Last Wednesday night there was a tremendous lightning display over New York. All the forecasters had promised thunderstorms and rain, but rather than rain all night, it just seemed to be one spectacular lightning bolt streaking through the sky after the next. Since our living room windows afforded such a great vantage point for capturing the show, I set up the tripod and started snapping away. It felt almost like fishing since you’d start exposing and just hope that the sky would deliver something impressive.

In the morning, I unloaded the shots, gave ‘em a little love and uploaded them to Flickr. Now, 48 hours later, the Lightning Over Brooklyn shot has been viewed 966 times, garnered 46 favorites and been commented on 20 times! Far and away my most popular photo ever… and there’s not even nudity in it! It’s super encouraging when you feel like people are being wowed by a photo you took. Maybe I’m getting better at this photography stuff…

Anyway, I gotta remember to keep trying and eventually I’ll be doing weddings or something. :-\

In my effort to visit Coney Island more frequently before it get destroyed, I made it out to a nice Brooklyn Cyclones night game at Keyspan Park. I just love that park. It feels so good being right on the beach with the cool sea breeze blowing through it during games. Plus, the tickets are super cheap. (I’ve also seen a Björk concert there ages ago, which was amazing with fireworks and everything!)

This season they’re giving away a full Ms. Pac Man arcade game to the fan with the highest score of the season. Already, that stands at over 300,000 which is a very, very hard score to beat. Still, the high score of the day qualifies for a shirt… so with a score of 147,000 on the day I managed to take the win for my day!

As always the game was a ton of fun for more reasons that just watching the game (although not quite as many reasons as the Tokyo Giants game), so I gotta remember to practice up on my Ms Pac Man and check out the Cyclones all throughout their season.

For the past few years, I haven’t been making it out to the yearly Mermaid Parade in Coney Island with too much regularity. (I mean, from what I can remember, last year it was raining, right?) Anyway, with the untimely demise of Coney Island as we know it (more here) lingering in the air, me and what seemed like half the city decided to make the trip out to the boardwalk for this year’s celebration of all things Mermaidy.

It was a gorgeous day, full of semi-nude women somewhat covered in body paint and pasties plus a slew of also scantily clad mer-men parading down the streets, then mingling on the boardwalk. We drank beers, shot some photos, and just generally enjoyed the day. I really hope there’s another Mermaid Parade next year, and the year after that, and so on.

On a side note, the coolest thing I ran across while out there for the day was an impromptu limbo… uhm… situation set up by two guys holding a ribbon across a busy street loudly encouraging “just the females” to give their challenge a try. It was one of those great Brooklyn scenes that reminded you why you’ve lived here for so long and still love the place. When the crowd wasn’t producing any adventurous takers, they upped the ante by announcing prize money in the realm of $20. This got a couple takers, but the winner was definitely a surprise!

In the meantime, I gotta remember to head out to Coney Island a few more times before it starts to really change… oh and shoot the freak.

I can sum up this concert in one word: embarrassing.

I was embarrassed for the entire crowd that sat down through the performance. (Since when did that become OK!?) I was embarrassed for Feist who seemed to grow more and more frustrated with a crowd that wouldn’t participate in her singalongs, whistlealongs or clapalongs. And finally, I was embarrassed that the opening act Grizzly Bear was so unbelievably whiny and annoying that they literally drove me from my seat to purchase a $6 shot portion of cheap wine (the jug it came from probably cost $6) from the extremely overpriced bar selling drinks you couldn’t even bring into the performance area. I simply couldn’t take any more of their unbearably mind-numbing whining!

Of course, my reaction may have been in the minority judging from the review of the show on Brooklyn Vegan.

I need to remember never to buy tickets to that venue again… Oh, and steer as clear as humanly possibly of Grizzly Bear. (Damn, I hated that band.)

(Photo by brooklyn heathen)

I ran across this Getty Images photo of the Yankees win the other night on the Daily Intelligencer (one of New York Magazine’s blogs) and I gotta say, it’s amazing. I wish I could take photos like this.

I need to remember to keep trying… Maybe I’ll be decent one day.

I ran across a link to the Vexille movie site today, so I thought I should remind myself to check it out. Cinematical says:

According to a glowing review over at Twitch, Vexille is about a future where android technology becomes forbidden once lines between technology and humanity cross. Everyone signs the UN treaty but Japan, who secludes themselves from the world, kicking out foreigners and masking themselves from electronic/satellite surveillance. After 10 years of seclusion, a Daiwa (Japanese robotic company) executive comes to meet with international politicians. Vexille, a female op based in LA, discovers the politicians dead, that the Daiwa is a cyborg and then must infiltrate Japan to stop the company and save the world.

Sounds good and the visuals look great! Too bad it opens in August in Japan… and who-knows-when in the states. Oh well, at least I can remember to look out for it.

I can sum up the 11th Annual Webby Awards proceedings which I attended this year in one word: lame. Seriously, Rob Corddry hosting was extremely not funny. So much so, that one of the winners used their allotted 5 word acceptance “speech” to point that out by saying: “funnier on the Daily Show.”

The rest of the proceedings were similarly flat, even the seemingly effervescent Mentos and Diet Coke fountain capper. I mean, when will people let that gag go?

The only fun came at the after-party at Hiro when DJ Jazzy Jeff spun some old-school jams to a floor of geeks and surprisingly sexy girls.

I should remember that in some way it was cool having contributed to a winning project and to only attend these functions for the free drinks!

Since coming back from Japan, I’ve been trying to steer clear of Japanese food since I felt like I almost OD’d over there, but one thing I didn’t get nearly as much of as I hoped while there was anime. So, I finally checked out Satoshi Kon’s latest movie, Paprika and I gotta say… it was awesome, like nothing I had ever seen before.

I could get into the plot and it’s science fiction aspects, but none of that is really important. The movie is about concepts more than direct this happens after that. Additionally, it’s just gorgeous. The art style had evolved slightly from his older movies, so it took about 5 minutes to get accustomed to the color palette, but from then on it was so much eye-candy!

When I walked out of the theatre, the only way I could describe what I thought of the film was that it was like Lucky Charms. That is to say: “Magically Delicious!”

I gotta remember to buy the DVD as soon as possible!

While in Japan, I thoroughly enjoyed watching MTV Japan while in hotel rooms getting ready to go out exploring. (They even had their MTV Japan Music Video Awards while I was there!) It was refreshing to see MTV as it should be: playing music videos. Some of the highlights to me were Ore Ska Band, Gym Class Heroes (who seem bigger in Japan than America but are playing Six Flags Great Adventure June 21st), and Your Song Is Good.

Although I looked for them all, I only managed to pick up Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot! Hot! by Your Song is Good while walking around Ginza on my last day. It’s a pretty funny album. Basically, it’s a silly Japanese take on Caribbean music like goofy reggae and even calypso. Yeah, not the type of thing you can listen to all the time, but for a sunny afternoon drinking margaritas on the roof — perfect! Check out a video for あいつによろしく. (whatever that means)

I need to remember to try picking up some of the other bands I enjoyed while there and keep checking the MTV Japan Buzz Asia section for more!.