I just got back this evening from a pretty dang nice time at Metro where Jen (Dove) was singing on top of Jerry's (Mighty) set. Pretty nice.atmosphere at an awesome location, although the drinks are a bit pricey.

This morning I was rudely reminded why it's a good thing I don't own any conventional or non-conventional weapons. For some reason, some high school band took it upon themselves to warmup for their performance at the [http://www.lilacfestival.com/|Lilac festival] right in front of my aparment at 9 in the morning. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, for someone who had just gone to sleep at 4 or 5 that morning, waking up to a rather pathetic drumline who is just learning to keep time and can't do anyting more complicated than a sixteenth note, coupled with a bunch of trumpets and horns doing scales badly qualifies as justifiable homicide. There would have been dead bandos littering the streets... but at least I would be able to get back to sleep. [Now, normally, if this were to happen when I have appropriate equipment, I'd just pull out the multi-kW system and play rotterdam or deathcore. Hrm. Deathcore at 9A in the morning is lovely.]

Once I got unhungover from my unholy awakening, I went with Chyna, Dave and Marcus to shoot pictures for an article about the cd that we've recently done in the city magazine (the local throwaway entertainment 'zine.) We took a few interesting shots up and down university near goodman, where there are a few neat benches and sculptures. The pictures turned out reasonably ok.

I spent a good part of the past few weeks traveling around NY once again. [http://www.paulzugnoni.com|Paul Zugnoni] visited me in NY for a bit, so we went to see Niagra Falls, and then later took in NYC. On the way to visiting Niagra Falls, we checked out a rather neat [http://gallery.donarmstrong.com/2003/05_may/niagra_falls_05152003/collapsed_building|dilapidated building] that had totally collapsed some time in the past. It's construction is rather odd, built totally out of [http://gallery.donarmstrong.com/2003/05_may/niagra_falls_05152003/collapsed_building/collapsed_building_wall.jpg|orientated stones]. Unfortunatly, it seems that rebar was at a premium when it was built, or the pitch of the roof wasn't steep enough to support the snow one year. While we were there, I shot the dandelions to the left.

That weekend, we flew to NYC on [http://www.jetblue.com|Jet Blue], landing in JFK. Nicely, the NYC subway has a free shuttle from the terminals to the nearest subway, and it's a straight shot from the A line into downtown NYC. We ended up staying at [http://www.hotel31.com|Hotel 31], which is a really inexpensive european style hotel, that was once a SRO, aka wellfare hotel. [For the uninitiated, that means really small rooms with a bath down the hall. But since we weren't there to spend time in a room, who cares?]

While we were in NYC I got to check out the New Contemporary while Paul was off looking at the statue of liberty and the empire state building. They had a few neat exhibits, which will end up in my image gallery eventually, and an [http://www.artomat.org/|art-o-mat.] What's an art-o-mat? It's a retired cigarette vending machine that has been converted to vend art (compatible with pack dimensions, of course.) I ended up deciding to pick up a bit of art myself, and buy into the concept. (Just found out that there actually is an art-o-mat in Rochester, at the [http://www.rochestercontemporary.org/|Rochester Contemporary]

Anyway, back in Rochester, I also got to check out Mark Grant who was at the Bug Jar about a week ago, playing an incredible deep house set that really got the crowd moving. I ended up blowing out my left shoe sometime during the night while dancing... that doesn't happen every day.