MGMT

I don't want to like these guys, but I can't help it. They're arrogant, yet comical. They use techno equipment, which sounds like a terrible idea, but the songs they produce have heart and great hooks. Their videos are artistic and thought out. In short, they're everything that Andrew and I wanted to be. Dicks. The record company doesn't let you embed, but check out Time To Pretend and Kids.

This Dishwasher Has Changed My Life

It's absolutely amazing. You put your dirty dishes inside of it and they come out clean. And I don't have to do anything! It's not that I can't imagine life without it, because I can. Really, it's been about four days with the dishwasher. But god damn does this thing make life easier.

This was especially nice after Nilda made dinner last night, mainly from things we got at the farmer's market. We had local scallops, local basil and even a white wine from New York that was actually pretty good. I know Nilda's Hispanic and all, but damn we're white.

We did what we did best today, which is drink prosecco and st. germaine in the park. We started thinking about it and learned (thanks, iphone) that it is a violation under the NYC Administrative Code to possess alcohol in a park or public area with an intent to consume, intent being determined by an open container. This is a civil violation, not criminal, so that you're not "arrested" for an open container violation. Or something. This blog is not intended to nor does it provide or attempt to provide legal advice and should not be consulted or relied upon for any such purposes.

Nilda and I don't give a shit because we're bad asses. We're gonna start a gang.

Zodiaq Bianco Carrara Quartz Countertop Compare Look Review

This blog post goes out to those people googling to see how the Bianco Carrara looks as a countertop. This will be boring to most, but, trust me, after having done the same search for months, I know there is someone out there who will appreciate it. And I hear all you people are somehow interested in all this crap, but I'll never believe that. Anyway, here goes:

Dear Google Searcher,

I know. It's tough. You're picking your countertops and you're stuck. You love the way marble bianco carrara looks, but you're concerned that it won't hold up like quartz. The Zodiaq Bianco Carrara seems like a great alternative. It looks arguably like marble and there are some great pictures of it on the internets.

The problem is that the sample you got doesn't look anything like that. It looks like a piece of plain white with black specks. At best, it's a disappointment.

You hope that the sample you got is a fluke or that it will look better in a larger slab, but you know that's not true. You ultimately can't pick it because its runs the risk of looking cheap. There's a reason they don't have samples of it at Home Depot.

We ultimately decided to go with the Silestone Bianco River, and we're thrilled with it. It goes great with our gray (or is it grey?) cabinets and was clearly the safer choice.

I know this isn't the result you were hoping for. If I'm wrong and the Bianco Carrara looks great, let me know, so that Nilda and I can continue, once again, enjoy agonizing over a choice that is now already made.

Yours very truly,

The Most Important Blog In The Universe

P.S. You're welcome.

Best Rickroll Ever

Only Irene could find something like this.

My Most Important Blog Post Of The Evening

We hit a milestone this weekend. The contractor officially finished on Friday, putting up the kitchen backsplash, and we had our kitchen faucet installed on Saturday. It's almost like we really live here. Here's the kitchen thus far, sans microwave and working dishwasher:

Nilda's most-favorite-exciting-oh-my-god-this-is-going-to-change-my-life-appliance is the kitchen faucet, which is the touch sensitive Delta Pilar. It is pretty cool, I have to admit. I've seen a bunch of ads for it in National Geographic and on the Discovery Channel. I guess they know the spouses of their market. Show them how it works, Nilda:

Just like on tv! This weekend also marked our foray into the exciting and dangerous world of painting. We did the trim on Friday night. We don't paint the trim last, like you're supposed to. We do things the mavericky way and paint it first. Check out the before and after picks on the trim. Can you tell which pic is before and which is after? I can't.

We started painting in earnest on Saturday morning and finally finished around 9:00 that night. Don't ask, it took a while, all right?

Having finally finished painting, we were finally able to start putting things in their place, like the bar in the pic above. We spent most of Sunday putting away all the things that had to wait for us to finish painting. It's been a month exactly since we moved and we finally were able to put this stuff away. It was glorious. Here's the cabinet under the kitchen sink and the bookcase. It may look like cleaning supplies and books to you, but it looks like six empty boxes to me:

The place is finally starting to come together and I love love love it. Btw, did you know that they are planning a remake of Red Dawn? This is a movie that just HAS to be made. WOLVERINES!!!!

Emails From An Asshole

Check out dontevenreply.com. It's basically a bunch of prank phone calls made through craigslist. Read it at lunch and think about your sad, lonely existence.

Stop Bugging Me About Blogging, Matt

The contractor finishes this week and thank God. The bathroom is finally, finally done. Sort of. We still need to get the tub faucet put in but who cares about details like that when you have baseboards.

All this time and work, and my favorite part is the $4 soap tray we got at Home Depot. Go figure.

Here's the kitchen on the night before the countertops are installed. Which is tomorrow. I suppose I could have just said that the countertops are being installed, but that's not a very dramatic way to introduce a picture, now is it?

The best part about today is that Jose The Awesome Contractor installed the saddle going into the kitchen. That's right, that "piece of wood thingie" is actually called a saddle. Btw, I had lunch with Jose and he put about half a bottle of hot sauce on his beef and broccoli. It was amazing and he really set the bar high. He's my new hero.

We've also decided to remove the old intercom plate, which no longer worked and was replaced by the "new" intercom, which appears to have been installed in 1977. The definition of "new" is flexible in a pre-war art deco building. This picture's for Dad, whose the only person I know who'd be interested.

I know I owe you a light fixture post, but here's a pic of one of the sconces. Nilda luuuuuvs the sconces.

The bad news is that after all this, we still have to paint the foyer. I don't know how she did it, but Nilda has somehow, against all logic, instinct and reason, convinced me to agree to paint it ourselves. This is gonna suck!

Almost There But Not Even Close

God, I love having a bathroom sink. And now we even have a door in the bathroom! No faucet for the tub yet, but at least you can poop in peace. The stunning window treatment is all Nilda.

I spent a good couple of hours this weekend putting up curtain rods. If you had asked me two weeks ago if I would ever need to know the difference between a 5/32 drill bit and a 9/16 drill, I would never have believed you.

The cabinet guys nailed through two electric lines. This was easily remedied by paying the electrician to rip a huge hole and a 5 foot gash into the wall of the second bedroom, spray a cloud of dust all over all the crap we've been storing there. No problem.

We did manage to finally get in our first trip to the park where, of course, you have to drink prosecco. This was the first time we did this in Inwood Hill Park, and it was way better.

Happy birthday, America. Screw the British!

The Second Most Boring Blog Post Ever

I sent back my steak at lunch at Benjamin's on Thursday. I ordered it pittsburgh, cool in the middle, and it came out hot - hot! - n the middle. Unacceptable. I sent it back like the badass I am. What came next was perfect. Barely cooked like a dare from the chef. It looks completely raw, but the seasoning and heat from the outside are enough and it has the texture of seared tuna.

Michael Jackson

I've been pretty sick of Michael Jackson for some time. I loved him when I was a kid during Thriller, but I remember that by the time Bad came out, he was already too weird to be cool. Then the issues with the kids came out and he turned into even more of a freak. When he died last week, you couldn't get a way from him in the news. What struck me most was how now, all of a sudden, I like some of what he did. Now that he's gone, its actually ok to like him again. Most of all, you can't forget how good he was in the early 80s.

Irene's Blog

You have to love Irene's blog, which has a name no one can understand. Where else can you see all the hits like this? I want one of those sweaters!!!

Finally, Pictures

I've finally gotten to a point where I have time to post pictures of the apartment. We don't have a sink yet, but we have a toilet (hallelujah) and a shower. Well, not a shower, exactly. The shower head is up but the tub faucet isn't so the best you can get is a jet shooting out of the pipe from the wall. If you can withstand the blast, you can actually use it. It's not ideal and we're hoping to get a sink real soon, but at least we don't have to go downstairs anymore, because, yes, you can brush your teeth in the shower.

Here's Nilda modeling the toilet (and the new floor tile) while installing the toilet paper holder. There is actually an object called a "flushometer." It's true! I didn't make it up.

This is the bedroom, which has come a long way since we painted it and since Matt helped put up the wallpaper. Although those "blinds" are still the paper ones that came with the apartment. Classy.

The kitchen isn't done yet, but it's going to look awesome. We already have a ton of cabinet space, even though we don't have a countertop or a sink. You see, we absolutely "needed" to get the special granite composite sink, of course that's a stupid question Brian. Luckily, the sink is on back order throughout the east coast and they cannot install the countertops until they have the sink. So yes, this is going great.

We've put all of the stuff we're waiting to unpack in the second bedroom. That's right, we have a whole room dedicated to storing crap we haven't put away yet. I can't get over it, either.

The foyer's still full of crap but what can you do.

This is the living room, which is going to be great when it's all done. Notice the sconces, which Nilda luuuuvs. And, of course, the new sofa.

So here we are so far. It's still not home yet, but it's hard to call a place home when it doesn't have a sink. We'll keep you posted.

Under Construction

So we finally have a toilet, and even have a semi-working shower. I've spent the past two nights trying to reconfigure the wireless router so I haven't had a chance to post new pics. Here's hoping to posting tonight so I can shut Matt up about wanting to see pictures.

Living Without A Bathroom Is Terrible

This is merely an interim post. The move was on Friday and it went well. Usually, things get easier once the move is done, but not this time. Because I DON'T HAVE A BATHROOM. We don't even have a sink in the apartment. We pushed out the move far enough to avoid this exact situation, which clearly worked out splendidly. This means that whenever we need to go to the bathroom or use a sink, we have to take the elevator to the basement. We're showering at the old apartment, Nilda's mom's or the gym. None of this sounded so bad before, but trust me it sucks at 3:30 in the morning. When we finally get cable and internet, which is supposed to be tomorrow morning, I'll be back.

The Kitchen Cabinets Are In

So, in the middle of packing and getting ready for the move on Friday, for which, yes, we're still packing, I take the time to post pictures of the custom kitchen cabinets that were installed today. Wow, world, you're very lucky.

They look amazing! I thought they would look great, but they're even better than I thought they would look. It's incredible what these cabinetmakers are able to do. There's still some work that needs to be done and the countertop and backsplash need to be put in, but so you can see how it will turn out. See for yourself:

One of the best parts is where the trash cans are located. I love it. There's two right next to each other so we can have the trash and the recycling right next to each other. Yes, they're environmentally-minded cabinets.

This is where the fridge is going to go. That little tube is the water line, which means that I shall finally have AN ICE MAKER!!!! A dream becomes a reality.

I'll even have a dishwasher, too. This just doesn't get any better. Here it is in the living room, which was just painted but sure as hell not painted by me. The color of the paint was "Iceberg," which is one of the most manly things in the house. Also in this picture is the new chandelier that Nilda is in luuv with, although Nilda's presently more enamoured with how the light in the new oven turns on and off. It really doesn't take much.

The bathroom is almost done. We're just waiting for the floor tiles, which apparently take a long time to get because they're made of unicorn smiles from special organic farms in Fantasia.

P.S. Happy birthday, Jonah Samuel, and congratulations to Yael and Bryan! He's amazing and we wish you guys the best of luck. Bring him to see us soon!

Note To Self: Watch These Later

These are a bunch of songs from the Phish show in Camden on June 7, a few nights after we saw them at Jones Beach. Andrew, you and I are so getting this show on livephish.com.

Antelope:



First Tube (check out the light show):



Limb By Limb:

The Dark Days Begin

The move is scheduled for June 19. At first, I was happy that we would finally be moving in. At least if I had to spend my weekends working on the new place, I would already wake up there. But then I realized this meant that we had to pack up all of our stuff in just two weeks.

We had already done a lot of packing, filling 17 boxes of crap crap crap. But there's still so much to do. The kitchen alone will take forever. And since we're going back to Philly this weekend, we only have nights to pack things up. This means no Tudors, no Nip/Tuck, not even Deadliest Catch. I have to come home from working all day to working at packing. Sorry in advance if the blog suffers.

I hate moving. It's not the act of packing or leaving an apartment that bothers me. It's the worrying about my stuff the day of the move. I work hard for my stuff. I owe it a fiduciary duty of loyalty. The worst part is that you can worry for as long as you like, but the move itself will only take a few hours. It's just not worth it.

For those who want to know about the renovations (Matt, Dr. HGTV), here are some pics of the bathroom, electrical wires and all, which they should hopefully start tiling soon:

This is the living room. We're moving the ceiling light about 5 feet over so we can hang a chandelier where the dining room table is going to go. This is very exciting for Nilda because she luuuuuuvs the new chandelier. That's fair because I luuuuv the new kitchen light.

We're painting the kitchen now. Well, "we're" not painting the kitchen as much as we're having it painted. That part of my life is over. The cabinets are scheduled to be installed on Monday and Tuesday, after which we can have the appliances and countertop installed:

This is an image of the pulls we're getting for the kitchen cabinets. For some reason, I keep looking at pictures of them on the internet. I have no clue why and it's starting to worry me. Also, do you have any idea how many websites there are that have "knob" in the address? There's myknobs.com, knobs4less.com, knobsandpulls.com, and that's just a few. And don't get me started on how many "faucet" websites are out there!