Here's a clip of us driving on a crazy hairpin turn on Route 2 way out in Western Mass. Yes, the same "2 West" you see as you're trying to get home from Fenway Park and you've gotten completely turned around. (Before you learned how to do it. Not to say that I don't still get lost in Boston sometimes, it's pretty much unavoidable.)



I see I'm not the only one to record this turn--but mine has those awesome ice waterfalls! This video is from a trip Kim & I took to North Adams this week. There's a crazy-ass installation at Mass MoCA--all these dead birds and animals and flowers. There's some other good stuff there now too. Go. The Clark Museum was also pretty fun, it's got stuff you'd normally only see in a big city's museum. Okay, I'm repeating that information from the woman at the front desk at our B&B. But even a Level 2* art person could tell what she meant after going there.

*I've divided people into 4 categories regarding art. Level 4: You went to school for it or you actually are an artist. Level 3: You collect it and can have a conversation about it, and you probably live on the Upper West Side in the type of apartment you see on TV and think, "New York apartments aren't that big! This is so unrealistic!" Level 2: You don't know much about it, but you've been to museums plenty of times and know not to reach out and touch paintings, etc. Level 1: You stopped reading this paragraph when you saw the word "art."

Update: Here's the killer's YouTube channel. Talk about twisted logic!

Did you hear about Gabrielle Giffords' tea party opponent's gun event last June? (Screenshot below.) And she was on Sarah Palin's crosshair list. Those people are just batshit crazy. And some are murderers.

New video and photo gallery up on the renovation page. (I would do a better job on the captioning if I were in charge!)

As for the bullpen expansion, Quinn reports it's probably not happening this offseason.

Always glad to see a person finally come out of the closet, especially someone in a sports-related field with all its macho crap. It's important for people to be who they are, and a shame society tries so hard to keep that from happening.

I still haven't captured photo evidence of "Allision Brown," but tonight, a different AAA commercial came on:


Patricia Jones! Spelled normally! I think this proves that they simply effed up the name "Allison" on the other ad. I hope they didn't pull it before I've gotten proof of it....

In other news, my Mexican place of choice in Providence has a new deal, for a "limited time," which is buy one of anything, get one free. The bean soft tacos are already cheap at $2.25. Today, I got two of them, loaded up, with the usual free chips. Total with tax: $2.45. Take a look:

That's a 10-dollar meal, sir. Okay, maybe 8. For two forty-five. Super gold. Now, about those napkins. Whenever I get them at a self-sit restaurant, I grab them and ball them up, and bring them to the table. And everyone is shocked! Am I really expected to take each one and gently fold it? I'm grabbin' six in a row with only one hand available! I'm just tryin' to get 'em out of that holder and move along! Mildly crunched up does not equal "dirty"! Jeez. (In fact, less of the napkin's surface is touching table my way.)

To cap off the randomness, I'm sure long-time readers are wondering why I didn't mention Twilight Zone this New Year's. We were traveling on the 31st starting very early. And Chan doesn't get cable anymore, so we couldn't watch while we were there. Then we didn't get home on the 1st until 2 a.m. At that point, we got to see one episode before bed. It was the one where the professor doesn't realize how many kids he'd helped. (Is "form" how they said "class" or "period" or "semester" back in the 20s or whatever?) So we did continue the tradition. And I have season 1, 2, and 4 on DVD, so we will see a bunch of them in the next few weeks.

Oh! And we have lucked into the HDTV world--my mom got a new flatscreen as a gift, so she handed us down her old-school HDTV. It's the kind with the bulb in the back, and it's not "flat" by any means. But it counts, and it rules. Can't wait to watch some Red Sox action in AwesomeVision.

Blyleven and Alomar in the Hall. And congrats to Bill Buckner on being named manager of the Brockton Rox. I have to say I never thought he'd re-enter baseball.

Also, that radio-voice homeless guy may become Teddy Basketballgame, as the Cavs have offered him a job and a house. (The very last line of the interview here is really cool.)

Allision Brown is back! Okay, here's the deal. Maybe a year ago, there was a TV commercial for AAA where a girl holds up her card. The name on the card is "ALLISION BROWN." Not Allison, but "Allision" with an extra i. It killed me that I was never able to get a picture of the screen.

Recently, the commercial came back. But in the new version, she holds the thing up for the entire commercial! And she's still "Allision." So now I have a great chance at exposing this mistake to the world! [Insert joke about how my readership consists of a number quite lower than that of the world population.]

But wait. Kim wasn't so sure this was a mistake. So I looked online and found no evidence of Allision being a name. But then Kim said maybe they altered the name in such a way that most people wouldn't notice, while at the same time protecting any real Allison Browns from having any fraud committed against them. I actually think that's a good theory. But I still say it's just a mistake.

It's also interesting that the word "allision" means "the striking of one ship by another." Is AAA giving us some sort of Triple meaning? Allison Allision allision? AAA? Have I solved a mystery? Do I get free roadside assistance for life?

We were a little worried about finding parking in New York because of the snow. And when we got to the street below Chan's apartment on the Upper East Side, so many cars were completely plowed in, it looked like we made a huge mistake. However, as we turned the corner on to the avenue, there was a spot. No searching, hardly any snow to deal with, and you could see the spot from Chan's window. Best spot I ever got there--and since all the parking rules were suspended, we didn't even have to pay the meter. Parked from 5:00 p.m. New Year's Eve through 10:00 p.m. New Year's Day for free, basically at Chan's door. After a very quick ride, too--note to future me: driving in on New Year's Eve IS the way to go.

So Kim and I wanted to do something different, and be away from major crowds. I decided we should do a Brooklyn Bridge New Year's Eve. We found a nice Indian place on the Brooklyn side, took the subway down there, and had a great meal--and there were no other people eating the whole time we were there! I felt bad, they had all the tables set up nicely. But it was also good to have the place to ourselves. We and the staff watched the last 10 of Larry King's Top 25 moments, and then Kim and I headed to the Promenade at 10:00. In the top pic, you see lower Manhattan. In the next one, the Bridge, with the Empire State Building still lit up in Xmas colors.

The Promenade was also surprisingly empty. It wasn't even shoveled, except for a path to get through. Only a handful of people had come out to watch the fireworks over the Statue of Liberty and enjoy the view. After hanging out there for a while, we went over to the bridge and started walking across.





This shot is looking back toward Brooklyn:


We decided to watch the calendar flip from the tower at the Brooklyn side. There was a crowd there, but obviously there's only enough room for a limited number of people. You can (kinda) see from my Touch that it's almost 12. The Statue of Liberty is at left:

We wondered what the "countdown" would be like. Turns out, somebody just picked a random moment and started from 10. I knew they were way early, but those fools gave everyone no choice but to begin the celebration when THEY hit zero. Sure enough, almost a minute later the fireworks finally started, and that's when we knew it was really 2011.





It was quite a logjam getting to the Manhattan side--I feel like a lot of people had come on to the bridge from there and were now going back. But we made it, got on a waiting 5 train and shot right up to Chan's, and were in his apartment by 1 a.m. It was totally fine weather for midnight in January--though Kim, like most American women*, has circulation issues and couldn't feel her fingers. Oh and as for the craziness factor, it really wasn't bad. There was a girl on our train who was about as drunk as you can be and still be conscious, but she had her completely embarrassed mom and some guy just trying to keep her calm and quiet. She slammed her head on the wall and thought the guy had hit her. It was hilarious. Besides her, there wasn't much else. I expected a rowdy crowd to get on at 42nd Street, but even that was tame, just a few party hats.

New Year's Day, Chan joined us for some Magnolia and then a random Italian place, before Kim and I headed to see Pee-Wee. Here are some shots from Central Park on 1/1/11:

The movie Pee-Wee's Big Adventure was released in 1985, just as I was about to turn ten years old. I'll never forget seeing the trailers for it and not knowing who the guy was (I never had HBO growing up) or what the hell he was doing, but at the same time knowing I had to see it. Everyone else I knew seemed to have the same take on it. I saw the movie in the theater--twice, I think. The Pee-Wee's Playhouse TV show was even more bizarre than the movie, and it took us all right through puberty. Somehow it was still as cool to us at age 15 as it was at age 11.

It wasn't until years later that I'd discover the 1981 HBO special that launched Pee-Wee's career, The Pee-Wee Herman Show. It was a broadcast version of his made-for-adults stage show.

Recently, Reubens brought that show back to the stage. I saw that it was running on Broadway, but the price was too high. Still, I was glad this man who I've been a fan of all these years, and who was treated so unfairly by police and the media, was selling out all these shows and raking in the well-deserved dough.

But thanks to an Xmas gift from my mom, Kim and I got to go! We picked the night of January 1st since we'd be in NYC for New Year's Eve anyway.

It period-for-effect was period-for-effect awesome period-for-effect

The set was the playhouse. The colors were so vivid, you felt like you were inside it. Amazing job there.

What struck me was what great comedic timing Reubens has. After always seeing him on TV and in the movies, I kind of forgot the guy is an improv comic. As for the show itself, it's what you saw on HBO 30 years ago, with some key differences.

Phil Hartman is dead, so the Cowboy Curtis character fills in for Captain Carl in the saga of him and Miss Yvonne, who is played by the original actress.

There were some new characters--an electrician, a fireman, and a bear. But most of the classics were there (Jambi and Mailman Mike are also played by the original actors). Pterri was even flying around. Everybody's older but no one's lost more than maybe three-tenths of a step.

They also brought some modern references into it. They kill off a ShamWow, and it turns out the secret to Miss Yvonne's hair is those Bumpit things, which she ends up sharing with Chairy and Curtis's horse. Pee-Wee has a funny bit regarding his abstinence ring, too. But the best one was how, after connecting to the Internet and briefly becoming obsessed with it, Pee-Wee realizes everything he needs comes from his friends all around him. Magic Screen is his Wikipedia, Clockie tells the time, Globie is his GPS, Mailman Mike brings the mail, etc.

There's also the legitimately touching duet Pee-Wee does with Chairy. As with most things in the show, you expect it to be full of innuendo--especially since it starts with lines about "sit on me" or whatever. But it turns out to just be a perfectly normal song about a boy and his favorite chair.

The crowd was what I thought: people my age, with a few older, but mostly a little younger. And it was interesting to listen for reactions to things--you could tell who'd seen the original HBO special. I'd say most people hadn't. Kim and I were busting out laughing during the Mr. Bungle video (they also played a Penny cartoon) before the funny parts, as the people around us all watched this weird 50s clip for the first time in their lives. Instead of Pee-Wee, though, it was one of the talking fish who delivered the "big enough piece of cake or what??" line when it finished. (I was disappointed no one laughed at the "and he knew what else he wanted" line. Except us of course.)

Sorry, no pictures. They weren't allowed. I probably could have gotten away with breaking that rule, but I didn't want to get kicked out or annoy people--and at the end the ushers were really yelling at people who were just taking pics of the theater with the curtain closed. So I just enjoyed it from our sweet third-row mezzanine seats. Thanks again, mom!

Oh, and our secret word was "fun." Yes, I screamed. Real loud.

(The only minor negative was that the theater was unreasonably cold--worse than Letterman's studio. We didn't let it bother us, though. Tonight was the last night, so you can't go now anyway, but I read this all might lead to a new Pee-Wee movie!)

cwilliamg is back! Starting fresh. I hope all his old vids didn't get deleted forever but I'm guessing that's the case.

Crazy fog right now in Providence. Or whatever you call it when snow evaporates. I wasn't the only one takin' pics of it....

Hope you had a good New Year's, stranger. Kim & I went to NYC--had a new NYE experience, hung out with Chan, and even saw a Broadway show. You can probably guess which one. Because it's the one that's the furthest thing from a Broadway show. More on this after many hours of sleep.