Contrary by Nature

Oh my gosh, this blog has moved!

2010-12-16T00:24:00.001-05:00

But the internet is complicated, so I'll just drop a link here for the moment! Sorry!

www.dearstupidblog.com

SNSD

2010-10-08T15:53:00.001-04:00

Dear Stupid Blog,

Well that didn't work out very well at all, did it? Danny and I were going to try blogging together over the summer, but we found other ways to pass the time. Mostly eating olive-oil-drenched focaccia sandwiches from Saltie. Or maybe it's that snazzy hi-res photo of the galaxy that I included with the first post? Too much pressure? I don't know. I'll start small.

I was going to post the video someone just sent me of "Pig Walks on Two Legs!" I thought that sounded just wonderful! If he can walk on two legs, I thought, he can almost certainly skip down the street and buy a bowler hat and cane!

Having clicked on the link, though, I can assure you that you don't want to see it. Spoiler alert: the pig is not walking on the two legs you're imagining it walking on. In fact, those two legs are nowhere to be seen.

So, instead of ruining your next week's sleep with nightmares of a ghoulish pig doing handstands, here is the video for 'Oh!' by Girls' Generation, the best nine-member Korean girl band you've never heard of!

Homework Questions

-Why doesn't America have any nine-person girl bands? We seem to top out around four or five.

-Two of the members of the group are actually Korean Americans who moved to Korea just to join this awesome band! Can you figure out which ones?! How will you figure out which ones?

-Are we having fun yet?

Posted via email from Dear Stupid Blog

Another test because

2010-09-10T19:25:00.001-04:00

tests are awesome - and necessary!

Posted via email from Dear Stupid Blog

Test post!

2010-07-14T17:18:00.001-04:00

Posted via email from Dear Stupid Blog

Hey you guys!

2010-06-03T15:58:00.001-04:00

Dear Stupid Blog,
Danny and I decided to start a blog. That's you!
"Why? I can hear you asking, you dumb blog. "Why did you create me?
Who are you to play God?"
Well, blog, the universe (pictured) (partially) is awfully big, and
sometimes there is cool stuff in it. You might not realize that since
you live in the internet, which is substantially smaller, for the
moment. Also our brains, tinier still, occasionally contain fun stuff,
and we thought it would be fun to share that with the rest of the
brains out there.
"Oh," you are saying, you incredibly stupid blog, "did you say
something? I got distracted thinking about why peanut shells contain
two nuts apiece and not more, like maybe three nuts."
Don't worry about it, blog. You can just sit here quietly for now.
That's enough.

-Adam

Posted via email from Dear Stupid Blog

Another test

2010-06-01T23:01:00.001-04:00

I'm on the edge of my seat!

Posted via email from contrarybynature's posterous

OMGOMGOMG

2010-04-29T14:50:00.001-04:00

IS IT WORKING!?!?!?!?

Posted via email from contrarybynature's posterous

Here's another test post for you!

2010-04-19T00:39:00.001-04:00

Let's see if it works, shall we?

Posted via email from contrarybynature's posterous

Hey check it out. Is it working?

2010-04-08T11:48:00.001-04:00

Posted via email from contrarybynature's posterous

Nyko ships $25 Zoom Case for DSi: because your DSi totally needs a zoom lens

2009-10-29T11:21:00.000-04:00

Nyko ships $25 Zoom Case for DSi: because your DSi totally needs a zoom lens: "

File under "Things that nobody is going to buy; like seriously nobody, not one person." Unless, that is, the lens comes with those star earrings...

Test.

2009-10-16T14:31:00.001-04:00

Test!

Happy Borfday to Me

2007-07-31T00:51:00.000-04:00

For future reference:
The day before your birthday is your forfday
The day after your birthday is your borfday
The day after your borfday is your borfday-du
If you see a friend on the day of your mutual friend's birthday, it is the scumday of both you and your friend

--

Had a wee little shindig Saturday night. Twenty people showed up, approximately, which is a good number as far as my roof goes. All went well, and someone had a little throwing-up party over the edge of the roof, and then things got stressful. But then it was all OK again! I'll explain more when I am not so tired.

--

So today—technically yesterday—for my actual birthday, I woke up and had lunch with Collin at Balthazar, where I had some chicken paillard. Which was OK. But also champagne! Hooray!

Checked out this movie What a Way to Go with my friend Will, and that was depressing. Very scary liberal apocalypse type stuff. I asked the guy organizing the screening if it was going to be OK that I had to leave an hour early.
"Oh yeah, don't worry about it," he said, calm and jocular, "we've all got places to go. And hey, my parents survived standing in the bread lines, and so will you guys! It's all about making a better future. If you want to have a future."
I had no idea what to say to that.

--

Followed up depressing movie with depressing comedy show at Comix which was pretty horrific aside from the performance of one Dan Wilbur, who is currently in the running for Funniest Man Alive, the internet tells me. And then to Peter's, for Arts and Crafts Pro planning, and then briefly to a party on the Lower East Side that totally felt like a party on the Lower East Side, and just a terribly romantic view of the full moon and a garden.

Speaking of which (not the moon and the garden)...
...coming soon.

-a

Daniel Vosovic?

2007-07-27T02:49:00.001-04:00

Wait for it.

--

A long day at work, indeed! Nothing much happened, except that my boss, Maribeth, got half of a contact lens stuck in her eye. Ha, ha! We all assured her, throughout the day, that the constant pain was probably due to the fact that she'd scratched something when removing the disposable lens last night, but no! She returned from the doctor's office with half of a contact lens in a little contact lens case, explaining that the doctor had removed it from where it had rolled up basically into her head and given it to her as a keepsake.

On my way out of the building I wound up in an elevator with the Cute Unpleasant Guy from Down the Hall.
"Is it Friday yet?" he growled.
No, I didn't say, you should really buy a calendar.
"I know what you mean!" I said, too enthusiastically. "Who do you... work for? On this floor?"
"SportsLine," I think he said, but that might not be right.
"Huh," I puzzled, chewing thoughtfully on my cheek, wishing the elevator godspeed in getting to the ground floor. "Is it just... you, back there? There's not a ton of room at the back of the floor..."
"Yeah, it's just me."
"Well, that... sucks." I chuckled.
"Nah, it's alright," he shot back too quickly from behind his black wireframes, "no-one fucks with me back there."
A pregnant pause. Pregnant... with septuplets.
"Well. I won't fuck with you."

--

After work, went to the 'intern soiree,' such as it was, with the other CBS casting interns. Our boss(es) were supposed to show up, but they didn't. I can't really blame them. We ate at Haru, a nice Japanese restaurant, if a bit expensive and a bit loud. It was Fun, one supposes.

Luckily, was already in Union Square, where I'd agreed to meet my friend Noah to see a midnight showing of the Simpsons movie. In line, I noticed that the girl behind us seemed to be checking me out.
Groan, I thought, this is going to be awkward!
But while Noah and I discussed the Transformers movie and lazy Susans with some guy, the girl piped up that she'd seen me do stand-up at UCB Saturday night.
"Yes!" I shouted, pumping my fists in the air. "I'm it!"

So I guess, now, I am It. Get used to It. It's here to stay.

--

Noah and I found seats easily enough, and I went into the brightly-lit, overcrowded lobby to buy us drinks while coming up with the theory that movie theater drinks are so huge because they want you to have to get up and go to the bathroom and miss part of the movie so that you'll see it again.

While waiting in line, I noticed a striking young man off to my right and did a double-take so as not to appear like I was "checking him out." I'm very self-conscious about that, lately. Mostly because I'm not sure what I'd even be checking someone out for, as I can't imagine what I'd want from them.

Wait a tick, said the part of my brain that had a Judy Garland phase in the winter of 2005, that nose! That hair! Surely it can't be... it is.

And lo, for it was. Daniel Vosovic, all-around charmer and finalist in Project Runway's second season.

I debated, momentarily, what the fuck I should do, if anything. Seized by the same impulse that led me, impishly, to grab Rufus Wainwright's hand earlier this summer, I called out to him as he passed. I must, also, have tapped him on the shoulder, because he turned around, and I hadn't said his name.

"I'm really sorry," I said, suddenly sheepish, "but can I do that thing that I'm sure everyone does?" I extended my hand slowly, having learned from my encounter with Rufus that I would later regret any sudden movements.
"Oh, sure," he responded, smiling as cordially as one can muster when flustered homosexuals constantly ask one for autographs.
"I'm a big fan of your work," I continued, probably only somewhat coherently, and he thanked me.
"...also," I went on before he could turn away, "I'm shooting this video in August, and, uh, I would only mention this because it's so, like, so serendipitous, running into you here," fuck me fuck me fuck me serendipitous jesus christ, "but is there any way I could get, like, your e-mail address?"

He asked me my name, and I told him, and he introduced me to his cute boyfriend Kieran, and there was a moment during which we struggled awkwardly with our tickets to figure out whose had more space on it in which to write an e-mail address. All this in spite of the fact that I offered, I swear to god, to write it on my face.

He disappeared momentarily near the little vending machines containing little plastic balls with cheap rubbers toys and temporary tattoos inside them. I chatted with Kieran, who is from Houston, and seems very nice, which is good. Daniel (for surely now we are on a first-name basis, having known each other since we were both in diapers, and occasionally the same diaper, so close was our bond!) returned and handed me his e-mail address written neatly across a ticket receipt. It occurred to me then that, in a way, this was basically an autograph.

We parted ways amicably after I futzed with the tickets and receipts and stubs, having forgotten whose the e-mail address was written on. He told me to "keep them all," which seemed very generous at the time, and said that he looked forward to receiving my e-mail, and that our encounter had been "short and sweet," which he liked.

I floated back to my seat, drinks in hand, and told Noah that I'd just run into "Daniel Fucking Vosovic, which might not mean anything to you because you're straight, but he was on Season Runway Project Two!"

And the movie, oddly enough, like the big fake sugary cherry on top of an ice cream sundae made out of street cred and topped with celebrity sightings, was Good.

-a

So

2007-07-25T23:49:00.001-04:00

the UCB show went Very Well. Apparently. I thought it went Well. But everyone's all, "Oh Adam, you're the best! No-one has ever been funnier than you! You're so funny it's not even funny, but then it's back to being funny again, but not in a bad way, in a good way, like early Mel Brooks!"

The Monday night my friend Peter and I went to the Pine Tree Lounge, or whatever, because I'd signed up to enter some kind of stand-up-off, the grand prize of which was $20. I'm supremely ill-equipped to describe just how awkward and unpleasant an experience it was, so I'll leave that to Warren, who was at the show, and whose LiveJournal Peter later stumbled across:

"I just came from Calvin's Comedy Show where Calvin and Joe almost came to blows and crap towards the end! They straight went Shaq & Kobe at each other over talking time on the mic…lol. (May I suggest 2 Mics?) Then when Todd Montesi came late (well after the show was over) Joe screamed on Todd like he was on punishment!!! What the hell? On top of that it was awkward vibes in General. Gosh it was an awkward show indeed. Like everybody but two comedians bombed and it was just a terrible ass night for real. Sorry Calvin, better luck next time? Shout out to Max who brought her Boo "Max". I know cute right they got the same name and stuff. Shout Out to Todd Montesi…haha OUCH! Don't Worry Todd, Maybe, awww you know the deal. Shout out to the Bartender, like what's your deal lady?!?!"

I'm not saying I was one of the two comedians who didn't "bomb," I'm just saying I won $20.

Also, I don't know what the bartender's "deal" was. She seemed nice enough to me.

--

At "work" on Tuesday the Cute Guy from Down the Hall (not to be confused with the Cute Guy from the Office Across the Hall mentioned previously) kept coming into the intern room to steal our envelopes. This guy's distinguishing feature, apart from his cuteness, is that he's always really unpleasant. I saw that he was wearing a Celtics shirt one day, so I stopped and asked, "Are you from Boston?"
"Am I from Boston?" he replied, incredulous.
"Well," I said, activating my charm by flashing my teeth which are straight because I had braces and have subsequently worn retainers every night since I was fourteen, "I noticed you had a Celtics shirt on, and I was wondering if you were, like, from Boston."
He stared at me, dead behind the eyes like he'd been studying a box set of George Romero movies all weekend.
"No, I'm not. I moved here from Hawaii."
And then he straight up walked away.

WTF, right?

In any event, around his third excursion into our "office," he noticed I was reading Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut.
"Slapstick, huh?" he said, momentarily giving me the impression that he was interested.
"Yeah, have you read it? I'm re-reading it, it's my favorite Vonnegut."
"Mm," he shrugged, turning to the door, "it's pretty good." And, unsurprisingly, he left.

And then walked back through the hall fifteen seconds later, straight past the intern room, and said, without breaking pace or looking into the room, "Not as good as Slaughterhouse-5."

"Gosh, you're unpleasasnt!" I didn't say. But I thought it loud enough that he probably heard it anyway.

-a

The bag arrived!

2007-07-24T01:23:00.001-04:00

Yes, the bag arrived Monday—a day early! I think I may name it Kelly. Possibly Bismarck, and I'll just call it Biz.

Things I Will Totally Update You On Tomorrow:

1.) The UCB show.

2.) The Cabin Lounge show tonight.

3.) Arts + Crafts Pro.

4.) Probably something else zany that happened to me!

Cheers,
-a

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

2007-07-21T02:52:00.001-04:00

Check out this crazy North Korean girl. No, seriously. Check this shit out.

-a

"Wingardium leviosa!

2007-07-21T01:14:00.001-04:00

Ow, not my ass!"
It's a phrase I'm fairly certain has not been uttered by anyone aside from the happy, drunk-sounding teen on the swings in Union Square.

Yes, friends, it's Harry Potter night, and freaks were out in abundance. So much abundance, in fact, that my plans to buy the book at Barnes and Noble fell through and I deferred, along with some friends, to Shakespeare and Company, where the hip kids dare not tread. Just the crazy art students from Pratt who tell me that they watch the extended editions of all the Lord of the Rings films "at least once a month." Which is really a staggering time commitment, when you think about it.

Anyway, to celebrate this momentous occasion, here is something I wrote when the last (as in previous) Potter tome came out. I plan to write a follow-up sometime in the near future.

Harry Potter and the Most Unlikely Ending
"I can't believe this is happening!" said Harry, gazing out across the Quidditch pitch, now engulfed in flames.
"Deal with it, Harry," said Hermione, hoisting Professor Dumbledore's severed head onto her shoulder, "we've got a lot of work to do, and those zombies aren't going to stop until they've had a taste of our brains. Our delicious brains!"
Ron's face contorted hilariously.
"Zombies, Hermione? Don't you mean Inferi?"
Hermione fixed her friend with a withering gaze.
"No, pussy, I'm talking about zombies. Now go get that sawed-off from Snape's office while I figure out what to do with this head I've got."
Ron let out a disgruntled wheezing noise, pulled up his trousers and trotted off toward the castle, drawing his wand as he went. Just over the nearby hills, Harry could see that a group of Crab Demons had cornered a fleeing gang of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, and was just beginning the grisly work of dismembering the students one by one.
"Fucking Crab Demons," breathed Harry, wrapping his Gryffindor scarf tightly around his neck.
Hermione shrugged.
"Whatever. Hufflepuff was the asshole House anyway, no big loss."
At that moment, Dumbledore's tongue rolled out of his mouth and brushed moistly against Hermione's cheek; she shrieked and dropped the head, which landed with an unpleasant thunk on the damp grass and began to roll off down the hill.
"Oh, come on," whined Hermione, "for fuck's sake..."
"Accio Professor Dumbledore's Head!" cried Harry, and sure enough, the head flew into his free hand.
"Thanks, Harry," said Hermione as she wiped dead wizard saliva off of her cheek. "I suppose," she continued, "we ought to get on with the whole... you know... Crab Demon... thing."
With no small effort, Harry shouldered Dumbledore's head and tucked his wand inside his robes.
"Yeah. I guess we'd better get on that."

I don't know Chelsea

2007-07-19T19:51:00.001-04:00

very well, so I let my friend Will lead the way as we walked around and killed some time after work today. After stopping for a bagel (which they don't have in Argentina, says Will), we passed by an unhappy-looking homeless fellow—well, I'm assuming he was homeless. Maybe he takes the train home to Westchester at nine every night, lights up a stoagie and sips cognac poured from an exquisite crystal decanter. I don't want to jump to any conclusions.

Anyway, the "homeless" guy, who I'm going to call Norman Rockefeller, was wearing some kind of fabulous cloak-thing covered in newspaper. But not covered as in 'made of,' covered as in Norman had apparently taken the time to rip up a bunch of newspaper, crumple it into little conical handfuls, and staple them to his vestments.

Momentarily duped into glancing at Norman by his hobo couture, I looked away quickly, but not before making eye contact. He opened his mouth to speak, and I quickened my pace slightly, assuming he'd be asking me for money or, knowing good old Norm, offering to take me on a whirlwind tour of the Continent (for which I was unprepared).

"You queer bastards!" he shouted. It was like an outtake from the opening scene of Beauty and the Beast, where a jocular French baker leans out a window to tell Belle to 'keep the noise down, you cunt.'

"Yes, thank you!" I told Norman. "You have a good one!"

"New York, New York: it's a wonderful town!"
-Betty Comden, Adolph Green
"It is an art form to hate New York City properly."
-Pat Conroy

The Incredible Exploding Day

2007-07-19T00:29:00.001-04:00

Every night I set the alarm clock program on my laptop with a song to wake up to the next morning. Sometimes it's the Mr. Rogers theme song. Especially if it's raining. Sometimes a little ABBA can't hurt.

Anyway, my alarm didn't go off this morning because my laptop got unplugged, or something, and didn't charge.

It's a good thing I don't have a job to be late for, or I would be fucked.

--

After visiting my old workplace, which was lovely, went to the Kenneth Cole store near Union Square to see about the bag mentioned previously. I should note, in case I'm losing credibility here, that this is the first time I've wanted to buy an accessory just because I actually wanted to have sex with it.

In any event: the employees at Kenneth Cole were tremendously unhelpful twats who tried to sell me a used bag and then actually refused. To sell me. The bag. V. frustrating. Don't want to talk about it.

--

And then, apparently, midtown blew up.

Andy and I were getting pizza at the time, but apparently shit got real when a steam pipe exploded near Grand Central. Happy Wendesday, everyone!

Weird Thing About Living in New York #45272:
Pretending that we're not all a little worried about getting blown up.

With eyes on the prize as far as obviousness goes, the headline on the New York Times website right now is "Steampipe Explosion Unnerves Manhatan."

ANYWAY, who's psyched for Harry fucking Potter?!

--

Highlights from tv.ign.com:

Regarding the younger sister character in the new Bionic Woman show:

"The character of Jaime's sister has been recast and changed dramatically... "To help us get more traction as we move into episodic, the character has a background in computer hacking..." In the first version Jaime's sister was deaf, which she no longer is. Smiolvic explained that making her deaf had been a leftover element from a very early version of the story, which involved a laboratory and experiments on chimpanzees, who could speak in sign language. The sister was connected to all of this and would be able to communicate with the chimpanzees, but as Smilovic noted... "but now she's disappeared as well."

Zach Braff on Scrubs:

Asked if he's ever been working on an episode of Scrubs and found himself saying "the jokes aren't working," Braff said, "No, no, that would be bad."

-a

Incidentally, boo-yeah

2007-07-18T00:35:00.000-04:00

Poking around the internet, as I am wont to do, I stumbled across the gorgeous piece of work on display below. On a sexiness scale, I'd put this bag somewhere between Scarlett Johansson and that one shot in Fight Club.

You know the shot I'm talking about. Don't play dumb with me.
I'll win.

--

If anyone is actually on this godforsaken hunk of dry land in the big, soggy ocean of the internet (and that's without taking any poetry classes!), I figure it's because you've heard about

VERY FRESH WITH OLDE ENGLISH
at the Upright Citizens Brigade,

which is this coming Saturday night at midnight. I'm doing some stand-up, you see.
Needless to say, I am totally fucking terrified. I don't plan on sleeping much between now and Sunday.

If anyone reading this is in New York, though, drop by the show! It'll go great, and we can go out for drinks afterward!

Alternately it might go horribly, in which case we will definitely go out for drinks afterward.

-a

Woke up,

2007-07-17T19:32:00.000-04:00

got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.

Went to work, where I grappled with 1&1's "intuitive,"' "easy-to-use" webpage-building software and shopped for new messenger bags on-line. My old one has broken (again) (after being cobbled back together twice by an actual cobbler!), and I'm distraught.
"How will everyone know you are a gay?!" my friend Alex asked me.
"I suppose," I replied, "that I shall just have to blow them all. It's going to be a long subway ride."

I found myself walking around Manhattan with a bright orange tote bag tucked under my arm. I'm not fashion-forward by any means, but this was undeniably fashion-backward of me.

I asked my boss where she buys bags and she looked at me like I hadn't filled her Internet Explorer history with Rufus Wainwright tour dates last Thursday when she was out sick. I explained the unfortunate state of my red Parcel bag, and threw in for good measure that darling, darling Daniel Vosovic owns same bag. She recommended Seatbelt Bags, but those are just for girls, and I'm not one of those. We commiserated over the fact that having a good bag is a good way to flirt.

On my way out of the building to go home (after hitting the bathroom one more time, making for a grand total of probably fifty-five bathroom trips, since all I do at work is read and drink water out of sheer malaise when I'm not watching TV pilots or taping the auditions of actors), I noticed that Cute Guy from Across the Hall had a nice bag. I asked him where it was from, and he said Express, so I'll have to check that out. I thought I must have made a pretty good impression, grinning and being cute, and then I remembered my bright orange tote.

Oog.

-a