Comic for Monday, June 25th, 2007

Posted: 7:00 am, Monday, June 25th

To steal a line from R. Stevens a few years ago, today, I am twenty-awesome. I'll be celebrating by going to work, playing some softball (and hopefully not losing 23-1), and quickly exiting the game after the last inning to catch Wilco at the Hammerstein. 2.0's never seen them, and it's been four years since I've caught them live (almost four years to the day - saw them on June 26, 2003 at Summerstage with Sonic Youth), so that'll be good. I hear their Bonnaroo show was pretty awesome, so hopefully Sky Blue Sky brings a little more rock to the live show.

I had no idea there was still a philanthropic Mrs. Astor. I guess this is because I think of John Jacob Astor when I think of the Astors, and that goes back a bit. Then again, so does the 105-year old in that Times article. I don't think I knew the Waldorf-Astoria was named after the Astors, either. Or Astoria. Wow, Astoria was named after Astor to try and extract a $2,000 investment from him. That's wild. The things you learn randomly following wikipedia links!

So, Saturday was the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, and we went and rocked out. I'd never been to one of these things before - it was like a smaller scale, burlesque Mardi Gras parade. Here's some evidence of the rockingness, and it's all SFW, which is quite the accomplishment of editing.

We've been collecting vintage postcards for a little bit, so this was a favorite of ours.

The mighty Cyclone. This ride kicks so much ass.

Poodle World?

There were a ton of Save Coney Island-themed marching ensembles going on.

This was their marching band. Almost makes me wish I had stuck with the trombone.

Some people didn't really stick with the ocean theme. Not that the above dancers were very aquatic, either. I guess "fishnets" kind of count.

This was the float at the end - the red tide, or something like that. As you can imagine, this woman was lit off her ass. The guy you can kind of see behind her was so drunk he almost fell off the float.

The chick in the black bikini was kind of the advance guard for a robot thing you'll see next, but this is mostly here because I love the expression on the girl in the background.

Yeah, I have no idea. But it was very impressive.

I really hope this kid was covered in like SPF 2000. Some parents are just awesome.

This was a favorite of mine - this vest is made entirely of just the M in a Metrocard. Wild.

Same group - really just an impressive amount of Metrocards. They had made frisbees out of them and everything, it was nuts.

These girls were pretty popular. We saw them when we first arrived and were trying to find somewhere to go and got into the staging area by accident. There was some dude just taking pictures of their asses. Classy!

These girls were freaking awesome at dancing. Their "rest" dance was better than anything I could ever bang out. They were, I assume, Brazilian.

Because this was their marching band.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Um, OK.

Splash Gordon was another Save Coney thing, but, thankfully, they also shot a supersoaker into the crowd. The heat was getting up there.

We were with a girl who'd just moved to the city from Iowa and had heard that there were a lot of drag queens in this parade. The girl in the middle? Definitely a dude.

Some really good hula-hoopers.

This was not even close to the worst display of man flesh.

Closest we're getting to NSFW territory, the girl on the left is just out there in front of God and everybody. There are probably a lot of sunburned breasts in NYC today.

Some awesome costuming.

These were go-go dancers in the vehicular part of the parade. There was a marching part on the boardwalk, and then the cars on the main drag.

It's really funny watching the Mermaiders just relax with normal people afterwards.

So that's the Mermaid Parade. It was mad crowded, but an awesome, awesome time.

And yesterday was a rocking day o' grilling and bocce-ing in the park with dear friends for my birthday. Not only that, but the Sox won, the Goat Fuckers lost, and Clemens was for some reason in the game to pitch the seventh inning in relief. I can't believe that. Torre is astounding. Oh, man, poor Rod Beck, too. Not exactly a healthy guy, and I would've thought 48 way before 38. But, yikes.

Anyway, happy birthday to me.

bullfrog

15 -- Monday, June 25 2007, 07:23 am

Happy birthday bullfrog!!

LOVE all the photos, too. Awesome stuff.

Happy Birthday, Bullfrog!

I remember one time going to a diner at about 2 am and eating their "super stretch" (large oval sized plate of hash browns, eggs, chili, cheese and white gravy guaranteed to cause a heart attack within 20 minutes) with a drag queen sitting next to me. When he went to pay the guy at the counter asked him for his driver's license. The guy looked at his driver's license and looked at the drag queen and said, "No way. You can't be a female. Are you sure this is a valid driver's license?"

I can't even imagine how he could have pulled that one off at the DMV.

Happy Birthday!!!

Thanks, gang!

happy mf birthday

Happy birthday! Appallingly young, aren't you. I hope you enjoyed the present i arranged for you this weekend of the Sox taking 2-3 and the GFs getting swept. It wasn't cheap, so i hope you appreciate it.

Zero

Happy Birthday! Again :)

I need advice...I like re-reading the Harry Potter books before the new one comes out, but I started a little late this year and there's no way I'm finishing all 6 before July 21 (have a book club book to read too. and I'm expected to work, darn it.) I read #1 this weekend...what are the others I should read? any ideas?

Happy Birthday!

(that's all I got today)

I vote for harry potter #5 and #6.

I remember them the least and that's kind of when all hell started to break loose. They also seem to have the most meta plot points. Maybe 4 if you have time, but i seem to remember that being the longest.

and happy birthday.

I think 4 remains my favorite. I thought 6 had displaced it, but I'm re-reading it right now and I just really love 4. 5 is super-long, but has that prophecy and the occlumency sideplot. I'd go with 4 and 6, myself.

Maybe you should watch the new movie before you read #7?

Or you could listen to the Audio books. Is that faster? I don't know. I thought I'd be able to listen to them at the office, but alas, too distracting.

CK--

My coworker came in all aflutter over some computer hacker getting into Scholastic 's network and getting a copy of 7. Is this fiction or Non?

--I bet you can't answer that, huh?

2.0 - I think that has generally been considered a hoax due to it's typo ridden and ridiculous predictions (I haven't read it, so i'm just passing it along).

I like #3, myself.

Figured as much.

I like 6 myself.

Did anyone see the Simpsons last night? I didn't see much of this past season and only saw ten minutes of this one, but Homer was reading a book about a girl wizard to Lisa, and the father-figure "Graystache" died at the end of the book. Homer was distraught by this and ended the episode sobbing in Moe's, bellowing, "No man should outlive his fictional wizard! No man!" Hilarious.

The guy sent out a press release announcing he had hacked into the network (Bloomsbury's, not ours). You can draw your own conclusions about his intelligence from there.

J. K. Rowling once said that Books 6 & 7 were like two halves of one book, so 6 is probably the most essential. After that, I would say reread whichever ones are your favorites, and revisit the rest through Wikipedia summaries. :-)

Sounds like 6 it is! Maybe #5 too if I have time before the shiny new one arrives :)

I echo 6. I picked it up the other day, but put it down for book club book. (3 is my favorite)

Happy Birthday, old man.

Happy Birthday, bullfrog!!!! From Oxford and OSU territory.

Buon Compleanno! (No idea if that spelling is correct)

Bonum Festum Tibi.

Salve discupuli.