I feel the need to admit something to you, my reader. I eat too many burritos. It's not that I am not open to other types of food, it is just that when lunchtime comes around, the idea of a warm assortment of rice, beans, veggies and chicken encased in an inviting tortilla covered with salsa and sour cream trumps damn near everything else. Plus my local burrito supplier has sunny outdoor seating—which for those of you unfamiliar with midtown, light is a highly valued commodity—so on warm spring days like this it is hard not to go anywhere else.

The main waiter-guy has decided not to give me a menu any more. I walk up, he asks if I want the usual with water, and that just happens to be exactly what I want. The entire pre-eating ritual menu-stare is done away with, in its place is a cup of salsa and some chips for me to chow down on. All of which makes me very happy, yet vaguely disturbed that I have befriended yet another mexican joint. This is a trend with me. At the last place, not only did they knew how to make my burrito, but I knew the owner enough to banter with him about the business.

I'm just happy that the people at Bergen Bagels haven't sorted out what I want by now. Phew.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Marvel at this man's amazing ukelele skills. No seriously. It's one of the best things I've seen for ages.
My Guitar Gently Weeps on a Ukelele

Posted by Colin J Allen at 1:47 PM | Permalink

I smote the book Moby Dick. I finished her last night. After months of work, she is now fully read, and I can say that I have survived to tell the tale. It was a long journey, but I finally made it through to the end. And boy let me tell you, it ends badly. I wouldn't want to ruin the ending or anything for you, but let me tell you that whale is one mean son of a bitch.

I believe this is the first novel I've ever read where the plot can be described in a single cliff note sentence, which I have conveniently posted abaft this post. Of course the plot isn't why one reads Moby Dick, or at least why someone finishes the damn thing. It is the journey, the exploration and the detail. The way it reads, it feels like you have really spent three years of your life sailing the ocean, killing whales and trying to smote your inner demons.

It has been a good ride, and I am to soon send this book to Australia so that another can take the Pequod on its ill-fated ocean journey to find the immortal Moby Dick.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ishmael, a New Yorker prone to talk in detail about whaling, boats and nature of man, goes up to Nantucket, finds a pagan-harpooner friend, randomly chooses a whaling boat to spend three years on, sails the Atlantic, whereupon the captain appears, hammers a 16 dollar coin on the mainmast, and says that they are stuck out on the ocean till they kill this really, really mean white whale as retribution for it eating Captain Ahab's leg, which, the crew—apart from that straight-laced Starbuck—is totally down with this notion, so they all continue sailing on through the South Pacific killing whales left and right along the way, till they hit the Sea of Japan in the North Pacific, where they finally catch up to Moby Dick and try to kill him, but the whale ain't having none of that, so he kills Abab, capsizes the Pequod, and everyone dies but the loquacious narrator.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am an awful man. Yes, this website STILL has no easy-to-use interactive feature. Yet, I'm getting closer to finding and fixing the problem. But you know what, if you really are put off by this, please just type your name, put that funny at symbol behind it and wrap it up with a colinjallen.com. Dime and a doughnut, it will get to me.

In the spirit of interactivity, I have been given a posting idea from Jamie C______. It follows.

Do you ever wonder what ninjas do on the weekends? I think that after a stressful week of stealth, espionage and assassinations, I think they would want to let down their hair and head to the bowling lanes. They would probably be really good, considering with all their on the job training with throwing stars . Even if they were no good at all; if you were in their bowling league, would you really want to beat a team of ninjas? Sure it's their day off, but you never know if they would want to let off some steam with some of that you-beat-me-in-bowling-so-I-must-revenge-my-team-by-cutting-off-your-head thing they seem to be doing all the time.

I fear ninjas, but fortunately, I really suck at bowling.

Want me to do a posting topic of your choice? Get in touch.

Update Comments are now up and working. Have fun folks!

Posted by Colin J Allen at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It doesn't feel like spring, but dang it, I'm going to act like it is. In the spirit of rebirth, I am going to write a lot of posts today. Yeah, that's a pretty lame way to celebrate the oncoming of a new season, especially with all these pagan holidays about—Nowruz and Valborgsmässoafton to name two—but that is about as motivated I am going to get when the weather people are predicting snow tomorrow.

In defiance of the the last vestiges of winter I now post for your entertainment.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I need to stop buying books till I finishing the one I am on. I've been slowly enveloping myself in the whale of a book that is Moby Dick. It is a good read, but reading it is like eating rich chocolate truffles. Hundreds of them. You can only take so much richness before you have to stop. You take his typical three page chapter, where one sentence lasts a page and a half, beginning with the anatomy of a whale's eyeball and ending with a treatise on the nature of humanity, and after a few of those you're done for the day.

It takes a while to get into this book, but now that I'm in chapter 107, I'm fully inthralled in this ocean chase. I know more about whales than I ever would have thought even possible. The thing is, it is simply not possible to rush to the end of the book. You simply can't push through one or two more chapters before you go to bed. No! Melville will have none of that! Just when you think that there is nothing more that he can ramble off on, he finds one more thing. And it is always that one thing that you have briefly thought about but decided it really wasn't that important. It's like in Ghostbusters, where you are not supposed to think any thoughts, or they will come to life. I find myself thinking about a whale's bone structure, and lo and behold, he writes two chapters on it, with double the treatise-fun. I'm trying not to think about anything to do with the book so that they can finally get around to the whole "there she blows, the white whale" bit.

I think the big joke is that the book itself is actually Moby Dick, and by the end of it, you really want to kill that white terror, because otherwise it will kill you with it's vicious jaws of intellectualism. I must kill it, so that I can lower my brows back down.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anarchy, are you the solution? It amuses me that we have so many movies that blow up government buildings. Only in America can you make a movie where you blow up parliament and have it banned in the very counties that would actually want to do such an act.

While I personally don't think that is the solution—I'm more of a work from within sorta guy—it is interesting that Hollywood has the gumption to do another Fight Club-esque flick when there is now so much fear of terrorism. While this flick far from answers the freedom fighter vs terrorist question, I toast the big studios for actually edging near a topical subject, on this day, the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saint Pat's Day Recap:

• Good times.
  
• Many beverages were had.
  
• Was not pinched.
  
• Did not wear green.
  
• Saw popped inflatable art—not so impressive.
  

Wall to Wall Stravenski

• Never heard him before.
  
• Have heard him now.
  
• Leonard Nimoy played the devil. (Khan!!)
  
• Good stuff.
  
• Not the usual Colin music.
  

Whitney Biennial Recap:

• I am glad I went.
  
• I wish I had missed the second floor.
  
• Bubble gum art rocks.
  
• Sheep eating grass rock.
  
• Rotating Candles rock.
  

Posted by Colin J Allen at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Snakes On A Plane

Posted by Colin J Allen at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Colin J Allen at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi. As you can probably tell, I've switched up the website. This is long due, and I should have done it much earlier. But it is done now, at least a good working beta version. Expect more to come in the following weeks. I hope to have the site grow organically outward from here.

Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: I'm sorry that I can't get comments to work at the moment. I've put my googling monkeys on the task, and they should sort it out shortly.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've seen two twenty-eight people with ash on their head today. Yes, there is religion to be found in this city, despite the rumors otherwise. I just wanted to wrap up this idea of sacrifice I started yesterday. I'm not giving up drinking till Easter folks. I think having my girlfriend on the other side of the world is enough sacrifice for me to deal with, and reason enough to have a drink or two. Thanks to the kind folks at Skype, the situation is tolerable. Thank you VoIP.

If Ash Wednesday is not your cup of tea, you may be more excited to know that this is National Pancake week. That makes me happy, and I think that I may just have breakfast for lunch today.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)