Looking for a Name

A few weeks ago, The HOchieS took a poll to determine if the blog was racist.

I think we can all agree that it certainly appeared that way.

Then we took another poll to determine if the blog was amending its racist ways.

The results were somewhat mixed but I think we then determined the blog is quite the funny entity.  Scary...but funny.

In addition to the reasons above, there was a hidden agenda to all this business of the poll.

Our poll of 'word verification' entries was not just to confirm our suspicions about the motives of the Blog Entity (Yeah, the Blog gets its own identity now), but to come up with a nickname for X's baby on the way.

That just came out of nowhere, right?

X, allow this to serve as an explanation:

You brought this on yourself.

You refused our loving name of "Channa", so we felt the need to take matters into our own hands.

Here are the word verification entries you lot have given us:

From Beetchie: Wautkagn, Enchoote, Hoon, Relodo

From H1: Platho, Yedical, Moodou, Inalik, Flogglu

From Or2: Anick
From Frass: Dinglods

From X: Froppes, Tuncein, Bewooni, Patili, Amenifu

From Bughie J.: Welise, Reake, Miedsmst, Taterea, Ourmler

From MC: Supboo, Slisetese

Upon careful consideration which involved H1 choosing one of her liking, we went with...

::Drumroll::

Moodou.

This will be the nickname for the baby Formerly Known As Channa.

By the way, since we are in the buisness of choosing names for X's Moodou, now will be a good time to let you know that Beetchie has a suggestion for a real "M" centric name should you and MK still be looking for one.

Matisyahu.

Thanks for unwittingly participating all.

Luz,

The HOchieS.

How Things Change (Yet Do Not): New Misadventures in St. Mark's

I call it eating a three course meal out of order, but wouldn't necessarily call it eating three meals.

On Tuesday last, Beetchie and I met up for some food, toys and fun times whilst she was in NYC on Spring Break.

It just so happened that Tuesday was Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's.  Beetchie being an ice-cream fiend, and I most always one to partake of Free Cone Day, headed after work to enjoy Chocolate Therapy cones.

Misadventure No. 1: My messy piggyh mouth.

The Cockroach

Some four to five years ago, I became a victim of an Office Prank.

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished and I happened to be sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time when events unfolded (read: I was assigned to a desk so really had no choice in where I could be at the time).

The prank was not played on me but I became that victim who was falsely accused of orchestrating the dirty deed.

What a dirty deed it was: someone got wind that one of the attorney's (we'll call him 'Mg') was deathly afraid of cockroaches.  The next morning, lo and behold, a cockroach had mysteriously appeared on said attorney's chair.  It was almost as if he had crawled there to die...with a napkin in tow as his final resting place.

Right.

Being not particularly fearful of insects, alive or ded, I went into the attorney's office to remove the foul beast and trash it accordingly having tired of the screaming and antics.

The identity of The Mastermind to the Nefarious Cockroach Plot was never revealed but it was easiest at the time to scapegoat the one who so casually went in there and handled the roach with ease.

For the past four to five years, once in a while I will be 'reminded'/accused of setting up the trap and subsequently asked if I planned to place future roaches at various locations throughout the office.

I must note that there was one attorney in particular that swore that I did it.  I was convinced he was the culprit, so we have been tossing accusations back and forth.  Let us call him, 'Err'.

With Mg's final day with the firm on Friday, it was time to cook up a scheme.

As H1 said, "Let us say to Mg: You can finally say I really did give you a cockroach."

A farewell party with cupcakes, champagne and a toast to the memories was held on Wednesday afternoon.  H1 and I made sure we were in attendance but left the party early.

The mission was to deliver a cockroach of epic proportions, made from cardboard and a creative use of Google images to Mg's chair as a going away present.

H1 and I were rather proud of our project and I believe it was well-received upon discovery by Mg.  He found it amusing and laughed lots.

The best part of the whole situation though? We signed it, "We will miss you, even the cockroaches. - Err".

Supposedly, Spring is Here

You sure could not tell if you were traipsing about today in NYC. 

I think the chill in my bone is still lingering.

That said, we say "Toodle Pip!" to Winter as it is 'officially' over.

Thanks for the 2 snow days we had, Winter and the somewhat warm days.  Though, when the days were cold, they were almost brutal.

"Toodle Pip" giant Snowman and "Toodle Pip" oddly coloured snow flakes.  We will see you again in about 9 months or so but for now, "Helloooooo" Spring!

The squirrels have already started bounding around the neighbourhood.  I watched them digging up the soil near the happy little crocuses that have already made an appearance through the dirt.

The leaves will come soon with the rain and the sun.  The lone red berry will have berry brethren and flowers for company too.  Fairly soon there will be a burst of green admist the blue sky.

More Midtown

There's only so much of Midtown to capture in our 12 minute walk but we're hoping to expand our expeditions this warm weather season.

For now, here's a little of our photo tour from two weeks ago.

The Super Hero ( or was it Super Villain?) Food Adventure in Midtown

You park your Frites n' Meat truck on 52nd and NOT expect The HOchieS & Co. to show up? (psst, H1...see how I did a shout out to you? '& co.'?)

We weren't the only ones flocking to this Hamburger Truck's debut in midtown a couple of weeks ago.

The journey with & Co i.e. Alex, was rather pleasant.

We walked.

We got a strange blonde cretin in our glamour shot.

We walked the walked in style.

We made it a point to point out our asses and laughed while doing it.

At the end of said journey was a bright yellow truck with a cow with a cape on it.  A Super Hero cow? Never heard of you, Cow! But if you claim your beef is super, then count me in.

The Colourful Characters of Midtown

The warm weather has been making a comeback here in glorious NYC (save the rainy days we had this week) and with it, the colourful characters of Midtown.

Take this soul for instance.

He set up his pinwheels in one of the flower stands outside of our building, all-decked out in a reflective safety coat, short-short neon shorts, a man purse and a ring of flowers around his head.

Then, he started to strut!

 Loved him.

I curse that my camera could not take a better picture before building security went outside to shoo him away, but I will strive to find him again one day for he was fabulous.

I'm not sure the building security guard found him very fabulous when the spitting upon began.

You just should not mess with someone trying to bring sunshine and Spring into your life.  I know better than to mess with H1 when she wears her Yellow Canary shirt and tries to force sunshine on me.

You may get spit upon.  That is the risk you will taking.

Go ahead and speak ill to the sun.  You may find yourself getting burned.

A Food Adventure at Home

At some point a week ago, H1 discovered a simple recipe for pizza dough.

Not only was the recipe simple but also quite the tasty thing.

With pizza dough readily available, the possibilities of ingredients are endless!!!

ENDLESS, I tell you!

Um, we went with bacon.

 Pacman?

Hey, bacon makes everything taste better.

I'd go so far as to say, they make your pictures look better too.

Oh yeah.

Okay, so H1 did put some caramelized onions and sweet peppers on her side.  Crazy, right?

 H1's side.  Not as cool!

I do have to say, however, that while I enjoyed the crust and our at home pizza, a part of me longs for the good old days.

The good old days in Trinidad when you made a ghetto pizza sandwich.

There's nothing like some white bread, ketchup, New Zealand cheddar and vienna sausages.

Huh, suddenly I cannot wait for the weekend to come around so I can revisit my childhood.

Currently listening to: "Philistine" by Nobuhiko Sagara featuring Nadia Gifford, from No More Heroes 2.  When is this blasted soundtrack coming out?! I have no right liking this song as much as I do...curse it's catchy tune!

Still Working

I'm still working on organizing the music files.  It's a lot of slow-going work sorting through over 100 gbs of the stuff.

I have to say though, searching for composers to some of Bughie J.'s and my treasured VG soundtracks is proving to be quite the interesting jaunt.

Today I stumbled upon a little who's who complete with pictures of many of the composers we have been listening to since 1997, and a little piece of me died.

Sometimes you just don't want to know what they look like.

But Yasunori Mitsuda? Bughie J. had it right when he said that that man's a heart-breaker.  Not only is he gOO'd-lOO'king but will break your heart with his sorrowful pieces.

Curse that man and his "People Seized with Life"!

Yes.

I am a video game and video game music nerd.

And I am only slightly ashamed.

Happy Birthday x 2

Happy Birthday Beetchie and CLee!

Good luck with all you do today and have a great one!

I'm late for work and therefore cannot provide backstabbing amusement here other than to wish you a good one.  There's no time to think!

It's True

On St. Patty's Day, everyone is a little bit Irish.

The Ides of March

It just occurred to me that I forgot to herald the Ides.

Instead I will say, "Beware St. Patty's Day".  May drunken louts not ruin your day as they are sure to ruin ours.

Happy H1 Day, everyone.

I Have Not...

 ...But try MC.

I am loving my virtual tour of Gorillaz' Plastic Beach thus far (although I have not gotten to 2D yet) as well as the album.  It could be that I am currently obsessed a little by Damon Albarn's voice.

Observation(s): The Forgotten Posts

There were a few posts I forgot to blog in recent times, so here they are:

Christmas Madness 1:

I do not think I have spoken about our little family at work before.  We collected a variety of toys (mostly from Madagascar) and set them up on Alex's desk.

Last Christmas, they celebrated the season complete with hats and a "Christmas Tree".

If one member of the clan looks suspiciously like a member of the clan... remember, he's just a penguin.

Christmas Madness 2:

Harry Potter goes wrong?

A cookie snitch? Hmm.  Well, at least the wings look okay...

I'm not sure that was the correct track for Hogwarts.  

Wonder where this will lead?

On The Train:

 You will sometimes meet the weirdest characters on the train.

 And they will not leave you alone...

Your Friends Are Jerkfaces:

H1 did me a kindness by buying vitamins for me. 

I don't know if I ever told anyone this story but when I was a kid, I choked on a grape sweet/hard candy.  I managed to swallow it down and be okay but ever since then I have developed a mental block against taking tablets.  You would think I would have developed a fear of eating hard candies (well, honestly, I am beginning to develop a fear of that these days as well as bones) but no, the idea of having to swallow something without it being chewed makes me clam up. 

It's absolutely ridiculous, I know but now you know why H1 bought me gummy chews for vitamins.

The point of this story is that I realised today that I am finally running low.  I am supposed to eat 2 a day and discovered I was down to my last 5.

Huh?

5?

How did that happen? I mean, it's certainly possible there could have been a miscount when packaging of the product.

Or it could very well be that your Jerkface friend Beetchie came along one day and ate 3 instead of the 2 she was supposed to ingest.

That girl is trying to mess with with my health!

 Thanks, Jerkface Beetchie.

Blatant Lies:

This is today's observation.

Wait, wait, wait.  

No one told me the iPad was a pig! 

Magical and revolutionary?! Man, get me like 10 of these pigs!

A Follow Up and a Call to All

It may very well be that we established that the blog is racist a few weeks ago.

There has been a slight turn of events.  It may be that the blog has now seen the errors of its ways and is trying to make amends.

I suspect the word verification prompts have been actually giving X 'cool' phrases.

This can only mean time for a new word verification poll.

Please comment and let me know what word you were prompted with for entry.

Let us really see if the blog has corrected its awful behaviour.

Observation(s) of the Day

Observation I:

You know what's hard?

Working without listening to music.

I do it daily at work for the most part.

When you can't actually listen to your music because you're currently working on organizing your music files...that's just adding insult to injury.

Observation II:

Signs that you might be having a bored spell at work?

You start using your uneaten sour patch kid to scrape out the previously eaten sour patch kid remnants that got stuck in your teeth.

What can I say? Candy gets stuck on your teeth.

A Night Out with The HOchieS, Part II: It Said MSG but We Ended Up in Canada?

It's very rare I find myself down in the 30s, which may explain why I have not had an amazing Korean food experience yet in K-Town.

Chances are if you find me in the K'Hood, it's due to the fact that I'm off dragging a poor soul to Madison Square Garden.

Friday Night's Victim was H1 (as previously posted) and Friday Night's Instrument of Torture?

A Night Out with The HOchieS, Part I: For Your Dietary Benefit

It should have been the perfect time for The HOchieS but instead what we got was some serious shade.

H1 and I ran off to K-Town for some eats and I almost took her for the noodles with black beans that Beetchie introduced me to.  However, having no leeway for a mess up as we were hungry and on a schedule, I decided that we should just go to the regular, safe eatery where we could guarantee some meat.

It turns out, that even your safe bet can be anything but.

After the taro, I had the worst meal I have ever had!

Before the details of that mess though, let us discuss the appetizers.

That Was Probably It

With Spring's official start in about 2 weeks or so, I'm guessing my luck for snow days is over until perhaps the end of the year.

While I am pleased that I escaped this winter without having to use lots of personal days from work, sometimes you just need a good snow day.

Sometimes, it's even better when your office closes for an entire day due to snow.

Ah, those days are few and wait...that day never happened before February 26th! It turns out that miracles do happen.

How best to spend a snow day than taking pictures with which to bombard others with?

It's only unfortunate that the snow was so blinding that I couldn't see what I was doing.  I think camera eye would have definitely failed.

I present to you, blinding snow pictures that I suffered to take.  View them and be blinded as well!

Or not...

I'm going to hide them behind a cut.  Click away, if you fancy.

Obsession(s) for the Week(s): 2/09/2010 - 02/21/2010

Disgaea DS

I told myself I wouldn't go through the headache of playing another strategy rpg. I don't particularly enjoy the genre due to the fact that I'm pretty terrible at them. However, I figured if I could handle FFT then I could handle Disgaea in spite of the warning signs. Oh, how I should have paid attention and not underestimated this game. While a light story, a wonderf main character in Laharl for me to like this game just plain kicks my ass. I was just getting into it and decided I already needed a breather.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

It's hard not loving Travis Touchdown. On the one hand, as I have been progressing through the ranks (I'm now at No. 7 and gunning for YOU, H1) I have found myself saying (again) "I love this stupid game". It's still got that edge and there's certainly no other thing like it that I've played. But it might be becoming a tad serious. Perhaps a little bit too serious while trying to maintain that balance of undeniable quirkiness that I have come to cherish. Well, I know it won't disappoint and as an overall experience, it really has not done that but I could see this game if the series continues, being carried on to something more in depth. If that happens, I might have to stop playing it. Heck, if there's no more Travis then I may as well boycott now!

Hotel Dusk: Room 215

Slow to start, after 4 hours of play I can finally say I am feeling a twinge of anxiety playing this. It did not take that long for the game to get interesting but it did take that long for me to really feel as though I could possibly screw something up to get a "Game Over". The story's a little bit predictable and this game might be a reminder of why I don't like to read books. I know, I know. I'm an ignoramus. But really, this isn't so bad. I am really liking Kyle Hyde with his rudeness, good looks and smack talk. Graphically, the game is unique and maybe I can tolerate a point and click adventure after all.

Hey Diddle, Diddle

The Cat and his Nemesis

Does anyone think it cruel of me to use this monster to scare the Pumps off the desk?

It worked initially but my scare tactic has since been losing its effectiveness but you know, if I were Pumpkin I would pay heed as to what happened to that yellow dog of a cowardly cat, Sylvester...

Nobody Told Me

Alas, I probably should have reserved the blog title for a The Killers related post if ever I needed to pull one of those out. 

Really this post is just to complain that no one informed me that it was so close to March 9th.  I think I was supposed to be doing a whole lot of stuff before then yet here I am feeling like I've done nothing but work almost 12 hours today.

Is that what it is?

I have not really had the time to do anything due to work getting in the way?

That's right...let us ignore the fact that I had a snow day on Friday.

What's it to you, anyway?

Another One?

I'm sure out there in great blue ocean, all deep within the earth and whatever unpopulated areas of the world are left - there are earthquakes.

But this is a little bit ridic now.

Yet another one? Now in Taiwan?

I hope all is as well as it can be over there i.e. no death toll and tsunami. 

Also, that whole earth spinning off its axis shortening our days by a tiny fraction of a millisecond or what have you, is really taking it's toll on me.

There's so much to do in a day and now it's shorter?

How am I supposed to get anything done?

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. Hare, Hare, Hare.

March, be better for all!