30 November 2005

holy fucking lord

i like it when the article does the work for me:

Doctors stress the woman will not look like her donor, but nor will she look like she did before the attack - instead she will have a "hybrid" face.

and
earlier, when i had a similar reaction.

thank god
jasmine the rotweiller didn't get me or i'd be up for one of these, too.

why does it smell like cookies

when there are no cookies?

pretzels are not cookies.

almost a week late and a dollar short

Q: Cinnamon or nutmeg?
A: Cinnamon is a nice spice people are comfortable consuming throughout the year, sprinkled either on toast or in a delicious coffee beverage. Nutmeg is a nasty, gritty substance that wants nothing to do with us in the spring or summer but demands our favor come November, only to disappear to the back of the shelf for another year. Why do we continue to accommodate this so-called seasoning? Nutmeg is a stupid jerk.

mcsweeney's butterball help-line help-line
and also, the new yorker cartoons in progress.

hold on to that feeyeeyeelin'

do youself a massive favor and have a chuckle with vice's don'ts.

now is a good time to mention that not too long ago, for no reason whatsoever, my roommates and i had a 2/3 of us are sober, unaccompanied karaoke night, during which "don't stop believin'" and "livin' on a prayer" were both grotesquely mutilated.

strange things are afoot at the circle K

i came out of the subway at the NYPL and thought it was weird that there were a bunch of people in yellow hats with yellow flags. then i thought it was weird when i saw that these yellow hats and flags were for some nascar event. i further thought it was wierd when i passed the waldorf-astoria and there was a HUGE YELLOW FLAG with nascar written on it hanging off the front. what a shameful day for the waldorf: flags of world nations replaced by the flag of the redneck nation. its maids are walking around with their heads hung. then further up park, was another group of people with the yellow hats and flags and whatnot, apparently waiting for some nascar cars to make thier "victory lap" and park in front of a building.

so there's your nascar news round-up.

29 November 2005

sorry, no bomb today

but i did manage to rustle up a kidnapping for you.

look eye! look eye! always look eye!

mr. miyagi is no more. goodbye, mr. miyagi.

sniff, sniff.

randy cohen's a bit pervy

this week's sunday times magazine's ethicist has a blurb about some dumb bitch who went to get her eyebrows tweezed and is annoyed because the beautician told her she didn't really need to have it done and promptly charged her 25 smackers to tweeze four hairs. randy gets a little randy in his answer:

when the beautician told you that you shouldn't have anything done, that was your cue to say: "Thank you for the advice. In that case, I won't be needing your services." You then stand up, tip her generously, put your clothes back on -- did she have you undress? the dipilatory world is alien to me -- and leave.

oh, randy. i don't care how foreign the dipilatory world is to you. under what circumstances outside of your own very active imagination, would someone need to take her clothes off to have her eyebrows tweezed?

this is not some movie where the beautician accidently spills hot wax on the patroness's shirt, and the first reaction is to just take it off and smear hot wax all over the rest of her so she matches.

tsk, tsk, randy. not so ethical, are you?

and i still don't think "building stories" is funny.

doves are just white pigeons

there's a door to the stairwell in my office. for some reason, this door also leads to a tiny, fenced-in something or other that goes outside. basically, you open this door and there it a 13-story drop, defended by chain-link. pigeons seem to like to hang out in this little area, but it seems that they're sorta getting stuck in the chain-link and it pulls their feathers off. then their feathers blow under the door and into the lobby of the office. and today, somehow, they made it all the way down the hall of one side of the office.

in short: there are disease- and insect-ridden pigeon feathers on the floor all over the office today.

UPDATE: there is now a large clump of disease- and insect-ridden feathers rolling back and forth in the elevator bank.

open letter to the guy at the gym

when you wear a princeton t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of cornell basketball shorts, you look like a well-connected date-rapist.

even the mta hates the mta

with a strike looming, the mta is really doing all it can to satisfy its employees:

combining the conductor and the driver into "subway operator" (it's like employees at subway sandwiches who are "sandwich artists")
having booth people/"customer assistance agents" (those dorks in the maroon vests) do a little tidying up, i. e., dust and wipe down the booths, empty trash cans and do other "cleaning functions" ha! cleaning functions. like cleaning urine and feces and semen off the platforms!! yeah!
and there'll be stricter rules concerning sick leave and less substantial health care and pension benefits for future employees; apparently, if you call in sick for the MTA, you might be visited at home in order to check and make sure you're actually sick and not just going to six flags...bummer.

i'm sure no one will end up satisfied at the end of this, least of all those of us who ride the mta daily.

the post seems to think everything will be fine.
and the daily news is pretty sure everything's gonna suck ass.

28 November 2005

apparently movies are fake

here's a list, via gothamist, of movies that took place in new york but were shot in toronto. i was pretty surprised by some...and disappointed, the olsen twins let me down.

a fark round up

the supreme court is falling apart. you decide whether i mean literally or figuratively.

phallic nation.

people are stupid.

people are stupid. (anyone else catch Nature last night? and forgive me, but there's a palestinian zoo? and arabic speaking parrots!!! al-qaeda should be all up in that if they knew what was good for them)

hippies in mass. are burning wood to stay warm.

have a giant bottle of pbr you don't know what to do with? c'mon, kids, send it to w'burg.

and that's a pretty nice haircut!

ok, so i am lazy as hell when it comes to cutting my hair. generally, i just don't think about it. but then one day i'll wake up and be completely focused, determined - nay - obsessively driven to get a haircut. this happened a week or so ago, so by last friday, the dam was bursting. i went to a place next to the gym and told her to cut it as much as she needed in order to get rid of all the fried hair at the bottom.



i rarely pay attention to a haircut when i leave a salon, because they're always dumping a lot of shit in your hair and i know it'll never really look like that because i don't have the patience to "do" my hair very often. so, despite the fact that i was sporting florence henderson's haircut, i didn't really think much of it.

but the next day, after i washed it and looked like a cross between a mushroom and a nascar fan, i realized i could not have this. i could not.

so i went to another place and regailed them with my tale of woe and they promised to fix it. and fix it they did. and now, i have very little hair, but i like it much better than looking like mrs. brady.


UPDATE: according to some shit on gawker, this haircut may or may not be referred to as a "femullet". use of this word within 10 meters of me is not advised.

leftovers

the 2:03 train was jammed, and i barely made it on anyway. things cleared up around jamaica and i got a seat. i was that annoying person standing in the aisle, hitting people with a backpack and yacking on a cellphone for a while. i was terribly self-conscious about it, until i realized it was a loud, packed train and they could bite me.

when i arrived at my aunt & uncle's house, my uncle was deeply engrossed in an a&e special about conjoined twins (i guess siamese isn't allowed anymore) who are attached at the forehead. they are 37 years old and one of them (the less-developed one who sits on a high chair sort of thing with wheels on) is a country singer. they have a music video. for all intents and purposes, my "welcome to your family's for thanksgiving" was a country music video by a siamese twin who is on a high chair with wheels on. the other twin kindly bops up and down to the ditty.

i decided this was an opportune time for me to start a fire, a) because i am a pyro, b) because it's one of my favorite fireplaces, and c) because, to be honest, the twin thing was freaking me out a little.

just as the flames got going, a&e's programming went to an "investigative reports" about murder on the rails. i love hobos, so the first part was awesome. talking to old hobos about their lives on the rails, eating beans out of cans and whatnot. then they started talking about some of the sick fucks who murder hobos by knocking them out and putting them on the tracks so they get sliced in half. sweet. but i love hobos and fires, so i was still pretty stoked.

then there was the part at dinner on weds, when my aunt asked my uncle if he'd brought all his guns in. my uncle is a hunter, and a pretty conscientious gun owner, but still, "did you put all your guns away" is a weird thing for me to hear at the dinner table.

at one point, i was sitting with my aunt & uncle's rotweiller puppy on my lap and she seemed to be getting a little pissy. do not let the word "puppy" fool you. there was no way i could move with this lump on my lap. she's a nipper, but nothing dangerous, but that didn' matter when she decided to play-bite my cheek. i yelled and my uncle sprang to life from his nap and grabbed her off me. she didn't break the skin, but i nearly shit myself. i mean, she is a rotweiller and she did try to bite my face off. we made amends, though, apparently she gets more bitey when she needs to take a shit, so i guess i'm lucky she tried to bite me rather than use me as a toilet...

other than that, thanksgiving was pretty uneventful. we watched a lot of blues clues, which i seemed to be the most engrossed by, even though they got rid of steve.

i came back to brooklyn thursday night and began one of the laziest stretches of my life. i did manage to get to the gym every day, and we finished recording the voices for the next project and i bought some tofu scallion cream cheese.

23 November 2005

gobble, gobble

i'm off!
enjoy your time with whomever you're spending it. don't forget to drink!

did anyone else notice

random observations from the last 18 hours or so:

they slipped CYHSY into the office last night. jim is the hippest hipster in scranton, pa!

there was a guy using a leafblower in front of the Rite Aid on 5th ave this morning. a leaf blower. for a sidewalk. funnier still, the wind was whipping up 30+ mph gusts, so it was not really doing much of anything.

there are a lot of girls with ponytails and red jackets running around the rockerfeller center area. this can only be related to the parade, right? they're leaving soon, right?

just a discounted bible keeps georgia on my mind

this morning on npr they did a story about how georgia doesn't charge sales tax for bibles. (the story was filed by my old friend georgia public broadcasting, complete with a report from hippy-dippy bookstore and crystal outlet, phoenix & dragon.) i'm gonna skip the part about how i'm slightly more interested in whether or not it's gonna break the freezing mark today or snow tomorrow than some feather-ruffling junk about how southerners are all assholes, and just say this: we don't need a fucking law to prevent this. it's a perversion of the constitution.

basically, the situation is as follows: they don't charge sales tax for bibles, but they do for other "religious and spiritual texts". so the ACLU thinks it's a good reason to take the state of georgia to court on a free speech rampage. personally, i think you should have to pay extra tax to buy religious texts, but that's beside the point. i see where people think it's unfair that you don't have to pay tax for a bible, but you do for text of lesser-known religions, like hinduism and ba'hai.

what was more annoying than the story itself was that they didn't mention until the very end that you don't have to pay tax on the koran and they didn't mention at all that you don't pay tax on the torah. it was slightly over-focused on the idea that it was the christian bible what was sold on the cheap, as though it was some mass conspiracy by the georgia state government to convert the entire state to christians (which, at its inception, it may well have been).

however, despite the aclu's whining and the moron who runs Phoenix & Dragon bookstore saying that it's telling people that by buying the bible they've chosen the "right religion," and if they want something different, it's telling them it's the "wrong religion", the story did manage to point out that any religious text or sect can apply for this tax-exemption; the koran became tax free only ten years ago (something tells me the torah was tax free as soon as the first jew found out there was no tax on the bible). so, really, there's no issue here at all. all that has to happen is for people to get their religious leaders to petition the gov't and they'll get their 7% discount, just like those holier-than-thou christians.

honestly, i just don't see why this is that big of a deal, and i definitely think they should charge tax on all these types of books. but no one needs to waste the court's time when you can just file a freaking petition!

ugh.

22 November 2005

sir, put the bagel down, sir

ok, more shit-for-brains activity from our hometown boys of worthless public transport.

there is a bagel shop called "f line bagels" at smith and 9th street. just across from the smith/9th street F train stop. with me so far? the mta sent this BAGEL SHOP a cease-and-desist order, which was today held up in court, regarding the use of mta logos.

there aren't all-caps big enough to illustrate the boiling rage building in me. the mta are wasting time, money and resources on a fucking bagel shop that is ADVERTISING FOR THEM EVEN THOUGH THEY DON'T EVEN FUCKING DESERVE IT!!! in the words of the cabbie in half baked, "you should be kissing my ass!"

anyway, gothamist's comments are taking care of ranting for me. particularly inspiring is the guy who recommends changing the name to "f-the-mta bagels". if they change their name to that, i promise to get off the train and go buy a bagel there every day for a year (or until they're put out of business).

if it wasn't so goddamn annoying, it'd be hilarious

guess who's thinking about striking?

a) me
b) the macy's balloons
c) the transit union
d) the dvd sorters at netflix

the answer: c
it seems that no one really likes the way the mta is run, including the people who work for it. i wonder, could that wasted ass $50m possibly help resolve this problem?

(had some of you freaking out with the netflix option, didn't i?)

via gothamist

daily bombing

17 killed in this one.

in case "snow wonder" didn't do it for you

there's always "silver bells" to look forward to.

starring: lesbian/non-lesbian/nutter Anne Heche
and "i dated most of hollywood's hottest actresses but somehow managed to never get my own real career" tate donovan.

more effective than a bottle of
ipecac.

bonus points if you can figure out which of them looks worse in this picture.

an open letter to the men of east midtown (and elsewhere)

your umbrella does not need to be that big.

21 November 2005

just what, exactly, do you mean by "funny"?

i've been wondering for several weeks now, where is the humor in the NYT Magazine's funny pages' "building stories". i'm really seeing more of a "depressing" theme. and those goddamned sound effects.

anyone?

you thought i missed it, didn't you

well, i didn't.

bomb in iraq.

for those of you who care, which is all of you

i am currently in the process of "catching some raisinets".

this is the stupidest thing i've
ever seen and it has the worst commercial ever produced. the first time i saw it, i thought it was for a 1-900 number or something...they cleverly don't mention the price at all, aside from the guy (the scene is ostensibly a date) saying "it costs less than this dinner". where they hell are they having dinner? taco bell? balthazar? this is pretty fucking vague. also, dinner is waaaaay better than a candle. candles are generally dumb gifts. and a candle that changes color will more than likely get hurled back at you, along with accusations of being a thoughtless, cheap boyfriend. stick with the dinner, boys. (this might be a link to a different company than the one for which i saw a commercial, but it still gets the point across...)

unfortunate circumstances led to me and my roommate having to watch grey's anatomy with commercials last night. god, commercials really suck. dvr, thou hath spoilt me.

anyway, one of the worst examples is this thing for i think fidelity investments. it shows all these pictures of paul mccartney, and lists all the things he's been: "beatle, wing, father, douche bag, sell out", etc. why the hell would seeing paul mccartney make me think about investing with fidelity? -- which leads me to wonder not only, "who the fuck came up with this garbage?" but also, "who the fuck is falling for this garbage?"

and i'm proud to be an american, where at least i'm un-em-ployed

GM is gonna give 30K the sack and close a dozen parts and assembly plants. thank god the army's still in business.

also, do yourself a favor, click on the link for the title of this post, if it doesn't make you smile, i'll send you a dollar.

the secret lives of co-workers

someone: do you watch Medium?
someone else: yeah, sometimes.
someone: well, you have to watch it tonight--did you get your TV Guide? did you get your 3-d glasses?

twenty minutes later, there is a tv guide and a pair of 3-d glasses on someone else's desk.

the cracks where fall & winter collide

when i was younger, i used to get my national honor society volunteering credits by volunteering at a fun run benefiting a hospital in my hometown...i gave out apples and shit as the runners came through the finish line. i always liked it. the brisk fall air, the early morning buzz, the free long-sleeved t-shirts, the not having to actually run.

so this year i worked the
god's love we deliver race to deliver. (they make meals for people with aids and other really shitty diseases and deliver them to their homes.) it was gonna be fun! sure! then i realized that to be in central park by 730, i'd definitely have to wake up at 6...not a preferred time for me to be up, unless it's polishing off the night before. luckily, i'd exhausted myself enough from friday night's and saturday's activities to put me to bed at 8, yes 8pm saturday night, without even finding out how north by northwest ends.

the subways are dead at 615 on a sunday morning. and slow. really fucking slow. and also not running. under normal circumstances, i would've taken the f to the c, but since the f was all fucked and the c wasn't running, i re-routed myself on the r to the 4 to the 6. i was late.

it was lovely when i got to the park, though. the last bits of fall colors were falling off the trees, and it was clear and bright and quiet. and cold.

there was coffee and krispy kremes, which did a little to ease my early morning crankiness, but then the organizer came over and asked if i wouldn't mind switching jobs. i said, in all honesty, "of course not". then she directed me to the
nickelodeon tent. i loved nickelodeon when i was a kid, but i am, how shall i put this, not very good with children. i do not pander to them, i do not think they're all adorable and i do not think it's cute when they act all spazzy and their parents do nothing but act proud that their little festering pile of snot has just sneezed on someone or is screeching on the subway or is just standing in the middle of the freaking sidewalk like a midwestern tourist. i don't hate kids, some of them can be extremely entertaining. i just don't care that they're children.

either way, i downed my coffee and headed over to the tent. turns out, i would not be babysitting the kids of adults in the race, but handing out
lazy town paraphernalia to the kids who ran the kids races. we had t shirts and bags, pretty nice bags, at that. the t shirts were a little different, the smallest size was a kids' L, and they went up to adult L. most of these kids were under 5 feet, and wouldn't grow into these t shirts for a good three years, at which point i hope they are not still watching lazy town.

anyway, it was fairly uneventful for an hour or so, until the swarm of kids and their parents came to the tents. for some reason it surprised (and pleased) me to see so many parents leaning down and say, "what do you say?" to their little ones after we'd presented them with their prizes. most of them did say "thank you". i wonder if i could go around saying that to adults. i'm super-aware of saying "please" and "thank you" and i have no idea why. i don't think my parents did anything special to make me so partial to these words. but there is that small electric shock i get if i don't say it.

then there were the "parents" who had lots of "plastic surgery" and "fur" and came up and asked for the teeniest t-shirt we had, "oh, and the bag, too", without so much as a race number, let alone an actual offspring. this led us to instate the "produce the child" rule. there were only enough t shirts for the number of children who'd registered, so we decided to run guilt trips on parents "well, we just don't want any children to be disappointed if we run out of t shirts". this part, i was extremely good at.

i left early because i had to get to the studio to work on pinter, but by the end, i was saying sweet things to the sweet little children, just like everyone else.

dancin' machine

when i lived in london, i went dancing all the time. the mean fiddler had a fantastic 70s, 80s and 90s dance party with a different decade on each floor, and jazz cafe could always be counted on to provide the sweet soul music.

but i haven't been "dancing" in new york. well, once. i went with my super hot friend and her super hot friends and we got all dressed up in terribly uncomfortable clothes and shoes and went somewhere that cost $20 to get in. we proceeded to dance for two songs until some guys offered to get us a table and some bottles. then we got smashed.

recent weddings have offered a bit of solace. i can usually count on at least an hour of good tunes to which i can shake my derriere. but it wasn't until friday that i had two, maybe three hours straight of unbelievable dance music to glue me to the dance floor. i danced till i was sweaty and exhausted and out of breath and then i danced some motherfucking more.

it was one of my bocce teammates' (woo hoo undefeated!) birthday, and he threw a pretty substantial bash, and had some of his friends dj, they were all great, built up the energy of the night quite well, i thought. there were a shitload of people, and we had the whole downstairs of loreley to ourselves, and despite it being super dark and roasting and full of those stupid dioramas (one of which i believe i was dared to disassemble at one point, but i couldn't reach far enough into it to do any real damage), it was a rad time. we kept talking about being ready to go, but the music kept going, and we kept getting more ($7!!!) beers and dancing and staying. until about 4, i think.

honestly, don't remember much else than the dancing. at one point someone (i think the birthday boy) chucked a glass across the room and it smashed against the brick wall, that was fairly exciting.

my friend and i also decided that if you're in line to use the bathroom and you actually have to pee, you should be able to jump ahead of people who are using it for other reasons.

more at manlio rules

is cheese a fringe benefit or a perk?

this morning, for the second time in as many weeks, there is cheese in the kitchen. brie, cheddar, edam (?), some other shit i can't identify, and water crackers (oh, i still remember the day i discovered these perfect little cheese vehicles). it's all very kind to bring us your leftovers from your pre-thanksgiving soiree, but couldn't you give us a little notice? now i have to eat a bagel and a 1/4 wheel of brie, and i just don't think that's so good for me.

18 November 2005

mom loves us on a friday afternoon

my mom's forwards are usually on par with other parental forwards--cheesey and pointless and i don't bother reading them, and lately she's taken to sending me the same forwards she sends to other women her age, i.e., those filled with jokes about menopause, gray hair, and dentures. but now & again she reminds me she still gets it:

the new holiday fares are in effect! let's fuck up some service! --love, the MTA

the F and G are doing that thing where you have to take the G to Hoyt-Schermerhorn and switch to an F into the city. rubbish.

N and Rs are both going over the bridge and stopping at DeKalb.

there are ZERO C trains

but it only costs a dollar!

Safety reminder of the week: Keep back from the platform edge.

music munchies

MPR has about a billion streams from in-studios...i'm still working my way through the shit at kexp, but i'm excited to have something to look forward to after that. anyway, there are too many bands to even think about naming, but you will like at least one of them. there are 2-4 songs from each.

(via
brooklyn vegan)

remember the alamo?

you might have been wondering what happened to all those high-school skater-punks who used to hang out in astor place... well, i don't know the answer to that, but i do know they'll be back soon, because that big block that sits on its corner came back today at 11.

quick, let's see if it turns!! woo hoo!

what was i thinkin' when i let go of you?

last night confirmed at least one thing for me: it's been far too long since i've listened to wilco.

jeff tweedy played with glenn kotche (and his boxes of crickets) last night at the tribeca performing arts center as part of the "wall street rising Music Downtown" series.

glenn is insane. his hands were moving so fast, i couldn't keep up with what he was doing. his coordination is staggering. i've never seen anyone do so many things at once. he did some brazilian stuff and a balinese monkey chant (i think). and he had a lot of boxes full of crickets, about which i'm not entirely sure how i feel.

anyway, jeff came on and was very peppy. he talked a lot to the "great abyss", which did a lot of talking back, including one guy who said jeff had "already made my day", to which jeff responded "you taken away all my initiative to play now" or something like that...and another dude who asked if jeff would play a cover of a brian wilson song and really wouldn't get off it. jeff was pretty damn congenial about the whole thing and kept his sense of humor all night.

glenn came back for the first encore, as did Jim O'Rourke and they played a few tunes. i really can't remember anything of the order of the set, but there was a good mix of wilco through the years and some "loose furs" stuff, as well.

it was a completely refreshing experience, very intimate and fun, and the music was lovely. if anyone knows somewhere i can find a recording of it, let me know. sound left a little to be desired, but you can't have everything.

also, people don't really need to take that many pictures during a show. really.

iraq attack

it seems like it's been a little while since the last bomb in iraq -- at least that i heard about. but today we get a whopper...at least 65 are dead after some assholes set off bombs inside a mosque during friday prayers. i'm gonna take a little leap here, but i would guess that wouldn't go over too well with allah. if i were allah, i'd be smiting some people.

not to be outdone, two car bombs were detinated outside a hotel popular with international journalists. it seems only iraqis were killed.

read the whole, sad story here, here and here...and here.

typo in the times: were the target of a suicide bombings in October.

17 November 2005

[bloodcurdling scream]

i really do need to get some work done today, but the shit just keeps coming. the bbc has a story about how various "classics" are being translated into textspeak...to wit:

Hamlet's famous line: "To be or not to be, that is the question" becomes "2b? Nt2b? ???".

you might remember the beeb also had a story about some bozo doing this to the bible...

and you might remember when someone clever did something clever with calvin...

finally, someone's talking some sense around here

david cross makes more sense wearing a pair of fake tits and a skirt than fox does doing anything.

(i heart waxy)

and totally unrelated but also from waxy, someone hates ebaum's world.

sometimes they let us eat the decorations

here, as received, is an all staff email i just got.


There are some apples on the table IN THE LOUNGE.....please help yourselves. We will be buying more next week.

yes, he said "yank"

my friend just had some minor dermatological surgery, and today she went to get her stitches out. apparently her doctor removed one set of stitches and told her she could take the rest of them out by herself.

i: how exactly did he suggest you take them out?
she: he told me i could just give them a yank.

i, love you, too

don't you love recruiters and employment agencies?

i love how you bring them your resume and they give you a clipboard and make you handwrite your resume all over again. that rocks.

i love how they ask you what you're interested in and, regardless of what you say, their answer is "i have something perfect for you" and then go on to explain a job that makes you like your current job (which sucks).

i love how they then say "well, maybe you'd be more intersted in [xyz industry]" as though it wasn't the first thing you mentioned when they asked you what you'd be interested in.

i love how they have boxes for "midtown" and "downtown" and even though you ticked the box for "downtown", they ask "how would you feel about working downtown?"

i love how they tell you, regardless of your experience or salary, that you are "a very special girl" and "wonderful" and "you should be making 10k more a year".

i love how they look at you like you're crazy when you tell them you don't really care if you have to make only slightly more than you make now (which isn't much), as long as it's something you actually have even a vague interest in doing.

i love how i still hope they will find me a job i love.

futility is futile

because i'm an activist kind of gal, i wrote fox an email yesterday berating them for canceling arrested development. it was short and sweet and not intended to actually change anyone's mind, but i figured since it was something i got angry about for more than three minutes a day consistently, maybe i should let it out. i also mentioned that kitchen confidential should've been given a few more episodes to find itself, but what do i know.

i never expected a response, but i got one:

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT& KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL return MON. 12/5/05 with ALL-NEW episodes!!!

ASKFOX


and then it will disappear forever.

all's well that ends well.

blogger's spellcheck is rubbish

other words it doesn't recognize:

burrito (no, i am not making this up)
tortilla
mariachi

hence, blogger is anti-mexican.

just like mary shelley

last night i met a friend at the world financial center and i saw a "blockheads". i had no idea this place was a chain. the first time i saw one, walking downtown from work one evening, it struck me as impressively confusing.

firstly: what does a blockhead have to do with a burrito? "blockhead": n : these words are used to express a low opinion of someone's intelligence. true, i don't need my burrito to be in mensa or anything, but why would naming a place "blockheads" give me any sort of positive feeling? and is it really intuitive to think "that place is called 'blockheads', they must make burritos"? (the answer is 'no', by the way.)

second: "burritos brought to life" is the slogan of this gimmick-laden purveyor of "san francisco-style mexican food". am i to understand that blockheads is actually a city-wide network of scientific labs in which dr. frankensteins are electrifying tortilla-encased mounds of meat, cheese, and sour cream (mmm, sour cream) and screaming "it's alive!"? personally, i do not want my burrito brought to life. i much prefer it to be inanimate. it is, after all, a burrito.

third: this whole "san francisco-style mexican food" thing. everyone knows a san francisco burrito has about one grain of rice in common with real mexican food. so just call it "san francisco style" that's enough. clemen's knows what's up.

fourth: this place becomes more and more excruciating the more i learn about it. a visit to their website yielded a wave of nausea not felt since tuesday morning. there is irritating mariachi music and i was introduced to a grating cast of puppets who were friendlier than a washington mutual atm. they said all kinds of cutsey things via speech bubbles and have moronic names like "zippy".

fifth: this is the saddest part. somehow, these people are connected with benny's burritos in greenwich village. it appears they own it or something.

have we reached the saturation point of useless shit?


sadly, no.

Capture a piece and drink off the shot!

funny, usually i drink off the shot and then capture a piece...

16 November 2005

i guess it's that time of year

brooklyn vegan led me to this top 40 list. the top 40 bands in the us...old john vanderslice just barely made the cut, but at least he's there. i won't say anything about sufjan stevens being number one.

how stupid are people, you ask?

stupid enough to line up in front of niketown and camp out for a fucking pair of shoes.

UPDATE: it gets even better (or worse)...they stayed outside during last night's fairly nasty storm not to get free skeakers, but to mutherfucking PAY for sneakers. you know, there really are some clear ideas for population control somewhere around here.

suicide bomb this!

If particles of ignited white phosphorus land on a person's skin, they can continue to burn right through flesh to the bone.
Yum!

Long-term exposure to lesser concentrations over several months or years may lead to a condition called "phossy jaw", where mouth wounds are caused that fail to heal and the jawbone eventually breaks down.
the jaw bone's connected to the -- wait a minute.

The US initially denied reports it had used white phosphorus as a weapon in Falluja in November 2004, saying it had been used only for illumination and laying smokescreens.
naw, man, we ain't do that shit.

However, the US has now admitted its forces also used white phosphorus rounds to a lesser extent to flush enemy forces out of covered positions, allowing them to be targeted with high explosives.
well, sorta...

it's not illegal to do what the US did, but it's still gross. more.

if music be the food of online quizzes, play on!

bbc magazine has a quiz you are more than likely to fail about music. it's still fun, though. i got a lousy 4/10.

the hand that rocks the internet is the hand that rules the world

the good ol' u. s. of a. are hanging onto our control of internet addressing. it's really something we just fell into.

the last last one

today the high is scheduled for 69. tomorrow it will be in the 40s. today is your last chance.

15 November 2005

please, stop, you're killing me

the word "blogs" is unrecognized by the "blogger" spellcheck.

thank you, and good night.

i read too many blogs

i was discussing over my newly acquired aol im how it would be fun to chat with random people and then post it on the blog....and i remembered this. but i couldn't remember where i'd found it...but i remembered. so go read it now.

here's a little taste:

BritneySpears14: I kiss you softly on your chest.
bloodninja: I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.
BritneySpears14: Hey...
bloodninja: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl. 8 Cock of the Infinite.
BritneySpears14: Funny I still don't see it.
bloodninja: I spend my mana reserves to cast Mighty F*ck of the Beyondness.
BritneySpears14: You are the worst cyber partner ever. This is ridiculous.
bloodninja: Don't f*ck with me bitch, I'm the mightiest sorcerer of the lands.
bloodninja: I steal yo soul and cast Lightning Lvl. 1,000,000 Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl. 2 Druid.
BritneySpears14: Don't ever message me again you piece of ****.
bloodninja: Robots are trying to drill my brain but my lightning shield inflicts DOA attack, leaving the robots as flaming piles of metal.
bloodninja: King Arthur congratulates me for destroying Dr. Robotnik's evil army of Robot Socialist Republics. The cold war ends. Reagan steals my accomplishments and makes like it was cause of him.
bloodninja: You still there baby? I think it's getting hard now.
bloodninja: Baby?

pumpin' on your stereo

oh, hell yeah. deep discount came through with my shits.

starting tomorrow we'll be rocking

the insect trust

rogue wave

the magic numbers.

you are jealous.

damn, i forgot to mail the netflix. bugger.

all beer and no food makes sara a drunk girl

yes, yes, y'all. and you don't stop.

i am hungover. and here's why.

the evening started early with a reading of Tom Sykes's article in
bestlife, which is from his upcoming book, "what did i do last night?" from Rodale next year...at the 21 club.

the 21 club is very woody and leathery. on one floor there is a mantle that holds every size champagne bottle, even that super gigantic one that is like the size of a person.

the stairs creak. when you go to the loo, a lady opens the stall for you. and then she says to your friend, "how did you get invited?" and you think, "i know i'm supposed to tip you, but i'm sure as shit not gonna now!"

we walked up to the reading, which took place in a room with nautical theme. perhaps the whole club had a nautical theme and i missed it, but this room certainly had a nautical theme. there was another theme, too, the number 21.

there was free booze!!! we took advantage of the free booze. i am proud as hell to say, "i double-fisted at the 21 club". i might make a t-shirt. you can put the girl into class, but you can't put class into the girl. there were canapes...lovely little snackies. i skipped the caviar, but the little cheeseburgers were pretty tasty, they had lamb chops just like my
friend's wedding, and just like at my friend's wedding, a bunch of people were cluelessly standing around wondering what the fuck to do with the lamb bones in their hands, some little quiches and the star of the show: filo pastry filled with mushrooms and goat cheese, i could have eaten many many pounds of these.

my friend and i found a table and sat down and enjoyed the free food. when one of our coworkers asked if she was drinking a shirley temple, we discussed the differences between that and what she was actually drinking, which was vodka, soda & cranberry. when i mentioned perhaps he assumed it was a soft drink due to her being a mormon, she calmly told me: "i might be mormon someday, i just haven't gotten around to it."

anyway, tom gave a nice little reading about getting sober, everyone in the room enjoyed it whilst getting drunk. when he finished i said, "ta ta" to those i knew and hopped on the F to
floyd for bocce domination.

on the way to floyd myself and i had the following conversation:
Myself: hmm, i'm kinda hungry and those hors d'ouvres weren't really 'dinner'
I: i know i'll end up not eating anything else tonight even though i should
myself: maybe i should stop and get a shwarma or something
i: dinner is for pussies, more beer
myself: i'll skip dinner and just have like one beer at bocce and nurse it, that will be fine
i: time to get rovered!
(NB: "rovered" is a word my friend and i made up, i'm introducing it into the lexicon. lexicon: rovered, rovered: lexicon. it means extremely drunk to the point of feeling as though you might have been hit by a british sport utility vehicle)

it was a harrowing game, and although i played very well the first round, i fell apart by the end. perhaps because i was fairly drunk. at least i didn't do tequila shots...hey, go me! i resisted tequila shots. (come to think of it, had they been offered later in the night, i'd probably be nursing an even worse hangover and trying desperately not to vomit every other second.)


of course after our victory, a teammate and i decided there was nothing better to do than go to brooklyn social. because there's no reason to go home if it's nearing midnight and you're already drunk. no, you should go have another beer. yes.

when i talked to this friend this morning, her first words, taken straight from my mouth, were, "what is wrong with us?" what is wrong with us, indeed. i'm beginning to think there is something wrong with us. because most logical people know better than to not eat dinner and get rovered on a monday night.

so this morning i awoke, decided that sleep was far more important than a shower and actually was surprised that my head was throbbing. i should have known i was fucked when i realized i'd been dreaming about chocolate milk--the hangover's arch nemesis--and water. i drank so much water i thought i would puke. my body was so dehydrated i tried to swallow the mouthwash.

the stairway in my building had some sort of crazy stench going on. somewhere between melting crayons and a wet dog who's just rolled in shit. needless to day, it did not help my situation.

thank god tonight i'm just seeing a movie. maybe a wee drink after.

here's the lowdown on the game from maliorules. he neglected to mention that i was drunk when i showed up at the game, but i think i covered that pretty well here. he was also kind enough to leave out just how much i sucked toward the end of the game. but we all pulled together to win in the end!

14 November 2005

oh, wow...

local news was never this fun. best. filler. ever.

via panopticist

well, how did i get here?

despite the fact that i've had that song in my head all day due to a morning rendevous with the heads, it will make perfect sense in my very own lifetime in roughly an hour. when i go for the first and last time to the 21 club.

they have lawn jockeys in front! they don't let people in in jeans or trainers (i am wearing trainers anyway, as it is a private function, they can't turn me away, eat that!)! they charge god knows how much for a beer! (yes, i will go in there and ask them what their cheapest alcoholic beverage is and purchase it.)

just so i don't sound totally self-absorbed (on my blog about me), i'll have you all know that i did debate wearing a skirt and boots or something kinda spiffy this morning, but i decided against it. i now fully regret that decision as it turns out tonight we will be taking our team picture at our bocce game (from which we will emerge victorious with a 5 - 0 record!), and i would have worn a skirt and boots for that.

i knows how to prioritize. the full deets on club veinte uno tomorrow.

this says something about me, doesn't it

i was going to the "dashboard" to start a new post, about something entirely different, which i will get to soon, and i noticed it said "scheduled outage 9pm EST".

what i saw: "scheduled outrage".

i may be changing the name of this blog...better yet, tampson: here we go!

and while i'm at it. i am now a devotee of this
man.

this is what people do if they don't blog


some of these are really cool. and check out the c. 1983-music-video special effects
->via Gothamist

Dogs on the roof


this morning on the f i noticed four or so german shepherds (or that's what they looked like from that distance) on the roof of that giant building with the kentile floors sign. anyone else ever seen that? it was a little post-apocalyptic for a monday morning.

she came in through the bathroom window

friday i went to my first surprise birthday party. she was certainly surprised. mostly because her birthday was like a month ago, so why on earth should she expect a party now? but she was totally shocked and it was hilarious. there was also rad mexican food. oaxacan style. and a sweet strawberry shortcake from jr's.

then i booked into the city for a going away party at
ace. my friend is moving to bejing, and despite the fact that i will see him in three weeks in charleston, i thought i would stop by and do it up right. and play skeeball. never, in my vast planning of skeeball domination, did i stop to think that on a friday night, ace might be packed to the gills. with tools. i overheard a girl on the phone say, "i'm at a loyola party, it's kinda gay". and kinda gay it was. i couldn't get anywhere near those skeeballs...

and seriously, can people find somewhere else to do their bumps? i need to pee and i'm tired of waiting.

of course i had to meet up at
buttermilk with my roommate and another friend. it was this friend's birthday. unfortunately, she'd been burgled just the day before (she lives on 5th ave in park slope). apparently, they came in through the roof and took a bunch of cash, a laptop and an ipod or two. it was a total bummer, so there was all the more reason to get her shitfaced.

there was a lot of picking up going on at the 'milk on friday. which is strange because i don't really think of it as that kind of place...either way, i overheard one girl saying to her friend, "he was nice, i gave him my real number", which got me laughing for a few minutes.

saturday i moseyed through the city with a friend and we decided to walk across the w'burg bridge, because neither of us had done that and it was a nice day. aside from some super dickhead cyclist, it was a really cool walk. nice views, interesting grafitti and stickers everywhere. then we walked up bedford and popped in and out of a few shops. my friend bought an old edition of "the wizard of oz" at a stoop sale and some ashtrays at a vintage store and i got some super cheap hair dye at a drug store. i walked in and out of
earwax empty handed. (no, i did not take that picture.)

then we saw
jarhead on 3rd ave...i was really entertained by that movie. jakey did a pretty good job, i'd say. and i love love love peter sarsgaard. there was a lot more humor than i expected, and the scenery was dazzlingly surreal at times. definitely recommend seeing it in a theatre.

sunday we started rehearsal for our next production. i'll probably start some sort of log on the
website sooner or later...and i read the last THREE weeks' worth of sunday times. yeah. now all i have to do is catch up on crosswords.

11 November 2005

god fucking damnit!

it looks like they're really gonna cancel arrested development this time. i need a drink.

in case you ever wondered

what happens when you do a GIS for "thermometer", you'll get this picture


tagged with "anal thermometer"


Enjoy your lunch!

who invited winter to the party?

you know that guy who always shows up at the party? the one you know will come, even though you didn't invite him?

he's not friends with any of your friends and has already tried (and failed) to score with all the chicks. you wonder why he bothers showing up. no one really wants to talk to him, and his drunken antics aren't even that amusing--it usually ends in something broken and a pile of vomit in an inopportune place.

early in the night, you think, 'maybe he won't show up'. but you know he will, he must.


and he does, and the party dies a little. but things aren't so bad because he's not wasted yet, he's just roaming around saying, "hi" to all the people he hasn't seen since the last party, because no one is his friend, so he's not actually bothering anyone for too long.

you hope, in your heart of hearts, that he'll just quietly leave early. and that's when he comes barging through the crowd with a bottle of jagermeister in one hand and a lighter in the other, a cigarette wrong-way-up in his mouth. you wonder, 'will this person finally destroy my house entirely?' but, no, someone manages to cut him off at the pass, and steal the cigarette from out of his mouth. the disappointment of which leads him to drop the lighter and console himself with the jager.

but, now you can no longer be entirely at ease, you know it will be only a short time before he starts hitting on all your female friends, including the gay ones, and talking to the boys about hanging out and doing guy stuff. everyone is as polite as possible, because they don't want him to get into one of his freaky scenes, but the fun is gone almost entirely from the party. everyone's just watching and waiting.

soon he will be blind drunk, taking over control of the music, opening beers and spraying them on people, breaking shit both on accident and purpose, peeing in inappropriate places in front of inappropriate people.


then the vomit will come.

he will not run to the bathroom and just miss the toilet, apologizing profusely as he attempts, drunkenly, to clean it up. no, he will be talking to a partygoer, take his or her cup from his or her unassuming hand, down whatever's in it (only to discover it was ash) and promptly begin spewing all over above-mentioned partygoer and any art you may have in any location in your apartment (assuming he hasn't ruined it already). it will horrify your remaining guests, who, with the exception of your best friends who can't help but laugh, will leave immediately.

and then, almost entirely out of energy, the guy will go clean himself off in your closet, using your favorite shirt as a vomit mop. he will pass out only after pissing on all of your shoes.

and you will turn to your best friends who have stuck around because that's what best friends do, and you will sigh. and you will have a beer.

this guy is the winter. and he just showed up at my party.


the fall bender is over, it's time for the winter of sitting at home and watching tv only to venture out long enough to spout a string of expletives and register my complaints to anyone who will listen about cold weather sucking.

10 November 2005

sometimes i have stupid ideas

i left work to find that the rain had stopped, so i decided to hop the lex. ave. express down to city hall and walk over the brooklyn bridge. it's really one of the nicest ways to transition from work to real life, seeing the twinkling lights and looking back at the glowing skyline as i boogie my way into brooklyn.

so i rang up a friend and she met me at city hall. but when we got there, the rain had come back. we sort of looked at each other, shrugged and crossed the street onto the promenade.

i didn't have an umbrella, and my jacket wasn't exactly meant for walking 1/4 mile in the rain, but nevertheless, it was a lovely walk. until about 2/3 the way over the bridge, when the rain started coming down for serious and the lightning made its first appearance. it was beautiful, but by the time i got home i was soaked through. my jacket had started absorbing water, and my corduroy trousers were stuck to my legs. my shirt was wet, my hair was wet. fortunately, my feet stayed dry--that's really the bitchiest thing to deal with, wet socks.

but it felt so nice to come home and change and watch my dvr'd (u.s.) office, arrested development (glory, glory for two episodes in a row) two extras and, of course some family guy.

my cords are still wet.

snow 1, republicans 0


the 'pubs had to ditch their plan for artic drilling and offshore exploration so they could cut spending. which makes sense, cause it's gonna cost a lot to drill through frozen earth to get to oil.

deadly bomb in iraq

it's been a few days, at least, since we had a bomb in iraq-town, (of course jordan was helping to pick up the slack) but they've managed to make up for it with one of the worst in some time.

i heart podcasts

between kexp, subpop and the bluegrass and old time music show, i might actually enjoy being at work!

09 November 2005

this, my friends, is irony


greenpeace has to pay a fine for the damage it caused in a world heratige site coral reef in the philippines.

more bell orchestre

brooklyn vegan has pics, including the typewritter

how the freaking hell did i miss this?

i took the F to 2ave to go to Joemca's show last night, and i walked right past a collapsed building? i really need to start paying more attention to things...

(via gothamist)

consider it like daylight savings

i'm going blue. the orange is hurting my eyes. feel free to complain. i won't listen. much like your government and the mta.

mikey's in for another four...
the mta gets some cash it has to spend in a logical manner...

and my co-worker just sent me an email that said this:

not in a v productive mood today.

i couldn't agree more. gone for nap.

whaaaaaaaaaahhhhh

why is the last days of disco not on netflix?!?!?!? WHY?

shout out loud on the essex green under the sun in your clogs for the bell orchestre

So, Friday turned out to be somewhat of a carbon copy of Thursday, only instead of basement bhangra, I saw the shout out louds with the essex green and the sun. (note to bands, think when you come up with a name…trying to google “the sun” or “the national” just doesn’t work out that well. It’s for your own good!) at bowery ballroom after chickpea and swift…

The sun went first, and although from the downstairs bar they didn’t sound like something I’d be interested in, we got upstairs for their final three or so songs, which rocked, very brit-poppy. They’ve got a myspace page with some music
here.

My friend and I spent most of the Essex Green’s set deciding which band they were ripping off—B&S, Bryan (yes, Bryan) Adams, The Lemonheads—they really were lacking in the creativity department, but they weren’t horrible to listen to.

The SOLs were raging. They had a bit of a sticky start, with some feedback and monitor problems, but by the third song, the crowd were bouncing and everyone was rockin’. I’m trying to remember the set, but I can’t. Lots of Howl Howl Gaff Gaff and a couple new ones. They also covered the
pogues beautifully.

Then, of course, I suggested a post-show drink. So we went to
Lucky Jack’s, which was totally B&T’ed up, but we stayed there for god knows how many beers (one of which I knocked over and when the barman replaced it, I wished he hadn’t) and danced our asses off.

Saturday and Sunday were devoted to not having
cold water and brunching and drinking outside and tv watching and Sunday New York Times reading…

Then, monday, we went to
tonic for the clogs/bell orchestre show. Needless to say, it was mind-blowing. Unfortunately, it was super hot at Tonic so we were yawning a lot. And the guy behind us said, rather loudly, “all New York girls are damaged in the brain”, which was the source of endless amusement all night.

The Clogs were definitely subdued. Pretty, but so quiet we could hear the jams coming up from downstairs and when someone said “transsexual” towards the end of the song, we all heard him. Either way, it was lovely music and I ended up buying Lantern from Rachael, who I didn’t realize was in the band until after I said, “I don’t know, which one do you like best?” and noticed she was wearing the same outfit as the bassoonist, d’oh.

Just before Bell Orchestre went on, some guy was pushing his way past me. Just as I was about to passively-aggressively respond, I noticed his French horn--“ah, he’s in the band”, and all was forgiven. Have you ever noticed how gorgeous a French horn is? All those tubes going in a million directions? Super cool.

Anyway, somewhere between the beginning of the set and my third Anchorsteam (which I was lucky enough to get via the bartender mishearing my friend when he ordered me an Amstel Light—and why don’t we get normal Amstel here, anyway?), the drummer used a typewriter for one of the songs. Then, he pulled out the paper and balled it up and threw it into the crowd…and the freakshow who caught it didn’t deem it important enough and just dropped it on the floor.

This caused me to make one of my patented bitchy remarks about how stupid that guy was for just throwing it on the floor, which caused my friend to crawl all down on the floor and grab it and give it to me, and here’s what it said:


hfuck this is cool I have paper tonight
I am at Tonic and I have always wanted to play here finally
I am going to maybe make an airplane and chuck in into the
Craodhfhfhfhfhfhfhfhfhfhfhfgfhgfhgghfgfhfgfhfghghfhgjfhgjjkhgh

I am not the fastest typer in the world but I like my job
Lov


That cheeky bastard was using three drumsticks, too.