Dockgoose

The sputtering of a CPR patient finally drawing a ragged breath

2005-06-21T12:07:00.000-05:00

April-to June sure doesn't feel like that long a time in the grand scheme of things, but nevertheless I find myself under a rather altered set of circumstances from my last posting. Or even from my last year of posting, hampered as it was by the snooty "no blogs" policy of the job's Web Portal sentinels. Instead of trotting out some Faulkner-eske paragraphs on what the hell is going on, let's just try some simple bullet points.

- I quit the law firm. Paralegaling is for people who keep organized and like to work late, I decided after a year and a half.

- I'm taking chemistry at Pace U., taught by a wild, tenured, heavily greek-accented professor who paired me up in lab with an 18 year old Princeton engineer who pounds red bull and will burn out within the next 18 months and a nice-seeming orthodox jewish guy with a big beard, a withered right arm and a notable limp. I carry the beakers.

- I am tending to a balcony garden of a dozen geraniums, one tomato plant, and an amarillus. I wanted a dog, but plants don't shit on your floor or get you arrested for cruelty/abandonment charges- I sometimes forget to give myself water.

- I have a car in the city, the family Town & Country set to be retired to a summer life on Martha's Vineyard but running one last tour of duty. I'm currently at #322 on a waiting list of 450 for a parking spot in my Co-op's lot. So I get to deal with alternate side regulations. And yes, assaulting a traffic attendant in the state of New York is a felony.

- I'm a paid-dues member of the World Adult Kickball Association (WAKA), playing on the Cheetos with the first game this thursday at 7:30pm on Central Park Field #3. If you're passing 62nd street, be warned.

Ok, Here's a Punchline.

2005-02-10T14:07:00.000-05:00

Paris Hilton: Your Punchline Here

Lord & Taylor’s invite to Paris Hilton’s perfume launch today (on their 2nd floor from 1-2pm) features a long ode to the heiress that ends with, “Now you have the opportunity to share a bit of the magic that is Paris Hilton. Find out what it smells like to a be a Star.”

Oh, I think we can guess what it smells like. And our inner copy editor noted that they mistakenly added an extra “a” in that last sentence.

[via Gawker]

Well, I'm no copy editor, but imagining 'Eau de Skank,' I could go out on a limb and guess that in addition to the extra "A", the last sentence is also missing an "S" from "A Star."

Har-har.

Daniel-San Politics

2005-01-20T14:57:00.000-05:00

Pat Morita once told me the following sage bit of advice:
"Man walk on road. Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk down middle, sooner or later, get squished... just like grape."
The crazies on either end of the spectrum get louder every day...
On the extreme right, we're being told today that Spongebob Squarepants is gay and will damnably burn forever, at least as soon as he leaves that Pinnapple Under the Sea which Satan is finding not very combustible at all.
From the extreme left, it's a nationwide strike for France, where unions can't stand the idea of work weeks longer than 35 hours.
And I'm not even going to touch the real, scary news. At least not until Pat teaches me how to punch.

News Flash

2005-01-19T11:35:00.000-05:00

As you may or may not be aware, there is a fast-circulating rumor that Fitness-Celebrity John Basedow, of 2 min. spot TV commercial fame, has met an untimely end while vacationing in Phuket during the recent geological tumult. (See press releases.)

However, for the last two weeks, his well-oiled body and too-large head (see Alexander post re: bad dye jobs) have continued to terrorize broad swaths of basic cable programming. The huckster appeared on television in October more than either presidential candidate, and the campaign has not wavered in the slightest despite his purported demise. I began to grow suspicious; was his final wish really to have twin legacies, one targeting a double threats to our fat reserves and another as a target for the acrimony of 20something humor for the rest of non-Tivo history? Or were the purported internet news stories perhaps more Jayson Blair than New York Times...

Seeking answers straight from the chiseled jaw of the horse's mouth, I braved the www.fitnessmadesimple.com website. Between inspirational Basedow quotes and convincing pitches for nutritional/workout videos, I found the following IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Tom Friedman frequently describes how people are fooled into believing what they read "on the internet," because it comes with the rubric of credibility and science. I would always think "oh, you silly little Indonesian children." But now I understand what he means. When it's something you want to believe anyway...

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams.

Love That Dirty Water...

2005-01-18T15:33:00.000-05:00

The dry air of the Northeast winter has killed my tan. The skin is going to all peel off, and I'm a little upset about it. So I made the rational choice-- booked a ticket to Miami for the long weekend in February. Only to keep things true to my style, I first made sure to get the weekend wrong, and actually book my ticket for the week before the long weekend. Thanks to that little clerical error, I now get 3 long weekends in 4 weeks, or as the rest of the world would call it, a french calendar. I've never been to Miami (phonetics: mee-ah-mee), but my friend Hugh stopped there during his drive from Texas to Boston, apparently because it was on the way, and said I will love it and to bring lots of pastels. Right now I think my only pastel accessories are in my bottom drawer at home in Massachusetts-- a little plastic bag filled with colored elastic bands I would use to decorate my braces from grades 6-8. And they say the early teen years can be awkward. Ha!

Spent the weekend in Boston to catch a show of some high school friends and then play designated driver for my brother and pals out of Cambridge, the official host city of the DUI Olympics. On the iditerod back to the car from the club, we were accosted by a man who accused us of stealing his pizza, passed by three 50something women and a black guy who was either gay or a very low-rent pimp all arm in arm and badly singing Jackson 5 "ABC", and a man who had managed to open his car door but got no further before needing to lean against the frame and relieve himself on the inside of his own door, keys still in the lock.

And the football was everything I expected it to be. Pats-Steelers party this Sunday will be the one-year anniversary of the drunkest I've ever been in New York: the all-night sloshfest at Zum Schnider after the Colts win last AFC championship that found me in on the LES frozen stuck to the sidewalk by the beer that had been poured down the front of my pants. I remember throwing up on a red car and landing in a trash can with my pants off, but not much else. Go, Pats!

Costa Rica

2004-12-31T01:29:00.000-05:00

I´m on the pacific coast a couple hours west of San Jose. Who knew they have internet in Central America? The keyboards are funky. Ok, other than that, I swear i´m not the type to blog while on vacation. Be back soon. Happy New Year.

Wait, what day is it?

besos

Oh, the Weather Outside...

2004-12-16T14:36:00.000-05:00

If you heard that alcohol numbs pain and then saw my recent drinking pattern, you'd think that this week I'd been caught in a serious barbrawl or hit by a car or had one of those eye exams where they put acid-stinging anethetic drops on your pupils and then stick the rod with the blue light on the end into your eyeball. (My glasses mysteriously broke Saturday night, and I needed a new prescription.) Get a grip, Andrew.

So I've rocked out my two holiday office parties now (one for the department and one for the firm) and have come to the following conclusion; litigators are scary drunks. I found myself last night at 11pm for the smaller office party in a karaoke bar belting out "Hungry Like the Wolf" with the firm's new youngest partner, who I think in a week or two will be my new boss. She'd mentioned she used to have Duran Duran posters all over her walls, so the stupid part of my brain went over and signed us up for a duet. Then I sloshed 7&7 all over her suit while howling and making claws with my hands. Go me. Rather than burning bridges after I cross them, I like to make sure they're well-demolished before I even get there.

It also doesn't help that through some Christmas Miracle of scheduling, this morning's hangover coincided with "Bring your Kid to Work Day." I'm just trying to sit here with my Post and coffee and not be noticed, but has reached the point where I am going clothesline and dropkick the next tyke who runs screaming past my desk I swear to god.

Holiday Season? Time to get Drinkin'.

2004-12-15T23:57:00.000-05:00

Last night, I went to the Delancey for a party with my cousin, who works for the PR firm Girlie Action. Via Gina was invited because I had a feeling it would be her sort of scene, but unfortunately she came down with a case of Whooping Suck-Ass and had to stay home for the night with television and a burrito and I went by myself. (The roommate is dead to me. At least until he stops coming home from work at 2am. And he wonders why he keeps hooking up with office mates. Yeesh.) Very fun- open bar and a fireplace were more than enough to warm up after the -10 degree windchill off the East River on the walk up Delancey St., and I think it might have been the best people-watching spot in town. Well, after the crowd for the Hawk-Vigil. They sound like a lively bunch. (And who wouldn't want to hang out with Mary Tyler Moore?)

Update: Yeah, I know where the party's at. [via Gawker]

It's one of Those Weeks

2004-12-14T13:38:00.000-05:00

This morning before work, I was walking into Chinatown to the Post Office on E. Broadway to pick up my passport for the upcoming vacation to Costa Rica, when a white van made a left turn through the crosswalk too fast and knocked me over. I slipped hard, fell flat on my back by the driver's door, and saw him looking down at me. Then, as I started to get up, he sped off toward the FDR. A little Chinese woman on the sidewalk was shaking her hand and yelling at him. It was all very quick, and I just kept going, ruminating on all the clever things I should have said or done; throw a shoe, perhaps. Or shout "Wanna back up and try again?" If he had rolled down his window and asked if I was ok, I could have asked "of course I'M ok, but you look like you need a doctor! It must really hurt, having your head up your own ass like that." So while I was muttering to myself and holding my left arm, I heard a tinny voice shouting "Mister-Mister! Mister-Mister!" and I turned around to see the sidewalk lady running towards me, holding out my wristwatch. It got knocked off and was lying in the street. Thanks a lot, Mr. Asshole-in-the-white-van. Going to the Post Office is bad enough without your help.

MC- Highline's Bouncers during the brawl Sat. nite

2004-12-13T13:49:00.000-05:00

An interesting Missed Connection just went up on CraigsList Manhattan:

Reply to: anon-52323342@craigslist.org
Date: 2004-12-11, 5:00AM EST

I never caught your name, but you know mine; you checked my ID at Highline's door around midnight. I really looked forward to maybe seeing you later on downstairs by the pool, say around 3am when the drunk jersey guy in the muscle tee knocked that little Asian dude off his stool and started yelling at everybody. We totally might have met up when he started throwing punches at the tall guy over by the bar, or when his goon friends were getting punched and wrestled to the floor. We must have just missed each other when the B&T charmer hitting strangers in the head from behind got pounded with a barstool. A great opportunity to catch you could have been when 'roid rage man shoved that girl over a table, or when she punched him in the nose for it after- boy was that funny! We could have laughed and laughed. Oh, the stories we've already missed together. I thought for sure you would come by once 4 or 5 of your patrons were bloody, that we'd bump into each other if the soundsystem got wrecked, that you might wander in if stools and bouncy chairs started crashing into the bottles behind the bar. It would have been especially great to find you coming downstairs before Round 2 started with a shout of "Suck my b_lls," but I understand if you had other affairs to handle. Security is no joke, I'm certain! But we sure must have had some near misses!

Since I assume you're not going to be working there anymore, I didn't know how else to get in touch with you. But I really was feeling your leopard cowboy hat. Who would have guessed a eternity-lasting brawl could be such a c-b for making the acquaintance of a bouncer? Fate is such a fickle mistress!

this is in or around the very bloody Meatpacking District
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

52323342

Ocean's Twelve smallpox survivors

2004-11-30T23:25:00.000-05:00

I'm on a bit of a sneak-preview tear! I saw Ocean's Twelve last night in a Warner Brothers' private screening for about 20 people, and thought it was great. Where it falls behind the original in plot twists, it makes up for in fun & laughs. Which reminds me, I saw the old Rat Pack original Ocean's Eleven over thanksgiving break with my brother, and found it brought a lot of what the 2001 version did into perspective; there are a lot of little inside references people miss without a clue. Anyway. Go see it. Better than Alexander.

Had a discussion yesterday with a friend about Thanksgiving; she told me that she annually apologizes at the table with her family for the white man's gifts of smallpox and other disease to the New World. My response was:

"Noble efforts on your part for the eternal peace and forgiveness of los indios nativos. But I've gotta say, if the slaughter of a few tens of millions of innocent nature-cohabitants and the enslavement of two continents' worth of culture to eurocentric monotheist Christian hegemony is the only price I have to pay in exchange for the invention of turkey with cranberry and a two day holiday over which to eat it, just show me where to sign."

Happy Eat-A-Turkey Day

2004-11-29T17:17:00.000-05:00

I'm Thankful for stories.

-27 people at the table in my dining room. One table. Couldn't fit
said table (extended) in said dining room. Solution? Like Shaq said, "My offense is like the Pythagorean Theorem... there is no solution." Table goes diagonal across dining room.

-We had an English Vicar say grace. An honest-to-god, wait make that
God, travelling Vicar. He gave a stirring tribute of thanks and
blessing. After a moment, I followed him up with "we also give thanks for the Red Sox."

-My mom toasted "to the Vicar and his wife for their first Thanksgiving in America." My mother's best friend, an ex-pat Brit sitting down the table, says "Vic, it's their first Thanksgiving anywhere."

-My roommate's crazy sister was found to be locked in my bathroom.
But not for what you think- she might be anorexic, but she's not
bulemic. Regardless, she is certainly addled. My house has old
skeleton key locks. She locked the door. She couldn't figure out out to unlock it, and started calling for help. My very large brother got a stepladder and went out into the rain to help her out from the window. I warned him not to go too far in, or he'd get stuck like Winnie the Pooh and have to wait until spring. She ended up handing him the key, who re-entered the house and unlocked it from the outside.

-I think the only household member to put on more weight than me this
weekend was the used-to-be-45-lb.-dog. Blind as a post, she still
knows how to find where to sit. My roomate pointed out my dog always sits under him when he comes over. I pointed out that when he eats, there is a 1 meter radius around his mouth where the food might actually land. Darwin therories on animal survival at work, folks.

ALEXANDER

2004-11-23T23:59:00.000-05:00

I very much wanted to like this film, but suspension of disbelief has its limits. And when 3 hours into the film a theater full of adults watching Alexander's solliloquy during the climatic death scene of his best friend and companion burst with rolling-in-the-aisles laughter, those limits are crossed. A witty remark overheard afterwards likened the scene to a good SNL skit-- probably
not Oliver Stone's intended reaction. But with this movie, the ham-handed execution of all attempts at drama left one feeling like the slapstick routine of Colin Farrell crying tears in reverie at the grand future of the empire out his window, while his lover comically twitched in convulsions behind him, was par for the course.

"Alexander" botches history, botches cultural understanding, botches good storytelling and botches basic hair bleaching. Granted, I set a high expectation for the film, but only because it tells one of the greatest tales of conquest in human history and thought that would be hard to overshadow. Unfortunately I never saw coming that Stone could portray one of the most charismatic, unifying leaders of all time as an Oedipal Greenwich village queen with an irish accent wearing a wig cut from the scalp of fitness celebrity John Basedow. My bad.

Above all, Stone's script most egregiously mauls the story of Alexander's relationships to his parents, even moreso than the boorish approach to the culturally out-of-context assumptions of homosexuality. At the end of the day, I'd suggest that if you want a rousing cinematic performance of ancient world leadership and perserverance, stick to "Gladiator." And if you want to learn how and why Alexander conquered the known world, stick to the History Channel.

Although this movie does give a chance to see Rosario Dawson as Alexander's wife show off her truly legendary breasts. I don't know how the History Channel is going to match that.

Oh. My. God.

2004-11-17T19:25:00.000-05:00

Let it never be said I didn't always succeed at finding new ways to embarass myself to the fullest. For the record, I'm not actually a seamstress. At least, not an expert one. Read on, if you dare.

Copyright 2004 Boston Herald Inc.

The Boston Herald

October 31, 2004 Sunday

ALL EDITIONS

SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. B18

LENGTH: 479 words

HEADLINE: WORLD CHAMPIONS;
Red Sox, fans put title on parade

BYLINE: By Michael O'Connor

BODY:
Rolling Rally? Try Rolling Thunder.
As the number of those hopping on the Red Sox bandwagon swelled into the millions along the parade route for the 2004 World Series champions, a seemingly region-wide roar greeted the honorees.

It was as if the entire city was doing a 1,000-decibel version of The Wave yesterday as a convoy of 17 Duck Boats passed, from the once-filthy Fens to the not-quite-so-dirty water of the Charles River.

It was difficult to hear anyone. The red- and blue-clad players and families, coaches and front-office personnel were simply enveloped in a joyful cloud of white noise.

But David Ortiz made sure his voice was heard at Fenway Park, where the Ducks had gathered up their special guests. The big slugger said he witnessed a woman weeping after Game7 last year.

``This lady was crying and it was kind of sad,'' recalled Ortiz, dressed in a red warmup suit for the celebration.
He made a vow then and there to turn that fan's frown upside down.
``I went and told my teammates, `Hey, we should make people laugh, be happy,''' he said.
And Ortiz said he knew how to accomplish that: Just return to Fenway Park one October later with the World Series trophy.

That gleaming symbol of baseball supremacy was proudly displayed on the infield yesterday.
If Ortiz was a study in scarlet, Pedro Martinez more than matched him in blue, right up to his tinted, Bono-esque shades.

Sporting a headband that read ``Dominican Republic,'' Martinez said his chief goal for this season ``was to be part of this ball team that would end up here at the Green Monster, with a whole bunch of fans behind us, and actually pull it off for Boston. I don't think I will ever get any bigger gifts than I got right now.''

Once the raucous parade got under way, both the fans and their heroes were reduced to gestures and hand signals.
Near the Boston Common, Andrew Danberg-Ficarelli of Newton caught Ortiz' attention by emulating Big Papi's trademark, two-finger motion from his heart to heaven.

``And then he did it right back to me,'' said the Newton man, looking as gleeful as if Ortiz had just handed him season tickets for 2005. ``This is just amazing for everyone.''

Danberg-Ficarelli's girlfriend, Mollie Conroy, hails from Illinois, but she could boast a Red Sox connection that would be the envy of any fan. Her great uncle was Bill Conroy, a catcher for the team from 1942-44. She even wore a Sox team jersey with ``Conroy'' stretched across the back - courtesy of her boyfriend, an expert seamstress.

Danberg-Ficarelli's mother, Victoria Danberg, suggested there was just one more symbolic gesture to make to put right all of Red Sox history.

``We've got to take back the Babe,'' she said. ``I mean, he helped the Red Sox win three World Series (1915, '16, '18) before he went to New York, and he ended his career with the Boston Braves.

``Finally, we have to welcome back Babe Ruth.''

GRAPHIC: CHAMPS' SALUTE: Red Sox outfielders Johnny Damon (left) and Dave Roberts wave to the crowd on Boylston Street during yesterday's parade celebrating the team's World Series title. Staff photo by Tara Bricking

LOAD-DATE: October 31, 2004

Georgia: Bag-of-Hammers dumb

2004-11-12T22:58:00.000-05:00

Those who support the Cobb County stickers testified this week that they are aiming for a more open-minded education for students.

"I think the (evolution) theory is atheistic. And it's all that's presented. It's an insult to their intelligence that they're only taught evolution," said Marjorie Rogers, the parent who first complained about the biology texts.

SNL: "As a compromise, dinosaurs are now called 'Jesus Horses'."

that's "DOCTOR" Evil

2004-11-11T13:37:00.000-05:00

I didn't spend seven years in evil medical school to be called "mister," thank you very much...

Japan chasing mystery submarine

cha-ching

2004-11-10T13:15:00.000-05:00

I just got my first forward to tips@gawker.com posted!

Rush Limbaugh Explains The Cult Of T-Bro
Conservative pill-popper Rush Limbaugh breaks down East Coast liberalism and Tina Brown to his red state audience:

Tina Brown used to publish Vanity Fair, used to be the editor, and that's the bible of the left, folks, and then the New Yorker, she straightened that out, and then she tried TALK magazine with Harvey Weinstein's Miramax. It didn't work out [...] The queen of the social circuit; the arbiter of what's hip and what isn't, and who's hip and who isn't and who's worth talking to and who isn't worth talking to; who's worth profiling and who's not worth profiling, she's it, and I think it's interesting that the East Coast's leader in all of this has a 0.1 on CNBC on her Sunday night show.

Ummm, what's your point?

Previte

2004-11-08T16:50:00.000-05:00

Some things change. In the Andrew/Matt apartment, we are proud not to be one of those things.

ACT I
Me: [on couch, in underwear, eating hersheys from a 4 pound bag and dipping them in Skippy while watching the history channel] "Oh, I didn't know you already went to the gym, I would have gone with you. Wait, what time is it? Damn, I think I'm 45 minutes late for class. Hey, can you put away all the costco food my mom sent me?"

Roommate: [in kitchen, in underwear, stirring creatine-supplemented protein power shake with hands washed raw, standing on towel with neck shavings, flexing at the refrigerator door in hopes of catching an angle with convex reflection as he throws a tissue at the heaped pile of them next to the trash] "Listen pal, why don't you stop being such a fat, pathetic, helpless sack of goo? You're disgusting. You sicken me worse than that ugly bitch JP Morgan recruiter who interviewed me last week, who wouldn't stop pulling on her mole hair and had breath that stank like jungle rot. I'm so glad I did well and don't have to see HER again!"

Me: [sees woman standing behind roommate] "Oh, by the way, I forgot. There's an i-bank lady here to see you."

ACT II
So the Show goes on. Andrew and Matt, with no Ernest C. Howard in the middle to balance them out, are back under one roof. The last time these stars aligned in Fall of 2000, George Bush was losing popular elections to coastal voters, Yasir Arafat was spurring comatose Palestinians to start an initifada, and the Yankees and Red Sox were finished 1-2 in the AL East with the winner going on to be World Series champs. There was no job security, which meant you couldn't get a job, and meant you could get to the 8th floor of a midtown advertising company without a radiotag photoID and a background check. The last Super Bowl had an ad with a sock puppet.

Ahhh... the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Doing justice to any '00 recollection begs mention of one other seminal event of Y2K. The 1F Watt Ice Luge Party. Dim the lights... remember the strobe... see the disco ball. bathroom kegs. kitchen bar. rabbit-bumpin' techno. strangers crawling in through open windows. drunk swedish fish luging their way to reverse Jonah impressions. Waking up in bed the next morning with an open beer. Who else misses college?

This Saturday night, Matt and I are going back to the future with a college party for immature 20somethings (with some latitude on each end), and you are coming along. The apartment is nicer to look at; the inhabitants maybe less so. We can afford more booze; our alcoholisms have progressed. Our neighbors were really, really jewish... well, there are some things to which no adapting will be necessary. Its an event not to miss! Ice sculpture and 4-can capacity beer funnel on the smoking balcony. MP3s from napster. A mini-bar looking for companionship. Ernie, drooling in the shower, covered in urine, not his own. Oar-stealing raids on frat houses to follow!
Saturday, 10pm, my FDR Ju-plex
Gmail me or wait for the actual evite for more details.

Something's Gotta Give

2004-11-05T10:29:00.000-05:00

Last night, I came to a realization. It's not actually possible for me to work a full/over time job at a big law firm, get A's as a part time student in a post-bac pre-med program, maintain a social life, date a girl, go regularly to the gym, eat actual meals, and also meet the time requirements of blog reading and updating. It just can't be done. I had to prioritize.

My job and the regular meals thing are for daily sustenance. The classes are to ensure a successful future. Keeping up a social life probably falls in the daily sustenance category; friends have told me that solitary confinement in prison would most likely kill me. Going to the gym hasn't really been much more than an on-paper endeavor for me for years, anyway, so continuing to lie to myself about it won't hurt any. Which leaves the time-wasting, narcissistic, socially and professionally awkward blogging.

Naturally, the decision last night on what had to go was clear.

So I dropped my class. Physics is really hard! I'll try again at it some other time; the future, is, like far away and stuff. Now I want to go read Wonkette and get ideas on how to make up for a month's worth of missed posts. I've got a lot of garbage rattling around in my head that needs a place to air out! Is that election thing soon, btw?

Boston Triumphs. I Return.

2004-10-28T12:17:00.000-05:00

Some celestial event... No- no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should've sent a poet...
-Ellie Arroway

Harlots' Ville

2004-10-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

A week ago, I stayed at work until 5am. On a Friday night. I feel enough time has passed to touch back on this festering wound; I need to face the past before I can move on toward the future (especially, since it's 11pm on a friday and I'm still here, again.)

In my self-pity wallowing posts of tired puppy dogs pictures and pouty complaints, I never mentioned the original plan for that weekend, the one that Lawyer, Partner & Sons pulled the wings off like it had been a butterfly just emerging from the coocoon. I was supposed to leave work at 5pm, grab the small packed bag at my feet, and hop into the rental car waiting below that my brother had driven from Boston that afternoon. The two of us were then to drive well into the night to Charlottesville, Virgina, and spend the weekend engaging in riotous shenannigans with liquor-plied UVA sophomores and alums, courtesy the sis. Brother called upon arrival to NYC, and I had to tell him to just keep driving without me. Responsibility had me in a headlock, grinding my sensitive face into its meaty, gristled pit-stink.

I've started to field the "Where the hell were you?" emails (UVA has apparently shaken off it's hangover in time to rally for another weekend), because the crowd down there apparently remembers rather infamously the last time my sis had her two older brothers visit. (Involves peeing off parking garages, trampoline physics experiments on the kinetic energy of human bodies impacting earth, hennessy-shot contests with large black football players, several falls down public steps, and one 5th floor spiderman impersonation.) It was the first time in my life I ever actually spoke the words "Where am I?" upon waking up. (ViaGina remembers a close second, but I at least knew where I was... just not who I was with). These emails got me to thinking: with a sister who has two and a half years left on her undergraduate career, how long can I keep scamming off her for a party life I should have evolved past long ago?

The answer was quick and obvious. "As long as you can, stupid."

Light Dawns Ovah Marblehead

2004-09-30T12:14:00.000-05:00

This glossary (thanks, sis) reads like a Cliffs Notes to my childhood. The Lake vs. Nonantum bit under "L" is priceless Newton etymology; there really are places in MA that have 'official names' and then the names people actually call them. (e.g., all the signs on the Vineyard pointing arrows to "Aquinnah" when you're going to Gay Head.) And yes, streets there down the Lake really do have the center double line painted over with an italian tri-color stripe.

Some of my favorite entries:

Gahkablahka
Traffic tie-up caused by people looking at an accident on the other side of the road (or sometimes at excessively enthusiastic human billboards). Coined by long-time WEEI traffic reporter Kevin O'Keefe, who also came up with "stall 'n' crawl," "cram 'n' jam" and "snail trail."
[note: I did standouts in high school that are still on my resume.]

Jimmies
Those little chocolate thingees you ask the guy at the ice-cream store to put on top of your cone. The multi-colored ones are "sprinkles."

Quality
Worthless, at least in Newton (and in particular, West Newton). "My friends and parents still use it today,'' says Lucia Kegan. "If you had some piece-of-shit bike some mean kid might say 'quality bike' or if some guy got all loaded on malt liquor and threw up you would call him a 'quality kid.' ''

BBC: Battling Bush's Constipation

2004-09-29T22:59:00.000-05:00

CBS, shme-be-ess. This network needs help.

From the BBC News website, there's this story on the rising popularity of Al-Qaeda tea in Guinea, either for "...its name or its alleged healing properties."

ibid:

The establishment's master al-Qaeda tea drinker calls himself "Saddam Hussein", after the former Iraqi leader, and says he downs up to five litres a day.

"I used to have frequent constipation. But since I started taking this beverage, my bowels are now free, I pass urine freely also, and everything's alright with my body," one al-Qaeda drinker said.

This is Heywood Jablome, reporting from Conakry, Guinea.

Speaking of dogs...

2004-09-28T22:45:00.000-05:00

Last night, I tried to keep my sister from watching "The Real World" by talking to her very quickly on IM. I asked her to go into favorites and send me any random link she had saved there. She sends me this. In my family, is there a normal one?

Perhaps not.

Good God, I had no idea...

2004-09-27T15:03:00.000-05:00

So this is what it feels like to have a job.

Last week, Lawyer, Partner & Sons LLP dropped the fucking hammer. I've found I excel at gainful unemployment, and until last week had successfully carried those skills over into the working world. In at 11, out at 5:25 had such a triumphant ring to it, like I was winning at some challenging game to remain both well-paid and unoccupied. Mocking friends and roommates for falling into an abyss of actual "work" that kept them office-bound until after the rerun of the Daily Show had ended was for me an exercise in fundamentalism; I denounced that which I did not understand. "You're at work until 1am? WHY? Just leave. Say, 'I want to go home now,' tell them you'll finish what's left tomorrow, and sign out. What could possibly be worth staying that late? Are you getting laid at work? Staying 'til then is so stupid." I jested along through my little fantasy world, oblivious to the iceberg that lurked ahead, until it tore the hull out from beneath me last Wednesday.

5am. I stayed at work until 5am. Left work at dinnertime to make class, then returned to work until breakfast time. Stayed the following night until 1am. Friday night? Back to 5am. Then in again on Sunday. And this morning, I had to be here at 7:30, not 11:30. These things add up; right now, I smell like a leather couch on a hot evening after it's been sat in sans vestitus for an entire evening's WB lineup. My Saturday night is a vague haze of rolling rock, red sox/yankees, Boston friend on the couch playing Ghost Recon, and being too lethargic to go out. Have I regressed to my life in Brooklyn? The the roomate's wadded tissue paper overflowing the bathroom trashcan and protein powder spills says perhaps yes.

Yeah, so anyway it's time for me to suck it up and return to the real world of blogging laziness, even if nobody's blogging and I can't be lazy. I spent last night vegged out with my two Sunday shows, "Topic A with Tina Brown" at 8 followed by "Jack & Bobby" at 9, which in my mentally weakened state almost made me well up at the end. (Jack & Bobby, not Tina Brown-- hearing her hot pick of the week doesn't have that much of an effect on me.) Now it's time to go home from the office and finally put away the pile of clean, folded laundry that's been sitting in stacks on my bed since I washed it last tuesday night... since then, I've been sleeping on a 2-by-5 foot strip of cleared bedding, snug against fabric softened underwear and bathroom floor towels. Oh, god... I hope none of my roommate's clipped neck hair is still in that towel...

Office Space

2004-09-23T03:56:00.000-05:00

It's 5am. I am sitting at my desk, waiting for a car to bring me home. This work day has morphed into a beast I still do not comprehend. I've been here so long, my feet are swelling as if I was on a plane- I think it has something to do with the climate control. Florescent lighting is burning my ears. I'm talking out loud every word I type, because I'm the only person on the entire wing of the building. I also sang some Sinatra earlier, but Accuradio has moved on to Hip-Hop... Dr. Octagon is rhyming way too fast for me to understand a single thing he says right now. Work has turned me into a drooling retard. Mercy.

This is the worst week ever. Leave me alone about blogosucking, the pendulum will swing back I swear.

those crazy diplomats

2004-09-20T14:41:00.000-05:00

I went to lunch this afternoon with two friends (the Croat and the caveman) to Burritoville on Water Street. We sat by the window, looking out at the sidewalk by a fire hydrant. Croat gets up for a fountain drink. Caveman and I, still looking out the window, watch a police tow truck roll up, pulling a green GM car with nice shiny rims. It then backs up to the curb, deposits the towed car in front of the hydrant by our window, and leaves.

I'm sure that New York ticket quotas are bad, but does traffic enforcement really have to stoop this low? Other suggestions to what we saw are gladly welcome.

Wah.

2004-09-18T13:32:00.000-05:00

It took six months. But I am finally at work on a Saturday. But I like that I'm wearing flipflops, a dirty t-shirt and a Sox hat. Not that it assuages how much this sucks. Oh well, I have a Latvian bachelor party tonight-- I think that'll make up for it.

Yea, though I walk through the Valley...

2004-09-17T12:06:00.000-05:00

The Red Sox are back in the Bronx tonight. What happened to Pay-Rod last time they met?

Picked up and dropped like a sack of change. 'Nuff said.

I, Ronnie.

2004-09-16T16:33:00.000-05:00

McDonalds has found the answer to its P.R. image problems.

Click this.
http://www.mcdonalds.fr/
Then click on Mary-Kate and Ashley.

From the Fashion Wire Daily (please don't ask how I'm getting updates from there):

Olsen Twins Promote McDonald's Meals
(1 hour, 52 minutes ago )
A Happy Meal campaign featuring the twins started Sept. 8 in the 1,035 McDonald's outlets in France, said a spokeswoman for the French division of the Oak Brook, Ill.-based fast-food giant. She refused to be quoted by name.
The meals come either with a photo album, a denim bag or a crayon box, she said. The album bears the twins' photo, and the bag and box bear their names, according to pictures on the McDonald's France Web site.
Mary-Kate was released in July from treatment for an eating disorder.

Watch the Crossover...

2004-09-15T22:00:00.000-05:00

So much to talk about from work, and I'm too afraid to hit on any of it. Reading Dooced recount the sordid details of being fired for mentioning (albeit a bit disparagingly) coworkers has scared me off the topic. Ok, sure I occasionally slip when the legal secretaries go over the line, but usually I steer around it. But last night I went to a cool going-away party for a fellow legal assistant, and over a bunch of shots and a red sox game, learned there is a much seamier underbelly to my relaxed-fit firm. Someday, I'll either work up the gumption or post drunk, and reveal some of it. Suffice to say, this woman apparently used to work on my floor.

What she said

2004-09-14T12:35:00.000-05:00

Props to ViaGina. This site she found has owned me all day. Hollywood tailors should be throwing themselves on their scissors for this.

When did I get boring?

2004-09-13T21:00:00.000-05:00

What is going on here? I have no fun stories. The weekend was bland. I sat alone on my roof for almost an hour saturday night, drinking two beers while I looked at the memorial spotlights in Lower Manhattan, looking up and having sort of galactic spaceflight daydreams to myself. (The lights go up really really far; I never saw 'em before.) Sunday, I visited Brooklyn and on the train home missed my stop because I was poring over a Village Voice to ignore the crazy homeless guy who kept telling me I have the height to play basketball and then humming the John Tesh "NBA on NBC" theme to everyone on the train. Maybe I need to start drinking more?

The Apocalypse Looms

2004-09-10T10:09:00.000-05:00

This morning in AM New York, bracketing a photo of the twin towers:

Top Row- Photo of Colin Powell.
Headline "IT'S GENOCIDE." (Powell on Crisis in Sudan, p. 9)

Left Column- Photo of Paris Hilton.
Headline "IT'S PARIS." (Gossip, p. 22)

Dredslocks!

2004-09-09T16:01:00.000-05:00

As you certainly know, Boston's Boys of Bedlam have been absolutely tear-assing across the American League recently. After the NYPD-bathroom treatment he got last night, Tim Hudson of the A's was last seen 12 hours ago sobbing uncontrollably in the Oakland trainer's facility, having bat splinters removed from his G.I. tract. The unflappable Red Sox have seized control of the Wild Card playoff berth, and signs are popping up among fans at Fenway Park with messages like "Attention Yankees: Objects in Mirror are Closer than they appear."

But not lost in the hysteria of streaking victory is an interesting side-drama I've been pointing out for a long time: The Red Sox are doing their damnest to look as crazy as possible. This column about the dressed-down stylings of Yawkey's motley crew was long-needed, and it points out one root of the wildness is in trying to contrast the Steinbrenner Chic 300 miles south. (Mattingly, get rid of those sideburns! What sideburns? You heard me, hippie.)

Looking at it this way really does work:
The Yankees are the evil Empire.
Uniform, clean-cut, ruthless. A bunch of stormtroopers.
The Red Sox are the Rebellion.
Rag-tag, slovenly, unrefined, but bent on winning and playful at heart.

Steinbrenner is the Emperor. Torre is Tarkin. Pedro is Solo. And Manny is Chewbacca.

What am I thinking?

2004-09-08T21:00:00.000-05:00

After considering the sage advice of esteemed peers, I realize I'm being a dumbass, and will most likely end up getting tossed off the hamster wheel and slide down the glass upside down like a cartoon if I try and catch up pace with a bunch of Ivy league engineers and pre-meds in Columbia's Pupin Physics Building. So tonight I have plotted out a way to attend an already-full section of Hunter College's "Gravity is Why Things Fall" physics offering tomorrow with the other post-bac ringers who were in my bio lab group there last semester. Yes, from one point of view I am running from the academic challenge of Columbia with my tail between my legs. From another point of view, that tail between my legs is is going to keep me from getting sodomized by a vengeful Alma Mater wielding a TI-85 calculator.

Back into the Hamster Wheel

2004-09-07T22:00:00.000-05:00

So I have it in my head that I don't want to be a workstation-inhabiting paralegal for the rest of my days. It was in that mindset that I thought it would be a good idea to re-register and take some post-bac classes, in the hopes of completing the pre-med requirements that were so daunting during actual college that I fled with tail-tucked following my freshman year grades. I happily spent the last year traipsing about Hunter College's campus, of City University of New York, taking a biology class and lab with community college kids who made me feel, well, smart. But Hunter's physics classes don't coincide with my schedule. And Columbia's do. I was re-accepted by Columbia University School of Continuing Education last week, and tonight was my first class.

I forgot what time the class started. I forgot a pen. And I forgot what the cosine of a 60 degree angle is. Inverse tangents, too. The super-eager Columbia students flocked together after class to form group study sessions and exchange contact info. I think I might be in trouble. Gulp.

Labor Day is for labor? Who knew.

2004-09-02T11:03:00.000-05:00

How does it possibly work out that I have such a non-eventful job and can spend weeks on end getting to 5:30 without having anything to do to raise my office-time heartrate above 70 beats per minute, and then on those fleeting days before vacations when I secretly plot to skip out of work early in order to make a flight, or a ferry boat, or some other very hard deadline, all of a sudden the insulation over my cubicle comes crashing in with a mountain of spur of the moment requests? Now I'm stuck sheepishly explaining that no, I'm sorry I can't help you out with your mundane 4 hour printing job that I would have been happy to do any day but today, because today I'm trotting out after lunch. Murphy's Law is a real jackass.

On a side note, I'll be on a beach 'till tuesday. Misbehaving. Very badly.

Captain Planet!

2004-09-01T15:38:00.000-05:00

He's our hero... gonna take pollution down to zero!
I loved that show.

Today, this big guy out on the sidewalk in front of my building was blocking off a section of the sidewalk from foot traffic during lunchtime, making people go around and looking down at the pavement. After a little bit, he stooped down, picked up something at his feet, and walked about 3 blocks to a plaza with a large, elevated flower garden with some trees, mulch, and a fountain, holding his arm out in front of him. The faces of people crossing him in the other direction on their way to lunch were all rather comical, and most skirted around him a few extra feet. Once at the little sanctuary, he put his hand near the base of a plant stem, and the big 3.5 inch Praying Mantis that had been lost on the NYC sidewalk crawled off the back of his hand and went out looking for lunch. So did the big guy. The Mantis found a beetle. The guy found a burrito. The magnolia cupcake he had for dessert was a little too sweet, though, and he's figety now.

Yeah, I did my good deed for the day. Actually, I was just covering my bases; I want to be on the right side when the human race finally submits to our entomological overlords.

Hey, Smails!

2004-08-31T14:00:00.000-05:00

This Labor Day weekend, in the cozy 3 bedroom house where my mother grew up in quaint Edgartown, MA, I am going to have visitors staying with me. At last count, 17 of them. They are generally all large, clumsy and belligerent. They are going to be drinking scotch and miller high life. There is a full tank of propane at the side of my deck. And everyone will be dressed in Caddyshack outfits. What could possibly go wrong?

And in this corner...

2004-08-30T13:50:00.000-05:00

Women have been settling their grudges on the mat for years now. Names like Tonya Harding, Leila Ali, Chyna and Shannon Doherty (well, she'll fight you anywhere) show that celebrity and estrogen-fueled beatdowns can go hand in hand nicely. With that and the recent media blitz from both camps in mind, and given my unhealthy quirk for writing poetry to the daughters of presidential candidates, I give you my promotion...

The Bush Twins vs. The Senator Sisters
K-Y Jelly Wrestling Tag Team Main Event
Madison Square Garden, Friday Sept. 3, 9pm
Will Ferrell Officiating

Tale of the Tape:
The Bush Twins

The current Presidential Daughter titleholders have a no-holds-barred offensive approach. Expect them to go straight for the pin right from the opening bell. Wild child Jenna has been known to employ broken bottles of jack on the opposition in the ring, and the Bush security detail should be more than enough to handle the Kerry agents and come to the assistance of the champs if they need it. This is no doubt one tough matchup for any contenders to face.

The Senator Sisters

This tall duo of lean, mean Massachusetts muscle pose a stiff challenge. Look for a more educated and honed battlefield style, with Alexandra Kerry possibly employing an opportune wardrobe malfunction to dazzle the Bush security detail. The girls are deceptively strong, inheriting half their genetic material from Frankenstein's Monster, and should come to the match well-practiced at parrying techniques to block the infamous Jenna Bush Barroom-Face-Slash with their ever reliable bottles of Heinz 57.

There is no love lost between these two squads, and expect a real bite-and-claw hairpull until the bitter end. The venue's organization is strictly Republican so the Bushes should curry technical homefield advantage during the actual bout, but the Kerrys will most certainly draw encouragement from the cacophony of hundreds of thousands of faithful Democratic hooligans being arrested and beaten around the arena perimeter. A must-see, sign up for pay-per-view today!

And now, a Hai-ku on the ethics of a Battle Royale.

You're O.K. with this?
"Ring the fuckin' bell, you pansy."
You're my boy, Blue.

I watch Olympics

2004-08-27T09:21:00.000-05:00

I'm addicted. Just flat out hooked. I don't care if it's the men's pairs table tennis quarterfinal between South Korea and China/Taipei, I'm going to watch it. This has become a bit of an issue of the last few work days, as I am finding that the 8:30 - 9:30am stretch tends to see a lot of very watchable events smattered across USA (chan. 44), Bravo (chan. 39) and Univision (chan. 17). Earlier in the morning, 7am-8am, I'm at the gym with 6 side-by-side tvs, and NBC, CNBC and MSNBC all air coverage as well and I'm like a fat kid in a candy store. This delays my workout, and then women's beach volleyball or the slavic water polo team delay my leaving for work. But nobody at work seemed to notice, and the Olympics are almost over, so I feel like I can admit these things now and not have to knock on wood over it.

As for the 8pm NBC flagship primetime, I take it all in but not with the same gusto as I do badminton with one sock on over a bowl of crispix at 10 in the morning. The late events spend too much time getting filtered through the editor control room, and cover too much gymnastics without enough non-marquis events with equal or greater drama. For example, I missed almost all crew races in 2004, because of a complete inability to follow schedules-- I just tried to watch whenever I could find a tv. I'm a bit pissed about that. Especially considering this story about the 23 year old australian girl who stopped rowing with 650 meters to go in the medal race with her team in 4th. I didn't see it, but Row2k has me filled in enough to just be dumbfounded. Oh and the US men's 8 won gold. So many stories.

But all the drama of sport aside, with the Olympics there's still always one reason above all else to tune in...

NewYork Pulse: Flatline

2004-08-26T13:43:00.000-05:00

The New York Post. It only costs a quarter, and in an age of $5 coffee this seems like an incredible value, even for budget pseudo-news. The NY Times makes you break change, so you just wait to read it online. The Daily News smells funny and the ink rubs off too easily. Newsday is a rag for lining the shirts of vagrants in February. But the Post, so long as you drop your coin into the Pakistani palm with an appropriate sense of ironic nonchalance, is a perfect single-serving of skeezy news, short AP headlines, witty sports banners and oh-so-delicious gossip to have a head start on Gawker reading. Just steer clear of the Op-Eds and don't ever get caught in a Post-related conversation with a lifer secretary, and you're set. Well, almost. See, occasionally, it can't help but rear its head as a hilariously bad newspaper.

Today's New York Pulse section features the article "Singles Making Tracks for the F". According to Maureen Callahan, "For singles, the hot new scene has no guest list, drink minimum or membership fee- and the price of admission is just $2. It's the F train." Highlights of the always newsworthy Craigslist: Missed Connections page round out her expose, with a couple interviewees rattling off stations where they'd seen hot people. Most of the page is taken up by a full size shot of this.

Jacket & Tie with Diesels really works for you, firebush. And that furled Post is a nice touch.

The article's cutting-edge trendiness for the real pulse of New York is what most astounds. About two years ago, when I worked for the Mayor reading city news, I had to outline a story about a grassroots email campaign to set the first car of every subway as a singles' car. A single Park Slope resident taking the F to and from work, I even did some g-sleuthing-- not too much of a stretch since I'm always people and/or freak-watching on the trains anyway. Alas, nothing to report. A car full of Mexicans, teenage moms and seedy brooklynites does not a singles car make. This story was D.O.A. straight out of the can in '02, and has unfortunately stayed that way-- even despite the efforts of the clever advertising people at Smirnoff Ice who've since shown us how to do a party on a subway car right.

I Heart Secretaries

2004-08-25T15:27:00.000-05:00

Lifer secretaries. We all sit over a cubicle partition or workstation cabinet from a few of these, and they generally blend into the hallway scenery, like the stained coffeepots, thumbtacked childrens photos, and monitor-riding beanie babies that also inhabit their desk areas. I've sat at the desk of a lifer secretary past 9pm to check email before going home for the night, long after their kind has retired to Staten Island dwellings, and everything from the die-cast contour of the long-suffering chair to the precise angle of the triple-decker phone caller-id screen shouted "Intruder!" at me as I uneasily padded my fingertips on a scratched keyboard that has felt only the clacking of acryllic-layer nails since it came out of an I.T. bin 6 years ago. We tend not to notice lifer secretaries in the same way that giraffes and water buffalo don't notice each other; we might be on the same plain, but our grazing happens worlds apart. It is therefore a startling system shock anytime we find ourselves interacting.

A while ago, I was using the document scanner in the secretary workstation 10 obscured-vision feet and one dimension away, when one sociable Winston-smoking secretary asked about the yellow bracelet on my right wrist. I told her about cyclist Lance Armstrong's Cancer foundation, and she correctly placed cyclist Lance Armstrong as the guy in France. Last week, the day after NJ Governor James McGreevey's admission of gay infidelity and resignation, I found myself back in the same secretary station, getting some shipping labels from a cabinet, when my Winston-smoking friend perked up at my presence, looked me over, and innocently asked, "Is that bracelet one of those sexual awareness things?" Hmm. Maybe I need to start harassing more of my coworkers.

Cape Cahd

2004-08-24T09:00:00.000-05:00

Spent the weekend at the old roommate's hippy home in Orleans, marvelling at the wit of his father for putting the vanity plate "ONCA" on his new V8 beast of a Jaguar. (Do you get it? No? Shame. Answer is here.) This is replacing the Acura Legend with almost 300,000 miles, whose passenger door didn't work requiring me to enter ala Luke Duke in the General Lee. We took a Saturday afternoon run up to Provincetown, which was about as much fun as it could be for two straight guys by themselves. We gave up on the people-watching, chowder and booze-ice cream when the rain set in. Sitting on the beach the next day under a cloudless sky with a Rolling Rock, I figured out watching the girl next to me why Michelob Ultra has fewer calories and carbs than other beers-- they're served in 10 oz. cans! This is a rip-off of humungous proportions; and I just wish I worked for their marketing team. Hot girl chases me around a track, across a swimming pool and up some stadium steps, then buys me a midget beer when she catches me? Like Sam Jennings at Columbia's Fed, I'm sold.

"Slider... You stink."

2004-08-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

When I quoted Top Gun earlier to herald the advent of my newest techno-gizmo phone, I should have looked deeper into the film's uncanny wisdom for the above product review offered by Maverick. The Slider has washed out of Miramar due to frequency of dropped calls and buttons too small for anybody but a carnie to love. I traded it in, and even got money back on the exchange. Behold my newest (3rd in a month) body part; it's back to the clamshell flip for me!

Headline Prognosticator

2004-08-20T13:19:00.000-05:00

CNN is just now picking up a story I took flak for reporting on last week. Never doubt my editorial decisions; I am the finger in the ass of what will and will not be News.

On a side note, keep an eye out any day now for ever-journalistic Shepard Smith of Fox News to pick up on reports that really hot triplets will be attending Cambridge University in the fall...

Wow. Wow. Wow.

2004-08-19T16:16:00.000-05:00

Three Cheers for getting a good education. I love the BBC. (Go to #6 of 12.)

3rd Grade Sucked

2004-08-19T14:25:00.000-05:00

My clearest memory of not getting to play a sport came during recess kickball in the 3rd grade. Alex Wolf, the scrawny nerd with thick glasses, even got picked for one team because he was friends with another kid picked. I did not get picked. I watched the whole game from the sidelines, hurt and dejected and secretly hoping for some massive kickball-to-the-face injury to open a spot on a team for me, so I could prove to everybody how foolish they'd been not to grab me when they first could. But then I grew bigger, then much bigger, and was able to put these slights in the past. At least until yesterday, when my 10-man company softball team asked me to volunteer to help fill absences on the roster and then left me on the bench all game.

A word on grown men who take softball leagues waaaay to seriously; these guys deserve an MTV documentary titled something like "TO THE MAXXX!" All fun was removed from the game I watched from the sidelines; it was kill or be killed, using aluminum bats and a large, squishy soft ball. This game had everything; men screaming at other men to be more aggressive, ear-curling curses after every poor at-bat, furious accusations between innings over shoddy throws, a bench pep-rally speech as the game went to extra innings... even a dirt-scuffing, chest-bumping, bat-wielding argument with a Cuban Umpire. And I grumpily sat on the bench, unplayed despite my knack for pinch-hit homeruns, through the whole thing.

Well, "grumpily" until I realized that if they invited me and I wasn't going to play, I might as well drink one of the three sixpacks they brought. Which I did. Over-the-top softball and drinking go together quite well.

The End is Neigh

2004-08-18T13:46:00.000-05:00

Today's News Headlines.

MORE TOP STORIES
• Police: Laci's mom lashed out at Peterson Video
• Eight in court on U.S. terror plot charges The charges
• Kerry challenges Bush troop plan Video
• Florida island hard hit by Charley reopens Video
• Paris Hilton offers missing dog reward
• Bush touts new benefits for reservists Video

• Tough times for U.S. tennis team

Comment from a CNBC source's email, titled 'Sign of the Apocalypse?':
"Does it strike anyone as strange that the fifth top story on CNN's website is about Paris Hilton's missing dog... ahead of Bush's campaign stops in the swing states?"

Good question. But I think the Apocalypse was heralded earlier this summer, when CBS unveiled that their fall primetime lineup would include three different shows about fat men with hot wives.

On a side note, Gawker offers advice for Paris free of charge. "the damn dog is likely crushed to death at the bottom of her over-stuffed Birkin bag."

No, it wasn't a dream.

2004-08-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

My parents are coming out of their initial shock of what happened, and took the time to rightly confirm for me on the phone last night that my sister's two brothers are, in fact, incredibly incapable idiots. That's a lot of I's to sew on my clothes.

A grooved dent in my desk is forming nicely, but so far I'm still feeling pretty stupid. I wonder if I could read a book or something on how to be smarter.

Tailor, a Scarlett "I" please.

2004-08-16T11:30:00.000-05:00

A good lesson to learn from a bad weekend event- when falling down drunk, under no circumstances assume you are capable of making important decisions when the lifelong physical appearance of loved ones is at stake. That said, I may never be able to consider myself as anything but a miserable idiot for the rest of my days. And I've also been to my last wedding for a LONG time.

On Saturday at the wedding after-party bar, my beautiful 18 year old sister burned her face. My brother and I were talking a short distance away, and never saw the incredibly idiot brit groomsman showing her how to put a shot of sambuca in her mouth, then light it there before drinking. Only she didn't get it down-- and burning liquor scorched her when it came out. Somebody then took her out of the bar and back to the hotel where the wedding had been. I only found out what happened a long time after, when one of the boys with her when she did it brought her out of the lobby holding ice on her lips and cheeks. And while I know I could do nothing about this until this point, from here on out everything falls squarely on drunk, idiot me. The thoughts "Hospital!" or even "Ask a sober parent!" never crossed into my head (likely due to the mile-thick skull.) I just focused my double vision long enough to diagnose her blisters as "not that bad, you get them on your hands from crew all the time, and it'll be a few days before you start to feel better," put her in a cab (we'd lost my idiot brother somewhere) and took her home, where I tried to make her feel a little better before finally passing out. The next morning, in addition to my being vomitously hungover, my sisters' blisters had turned angry and red, and my parents husled her off to a hospital and then to Mass General's Children Burn Center. My diagnosis was a little off; she'll be fully recovered in about 9-12 months, after spending her sophomore year at a southern college wearing zinc anytime she goes out in the sun.

Also in about 9-12 months, I expect to have worn away some of the excess skull from the front of my head, by continous banging of my head on a desk. Hopefully that'll work out for me, and I'll never figure out a way to top this as my single worst performance as a human, ever.

Do you know who I am?

2004-08-13T15:03:00.000-05:00

It has been brought to my attention that my performance levels are waning lately.
Was it Chris Rock who said “Calling a man out for laziness is like playing basketball with a retarded kid, and calling him for double dribble”? Well if you know anything about me, you should know I qualify for that in spades. But in truth, I’ve really been pushing it of late—today I looked up my billed-time utilization at work, and it’s hovering around 50%, while the ideal is at least 80%. That’s probably gonna get noticed sooner or later. So, since halting my weekday-boozing habits to get to work earlier, be more productive, and get to blogging sooner just isn’t an option, I’m going to need to find time somewhere else in my day. Maybe I’ll stop watching 3 hours of history channel and E true Hollywood story reruns every evening. I might consider not playing a full 9 innings of cell-phone baseball while sitting in the bathroom. Perhaps spending 45 minutes properly stacking my macaroni & cheese boxes in the coolest configuration, while the rest of the apartment was a mess, wasn’t the wisest use of time. I’ve also been known to lose more than a few precious moments of free time to staring blankly into space, contemplating nothing but the whir of my own idle brain’s hard drive fan. So, thank you, anonymous. You have sparked a reckoning; I’m turning over a new leaf. A new, uber-Andrew should be appearing forthwith. Crazy-sex-on-NY-swings stories will follow shortly. Now if you excuse me, I have to go put in my tuxedo, get on the Chinatown bus, and make a drunken ass out of myself at a wedding again.

May I see your license?

2004-08-12T20:00:00.000-05:00

Given all the crazy news this afternoon with sodomy in the NJ government, maelstroms rearing at Florida, locust swarms tearing swaths across Africa and hundreds dying in Asian flooding, I think that this little story about Edgartown, MA was just the sort of pick-me-up I needed. Enjoy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/12/science/12bird.html

A few too many blushing brides?

2004-08-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

This story gives yet another reason to feel squeamish at all these summer weddings...

Speaking of Wonkette...

2004-08-10T14:38:00.000-05:00

Although I'm not looking for a job, there is no way I could pass up Wonkette's challenge to would-be-assistants of writing her Gore-themed hai kus.

My submission:

Woe your staged embrace!
Better had your girls swapped spit,
Stirring hearts of men.

Now this, I could do.

2004-08-10T14:01:00.000-05:00

A talk show where the pundits booze it up while loudly making points over one another? My friends and I call that "Monday night!" I'd be a natural, plus I'm already in with a CNBC booker. On the downside, I bet they film out in Englewood... and in my opinion, once you find yourself wasted in Jersey on weekdays during business hours, you've tailspun to a low from which it's pretty hard to recover.

Safe passage to a parallel dimension

2004-08-09T15:41:00.000-05:00

i.e., a first-timer's weekend trip to the Hamptons and back.

Any place that can be equally identified with family farmer's markets, suntans, surfing, beach soccer, 4 lb. lobster dinners on a pier, bitchy women in Porche SUVs, staggering about drunk on the highway and dodging bathroom coke lines deserves carefully balanced consideration.

Having covered all those bases in the last two days, I feel I can safely report: done right, the Hamptons rock. At the far end of Long Island, past the braying NYers too wound-up to relax even though they're honestly trying, there is a quiet, easygoing, local-friendly strip reminiscent of New England's coast that is just breathtaking. It was the sort of place where I could imagine just hanging out with Billy Joel (walking, not driving) and chatting up "Downeaster Alexa" lyrics. I mentioned that it looks like sunlight hits the earth differently out there, in a way that would seem fictionally unbelievable if not seen in person. (The R.I. roommate felt obligated to point out that Montauk is at the same latitude as his homestate, but I'm not sold on Providence's natural beauty just yet... streaks of sunlight shimmering through the trees to illuminate vagrants, boarded up row-houses, and Fleet ATMs doesn't quite have the same appeal.)

Mentally checked-out

2004-08-06T13:27:00.000-05:00

Friday. I'm so out of here for my first Hamptons weekend ever. Yes, I have the Portsmouth Yamaha polo shirt and Martha's Vineyard embroidered belt. I also brought bocce. Because everybody knows those Hamptonites appreciate their italian culture.

Stuck On You:
This story put a new perspective on referring to my friends and their ubiquitous girlfriends as "Velcro Twins" or as a compounding of first names (Mattria, Richelle, Tonali, Iamy... etc).

MADRID, Spain (Reuters) -- A German prisoner in Madrid and his girlfriend glued their hands together during a jail visit in an attempt to fight the man's possible extradition to Germany, judicial sources said on Thursday.

"...authorities want [a separate judicial case] resolved before any handover to Germany." Haha! Handover!

Movie Physics

2004-08-05T17:54:00.000-05:00

Check this site out. It applies real-life physics to common cinematic foibles, with a perfect dorky-satire/cynicism. The movie reviews at the bottom are a delight! I'll need to find a way to work some of this into a physics lab report when I enroll this fall...

Flaming Cars
Ever notice how cars in movies always burst into flames the instant they collide with anything? Our favorite is when a car falling from a high place explodes the instant before it hits the ground. It's as though its gas tank gets panicky and detonates at the mere thought of striking Earth. Fortunately, the physics are not so cooperative. Gasoline has a very narrow flammable range of about 1.4 to 7.6 % gasoline vapor in air. For a car to explode during impact the tank must catastrophically rupture and spew a fine mist of gasoline over a large area so it can vaporize and mix with air in exactly the right proportions. The mixture must then find a source of ignition. Automobile gas tanks are built to withstand a considerable impact force and are usually located in a protected area between the beams of a car's frame. Common ignition sources in the car's engine are generally at the other end of the vehicle.

Take that, suspension of disbelief!

TMJ? Isn't that the fast euro-train?

2004-08-04T16:15:00.000-05:00

I hate getting all technical on you, but for the last 2 weeks, I seem to be having this worsening problem on the right side of my face. With talking. And eating. Gulp.

1. Temporomandibular Joint: The TMJ is the articulation between the condyle of the mandible and the squamous portion of the temporal bone.

2. How does TMJ dysfunction feel?
The pain may be sharp and searing, occurring each time you swallow, yawn, talk, or chew, or it may be dull and constant. It hurts over the joint, immediately in front of the ear, but pain can also radiate elsewhere. It often causes spasms in the adjacent muscles that are attached to the bones of the skull, face, and jaws. Then, pain can be felt at the side of the head (the temple), the cheek, the lower jaw, and the teeth.

3. People say my symptoms are all in my head. My friends and family don't believe me when I describe my pain. I'm worried that I'm going crazy.
Your symptoms are real. No one should tell you that you are crazy or that you are exaggerating your pain. Only you know what you are feeling. It may be difficult for your family and friends to understand what you are going through, especially if they have never heard of TMJ.

So... what's the deal? Is this thing gonna go away by itself without me having to change my behavior in any way, or what? I don't do injuries well, probably because I'm too lazy to go through regimens for fixing myself from them...

here we go again...

2004-08-03T17:37:00.000-05:00

My former college 3-time roommate has moved back in with me. We are full circle. I will below paste a excerpt of an email exchange from last night... nothing like getting things off on the right foot.

Subject: RE: last night
Yes I need your aesthetic reaction to various things; tv stand, towel rack, protein powder, etc.......

[me]Reply: RE: last night
oh i can give you a sum-up version in 30 seconds. TV stand is a hit, we use it and find something else to do with that folding table doubling as a tv stand now. The protein/fresh direct business will work out once we consolidate cabinets; I'll give you the shelf space you need. We'll put together your desk, clean stuff up off the floor, and set roomba loose for a while, no problems there. But the bathroom... we need to talk. I'd assumed I had found a way to incorporate all of your 'isms, quirks, and niceties into my routine at this point without having anything really get to me, so long as your sister remained outside the city limits. I spoke too soon. Because that nasty contraption dangling in my face when I shower has become my nemesis... no, my archenemy. I hate it. I hate the burger-flipper wood handle. I hate the ripped, dangling loofa-piece that pseudopods from the main body, like the whole thing is trying to unravel but can't quite pull from the nasty, tattered center strong enough to slither away and create a little loofa-colony in some dark corner. I hate how it looks. I hate how it smells. A history lesson: Ancient Roman bathhouses used to have communal toilets, and while deucing and chatting, those quaint italian senators and centurions would pass around a stick with a sea sponge attached to the end. And each would use it to wipe himself, then pass it down the line. And this what you have brought into my home. A Roman Shitstick. For shame.

Reply: RE: last night
I hate to break it to you, but back scrubbers are common shower tools, utilized in over 35% of US households. Conceptually, I dont think I will be able to part with one. However, it appears you have issues with my current model, the X14, so I will happily upgrade to a brand spanking new X15 if you so desire........

No Moah Nomah

2004-08-02T17:09:00.000-05:00

Handling the weekend news of Red Sox Nomar Garciaparra's trade to the Cubs has been tough. What does it say when the article most resonant with my hurt feelings is written for parents with their 9 year olds in mind? "Nomar's better than Jeter" has been a staple in my anti-Yankee diet for going on a decade now, and scrambling for a suitable replacement (Varitek can whoop A-Rod?) is still far off. The OCD Georgia Tech grad from Southern Cali with a mentality like Ted Williams and a first name tailor-made for Red Sox Nation has been my favorite active position player since I first saw him tug at his gloves in 1996. Guess I'll need to find my way out to Wrigley sooner than I thought. Go Cubbies? (Nahhhhh)

Recession Schmecession

2004-07-30T14:37:00.000-05:00

So I just found out that there was no recession in 2001. It was all a figment of my imagination. After I graduated college unemployed that May, I lived with 4 unemployed Ivy league friends in Harlem, all waking up at 2pm every afternoon to spend the summer day playing 1st person shooter video games, simply because we could think of nothing better to do. It was the lack of a recession in late 2001 that drove me as a reverse-illegal immigrant across the border of Mexico where I lived for a year in seach of occupation. (Really.) I have quite a vivid imagination! I wonder what the hilarious Odd Todd would say about this... he's been living a lie.

The Blushing Bride

2004-07-30T11:49:00.000-05:00

This was the name of my drink of choice at the wedding on Saturday, and I really don't think they had me in mind when they set out pitchers of the stuff. But I have the Blushing Bride to thank for a photo from Chris's album that pretty succinctly sums up this whole summer.

Actually, this one makes a useful supplement.

Slow Sucks...

2004-07-29T15:13:00.000-05:00

That was one of the maxims projected on the wall last night above the Nike-tracksuit wearing bartenders serving free Grey Goose and champange at Nom de Guerre, for Nike's "Vision of Speed" party featuring photography work by Steven Klein and exhibits of Nikewear about to make the international stage in Athens. All the spandex-and-mesh suited mannequins looked anatomically correct, and I heard of at least one attempt by a guest to strip one. I chatted with a Nike employee about the Oregon Project, was a dumping ground for servers looking to get rid of their tasty crab cakes, and (stop the presses) became heavily inebriated.

I also finally got around to slipping on a Livestrong yellow bracelet; I knew about them from cyclist buddies a while ago but never picked one up. All in all, Nike throws a fun party.

And about the race finish I forgot to mention Monday:

Long Live Armstrong.

No Anemia Here

2004-07-28T15:28:00.000-05:00

The contents of my lunch salad today:

lettuce
chicken
artichoke hearts
black olives
feta cheese
a piece of wood with a nail through it
balsamic vinagrette

I have the offending ingredient on my desk wrapped in a napkin, but am unsure on what to do with it; I'm a bit hesitant to take the plentiful legal advice offered to me of "suck it up, take a bite with it in your mouth, and when we're done with them you'll own the place," since I'm not entirely sure what I would do with a basement level Wall St. eatery operated by cheerful Lebanese, served by talkative Mexicans, and cashiered by hot, hot Poles. Even if they'd tried to kill me.

Yankee Hater

2004-07-27T12:51:00.000-05:00

The logo on my newest acquisition, a hat sitting atop my computer at work. Yankee Hater written in small font on the side. Next time you hear the meatheads up at the Bronx stadium jeering "Baustun Suhcks!!" think of this and admit we're smarter.
Gothamist: Yankee Hater

208.8 miles

2004-07-27T12:45:00.000-05:00

Sunday afternoon, while I was hungover from a crew wedding and post-euphoric after a wild Red Sox win vs. New York, a friend credentialed to be at the DNC called up on a whim and asked if I was bored. Would I like to fly up to Boston? Although I had to be back in time for work the next morning, I immediately said “Sure!” We made the 4pm USAir Shuttle (side note: Delta is WAY better), got picked up by my brother, and tooled around town for a bit. The plan was to hit a bar near Fenway to watch the rubber game at 8pm that night. However, as I walked near Yawkey Way, a nice-looking guy trying to scalp his tickets offered up some really nice grandstand seats for a hundred bucks. We jumped at them! The game was fantastic, and I have reaffirmed my baseball nerdiness. I should probably be amazed that a rivalry can remain so over-hyped and yet consistently deliver upon it time after time, but I’m really not—it’s the Sox. I crashed that night around 2:30am, and woke up before 5am to steal my brother’s car and commute to work, in Lower Manhattan. Sleepy driving should be a professional sport.

Vintage

2004-07-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in a pew Saturday afternoon at 3:30 attending a wedding ceremony, my third this summer (and I have worn flip-flops to all three). The service took nearly 3 hours of standing up and sitting back down (and I think that after he stopped crying at the altar, a friend of mine got married in there somewhere too.) However, I didn't register much of it, because the Red Sox-Yankees game started at 3:15, and I have a new cell phone. I shut off the sound and went exploring, looking for a way to pay for and download a program that could give me live-update baseball scores. (I also stumbled across Tetris and doodled with that for a while.) When I finally did happen across ESPN: Bottom Line, I happily load it up as the priest is doling out some rite. The process finishes as he and the congregation conclude with "Amen," and then, into the silence of that house of prayer, despite the mute button, my phone offers up to God the ESPN theme jingle, "DA---NA---NA... DA-NA-NA!" Everybody turns and looks at me. Freakin' Catholics.

Piggly Wiggly

2004-07-23T15:44:00.000-05:00

This weekend, Patio Bar will be playing host to an event at the apex of the Rower-Animal's cultural and traditional gathering ceremonies; a Pig Roast. Granted, we were more likely to marinate our kill in keg beer than New Orleans creole sauces and play hiphop from speakers on the boathouse than listen to a live country band cover Dwight Yokum, but the Pig Roast as an institution stands strong. I will be sure to gather the neandertal tribe together this sunday for a feeding.

A word on push-ups

2004-07-22T19:58:00.000-05:00

No, I do not mean the insidious exercises that sculpt strong arms and a broad chest. I'm talking about those incredible flesh holsters girls can use that would make such a workout an exercise in futility. Last night at the Maritime hotel, I was eating dinner with a circle of new friends. A customer arrived at the top of the stairs to the dining area by our table, and one girl I was sitting with leaned across me and whispered to her friend "it's that Victoria's Secret model." Now, I'm normally all for subtlety. But this scenario did not call for normal. I swiveled my head around, and was met directly at eye level with what appeared at first glance to be some NASA experiment in anti-gravity. A pair of breasts lifted upward, outward and together all at the same time walked directly past me (apparently they were attached to somebody who was transporting them around, but I didn't notice details like that) giving an extendedly unimpeded view. Out of earshot, one of my tablemates said something. It was repeated (I still don't know what it was), followed by "Andrew?" which I did register. I swiveled my head back, and saw all 7 at the table were looking at me and smiling. "Sorry, did someone ask something? I was looking at boobs," was all I could say. Push-up bras... keep on pushin'.

The Rage of the Age

2004-07-21T11:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday after work, I arrived home and hadn't even gotten my shoes off when my roommate announced I was coming with her to an open-bar magazine party on the patio of the Soho Grand for "Sup", the creation of a friend of hers. Afterwards, a large group made its way to Cipriani, a hotspot full of beautiful people that my friend who met up for drinks described as "a weird dream." The crowd was thick and there seemed to be an entourage or two present. Despite the overbooking and lack of reservation, my roommate was able to hook up a table for 7 in the back and free bellinis while we waited; I'm still not very clear on how this all happened, as I was working on a nice buzz at the time. As we sat at our table I realized what the security outfit was for-- at the next table over was an album premiere dinner for a rapper, and there were "Won-G" posters scattered about their chairs. I picked one up, along with a postcard bragging of his video single with Paris Hilton. You absolutely need to check out his website, it's hilarious.

Won-G, the second oldest of Macneal and Evelyne's eleven children, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. At three years old he fell from a seven-story window, miraculously landing on his feet. It is probably no coincidence that Won-G's Haitian birth name, Wondge, means "One True God".

...Probably. A few hundred-dollar bottles of wine and a visit by Al Sharpton later, and my table was ready to have a little fun with theirs; skipping right to it, I am now in possesion of a signed Won-G album slip, across the top of which he had written for me his 310 area code cell phone number. Won-G seemed a little overwhelmed, actually. I think he thought everybody around him was in the music industry, even me, and his schmoozing skills were underdeveloped for the crush of Cipriani.

The dinner was very good, but I was a bit too busy oggling to enjoy it very much. The tab came to over a thousand dollars, but a wonderful couple my roommate met at the bar and had sit with us picked up half of it. I was told to put away my wallet. Last night was the sort of night I feel I ought to expect from New York City. Now if I can just get the fuzz from my hangover off my brain... sitting here at work is killing me, even if I did sleep in until five minutes to 9.

2004-07-20T12:20:00.000-05:00

Well they ran out of episodes of Reno 9-1-1, so I'm back bitch!

-Dave Chappelle

So there was that vacation last week, where it rained the whole time. And I'm 25 now. That pretty much sums up the first gap I've had in blogging. On to the new...
When I came back on Saturday night, I dropped my bag and went right out with my very cool temporary roommate to a roof party on Stanton. It was all very hipster; I even got in a little low-level celebrity banter, chatting with David Cross for a bit. Left and barhopped for a bit until last call, when an extremely hodgepodge group of patchwork friends, pickups, and so-and-so-who-knows-so-and-so's made there way back to my balcony for an afterparty. Very fun time with only one broken wine glass and almost no problems... with the single exception of the wasted stranger left ditched by the boy she was hooking up with after everyone had left. After staggering into a few closets while doing her screeching impersonation of the birds she saves at work for the ASPCA and unsuccessfully searching for "her medication," I finally get her to crash, where I see her arms are deeply scarred by countless self-mutilation cuts. I spend a rather uneasy night on the couch. In the morning I leave for breakfast with my two newest guests from Mexico, waking my roommate and telling her one of her friends' guests hadn't made it out last night and she would have to take care of it. Late that night, I found out she ended up taking the girl to the emergency room, because on the bus ride home a passing police siren sent her into an epileptic seizure. So I suppose the moral is, come to my parties-- they're so good they leave you twitching?

Cancer?

2004-07-10T13:25:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday, Jessica Simpson! A kindred 7/10'er wishes you all the best.

Also on 7/10, in 1943 the allies invaded Sicily, and in my born year 1979 Skylab fell out of orbit. Hooray for ominous portends!

Ok, vacation on the vineyard for a week time. I'm out. Ciao!

Iceman's RICO

2004-07-09T16:09:00.000-05:00

Say hello to my new wingman... Slider.

(not to be confused with...)

screw healthcare: nationalize cell service!

2004-07-08T15:21:00.000-05:00

I was a late convert, lasting well past graduation without a cellphone; I kept insisting I didn't need to be in-touch 24/7, and believing that land line existence was retro and therefore cool. Poppycock. Mobile phones are super, and I love having mine. I store every number I get ahold of, I play video poker on the can, I call on a whim from airplanes to see if interference actually causes crashes (it doesn't). My phone is my best inanimate friend, and as far as users go I don't think I'm so bad, either. It's a good relationship on the hardware end. So why, pray tell, the $h*@(*!ing *^$%!~# do the wizards-behind-the-curtain cell service companies all uniformly suck so much ass they're gagging on intestine? Is it that hard to get it right? The front line of this 3 ring circus, the wireless store, is an establishment with an atmosphere of legitimacy on par with that of snakeoil vendors and sideshow purveyors. I walked into the Verizon store at lunch today, a long-standing customer with a few quick questions about keeping my plan intact but purchasing a new phone. The sales rep., pen extended, acted like I just got off a boat from Mars when I told him I didn't think I was going to sign a 2 year plan with him that very moment. A few hours later, on the phone with a customer support rep., I swear to God I was not in fact speaking with a human being but some sort of snazzed up Speak-and-Spell. Hearing a woman say "I'm sorry I couldn't be of assistance, is there anything else I can help you with today?" 3 times consecutively in the exact same tone as if she didn't remember that she also didn't help 10 seconds earlier was almost enough to make me stab my broken-off antenna in my ear and try and end it.

SUV in the City

2004-07-06T16:09:00.000-05:00

I drove from home down to NYC last night in diluvian rain accompanying 90 degree heat, without air-conditioning. On the plus side, my sweat-addled brain pushed my foot down to 80mph+ despite the 20-foot visibility, and aside from a few traffic bottlenecks from horrible hydroplaned auto wrecks, made fantastic time; 3 hours from Boston to NY in holiday traffic. I need a video game sponsor. And now I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee parked under the W'Burg bridge for 4 days to use as I will! So exciting. All told, the weekend was a smash; on friday I skipped out of work at 1:35pm in time to make the final 2:30 $70 youthfare (under 25) Delta Shuttle trip of my life, and am consigning my future travel plans exclusively on the $10 Fung Wah Bus, as the shuttle price increase to $241 that I will experience on July 10 is a bit steep for this paralegal. My dad took me straight from the airport to the Woods Hole ferry terminal for our trip to the Vineyard, and the two of us cruised in style in his 1965 Pontiac GTO, which was making the crossing to take part in the Edgartown July 4th Parade's "classic car" spectacle. A great ride, capped with a platter of fried clams from Sandys' for dinner. The actual weekend itself is a rather addled blur of family gorgings, sunbathing, wrestling with maritime mechanical problems, fireworks, cutting foot on an oarlock diving into the water from my rowboat to save a non-swimmer, drinking sam adams light on the porch, and preppy, preppy, preppy pants.

Red Sox-Yankees, post-apocalypse year 1

2004-07-01T17:01:00.000-05:00

They say you are hurt most by those you truly love. In which case, I see pre-nupitual agreements and wedding bells in the future for me and the cuddly, ham-handed Sox slugger David Ortiz; they way I feel his cleats spiking into my cardiac tissue, this must mean we're meant to last. I attended last night's Bronx contest with full Boston regalia and pride, a role I'm growing used to at this point. And with my team uneasily perched deep into the game on a 2-0 lead bowtied to the flutter of Timmy Knuckles' magically skittish pitches, I heartily accepted my status as a Yankee peanut target (my only response was a barbed one-timer "You're throwing better than [Yankee pitcher] Jon Lieber!" that drew some ire), even as my spider-sense alarm tingled louder and louder. And that warning turned into a 3-alarm fire in the 7th inning, when AL Player of the Week David Ortiz booted a lazy, 2-out ground ball with the bases loaded right THROUGH the webbing of his glove. He discarded the glove as "unlucky" immediately afterwards, but too late to save me from quietly taking another emotional black eye from the team that has been spousally abusing me since the tender 1986 age of 7 years old, when I first saw a Sox first baseman do a Buster Keaton coordination impression on the New York stage with a game on the line. But I'll be back. They didn't mean it, and it only happened because they love me so much...

Miss Davis, would you go to prom with me?

2004-06-30T09:35:00.000-05:00

Ok, CNN made it official today. I definitely did not have as good a time in high school as I think I should have.

Get ripped or die trying?

2004-06-29T13:58:00.000-05:00

I don't think I'd be asking too much to say I want to be as jacked as the guy described in this article today.

The drama unfolded with a bizarre confrontation between the gunman and his 28-year-old target. The victim was standing silent when the shooter accused him of having a tough-guy attitude, cops said.

"The guy was egging him on, [saying] 'Hey, you think you're a big guy?'" said one police source. "It was over the guy's physique ... like a stare-down."

I mean come on, to be so imposing that crazies have to blaze away with the deuce-deuce in their boot just on looking at you, that means you're doing something right in the gym. I walked out of work into the aftermath at the Wall St. station with the police there, but if it was 50 Cent on that train, he was long gone by that time...

The INS is on Line 2...

2004-06-28T14:56:00.000-05:00

First, it was 13 Mexican family friends staying in my house for a couple days to see a graduation ceremony in Boston 2 weeks ago. Then, the Rhode Island friend admits his Mexican girlfriend will be living with him for the month of July, a long enough timespan to force him to shed all the veils on his true personality he was able to maintain while the relationship was long-distance. Extremely long-distance. Most recently (2:30am last night) a Mexican acquaintance of mine and her friend arrived on the Fung Wah for a few days of NYC summer tourism, and will be crashing in my living room all week. This includes the Thursday move-out of the undead couple in my second bedroom; do guests usually mind sleeping in an apartment piled waist-high with cardboard boxes? Then again, if the LA Times article today on my former expat home city is any indicator, maybe this influx of international visitors isn't so hard to explain after all...

I Live with the Dead

2004-06-25T19:50:00.000-05:00

Horrible work day. At 5:20, I get asked to find stuff that doesn't exist; not finding it takes me 3 hours. The torrential downpour awaiting my commute home placed me in a rather... raw... mod. Arriving in my apartment, I find my two languid roommates (well my roommate and his live-in girlfriend) splayed across my couch visiting beaches vicariously through others on the travel channel, with two pizza boxes in front of them. I clean up after them, afterwards saying "Thanks for getting pizza, It's nasty out. What do I owe?" Being a communal food arrangement, this was not an unreasonable assumption to make. However, girlfriend perks up, and slurs

Oh, there's no pizza left. He had one and I had one.

Now, please understand, I'm always one to appreciate a girl who can chow down. Just... not at my expense, unless I'm sleeping with her. And even then it's contentious. So I feel my reaction was quite justified, in pausing for a moment of shock, then exclaiming

You hulking fatasses!!! He, I already call a fatass all the time... but it's officially BOTH of you!

Now, girlfriend takes a bit of offense to this, raising lazily up on elbows and extolling herself as being not, in fact, a fatass, because even though it wasn't a small, it was a 'thin-crust pizza.' Roommate is oblivious to the conversation, being too absorbed in a Geiko auto insurance ad. Aware of the opportunity to test my roommates for a pulse, I decide to press hideously on for shock value to see what reactions I can get, partly because it's raining and partly because I'm bored.

Dinner was fucked up last night too. What's up, are you on the rag?
Ewww that's so inappropriate!!! Hit him...! Get up, go hit him!

Roommate glances at girlfriend kicking his arm, says 'oh boy,' and settles back into being entralled by the shapes of the craftsmatic adjustable bed, with a free 25" television if he calls now. And this couple is moving out on July 1st to cohabitate alone? I hope the neighbors don't mind the stink of decomposing flesh.
postscript: When I ask why they are watching such Travel Channel garbage, she replies "Ian is picking out our honeymoon spot." Later, I'll clean up the vomit over where I was standing at the time. Right now I have to blog or I'll end up slapping him in the face until his eyes lose the glassy stupor.

Paging Dr. Uvlov...

2004-06-24T14:22:00.000-05:00

Came back from lunch to work and I had a message waiting. Listened to it. Rolled jaw back up. I Attempted to forward the message to myself for future playback, but I can't from my office phone system. I even attempted to put receiver of the cell phone to the ear of my work phone; but this came out garbled. So I will transcribe it directly to my blog and reread later.

"Hi Andrew, this is (xxxxx) from Dr. (xxxxx)'s office. Um. I don't know... if this is wildly inappropriate, or if you're... ah... ok. If you're offended by this-- don't take offense. I just wanted to... give you my phone number. It's (xxx-xxx-xxxx). Ah, if you... I'm sorry if this is offensive. I just... I don't know. I just wanted to give it to you in case... you wanted to call me? But if not? Then forget this ever happened. Thanksbye. Click."

Background to this? There is none. This is the girl who works in the office of the internal medicine physician who fixed me when I had pneumonia; the first time she met me, I was delirious with a 104 fever and wearing 2 layers of hooded sweatshirts, wet cargo pants, and coughing blood like I was about to keel over with consumption. The next time there 2weeks later, I bounced into the office all healthy she did this sort of doubletake and said "oh my god, you're like a totally different person now!" But that's it, I've only ever scheduled appointments with her. Then this morning I called the office because the doctor referred me to a good dermatologist and I needed a referral form... and 3 hours later I get this message. No flirting, no small talk to forshadow it. Just out of the blue, a cutely awkward and uncomfortable number-give to the voice mail of the contact info in my record, talking very soft so nobody else in her office could hear. Does this even happen?? And do you call back your doctor's receptionist? I mean, I handed this girl a vial of warm pee once!

The Gray Lady made a funny!

2004-06-24T10:03:00.000-05:00

oh wait... they snagged a writer from the Daily Show. Figures.

Thou-Shalt-See TV
By ROB KUTNER
Published: June 24, 2004 (NYT)

Inspired by the runaway success of religion-themed novels like the "Left Behind" series and Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," broadcasters are devoting more of their prime-time schedules to shows dealing with God, faith and the afterlife.
— Reuters, June 15

CSI: HOLY LAND (CBS) Liked "The Passion" but didn't think it dwelled on the forensics enough? The trail to Damascus is still warm for these detectives, investigating unsolved martyrdoms as to whether they qualify the victim for sainthood. Not so much a whodunit as a who-gets-beatified-for-it.

CHASTITY & SLOTH (ABC) One regards the body as a sacred temple of the divine. The other lies idle, reaping not the fruits of human industry. And now they're . . . roommates?

TUCKED BY AN ANGEL (CBS) Combining America's love of both the supernatural and the superficial, this epidermally searing drama follows a mysterious figure who moves from town to town, solving people's appearance problems, then moving on.

GODVILLE (WB) Moses begging Pharaoh to let him use the chariot. Samson being ordered to cut his hair and get a job. Jesus sulking over having to do "another stupid healing." It's all your favorite Biblical figures — back when they were still teens.

AMERICAN DESTROYER OF IDOLS (FOX) Simon Cowell gets religion, a green card — and an AK-47.

SODOMITE EYE FOR THE MAN RIGHTEOUS BEFORE THE LORD (BRAVO) Identical to "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," except that each episode ends with the Fab Five being stoned to death. (Note: working title.)

THE DISCIPLE (NBC) Sixteen of America's most pious compete to satisfy the increasingly personal whims of the great master Sri Chanamasala (né Larry Schwarzbaum of Canarsie). Who will be the one this week to get "deprogrammed"?

YAHWEH SCHMO (SPIKE) In this first-ever "divine reality" show, a group of actors seeks to fool the Omnipotent Lord of Creation (currently being "retooled").

SHARE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (HBO) Larry David becomes a born-again Christian, then goes around annoying people in an entirely new way.

Rob Kutner is a writer for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

The Dude Abides

2004-06-23T12:11:00.000-05:00

Finally, a summer event geared especially to my special amalgam of fanatic laziness. According to this article, tickets go on sale July 1 for the first-ever Lewbowski Fest New York, and I want my picture on the wall with the other Achievers, too! Bowling? Sychronized Marty's Dance Quintets? A Malibu Sheriff Mug Toss, for crissakes? This is my calling! Not to mention fellowship with kindred spirits:

"I watched the movie every day before I went to class," says Mara Thomas, the 23-year-old winner of the festival's hotly contested trivia competition. "It was like, `I'm making eggs, I might as well watch The Big Lebowski.' That line of reasoning."

(granted, in my case, it was probably more like "instead of going to class", and "I'm making pizza pockets")
Time to gear up my caucasian boozing (it's a perfect summer drink, anyway), polish my balls, and get my DVD back from whoever swiped it off the bookshelf; or better yet, swipe one off the shelf of somebody else I know. Lewbowski Fest is coming!
I'm just going to go find a cash machine...

shhh... Gmail's sleeping

2004-06-22T13:58:00.000-05:00

Google Error
502 Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.

Gmail is still very young, and I am happily still telling myself how cool I am to have an account despite being a late blogger. But are email servers supposed to stay offline for longer than a day? I'm grinning pretty sadistically at the thought of people who ebay'ed accounts for $100 and have been trying unsucessfully to log on every 30 seconds for the last 24 hours...

(Thank you to Karolina Cecile, the new daughter of my lovely on-leave manager, for getting her photo sent around the company by press time)

I'll take that in $20s and $50s

2004-06-22T12:10:00.000-05:00

I was feeling particularly dumb last night. I stayed at work until 8pm putting together a project requested at 5:15 for the following morning, but only realized after turning off my computer and standing by the elevator that I hadn't billed a free dinner. My initial reaction to the thought of going back, ordering and waiting was "screw that," so I left. But walking to the subway, I thought it would be a good idea to wander the neighborhood stopping in at random restaurants and asking if they accept walk-up orders from people with corporate internet accounts; of course none do, it has to go through the system. But that didn't stop me from walking a big loop of lower Manhattan, checking several places, and far overrunning the amount of time it would have taken to just order and wait while playing on the computer.

So, when I got to the deli near home I decided I owed $5 in stupid tax, and got a ticket for the $150 million lotto drawing for tonight I'd heard the secretaries yapping about. Now, I know I don't live in the most intellectual of areas, but I need to say something about the lotto thing. The deli on my corner must take in more business than an OTB betting parlor. People are INSANE. It's my hood's social scene. All ages and languages line up out the door day after day for scratch tickets and power ball, hollering and whooping like the guys in funny vests trading debentures on the exchange floor. And it got me thinking... How come there has never been a trivia lotto? Game shows and reality shows have started to mix (MTV's 'Boiling Points' is suprisingly watchable; the first MTV production I've enjoyed sitting through since Singled Out's last episode with Jenny McCarthy's breasts), and those people don't even know they're playing. Why not bring to the general public the chance to use arbitrary skills and knowledge to profit? If a chance at lotto winnings increased if you scratched of the correct way to spell "yield" or somesuch, urban dropout rates would plunge like nothing you ever saw. And besides, I never get to California where they have all those game shows... Win Ben Stein's Money was geographically discriminatory!

10 days a week

2004-06-21T14:42:00.000-05:00

The streak ended in a supernova this weekend. After 9 straight days of temerarious partying, an all-you-can-drink-wine-and-champagne bachelor party dinner on Saturday night at Cite topped off the bacchanal. Beforehand, two friends from the women's Princeton Training Center squad polished off an afternoon bottle of goldschlager with me, and then it was off the the races. 12 hours of bottomless champagne later, I was suprisingly one of the minority at the table with who did not see his $63.50 filet au poirve twice. (The mess in my bathroom SINK sunday morning proves my roommate cannot say the same.)

Here comes the 5 to the 4 to the 3

2004-06-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

Hands in the air if you cats drunk as me...
(you're a poet,j-kwon)

Here is a summary of my week. I haven't had one like this since... well I think the point is I would never remember anyway.

Blitzed all last weekend at graduation parties. Booze cruise in Boston Harbor sunday night before the bus home at 2am.
Monday, was half an hour late to work. That night, closed out a free open bar at Pound & Pence on a client tab.
Tuesday, 50 minutes late to work. That night, batted .666 with a homer and 2 runs & rbis at an East River softball game, then drank Pacificos for 5 hours.
Wednesday, an hour late. Spent most the night drinking lagers by the liters at Zum Schneider with the gorilla troop of friends; rounded out the evening with some wasted Weezer karaoke at Plan B with the hardier boys and the UVA women's crew visitors.
Thursday, got into work at 11:15. Went to the top floor, grabbed a box I stored earlier, and walked down the stairs to my floor to use as an "oh I've been here" prop. Unnecessary. Went home, fell asleep, thankful for the rain-out of the open bar rooftop REEB magazine party I'd wanted to go to. Phone call at 10:30 from UVA girl gets me back out though, I have tourists to show around. Underbar-to-Industry barhopping lasts until closing time. Drunkenly install 8400 BTU air conditioner in living room for guests at 4:30am, tripping on the cord walking to the window. Ow, foot hurts.
Friday, wake up at 7:45. Shower. Dress in work clothes. Drink V8. Sit on couch. Sleep. 9:30. Still sleeping. Roommate leaves, wonders how AC installed overnight and how it is about 30 degrees crooked but not falling 5 stories. (Doesn't fix it.) Plan tourist day with visitors, knowing if work cared or noticed I was late, I'd know already. Consider requests to call in sick. Decide against. Arrive at work 11:30. Just go to desk and sit down. No messages, 2 emails. Life is good.
Somebody, please do my laundry while I nap this afternoon? I have a weekend to recover for. from. for.

does he have great SATs? And a smoking jacket?

2004-06-17T16:31:00.000-05:00

from the Post:
FISH KID FOILS $1M ROB
June 17, 2004 -- Two dimwitted armored-car drivers took $1 million from their truck yesterday and stashed it in piles in Westchester and Staten Island, planning to pick it up later, police said.
But their heist plan was foiled when a Staten Island teen caught some of the cash while fishing.
The two guards were busted after Princston Ramos, a ninth-grader, went fishing at a Staten Island pond and discovered buried treasure, sources said.

Princston. Naming children after learning institutions is an inherently dangerous venture, but to spell it wrong certainly doesn't bode well for the app. Although at least he's not named after a flight school teacher, like Jason Lee's kid...

new rumor: Jesus was the antichrist

2004-06-16T14:55:00.000-05:00

There is a column in today's Wall Street Journal I couldn't put down, because it reaffirmed for me what a psychotic place the world is. It is written by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, whose book "Clash of Civilizations" was one of my college reads and was very good.
An excerpt of from the stats part of the column:
In a series of 2002-03 polls, 57% to 65% of Americans said religion was very important in their lives, 23% to 27% said fairly important, and 12% to 18% said not very important... Only about 10% of Americans, however, espouse atheism, and most Americans do not approve of it. Although the willingness of Americans to vote for a presidential candidate from a minority group has increased dramatically--over 90% of those polled in 1999 said they would vote for a black, Jewish or female presidential candidate, while 59% were willing to vote for a homosexual--only 49% were willing to vote for an atheist.
I need to sit and process this for a bit before I can clearly respond. I'm just. Speechless.

I <3 U, SJP

2004-06-16T13:01:00.000-05:00

From the Providence import, half an hour ago. She so needs to get over that Broderick clown...

Subject: Sarah Jessica Parker
Im eating her lunch right now. She was in line in front of me at the local falafel place [City Pita, 7th ave & 20th], and they mixed up our orders.
Ahhhhh New York.

Subject: RE: Sarah Jessica Parker
Is she super cute in person too?

Subject: RE: Sarah Jessica Parker
Yes, and super small. 5 feet flat. I thought she was skipping school, and then heard her voice, which is unmistakable. I don’t think anyone in there had a clue.

god damn it

2004-06-16T10:00:00.000-05:00

I think that this is an excellent letter to the editor...
(New York Times, 6/16/04)
To the Editor:

Re "8 Justices Block Effort to Excise Phrase in Pledge" (front page, June 15):

Because Michael A. Newdow does not have final say over his daughter's education under the terms of a California custody order and the case was tied to his suit on her behalf, the Supreme Court ruled that he does not have sufficient standing to argue as her legal representative.

It seems that we have an easier time separating parent and child than we do separating church and state.

DAVI NAPOLEON
Ann Arbor, Mich., June 15, 2004

sushi-tuesday minutia

2004-06-15T12:18:00.000-05:00

* I'm seeing smoke signals on the horizon that I may no longer be the 1 single friend in my social group of coupled-off buddies. Recent whispers place an unnamed founding member of the Player's Alumni Association as on the splits with his special ladyfriend; there are unverified reports that she was out past her bedtime and didn't finish her broccoli, and has been sent to her room.

* I realized this weekend that the excellent films 'Good Will Hunting' and 'Supertroopers,' while different in most respects, both featured a greatly underappreciated leisure time activity for New England twenty-somethings: Watching 9 year-olds play little league games from the bleachers on lazy saturday afternoons. In between bouts of heckling, my Rhode Island friend put it quite poignantly; "If you think about it, these games are the deciding moments for these kids. Right here, it is all sorted out; respect from peers, levels of self confidence, the love of fathers... fail the physical tests of little league, and you're pretty much fucked for the next two decades."

Fun, or Wah?

2004-06-14T16:00:00.000-05:00

There are only two types of trips on my regular chinatown bus from the LES to South Station: very good, and very bad. This weekend, I had both.

Wah: On my return to the city last night on the 10pm (arrives at Canal St. 2:20am), around midnight I came a heartbeat away from waiting for a quiet moment, whipping out my cellphone, poke-dialing my friend Matt and projecting extremely loudly into the receiver "Hey, Matt guess what? You're right about cell phones on buses being annoying. I think that everybody who has an song-jingle ring or talks for too long should be dragged into the back and had their head flushed in the toilet. I'm on a bus about half-full of people who have no idea that everybody else can hear them, and when their "Ode to Joy" ring goes off for the 20th time, the quiet passengers want to stuff them in the luggage compartment down below. Yeah, seriously. They have no idea, it's hilarious. Anyway, see you. Peace." The smattering of applause would have been priceless. I'm not in any way a thin-skinned guy and I know what sort of clientele to expect with a $10 ticket, but were are some basic human courtesy laws being flouted on that run. Like when the hipster band kid next to me left a 5 minute+ message for some guys he tried out with, only to realize at the end of said message that in passing under the Prudential Building tunnel he had lost his signal at some point and then left the same word-for-word message for them all over again? Poor etiquette. Lady sitting behind you taps you awake an hour into the ride to ask if your overhead light is working (hers seems to be broken), apparently not noticing that every single light in the entire capacity-filled bus has mysteriously been off the whole ride? Poor etiquette. When the fat sweaty passenger in the back walked to the front to complain to the driver the AC wasn't turned high enough for him, only in putting his hand on every headrest he passed managed to stick one of his greasy sausage fingers in my sleeping ear? Poor etiquette. It was almost like I was paying for something in karma...

Fun: For the ride up to Boston, I planned on meeting a friend in the line for the Fung Wah directly after work. Being a Wall St. worker bee, I was much closer and arrived first. In line to buy tickets, my attention was naturally drawn to the tall blonde girl alone behind me; a recurring theme is how much of a sucker I am in that department. However, by the time I had run to a cash machine and returned, my friend had arrived and the bald passenger behind her had struck up the Interest in conversation. Friend, who is renowned for a complete lack of social and spatial awareness, proceeds to conversationally recount in his patented volume several weekends' worth of our social group's chicanery, blissfully unaware of my attempts to steer the conversation onto a more tasteful or even intelligent tack. Finally, when I mentioned soreness from the Chase Corporate Challenge 5k I had run earlier, Interest seized upon a moment of silence from her suitor and chimed in mentioning she had run it, as well. A quick trip for a hot dog later, I informed blissful friend that the two behind us were not, as he thought, together, and that I would have her contact info by the end of the ride (blissful friend seemed dubious.) 5 hours and 1 Fung Wah ride later, I rose, stepped back to where Interest was sitting with suitor next to her, engaged in a brief conversation during the shuffle to exit the bus, and left set with a get-together planned at Niagara this week. In the words of blissful friend, suitor looked on the verge of tears, as he appeared "ready to propose marriage when I busted up his game." Right-place-at-the-right-time-to-provide-a-desperately-needed-out luck it may be, but it's stories like this that put the fun in fung wah.

In the immortal words of Clueless...

2004-06-11T14:52:00.000-05:00

Amber: Ms. Stoeger, my plastic surgeon doesn't want me doing any activity where balls fly at my nose.
Dionne: Well, there goes your social life...

A Mass. state appeals court today decided on a lawsuit filed by a woman who said that the injuries she suffered from a foul ball to the face in 1998 were the fault of the Red Sox organization. She claimed their failure inform her of the perils of sitting close to the field entitled her to $486,909 in lost wages and medical expenses. In rejecting her case, the judge cited an earlier court decision which states that, `the duty to warn does not extend to dangers that would be obvious to persons of average intelligence.' (court-talk for "You're an idiot") As a fanatic Sox fan, I need to start gearing up this page for some late-summer and autumn gut-wrenching ballpark drama stories, so I just wanted to get my first Sox entry out there in the win column for the team.

By far the best part of this saga is that the critical-injury offending ball wheezed off the bat of none other than limp-wristed Darren Lewis. 8 plates to reconstruct your schnoz because of this featherduster, lady? Maybe next time, you will stop yapping on your cell phone and waving to see if you're on TV and actually watch the game. Not that I'm bitter about you wasting good seats or anything.

And I ran... ran so far away...

2004-06-10T13:02:00.000-05:00

So on a lark I signed up a few months ago along with 20,000 or so other New Yorkers for the Chase Corporate Challenge Central Park Run that happened yesterday-- after all, how tough could 3.5 billable miles be. Now, as I sit at my workstation lifting boxes and sorting documents into their proper folders (yes, I'm actually DOING stuff today, first time since I started blogging really) and feeling my rubbery chicken legs rebel against every movement, I am telling myself for the umpteenth time since it started getting nice outside: I need to get my formerly-athletic ass back into shape. I mean really, I have no excuse. I'm leaving every day at 5:30; it's not like I'm an I-Banker, or more specifically this I-Banker, who's email-documented employment torture brightened my physically crestfallen morning.

note to self: check this place out (bring crew)

2004-06-09T10:26:00.000-05:00

The Delancey (Delancey & Clinton)

A new watering hole has sprung up in my neck of the woods, and judging by the buzz from their opening last week, they throw one hell of a party.

Nice form, good arm technique and spot-on placement of the left knee. Apparently somebody was paying attention in Bouncer School...
As the story goes, shady Polish management tipped an altercation at their own soiree over some girls sitting in a VIP section without permission. Things escalated (who throws a firecracker in a bar?! I mean really); LES hipster carnage ensued. And what has better draw than carnage? I'll be conducting some on-site investigating as soon as I rally some of my eastern european goon friends for a night on the town.

Sounds Like Ice Cream

2004-06-08T11:38:00.000-05:00

Bless this man. The NYPost is negatively reporting today that, under noise code regulations, my former employer Mr. Bloomberg is proposing to ban the Mister Softee jingle. You know, Da-na-na-na, dah-da, dah-da, da-dum-da-dum-dee-dah-dum! That one that plays 50 times in a row at 8am on Sunday morning right outside your window after a night of mainlining vodka tonics. Or worse, the song that plays from 3am-5am somewhere down the street from your old apartment in Harlem, just like Big Worm's truck in Friday only for real. Is everyone at the Post INSANE? Mister Softee is an evil nemesis. This ranks up there with the public smoking ban for "best thing for New York, ever" which, incidentally, the Post also panned. Considering a significant portion of my imagery of hell involved confinement in a putrid, smoke-filled room listening to that jingle for eternity, I think the question needs to be raised; is Rupert Murdoch, in fact, Satan?