Had a cool, busy and repetative weekend, nowhere near exotic countries. Friday went to a party in Billyburg, in a big white concrete ant-hill of a building on N 4th and Kent. Great views of the water and cats that seemed totally unfazed by 50+ drunk people dancing around them. Nice sandwiches too. Amazing open corridors that screamed for roller blading. No pineapples and long sandy beaches though.

On Saturday went to the Andreas Gursky photographic exhibition. Huge photos - about 6 foot high by 12 foot. Some of them were pretty cool but others didn't really impress me - looked like large holiday snaps. Later went to an opening where someone had coloured large sheets of paper with pencil. Cheap at $30,000... wish I'd realised it was worth that much when I was doing the same thing as a kid. Later than that (after some bar antics) went to a review called Kiddie Corner. Some very disturbed young men recounting fake childhood incidents of abuse and suicide. Cheery stuff so we ended up boozing in Marion's to finish the night. Oh, and then Sweet and Vicious. At no time were we attacked by elephants.

Sunday was completely different. Finally went for brunch at a nice little place near mine before going to a photographic exhibition from black photographers at the Brooklyn Museum after a few wrong turns on the subway. A few really nice pictures but no coherence - bought the book anyway which hung together much better. Then went into town, shopped for hifi equipment before going to a new chinese place for some gorgeous beef stuff. Yum. Then off to the Oscars. Well, my friend Stjohn and Barb's apartment where I watched on the TV. very similar though, but less tropical fish to scuba dive with - more Steve Martin though.

Back in 1992 I got a copy of what is possibly my favorite chill-out tape of all time. This was from a guy called Dave Schell who worked at PGL and was one of a crowd of wanna-be DJs that used to use the kids disco gear to practice. The tape was of Future Sound of London (FSOL) doing a session on Kiss FM in London, before Kiss got sucked down the whole garage thing and became a lot more boring. The basic concept was two 'virtual' DJs, Cyberface and Yage, talking over some very cool dubbed out tracks with the usual FSOL soundbites and ambient backgrounds. Superb stuff.

So why do I bring this up? Well, I was listening to the Essential Selection on Radio 1 (thank you streamed audio) and the trainspotter track was one of the tracks off this tape - Song of Life by Leftfield (Lemon Interrupt's Dubbed Up Mix). Nice to know what it is, and at some point I promise to get that tape onto MP3 format.

Oh, and forgot to mention that I finally had brunch in Williamsburg the other day. Went to Teddy's pub on N 8th and Wythe (or thereabouts). Nice, filling food in an old English style pub. This is opposite Osnot's Dish which is supposed to be pretty darn good as well. I need to hang out in my hood more... Thanks to StJohn and Barb for dragging me down there and providing company later back chez moi where they learnt the intricacies of Dreamcast snow boarding games.

New York is under a torrential downpour at the moment. Just like being back in blighty - although with less foot and mouth disease and rail accidents. Oh and less snow. This British climate encourages inventors to come up with useful stuff like a robotic dog that "can climb over obstacles, play football, do handstands and even move like a crab". Now I may be missing something here, but dogs don't normally move like crabs, not unless they have serious infections in which case get them to a vet. So why bring it up as an important facet of a robot dog. Go figure.

Meanwhile the pressures mount from various sources to jack it all in, escape the Internet downturn and go travelling on my savings until it all gets better. All very tempting indeed. Everyone I know in New York seems to be a lot more stressed these days. Could just be the rain though and the low quality $2 umbrellas everyone has blowing inside out though. Oops, there goes another 20 points off the Nasdaq. Slidey. It's times like these I'm very glad I never bought shares.

Ah, Spring has arrived, the sun is shining, the subway is getting sweatier. On leaving the subway looking for some cool refreshing air I discovered a new feature of W 40th st, the new office location - severe car fumes. I dread to think what it's going to be like in summer...

On the plus side though, I'm 5 minutes walk from Hammerstein Ballroom which means I can easily bypass Ticketbastard fees for shows there, as with Roni Size this weekend.

Went along to see Wayne Krantz, sometime ex-guitarist from Steely Dan, play down at the 55 Bar last night. Amazingly talented. Three-piece with drums and bass. Actually played live music that sounded amazingly like drum and bass for that matter (although the drumming was more jazz). Used about 4000 pedals to get some great sounds live. Recommend checking him out sometime.

Fun night out post-work stress. Out with Tim and he threw a snowball at a trash truck. So this guy got out shouting "you white faggot - what you do that for?". Tim stood his ground and said "It's a snowball, mate. Don't stress" and so on as the guy ranted at him. I turned around and saw the guy had a baseball bat in his hand so I wandered over to offer moral support (ie, two guys against one with a baseball bat). Then bat guy decided to call it a night and wandered back to his truck screaming abuse. Tim then goes, let's throw another snowball at him, at which point i disowned him. Pretty standard fare.

Shortly after that we lost pool in Max Fish to this cute Welsh/French/Scottish film student from Arizona and later still played light sabers with two 12 foot fluorescent tubes tim had noticed outside. Big explosion of glass. Pretty.

So all in all an interesting night and one that i'm still recovering from. More coffee vicar?