Category Paris

Entries 16 Total

Unrequired Reading: March 19, 2010

Mar 19, ’10 4:58 AM

I know I left those Unrequired Reading links around here somewhere . . .

Really, who WOULDN’T want a Bill Pullman pinball machine — what? A Bill PAXTON machine? Nevermind.

* * *

I’ve only read 1.33 of the books on Tyler Cowen’s top 10 “most influential” list. (And here are more of them!)

* * *

Dog-guerreotype?

* * *

I can name that Jason Statham movie in five notes! Okay, actually I can’t.

* * *

Paris, in 26 gigapixels.

* * *

“Why, yes, I live in a grain silo.”

* * *

I’ve started dressing well this year, now that I’ve finally found suits that fit (read: don’t make me look like David Byrne in Stop Making Sense) and picked up some decent shirts. So I no longer look like this.

* * *

I’m enjoying Sam Lipsyte’s novel, The Ask, so I bet this walking tour of Queens with him is pretty entertaining.

* * *

Omega the Unmotivated. (Tom S. is the only reader who will laugh at that title, but hey.)

Comments (0)

Goings On

Oct 29, ’06 11:52 AM

Amy’s thinking of getting a Mini Cooper, so I took a look at them yesterday while she was getting her hair cut. They’re awfully neat cars and, if I wasn’t opposed to owning a car from a German company, I’d look at getting one for myself. Alas.

We got home and caught up with Sabrina (1954) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which remains the funniest movie I’ve seen this decade. I’d never seen Sabrina, and my only point of reference was hearing Mike & the Mad Dog decry the old version in favor of the contemporary edition. When one of them declared that Audrey Hepburn wasn’t that pretty, it became clear to me that all sports radio hosts are actually gay. In between movies, Amy put together an “avocado et crevettes” dish for me, similar to the one we had in Paris. Love is wonderful.

What’s not wonderful is the idea of a musical based on Bob Dylan’s songs. We caught a clip of “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” the, um, Bob Dylan musical. On Broadway. No, seriously. It was on The Soup, and Amy & I just stared agog, like Beavis & Butthead during a bad video.

Fortunately, one of my favorite writers, David Gates, went to see the show, and wrote a column about it for Newsweek. He was even more perplexed than we were.

In other news, I’m headed off to San Antonio tonight for a pharma conference. This’ll be followed by a trip to Orlando next Sunday for another one, but that oughtta wrap up my business travel for the year, unless I make a short trip up to Toronto to visit some clients.

Starting tomorrow, if all goes well (as in, we get everything written and I’m able to get online at the hotel), I’ll begin posting the third annual Virtual Memories NBA Preview! Official VM bestest buddy Tom Spurgeon & I have divvied up the 30 squads and will be offering our jaundiced take on the NBA (with a couple of guest-contributors).

In honor of that, I present the man who got me to watch pro hoops regularly, when I was 14 or so: Patrick Ewing.

Comments (1)

More congrats!

Oct 16, ’06 5:44 PM

First, Official VM just-about-closest-friend-in-the-world Ian gets his chief petty officer pin, and now he goes off and pops the question to his One True Love! Much congratulations are in order! Go, Ian!

In additional friends-of-VM news, my buddy Faiz reveals the true reason he couldn’t meet up with me & Amy in Paris: he and his wife are expecting their first kid! (And Paris is evidently inimical to developing life!) Also, I’ve been insanely remiss in not mentioning Faiz’s first children’s book, My Alien Penfriend! Go, Faiz!

That’s the extent of the super-wonderful news. In not-so-wonderful news, it looks like I’ve got an upper respiratory infection, so I’ve got some antibiotics working on that. Go, azithromycin!

Comments (0)

Under construction

Oct 15, ’06 6:30 AM

Radley Balko just posted a photo-essay of his recent stay in New Orleans:

So the fixtures of New Orleans seem to be there. You can still get beignets and coffee at Cafe du Monde. You can still see co-ed boobs on Bourbon Street, hear streetside performers, or catch the dueling pianos at Pat O’Briens. But it’s really hard to see New Orleans ever again becoming anything more than a few attractions.

Read all about it.

Comments (0)

Flight Delay

Oct 10, ’06 3:48 PM

I corresponded today with one of the exhibitors from last week’s Paris conference. He wrote, “I hope that you had a safe flight back. We were stuck outside the terminal for over an hour because of a unattended bag, which they blew up outside the terminal. Besides that we had an easy flight home.”

I replied, “Did you get to see the bag get blown up, at least? That would’ve helped mitigate the delay a little bit.”

Alas, no: “Unfortunately I did not get to see the bag get blown up, but I did get to see the remnants. They just dumped the contents on the sidewalk: some clothes, lots of rice, and spices.”

* * *

It reminds me of the baggage carousel when we got back to Newark. Some luggage came out, but there was also a small pile of panties rolling along. I said, “Wow! Did someone get raped in the cargo hold?!”

It had been a long day.

Comments (0)

Lights, Camera, Caption!

Oct 8, ’06 6:27 AM

Amy’s spent the morning adding captions to her set of pix from our Paris trip (which are a bunch better than mine). I’ll get around to that at some point.

Comments (0)

Home!

Oct 7, ’06 6:49 PM

In safe and sound, after a 75-minute delay in CDG because of problems with the hydraulics! Customs snagged our sausages, which we bought in duty-free as gifts for our fathers. This peeved me to no end. Amy was already peeved when the second security point at CDG took her jars of mustard and jelly from her carryon (we didn’t want to risk them breaking in the checked-in bags).

Anyway, I’m rolling down the street to grab us a pizza. Maybe we’ll watch baseball and be all American. Even though my Yankees got knocked out in the first round of the playoffs today. Grr.

Comments (0)

Fauxhawk Friday

Oct 6, ’06 1:33 PM

Well, Amy said that on Fauxhawk Friday, Musee D’Orsay offers free admission, and I fell for it.

They charged for admission, but it was all worth it. Orsay’s a fantastic museum, between the collection and the crazy vibe of an antiquated vision of the future. (In a sense, I suppose that grotesque Centre Du Pompidou provides another of those visions, but it appears to be one circa 1975, a period that should just be avoided.)

Anyway, we both posted our new pix to our flickr photosets (hers and mine). They’ll likely be the last pix from this trip, since it’s raining cats and dogs outside, and we’re heading out tomorrow.

Fortunately, we got a bunch of shopping done today. I wasn’t able to find great stuff for everyone in my life, but we both found some pretty neat gifts (and some nice treats for ourselves).

How we’re gonna pack all this stuff, I have no idea. Thanks for checking in on these posts. I know I haven’t gone off and posted 2,000-word rants on “Paris & Yesterday’s Tomorrows” or anything, but I did receive some illuminations during the trip, which I hope to share with you, dear readers.

Comments (0)

Tea up!

Oct 6, ’06 4:55 AM

Holiday shopping: almost done, and in one fell swoop, no less!

Comments (0)

Godzilla vs. Rodin

Oct 6, ’06 3:41 AM

My Rodin pix are up, about halfway through my ongoing Paris flickr set.

Comments (0)