The Mighty Quynh

Back in the beginning of October, Rich and I went to the medieval festival at Ft. Tryon Park. At the end it began to rain, so we went under a bridge to wait it out. While we were standing there with several others, we saw this young girl walking around crouched. I have no idea why she was doing this because the bridge wasn’t that low or anything (at least where we were standing) and it didn’t look like she was searching the ground. All I could think of was the times in Oblivion (and now Skyrim) when I’d be sneaking around people for the hell of it, then I’d switch to the third person camera and laugh at how ridiculous it looked, imagining it in real life. Then it did happen in real life and I laughed.

I don’t think her Sneak skill was high enough to try pickpocketing any of us. Plus there were guards around.

STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!

I officially moved in with Rich at the end of May this year. Until about 4 weeks ago, I still had a bunch of my stuff lying around in boxes and bags. I’ve changed apartments about 5 times in as many years and I’ve come to realize this happens every single time I move. Obviously all this stuff can’t be that important if I’m leaving it in a box for half a year over and over again.

It made me really self conscious when we started having people over. First it was just having one or two people over after already being out all night, so I could only hope they were too preoccupied (read: drunk) to notice what a cluttered apartment we had. Then one night I was feeling a bit, uh, overly friendly, and invited way too many people over and they couldn’t all fit in the apartment. Embarrassing.

That was the night that made me realize it’s time to downsize my stuff (that and watching an episode of Hoarders). I’ve been saying that forever and making tiny efforts here and there, but this time I was serious. I took an hour or two each day for a week, went through all my stuff, and divided it into donate, toss, or keep piles. By the time our Friday party night rolled around, our apartment was free of major clutter.

It felt good. Really good. So much so that every single day I am looking around the apartment and thinking about what else I can get rid of. I am even cleaning every week. I hate cleaning. In fact, I had a ridiculously high tolerance for grossness before. But now something about having all these uncluttered surfaces makes me want to make sure they are completely spic and span.

Something just clicked in me. Not only am I getting my physical house in order, but I am getting my financial house in order as well. It’s like all at once I got tired of being an irresponsible dumbass and got right down to fixing my problems. I am striving towards minimalism and it feels really good.

I am still an irresponsible dumbass on select nights of the week, but at least I am an irresponsible dumbass with a clean apartment and a whole lot less credit card debt.

Like the UK riots map. It’s nifty! Get on it!

(So I know where you are and can plan accordingly for the walk home. Thanks.)

P.S. Can I make it to the TJMaxx grand opening today or are police barricading that too!?

I wasn’t too happy to leave the Union Square/East Village area. I was happy to move in with Rich and happy to pay less rent, sure, but leaving a fun, lively area within walking distance of some of my favorite spots was a tough pill to swallow.

Lately, I have to admit, things down in the Financial District have been looking up. Part of that may be because I’m on the 49th floor instead of a 3rd floor walkup (hyuk), but the other part is that slowly this area is getting more stuff. I doubt it’ll ever become a hot spot for nightlife, but we are getting a TJ Maxx (my only weakness!) and have seen a greater variety of food options.

And I have to admit, having Batman filming all over the place has made things interesting. The past two weekends there have been Gotham police cars and the like parked all over our streets. They changed out a number of signs I don’t even notice in real life, let alone in the background of a film. It’s this attention to detail that is making me incredibly excited for the film’s release.

Also, the past couple nights, they’ve been shining very bright floodlights on a few buildings (including ours) and filming stuff on a couple roofs. I can see the Batwing, or Batcopter or whatever it’s going to be called, though unfortunately it’s still too far away to see exactly what’s going on without binoculars (which we have, but I am looking to upgrade to some kind of telescope for better spying activity in the future). We’ve been trolling the filmmakers by letting our red curtains hang out the window. Among other things.

Quite a bit of filming happens down here pretty regularly for various TV shows and the like too. I am losing my grasp on reality.

So I’d made a whole entry about how I check up on the status of chip and pin (EMV) cards in the US every few months only to be continually disappointed with how incredibly behind we are, and then I found out we do have chipped cards available for regular folks, not just UN workers and multimillionaires. They’re just chip and signature cards rather than chip and pin. (There is a prepaid Travelex chip and pin card available, but the exchange rates are supposedly terrible. I am looking for a true credit card.)

I opted for the JP Morgan Select Visa Signature Card. There is also the U.S. Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Card, but you have to request the chip card because they send you a regular one. There are varying reports on exactly where you can use the chip and sig cards (the main issue is whether they work on automated kiosks at metro and petrol stations when there is no human available), but it looks relatively good so far. Better than staring at the ticket machine wondering how the hell you’re going to top off your transit card because your stone age American mag strip card doesn’t work with the machine.

Hopefully this makes traveling abroad a little more convenient. I hate having to carry boatloads of cash on me when I go to Europe (super first world problem!). I will be in Scotland and Italy in January so we’ll see how it goes.

I am looking forward to the day when we have real chip and pin cards readily available from every bank, but for now, this is a great deal better than the last time I was abroad. 15 years behind the times, but it’s better than nothing.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about or why this matters, you need to relax and take a vacation. You’re working too hard. Why don’t you hit some beaches along southern France?

It’s time to give in input for who you’d like to see at Electric Zoo. I already know the popular guys are gonna be put on there a thousand times over (Armin, Tiësto, Guetta), so I focused more on lesser known artists, folks I’ve never seen perform, and people who weren’t at previous EZs. And since I had extra slots, I just filled in some popular DJs I don’t mind seeing a billion times. Damn do my picks sway heavily towards the cheesiest, uplifting trance. And oldies. Bugger off if you have a problem with that.

My list (in no particular order): Yuri Kane, Gouryella (joke vote), Ronski Speed, Röyksopp, Adam Nickey, Adam Szabo, Tritonal, Heatbeat (Agustin Servente/Matias Faint), Daft Punk, Roger Shah, Eco, Zack Roth, Rank 1, Eric Prydz, Nitrous Oxide, Daniel Kandi, Filo & Peri, Ferry Tayle, Darude, Pendulum, Michael Gray, Ferry Corsten, Above & Beyond, Kaskade.

A lot of these are just throw-it-out-there picks. I don’t even know if some of these guys spin. I scrolled around my last.fm stats to find some inspiration. I forgot I used to like house and it was bloody hard to find it in the city (hip hop and reggaeton was still popular). Y’all poo-pooed me then, WHAT ARE YOU ASSHOLES LISTENING TO NOW, I ASK? SHM, David Guetta, LMFAO!? (Please don’t say dubstep.)

I’ll see your sawtooth oscillator and raise you one supersaw.