Of course, this year, there was also a SOLAR ECLIPSE!!!! For the first time in my life, there was an eclipse on a day where it wasn't overcast, so i could actually see it. We did that trick where you put a pinhole in some cardboard and project the sunlight on a piece of paper. Pretty impressive results, eh?

Take that, Jack Horkhiemer!

Our old friends Brian & Erika and their dog Dremel came to town. They, as you probably recall, were the ones we originally moved out here us with back in the day, only to sadly depart back to Denver last fall. Their visit was brief but fun, and mostly revolved around food, as you can see in this photo from Katz's Deli.

clockwise from l. - Brian, Erika, the Rueben

Overheard at the Virgin Megastore: two 12-year old boys, searching fruitlessly for an item in the video section. One turns to the other and says "Maybe it's under Bizkit..."

Just for the record, i'd like to be the first to predict that 2001 is going to be a very, very bad year. Mind you, i'm basing this entirely on the fact that, on New Year's Day, we were making hard-boiled eggs, and we forgot totally about them, and they exploded and scared the shit out of us, and we thought we accidentally set the house on fire. Lesson for the new year: mind those eggs, kids!

(Editor’s note, 11.07.03 - Scare-reeeee! …)

We all got a BIG assignment at work: we're going to be popping all 5 (1 hr. long) episodes of Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. And it's due to air right before Xmas. Eek. It's already been a lot of work, 12 hr. days and such. So, if you want to know what i've been up to lately, maybe you should just call.

Of course, one "benefit" of this whole project has been attending a taping of the Millionaire show. Regis is just as short and testy as you'd imagine. Some guy deliberated over a question about the space-shuttle for roughly 20 minutes before (thankfully) losing. I caught 4 t-shirts that were being thrown to the audience. Some other nice guy from Dartmouth won $500,000; his run included correctly identifying Kid n' Play as the featured "talent" from the House Party movies. That was all kind of exciting. But, in the end, we were there for over 3 hours, and by the time it was done, me and all my workmates were starving, and had to piss really bad. I'm not so sure i'd do it again.

Sure enough, The five Pop-Up Video writers went back the following week to interview "Reege." For those of you who might not have entirely believed it, i'm happy to report his "real-life" persona is nothing different from his TV persona, especially when he has a roomful of strangers to entertain. The funniest thing was, i was the first person he was introduced to, so he decided to keep using my name in his jokes. For instance: "So, what's going on here! And i want Jens to do the talking!", "You writing this down, Jens?", "You seen The Omen, Jens? You're starting to remind me of it!", "He was a real sharp dresser ... kinda like Jens over here", etc.
etc.
etc.
etc.
etc.
About 45 minutes of this. The funniest part was, after a while, my name, in Regis-speak, turned into 'Lents'. "Lents, go get me some ice...", you get the idea. He signed off with the usual "nice to meet you all", adding "And, Lents, i want a polaroid!!" as he walked away down the hall. So i sent him one, of me holding a copy of his autobiography. And i signed it 'Jens.'

Now that i think about it, he kinda reminded me of that old guy i sat next to at the Mets game that one time. The fun was tremendous...

Afterward, one of my fellow writers cracked "Not only did he keep calling you 'Lents', but he kept calling your band 'Come In'..."

Me and RV went and saw the The Buzzcocks last saturday. I didn't bring the camera, but i'm not too upset, because those guys are all pretty ugly. Anyway, they were great for a nostalgia act, even though they didn't play my two favorite songs, "Why Can't i Touch It?" and "Something's Gone Wrong Again." They did play "What Do i Get?", which was far and away a crowd favorite, prompting RV to comment "They've all seen the commerical!"

Opening the show were The Steve Diggle Group, which was apparently pretty bad (i missed it), which was followed by a solo performance by Pete Shelley which i know was bad. He was playing along to a drum machine and "gothy" lighting. I didn't even know it was him until he whipped out "Homosapien" (remember that one?) for a closer. He looked awful, and kinda bored. Oh well, at least Diggle was into it. Three stars

This is the story of a shirt:

Observe, my WAZEE CRANE shirt. Actually, i guess it's Robin's...anyway, i decided to wear it to work one day, presumably because i felt like i wasn't getting enough grief about my clothing choices as it was. So, i wear it in, and i pointed out to one of my co-workers (who used to be a drive-time DJ) that the shirt used to belong to one BERNIE DUFF, or at least that's the name printed on the collar. So, my co-worker decides it'd be a good idea to call Wazee Crane and talk to ol' Bernie Duff. Sure enough, Bernie's still alive, and still working at Wazee Crane. Naturally, he was surprised to hear from us. The highlights of the conversation, at least what i remember of it (i wasn't doing the talking), went something like "Hey, we're in New York City, and we have your workshirt. What do you think of that?" and "Do you have any Bernie Duff pants to complete the outfit?" Apparently, Bernie was pretty tickled to hear from us. Eventually, the idea became to take pictures of Bernie's shirt in a variety of NYC-centric locales (Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, one workmate suggested Scores), so that's the plan. Sure enough, i didn't even think to wear it on the set of Millionaire...

It was agreed this photo was too good not to post

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Yet another reason to hate Rudy Giuliani, like you really needed another:

The ol' Thunderbolt on Coney Island, b. 1927,
was knocked down last weekend.
*Sigh*

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