Interesting Things as of Late | johnozed

So happy it’s Thursday makes for a good acronym. The week went by not too fast but not too slow either. Keep your head down and muddle through is basically how its done.

I am through with the Today Show. One day they cancel Ann Cunter, the next day they have that anorexic twat on anyway. Matt ‘Sans scrotum’ Lauer talked with her in the first 10 minutes and I of course caught it like a bad cold.

I never heard of her until 9/11 and when I heard about how the US should invade foreign countries and convert the inhabitants to christianity, I figured she was just an old hag like Phyllis Schafly. Nope, I was wrong. She’s a middle aged hag. And the less said the better.

It seems like this might be a busy weekend coming up. Jeff the guy who works at Empire Coffee has a band that’s playing at McSwells tomorrow night. I think Jeff’s band is called the Poconos. He’s a good guy and I told him I would make an attempt to see him.

I also told him that I’m supposed to go out for a cigar and some whiskey with Steve like I did last week. I feel bad for Steve, he’s having a tough time trying to find a new job. So is Harpy, Rita and a few others that I know.

It used to be that I was the one who was unemployed and everyone else was working. Except for Harpy who was living the life of a country squire in upstate NY. I am keeping my ears open for all concerned, but I’m not hearing anything.

Last night was another in a series of quiet nights. Olbermann, but I turned off Rachel Maddow. I watched the recording of the Daily Show which was funny of course, but I was disappointed when the recording of The Colbert Report didn’t take. Does my DVR have something against Stephen Colbert?
It did erase the Colbert Christmas Special after all. I’m trying again tonight.

I might forgo Olbermann tonight and watch Ugly Betty. I need levity damn it! Since I missed the Colbert Report I was able to watch the new episodes of what else, but Scrubs. And they were actually pretty funny, though the second one was a touch sad with Glynn Thurman playing a dying man.

Good new characters introduced and I’m glad they kept Keith who was dumped a few days before his wedding to Eliot last year. That was a good way to resolve that plot line.

Saturday is Chaz’ party which Bill and I are attending. Kathe is supposed to be there as well as Connie, who I can’t believe I haven’t seen in a number of years. Just maintaining contact via the phone. I hope to see them as well as a certain commenter on this blog.

Just planing on relaxing tonight. Some TV, some reading, and probably a lot of surfing online. Don’t really have much else to write about so I should end it here. Or here.

Oh wait I should also send some good thoughts to my brother in law Rex who is en route to San Francisco with Annemarie for some tests to figure out what the hell is wrong with him.

So good thoughts are on the way!

Just got back from a visit to McSwells where I had dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Paterson, as well as Meghan Taylor Mastro and the daughters Lily (mine) and Ruby (Jim’s). Almost wasn’t able to pull it off.

You see I was at work and as the day crawled along I just started feeling bad. Not ill necessarily, but more like feeling blue. I left the office around 1:30, no one was in really and the feeling in the office was ‘so what?’

So I walked across town, enjoying a Padron, listening to Girl Talk and still enjoying it. I left two voice mails for Bill and a text message but he didn’t get those until I was home, putting the kibosh on meeting up with him for a few minutes outside his building. Plus it was too cold to socialize outside.

I was home for a little while when I heard from Meghan. She was coming to Hoboken with Lily and Ruby and the Paterson’s. The Paterson’s are actually Ann Boyles and her husband Pat Paterson.

I explained how I was feeling and said I would try to make it after I took a much-needed nap. The nap definitely did the trick, deep sleep for almost two hours. Cleared my head of whatever malaise was troubling me.

It was almost interrupted by phone calls but I wisely shut the ringer on the phone off. It was dark when I woke up and mere moments after awakening, Meghan called telling me that she and the girls were walking up to McSwells to get some food.

I had to stop by the library to pick up Philip Norman’s biography of John Lennon and Sarah Vowell’s new book, The Wordy Shipmates. Quite timely since I finished the New Yorker already, finished Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine a couple of weeks ago, and though I took Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet out of the library I’m not as interested in it as I was when I first ordered it.

After trying not to break my neck on the unshoveled ice I made it to McSwells where Yo La Tengo where eating dinner before their third Hanukah show. Ann met me at the door since she saw me on the sidewalk walking by.

She still looks as adorable as ever and still the same Ann Boyles I knew way back when, still funny to be around. Pat Paterson, her husband is a really nice guy who I might have met before when he worked for Dreams So Real and Guadalcanal Diary among others back in the day.

Despite the last time I ate at McSwells I gambled again and ordered a burger, which was fine. Ann didn’t have problems with her burger but I think Meghan and Lily and Ruby had issues with their orders, as did Pat with the flavorless fish and chips.

After dinner we did a quick walk by the river, around where Maxwell House used to stand. They’re all condos now, no more big neon sign with a coffee cup, and no more ‘good till the last drop’.

Got some great pictures of everyone, the only who was missing was Jim who was minding the Guitar Bar. We walked back down Washington Street, Pat finding some thrown away stilts that he did a credible job of walking on for a couple of feet.

Alas, I had to head home and write this, they continued to collect Jim from the Guitar Bar and head back out to Glen Ridge. It looks like I will be going out to visit on Saturday and it seems quite possible that Bill will join me, so Ann will finally get to meet the man in my life, as I just met hers.

So here’s to Ann and Pat and Meghan, Lily & Ruby, and of course, Jim. Cheers!

And I said hello to Ann Boyles on behalf of bhikkhu and Harpy. She responded in kind.

There were some fairly large pics here, but not any more.
I’m still using Bill’s Mac and can’t figure out how to rotate certain pics. If you know how, please feel free to fix them and send them back to me so I will repost them. Can’t seem to use xnview on the Mac you see. Made everything easier….

well actually I went to my PC and loaded the pics onto a flash drive after ediiting on xnview on my PC….