Blosh Jog

When I Excitedly Wait, I Think About Stuff

2011-08-17T16:49:00.004-04:00

So there is a group that uses our office space for weekly meetings. It's called Toast Masters. When I first pictured it, I assumed it was a group for wine enthusiast who wanted to learn about wine. However, I just came across a copy of their magazine, and I thought "the guy on the cover of this magazine, should have a piece of toast in his hand that he is clearly dominating." Then I thought "no wait, he should be surrounded by toasters, and each one has a piece of toast popping out of it that is so perfectly toasted that it would make Jesus Toast cry.

Sadly, it turns out Toast Masters is a group to help people with public speaking.

Shark Week 2011!

2011-08-01T13:13:00.002-04:00

It's that time of year again, when friends and family gather around the Shark tree and sing Shark carols and wait for Shark Claus to visit and hope he is satisfied with the bucket of chum you left out for him.

If only Shark Week actually worked as such. It'd be a lot more exciting. Although it's fun to hear about Sharks so close to NYC this year!

Reflections on 30

2011-06-01T13:17:00.001-04:00

So yesterday I turned 30, and once again, my wonderful fiancee made it an epic one (which will continue to be more epic with my party, and my gifts which all are still in transit, damn postal services (it should also be noted that I have no idea what my gifts are other than they are epic)). And Facebook is the greatest thing to happen to birthdays since the Carvel Ice Cream Cake (OK, maybe not THAT great, but close). I surely feel the birthday love thanks to that crazy website.

Of course, turning 30 is a major point in anyone's life (who is able to make it this far, anyway). It's a whole new life decade.You can't help but reflect on such moments.

The best words of discouragement I have heard were from a coworker who is also turning 30 this year. He said, something along the lines where you are no longer impressive when you are 30. For example, if Mark Zuckerberg was 30 (or older) when he created facebook, there probably wouldn't be a movie made about him, or would people think "ew, what's this creepy guy doing making a social networking site for college kids?" Would Lebron James have been so hot if he started the game at 30 (well i guess if he was that good at 30, people would probably say "wow, he's in awesome shape for a guy his age")? Would Mozart have been so popular around Europe if he wasn't a child prodigy? , and would we know who he was today? #0 is an age where you are expected to be doing great things, so if you do do great things, no one is really impressed any more, and life sort of continues like that until you reach just beyond middle aged where making major life changes or creating great business/etc suddenly becomes impressive again. Let's say I were to start a new career, sure people would be happy for me, but that happiness would be lined with expectations of "yeah, well you are 30, this is where you should be/should have been already." You also are now a full decade apart from what I like to call "the college peak". That's a full decade. Imagine who you would be if you were 20 in college right now, with all the technology that wasn't even close to being there when you were. It's a transitional age for sure. You are most definitely an adult, and for sure no longer someone to be considered a "youth". You are now in the age range of "sir" or "ma'am". 30 is huge.

Of course, on the positive side, there are a lot of good things about becoming 30. For one, if you haven't already, the 30's are (for the most part) when you start to form your own family. Whether it's one at home with a spouse and children, or at a job where you are (hopefully) elevated to a status of manager/supervisor/parent. This holds true for me. I am already a manager at my current job, and I am getting married before the year is out, and hopefully starting the process towards children in the next few years. I am starting to take more responsibility in my life as a result of this, and feel better about myself for it. I don't really need to do anything to impress the world so long as it makes me happy (although I wouldn't be apposed to setting the world on fire, metaphorically). My opinions on grown up matters actually will seem important, just because of my years, and I will find I am sought after more so, than I would be if I was too young. My mom said to me on the phone yesterday (paraphrased) "Just because you are 30, doesn't mean you have to feel 30. I certainly don't feel older than 25." And it's true, just because you are physically older, doesn't mean you have to 100% be older. Yes you need to have a job and pay your rent/bills, but you don't have to give up on things you love because now they might seem immature (although if you still regularly play with your Fisher Price Grow With Me Play Kitchen, you might want to see a doctor). You won't see me skipping out on the new Muppet movie in November, and you sure as hell won't see me stop watching cartoons any time soon, and I get just as much fun out of playing Super Mario Brothers now as I did as a kid (sure now it's on a wireless controller on a disc based system, but still). Plus, the age of 30 is just a number based on the measurement of time which has been deemed acceptable by humanity as being the only measurement, but who is to say what my age is beyond that standard, and frankly arbitrary, measurement? Of course that's just too much philosophy for this blog, but the point stands to support the positive.

If you asked me literally two days ago, I don't think I'd be saying "I think I am going to like 30, and I say bring on the next decade," but here I am, bringing it on!

I will always have time to complain about eventually turning 40.

My Graphic Design Portfolio

2011-05-18T10:31:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time coming, but I finally finally FINALLY got around to getting my graphic design portfolio up and running. A special thanks to the folks at Behance.net, as well as my lovely fiancee and sister with their grammatical expertise, I finally have something I am proud to send around to perspective employers and clients. Of course, as an artist, I am never fully satisfied with my work, so it will be an ever evolving display, so check back frequently for updates. Of course if you would like solid updates without having to guess, then become a fan of the facebook fan page. For now, here is the link:

http://pixelatedparchment.com

Enjoy!!

I Write Religious Documents Now

2011-04-27T13:21:00.000-04:00

Wow, I am so lax at blogging. No real excuse, just haven't blogged in a while. However, I finally have something I want to share. I took a stab at writing the English text for our Ketubah (the Jewish wedding contract). The fiancee liked it so much (except for one part which was a personal joke and thus edited out) that we are getting it translated into Hebrew by the worlds foremost Hebraic scholars as our official document. It's so awesome, I wanted to share. So here it is:

On the 13th day of November, 2011, corresponding to the 16th day of Chesvan, in the year 5772, also known as the 47th day of Karagah, in the year 9837373 on the Klingon calendar, the groom, Joshua Michael Crapbag, son of Peter Charles Crapbag and Michelle Wendy Crapbag, and the bride, Princess Consuela Bananahammock, daughter of Lord Evan Bananahammock and Lady Susan Greenberg, entered into the "sacred" tradition of mattress money before a whole room of people and some sort of yet to be decided upon deity. Other things also probably happened that day, but this one seemed the most important to all parties previously mentioned, so we wrote this document up to prove it. The bride and groom both love each other very much and just felt this was the right direction to go seeing as how neither really wanted to enter into a house of 100% sin (they prefer their house to be of 80% sin or less). Also they wanted everything to be as cutesy as possible so their friend Sharon would puke all over the place. Although their love shines brightly, they still plan on using electricity to light their path, since their love luminescence is merely metaphorical, and electrical light is theoretically real. They will forever accept cash gifts from those interested.

Happy Happy Click Click

2011-02-10T15:23:00.000-05:00

Posting this, most of you are probably thinking, "Old news. We all saw this yesterday on facebook and buzz and all that stuff."

Well I don't care. I want to believe that there maybe some fans who don't subscribe to such things and would like to see.

This past Saturday (February 5th) my lovely fiancee and I took a trip down to Brooklyn, NY to visit the New York Transit Museum and have our engagement photos taken with the photographer we hired for our wedding, Cody Raisig. Some people question engagement photos, but I never have. From a fan of having my picture taken stand point, it's awesome to have your picture taken by a professional and not be doing it for some sort of occasion like a wedding, or a bar mitzvah, or a school photo, or getting out of your car and showing the world you forgot to wear underpants. There's nothing like looking like yourself, dressing in regular clothes that you actually wear out to places, and not posing like your on display in a window on 5th Avenue. From a business stand point, it gives you a chance to get a feel for what it's going to be like to work with the photographer you hired to photograph one of the most important to capture moments of your life. Odds are that whomever you hire, you have not worked with before as the subject of focus. If you don't like the pictures, you can (if you can afford to lose the deposit) fire the photographer and hire someone else, or you could always ask the photographer to correct what you didn't like the next round (aka, the wedding). It was really nice that we were able to get this session with our photographer.

We chose the NY Transit museum for a couple of reasons:
It's February. It's very very cold outside.
There are limited indoor places to take pictures in the city.
My fiancee and I love New York history and old-timey things and museums.
It was a great idea given to us by another photographer that we didn't like (based in Brooklyn).

Cody thought it was a fantastic idea, and had never been to the museum, so was looking forward to the experience. We of course didn't spend time to look around and actually LEARN anything (we only had an hour for the shoot. Brain growth would have to wait). Well I guess we did learn something. Subway seats were never really that comfortable in any incarnation. However, there were fans. No idea why they ever took those out, because the air conditioners they have now never seem to work. We also learned that apparently subways, in all forms, have surprisingly great lighting. Cody never used a flash or separate lighting source once. Of course subways and buses also provided a great playground for Rach and I to ham it up, which is what we love to do, especially in front of a camera. Tuesday night Cody sent us a selection of his favorites, while we wait for him to edit the full set.

We were extremely pleased with the result of even these few. It's amazing what he was able to capture, both artistically and of us. We're very much looking forward to getting the rest! So without further ado, here is the collection (click the picture to be taken to the other 12 shots):

Enjoy!

Refrigerator Mentality

2011-01-26T16:10:00.000-05:00

"I don't know what's inside of me, or why people keep putting it there, but I better keep it nice and cold. Also there is something in me that really smells and I hope it's taken out and thrown away. I wish I had limbs and a face." - Any refrigerator, at any time, in any place (all refrigerators think in English as well)

Actually, I am not really here to talk about how refrigerators think, or what they think about. I am here to discuss the people who use such things and try maybe to figure out why/how so many people around the world seem to have similar issues regarding it's contents.

There isn't a person on this planet who hasn't had at least one issue with a refrigerator's contents in relation to another person, either at home or at work (or anywhere else there may be a refrigerator of communal use). At one point you have gone to a fridge, hoping to eat/drink something you knew was in there, because you had put it there and remember doing so quite distinctly, only to find said object of desire was missing, or partially/mostly consumed. It's pretty infuriating, at least on a scale of build-up/value (value is not just about money spent, but also how much you were looking forward to something. So one "looking forward to something", is equal to $1, with a maximum of $100 representing the most possible of "looking forward to something". Sciencemath) vs. noticeable amount missing/consumed. (Got side tracked, tried to make a chart using Excell, forgot how, got frustrated, gave up. Will defeat Excell at another time).

As with most people, I can only judge others with myself as a standard. In doing so, I can only compare my experiences with food sharing and how it shaped me. So let's explore. I can remember various points that effected how I feel about the subject; some general, some specific. When I was a kid, I knew there were two things that my father frequently bought as his own personal treats, hermit cakes (which I used to call "Kermit Cakes", just like I used to call Broccoli "Barkley". Everything did, and always will, come back to Muppets), Chuckles (particularly the liquorish flavored ones) and Chunky Bars. Once I was old enough to understand that you can't just do everything you want because you impulsively want to, I learned pretty quick that I better ask if I could have any of these things from my father's "stash", unless I wanted to feel extremely guilty when I saw how upset my dad would get if they were gone. My mom didn't really have any snacks or food hang-ups like that, so with her it was never an issue. There was another time my first summer in camp (I was 12), when I was just a pudgy, lonely kid that I found a bunk-mates stash of Pringles. There was no one else in the bunk at the time and I was feeling snacky, and chips in a tube are pretty irresistible. I figured I'd just pop the tube open, take a couple of chips, and be on my way. Of course the advertisers are 100% correct when they say "once you pop, you can't stop". I kept playing the "well if they won't miss that one, they won't miss the next one" for a bit of time until I noticed that I had eaten most of the contents of the can. It was then that I also noticed one of my bunk-mates was actually in the bunk reading quietly on his bed, and happened to watch my entire binge. This kid, while also not very popular, was also my sworn enemy of the summer. I tried to offer him some of the can, I guess as a bribe, and he refused. Instead, he told the kid who I stole the Pringles from, who in turn told the counselors and the group leader. If the kid wasn't there, I probably would have gotten away with it, and never received the negative reinforcement that comes with being caught. Doesn't really help your popularity points when you are the pudgy lonely kid who steels food. Needless to say, my lesson was learned. Even though you live there, doesn't mean everything is yours. If you don't ask, you will get an atomic wedgie from the bunk rafters. In college I learned that you can never put anything in the dormitory common room fridges if you ever wanted to see it again (labels don't mean squat in college, ever).

Being an adult, you would think these problems would pass. Adults (should) know that if something is not yours, you shouldn't take it. There are even laws stating such; not just in the governmental sense, but also in the religious sense (unless there is a religion I don't know about where steeling is not a sin, but instead extremely cool with the deity in charge, so cool in fact that he/she/it comes down from on high to high five you). Yet for some reason, this sort of thing just goes over peoples heads. When I first moved to the city, I was renting a room in an apartment (as most people know). As part of my rent, I was given a shelf in both the fridge and the freezer, and it was known that the stuff on my shelf was mine, and the stuff that was in the rest of the fridge belonged to the lady who owned the place. Yet one day, I came home, and found half my cold cuts eaten and an entire bottle of soda drank. Apparently her son came to visit, was informed that the one shelf was mine, and proceeded to eat my stuff anyway. The land lady offered no form of apology, nor did the son, and I wasn't exactly swimming in cash either. Then flash forward to moving out to Astoria, I was living with a best friend from camp, and we had a great system where we'd use and replace and call and ask and it was glorious. Then we got an extra roommate who understood the system, but had trouble following through on the replacement part. That's nice if you want to pay for what's missing, but in essence, you are making me do all the work for something that was mine to begin with, which you took without asking. Then good roommate was replaced with another roommate and the problem was perpetuated even further. Eventually it got to the point where I had to label everything I didn't feel like replacing for other people. Annoying, but once again a pattern was developed and there haven't been too many problems since. It would be nice if such a pattern wasn't needed, but then I wouldn't have a blog topic to blog about today.

Then we come to the world of the modern office space. Almost every office space has some sort of communal fridge. It's just common practice, and allows people to maintain whatever diets they may need/choose to be on. There are two things that still manage to surprise me about office fridges:
1) People don't realize that if they don't label/date their food, it will most likely disappear
2) Labeling food means nothing to a lot of people

You hear about it all the time on facebook, passiveagressivenotes.com, office mail servers, etc. People just seem to treat the office fridge with a sort of attitude that says "This is where I work, there for it's MY office, and the fridge is in MY office, so it must be MY fridge, which makes anything inside MY fridge MINE" and no, I don't think that's an exaggeration. If you think it's an exaggeration, then you have never worked in a place where there was a communal fridge OR you a one of these people and in extreme denial. Of course I always laugh at the people who just put things in the fridge with no markings on them what so ever. Seriously? That's just careless and if your food is stolen, it's your own problem. I am mostly concerned with the people who see something that isn't theirs and take it anyway, especially if it's labeled and/or they take some/most of said thing leaving scraps for the actual owner. If you are hungry, ask. Most people would be generous enough to let you have some, if not all of what they are saving. If you have a dollar, get something from the vending machine (if applicable). If you are in a major metro area, step outside, there's got to be a deli or a quick stop or something where you can pick up a quick bite.

The receptionist here (who is sadly the lowest paid, and for some reason least respected, staff member in the office) bought herself a tub of yogurt from Trader Joe's so she could have some yogurt with her breakfast every morning. The day she bought it, she took out a small serving, closed the tub, wrote her name clearly on it, and tucked it away off to the side. The next day she came in to work looking forward to her yogurt, opened the fridge, and noticed her yogurt had been moved. Not only that, but she noticed that there was significant drippage down the side and the lid wasn't on all the way. When she lifted the lid to the tub, less than half of the yogurt was all that remained. She ended up throwing it out because she didn't know if someone had drank from the tub, or ate from it with their hands, or what, but it did not look good (according to her), and I don't blame her for chucking the stuff.

I kinda lost track on my thoughts. I meant to post this yesterday but I had to take in my Macbook because there was a faulty logic board, and the fact that I am without a home computer for a week is kinda preoccupying. Basically I am just wondering where exactly the problem is stemming from. Are kids being taught too much to give and not enough about not taking? Maybe compassion for fellow humans is slowly eroding away, and this is just one of the signs. Maybe people feel if they are being shit on, it's OK for them to shit on others, a reverse pay-it-forward (pay-it-backward) if you will. Maybe it's aliens. Who knows. The point is please stop eating my lunch snacks. I buy them to take to work for my lunch, and when you eat them, I don't know to buy more, and then I don't have snacks and I am sad.

Thank you.

There's Something Happening Here

2011-01-20T12:29:00.000-05:00

Let me paint you a picture...

Oh wait, Happy New Year! Haven't blogged that yet, and the whole month of January is acceptable to say that.

OK, back to the picture. It's a cold and blustery (I am still not quite sure what that word means. It's some kind of orange?) January morning on the platform for the N/Q train station at Astoria Boulevard. There is an average number people scattered about the platform waiting for the next train to take them all to their jobs/schools/whatevers. The crowd slowly grows, and it appears to be that there is possibly some kind of minor delay. Nothing a good Nook Book can't fix. As I am reading about the adventures of Mikael Blomkvist and Lizbeth Salander, I start to notice that the people around me have started to get a lot closer, breaking the boundary of what I like to call "Josh Space." I look up to see that there is good reason for this invasion. The platform is packed like a commuter train in midtown at rush hour (a VERY uncommon situation at the Astoria Boulevard station). They just installed a new sound system at the station, so I had removed my wrap-around ear warmers (calling them behind the head earmuffs would just make me giggle too much) to listen. Silence. Well, silence beyond the grumbling of the fellow commuters all seemingly equally aggravated that they are waiting in the cold on this crowded platform. It's starting to look like an opening scene to a holocaust movie, families waiting for a train, no idea what's going to happen, dealing with things each in a different way. Some couples huddling together for warmth, some people reading and/or enjoying their morning D&D coffee, and others just waiting impatiently for whatever is going to happen to happen already. I am pretty sure I even saw a girl in a red coat.

After about 30 minutes (about three times longer than I typically have waited for a train on a weekday morning), a conductor is seen making his way through the butt-to-butt crowd, looking like the droopiest of droopy dogs. "Sorry folks, someone died on the tracks, there will be no N/Q trains heading into the city." Now this is where we find out for sure that there is something wrong with the collective energies of this city.

When people hear of a death, there a number of possible responses, most of which are acceptable. There's the most common and most acceptable "Oh man, how sad," the quasi appropriate "Oh no! How?", the not very appropriate "is their apartment available?", and the not very appropriate "If he's anything like a homeless person, who cares," and the extremely inappropriate, "What the $&%*?!?! Seriously?! That's it, my entire day is shot!" It's kinda amazing when you hear an entire platform of people of all ages, sizes, races and creeds shout that last one out in unison with a pitch perfect harmony. It was pretty amazing actually. If only I had known it was coming, I would have recorded it with my phone and posted it on youtube and it would have made 1,000,000 hits easily (and then maybe people would watch my stand-up videos). Almost as crazy was seeing that same entire platform of people pull out their cellphones, call whomever needed to know about the delay, and again, half an octave higher, repeat their frustrations. Mind you I am not excluding myself from this list. Took me back to my days as a second tenor in my high school chorus. Then the entire crowd paraded out of the station in true Music Man fashion and into 31st street, whether the cars were stopped or not, and marched on down the sidewalks towards the "safe haven" of Queensboro Plaza. That's when the adventure took a Zombie movie twist, for there were no safe haven. All the trains on the N/Q lines were stopped all over. It wasn't until 10 am that the trains were moving AND became empty enough that people in the later stops could actually get on. Thankfully people don't drop dead on the subway tracks every day, or I'd invest in one of those metal things with the 4 wheels and an engine...a dune buggy.

I'd like to say that the above story actually happened to me (wait no I wouldn't), but it did happen to my brother. Well not entirely in that way. I may have embellished here and there to liven the story up a bit, but the death and delay and the reaction are all true. What actually happened was my brother left for work at 7:45 to get to his job in Brooklyn. Waited on the platform at Astoria Boulevard for about Forty-Five minutes before that conductor came around and told everyone the news (despite the new sound system...maybe they didn't train the remaining MTA employees how to use it yet). He then (thankfully) called me as I was just finishing getting ready to let me know that the trains weren't running because apparently someone died (no idea where, who, how or why exactly, just that it was on our line's tracks). I was really hoping that once I left the apartment, the trains would be up again so I could laugh at my brother for having to depart the subway only to just miss it. Alas, that was not the case, and people were still dejectedly leaving the platform and walking down the street (well the sidewalks on the side of the street, but you can see why that's more than enough to type) towards Queensboro to hopefully catch a train of any kind. At this point I should have said to myself "self, there is a perfectly healthy R and M train which you could take into the city if you just walk in the opposite direction, or you can take the M60 bus from right at the station to 125th street and take the 1 from there." Of course for some reason that part of me must have been sleeping. I ended up trekking down the sidewalks of 31st street myself to get to Queensboro, hopping to hear a train passing overhead, alerting me that I will be able to actually take the subway in. At around Broadway, my brother calls me at let's me know he has decided to stop and wait for the train at the 36th Avenue station, and I go and meet him. The platform is still crowded. After about waiting there for 20 or so minutes trains start to come in from Manhattan, which can only mean that trains will also start to leave Queens. It took about 5 trains and another 20 minutes or so of waiting to finally get a train that was empty enough to get on. Then my Nook reminds me that I forgot to recharge it last night and that it will need that recharging ASAP. It fabulously didn't shut off at all during the rest of the trip.

Nooks are awesome. Way better than Kindles. Just saying.

So thankful this kind of thing doesn't happen to often, and if Bloomberg didn't make so many awful MTA cuts of buses and such, I might have had even more options of getting in.

The collective reaction of the people is the one that I would like to take a look at. I am sure my wonderful fiancee could shed light on the actual psychology of why this sort of reaction is common place in large urban areas, but I still can't believe it. I leave it up for discussion.

Happy 2011!!!

Well It's All Right, We're Going to the End of the Line

2010-12-30T15:53:00.000-05:00

Well here we are (quite nearly) the end of the year! It's hard to believe, really. It seems like it wasn't so long ago that I wrote my decade wrap-up, and now here I am writing my first year in review of the new decade. I can only assume decade reviews will be easy the next few rounds, providing of course blogs become a viable source of online information sharing (although a video blog review of the next decade 9 years from now could be a lot of fun, especially if I have puppet-based reenactments). What a crazy future it will be.

Of course today we are in yesterday's future, and to make sure any of our time-traveling friends from the past need to know exactly (edited for content...so I guess not exactly) what my past year was like, then they will at least have this trendy reference guide (providing of course they have a basic grasp of what the internet is and how to use it...maybe it would be best for these time travelers from the past to just stay there and they can see us in the now and/or future. That way, they won't miss anything...unless they die...). Still following me?

Now what exactly did 2010 bring me? If we went by blog entries, not too many in number; however, there is an abundance in value. Over the past year I have actually started to expand my graphic design business, dropping the poorly thought out JoshIsHask.com and instead opting into a new brand identifier PixilatedParchment.com (don't look for the site, it's still under construction). On top of that, I have also had some real gigs and from that some projects I am really proud of (not to mention my Anvil and the Chimpunks design which I really love...wearing the shirt now, actually)! One of my goals in the next year is to get that web page up and running, and continue to get work. I also put my social networking knowledge/abilities to good work by offering tutoring services to the agents in my office, to help them keep in touch with today's modern market places and clients.

Other than that there were a few weddings, a few pregnancy announcements and/or births, and for the most of the year, that was about it...of course until I took the steps necessary to go from devoted/enthralled boyfriend to devoted/even-more-enthralled fiance (I also learned the difference between fiance and fiancee). It's pretty damn exciting, I mean, as you may remember, there was a time not terribly long ago that I had serious doubts of ever getting to this point in my life, let alone meeting the right person to get there with; so yeah, I couldn't be happier :D (see). Of course this also pretty much dictates what my wrap up next year will be (moving into a place with Rachel (finally), turning 30 (shudder), having a beautiful wedding despite all the headaches and hiccups getting there, and at the very end about to embark on our honeymoon to (yet to be decided)).

So yes, 2010, you were fantastic, but 2011 is already shaping up to blow you out of the water!

Possibly Offensive?

2010-12-03T11:53:00.000-05:00

So the other day I was at the gym (apparently I still do that sometimes), and was watching CNN on one of the big TVs while huffing away on an elliptical machine when a commercial popped up for a new dating website called CristianMingle.com. I was really taken aback. I mean, I am fairly familiar with the online dating scene (unless it changed in the past couple of years). It is no surprise to anyone at this point that I met my lovely fiancee on JDate, a very popular (if not the best) online dating site where Jews (and people who want to date Jews) meet Jews to date. In my opinion, it was a fantastic idea to market to a specific niche of people. It almost calls back to the days of arranged marriages, which were a pretty big staple of the old-country Jews (and even still practiced in the some of the more religious sects of Judaism). There are also dating sites specifically for other religions and cultures such as Muslim, and Indian dating sites, also spurring from the same practices of arranging nuptials. The importance of these sites are great for helping build and maintain cultures to those who might feel that sort of thing is still important. It's important for cultures to feel like they have a base, while at the same time being acceptable to others (the JDate site is more than welcoming to anyone who wants to use it, but if you don't want to date Jews, it's not exactly the place you want to be). So why did ChristianMingle.com bother me?

I am not entirely sure, to be honest. I mean, I am half Christian after all (not in any kind of actual religious sense, but my father did convert to Judaism and I grew up celebrating Christmas and Easter on top of everything else), so it can't be a "reverse" racism thing on my part. maybe it's because all the "regular" dating sites seem to be dominated by Christians. Hell, you even have a very faintly masked Christian dating site already in eHarmony.com (who's creator has come under fire before for discriminating against Jews and Gays). When I was online dating, there was a time when I was on Match.com just to "see what else was out there" and finding a Jew on that website was like finding a Jew in Indiana (I assume there are Jews there, just not many). Perhaps it stems from a political angle. More and more it seems that the Conservative Right, in particular, the extremist off-shoot of the Tea Party, Have turned to Christianity as an excuse to be racist and discriminatory (which is a pretty ANTI-Christian thing to do), and the more Christianity I see (especially when it is our country's MAJORITY religion) in things that are designed to be exclusive, the more it reminds me of how unnecessarily divided our country is becoming. On the other hand, you can make the argument, if Jews and Muslims and Hindus and other religions can have dating sites, why can't Christians?

Will You Marry Me?

2010-11-08T13:00:00.000-05:00

You will? Well that's too bad for you, because I am already engaged to be married to a truly fantastic lady :D

That's right! You heard it here first (after texts, phone calls, and a billion facebook updates), I proposed to my lovely girlfriend, she said yes, and now I get to call her my lovely fiancee (which is apparently spelled with a double e when referring to the female. Who knew? My fiancee did, that's who :D). So I am sure you probably want to hear the story of how it all went down, because that's the first thing people ask after squeeing and/or saying congratulations. Well here is the story:

It all started about a month ago when I finally got together the money to buy the ring. I knew I was going to use one of my grandmother's diamonds for the center stone (a very nice one at that). So I called up my mom to discuss the process of getting the diamond into a ring, since the jewel was currently in her possession, and our family friend in the jewelry business was here in New York City (because what jew doesn't have a family member or family friend who knows a lot of about jewels, if at least not in the business). Turns out that my mom has an equally trusted jeweler down by her in Florida, and ended up saving a lot of money in shipping/possibly losing the diamond in travel. I sent my parents the money as well as specific designs I knew R wanted/would like. The ring was ordered and paid for, and at the end of October I went down to visit my parents with my beloved, and picked up the ring while there (only half of the trip, the other half was so R could meet my grandfather and some Florida friends. My sister also surprised us by coming home that weekend as well, and it's always nice to see her).

Shoot backwards a few weeks. After I decided I was really going to do this, I had to think of a plan of action. I could have just asked her, but if you know me, you know I am not that simple. So this was causing me ENDLESS days and nights of singly focused stress. I had one idea which is sort of an idea that I had knocked around in my head since I was a kid, but ended up not wanting to do since I knew R wouldn't like it (basically send her on a scavenger hunt around the city to all the places that meant something to us where should would pick up clues as well as little gifts until she got to the final destination where I would be with the ultimate gift. Thankfully R isn't that kind of girl because just thinking about the amount of organization that would have to be put into that makes my head hurt (not that she wouldn't be worth it). Then I realized that our 1 year anniversary was coming up and I had yet to get her a gift, let alone even starting the thought process of what to get her. So now I was doubly stressed, and the only relief was the amusement of keeping R in the dark about the whole process (which wasn't so fun as she became more stressed out by the not knowing combined with all the grad school work and such that she's been dealing with the past few months). FINALLY a week before heading down to Florida I actually got a bit of an idea that was aided by an advice giver. So I got the gifts and planned out the idea before leaving on our trip.

Our first anniversary was November 1, however, since we were in Florida that weekend before, and both of us are pretty hectic on Mondays, we couldn't celebrate until the following Friday. I went to her apartment straight from work where we promptly went out to dinner at El Parador, a really nice Mexican restaurant that has been at it's location on East 34th street since 1959, and R had never been there (she grew up in Murray Hill, and lives there still). It was an awesome restaurant with really great food and drink. Once we were done eating, we went back to Rachel's apartment to exchange presents. I opened mine first. She got me a really really nice watch, which was not only generous, but also timely since I had been without a watch for almost the full year and needed a new one. Then it was R's turn to open her presents.

Instead of a card, I got her a really nice hand-made journal (I didn't make it), in side of which I drew a picture and left some notes, letting her know that the idea was to give her a place to put all the post it notes I had placed all over her apartment last valentines day (as well as other days). Then it was time for her actual gift. I had bought her a Barne's & Nobel Nook (their version of a Kindle). I had uploaded it with the new book from David Sedaris (one of her favorite authors) as well as a story I wrote. Sadly since the nook that I got her was not the color version, it apparently couldn't handle images in PDF documents. I didn't know this when I wrote my story, since I had decorated the first two pages as our jdate profiles, and the 3rd page with a collage of pictures of us at various events in our past year (thankfully she could upload to her computer the pdf file from the nook itself and could see the story as it was written). The last page of said story, asked her to marry me. At which point, after she cried of happiness for a little bit, she looked up and saw me on my knees holding the ring. I asked her, and she said yes. We then called her parents and my parents, then her parents and sister showed up with champagne and cookies to celebrate and join us in calling/texting/emailing/facebooking with practically the entire world. It was a fantastic night, and I am very happy to be the fiance of the most wonderful woman.

Inspiration From Stupid Places

2010-10-08T20:01:00.000-04:00

Ok, so for some reason I had the Chipmunks theme song stuck in my head. I was singing it, and when I got to the part where they spell out C-H-I-P-M-U-N-K, I slipped up and made a dyslexic error which I sometimes often make. This time, however, I realized that my error spelled CHIMPUNK, which immediately made me think of chimps who were also punks, add the further anagram of Alvin, and the result is what you see above. This being one of my favorite works of late, I felt I had to share it with the world at large (that reads my blog...so all 19 of you). So here you go! I hope you buy versions of this in my store!

New TV, Part 4, the DVR Catch-Up

2010-09-26T12:07:00.000-04:00

Oy, well I am thankful that almost everything on my dvr was there for the first and last time. Not that it was all bad, just not interesting to me.

Chuck (Returning, NBC): When Chuck was first on, I thought it was great. A random nobody suddenly finds his mind embedded with every piece of covert spy information ever and gets teamed up with a CIA agent and an NSA agent and goes on all sorts of crazy spy adventures while maintaining his random nobody secret identity. It made for a funny and fun show which was highly enjoyable to watch. Lately, however, capped off by this season (even with guest spots by Dolph Lundgren and Sarah Connor herself, Linda Hamilton) I just couldn't get into it. So I have decided to end my series recording. It just doesn't feel the same now that almost everyone in Chuck's universe is in on the "secret" taking away a lot of the humor derived from explaining why he would randomly disappear or be suddenly covered in bruises and explosions. I am sure the really die-hard fans are still really into this show, and NBC will hold on to it since they don't exactly have much on their docket. If you haven't seen the show, I highly recommend the first two seasons on DVD, and then see how you feel after that i you want to continue. There are guaranteed some of the best nerd-favorite cameos on any TV show ever aired, ever.

Recommended for: Nerds, geeks, comic con enthusiasts, people who like action and comedies in the same thing

Not for: Anyone who finds anything in the above list unappealing

The Event (New, NBC): Everyone wants to be the new Lost. Of course it will take some time for people to realize that Lost was a rare gem which was good for more reasons than being weird and mysterious. Being weird and mysterious does not make for a good show 98% of the time. The Event falls into that 98%. The effort is there, but it just fell short of keeping my attention (and this is television we are talking about). I'd describe the show for you, but I really can't (another problem). Basically it's about these different people and their loves around the "event". The problem, I didn't care about anyone in that first episode. I didn't care about their stories, and I didn't care what they were leading up to. It was like they were just taking elements from their predecessors (even billing itself as 24 meets Lost) and putting into a show. The only thing that they did "differently" was putting the "event" at the end of the first episode. So I guess the rest of the show is going to be about finding who/what/why/where/how. Of course that whole lead in made the entire episode extremely tedious just waiting for something to happen only to have that wait until the last 5 minutes of the episode. No thank you. I don't have time for that kind of thing. I will let this show go, and if it picks up steam and I hear good things about it, I'll try it again on dvd.

Recommended for: People who are so desperate for good sci-fi tv they'll watch anything

Not for: People who treasure actually good sci-fi TV and won't waste their time on just anything

The Under Covers (New, NBC): So my first assessment of this show was pretty accurate. It was an interesting/possibly entertaining show, just not for me. The show is not about the life living under your blanket. It is about a married couple of retired spies who run their own catering company who get reactivated to find a former colleague. As a "classic" spy story, the couple are sexy, they have lots of sex, and there is plenty of action and espionage. It just was missing something. Maybe it's that it felt so formulaic that it was missing something that said "you need to watch this show every week because it is captivating. Super captivating." It's the kind of show that I will not go out of my to watch, but if I was bored and caught an episode, I'd possibly watch it.

Recommended for: People who like generic serialized spy dramas

Not for: People who need a little something extra from their TV shows

Law & Order, SVU (Returning, NBC): Do I really need to review this show? Law & Order SVU is probably the greatest serialized cop show on television. Of course my only problem is that there is no real continuity of story. Last seasons season finale was extremely intense and needed some kind of follow up. I was slightly surprised to see none in this two hour premiere (two separate episodes), but I guess that's one of the things that makes this show great. They focus on the case in that episode, and that's really it. Sure there is some development of character to keep us interested in the detectives and attorneys who deal with each case from week to week, but the procedural process stays in "reality" that way. The two episodes were tied together with the same suspect showing up in both (played by Henry Ian Cusick, who didn't ONCE say "brother"). Even though we lost the original, this spin off is the series we all love to watch anyway.

Recommended for: People who like Law & Order SVU

Not for: People who don't like Law & Order SVU (seriously, this show has been on forever, if you're not watching it, you're not watching it)

Saturday Night Live (Returning, NBC): Gota love this show. It's a drama about this brother and sister who were orphaned at birth and have made their own way hitch hikig across the country selling CDs of their self-recorded country music. Also they have a pet alien named Kle9ost who plays the drums. In typical fashion, the episode was good, not great with a couple of great skits, some OK, and some blatant filler. I just hope this show never goes away. I love that Kle9ost.

Recommended for: People who like sketch comedy performed live

Not for: people who don't like sketch comedy

Wow, so much NBC. Glad to say I am not watching as much tv as I though I would be (thanks disappointing shows!) Of course there is still the new season of Dexter, Animation Domination on Fox, Bored to Death and East Bound & Down on HBO, and next month the new season of South Park...ia there a Television Anonymous program?

New TV, Part 3

2010-09-24T12:55:00.001-04:00

First comers to this blog are going to think that all I talk about is television. It's not, I assure you, but I do talk about it a lot. Here's my reviews of the new season which aired last night.

Community (Returning, NBC): Joel McHale is probably one of the most underrated entertainers of the past few years. If you have never watched The Soup, then you don't know (and also you need to start watching The Soup, on E!). He really knows how to deliver a look, line and scene, seemingly effortlessly. Community is a show about a group of people attending a community college for various reasons who go t together as a study group for a Spanish class. The show, so far has been really clever in finding reasons for them to stay together after that first semester (the first half of season 1). Now they aren't even taking Spanish, and kept the study group together because they have formed such a bond with each other. Each character has an archetype, which was fantastically self-referenced in the season 2 premiere. They even went to far as to reference a new show on a competing network ($#*! My Dad Says, review coming up). I am very happy to see this show return keeping a similar, if not better pace than last season.

Recommended for: People who have been to college (either at the "proper age" or as an "adult"), fans of The Soup, fans of Chevy Chase, fans of UCB comedy, fans of (long-form) improv, fans of ensemble comedies without a laugh track

Not For: disconnected people, people who just can't stand the lack of structure in slightly improvised tv shows

30 Rock (Returning, NBC): I am waiting for this show to feel like it's failing, because it amazes me that it's still going strong! Not that I want it to fail, I am very happy that it's constantly entertaining, and if it can be on TV forever and stay just as entertaining, I will be a very happy (with television) man. 30 Rock is about the behind-the-scenes world of a fictional NBC sketch comedy show filmed at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Lead by writer/creator/producer/star/awesome-sauce comedienne Tina Fey, this wily cast of characters get so obscure and wacky, it's like watching a live action cartoon show playing "just the tip" with reality. If you aren't watching it by now, I must ask why, because it is just pure funny. The season openers are some of the best of any show, and this one was no exception. I know it's not going to happen, but I hope Matt Damon becomes a permanent member of the cast. He's really funny.

Recommended for: Do you like to laugh? Watch this show

Not for: People who don't like to life, people who don't like an occasionally well timed poop/booger/boob/fart joke, My brother finds Kenneth annoying to the point of never wanting to watch the show, so I guess it's not for anyone who finds Kenneth annoying

The Office (Returning, NBC): Unlike 30 Rock, The Office frequently flirts with "losing it's edge" of being a great/funny show. It has still managed to keep from sucking, and season after season manages to give us some great television moments, but knowing that this is the last season of Michael Scott, I can't help but wonder what the future has in store. The Office is about a place where people do their jobs in a building with cubicles and the lot. Basically, if the title doesn't explain it, then what's the point of you? Every character in the cast is immediately identifiable if you have ever slaved under florescent lights at a computer for 8 hours (or more) a day, 5 days (or more) a week, which is probably why it's one of NBC's biggest hits. The cold opener was great, the entire cast doing a single shot music video for the song "Nobody (But Me)". Probably an internet reference that actually went over my head (I know, shocker!), but was still pretty clever and at moments, funny. The rest of the episode got back into some classic elements, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. NBC pretty much owns my Thursday nights.

Recommended for: Anyone who has ever worked in an office

Not for: People who don't like docu-style shows

Outsourced (New, NBC): I think we have reached a point where television can't get past the fact that there are so many people without jobs in this country, that almost every show (new and old) are trying to "tackle" this subject (i.e. exploit it as either a plot device or a "trending point"). This show starts off with a similar premise. A call center for a novelty company outsources it's call center to India and sends one of it's only two remaining employees to go manage it. So right off the bat we get that office humor and the culture-clash humor are going to drive this show. The first episode was riddled with them, but kept me amused enough to not change the channel at 9:30 to South Park reruns on Comedy Central. If the show can keep the humor sharp, I predict a decent shelf life.

Recommended for: Not sure

Not for: Well if I don't know who it IS for, then I sure as hell can't tell you who it's NOT for, can I?

$#*! My Dad Says (New, CBS): So now CBS has a Thursday night comedy line up as well. Since I have been a fan of the NBC line-up for so long, I am sticking with them. However, a show based on my favorite Twitter feed starring everyone's favorite space Jew (after Leonard Nimoy), William Shatner, I had to give it a shot. The Twitter feed is an extremely funny collection of one-liners said by the poster's father (in case the title didn't explain it enough for you). The TV show takes that premise and says "oh look, half the script is already written here on Twitter, why don't we just add some dialog in between and call it an early night!" They should have changed the title to just $#*!, because that's how I felt after wasting the 22 minutes it took to watch the episode (maybe that's why I had such trouble sleeping last night). There was even a Shatner complaining about people doing impressions of him joke because that's totally original. And we all know Shatner isn't the greatest actor (even though he is an Emmy winner for Boston Legal), but through the entire episode, i couldn't tell if he was bored, high, or about to die. He just delivered his lines as though he was propped there and being used as a puppet Weekend At Bernie's style. He wasn't the only one, the entire cast seemed like they just got the script the morning of filming and the director thought he was Clint Eastwood and only used the one take for each shot. It was nice to see Will Sasso and Nicole Sullivan (both Mad TV alums) working together as a couple on the show, but I could tell that even they were looking for other jobs backstage. Thankfully I don't have to worry about this thing clogging up my DVR ever again, and I look forward to it being a punchline for obviously bad ideas.

Recommended for: The severely mentally challenged, those who have never seen a television before, those who didn't understand what I was talking about when I said "Twitter Feed", those who will watch Shatner in anything because his career isn't still going on it's own

Not for: Everyone else

Wow, my first scathing review. It just had to be said. Who knows what DVR weekend will hold. Stay tuned for further reviews. Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!

New TV, Part Deux!

2010-09-23T13:19:00.000-04:00

Ok, so as I mentioned in my previous post, I had more TV to watch last night. Sadly I did not see all of it (like the show whose name I couldn't remember, Better With You), but have a weekend planned of much catching up and work, so I should get to everything before the week is out.

Modern Family (Returning, ABC): I love this show, and am so happy it won the Emmy for best new comedy series and is back for a second season! If you have never seen this show, please go out and buy season 1 on DVD (out right now) and do yourself a favor and watch it all the way through (make sure you dvr the new episodes so you can catch up later, well worth it). The best part is, you can even watch it with your kids, something that is (morally) not something you can say about most programs, let alone comedies, on after 8pm (not that that is a concern of mine at the moment either, but who knows what the future holds). The show is about a small(ish) extended family: the grandfather and his new young wife and her son, his daughter's family consisting of an oafish husband and 3 children, and his son's family consisting of a homosexual life partner and an adopted Asian baby. There are 10 major speaking characters (11 if you count the baby, who so far has only said "mama"), and they are all filmed documentary style (done before, but done so well you don't care). What's truly amazing is how the show can make you laugh for a full half hour, and then hit you with a nice moral touch at the end, and you don't feel like throwing a shoe at your television for having been suckered into watching a nice family show. There are three characters who stand out the most in the show, and thankfully they each come from a different branch of the family; Phil (the father of the family of five), Cameron (the life partner), and Manny (the step-son of the grandfather). Of course all the other characters play their parts extremely well, but it's really these three that make each episode a comedy goldmine. The season started off fantastically with a terrific episode which, like so many others, will be quoted for days. If you aren't watching this show, as I said, this is a MUST.

Recommended for: families, non-families, single people, couples, people who like to laugh, people who don't know they like to laugh, salespeople, old people, young people, asexual people, straight people, gay people, the extreme right, the extreme left, everyone in between, shut-ins, shut-outs, shutters...I could just keep going really.

Not for: Um...can't really think of anyone who wouldn't like this show. Maybe deaf/blind people who can't watch TV anyway.

The Under Covers (New, NBC): I watched the first 5 minutes of this show, and then stopped because my girlfriend was extremely not interested in it (she gave up after just three minutes). I will give a full review when I finally watch it, but I will say that in those first 5 minutes there was a fairly decent Orthodox Jew marrying an Asian woman but still not eating pork joke. Other than that, it doesn't look THAT great, but who knows how well it will pick up for the erst of the hour.

Not for: My girlfriend :P

Still on the DVR - Better With You and Law & Order: SVU

Tonight we get back to NBC's Thursday night line-up with 3 returning greats (30 Rock, The Office, and Community) and one new show (Outsourced). Also on CBS(?) the new comedy, $#*! My Dad Says (yes, that is the actual title of the show, at least that's definitely funny), which I don't have any real hopes for, but i feel that since I am a fan of the twitter feed, I should at least give the show a try, right? I'll give you an update tomorrow!

Chag Sameach!

New TV, Part 1

2010-09-22T13:41:00.000-04:00

Well fall is here (officially starting tonight, HOORAY), and that can only mean one thing besides back to school, more attendance at work, an over all more comfortable outdoor temperature, apples cider and pumpkin latte season, light jackets, and the approach of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Chrismuka; and that one thing is NEW TV!! That's right, new tv, programs that is. What makes this year so exciting is that unlike the past few years, there are a whole bunch of new comedies coming to the small screen than there are dramas. Not that I don't like dramas, it's just that so many of them tend to be so formulaic and tedious that they just don't entertain me. Plus dramas mean drama, and life itself has enough drama, so I don't need more of it from my television. I look to the idiot box to be entertained (and sometimes to learn, i.e. Disc Chan, Nat Geo and Foo Ne), and for me, nothing is more entertaining than laughter. Sure I could sit at home and make myself laugh thinking of funny ways to use the word fart in my day to day life, but surely television does a much better job of it. So without further ado, I will give you my recap of the new, and returning shows of this season (that I have watched). (A side note, I should have started this a couple of days ago, so this post is going to cover a lot).

Boardwalk Empire (New, HBO): This show is a whole lot of fun. In case you don't know, it's about a New Jersey politician who was also involved in the underground crime/bootlegging scene in Atlantic City in 1920. Pretty much a 1920's mafia story. It will for sure fill the hole left vacant by the Sopranos as well as satisfy the 1920's era history nerd in me (as in a nerd for 20's era history, not a nerd from 20's era history, although that'd be kinda funny). Steve Buscemi is one of today's finest actors, able to jump from drama to comedy, cinema to television, all while being the same character in everything, and yet, I never get tired of watching him (take a cue Seth Rogen). I am really looking forward to seeing where this show is going to go, and will for sure be watching it.

I highly recommend it for fans of: Prohibition Era History, Historically Accurate Drama, The Sopranos, Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi, Violence

This show is not for: People who can't get past violence and nudity in anything. This is HBO, you should expect that there will be both of those things.

House (Returning (duh), Fox(more duh)): Oh House, you will never cease to amuse and delight me. For those who don't know House, but know literature, House is kinda like Sherlock Holmes, except he is a modern day doctor who solves medical mysteries and instead of a pipe and abusing cocaine, he has a cane and (used to) abuses vicodin. It's still one of my favorite dramas on television because it almost always is able to balance it's comedy and drama. It also manages to be good enough to help me ignore how there are so many strange medical cases in Princeton, NJ every week by keeping me more interested in the doctors who solve them. This season returned with a great story of House and Cuddy finally becoming the long awaited Huddy (not a spoiler unless you didn't watch last years season finale). It also set up a whole bunch of other fun story lines. Needless to say I will still be watching this all season.

Recommended for: Everyone

Not For: No one (shut up and watch it)

How I Met Your Mother (Returning, CBS): I was apprehensive about this season of HIMYM because last season, while giving us some interesting nuggets and teases, almost killed the show for me. I caught up to this show's first 3 seasons a la DVD via my brother and former roommates proddings. I refused to believe that there were any good canned laughter sitcoms left. HIMYM proved me wrong with fantastic characters and relatable story lines. The show is about a group of five friends (a husband and wife, a womanizer, a single lady, and a single dude who is looking for his future wife) who do wacky things around New York City, all with the underlying premise of finding the single guy's future mother of his future children (who can be seen in "flash-forwards" to the future where the story is being told by a grown up version of the single guy). So last season (being only my second "live" season) was so disappointing that I was just about ready to throw in the towel, but I pushed on and gave this season a chance. Thankfully, I enjoyed the opener very much. It set up a more "finally meet the damn titled mother" story line as apposed to last seasons "uh, which way did she go, George" mess.

Recomended For: New Yorkers, Sweet Hearts, People who generally like a good laugh at almost anything

Not For: Really old people, Rednecks

Mike & Molly (New, CBS): I am giving almost every new sitcom in the major networks this year a shot. This one actually seemed appealing, though. Mike and Molly is a canned laughter sitcom about two overweight individuals (whose names I can't remember) who fall in love after meeting at an Over-Eaters Anonymous meeting. This show was cute, and I will give it a couple more chances to fully win me over. There were two major problems for me. 1) WAY too many fat jokes. We get it, they're fat and they are "happy" with who they are, but really, I have never heard so many fat jokes in a half hour period in my life (and I watch Tommy Boy at least once a day). Also Mike's best friend/partner (both mike and his friend are cops), is black, and the show let's you know it with many stereo-typed catch phrases and mannerisms, some of which are so blatant that you would swear ht was pulled out of a minstrel show. For this show to hold me, it's going to have to tone down the terrible humor and turn up the intelligent humor (even if it's stupid humor that comes from a smart place). 2) The whole Over-Eaters thing needs to stop right away. If we are supposed to feel like these characters really love themselves, then why should we believe that they are in such an extreme group. I say extreme because these meetings are held in a church and every other line in the meetings is about G-d or Jesus. I am sorry, but if you really have faith, you would know G-d meant for you to be that way, so you should love yourself as such. If they are there for health problems, then why couldn't they meet at a gym, or even a health food store or yoga class. I know my two points are pretty much everything this show is based on, but I really love the idea of two overweight people leading a cast as apposed to being the goofy sidekicks. If this show can fix the small problems, it could be a great "watch with my girlfriend" show.

Recommended For: People who like classic laugh track sitcoms, people who like fat jokes, couples

Not For: cynical people, people who don't like laugh tracks at all, people with better things to do on a Monday night

Still on DVR: Chuck and The Event

Glee (Returning, Fox): Ok, so if you don't know Glee, you have been living under a rock. The most watched, and talked about, show of last season; it's pretty much a Broadway show with popular music, on TV, and it goes for 24 hours with many intermissions. In case you did live under aforementioned rock, Glee is about a high school glee club and the struggles they face on, and off, the stage. They also break out into musical numbers, a lot. I loved loved loved last season, but went into this one cautiously. The premise of the show is so delicate that it could easily go from fabulous to craptastic with a simple slushie to the face. I am thankful to say that Ryan Murphy is a good show-runner and managed to keep things from feeling played out. I won't spoil anything for those who have yet to watch it, but i will say that the self-referencing/bashing opener was probably the best way to kick things off. They nicely eased us into the new characters, and set up some great story lines, that regardless of songs, would keep the show entertaining. Of course the songs are what brought us there in the first place, and will hopefully maintain the same level of campy fun that they (for the most part) have been.

Recommended for: Musical lovers, High school drama lovers, Music lovers, former glee/theater kids, theater nerds/buffs

Not for: People afraid of their sexuality, Low-functioning SPD sufferers, musical haters

Raising Hope (New, Fox): In Fox's attempt to prove Glee is a comedy (give it up Fox, Glee is a dramedy and will never win a comedy Emmy), they slated it to be followed by two new sitcoms. The first was this gem created by Greg Garcia, who created the ill-fated My Name Is Earl. The show is about a good for nothing poor guy who meets a girl after "rescuing" her. They hook up, the girl apparently gets pregnant, and then disappears. I'd tell you more, but it would spoil some of the jokes, which are pretty good. If you like the kind of humor that was showcased fantastically in the first two seasons of Earl, you will like this one. This show really could have been a potential story line for Earl, where Earl finds out he has a baby and has to raise it. The family of Hope are a super white-trash family making their money from cleaning rich people's pools and living in their deranged grandmother's house (deranged grandmother played to perfection by the go-to deranged old lady, Cloris Leachman). Her very first interaction on the show pretty much sold me on the series. That and the baby vomit scene, which was so gross it couldn't not be funny.

Recommended for: People who liked My Name is Earl, People who laughed at my mentioning of "Baby vomit", people who like babies that have funny/horrible things happen to them (such as tumbling around the back seat of a car while strapped to the car seat because the guy didn't realize the seat had to be strapped to the car, and not just the baby to the seat), fans of Family Guy and/or South Park

Not For: The weak of stomach, people who don't like comedies without a laugh track

Running Wilde (New, Fox): Am I the only one who is slightly amused that Fox has two new sitcoms, both of which are put together on the schedule, and both of which have an -ing verb, followed by a characters name in the title? Yes? Oh well. This show is from Mitch Hurwitz who created Arrested Development and Sit Down And Shut Up (most underrated network cartoon in some time), and starring Will Arnett (who also produces) and Kerri Russel (you know, that chick with the curly hair from the girly show on the WB a few years back). It's about a spoiled man child who finds a way to get his childhood love back into his life. He is the heir to a huge oil company, she is a hippie activist who has spent the last 6 years working with a tribe in the rain forest which was being threatened by said oil company. Let the wackiness ensue! Sure it sounds like a very passe premise, but Hurwitz knows his stuff. The comedy is very much in the same style of Arrested Development, where each episode will probably get better with each viewing (as in watching the same episode 2 or 3 times to catch jokes, both visual and verbal, that you may have missed). It wasn't as funny a pilot as the Arrested pilot was, but really, that's asking a lot. It was funny enough to keep me watching (but then again, that could just be my Arnett man-crush talking).

Recommended for: Fans of AD, fans of Arnett, fans of obscure/kooky comedy, Fans of Kerri Russel

Not For: Slow people, people who don't like comedies without a laugh track, really old people

That's all I have got so far. There is so much more to go! Tonight we have the season premiere of the best comedy of last season, Modern Family, which I am really looking forward to! I am in no way worried that they will fail to deliver. Plus there is another new sitcom I was going to watch whose name I can't remember at the moment, but it's another laugh track sitcom about couples in different stages of their relationship. I can't remember if there is anything else, but I have my DVR set already to catch it all! If I watch enough tonight, I'll post my review tomorrow!

Chag Sameach!

At Tra-der Joe's (Let's All Go To Trader Joe's)

2010-09-13T10:41:00.000-04:00

I don't think I have to tell anyone that the new Trader Joe's on the Upper West Side is opening next week, and how incredibly excited I am for that!

Just thought I'd share it anyway.

Because it is exciting.

Very exciting.

Some people have issues with substance abuse. I have issues with unsulphered dried mango slices abuse.

I know it's hard when you're up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp.

2010-08-23T12:41:00.000-04:00

Remember that Ronald Regan quote? Neither do I. probably because I was only 8 months old when he said it. Not really sure why he said it either. I really just wanted a quote about alligators to open with, and i couldn't think of any on my own. So naturally I Googled (and now my spell check knows that Googled is a word). I got this quote. Maybe some time in the future I will look up the reference to this quote, give my readers a little learnin'.

I look for an alligator quote not because my sister is back to school at Gainesville, but because the gators have made their way to Astoria (29th Street and Newtown Avenue to be precise)! Apparently there was a gator found chilling under a car in yesterday's rainstorm not too far from my apartment. It is speculated that the critter had crawled out of the sewer, while authorities guess that someone had abandoned their illegal pet once it had gotten too big to care for. I suspect that the world is coming to an end, and this is just a sign of the plague of beasts (not really, but that'd be insane). It was just a tiny gator, only measuring 18 inches, but still, imagine being the person who owns that car. Maybe that day you were wearing sandals and you were standing at your car sorting through a bag of some sort, while this little guys sees your toes as something yummy to devour. Talk about alligator shoes, right? According to records, in 2003, there was a 4 foot alligator found roaming in a Queens park. THAT is not something I'd like to encounter on a casual stroll.

Sometime in the future:
I Googled the source of the Regan quote. Still can't fully find the context, but it was for a White House reception for the Women Appointees of the administration on February 10th, 1982. I still don't fully get it.

New

2010-08-16T16:06:00.000-04:00

So much new! Ok, well I made some blog changes today! First off, in case you didn't notice, I changed my blog layout. Apparently I was in real need of it, although Blogger failed to tell me. I found out because my last layout was so out of date that Blogger didn't even know how to change it a little. So this is the new layout. I wish I could take credit for the background picture, but I think it works pretty well with the essence of me. No?

Also, my lovely, talented, and amazing girlfriend has created a blog. I won't go too much into it (you'll just have to read for yourself), but it's psychological and sciency and a good read. So check it out and add it to your blog rolls: Coming To My Senses

ALSO, I am no longer going to be importing these blog posts to my Facebook page directly. If you want to read my posts on Facebook, become a fan of the blog fan page and you will get all the updates posted to your wall (and don't worry, that's all I post there, so that's all you'll get. Craziness will still come from my feed, but you have to be my friend to get that).

I LIKE THE WORD "ALSO." Also, I joined Lumosity, which is a fun brain game site. I should have super brain powers in only a couple of months. Then I'll be able to blog right into your brain!

Also, I couldn't help but notice that my blog count dropped drastically from 2008 to 2009, and 2010 is shaping up to be even slower. Let's see if I can change that.

So, you like the new? What's new with you?

Talk About a Crazy Day at the Office

2010-08-10T15:48:00.000-04:00

So I assume we have all heard about the JetBlue flight attendant who is currently seeking employment. But if not, read the story. So what do you think, hero or idiot? I ask, can't he be both? I answer, why yes he can.

Not every job (thankfully) allows people to work with the public or "customers." Those jobs that do, often go greatly under-appreciated by said public. From experience, I can tell you that the majority of people are in the range of being "not very nice" to "down right insanely rude" when it comes to the treatment of people who work in such jobs. Sad to say, it's not just the customer/employee relationship that experiences such things, but also the coworker/coworker, boss/employee, teacher/student, religious-figure/sacrificial-lamb relationships also face such turmoil. Part of the job in any of these cases is deal with this kind of thing (of course more often than not that treatment is NOT factored into paychecks, which I am sure leads to a lot of these breakdowns). How you deal with it, dictates the kind of job you do. Sadly there are way more "unacceptable" ways of handing these things than there are "acceptable" ways, and it's the acceptable ways that don't often get the "desired" results. This explosion on the customer is a good example of the "unacceptable."

When I worked at Large Corporate Caffeinated Beverage Chain, I spent most of the day secretly ruing most of the people I handed the steaming beverages to, and believe me, I would have loved more than anything to be handing them a steaming something else. Never did though. Never spit in a drink either, nor did I do anything else that might have inadvertently harmed a customer. If things got really bad, I'd go to the back for supplies and once in the office, punch a wall or scream into my hat or just talk to my manager. Of course none of those things would "teach" the customer how awful they were at being human beings (or maybe they were doing a good job, if we are going by majority being the standard). Of course they all allowed me a small release of stress enough to allow me to go back out on the floor for however many hours I had left in my shift. The biggest mantra of these moments would be "I'm not paid enough for this shishkabob*!" Then there are other people I deal with as an Office Manager, both customers and employees/coworkers who seem to lack certain skills. Minimal pleases and thank yous, and things are never fast enough despite reaching warp speed. More often than not, I have to bite my tongue and turn the other cheek, waiting for a lunch break or time to go home so I can just kick my feet up and give my feet a well deserved rest (this is also my "pass out position" which also feels nice after a long day). This oppressively hot summer weather hasn't been helping much either with peoples "tolerance of anything" levels. No one likes to have to wait when their clothes feel like an old damn kitchen sponge. Of course the occasional explosion of words and anger can come from anyone at any time, and while understandable, doesn't make it OK, ever. Especially followed by stealing from the office and then illegally using flight equipment to make your point. On this end, I would say the flight attendant was about as stupid as the passenger/straw that broke the camel's back.

Of course there is the issue with the passenger. The vast majority of us have flown on planes, to one place or another. I personally enjoy the act of flying in an airplane. The lead up to it is probably one of the most annoying things you will ever encounter in your life, and more so in recent years (take my shoes off? really?). And a lot of people feel the opposite way I do about flying, and thus the whole experience is nothing but turmoil and stress. So it's understandable that at the end of the flight, all you might want to do is get your things and get off the plane as fast as possible. HOWEVER, this feeling is not also something that entitles you. You want to be entitled to do as you please on an airplane, buy your own. You want to fly on public airliners, then you have to abide by the rules no matter how stupid or unfair they may seem (take my shoes off? really?). The reason you have to stay seated while the plane taxi's on the tarmac, with your belt buckled is that just because you are on the tarmac, doesn't mean that the plane can't crash horribly, sending you flying to the front of the plane, killing some unsuspecting child with your lifeless corpse, to put it violently. Also, if someone asks you to do something nicely, there is no need to go from zero to ascot** in response. Odds are, the flight attendant was at the same level of stress you were when you decided to unleash all hell on the poor guy. When you act so blindingly uncouth, some might say you deserve a public thrashing as a spoiled child might get, even though this is not long-term effective if at all. More likely this guy went home and told everyone about the "jerk flight attendant" and how he "kicked his ascot**." I do honestly believe that the guy should get some kind of punishment for at least breaking the FAA rules, if not for attacking a flight attendant with a suitcase.

Of course, IMHO, this universal problem can probably stem back to a growing lack of etiquette. It's been a few generations since such things were common place in homes, schools, offices, etc., and for one reason or another, that has stopped. Of course, there are people (thankfully) who are capitalizing on this and hopefully bringing it back. Maybe with regular etiquette courses and training, we can swing the human race back into a place of peace and brotherhood as apposed to swearing and luggage-wielding war-fare.

*Not the word intended.

**Also not the word intended.

9 months

2010-08-01T12:08:00.000-04:00

Well it's been 9 months with my love, and what better way to celebrate it with a picture in special tribute to Shark Week!

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Car

2010-07-26T13:50:00.000-04:00

Miss me? Been a while since I blogged. Not much new to report, I guess is why, but I did have a pretty awesome weekend, so might as well talk about that.

Started off on Saturday going out to Long Island to visit my uncle and his family. As always it was nice seeing them. I went out with my mom and sister, and got to bring Rachel along so she can meet some of the extended family. As you can see from my facebook pictures, a good time was had by all, especially my cousin Max who seemed to want nothing more than to see me dead by the end of the day. The kids also made us all shell necklaces, which is always cute. Then after spending a good portion of the day there, Rachel and I were dropped back off in Astoria where we went out to dinner with Rachel's friend Anna at Bare Burger, which is becoming one of my favorite spots in Astoria for meaty goodness.

Sunday I got to use my new Zip Car account to take Rachel on a "Josh's Magical History Tour". We started off in Suffern (obviously), with me pointing out points of interest while driving around, stopping at my old house to give Rachel an idea of how I grew up. We even took a minor detour into Rachel's History by stopping at her old day camp Deer Kill (kill as in the noun meaning small river, not the verb, which is what is often guessed). Then once that nostalgic moment was over, we finished the driving tour of Suffern as we took the back roads up to Camp Monroe. I was super excited to take Rachel on this trip, but particularly this part, not only because it was the only place where we could take a look at the inside of it, but because I still credit camp for helping me turn into the man I am today. She got to meet a few of the important people (who are still there) as well, as well as get to see my mom and sister "in action" getting the senior campers ready for their show (which is tomorrow night, and I am still debating whether or not I want to rent a car and go. If anyone is interested, let me know and maybe we can split an hourly rental). Then on the way home,w e stopped at Woodbury Commons, which is one of my favorite places to shop because it appeals to the cheap Jew in me :D. Traffic sucked on the roads (we saw 4 different accidents), but once we hit the GW, it was smooth sailing. It would have been nice if we were able to go home to the same apartment, but we are still working on it.

So some of you maybe have read that last paragraph and said "what is Zip Car?" And if you have, and you are living in and/or planning on visiting a major city, listen up. Zip Car is a genius car rental company. Unlike most companies where you have to go to one of their offices and then register for a car and then take it out for a day and pay for your own gas, insurance and tolls, Zip Car works with today's modern technology and parking space abundance and makes the old ways of renting cars a thing of the past. For $50 a year (the most basic of plans, mine is only $25 a year with my corporate discount), with a $25 sign up fee, zip car is at your disposal. There are hourly rates (mine is $8 an hour every day of the week because of my discount) and day rates (with my discount Mon-Thurs $65 a day, Fri-Sun $115 a day), of course the fancier and bigger the car, the more expensive (plus that doesn't factor in NYS rental taxes). Don't forget, that price includes all tolls, gas and insurance for up to 180 miles/day (and then 5 cents a mile additional), and for the hourly rate, that's pretty awesome (obviously the hourly rate turns into a day rate once you hit an hourly mark that exceed the day rate, which is nice to know they aren't obviously trying to rip anyone off). Of course the weekend day rate still isn't the best out of anyone, but the fact that I can long on, pick the car I want, even by name (the cars all have names), and then just walk to the lot where the car is parked, get in and go, that's pretty awesome. I rented a Honda Civic for the day, which fell under the $115/day rate, and it was pretty awesome. To get into the car, you just take the Zip Card, which the company sends you after your application has been approved, and swipe it over a sensor in the windshield which then unlocks the doors. Pretty awesome. The keys stay in the car, and you just use your card to get in and out! There is even a number to call if there is anything wrong with the car, and they will get you set up with a new car instantly. For a city dweller, this is exactly what you need to give you the "I own a car feel" without paying the "I own a car" costs. Because I now have this, I might also finally sign up for a Cosco membership!

I Can Only Hope My Kids Grow Up To Be This Cool

2010-06-09T12:21:00.001-04:00

When you see what I am posting about, you will see I am kidding.

I am sure I am not the first to inform any of you of this, but in case you haven't seen it yet, check out this kid:

Look how freakin cool he is! I mean, I went through a minor smoking phase in college in an effort to make myself more awesome, but I never reached this level. I mean look at how he handles that ciggy, spinning it around like he's James Dean to the millionth power. And such confidence! I mean body is no where near as bad as his, yet there he is lounging around in his underpants, not caring at all about the "moob" jokes I am making at him right now. Also, apparently if he doesn't get 40 cigarettes a day, he throws a MASSIVE tantrum until he get's his 40 cigarettes (that's almost 2 packs a day, folks)! The tantrums are so well executed that he goes so far as to slam his head into the wall! If I throw a massive tantrum, all I get is a surprise birthday party. He has apparently figured out that being a smoker as a baby makes him not have to walk around so much (mostly because he is so fat he can't) so he gets to ride on a cool car toy that I never got a child (probably because I liked to run around a lot). The best part is that his father is the one who gave him his first cigarette at ONE AND A HALF YEARS (the kid is two now, so it only took a few months to build up such an awesome amount of coolness). The only thing my father ever gave me was good life advice and moral support in my life's endeavors. Slightly unfair, don't you think!

Of course then Japan goes and does this:

Why is everyone in Asia so much cooler than me? I mean those Japanese kids get to drink BEER?! The only beer i ever got as a kid was Root Beer...mmm root beer. That reminds me. If anyone is going upstate any time soon and traveling through the Ithaca area, can you stop at the Ithaca brewery and pick me up a growler of freshly brewed Ithaca Brewery Root Beer? That stuff is better than drinking V straight from a vampire.

Edit June 10, 2010:
Woke up this morning, and heard about this on the radio. Damn it Asia, stop making cool kids!

Officially Less Than a Year Until 30

2010-06-02T13:41:00.000-04:00

There is no happy or sad to that statement because they sort of negate each other out. Growing old is crazy, and I feel like 30 is the real first step in that "old" direction.

This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend, which is usually when I celebrate my birthday, since it's when my birthday usually falls (around or so), as it did this year exactly. Some of you may be wondering why I didn't throw a big party or anything like that. in fact, this is the first year in a while where there was no major build up or anything else of the sort, for a couple of reasons. One, planning on moving in with my amazing girlfriend (more on her later), which is just a huge hassle with management companies and real estate agents and the lot. Two, Rachel as also been quitting her job and starting a fellowship (starts this week) for grad school (which she is also starting in August), so we have both been busy celebrating/preparing for/etc that. Three, just being with Rachel in general makes me care so much less about myself than I do her, it's kinda amazing (especially if you know how self centered I can get). Four, 29 isn't that big a birthday, so didn't want to waste any awesome ideas (like another b-day at the beer garden) that could be used on celebrating 30. Lastly, five, Rachel and I went for a weekend trip (May 28th through the 31st) to Riviera Maya, Mexico for the wedding of Brad and Brooke.

You may be saying to yourself "Josh, you always complain about being poor. How did you do this?" Well I'll tell ya. As soon as I found out it was a destination wedding, I started saving money from the facebook classes I have been teaching (I teach Facebook and blogging and twitter to people who are scared of computers). That combined with my Christmas bonus from this past year gave me enough to book a flight and a hotel room. That, and you have to be a pretty special friend to get me to a destination wedding. The fact that I had never been to Mexico, it was my birthday weekend, and Rachel was coming with me didn't hurt either. Plus, Mexico is dirt cheap. I mean,yeah we stayed in a pretty awesome resort, but to stay where we stayed at any country that wouldn't be labeled as "3rd world" we would have paid anywhere from 3x-5x as much for everything. We stayed at the Fairmont Mayakoba, which is currently in off season since no one goes to Mexico this time of year because it is oppressively humid (for proof, check out pictures from the trip). Also it's "Mosquito Season," which I have never even heard of, but makes total sense, especially after experiencing it first hand (itchy). We got a comp upgrade to our room, which is always awesome, and also put us closer to where all of our friends were staying and where all the events were happening. The resort was massive to the point where there were 12 person golf carts to take everyone around wherever they needed to go (could have/did walk(ed) to a number of place around the resort from the room, but sometimes it was too hot, or we were too dressed up to make it worth it). Forgetting the heat and the mosquitoes, it was absolutely beautiful, and the staff were there whenever you needed anything, to the point where I was almost uncomfortable, not being used to being waited on all the time. We spent a lot of time in the pools, and got a great amount of sun (sadly in some places too much, but the burns are healing). The sun down there is very strong. if you are planning on visiting, take 70spf or higher sunblock. The wedding itself was also very beautiful. They got married on top of an infinity pool overlooking the Caribbean Sea. The cocktail hour was at another infinity pool, and then the reception was on the hotel's main lawn in the center of the resort.

One of the days there, Rachel and i wanted to see "real Mexico" so we went to Playa del Carmen, which is a 15 minute drive south of the resort. Don't worry, it was very safe. The hotel called us a cab, which dropped us off at the center part of the town, where there was a taxi stand. Thankfully, the official cab drivers were easy to spot. The town was extremely touristy, which was perfect, since we were mostly looking forward to buying chachkas, and the lot, for family and ourselves. There was a plethora of tiny (and large) souvenir shops interspersed with various restaurants, as well as tourist staples, such as Starbucks, Subway, Ben & Jerry's, Hagendaz, etc. We went for lunch at a taco place near the taxi stand (food is so cheap down there!) While we were eating, a little mariachi was serenading a table near us. When he walked closer, Rachel pulled him over and asked him to sing a birthday song to me in Spanish. He asked my name, and then pronounced it "Yoss", which was then followed by a song that neither of us could understand, but it was still pretty awesome. After dinner we went for chocolate, because Mexico makes awesome chocolate and produces some of the worlds best vanilla. It was the perfect way to spend a day in Mexico without spending it next to a pool or on a beach.

My birthday was first spent packing up in the hotel room. Then after getting ready to go, we called the front desk to pick up our bags (because we could) and headed off to the post wedding brunch, which was also incredible. Rachel gave me my present as well. Well not really the actual present, but a note saying she was going to take me to FAO Schwatz and get me a Build Your Own Muppet from the Muppet Workshop (which is something I have wanted since they came up with that place, and even before then, my entire life). Such the perfect girlfriend she is (wait, it gets better). We then spent the majority of the day dealing with airports and flying and customs. Rachel's parents met us in Newark to drive us home. they had gotten me a "Happy Birthday Josh" balloon which they brought into the airport with them (but wait, they get sweeter). Not only did they say they'd drive me all the way back to Queens, but in the car were cupcakes (so sweet, right?)! Sadly Rachel had stuff she had to take care of after getting home and couldn't spend the night. I was supposed to go out with my brother for dinner when I got home, but he was passed out from his big weekend (he had a bachelor party in Miami), so I ended up spending the night alone and mopey, since it was just a huge turn from the morning to the evening, and I missed spending time with Rachel (don't worry, this is where things get awesomer).

Rachel (the world's most amazing girlfriend) felt so bad that I was lonely the night of my birthday, that she called up my brother that morning, and invited a couple of friends from Astoria, and threw a little surprise party for me in my apartment! I was originally supposed to go over to her apartment after work, but then she called me up and said her sister wanted to take her out, so I figured it was a good time to go out to dinner with my brother. I told him he could pick the place (he recommended Burger King as a joke). The rest of the day I was none the wiser. Then I finally get home after work, and my brother is in the kitchen cooking, and there are some balloons around the apartment. I was like "ok, this is nice" and that's when Rachel came bounding out of my room. She had apparently spent the day cooking with my brother setting this whole thing up. I looked around, they had made red velvet cupcakes from scratch, as well as garlic knots, and pizza and all sorts of other goodies, with muppet plates to boot. I was like "this is fantastic" and then the door bell rang. I was expecting some kind of package, but when I opened the door, Mike and Natalie were there! Then an another old camp friend showed up, then Dave and Brooke, then Sharon! it was quite awesome and completely unexpected. It was the perfect way to celebrate a birthday, and just further proved how awesome Rachel (and my brother) really are, and how much I love her and want her in my life forever. Best birthday ever, for sure.

Also there was a good episode of Glee.

So Long, Dear Friend

2010-05-17T14:19:00.001-04:00

IMG_1336.JPG
Originally uploaded by theimprovgod

Well it's only been 10 years, but so much has happened, that it feels like a lifetime. I remember the day when we picked you up at the airport. Dad, Matt, Blair and I all came to get you, and you were such a scared little puppy. You cried all the way home from JFK to Suffern. You took to our family right away, and we couldn't have been happier. You came at such an important time in all of our lives, and you helped fill our hearts and home with so much love. You were so smart too. Possibly my favorite memories were when I took you to live with me in Buffalo. It was probably one of the most significant and scary summers of my life, and you were right there like a good supportive friend through the majority of it. You also drank those daiquiris faster than any of us humans could. You seemed to be the most happy, however, when the family moved with you down to Florida, where you could bask in the sun almost every day, and I am sure the waterfall is going to miss being barked at every morning at 10am. I know there was definitely a part of you that missed the snowy north, because you had no equal when it came to playing in the snow; and there was always a part of me that hoped you would get a chance to come back up and enjoy it at least one more time.

You were taken from us suddenly on the morning of May 17th, 2010. It seemed as though you didn't even know you were sick, your happy disposition never wavering over the past week. Sure you were getting lethargic, and seeming slightly off, but no one could have predicted that you wouldn't be coming home from the vets office. I am going to miss your muppet-like face, and your snuggly nature, your playful attitude and most of all your vocal greetings every time I come down to Florida to visit. You filled a hole in the Erich family, Abby Logan, and there will always be your memory to keep it filled.

Tea Conspiracy

2010-05-10T12:33:00.000-04:00

Tea:
OK, so it's (possibly) no secret that I love bubble tea. I say possibly because I don't know what you know about me. For all I know, you know absolutely nothing, or in all the time you have known me, there was never an appropriate conversation for me to declare my love for the Asian iced tea beverage. Whatever the case, it should now be clear that I LOVE bubble tea. So much so that I will often buy it just because I see it in a store because it's sadly so hard to find. I don't know why. If it were up to me, you would be able to buy it everywhere, and everyone would know how to make it. Bubble tea kits would be as common in most households as a toaster and a DJ Roomba (if you don't have a DJ Roomba, you are seriously missing out)! But yeah, so anyway. One day, I noticed that a vacant store front on my walk to and from work (on my actual walk, not the cross the street or a block out of the way, but literally, I HAVE to pass it every day) was getting ready to open as a new store. That store, happily, is the Argo Tea Company! I love tea (even without bubbles, but with bubble more), and this place is apparently like the Starbucks of tea chains (only it was started in Chicago, not Seattle, not as big, yet, and probably not despised by yuppies, yet) with specialty tea drinks and tea treats (and they also make coffee). I was even more excited when I realized they sell bubble tea! It (the store on 58th and Broadway) apparently opened it's doors officially this weekend, for when I walked by on my way to work, there were people in it! So I happily skipped in (read: tiredly dragged my ass inside, yet still excited), and asked about the bubble tea. Well really I asked about the flavors, and whether or not that was an option, since bubble tea is best when flavored. Not only could I get it flavored, but they actually make it with real tea and give me the milk option!! So happy to hear that, since I am trying to make my body super sexy again, not just for Rachel, but also for our trip to Mexico coming at the end of the month (Rachel loves me for who I am (because she is super awesome) and says I don't have to change, but I'd like who I am to be a buff macho man type who can lift cars and fly and such)! The girl helping me was incredibly nice and helpful, as the rest of the staff seemed to be, which is also a nice change of pace. I got my drink very quickly (YAY) and headed off to work. The tea tasted amazing. The second thing I noticed was that the bubbles in the bubble tea were not the traditional bubbles I expect in my bubble tea, but in fact are these fruit jellies. It was odd at first, because the entire taste and texture is different from the traditional tapioca pearls, but then it grew on me as something different. I came to find out later what exactly they were, and that they are in fact better for you than the usual bubbles, so that's another win! So even though it's not the "normal" I still look forward to enjoying it again, and you should go out and try it too! I also got their frequent buyers card. Get there soon before they turn into the next Starbucks, so you could say "I was there in the beginning" and be one of those poseur fans. Also, try the bubble tea. It's bubbletastic. Did I tell you I love bubble tea?

Conspiracy:
This story actually happened to a coworker of mine last weekend (she gave me permission to blog about this, maybe it could help her case. Names are omitted to protect the innocent). She was down in South Carolina visiting her family and just enjoying a nice weekend in the South. She was driving on a major road passing through some Podunk little town with her mom in the car with her. There were two other cars in front of her (total strangers), and they were all just sort of cruising down the road, going wherever they were going, no way doing more than 10mph over the speed limit. All of a sudden, a local patrolman pulls out and pulls the three cars over at once, giving each a citation. My friend hears each car's interactions with the officer, since she was the last in line, she was the last to get ticketed. Apparently the cop clocked the first car going at 70mph (this is in a 55mph zone), the second car at 74mph, and my friend going at 79mph!! I don't know how physics works on the South, but I am pretty sure that for three cars traveling at cruising speeds in a single line, that's impossible. On top of that, the officer informed her that any speeding ticket received in that town for a violation exceeding 15mph over the speed limit, REQUIRED an appearance in court by the driver. When she informed the officer how that would be extremely difficult as she does not live anywhere near South Carolina, the officer informed her (this is where the conspiracy comes in) that if you can't appear in court, you MUST hire an attorney to come in as your representation. Really. Even when my friend offered to drive over to the court house now and just pay the ticket, the officer told her she couldn't. She had to appear or hire a lawyer. Does this strike anyone else as being unnecessary? I mean, if you ever got a speeding ticket in New York State, you know you can either appear in court to argue the ticket, or you can mail in your ticket with money (arguing is usually the better option when it comes to saving your points and possibly getting a reduced fine, obviously). But to not have an option? That's almost unconstitutional! The real kicker, though is that as soon as she got home, she received 5 emails from different law firms from the area in which she got her ticket, offering their services (all of whom take credit card by the way, and a couple of whom promise that when called, you'd actually speak to an attorney and not a paralegal...ooh, special). I know times are tough, and some lawyers can be shifty (but so can anyone else for that matter), but this seems little like they have found a way to keep the economy strong in the "great" state of South Carolina. I wouldn't be surprised if the other two cars were also from out of state, forcing them (with their conveniently 15mph over fines) to "appear" in court as well. Someone should seriously do some research into this and expose this possible corruption. Do they have "Shame Shame Shame" in South Carolina?

checked out Blair @Glee

2010-04-24T10:31:00.000-04:00

Hey guys! My sister is auditioning for Glee, and needs everyone's voting support! So go on over to this link and vote for her a whole bunch, ok! checked out Blair @Glee

Oh, oh oh oh, For the Longest Time

2010-04-09T10:55:00.006-04:00

It's been so long since I posted. Just haven't felt the need to post anything, but might as well give people something to read on a slow work day (theirs, not mine, mine are always busy).

A little rewind to kick things off:

Passover has come and, well, passed. It was a nice holiday this year. There was a family friend wedding in Philadelphia the Saturday before the holiday, and my mom's school had spring break for the following week, so my parents decided to make a trip of the wedding and stayed with my brother and I for the start of passover. Of course my brother being the good son/brother that he is volunteered my room for my parents to sleep in. It was ok by me, because I just spent two of the three nights that they were there at Rachel's apartment, and the other night on a new air mattress in my livingroom (the new mattress is pretty sweet, queen-sized, with an inflatable headboard and everything). It also meant that this year, unlike most years, I hosted two seders! I really only did one major day of cooking, but it meant I had to cook twice as much as usual. I cooked some of the usual, the brisket, my vegetable kuggel, the Sephardi inspired charoset, an apple/pepper/garlic quinoa salad and my "famous" matzo ball soup. The guest list was kept low, wince my apartment, unlike previous years, was filled with people and it suddenly felt way to tiny. The food, in my opinion, was the best it's ever been (I finally got the brisket right, where it was flaky and not chewy, and the gravy was awesome). Hosting both seders and having my parents in town also meant that my parents finally got to meet Rachel. She came to the second seder, and despite being slightly immobile from a recent back injury (got two bulging disks from yoga of all things), all got along very well, which was all I could ask for. Dave and Brooke were also at the second seder, and they also got to meet my parents; and after my mom made a joke about schwetty balls, Brooke turned to me and said "I finally get you." It was good times had by all and I am still very happy about it's success.

The day my parents left, the three of us went to go see a movie (because it wouldn't be an Erich Family vacation without seeing at least one movie). We couldn't agree on anything, so we opted for the Runaways. My mom regretted that choice about 10 minutes in. It was a very purposefully disturbing movie, which is good, if you can handle that kinda thing. The acting was really good (surprisingly even from Kristen Stewart) and although the subject matter was a little dark, it's a true story, and it's nice when true stories don't pull any punches, no matter how gross/odd/grodd those punches might be.

Also saw this past weekend was the Clash of the Titans remake/reimmaging. It was a raucous good time. It's been quite a while since I have seen the original, so much so that I often get some of the story points confused with Jason and the Argonauts (because both movies totally "reimage" Greek Mythology so entertainingly), but I remembered enough to know they changed a lot. The movie itself was everything a remake/reimmaging of a movie should be by making something that felt new, and didn't overshadow the original. If anything, when I left the movie, all I wanted to do was see the original again (which I have yet to do), which I think is a good feeling for remakes, especially when it's not in a "I need to see the original so I can wipe my brain of that new one asap!" Before the movie, they showed a preview for the new Sly Stallone action movie The Expendables, which is the action movie I wished they made when I was 14, but will still probably love just as much as an adult. I mean, why did it take old age for all of these amazing action stars to get together for a movie? I mean, the only person who is missing who would make the line up 100% perfect is Jean-Claude Van Damme, but I guess we will just have to save that for a sequel.

And how about that heat the past two days? My friend Julia posted about the issues with women's work fashion for the summer, and to that I had to scoff. Women, I say, have it easy, at least from a functionality stand point. For us gents, our summer work attire isn't actually ideal for summer, seeing as how it's pretty much the same attire we wear the rest of the year. Women get the straps option, and the skirt option and the sandal/open toes shoe option. Sure for guys the emphasis is on the slightly looser/more cottony, but that's about it. Some jobs (like mine) let you get away with the short sleeves and no tie, which is a slight reprieve, but can you imagine having to wear a full suit in 95 degree plus 100% humidity weather? I know I'd probably die from loss of fluids just waiting for the subway. It's really sad that the fashion industry hasn't developed comfortable summer clothing for the 9-5 desk-jockey. Where are the men's work shorts, the men's open sandal-style work shoes? The super breathable work shirts and blazers? The tie with the icepack built in? Where, fashion? Where?

In other fashion news, I had some fun making tshirts in my Zazzle store. Check out the new designs!

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah by josherich

Retro Kicks by josherich

Cupcake Knowledge Binder by josherich

You can find a link to my Zazzle store in the right hand column of my blog page, as well as links to my facebook fan pages! Go on and click 'em, you know you wanna!

Also, wanna hear some Bull...oney? Well very sadly Bar Bao, the awesome Vietnamese restaurant that was fortunate enough to house my only commissioned art piece, closed this week. Normally, in these situations, I would assume that I would be able to claim my artwork, which would have made for an awesome at home display in a living room, if the owners of the restaurant didn't want it (since they paid for it). However, since the owners are such good guys, the landlord of the restaurant space allowed them to sign a "friendly clause" into their lease. basically what this clause does is give the lessees to drop out of the lease at any point and just hand the keys back to the landlord, no questions asked. However, if they do this, the landlord gets to keep EVERYTHING in the restaurant space, to either sell off or to use to turn the space over (the landlord now has a fully furnished restaurant space available for anyone who is looking). Which means, my art is now the sole property of the landlord of the space (who ever he/she is), and they have the right to do with it as they please. I am hoping to get a hold of whoever it is, see if I can work something out, but it's just kinda sad to see things go down like this. Plus it was a really good restaurant and the first place where I ever tried frogs legs (they're good). So long Bar Bao, but hopefully not, so long artwork.

Daylight Savings Bank

2010-03-16T16:27:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I know that losing that hour of sleep in the morning is totally killer. I will complain about it more than anyone, because me likely sleep.

However, when I look up from my desk and marvel how nice it is outside, and then think about how I must have to work for at least 3 more hours since the sun is so high in the air, only to look down at the clock and see that I only have a half hour left of work...well that ramble of thought makes it totally worth it. I'll gladly lose multiple hours of sleep a night for days like this.

Bisection

2010-02-18T11:47:00.006-05:00

I was originally intending to write a long over due post about my opinions on the Olympic games. But then I thought, nah, that's been done by many people who share my sentiments.

I was going to then also leave a long over-due post about this past Valentines Day. While my opinion on the holiday has yet to waver, I felt it unnecessary, despite it being an awesome fun time with my lovely lady, including couples bowling with the Davenbrookes! I will let the pictures of that day speak for itself when I post the pictures on facebook, eventually.

I was then going to post about my ever rising excitement for the second half of the first season of Glee to be premiering soon, only being enforced by the commercials being run on Fox during Idol (which has been pretty poor this semester, although I am excited about the local Astorian in the competition).

I was going to write about all of this, and then I saw my coffee cup from my morning Starbucks. A recurring attempt at customer satisfaction at the corporate chain, they have taken once again to writing customer's names on their drinks, to help ease confusion once drinks are put on the counter (and I guess to make the customer feel more special...that is until the annual meeting of 100 Jennifer's shows up for a pre-party coffee). They've been trying to get this to stick for years, which is a fine idea for the smaller stores, but in NYC, it's a tough thing to keep up with (as I know from experience behind the counter). ANYWAY, the girl who made my drink happened to write my name wrote it right next to the little "1/2" indicating my drink was half-caff (yeah, that's right, I drink half-caff, thanks to my GERD, my stomach can't handle full-caff too often, so I work with what I can). So when you look at my cup, it looks as though it says "1/2 Josh," which got me to wondering what exactly would that be? The first conundrum is whether it would be half of my name in the physical sense or in the mathematical sense, or would it be half of me physically, or would it be half of my essence. The philosophic possibilities are endless (even just sticking to the nick name and forgetting the full name).

If we were to look at "Josh" as physical, tactile letters, I suppose there are a number of ways we could half it. There are the obvious JO and SH, which would be the most basics of halving; but it can go much deeper than that. Let's imagine we are halving JOSH horizontally. We would get "Tncu" and "uu::backwards c::n, which is just all kinds of silly (and kinda awesome that it could work like that). Of course we also have to factor in font and size, etc when dealing in practicalities. Half of my name in some fonts would be different than in other fonts, if we are talking purely in terms of spacial reasoning. Then there is math. If you take the basic numerical value of each letter of my name (J=10, o=15, s=19, h=8) and add them together, you get 52, 52 can (thankfully) be easily divided in half to 26. 26 could then be broken down into words again based on numerical values of their letters., but neither of which is "JO" or "SH". Then there are the diagonal splits, the weight splits, etc. No clear definition of half of the word of Josh.

Now let's say we were talking the physical being of me. There are two commonly accepted methods of halving a person (it's kinda disturbing that these are so common AND accepted, but that's people for you); and those are across the waist or down the middle from top of the head to groin. Neither of these seem entirely accurate to me. First I am not sure my height is so perfectly proportioned that my waist is indeed half way up/down my body. In addition, I am also pretty sure the right half and left half of my body are not at all identical (something I learned from self-portrait drawing in art class, which is pretty much true of everyone, at least before plastic surgery). So this bisection of my body could in no way be a straight line, and in fact would probably look kinda sloppy to someone not realizing the intricacies of the precision cut. Of course then you would have to factor in organs and the lot, and everything I don't have two of would also have to be split in half, and everything that I do have two of where one might be bigger than the other, would also have to be carefully split to ensure even distribution. This division of Josh is definitely the most gruesome and most certainly the one I would want performed least.

Then there is the metaphysical Josh, the theoretical Josh, and/or the hypothetical Josh. This is the most complicated, and probably near impossible way to "1/2 Josh". We have to dive deep, and consider things that can been seen as so shallow, and so righteous, that if this were ancient times, surely we would have been stoned for even considering them. We'd have to first decide what makes a Josh, is it his looks? His personality? His deeds? His actions? A combination of any, if not all of these things? Other things? Other things as well as these things? These are the questions that have plagued man kind forever. There are certainly some extreme groups who could probably tell you what makes you less than a person, or at least less than a person that they are. And I am sure if we knew the answer, then life would probably not be too different, for everyone would be too concerned about increasing or decreasing their personal number; that or how to get everyone's numbers to be even so we could all live our lives in peace and equality, or trying to separate people by numbers so that only certain groups of numbers were with others. Of course we would never reach an international consensus on what would be a numerical value, or weight, of any of these things. We could attempt to simplify the splitting. Tell everyone to think really long and hard, maybe give everyone a year to truly evaluate who they think they are, but in only two singular descriptions (like you can say you are an artist, but not an artist who likes to run while taking pictures, because then you are a runner and a photographer). Go ahead and think about it. How would you be split?

Me, I'd be half Creative Mind, half robot sent from the future to save the life of John Connor.

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

2010-01-29T14:57:00.002-05:00

So apparently on facebook it's celebrity look alike week. It got me thinking as to who I could possibly look like. I frequently get people telling me I remind them of seth rogen, probably because every pudgy-goofy jew reminds people of Seth Rogen. I was currious as to who I could possibly look like, so I decided to try and find out. Apparently, at least in the picture I chose, I look like Paul Newman the most (only 72%) and Topher Grace (really?). I have no idea who some of these people are, but I take Ryan Styles as some kind of weird compliment and Hugh Jackman as further proof that I am really Wolverine.

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

And in the words of that immortal buddy Samuel J. Snodgrass, as he was about to be lead to the guillotine:

2010-01-07T11:00:00.003-05:00

Make 'Em Laugh!

So I completely forgot in my year in review to mention my joining of the improvisation troop, Improvodox. It's be a fun ride so far, and it's really a fantastic troop. And good news for you, if you have any interest at all in being entertained on Monday nights for the next few weeks, here is the facebook link to our show at the Tank:
http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=410360795590&index=1
We will be performing every Monday night through the 15th of February (except on the 1st of February), and every show starts at 9:30pm. I know it's tough, but if you can find the time, you should totally go. You'll enjoy the show, trust me. I promise you a full refund of your ticket price if you show up and don't laugh once (offer doesn't apply to people who don't ever laugh out loud, or who are really good at holding back laughter just to claim a refund).

In other news, 2010 doesn't feel any different yet. Am I the only one who has noticed this? Has my patience gotten worse?

Are We Ready for the Tens? OR The next few years will be inTENSe!

2009-12-30T10:01:00.004-05:00

I think I like the second title for this post better. But you are getting both, so deal with it.

This is the time of year where we would look back on the entirety of it, reflect, dissect, and make empty threats of improvement. However, since a new decade is upon us, I feel it appropriate to reflect on the entire decade before heading into the next. I mean, think about it, we are no longer going to have sensible novelty glasses that represent the year on our faces (they released 2010 glasses, which are at every street vendor and dollar store in NYC, which look uncomfortable and stupid, with that '1' sitting on your nose like that). Also any company that put out forms at the start of the 2000's, thinking they'd be clever and leave the year as '200_' will now have to eliminate that extra '0' on all of their forms to make it '20__', but at least that will hold for another 90 years, and hopefully by then paper forms will be obsolete. Also, if Back to the Future has taught us anything, this coming decade will bring us hover boards, hover cars, self drying clothes, and Jaws XIX! But, also like Back to the Future taught us, we need to go to the past before we go to the future, followed by another trip to the past, then WAY back to the past. So let's take a brief look back at the decade that was.

For me, it's hard to believe that this decade (if we are counting from the year 2000) started in England, on my first trip over seas, winter break, freshman year of college. It's where I got my first, and only, ear piercing, which is remarkably still there, despite not wearing an earing for many years. It also included my last two (and arguably best) summers at camp, topped off with my chance to be a winning color war general in 2001. I was also "starring" and sometimes writing on my own "television show," which, granted was closed circuit and maybe watched by 10 people, but still I did it. Then things really started to pick up. I transferred colleges, and actually graduated. I have been employed by Spencer's Gifts, Starbucks, NBC News Specials, Managed a restaurant, managed three offices of two different real estate companies, got to PA on an actual music video, and started my own freelance graphic design business. My parents moved to Florida, and if I count college, I have lived at 10 different locations over the course of these past ten years. Granted a few of them were for a matter of months, but still, that's a lot of moving. I lived on Central Park West in Manhattan for a few of those years, until I discovered, moved to, and fell in love with Astoria, where I am still residing, in my longest residence of the decade (even longer than my parent's home in Suffern). I was introduced to, and immediately fell in love with DVR cable, and HiDef TVs. I learned that even adults can like animated movies, that my favorite comic books can be made better AND worse by movie adaptations. I have found a new love for reading. I have had a piece of art installed in an actual high end restaurant, which everyone tells me is their favorite part of the entire space. Not to mention, of course, the women. I will not go into numbers, or who or what, but I will state that it was a wild ride that taught me many, many things. The oddest part about it, and probably the best, is that I brought the Decade in dating one Rachel, and I am exiting the decade dating another.

Wow, I feel like I probably could have done the past decade more justice than one paragraph. Oh well. Suck it past decade.

Now if we were to look at this year, it's a pretty good representation of the end of one decade to start a new. It started off on a down note, and is definitely going out on a high. I don't remember too much of the start of this past year, probably because it was ultimately uneventful. I stopped buzz-cutting my head, and actually let it grow for 6 months just for the hell of it. I also had some fun with my mustache, creating a series of pictures which seemed to be very popular among all of you. Then there was one big summer wedding where I got to be in my first wedding party. There was a new (and awesome) beer garden opened up in Astoria (growing my love for the town even more). Then things got a little crazy in the middle there. Then there were more engagements, one of which ended in not just another wedding, and my first experience as a shomer (watcher/observer), but also a new roommate and a newly arranged living room (I am still excited about my new living room, yes). Of course the biggest news of the year, and possibly the decade, as I mentioned before, is probably Rachel. I have really found someone special, and I feel truly blessed and lucky as hell to have done so. I mean, she even was APPROVED by my brother, and glowingly for that matter. Anyone who knows my brother, knows how huge that is! It's only been a few months, but it has a feeling of a much longer time. The biggest event of the year though is finally making the effort to solidify my life's track. Granted I am still laying the rails, and the final destination has yet to be fully realized, but I feel closer to it than I ever have before, and really it makes me feel like the year, the decade, and everything else before hand, worth it.

So here I come 2010. You better be ready for me, because I am comin' atcha fully loaded, with a partner on the same mission that I am. Together we are an unstoppable force.

Happy Holidays, and Such

2009-12-24T10:10:00.004-05:00

So I suppose I should at least update once more before the year is out. Maybe eve do a year in review and what I am thankful for.

Nah, I think I will save that for next week.

But as an update, I recently got back from visiting my parents in Florida. It was a nice relaxing trip where I made out like a bandit in Cosco (as in got a lot of stuff, not went around steeling kisses); getting new under garments (socks, t's, etc), lunch snacks for years, and various other things. I also got some cool gifts, like new bedsheets, and Super Mario Wii. My bro got me District 9, Inglorious Bastards, and Something Something Something Dark Side before we left (which if you note, was actually a week before 2 of those movies were actually available for public release). I'm happy with the haul. Also while in Florida I downloaded all my sister's Glee music (saving a couple of bucks from having to download it myself), so I can now rock out to that stuff (it's a good show and the music is fun, shut up). I also found out that my parents are going to be coming to NYC for Passover, which means I will be hosting my first family seder (minus Blair, who will still be in school) this year! Kinda exciting to cook a feast for my family (and if you saw the videos my dad posted on facebook, you can probably guess how it's going to go, but not entirely).

Also while in Florida, I saw Avatar. It was amazing. That's all I can really say about it. If you haven't seen it yet, do so ASAP! I saw it in regular 3D, and really, I feel like that movie needs to be seen in 3D. Cameron does an amazing job turning 3D from something that just makes things fly at your face, to something that creates a legitimate feeling viewing experience. More than once I had to remind myself that I was not actually on Pandora.

Before leaving for Florida, I had a great Channuka celebration with my girlfriend (that's right, there is a new lady in my life, and if you didn't know this by now, where have you been), Rachel. It was really nice being able to see her before leaving, since I was in Florida for 6 days, and the day after I came home (yesterday), she was leaving for Israel on a late night flight. So I managed to find time to see her after work Yesterday, and spent time before she went off for another 10 days. It really sucks to be apart with someone for so long when you have grown so close to each other. But I am sure we will both power through it, and then we'll be home to have our late new years celebration. I miss her already.

So yeah, I will be doing Christmas this year as I have in years past, ordering a days worth of Chinese Food and watching a movie marathon, never leaving the comfort of my pajamas. This year, the theme is going to be Saturday Night Live stars (only starring cast members, no featured players or hosts (unless of course the hosts were once cast members), since the first season). I spent last night tabbing the dvds in my collection to see which would qualify, and there is quite a tremendous collection. It will be interesting to see which get picked for viewing.

Hope everyone else has an equally productive and happy holiday!

WTF Moment of the Day

2009-12-02T10:57:00.002-05:00

So dudes can do this http://www.weirdasianews.com/2009/12/02/japanese-man-marries-nonexistant-virtual-girlfriend/, but they can't marry other dudes. We are a doomed species.

The N Train Will Help You Get Your Zzz's

2009-11-24T15:28:00.003-05:00

Ok, I know I am just setting myself up for trouble here, but why fight the inevitable when you can create it. What?

Anyway, a certain someone sent me this link, which I find incredibly distracting and funny, so I figured I would share it with y'all. It's a website filled with pictures of people falling asleep on the train, sometimes in very funny ways. Since you know me, and know that I am the guy who also falls asleep on the train, then you know this is obviously a webpage I am going to end up on. Well now I am making sure I will end up there by having you, my readers, make an effort to catch me sleeping on the train, take a picture of it, and send it in to this site. It's not like it will be too hard to do. Just ride the train with me late at night, or make sure I am really tired before hand, or just on my way home from work. Either way, chances are 99% you will catch me dozing. When you do, take the picture. Maybe we could innundate the page with so many images of me sleeping on the train that I will get my own tribute page. FUN!

The Perfect Song

2009-11-06T11:48:00.005-05:00

It's probably one of the hardest things to find. There are so many factors to consider for so many different reasons. Of course, sometimes the song doesn't even exist, so you have to settle for the "next best" song, which ultimately leaves you dissatisfied with the lack of perfection. Sure, if you had the ability, you could probably correct this problem on your own, issue over. But for those like me, who only dream of possessing musical talents, this isn't exactly easily accomplished. Of course there are times when the perfect song is right in front of you. That just makes things super easy. I wonder what early humans did to find the perfect song. They probably wrote some amazing tribal stuff.

In other news, I want this, and anyone who doesn't is probably evil and you should avoid them at all costs. Amazing DVD that I MUST own!

Like a Really Good Movie, For Your Tummy

2009-10-21T10:42:00.003-04:00

So last night I finally ate at Bare Burger in Astoria, which opened it's doors earlier this summer. For those who don't know, Bare Burger is a little burger restaurant that features all organic stuff. You know, the kind of hippie food where you don't feel like a total fruit-cake eating there (but you can if you want to...they have salads). Unlike the usual burger joint which usually doesn't offer too much of a burger meat selection, Bare offers not just a high-quality beef burger as well as the typical Turkey, Grilled Chicken, Veggie, and Portabella fare, but also Ostrich, Bison, Elk and Lamb (for an extra $1 or $2)! Totally worth it! sadly, they don't offer bear, but those selections are still pretty awesome. You order by picking one of 7 varieties of preparation, and then your choice of meat and bun (or if you are "watching yourself" you can go for a wrap or just over lettuce). Their french fries are friend in peanut oil and are offered with a variety of unique and awesome dipping sauces (the Orange and Ginger mayo is Asiantastic). Sadly, they don't have a liquor license yet, so don't go there expecting a perfect beer and burger combo, but they have Boylan's soda on tap and supposedly amazing milk shakes (didn't try because I didn't want to overwhelm myself on the first outing). There is no doubt in my mind that I will be going back to try everything, and I might even stop by for a weekend breakfast.

Hooray for Astoria!

Things to Watch

2009-10-19T11:02:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, as you all know, I am a modern day Chance the Gardener, and I like to watch. So here are some things I have watched as of late:

Where The Wild Things Are (the movie):
Ok, so I have a theory that if you didn't read this book (or have it read to you) as a child, then you are either really old, OR one of the saddest people ever. And as someone who loved this book just as much as anyone else, I too had many a childhood fantasy about being my own Max and escaping into a world of monsters who worship me as a king. The iconic art work (which, an interesting side note, the Wild Things were originally designed as horses, but Maurice Sendak's publisher said his horse drawings sucked and he should just make them monsters. I guess that's a win for the publishers) and imagery has stayed with me my entire life, and I remember looking at those pages more than I remember the book I read this morning on the subway.

That being said, I wanted to see the movie as much as I didn't want to see it. After all, Hollywood has a history of embracing my childhood loves (Spider-Man, Wolverine, Curious George, The Transformers, GI Joe, Garfield, etc etc), and more often than not, destroying them into horrible dribble which make me curse the fact that I ever loved these things in the first place. So hearing that Spike Jonze was at the helm, with Dave Eggers assisting the screenplay, my hopes were more positive. Upon seeing the movie, all I can say is wow. For the most part they held true to what they could from the book, and the story they added to it (because seriously, you can't expect a a 13 page book to really stretch into a 100 minute movie) just made sense. Of course what probably appealed to me most was the fact that Jonze insisted on using Muppets to play the creatures, using practical effects whenever possible, and CG only when appropriate (the detail in the facial movements was flawless). I think when directors go the CG route in creature effects, they forget that what kind of effect that can have on the viewer. If I didn't know any better, I'd say those Wild Things were real, and it allowed me to escape into Max's imaginary world in a way that not even the book can accomplish.

So, if you loved the book, and have a child-like sense of whimsy, go see this movie. If you are a curmudgeon, go back to yelling at those kids to stop making so much noise while you are trying to watch Bill O'Reilly.

Modern Family (on ABC):
If you are not watching this show, stop whatever you are doing (including reading this blog) and go watch it on ABC.com RIGHT NOW! Go ahead, I'll wait right here. Done yet? Are your eyes to blurry from laughing tears? Ok, take a minute and go dry your eyes. See? Funny, right? It's by FAR the best new show on television and one of the best comedies to come out in years. It not only uses the single camera comedy theme (which I now declare is the better way to make a funny show), but it also provides us with characters who are incredibly fleshed out and work well together. It's the first "family sitcom" that I have enjoyed since I was just a boy in a family, instead of a man-boy who is still in a family but doesn't live in a family home despite the fact that his brother is one of his roommates. Seriously, it's worth the 30 minutes (22 if you dvr it), and you have no excuse not to watch.

Zombieland:
Ok, so it's not too much of a secret that I have an irrational fear of zombies. Irrational because zombies, as far as we know, are not real...yet. If they were real, I think my fear will only aid my survival, since I have made myself watch enough movies that I know the things to do, and not to do, in Zombie situations. Zombieland, thankfully, is not so much a "scary" zombie movie as it is a funny comedy taking place in a world of zombies. Even if you have a low tolerance for fear, you still might enjoy this movie. Unless you hate comedy. Then you should probably go back to yelling at those kids.

Flash Forward (on ABC):
Ok, so the premise of this show is "simple," everyone on earth blacks out at the same time and has a look into the future for two and a half minutes, then wake up to the massive chaos of a world where everyone blacked out for two and a half minutes (vehicles crash, planes crash, trains crash, people drown, etc etc). The future they all look forward to is April 24, 2010 (conveniently at season finale time, surprised no one flash forwarded to spoiling how Lost was going to end). The first episode hooked me in pretty well, being full of chaos and conspiracy and everything that could hold my attention for an hour (or 44 minutes on a dvr). But as the series progresses, I can't get over the fact that I seem to be less and less interested in what is going on. Maybe the characters just aren't in it enough for me, or maybe it's that they are trying too hard to replace Lost, or maybe it's simply the fact that we have seen the future, and I have issues with fighting the future and escaping fates, etc. I don't know, I'll still watch it, give the season a chance, but I am not holding out much hope. It just better get awesome, or I'm out.

The Invention of Lying:
I love Ricky Gervais. I think his written comedy is fantastic, and he is a very funny actor (his stand up is not so great, but his other stuff is good enough that it doesn't matter). This is a perfect Ricky movie. It has a fantastic cast, and a great story (and even a little religion bashing, and who doesn't love that?). It will probably be out of theaters soon, so if you don't get out to see it, make sure you rent it when you can. You will most likely like it.

Improvodox:
This is a Jewish improv and sketch troupe which I am now a proud member of. We don't have any shows scheduled any time soon, but keep your eyes open here and facebook and twitter and everywhere else for whenever we do.

A Hypothetical Question, From a Friend

2009-10-07T09:44:00.003-04:00

A friend of mine from college, Dom, posted this interesting hypothetical on his blog, and I thought it would be worth sharing with my readers, and something really interesting to ponder all day and then have nightmares about.

Somehow someone produced two unauthorized movies about your life.

The first is an independent documentary. The documentary features vignettes of you going about your life completely unaware of the camera crew that must've been hiding in the bushes (or as the bushes) in order to procure this footage. It also includes uncomfortably honest interviews with all your family, friends, and enemies.

The Second movie is a major motion picture from Hollywood. It has all the people you would have suspected playing you and all of your friends and family. Critics and audiences alike find they like the film and it has both a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has a 9 star rating on IMDB.

Which film are you more interested in watching?

Me personally, I can't decide. On one hand, if the Hollywood movie is THAT good, I'd obviously want to see that. On the other hand, I would have trouble rationalizing knowing that this honest information out there from my friends and family and NOT ever hearing it for myself. especially if that documentary is also seen by many people.

Right Over My Head

2009-09-30T11:21:00.002-04:00

So you ever see a movie as a kid, and then not see it for a while, then see it as an adult and be totally blown away that not only did you have NO idea what the movie was really about, but why your parents even let you see it in the first place? My favorite example of this is the movie "Radio Flyer" starring Tom Hanks and Elijah Wood and the kid from Jurassic Park.

I am sure most of us saw this movie when it first came out, or on TV shortly there after. When I was a kid, I saw the movie a few times, mostly because I liked that I also had a red Radio Flyer wagon growing up, and I liked the fact that these kids were acting out their dreams of building a functioning flying machine, as well as their dreams of creating magic potions. And that's all that movie was to me, two brothers who had a dog and a giant turtle who wanted to see Buffalo, make magic potions out of turtle poop, and build a fully functioning aircraft out of a little red wagon, despite being no older than 10 or 11 or whatever and having no real knowledge of aerodynamics, or any physics. PLus there was a weird guy with a limp at a gas station. That was all there was to it, making it an over-all happy movie, despite the dog being badly injured at some point (although never remembered/understood why).

Then I grew up. At some point the movie was on TV, and I said "hey 'Radio Flyer'! I haven't seen that in years and I remember enjoying it a lot. I think I will watch it and enjoy the innocent themes the movie projects." It was about 5 minutes in that I started to wonder what was wrong with me as a child. Did you know that the movie in question is about child/domestic abuse? And not just neglect, but flat out horrible beatings by a drunk father who is in and out of prison. Seriously. That's what it's about, and that's why the kids try to build a plane and why they try to create magic and hide electric chords in the oven, and fantasize about giant talking buffalo. I was blown away. How is it possible that such horrible acts could escape me through the course of the ENTIRE MOVIE ON MULTIPLE VIEWINGS!? It's weird how kids can willingly ignore such things when they are unfamiliar with such themes.

Another movie that may shock you is Labrynth. Did you realize that that's all about puppy mills?

I Sometimes Take Other People's Ideas and Make Them My Own

2009-09-25T10:00:00.003-04:00

But I'll give credit where credit is due. My friend Julia (JKFortySeven, linked in my blog roll, her's is most likely funnier than mine will be) put up a post, which I think is just a smashing good idea.

As you may, or may not, know, the 10 days in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is a time of reflection on your past sins of the year/life, so that by the time Yom Kippur rolls around you can fast with a purpose and effectively clean your conscious (or something like that...hey, I never said i was the BEST Jew). So with that in mind, I'd like to take the opportunity to air some apologies, in an effort to make sure they get across, as well as to weed out anyone who may be cyber-stalking me (in some cases, names were left off to protect the innocent, in others, details were left out to protect the innocent and myself).

To My Mom: Sorry for never having anything interesting to talk about whenever you call. Hopefully this year will bring some fun stuff. Also sorry for not taking the initiative to call you as much, but really it's the same reason in apology #1 to you.

To My Dad: Sorry for having to ask for money sometimes. It will stop soon. I SWEAR!

To My Brother: Sorry for acting like"Brother Dad" and I promise to try harder. It's tough to grow beyond 25 years of habit.

To My Sister: I am sorry I don't call you enough, but then again, you don't call me enough either. Also sorry I will not see you on your birthday this year. Also sorry that you get lost a lot (not that I have anything to do with that, I just feel sorry for you)

To My Coworkers: Sorry if I am inexcusably a jerk to you on random occasions, but if you think about it, it's not always inexcusable.

To THE Chickpea: I just want you to know I have never blamed you for anything, and you have been on my mind as of late. I wanted to say this in email, or better in person, but this saves us both a little face (well maybe less me). Feel free to contact me if you want...

To Women I Have Met on JDate: Sorry things didn't work out, but obviously one of the two of us just wasn't in it.

To The Women I Met on Match.com: I told you ahead of time that I wasn't looking for a relationship with a non-Jewish girl. Sorry if that was at all misleading.

To The NYSC: Sorry for not going to you so much this year. It's been rough, but I am still paying you, so this apology is kinda half-assed, much like the time I spend with you.

To Old Friends on Facebook: Sorry I added you just so I could compare our lives and secretly hope that mine is (at least) slightly better (although not often the case). [this entry idea was taken almost directly from Julia, although she just wanted to see if her friends got fat, where as I include weight-gain as part of the quality of life package].

To Everyone I am Friends With On Facebook: Sorry for all the stupid crap I post. This apology does not mean it's going to stop any time soon. At least I don't play those stupid farm or mafia games.

To The Guncle: Sorry for resenting you sometimes. I think things will be easier when we don't have to have a working relationship.

To L-Wags: Sorry for that joke that obviously went way to far, and any other jokes which might also go way to far in the near future.

To My Wallet: Sorry for you being so empty all the time.

To My Bank Account: Sorry for you being so empty all the time.

To My Stomach: Sorry I can't feed you right. As an excuse, see the previous two apologies.

To My Roommate: Sorry for being such a nudge when it comes to apartment maintenance over the past 4 years. I am going to miss you when you move out. Making gay joke with my brother, like I do with you, just won't be the same.

To My (Hopefully) Future Roommate: Sorry if I walk around in my underpants more than you'd like, but seriously, it's my apartment to, and you should just be thankful that I have enough decorum to wear at least that.

To People on the Subway: Sorry if I like to sit down while I read and listen to my music. Please forgive me for not noticing you, I have created my own little world.

No apologies to the crazy.

To The People Who Walk By My Store Front Office: Sorry for passing judgment on ALL of you, even the regulars.

To Anyone Whose Wedding I am Going to in the Next Year or so: Sorry your gifts from me are going to be from the cheaper end of the registry, unless anyone wants to go in on something with me.

Um, that's all I can think of. Sadly this list isn't very funny at all. But you read it, you can't unread it! Stay tuned for more TALES OF INTEREST!

Ow, My Leg!

2009-09-09T10:19:00.003-04:00

I assure you, my leg is fine. That is just what I am going with for a title for this post, because it's kinda related.

Because it's on TV tonight, and it's been an addition to my bills as of late, I wanted to talk about the current health-care plan trying to be put forth by Obama. Since this is my blog, and the Internets is freedoms, I will say very proudly, I am all for it; and frankly, I really don't understand why so many people seem to be against it. The only reason I can see someone being against it is if they are so healthy they never have to see a doctor EVER, and they make enough money where co-payments and such would not tear a hole in their bank account any larger than a pin prick. SO yeah, if you never experienced how "wonderful" our current health-care situation is in this country, OK, be against it. But seriously, don't buy into the "anti" propaganda. First, look at all the people who are uninsured, and these are not just the poor and the societal "leeches", these are people with good jobs who contribute to our daily society and culture who frankly just can't afford it. It's these people who would benefit MOST from this new plan, but that doesn't mean we all also wouldn't stand to gain a little bit more security in our daily lives.

Me personally, I have insurance through my work, but that doesn't mean that I feel at all insured. Frankly, I feel like I am putting a good chunk of my paycheck so I can pay slightly less than a lot of money in case I need to see a doctor for what ever reason, providing that doctor is on my plan, and my insurance company deems me "worthy" of whatever treatment I am going to the doctor for in the first place. I have been suffering from stress, mostly due to financial issues, and if I were to see a professional about it, all I would do is stress more about adding to my financial issues with co-payments that I, for certain, can not afford. I do not blame my job for this insurance plan, because really, there is no insurance company that doesn't involve co-payments as part of a service, granted some are less, and some will even work on a sliding scale, but then you are probably sacrificing service and network coverage.

If health-care were socialized, I think one fear people have is the so-called, Sarah Palin dubbed "death panels." Seriously? What do you think every insurance company is doing whenever you enter a hospital? They are weighing the value of your life and well being. Here is a scenario for you: You are on a decent health insurance plan, nothing spectacular because you are nothing more than a mid-level employee at your job. One day your spouse tells you they are having horrible stomach pains and can't function, so you take them to the hospital, fearing the worst. After sitting in the crowded emergency room for a few hours, getting sneezed, bled, and thrown-up on, and after you have filled out all your paperwork, you finally get to see a doctor. Oh wait, it's not actually a doctor, but an ER nurse (not to down play nurses) who is going to be tending to you as well as the 6 other patients you are sharing the hallway with because there are no available rooms to be cared for in. It's OK though, they have a bunch of privacy curtains, so there is no worry about embarrassment over your illness, etc. The nurse gives you a quick run down, asking you a bunch of questions which you already answered in your paper work, never really looking at you, and never really taking the time to really diagnose you. Your spouse's stomach problems are nothing to be worried about, there has been a bug going around, it should pass in a few days, the nurse tells you. Shouldn't we see a doctor? No, it's fine. The nurse then has your spouse lie down on a gurney while they hook an iv of fluids up to their arm to get them "re-hydrated" as well as prescribes some rediculously priced meds, which the nurse says you can buy the over the counter versions of, but "doesn't recommend it". You eventually go home after paying your co-pay for the "visit". Two weeks later, the pain in your wife's stomach has only gotten worse. You got back to the hospital, repeat the steps, to see an actual doctor who then tells you this might be more serious and recommends a specialist. That specialist isn't on your plan. You explain this to the doctor, see if he can recommend someone else, and he tells you that he could, but his recommendation of the first doctor is the best one. This is the health of your wife, so you choose the first recommendation, not caring about the cost. The specialist is booked for a few weeks, so the next appointment won't be until then. By now it's been a month that your spouse has been having these problems. The specialist sees your spouse, runs all sorts of tests and xrays. You pay the ridiculously priced bill for the visit AND the tests (two seperate charges, none covered by insurance, due to "out of network service"), and go home, having to wait for the results. The specialist calls you both back to his office for the results (another paid visit), to tell you that your spouse has a very aggressive stomach tumor, which if caught earlier, might have been managed. Your hopes of survival are just enough for your insurance to cover your spouse's stay in a hospital, as well as all the tests and treatments they might need. Of course there are still the co-pays to consider, and this whole experience so far has put a serious drain on your bank account, and you still have children to take care of. You try to ask your boss for a raise, your boss on the other hand has felt that your lack of focus at your job over the past month, as well as your constantly missing days and coming late and going in early (all because your spouse has been scarily sick) are not worth supporting through the company. You are let go, your insurance company gives you the option to cobra your plan for 3 months. Your wife is able to stay in the hospital, only the co-pay costs are now slightly more, and the variety of the tests seem to get more abundant. You find it difficult to find a job three months after being fired, but you get two part time jobs so you can get the insurance coverage you need for you and your family. Of course that doesn't kick in until after your first 30 days. You try to barter your old insurance company, AND the new insurance company to cover that one month interim so your spouse can stay in the hospital, because you can not afford to cover it on your own. They both give you the thumbs down. The hospital doesn't let you stay since you aren't covered. Your spouse sadly passes away while at home because they weren't getting the treatment they needed because the health insurance companies and the hospital didn't want to take on your financial burden. There is no one to sue. No one to blame.

So you tell me who the death panels are.

As much as we'd like to not trust the government (which is the freedom of democracy, to not trust those you elect to lead you, and lord knows I am a starch advocate of that), it's not like there are other institutions we don't let them control. What about Police and Fire Departments? Public Schools? Transportation? National/State Parks? For the most part all these things seem to work fine, and in many cases better than the privatized equivalents. Yes, there are flaws in all these systems, but they are still government controlled, and still work, and the percentage of our money that goes into them is minimal compared to what we put into our health insurance. If you have any doubts, actually talk to people from countries that have public health care, such as Canada, Austrailia, Germany, and even those awful French, to name a few. They all seem to have a much better time getting proper medical attention/medication when needed; and on average, live longer/healthier lives. So tell me, why the fear, really?

Ascension

2009-08-17T11:04:00.002-04:00

I'm back! Well you know what they say, absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. Or is that absence? Not sure. All I know is that both with hurt your grades in school (hey, that's pretty funny. DON'T STEAL MY JOKE, INTERNET!).

So yeah, no posts in a while, because nothing really new to report. This past weekend I got to do two cool things.

1) I found out my phone was do for an upgrade. I have been wondering this for about a month, because I knew it was coming up, but I didn't know when. Of course to save money, I am on a family plan with my parents, and since it's set up under my dad's account, I don't know the passwords to find out such things. So my dad was in town on Saturday, and we were walking around Astorizle thinking about what to do for a few hours while we waited for my brother to get out of work, and we passed by a Sprint store. I said "hey, can we go find out when my phone expires?" So we did, and it turns out it expired at the beginning of the month (wow, do I have a good sense of time, or what). So I ended up getting me a B-berry Curve (I wanted the newer one, but that extra $100 just wasn't in the budget). I am enjoying it so far, and of course, I am hating it for the same reason I hated other people having them. They seriously are addictive. All day on Saturday once I had it in my possession, I couldn't stop fidgeting with it, installing apps, playing with the messenger, uploading music and customizing ring tones, playing brick breaker, etc. Crack Berry indeed! We should totally trade BPNs because there aren't enough ways to stay in touch with people as it is.

2) I saw District 9 this weekend, TWICE! I didn't intend to see it twice, the plan was to only see it once, but the second viewing was definitely worth it. The plan was to just spend the Saturday afternoon with my dad and brother until my dad had to catch his bus. Of course hanging out with my family usually entails some kind of movie or theater viewing, but since theater is expensive, we opted for movie. There were only two that we all really wanted to see. The Goods, and District 9. We have prepaid tickets for Regal Cinemas, so we obviously wanted to use those. I already had plans to see District 9 the next day with the Daves, so I wanted to see the Goods. Guess which movie wasn't playing at the Regal. So we went to District 9, which was a last minute decision, so we ended up sitting in the front of the theater right under the screen. I haven't done that in a while, and although I was physically comfortable, the movie is FAR to shaky to follow at that proximity. It was still a great movie, and the second viewing I was able to get a better appreciation of the visuals on top of the movie's other excellent qualities. I must 100% suggest everyone go see this movie, even if you don't like sci-fi movies. It's not so much a sci-fi movie as it is a movie with a great message that happens to have CGI aliens at the heart of it. I don't want to give too much away, but I must insist that you go to the theaters and give the movie a shot. I normally don't see movies in the theater twice, but for this one, it was totally worth it!

An Interesting Time In My Life

2009-07-15T15:51:00.005-04:00

Well I never thought this day would come, and I really mean ever. I have now come to the point in my life where it seems everyone in, what I would consider to be, my circle of friends (and even the outer-circle of more than just acquaintances such as camp friends, etc) is in a long-term serious relationship on the verge of marriage, engaged (or as I like to say now, engorged), and/or married. A few months ago I got to attend (and was graciously a part of) one of my best friend's (absolutely amazing) weddings, and just this past weekend my other best friend/roommate got engaged, and since he is religious, will probably be married before the year is out. By my count, that puts me just a couple yards from being the last single (and straight) male in the aforementioned circle (and it's outer-rim).

How did it come to this? All my life I, and my friends, were fairly certain I would most likely be the one to settle down first, followed, slowly, by everyone else. Maybe the idea came from the fact that I was always so into the idea of being in love, and all that romantic schlock. Maybe it came from that and all the choices I made in my past relationships, based on these ideals. Maybe the idea came from the fact that I just seemed like "that kinda guy". Whatever the case may be, it's certainly not the the way things turned out, for whatever reasons, good or bad. I suppose that's how life works in general, "The best laid plans of mice and men..." etc.

Don't get me wrong, I am not writing this because I am sitting here all lonely and mopey or whatever, because that is not the case. While I might not be in a relationship, it's not necessarily because I can't get one, it's mostly because right now my timing isn't right for having one. I write this more to complain about how much the timing sucks. Kinda like when you haven't seen your girlfriend/wife for a while because she was on a trip and her first few nights back she can't do anything because of certain "lady issues". It's that kind of suck. No matter where I go or who I hang out with, I end up being the third/fifth/other-odd-numbered wheel, which gets especially awkward when it gets to that inevitable point couples getting coupley, leaving me there to proclaim "well I can stay here and cuddle myself or go home," and because my lazy usually out-weighs my awkward, I will stay and suffer the consequences.

What's my point to all this? I am not really sure. I mean I guess I already made the one point about how it sucks; and in my typical fashion, I didn't set up a back-up plan. Another point is that being the only straight single guy opens up all sorts of other problems. For one, a man needs other men in his life that he can relate to, and when none of them are single, that's a pretty big relationship gap. I need to be able to have beers with someone and complain/cheer being single while we unsuccessfully go out to pick up women. Another, it now becomes instantly harder for me to make spur of the moment plans with my friends to do various guy things like pick-up road trips, late-work-nights at a random new bar, or an impromptu trip to a strip club...not that I have ever really done or planned any of these things, but what if I was suddenly inspired to do so.

It's also not like I don't like any of my friends' lady-counterparts (and in some cases my lady friends' guy-counterparts). Pretty much all of them are awesome and in some cases more fun to hang out with than the people I was originally friends with. I myself have never brought anyone to the group who fit in as well (although the friends did a pretty awesome job of acting accepting anyway). It's also nice that I never really get treated like the odd-wheel, although I wonder how much I miss out on by being such. At Camp Visiting/Alumni day this past Sunday, a joke was made about how I was the only single guy of a core group left, and I would be the one showing up at all the group family BBQs with the random 21 year old Asian girlfriend. I had no idea I would ever be THAT guy.

::Added 07-16::
There is another element to this that makes it different for a whole new generation, and that's social networking. This more goes along with the outer rim more so than the inner sanctum. Social networking makes all this information, that would otherwise fall by the wayside, is now not only easily accessible, but also kind of forced down my throat. Particularly with Facebook, it seems I can't even check my email without being inundated with email notifications of further responses to "mazel tov"s and "congrats"s and "oh really, that's awesome"s that I left on various friends walls. Then of course there is also the pictures and status updates which litter my wall whenever I log on, making all the happy news of other people completely unavoidable. My only escape from such things are my bored searches on JDate, where the women are about as cookie-cutter as they are Jewish (seriously, it seems every Jewish girl in NYC is either a speech pathologist, whatever that is, or a teacher, or studying law/is a lawyer. Where are my hot, nerdy ladies?); or Twitter, where the actual friends I follow are grossly outweighed by the celebrities like Rainn Wilson, Will Wheaton ("Whhill Whheaton"), and Paul Fieg, who never seem to remind me of my singledom (despite the fact that by having the time to read so many posts might say something). ::End Addition::

I guess my over all point is that I hope one day soon, I too can bring in my own well accepted counterpart to the group, whichever group I may be hanging out with that night, and that she'll like my friend's better than hers. I also hope it won't take too much longer to get into that place in my life where I will find her; and that the dating process isn't such a pain in the ass.

An Open Request To The World

2009-07-13T17:26:00.001-04:00

If somebody calls you, don't just call them back. Instead take a second and listen to the message. Who knows, they probably didn't want you to call back at that number.

Two Years Too Late Movie Review

2009-07-02T10:03:00.002-04:00

So I finally saw "Mr. Brooks" starring Kevin Costner the other night, and I have to say, while the film was enjoyable, it was by no means the great movie that everyone told me it would be. For those who don't know, the story of Mr. Brooks is the story of a cereal killer and his imaginary friend (played rather plainly by the wonderful William Hurt). I am not ruining anything by telling you that, because the movie never does anything to make you think otherwise (also the movie has been around for 2 years now, so the spoiler expiration date has passed). This sort of non-acknowledgement fills the entire movie, which is what keeps it from being great. Sure the underlying premise of a killer who is in group rehab to try and curb his habit is nice, but not if you don't build a good story around it. The whole movie was pretty much just waiting for questions to be answered while more questions as asked, and ultimately none get answered (kinda like the feeling you got watching the first 6 episodes of the second season of Lost, and unfortunately this was a movie, not a TV show.) Right at the beginning of the movie we are introduced to Mr. Brooks as a good community man, and a good husband and father. A man who went from nothing to riches in the booming industry of...boxes? We then find out he has a pottery studio in his lavish mansion (why?) which he also uses as a sort of "bat cave" base for his murders (never commits them there, but it's where he secretly stores his meticulously clean and organized murder gear.) His first murder in the movie is also his first murder in two years (no explanation as to why the break in murdering other than an unanswered "I promised her." Promised who? When? What?) In his two year absence, he becomes sloppy, and doesn't realize the couple he murdered left their curtains open with a perfect view to the apartment complex across the street. Mr. Brooks takes this opportunity to stare across the street at the building before closing the window (such a stupid move for a supposed "professional".) Then we get introduced to 2 other characters, the broken detective who has been hunting "the thumb print killer" since he started (played surprisingly well by Demi Moore), and the "black mailer" played by Dane cook (who, I must admit, was not entirely sucky.) We also meet Mr. Brooks' daughter, who has mysteriously dropped out of her freshman year of college. We got enough story going for ya? Well it's not done. There is so much more that would kill me to get into, just because it would be so much typing. What I will tell you is that none of these stories really go anywhere you might expect or want them too. It wasn't until the end of the movie that I realized nothing really interesting has developed throughout the picture. There is, however, a moment of redemption toward the end that was quite shocking, although the movie continues for another few minutes totally making that one moment completely wasted.

The movie seemed like it had so many good ideas, but couldn't decide which one to use. So instead of just picking one and focusing in on it, it started all of them, and half finished, maybe, one of them. If you are going to make a movie about a psycho killer in therapy to try and stop his psycho killing, work with that, elaborate on it, and build it into an interesting introspective on the inner workings of this man. If you are going to make it a story about a man hiding his true self from his family, do that, and maybe get to a point where his family is dangerously close to finding out and/or becoming victims themselves. maybe another family in his past which did find out. If it's gonna be a story about a killer and his imaginary friend, maybe there is more than one imaginary person involved, maybe everything is imaginary (then you are treading on American Psycho territory). If it's gonna be a blackmail story, make it one where the blackmailer has something more to gain, and the killer has something more to lose. If it's gonna be a story of a killer and a detective, make them cross paths a little more, or maybe give them a deeper/darker connection than we, the audience, are expecting. Mr. Books would have been a much better movie if it were a TV series, or even 6 part miniseries, where all of these ideas could have been elaborated on. Still, at it's root, it's still a fun watch, just don't expect to come out of it with any sort of understanding.

Faux Show Live, Finally Up on Facebook

2009-06-05T22:06:00.001-04:00

Yeah, it's not that funny, but I finally uploaded all these videos to YouTube. So check them out. and please, don't judge us too badly...

My Hang-Ups with Celebrities Hang-Ups

2009-06-01T11:05:00.003-04:00

So I don't know how many of you watched the MTV Movie Awards last night, but I did. I try to watch them every year, even though by this point I am so disconnected to the "target" audience of the show, because usually, the show is still funny, with drunk celebrities and sometimes the sketches are pretty funny too. This year Andy Samberg hosted, and the show was written by him and his Lonely Island crew. They did not disappoint with songs and sketches that were about as entertaining as any SNL digital short, and it was clear that MTV practically gave them Carte Blanc. Of course there were some who used the platform to promote whatever agendas (Miley gave a shout out to "G-d", because I am sure He was all about her getting a bucket of gold-plated popcorn, and Jim Carey asked for the over-turning of Prop 8, which should be turned over, but I hate it when people use award shows for such things; to name a few). But of course the biggest shocker of the night was not how trashed Kristen Stewart obviously was, or Keifer Sutherland's spot on break down for his love of Ben Stiller's acting abilities (they really should work together); it came from, who else, recently "rehabbed" Eminem.

It all started with Bruno...no, it goes back farther...it all started with Triumph at the MTV Movie Awards, however long ago that was, when Eminem could not handle the puppet's ribbing on the grumpy rap star, and proceeded to wail on the puppet until Robert Smigel decided the abuse of his hand was enough to move onto the next celebrity who could handle a roasting. Eminem made fun of it the next year while presenting with a puppet he actually liked, Special Ed from Crank Yankers. Of course we come to a few years ago when Em checks himself into rehab because of his addictions and destructive/explosive behavior. Cut to Em out of rehab and releasing his new album. Everyone is happy, because this obviously talented artist, who drops awesome beats, and makes some pretty smart descitions is releasing a new album, and is promoting it by performing two songs at the MTVMAs, neither of which have anything to do with movies, or even, really, MTV (since MTV has changed the M from meaning Music to Moronicrealityprogramming). And he rocked that sh*t OUT! Both my brother and I, neither of whom are really into the "rap" scene, couldn't help but compliment how much we liked the songs, and how great it was to see him back on his feet, back where he belongs, and seemingly making those career moves which put him on top in the first place. Cut to exactly 20 minutes later, Bruno is announced as the next presenter. He comes flying across the ceiling of the auditorium, dressed as the gayest angel in the history of gay angels, complete with over-exposing jockstrap and thong combo. The wings "accidentally" get tangled in the wires, and he is "forced" to be lowered rather quickly to the seats below, upside down, right on top of, Eminem. Now Em was supposedly "rehabbed" and supposedly over and/or dealing with his "rage" issues. However, upong seeing the comedian Sacha Beran Cohen's scrotum and rear end all up in his face, uttering the words "get this mother f*cker off of me" and having his "posse" beat upon the jokester. Em then stormed out of the auditorium like a kid who was told he couldn't get another box of candy at the movies because it would spoil his McDonald's dinner. Neither my brother, nor I, knew how to react. Yes the bit was funny, and Eminem being an "avid" homophobe certainly becomes the perfect target, much like, I am sure, the people we will see Bruno interacting with in his new movie, but the responce and the beating were so awkward and childish, that we were so unsettled and felt slightly uncomfortable the rest of the show. I mean, yes, if someone were to drop out of the sky and stick their "business" all up "in my grill", I would be upset, and try to rectify the problem, unless I was a celebrity at the MTV MOVIE AWARDS, and the person falling on me was a comedian known for doing incredibly shocking and inappropriate things. I find it hard to believe that Eminem never watched the Ali G show, and/or saw Borat and laughed himself silly. Why he would get SO offended is beyond me. I think after the initial shock wore off, if it was me in Em's place, I would have played along, maybe even slapped Sacha's rump, because frankly, it was in my face, and that would probably be funny. Of course it also led my bro and I to immediately retract our earlier statements about the rapper, and trust that he would most likely be returning to rehab very soon. If not, at least some kind of anger management course, and maybe even a few lessons in TOLERANCE! It's 2009, time to start getting over some of your personal problems with other cultures. I personally love the gays, I think they are awesome. I can understand people not liking them, it happens, you can't force people to like everything. But just because you don't like something, doesn't mean you can't ACCEPT them, or at least tolerate them enough to not cause problems. Eminem is a d*ck, and that's all there is to it. I will just have to seperate the music from the man, just like I do with so many artists, which is such a shame.

And one more thing before I go. Can someone PLEASE explain to me this love of Twilight? I don't get it. It's a romance, but with one of the characters being a vampire (done before). Also, no one gets vampired, EVER (to be vampired = to be killed or viciously wounded by a vampire). Also the love story is lame and over-done. Also, and I think this really needs to be pointed out more than once, when you have a story about vampires, you need to have vampires vampiring on humans, and then those humans also becoming vampires. If you are making a story about a vampire who doesn't vampire, then it should be a comedy, because that is a FUNNY concept. I mean, yes, it works in True Blood, but that's because in True Blood, Bill the vampire STILL VAMPIRES! Why? Because it's a primal urge, and what are vampires but humans who have become immortal and develop an uncontrollable lust for VAMPIRING! Also, there is now sex in Twilight, probably because of the Mormon over-tones, but there are two things that vampires have always been about, VAMPIRING, and the sexual innuendo (and practice) that vampiring represents. So, Twilight, no sex, no vampiring despite presence of many vampires, Mormon over-tones, a trite, overly dramatic, love story, and NO VAMPIRING despite presence of many vampires! What's the deal people?!? Did I miss something? You fans are crazy! Also, Robert Patterson is ugly.

Where Have I Been?!

2009-05-27T11:36:00.005-04:00

All over the place.

I had an amazing weekend full of nonstop fun. It started on Thursday night when I went to my first Yankee game at the new stadium. The stadium is nice, doesn't feel like Yankee stadium, but it's nice to not have to wait in super long lines, or feel crowded when exiting the stadium, or even just walking around. It's always a nice feeling to know that if you spill soda/food on yourself, it's your fault, and not because 20 different a**holes bumped into you on your way from the food stand to your seat (didn't spill on myself this game, but who knows what future Yankees games hold for me)! Then had to leave the game early because my dad, sister, and her friends were coming into town and crashing at my place. The girls were all going on Birthright from JFK, and my dad decided to take the opportunity to escort the girls up from FL to visit his sons. So I spent all of Friday with my dad and my sister and my sister's friends exploring the city. Finally got to try the Shake Shack on 77th and Columbus, and it's awesome. Friday night we saw Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian, and I have to say, it was a very fun movie, with great comedic performances throughout.

Saturday I woke up early to fly up to Buffalo for my man Dave's bachelor party. It was a dude-friendly good time, starting at a bar, then going to a Bison's game, then going to an apartment for more fun, and then a bowling alley, and then another bar (at the bowling alley, but still), then back to the same apartment for poker and more fun. I'd say it was a solid 13 hours of debauchery. It was awesome seeing some of my old pals from Buffalo who I haven't seen in years AND celebrate Dave's forthcoming nuptuals. I spent the night in Buffalo and had an afternoon flight back to NYC where I was gonna go home and then go out to dinner with my dad to Bar Bao (my sister and her friends left for Israel Sunday morning). Of course the plans got changed when the flight from Buffalo decided to sit on the tarmac at Buffalo Airport for 3 hours, because there was apparently a storm. A storm not in Buffalo, or even at JFK, but on the decention path of the flight. Never heard of that being a reason to delay a flight, but they didn't even give us any kind of apology like an extra snack or drink or something. Was supposed to get home at 4, didn't get home until 8, and met my dad at the restaurant (thankfully I travelled light and only had my backpack). Bar Bao was one of the main points of the trip he wanted to make, since it is the restaurant where his oldest son has his first piece of public art. He didn't realize the food would be so delicious either (I of course am well versed in the restaurant's menu by now). We used up the last of my credits on Dharma Punks (the best drink on their menu, in my opinion) and a nice spread of some of the best Vietnamese food you will ever have in your life. Seriously, if you haven't been to Bar Bao yet, what is stopping you? He also took some close up pictures of my art work (because my one far away picture wasn't enough apparently).

Sunday night my brother came home (he was away in Long Island for a friend's party) and the three of us stayed up a little and chatted before all passing out from our respectively long days. Then Memorial Day came and my dad was flying home. It was also the day of the combo birthday party for Jacob, Adam and myself. That morning my dad, brother and I went to Brunch at the Neptune dinner before heading over the Beer Garden for the party (I guess I will have to start calling it the OLD Beer Garden because apparently there is a new one, also in Astoria, which I will be going to for the first time on my actual birthday, Sunday). My dad wasn't able to stay to see everyone show up, having a flight to catch and all, and my brother was apparently just very tired, so he walked my dad to the bus, and then went home to bed. Shortly after they left, everyone started showing up to what turned out to be an awesome birthday party. The garden was not crowded (probably because a lot of people went over to the new beer garden), the weather was more than perfect (which is also a rarity, because the past two birthdays at the BG it rained, at least for some of it), and there was a live band with an entertainingly douchey lead singer performing fun cover songs. Plus Jacob was able to bring the entire family, which made for even more fun, because his kids are awesome.

Yesterday I could barely function, and I still think I need time to recover. Probably because last night I "cashed in" my birthday present from Mike, tickets to see Harry Sheerer, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest performing their Unwigged and Unplugged tour at the Beacon Theater. It was an awesome show. They performed songs from all their applicable movies (Spinal Tap [obviously], Mighty Wind, and Waiting for Guffman), of which all three composed music. I foolishly didn't bring my camera, so everything I have is shot on my phone, and just needs to be uploaded to the computer. They played a jazzy version of "Big Bottom" which was quite awesome. There was even a special appearance from Elvis Costello to play "Give Me Some Money" with the trio. I would have bought a shirt, but the shirt I wanted didn't say anything about the concert, and the one concert shirt, I didn't want. So I will wait for eBay and not spend the $30. Also thankfully the concert was only 2 hours with no intermission, so I didn't get home too late and was able to just pass out...after taking out the garbage (can't they just collect from inside my apartment, or perhaps my landlords could install a garbage shoot, or a trash furnace like they have in factories).

Hopefully I will be able to get all the things done I need to do tonight (gym, groceries, and laundry) and still get to bed at a reasonable hour. Doubtful.

Don't forget this Sunday!

The Death of the Poor Artist

2009-05-14T09:58:00.003-04:00

I am making it official, here in this post, the poor artist as well as knew him/her is dead. We had a good ride in the late 80's through the early 2000's, but now, you're done. It's been coming for at least a year or so now, maybe longer, but at least now there is a stamp of officiality to it. Sure, there was a time when I could comfortably complain about my lack of funds and easily blame that on being an artist, and wanting to live for my creativity. Kinda hard to do that now, at least in good concience, when I see so many people around me every day who are also suffering with money issues, and nothing they can do about it either. I like to see it as everyone catching up to my level of poverty, giving me an almost Guru status, effectively helping me from stressing about it too much (definately not as much as I was a year ago). But the artists, the artists really suffer in the form of identity, because it is everyone who loses a job that suddenly tries to "join the group", over-saturating the market, and competition is never an artists strong point (we're too emotional to handle it properly).

Long gone are the days where one could say "I am but a poor artist. Take pity on me, lend/give me some cash and I will draw you a sketch/paint you a picture/sculpt you a statuette, or just give me money so I can go one being creative and hopefully one day create something that will live on for all the ages." The artist has been forced to "sell out" and go into actual business for themselves, selling their talent as a marketable comodity. Not such a terrible thing, but not something the "true" artist is so ready for or accepting of. Funny thing is, in these hard times, it's the artist that people actually need, and I find "sell out" work more available. The begging artist is done. It's something we are not hearing too much about in reports on the current economy.

Also, how about that Lost season finale, huh? What a great cap to an amazing season!

Well Well Well...

2009-05-11T11:16:00.004-04:00

In times of recession, the best way to get people back on track is to charge them more for the things they need every day. This is why I am glad that today they have raise the price of postage another 2 cents, after already raising it last year. Also, today it was announced that the MTA is going ahead with their fare hikes and service cut-backs starting June 28th. I mean, who really needs that extra cash to pay off debts or feed into savings, right? By the way, that's sarcasm. Granted, the postage thing doesn't affect me too much because I rarely use "snail mail", and buying a book of two-cent stamps isn't exactly going to cripple me. What does get me, and frankly really steams me, is the MTA fair hike/service cut backs. I know the economy is effecting everyone, even in the government, but I feel like doing both things is a disservice to everyone. Yes, I completely understand you need to generate more revenue, and yes, I get that your revenue comes from people buying metro cards so they can take your "fantastic" public transportation to and from work, etc, and I also realize that by cutting service, you are able to cut staff/overhead, but how does doing both at the same time not make you evil? I am poor, and I have to commute every day, which means I have to budget $82 out of my monthly budget to buy an "unlimited" metro card (is it really unlimited if I can't swipe the thing for 20 minutes after the initial swipe?). So now you are going to charge me an extra $28 dollars a month AND make me wait around in your gross subway stations if I decide to stay out late at night in the city (see, I'd take a cab if you didn't make me put my cab money into my metro card)? I thought the government was trying to correct the economy, not make it more miserable.

They are building a new apartment building on the block of my storefront office. The construction is making the building shake violently, constantly. It's kinda scary. At least I sit close to the door on the ground floor. Hopefully I have enough warning before the building above me collapses.

So you ever create a facebook event and invite people to it? Am I wrong in thinking that the "No" response is the meanest thing ever? I recently posted an event for a birthday party for me and two friends, and sent the invitation out to everyone who I would actually like to see at the party, as well as to those I knew wouldn't be able to make it (out-of-towners/staters, mostly) but needed to invite out of courtesy anyway. Anyone who was invited, was invited because I would have liked to have them there. Anyone who wasn't, I didn't feel needed to be there, or I wanted to avoid the drama of them being there with other people who were also invited/hosting, or I missed their names when assembling the list because it was late at night on a Thursday after my Internet had been out all night. You know me (possibly), and know that I am a social-ish butterfly, and like seeing most people, even if we haven't seen each other or spoken in ages. So if invited, and you weren't going to be out of town, why "no"? Me, I always say "maybe" unless I have an out of town excuse for not being able to go, which I will always say "no" and let the host know why. "Maybe" is a good stand-by, because it lets the person know that you are thinking about trying to possibly make it out to the event, but if you don't show up, you never said "yes" so it's not a big deal. "No" is just so final, and thus, can seem so harsh to the inviter. So I put it out to all of you, if you can't make it to something, or you are pretty sure you aren't going to want to go, give an emphatic "maybe", and let the inviter know you don't completely uncare about them.

Tweet If You Want To, Tweet Around The World

2009-04-24T09:51:00.003-04:00

OK, so I am gonna make this quick cause I gotta get to work. Last night I had an epiphany (had to spell check that one). Twitter is awesome. Seriously. It caters to A.D.D. so well, and I can do it from my phone, my comp, and pretty soon I will probably be able to do it telepathically (patent pending on TweeBrain). There is something else. People, lots of people (myself included) seem to follow celebrities en masse on the site. Why? Because they were in a movie/tv show you liked? Because they wrote a song you listened to on end when you were but a lad? It can't be because of what they have to say, because except for the comedians, I find celebrities don't say anything too off par from what "actual" people are saying, although they also tend to use the forum for their own political purposes. So why should celebrities get the vast numbers of followers, while us average joe six-packs (it's weird, I used to like that saying until around last October) who have the same things to say, possibly even funnier and more intelligent things, are going ignore by anyone outside of our social circle. It's just backwards (although it is how society seems to go). So I have decided to put myself out there and become the most followed nobody on Twitter! If you aren't following me yet, you should. Seriously, follow me. My friend Amanda is joining me in this crusade (we started it together and we are pimping eachother out, her Twitter name is samanthaholiday). We actually even put a little self insentive on the mission. Even though we hope to get well beyond this point, the first person of the two of us to reach 1000 followers will win a round trip flight to the other's home town, loser buys the plane tickets (if I win, she flys me out to LA, if I win, she comes out to NYC). So if that doesn't get you following, I don't know what will. Even if you don't have a Twitter account, it's free to sign up, and then all you have to do is follow me, JawshE, and then you can just ignore it forever (although you might find it really adictive, and I say a lot of funny* things on there). Don't forget to tell your friends!

::EDIT:: Ok, the contest rules have changed slightly. The loser of the contest still has to buy the winner a round trip ticket to the loser's home city, however, the winner will match the cost of the tickets in a donation to a charity of the winner's chosing. Amanda and I will each be picking our own charities, which we will announce later this evening on Twitter. So this will give you more incentive to follow, in the hopes of being involved in giving a little something to charity. It's kinda like we are running a marathon, only no running, and you don't have to give us anything (although offers are accepted).

*fact, not opinion

The Invincible Man, Spider-Man!

2009-04-23T20:35:00.002-04:00

Ok, so Marvel.com is posting episodes of a live-action Japanese Spider-Man television show. I am only 3 minutes in, and it's already the funniest thing ever. I mean, look at the lyrics to the theme song, and the ridiculous things in the credits (A spider-man Voltron style robot?), and the story line, and the made-up characters (Amazoness? Spirit of the Cat Monster?). It's pure camp fantasticness. Watch it, won't you?

I'm On To You, Media Outlets

2009-04-23T09:53:00.002-04:00

First, you put your ads into my movies trailers, claiming it would help defer costs of tickets. One, your ads are the same ads I see on my tv at home, so why am I paying to watch them on a bigger screne? Two, last I checked, ticket prices are still going up to rediculous heights (especially with this 3D nonsense charging $14?!?!)! How about at least making some good commercials that are worth the watch specifically for the movies, then maybe transition them to television?

Next you tell me that my radio stations have fewer commercial breaks, yet when I get ready in the morning, half the radio show is my favorite Q104.3 DJs telling me about the amazing experiences they have with various products. Just because it's a DJ reading it, and not a "paid voice over artist" with some kind of "production" behind it, doesn't mean it's not a commercial. How about instead of saying "less commercial interuptions" you say "less 'produced' commercial interuptions, but your DJs will now ramble about other sponsors that have nothing to do with whatever esle they might be talking about"?

And now you are messing with our DVRs. I get it. you figured it out that now most people choose not to watch live television if they don't have to. I myself will ususally wait 15-20 minutes bfore starting a show to allow me to fast-forward through all commercials (although i will stop and watch one that catches my eye at the speed-by pace) and enjoy all the programing (that is paid for by commercials, I get that). When I used to record tv shows on my VCR, you never seemed to mind. And what do you think I did with commercials then? That's right, skipped right over them (and I never stopped for them on VCR because tape fast-forward is so much more a pain in the ass than digital fast-forward). Plus, you should be thankful, that because of my DVR, I can watch more shows than I ever thought possible (can, doesn't mean I do, but can). So why must you now have all your shows run a few seconds to a few minutes over time? Apparently, now every time I watch a dvr'd program, and not a live program, I miss the last punchline, or the final catching scene for "next week's episode", and it's just like, wtf! That is not fair. I am not going to start watching live TV because you want me to watch ads. DVR has freed me, and many Americans from having to conform to your schedule. And we still watch many events live. And sure, I can reprogam my dvr to start recording shows a minute or two longer to catch whatever I might miss, but if I have a scheduling conflict (like on Mondays I have 4 differenst shows recording back to back from 8-10, two shows for each hour), and if I run over, then I will lose my next two recordings. And of course, the next show, miraculously, in the digital recording switch, doesn't pick up that final missed few seconds. How sly you are, media. How about this, you stop messing with my DVRs, and I will make better commercials for you? Deal?

Life is So Much Better With...

2009-04-20T10:51:00.002-04:00

Happy day everyone. So last night was probably the funniest episode of Family Guy I have seen in a while. I wanted to embed a clip from the episode where they make fun of the anti-drug comercial with the cartoon guy and his dog, possibly one of the funnier cut-aways they have ever done (and this episode had a lot of great ones), but Hulu was acting like a douchebag. Also, the wcartoon show Sit Down and Shut Up from the guys who brought you Arrested Development AND The Simpsons, was fairly entertiaing. I can see it being very enjoyable, but also very cancelled, since the voice cast probably costs a lot and I can see people not liking it for some reason (probably all the hysterical leudness, I mean one of the teachers names is Mr. Littlejunk, voiced by Jason Bateman). Oh well. Check out the Family Guy Epsiode if you get the chance.

Cleveland, You Certainly Do Suck

2009-04-17T10:44:00.001-04:00

Oh Man. So, remember that time I went to Cleveland for a weekend and all the "colorful" things I had to say about that city? Well I don't know who, but someone made a video out expressing my sentiments exactly. It's all true. Watch and ROFL.

Would You Look At Those Morons...I Paid My Taxes Over A Year Ago...

2009-04-15T09:50:00.004-04:00

Ahh, tax day. This year it sucked more than most since I actually owed money, and not just any money, a good chunk of money. Why me government? Why? Well I can only hope that Obama will pay off my debt so long as I promise to be a good and responcible consumer from now on.

Well if anyone is feeling the pinch of tax day and like the entire town of Springfield took way too long to get your stuff in, I feel bad for you. For the rest of us, who are just waiting for our checks to clear, or waiting for our refunds to come rolling in, and just looking for something to do, may I suggest a few new fun addictions. One is Twitter. I set up my twitter account some time ago and rarely used it. That was until recently, when I finally figured out how to follow people and such. Now it is way more entertianing, where I can get regular updates from friends as well as celebrities like Kevin Smith, Kevin Pollak, Neil Geiman, John Favreux, Diablo Cody, and even Demi Moore. It's like being involved in hollywoods inner circle without having to do all the self-depreciating stuff.

Another fun thing to do online is mess with people annonymously. After all, isn't that what the internet is for. Now I am not talking about anything malicious or mean or evil. No, nothing of the sort. I am talking more of the working on your improvisational skills with someone who doesn't see it coming. For such things, the gods of the internet have given us Omegle.com. Basically, all you do is go to the site, click the start conversation button, and you are automatically in a conversation with some random stranger. The trick to keep from it getting weird or scary is to stay on your toes and try to make yourself laugh as much as possible. Here are a few choice excepts from such situations (I am the "You" in these convos):

Well I hope you have fun, and if this post is the reason you remembered to do your taxes in the first place, then FOR SHAME!

Only 19 days until the 20

2009-04-01T10:16:00.002-04:00

You know, I could go into my ususal April Fools day fake post and leave you all wondering about what I am talking about, and or shaking you heads saying "oh Josh, you rascal". That reminds me, I have been meaning to ask why all of you use the word rascal? Is it the 1950's? So no, no April Fools jokes in this post.

So The Mustache Adventures turned out to be a great success, which I actually find a little surprising. No, the experiment end of it is not what was so popular. The pictures, on the other hand, were quite the rave. Of course, sadly, my blog readership is always rather low (I assume), so it wasn't until I posted the lot onto the book of faces that people started to react. Everyone who saw the album loved it, and would then show it to their friends who also loved it. I had one person in my office even offer to hook me up with a gallery for the pictures (doubt that's gonna happen, but man, wouldn't that be cool). Even my parents, who I expected to hate that I would waste my time with such things, loved it. So maybe I have something here. I know I had fun doing it. Perhaps next year I will go a little further with it. Invest a little more time and effort into the project, do different stache styles, put a little more production into the pictures (extras, costumes, sets, etc, beyond what I have on my own), and make it an annual event for everyone. It will become International Mustache Week, or something like that. What do you guys think? Any volunteers to help out next spring?

So tonight is kinda exciting. A friend of mine from work is hosting this event that I was invited to. I don't remember exactly what it's for, some charity or something, and they asked me to come and draw caricatures of the celebrities that will be in attendance (of which there will be a TON). So that's kinda cool. Maybe I'll get some kind of kick ass freelance/perma job out of it. The only reason I got invited in the first place is because I converted to scientology earlier in the week.

With Great Mustache Comes Great Responsibility

2009-03-29T17:15:00.011-04:00

If I wanted to slow down your browsers, I would embed this post with "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men. Since I am being so nice, I just ask that you imagine it's playing in the background. That or "If This Is It" by Huey Lewis and the News, or both, depending on how long it takes you to read this.

As a last hurrah, today I took my mustache out to a movie with my friend Sharon. We went off to see Monsters Vs. Aliens, and Sharon found it so entertaining that I was seeing this movie while stachin' that she decided to don a ninja turtles t-shirt and pigtails, to make the stache even creepier, she said. Another break though in the experiment, someone in a car stopped us to ask us the best way to get into Manhattan from where we were. Very easy directions from the corner of Broadway and Steinway, which was very crowded. So why would this person think of asking me? Was it because I was young and seemed to know where I was going? Maybe it was because I was the only one who appeared to speak English. Or, most likely, was it because of the stache? I mean, the stache could have made me look like an off-duty cop, or maybe a good Samaritan christian, or at least someone who wouldn't be able to even think of causing anyone trouble.

At the movies, the power of the stache, could not save me from the fact that NONE of the ticket kiosks were operational (seriously, wtf? I mean it's not like the weekend are the "off" days for the movies). Plus it was a premiere weekend for the movie, so the place was PACKED with families. None of which seemed to pay the stache any mind (probably because I was there with a friend, which leads me to believe, the more friends you are surrounded by, the less creepy a stache can be). It also couldn't save us from obnoxiously noisy people in the theater, which is usually synonymous with family movies, and movie theaters in NYC. Both the stache and I, however, did enjoy the movie equally. I liked the animation, the humor, the great winks and nods to the sci-fi/horror/3D movies of the golden age of such things, and the voice cast (all of who would have been AMAZING to see in one cast in a live action flick). The stache liked it because Dr. Cockroach was not only voiced by Hugh Laurie, but also rocked a stache. It's a good movie to go see, stache or not. And even better to go see for a good happy ending.

For my final pictures, I went for "fun with aviators". No actual characters/people being created, just once again going for the ideas. First up, we have the federal agent:

"Just a few questions, ma'am."

Next, we have the 70's detective taking in a crime scene:

"It's a good thing I haven't eaten dinner yet."

Next we have an unsavory person coming through the door, possibly the person the FBI and the detective are loking for:

And finally, and landlord, or plumber, or crazy home owner, taking care of some plumbing:

Sad to say I was not able to get all the mustache pictures I really wanted. I just didn't have the props, or the people to really get into it. It has been a fun run, and who knows, maybe this will become an annual event, which will only grow into larger productions. I would like to thank everyone for their support and encouragement through this ordeal. Thanks to Dave and Sharon and Marissa, and Mike and Matt for their assistance. Thanks to Aunt Amy for the great Reno Video. And thanks to you, for reading and giving this mission purpose. I leave you now with a short photo montage of the mustache destruction.

Good Bye my friend, until we meet again.

And to you my friends, I will see you back here, with my usual BS, mustache free.

You've Got Some Milk In Your Mustache

2009-03-28T22:50:00.003-04:00

If GOB had a mustache, he'd probably be that much cooler.

So today I had to do my laundry, so of course, my mustache accompanied. There are two different women who work at the laundromat, and after almost 4 years of doing laundry at the same place, they pretty much know me. So it found it very shocking that when I asked for $10 from a $20 bill, I was met with a severe attitude AND then handed two $10 bills and pointed to the change machine and told in broken English "that work". Why would this happen? I know I didn't ask any differently than I normally do, which is polite and approachable. It couldn't be the way I handed her the money, which did not involve tossing or anything that could be deemed rude or offensive. I could only assume one thing. The girl, working at the laundromat, hates mustaches. She's an anti-stachite. So sad, to think that in this day and age, someone can be so discriminant against upper lip hair, especially grown out with such beauty. Thank goodness for this experiment, or I would never know such hatred.

Today's pictures are all celebrity/character based. First up is probably the most obvious one. I really d\on't know much about the character except that he was played by Tom Sellek, was known for wearing Hawaiian shirts, and his name and career were the title of the show.

"I see you like the stache. Thanks!"

Next up is everyone's favorite news anchor. He knows German, reads whatever is put in front of him without question, has wrestled bears, and can even talk to dogs, well at least Baxter. I was able to get away with a little color swapping and if you can imagine what he would look like with a hair cut, this would be...?

"Down it goes, down into my belly?"

And finally, the classic of classic staches. I look more like his later years, when he had hisown talk/variety show, but I htink I did a pretty good job of capturing him, even though the lighting kind of makes it look like I captured him in a film noir. Now that's the most rediculous thing I've ever heard.

"I've worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty!"

There's one thing I have always wanted to do before I quit...retire. Until Tomorrow Folks!

Just Want to Do Something Stachey for all the Ladies of the World

2009-03-27T21:23:00.005-04:00

MUSTACHE MANIA! - watch more funny videos

Mustaches are amazing. That's all I have to say. Expect to see a lot of those in the pictures this weekend (or at least as man as I can do with what I got).

Today I took three pictures, because it's a Friday night, so I didn't have to worry about getting up for work or anything like that. First up is just a straight up stereo type. If my brother didn't order this for dinner, it probably wouldn't have happened.

Si?

Next is just a fun face with my aviators. I normally don't have these glasses at home, since I use them as a review mirror on my work computer so no one can sneak up on me, and/or I can pretend to be busy if someone walks over who I don't want to talk to ::grin::.

Next is something special. A tribute to the "special" stars of the 70's. There are two in particular, who were/are quite famous, known for their staches and for their...acting ability. This is what I imagine a break at home would be like for one of them, at least back in the day...minus the drugs...and whatever std treatments.

Was that too much? I can never tell. got a call that someone needed their plumbing fixed?
Brown Chicken Brown Cow! Tomorrow!

The Mustache Can Not Save The Economy, or Can It?

2009-03-26T19:25:00.003-04:00

What ever could this set be for? At the end of the post you'll find out (or you could just scroll to the bottom of the post. Don't do that).

According to Dimitri Martin, Mustache = 3 Gold Chains, in creepiness. He also says whale watching = water staring. Interesting words from someone who has never rocked the stache himself.

So staching has reached a point of banality. Yes, having the stache, I am most definitely more awesome; however, I am finding my study slowing. Sure, there are still people newly noticing the stache, and I am still getting positive reactions, but it's just emphasizing that I don't do enough that's different during the work week. So I guess the stache has openned up my eyes to my life of routine. When I ditch the stache, I am going to work on ditching the routine...if I ditch the stache (gotta keep the audience guessing).

Today's picture is kinda a tribute, although not recreation to the show above. Kinda funny how tonights episode mentions the start of the stache. I know, it's not a great show, but I enjoy it. Once again, this picture is in the details.

GIT OFF MY LAWN! THEY TOOK OUR JOBS! Y'all come back now, ya hear!

Don't Stache So Close To Me

2009-03-25T20:58:00.006-04:00

I still can't speak Italian.

So it's hump day, three days into sportin' stache, wearin' lip hair-en, rockin' face caterpillar...uh...having....um....an under-nose stripe....

A few things I have noticed. One, the mustache draws much more attention to the mouth and nose holes. I never noticed this with the goatee or full bear, since both those things sort of forces people to look at your eyes. But with a mustache, it's like a sign that says "Hey! Look at me! I have this line of hair on my face! LOOK! CLOSER! THERE IS ANOTHER SKYWALKER!" Because of this, I have had to take even more care with my teeth and nose hair maintenance, which just sucks.

Another thing I noticed, the color of my stache hair is quite varied. for the most part, the hair is unquestionable red, with random dark hairs thrown in. HOWEVER, if you look at the hair right under the nose (on the two bumps), it's very blonde, but then the hair in the upper-limp dimple (or the Hitler spot as one might call it) it's all black (aww yeah baby). It's kinda interesting how genes will do that. Just call me Holstein face. On second thought, don't call me that.

I made another t-shirt:

Today's picture was a quick throw together, because it's Wednesday, and that means Lost and Idol....I mean sporting events. But I think it will be enjoyable. Once again, not a real person, just based on another mustache wearer's stereo type. I didn't use real stuff, because a) drugs aren't my bag anymore, and 2) that much stuff would cost me SO MUCH.

That IS however real sugar, because I love it that much that I willingly put it in every orifice.

You got some stuff on your face. Clean it off, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Bippity Boopity?

2009-03-24T22:21:00.006-04:00

This is me checking the set before my Mustache picture of the day. Can you guess what it will be?

So today wasn't too different from yesterday. People who reacted yesterday didn't really say much more today, other than to confirm opinions, and to ask if I am serious about keeping it, and then whether or not they think I should, based on how they responded yesterday (making the secondary opinion of keeping it, or not, kinda mute). A revelation from Dave pointed out that people would probably notice it more if I went from nothing to mustache, instead of beard to goatee to mustache. Of course, the problem there is that the splendor of the mustache would be lost in the growing process. What then? Got you there, Dave.

Also, what's the deal with spelling mustache. I find it spelled two different ways, the way I have been spelling it, or with an "o", moustache. I am sorry, but this has nothing to do with mice, it has to do with must!

Also today I made a celebratory t-shirt. If you love mustaches, or even if you just love John Oates, you should buy this shirt. Click on the design, and it will link you right to the zazzle shirt:

Some responses today:
"Is that new?"
"You look so different (points to upper lip on their own face, drawing mustache lines."

From my other boss:
"You look like [the broker who represented the buying of my new home upstate], you just gotta grow the ends a little longer. So long as you don't have the wax, its all ok."

(Note to self - must find mustache wax and buy it)

Conversation with Marissa S. (an agent in my office):
Marissa: I don't know how I feel about that. It looks fake.
Josh: Oh ok
Marissa: I am sorry, I am just saying I'm not much of a mustache kinda girl.
Josh: No, it's totally cool. I want to document this for my blog.
Marissa: Oh, this is going in your blog?
Josh: Yeah, I am documenting this whole mustache experiment, and I am gonna put what you said in there.
Marissa: Oh cool, are you gonna quote me?
Josh: Well, not directly.
Marissa: No, it's totally cool, you can quote me. Your mustache is kinda orangey.
Josh: Yeah, that's how it grows in.
Marissa: I know, I just wanted to have as much stuff quoted in your blog as possible.

Happy Marissa?

Ok, so my picture of the day. I am not acting as anyone in particular, just making more of a statement. As far as the team I am "sporting", it's only because a) they are famous for mustaches and b) they are the only baseball team I have clothing for. So enjoy what I am calling Major Rage.

See you all tomorrow at home plate!

May The Power of the Mustache Be With You!

2009-03-23T22:28:00.004-04:00

Animated Josh's Mustache makes him pensive, and also makes him like scotch with umbrellas. Just like in the picture. "Be somebody."

So my first day out in the real world with my stache was not a complete test. Sadly it was cold enough where I needed to wear a scarf, meaning that my commute/walk to work was not as effective, since my chin was covered, and no passer-by could tell what was going on with my facial hair. And then I spent my morning working in the store-front office where there were only two agents working. One of which doesn't know me at all. The other was so involved in her work that she never looked up. I could have shaved a reverse mohawk down my head, and wore clown make-up, and she wouldn't have noticed. Even getting lunch at my ususal place, the girl behind the counter said nothing. The only responces I got in the morning were comments from people who had read my blog and saw my picture (all of which aired on the fun/cool side). Then I got to the big office.

At first the day was slow, and noone was around to say anything. Then as the day progressed, I was met with what I was looking for; face-to-face comments. First was one co-worker who quickly quiped "Why the mustache?" I explained this adventure, and then we had some small polite conversation which quickly turned to "Am I seeing anyone?" If she wasn't 4 month pregnant and married, I would have chalked that into the "flirting with me due to mustache" column (it only got a half mark in that column). I of course had to reply "do you think I would be doing this if I was dating someone?" Which is true, I mean seriously, what girl friend would support this (if your out there, email me immediately). The next bit of feed back was "You have a mustache" followed by a jovial chuckle, which I can only take to mean enjoyment in the concept and execution.

Many people couldn't figure out what was different about me. Many thought I did something with my hair. My boss said as such, and then once he realized the mustache was the difference, he said I looked handsome and distinguished, which I could tell he meant honestly (mostly because he is a terrible liar). Some people, I couldn't believe, thought I had grown it over night. While it would be sweet to have such stache powers, How could anyone be so blind? I freaked out my best friend at the office, who couldn't make heads or tails of how to feel about the stache. I also had two people tell me that they like the goatee best, and although the stache is nice, it makes me look too old (to quote Taryn in an online conversation, "You're 27, not 65").

Most original comment:
"You look like a swashbuckler."

Funniest comment:
"Firemen, cops, guys form Staten Island, and gay dudes are the only ones who grow those things. Which are you trying to say you are?"

Home from work it wasn't so cold, so I was able to walk home without the scarf protecting my face. I did not notice any type of reaction or difference from the people on my regular commute. But then again, even though I am doing this experiment, it did not stop me from reading my book (American Gods is SO GOOD). Then I hit up the gym, where also there was no apparent difference, other than the fact that there were way too many naked people in the locker room, which I will never understand. I did notice that the mustache cut down my wind resistance on the elliptical machine, and made the time spent working out fly by. Also through the course of the day, my energy and spirit levels were up, and 24 tonight was extra awesome. All of which I can only assume is due to the powers of the stache. It's amazing what a little lip hair can do for ya.

So my picture of the day is a fun one. I would be totally remiss if I didn't do this picture. It's also probably the most obvious one I could have done, so I figured get it out of the way. I wonder if you can guess who it is. I will give you this clue:

Hen's Love Roosters
Geese Love Ganders
Everyone Else Loves...

Guess it yet? If not, you suck!

I look forward to how this week progresses.

Adios Neighboroonies. See you all tomorrow!

Adventures in Mustache Land

2009-03-22T18:00:00.006-04:00

Since the dawn of time, man has yearned to style not just the hair on his head, but also the hair on their face (and sometimes the hair on their bodies). I myself have a history of various versions of my own facial hair. Recently it was pointed out to me, while in full beard, that my mustache is something of a spectacular sight. I was told that not only does it apparently grow in an impressive abundance, but the mustache also has a natural apparent disconnect from the rest of my beard, due to the blonde hairs that grow right at the connector's place. Here is what I looked like a few weeks ago with the full beard:
Hopefully you can see the disconnect in this picture. Right after this picture was taken, I shaved the beard into my "trademark" goatee for my trip to Florida. It was also an attempt to preserve the "'stache" for this proposed adventure.

The word "mustache" derives from 16th century French moustache, which in turn is derived from the Italian mostaccio (14th century), dialectal mustaccio (16th century), from Medieval Latin mustacium (8th century), Medieval Greek moustakion (attested in the 9th century), which ultimately originates as a diminutive of Hellenistic Greek mustax (mustak-) "moustache", probably derived from Hellenistic Greek mullon "lip".

At the World Beard and Mustache Championships 2007 there were 6 subcategories in the mustache category (I can't believe this is even such a thing. Who want's to go to next years competition?):

Natural – Moustache may be styled but without aids. The hairs are allowed to start growing from up to a maximum of 1.5 cm beyond the end of the upper lip. No aids are allowed.
Hungarian – Big and bushy, beginning from the middle of the upper lip and pulled to the side. The hairs are allowed to start growing from up to a maximum of 1.5 cm beyond the end of the upper lip. Aids are allowed.
Dalí – narrow, long points bent or curved steeply upward; areas past the corner of the mouth must be shaved. Artificial styling aids needed. Named after Salvador Dalí who was known to paint with the tips of his moustache.
English – narrow, beginning at the middle of the upper lip the whiskers are very long and pulled to the side, slightly curled; the ends are pointed slightly upward; areas past the corner of the mouth usually shaved. Artificial styling may be needed.
Imperial – whiskers growing from both the upper lip and cheeks, curled upward (distinct from the royale, or impériale)
Freestyle – All moustaches that do not match other classes. The hairs are allowed to start growing from up to a maximum of 1.5 cm beyond the end of the upper lip. Aids are allowed.

Other types of moustache include:

Fu Manchu – long, downward pointing ends, generally beyond the chin;
'Pancho Villa' moustache – similar to the Fu Manchu but thicker; also known as a "droopy moustache", generally much more so than that normally worn by the historical Pancho Villa.
Handlebar – bushy, with small upward pointing ends. See baseball pitcher Rollie Fingers. Also known as a "spaghetti moustache", because of its stereotypical association with Italian men.
Horseshoe – Often confused with the Fu Manchu style, the horseshoe was possibly popularized by modern cowboys and consists of a full moustache with vertical extensions from the corners of the lips down to the jawline and resembling an upside-down horseshoe.
Pencil moustache – narrow, straight and thin like a pencil, closely clipped, outlining the upper lip, with a wide shaven gap between the nose and moustache. Also known as a Mouthbrow, worn by John Waters.
Chevron - thick and wide, usually covering the top of the upper lip. NASCAR driver Richard Petty wears a narrow Chevron.
Toothbrush – thick, but shaved except for about an inch (2.5 cm) in the center; associated with Adolf Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Hardy, and Robert Mugabe.
Walrus – bushy, hanging down over the lips, often entirely covering the mouth. Worn by Wilford Brimley and Jamie Hyneman
The GG – bushy hair grown only over the corners of the mouth, shaved in the middle. Named after musician and performing artist GG Allin, the most well-known wearer of the style. It is a shortened version of the one worn by Genghis Khan.

There are several famous folicial lip warmers, and here are a few:
From an educated guess, I assumed that I would support a proper "Seleck 'Stache" (it's be so cool if I could grow a Dali), and from the post shave, I would say I was right. Of course this adventure isn't just about sportin' stache, as much as it is learning about it. Over the course of the next week, I will be observing and reporting what it is like to be a man in his late 20's, and living in New York City. I will also be posting some fun "mustache themed" photosto liven up the posts.

So stick around, and prepare for the most exciting seven days of mustachedom since that time you watched that Magnum, PI marathon.

Let the adventure begin!

Who Watched the Watchmen?

2009-03-06T09:59:00.004-05:00

I did. At midnight last night/this morning. And it was glorious. It failed to disapoint. Thankfully I was fully aware of the fact that they were changing the ending from the comicbook story to make it a little bit more plausable/relevant, but they did a good job of keeping everything else in tact. I mean, yeah, they also cut out a whole bunch of stuff which will be included in the Black Freighter seperate DVD, but that's ok, because the thing clocks in at 2:40 as it is, and I can only image what the directors cut will hold for us fans. Bravo to Zak Snyder for getting it as right as possible. And Allan Moore, get over yourself, just a little bit, and accept that a great movie has been created from your amazing work.

If you are a fan of the graphic novel, don't be affraid of your precious being ruined/bastardized. If you don't know anything about it other than they made it into a movie, go see the movie. You might feel the need to go out and read the book afterwards. Just don't bring your kids, this isn't a hero movie for them.

Over the Hill of Beans

2009-02-25T09:47:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I am sure most of you know this, but I have a slight addiction to candy. And by slight, I mean severe, and by addiction, I mean a word that is way more serious but doesn't exist, but I will call it megaddiction. It's bad. One of my worst offences are jelly beans. This time of year I am usually very happy to get the Brach's spiced Jelly Beans (although I pick out the Yellow and Orange ones. No idea what those spices are, but they are remarkably similar to ass), and will usually buy them whenever I get the chance.

However, as any Jelly Bean aficionado will tell you, there is only one truly amazing jelly bean brand, and that is Jelly Belly. They are freaking amazing, and actually make jelly beans that taste like what they are supposed to taste like (No Idea what a Tutti Frutti is, but I am damn certain the Jelly Belly Tutti Frutti bean is spot on). Of course, some people might argue that if you want to taste the things the beans taste like, then why don't you just eat the actual things and not the beans? Those people obviously had very sad childhoods. Plus, Jelly Belly has gone so ballzy that they even went so far as to create Every Flavor Beans from the Harry Potter series, complete with Vomit, Ear Wax and Pencil Shavings flavors (I of course have yet to try these beans because I do NOT wish to taste such things when eating candy, but the fact that they are out there is awesome).

I find the easiest way to avoid my addiction to Jelly Belly's is to simply never buy them (which depending on where I am and what kind of cash I have on hand, that might not be so easy). Also, in most general stores (ie Food Emporium, Duane Reade, etc) they only sell the Standard Variety bags, which contain the "popular" mixed flavors, which, to me, is another deterrent of purchase. I mean, there are a number of flavors in those bags that I could do without. Sure, I could buy the bag and eat around the ones I don't want. But then a) I am wasting money on frivolous beans which would not be advisable in b) these harsh economic times (I mean, yeah I could give them away to other, but odds are they might not like the flavors either, and/or will ask for some of my favorites). I also have a process of eating the beans, where I eat them in order of least favorite flavor to most favorite (which really ends up varying between 5 or so different flavors, depending on mood). My biggest pet peeve is the fact that some beans look so much alike, yet have such different flavors (the worst flaw in the Jelly Belly bunch). Some examples, Tangerine/Cantaloupe, Dr. Pepper/Chocolate Pudding, and Cafe Latte/Toasted Marshmallow. If I could do one thing for Jelly Belly, it would be to put a little marker on each bean to indicate flavor to avoid such confusions.

Of course, if someone were to put Jelly Belly's out for the taking, of course I would dive right in with reckless abandon, and consume until my teeth fall out or the beans (particularly my favorites) are gone. Then I tend to tread a little more lightly. Which is the problem I am facing every day at work now. One of my agents decided to start bringing in a small Jar of Jell Belly's and leaving them right on my desk for any customers who might come in and want some candy. Of course they are sitting on my desk. That's like putting the Methadone injections for recovering smack addicts on the desk of a recovering smack addict (although I don't think a death from Jelly Beans would be so immediate). Needless to say, I have been having a second breakfast of Jelly Beans for the past two weeks. Not that I am really complaining.

AN OPEN LETTER

Dear Old People of New York City,
I think it's great that you have surpassed everyone's expectations for your life expectancy. I am sure your family is very upset that you are still around and they can't tear away at your inheritance. I am sure your rent controlled apartment for $300 a month is quite lovely. But seriously, move out. Go to Florida or Arizona or someplace else where your slowness will not be a hinderance on the lives of your neighbors. You have out-grown this city and the people who are able to get around want you out of their way. We love you, we do. You're a spiritted bunch who will probably out last us all. But until that time comes, we respectively ask you to get the f*** out.

Sincerely,
The people who are waiting for you to get off the bus with your walker, or the people behind you at the grocery store, or the people who are just trying to catch the subway...

No News Is No News

2009-02-06T10:10:00.002-05:00

So I give you some news.

First is Science news. Apparently science has made it official what we have all known for so long. In a recent study, it has been "discovered" that woman are, in fact, the impossible ones. So much so, that not ever OTHER WOMEN know what women want. The study involved 50 men and 50 women reviewing a tape of 24 speed dating couples, and each group was asked to identify whether or not they thought the man was interested in the woman and visa-versa. These results were then compared to the speed daters actual responses. In 100% of the cases, it was apparently easy to tell when the man was interested in the woman. However, NOT A SINGLE PERSON was able to say correctly whether any of the women were interested in any of the men. Men, take stock in this, maybe even print this out and keep it in your pocket. Probably the greatest piece of news we will ever get in our lives other than "honey, tonight I invited my hot friend over for a little fun...". It's never us who is are the confusing or unnecessarily complex ones, it's ALWAYS them.

In Government news. For those of you in the NYC area, over the past few years, you may or may not have noticed the air outside would randomly smell like maple syrup. Apparently this was scaring some people, while others (such as myself), found ourselves making pancakes more often than usual and not fully understanding why. Apparently, this minor cause for concern was enough to send Mayor Bloomberg on the prowl for it's cause (I guess people of this town prefer the smell of homeless people's urine). So he had his crack team of smell hounds trace the source of the odor to Futarom, a company in New Jersey (of all places) that creates artificial flavors and fragrances using a chemical called ester. The good news is that the odor will not harm you (not counting the weight you will continue to put on due to your increased pancake and waffle cravings/in-take). The even awesomer news is that we will continue to get random days of Maple smell, meaning I won't have to move to Vermont after all! When interviewed for comment, one random New Yorker, going by the pseudonym Dr. X said "I am amazed that anything good smelling can come out of Jersey".

What Would You Do?

2009-01-28T10:17:00.003-05:00

So last night, after watching Idol...I mean the monster truck rally...and then two surprisingly good episodes of Scrubs on ABC (maybe I am biased due to Muppet involvement), I left the TV tuned to ABC as I got ready for bed, and I found myself surprisingly captivated by the program. What Would You Do, as I initially hoped, was not a remake of the Mark Summers vehicle from the golden days of Nickelodeon. It turned out to be a hidden camera show, which are usually good for a few laughs. So I figured why not, and settled in to watch. After a few minutes I realized that the show was not very funny at all, nor, did it seem, was it's intentions. The project is a series produced by ABC news and hosted by some ABC news reporter whom I have never heard of (probably due to my not ever watching ABC news). The entire program is a series of social experiments to show how people would react in certain situations, and then interweave it with scientific explanations from various psychology experts, etc. As I watched, I became more and more interested in the program, because it really is interesting to see how people would handle the situations.
The show is set up much like any other hidden camera show, with actors setting the scenes, and some kind of person or business in on the whole thing. The first scenario was at a bakery where a blind woman (actress) was buying a cake from a clerk (actor) who not only tried ripping the woman off by giving her wrong change, but also saying some fairly insulting things ("where is your handler", etc). The study was to see how the other customers in the store (actual customers) would respond to this situation. There was only one instance where no one did anything to help the poor blind woman by standing up to the clerk. Then they changed it up, and put in a blind man. Turns out people don't like blind men as much as they like blind women, because he was only helped about 50% of the time. Then there was another situation based off of a news story from this past summer where two women were stealing personal items from a Real Estate open house (they used a video clip from my friend/coworker Doug's blog Trugotham.com, which is a great blog for real estate, if that's what you're into). So they set up an open house, and planted a real estate agent, and two white women theives. 100% of the time they were confronted and the cops were called. Then they switched out the women theives for Black Women Theives. The responce time was decidedly slower, but the women were still eventually confronted when the real estate agent (actress) prodded the people not in on the joke to check it out. Then they swapped out the Black women for one black man, and the responce time was similar to the first case with the two white women. The point was to show that even though race is something you can't help but notice, it's not always going to dictate your actions (unless you suck as a person). The police knew about the project, so they never actually responded to the theft calls when the address was give. Good thing no actual criminals knew of this when it was being filmed. Then the final set up was based on wedding crashers, where they hired two actors to crash a wedding, then they also found an actual couple who was willing to have this done. The crashers did almost every trick from the movie, including multiple fake stories and party tricks, jumping in photos, and the lot. Eventually people started to pick up on the fact that they were crashing and were eventually called out (both almost got their asses handed to them before the host and camera crews stepped in). The funny thing was, the only people not fooled by the crashers, the single women ages 25-35. Hmmm.... I guess there are some merrits to crashing after all!
Of course the whole point of the show is pretty well explained by the title. And I couldn't help but watch and wonder how I would handle these situations. I mean, I would like to think I am a good enough person who would step up for the blind people in that situation. And if I saw someone steeling from an open house, I would like to think that I'd be able to at least alert someone to what I was seeing. Of course if it was a friend or loved-one's wedding that was being crashed, I would totally step up and help out. Especially if I had some drinks in me AND the crashers were totally cock-blocking me from the attractive single ladies. What would you do?

Then while reading some blogs this morning, I came across a commercial the NBC has not allowed to be aired for the super bowl because it is "too sexy". I watched the commercial, and I will admit, it is fairly racey for a commercial that is to be watched by half the world, but it's not the ban, or the sexiness that I care to discuss. It's the people who made the commercial and the commercial's message. The commercial in question was made by PETA, and shows women doing sexual things to and with vegetables, interlaced with a message saying "Studies show vegetarians have better sex lives. Go Veg. PETA". And that is the problem. I have no issues with people wanting to live their lives how they chose to live it. If you think that living life with two metal sticks shoved through your palms will make your life more balanced and at peace with the world, more power to you. Just don't go telling me that because I don't have any kind of metal tubing jabbed through my palms, that my life is worse than yours, because I am pretty sure science will side with me on that one. same goes with anyone else who tries to push their beliefs on me because I "need" them. I don't need them. If I did, you wouldn't have to push them on me, or try to trick me, or others, into joinging your crazy cults. I am all for the ethical treatment of animals, but at the same time, if I don't eat all that juicy meat in at the grocery store, then all those dead animals will have died for naught, and that would be worse than anything. I promise I won't eat your pet dog, or wear your cat as a coat (or any fur for that matter), but please, leave my life free from your inane, uninformed, and down right ignorant preachings, especially with your unscientific data. Thank you.

Something Stupid

2009-01-23T11:50:00.002-05:00

Haven't done one of these things in forever, so I figured, "why not? this could be fun." Was it, though? Let's find out:

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

Opening Credits:
That Smell - Lynyrd Skynyrd

Waking Up:
Zoot Suit Riot - Cherry Poppin' Daddies

First Day of School:
You Are What You Is - Frank Zappa

Falling in Love:
Got The Life - Korn

Fight Song:
Celebrate Your Mind - Funk'N'Stein (the lyrics for this song make this better for a funny love song, but an even funnier fight song)

Breaking Up:
You Won't Succeed on Broadway - David Hyde Pierce from Spamalot

Prom:
Hell Hole - Spinal Tap

Life:
Busa (from The Lion King) - Hanz Zimmer

Mental Breakdown:
Woodstock - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Driving:
Finland - Monty Python

Flashback:
Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty

Getting Back Together:
Eye of the Tiger - Survivor

Wedding:
In the Still of the Night (I'll Rememeber) - Boyz II Men

Birth of Child:
Get Up, Stand Up - Bob Marley

Final Battle:
Fell in Love - Moxy Fruvous

Death Scene:
White Room - Cream

Funeral Song:
Eve of Reality - Arrested Development

OK, so that was interesting. First off, the categories are retarded. Why is there so much fighting in my life? However, I think the song choices for the fighting is quite funny, since they are both love songs (although the funk'n'stein song is more of a "makin' love" song, seriously, google the lyrics, it'll be funny, even though it's not a funny band. They are awesome and Israeli). A lot of the song choices are pretty spot on as far as sticking to the theme and as soundtrack picks for what that scene would be. It also is a pretty good representation of my iPod's music selection, which gets more and more varied every day.

Where Have You Been?

2009-01-12T10:09:00.005-05:00

Hello All! Long time no see/read! Hope I didn't scare anyone with my long absence, but I just wasn't in a bloggin' mood, ya know.

So, new year, huh? Pretty amazing...I guess. I mean I can't really expect the world to change for the better in a matter of weeks. That takes time.

Christmas this year, we did another DVD movie marathon at my apartment. This year we were not only joined by Jake, but also his brother. The theme was rather morbid, but led to some good choices; people who died this year. So we watched Soylent Green, Jurassic Park, Dogma, and The Dark Knight. At the point my sister's plane arrived at LGA, and Jake gave me a ride to pick her up.

So the time my sister came to visit was a lot of fun, except for some parts that weren't, but I will leave family drama to the wayside. Did a lot of cool things like took her out to Bar Bao (if you still haven't been, GO!). And finally got my own picture of the finished artwork. Here it is:

We all had a great meal, and between the four of us (brought the roommie along to be nice), racked up a $315 tab (1/3 of that from drinks, 2/3 of which were bro and roommy's) which we only had to pay tip on. Not too shabby. Also went again to see the Sonic Vision show at the planetarium (I went again, it was everyone else's first time). We were all sober for it and it was still awesome. Before all that we went to FAO Schwartz (where I managed to NOT buy a custom Muppet :( ), then went up to Dylan's Candy Bar and did buy over-priced candy (I can't resist candy...EVER), and then had lunch at Alice's Tea Cup, followed by a walk through the MuNatch. The next day we went to breakfast at Brooklyn Bagels in Astoria, then to the Kaufman Museum, which is apparently being expanded and security guards will warn you multiple times about not using a flash camera, but don't care enough to do more than warn you (but they will get into a yelling match with you if you brought a bag into the museum (not me, some guy who was trying to make flip books with his family...ahhhh foreigners)). The museum was followed by (edited for content) and then we went down to union square to walk around the farmers market, the Virgin Megastore, and then dinner at Max Brenner's. G-d I love that place. The food was meh for Matt and Blair, mine was awesome, but then dessert was the best part. We got the chocolate pizza with peanut butter and bananas on top and we died. The next day Matt had work, so Blair and I got up and went to wait in the infamous TKTS line. She really wanted to see Spring Awakening, and I wanted to see it, but not as bad as she did. But it was her trip, so we hoped for those tickets, making a list of "would see if couldn't see". After almost 2 hours of waiting in line and the greatest find I have ever made with a camera (I still giggle at that one...hehehe "Butt"), we got the tickets we wanted! So we now had time to kill. We stopped by Bro's store, which is right near Times Square, and I have yet to visit when he was working because I avoid TS like the plague. After grabbing a couple of quick slices and eating them faster than humanly possible, we went to see the show. I must say, it was amazing, way better than I expected, and I am kinda really into listening the music right now (if you had the ability, you might even catch me singing some of the tunes in the shower). The last two days, I had work, so Sis and Bro spent the days together. I will not hark on it, but needless to say, when i got back from work both days, they were home. Monday night, Uncle/Boss took the three of us out to dinner with other uncle and his mother. We went to Ruby Foos, which everyone raves about, but I had never been. I was underwhelmed, but glad I can now say I have eaten there. Tuesday Night was the night sis went home, so before she did, I took her out to one of my favorite Sushi restaurants, which is also thankfully in Astoria, called JJ's. She had a great dinner, and then I took her to the bus and rode with her to LGA where I said goodbye and sent her off to Florida. The entire bus ride back however, was a huge fighting match between my parents and me and then me trying to get my sister help because she managed to get lost at one of the tiniest airports EVER (in her defence, the Jet Blue counter at LGA is really REALLY hard to find, and I have passed it on more than one occation). But finally sis found her way, and all was right with the world. Except of course for missing my sister.

Then we got to New Years Eve (eventually). I spent the earlier part of the evening doing my laundry (exciting), followed by chilling in the apartment with Bro, making pizza, drinking beer from our new Kegerator (we got a kegerator for Christmas from my parents neighbors, who are awesome), and watching some HIMYM. I am glad I didn't make any plans, because NYE is so over rated. You either make plans that are never as great as expected, or you don't make plans and you feel like you wasted the evening. So I decided to make no plans, but keep my options open in case I felt like doing something/going somewhere. I also wasn't feeling so hot, and it was 16 degrees out, so I am glad I didn't go anywhere.

Spent the next two days sick in bed. At some point in there I also went to go see Gran Torino. Great movie. A little erie though, because the main character reminded me of my grandfather, almost to a T, AND his name was Walt. Go see it though, you'll laugh and cry.

So 2009. Here we are, what are you gonna bring us?

Nerdy Geeky

2008-12-18T10:02:00.004-05:00

So here are some nerdy geeky things I have done as of late:
This past weekend, I went to go see The Day The Earth Stood Still with Dave. Not because either of us were in fact interested in seeing the movie, we both were expecting a grade F fare at best; but rather because we were hoping to see the world premier of the trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Well worth the $11 for the trailer, great glimpse of a true-to-the-book story, plus all the great X-Men characters who never made it to the X-Men trilogy, but should have. AS far as the DtESSt, I think my anagram holds well. Granted it wasn't the "f" we expected, but it still did NOT need to be made. Here's a tip Hollywood: stay away from remaking the good movies, and maybe spend some time remaking the bad ones, only better.

Speaking of leaving classics at rest, last night there was a brand new Muppet Special on NBC. Obviously, being someone who has been clamoring for a great return of the Muppet's (as well as the complete, non-zombie, resurrection of Jim Henson), I watched it, all the way through. Why would I use the modifier "all the way through"? Because after the first 5 minutes I should have sent a hate letter to the Disney Company effectively disowning them until they hand over all things Muppet to a more respecting authority. The special was called "The Muppet's take Letters to Santa" but it should have been called "NBC and Disney Conspire the Rape and Bastardization of Beloved Children's Icons with Terrible Original Songs, Script, and Story, Without Frank Oz or Brian Henson, and a Terrible Cameo Cast...on Christmas". Now maybe you will think I am over exaggerating, but that's probably because you didn't watch the special. Well in case you did miss it, here is a section of dialogue:
Skeeter: I set up a web page to see if people can tell us a way to get to the North Pole so we can get these letters to Santa.
Kermit: Have we got any hits?
Skeeter: Not a one.
(enter Animal with a baseball bat. Animal smashed laptop with a bat, laughs and leaves. This is the first and last time we see Animal the entire special)
Skeeter: Well there's our first hit.
(Muppets look at camera, and hold to make sure we all got the joke, then piss all over each other).
See what I mean? There was only one moment where I chuckled mildly, and that was in one scene where they are buying airline tickets at JFK on North Pole Airlines (the flight from JFK to the North Pole took only 3 hours, I know this because they flash "3 hours later" after they show the plane taking off, to which Kermit exclaims "We're at the North Pole". Also North Pole Airlines apparently just flies over the North Pole, it never lands there. Also, Bunson, earlier in the episode, explains that Santa can't have email because the Northern Lights create magnetic interference that prohibits him from having a wireless network. If that's so, how the hell can planes fly there? Ok, I'm rambling) and Pepe The "Shrimp" King Prawn (another joke they play to death) can't stop fawning over Uma Thurman (who plays Joy the Flight Attendant). I could go on about how terrible this was, but instead I will go on about what I miss about the Muppets. First off, one of the things that made the Muppets great was that they appealed to young and old without pandering to either. They were stright up honest and funny and good natured, and I can still watch the original Muppet show as well as the original movies and feel just as I did when I was but a wee lad. Then after Henson died, we lost the Muppets briefly, until they came back with Muppet Treasure Island and Muppet Christmas Carol, to which they might as well have stayed gone. Then in 1999 the Muppets came back with a failed tv show (never actually watched) and Muppets from Space, which actually got back to the Muppet roots in the best way possible. A ray of hope was upon the Muppet empire. Then the great web clips, of the Muppets singing various songs, promising a new show, that could rival the original. So obviously I was excited about this special. Now do you see my point?

Tonight, I am going to be seeing Valkarye for free (and also learning how to spell it). I am glad I am seeing it for free, because I want to see it, but not sure if I would want to pay for it, and it looks like the kind of movie that would look better on the big screne as apposed to tv.

My sister shows up next week, and I couldn't be more excited.

2008 Ain't So Great

2008-12-10T09:43:00.002-05:00

I am hoping 2009 will be mighty fine. 2010 can...borrow my pen? I guess...

Um, so yeah, as the end of the year draws nigh (nie?), I can't help but actually feel better. It's like when you are running in a marathon, or race or something, and just when you are about to puke all over yourself, you see that the finish line is right there, so you muster up all your strength and make a mad dash for it, finishing AND THEN puking (yes I have run in a marathon, once. My camp's 2K marathon, ran it in 11:47 (if I remember correctly), I also didn't puke. You could also compare it to running on a treadmill, I suppose, but instead of the finish line it's the final seconds you set for your self). I am hoping to puke all over the end of 2008 (although lack of New Years plans, as of yet make that less likely, baring flu).

Just when the end was getting within reach, and the light was soon upon us (my sister coming to visit), a little stirring was going on. For those of you who missed the reference (and even I might have), we discovered we apparently have a 4th member of our apartment; a little mouse. This is almost like 2 years ago when we had bed bugs, and almost exactly the same date (2 weeks before Christmas), only mice are less disturbing. I discovered we had the little visitor this past Saturday morning, when I awoke after a long night of partying to not only see the guy disappear behind the toaster (could have been a hallucination), but then see his "evidence" on our two counter tops in many many locations (if you know me, you must be able to imagine my reaction to the mouse "presents"). Thankfully, the majority of the food we keep in the apartment is not mouse accessible, so we were fine on that front, however, the state of our kitchen and living room, there were definitely scraps he was able to get to. Of course, as of right now, the mouse turned into a blessing in disguise, because it forced us to take steps that I have been fighting for since we moved in, and even harder for since my brother joined us. We got rid of the runner that was on the floor of our kitchen, which I NEVER liked because a carpet in a kitchen is not only odd, but it also is a nest for bacteria, dirt, food, etc. With the runner gone, we will be forced to clean the floor more often than we did because now we will actually see food/dirt spills, especially those that might attract more "visitors". We also reorganized the lower cabinets. We had to clear them out to see where else the mouse might hide/come from. We ended up throwing out a whole mess of old Tupperware and make out pots and pans way more accessible (which will hopefully lend to the cabinet staying neat and organized). We also cleaned under the couches and removed all traces of food from the living room (all of this will hopefully lead to food remaining on the table and not being left sitting around. YAY!). We also now have to make sure we clean up dishes after ourselves, not leaving food scraps on the plates in the sink or in the drain guard. We know he came in through one of the many "lead" holes in our kitchen or bathroom wall, but the most evidence we found of his entrance is/was under the sink. There not only did we find a plethora of "chocolate chips", but we also found that our mouse likes to eat rubber gloves and swiffer duster pads. Really. We guess he must have come in, found that "food" and then ventured into the apartment when he needed a change of menu. In our apartment he indulged in ketchup packets, Hershey kiss wrappers, garbage, sink remnants, and an encrusted spoon on our living room floor (which fell under the couch, probably when one of my roommates left food in the living room and then knocked it over before cleaning it up). The mouse is still around, because I found new "raisins" this morning, but the guy MUST be freaked out. I know he hid in the bathroom last night while we were cleaning and possibly still is because there were little "brown soaps" (I can keep coming up with these things all day) on various parts of the floor. If he doesn't show signs of vacating the premises by tomorrow, then we will have the landlords come in and take care of it. We might even go so far as to getting a cat, despite neither myself or my roommate being a cat's biggest fan.

One thing that was brought up last night during the hunting and cleaning adventure was my inability to stop thinking about things. The more extreme example was when we had bed bugs and I was unable to function without worrying about those stupid little parasites. I barely slept, I couldn't focus on work, I didn't want to be in my own apartment until I knew I was safe. Thankfully we caught the infestation early and were very systematic in taking care of everything, so we have been BB free ever since (although every now and then I will get a mosquito bite or two and have a tiny little freak out). The mouse didn't consume me as much, being that I could still function outside, was not afraid of my apartment, and lost minimal sleep. However, I still think about it constantly, and will not stop until it is fully taken care of for certain (although the cleaning last night did help ease things considerably). I guess the enemy you can see is a lot easier to deal with than the one you can't. I can see how this focus can affect others when the focus is on something negative, like pests, or even when I get overly excited about something good, like a promise of something that never comes to pass; but it also can be great when I have work or projects that need to be done. If a project is on my mind, I can't stop thinking about it until it's done. No matter what else I am doing. So I guess you gotta take the good with the bad sometimes, and if my obseive behaviors are too much for some people, so be it.

On other fronts, I have put myself back on JDate, despite many many promises that I never would again. It really sucks meeting people in this city, and online dating sources make it so much easier. At least due to the economy, I can gaurentee that I will not fall into the trap of paying for it...unless of course I get money. The worst part is probably the knowing that I am really not in a place in my life to be dating, but at the same time, there are so many inner and outter presures for me to find someone to be happy with. It's a nice dutch door. I dunno, we'll see how it goes I guess.

Only a few weeks left, and maybe 2009 will bring us that hope we all need, and that is by no means a political statement.

To Be Giving Thanks?

2008-11-25T10:05:00.005-05:00

Wow, what a year to be "thankful". In all honesty, there is not much I can think of over this past year that I can really be thankful for. I mean, it certainly was the year of Job (the biblical character), and not just for me, but seemingly for a few other people in my life's immediate vicinity. It definitely has been more testing than anything else, with misery and hard times leading the way into 2009. Of the few good things I am thankful for:

The friends I still have
The family I still have
Having art on "public" display
My Improv/performance troupe
Still being employed (to a point)

And that's really all I can think of. Everything else is crippling debt, multiple broken hearts (or just one heart broken multiple times), learning that freedom isn't free, putting weight back on, and crappy television (seriously, Heroes, you're starting to wear me thin, and ABC, cancelling Pushing Daisies, that's sad). To top that all off, this marks the first year in my entire life where I will not be seeing my family on either Thanksgiving OR Chanu-Christmas. Due to financial situations, the trip on either holiday would cost to much. Not to mention lack of time off of work, due to a busy start of year. This year, for Thanksgiving, I am going to my aunt and uncles out in Long Island with my brother for the day, but then my brother has to go stay at a friends house since my roommate's mom will be staying in our apartment for the duration of the holiday weekend (best part about that is that he HAS to clean the apartment, and at least keep it clean the entire time). Then during Christmas break, I was at least able to get my little sister to come and visit, which I am really looking forward to. It will be the first time that the three Erich children will be spending time together as "adults" (sis, having just turned 18 yesterday, crazy, I know) and just having as much fun as possible in the city on the scrapings of cash we have. But not being able to see my parents, or my grandfather, or just having the 6 of us all together for the holiday is really sad. Especially when I've had such a rough year, there is nothing that creates a more "everything will be OK" feeling than being with your family, for me anyway.

All In All We're Just Another Brick In The Wall

2008-11-20T11:27:00.003-05:00

There is really nothing much to say. Just like practically everyone else in this country, times are tough. I'm making due as I can. I made a few new shirts at my zazzle store. This one I am particularly proud of, mostly due to the 2% rule. For those of you who don't know the 2% rule, it's a term I came up with for a style of humor that used to be employed by the Simpson's, but now is mostly used by Family Guy, basically it's when you make a joke, that in and of itself as a joke is not that funny, unless you find yourself in the lucky 2% of the population that gets the reference, then the joke is most likely outstandingly hilarious. Here is the shirt:

Let's Get Bizet! by josherich
t-shirts made by http://www.zazzle.com/?rf=238373828358892905

Buy it, won't you?

About This Past Weekend...

2008-11-10T10:52:00.002-05:00

I know, I know, you are sitting there going "Oh man, how did Josh's weekend go? I really want to know because I didn't come out to see his comedy show and I feel SO bad about it!" Unless of course you are one of the few awesome peeps who did come out to it, then you are thinking "oh man, I am so glad I was there on Saturday night! I had so much funny, it was so funny! Josh is awesome and now he will love me forever!"
So yeah, Saturday was my first show with Faux Show, and it went swimmingly (that actually works due to two seperate references to swimming during the show). Everyone had a great time, and the group are definitely going to be doing this for a long time to come. There will be video on YouTube at some point, just not sure when. By next week at the latest.
And if you are wondering about Bar Bao, the restaurant with my artwork, it's awesome. On friday night I went to go see the music and light show that they have every friday at the planetarium (living in the city for over 5 years now, 2.8 of which were spent living very close to the MuNatcH (the American Museum of Natural History) and I had never been). It's frickin awesome, especially if you are "prepared" to go see it, if you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, then why are you here? Then afterwards, we went to Bar Bao, to see my artwork and finally try the food. I was "fine" enough by then that I know my food judgement was in no way effected, so I can say with absolute certainty that it is the greatest Vietnamese Restaurant in the history of Vietnamese restaurants, EVER. Seriously, when I get paid for my artwork (which looks so awesome), I am going back there and spending my entire pay. It was also really cool and weird being a celebrity for once. When the people at the restaurant found out I was the guy who created the artwork, every single person working the floor of the establishment came up to talk to me about how it's their favorite thing in the space. I didn't know how to react. I mean, yeah I am proud, but I have never met such acolades before and it totally goes against every self-loathing fiber in my being. Maybe I am really talented. Maybe my false self-confidence is not so false. Or maybe, just maybe, I wasn't as "fine" as I thought.

An Open Letter, Followed By A Reminder

2008-11-07T09:43:00.003-05:00

An Open Letter to the Writers of the Office:

Dear Writers of "The Office",
I understand that now that Jim and Pam are together, you might find the need to keep their relationship "interesting", but please, this whole "drama for the sake of drama" crap that you keep putting in every episode is really annoying. Stick to what's funny and let Jim and Pam have their relationship in peace. If I wanted to see this kind of drama, I'd pay more attention to my own life instead of escaping to the television.

Thank you.

A Reminder:

Hey guys, in case you forgot (because I told you about it so long ago), my first improv show with Faux Show is tomorrow night! So if you have reserved your tickets already, good, I will see you there. If you haven't reserved yet, do so by emailing redheadsam@gmail.com. It promises to be a funny evening that will be over-flowing with hilarity, plus I am in it. Tickets are only $15, and the show is 8pm at the Zipper Factory Underground, which is on 37th street between 8th and 9th Avenues, and also has a bar and restaurant, so you don't have to worry about where you will eat or drink before/after! The show will also only go for 2 hours tops, which means that you will have more than enough time to get to any other parties you might have that night (because who starts parties on a Saturday night before 9pm anyway, besides myself of course?). So I have pretty much eliminated all excuses from you not go (baring of course being too far away to travel), so I expect to see the crowd pouring out into the streets.

Shameless Promotions

2008-10-27T13:13:00.003-04:00

Hey Folks, check this out!

So, looks like my graphic design work is getting some press...well not really me, but check out this article for the new restaurant Bar Bao. The first picture, the giant thing on the back wall, those are my posters, chopped into strips and aranged along the wall. They are apparently also going to be on the bartop and on servers shirts at some point soon. That's pretty exciting.

My improv troupe is performing next Saturday night. If you haven't reserved your tickets yet, please do so. Simply email redheadsam@gmail.com and tell them how many tickets you want (and if you want, also mention that you are my friend/fan. Won't get you a discount on the $15 tickets, but it will make me look awesome).

Also, I hope to win this contest and have everyone check out How To Share The City. I have been pimping that blog out a bunch, but apparently he is desperate for readers and is now having a contest to get more. If you go and read it from this blog (or facebook), I will get more points and then I will win something. Also you will win something too, because it's a good blog.

PROMOTIONS!

Open Mike, As In Microphone, Not My Roommate, Although He Is Also Open

2008-10-14T10:08:00.002-04:00

So this past Sunday night I did my first EVER open mike. And I mean ever. It marks the first time I performed infront of an entire audience of strangers (not including Jeanne from my improv group who showed up for support and camera holding). I performed at the Under St. Marks theater for Stephanie Sabelli's open mike. Basically, I was "ordered" to do so by my producer (of the improv group), since I will be perform ing a solo piece for our show, and she wanted me to try it out in front of a live audience. I purposely didn't tell anyone about it for a couple of reasons. 1) I didn't want anyone who would be coming to the show November 8th to have any kind of preview of what I was doing 2) I wanted an actual audience reaction, as apposed to people I know routing me on, and 3) I do NOT have enough self confidence in my work to perform in front of friends and family in a "professional" setting (despite doing so on November 11th, which will really be a minor solo part in a large group effort). If you keep up on facebook, you would have seen my status updates in regards to being nervous, etc. I only told a couple of people about what I was actually doing, one friend for writing advice (which I actually used some of his bits and they actually hit), and my parents (mom so she could be proud, and dad so he could be proud and help me with my jokes). Of course that got back to my brother before I had a chance to escape to the show, so he became very nosey as to what I was going to be doing. I just told him what I am about to tell you; it's a stand-up piece, but in character. That's all I will reveal. No one will even see the video of the performance until after November 8th, if at all. The thing about the open mike audience was this; sabelli's open mike, was not so much an open mike for stand-ups (which there were a few), but more a place for performance artists. There were a few acts which really got me laughing, and one group who were there to preview their show which I want to go see because it was so bizare that I was laughing my ass off (the act involved CTU costumes, indian music and dancing, a girl in a bikini and a man in a womans bathing suit, swords chopping stuffed animals, the card they handed out shoed two people covered in birthday cake, and it's called "Ok watch out! It's go time!"). My nervousness faded as the night wore on, and i watched more acts "bomb", however, the feel of the audience was more "hipster" than "comedy". The order of the show is determined by drawing of names in a bucket, and the way timing worked out, I was the first act after the 10 minute "Intermission". I left after the act after mine had finished (only because that performer made it a point to tell me how funny I was). According to Jeanne I checked out my notebook too much and slowed down the pace of the show. I am hoping to be free of the notebook in the next few weeks. It wasn't just my nervousness that was keeping my notebook by my side, but also the fact that in typical Josh fashion, I didn't really take much time to write anything down. The character and the jokes had just been swimming around my head since the day of inseption, and the "writing" session with my friend (who was Dave incase you were wondering) was really just a saved gchat conversation where we shot jokes for the character back and fourth. Sunday after going to the gym and having lunch I decided to sit down and jot down joke points (not even full jokes...so something I would do) and then called my dad and then re-did all my notes, but not on a new sheet, making things more irreverent and hard to read. Then I shut my door, and practiced a couple of lines in front of the mirror. Then I watched TV and played Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 on Wii (awesome game btw) until it was time to go. I "read" my notes on the train, which of course wasn't really much as far as practicing (think of it as reading the first paragraph in your history book in the chapter that your test is on). I mean, I have had all these jokes in my head, and I am "full of enough false self confidence" that so long as I though my ideas were funny, that people would laugh with me. It's true what they say though, you never hear the laughs you get, only the laughs you don't; and despite an aparent possitive audience reation and Jeanne assuring me over and over again that "Yes, it was funny", I still piss my pants every time I think about the fact that I am actually inviting people to come see this show.
So if you want to see me piss my pants on stage, come out to see my group "Faux Show" on November the 8th, 8pm at the Zipper Factory.

Let's Get Together and All Will Be Alright

2008-10-02T09:37:00.002-04:00

Howdy Y'all. So I assume those of you who really care have already heard about Phish reuniting and announcing their first three concerts for March 6th, 7th, and 8th. I assume, like me, you have also put in your lottery requests for two tickets for each show and are now hoping you are able to actually get them and go. If you are one of those people, then I will spare you the glorious news and the time it would take you to read it. Needless to say it's exciting and could prove to be a very awesome weekend in deed.
In other news, my Improv Troupe is really close to actually having a name. We have majority vote on it so far, and once the other members have voted, it will be official (what kind of Americans would we be if we weren't completely democratic about it? I guess real Americans). The name we are going to be known as (most likely) is "Faux Show". It's fun, and a pun, and a little ambiguous (fun because it's fun to say, pun because it's faux, or "fake" in French, but can also be fo' sho, the slang for "for sure" [that was an explanation for all the moms out there], and ambiguous because the French are like that, and in a way, so is our group). I created a couple of quick images for the group, which can be seen on the group's facebook page, which will probably be changing, since we will actually have a name. We will also be getting a real facebook page, myspace page, etc AND at some point an actual web page AND other things like shirts, pins and the lot. It's tres exciting.
Also, if you haven't been reading How To Share The City, do so (apparently whenever I pimp this guy out his ratings jump, and I want him to be successful so I can leach off that success). If you have a blog, link to his blog on yours, or share him on facebook and become a fan of his facebook page. Also if you read and are a fan, contact him. Let him know you are out there and maybe even send him suggestions for what you would like to share the city with. I suggested one topic, but asked to remain anonymous in my suggestion, but if you want the shout out, he'd gladly give it to you! So go, read, check it out, and check out everything else I talked about in this blog while you are at it.
I am a consumer whore.