so long ralph's, we hardly knew ye...



well my friends, we've come down to it.

the last days of Ralph's are upon us. the time has come to rally the troops for one last last call.

my good friends aaron and chris have taken up the charge by making this site to help the organizational cause.

if you can make it on the weekend of March 25-27, you should. it would be a sad thing if you missed it. a sad thing indeed.

do your part and spread this info far and wide my friends...
far and wide....

he's still got it

ha ha ha ha....

oh, and i wish i had a team for this event.
anyone?

blizzzzard

so, it did snow after all...and it was a lot of fun.




here's my street throughout the weekend.

i got up early to head to my studio before the snow started and i could change my mind. i had a lovely breakfast at the friendship counter of the Manhattan Triple Decker restaurant. actually it was a bit unsettling for a while there.

i've found that whenever you sit at the counter at a place of eating, you run the risk of having your meal ruined by a crazy maniac sitting next to you (remember this post?. indeed, that is just what happened.

this lady sat by me and right away i knew i should just get up and move. she was mumbly-mumbling to herself and cursing out the waiters before she even sat down. all throughout the meal, she was coughing and not covering her mouth and just being generally coo coo. i did what i could to shield my food and eat it as quickly as possible without looking like a maniac myself and i made for the door. ugh, she just totally ruined my appetite.

anyhoo, after a freezing and long walk, i got to my studio. at the foot of my building, there is the Newtown creek, which separates brooklyn from queens. today it looked like something out of lord of the rings:

it was steaming and swirling and totally spooky looking.

once i got up into my studio to work, i found out the the heater isn't working, leaving my space just slightly warmer than the average refrigerator. it sucked.

i did what i could to stay warm: jumped rope, drank tea, bundled up, but no dice. i only lasted about three hours or so. just before i left for warmer pastures, it started to snow.

my plan was to go home, bundle up in my big down comforter, and watch a movie. along the way, i ran into about a thousand police cars and firetrucks. they had just put out a fire in these two buildings.

it was crazy. there were people running all over the place trying to figure out what happened.

here's a guy telling his story. he was hilarious and had the most stereotypical new york accent and went on and on and on about what he saw.

seeing two whole buildings pretty much gutted was pretty sad though. i made a mental note to look into getting renter's insurance.

once home (and after seeing the newtown creek earlier), i decided to throw the next four hours out the window by watching the Return Of The King.

goddamn this one is looooooooong. it's awesome though. one of these days i am watching all three extended editions in a row, after which, i expect to probably go insane.

while i was watching, i got a call from my friend cathy who was having drinks in the east village. soon i was on my way to join her.


here's the park by my house. by now it was snowing pretty good and it was beautiful outside.

i met cathy at this really good restaurant that her friend works at and we sat drinking wine and eating gnoochi and risotto and drinking wine for the next five hours. it was great to watch the snow fall through the windows.

on the walk home, i took this picture:

about one second after this, cathy fell right down on the treacherously slippery sidewalk. it looked pretty bad, but she got up and was fine.

after we got into our different trains, i found myself back in brooklyn.

i wasn't ready to turn in yet (it was only 11 o'clock), so i called up some friends to see where they were at. i found them at Pete's Candy Store.

after a semi-long trudge through the snow, i made it there.

(raymond, adam and min)

we had a couple of drinks, and then headed off into the night. i didn't see a single person on the entire walk home.

it was great...really quiet and peaceful.

the next morning, my friend kelly invited us out to park slope to go sledding in prospect park on all of the new snow.

i met up with min in the subway for what should have been a half hour ride.


instead, due to the storm and construction, and god knows what else, it took us over an hour.


after having to ride three different trains, here we are finally leaving the subway. our journey still wasn't over though...we still had to transfer to a bus which was completely stuffed with really cranky riders.

it sucked.

finally though, we made it to kelly's and then to the park.


it was sooo beautiful and fun. there were tons of sledders out too.

seriously, hundreds of them going in every direction.

it was nothing like the sledding that i knew growing up, but it was still great.




after sledding and some really good hot chocolate and soup at kelly's, i raced home to watch the steelers play.

and then they lost.

and now my pittsburgian family is sad.

o well, at least there is still a ton of snow here to keep me occupied.

hum dee dumm dumm dumm...

well, i am about ready to cut out for the weekend and i don't have anything new to report.

we are supposed to get a snowstorm starting tomorrow to go along with our cold-ass weather.
the weather guys here always hype the shit out of anything that remotely could be a storm, so i'll be surprised if we get more than a couple of inches.

have i talked about my most favorite weather guy here before? well, hands down it's sam champion.

what? that's right. SAM CHAMPION.
what a name this guy has.

he works the desk on the same newscast as my favorite super-hot newscastress, the formidable Liz Cho.

just in case you missed it last time, here's some more evidence for your perusal.

but back to sam champion. i just thought about how incredible it would be if he battled the troubled but gigantic Tom Szymanksi for the Ultimate Weatherman Competition.

sam would have the quickness and better hair (and tan), but the szy would have the size advantage as well as a mighty tolerance to cocaine. (or so i hear)

ok, enough of that.
have a lovely weekend.

and bundle up, it's cold out there.

so, it did snow after all...and it was a lot of fun.




here's my street throughout the weekend.

i got up early to head to my studio before the snow started and i could change my mind. i had a lovely breakfast at the friendship counter of the Manhattan Triple Decker restaurant. actually it was a bit unsettling for a while there.

i've found that whenever you sit at the counter at a place of eating, you run the risk of having your meal ruined by a crazy maniac sitting next to you (remember this post?. indeed, that is just what happened.

this lady sat by me and right away i knew i should just get up and move. she was mumbly-mumbling to herself and cursing out the waiters before she even sat down. all throughout the meal, she was coughing and not covering her mouth and just being generally coo coo. i did what i could to shield my food and eat it as quickly as possible without looking like a maniac myself and i made for the door. ugh, she just totally ruined my appetite.

anyhoo, after a freezing and long walk, i got to my studio. at the foot of my building, there is the Newtown creek, which separates brooklyn from queens. today it looked like something out of lord of the rings:

it was steaming and swirling and totally spooky looking.

once i got up into my studio to work, i found out the the heater isn't working, leaving my space just slightly warmer than the average refrigerator. it sucked.

i did what i could to stay warm: jumped rope, drank tea, bundled up, but no dice. i only lasted about three hours or so. just before i left for warmer pastures, it started to snow.

my plan was to go home, bundle up in my big down comforter, and watch a movie. along the way, i ran into about a thousand police cars and firetrucks. they had just put out a fire in these two buildings.

it was crazy. there were people running all over the place trying to figure out what happened.

here's a guy telling his story. he was hilarious in that he had the most stereotypical new york accent and went on and on and on about what he saw.

seeing two whole buildings pretty much gutted was pretty sad. i made a mental note to look into getting renter's insurance.

once home, i decided to throw the next four hours out the window by watching the Return Of The King.

goddamn this one is looooooooong. it's awesome though. one of these days i am watching all three extended editions in a row, after which, i expect to probably go insane.

while i was watching, i got a call from my friend cathy who was having drinks in the east village. soon i was on my way to join her.


here's the park by my house. by now it was snowing pretty good and it was beautiful outside.

i met cathy at this really good restaurant that her friend works at and we sat drinking wine and eating gnoochi and risotto and drinking wine for the next five hours. it was great to watch the snow fall through the windows.

on the walk home, i took this picture:

about one second after this, cathy fell right down on the treacherously slippery sidewalk. it looked pretty bad, but she got up and was fine.

after we got into different trains, i found myself back in brooklyn.

i wasn't ready to turn in yet (it wasl de ahora era excelente. Se podía trabajar sin problemas.

still talking about christmas...

so after waking up after christmas eve eve's late night, it was time to get all christmassy.

i always spend christmas eve with my dad's side of the family and then christmas day with my ma's side. it works out pretty well.

anyways, this year i wrapped all of my gifts with some homemade paper:

it was fun. i love the whole process of wrapping presents and i must say i am pretty good at folding all of those little corners.

we open presents and then head off to church. this year, we took too long and by the time we rolled up to the happening first lutheran, all of the seats were taken. all that remained were the ones in the side room with the big tv projection of the service. this seemed like a bad place to sit, but we eventually made ourselves comfortable.



once things started up, however, we realized that there was no sound coming from the speakers. we couldn't hear anything at all for the entire time. no choirs made up of little kids that can't sing, no bell ringers, no anything.

at first it was annoying, but then i looked over at my dad and we just started laughing at how ridiculous it was. once it was over it was time to rally the family together for the big christmas eve feast.

that's my pops and i arriving.

it's always a fun night because i get to hang out with all of my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. plus you get to eat a lot. plus you get some more presents...


here's me and cousin christopher. he might be sleeping.

and here's the activity in the basement (this all takes place at the nybakken's house by the way):

awww yeah! bumper pool!

i hadn't played this game for about a hundred years. it is pretty fun, even though i lost to curtis after giving him a serious comeback scare. next year cousin, next year.


the sister and pops and i.

that night curtis gave me some presents. one present i hold especially dear to my heart:

awwww yeah! behold my new, ahem...black leather von dutch hat. ha ha. i have been sassing curt for years about the one time i caught him wearing a vd beanie and this was his revenge. it was pretty awesome.

by this time, it was late. time for my sister and i to head on down to my mother's house for the next day's events.

**************************************************************

when i woke up on christmas morning, it was beeeeeeeaaauuuutiful outside:

there were big, fat snowflakes slowly falling to the ground and no wind.

i think that i was the first one awake this year. for the first time ever. it was fun to have the house to myself for a bit.

once everyone was up though, it was time for breakfast. this year we had caramel rolls and fruit.

god, it's soo tasty. i should make some of them for my nyc pals. mmmmmmmm....

after breakfast, it was time to get to the presents. my mother is insane, wrapping some presents three times, with boxes within boxes. it's really fun. and it takes a looong time. definitely over an hour this year. here is the aftermath:

hooray for presents!

so the rule of the day at our house is a good one: nobody can, at any point in the day, change out of their pajamas into real clothes. it's the best.

with this in mind, what is left to do other than play some boardgames? we started with clue and ended with poker and darts. coincidentally, we started drinking during the first game of clue, so by the time we got to the darts, it was pretty hilarious. my team lost every single game.

and i was the first to run out of money during the poker.

o well.

to wrap things up (read: sober things up), we have dinner.

we had shrimp and a million other things. mmmm.....

the rest of the day was spent playing with our new toys. actually, i spent most of my time setting up all of the ipods that everyone else got. o well...

(oh, and by the way...nobody even came close on the whole guessing how much i spent on chocolate at christmas-time thing. the amount was $110. so, sorry, but no lucky winner of the 'Scooters!' book this time! hee hee.)

happy Martin L. King weekend everybody!

enjoy!

bow down to mighty eleanor

the last time i talked about the fiery furnaces, i caught a bit of shit from the likes of dylan and a few others. well suckas, they have a new EP out now called, well, "EP".

and it is great.

and normally i wouldn't link to Pitchfork reviews because they tend to annoy me, but i could have just as easily written this one.

don't be fools. just give in already.

love,
anthony

!!LIVE WEDDING PRESENT VIDEO!!

finally after listening to them for a million years, i have seen what they look like. or at least this incarnation anyways....


click here.


scroll down to the "TWP on BBC Radio" article.

now if i can just figure out when/if they are playing here.

...later that night

so after hockey, to refresh our thirsty-ness and celebrate the fact that nobody hurt themselves, everyone went to the Icebox. that's right. the icebox.

i ran home quickly to take a shower and change and to borrow my step mother's car for the night. it's always fun and a little bit strange to drive around these nice cars after not driving at all during the year. anyhoo, on the way to the bar, i thought to my self, "self, you are a bit hungry, no?"

to which i replied, "yes, food is a good idea. but whatever shall we eat?"

"well, you are passing right by Taco Johns....why not get a nice burrito?"

"well, i know i shouldn't since i just ate here for lunch, but, oh...what the heck. let's do it!"

and so it was settled.

i ordered a couple of burrito supremes (no meat) and went back out to the car. once inside, i put the keys in the ingnition and the blaringly loud alarm started going off in time with the headlights flashing on and off.

long story short, the car wouldn't start and every time i touched it, the alarm would go off. i had to call my dad (i used the taco john's guy's cell phone) down to pick me up and take me to the bar like i was in junior high or something. it was awesome.

by the time i finally made it to the Icebox, the party was in full swing. here's a lovely snap of my long lost pal dave s. and i:

it's always a treat to get to talk with him as he is smart as a whip. plus we went to sunday school together when we were weee small boys.

of course larry was there too.

and i got two of my all-time favorite photos of him ever that night.

exhibit A:

i have no idea what is going on here, but god damn...

and exhibit B:

out of nowhere, L.C. and curtis busted out a top notch impromtu sailor bar brawl pose. it's so great.

right about the time that i was getting comfortable, on about my second drink, it was last call. crap, it's hard to get used to that 1am bar closing there after having the insane 4 am time limit here. someone mentioned that everyone was going to a house party though, so off we went...

it was a fun time.

the funniest part was watching my cousins get sassed by shantel (or is it spelled chantal? anyone?).

they were really going at it for a while, but all ended well.

see?

also, the dylan gave a good, brave performance by staying out really late even though he had to work the next morning.

we salute you brave dyl!

round about 4:30 or so, we decided to leave. our good chap dave was the designated driver for the night (a task that he enjoys immensely). on the way to the car, a good old fashioned snow-wrestle broke out between dave and steve c. (who apparently quit with the bloggy blog?).

it was a battle royal, but i think steve eeked out the victory with his drunken sheild against pain and cold.

once we were all packed into dave's fiance's parent's car, the decision was made to eat at the truck stop. at first there was resistance from the driver, but soon the cacaphony of slurred, "aww, come on daaaaave"s worked their magic and we were on our way.

it was really fun(ny) to be there at that god forsaken hour. we had probably the worst service from our waitress ever, but no one really cared all that much. i think i had a ...hmm, actually, i have no idea what i ate. sorry.

a little after 6am, we were all ready to go home and sleep. remember, it was now officially christmas eve.


i think our parents were ashamed, i mean proud of us the next day.

UPDATE!
i just stole this picture from dave's site. he tells the story from a different angle.

awwww.......

the weekend starts now (sort of)

this means that you all will have to wait until monday for a new update.

in the meantime, click on THIS SPOT.

a night at the arena

on christmas eve eve, my pops rented out the superbad MAYSA arena for my friends and i to play some good, old fashioned hockey on. this is the second year that we have done this now and it is so so so so so so so so so much fun. we got the ice for two hours. two hours is a reallly long time if you are getting old like most of us, but everyone paced themselves well and there were no injuries.

there were, however, many sore and tired muscles for the next few days.


here's some of the star players. taking to the ice for the first time since coming back from london was dave "the rising sun" eide. next to him stands the only man badass enough to wear a danzig shirt on the ice: larry c. totally intimidating, totally ridiculous. then we have les moore, a seasoned veteran of the OHL (outdoor hockey league). les brings finesse to the game.


here is me and some sailor moments after taking to the ice for the first time. woo hoo!!

there were probably around twenty or so people that showed up. once we divided ourselves into teams, it was time to drop the puck.

that's my pops doing the honors there.

the night featured many carlson's. here's l.c.:

and here's his brothers aaron and steve doing what they do best:

it was awesome to see some good carlson brother wrestling again.

even the patriarch of the reputable carlson clan, hjalmer, was there showing us kids how to put the puck in the net (unfortunately though, i don't have a good photo of him to prove it).

for as many carlson's that were there though, there were even more kulig's.


here's my (ahem) little brother gage looking mildly ashamed of himself after being schooled by his much older brother time and time again. (ok, i'm stretching it a bit there but those are the breaks)

here's my cousin curtis who stopped in from LA just to play.

for someone that i never saw play growing up, he is really damn good. i don't know how that happened exactly, but i am proud of him. his brother chris was there too, but again, i was slow and/or negligent on the camera and don't have a shot of him on the ice. next time.

all in all, it was a total blast. i love hockey. it's so fun i can't stand it. i wish we could do it every month somehow.

up next is part two of that night. the scene:

the Icebox.