I have mostly kicked the habit of talking about cool possessions and stuff, but I have some Amazon gift certificates that have been piling up, and I have my eye on something cool. It's Digital Dream's James Bond Stealth Camera. I've been looking for an inexpensive digital camera that I can carry in my pocket — something strong and small, like a Zippo lighter case. Well, that's exactly what they've done. It can only take 640 by 480 pixel pictures, but it holds 150 of them, includes a voice recorder, 30-second time-lapse "surveillance" mode, and can take up to 30 seconds of video with sound. I just want to wait to see if it goes on the Friday sale this week ...

Tangentially related is my new tall bike — in that it's a cool possession, and I think some guy got a picture of me on it with a cell phone camera. I'm pretty sure it was last year's ARTWalk Alive event that I saw some guy with a tall bike: he made it himself, and it seemed pretty difficult to control and rickety. All the zany contraptions at The Burning Man Project (The Man, Black Rock City 2004, NV) inspired me to make my own, so I cut apart two bike frames and welded one on top of the other. There's two front forks: one on top and one on the bottom that are welded together so I can steer. I guess in bicyclist parlance it's a "festival bike" because you can just lean on a pole and see over everyone else. Owing partly to its current twisted photo-negative tiger-stripe paint job (i.e. green strips on white reverses to purple stripes on black as opposed to black on orange) I've been calling it a "giraffe bike," but I'll usually refer to it as "the tall bike."

My version is pretty stable. To get on it, it's a lot like getting on a small horse (well, assuming the horse has only two legs and falls over when it's not moving. There are other differences too, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the student.) You put your left foot on the left pedal at its lowest point, roll the bike forward like a scooter then step up (which tends to lean the bike left, so turn left a little to keep balance) swing your right leg over the seat onto the other pedal and sit on the seat (which tends to lean the bike right a little, so turn a little right) then pedal a bit to keep balance and you're all set. Removal is the reverse of installation.

Riding it is just like a regular bike, except you're really high up. Of course, since it's kind of a pain to de-bike and en-bike, I usually will either time my arrival at intersections so I don't have to stop, or I'll reach up and hold onto the bottom bracket of the "Don't Walk" sign, mostly because I think it's pretty funny to do that. Oh, and your feet are actually higher than most guard rails which can be pretty scary when riding over 490. At night. After a few drinks (see disclaimer later.)

Did I mention that I was way out of my element?

Saturday morning I got a late start but decided to ride the bike anyway (the regular bike because I was using the bike trailer) to The Rochester Public Market (280 Union St. N.) ... so what if I were a few minutes late to Sticky Lips Pit BBQ (625 Culver Rd.) later on? Along the way I found another junked bike and I decided to tie it on my bike trailer. The "funny" thing was that one of the axles on the trailer fell apart — I lost a nut, and the axle spun out. The baby stroller wheels I had on there were dragging badly, and I made a couple attempts to fix it.

Not as late as I thought I'd be, I got in to Sticky Lips Pit BBQ (625 Culver Rd.) and joined my friends. Now, that is a good barbecue joint. Everything was very tasty, and all their sauces are bold and direct. It's kind-of oddly located, but it's really just a half-mile or so away from Park Ave. or ARTWalk, and a quarter mile from Eastman House ... if you could cross the train yard.

Back to the bike stories, though: I tried fixing the axle with an assortment of things, but eventually got it pulled out and reversed so the end with no nut was on the inside, and I used the bungee cords to hold the junk bike to also hold in the axle bolt. I did my regular shopping at Abundance Cooperative Market (62 Marshall St.) then struggled my way back home. I was riding against the friction of the axle plus the 30-mile-an-hour headwind. When I got home I noted that the wheel was warm on that side, and I figured I was losing something on the order of a hundred watts in friction alone — ordinarily enough to propel me around 10 miles an hour. Anyway, I went (by car) to Harbor Freight (1040 East Ridge Rd., in Georgetown Plaza) — which is more of a candyland than Radio Shack for do-it-yourself-type-pepople — and got better wheels for the trailer and put them in over the weekend. Much better ... I also increased the load rating of the trailer to around 300 pounds or so.

Ok, so anyway, that night I went out to the opening of Andy Gilmore's work at A|V Art Sound Space (#8 in the Public Market, off N. Union St., formerly The All-Purpose Room) His stuff is quite good ... depicting some of the traditional Halloween concepts — like crows and demons — in detailed pen-and-ink drawings. From there I went to Alexandria Mediterranean Cuisine (120 East Ave., formerly Aria) and saw TatYana perform again. They're really a spectacular band ... very improvisational music with strong jazz and groove-rock elements combined with some experimental overtones.

While I was there I saw some money lying on the floor. I asked our group if anybody lost money, and when nobody claimed it, I brought it to the bartender — $85 in all — and said that if nobody claimed it I'd split it with him. It turns out one of the other servers had lost it (and $20 more I didn't even see.) He offered to buy me a drink but I turned it down — in part because I don't really care since a clear conscience is valuable to me, but also because I happen to have a 12-year Macallan Scotch in front of me at the time and that would be just greedy. He brought me a refill anyway when I was done.

Oh, and I learned an important lesson that night: you can't ride the tall bike if you drink two shots of Macallan. I guess the whole balancing thing requires quick reactions, so on my first attempt getting on the bike, I fell right off. To add insult to injury (figuratively) the chain slipped off and bound, which took ten minutes to fix.

On Tuesday I saw a cool show at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) The first band up was Boxcar Satan who did awesome and unique rockabilly/heavy metal with punk and blues influences. Next was Singapore Sling who are a really good Icelandic medium-tempo rock band ... three guitars makes for a good wall of sound. The Town Bikes did this very odd burlesque show — for instance, their first set included a remixed cover of "Beat It" sung by some guy with a Japanese accent. And finally, Bob Log III finished off the night with his high-tempo bluesy-rock one-man-band with a funny stage presence ... all sung through a telephone receiver in a motorcycle helmet.

• Godzilla starting at 8. (at The Little) - Finally: the rare Japanese original version comes to larger distribution.
• Diarios de motocicleta (Motorcycle Diaries, at The Little) - Pretty much a Latin American buddy travel movie ... more about the people than comedy, though.
• Riding Giants (at The Little) - The history of surfing ...
• La grande séduction (Seducing Dr. Lewis, at The Little) - Kinda like Local Hero only en Français.
• Shall We Dance? - Even if Richard Gere learns to dance so he can bring life into his marriage, remember that if gays can marry, he'll have no chance.
• Team America: World Police - Of course I'm going to see this. (Note to friends: let me know when you're going — I don't have psychic powers.)