Hipster Diary -- Archive 7

I have a lot on my mind. Sometimes it causes insomnia. Maybe this will help.

Archive

Untitled Document

Archive 16
prague
amsterdam
world's worst car names
prod test: pretzel m&ms
the dominican republic

Archive 15
titus andronicus @ maxwell's
miles kurosky @ mercury lounge
dinosaur jr. @ bowery ballroom
be your own dj
big apple circus

Archive 14
greatest actor of his gen.
why sirius/xm will fail
the 2nd worst block in nyc
prod. tes: dentyne blast
the subaru

Archive 13
the decemberists
philadelphia
tokyo police club
acupuncture
the antichrist goes home

Archive 12
bubba's secret campaign
celeb sighting 8: steve schirripa
the police @ msg
celeb sighting 7: andrew mccarthy
puerto vallarta, mexico

Archive 11
kurt vonnegut: r.i.p.
worst boss ever
best purchase ever
ogunquit, me
bummer movies

Archive 10
pearl jam
dodge earthfucker
montclair: hipster central
24
halo 2

Archive 9
the cali roadtrip
celeb sighting 6: rupaul
product 1: diet coke w/ splenda
cell phone headsets
casualties of war

Archive 8
celeb sighting 5: max kellerman
booze experimentation
deus ex: invisible war
the weakest fortune ever
celeb sighting 4: christina aguilera

Archive 7
the six flags guy
celeb sighting 3: len berman
celeb sighting 2: christena pyle
max payne 2
celeb sighting 1: amber valletta

Archive 6
st. thomas, usvi
mr. hipster goes domestic
the danger of googling
halo
why i love whitney matheson

Archive 5
joe strummer tribute show
london part deux
london
new jersey state fair
lake george, ny

Archive 4
hdtv
kennebunkport, maine
the ponies
slow jams
the opera

Archive 3
ford motor company
look kids, parliament
tuesdays with morrie
snow
the blogger bash

Archive 2
freedom
the geniuses at fox
the blvd of porn & trinkets
the ugly bar
city kids

Archive 1
suburban cops
fat loss miracle
the free gift
sunflower seeds
unemployment

Diaries:
the six flags guy
celeb sighting 3: len berman
celeb sighting 2: christena pyle
max payne 2
celeb sighting 1: amber valletta

THE SIX FLAGS GUY

How much do I hate this guy? How much do I hate the stupid, self-serving articles that have been written in "legitimate" magazines and newspapers questioning whether or not this rubber-faced asshole is really an old man, or just a young guy in a mask? Oh, and the fuckin' Vengaboys should be shot for wasting valuable sound waves with that horrendous, techno/dance crap that makes me just want to stick corn forks in my eardrums. It's bad enough that this runningman-dancin' fool invades my living room while I'm trying to enjoy a baseball game, but then I get this crap in my mail.

six flags guy

Let's just put this to bed. The dude is some creepy backup dancer that they pulled off the set of a Cash Money Crew video, or, more likely, the local dance school for eventual Broadway disappointments. I even heard some jerkoff ask on a show if the guy was in fact Uncle Junior from the Sopranos. Yeah, dude, all of a sudden Dominic Chianese is the prissy, white MC Hammer. I'm not sure what audience Six Flags is going after with this campaign, but it certainly makes me want to avoid Great Adventure for fear some guy in that getup will be there to torture me with that bizarro bat face of his. Maybe their next campaign will involve some "X-Treme" sports like sky surfing or that street sledding thing that was popular for like two minutes in 1996. The whole advertising industry should be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch. Or maybe we just need to reprogram the human race to reject lame crap like this.

CELEB SIGHTING 3: LEN BERMAN

So, after a quick weekend trip to Los Angeles to visit the folks, I arrive back in New York with absolutely nothing to write about for my celeb sightings thing. I think I saw some character actress at Mort's Delicatessen in the Pacific Palisades, but after wracking my brain for an hour over my turkey sandwich, I couldn't place the face. She's most likely the sneezer from some Kleenex commercial, or the woman who's amazed to find that bottle of Tide she just bought yesterday sitting in her cabinet. Apparently I also ate dinner next to Michael Jackson's lawyer from his first molestation case, but I don't count him because he had to be pointed out to me by my dad, and I still have no idea who the schmuck is (except the fact that he's a rich schmuck).

And then, back in NYC, I'm walking across town from work and spot a big, gangly dude with a wicked limp. Man, that looks like that fruitbat, Len Berman, only taller.

That can't be him--but it is. Of course, to those of you outside the New York area, this will mean absolutely nothing, but he's a semi-regular on The Today Show and is responsible for one of the worst sports gimmicks in all of the history of sports broadcasting, "Spanning the World." Yes, Berman (or somebody on his staff), finds those "hysterical" clips of sports bloopers from around the world. They usually involve some Japanese guy getting hit in the nuts, or a matador getting gored in the groin. Funny stuff. The worst part of the feature isn't the clips--most of which are at least ten years old by now--but the graphics for the intro that some intern probably created on an Amiga back in 1991 and has yet to change. The crap is unprofessional and very unworthy of a graduate of the wonderful Syracuse University communications school, from which yours truly is also a graduate.

I don't mean to disparage the guy--I'm sure he's a fine broadcaster and has made a decent career for himself--but am I really going to spend twenty thousand clams to hear some guy speak who only spent five dollars on a piece of media that identifies his show? I'm available for speaking engagements for like twenty dollars and a Subway sandwich--and I actually spent a couple grand on a computer to put this P.O.S. site together.

CELEB SIGHTING 2: CHRISTENA PYLE

Whu? Who? It's one of the many hot chicks from MTV's Road Rules: South Pacific and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno. As I mentioned after my first celeb sighting entry: this shit is gonna get real weak.

I spotted her walking on Eighth Avenue at about forty-eighth street absent-mindedly walking directly in front of an oncoming car as if the world should stop in her presence. Who said these MTV brats were spoiled and vapid? She looked to be going to a bodega to buy some flowers--and she looked to be lookin' good! Statuesque and athletically built, she looked more like a well-fed model than some chick who needed to be eating pig guts and slumming it with a bunch of whiny freaks for a Saturn Ion Quad Coupe. To call this the "real" world is a complete farce, as I haven't seen a house (or an RV for that matter) filled with so many good looking, fucked up people since the Delta Gamma house at Syracuse.

We can only assume that these sightings are going to get better. I'm heading out to L.A. for a couple days, so maybe I'll actually spot somebody real (hahahahahaha).

MAX PAYNE 2

The makers of this third person shooter, Rockstar Games, usually has us killing hookers and running over babymammas in our Cadillacs. But this, the follow up to the hugely successful original Max Payne, has a heart and what they call a "film noir love story." Very similar to the original in both gameplay and storyline, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne is so f'ing creepy and depressing that you may have trouble getting it out of your head.

Now I took several classes on film noir in college (yes, I watched movies for my major), but none of the films we watched could match this game for all around darkness. Of course none of those movies had the body count this game does, but with its eerily empty mansions, abandoned hospitals and bizarre dream sequences, this is more like a mixture of noir, horror, late-night B-movie and gothic love story. The freakiest thing is the abandoned amusement park that one of the main characters lives in, which was based on a failed television show about a cop that goes into an insane asylum (or something). You are forced to make several trips to this place: once just navigating it to find your love interest, Mona Sax, once when guys are there shooting at you, and another when it's on fire and burning down (and guys are shooting at you). All the while, cardboard cutouts of insane people and giant needles and stuff come flying out at you. It's extremely bizarre.

The action is intercut with almost comic book-like storyboards, with Max doing voiceover to the text. It always seems to be raining, and he always seems to be bleeding from one orifice or another. The first Max Payne game had him losing his wife and child, and in this one he fights for the love of Mona Sax, who may or may not be on his side in all this. Needless to say, things don't end well. There are actually times in the game when you get to play as Mona.

Mona Sax

There are also times in this thing where you are running around for no apparent reason. They're supposed to be dream sequences, but it just comes off as filler. And this game needs it, as it is, like the first one, very short. Maybe they think the bullet-time feature--which causes action around you to slow down like in the Matrix--somehow adds time to the game. I'm no really sure. I do know that the third-person perspective that they use is somewhat awkward and difficult at times to manage. It's kind of an over-the-shoulder look that causes problems when crouched, as your own shoulder blocks your view. It's very odd and somewhat of a hindrance when trying to hide behind a crate to avoid gunfire or look at stuff close to you. I certainly prefer the first-person thing, but this at least gives you something different and allows for some cool spinning and rolling special effects.

I know as an adult I shouldn't be sitting around playing Xbox games, but boys need their entertainment. I suppose it's a lot cheaper than a trip to Scores or tickets for two to a Yankee game--and infinitely less enjoyable.

"Stop, or my mom will shoot... herself because her grown son plays kids' games!"

CELEB SIGHTING 1: AMBER VALLETTA

I'm not sure if it was a matter of growing up in the star-obsessed city of Los Angeles, or just the fact I tend to look around a lot when I'm strolling the streets of Manhattan, but I have an uncanny ability to spot random celebrities. Others walk right by the adopted kid from Growing Pains or the guy that played the Iowa Senator's page on West Wing. Not me. Now some will argue that these people don't warrant celebrity status, but as long as I've seen them in some third-rate tv show/movie/fashion show/ad campaign/concert/music video or any other kind of media in which their visage was somehow seared into my memory, they belong here.

I'll continue to add people whenever I see them. I don't count folks I see at work or at a show I pay to see, obviously, but there are character actors a plenty walking up and down eighth avenue if you really look hard enough.

It took me a minute to figure out exactly who this woman was. She's amazingly thin in real life, and relatively unassuming. That old adage about never being too thin or too rich may actually be proven wrong by Ms. Valletta, as I've now seen what too thin is, and it ain't my thing. The irony, of course, was that I saw her at a restaurant--Caribbean Spice--waiting for a take out order. She was with an older man, so maybe it was his food and not hers at all--but that's neither here nor there. Apparently she's a model (which I guess I knew, and certainly explains the skinny thing), but I recognized her from the Harrison Ford/Michelle Pfeiffer movie, What Lies Beneath. The funny thing is that one of my co-workers who was eating with me noticed her, and not realizing that she was a celeb, happened to mention to someone else at our table that a cute girl who looked like Michelle Pfeiffer was standing in the doorway. Of course, if you saw the movie, you remember that there are some freakish scenes in which the two actresses are practically indistinguishable from one another.

Now you know the level of celebrity I'm talking about here. I'm not talking about Brad Pitt or Julia Roberts. But hey, you gotta start somewhere.

amber valletta
"what's with the skinny comments, mr. hipster, you little prick?"