November 30, 2006

Day 11

I prefer today's outfit with a vest.

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And thus ends my recreation of my Thanksgiving weekend wardrobe. Now I have to start actually thinking about what to wear in the morning! Bah.

Posted by Francis at 09:39 AM in Ties | Comments (2)

November 29, 2006

For science!

I drank this with lunch yesterday, to accompany my samosas from Kalustyan's:

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It tasted a lot like that minty yogurt sauce one sometimes gets at Indian restaurants, except fizzy and drinkable. Odd. My only coworker willing to try a sip was Patrick, and he didn't seem eager for a second one. I'd get it again, though.

Posted by Francis at 11:51 AM | Comments (3)

Day 10

I hope you are not scandalized by the tiny glimpse of neck in today's photo.

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Posted by Francis at 11:48 AM in Ties | Comments (3)

November 28, 2006

Signs and things

I'm just deciding that all these pictures fall into the same category somehow.

This was a very odd window display in a corner store in Park Slope:
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This sign adorns an Indian restaurant around the corner from my office:
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Lorinne and I went to dinner at Copper Chimney a week or so ago. I had the "Celadon Spritzer" (a foofy nonalcoholic drink) and she had litchi juice. But that's not what the restaurant thought we had:
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I like to imagine that "Celadon Spitzer" is governor-elect Eliot Spitzer's drag queen name.

After dinner, we went to the arcade in Chinatown to play some real-world Dance Dance Revolution. This was on the entrance:
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I hope I used the right one!

Finally, here's a delightful sign spotted by Lorinne, which sadly will make no sense to anyone who doesn't read the Comics Curmudgeon, but: "Aldo Liquidation"? Does Mary Worth live here or something?
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Posted by Francis at 11:47 AM | Comments (3)

Day 9

Glenn's not going to like this one either. (See comments on day 8.)

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Posted by Francis at 09:48 AM in Ties | Comments (0)

November 27, 2006

Free to eBay, you and emay

Considering that some PS3s on eBay are selling for $1,000 or more, I wonder if this guy's appeal for sympathy may have backfired slightly by making people uncomfortable. (Not that he didn't make a pretty good profit.)

Posted by Francis at 06:12 PM | Comments (1)

Day 8

This is a new combo I found while I was looking for outfits to bring with me to Boston. I thought the color scheme was sort of harvest-y, so I wore it on Thanksgiving.

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Posted by Francis at 08:08 AM in Ties | Comments (3)

November 26, 2006

One cat is better than "Cats"

In case you have children, are a child, or are willing to steal a child, you may wish to know that four performances remain of the children's musical that Lorinne is currently performing in, Kip the Enchanted Cat: two this Saturday and two the following Saturday, at 1:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon. There will be raffles at each show to benefit Animal Care and Control of New York City, which is good for people who like animals but not children. I saw the show on opening weekend and enjoyed it despite being five times as old as the target audience, and will be attending again this Saturday at 1:00, which I mention just in case the prospect of getting to stalk me makes you likelier to attend.

Posted by Francis at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2006

Snoopy at half-mast

Two consecutive Yahoo! news headlines:

145 die in deadliest attack of Iraq war
Macy's flies balloons lower at parade
Posted by Francis at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2006

Day 7

One of my absolute favorite ties. A Rooster, of course.

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Rose and I are headed to Boston this afternoon for Thanksgiving weekend. I may do some blog posts and tie project installments while I'm there...or I may just wear the same four outfits after I get home. We'll see.

Posted by Francis at 08:39 AM in Ties | Comments (5)

November 21, 2006

Day 6

Pretty sure this tie is a freebie that I got when I worked at Cargo. By itself, it's a more conservative tie than most that I own, but I like it a lot in context.

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Posted by Francis at 09:10 AM in Ties | Comments (3)

November 20, 2006

Clearly, I have a gift for not being funny

Hey, I won the Anti-Caption Contest! Of course, the voting was done electronically, so we may never know who really won. Here's this week's cartoon, if you want to get in on the action.

Posted by Francis at 05:51 PM | Comments (1)

Day 5

Rose made this tie for me, from a Kaffe Fassett fabric we found together. The universe made the shirt for me to match the tie.

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The outfit goes pretty well with my new scarf (also made by Rose), too, actually.

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Posted by Francis at 09:37 AM in Ties | Comments (0)

November 18, 2006

This time it's personals

Six things.

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Posted by Francis at 05:02 PM in Six Things | Comments (6)

Day 4

Today's tie is a recent gift from Lorinne. You'll probably be seeing the shirt I'm wearing it with quite a bit, as it's one of my favorites, and it goes with a lot of ties.

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Posted by Francis at 02:16 PM in Ties | Comments (4)

November 17, 2006

Day 3

I bought this outfit yesterday, at the thrift store I always pass (and am always lured into) when I walk to the library on my lunch break.

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Posted by Francis at 08:22 AM in Ties | Comments (3)

November 16, 2006

Guitar volunteers are the real guitar heroes

I don't know how likely the Programmers That Be over at Red Octane are to pay attention to this, but here's a website where you can suggest songs for Guitar Hero 3. Why not go over and talk up Ted Leo, Gang of Four, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Pixies, the New Pornographers, Fountains of Wayne, the Jam, the Futureheads, XTC, the White Stripes, and Elvis Costello, and perhaps help make me an even happier man next holiday season. (I would also enjoy Jethro Tull, Yes, Sunny Day Real Estate, and more Rush, since I am a prog nerd.)

I see that Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" is very high on the request list right now. Wouldn't that song be better for Cowbell Hero?

Posted by Francis at 05:27 PM | Comments (6)

Day 2

I bought this shirt and tie on the same day, at the flea market on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. I always enjoy finding a pairing I like in one location. It feels retroactively as if someone had said, "There are exactly one tie and one shirt in this store that match. Your task is to find them. Go!"

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Posted by Francis at 10:09 AM in Ties | Comments (2)

November 15, 2006

More spam I don't understand

Why would someone send a fake eBay e-mail that, if you click on the embedded links thinking that they lead to eBay, will in fact take you to a phishing site that will harvest your login info, and then give it the subject line "Phishing - Phishing - Question about Item -- Respond Now"?

Posted by Francis at 04:20 PM | Comments (3)

Pattern recognition

I decided to start a new project today, one that I've been contemplating for a while. Every morning, I'm going to take a photo of my shirt and tie for the day (unless it's a combination I've photographed before). This is, it occurs to me, not all that dissimilar from the 365 Days project that Rose is doing, but it won't be every day, and I have no idea when it will end -- obviously I own less than 365 shirts, but if you remember your combinatorics from the I Hate Mathematics book, there are way more than 365 pairings to be had. Not to mention all the shirts and ties I haven't acquired with my greedy little hands yet. Anyway, so it begins.

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Posted by Francis at 09:10 AM in Ties | Comments (9)

November 07, 2006

PS2 I Love You

Rose and I have finally acquired a PlayStation 2 (just in time for the PlayStation 3 to come out). It was free, but we couldn't get it to work for a while; this weekend I finally figured out that it was because we had the wrong power cord for it. Anyway, this means that we'll be busy with the original Guitar Hero and don't necessarily need to run out and buy Guitar Hero 2 the day it comes out...tempting though that is (especially now that I know that one of the bonus tracks is "Trogdor"). I also picked up Dance Dance Revolution Supernova, and after playing both these games, it occurred to me -- now that we've proved there's a market for both (1) games where you dance and (2) games where you rock out, could someone maybe make some dance games that have better music? Or, at the very least, offer you the option of turning off the voice that says the same five things over and over again? I get it, I'm not an ordinary fella, I move so smoothly, now SHUT UP ALREADY. (Maybe there is an option for this and I just haven't found it. If anyone out there knows the secret, I beg you to tell me.)

Posted by Francis at 03:58 PM | Comments (8)

November 02, 2006

That's what he was talking about

There was a very vocal fellow on my train car this evening. At first, he was trying to engage a black man sitting across from him in conversation -- which consisted almost entirely of his praising the large asses of black women, proclaiming how nice it was to have a black ass sitting on one's face, and explaining how white women wish they had asses that could compare with those of black women. People all over the subway car were shaking their heads sadly (or having sudden fits of uncontrollable laughter) and exchanging what-is-with-that-guy glances. It's nice how nutjobs bring people together.

Anyway, the man that the nutjob was trying to talk to got off the train, at which point our admirer of black asses simply began delivering his thoughts in monologue form to the subway car at large. I soon decided that his remarks should be transcribed:

Yeah...black lovin'. That's what I'm talking about.

I'm Puerto Rican.

The white girls, they jealous. They ain't got no kind of ass.

I could take a black girl like you, take your big ass and put it on my face and just let it stay there. If you don't like it, fuck you. Jealous. That's all they are. Jealous. These white women wish they could have a Puerto Rican guy suck their ass.

Up to this point, our assman had stayed remarkably on message: black asses = large = good. I was thinking that there were more than a few Democrats who could learn something from this man about taking a simple message and sticking with it. God knows it works for the Republicans. Although the fellow had admittedly had one John Kerry-ish moment when he compared having an ass on one's face to a Chinese restaurant. This was earlier, though, before he was talking to the car at large, so it was hard to hear. I thought he was comparing a black ass on one's face to a Chinese restaurant, because you get big portions at a Chinese restaurant. Lorinne thought he had been making an unfavorable comparison of a Chinese restaurant to a white ass, because you get too many bones in both. Alas, wussy reporter that I am, I did not ask him to clarify.

Anyway, apart from the "Chinese restaurant" remark, he'd had one basic thesis and stuck with it. But then he seemed to become interested in another woman on the train -- if I read him correctly, a white woman sitting across from us (I'd guess late 30s to mid-40s, using a Palm Pilot). I feel this digression was an error, diluting his message. What happened to his firm stand on white women being unacceptable to him, because of their skinny asses? He was just a flip-flopper like everyone else. The transcript continues:

Now that is a sexy older woman. She's got some sexy-ass legs.

Just imagine in your mind that woman, old as she is, lookin' pretty like that, wrappin' those sexy-ass legs around your neck and you just eat it up. That's what I'm talking about.

Yo! You guys like us, we would beat up the whole train, trust me. Look at that woman, older woman. Beautiful, sexy legs on that woman. I don't even know how to behave. Look at those, bro. And then she's an older woman, very intelligent, very highly qualified. Guys like us can't even fuck with that. Trust me, we can't fuck with that. But you imagine those sexy legs wrapped around your face? I would love it. I would love to get strangled by those legs.

I don't know how to fuck her with a computer. [Laughs] I know how to play with those legs, but you give me a computer, I don't even know how to turn shit on. That's my life. I know sex to the fullest. But a computer? I can't fuck a computer for shit. I'm serious. I don't know how to play with a computer. But a pair of legs like that? Believe me, yo. I would play, like, Chinese checkers.

Chinese checkers? Once again, he had lost me. But it was moot, anyway -- we had reached our stop (and, to my relief, so had the woman to whom he had seemed to turn his attention; I was only too happy to be reassured that he and she were not going to end up getting off at the same station). Also leaving the car at the same station were the two young white woman who had been sitting across the aisle from him the entire time we'd been on the car, one of whom had a shapely, rather generously proportioned backside, which he had refrained from calling any attention to whatsoever (I assume because it contradicted his thesis). He really did remind me of the Republicans with his oratorical technique: stay on topic, ignore contradictory evidence, try to make women think you're on their side. I hope it'll be a losing strategy for them both.

Posted by Francis at 02:00 AM | Comments (20)