Recently in rochester Category

Let's take a break from concert reviews, shall we?

The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle's website looks like it was designed by someone who made a Geocities site back in the day when everyone wanted their own homepage but didn't know what exactly that entailed. This person apparently then decided this qualified him or her to design a professional website. He or she glanced over a few popular Web 2.0 sites (Facebook, Vox, Last.fm perhaps) and figured out that the internet means rollover buttons, top menubar navigation, and drop-down lists. Also, diagonal stripes and the color blue. Of course!

Last night I went out for Thai food with a friend and when we came back to where we'd parked his mom's Cadillac, it wasn't there. We called the police and waited in helpless disbelief for over 2 hours. I mean, what do you do when your car isn't there and it's not registering at any of the impound lots? You can't look to see if maybe you left it under that car up there instead of where you actually parked it...you can't look to see if maybe it had rolled away a little bit. I looked up at the big tree we'd parked under, but it just doesn't work that way. And of course we couldn't even get wasted while we're waiting 'cuz we don't know when the cops are going to show up...all we could do was just wait there, on the corner of Park Ave and Edgerton.

The cop finally gets there and runs the plate through the system twice for us, though we'd called multiple times while waiting, checking the impound lots. He says, "There is no way your car got stolen here." Even if we weren't in the particular neighborhood we were in - the street was well-lit, there were people out walking dogs at 11 PM - no one would get very far in a stolen Cadillac. The alarm would've gone off and we were all of 2 blocks away! So no, it just didn't make any sense.

Our cop goes, "Not that I don't believe you, but I'm just gonna check the streets around the area to make sure you're on the right one."

And wouldn't you know. His mom's shiny purple '06 Cadillac was one street West of us the whole time.

I can't say I've ever felt like that much of a dumbass, nor that I've ever been so happy to have been such a dumbass.

What: A gathering of photographers and photo-enthusiasts. Bring a 4x6 framed photo to trade if you wish!
Where: in my shoes' place (check out the discussion for directions, or just ask moi)
When: Wed 17 October @ 7 PM
So? Celebrate one year of Rochestarians getting together via flickr. All are welcome, not just members of the site. BYOB. Snacks will be provided!

(hey flickr people, i don't mean any malicious intent by remixing your logo. if i'm infringing on a copyright, please tell me to take it down and I'll gladly comply. geez I'm paranoid about copyright laws ever since the LeGuin/Doctorow feud.)

Doing my part for the environment today because I love her dearly.

So, kids, unicorns, and others. Don't use plastic bags anymore when you go shopping. Seriously. They plug up our landfills, suffocate small children and animals, and use up precious petroleum. Plus it's sooooo easy to use your own bag. Have you ever supported PBS or your local library? If so, perhaps they gave you a tote bag! This tote bag can be carried along with you to the supermarket, mall, sex shop, etc., and used to carry whatever goodies you picked up that day.

One bag not enough? Don't like PBS or your library? Easily solved! You can buy tote bags year-round at H&M in the US for $7.90 - they're stylish and nicely priced! Envirosax is also a good option for you eco-savvy fashionistas out there. If you find it ridiculous to spend money on a bag you're carrying groceries in, you can find things to reuse around your home. For example, take a smallish rice woven bag and a larger woven rice bag. Cut the handles off the large one and sew them onto the smallish one. Voila! Cheap, very sturdy, reusable bag! It might even have a picture of an elephant on it, which would be really cool. Elephants rock.

The She's A Betty blog has a very comprehensive post on how to cut out plastic bag consumption from your life. I highly recommend it for extra reading. Reusablebags.com unsurprisingly offers a lot of insight into this issue, and the wikipedia post on plastic shopping bags is also worth a glance.

My post is coming a little late in the day, but it's a good promo for MCC's Sustainability Day on October 24. From 12-2 PM that day, tables offering ways students can live a little greener will be set up in (I'm guessing right now) Building 3. Providing no one else's table is talking about this, Cabbages + Kings (literary/arts magazine) will have a table talking about reusable bags! And if this topic is taken, Kris will do some quick research to come up with a different table!

P.S. Native Rochester business Wegmans sells reusable bags for $1 each! Tell your friends! Save the Earth. :)

In what is perhaps the most embarrassing story of this year, last night some friends and I decided to go to Tilt nightclub in Rochester. It really burns me to say that the whole thing was my idea. I wanted to go dancing though and someone told me they had an indie rock night there on Saturdays. Unfortunately, that someone told me about this 8 months ago, and now I'm starting to wonder if I even remembered that information correctly. I usually have a hard time remembering what was the last thing I ate.

I'll definitely remember for all eternity now that Tilt does not have an indie rock night. Tilt probably never had indie rock night. I should've been clued in when I checked the website to get directions and heard the undulating um-chk um-chk um-chk beat with funky soul singer overlay. Perhaps, thinking back, alcohol was a factor in failure to assess this. In any case, I didn't know then what I know now, and I had to pay dearly for that knowledge.

See, I have a previously undiscovered allergy to house music. We arrived at the club and I was feeling great. Once we started up those steps, though, I felt my stomach screaming to be emptied. Having a tantrum, even. It was really not happy about the strange combination of 60s funk and eurodance beats bursting in the air. I told my stomach to shut up though, because I felt we had a 70% chance at least that the next song would be better.

The next song was worse. The same beats with whinier vocals. After a quick discussion we decided to try one of the club's other bars, 'cuz surely they'd be playing other tunes. My stomach angrily leading the way, we wandered off to what should've been a different bar. Here I learned the painful truth that Tilt plays all house music, all the time. Also, all house music sounds more or less the same. Or maybe it just all sounds bad. So, one minute mes amis and I were standing around having a nice little chat, the next I'm running off to the washroom to give my stomach what it demanded. The attendant there greeted me with a blasé, "Somethin' you ate, honey?"

I have never seen someone look that cool about watching a total stranger spew spinach and beer all over the place, so I bolted before she started asking to compare bulimia notes with me. I told everyone that we had to leave, NOW. So we booked it. Distasteful rhythms followed us down those steps we'd ascended not 15 minutes before. Humid night air's never felt so amazing.

To review: Tilt nightclub has no Indie Rock Night. House music makes Kris physically ill. Kris still wants to find a good place in Rochester to go dancing.

Comments/Suggestions? Add them here!

Come see me turn into a blueberry! (or at least pretend to.)
MCC Auditorium, Building 4
(p.s. sorry about the crappy poster - i did not draw it, i just drunkenly colored it in in photoshop. also sorry about it being in the middle of the day - it's a kid's show! But it's free.)

Who: Tech-savvy Rochestarians
What: Ad-hoc gathering of like-minded people interested in technology and its impact on our future. A day of discussions, demos, learning, and sharing from all those present.
Where: B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences (Google Map) - 70-2400, 2455, and 2690
When: Saturday, 12 May 2007. 10 am - til you can no longer stand it. ;-)

654 South Ave, Rochester NY, 14620
Tues-Sat 11-7
Sun 12-5

Finally, a place to shop in Rochester! No more picking through the multitude of cheap & gaudy to find the 1 or 2 affordable & cute pieces at H&M or Gadzooks. And no more knock-offs, thank god. This is the real thing. Real designers! Hurray. Gentle Fawn, Fyasko, Little by Jenny, and more. There's even some cute home products designed by Pop Ink. This place is cooler than some stores I've been to in Montreal. Maybe that's because I can't afford to shop in the really cool stores in Montreal, but shhh. That just brings me to my next point, anyway. This place is super affordable. I walked out with an adorable tee-shirt that only set me back $19. And 19 is my favorite number! Felicitous? I think so!

Check them out sometime. If clothes ain't your thang, there's always fun stuff like light-up oinking pig keychains and lomography cameras. Plus it's right next to Lux so if you're fed up, buy yourself a beer.

From the RocWiki:

The newest addition to the South Wedge, Thread: entertaining with design, art, and fashion -- gridding the scale from clothing to meticulous necessities. Scavenging from grassroots and established companies as well as providing an outlet for local artists to showcase and sell their work. Never serving you the same course twice, Thread will always stock the newest (clothes, clothing, garments, outfits, attire, garb; dress, wear; togs, duds, getup, threads; apparel.) to keep the eyes, mind, and soul stimulated, ascending your style into heightening fashion.

They didn't give their names. They only stated their cause.

"To fulfill the dreams of children with terminal illnesses."

I asked them why. Why Jedi Knights? Why now?

They didn't seem at all phased by the fact they'd waltzed into Spot Coffee on a crowded Thursday evening, cloaked and wielding lightsabers. They were actually pretty comfortable, and, dare I say, cool? with it. Their leader (far right, obscured by lightsaber action) explained to me they were collecting money for a charity they've supported and have worked for in the past. It's the local take on the Make-a-Wish foundation, the Dream Factory of Rochester, Inc. I wasn't totally clear on whether or not they were exploiting their status as guardians of peace in the galaxy, but since I have a soft spot for charities such as these (and he had an honest face!) I made a little contribution.

It's really too bad we couldn't do that for NYPIRG this summer. Not everyone cares about stopping mercury poisoning, but most people care about helping Jedi Knights. Dammit.

Perhaps it's time to clean out the half-and-half container when it feels full as you hold it upside-down like this but nothing comes out. Or, you know, you could just choose not to look inside the thing and assume it's merely an oddly heavy pitcher. Screw the top back on and toss it back in the fridge. But let's face it; curiosity will eventually get the best of you and you will look. It is an inescapable certainty.

You will look and you will find this. Exactly this. So then you'll call Al Gore up and ask him if he thinks this could have been caused by global warming. He will tell you, "No" but suggest you rub it in a Republican's face anyway. The coffee shop being empty at the time, and the smell being overpowering, your coworker and yourself will decide the best thing to do will be to get rid of the green sludgey mess post-haste.

So, you'll clean out the half-and-half container. Chunks of mold in the sink will ensue.

Come get coffee from us sometime! The health department gives us a rating of "Acceptable!"*




* Not official score from DoH. This entry is based on true facts but the author has taken some creative liberties with reality.