Go DJ... that's my dj!
man, djing has come a long way since the Lab was founded. check out this "DJ Activity Center" for babies... get one for your kid, and he could be the next.... Roctakon?

the tour of nyc's soccer fields continues...

Metropolitan Oval
go down Metropolitan ave, past east willysburg, past hipster bushwick, past the industrial zone, and into the residential Maspeth, Queens... hidden off a nondescript street, you'll find this majestic field with a skyline view of manhattan. aside from the view, you really don't feel like you're in NYC anymore. with houses lining the field, the eastern european spectators, and the trance music blasting at halftime, you feel like you're in a suburb of Romania more than Queens. The field proportions are definitely odd, but they make for a quick game.

we played an old eastern european team who were out of shape but clever. the argentine got in a tussle with an older gentleman, who immediately turned into a Russian gangster. his brows went 45 degrees inward and the face of the devil appeared.

he started yelling "i'll blow your fucking head off right here, you don't know who you are messing with... REALLY, i'll blow your head off". afterwards the normally unflappable Argentine confessed that he was shook. I was too... this guy's angry face was straight out of a mob movie. if there was a bat on the ground, he probably would have smashed the Argentine. We imagined getting sprayed walking to the parking lot... that would have sucked.

more about the field:

History
The Metropolitan Oval was originally built in 1925 by German and Hungarian immigrants to be a European style soccer field with facilities. From 1925 onwards, the Oval served as a soccer field for men and boys of all ages and ethnicities. Many U.S. national team players from the New York region played games at the Oval while youths.

By the 1990’s, however, the Oval was in a state of disarray. Any grass the field once had was gone from overuse. It owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes and was scheduled for foreclosure by the City of New York.

In response to this state of affairs, the Metropolitan Oval Foundation was formed to save this historic site. The non-profit organization led by Jim Vogt, a longtime Queens native, and Chuck Jacob and Valerie Jacob, two New York lawyers dedicated to the restoration of historic soccer fields across the city, managed to raise enough money to save the field from foreclosure. In addition, Nike and U.S. Soccer each contributed $250,000 towards the construction of a Field-Turf field and new lights for the complex.

lastly on a design nerdus tip, check out this dramatic use of grayscale on this version of Ike Turner's classic. 3d and stunning.