Nothing Compares 2 U

I never quite figure out what she is sad about.  Is it a bad breakup?  Is it her mom's passing?  Or both?  I just want a clearer mental picture from the lyrics.  A live cover of this song is equally awesome but crazier.

Snowdrops

Change Oil

Sent from my thumbs.

When I need something done to my car, this is the go to place.

Outback Dinner

Sent from my thumbs.

Pancake Breakfast

Bryant Park, NYC

Service What?

Service interrupted, delayed, screwed up. Not change.

Mini Chirasi

Udon

Portable Commute Hanger

Kind of feel like "home."  I saw this hook hanger everywhere (you know those places I went and transportation I took) when I was in Hong Kong.  First time I saw it here in NYC.  This fine piece of gadget finally landed in North America on one of the suckiest subway systems on earth.  I expect this gadget will totally take over the NYC subway.  Everybody uses one.

Pink Lady

OKAY, fuchsia if you insist.

Rose embroidered gloves.  Love.

Subway Sucks

For two days in a row, there is this signal problem.  And you just don't know where the train is going to take you, if it takes you at all.

Birkenstock London

Bought in 2001.  I wear it like Boston, that's without the counter like a pair of slippers.  It's not exactly comfortable or uncomfortable but it's definitely not durable.  My driving shoes, my take the garbage out shoes.

Chirashi

Timberland Boat Shoes

Timberland was hugely popular in Hong Kong in the 80s. A big part of it was people saw me wear them I believe Chow Yun Fat was seen wearing them. In one of the TV broadcast charity events, Chow was seen performing a stunt: stepping on cartons of eggs without breaking them or trying not to. In between the eggs and his bare feet was a pair of boat shoes by Timberland. Not the ones with lug soles shown here but the more traditional much thinner soles that are designed on deck top walking in a boat or a yacht. Not that I would ever know as I never go yachting.  Nor would I know if they are any good to walk on eggs.  When I came here, a couple of my best friends sent me off with a pair top of the line Timberlands thinking maybe one day I may go yachting or need them to walk on eggs.  Thanks dudes. Unfortunately I have the magic touch of turning everything precious into poop. A female friend of mine actually thought all along they were a cheap pair of imitation. Well what can I tell you, I look cheap and everything looks cheaper or simply cheap on me. The pair shown here was bought probably in the 1900s, I mean circa 1994. Back then it was made in the USA. It most likely is not the best mocassin construction out there but still it's all leather lined inside.

Original Musk

I don't know why I bought the musk.  I don't wear scent, maybe once in a while when the moon is blue.  Because I find it aggressive, intrusive and borderline rude to put on any scent in public.  While you think whatever you put on is deliciously and definitively fantastic, others may very well think you smell absolutely repulsive.  Plus there is not really any female deer or human to attract.   I just like to leave it in the bathroom, as a decor.  Or as an air freshener.  The WD-40 smells equally refreshing.

Georgia Boots

I probably bought these logger boots in 1993 or 1994.  Back when Georgia boots only had its logo embossed discreetly on the leather upper.  I just checked out their new boots.  It's disgusting.  They have their logo on the tongue and on the side.  I never took care of these boots, I wish I had.  Got to oil the leather up.  I remember the first pair I had was defective, the leather near the heel area just broke on one of them.  I wrote to the company together with a picture proving the defect, mind you, all done the old fashioned way with no email or jpeg.  The company sent me a brand new pair no questions asked all the way to Hong Kong.  I think that's customer service.

Nice Guys Finish Last

We didn't set out to build the slowest derby car.  But like Donald Rumsfeld says "stuff happens."  The car weighs in at exactly 5.00 ounces, so I have high hope that it will perform amiably.  At the same time I also know the wheels are kind of out of alignment.  I tried a few times trying to adjust them properly so much so that I actually cracked the bottom where the axle (nail) and the wood meet.  I just glued it back and called it a day; keeping my fingers crossed that it won't be too bad in the run.  Wishful thinking doesn't help.  At it turns out, out of some forty cars in the race, and in a total of four runs, our car turns out to be the slowest, a feast that is just equally difficult as being the fastest.  Well we got the trophy for being the slowest.

Backbone

I enjoy reading stuff that is written in earnest, if not in earnest then in irony, if not in irony then in style.  David Foster Wallace's feast is he can achieve all of this, and more, at the same time.  Backbone published in the current New Yorker is an excerpt of his soon to be posthumously published The Pale King.  Backbone is such a weird story--a boy trying to kiss every inch of his own body since he's six, with even more weirder writing style.  Personally my favorite line is:

The written evaluations of his socialization described the boy not as withdrawn or aloof but as “calm,” “unusually poised,” and “self-containing” [sic].

I have seen grade school teacher confuse "every day" with "everyday."  So I can relate and do enjoy the humor and irony.  Backbone is peppered with anatomy vocabulary and interjected with historical anecdotes of which I find interesting.  Reading "Backbone" would have never prepared me what the Pale King is about, at least superficially.  According to Little, Brown, its publisher, as reported by The New York Times, The Pale King is about "a crew of entry-level processors and their attempts to do their job in the face of soul-crushing tedium."  Wow, that sounds interestingly boring to the max.

Indian