I had (what (e:Vincent) called) an authentic "American" experience at the Erie County fair. (e:Vincent) and (e:Metalpeter) let me tag along and generally behave like an out-of-control Japanese tourist.

My tourism at the fair started in the earnest with this ticket that (e:vincent) got for us. We later learned from (e:theecarey) that fair fare was $5 after 5:00 PM for students with an ID.


(e:Metalpeter) and (e:Vincent) plotted and schemed our 12 hours at the fair.


Yeah, no kidding. We spent 12 uber-fun hours at the fair. (e:Vincent) was exotically attired in this Lawrence-of-Arabia headgear for most of those 12 hours.


He has a huge smile on his face there because he had just spotted these:

Apparently, these are a fair super-speciality. Every kind of meat was wafer-ed, pickled in brine and dried to a crisp.

(e:metalpeter) and I spent a few pleasant minutes wondering about who owns these kind of fancy tubs...

...maybe the same people who owned the hybrid Escalade we saw in the parking lot. ;-)

We then saw these heavily ornamented grandfather clocks. They were priced upwards of $3k each. Maybe you could buy one to keep count of how much time you spent in the fancy tub above?


The salesman opened the door to one of these clocks and casually handed me one of these pendulums. I almost dropped it. They look deceptively hollow but they are SO heavy! Apparently, their weight keeps the clock precise and running on time.


There was a stall exclusively selling these Russian Matryoshka dolls. It was weird to see so many of them - smug, wildly coloured and sitting in rows all around me.


Among them was this funny depiction of St.Basil's Cathedral. Heh


Outside, we passed the "North Pole" and these disturbing looking mascots. I don't know how parents felt comfortable sending their kids in the vicinity of these shady characters.

Also, isn't it enough that Buffalo has around eight months of snow? Do we really need fake "North Poles" in the one weekend of summer we have?

We then went through a huge hall of fresh-produce wet-dreams! After months of swiping and stealing from google images for my grocery pictures, these pictures are really mine. :)







I never knew brussels sprouts look like this when they are harvested!








On the way toward the Bengal Tiger exhibit, this funny little clown car came whirling down the road.


This bloke was so comfortable with the tigers, he just rolled around with them. He coaxed one of the tigers to walk backwards on its hind legs later in the show. It was quite startling to see; they called it a "tribute to MJ".


The announcer kept saying that any donations would go toward rehabilitating the tigers in their natural habitat in the wetlands of Bengal. I had trouble believing it. I wonder how many wild wetlands are left in Bengal anyway - my guess is not that many.


While the tigers got the undivided attention of the crowd, nearby, this sealion was bored out of its mind and decided to take a nap.


In (e:metalpeter) style, I thought this tattoo was interesting and took a shot while I was trying unsuccessfully to stand on my tiptoes and see the tigers through the crowds that thronged their arena.


We then walked through a creative arts exhibit. Local photographers had put up their entries. I was surprised that these two photographs didn't win top prizes!


(This cute baby strangely reminds me of my advisor. She must have been one pretty girl. :D )


I loved this photograph as well. There is something about that little boy's expression that is utterly charming. I didn't agree with the judges' choices at all. They were conservative, corny and completely devoid of depth.

Among the creative arts exhibits, was this cool tranformerish sculpture. Apparently, they gave all the participants a bucket of salvaged odds and ends that the organizers had found in various garbage dumps across the city. The participants had to use at least 90% or more of that bucket to make their work of art. While I stood there admiring this "Garbformer", an old man and his wife tried and recognized each and every part that went into making the sculpture. It was such a cool thing to hear.


Halfway through our 12 hour romp at the fair, (e:Vincent)'s ulterior movies were made clear...


Apparently, there is a special technique to devouring these edible crustacean curiosities. It was posted on the wall of the stall selling them.


I forgot to take a shot of the instructions, but I am fairly certain, you don't eat it like this:

::Download Flash Video::

While we are on the topic of eating, we had the most amazing gourmet pizza at the fair. It was incredibly tasty and ranks right up there with Grimaldi's in NYC.


It was made by a catering company who had come to the fair with their mobile full-scale brick oven in tow. As I watched, they made an outstandingly delicious vegetable pizza in around three minutes. A home-made pizza dough base was layered with onions, tomatoes, green bell peppers, cheddar as well as provolone cheese.


The friendly baker then tossed that pizza base into the brick oven behind him.


This pizza came out of the oven as ours was being tossed in.


They also had white pizza version that I really wanted to try but I was completely stuffed when we came back to the pizza station.


We had live entertainment by one-man-band - Virgil Cain, while we ate our pizza. He was surprisingly very good. He played the keyboard synthesizer, a guitar and an electric violin - all equally well. His songs were funny and had hilarious lyrics.

(e:Vincent) got his CD. I should have got it too. Maybe (e:Vincent) would rip his "Paycheck" song and put it online? (*nudge nudge)

These boots reminded me of the song "Con las botas puestas" by Baron Rojo. I think Angeles del infierno did a cover of that song...


Just so you know, the lilies are fake and are worth $2 each.


We also saw a horse-shoe making live demonstration. The fair had the most varied interesting exhibits ever.


I don't think I have ever seen the bone structure of a horse's leg before.



Near it was a demonstration of this creatively titled old-style home-soap-making operation. No sweat maybe, but plenty of mess.


I think my brother would have loved to visit this fair; there were restored old train bogies, coaches as well as cable cars on display.



I have always wondered how trains run during massive snow storms. This was a cool picture poster of the snow plows they used to have back in the day. I thought it looks so much like a time machine!


The poster had a mention of the nasty storm of 1977 and how they tackled it with only a few snow plows. The design of the snow plows slowly evolved as the years went by.


I think (e:metalpeter) took a photograph of the driving area in this cable car. Its totally not what you'd expect!


Outside the historical society museum, the greyhound rescue society had set up camp. I can't imagine why anyone would want to abuse or abandon these graceful dogs!


I faintly recall having played this game in the past. I thought it was the Chinese Chequers but I am not so sure now. Does anyone know what it is? These two women were so engrossed in it, they didn't even see me taking this shot. Maybe they were part of the 1960s exhibit. Heh


The theme for the historical society's museum exhibit was "Back in the rockin' 60s" or some such thing. This price list was a nice wrap-up of times back then.


This 1960's icon reminded us so much of (e:Paul)'s moustache from not so long ago. ;)


We took a break to go back to the car and caught this beautiful sunset! The sun was like a huge red glowing ball and went down so quickly. It was unreal.


I finally met the lovely (e:theecarey) after two years of virtual hellos. We did a digital cross-shoot to mark the occasion. :D


We went to look at the animal stands. I felt sorry for these poor reindeer that were sulking in the corner of their stalls after a long hot day of getting gawked at and just standing around.


(e:Vincent) kept going on about how cool "the midway" looks after dark. I wasn't sure what he was talking about till we actually walked through all these lighted rides after dark. It was like a completely different place.






Though, I can't imagine why anyone would intentionally want to take a nausea-inducing ride after eating all the fair-food. Some of them looked as it they might have fallen apart at any minute. Just the thought of riding them made me dizzy.






There were all these "Win a stuffed toy" games all around the place. The stall-keepers were trying their best to lure us in. Some of the games seemed impossible to win. Virtually everyone whom I saw playing lost.


However, in one of the stalls they had a hoop for shooting basketballs. A group of young men who looked like they spent their days playing the game got all their shots in one go. They were still at it as we walked away from the stall. They might just have won all the stuffed toys in the stall for a dollar. I guess no job is without its drawbacks and we witnessed the occupational hazard of having "professional" customers at your carnival stuffed-toy stand.



We wanted to gamble in the casino. Well, not really. Mainly, we wanted to go in on the pretence of placing bets on horses and watch some hugely popular singer (I forget who) at concert in the nearby arena.

We were not so lucky because first we worried that I look like a 14 year old (which unfortunately, I do), then we thought up creative schemes like dusting my hair with powdered sugar from the fried dough stall to make me look older. Finally, we decided to just evade the security and walk in using (e:Vincent)'s knowledge of a evasion-elevator. Unfortunately for us, we were too late and they were shutting down the top horse-betting floor of the casino.

We were somewhat disappointed so we "gambled" away with vengeance at "I got it". It is a highly addictive game that resembles a 3D tic-tac-toe. (e:theecarey) won twice and (e:Vincent) won once as well - but they didn't get any prizes. They just got extra-tries (that were unsuccessful). Some people are just lucky, because there was this family that won on every single turn in an aisle over from ours!


I think (e:metalpeter) and I were spooked by this Simpson doll that completely spoiled our concentration!


By a conservative estimate, I would say that the fair had about 85% heart-attack and tooth-decay inducing food. An example was this:


I was amazed at the variety of desserts people had thought up. But this literally took the cake. (e:metalpeter) struck a pose in front of the ingenious stall that sold this out-of-this-planet treat. I think it summed up all our sentiments then.


The deep-fried cheesecake, quite contrary to the unpleasant image it projects, is heavenly. It is mildly sweet, is served piping hot with cold whipped cream and fresh sliced strawberries. The concept came to the fair all the way from Massachusetts.

Of course, eating anything after it was close to impossible. ;)

We spent a nice hour or two just laughing, catching up on life and (e:strip) and making fun of the old people who rushed to the casino in the dead of the night after we walked out of the fair. I had so much fun. Thank you (e:Vincent), (e:metalpeter) and (e:theecarey). :)

If you ever wondered what this blog might have looked like in the 1930s, 1940s and the 1950s...









Quite surprisingly, the content of the fair hasn't changed much though the politically incorrect "reptile lady" was probably eliminated.

My officemate stars in this delighful little musical! She also jointly wrote most of the lyrics along with two others from the cast. That's right! I know a genuine future broadway starlet! :)



PS: What is she doing working at Roswell with such awesome musical talent??!

I went to the harbour the other day and searched for "Landies Sweets & Treats" forever. It says on their pamphlet that its in the "Small Boat Harbour". I couldn't find it.

Seriously, where IS this place?? I tried ringing them but no one ever picks up this phone: 716-834-8212. I know it exists because (e:Paul) has a journal about the Fun-ana.

I really really want to try this particular delicacy on their menu:

Java Jolt

Coffee ice cream dipped in dark chocolate, rolled in crushed chocolate espresso beans, served with fresh whipped cream and topped with whole chocolate covered espresso beans.

It is really weird that I couldn't find it - things cannot be so hard to find, especially at Buffalo's tiny harbour! Could anyone please post a link to a map with the location of "Small Boat Harbour"- Landies on it?

If this sounds desperate you should have seen me in action in the harbour. I asked every second person if they knew about it and NONE of them had even heard about it, or eaten a Fun-ana even. Were these people not at the Taste of Buffalo? Furthermore, I can't imagine anyone in Buffalo not wanting to read and scrutinize (e:Paul)'s most engrossing journal, on a daily basis. Maybe all of them were wretched little out-of-towners. Hmmmph.

I am working on cleaning out *everything* at home and reaching a paper/cardboard-free state by the end of summer. I could gather everything and dump it in trash but a teeny voice in my head is chiding me for not even trying to do the right thing.

So, does anyone know what I should do with cardboard from various cartons and boxes? The green and yellow paper recycle bins* around the city specifically forbid cardboard.

Also, what do you do with your metal/tin containers - such as containers of coffee, nuts etc that come with a plastic lid. Does the city collect scrap metal for recycling somewhere? Surely, metal has more recycle value than any of the other materials?

---

• I take all my paper to one of the green and yellow recycling bins. The nearest one to Summer and Linwood is the one on Washington - about 2 blocks south of the Washington and Carlton. Has anyone seen one that is even nearer? It gets a little crazy wheeling carts of paper a mile just to make sure they are recycled.

I really like LaRoux*. Their music pops out of the headphones with tons of bass dripping life. But Oh. my. sweet. piano., I LOVE this kid's take on two of their most popular songs!



If you decide to visit his page, check out his Lady Gaga cover. I mean, anyone who makes the completely awful and disastrous "Poker Face" sound like a lush 40s broadway musical deserves more than just an applause!

---

For the non-electro-poppers:
-- *LaRoux:
-- Bulletproof:
-- In for the kill:

I was walking back from PriceRite today when I saw two old ladies struggling with their groceries on the way. I offered to carry one of their bags and they accepted my offer. We walked the very short distance to the American Cancer Society (ACS) mansion on the corner of Oakland Place and Summer.

I was surprised that they lived there. I always thought it was some kind of a regional office for the ACS. Apparently, they let patients and their families from all over the world live there while they are being treated for their cancer at Roswell Park. One of the women I met was from Florida and the other was from Canada. I also met one of their friends who had come all the way from Greece with her husband for treatment at Roswell. They were all praises for Roswell. I couldn't tell if they genuinely felt that way or were just saying that because I told them that I study there.

They gave me a tour of the mansion. You won't believe just how beautiful it is inside! I wish I had my camera with me. The mansion is wonderfully maintained. The massive polished door leads to a small foyer which opens out into a landing. You immediately see a wide generous staircase leading up. The banisters are gorgeous to look at, though I can't remember whether they were specially carved or not. I have such a fickle memory for detail!

The landing also leads to a living room - with nice furniture and very soothing curtains. The dining room is really impressive with a huge table and matching chairs. I could almost see a formal 18th century banquet there! Then there was a kitchen followed by a corridor which lead to bedrooms - that are given to the patient families. At the back there is another dining room/living room of sorts. The place is enormous - seemed like a endless cave mansion of sorts.

The mansion is actually similar to the 24 in so many ways. I remember mentally comparing it with the rooms in the 24. From several (e:Matthew) conversations, I think it must have been built around the same period in time. I have a feeling that (e:Matthew) would love it! I am wondering if I should take the ladies up on their "visit us again" invite just to snap photographs or better yet, go with (e:Matthew) so he can weave his magic photo-capture technique (and I can then get the scoop on that).

The ladies told me that they are given lodgings but they cook for themselves. In fact, a couple of the other people I met were sitting together and shelling peas (or maybe cutting cauliflower - I really can't remember!) in the back-dining room.

It was an interesting little revelation about that mansion. I wonder if they pay for their lodgings or if its a service that is fully/partially funded by the ACS. If its funded by the ACS, then they are doing a remarkable job!

• SPOILER ALERT*****

Don't watch this unless you don't plan on watching (or have already watched) the BBC series. It will spoil it somewhat for you.



I thought of this exact scene as I was watching the finale of the series. Hahaha. I can't believe someone else actually thought of the same scene in that movie!!

Remember the songstress from ABBA? She is still weaving beautiful melodies...

I had a nice wake-up scare this weekend and lost some newer revisions of my dissertation. I am not sure entirely what happened but overnight, some of my revised copies went back to their earlier versions with all their glorious little ancient mistakes. It was a very painful weekend. My dissertation is now backed up in 4 more places. My laptop looks like this:


Source:

Yeah, it really does.

I am on a cleaning up and backing up mission and I think I want to go back to the bare-bones aggressively slipstreamed Win XP version that booted in 14 seconds in another life long long long back. I have so many programs here that I have no idea about. I have some piece of obscure software that simultaneously displays weather and forecast in 10 cities. For some reason that I don't have the faintest clue about, one of the cities is Kathmandu, Nepal. Really? What was I thinking??! That is insane, even for me. Did I plan an ill-fated climb of the Mt. Everest in one of my nightmares?? That .exe just went into oblivion trash.

I have no less than 6 Java updates installed! Innumerable re-installs of Firefox and Opera with stray shortcuts ALL OVER the place.This is a living nightmare.

I am whittling it down. Maybe I should just stick to these in the next install

Browser:
Firefox.

Documents
Word 2007
MikTeX

Books/Articles
Adobe Pro
CutePDF
PDF Unlocker

Citations
Bibtex4Word
Jabref

Statistics
R
G*Power3

Visual Media
MPC
ffdshow

Audio
Foobar2000
SRS Labs Plugin
RealAlt Plugin
Mp3Tag


Art
Paint.NET
ArtRage
IrfanView


IRC/Phone
Skype
Neebly

Utilities
Winkey
TaskSwitchXP Pro
7zip
CCleaner
FreeCommander

Do you have better alternatives? :)

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• NB: I think I might need to update this thread - I have so many random things on my laptop, its ridiculous.
  
• : Wow that image is so tiny, the font became unreadable... I thought the width limit for (e:strip) was 600 pixels. Apparently not...

Indeed. Hahaha...