Sam On the Scene

I shopped the scene at Moffly Media’s At Home Magazine Design District to see get a taste of what Westport has to offer. The town is a one stop shop for fashion to home furnishings. There is something for everyone, with Lucy’s catering to of-the-moment pieces that make a wardrobe sing and Henry Lehr’s wide selection simplistic comfortable, neutral staples to create a base for your closet.

To add a finishing touch, Lux Bond & Green’s is ground zero. The pieces there range from celebrity must-haves like bangles in brilliant jewel tones to classic pieces in diamond and pearls.

If you want Sam to come to your Scene, visit my website samanthaknapp.com and contact us!

I don’t know where to begin as far as describing what happened Friday night. Started off at a private party at Lucy’s Catina Royale outside Madison Square Garden for the “Friend’s and Family Pre-Grand Opening Party” where my roommate is the gm. This event included free drinks and free food for all who could get in. The long island’s were flowing and the food seemed to be never ending. From there we headed to Hudson Terrace for a party that included a performance by Kevin Rudolph and an appearance by a few of the Yankee’s players. As you can imagine the place was filled early with beautiful people and a ton of energy. I made the decision to have an after party at my place with a group of people which made things only better. We partied all night long which left for another sleep deprived night. A friend of mine who works for the NFL happens to be friends with one of the Yankees and it just so happened that 4 of the Yankees players were 2 floors below us in my building still celebrating the big win. The night ended at the Plaza hotel, where a friend had a suite, and us sipping on mimosa’s at the continental breakfast. I need a photographer to follow me and document our nights.

More interesting stories to come.

Contact me if you want to come out.

585.737.4095/PIN: 30BC1844

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J and I had lunch at Lucy’s (Cinco de Mayo) yesterday.

One green chile burrito with cheese plate (includes rice, beans and salad).

One two cheese enchilada plate.

Two large cups of  jamaica (yum yum!).

When we got back to the house and unpacked the food, we discovered that the ladies at Lucy’s included two regular size candy bars because of Halloween, which was really very nice of them. So, after lunch J had a Snickers and I had a Twix.

Unlike Halloween 2008, the majority of the houses on Huron Avenue were dark last night. For the first time since I’ve been in California, no one in my apartment complex has given out Halloween candy.

J and I went to the Halloween party at Joxer Daly’s last night. It was a dramatic change from last year’s event and I don’t necessarily think it was the fault of Mehaul or the staff at Joxer’s. You definitely need to consider that the wing shop at the end of the building just vacated due to the rent increase to $5600 USD.

Overall, the best costume that I saw yesterday was Shan’s girlfriend who was dressed up like the chick from Star Wars. Not Princess Leia, the dancing chick whose head ended in those two tentacles and then got killed by that thing in the pit.  She did a very good job on her costume. My apologies to the Star War afficionados, but I lost the time years ago to be aware of all the races and players in that particular saga.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to J!

I’ve been playing the “here-are-some-awesome-links” game for the past day and a half, so I thought it’s time to get back to some real content. So here’s some REAL content:

I’m not proud of these pictures.

The story they tell is sad. But there is a story here…

These are pics of laundry, MY laundry, covering my bedroom floor. I have intended to do laundry every night after work since Monday, and to-date have not even attempted to step outdoors after the bike ride home.

Therefore, no laundry has been done. And I have no clean undies. Or over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders. All dirty. Washing a couple in the sink as we speak. It’s sad.

How did it come to this, you ask? Well, I’m going to take you on…you guessed it! A rollercoaster journey of overwhelming emotion and physical exhaustion. Because this is one of the “toughies” of living without a car. Of LIFE WITHOUT WHEELS.

Now first of all, please recognize that my apartment building does not have a laundry room; therefore, I must travel off-site to Lucy’s (about 4 blocks away) to do my laundry. No big deal, right? Wrong.

Trying to do laundry after work, or a few loads before work, is impossible. Here’s why: I get up at 5am to ride to yoga then work. In the middle of the day I sneak out to ballet class, then I ride my bike home, arriving sometime between 6 and 7pm. When I get home, all I want to do is change clothes, chat online with some friends, and vegg out entirely. No brain functioning or physical activity allowed.

But it’s not just physical exhaustion. After you’ve gone a certain amount of time without a vehicle, a sort of malaise and lack-of-transportation depression takes hold. You don’t want to run any errands because they commandeer such a huge chunk of your day. If you run errands after work, you have no time to do anything else, which would be fine if you didn’t have anything else to do. Then you decide that you will wait for the weekend and do all your errands and chores then. BUT then all your errands and chores pile up; Saturday rolls around, and the last thing you want to do is spend your entire day off running errands and sitting at the Laundromat. What you really want to do is go to ballet class, ride to YogaWorks and get some clarity, work on your solo for Max 10 on November 2^nd, and watch some goddamn TV or catch up on your DVR. You remember how nice it was to have a car, when it took  5 minutes to get to Target and get laundry detergent and not 3o minutes to an hour. You remember what it was like to walk out to your garage and get in your car, turn on the engine, and feel the A/C as you drive 2 miles away to the grocery store, instead of pulling out your hand cart and walking the mile uphill to the Ralphs on Vermont in the Southern California heat.

And (prior to quitting smoking) you think about how hard you’ve worked all week, and all you really want to do is sit in front of the TV with a bottle of wine, a pack of cigarettes, and some cubed cheese, because who the F*** cares about doing laundry, going to the grocery store, or doing any other kind of chore/errand that relates to actually maintaining your life?!?

So you start putting things off. You decide that you can buy your lunch every day, thereby canceling out any savings you might be accruing because you’ve chosen not to own a car, maintain it, buy gas, and pay car insurance. You decide that you can do laundry every three weeks; you certainly have enough leotards and tights to get through three weeks. Those last couple of days when you start to run out of clean undies/bras you can wash a few in the sink. Hey, it worked when you were in drum corps, didn’t it?

I feel like the above just sounds like one big whine, but I just want to impress on you the effect of the situational depression that can occur.

But for the next month, I’m going to try and instill in myself the belief that my lack of vehicular transportation does not hinder my mobility. I mean, I’m always telling people it doesn’t affect my life at all, but then I don’t think I really believe that, even though I try to convince everyone else of it. They say it takes 21 days to make a habit. So hopefully by the end of October I’ll see and truly believe that my lifestyle is maintainable. (You wouldn’t believe that I’ve been without wheels for over a year already, would you?) Coming up…pics from my trip to the Laundromat.

Here are my clothes, separated into loads. This took a while, considering the amount of laundry I had to do.

When the basket got full...

...I still had ALL these clothes to somehow transport to Lucy's.

Thank goodness my mom bought me this mesh bag when I went to college.

Then you have to fit both the laundry basket and the big mesh bag into your hand cart.

I was ecstatic to see that on an early Saturday evening, Lucy's was practically empty, and I didn't have to wait for a washer.

Almost done folding clothes! Yay!

And thus at approximately 9pm on Saturday evening, my laundry expedition ended. Clothes clean, folded, and smelling of Downey fabric softener. Seems like I made a whole lot of drama about nothing…guess you had to be there.

assassins creed

Completion bonus

Successfully complete the game. When the Memory Blocks are played again in Story mode, you can kill anyone without penalty. Additionally, you will be able to use Eagle Vision at any time regardless of Synchronization levels inside of the Animus.

Escaping from guards

Go to a high roof when chased. Kill the guards that appear. After a few kills, they will either run or give up.

Easy kills

Note: Only attempt this technique if they are fluent in the Rank 2 skill “Counter” and they have enough Synchronization bars; one and a half rows of bars will do. When in battle, equip your hidden blade. With this equipped, all of your counters will score an instant kill. You can even instantly kill tougher ranked guards (for example, the Teutonic guards in Acre when hunting Sebrand). Also, most of the time using the hidden blade in battle will scare the last one or two (even three if you are lucky) guards, causing them to run away. However, because you do not have a weapon that is sufficient enough to block a full sized enemy blade, all incoming attacks will hurt you.

While in battle, if you see a guard you are fighting physically emote in any way (for example, taunting you or cowering in fear), press Low Profile Assassinate while facing them to score an instant kill without having to counter.

The best weapon for more than four guards or thugs is the Short Blade.

Easier interrogations

After you get the “target” to a safe area to “interrogate” them, punch them first then “grab” them for faster completions. It will take about two grabs to quickly finish them. However, in the last three quarters of the game, you may have to grab them up to four times.

Easier game

To lower the time needed to complete the game and decrease the difficulty of each major assassination, do the following in order (with the exception of Masyaf):

Visit the Assassin’s Guild.

Scan the city by first climbing all of the view points.

Rescue all the citizens from the thugs. You will need the help after a major assassination.

Successfully complete all of the informant’s missions (to get all the valuable information you can).

Pickpocket the shysters in all of the pickpocket missions (for information to the Guild).

Once all of these are completed, go back to the Assassin’s Guild to start the major assassination mission.

Unlocking your bedroom door

When you go to bed after Memory Block 2, you will notice your closet door is open. Press any button to get a piece of paper Desmond notes as a code. The code will unlock your bedroom door, which will allow you to be able to go out as often as you like after you go to bed, as well as to open the meeting room area. You can also pick up various items to unlock Lucy’s password.

Decoding e-mails from Lucy’s computer

One item you can pick up after being able to unlock your bedroom door is Lucy’s password. You can then investigate her e-mails, which entail a short secondary story line. After you complete the last Memory Block, go back outside your room. Go to Lucy’s computer. In “Deleted Items” is an e-mail which entails her talking to someone about a rescue, then the last reply comes back as:

WondEr Why It is everyone Laughs at you?
i’ll Let you guess.
let’s just say she’s proBably gEtTing it bigger and better from someone else tHat isn’t you.
how can you hope to compEte?
REst asSured there are sOme gOod ways.
click the liNk to see!

Removing the capital letters out of the message decodes the message as:

WE WILL BE THERE SOON

Hidden messages

After killing Al Muaiam and returning to the real world, listen to the conversation about how they going to kill you. Turn on your Eagle Vision, and look at the floor. There are some mixed up letters on both sides of the Amnius. You should see on the side closest to the main door:

M O R Y M N O E S
E N C E O L C H T
H O N B T L O T C
T D E O S A T O A
P E D S N L S T F
L D D U O O E T E
E A I E I R I N T
H S H K T T K E R
T U A A A N S S A

To decode this, start reading at the bottom right hand corner to the top right hand corner, so you will start at “A” and stop at “S”. It will spell a real word. Do this for all of the columns and it will read:

ARTEFACTS SENT TO THE SKIES TO CONTROL ALL NATIONS TO MAKE US OBEY A HIDDEN CRUSADE DO NOT HELP THEM

Next, do the same thing to the mixed letters on the other side of the Amnius:

A
D R H
O O D T M
W H B I T D O
E U S Y S I N S E
A R O O M R E A Y N R
I S E Y T N I D L M I D E
T W I H W Y I E A U D A Y H T

It will spell out:

THEY DRAINED MY SOUL AND MADE IT THEIRS I DRAINED MY BODY TO SHOW YOU WHERE I SAW IT

Defeating the Master

When fighting the Master, he will take away your ability to use radar and make it difficult to see. This also allows him to hit you once and kill you. Lock on to him, and use a throwing knife against him. This will take away his power to blind you and make him easier to kill.

The first part is simple. Take out your sword, as you will be fighting all your previous assassination targets. They are fairly easy to kill. Only one counter is required to kill each of them. For the second part, as soon as Al Mualim releases you, use your Eagle Vision. The real Al Mualim is the one in yellow. Focus your attacks on him. In the third part, Al Mualim takes away your synchronization bar and radar, allowing him to kill you in one hit. Take out your throwing knives. Look for the Piece of Eden in his hand. Once you see him, throw a knife at him. Then, just counterattack/grab break him. Keep repeating this until he says, “Damn you Altair!” Finish him off with your hidden blade or keep attacking him with your sword until he is dead.

Defeating William of Montferrat in Acre

After the guards (or most of them) leave William, drop down from the castle, and slay William. Then, “de-target” or deselect, and run up into the castle buildings and battlement to get away. This is the fastest way of completing the mission.

Transformers reference

Go to the southwestern-most vigilantes in the poor district of Damascus. On one of the buildings around them, you should see an outcropping in the wall, climb on it to see it looks exactly like G1 Optimus Prime in vehicle mode. Note: There may be more than one outcropping in the area, so look carefully. If you lose sight of the vigilantes, you have gone too far.

assassins creed

assassin creed

assassins creed

I should have posted this last night, but I decided to succumb to the stereotype and watch Game 1 of the World Series at Lucy’s bar. On a related note: Yay, we won (if you didn’t know by now)!

My work shut down at noon on Wednesday so that we could all (except for the lovely and dedicated Heather) go to the rally at City Hall. It appeared to be a bit disorganized, but was still a good time. After reading the line-up for Game 1, the speaker introduced Mayor Nutter…who was late. It was like a scene in a movie. Nutter was introduced, the speaker turned around, there was 30 seconds of panicked silence from the stage, and then the speaker went back to the microphone and started a Phillies’ chant. 

The pattern of “just make them chant to fill time” continued when Mayor Nutter finished his speech. There would be an awkward pause, he’d turn around and whisper something to the man behind him, then start a chant. The crowd would stop, there’d be an awkward pause, he’d turn around, then start another chant. That happened about three or four times. 

Yeah, baby, shake it for Momma.

Still, the rally was energizing. It succeeded in pumping up the fans and giving out hope that maybe, just maybe, this would be the year. And my boyfriend the Phillie Phanatic was there, so I got some eye-candy. 

And now: The Emotions of a Non-Sports Fan when their City’s Team Goes to the World Series:

8:45 a.m. Don’t-really-follow-sports-fake-excitement-to-not-get-killed-on-the-subway: ”Hey guys, I have this hat. I’m one of you! Yeah. Go local sports team. Woot. LA sucks. I mean Florida. Or Boston. Or…erm, I forget who we’re playing. Whatever, everyone sucks but us! Yeah.”

9:00 a.m. Infectious excitement from co-workers: YEAH WE’RE GONNA WIN! LET’S SEND A SNARKY E-MAIL TO THE FLORIDA OFFICE. YEAH THAT WAS AWESOME! WOOOOOH! I WEAR MY HAT WITH PRIDE!

9:05 a.m. Shame: ”Hey wait, where’s your Phillies gear?” “Well, I have this one hat…” “Just one hat? Oh, I see.” 

9:30 a.m. Fear: ”Oh crap. If we win I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.” “Because you’ll be so happy?” “Because my neighborhood won’t stop screaming.” 

9:31 a.m. Fear with a hit of desperation: “…and if we lose I won’t be able to sleep because of the riot. Damn it. Maybe I should sleep at the boy’s tonight. Safe in New Jersey where people don’t climb street signs or throw beer cans at cops…” (Note: When the Phillies won the game that put them in the World Series 9 people were arrested at the Cottman and Frankford intersection for doing just that. That’s apparently the place to be.)

10:15 a.m. City Pride, perhaps in the wrong thing: 

co-worker from out of state: “I couldn’t find a rally schedule online.”
our boss: “A schedule?”
co-worker: “Yeah, to say when the Keynote speakers will come on…”
boss: “Oh no. This is Philadelphia. A lot of people will just show up and yell a lot.” 
co-worker: “Oh. At every Colts rally I’ve been to John Mellencamp shows up at a certain time…”
me: “Yeah. That won’t happen. Just the yelling.”

12:00 p.m. Unnatural Sports Pride Brought on by the Phanatic: “WOOH!!! WOOOOOOOOOH!” 

1 p.m – 8:22 p.m. Worn Out: “Ok, that was fun. Wait, there’s a game tonight?”

8:22 p.m. – the end of the game. Drunk. 

Frankly, I just keep thinking of this Penny Arcade comic.

El cuarto hotel de Port Aventura abrirá puertas en verano de 2009

En diferentes edificios y cabañas se ubicarán las 502 habitaciones que recrearán ambientes del Far West. Las obras podrían empezar este mismo año.Sobre una parcela de 31.173,88 metros cuadrados, Port Aventura levantará diferentes edificios para configurar su cuarta oferta hotelera del complejo de ocio, tras el Hotel El Paso, Caribe Resort y Port Aventura, el único de los tres actuales con acceso directo al parque temático.

Since it’s Halloween I am having one of those I don’t want to grow up days.  So far I spent it watching Clean House with Sara, eating candy, and making sure I wished all my favorite people Happy Halloween because I don’t have the motivation to study. I need to get into school really fast since I need to pick a major by November 12.  Blah, I am so indecisive.  I go from wanting to major in Accounting to Exercise Science and from being a History teacher to a Graphic Designer. But whatever it’s Halloween, it’s not the time to think about making decisions that will greatly affect my future. 

Anyway tonight will probably be one of the nights I need people to help me remember which means it will be fun, unless I do something stupid.  I can’t wait to see everyone, nights at Lucy’s are always my favorite.  Hopefully stupid old heads won’t try to start with me again for no reason.  Anyway it should be good, I need a good night.

 Well thats all for now, have to start the Halloween festivities.

I’d heard a lot of good things about Lucy’s in Stanley: delicious food, great atmosphere, creative menu etc etc, so I decided to check it out last night.
They’ve gone for a Tuscan theme decoration wise which, in my humble opinion, doesn’t work; the place is in danger of looking like JD Weatherspoons meets the Home & Away set. Bad lighting, even worse wall stenciling and a tacky palm tree to round the whole look off. I was feeling slightly nauseous when the waiter handed me the menu, but once glance at that was more then enough to convince me to stay.

The menu is a great size, you choose from five or six starters and main courses and there’s a separate pudding list. You’re not overwhelmed by choices so the simple, well thought out food really stands out (which is lucky given the decoration scheme). Starters include a deliciously fresh mozzarella, courgette, almond and grape salad with a fig tapenade ($90) and char-grilled squid and white bean bruschetta ($85). There was a tomato and thyme braised lamb shank on the main course menu ($200), along with falafel with tomato salad and pita ($170) and seabass with spicy chickpeas, aubergine and pomegranate couscous ($210), which I strongly recommend.

Feeling very full we still pushed on to the puddings; I went for a fantastic rhubarb and raspberry crumble and my friend opted for a pecan and ginger tart. Both were excellent. They also have two and three course set menus at $240 and $280.

I feel a bit sorry for the girls who get taken there for cosy dinners à deux. Although Lucy’s offers delicious food and wine it isn’t exactly the romantic dinner date destination I’d imagined. Well, perhaps if you’re Alf and Alsa and living happily in Summer Bay, but this is Hong Kong and there are hundreds of romantic hotspots to choose from. For a girly dinner or a good food fix I’d go back, but I won’t be angling for a hot date there any time soon.

Lucy’s – G/F, 64 Stanley Main Street, Stanley. Tel: +852 2813 9055. Look for the side street to the right of Deli France, the restaurant is up there.