’ll all be happy. No promises that the new look will be soon. I have to figure out the Wordpress Theme Editor first.

nyc, techie