Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Settling in

Settling in
I'm slowly but surely getting used to life back in the Northeast. I'm learning different ways to get into the city and to the office via a variety of commuter trains and subways, not to mention working "regular" hours.

On the other hand, I'm diving right into my work (although still having to solve a variety of paperwork/computer issues that come with starting a new job), which includes a new work blog. Seemingly everyone has at work now, so might as well jump in, even though this one has been around for a ridiculous long time.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Safe at home

Safe at home
Well, I'm now in New Jersey for good, and starting up in New York on Monday. It's been an interesting week or so as I made the move out of Atlanta. While I did have a fun "goodbye tour," including a big party at this place a little more than a week ago (which saw a number of my different social universes converging in one place -- much like the Jeopardy! party), I also had to spend a bunch of time finally getting rid of my couch and recliner thanks to a couple of interesting Craiglist buyers.

I took off for good Thursday morning, using a little different route than I'm used to -- taking I-85 from Atlanta to Charlotte, then I-77 from Charlotte to southwest Virginia, then I-81 for a lot of Virginia plus cameo appearances from West Virginia and Maryland. I eventually stopped in Hagerstown, just short of the Pennsylvania border (after about 12 hours on the road), in time to catch the World Series of Pop Culture (I wept as the contestants whiffed badly on the SNL category). Then it was off for a relatively short (3 1/2 hours) jaunt through Pennsylvania and into New Jersey to finish things off.

Almost fittingly, I got back in time for the first weekend of Clerks 2, which I got around to seeing today. If you liked the original movie, you'll like this one. If you didn't, you probably won't. I was a huge fan of the original, and the sequel was just fine -- nothing amazing, just some silly entertainment. I have my doubts for its box office take, if only because a lot of the local multiplexes in the area have it on only one screen for opening weekend.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

The final countdown

The final countdown
Just about a week or so before I leave the ATL for good. Been doing tons of packing, cleaning up, selling off most of my furniture on Craiglist (if anyone in the Atlanta area wants a couch, I've got a nice one available) and having friends and family taking me out to lunch to send me off. Still some more prep work to be done, including how I'm going to fit what's left in my car and another going-away party on Friday (my boss had one for me with fellow co-workers last week). Oh yeah, finished off my last night shift tonight, seemingly doing what I will be doing once I get up to New York.

But as for other stuff going around:
-- Wordplay: Finally returned to the movies after a long hiatus, and it ended up being the crossword puzzle movie. Fun stuff, although I swear I've come across many of the featured competitors in real life, even though I know I haven't.
-- An interesting July 4th for me as I saw Superman Returns with Alyson (seemingly only seeing each other on national holidays) before an aborted attempt to see the Lenox Mall fireworks. The movie was decent, seemed like Superman 2 1/2. Brandon Routh was fine as the man of steel, and he seemed to channel Christopher Reeve, while Kevin Spacey started morphing into Dr. Evil toward the end. On the other hand, Kumar got no lines, Superkid had an interesting Lipnick/Jake Lloyd vibe going for him, and Kate Bosworth seemed to be assuming Cameron Diaz's Being John Malkovich look.
-- As for the fireworks, some nasty thunderstorms rolled through just before the show was to begin. It sounded like things were going to get cancelled (at least according to a cop at the place we had established camp at), so we went our separate ways. Then as I got home, I could hear the fireworks from my apartment, so my last chance to see them live fizzled out.
-- I suppose I should comment about the World Series of Pop Culture. I like the show -- the questions are fair, if at times a bit easy, although it strays into some real trivia, which is fine, though. The concept is very simple, which is good. I'm not a big fan of the hosts -- the Studio 7 experiment probably clouds my opinion of Pat Kiernan, while Miss Tungsten seems to be showing her age a bit, even if she had a decent Hef spread last year.
I had too many strikes against me for being on the show (not to mention it taped the same weekend as TRASHionals), but I know I could more than take them on (as could plenty of my quizbowl colleagues). However, watching Wednesday night's episode on DVR, I realized I went to college with Mac from the Bobby, Ricky, etc. team (the middle guy in the team picture; he's a frat brother of one of my friends from school), meaning I'm not the only Filipino-American alum from Northwestern with game show and pop culture experience anymore.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Shuffle up and watch

Shuffle up and watch
While World Cup Soccer has curtailed some of my late-night poker reruns, the actual World Series of Poker has already started. And even more interesting, ESPN will be starting coverage of the main event in late August, just a few days after it has been completed. And for those (possibly like me) wanting to follow in real time, the final table will be available on pay-per-view.

While it's great to see ESPN make such big changes to their coverage, I do wonder what the ratings will be and whether we've already hit the high point of poker's popularity. With the ridiculous flood of shows out there (for instance, I am curious as to how Chris Rose and Barry Tompkins feel about calling so much poker for FSN), can and will the WSOP stand out even if it is the one event that casual fans know about?

Saturday, July 01, 2006

And I'm moving where?

So I guess that line about "closing the state of Florida" from National Lampoon's Vacation isn't completely wrong. You just have to go up to the Garden State where a sales tax dispute had the governor "closing" the state of New Jersey.