March 31, 2017

My i-phone 6 was paid up, time to get the seven. The 8 has a lot of buzz on the internet but included in that is it will be hard to get for a while. I only bought the phone for the camera. The 7 camera has improvements and the pictures already look better. The battery life is a little longer. The Verizon salesman tried steering me to the Galaxy 8 but I already have an older Galaxy from work. Plus, it won't be out until April 21st. I am receiving messages offering me a free Gear VR with Controller and Oculus content pack. Nope, don't want it. Their photos are amazing and the editing features maintains the original shot along with the edited version. I stayed with Apple because of their messaging. My Cloud back-up worked great, transfer was seamless.



I have Spectrum for cable. One of the reasons I keep it ,besides the pain of switching (FIOS keeps sending my offers), is NY1. I start every day with it for local news, weather and traffic. Pat Kiernan is terrific. Now, the new owner is changing things. Hope, they don't change much else. I can live with these changes so far.

March 30, 2017

Perfect score !



Survivor: Game Changers, pretty good so far.

March 29, 2017

Perfect score !

March 28, 2017

Perfect score !



I've been to just about every great steakhouse in NYC except Keen's. Will be there next week.

March 27, 2017

Recommended to me by a non-reading cousin.



On Staten Island again, time for Joe and Pat's pizza.



Saw the new Ghostbusters on Starz. I am so glad I didn't pay for it at the movies or in buying a DVD.



I have a lot of vacation time. I have a "use or lose" situation and have to take 4 1/2 weeks in the next six months. Today is my first day off in a while. Funny, you put vacation in Google images and all you get is beach scenes.

March 26, 2017

Saw Kong:Skull Island. Great special effects. This Kong is huge. Doubt he could deal with the top of the Empire State Building. Doesn't have the Fay Wray love story of the original. Tries to insert an Apocalypse Now feel which itself channeled Heart of Darkness. (Marlow and Conrad being character names in the movie.) John C. Reilly has a lot of fun with his role.



No T-Rex but something called a Skull Crawler. A Kaiju: Kaiju (怪獣 kaijū?) is a Japanese word that means "strange creature," but often translated in English as "monster" or "giant monster".

March 25, 2017

The Democrats burned the ships !



I can only speak anecdotally, but I am doing most of my buying on-line. Amazon Prime gives me two day shipping and going to the actual stores is a drag. Pricing is another issue, I buy a lot of books and Barnes and Noble on-line has consistently lower prices than the physical store. I've actually ordered pots from Macy's on-line and it worked well. This article analyzes the fate of:Big Retail.



All my brackets are dead with the loss by UCLA. Wait...my ESPN second chance final 16 bracket picks Kansas.****Update - all brackets kaput, Kansas lost to Oregon in the Elite Eight.



Seafood linguini.

March 24, 2017

The new battle to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act has some unusual quotes: “Burn the ships,” one Republican shouted to House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.), invoking the command that Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador, gave his men upon landing in Mexico in 1519.

The phrase and pictures of burning ships has become a meme for coaches and salespeople. No retreat, conquer !

March 23, 2017

My old bag has too many rips in it. This one looks cool. It collapses into a ball when not filled.



Getting old has some benefits: half-price train rides.

March 20, 2017

Spring Equinox at 6:28 a.m.



At Machu Picchu this rock is called the “hitching post of the sun”—Intihuatana, to the ancient Incas, who celebrated the equinox at this site. Some bright mind among them determined that this day was a special one, and so he—or she—carved the 26-inch-tall stone so that it faces at a very particular northward angle—about 13 degrees, the latitude of Machu Picchu. The effect is that at noon on both the spring and fall equinoxes, for just an instant, the stone’s shadow disappears. The sun, so it seemed to the ancients, was at those moments “hitched” to the end of the stone.

March 19, 2017

Chuck Berry R.I.P. :

Hail, hail rock and roll
Deliver me from the days of old
Long live rock and roll
The beat of the drums, loud and bold
Rock, rock, rock and roll
The feelin' is there, body and soul.



Just realized I had none of his songs on my I-Pod, just added 30. Above is his Cadillac El Dorado at The National Museum of African American History and Culture.



TCM on demand, Gene Hackman in a 1975 noir. I recently watched The Drowning Pool which had Melanie Griffith in a similar role.

The title reminds me of a favorite Bob Seger song:

I awoke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain't it funny how the night moves
When you just don't seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in



Down, ambiguous ending, floating aimlessly in a boat named "Point of View."

"Penn has several times said that the mood of the film was a consequence of the Kennedy assassinations in 1963 and 1968 (he worked for both John and Robert) and the killing of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics (which he witnessed) . “This was a period,” he said in 1994, “when we’d had all those assassinations in America. It was a terrible period, and I felt we were wandering around in a kind of blindness unaware of what we were doing to ourselves. It was a crazy period, and I thought we should tell this detective story in a way that could only be understood by what we see, not by what we are told. That’s the way the film ends. We learn who has been doing these things at the exact same moment Harry Moseby learns it: by looking through the glass–bottomed boat.”
Loose Ends in Night Moves.



Movie features Twilight Zone vet Edward Binns.

March 18, 2017

From yesterday.



My main bracket is at 86%. The ones I didn't pick look to lose their next games, looking good unless a big upset throws things off. **** Update, My 97% bracket with Villanova winning is now dead. Villanover, Nova no longer a lox.



Sometimes I don't pay attention to things because they work, although not up to standards. I pay extra for faster internet and I only started seeing if I get what am paying for, like running a speed-test. Yikes, 10mbps download, 5mbps upload. I did a spectrum chat and the technician on the other end did some jiggling to my modem off-site and then I was 50mbps download and 25mbps upload, better but not what I am paying for monthly. I was told to connect via ethernet which for some reason I had not, probably due to my move two years ago.I did have a technician doing the install, but no ethernet connection. Don't know how I missed it. I was more interested in connecting the apartment via WiFi.Everything was off of WiFi. Now 95 mbps and 23mbps.



Big Apple BBQ is back in Madison Square Park: June 10 - 11, 2017.

March 17, 2017

Early morning Irish coffee with soda bread and cheese. Sláinte !



A friend is taking a Panama Canal cruise. So this is a bon voyage gift.



BUILLE 'Dog a l'Orange'



Irish channels are: 27,28,30,33 and 41.




Today's Google Doodle is Skellig Michael, a World Heritage–listed remote island off the Irish coast near County Kerry. Also, where Rey meets Luke at end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

March 15, 2017

Again the forecasts were way off. The NY Post has a story that the final forecast was held back. I took the train into work and it was a ghost town. Those who were there were making waffles.



Perfect score !

March 13, 2017

Winter Storm Stella, a Nor'easter, approaches. NY1 is usually accurate but they say NYC will get 10" - 20." They apologized, saying mix of rain may lower estimates, but it will depend on different factors that could change. New model out at 2 pm today.



Made my picks. One picks Villanova, the other Duke.



St. Pat's prep.

March 11, 2017

Tried Queens Blvd IPA. Good and very hoppy. Queens Brewery data: Session IPA, aggressively hopped with Mosaic, Mandarina Bavaria, and Topaz.



Had this one recently. Also, very hoppy.



That time of year, conference playoffs, then NCAAs. Basketball watching heaven. Duke / North Carolina game last night was great. I don't favor either team, just like watching good, hard-nosed B-Ball.



A great A-10 game, with Jack Gibbs taking over in crunch time. #9 Davidson beats #1 seed Dayton. Steph Curry did the same. Will Davidson make a run ? Update: Davidson just got crushed by Rhode Island, they won't make the NCAAs.



Kindle free book as well as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.



One of my favorites Jim Harrison. Writing about food and Wine.

“Sometimes the only answer to death is lunch.”

"How feebly the arts compete with the idea of what we are going to eat next."

"Any fool knows that red wine is the best energy drink if you keep it within two bottles."



$10 win.



Getting rid of Preet Bharara was wrong.