Pharewell
18 November 2008
Tuesday, 1:30 PM
What a year this turned out to be.
Shortly after the year began, my time with the amazing team at Happy Cog ended. It was the best thing for all concerned, even if my lack of an exit strategy left me without direction. My comfort zone was toxic, so really, any direction would do.
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Something in the Air
09 June 2008
Monday, 8:13 AM
I like adjectives that are both crystal clear and totally vague. For example, you may be coming off a “good” weekend just like I am, but it’s entirely possible that the “good” elements of our respective weekends were completely different. Perhaps you were served an amazing slice of peach cobbler, or your blind date turned out to be George Clooney, or you finally disposed of some incriminating evidence that’s been haunting you for years. But you definitely weren’t crowned the Philadelphia regional champ of the US Air Guitar Championships. Nope, that was all me.
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Here and Now
09 September 2007
Sunday, 3:48 AM
I killed my own summer. I took on more work than I should have, and hopefully I suffered the consequences more than my clients did. The summer is drawing to a close, though, and with its end, my schedule is finally becoming kind of manageable again. Today was the first day in ages that I was able to leave the house for something that didn’t resemble work.
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Thirty Days Has September
04 September 2007
Tuesday, 10:33 AM
Another busy summer has come and gone, most of the fruits of which are still not quite ripe enough to talk about. I do, however, have a few things going on this month that are worth a mention.
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Murder & Mayhem
04 April 2007
Wednesday, 8:44 AM
For the last few years, I’ve been getting the bulk of my world news from a number of New York Times RSS feeds. I’m sure you don’t need me to extoll the publication’s manifold virtues. However, as a Philadelphia resident, one thing the New York Times can’t give me is detailed local news. As my schedule’s density has increased, my ability to absorb the local goings-on through my usual channels (free weeklies and sheer osmosis) has decreased, so the time came to choose an RSS source for local news. Though known to be flawed, the Philadelphia Inquirer is ostensibly our city’s flagship newspaper. With a 178-year legacy and broader coverage than any other Philly paper I know of, it seemed like my best bet as a local supplement to the New York Times.
I can’t deny that the Inquirer has done a reasonably good job of keeping me abreast of local happenings, but I’m still often reminded of how spoiled I’ve become by the New York Times’ quality. Yesterday, my RSS reader summed up the issue more perfectly than I ever could.
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Ten to Twenty
06 October 2006
Friday, 1:25 AM
Almost a year ago, on the way home from an evening at a local bar, three of my friends and I were robbed at gunpoint as I was unlocking the front door of my apartment. It was over pretty quickly and the robber made off with a modest amount of cash. As freaked out as I was by the experience, I wouldn’t say that it necessarily caused me any lasting psychological trauma, beyond the fact that I now constantly look over my shoulder. My neighborhood is no war zone, but it’s certainly no utopia either, so I guess I looked on being mugged as an inevitability which had now come to pass, much like the bike theft and car break-in that preceded it.
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How I Spent My Summer Vacation
03 October 2006
Tuesday, 3:35 PM
When I saw the gorgeously dreadful October 2006 edition of Stan’s site on Sunday, I remembered that I had intended to dust off my site’s costume from last year and put it back on. I dug around in my files, and was somewhat horrified to discover that the costume had vanished. Then I realized that if I was looking for that costume, summer must have ended. And boy oh boy, was there a lot of exciting stuff from the summer that I hadn’t gotten around to writing about.
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Four Things
25 January 2006
Wednesday, 6:59 PM
It is a beautiful January morning in Philadelphia. The Pixelworthy office is incandescent, its twentieth story windows unable to find refuge from the sun. Shaded by a pillar, Stan glares at the iMac on his desk.
“Damn Zeldman. Fucking meme shit.”
A few feet away, Rob snickers into his cinnamon roll.
“Keep laughing. You’re getting tagged next.”
“Come now, Stan. I can’t break over three months of editorial silence by participating in some retarded meme.”
“Tough luck.”
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Open Letter to South Central Philadelphia
17 September 2005
Saturday, 4:32 PM
I understand that a strong community is important to you, even if a busy schedule and certain cultural disparities have kept me from truly being a part of it. I fully support your desire to have a block party every single weekend of the summer, to take over the streets with charcoal grills and picnic tables, Motown and soul. If I get annoyed at the noise sometimes, I remind myself that you are celebrating the neighborhood, that your joyous spirit conquers the poverty and violence that surrounds us, even if only for a day at a time. So I hope it’s clear that I’m on your side before I make a humble request.
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42.66 Fluid Ounces of Freedom
12 July 2005
Tuesday, 9:50 AM
Another Free Slurpee Day has come and gone, and for the second year in a row, my roommate Peter and I took to the streets with visions of conquest, this time with our new roommate Kevin in tow. There are eighteen 7-Eleven stores in metropolitan Philadelphia, and we set out to suckle at the syrupy teat of each and every one of them.
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The Kids Are All Right
18 April 2005
Monday, 12:59 AM
The weather of late indicates that Spring is finally making a gesture of commitment to Philadelphia, and with it, my annual resolve is reborn to get the hell out of the house and find things to be excited about. I’ve been both busy and lazy these last couple of months (a paradoxical combination at which I excel), which, along with the temperature, has caused me to miss the first half of this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival, countless rock shows, and other local cultural miscellany. I have, as usual, carefully pored over newspapers and web sites and meticulously catalogued dozens of local events of interest in iCal, most of which would ultimately be ignored. But on Saturday night, my momentum lurched forward violently with the help of whatever it is that’s in the water they drink over in Japan.
more »Filed under: Music, Philadelphia
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2004 Philadelphia Film Festival, Part 2
01 May 2004
Saturday, 2:28 PM
The Philadelphia Film Festival ended a couple of weeks ago, and as it turned out, about 4 of the 8 screenings I attended were worthwhile. The highlights included Haute Tension (as reviewed in my previous post), a French slasher gross-out; Time of the Wolf, Austrian auteur Michael Haneke’s latest chilling diatribe on the human condition; Robot Boy, a Tim Burton-esque... more »
Filed under: Film, Philadelphia
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2004 Philadelphia Film Festival, Part 1
10 April 2004
Saturday, 2:18 PM
The 13th Philadelphia Film Festival began on Thursday and I’ve managed to fit 8 screenings into my schedule this year, including The Best of the 48 Hour Film Project, for which our film Lunch Break has been chosen! My first film of the fest was last night’s Danger After Dark opener Haute Tension (High Tension). Ostensibly filling a time-honored serial... more »
Filed under: Film, Philadelphia
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Candy Apples and Razor Blades
01 November 2003
Saturday, 5:33 PM
“Dead cats hanging from poles. Little dead are out in droves. I remember Halloween.” As of 6:00 PM yesterday, it was shaping up to be a pretty uneventful one. Luckily, I decided to take Market Street home from work, where I was unexpectedly greeted by Critical Mass, 250 strong! 250 people on bicycles, that is—many in costume—riding all over the... more »
Filed under: Philadelphia
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Flash!
06 September 2003
Saturday, 3:35 PM
At exactly 5:33 PM yesterday, I joined a small horde of people in caps and shades at the Center City Borders bookstore for the first ever Philadelphia flash mob. It was over at 5:37.... more »
Filed under: Philadelphia
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Philadelphia: Providing One-Man Bands, Erections, and LEGO
18 July 2003
Friday, 1:47 PM
Every year, I take a trip to Chicago to visit some friends and spend some time in one of my favorite cities. Every year, my trip to Chicago is scheduled to coincide with one or many Philadelphia events that I’d really rather not miss. It’s uncanny: bands, film festivals, exhibitions, and all manner of special events all pop out of... more »
Filed under: Film, Music, Philadelphia, Travel
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Saga
11 July 2003
Friday, 1:35 AM
I was going to begin this long-overdue post with a verbose description of the difficulties of keeping a weblog like this: the busier a person is, the less time he has to write, and the larger the pile of experiences to write about becomes. I have opted instead for the succinct description you have just read, which still has not... more »
Filed under: Art/Design, Music, Personal, Philadelphia, Web
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Keanu Karaoke
19 May 2003
Monday, 12:28 PM
My roommates and I have found a rather nice apartment in South Philadelphia. We signed the lease on Friday. We will move around the end of June. Friday night was unusual, to be sure, finding my Conshohocken cohorts and me receptive to the idea of following our friend Stan (or “Jason,” as he prefers) to a hotel sports bar in... more »
Filed under: Film, Music, Philadelphia
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2003 Philadelphia Film Festival, Part 2
13 April 2003
Sunday, 6:16 PM
More film fest stuff this weekend. I caught a little bit of the Lost Film Fest 8.0 on Friday, including 156 Rivington, a documentary about the legendary New York arts/activism space ABC No Rio, and a selection of short films and interesting copyright lecture by Carrie McLaren, curator of the infamous Illegal Art exhibition and editor of Stay Free magazine.... more »
Filed under: Film, Music, Philadelphia
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2003 Philadelphia Film Festival, Part 1
07 April 2003
Monday, 10:59 AM
Congratulations to my cousin Bill and his wife Tara, who, around 3:00 on Friday afternoon, gave birth to my tiny new second cousin Justin! I dove into the Philadelphia Film Festival this weekend, beginning on Saturday with Winged Migration, an amazing nature documentary about migratory birds. Six film crews spent four years following countless species of birds all over the... more »
Filed under: Film, Philadelphia
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Snow Code
17 February 2003
Monday, 11:01 AM
Man, it just figures that the snowiest winter in Philadelphia history is the winter that unemployment renders the glorious snow day meaningless for me. But I won’t be stopped from enjoying it, even if the snow has now piled up to the extent that our front door won’t open without significant force. Last night a bunch of us took to... more »
Filed under: Philadelphia, Random
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Lost Film Festival 7.0
05 June 2002
Wednesday, 5:42 PM
There are still a couple days left to check out the Lost Film Festival 7.0 in West Philly; it is certain to satisfy any uber-DIY anarchist film cravings you may have been having. I’ll be there tomorrow and Friday.... more »
Filed under: Film, Philadelphia
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2002 Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema
15 April 2002
Monday, 10:56 AM
Should I go see Trouble Every Day on Thursday or should I go see The Locust? I don’t think I’ll have another chance to see Trouble Every Day in theaters in Philly, whereas The Locust will likely be coming around again within a year. Hmm. Tonight is A Chronicle of Corpses, which I’ve been looking forward to seeing for awhile... more »
Filed under: Art/Design, Film, Philadelphia, Video Games, Web
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Sometimes This Old Farm Feels Like a Long-Lost Friend
11 April 2002
Thursday, 3:27 PM
I survived the trip home, and apparently spring arrived while I was gone. The ice cream man is in full effect. Since I missed the first half of the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, I’m diving in tomorrow night with a late screening of the U.S. premeire of Versus. Looks delicious.... more »
Filed under: Film, Philadelphia, Travel
