Monday, September 30

Picture hanging, football, beer and the mafia

Well, it's been a while since my last update, but I've had some difficulty coming up with anything interesting to report. Nothing compares to puke stories (evidently). I am happy to report that I have not gotten any more calls for the Local 207 though. Who said complaining doesn't get you anywhere?

I am still not finished unpacking. I discovered that all the walls in my apartment are painted cinderblock. How exactly does one hang pictures on cinderblock walls? Sean suggested we Krazy Glue some picture hangers (or hooks) onto the wall. Yeah, great, except I sort of already outgrew the college dorm decor. What are we, freshmen? I guess I could get that wierd Play-Doh stuff we used to stick our posters up in our dorm rooms. I'm sure it would hold a 18x24 glass frame, right? So all the things that are supposed to be hung on the walls are piled up on the couch instead. Not very artistic.

I also haven't unpacked the books. One interesting thing about not having a car is it's kind of tough to get heavy things from point A to point B. Groceries, not so bad. A 75-pound bookcase, hmmm... Well, I guess I could carry it. On the subway? Yeah right. Maybe get a cab? To Brooklyn? Yeah right. Have it shipped? Sure, if you want to pay an addition $70 shipping. Hmm. So, until I figure out how to acquire a bookcase, the books are still in their boxes. Maybe I should use the boxes as pedestals for all the pictures I can't hang on the walls.

Instead of using my weekends to unpack the remaining boxes, I have been watching football. Football season is great, because there is no better excuse to yell at the tv. Now I know relatively little about the intricate strategies of football, but I can still say things like "You could drive a truck through that hole!" (shutup Dave) or "Who calls a play like that when you're up by 7 with 14 seconds left on the clock?!". Plus you can watch the coaches curse. You can't usually hear it, but there is no mistaking Bill Cowher's "What the fuck?!"

A side effect of all this football is the vast mound of empty beer bottles that is threatening to take over my teensy kitchen. Two people times five weeks times at least 4 football games per week equals... about 50 kabillion beers. In NY you get a deposit for the empties, so we've been saving them. You pay $9 for a sixpack, you think you damn well better get back that deposit right! Besides, at this point we probably have like 5 cases of empty bottles. At 5 cents a bottle, that's umm... carry the two... six dollars. Hmm, well maybe I should just leave them on the curb then.

Speaking of which, I didn't mention this, but I'm pretty convinced that I live in a mafia neighborhood. When we were moving in, we found a ton of CRAP that the former tenant left behind. We asked the landlady what we should do with it, she said "Just leave it on the curb on Monday night. I got a private sanitation guy that comes at 4am Tuesday morning. He'll take anything." Huh. Does that sound suspicious to anyone else? She's right though. They took the old air conditioner, some dead plants, rusty deck furniture... I guess it's all sleeping with the fishes now. In the East River.