Friday, February 29

overheard outside my apartment

man on cell phone apparently standing right under my window holding this conversation: "the chick is willing to do all of us at once, so we gotta get on that. we gotta be on top of this."

"i never did meet spike lee. he now lives in manhattan."

this op-ed piece is a little "ok i get it, brooklyn should be listed on stuffwhitepeoplelike.com" but the final act in which he insanely starts rambling about the warriors is worth the price of admission. also: colson whitehead is quite a name.

it's 10pm. do you know where your fall is?



aaaaand it's friday!

and this is why i stopped reading jezebel

so subjective opinion about the worth of two terrible actresses is apparently enough to start calling sexism on the entire critical world. seriously, fuck you. save your feminist outrage for shit that actually makes sense and maybe people will take you seriously (if you're thinking i'm overreacting, you're right. this author already is on my "ugh" radar after--weirdly, considering her name--dismissing hispanics and, to a lesser extent, asians kinda wholesale in her vaguely pandering "which models of color are in which magazines this month?" round-up). i love my big gay critic friend who disliked this movie, and somehow i don't think that lack of scarjo titty is why he disliked the film. what with the not being into the ladyfriends thing and all.

i feel bad missing out a lot of moe's shit but seriously this kind of thing coupled with asinine "reality tv updates" from slut machine is enough to make me want to shoot my own face off.

speaking of grating faux-feminism and idiotic tv updates, where the hell is the subscription to cosmo my grandma claimed she got me for xmas?

r.i.p.

work e-mail just now from the publisher:

"In light of the [sexual harassment] seminars that everyone will be taking part in today and Monday, we must bid farewell to the cat. This means that images of the cat should not be on display in your cubicle and the masks should be retired (burned or buried)."



;_;

pimp my friends

bill saw a shitty movie so that you don't have to. ultimate bro move. not that i would've went to a movie starring natalie portman, scarlett johannson, and eric bana to begin with, unless i decided that i wanted to see what happens when all of the most boring, inexplicably infuriating people in hollywood are suddenly stuck together in a period drama. by the way, if i ever do indicate that i want to see the aforementioned event, please call the authorities because i will be very unwell and dangerous to myself and others indeed.

the new york bullshit fucking times

eh, i broke my promise to myself to not bother reading this today. and found this, which seems to be putting forth the shocking and new theory that the clinton family is a political powerhouse machine, but i basically couldn't read past this line fragment:


As an equally loyal fan of the Republican Party and of the Green Bay Packers football team


you, sir, suck mightily.

your meowrch activities calendar



meowrson welles says: i must apologize to my fans for my long absence from this website. i don't want to get into the dramedy that is my existence, but i was pulled out of my funk by the news of william f. buckley's death. if there's one thing that i can't stand in the world, it is people who speak in such ridiculous manners, and i always find it delightful when there is one less "ten dollar word" person in this universe. also, i am back because your regular author is a bit "under the weather" today, if you get my meaning, and does not feel like reading the "new york bullshit fucking times" for one more second.

so, with no further ado, here's your activities plan for march! go forth and have fun.

march 1: go to environ bar mitzvah, for those of you who like to dance. i also have a birthday party i was invited to that evening, and since that event is free, i might be attending that instead, but i can hardly recommend you all go to a private party with me. it's gauche.
march 2: go to any of these restaurants for your sunday date. 10% of proceeds go to the ny food bank so you can be full and self-satisfied at the same time.
march 6: go see chuck klosterman read an excerpt from his latest book at highline ballroom! ha ha, i'm just kidding, no one in their right mind should do something like this. go get a delicious dinner at diner instead.
march 8: NEW YORK WINE EXPO! head over to the javits center to get your blitz on. it does cost a pretty penny per head but you could theoretically drink 600 glasses of wine at this thing, which works out to fourteen cents per glass, which anyone could tell you is quite a deal.
march 11: go to the 92nd st y and listen to tim gunn, project runway judge and noted sad man. dress appropriately: you will be rejected at the door if you have not made it work.
march 20: it's the first day of spring! celebrate by getting some bbq at fette sau.
march 23: this is easter! [ed. note: every animals (meowrson note: "every animals"? really? go back to sleep, dearie.) my family has ever owned has died on easter, i swear to god cross my heart and hope to die. so watch out, meowrson] which means...the easter parade and bonnet festival. true, i had no idea this existed until ten minutes ago, but the website promises it to be "less organized" than other nyc parades. which could mean that you will die at this parade! it's got that je ne sais quois, you know? the element of surprise. when done, go to life cafe and eat the delicious eggs blackstone and have a manmosa.
march 30: the boredoms are playing at terminal 5. terminal 5 is kind of a weird, shitty club that i don't understand: it looks like a giant european dance rave party night club but they keep hosting indie rock bands and things like this. it's not a great space to actually see a band. however, unlike nyc parks, terminal 5 has some form of organization so if you purchase a ticket, you will actually be able to get in (though, judging by the hold steady show, you will have to wait on a line, not just to get in, but also to go smoke).
march 31: home opener at yankee stadium! there will be 700 more games at the stadium between now and october though, so don't feel too urgent to go see this particular game. they're playing the blue jays.

bonus:
never: go see the new musical, in the heights, which looks to be pandering and offensive. i mean, more so than a musical usually is.

Thursday, February 28

the department of everything is commercial now

you know, honestly, i'm more frightened of the type of people who are in malls than i am of incarcerated criminals. i mean, one of them is locked up. why would having a big ol' mall in the jail make this more palatable to any neighborhood?

how to date a video gamer

become a sad, pathetic, shut-in world of warcraft freak too, and make the sex in the second life. thanks, ny times!


He focused on killing monsters, and she ensured that they maintained good social relationships with other players.


just like men and women! lol! dudes are always killing shit, ladies always be talking. amirite?

surprise news story of the day

unpopular girls are often heavier than popular girls in high school! there is absolutely nothing insightful in this article, no discussion of cause versus correlation, nothing. though, hey, heads up:


Ms. Lemeshow notes that future studies may also look at the link between a girl’s perceived social status and her risk for eating disorders.


waited with baited breath, ms. lameshow. lemeshow. whatever. it's going to blow her fucking mind when her "scientific methods" show that girls who self-select themselves as being worthless are also at a higher risk for being anorexic. but i thought they were all fattays with frostings hidden under they beds!

Wednesday, February 27

someone should really stop this before these otters get hurt



click for full image. i mean, really? wtf? i mean, i guess i can't really judge a man who pretends to write with an otter friend considering my contributors but still. thanks rich for pointing this out.

everyone in the world is hugely stupid today

just fyi. it was exhilarating at first to read abject stupidity, but now i'm just depressed by it.

overheard in ny. by me. because i was involved in the conversation.

this gawker post reminded me of a conversation i had this weekend. walking down 38th st, where two different establishments called "spandex world" reside. names redacted to protect the innocent, especially me.

boy: do you see that ad in the spandex place? "fran drescher and friend arrive at spandex world."
girl: huh. i thought that girl looked more like julia allison.
boy: if julia allison was half as hot as fran drescher, she'd be an interesting person!



honestly, though, i mean, is it just me? does she not look like some poor man's fran?

(and this is the last and only time i will post about my talentless hack of a coworker)

{UPDATE: ooooooooooor not. a coworker saw this and just im'ed me asking why i have to insult julia's looks. looking like fran drescher is a goddamned compliment, people! her "writing" makes me look like nabokov, on the other hand. fran also probably wouldn't be deathly offended by her neighbors having sex.)

and, really, rats are kind of cute anyway



the problem with this story, which is being blogged everywhere on the internets right now (so why shouldn't i join in?), is that i don't actually believe that jennifer 8. lee ever lived in dc for "a couple of years" earlier this decade if she isn't pointing out that the dc metro is full of rats too.

for the record, the biggest rat i ever saw in my entire life was not in a train station at all. it was late night in adam's morgan, i'm thinking mid-fall 2005. i kissed a former friend of mine for photographic purposes and then she ran around chasing some guys with a jumbo slice and then an astoundingly fat rat ran out of the jumbo slice place (dc readers: pizza boli's).

my favorite rat story did occur in the essex/delancey subway station in nyc though. right before i moved, so this would make it early spring, 2005. two tweeny girls were standing, staring at the tracks, pointing, and literally screaming hysterically at some poor little rat. it looked pretty young, it was very small, but it didn't seem particularly phased by being pointed at and screamed at. i have wondered ever since why those girls didn't just look away.

Tuesday, February 26

desPURRado


desPURRado, originally uploaded by willlaren.

this is the most important thing i've ever seen

omfg

JANE RUSSELL IS STILL ALIVE?

some more info on that kristol piece from yesterday that angered me

commenter penix (!!) pointed me to dani rodrik's blog which has a good response piece to the times op-ed insulting the obamas. wanted to share with those of you who don't click through to the comments. the salient point, which i was vaguely certain of yesterday but had no real data to back it up at all:


People like me with graduate degrees have done great. But the median compensation (that includes fringe benefits, by the way) of high school graduate men has declined by about 10 percent since 1980! Mr. Kristol: that means that for a high-school graduate, the odds that his compensation would have fallen by more than 10% is 50-50. Note that even college graduates have not seen any income gains since around 2000. The increase in labor productivity has outpaced the earnings of all these groups, including that of workers with graduate degrees.


thanks for pointing me to this, i only barely scraped by economics in school (i received what some of the commenters on rodrik's blog refer to as a "gentleman's c") so i'm pretty terrible at expressing these things myself!

Monday, February 25

harrison ford: delighted by strippers

hey 39, yr doin it wrong



MUST...SMASH...COACH...

every day the writing in the times pisses me off more and more


i was doing a gis looking for a picture of a little kid typing and this was in the first page of results so fuck it, this is the image i'm using. it is amazing.

i clicked on the article about the oscars by accident (i was meaning to click on the link to look at the fashions, because i am shallow and vapid and not very intellectual, and therefore really prefer not to read the articles in the newspaper) and was instantly mesmerized by how horribly, horribly written this is. it reads like an overly ambitious literature paper in an 8th grade english class. these are actual phrases contained in this article:

"the 80th annual Academy Awards gave a bruised movie industry a chance to refocus its ever-inward gaze on laurels"

"Marion Cotillard won the Oscar for best actress for her incarnation of the tormented chanteuse"

"Tilda Swinton took best supporting actress for playing a nervous wreck of a corporate lawyer who throws morality under the bus of her ambition"

"Juno, in which a pregnant teenager forges her own solutions"

"That sense of being unmoored was not the only disconnect on display."

"Cate Blanchett picked up nominations in both actress categories, but Angelina Jolie (“A Mighty Heart”) and Julia Roberts (“Charlie Wilson’s War”) went unacknowledged." (n.b. this part isn't poorly written, it's just the most confusing expression of surprise i've ever read.)

"Rather, relative unknowns like the 21-year-old Ellen Page and the 13-year-old Saoirse Ronan nabbed nominations for best actress (“Juno”) and best supporting actress (“Atonement”), respectively. For that matter, Mr. Clooney (“Michael Clayton”) and Johnny Depp (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”) picked up best-actor nominations [ . . . ] Instead, the megawatts would be supplied by the awards presenters — Mr. Hanks and Mr. Washington among them, along with stars like Jessica Alba, Renée Zellweger, Forest Whitaker, John Travolta and Harrison Ford" (is it just me, or is this actually saying that jessica alba and forest whitaker are more famous than george clooney?)

"there were many areas in which excitement could be seen bubbling up out of the ground like Daniel Plainview’s black gold" (this statement immediately follows a mention of heath ledger, i swear to god)

the last line of the article says, "If small and dark films captured the attention of critics and the academy, it was not for lack of ambition among Hollywood studios." and that's it. it follows that thing about excitement bubbling up like black gold (texas tea, etc). it is completely disconnected from the rambling, somewhat inappropriate bit in the piece going on about how nominating movies like there will be blood is dangerous and stupid and probably anti-american and will render the academy irrelevant because everyone likes titanic or something, which is kind of confusing because then he points out that the nominated films all received much larger than usual "oscar bumps" in their profits so actually people do pay attention to the oscars and it's good for everyone! but anyway, yeah, the ending of the article is like, did you die at the keyboard? pass out? where is the rest of the article? i mean, thank you for not continuing any further but where is your editor to get rid of this hanging sentence? it is especially hilarious because the lede is all about how some people think that no country for old men has a shitty non-ending! maybe this conclusion is meta?

anyway, the article's author also vaguely gives away the ending of no country for old men, which i still have yet to see, expresses surprise that owen wilson did not reference his suicide attempt while giving away the best animated short award, and actually implies that jon stewart was funny (this was easily the most baffling part).

how do people like this maintain paying jobs at reputable newspapers writing like this? anyway, my service to you today: i read this so that you didn't have to.

(ok, i just looked closer and this article was written not by one talentless hack, but three of them! what the fuck!)

UPDATE: it's good the guardian must've seen this piece and thought, "how can we make our oscar reporting even lamer?" this is the worst attempt at zing culture i've ever read! it's like an snl castmember trying to do an imitation of michael musto via rex reed, but somehow worse than that would even imply. british people are terrible.

because i wasn't depressed enough this morning

why did i read a column by bill kristol?

"Now in almost every empirical respect, American lives have in fact gotten better over the last quarter-century." -- can someone explain what he means by this to me in the comments, in slow, clear language befitting an idiot? because i was under the impression from every article i've ever read in my life, basically, that my generation is the first in history to not be doing better than the one prior to it.

Sunday, February 24

coincidences


yancey, originally uploaded by allyzay.

we went to go see be kind rewind tonight (highly recommended but then again you'd expect that from me) at the chelsea clearview. normally, we would not be in chelsea, but we had a macy's giftcard from christmas and alex needed a new robe and new shoes, so we went and then wandered south and randomly decided to take in a film.

afterwards, we were standing outside smoking, deciding what to do next, and i feel a hand on my shoulder. i turn around and it's yancey, who i haven't seen in--literally--years. the last time i saw him, i was in my marianne faithful phase, so considering i'm now sporting black hair, no glasses, and three or four years older, i'm amazed he recognized me. perhaps it was the parliaments?

as it turns out, we had been in the same film showing as yancey and his ladyfriend and buddies. yancey lives in brooklyn as well, and it's still kind of wowing me that somehow we all found ourselves at the same showing of the same movie in the same shitty theatre in a part of town i wouldn't normally go to.

we then went to a gay bar where, i realized upon entering, i once attended a motherfucker, and everyone played pool and had a good time until we had to leave to attend a house party. it's good to finally reconnect with yancey. we tried at the boredoms thing over last summer and epic failed so, hey, coincidences are basically better than planning when you're me i guess.

Friday, February 22

in other news from "compare people"

this is the weirdest list



a canadian tv personality, a rock critic, a divorcee of no note, a political blogger, and a 22-year-old nyu drop out. what do they have in common? GREAT HAIR!

because everyone knows that bisexuals are big fat liars



so am i wrong to be offended that facebook just accused me of fibbing? note the options.

retro day

since we brought back the sassiest boy in america, let's bring back another schefterblog classic.



HAPPY FALL FRIDAY!

(Ed. note: deep apologies were owed months ago to dedicated schefterblog fans. i just didn't have it in me anymore to keep up the ruse. a full year and no c&d from the schef himself...i just could no longer maintain the will. r.i.p. and say a prayer for surf boy, wherever he is.)

umbrelle ella ella lol etc barf


umbrella, originally uploaded by allyzay.

more old pix. this umbrella just blew out of nowhere over to where byron (owner of the pictured backpack), mary, and i were lying down. owner never seemed to come to claim it. sometimes i wonder if the owner ever sees this photo on the internet and thinks, "oh god, that's where it went!"



UPDATE: grrrrrrrrrr. every time i try to edit the blog template it fucks up the entire page, but this style sheet's habit of cutting off a fucking third of my pictures is really, really pissing me off. anyone want to write a new template for me? i'm clueless with css. i can pay you in beer if you live in nyc. if you live elsewhere, i'll pay you in pictures of my rack.

ever want to read 400 words dancing around the fact that middle class kids with good health insurance are over-medicated while poor kids are under?

no? oops, my bad.

this week's sassiest boy in america!


he's so dreamy!

lapd chief william bratton is a sassy, sassy man! some l.a. lawmaking dude wants to make more anti-paparazzi laws, and bratton is like "oh no you din't!" about the whole thing and then was like what the world actually needs is for britney to stay the fuck home and stop making a horse's ass out of herself and pulling away valuable manpower from real crimes (LOL @ lapd) and then also he flat out calls her crazy! and then perez hilton, the most annoying man in the world, says, "[the drug-addled, mentally-disturbed idiots who i'm basically making blood money off of] live for the attention and you gotta deal with it."

which is like, no, you most certainly do not? why the hell is it the lapd's problem if britney gets her vagina posted up on the internets?

on a related note, i'd like it if they threw perez hilton in jail. i mean, i'm pretty sure he hasn't committed any real crimes but surely his hair is a hate crime of some sort.

"it's just hard for me to fathom anyone would do anything like that"


nb: i have no idea what this photo is about but it is the 2nd result for "cheaters" and it is awesome. it is attached to a page entitled "Intermediate Biomolecular / BioProcess Engineering (ChE 438)".

so this belichick taping scandal is still going on. now we don't just have former assistant coaches being mysterious and ultimately really sketchy and limelight-grabbing and all "look at me, i'm russell crowe in the insider and belichick is the tobacco company" about it. players are joining in too! mostly this article is a rehash of what has occurred: i still love the claim that belichick just misunderstood the rules, which is up there with roger clemens "i thought it was a ball i was throwing at piazza, not a splintered bat" excuse.

the article is interesting, though, in that it is quite a study in faffing the fuck about. on one side, you've got the john maras and the bill polians talking about how it's time to move on and everything was solved satisfactorily. on the other side, you have the coaches who were running the increasingly-lengthy list of video-taped teams out-and-out stating that this is really alarming and gross behavior, and that they don't want the image going out to the public that all coaches are stealing signals to this extent. both sides are dragging this out like man with a pay-by-pop prostitute. mike martz, coach of the ill-fated rams' super bowl team in 2002, put it best when some mentally-disabled reporter asked the insulting "they probably would've beaten your team anyway so why do you care?" question:


“For somebody to say that, it’s kind of disgusting,” Martz said. “The whole point is if they really cheated. To say he took some steroids and it did help or it didn’t help, that’s never the point. The point is, to all these high school coaches and high school kids and college kids, that if they did cheat, that’s the point.”


which is a good point! lovie smith, the defensive coordinator of the rams that season, while doing his characteristic "aw, can't we all just love each other" thing, stated that he just couldn't "fathom anyone would do anything like that," which i think is so adorable. lovie is too busy with hugs to cheat!

ultimately, if specter is actually serious about taking this to the next level, which the committee seems genuinely worried about, belichick's going to be thrown under the bus. i mean, honestly, does anyone think goodell is going to look at his options and choose "defend the most disliked, unpleasant coach in the league" over "let's not risk our anti-trust understanding"? bill's already been convicted in the league's court of significant breakage of rules; this is why he was fined $500k, and why the patriots were fined an additional $250k and a first round draft pick. if you think about it, we're talking a $2m fine here, in cash and goods. they've already openly agreed that he cheated. why are they dragging this out? why do we need to know the extent by which he cheated before they just go ahead and remove him from the league for a year? how many minutes passed after the vick guilty plea before he was banned indefinitely without pay? did they ask ricky williams how many bowls he smoked before sacking his ass?

i'm not just saying this because i'd rather not have to see his freakishly torn up visage (seriously! it wasn't that long ago that he looked like this! as an aside, that photo is the last time belichick ever smiled.) grace my screen anymore, either.

Wednesday, February 20

a nsfw lindsay lohan question for your--wait for it--hump day (lol)

am i the only person who notices that this thing is smaller than this thing? and i don't just mean the cup size. so why are people still arguing that one is a fatty, a "size 16," a symbol of "real women" (whatever the hell that actually means--aren't we pretty much all real women?) and the other is an anorexic?

huh

i want this outfit:

Tuesday, February 19

america used to be awesome

senselessly inserting popular culture references into your political journalism: yes or no?

i don't know the answer to the question, "is obama a mac and clinton a pc?", but i do know the answer to the question, "is this article retarded?" no points for guessing what the answer is. it's too much of a gimme. best paragraph:


While Apple’s ad campaign maligns the PC by using an annoying man in a plain suit as its personification, it is not clear that aligning with the trendy Mac aesthetic is good politics. The iPod may be a dominant music player, but the Mac is still a niche computer. PC, no doubt, would win the Electoral College by historic proportions (with Mac perhaps carrying Vermont).


o rly.

(on a related note, as a mac owner, can we please stop the myth about seamless system performance and integration and harmony and BLAH BLAH BLAH on macs? anyone? please? though i'm glad that, in 2008, someone felt the need to explain that all caps means shouting on the internets.)

so i guess i can't use my grandpa's threats anymore

telling children you're going to send them to castro's cuba when they're bad doesn't make much sense anymore, does it? though i guess when i get old, i can say whatever i want to. that's the awesome thing about being an old person. you get to be crazy and no one questions it.

rock 'n' roll evacuation



apparently, if the apocalypse (or a hurricane, which is basically the same thing) happened, these are the disaster houses us new yorkers would have to live in. or we could exercise our option to become feral survivalists, which seems pretty good too. one of them is a little frank lloyd wrighty, which seems alright, if a bit high falutin' for my tastes. there's also the bizarre dna-esque pod structure! a little gattica, and i imagine all transplants to that structure will be forced to wear the shiny silver american apparel leggings and hoodies. so, obviously, i'd like to sign up for that one.

if my only choice is the green military bunker complex, though, i will be moving to florida.

check out the honorable mentions, as well--one of them appears to be a swiss boxcar! can i just have that now? there's a vacant lot in billyburg i pass occasionally, i think i could park my boxcar there and not be bothered for at least a couple months.

UPDATE: i didn't even notice the honorable mention that appears to be made entirely out of legos! would that really withstand a hurricane? honestly, people. also: this one appears to involve forcing you to live with a giant eagle?

Friday, February 15

the most accurate graphical representation of rich and i reading flickr i have ever seen

the dept. of why does this thing remind me of this thing?



Grandpa Joe: Mr. Wonka?
Willy Wonka: I am extraordinarily busy, sir.
Grandpa Joe: I just wanted to ask about the chocolate - Uh, the lifetime supply of chocolate... for Charlie. When does he get it?
Willy Wonka: He doesn't.
Grandpa Joe: Why not?
Willy Wonka: Because he broke the rules.
Grandpa Joe: What rules? We didn't see any rules. Did we, Charlie?
Willy Wonka: Wrong, sir! Wrong! Under section 37B of the contract signed by him, it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if - and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy - "I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained," et cetera, et cetera...”Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum," et cetera, et cetera...”Memo bis punitor delicatum!" It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You stole fizzy lifting drinks. You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!
Grandpa Joe: You're a crook. You're a cheat and a swindler! That's what you are! How could you do a thing like this, build up a little boy's hopes and then smash all his dreams to pieces? You're an inhuman monster!
Willy Wonka: I said "Good day!"


(is it the "and which checks out" part of the scheme?)

is it wrong that i really, really want to abuse this service and freak out my friends?



there is a website that allows users to anonymously tell former (or current?) sexual partners that they have an std! technology is incredible. though i feel like it'd be far more upsetting to get this kind of notification than to have the person just actually call you and explain.

why? because i am just trying really, really hard to not just load up a card and send it to half of my address book. i mean, i've only slept with 25% of them! and i don't have an std! the drama i'd cause! how can you be sure if you get one of these that you aren't just being punked? the testing and the doctor's visit might get expensive--would you skip out if you got an anonymous card from a website, thinking it isn't very serious?

barack obama thought you could use some chocolate

this shouldn't be as fun as it is. i've been doing it for like three minutes! obama skated here all the way from the beach just to see me!

Thursday, February 14

you're possibly a bit late

virtually every referral to this blog the past day and a half have been people searching for ways to pick up girls on valentine's day.

i have no advice to give you. it seems kind of unlikely! wait, like, about a week and then try then.

Wednesday, February 13

good work, d.v.



i'd like to subscribe to your radio station, my scrabble-genius friend.

YOU FAIRY. YOU COMPANY MAN.



and in the day's most exciting news, we have a possible new bond villain. this is going to be the best. bond. ever!

more news from the set of the tyra banks show



what is going on here?

Tuesday, February 12

what is this, the "there's something on your shoe" test?



so having a problem with a fluff piece is kind of stupid but i find myself having a problem with this fluff piece. specifically, this section:


CRIME: Burly men drinking girly drinks
Gender equality should not pertain to drinking. If the beverage is pink, your underwear should be too.


am i the only person thinking that if i have to witness someone -- anyone -- drinking some monstrous girly concoction like a cosmo or an "appletini" or a "chocotini," or whatever, i'd rather it be a big, burly dude being ridiculous and goofy? you know, as opposed to the aggressively generic paris hilton/julia allison types normally spotted drinking these abominations upon liquor? would it be "better" for him to drink some awful fratty thing like rb&v or miller lite?

not only that, but there are quite a few good, classic cocktails that could be mistaken for a "girly drink" due to being served in a martini glass or being garnished with something.

i don't know why this is getting my goat so much, but seriously, if a construction worker wants to drink a fucking appletini, i am all for it. more yuengling for me.

UPDATE: it's getting my goat because i'm an alcoholic, probably? i mean probably not but for all intents and purposes...don't look at me like that!

BREAKING!!!



hooray!

richard and i had a discussion about this subject. here is our aim conversation:

Richard: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGRGRGRGRGRGRGGGGGGG
!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!
:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3
mats link
me: wau yay!
Richard: :D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3
me: THIS CALLS FOR A BLOG!
Richard: :D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3
me: i'm going to republish this conversation fyi
:D \m/
Richard: :D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3:D<3
me: oh shit did u see that
\m/:D\m/
Richard: \m/:D\m?<3\m/:D\m?<3\m/:D\m?<3\m/:D\m?<3\m/:D\m?<3\m/:D\m?<3
\m/:D\m/<3\m/:D\m/<3\m/:D\m/<3\m/:D\m/<3\m/:D\m/<3\m/:D\m/<3\m/:D\m/<3\m/:D\m/<3
me: THANK U PAUL WESTERBERG WE HAVE LEARNED TODAY BECAUSE OF U
Richard: LOVE Y ROCK
=SMILEZ

SHAME ON YOU HANNAH MONTANA, A SPECIAL INVESTIGATION REPORT BY DERRICK BROOKS



NOTE TO HANNAH MONTANA: SEAT BELTS ARE NECESSARY NOT AN ACCESORY. MANY PARENTS WOULD AGREE THAT 15-YEAR-OLD SUPERSTAR HANNAH MONTANA AKA MILEY CYRUS IS A GOOD ROLE MODEL FOR THE CHILDREN. BUT A PROBLEM IN HER DISNEY 3-D MOVIE “HANNAH MONTANA/MILEY CYRUS: BEST OF BOTH WORLDS CONCERT TOUR” MIGHT CHALLENGE THAT POPULAR OPINION.

YOU MITGHT ASK WHY. ONE SCENE IN THE MOVIE SHOWS MILEY AND HER DAD, FORMER COUNTRY MUSIC HEARTTHROB BILLY RAY CYRUS RIDING IN THE BACK SEAT OF A RANGE ROVER ON THE WAY TO REHEARSAL. GOTTA REHEARSE TOBE ON TOP. ANYWAY NEITHER IS WEARING A SEAT BELT.

WHY SHOULD I CARE? ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION ABOUT 55 PERCENT OF PASSANGER VEHICLE FATALITIES IN 2006 (THERE IS NO DATA FOR 2007 YET, I HOPE THAT MEANS THAT THERE WERE NONE OF THESE FATALITIES IN 2007) THE OCCUPANTS WERE NOT WEARING SEAT BELTS. EVEN WORSE, IN THE 13- TO 15-YEAR OLD AGE GROUP, THE NUMBER IS 65%. I AM NOT SURPRISED BY THESE GRIM STATS BECAUSE IN 2002 A SURVEY BY INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY SHOWED THAT WHEN PARENTS ARE DROPPING TEENS OFF AT SCHOOL THEY DO NOT WEAR SEAT BELTS.

I THINK THAT MILEY, HER FATHER, AND DISNEY CORPORATION HAD A PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO HELP INFLUENCE THESE YOUNG PEOPLE AND COUNTERACT INSTEAD OF ENCOURAGE THIS SEAT BELT FLAUNTING TREND. THEN AGAIN, AS HANNAH SINGS HERSELF, “EVERYBODY MAKES MISTAKES” AND I HOPE THAT THEY WILL TAKE A TIP FROM THE REST OF HER WONDERFUL SONG, WHICH I LISTEN TO PRE-GAME REGULARLY, “NOBODY’S PERFECT! I GOTTA WORK IT! AGAIN AND AGAIN UNTIL I GET IT RIGHT!”

I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO GIVE A SHOUT OUT TO OUR TROOPS. I HOPE THAT MILEY AND HER FATHER CAN GO ON A USO TOUR SOON AND ENTERTAIN OUR BOYS WHO ARE FIGHTING SO HARD TO KEEP OUR FREEDOMS. NOT FREEDOMS FROM SEAT BELTS THOUGH. THOSE ARE NECESSARY—NOT AN ACCESSORY!!!!

UPDATE: I'D LIKE TO THANK GAWKER MEDIA FOR LINKING TO MY REGULAR NORMAL BLOG ON THE NFL PLAYERS WEBSITE. I AM GLAD MY MESSAGE IS GETTING OUT TO THE FANS OF ALL KINDS, NOT JUST FOOTBALL FANS.

contest!



what are huckabee and tyra singing? the person whose entry is the funniest will win a FREE kiss on the cheek and a beer.

suggestions already on the table:
"hold on" by wilson phillips
"in the air tonight" by phil collins
"kashmir" by led zepplin
"runnin' with the devil" by van halen
"cats playing baseball" by pete, zack, brian and alex
"highway to hell" by ac/dc

UPDATE: i've kind of decided that there is a third, unseen person, and that person is craig finn, and tyra and mike are performing "chill-out tent", but i'm still open to other suggestions and, of course, the contest is still going until this friday.

Monday, February 11

our continuing valentine's day ramp up: part 2

you know, when i got into ridiculously public blog fights with my basically-useless ex, the vitriol was masked in the form of bruce springsteen song reviews*.

i wouldn't mind my generation of oversharers so much if they'd just be creative.

also, ffs, i was eighteen at the time.

* this is 100% true, went on for a lengthy back-and-forth period of time, got the attention of a village voice music editor, and i'd link to it if i hadn't deleted my old blog years ago in a fit of sheer embarrassment.

news you can use



meowrson welles says: my new thing is to find as many "all you can eat/drink" specials and try to take advantage of them all. i recommend you do so as well. yesterday found me at mudville 9, which features a special called the wing ding. for $28 per person ($22 if you're willing to drink horse pissbudweiser), you get unlimited pitchers of beer and unlimited wings for two hours. it was a good deal and an excellent time. the waitress/bartender (i'm not sure really, they seemed understaffed) was very friendly, and the bar...dude was also friendly, giving massages. eventually he got sick of bringing us new pitchers and brought us this:



in that blurry picture is a "beer tower," which is 100 oz of beer bong with a keg tap attached. we drained it and ran for a second one with 3 minutes left on our two hours of power--spectacular win on our part! such a joyful experience that people even burst into song. unfortunately, the snow prevented me from making good on the song's promise and actually playing baseball.

my new goal comes to me from the village voice, which highlighted hot pot city in flushing. apparently, this establishment includes a special: "$24.95 per person for unlimited cookables, including tax and tip, with the caveat that you must stop ordering after two hours, though you can keep boiling what you still have on hand [Ed. Note: FONDUE: WAY MORE FUN THAN ANY OTHER KIND OF FOOD BTW FYI]. for an additional $3, hot pot city throws in unlimited dim sum and all the beer you can drink."

i say, i plan to make this trip very soon indeed because if there is one thing i like more than buffalo chicken wings, it is delicious asian foods. all are welcome! hopefully we can get as large and crazy a crowd as we did at mudville 9.

my new years' resolution for 2008: i will continue to scour the city listings and the blogs to bring you the best in all-you-can-eat/drink gluttony!

"sometimes there are broken glasses...it IS a bar."


No strollers!, originally uploaded by smartpatrol.

so this story is kind of old (hence it's inclusion in the ny times styles section!) but what the hell is wrong with people? i get upset by this kind of thing. i know so many good parents who wouldn't think to behave this way. what is going on here?

1. you do not have a right to take your child everywhere and anywhere you please. a private business has a right to request that you do not bring whatever they feel like banning. you're not allowed to park your bicycle inside the bar, for example.
2. note that union hall is not banning children (who are bizarrely not banned from bars in nys law). they are banning strollers inside. you can still bring your darling munchkin in with you so you can breastfeed and drink your martini at the same time, just like christen clifford did.*
3. there are 73 trillion other establishments in park slope that will allow you to mow down everyone's feet with your stupid, expensive, ostentatious, oversized stroller. go to one of those places.

i think i hate every single person quoted in that article. i couldn't imagine bringing my baby to happy hour at a bar. not because of some kind of "babies don't belong in such places" moral objection, but because, i don't know, i have some vague sense of sympathy for everyone else in the world? it's one thing if it's 2pm during a weekday and isn't crowded, but this isn't what we're talking about here at all.

the argument is that these are all young parents, thus "hipper" (lol park slope), and, well, somehow that means they are entitled by god to go into bars and rock concerts and movies and whatever the hell they feel like while toting a six-month old. but being young, don't they remember how annoying this shit was before they popped out their spawn? how irritating it is when some moron has brought crying rugrats into a pub at 8 or 9pm? how much you want to stab the person who brought a kid into a decidedly not g-rated film and then let it chatter and cry and scream?

i'm just curious what the hell it is about having a baby that makes people think they've achieved some pinnacle and are now entitled to whatever they feel like. stray cats can pop out kids too.

fwiw, i'm not sure my parents even let me leave the house until i was like 5.



* btw fyi princess, you can totally do this at home for significantly less money and without being judged by every other person in the bar for the fact that you are downing a very strong hard liquor treat while your baby is chomping on your nipple. seriously what the hell? am i wrong that this one is weirding me out a lot?

zach braff's jungle stronghold

funny pictures
moar funny pictures

FALCOR!

Chinese New Year, New York, 2008

there is much more chinese new year with its falcors and its cloverfields on rich's flickr, so click the picture and check it out.

Friday, February 8

this!!



wtfomgbbqftw!!! jesus! i'm am obsessed with this! christian of project runway, you are a crazy legend and don't ever change! i love you more than my beloved jeffrey sebellia!

(pic stolen, obviously, from jezebel, which is one of the only places uploading any of the pj collections--and they're loading all of 'em, so check it out. all five of the people currently on got to show at bryant park, so there are no spoilers. sweet p was surprisingly good, and chris marsh had a dress made out of LACE AND HAIR and i want it a lot. the other two i'm just like whatever ever about, though designer mctranquilizers boresalot had on a totally cute dress herself!)

let's ramp up for valentine's day

here are some exit strategies (supposedly) for getting out of bad dates! would they work? i've only done one of them, the "leave with no explanation." how do you even stage a phone call, honestly? are there people who ask their friends to call them during dates "just in case"? or do you have to text your friend to please call you? and how do you hide the fact that you are texting instructions from your date? i have a lot of questions about that one.

the "crying during sex" one is weird too, because honestly, speaking as a complete slut, it still seems odd to me that you'd get that far into the date and then realize it was a bad idea--to the point that you don't just get the show over with and make your exit after. it's a bit like boarding the cyclone and then trying to leap off before the first downturn, isn't it? except, whoops, one of the times i've left with no explanation was at that point in the date. ok, revision--the crying during sex one is weird because i'd think i'd freak the fuck out and be sex-avoidant for a very long time if i ever saw someone crying during a blowjob (unless i've inflicted pain on them, which would be scarring in a different way i suppose).

all in all, really, i think the only acceptable strategies listed here are just leaving, and being honest. the rest of them seem like a whole lot of fucking effort just to avoid telling a person you dislike that you dislike them.

now who wants to volunteer to be my phony phone call on the night of the 14th? i kid, i kid.

i love her and i want to marry her

yes, because all boston losses are caused by karmic injustice

so i found this which is like WELCOME TO THE WAAAAAAAAAHMBULANCE, POPULATION BOSTON!

so i made this. sign my petition!

[Ed.: i would also like to say that first petition is like ALL ABOARD THE HMS WHINYBOAT, NOW DEPARTING FROM BOSTON but i didn't think of that one until just now.]

i love to singa

i checked my referral logs this morning (hi ppl from the flickr black & white group!) and noticed a lone soul on a search for "i love to singa." this is a really important thing that you are looking for, so i am very much happy to provide.

i will never get tired of a photo like this


Prenet un Bany. Taking a Bath., originally uploaded by ¡arturii!.

"meanwhile jeremy shockey was at home eating a whole pint of ice cream"

this guy is a hero! it's never occurred to me to just...go up there and join famous ("famous") people and act like i belong there before. i mean, not without having been invited/forced to by someone else first, so the electric six and the giuliani hooker thing totally do not count.

thanks alex for title of post, i was stuck

Thursday, February 7

do i have mono?


Phil Spector - Back To Mono, originally uploaded by Popmartijn.

some people think i do! vague fever, constantly tired, sore, off-and-on swollen glands in neck. but some people think i don't! because who the hell gets mono?

who has had mono in the audience? leave your comments and tell me what you think.

for about a week, 97% of america were giants fans (with sincere apologies to my two pats fan friends)

subtitled: the last thought on this from me that i haven't had time to actually finish/post due to illness and business


i mean seriously, look at these two guys, they're the opposite of hateable

it's weird to watch your team, with its qb that you've spent the last several years defending even to other giants fans, and its internal squabbling, and its ridiculous star former-running back bad-mouthing the team like a lady spurned every chance he got, and its jeremy fucking shockey--well, it's weird to watch that team, that seemingly completely hopeless heartbreak of an imitation-2005-vikings team, become a national phenomenon.

but there it was, plain as day. people on television, actively rooting for the giants! the team that suddenly came out of nowhere and was showing supposedly far superior teams who was boss! the team that ruined the fairy tale endings predetermined for both (either?) brett favre and (or?) tony romo! the fever pitch that seemed to be there by the friday prior to the super bowl was kind of mind-blowing to me. people i know who hate football were like, "let's go giants!" ruin the fairy tale for brady and co. too.

the thing is, it's not just about people loving an underdog story. that's part of it, really. honestly. but it became apparent, witnessing the sheer glee every non-boston media outlet and commentator had on sunday morning, tearing into the pats like they were some pulled pork, that it was way more than wanting the underdog to win.

simply put, the patriots have come to stand for every single last thing that is wrong with professional sports. i mean, like all of the sports. performance enhancing drugs? alleged criminal behavior towards women? terrible sportsmanship? over-confident douchebag playboy qb? cheating, for god's sake? check, check, check--there isn't much need to go on, unless you like being vaguely depressed. in a age where every sports illustrated is half-filled with stories about tony romo fucking some "famous" blonde or another, or the various dramas of michael vick or kobe or blah blah blah, and the other half is updates on records with questionable asterisks next to them, you've got to assume that everyone's just exhausted from the douchebaggery.

it certainly isn't that anyone truly believes the giants don't partake in several of the activities named above (and i doubt every accusation leveled against the pats is 100% true). but it's easy to believe. dorky eli manning was the complete antithesis to tom brady, and a lovable lug like strahan was the complete antithesis to 'roid-raging fuckbags like rodney harrison. and, while coughlin might be known around the league as a task-driver and a blowhard, belichick is a man almost universally hated--i've talked to pats fans who refuse to defend him, which is saying a lot, i think. other coaches refuse to shake this man's hand.

no one needed an underdog. we just needed a team that wasn't the definition of why people start giving up on sports. the giants were that. everyone will hate them again in a week or two, but for now, that helmet catch made people feel like kids again. you know, back when sports seemed like it was full of awesome people you wanted to hang out with. back when sports didn't seem like predetermined events, and you really believed anything could happen on any given sunday. i lost this feeling when i was about 12*. i'm thankful the giants gave me it back, even for a few days.

the downside of all of this is, i'm just not looking forward to all those millions of sobbing pats fans that suddenly came into being in 2002 now becoming giants fans and ruining my bars.

* why? because the cowboys.

Wednesday, February 6

maybe the jinx was that you were outplayed?

no, i'm sure it's gisele's fault, you're probably right.

an update from our tattooed patriots fan friend

in a surprising move, victor thompson seems a little bummed about his helmet tattoos now. though it's not all tears and regret for the lowell, ma gentleman:


"After the game ended I started (partying) ... I woke up drunk. It was a good thing I had my helmet on,"


despite the whole thing being a total bummer over which everyone he knows is secretly laughing at him and perfect strangers will probably point at him in stunned amusement for years to come, thompson doesn't really regret the decision per se, stating that he has tentative plans to tattoo his entire head silver, to more resemble a helmet, and has started working on getting tom brady himself to come by and tattoo his signature on the "helmet" with a tattoo gun.

somehow the drunken discussion between thomas and me one night during the playoffs about his old-school 49ers helmet and my old-school giants helmet tattoo plans (like, on our arms, not our fucking foreheads) seems way, way less retarded now.

part 2 of "i blog an old photo and tell you something about it"


katie, originally uploaded by allyzay.

this photo hasn't been retouched. at all. not for color or sharpness or any damn thing about it. i uploaded it directly from my camera--while drunk, and still on vacation (me, not the camera, the soberness of which i can never be sure of)--to the internet, while gchatting several people. i'm saying this now because i have gotten really f'ing tired of getting occasional flickr questions as to what photoshop techniques i used on this picture.

those techniques, as they are on every photo i have, were called not purchasing photoshop and just going with things. flickr and basically the world in general would be 100% better off if this was done by everyone. i'll use iPhoto to lighten or darken a picture a little. one time, i made a picture that was color b&w instead.

there you go. stop asking me.



(as a total editorial aside, jw, will you look at the code of this template i'm using and tell me how to adjust it so that the portion where the posts are is bigger without making everything on the page fucked up? when i do it the page goes all manner of whoa so i don't want to adjust it but it needs to be bigger on the right side--i'm not adjusting the padding on one of the rails properly? HALP!)

so the post-season apparently killed me

i'm really sick guys, so updates might not be too fast or too furious right now. i was barely able to get out of bed the last two days and i'm sitting in a total haze at work right now running a fever.

fucking giants.

Monday, February 4

to the multiple referrals i'm getting looking for "tom brady's ass got sacked"



brady has to go to the hospital.

sometimes, you should ask for a second opinion when you have an idea



maybe he can put 18-1 on his forehead?

red hoody anger man



a final thought*: i didn't realize last night that belichick left the field before the game even officially ended, that he didn't do what you're supposed to do and congratulate the other team, the other coach. he didn't even wait for his own players. maybe i was too busy hugging ross and josh, or maybe i was distracted by jack's repeated "that's right! we fucked the pats in the eyes!" shouting. or maybe i was just way too drunk (this is very likely, given how i feel today). i'm glad i missed it though, because it would've infuriated me. has there ever been a person in sports who has been more of a poor sport, a complete dickhead, as belichick?

i'm ashamed that two of his super bowl rings come as a former coach of the new york giants. boston can have him. though i'm not sure that even a city i dislike as much as boston deserves a person this terrible.

* this is a blatant lie, btw.

18-1, or the night that eli freaking manning became a legend



when eli got out of that sure, certain, heartbreaking sack (they had his jersey) with about 60 seconds left on the game clock and suddenly, instead, tyree was catching the ball with his helmet, that's when i started saying it out loud: "they are going to win this game." then plaxico caught the ball in the end zone with thirty seconds left in the game and i kept saying it: "they're going to fucking win."

but there was still that 30 seconds left, and no one wanted me to say this out loud. i mean, it was brady on the other side of the ball! who'd looked like rex grossman all freaking night but theoretically, that was tom brady and randy moss (who has never played well in a post-season, this one no different than the others). don't jinx the game!

no one should've worried, it was already jinxed.


"We're only going to score 17 points?" a surprised Brady said Wednesday. "OK. Is Plax playing defense?"


only 14 points actually, sorry. nice try, blanco nino. too bad your ass got sacked. i would've been delighted for any team--ANY team--to have put this balding latenightshots.com excuse for a douchebag in his place, but the fact that it was the giants just made it all the more amazing. no one told the giants that brady and co. were already the anointed winners. they outplayed the pats in every possible aspect you can come up with, from their performance at media day to the last second of the game. i've never seen a more exciting super bowl, and i doubt i ever will.

i stayed up all night drinking and freaking out and wondering if i somehow imagined that game. i wonder if belichick stayed up all night pondering that inexplicable 4th-and-13 call he made.

sooooo....i have actual intellgent things to say.

but perhaps not now. allow me to say, the giants won fair and square. there were no official schanagans. they out played the pats...which is amazing. they played amazingly, like a team on a mission. i'll have more to say, another day, but i need to say now, this thing: this was the defining moment of a generation of sports fans. the day perfection was not enough. the day trying and determination...WAS enough! who would've thought this? i have a lot to say...soberly. but that's enough of a thought teaser.

Friday, February 1

dear chuck klosterman,

are you googling yourself? because it seems unlikely that anyone else is doing a google blog search on your name and showing up here. i really dislike your writing!

thanks,
ally

how long did the boston globe have to search gis until it found such a smokin hot picture of eli manning?



i mean, honestly. my preference between the physical appearances of these two men is known far and wide, by everyone i've ever spoken to in my entire life practically, but still: i'm not going to make any claims of eli as some kind of suave, hot guy.

UNLIKE THE LADIES OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS!

honestly, i'm mostly posting this because i think that photo of eli is totally hot.

UPDATE: i cannot even begin to think of a way to describe how gay i think tom brady is right now. how many haircuts per week does tom brady need from his hair slavebarber? also, say what you want about david beckham also being very obviously a flaming metrosexual and eroding the earth's resources with his fancy man behavior, i've never heard of him flying his barber clear across the country just to get a pre-game haircut.

eli looks like he hasn't had a haircut in, like, three months, just for comparison's sake. we're lucky if he bothers to shave before the super bowl, i think.

"rick had been 'fetching tea' for music producers"



learn all about rick astley's "never gonna give you up" through the magic of pop-up video!

dear espn,

please don't publish things written by chuck klosterman.

thank you,
my sanity

it's full of stars



O_O