adrian is rad

Part of Jeff’s bachelor party was going to the Pirates game on Thursday. It was a close game and a good one, with the Pirates winning in the end.

Here’s a a good recap of the game.

Also PNC Park is awesome. They even have Primanti’s and a pierogi race. It’d be a truly sad moment if the team moved.

I was entertained in NYC.

Rye Playland. I went to one of two parks listed in the National Registry of Historic Places on Tuesday. It’s a great old park. It has a few newer rides including one of those vomit-inducing spin-you-around-while-already-spinning you-around-in-a-different-axis rides (I believe my quote to my ride companion liz was “it’ll be a bonding moment when we puke on each other”—yeah, I’m gross), but most of the rides are classic older ones, including the Whip, the Swing, the (Mind) Scrambler, the Derby Racer (wow! 25mph on a carousel-like ride) and a great old carousel. It’s pretty similar to Kennywood in a lot of ways, but smaller. It’s an extremely photogenic park, with a main promenade and a common color scheme throughout. I hope some of my photos from the park turn out. I recommend this park if you’re into classic amusement parks.

Conan O’Brien taping. Despite waiting in lines for approximately the same amount of time that the show filmed, I enjoyed this quite a bit. I laughed a bunch (a chunk of which was during the audience warm up by Brian McCann). The theater is a lot smaller than I thought it’d be. As has been observed by others, seeing a taping does ruin a little bit of magic, though for years I’ve realized that the interview portion of the show had prompted questions and Conan doesn’t do a great job of hiding it. It was still funny and fun to watch.

Jens Lekman at Soundfix Records. We headed off to hipster-central, Williamsburg, Brooklyn to see Jens Lekman play an in-store at Soundfix Records. We had some pizza at a place down the street from Soundfix which was mostly not noteworthy except for Jens Lekman sitting in the catty-corner booth. I wished him a good show as he was leaving. The show space was in a separate room from the actual store part of Soundfix and when we got there it was packed and really hot. This was during the heat wave so the outside temperature was probably still in the 90s and the temperature in the room was probably between 115 and 125. It was like a (swedish) sauna. I wasn’t surprised that it was packed—it was a hipster band in a hipster locale; only later I realized that the last NYC Sleater Kinney show (and the fourth-to-last S-K show ever) was the same night; that’s why brooklynvegan, hipster extraordinaire didn’t fill us in with pictures from Jens, I guess. After we realized that one could stand outside, in the relatively cool air, and still hear the show fine, it was a pretty enjoyable, but rather short, show. I like Jens a lot. Afterwards I bought a couple CDs at Sounfix (the Wrens, Kelley Stoltz, Masters of the Autoharp) and we headed back.

I ate some food in NYC.

Grimaldi’s Pizza on Old Fulton* in Brooklyn. This is some seriously good pizza. Not-too-greasy and thin crusted, it tastes like it was made with care. Recommended.

Hallo Berlin on 10 Ave. Great German restaurant. Good food (brats, other sausage, potato pancakes) and good German beers (Kostritzer!). The only damper was they were out of Spätzle (which, I’d like to remind everyone, is from Schwaben). Highly recommended.

Katz’s deli on Houston**. The giant pastrami sandwhich is giant and delicious (if a bit overpriced). It’s the best pastrami sandwhich I’ve had. So succulent and juicy.

Nathan’s and funnel cake at Rye Playland. Nathans? I’m unimpressed. Funnel cake, on the other hand, is just about the best food ever invented. My hat off to the Pennsylvania Germans.

*Funny story: I went to Grimaldi’s on Old Fulton and then walked back to the subway station with Paul, my coworker. Right outside the subway station, a girl approaches us and asks me if I know where Old Fulton Rd. is. Well, there are about 1 million streets in NYC and I get asked about the only one I know! I felt pretty great! I told her “down here and then take a left at the bottom.”

**It was Sam Hyuston, wasn’t it? Then why is it Howston St.? New Yorkers, you need to get this straight.