The Obligatory Vacation Recap, Part 1

(This has been written for some time; I've been back for a week. It's just been a matter of getting time to code and post it. I'm a slacker. Sorry.)

Scene one: So much for Plan A...

(Wednesday morning)

I'm officially on vacation, off to NYC to see Richard Cheese and Avenue Q with Zappagirl and Memnoch. The plan was to leave at an obscene hour of the morning and possibly make it into the city in time to see Hamell on Trial at Satalla.

So much for that bright idea. It's almost 10:30 am, and I'm still sitting in the floor playing around on the as-yet-unpacked laptop.

Maybe it wasn't such a smart idea, going to a concert (VNV Nation at the Madison) the night before we were supposed to leave. Oh well. We had a good time and I actually managed to get more than four hours of sleep, which is helpful when one is driving.

Hopefully more to come... I believe that our living arrangements for the next few days might involve dial-up. (Perhaps we will seek out an internet cafe. Yeah, like we're going to have time for that.) At any rate, a recap of the silliness will be forthcoming....

Scene Two: Greetings from beautiful Tarrytown, NY!

(Thursday afternoon)

After dragging our feet considerably yesterday, we have finally arrived in New York. (We didn't manage to get on the road until 3:00 pm, and crossed the Tappan Zee sometime around 2:15 am. Not bad, considering the construction and the eight billion potty breaks.)

I'm currently on the back deck of Zappabro's house, searching for a club that we can go to tonight. (Hooray for laptops and "borrowed" wi-fi!) It looks like we may have found one near Union Square that might be interesting.... the music format tonight is listed as "70s, 80s, Brit-pop, new wave, glam and electro." And it appears to be no cover - bonus!

We're getting ready to catch a train into the city... more later, I'm sure.

Scene Three: All dressed up, no place to go

(late Thursday night)

Zappagirl, Memnoch, Zappagirl's cousin and I spent the day walking around the city, with Zappabro playing tour guide, pointing out good restaurants and whatnot. We had decided to go to the newly remodeled Museum of Modern Art, which made me quite happy, as it was one of the things I'd always wanted to do while in New York. We only managed to see the exhibits on the fourth and fifth floors before they closed, but it was fabulous.

We stopped and had lunch in the dining concourse at Grand Central Station, since we were starving when we got off the train and it was convenient. Zappagirl and Memnoch opted for Indian food, while I grabbed a slice of pizza from Two Boots. I got the Big Maybelle - marinated chicken, pepperoni, and fresh garlic on a white pie. Yum!

We stopped by the Best Buy in Chelsea in search of a new car stereo for Zappabro, only to find they only carried satellite radios. Silly tourists! Why would they have car stereos in a city where almost everyone uses public transportation? And if they did have a car stereo department, where would they put the install bays? Duh.

At this point, we parted ways with Zappabro and Zappacousin, as they had tickets to see Blue Man Group. We stopped for dinner at The Cottage, a Chinese restaurant nearby. Good, but not great. We all three ordered spicy dishes, and only Memnoch's ended up being anywhere close to spicy. (Perhaps since he asked for it to be really, really spicy about 800 times when ordering.) Oh well.

We headed back to Tarrytown to get ready to go out. The house is within walking distance of the train station, which is good. It's all uphill coming back, which is bad. We also took a wrong turn and walked an extra couple of blocks (still uphill), which was just stupid of us.

We were pretty much ready to go when we received a call from Memnoch's mom. She was checking in on Zappagirl's cats and one of them got out while she was taking laundry out to the car. Needless to say, Zappagirl is beside herself and the night out was cancelled.

Fingers crossed for good news on the wayward kitty....

The Oldies Station

Ah, Memorial Day weekend.

Usually I don't mind working on holidays. The building is relatively quiet, the phone doesn't ring more than three or four times, and usually the head honchos of the department have opted not to come in, thereby reducing the chances that they might demand a ridiculously complicated report with an unmeetable deadline.

Today, however, is different. While I'm still alone in the office and the phones are blissfully silent, there's one thing nagging at me and making me wish I was elsewhere, something that I can do nothing about: I am missing the top 100 of the Modern Rock 500 right now.

Some of you may recall me waxing nostalgic about the loss of 97X last year. When it returned to the airwaves (the internet ones, at least) a generation of music lovers breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, due to the lapse of time between the closing of the FM-broadcasted station and the securing of funding for the internet-only station, Memorial Day weekend had come and gone and for the first time in several years, there was no soundtrack for the holiday.

(For those of you not familiar with the Modern Rock 500, it was pretty much what it sounds like - a countdown of the 500 most influential alternative rock songs. The list was ridiculously eclectic, by no means objective, and highly debatable. It was fun to find out where your favorite songs placed and argue why they should have been higher on the countdown, whether relatively new songs should have placed in the higher echelons of the chart, and whether "How Soon is Now?" would once again be ranked at #1. It pretty much served as the background for my Memorial Day weekends for years, no matter what I was doing.)

Imagine my surprise when I came across an article in the local paper announcing that not only was the Modern Rock 500 being revived, it would be used to highlight the grand unveiling of a second station in the WOXY family: WOXY Vintage. The website defines it as "the first new 24/7 streaming channel from WOXY.com dedicated to the history of Modern Rock, Alternative and Punk music. You'll hear nearly 30 years of adventurous, innovative and influential music from The Velvet Underground, The Clash, Talking Heads, The Smiths, Depeche Mode and much more. Consider it your Modern Rock primer."

This is just further proof that I am now officially over the hill. First the looming thoughts of my 20 year reunion (which I have decided to attend, just for a laugh), then the nostalgic silliness of the 80s prom last month, and now an oldies station devoted exclusively to my tastes. (While I like the regular WOXY programming, I find myself out of the loop on the newer bands. And because I'm old and cranky, I find myself wishing they would play more stuff that I knew and liked.)

Here's an example of the whiplash-inducing eclecticness of the new station (taken from a timeslot when the Modern Rock 500 was not going on):
1:30am Veruca Salt - Shutterbug
1:26am XTC - Generals And Majors
1:22am The Cure - Doing The Unstuck
1:18am The Pretenders - The Wait
1:16am The Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated
1:12am The B-52s - Legal Tender
1:06am The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
1:03am The Cranberries - Free To Decide
1:00am The Dead Milkmen - Bitchin' Camaro
12:57am The Velvet Underground - Satellite Of Love

*sigh* Why doesn't my computer at work have a sound card? Why don't we have wi-fi here? (Yes, I brought my laptop in with me just in case. No dice.) Why am I torturing myself by monitoring the "last 10 songs spun" list so I can see what I'm missing? (They started off today's portion of the 500 with "I Don't Like Mondays" at #100. Damn, how appropriate.) Should "Seven Nation Army" be in the top 100, ranking higher than "Bizarre Love Triangle"? And what will be #1 this year?

Points to ponder. Until then, you kids get off my lawn!