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The 5 Christmas Songs I Like:

 

 

Mile High

I am writing this post from a plane right now. I took a picture that I am pretty sure accurately represents how I feel. This seat is insanely uncomfortable...

Anyway, I am about to watch My Cousin Vinny on Netflix Instant.

Booya!

Wanna know what it looks like to get wi-fi for free from Virgin America?

And it's pretty slow.  I wanted to be part of gizmodo's little Mile High Club so I ran a little test on this bad boy. Results:

It's Like Hoth Out There!

Weather report for Boston, MA coming in... It's like Hoth out there!!

Good thing I'm out tomorrow! Where am I headed? Let's see...

Let's just hope the hyperspace drive on my flight is working>>>

1...2...3...D!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: √
Beowulf : √
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D : √
My Bloody Valentine 3D : √
Coraline : X
Monsters vs Aliens : √
Up : √
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs : √
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince : √
G-Force : X
Final Destination: Death Trip 3D : √
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs : √
Toy Story in 3D : √
Toy Story 2 in 3D : √
Disney's A Christmas Carol : √
AVATAR : ...

I love 3D as much as anyone. Heck, I even saw Disney's A Christmas Carol and that was freakin' awful. Tonight, everything will change. James Cameron, I humbly submit myself to your glory. My heart is open. My soul is ready. My eyes, yes, both of them, are waiting...

This Is What Finals Do To Me! BOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Looking Forward to Looking Back

During a little study break, I decided to do a little more Haifa investigating. What a surprise! If I ever start to get home sick, I can just look right back home! I'll just have to head on down to the San Francisco Observation Point!

Brian Long Skates

My buddy Brian Long, who you might know from such things as Blongs Silly Toy, The Bike Ride, A Week in Photos, was just featured in a pretty huge skate video. I don't know too much about these things, but damn- it's actually pretty incredible to watch.

I recommend you watch the whole 20 minutes where Brian is scattered throughout, but if you don't have time for that, at least watch his section. It starts out with a little intro by fellow Terrier and beast skater Mark Wojda at 13:20... Enjoy...

Throwaway Edit (an online video) from wogelife on Vimeo.

Have fun in China buddie. Love from Israel!

Happy Chanukah!

Today I saw a dude performing Adam Sandler's Chanukah song in the subway. People were loving it! Great! Anyway- here is how I celebrated:

Recognize that Chanukiah? That's the one from wikipedia! Amazing Ben!

Grate those potatoes! Be careful though...

OW! That bad boy bled for hours! Sorta like how you would have thought there was only enough blood for a couple of minutes... no... it lasted 80!

Success!

A Little Bit of San Francisco Sadness

I was going through an English textbook for my English as a Second Language class and encountered a little San Francisco fun! Except it turned out to be not fun at all.

The book was published in 1993 and has this activity to help non-English speakers learn a little bit about that Present Perfect!

Aside from the authors' misspelling of Arguello, I thought this was pretty cool... That is until I realized 4/5 of these are no longer movie theaters! FOUR out of FIVE! Most movies don't even get ratings that high! (maybe that's why all the theaters closed...)

Still, I can't wait to get home... One week exactly.

Lip Dub

A couple months back I had some guests from France stay at my apartment. This was fairly routine and I hardly would have even considered it blogworthy, but then things started to get just a little bit crazy!

A couple weeks back I was in attendance at one of the most significant meetings in Boston University history. Two bold and visionary students stood in front of the audience of about 25 and made a proposal: Boston University should be the first major American University to do a LipDub. What is a lipdub? We didn't know either, so they showed a little example:

A LipDub is where you choreograph a ton of people to sing a long to a song in one huge tracking shot. Like the rest of the people in attendance, I politely watched until about 2:00 in when OHMYGOD!!! The girl who stayed at my place was in the LipDub!! What a crazy coincidence! Not only that, I found out later, she directed the damn thing! It was a sign...

A couple days back I rushed from my last class of the semester (my last class of my Junior year in the US) to the center of our campus where we filmed our very own lipdub. I, of course, got the dignified roll of someone crawling on the ground over a trail of teardrops. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving '09: Part 3, The Activities

I can pretty much break down this entire Thanksgiving break into 5 activities:

1. Driving
Duh and... who cares?


2. Eating
You already heard all about this.


3. Studying Economics

That's right. This Thanksgiving break I had the distinct pleasure of playing Monopoly, the greatest board game ever made* in it's birthplace: Atlantic City:

View Monopoly in Atlantic City in a larger map

That's right. I played Monopoly between the Boardwalk and Pacific Ave. Heck, we even parked our car on Atlantic Ave. I must owe someone money... Or maybe I'm on Water Works?

Did you notice that * where I called Monopoly the greatest board game ever? Here is where you get to find out why... We were driving along discussing our favorite board games when Kyle remembered one he played a while ago. He couldn't remember the name so he googled "top 10 best board games ever" where he found this list. At the top of the list, #1 in the greatest games of all time list, The Settlers of Catan!

We needed it! Perfect! Black Friday would begin in mere hours...

4. Shopping

Holy Jesus! 12:01 at the Hamilton Commons Shopping Mall was the most ridiculous scene I have ever seen. We could not even find a parking spot. The mall was entirely, utterly packed. Pushing, shoving, the likes! We went to a toy store. No Catan,

We went to Toys 'R' Us. There was a line around the block just to get into the store. I called because I didn't want to wait in line and the woman told me she couldn't get an available employee to check whether or not they had it because all employees were busy with crowd control... No matter, we entered the exit. The line to buy stuff zig zagged through every aisle in the store! I had to turn my body sideways to squeeze through the aisles. It was a madhouse!

Wow.

5. Settling

Toys 'R' Us in the end didn't even have the game. How could the worlds greatest game be so hard to find? Well, eventually we did find it in a Nerd Shop. Here is what he had to say about the Settlers of Catan:

Risk? That's what kids in Europe play when they're in 5th and 6th grade. Settlers of Catan? Now that's what they play when they start to play real games.

Damn Ted. From Friday at about 2:00PM until Monday morning at about 2AM, I Settled straight. No showers. Hardly any sleep. Maybe a couple hours off so I COULD DRIVE BACK TO BOSTON. But that is it, non stop Settlement. The greatest board game of all time.

Thanksgiving '09: Part 2, The Food

What is the most important thing about Thanksgiving?

Appreciating what you have? No, I think Black Friday right after completely disproves this...

Seeing family? Yes, but not this Thanksgiving! I was in South Jersey, remember?

THE FOOD! Absolutely!

With that said, let me just rundown some of the things I ate down in South Jersey where, believe me, people know how to eat:

Pepe's Pizza:
Obviously, the best pizza in the country. Though not technically in Jersey, I would not dream of driving from Boston to anywhere south of Boston without stopping in New Haven, CT for some Pepe's. My father ate at Pepe's, my grandfather ate at Pepe's, my GREAT grandfather ate at Pepe's and my kids sure as hell are going to eat at Pepe's. White clam only! It has been my mission my last few years out here on the east to spread the pizza love.

Johnny D's Pizza:
Apparently, a South Jersey must. I thought Giga's Jumbo pizza's in Boston were big (28") but hah! 36" pies take the cake (or should I say pie!). If there was ever pizza 'Jersey style,' I'd have to say this is it. This picture is 2 slices.

WaWa:
24 hours. Convenience store items. Deli items. Pretty much the most brilliant place of all time, especially since they have their ordering down to a science... literally. You input everything you want on a touchscreen and a couple minutes later your sandwich is made. You don't have to even deal with the convenience store losers. Not only that, regulars brag at the speed they can order their favorite sandwich! They also have store brand quart sized lemonade-iced teas for $1.79!

* note Big Daddy there in the first picture... The fastest orderer in South Jersey

Medieval Times:
Up at the Lyndhurst Castle outside of New York City, they don't believe in utensils. In fact, they don't really believe in anything except that the best way to settle a dispute is to get up on horses and ride full speed at each other with long sticks until someone is dead! That and Jim Carrey. At Medieval times, they give a bowl with a handle and put soup in it...Good luck. Then they give you a half of a chicken on a plate with no fork and knife...Better luck. Oh yea, and its really dark... Best luck.

Other Things of Note:
Just because I don't have a picture, in no way to I want do discredit Mrs. Kahane's incredible Thanksgiving feast. I am wildly thankful of her family for putting me up for a week and providing me with some of the best Thanksgiving grub I have ever eaten including an AVOCADO and CRANBERRY SALSA!

Also, I would like to take this moment to acknowledge Natan's expertise in the field of the bagel and to rub in his face how incredible my everything bagel with scallion cream cheese and roasted yams was.

I also want to thank Kip Lombardo for his incredible Thanksgiving the Sunday before:

Part 3... the activities!

Thanksgiving '09: Part I,

This is the first of a bunch of posts about this weeks thanksgiving break. I was down in Northfield, NJ, which for the people who don't know, is near Ocean City, NJ which is near Atlantic City, NJ. It's a pretty strange world down there I must say: the food, the sites, the activities... You'll hear more on all that later, for now, let me tell you about the basement I stayed in.

It is amazing. It is partitioned into into lots of sections. A bedroom, a non-room that is closed off into a bedroom, a tv area with two of the longest couches you've ever seen (like 8 seaters), a ping pong area, a bathroom, a billiard area, a gym area, etc.

I couldn't really ask for a better place to lounge for a week. And lounge I did. I made this little video as an homage:

More later.

Way Too Good Not To Share

I typically don't like to repost stuff I see on gizmodo because about 90% of my readership reads gizmodo already, but this is just too incredible. Way too incredible.

Some thanksgiving break posts to follow.

Don't you wish...

Don't you wish you lived in a world like this?

Or this?

SUNDAY: The Night Dancer

What a day. From 11:00AM to 10:30PM I had no working phone, yet I managed to get down to Dick's Last Resort, to Harvard Square and to Northeastern and successfully meet up with the people I needed to see!

Most importantly though, was when I got home.

AARON FRADKIN

Did you see the text I sent you?

AARON STRICK

No, My phone has been dead all day...

AARON FRADKIN

Well, I have all this film equipment... Wanna make a movie?

AARON STRICK

I guess that'd be tight...

AARON FRADKIN

I wrote a script already. Wanna see it?

AARON STRICK

Yeah.

Both AARONS head inside and read a script. They subsequently get very excited and employ the help of Brian Levine, Dan Karel and Ben Pepin making an amazing movie with lights, dolly's and cranes.

Looking Up

Despite my ever overwhelming biz, I as able to make it out to the suburbs this week to peek those Leonid Meteors that everyone was talking about. Until about 5 minutes ago when I discovered that the same Leonid's back in 1833 were so bountiful that the entire Mormon population of Independence, Missouri took it as a sign to leave the community! I guess mid-November 1833 was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!

Dang, anyway, mid-November 2009 was pretty awesome too. We went out to Wayland, home of l'roomé and Teddy BallGame to see some meteors. Here's the proof:

The Trade

Now that I have camera, I feel like I is only post pictures... Me not sure if non-practice be good for the quality of my words's. It be good now I don't write much? Speak to me in comments! Does AaronStrick.com better now with most photos and not words?

My fraternity did concert! Thousands of people gived money to Judy Fund. Photos had:

 

I did golfs too! PowerUp Natan!!

I is gonna be checking Leonid Showers too!

Today in Photos, like I said, it's back!

 

Nose to the Grindstone

I don't know how it works for you, but when I listen to headphones while I study, most of the music just sort of disappears into background noise. This is not to say that what is on doesn't matter. In fact, the music is crucial because it sets the tone of the studying, but it is not specific.

Then, every once in a little bit, I find that I can no longer see the page, I only hear the music and I break away for the remainder of the song...

THESE ARE THE SONGS:

Note that they mostly come from a very specific subset of my taste.

Guess who's back!

Most of you were unaware (because I have been fairly hush on the whole topic), but my beloved camera had to be replaced because the one I initially purchased had a loose piece that restricted the closing etc. etc. whatever.

Thankfully, New Egg is an amazing company and they sent my new one!

Here is the first photo. It features the ridiculous hodge-podge made up by the French couchsurfers, Teddy Ball Game, Natan and Franken:

More to come.

What Came In The Mail Today

-1 Check from the government! Yay tax refunds!

-1 USB powered beverage chiller / warmer

-1 Information packet from the University of Haifa

-1 USB powered light / fan / air cooler

-1 issue of the latest Popular Science magazine

What a day indeed!

You just gotta!

I read an interesting bit in esquire about the vampire craze... Anyway, you just gotta love this:

Photos of the Day: Day 2

I don't think I'll be able to keep up daily photos of the day. That would be ridiculous!! I did however completely revamp my phone / keys / wallet / pen system to include the camera. Check out my day:

Just wait till Montreal!

Blongs Silly Toy

To fully asses the situation, I popped on my trench coat and did a little investigating. Turns out, the Black Sided Tinman is an amazing device. Here is my first run of photo experimentology on the Brand Spankin' Tiger: