Heatmap: Facebook Users by State

What with Google's Chart API coming out, and then more recently getting an update to include neat map visualizations, I decided to give it a go and see what I could do with it.

This was what I could do with it:

This is a heatmap of Facebook's popularity by state, based on number of Facebook users in each state (gleaned from Facebook's targetted ads page, as before) per the state's population (2007 estimate courtesy of Wikipedia). Raw data is in this Google spreadsheet.

The top state is Massachusetts (nearly 1 in 7 people!), not surprisingly, but it's interesting to see mostly plains states rounding out the top five (Kansas, South Dakota, Minnesota and Missouri).

Honestly, I expected a lot more "heat" along the coasts, and not nearly so much in these generally "red states."

I guess it's the crippling tedium of these plainest of states that entice people to go online to find entertainment. What do you think?

Idea: Gold Mining Cereal

Note: I've been reading Ironic Sans by David Friedman for some time now, and I almost always enjoy his Ideas posts -- they range from really cool and useful to mildly entertaining and quaint, with a few stops at wacky and your local mall along the way. But they're always thought-provoking and/or clever. I humbly submit, my best attempt at reproducing this type of post.

I used to eat a lot of cereal as a kid. By far my favorite cereals as a kid were the ones that included the dehydrated marshmallow bits in them -- Lucky Charms, Count Chocula, etc., because what kid in his right mind doesn't want to eat marshmallows for breakfast?

Now, obviously, there's no way a cereal made entirely of marshmallows would make it to shelves, let alone be bought by sane, loving parents who would have to pay for fillings. So marshmallow cereals have to include some mix of grainy bits, much to the chagrin of sweet-toothed third-graders.

I realized this sad fact as a kid, and thought to myself, if only there was an easier way to separate the good tasty marshmallows from that crappy probably-healthy grainy part, then I'd be in marshmallow heaven surrounded by seven marshmallow unicorns.

So eventually I would either start a bowl of cereal by immediately hunting out the marshmallow bits only to be left with a bowl of soggy grain crap, or more likely, I would bite the bullet and eat the crappy grain part first, so that eventually all that was left was a bowl of those delicious marshmallows. Because there's no better way to start your day than at some point to see a bowl full of marshmallows. If only there was an easier way to fulfill this dream...

To that end, I have designed what could become the greatest kids cereal in the history of kids cereals: Prospector Bob's Gold Mining Adventure Cereal

The basic premise is this: all the grainy bits of the cereal are about half the size of the marshmallows (which are colored gold), and the box will come with a cardboard tear-off panel that has holes cut in it that are slightly bigger than the grainy bits, but smaller than the marshmallow bits.

Before pouring a bowl, the kid pours the cereal onto the sifter, and starts shaking it lightly over the bowl. The grain bits fall through the holes into the cereal, and when he's done sifting, the kid is welcome to empty the bowl into the trash eat the nutritious meal that is before him, knowing full well what awaits him when he's done choking it down: a nice heaping bowl of pure marshmallowy goodness.

Parents are happy because the kid's not talking for five minutes eating his grains, and the kid's happy because he's learning about the economy gorging himself on sugar at 7:30am. It's win-win.

Now obviously there will be kinks to work out, but I think that overall this has potential. I'll tell you this, if I see Gold Miner Bill's Sifting Bonanza on the shelves in a couple months, believe me, I'll know it was you. And I'll be pissed.

Back in New York

So I'm back in New York. I've been here for almost a week now, and I'm finally starting to get the hang of things. Wake up, go to work, come home from work, lather, rinse, repeat. I promise it's not as boring as that sounds, but not by much.

In other news I've taken quite a liking to walking around a lot (speaking of boring things). I think it'll be good for me; It's exercise, it's time to think about stuff, it gets me accustomed to my surroundings, it's time to myself or more accurately on the phone with Lauren. Maybe, just maybe, if I keep this up, I'll start losing weight or something. It's got all kinds of benefits.

On one of my walks today I decided to start documenting my walks around the city in a Google My Map. I figure it might be interesting to take a look at it after a while and see how much of New York's hundred bazillion streets I've been down, and stuff like that. Also, it tells me how long each walk was, which is pretty useful.

And since I'm making the effort to produce this information, the least you could do is consume it, right? So if you want to see it, you can either see it here or just scroll down to see the iframe'd version.

Maybe if I get adventurous I'll make my walks spell out words or something.

Remember when Mortal Kombat's myriad finishing moves were the most ridiculously awesome thing ever?

Trick question, they still are:

Heh.

And it comes with Living Will '08!

More fun Facebook facts

For whatever reason, Facebook Flyers Pro stopped showing user counts for most of the last couple days. But now it appears to be back in action, which means more probably-useless data about Facebook users!

Popular TV Shows



US, UK and Canadian Users by Age Range






For all three countries, user counts hit their peak at 19 (don't we all), but it looks like Canada and the UK have a lot more older users in their ranks compared to the US. Nearly a quarter of Canada's users are over 33. Also of note is the relatively small amount of 13- to 17-year-old users in the UK.

Users in Major Cities in US, UK and Canada

Next I did a little comparison of Facebook users in major cities to the population of those cities.

America's most Facebook-y city is Philadelphia, with 18.1% of residents using Facebook. Second is Chicago at 16.4%, then Dallas at 15.8%. In all, however, only about 6.6% of America is on Facebook.

About 10.6% of UK residents are on Facebook. I also found that there are more Facebook users from the city of Manchester than there are residents of the city proper itself! This is probably due to the fact that a lot of people consider themselves from Manchester without actually technically living there, instead being counted in the Greater Manchester Urban Area. The UK handles cities in a weird way (see here). Aside from this, the city of Sheffield boasts a 45.9% adoption rate, which is pretty impressive.

But that's nothing compared to Canada. 58.9% of Vancouverites, 53.0% of Torontonians and nearly 50% of Edmontonians are Facebook users. 22.3% of the entire country is on Facebook. Way to be, Canada.

As before, you can view/export all of the data used (and some that wasn't) right here.

Wikipedia: The (really creepy) eyes have it.

I'll admit, I spend an inordinate amount of time on Wikipedia every day. I literally re-enact this comic at least twice a day. And today's Wiki-wandering promptly in a cold sweat shortly after I saw the following fundraising banner:

No, no, it's not the fact that only three people have donated so far (and one of them German!). It's the video that plays when you click on it. See it here but be warned -- wiki-founder Jimmy Wales' petrifying stare lurks within.

Here's what it looks like to have your soul pierced.


And here's what it looks like to have the guy to your right's soul pierced.



I think it's some sort of veiled threat: Donate, or experience his steely green wrath.

_{By the way, two posts inside of two hours. Now I don't have to post for months!}

Update: Now in hi-res for all your Halloween mask needs.

Here's some random Facebook stats!

Something wonderful happened today. Facebook updated their "Flyers" ad interface to allow people to more specifically target their flyers. Now don't get confused just because the old interface is still inexplicably up -- the new shiny interface is right here. Update: The "old" interface is for "Flyers Basic" and the new one is for "Flyers Pro" -- my mistake.

Why is this such an awesome thing? Well, to hear some of the regular Web 2.0 mouthpieces, this kind of targeted advertisement will mean laser-accurate ads and big money for everyone involved. But that's not why I'm excited about it at all. I'm excited because the interface happens to open up more of Facebook's deep well of stats to the public.

For example, I can tell you approximately how many US Facebook users list Grey's Anatomy as one of their favorite TV shows (1,774,560). Or how many men list Braveheart in their favorite movie as opposed to women (257,320 vs. 82,140). Or that more than five times as many Conservatives list "The Bible" or variations thereof than do Liberals (dirty pinkos).

I'll be honest, there's very few things that can hold my attention as fervently as good statistics fodder. To that end, I spent far too much time in Google Docs creating spreadsheets and graphs of all kinds of data lovingly torn from Facebook's cavernous depths. I haven't quite gotten into anything too deep, but what I have done is:

a.) Facebook Users by Age (about what you would expect, really. Nineteen is the age to be, apparently)


b.) Users by Age and Gender


c.) Percentage of users by their political views over time


(Percentage based on people who responded)

d.) Percentage of users by their relationship status over time (Note that steady increase in married people starting at age 22...)


(Percentage based on people who responded)

That's all the stats I've had the time and motivation to collect so far (I haven't found a way to automate it yet but if you've got any ideas, let me know). If there's interest, let me know what you'd like to see and I'll do it up.

It's worth it to mention that Facebook's stats obviously aren't without their biases, so this is far from scientific data. Update: For example, all of Facebook's numbers are multiples of 20 for some reason. Also I'm not a professional statistician. But it's still fun to play with, right?

Oh yeah, and if you're interested in seeing more of the raw data, I've shared the Google Spreadsheet I used to make the graphs. It's right here.

What's this, like the nineteenth time I've tried to start a blog?

Some people say I'm a quitter. And it's true. But there's something to be said for continuing to hop back up on that horse after you get thrown off again and again and again. By "get thrown off" of course I meant "decide to stop riding the horse and watch TV," but it just didn't flow as well.

Yeah, that's right, I'm back. Same old story; same old tired blog, new title, still no point in posting most of the time. Update your feed, and try to pretend I won't put you through this again a few months from now.

So I guess the title's a bit outdated...

The last few weeks have absolutely flown by, and now I'm back in Ohio, finished with my internship at Google. All good things must come to an end.

I had full-time hire interviews at Google on Friday, flew out last night and started my final semester of college this morning (I'm in class right now, don't tell anybody).

I don't really know what to say about it. Google, I mean. I've done what I can to go back in January, I should find out if they'll have me in the next couple weeks. Obviously I'll be pretty happy to get the job, but even if I don't I think I learned more in three months than I learned in four years of a CS degree, so at least I've gained that much.

From the start I've thought of the whole Google experience like a really nice rental car. You like it, it's comfortable, fun to drive, nice acceleration. It's exactly the kind of car I'd like to own some day, but you know that, for now at least, you'll eventually have to give it back.

People have asked me (and will probably continue to ask) what the best part of Google was. The food? The scooters? The general kindergartenian atmosphere? Nah, those were cool and all, but by far my favorite part was the work. I'm serious. The best part about Google is that they're doing interesting, innovative things, and that I got to be a part of those things. Things I cared about, and things I knew others would care about.

I would rather come in every morning and feel hopelessly overwhelmed with new technologies and problems and stupid questions (and I did, a few times) than to leave at the end of the day feeling like what I worked on wouldn't matter to anyone. It's the reason theoretical Computer Science doesn't interest me nearly as much as application development and software engineering.

Even if I don't get the job at Google I think I'm going to look for a job in New York. I really did like it there. Sure, there were things I'd do differently, but for the most part it was basically the maximum amount of input per square inch, and like Johnny 5, I love input.

For now though it's a combination of enjoying the next four months in Kent, with Lauren, and trying not to fall asleep during all of my classes. Wish me luck...

Oh yeah, so I guess I should stop blogging here, what with my adventures currently not happening in New York. In fact, I'll probably stop blogging entirely, for now at least. If you just can't stand not hearing about my banal minutiae, feel free to check out my tumblelog -- it combines my shared items and tweets, as well as the rare Flickr photos, del.icio.us bookmarks, YouTube favorites, etc. Better yet, subscribe to the tumblelog (in Reader, naturally) and unsubscribe from everything else. All the minutiae you can stand, and more!

Highlights of the last few weeks (with ratings!)

1.) I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. A fantastic book, but I'm sure you've heard that already. I thought it tied up all of the series' loose ends perfectly, which is saying a lot. It left me supremely satisfied. *****

2.) I went to an off-site at Coney Island. It was alright. The Cyclone made me miss Cedar Point, and there wasn't much there that you couldn't find at any local fair or carnival, but we pooled all of our tickets together and got a bunch of army men and rubber duckies, so that's cool. ** 1/2

3.) I went to the Googleplex for a week. Fun fact: the land area Silicon Valley is 95% office parks, 4% hotels for business travellers, and 1% Google cafeteria. I also got to go to In-n-Out Burger. If it's good enough for the Dude and Walter, it's good enough for me. ****

4.) On the plane ride to California, I finished A Feast for Crows. It was my least favorite of the series, for a few reasons. A lot of the characters in the book are the left-over supporting characters from the rest of the series (a lot of the main ones got killed off), and half of the surviving main characters just aren't mentioned at all (See here for why). It was still a good book, but noticeably lacking compared to A Storm of Swords and the rest. ****

5.) Almost as soon as I got back from California, I went to Cape Cod for a day and a half with some work people, mostly on a whim. I was only there for about 36 hours, but in that time we managed to hike a mile through sand piles toward the beach, play Mafia and Mario Strikers Charged, and watch Tron. Time well spent, I'd say. ****

6.) And tonight I saw A Camp at the Knitting Factory. A Camp is the side-project of Cardigans leading lady Nina Persson, a more alt-country, acoustic take on the Cardigans typical style. It was a good show, but the doors didn't open until 10:00. A Camp didn't even take the stage until 11:30. Reading that back makes me feel very old. *** 1/2

And that's the highlights. The next few weeks will probably be just as jam-packed, if not more so. Alan's flying into town tomorrow morning, Jessica and friends are driving up next weekend and my brother's coming for my last week in New York. Then it's back to Ohio, to Lauren, to school, and this blog has to find a new name.

I'm taking suggestions, 18 days and counting...

The Decemberists in Central Park

I've been to my fair share of Decemberists shows. Six, in fact. And even though they do tend to play some of the same songs each time ("crowd-pleasers" I think they call them), they never get old. Whether that's because the songs themselves are timeless -- they are -- or whether the band just never plays them the same way twice -- they don't -- I'm not quite sure. But the fact remains, as long as I live, I don't think I'll ever walk away from a Decemberists show unsatisfied.

The most recent such show was last night, at Central Park's SummerStage. I left work a little early and got to the park at about 6:00 pm. It was a hot day, but the sun was setting and by the time the band got on stage it had cooled down enough. But before that were two openers, Land of Talk and Grizzly Bear.

Land of Talk really impressed me. They had a certain Cardigans-esque quality, probably attributed to the singer's accent, that made me instantly want to hear more. Where have the Cardigans been, anyway? Are you out there, Nina Persson? If so, make another album. Anyway, Land of Talk were good, good enough to follow up on, anyway. Grizzly Bear, on the other hand...

Let's just say, if it weren't for the sweltering heat, I may have fallen asleep on the astro-turf during Grizzly Bear's performance. Each song was the same mixture of soaring vocals and one line repeated for what seemed like eight minutes apiece. Sometimes the drums or the bass would play a nice fill and give me some hope of enjoying the song, but they would inevitably be drowned out by high-pitched warbling and/or that song's one line repeated for the ninetieth goddamn time. D-, Grizzly Bear. See me after class.

But then the Decemberists came on. Oh, Decemberists, you can make any opener worth putting up with. You and your 9,000 instruments and your lovable bass player.

They opened with "July, July!" which I suppose I should have expected, and they tried to put together a Summer-themed setlist as best they could. But when a band has songs like the Decemberists', it's hard to play too many songs that are even remotely uplifting or "Summer-y."

After leaving the stage due to their park-mandated curfew, they returned with the announcement that they in fact had plenty of time left to play, so their encore lasted for three more songs. They even had time to finish with their trademark "Mariner's Revenge Song," which included a nap in the middle for all the tired children in the audience.

In all it was a great show, exactly what I've come to expect from the Decemberists. They never fail to impress me each and every time I see them play. Even after so many years of touring, and so many times seeing them play, each show is a beautiful and unique snowflake.

Remember when I used to be a music blogger?

No, you probably don't. It's tough to believe it's been more than a year since Radio Free Internet, my little slice of musical heaven, closed down for good. Those were the good ol' days, though. Back when Dreamhost was actually worth $10 a year.

I say it's time to resurrect a little bit of music blogging love, just once. Who knows, maybe it'll get me back in the habit.

First up is (are?) Tegan and Sara, who have an album coming out on the 24th called The Con. It's a CD/DVD, actually, and the music is produced by indie-King-Midas Chris Walla, so there's two good reasons to check it out. Here's a preview of the DVD, for those interested.

The album's definitely pretty standard T&S fare, but that's far from bad. The title track is especially catchy, and at least half of the songs could easily be singles. I still don't know what it is about them that makes all of their songs so infectious, but if we could bottle it we'd be half way to world peace. Have a listen:

• Tegan and Sara - The Con


• Tegan and Sara - Back in Your Head

Iron & Wine is also releasing an album, The Shepherd's Dog in September, which has me pretty pumped.

From what I've heard of the album, Sam Beam's definitely continuing the trend of filling out the band's sound a la Woman King EP. Long gone are the sounds of a single guitar in a dusty basement on badly-recorded tape, that's for sure. I kind of miss that down-home feel, honestly. The album sounds a bit too polished to be Iron & Wine.

I do like the rhythmic direction they've taken, though, toward a more African sound and away from their Southern roots. I think "Boy With a Coin" proves my point pretty well, especially:

• Iron & Wine - Boy With a Coin


• Iron & Wine - Flightless Bird, American Mouth

And if that wasn't enough for you, then there's just a little more. Below is the video for Rilo Kileyr's new song "Moneymaker" from their upcoming album Under the Blacklight. Be warned, though, the song and video are all about porn stars so it's borderline NSFW. But the song's so catchy I couldn't help but share it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Today after work I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I have been looking forward to ever since I finished the book. I loved the book, so I had high hopes for the movie. And I was not disappointed.

Yes, plot elements were cut -- they always are in Potter movies. Kreacher and Grawp and the Centaurs got about a minute of screen time between the three of them. But when someone takes a 900-page book and condenses it to a little over two hours of film, sacrifices must be made. I felt the story was perfectly workable, and probably the best it could have been given the book's length.

One thing that did bother me was Daniel Radcliffe. His acting was really good, as usual, but the kid's turning eighteen in a couple weeks. Hard to believe that little kid from Sorcerer's Stone is going to be able to buy alcohol (in the UK) soon. There's a huge difference between the size of an 18-year-old and that of a 15-year-old, and there were a few times it was painfully obvious. Hopefully they finish the next two movies before he hits 30. And it wasn't just him, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson looked a little old too. Not to mention Maggie Smith.

Aside from the occasional over-sized adolescent, the rest of the movie was spectacular. The acting especially blew me away at times. Whoever decided to cast Helena Bonham Carter as Belatrix LeStrange deserves a medal, as does the genius that picked Imelda Staunton for Delores Umbridge, and Alan Rickman stole every scene he was in (as usual). Gary Oldman didn't blow me away, but I couldn't put my finger on why that was.

And beyond the acting, the special effects were also pretty stunning. The CG was well-done, but I still think it'll be a few years before entirely-CG'ed characters (e.g., Grawp, Kreacher, etc.) don't distract the viewer at least a little. But like I said, they weren't on-screen for very long so it didn't matter much.

The battle at the Department of Mysteries was really well done, but I wish it had lasted longer, and Dumbledore v. Voldemort was just as pulse-pounding as it was in the book, if not moreso.

All-in-all, well worth the price of admission. I passed a theater on the way home and thought about going to see it again, but I thought nah forget it, yo home to Bel-Air! (I don't know where that came from, I apologize)

Great movie, stop reading this and go see it.

A Storm of Swords

It's been a good summer for reading. As previously blogged, I've been working through the A Song of Ice and Fire series, and I started the third book, A Storm of Swords about three weeks ago. Well I finished it last night, so I figured I'd write about it.

A Storm of Swords is the best book so far in the series, and probably one of the top five books I've ever read (if not, easily top ten). In 1,100 pages it includes dozens of unique and memorable characters, at least ten separate storylines, and more betrayal, sudden twists and gut-wrenching emotion than a fantasy book has any right to be.

And moreso than its prequels, it is a fantasy book. At first I liked that the series wasn't what you would consider "normal" fantasy (i.e., elves, dwarves, magick). But in Storm, Martin subtly sneaks in those familiar fantastic elements that you hate to admit you love; there are still no elves, but there is sorcery, the undead, and even mythical beasts riding other mythical beasts. And there's a dwarf, but he's no Gimli.

As soon as I turned the last page, I knew I would have to start on the fourth book, A Feast for Crows as soon as possible. So I did.

So far I've got a few misgivings about the latest installment, but I'll keep my mouth shut about them until I'm done with the book. If all goes as planned, I'll finish it before Deathly Hallows comes out in a couple weeks. And then what should I read? Suggestions?

Nerdtopia, Lauren, Harlem, Rodgab, Squab, Valjean, Magnolia, Redrum and Lauren

Once again, I've let the blogging slip. This time it's been two whole weeks without an update. What a failure. But really, isn't it better to be out actually doing things instead of sitting around blogging about how you wish you were?

And boy did I do things. A quick play-by-play:

Saturday the 23rd (which seems like forever ago) I went to Baltimore for Games Day, which I'm fond of calling Nerdtopia™. I won't bore you with the details, but it was a pretty sweet time. Our bus broke down on the way, so when we got there they made up for it with $80 gift certificates. So that was cool.

Sunday the 24th I went to a rooftop party with some Googlers. It was a pretty sweet time. I got to hang out with some work people, eat corn and get a drunker than I anticipated (all positives).

The following Monday and Tuesday I worked late, because I knew I would be taking Wednesday off, because...

Wednesday the 27th, Lauren came into town! She arrived way earlier than anyone should legally be allowed, so there were multiple naps in order that day. We did carve out enough time to travel downtown and do some preliminary shopping; the Apple Store, Saks, Tiffany's. She did a ton of shopping while she was here, Wednesday's outing was more of a scouting mission than an actual raid.

Thursday night we went to see Ratatouille, which for being probably the least advertised Pixar movie in history, was actually a pretty great movie. They keep getting better and better with the animation. Makes you wonder if a movie is good enough you don't have to advertise it into the ground.

After the movie we trekked down into the village to get some ridiculously overpriced drinks. It's the weirdest thing, for the price of two glasses of Scotch at a bar, you can almost buy a whole bottle of it at a liquor store. Does New York have some insane tax on drinking glasses and barstools or something?

Late Friday night Lauren got an insatiable craving for some fried chicken, and after consulting the internet, we found a place that was rated well and open late. And it was in Harlem. And so it was we found ourselves wandering aimlessly down Frederick Douglass Blvd at 11:00 at night. The food was fantastic, and in retrospect I think I expected the experience to be a lot worse than it was. That'll show me.

Saturday we woke up to go shopping again. So back to 5th Ave, and back to Tiffany's. Lauren loves Tiffany's, and I loved taking her there. After that it was all a blur of stores and walking.

Sunday we went to Central Park to see Rodrigo y Gabriela play SummerStage (for free!). It was a great show, even though we were pretty far back. Those two never cease to amaze me with the many thousands of ways they can make a guitar make sound.

Monday after work Lauren and I had reservations at the swanky Gotham Bar & Grill. The place was so swanky I don't think either of us knew what to do with ourselves. I'm glad she was there or I would have felt very out of place. She had the Maine lobster tail, and I ordered the roast squab, not even knowing what squab was (spoilers), but it turns out it was pretty delicious.

After dinner we took a cab up to Broadway where we had tickets to see Les Misérables. I hadn't seen it since I was much younger, and she'd never seen it, so we figured it was about time. The show was amazing, and it had me humming tunes all night afterwards.

Wednesday was the 4th of July, and in perfectly patriotic fashion, we decided it was too much of a hassle to find a place to watch fireworks. Instead we went to New York's famous Magnolia Bakery for some delicious cupcakes. Then we went shopping some more, supporting the economy for our beloved country.

Thursday was Lauren's last night in town, and I think we were both pretty worn out from a solid week-plus of constant activity, so we rented The Shining, which I'd never seen before and she hadn't seen in a while. I definitely liked it, very suspenseful, and pretty damn creepy.

Yesterday morning, I took Lauren to JFK to get on a plane back home. Looking back, it was a fantastic time having her here. I can't believe we did so many things together this last week and a half. Hopefully she'll get a chance to come again, I miss her like crazy and she's been gone less than 36 hours.

Today was boring by contrast. I woke up, read, went to the nerd store for a few hours, came back, caught up on my Reading, and blogged like a crazy person. Tomorrow's another Googler roof party, so that should be fun.

That's it for now. Hopefully it won't be two weeks before I post again, for your sake as much as mine.

Insufficient Postage

Forgive me Internet for I have sinned, it's been one week since my last confession blog post. And now it's been about three seconds since I last blasphemed.

This time I have a legitimate excuse (no really). Thursday morning my parents and sister came into town, and so most of my non-work time was filled showing them the sights and being a filthy tourist. And even though they left Sunday, I still have an excuse, since apparently my neighbors have finally figured out how to password protect their wireless routers, leaving me utterly without broadband. Those bastards.

So I suppose a "Week In Review" is in order. And even if it isn't, here it is. Watch out, it's pretty lengthy.

As previously mentioned, my parents and sister came into town Thursday morning. They didn't want to get a hotel, so I told them they could just stay at my place. Sure, it's a studio apartment, but it's a big studio apartment, large enough for four grown humans to sleep (sometimes on the floor!), so here they stayed. And while I was at work, here they stayed.

For weeks beforehand I'd asked them what they wanted to do while they were here, and their only answer was, "oh, we just want to see you," which while that's sweet and all, doesn't give me any clues as to things they, you know, want to do while they're here. Thursday and Friday night were pretty low-key, dinner and sitting around, mostly. But they got to see me, so I hope they were happy.

Saturday morning we took a bus down to my office, so I could show them around. They were impressed with all the free food, the scooters, and the incredible view beside which we get to eat lunch. As they should be, it's awesome.

After that was Battery Park and a ferry to Ellis Island. My mom's grandfather came through there on a boat from Wales early last century (boy, that feels weird to say), and we were hoping to find a record of his voyage. And find it we did, much to my mom's enjoyment. Apparently they've completely digitized all seven million hand-written immigration records for Ellis Island, and have them in a searchable database with scans of the original ships manifests and everything. It was pretty sweet to see in actual handwriting the first record of my great-grandfather's passage into America, complete with his age, height, work plans, relatives, etc. all carefully catalogued almost a hundred years ago.

So that was Saturday, and they left Sunday afternoon. Most of the rest of Sunday was spent lazying around, because that's what Sundays were made for. Also I had no internets.

Monday night I went to go see Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman, the preview for which was mentioned previously in passing. It turned out to be a very good movie. Or at least I liked it a lot. At first it was very difficult to see Timothy Spall as anything besides Peter Pettigrew, but by the end he had completely sold me. I won't ruin any of the plot, but suffice it to say it takes a special kind of person to be able to kill people for a living. If you get a chance to see the movie, I recommend it.

Tuesday and Wednesday were both pretty slow, but last night was quite the opposite. I went back to the UCB Theater (the scene of the crime) to see witness the Dave Hill Explosion. It was a very special evening for the Explosion, because none other than resident expert John Hodgman and internet superstar Jonathan Coulton were in attendance. The show was pretty hilarious, though Coulton only got to sing two songs before they had to call it a show. Hopefully I get to see more of him while I'm here.

And today was, well, Friday. And Thank God it Is. Tomorrow's Saturday, and you know what that means -- taking a bus down to Baltimore, Maryland, America's coldsore. For what you ask? Why, you'll just have to wait and see!

Congratulations on making it to the end of this lengthy post. Or at least for having the foresight to skip to the last sentence before you closed the window.

Like 'Beef', Without the 'B'

Tonight's scheduled enjoyment was none other than Mr. Eef Barzelay, of Clem Snide fame. Though I'm not sure how much longer he can keep billing himself as "of Clem Snide" since he's been touring solo for a while now. But Wikipedia tells me they have an album coming out some time this year, so that's encouraging.

But anyway, I saw him tonight, at Joe's Pub. I got there a little late, or rather, what I considered on time. Let me explain: When a concert says it starts at 7:30, one typically doesn't not expect it to actually start at 7:30. Usually this means they open the doors at 7:30, at which point there's an hour or so for people to wander in, maybe an opener, and then the actual performer. Usually, a ticket that says 7:30 actually means 8:30 or 9:00. Am I incorrect in assuming this?

I walked into Joe's Pub at 7:35 (I know because I checked the time), and Eef was already playing. I guess he's just very punctual. If only I were so dedicated to timeliness. I wasn't the only one that was "late", people streamed in for a good half hour after I did, and to similar dismay.

All that aside, the show was pretty good. The place was packed, and again, being that I was "late" I stood near the back. But the show was good. Unlike the last time I saw him, in Cleveland last spring, he had a full band, and played electric. I wouldn't say it fundamentally altered the performance, but it might have made it a little less personal.

The good news is, he was definitely playing new songs; only a couple were from Bitter Honey, and I only recognized a couple as Clem Snide songs. So it's possible he was playing new Clem Snide songs, or possibly new songs from an anticipated(-by-me) sophomore solo album. But given the fact that he was band-backed and electric, I'd say most of them were probably Clem Snide songs.

So it was a pretty good show, and quick as hell, actually. It started promptly at 7:30 and it was out by 8:15. I was sitting back and enjoying some coffee and cake uptown by 9:00. So that's nice I suppose.

In other news, my parents are flying into town early tomorrow morning, so I'll probably do something touristy (and thus blog-worthy) with them this weekend. Stay tuned for what is sure to be an action-packed thrill ride of action and thrills.

Note: The title of this post was the parting quote from Mr. Barzelay this evening, which would have helped a year ago when I kept spelling it Eaf while trying to Google him.

Note 2: This post was written in the shiny new Blogger Draft, which...doesn't really seem all that different yet. I do like the idea behind it though, as any respectable early adopter could agree.

A Clash of Kings

I don't usually put a lot of stock in the blurbs on the back covers of books. I've seen too many along the lines of

Not at all...what could be considered...[the] worst book I've ever read[!]
-- Johnny Nobody, Des Moines Central High School Gazette

But there's a quote inside the front cover of A Clash of Kings that couldn't be truer:

The pages seem to pass in a blur as you read
-- Albuquerque Journal

This review is pretty much exactly what I experienced.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I'm reading A Song of Ice and Fire this Summer. I read the first book A Game of Thrones, and started on the second immediately afterward. Even at almost a thousand pages, I read A Clash of Kings in record time (for me anyway).

The book picks up where the prequel ended (duh), with the kingdom in a bitter civil war, faction fighting against faction and everyone looking to get something out of it. The once unified kingdom now consists of kingdoms led by a fifteen-year-old King in the North, a thirteen-year-old King on the Iron Throne, both of the previous king's brothers laying claim to the kingdom from the South and East, a fourteen-year-old self-proclaimed queen living in the lands to the far East, and a swarm of treacherous backstabbers taking whatever they can get from whichever side will give it to them. As you can see, the title's pretty descriptive. There are a lot of kings.

The most interesting part of the book, for me, was the way it handled the topic of religion. The first book glossed over the role of the gods in the lives of men, but this one took a deep look at how each of Westeros' religions played into their believers decisions. Throughout the book, a red comet hangs in the sky, visible from every direction, and each king or queen who sees it considers it a sign from their god(s) that they're the true leader, the one that will come out of this alive and on top. It serves to sort of unify all the sides, even as they're fighting against eachother.

As with its prequel, A Clash of Kings was at times almost painfully difficult to put down. Almost every chapter kept me begging for more, often leading me to read into the late hours of the night. There's plenty of action, even if most of it isn't outright battle, and there's no shortage of twists. It was so good I hiked to no less than two Barnes & Nobleses this evening in search of the third book, A Storm of Swords (though they weren't even two blocks apart)

Busy Little Bee

Since my last post was about how some blogs need to not update so often, I decided to let it slip a few days before posting again. That and I'm lazy. And it's been really busy lately. Busy doing what, you ask?

Tuesday night I went to go see Knocked Up. I'd heard a lot of good things about it, how it was the most hilarious movie of the Summer, and even better than The 40-Year-Old Virgin, so I figured why not find out for myself?

It was pretty hilarious, and indeed better than Virgin. Some of the scenes with Ben's roommates were fantastic, as were the ones with Alison's sister and brother-in-law (played by the great Paul Rudd). The scenes were so good in fact that I wish there were more of them, and less of the actual story.

As for the main plotline itself, it was a little wishy-washy. The two main characters go back and forth about whether or not a relationship is a good idea, sometimes happy, sometimes pretending to be happy, sometimes not happy at all. I realize that's probably more realistic than most movie relationships, but it was also a lot more confusing. You never knew how one person felt about the other at any given moment. But like I said, the movie was hilarious, and I'd definitely recommend it.

Last night I left work and went back down to the Knitting Factory to see the Noisettes, the Maccabees and Heypenny. Apparently, the illustrious brooklynvegan was there as well, though she wasn't as impressed with the Noisettes as I was, and was instead far more entertained with Maccabees than I was. So it goes. Personally, I thought the Noisettes were great. Very energetic, soulful, raucous. Heypenny was good too, but they didn't quite seem to fit in with the rest of the show.

And today was only really interesting at work. I was tempted to go see David Cross and others tonight in the Village, but I think I've done enough these past few days. Instead, I went back to the coffee shop this evening for a quiet night to myself, which was thoroughly enjoyed.

I'll probably end up doing something tomorrow night, though. So stay tuned.