okay, folks, let's start with this: soundpedia, a website where you can stream a bunch of full albums, including the new best-of from frank black, which selection I blatantly ripped off from my old buddy whitney, whose meetup last week i missed while getting soaked in the rain listening to two songs of richard thompson's sadly aborted performance in prospect park. that was fun. no, really! but anyway the site is pretty great. it even shows you the lyrics as each song is playing. it also has the new rihanna album, whose "breakin' dishes" is totally my new favorite song. i'm'a fight a man tonight, too! that sounds fun. okay. moving on...

saturday we went to the mermaid parade, which i was not as jazzed on this year, probably because i wasn't in costume. it was a zoo on the nathan's side of the street, and so we camped out on the sunny side, where my shoulders rapidly began to burn (as stupidly planned). despite the awesome costumes, i began to grow weary of the parade, so we took our little group up on the boardwalk, where there were approximately one meellion other little groups, making for a crazily crowded boardwalk. not fun. luckily carl felt the same way and we got the hell out of coney island as soon as socially possible. later on we met up with paul stuart and sylvia to celebrate paul's birthday with a nice dinner at applewood, yelped of course. but if you think i'm yelp-crazy, check out carl's yelp page: 50 reviews he's written! in like a day. he's gone loco.

what else...sunday we met up with matt and tamar and matt's mom at miriam for brunch, then caught a ride (oh sweet, sweet ride) with tricia to williamsburg for the mccarren pool party featuring oakley hall (yay!) and old-school indie rockers superchunk (or, as marty markowitz introduced them, supachunk). it was fun but again, the sun was beating down with alarming intensity. next time i will bring a blankie and lots of sunscreen and work on my pale.

clay-mation hold steady video.

this was the weekend of many plans, few of them executed. friday night i was supposed to meet up with eileen for some shopping, followed by drinks and dinner. but i ended up feeling like commencing with the evening proper and so i made her meet up with me and carl and drunk sam at d.b.a. for a couple cold ones, which was far preferable to trudging around j.crew. then we went to chance for dinner, which i can't fully recommend, for reasons that if you're curious about, you'll click.

saturday our dance card was ridiculously full, and really more of a wish list than a to-do list. we were supposed to start it off at 1 pm with canoeing on the gowanus. however, we had to go pick up a package at the post office in red hook, and then the ball fields and their delicious foods were calling our name, so we had to stop and gorge ourselves on tacos, pupusas, and corn slathered in mayo, cheese, and spices (a little nasty, frankly). by this time we were stuffed and retardedly late for canoeing, but made our way over to carl's studio to drop off the package (1973 looney tunes glasses, one of which i'd broken and replaced plus six more, because i am an excellent girlfriend) and try to rejoin our group. because carl's office looks out on the gowanus, we actually saw our party float by on their canoes and shouted to them as they plucked tampon applicators from the water, agreeing to meet them at the dock. no canoeing for us. so we got beers at p.j. hanley's. we just didn't feel like scrambling to make it to manhattan for the television show in central park. plus we needed to rest up for eve and ryan's annual birthday party: pregame at THOR, followed by partay at madame x. finally, a plan we stuck to! a few pics of the action:

and today i rode the B61 bus to williamsburg for the renegade craft fair, where i dropped probably too much cash on some very cute stuff: a notebook made from a vintage record album cover from little evelyn; a handmade sunglasses case from raeburn ink (from whom i purchased a pouch last year); ceramic hooks for the bathroom; a supercute round mousepad in this typewriter print from boy girl party; a tote bag made from recycled sailboat sails by reiter8, which i've been admiring for years; a great silkscreend potholder by an outfit i'm afraid i can't recall...

...and a funky collaged clock from domestic construction that carl hates and refuses to allow on the wall even though it matches our color scheme perfectly, because he is a little bitch. sometimes it seems like it's all kinda the same stuff at these fairs, and it is true that there are a lot of silkscreened t-shirts and tote bags, and that can be fatiguing, but this is the grandmammy of them all, and it is awesome, and i think my haul proves that. if you've got some time definitely click through the vendor list at renegade craft; you could find some really cool stuff. happy with my purchases, i rode the bus back, met carl in cobble hill park and ate a delicious little sandwich from the deli on the corner while he showed me all the free stuff he'd gathered from his curb shopping, including stacks of foreign films and cool halston sunglasses for me! yay!

and i just now finished my book, water for elephants, a pretty light, quick summer read about the circus. and now i'm sitting in AC having an adult beverage and listening to the drive-by truckers, waiting for dinner and a mini office marathon. all in all, a pretty awesome weekend.

funny comment from jami last night, protesting my claim that i am an old fuddy-duddy who doesn't go out: "i read the weekend reports, i know what you do." hee. so here it is, the weekend report: fine all around, starting out strong with fruity cocktails for vanessa's birthday at disiac, climaxing with the group drinkathon at the beer garden featuring the pulpinator, then sorta anticlimaxing at the gbv party night at don pedro's (where bob showed up but didn't perform, causing a painful case of blueballs among the assembled fanboys), then fading into nothingness with a day of lazing about watching movies. those are pollard's pants above.

and then monday morning, we went over to our neighbors erik and ellen's apartment to watch the sopranos finale over banana pancakes. i thought the ending was hilarious and quite good, but mostly hilarious. and then last night, lovely chunky lobster rolls with my girls jami and leigh ann at ed's lobster bar. it made me want to have a lobster roll from all the classic spots: mary's, pearl's, etc. who's with me? hey, that was weekend +2 report, huh. more bang for your buck here on the pita.

bada bing!

we arrived in time for awesome color, who were completely groovy, in keeping with the "fillmore at irving plaza" theme: sorta stoner rock with a healthy helping of iggy worship. not only groovy but hard-rockin', and obvious outgoing, fun, ridiculous dudes (and girl) as well. carl pronounced their guitar sound "sick," and i was sad when they were done. they were a great warm-up for dinosaur jr., and i think i even liked them better than dino. so awesome i bought a t-shirt, in fact. thurston moore likes them too (they're on his label), and so does kid millions of oneida and brah records, who was in attendance with a shaggy young dude approximately 13 years of age (so cute). related: read kid's funny interview with awesome color's girl drummer where he admits cluelessness about skateboarding.

so, i've never been a huge fan of dinosaur jr. -- i was more of a sebadoh girl. i do find it unendingly hilarious that the figure on stage -- long, silky gray-white hair (almost as if flatironed), big black glasses, short and fat -- is a rock icon to legions of now-aging indie-rock boys. and i do mean boys. anyway, as a casual fan, i had a casually good time listening to their set. i haven't heard that much shredding since the last time i worked the line at taco bell (which is never, in case you were wondering). guitar wankery to the max, but fun enough. siwat and carl said they didn't play too many hits, but i heard a couple and was happy that they played what i guess is the single off of "beyond," their new album. it's really catchy and lived in my head all day yesterday.

::: Dinosaur Jr., "Almost Ready" :::

hilarious video NOT involving my boyfriend: illustrated misheard lyrics to pearl jam's "yellow ledbetter." simply golden. [thanks lindsay!]

k, bye!

no pictures but perhaps you'll enjoy this crowd-pleasing video of our fattest cat licking carl's head?

weekend report, as usual: friday night was a happy hour chez kurt complete with constantly improving mojitos. it was so fun i completely forgot about the free animal collective show i had been sorta planning to attend. ah well. instead carl and i finished up, forsaking pizza (and narrowly avoiding what certainly would have been killer hangovers) and headed to the new japanese joint in our hood, hibino, which i have since yelped, of course. that was friday.

saturday i sprang out of bed, relatively speaking, and crashed a total body conditioning class at my gym. it was my first class ever, and there was definitely a learning curve. note: if there is a towel and a water on every step bench, this does not mean the staff has helpfully provided you with the accoutrements you need. it means the crazy black man leading the class is immensely popular and people have staked out their spots in advance. he was pretty amusing, especially when yelling things like, "hold that for one, two, tree, now singles! BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA I LOOOOOVE SINGLES!!!" the grandma type who nicely shared her bench with me was loving it. she told me she has been taking him for years. i will definitely be investigating more classes.

later we made it out to castle clinton to see roky erickson. i danced and had a good time, though i can't tell you a single roky song or even what he sounds like. note: the white horse tavern is the place to go to prepare for castle clinton shows, with $3 happy hours beer a mere two blocks from the park, and not a bad jukebox either. once you get a ticket, you're guaranteed to get in, but who needs to wait in line with the masses only to get wedged into a crappy folding chair with your neighbor's hip touching yours? i'll take standing room only, thank you very much. then we were supposed to go to the man in gray record release show, but the timing unfortunately didn't work out and there was no way we were gonna make it. sigh. i was pretty bummed about that. so off to abilene it was for lissy's birthday, where a formidable crew had assembled. and the end of the night meant, of course, loaves of hot bread from mazzola's. one thing is certain: i absolutely do not miss the lower east side, in case you were wondering.

sunday we did absolutely nothing but lay around and watch movies. is it me or was "dreamgirls" kinda boring? then again, i wasn't really bowled over by this penultimate sopranos episode, either, so don't take my word for it.