MLB Final Man Widget

 

It’s official, Nintendo has made the world a better place

Nintendo  Wii Beer Pong

Nintendo is introducing a variety of “Frat Games” designed for their Wii console.  The first is Beer Pong.  Think of playing beer pong in the comfort of your home with no sticky beer floor afterwards and without picking random bits of dirt and crap out of your teeth b/c the ping pong ball you’ve been pulling out of your beer has been rolling on the ground all night!  Genius!

It’s not out just yet, but screw the Wii Fitness junk, video games were meant for encouraging vices not health! Begin the binge drinking!

Full Article: http://www.pr.com/press-release/85700

 

Updates to Google’s Reader for Iphone in Beta

Updates to Google’s Reader for Iphone in Beta

Only tested it quickly, but first glance obvious improvements to Google’s Reader (which I use many times each day) is that you don’t leave the list view of your feeds to read the expanded detail of each new post. Before you’d have to wait for the detail to load, hit back to return to your list etc, doesn’t seem that bad but on EDGE it could take a little bit…especially when doing my reading in my “library” aka bathroom, which doesn’t get the best reception.

Try it out www.google.com/reader/i/ and share your thoughts.

 

Happy Turkey Day

Pretty insanely full as I’m writing this post, but had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family. It was our first Thanksgiving in the city and had some friends who stayed at the Dream Hotel off Broadway where the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade passes by. They had a room on the 6th floor and was a cool vantage point to watch the floats go by.

Shrek is Loose!

 

Daft Punk Hands

I know many have likely seen this already but had to post it again b/c it is still damn impressive.  Give it 30sec on to get through the “intro” if you haven’t seen it.

Everyone always say “man, some people have too much time on their hands”  But I say, shit, even if I had the time I don’t think I have the coordination to pull this off!

Enjoy.

 

New Music

Spent a wonderful weekend up in the boonies of Pennsylvania over the Labor Day weekend with some friends. While there a couple of buddies turned me onto this band, Vampire Weekend. They are a group of guys from Columbia Univ. here in the great city of New York and while doubling as students, throw down some great tracks and from what I hear put on a great live show.

I got tickets to their upcoming show at the Music Hall in Williamsburg, Brooklyn this coming Saturday, Sept. 8th

I’m pumped to listen to them and even better they have the Harlem Shakes opening for them!

So if you are nearby or they come to a town near you check em’ out.

 

Beastie Boys Come Home

Last night the Beastie Boys played a sold out show in their home town of Brooklyn, NY. The show took place in one of NYC’s most unique venues, McCarren Park pool. McCarren is an old community pool that is the size of at least 3 Olympic sized pools. The audience stands “in the pool” and the stage is on one of the edges.

The weather was threatening rain from the get go but held off and provided a perfect night to jam out to some great music.

It was surprising to learn that they have never played a show in Brooklyn. With 2 members hailing from the borough, you’d think after all these years they would have played there. So it was a special show for the boys as well.

There was no opening band just Beastie Boys from start to finish. They played a great mix of the hits you gotta hear, like Sure Shot, So Whatcha’ Want, Intergalactic, Body Movin’, Root Down, and their new instrumental stuff. The new stuff is great too and makes me wish I were going to the show tonight at Hammerstein Ballroom which is all instrumental.

Between many songs they would scream “BROOKLYN IN DA’ HOUSE!” and the crowd would go nuts. So you could imagine the anticipation and expectation that they would play No Sleep Till Brooklyn. Well following a great encore that included Sabotage and Intergalactic, they delivered! The crowd went insane and was an unreal feeling throughout the venue.

Everyone left with big grins on their faces knowing they had seen a unique show and one you know the Beastie Boys themselves will remember.

Some great pics from the guys over at Brooklyn Vegan, who were obviously much closer to the stage than us.

 

“Just got a place in NY” – U2

Well  you have to experience everything in life at least once.  My wife and I just exp. buying a place in Manhattan.  Let me tell you it is a bit diff than getting a place in NC.  Aside from the obvious purchase price diff the whole process was way diff.

To start open houses happen at very fixed times, 1-2 hrs on a Sunday vs. anytime any day in NC, then when you finally weed through the countless crap places that advertise “roomy” or “cozy” or “cute” and in actuality are just dump, you then have to battle the others who believe the place you want is the place for them.

That begins the bidding process.  Thankfully, ours was not a horror story in which we are going back and forth btw another buyer and the seller, but we did get outbid once by an ALL CASH offer…ps who the hell walks in with that much cash….scratch that, I don’t want to know. I’m sure they’re very nice, hard working, honest people.

Next, they’ve accepted your offer and now you have to get approved by the building.  Let’s set aside the scenario where you are buying in a Co-op. Co-ops can literally rape you and leave you on the street for no good reason, therefore not allowing you to buy in their precious building.  We bought into a condo, typically much more lax in their criteria for potential buyers.  In our case they did require a lot of info.  We had to provide 6 letters of reference(3 personal and 3 professional) all saying we are good people and won’t burn the building down aka bullshit.

once that was complete and you get the necessary financing(typical bs issues apply), now you wait and prepare for closing.

NY closings require cash money ho!  I’ll put it this way, in NC we walked away with cash from closing….in NY that was certainly not the case.  We got an estimated closing amount we had to come with a certified check for, but in the end…it was a bit more. SON OF A!

The closing process:  in NC, it was us, our lawyer, their lawyer and the sellers.  It was relatively calm, sign here, sign there etc.  In NY it was like walking into a war room.  It was a formal executive conference room, big round table and surrounded by people in suits.  My wife and I walk in, say our hello’s(where we got some quick head nods only) and sit to begin signing till our hands fall off.  The roll call was as follows, me, my wife, our lawyer, the sellers lawyer, sellers agent, broker representative and title company representative and our agent.  It was organized chaos of papers and in the end all fall nicely into neat piles for the respective parties.

It was a whirl wind and def. a learning experience but most certainly worth it.

Next installment will be whether we can make our first mortgage payment or not.

Send donations to scott.calise@gmail.com

 

Random Song Friday

Rodrigo y Gabriela – Tamacun

Off their self titled album. Great acoustic guitar skills.

Embedding an audio player is in the works. But for now check out their site and iTunes page

 

Apple Repair Service

Well happy to say I’ve returned from the Apple store a happy man. For a product that promotes itself as “It just works” I’ve had a couple of issues with my new Macbook over the past year. Nothing critical or that makes me regret the purchase but annoyances. Such things as a the heat sink, stained palm rests and the latest is the battery went kaput.

All of these issues were well documented by other Mac users and Apple themselves so when I made my trip to the Genius Bar off 5th Ave all the fixes were FREE of charge.

While a pain to have to bring it in at all, it was nice to find out Apple stood by their product and fixed the issues on their dime, not mine. Can’t say that about the experiences I had with my Compaq or Dell’s in the past.