I'm going to try to sum up all of Holiday Party Season 2006 in one post... so let's rewind to last weekend (no, not this past weekend, but the weekend before - 12/9). After telling J that I wasn't going to get a Christmas tree this year, he + Jackie left this makeshirt Charlie Brown Tree outside my apt (which was the nicest thing ever, so thanks). Looks like it's made of a 2 inch piece of leftover stump and a busted off branch. Awesome.



I think that was Saturday night - yes, another night at Marshall Stack - where I ran into none other than my date Medway High's Ring Dance back in 1992, Maria.P! (you may remember Maria.P from such adventures as Thanks.g 05 or Caroline's txt msg banter from Thanks.g 06.)

ps: Ring Dance = where all the sophomores get their class rings! (, dur)



Since these prom photos seem to be a teendrama crowd favorite, here's #3 (of 9!) in the series. Oh, and the reinctment from 2005 here. [Flickr]



Tuesday. Me + Courtney hit up the Pokemon Holiday Party courtesy of McS's invite. You know, the last time we hit a Pokemon party it was a slamming hip hop dance party till the wee hours of the am. For the holiday season, they took a weird turn and hired some transvestite female impersonators (Streisand, Cher, Madonna) which is weird cause it's Pokemon(, right?). And they sub'ed out the hip hop dance party for an employee lip sync contest (huh?) where the winner (chosen by Pokemon CEO) was this girl who took off her top while dancing shaking around to a Shakira track (no singing involved). Huh.

Anyway, this pic = some poor guy who didn't realize the Madonna impersonator was actually a dude. Here he is trying to give him/her the hand-under-the-ass reacharound (this pic would have much uglier has I taken it 20 seconds earlier - he was seriously *all up* in this dude's grill).

To top it off, there was a raffle at the end and just as me + Courtney were walking out - holy shit! - they called our number! So we raced back to the stage to grab our loot from the tranny emcee but *some other girl* had already run up and claimed our prize! Of course, no one was checking numbers and we weren't going to protest at the Pokeon Holiday Party but come'on! Who does that! (btw, I dunno what the prize was - they were all wrapped up). Huh. We promptly left with our goodie bags (Pokemon calendar, Pokemon bathrobe, 2 Pokemon chocolate bars, Pokemon bottle of wine) and headed downtown.



Thursday = Happy Corp holiday party down at Lolita! Besides the woman with crazy eyeshadown (not to mention 14-year old son) who left DRUGS for me in the bathroom (Mom, Denny = drug free!) the night was pretty uneventful. I was also kind of hopped up on cold meds since I've had the BF (bird flu) for like 10 days straight now.

Oh the way out, Becca and I passed this fully decorated tree that was just left on the street. I like to think that Carlo's gf threw him out of the house - "...and take this fucking tree with you!" style - and so he just left it on the street for some happier couple to come by and claim it.



Friday was the opening night of 11 Spring Street. For anyone in NYC, everyone has already blogged the shit out of this (NYTimes, Gothamist #1, Gothamist #2, Wooster Collective Flickr), buuuuuttttt for everyone else: On the corner of Spring + Bowery there's this old building that's become one of the more well known landmarks for street art in NYC. Some developer (read: Rupert Murdoch's son) bought the building and is about to turn it into condos, but before they start demolition / construction, they invited all the big name artists who have covered the outside walls of the building over the years to use the space as a makeshift three-day gallery.

The building was open all weekend long (I heard the line to get in was crazy), though Xtina snuck me on the VIP list for Friday's opening (thx!)

Hey, I'm not even a week late with this one! Last Friday me + Courtney + Dianne took a field trip over to the Javits Center to check out the Wired Next Fest - a science fair's worth of all the stuff you read about in Wired magazine. We got there around 1pm, I paid my $12 to get in (NYU student rate, sucka!) and walked around and checked-out such half-broken exhibits such as this magic tech door... which is supposed to open a custom-sized space for you to walk through... but something was broken so I ended up having to step and rotate and squeeze my way thru (which made the guy that built it mad because some Japanese TV show was filming my twisty entrance).



Saturn's hybrid car exhibit (complete with mini projected hologram man) = boring.

Saturn's project-whatever-message-you-want-onto-a-wall-of-virtual-grass thing = super!



Oh, and then there was the army of wifi bunnies that caused Courtney to go all AWOL. (ps: the room strangly smelled like rabbit poo. real rabbit poo. not robot rabbit poo. robots don't poo!)



Okay, so that was Friday DAY, and then Friday night (what did I do again?) Happycorp happy hour to <something else> to BackRoom to meet up w/ Steve and a very crunked Jill (and Jill's friend from Las Vegas on the left). We were posing to take this photo, steping back, back, backwards and then...



... Crunked Jill takes a digger, we all crashed down on this table of girls and their drinks, teacups spill, candle gets knocked on the rug (one girl yelled "FIRE!") and then we just rolled around on the floor for like two minutes. Crunked Jill was all "ooohhhhhhh my leeeegggggg" and we, of course, were all "whatever"...



... until she forwarded me this pic on Monday. Ha! Crunked Jill, you so crazy!

I think I logged more hours in Williamsburg this weekend than I have over the past 10 years. My pal Christina from Glowlab puts on this Conflux festival every year - a three-day event which brings the art + technology + urban spaces crowd together. Over Fri + Sat + Sun, I logged about 20 miles (pedometer time!) walking around Williamsburg, going to lectures, meeting up with people.



But wait, "wasn't this supposed to be your last weekend out in Montauk?" you ask. Well, yes. But the weather sucked. Well, I thought it was going to suck - thanks for nothing, you stoopid Apple weather widget! - which forecasted a monsoon on Friday and predicted nothing but sun like 12 hours later.

No regrets though, Conflux was rad (and I left Grellan with some quality alone-time with the ladeeeez out in Montauk).



So, what did I hit up? Friday night were a few videos on street art followed up by a talk by Regine from we-make-money-not-art.com (best. website. ever, btw) which ran through some of her favorite (read: crazy) altering-public-space projects.

Buuuttt Saturday, Jake.D and the guys from Graffiti Research Lab threw a street walk through Williamsburg pointing out some of the best street art in the borough. While I'm definitely aware of a lot of this stuff (especially in lower Manhattan - stickers, stencils, ad hoc sculptures), I don't really know the story behind most of it, which is why the tour was pretty rad.

If you've got a sec, check out some of the cooler stuff that we saw / was mentioned:

+ Street signs in love (around NYC)

+ Street sign zeotrope (around the corner from my apt)

+ Mark Jenkins' fake (often homeless) people (NYC)

+ Two interviews w/ Swoon (#1, #2) who is responsible for most of the everyday-people stencils you see around NYC

+ The Bubble Project, fill-in-the-blanks graffiti on NYC ads (brilliant, btw)

+ LED throwies (graffiti meets p.comp tech)

+ Hacked construction sign (Italy)

+ Banksy on the Israel / Palestinian wall

+ Amnestry International "push" campaign

By the way, if this is your thing, start reading this blog.



Jake.D = superstar. The tour was packed.

This is soooo last week, but I'd be done a serious disservice to the teendrama community if I didn't post the pics from the "in penthouse hottub @ hotel on rivington" dodgeball shouts.

Vox (the blogging service) had a party. Krissy (works for LiveJournal / Vox + who I met out in Seattle) invited me. I met a bunch of other A-list (yeah, I said it) blogger folk up in the Hotel on Rivington's penthouse triplex (pow!) last Thursday.

The view is pretty stellar (er, $5000/night). Sarah and Kevin (MAKE OUT!) looking off the north side of the roof. Jake.D took a rad pic looking off the south side.



There were bloggers. And free drinks. And little sandwiches to snack on. And a hot tub. [video]



... of which Jake.D was brave enough to tear into. Let it be known that while a bunch of use sat around disucssing the logistics of how to carefully remove the aformentioned jacuzzi cover as to avoid making enemies / getting in trouble / kicked out, Jake.D had the lid ripped off (and, er, stripped down to his boxers) in less than 10 seconds.

Jake on the bottom. Lock on the top. Topless girl on the midddle. Sounds filthy!



Speical thanks to Xtina + Kevin.K for unlimited free drinks and learning how to turn the mf'bubbles on.



Items that I believe fell over the 20th story railing and onto the street below: my lucky blue t-shirt.

Items I grabbed so I didn't have to go home shirtless-style: free-bee Vox shirt. Thanks guys!

So this is soooo two weeks ago (er, Wed May 3), but I randomly met up with Mr. Kevin Slavin at Spring Lounge (after LVHRD @ M1-5?) who was hanging out with a bunch of kids who were in town for the GEL conference ("good experience / design" conference).

Special guests included Paul.S from Apple and Nora.A from Burda Media (remember this night?). Anyway, the GEL conference sounded like a good time (me = not invited. Sniffle) so Nora + Paul told me to come check out the GEL open-bar after party (which was conveinently sponsored by Google).



So I did. And met up w/ Ms. Nora (and other internet celebs such as Xtina from Glowlab + Lili.C from Microsoft + Jason from Blogger) Thursday after work at Exit Art. Free drinks : good drinks :: Free sandwiches : _______________ (answer: "good sandwiches").

When the free drinks ended, we jumped in a cab and met up w/ Slavin (again) at some random Japanese noodle shop in the East Village (Xtina says: Uminoie)



Where we dined on fine udon (Japanese noodles) and Shochu (Japanese potato vodka?). Read: crunked.



And then busted out some Sing Sing Karaoke Revolution (me = Warrant's "18 and Life"). Bonus points to Xtina and Paul.S for flexing their Japanese fluency in a rendition of "Linda Linda" by the Blue Hearts (awesome, btw).