Dean Christakos: January 2006 Archives

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January 26, 2006

Fulfilled Its Christmas Destiny

I threw out my Christmas tree today. For those keeping score at home, it is more a month since Christmas. Part of the reason is because I figured that in mid-to-early January, I could still have a Christmas-themed party, which didn't happen. The main reason is because I am very lazy.

However, it served its purpose well. It stayed green, despite drying out and dropping pine needles all over my floor. It brightened up my living room. Good job, old friend.

Posted by Dean at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)

Gallery Openings

With continued ability to actually leave my apartment at night, I visited the 301 Gallery in Beverly, this evening to see the opening of their current work on display. Must remember to bring my camera, next time.

Posted by Dean at 12:37 AM | Comments (0)

80s Flashback - Video Game Edition

Following up on my previous foray into Pac-Man 80s nostalgia, we find both Robot Pac-Man from Namco, featured at IREX 2005 and Real Life Pac-Man ("Pac-Lan!") on the campus of Lancaster University.

Posted by Dean at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2006

The Most Brazen Camper

Anyone who claims that Times Square has lost its sleazy feel ever since Guiliani cleaned it up and replaced it with a theme park in the 1990s can still find a modicum of old-school sketchiness at the 24 Starbucks near the Port Authority at 2am. Here you can still find a gaggle of homeless, tourists who don't have a place to stay for the night, and people you would normally find sleeping at a bus station, were it not for the fact that Port Authority requires a ticket to enter the station at that time of night. The worst of the evening, however, was not the homeless or the would-be bus-station campers. It was one of the yuppies.

Why did I go to Starbucks? Well, I needed to get coffee and check my e-mail while waiting for my 3:30am bus to leave for Boston. Other people seemed to have the same idea in mind, as there were a few other people with laptops jockeying for an electrical outlet to plug in to. I'm never one to criticize someone for hanging out all day at a coffee shop as an excuse to work on your laptop or maybe even make a few cell phone calls. Heck, I've done it myself at places like the Dolores Park Café while travelling in California. But this guy was just over-the-top brazen:

Yes, as you can see, he set up a desktop computer at Starbucks and worked there. Next, perhaps out of boredom or figuring, "hey, it's 2 AM!" he started playing mp3s from his computer speakers entertaining us with his mediocre taste in music.

To his credit, however, he let other laptop owners use his power strip.

Posted by Dean at 8:09 PM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2006

Wonkette Comes to Brookline

Ana Marie Cox, former writer for Wonkette, fired senior editor of The American Prospect, and former writer for the late, lamented Suck came to give a reading from her new book, Dog Days at the Brookline Booksmith in Brookline Village.

Having been a huge, huge fan of Suck, I asked her to compare the culture of Suck to the culture of The American Prospect. She did confess that no one had ever asked her such a question-- to compare the cultures of those two places -- but answered that they were pretty much polar opposites on the "earnest-o-meter."

She also claimed that her book portrays Washington as being much more sex-infused (like "swingers from the 70s," she joked) than it actually is. Perhaps so, but the real-life experiences of others (Text Not Safe For Work Or Small Children!) might indicate otherwise.

Like almost all readings from political authors, there was at least one crazy person in the audience who had to ask an angry, rambling question. I resisted the temptation to take a picture of her in order to warn other authors visiting the Boston area.

UPDATE: Jason at Happy Scrappy reports from Thursday night's reading and indicates that he knew that problems were imminent when the guy sitting next to him said he had never heard of Wonkette and started quizzing Jason and his friend about what blogs were.

More pictures after the jump...

Continue reading "Wonkette Comes to Brookline"

Posted by Dean at 9:59 PM

January 11, 2006

That's Doctor Christakos

This is Dean:

This is Dean's thesis:

Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.

Posted by Dean at 11:29 AM | Comments (6)

January 8, 2006

Cultural Outings

Today I made it to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to see the Gentile Bellini exihibit, showcasing Bellini's work in Constantinople after the capture of the city by Mehmed II in 1453.

The most interesting part for me was actually his work A Turkish Janissary, pictured here:

The janissaries are a legendary and almost creepy fighting force, formed from the Turkish devshirme, the human tax on Christian families forced to turn over their children to be raised as elite Muslim troops in the Turkish army, perhaps returning decades later to terrorize their old home villages when they got restless under Turkish rule. The janissaries were a group of very scary, very elite shock troops that all but ran the Ottoman empire.

But take a closer look at Gentile's portrait of a janissary from the 1400s. He could be a man in any Greek or Turkish village. Heck, the guy looks like any number of my relatives. It's a very humanizing portrait from more than 500 years ago.

Posted by Dean at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)

January 1, 2006

Happy New Year

How I spent New Year's Eve

Toasting the New Year

Having Champagne

Hanging out with my evil twin