When I lived in Philadelphia I was a regular at two places. One was an arcade/laundromat around the corner from where I lived and the other place was a tiny, grungy bar named Dirty Franks (which by the time I left, could have changed its name to Clean Franks unfortunately).

Anyway, being a regular was great. At the arcade, I got to know all the employees and became close friends with the other patrons who also enthusiastically burned through pockets full of quarters playing Tekken 3 and occasionally Virtual On. Sometimes we’d even head back to their homes to play video games for free on their PlayStations while eating sandwiches their wives made and trying to keep their kids from unplugging our controllers, reseting the console, or otherwise ruining our gaming. Sometimes, we wouldn’t even play games… we’d just hang out.

The story was different at Dirty Franks, of course. There, it was all beer drinking, jukebox DJing and trying to talk to any new girls before any of the bike messengers who hung out there made their moves. The place was small, I vaguely remember the bartendress being attractive and friendly, plus I managed to make some interesting friends in the bike messengers.

When you’re a regular at a place it oddly becomes some kind of extended family. Like the tagline from the definitive television show on the subject, Cheers, goes: it’s a place “where everyone knows your name.”

It occurred to me this morning, that for the ten years I’ve lived in New York City, I don’t think I’ve ever been a regular anywhere. I have no idea why that is. Of course, there are some places I go to often, but not like the arcade or Dirty Franks and I wouldn’t say there are too many places outside of the slew of places I’ve worked and my block where everyone knows my name.

Are there just too many places to go here? Is it because there isn’t a place close to my home where you could easily blow hours of your day? (I guess some people do that at the gym, but that’s not really for me.) Is it because I don’t have quick transportation like my old motorcycle that sped me over to Dirty Franks? Is New York City just different? Am I different now?

Hmm… I really don’t know, but I should remember to be on the lookout for some special haunt out there where everyone could learn my name.

One thing I have to do sometime in the near future (among so many other things listed here) is see the Aurora Borealis with my own eyes. It must really be amazing. Although seeing it from space like the photo above won’t be possible until the price of space tourism comes down quite a bit, I should really remember to set up an excursion to a pole to witness this phenomena from some ground based location.

The Metal Gear Solid series may have lost my interest towards the beginning of the 3rd game, but it seems like MSG4 is shaping up to be an amazing game and arguably the first platform defining moment for the Playstation 3. The above, newly released demo footage of the game running live on Playstation hardware is simply amazing. Nothing on the Xbox 360 even comes close.

I need to remember to keep watching how MSG4′s progressing and maybe even get a PS3 when Snake hits the shelves for the last time.

Yeah, I should remember to be careful.

Video also on YouTube.

Update: More photos.

Somehow, a new painting. This one’s big. Something like 5′ x 4′. I dunno, I dig it.

Anyway, I absolutely have to remember to spend more time painting.

Like many second Friday nights of the month, I found myself a few days ago at the Living Room Lounge enjoying Wassabasco Burlesque and a drink (actually it was a couple drinks). It was their 2 year anniversary in the space and although the ladies were fantastic (as usual) the place was unfortunately quite empty.

During the show, the ever fabulous host Gigi LaFemme, dropped a subtle hint about a special show she’d be performing in the following night. So, after the show, I caught up with Gigi while she gogoed on the bar in a sparkly blue and silver outfit complete with a short cropped, metallic blue wig. I’d had a couple by then, but managed to pull out my geek magnet and email her an RSVP for the next night.

Luckily, the show was just a couple blocks away from home, so after a long tiring day, I dragged myself out to Revealed Burlesque.

Despite the rough $20 cover, as it neared showtime, the little performance space was filling up quite nicely. However, a closer look at the crowd revealed a lot of familiar faces… and bodies that usually were on the stage rather than in the crowd. In fact, I would say out of the entire crowd, only 4 people were not direct friends with the performers. Unfortunately, I counted myself in that number.

At any rate, with the show about to begin, Gigi came out on the tiny 7′ x 5′ stage, took off a long black cape, and, completely nude, started to work up a sweat with a little gogo action. Did I mention she was completely nude?

Yes, Revealed was all about burlesque plus and I gotta say, it delivered and in more ways that just the extra skin. Hosted by Bastard Kieth, who toed the line between hilarious and annoying (thankfully, usually on the side of the former), Revealed exposed the most fabulously fit, smart, and funny ladies in New York burlesque in one of the best burlesque shows I’d ever seen.

All the ladies were amazing, but as often happens, Peekaboo Pointe stood out with the most madcap performance that found her eschewing the whole clothes removal directive by coming out already completely nude except for a blindfold, then proceeding to mix a martini on a small tray with perfect comedic timing… oh and the use of creative problem solving skills when it came to finding a place to hold her ice cubes.

I gotta remember to be on the lookout for another Revealed Burlesque.

Experiencing “the real internet” with the iPhone‘s version of Safari is great and all, but sometimes you can’t help but wish that some sites were specifically customized to perfectly fit the iPhone’s screen. If you have a WordPress blog, configuring it to look and feel at home on the iPhone is now a piece of cake with the iWPhone WordPress Plugin and Theme. Simply install the plugin and theme to have your blog automatically detect when it’s being displayed on an iPhone then reconfigure itself to perfection.

I’ve already installed it and it seems to function as advertised. I should remember to keep an eye out for updates to see what they come up with next.

Update: Oops. Looks like this plugin is confusing Firefox for the iPhone browser. Odd. Guess I’ll deactivate it for now. Oh well…

Seeing trailers like the one above lured me into purchasing Tenchu Z… That and the idea of being a bad-ass-ninja™. Well, Tenchu Z certainly delivers on the promise of being bad ass, but also completely doesn’t.

First, how it delivers: it’s rare in video games to find something you find yourself doing often as satisfying as pulling off “stealth kills” are in this game. Damn near every time you do it, a smile creeps across your face. It’s hard to resist. It’s that cool.

Second how it doesn’t: there’s barely any story and unless you’re killing someone stealthily, you better just run away and try sneaking up again. I dunno, I would imagine a bad-ass-ninja™ would be as good in a straight up fight as he would be sneaking around. The makers of this game disagree.

At any rate, I should remember to finish Tenchu Z if not to see how the weak story ends, then at least to enjoy stealthily poking thugs from the shadows with my katana.

Back when I heard Siamese Dreams for the first time, I was blown away. Mixed with an almost magical post high-school graduation summer, it cemented itself permanently into not just my musical tastes, but somehow into my very personality. It’s hard to explain. Anyway, when I discovered the previous album Gish while in college, it became official: Smashing Pumpkins had become my favorite band of all time.

Then came the wave of b-sides and the fantastic bootleg performances some of which I still quote to this day: “I hear you and I’m getting the message!” It was some kind of perfect musical mirror for my life as my world expanded further and further out from the tiny island I grew up on where I first heard Today. Towards the tail end of this period I even ran into James Iha at a house party out in Brooklyn where… uhm… nefarious activities took place. All these things continued to build up the band in my mind.

Then one day… they just didn’t matter anymore.

Yeah, I bought Adore and enjoyed it, but something had changed. When Machina came out, I didn’t even bother picking it up and to this day, I don’t think I’ve listened to the whole thing.

Now, Smashing Pumpkins returns with an album pompously entitled Zeitgeist. I downloaded it yesterday, turned up the speakers, and blasting it, tried to re-open myself to the experience of bombastic drumming, fuzzy guitars and Billy Corgan’s eclectic vocals.

I have to admit, it rocked (especially tracks like United States and Tarantula).

It almost got me back to the magic I used to feel for the band… Almost. I don’t know. Some small thing was missing. Was that small thing missing from me and not from the music? Maybe.

Without a doubt, Zeitgeist is Smashing Pumpkins best album since Melon Collie, but that’s not saying much.  I should try to remember Smashing Pumpkins as the band I loved in the 90′s (complete with D’arcy and James Iha), not worry too much about the band they’ve become, and just enjoy these new tracks for what they are: some damn good rock songs.

So, due to the suggestion of some friends, I checked out the new Stephen King adaptation: 1408. The funny part about this movie is that it’s almost two movies in one. The first half is a great, creepy flick carried by John Cusack’s witty acting… the second half is a ridiculous stream of nonsensical gags that amount to nothing.

When the whole movie ended, some guy in the back of the theater said “Awww, fuck.” And that was basically the general consensus. It was dumb.

I need to remember to stop watching stupid movies for no reason. There have to be better things to do with my time.