Oh Dog, you Sleuth!

There was some discussion about where to have my going away party at work. It’s going to be really, really hard for them. Some suggestions included renting out the Four Seasons, the Rainbow Room, Radio City Music Hall or maybe just renting helicopters and having races around the city. I said, ‘C’mon yall, I can’t condone spending a hundred thousand dollars on a send-off.’ Bobby and Rachel mentioned The Frying Pan, which is the name of this boat docked near the Chelsea Piers, where they’ve built an outdoor bar and a stage. I checked it out tonight and it was really kinda cool and mellow. Since my going away party in LA (for work) was at a nautical-themed bar (the Galley in Santa Monica, highly recommended! — though Montero’s Bar in Brooklyn Heights has to be the grandfather of all nautical bars) then this seemed appropriate. Actually, I really hate this kind of shit. It’s bad enough when you’re at work and they’re dragging out one birthday cake after another.
When I left LA, I got this going away card from my co-workers and one of them wrote something really nasty. Earlier today, a coworker showed me a group email from his girlfriend’s office that addressed somebody leaving and it was the most spitefull thing I’d ever seen. It was full of comments about how shitty this woman dressed and the writer used a lot of big words and included URL links to their definitions on dictionary.com. I hope this doesn’t happen to me. I know I wear crappy shoes to work. So I won’t be offended.

Finally, my life-long voyeur fantasy has come true with the unveiling of a new brand of sunglasses with an embedded digital camera inside. This reminds me of the other night when Rachel and I were riding the subway together and talking breathlessly about all the electronic crap we absolutely must have. I guess I should add a PDA to that list, not so much for the ability now to (again) covertly take photos, but to use it to wander around cities and pick up people’s personal pdPAL maps, which is just about the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of. In addition to that, now you can pick up audio tours on your cellphone at talking streets. Jeez, the audio touring market here is really booming. There was an article about the Soundwalk tours in the Sunday Times. I’ve kinda half enjoyed/half felt patronized by this stuff. All this appreciating and celebrating of NY before it vanishes to either ‘progress’ or the actions of the United States’ enemies has really solidified into a particular brand of NY weltschmerz. But hey, if you’re gonna hop on this band wagaon, check out the Open House New Yorktours in October. I just want to check out Ellis Island, backstage at Radio City Music Hall and the Municple Hall of records and then I’m done with NY.

Finally, I really liked the design your own bag feature on the Freitag site. I’m not a big fan of these expensive canvas bags made in Europe from old boat and truck taurpaulins, but I really dug the Flash site that allowed you to choose a canvas and drag the pattern where you wanted in said canvas to custom make your bag. I wish everything I bought were this interactive.