i just returned from an emusic party at the angel orensanz foundation. first of all, that is a gorgeous building, and had i the kajillion dollars and the inclination to marry, i would totally do it there. second of all, audiobooks! i heard that word more often this evening than i suspect i will hear it for the rest of my natural life. i don't imagine i'll be downloading any john grisham soon, but a very nice lady from the children's book council recommended "huck finn" as a hilarious book to reread as an adult, and so i may check that out--from the library. because i like books as books, not mp3s. but god bless emusic for trying. and third of all, i finally got to see vampire weekend play, in all of their besweatered, paul simon-worshipping glory, and i have this to say: if someone were to ask me that always-obnoxious question, "were they everything you hoped they might be?" i am afraid the answer, sadly, would be no. but they were very cute and perfectly pleasant. oh well.

weekend update! this weekend started out in a somewhat ignominious fashion, as carl and i found ourseles midway down the jersey turnpike in a borrowed car with an electric window stuck in the all-the-way-down position, not an ideal state in which to a) drive, b) drive in an imminent rainstorm, and most important, c) return a car to its brooklyn-based owner. a little windy, was it? it was. everything turned out fine by the end of the weekend, no thanks to a professional suburban mechanic spouting the usual but dreaded "we can't get parts till monday" spiel, but major thanks to a retired suburban mechanic (my stepdad). in any case i am not anxious to borrow any major machinery anytime soon. in between worrying, we: watched von hayes play a show at philly's north star bar, where pita reader sal (seen above in snazzy yellow polo) was hanging out as well; shopped, laughed, ate and drank our way through our visit with holly and mark in the very cute town of media, pa., which was featuring the great media garage sale, in which every street is chock-a-block with all manner of saleable crap; observed small children in their natural habitat of newark, del., while catching up with my college friends the bothums; and went apple picking in freehold, nj. all told, i'd call it an solid 8.2, thank you.

i haven't really given it a serious go yet, but the seinfeld poster challenge looks pretty fun. amazingly, i don't get many of the items, and i've watched a lot of seinfeld.

in case some locals missed it, the new hipster bowling bar in brooklyn has opened. this is the spot where carl sent a bowling ball down the lane during a serendipitous pre-opening visit, causing it to smash into the vintage (read: very old) equipment and the owner of the bar to issue some worrying expletives. provided you avoid such awkwardness, should be a fun spot!

this weekend was pretty solid: heroes worship; pool day at eileen's mom's house in connecticut on a superhot saturday; some brunch and pedicure action; and a trip to the richard serra exhibit at moma with carl. personally i can get more excited about reading a good book by a beautiful pool than shuffling around big orange slabs of steel with 2,000 other people, but maybe that's just me.

have you guys heard of swaptree.com? it's a new site that lets you trade your unwanted books, cds, etc., with people around the country. pretty cool. i've already completed two trades. anyone want to come over and do "pilates for dummies" with me?

hipster olympics is pretty funny, even though it shouldn't be.

hello folks. i had an activities-packed long weekend in the lovely finger lakes region of upstate new york, land of rolling hills and roadside farm stands. we arrived and were immediately thrust into a marathon bar crawl, along with half of the auburn high class of '87, who were celebrating their reunion. it was a bit of an endurance test, but i perked up toward the end for the amazing skeeball-like bowling game. way better than either actual bowling or wii bowling! also experienced were a group sightseeing mission, mad barbecues, lots of bocce, a day of wine touring, and the triumphant back-porch performance of teenager, a rock band out of the new rock mecca of auburn, new york. take note! they should have some songs up on the site this week, and they have several shows coming up if you happen to be in the aforementioned rock mecca. developing! oh, and we went to the sucky state fair. i was expecting grassy fields and white tents and pies adorned with blue ribbons. i got a collection of big convention halls with vendors including the dmv, a group of born-agains and magical mop salesmen. of course we also experienced the demolition derby, which involved many hours of cars crashing into other cars. awesome at times, but way too long. i don't think i need to see another figure 8 race in my life, so i guess that's a good thing. what else...lake time! sitting on a dock in the sun is always a good time. not hot enough for swimming or tubing, though. bummer. next year! and then on the way home we got lost in the byzantine highway system of new jersey. utterly the worst. moving on...

last night i was inspired by this article about saving your pennies (so you can spend them on fun stuff later) to finally, finally open a savings account, and i did it! ING direct, so simple and orange and high-interest-rated, i love it. i told you, 2007. the year of getting it together. feels good! and the debt payoff is in sight, too, though an indian gentleman named kevin baker at chase refused to lower my ridiculous interest rate. chase can suck a duck.

all right, i'm gonna get started on the freakin' weekend. later!

fyi, the clevelandfest photo gallery is now live on the metromix site. check it!