adammonago.com : et tu montague?

An Apartment Dies, A Ghost Is Born

Tue, 29 Jun 2004 02:23:16 GMT

The past week brought a few surprises. As many of you may know, RJ's apartment burned down this past week; in fact, it spontaneously combusted, taking with it all of his earthly possessions, but luckily, leaving him 100% intact, which is all that matters. He has asked if I would mind conducting an interview with him and posting the pictures of the aftermath here, so we will be working on that during the coming days.

I have learned that my stint in Jersey is coming to a close, and next week, I will most likely find myself back down in our nation's capital for a few months. It will be a nice chance to do some exciting work and be near friends and family.

I've picked up the new Wilco, A Ghost Is Born, which I am now listening to. In their usual style, it sounds nothing like anything else they've ever done, which is great. Some of the songs even have a slightly eerie feel to them that gradually becomes more uplifting, but the whole sound is definitely more gentle than they have done in a while. Now playing: Spiders. What a cool song.

In other news, Iraq gained its sovereignty today, two days ahead of schedule, in an attempt to shield the ceremonies from violence. Good idea, I must say, but in my opinion, this one is far from over. For an interesting read, check out Sy Hersh's Plan B in this week's issue of the New Yorker for a take on the Israeli-Kurdish alliance and how it could potentially shake things up.

Have to hit the sack....going into the office early for a computer upgrade, then to the client, and a midday doctor visit. I'm such the busy boy.

Big 'Ol Weekend

Tue, 22 Jun 2004 03:22:54 GMT

I always do this and it makes me furious. I accidently erased my whole entry and have to do it again:

This weekend started off with Jen's Birthday. For the occasion, we headed into Hoboken to enjoy some Cuban eats at Zafra. Things started off a little hectic, since we had to wait for a bunch of animals that sat down at 5:00 to eat for four hours and hold up our table for an hour past our reservation time. Once we were seated though, everything was cool. The food was awesome, the wine was flowing, and we had lots of great conversation with Mark and Lori and Jen's college friend Jenny and her boyfriend Aaron, who I met for the first time.

Saturday was Wendy and Nick's wedding down by the shore. I have to say that they had the greatest wedding band I have ever seen (or pretty close to it). These guys did everything from Sam Cooke to Aretha Franklin to CSNY, Springsteen and Sly and the Family Stone. The whole thing was one non-stop party. Throw in great people, great food and great weather for a beach wedding, and you have one hell of a good time. We had so much fun we didn't even take pictures!

Sunday, I rolled down to OB for Dad's Day. I got my dad a P-Touch, partially because he used to have one of those oldschool raised letter label guns, and partially because I just wanted to play with it. It was great to see everybody and relax with the grill though.

Overall, the fun weekend made it a little easier to get into the work funk today. Now I am pretty wiped out, but it could be because the days are now getting shorter.

News highlights from this past week:

How Microsoft Lost the API War by Joel Sposky
Unfarenheit 9/11 by Christopher Hitchens
The Beastie Boys Sell Out as reported by Slashdot
Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil runs for office,
and finally the big enchilada....Iran Declares War on Britain. (well...almost).

Son Of Stuff Yer Mug

Fri, 11 Jun 2004 03:04:55 GMT

It's been hard to keep up to date. The past couple of weekends, I've been getting a ton of stuff done. I've continued working out and eating right, and the pounds are continuing to come off. I now fit into so many pairs of pants and shorts that I couldn't even touch a year ago. It's so awesome. I also painted our bedroom which is now looking pretty snazzy.

Work has been pretty mellow; I've been using the downtime to brush up on performance tuning of my interface application and pick up some C# coding skills.

As Nukes pointed out this week, one of our high-school classmates is reopening a classic local restaurant with a new concept. I hope you can still get your own mug and hang it on the ceiling.

In technology news this week... Microsoft has patented the "To Do" List, a new visual web traffic tracking tool a-la-"The Sims" has been introduced, and some more headway in using SIM cards to track terrorists (watch out T-Mobile users). Thanks Dave and Adam for passing along some good stories.

Last night, I watched Victory, which I hadn't seen in years; I have heard that the guy that did Snatch is doing a remake of it soon. Tonight, I watched Son of alQaeda and read some more of "The End Of Oil" which is an incredible read if you want to learn about the future of the oil industry and alternative energy sources like hydrogen fuel cells.

Uggh...I'm starting to jump all over the place, probably because the heat has made it so I can not keep a single train of thought. I'm going to hit the sack.

Nick Berg Story In Today's NY Times

Wed, 26 May 2004 04:40:46 GMT

I correct myself....Today's times has a story on Nick Berg.

Hornby Rebuttal

Wed, 26 May 2004 01:43:32 GMT

Thanks to Fathead Minnow at the IDD for finding this rebuttal to Nick Hornby's piece in Sunday's times. I've yet to hear Selfish **** but, I look forward to it. I'm also looking forward to hearing this new Marah album ; speaking of those guys, I haven't listened to 'Kids in Philly' in a long time, but now I'm suddenly getting an urge to hear "Round Eye Blues".

I just flew in from the gym and boy are my arms tired.