10 days late, but hey, better than never.

So for my first American independence day I decided to head to see the fireworks - apparently one of the biggest shows in the US! There was the threat of rain, which I thought might keep the mobs back a little, but New Yorkers seemed undaunted!

The “designated viewing area” was an elevated roadway along the East River called the FDR (it’s named after Roosevelt) which runs right along the East River’s edge. Seems like a good idea; everybody takes over the road, the police have one road to patrol - everything else is blocked off, making for a controlled mob of two or three million.

No, that part seemed OK - I mean, if everyone just stands there, everybody should be able to see. I mean, we all spent the better part of two hours staring at the river, and everybody could see it. See?

Well, the wheels started to fall off this plan when it started raining. New Yorkers LOVE umbrellas. Like, when it rains, we all know you can’t find a cab in New York (and it’s true). You CAN, however, find guys selling umbrellas for five bucks a pop - these guys, like, they must live in cars and when it starts raining, they just pop the trunk and lug a cardboard box under an awning and yell “umbrella umbrella umbrella!” for as long as it’s raining. And people run up in terror, amazed that the sky has opened, and fork out five bucks for a crap umbrella that they probably throw away in fifteen blocks.

So the long and the short of it is - there’s a SHITLOAD of umbrellas in New York. And when it started to rain? Guess what. POP goes the view.

See that one guy on the left? See how he’s higher than everyone else? I though it made for a nicely composed shot. I happily clicked away and thought nothing of it. You know why he’s tall? Because he’s STANDING ON THE MERIDIAN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET. The one that NOBODY (besides him) was standing on before the fireworks started - but the one that EVERYBODY jumped up on as soon as they went off.

Where did these people learn their manners? Seriously? Three million people and within five seconds, 1.5 million of them just lost their views. Thanks, assholes.

American’s favorite fireworks and this is the view I got. Hear my displeasure while I point at the people who think nothing of screwing over 1.5 million of their neighbours. Hey folks, remember when we were all standing at the same level just 90 seconds ago? Remember how ALL of us could see since we’re high up? Remember that? No? Wow.

Oh, it gets better. People even HIGHER than me - NYPD’s finest thought they’d hover a hundred and fifty feet DIRECTLY OVER THE CROWD. I mean, come on, you’re in a HELICOPTER. Move it back a bit. Will you really get THAT much of a crappier view, say, 500 feet back from the massive mob of people that you’re currently deafening?

So for the most part I saw a load of umbrellas, listened to the roar of a Bell turbocharger, and when the occasional firework rose up above the idiot who refused to put down his umbrella (even though it stopped raining five minutes into the show) I got to see something. Like this.

Ah well, at least I could see the red, white and blue of the Empire State - they lit that up for the day, which looked nice. Like one of those Space Popsicles with the three flavors.

So afterwards I wandered over to Grand Central Station - they have this really neat bar there that looks down over the main concourse, and I had myself a delicious cocktail. Oh, and I snapped this shot of the Chrysler Building, which I thought looked pretty sharp all lit up in the rain. Well, it’d look a lot better if my camera wasn’t 6 years old, but you get the picture.

Next year, if I’m fortunate enough to still be in this great city, I’ll stand on the OTHER side of the FDR and perhaps bring a flare gun to give a subtile hint to any pilots who seem to forget their manners!

Thankfully, there’s Flickr - I just went home and typed “New York 2008 Fireworks July 4th” and presto, here’s the show that I somehow managed to miss! Looks lovely!

Next year!

Final episode of my AVG Trilogy is available here.

Well the first place I went to had recently closed down their kitchen, with the bartender telling me that “the kitchen never made money for us anyhow, so we just shut it”. After dropping 12 bucks for a Crown Royal & Ginger, I can see why! (I asked what Canadian beer he had on tap and he offered me a Becks in a bottle, saying that was about as exotic as they got). Pfah!

So I hopped in a cab and jetted across town from the West Village to the East - over to “Pomme Frites” on 2nd Ave. I picked up myself a big ol’ can of Export Grade Molson (paper bag and everything!) from the deli next door, and soon after that had ordered myself a big heaping bowl of Canadiana.

Ooooh, Canada!

Happy Birthday, Canada!

I brought my Canadian Flag to work today - the one I got free from the Government so many years ago during the “excessive and financially irresponsible flag prank” that the Liberals offered (or so my Dad calls it, anyhow).

Pinned to my office wall, I am proudly flying the Maple Leaf down here in the Big Apple and tonight I shall set out to find some poutine and a fine pint of Molsons in my new home, which, according to the New York Times, shouldn’t be too hard.

God Save The Queen!

I’m a bit of a nut when it comes to video games, so when my friend Frazer asked me to play a guest spot on his video podcast “Awesome Video Games” I was thrilled!

AVG caters to a pretty hard-core gamer crowd, so if you’re not currently a dedicated gamer (or in the past were an 8 bit enthusiast) some of these jokes might pass right over your head (sorry Mom!). But for those of you who are on my Xbox friends list (or who just love video games) you might want to have a peek.

Awesome Video Games is an 80’s “period podcast” based on two half-witted brothers named Ace & Chet. They ‘review’ 8bit NES games and are an absolute boundless vat of goofy, aw-shucks energy. I play “Cousin Lester”, who visits the house and leads the boys down a path of self destruction by introducing them to the mother of all troublemaking devices - the Game Genie. From there, the boys spiral out of control.

PART ONE and PART TWO are now up on the interwebs - AVG embeds its videos via YouTube, so to avoid watching it in ass quality (the default) make sure you click on “high quality” to make it look better (that little link is right under the hit counter, to the bottom right of the video window). Or better yet, subscribe to AVG with iTunes and download it in glorious H264.

Part THREE should be out soon - I hope Lester gets his comeuppance, because he’s a big jerk!

A big thank you to Frazer and the boys for inviting me to play on AVG, it was a blast to shoot (we did it months ago, before I left Vancouver) and I hope Lester gets a return appearance one day!

I’m a big fan of casinos. I mean, come on. With a last name like Gamble, it’s a bit of a no-brainer. I’ve been to Vegas more times than I can count. I love throwing the dice at the craps table (I keep telling myself that Craps are some of the best odds in Vegas, despite the fact that it’s the one game that keeps eating all my money). I love the noise, the atmosphere, the energy and craziness that you find in Vegas.

However, here on the east coast is where you find the little redheaded cousin of Vegas: Atlantic City. I’ve never been, but from what I hear and see on films like Rounders, it’s a sort of halfway there copy. It’s alluringly close to me, though: I’m just 25 bucks and two and a half hours away from AC via a Greyhound (and soon even less via the proposed “ACES” direct train service):

I knew I’d get to AC sooner or later, but I didn’t think the journey would start at 3am. But then again, that’s why they serve cocktails. It’s been the inciting incident of random relationships and idiotic adventures for thousands of years.

So here’s me, positively beaming, ever so proud of myself, about to start my friday night (or, more accurately, saturday morning) adventure.

It’s 3am and myself and two other miscreants have decided that it would be a fantastic idea to hire a car and drive to Atlantic City! Yeah!

Three AM and the streets of Manhattan are finally quiet. Onward toward adventure!

Ok now it’s around 4:30am and the sun is starting to come up. We’re stopping for gas, doritos, and I’m beginning to think that this may have not been such a stellar idea.

The sun’s up now and we’re still on the road. With my “west coast” crew, whenever you’re feeling a little run down or find your energy is waning, you just yell out “Vegas Baby!” and anyone within earshot yells it back, which is a way of passing energy from one man to the other. Say, if you’re in a seat at the sports book, and you begin to feel fatigue setting in, you yell “Vegas baby”, and someone yells it back with even more energy, and like a sponge, you absorb that energy and it propels you forward. That’s the inherent problem with Atlantic City; there’s no such “energizing cry”. “Atlantic City, Baby!” doesn’t have the same ring. I could have used a solid “Vegas BABY!” from Bunting to charge me up when I saw the sun came up at 6am.

Well, soon enough our destination came into view. AC, at last! It was at this point that we came up with our “all for one, one for all” battle plan. In the (nearly impossible) event that two of our three musketeers lose all their money and one makes it big, we’d split the winnings down the middle so that we all profited. After my fleecing in Vegas two weeks ago, this sounded like a REALLY good idea.

My accomplices and I all began to perk up at this point. Time for breakfast, casino style!

We arrived at the Borgata and proceeded to order a round of cocktails to get us fired up. Since it was breakfast time, I decided to go with a delicious seabreeze. Cranberry and grapefruit are a great way to start the morning!

Armed with our delicious drinks, we sauntered off to make some money.

I sat down with 200 in chips and realized pretty quickly that there was some good money to be made in this room. The Borgata’s poker room is massive; 85 tables, loads of action, and a nice mix of sharks and fish. I’m generally the one sitting at the table feeling like a kid at the parents table, but here, I’m watching guys who are try to show off and shuffle their stacks, and all they’re doing is knocking them over. One guy doesn’t understand that a board with four spades and a 100 dollar bet from the guy under gun means his set of threes are worthless. I played it tight, drank a few cocktails on the house (the room’s nice, but the service is agonizingly slow) and in a couple hours I’d bumped my 200 bucks to 600.

My co-horts by now have drunkenly lost everything; they’re eyeing my stack and thinking how great that “all for one” plan was. By noon, I’m having a heck of a time keeping my eyes open but I finally get a hand against the chip leader who’s been donking off on guys all night - his AQ Suited is crushed by my pocket 8’s, which looked good on the A K 8 flop, and even better on the A turn. On the river he pushes out a hundred, which I bump to three hundred hoping he’ll slide it, and he smooth calls. My boat crushes his trips and he slides me the cash. Up almost a grand!

At this point my associates are almost drooling, and saying “hey, you should cash out and we’ll play some craps. Come on, cash out. Please. Cash out now. For the love of god man, cash out”. I’m exhausted and figure now’s a good time - the 9am tournament, with its 550.00 buy in, has had a bunch of guys bust out, many of whom are now sitting at my table and hungrily eyeing my stack and noticing the fact that I’m almost asleep. When I reach for a couple chip trays, there’s an audible “awwwww” from about four of them, which tells me that I’m probably making a good call.

After paying off my buy-in, covering my part of the car service and paying the other two dudes a couple hundred bucks each, I’m up about 170. My old mistress, the Craps table, jacks that to about 250 in five minutes, then takes it right back with interest. I leave the Craps table up about a hundred, tell my friends (who are still going strong) that I’m absolutely done and I need to find a bed.

I catch a cab to the bus station and get a ticket for the 2pm Greyhound to NYC. It ends up being 30 minutes late, and I’m sitting at the gate waiting for it to arrive, BEGGING it’ll get there soon, nodding off every thirty seconds.

It finally shows up at 2:40 and I scramble on board, hit the back row, and immediately fall asleep. I wake up while the bus is heading into the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

What a weekend!

Clint’s bachelor party in Vegas was this weekend and I am only now coming out of the bourbon soaked haze. Vegas was insanely fun, we rolled like absolute rockstars and like the fellow from Call of Duty 4 said, we went “deep and hard”.

I’m still sorting out the photos and video that everyone took (nice work with the travel footage, Ryan!). Gio, send me your stuff! Here’s a shot from my iPhone that I took from my drive from LA to Vegas; I went with the “Hunter S. Thompson” vibe, with the orange classes and a fun hat. I didn’t see any bats, luckily.

Good times were had, with the one exception being the small fortune that I left at the Craps tables. “Seven aaaaaout”. Pfaaaah. I’ll be back to get my money, Vegas, just you wait!

Vegas, Baby!

The lovely Brooke and the almost-as-lovely Buckley visited the Big Apple! We had a lovely time, enjoy a few cocktails and good fun and games were had by all.

Yay!

I finally figured out how to repair the damage done to my bedroom door in my fit of Hulk-like rage. I’ve been on the prowl for something thin to cover the door with so I could drill a new (clean) hole and put in a new (non locking) doorknob and I finally figured it out - clipboards! They’re really thin compressed wood, so I just bought a couple from the dollar store, cut off the top part where the clipper thing was and hot-melted it to the door. I’ll throw in a couple of screws later and then paint the whole thing white and it should look… well, better than it did, anyhow.

I actually got a little excited today and installed a small air conditioner in my bedroom window - a co-worker gave it to me (it belonged to an old roommate who has since left the city, and it was abandoned in a closet). It’s FANTASTICALLY loud, so I’ll be replacing that bad boy with something (hopefully) quieter really really soon. To that point, why in the listings for air conditioners does it list the BTU’s and the size and the power consumption but NOT the decible rating? It’s a measurable, definable number. Why do I have to lug it home and cross my fingers to find out how loud it is? Dumb. On the air conditioner note- man, it was hot today. I made the mistake of saying to someone here “boy, its hot today”. They looked at me like I was from Mars and said “are you kidding? Dude, you have NO IDEA what you’re in for if you think THIS is hot”.

I am honestly really, really nervous about this summer. I HATE THE HEAT. It makes my brain melt, I can’t think, I get cranky & miserable… I just HATE HEAT! Cold? Cold’s great. If you’re cold, put on a hat. Problem solved! What do you do when you’re hot? Nothing! There’s not a damned thing you can do. You can’t remove your scalp now, can you? I never go to the beach and lie in the sun because, well, to me, that’s just about the worst god damned thing you could do with your spare time, aside from running into a brick wall at high speed over and over again. Seriously? Laying out in the sun until your brain is a hot, bubbly, thoughtless mess? Yeah, no thanks.

So yes, I’m a little freaked out about how I’m going to handle the New York heat & humidity. Get ready for some meowy miserable comments in the coming months!

Ah well.

Wow, this is really, really, cool. A 19 year old kid from Australia took “Alice in Wonderland”, sampled some of the voices, loaded the whole thing into Final Cut and remixed into a cool little music video. Alice “sings” reversed words from the show and the whole thing just has this eerie, floaty, cool vibe. This is so exciting! This is digital empowerment! Viva Web 2.0!

Hit the link here and check it out on the Yooh-Toob.

One of the little coy tricks I do here on Nakedsponge is when I link to shit on Amazon, I get a 4% credit against the purchase. The big dream behind my TikiJohnny website was that I’d list links to cocktail books and I’d eventually make enough in referrals that I’d be able to get a few free cocktail books myself. The problem with that is I was to damned lazy to keep updating TikiJohnny, so it’s sort of fallen into cryosleep.

Anyhow, a friend of mine emailed me and said “hey, you get credit if you refer me to Amazon, right? Here’s a list of books I want - put a link on your page and I’ll order them through you.

Excellent idea, Jen! Any to anyone else - if you want stuff from Amazon, send me the list and I’ll make you some handy dandy links so that you get great books and I get the kickback! C’mon, let’s get me some more cocktail books! Goodness knows I need more cocktail books.

And of course, I tag a Google Ad on the bottom of this. I should have an eyepatch and raid ships while I’m at it.

Yaar!

They really do not mess around here. I was stumbling home looking for some nosh and I found a donair stand. Lamb donairs to feed five thousand people? No worries, we got that covered.

That is, like, a SHITLOAD of meat.

Well look at this! April Telek, who I basically haven’t seen since my highschool days, is on the cover of Playback Magazine! I may be living in New York but I do like to keep abreast of what’s happening “up north” (it’s good to know, for example, if the DGC strike is likely to happen and if so, when might I expect to see Mark Bunting on my couch). My mom diligently mails my copy of Playback along with my outstanding Revenue Canada bills down to me each month. Playback is a welcome arrival, the Revenue Canada bills, not so much; but I appreciate the expedient service nonetheless.

So imagine my surprise when I popped open my monthly manila envelope and saw April’s mug beaming back at me! Apparently April’s going to appear on Season 3 of the CTV series “Robson Arms”. Congrats April! Awesome!

Not a bad turnout for our little drama class. Russell has his own acting school, April is on TV, Jeff is making it big on the internet, Gio is working for Disney, Ryan is out shooting docs after basically running the top newsmagazine at the CBC, Sean attended the most prestigious film program in Canada and now knows more about HD than any human alive, and I’m here in New York making cartoons. Not bad for a bunch of yahoos who spent afternoons playing “Freeze Tag” and “Scene Three Ways”. We all ended up in entertainment, albeit via some odd directions, but I think Mister Reid would be pretty proud.

This little bit of prose caught my eye on the subway today. It’s from an essay written by a guy named E. B. White. I’m wasn’t familiar with his work (until I looked him up and realized he wrote “Charlottes Web”), but I gotta say I’m more of a fan now after reading this:

“There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter - the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in search of something . . . Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.”

How great is that?

I love this city. It’s like living inside the ever beating heart of some massive animal. The noise, the controlled chaos, the constant pulse. Thump. Thump. Honk. Honk. There’s something happening in every single direction you look. If I manage to stay home one night, I feel guilty - there’s this amazing city out there just exploding with energy and excitement and here I am, not taking advantage of it! But then I think that I could go out every day and every night and still feel like I had just barely scratched the surface of this incredible place.

Seriously, I walk down streets and find myself smiling, shaking my head in disbelief, thinking “I can’t believe I live here”.

Gaah, I hope Uncle Sam renews my work visa in a year. How the hell am I going to live anywhere else now and not feel like I’m stuck in slow motion? Nothing compares to New York! I LOVE IT HERE!!!

I sometimes walk past the oddest things here and find I’m unable to refrain from taking out my iPhone and snapping a photo. Check this out. It’s a dumpster literally OVERFLOWING with discarded pickles.

What’s the story here? What conversation preceded this? “What the hell are we going to do will all these pickles? Get these god damned things out of here!” or something like that? Man, that’s a TON of pickles.

My old friend Crispin Hands came to New York to record some dialogue for an upcoming game he’s doing for Pandemic. Guess what the game is? Really! Guess! Cause he wouldn’t tell me. Those game guys, they’re soooo elusive. We had a great time hanging out.

We found ourselves on his last night here right across from the Apple store in the West Village, and as luck would have it, my friend Zach just got off work and was able to join us for a beer. He had a fair bit of catching up to do by the time he got there, but god love him for trying.

Oh, and more on Gary Vaynerchuk - his book is now out! Hit up Amazon and grab a copy. I picked up one for my Dad & had Gary sign it! It’s a great book, full of “the thunder”.

Support Gary and get yourself a copy of this book, it’s great. Here’s a handy dandy link.