update: how i've missed thee, internet

justin has moved into a new hell's kitchen pad. but he moved into a two bedroom with two other people. do that math. it means a wall has to be built which nearly eats up the whole living room, but this is new york and that is how things work. so i'm house-sitting the wall-building guy today.

what all this really means is that i'm at a location with better stolen internet today. the past internetless week as been both good and bad. good because i've weaned myself off the obsessive reading of my 60-something blogs listed in my feed reader. bad because i now feel incredibly out of the loop. in fact, a restaurant opened in the city with a somewhat impressive chef and i missed it. it is my unofficial job to know when every food venue in this city opens for friends and family. i would have missed another one had my roommate not just gotten a job at another impressive newly opened place.

i've been doing a lot of hedge fund reading still. ask me any question about the 1933 and 1940 securities acts. quiz me on the sections of reg D, go ahead, try me.

also, i start another project tomorrow. i'll have internet, but for the rates they're paying, i'm certain that too much playing around on the blogs will be discouraged. at these rates, they want slaves and a slave i'll be because the cash, it is fat.

i have a list half a page long of things i have to post about. not sure when i'll find the time as i'm still only half way through my securities books, haven't even opened last week's new yorker. it's amazing how little free time i've had during this brief unemployment.

very exciting celebrity sighting yesterday: ryan (b.j. novak) (formerly intern, now the new jan) from the office! he was a bit petite. scruffy, of course. and with a really dorky looking guy. huzzah for famous people keeping normal friends! i briefly considered following them but had too many errands to run to stalk. had it been jim, it would have been a completely different story, obv.

we had a second annual spookalicous party at ted's where pumpkin carving occurred. i have a hatelovehate relationship with halloween in this city. i love seeing other people dress up, i just hate doing it myself. this year i was little edie from grey gardens. and it was so easy to wear a skirt upside-down and wrap a sweater around my head that i may be edie for several more years. favorite costumes: three guys who showed up as dick in a box guys. loved it.

an evening with stephen colbert

i went to the 92nd st Y on tuesday to see frank rich interview stephen colbert. as much as i hate to say this because i want to have jon stewart's babies...stephen colbert gives a much funnier interview. i think this is partly to blame on how seriously political jon is. when asked the "what blogs do you read" question, jon listed of a dozen of them (both left and right), stephen does not read blogs.

also, i have to note how good looking the guy is in person. he's hot. really. when he's not in character his voice is softer and i, briefly, wanted to pull a jane fonda on him myself. that woman had the right idea. things i've added to my "to do" list: write book so i can promote it on the colbert report and molest stephen.

some quotes and tidbits...

"my character is an idiot. he chooses to be ignorant about the things he's most passionate about."

on the interviews in which he couldn't stay in character: "jane fonda crawled up on me like a squirrel monkey. she made me the object of the interview. i had to play straight because her character was stronger than mine."

on better know a district: "i get them to say orange juice makes you gay."

on kissinger appearing to judge the guitarmageddon: "we needed to have a reason for why he'd come on my show. so we have five minutes worth of tape somewhere of me trying to convince him to say 'where are my pancakes? i was promised pancakes.' his response, 'that is too much stephen, too much.' and he wouldn't say it."

that amy sedaris broke him of his dream to be a serious actor.

he sang a bit of jesus christ superstar and it was AMAZING.

on whether the daily show and the colbert report ever overlap jokes: "jon is jon and i am not me. we're never going to go at it from the same angle." but he did say that when they have too many overlapping subjects that the report cedes to the daily show because jon's show is more of a news show, relying on the stories of the day more than the report.

on the correspondent's dinner: he says the one thing he took away from the evening was a discussion with bush beforehand at a reception. he was telling bush how amazed the woman at the cart/deli who makes his coffee was that he was going to talk to the president. "but stephen, you are a satirist, you make fun of the president yet you've be asked to speak for him. what a country" bush's response, "only in america."

on the nytimes ad for stephen's book which read "winner of the 2008 pulitzer prize": "it should have been an obvious joke in and of itself as it's still only 2007. then we added an asterisk and footnoted '*they give out pulitzers for balls, right?' " the paper of note will not let you say balls in an ad so they changed it to "*source: wikipedia" and went and changed the wikipedia pages and sent them to the times. they should have screencapped them but didn't so by the time the nytimes went to check the pages had been corrected. "wikipedia seriously must huge alarms that go off whenever someone from my show logs on."

a lady of leisure

so my current job ended and i've had some time off. most of which i've spent lunching with my artistic/creative friends who don't have day jobs either. i'll get a new temp job within another week or so but am enjoying my freedom until then.

emily's fiancee is currently getting his ass kissed by some impressive hedge fund attorneys and apparently he's told them all he'd be more likely to give them his business if they were to hire me. so i've been getting calls to meet with some of the most sophisticated private equity attorneys in the city which is kind of hilarious to me. mostly because i'm under qualified. partly because it's disgusting how much this city runs on "networking fuel." it really is all about who you know. i have a pile two feet high of books i need to read on funds before i can even step foot into these guys' offices. meh.

my friend jessie's wedding was this weekend and it was beautiful. it was, without a doubt, the most stunning (and fun) wedding i've ever been to. the band was AMAZING. the food was out of this world. a filet mignon for dinner that melted, we cut it with butter knives). the cocktail hour had a raw bar, there was a sushi chef rolling, a pasta bar with lobster ravioli, canapes being passed (butternut squash soup, yum!), crudite tables. it was out of control. her photographer was amazing and totally gorgeous (i'd bet good money half the women there masturbated to thoughts of him before bed that night). the ceremony itself was in a lovely tree filled room with floating votives and felt more like a fairy lair than a hotel banquet room. her dress was a playful vera wang. my dress was the deal of the century (which you can no longer see on the website and which i should have screencapped but didn't but trust me it's amazing).

saw "gone baby gone" last night. it was intense but i'd fully recommend it. it was good, if not a bit nerve rattling and a bit depressing. also, casey affleck is superb, rock on little affleck!

i'm sure there are things i'm forgetting to write about but i'll report back soon.

happy wednesday

this cartoon has been making me laugh a lot for no real reason...

friday rant

everyone has a co-worker that they hate. let's talk about chris.

first, chris is an idiot. he's just the stupidest person ever with zero common sense. i have no patience with stupid people.

second, his eating habits. not only does he start with huge donuts and coke in the morning. and not only does he make like 5 trips to the vending machine for candy bars and skittles. and surprisingly, he's not obese but he's, without a doubt, giving himself diabetes. but i digress. when he gets food, he shovels it into his mouth. he'll take a forkful, stick it in his mouth. then, without chewing, he'll take another forkful and shove it into his mouth. AND THEN HE'LL DO IT AGAIN. until the his cheeks look like a hamster storing food for later at which point then he'll try to chew but you can hear it because he can't close his mouth because THERE'S TOO MUCH FOOD IN IT.

it is the most disgusting thing i've ever witnessed and to keep myself from having a seizure i have started to physically leave the room for 20 minutes while he's eating.

he is always talking about ex girlfriends and lacey and i are certain that he's making them all up. every single one. because no girl would date this guy because he's stupid and disgusting.

he is constantly sighing loudly. he does it ALL DAY.

his favorite thing to do is complain about bad things that happen to him but he never admits responsibility for it. "i took my car in to get the tires changed and they said they couldn't give it back to me until tomorrow!" even though i heard him on the phone with said auto shop and heard them tell him in advance they couldn't get it back same day. yet he doesn't believe them, brings his car there and gets annoyed. or how about the fact he took the new york state bar without studying and is annoyed that he didn't pass. he left his apt in boston to move to new york without subletting it first and now complains endlessly that he's paying rent in two places.

the things that all of these stories have in common is you, buddy, and you're a moron.

that is all. thank you.

p.s. i may add to this list sporadically as i'm reminded of other annoying things...

swag!

i am the first person to acknowledge how lucky i am when it comes to getting free things. i know the right people, get free tickets to the right events and am always bringing home fun gift bags.

so on saturday i stopped by new yorker festival headquarters where i got a gift bag because i used a citi mastercard to buy my tickets. random. but the bag had a cute long sleeved t-shirt, a book of cartoons from the magazine, a gift certificate for some fancy pants make up store (where you probably can't find anything for less than $60). hershey's chocolate and that new cd with all the joni mitchell covers (which has a song from my beloved sufjan!).

the headquarters itself was swag city. banana republic was giving away water bottles (with BR labels) and black and white cookies. acura was giving away zagat guides. chevron was giving away compact fluorescent lightbulbs (i took 5). they had nyer cartoonists there with huge pads doing cartoons on demand ("my daughter likes penguins, can you do a penguin one?") and would hand it off to the requester when they were done. i had them sign my new book which contained cartoons by the cartoonists there. it was super fun and there was NOBODY there. they need to advertise that shit more next year.

then i head to brunch where i meet up with two friends (one at a major magazine and another with a television network) and they are always bringing us presents. one of them whips out those teeny ipod shuffles (seriously, it's smaller than a pack of listerine strips. crazy!) in a mint green color. love it. then the other friend whips out a ton of cds (timbaland, amy winehouse, maroon 5, rihanna).

rock on.

new yorker festival: seymour hersh

nb: many quotes below are not exact quotes. they are as close to exact as i could get from my hurried notes but i believe they are fairly accurate as far as "gist" goes. also, most of the discussion re: the dems on iraq is not going to show up on any transcript as it occurred post-interview, informally, with the audience members.

i think the benefit to going to these things by yourself is that you can always find one single little stray seat up front to place yourself in. and because i have an awfully big crush on david remnick, sitting 10 feet from him gave me plenty of opportunities to try to seduce him with my eyes, but i digress...

for those that don't know who sy hersh is, i was going to link his wikipedia entry. but i read it and don't find it particularly fair. it seems as though it has been tampered a bit by some right wingers who are always accusing him of making up sources, solely because his sources are of such a senior rank (and many still employed at high levels) that to be identified means losing their jobs (to say nothing of the penalties that accompany disclosure of classified information). the new yorker isn't just a highbrow mag, it's a serious news source. david remnick, hersh's editor and a fact checker at the magazine know the identity of every source hersh has had and each source has been fact checked. period. hersh is one of the greatest investigative reporters of the century.

this one is worth downloading once they get audio files online (if they haven't already). because hersh has an unbelievable amount of inside information. he also mentioned the amount of info that he has that he's going to have to take to the grave with him, memos he's received that he can't so much as whisper about.

i have a ton of notes that i'll turn into points for y'all:

-- remnick referred to bush as messianic. hersh countered that he believes bush himself would use the term self-referentially. but he also says the man is plainly ineducable. i'm paraphrasing but he said something along the lines of: "you know david, we're in the business of words. every word has deep importance. but to bush, words mean absolutely nothing."

-- he said that without a doubt, his sources have made clear, we have no idea where bin laden is.

-- pakistan "scares the shit" out of him.

-- on his sources, he said that some people confide in him because they've known him a long time. others are approaching him now out of pure patriotism for our country. that certain people cannot take the deterioration of our democracy sitting down. the abuse of power that this administration has made standard practice is encouraging his sources to share information in the hopes that some of the current problems, if revealed, can be ameliorated.

-- he didn't get into the walt and mearshimer papers but commented to say that he believes the u.s. isn't putting enough pressure on israeal to work to end the israeli/palestinian conflict.

some funny stories before i get into the serious stuff:

-- in reference to how hard hersh works and how often the two communicate remnick said, "i get calls at all hours..." and was interrupted by hersh who said defensively, "i didn't know you were in california!" as hersh is saying that remnick holds up four fingers and mouths "4am." "i'd like to remind you, sy, that 4am california time is 7am on the east coast." hersh responded with a "so sue me" shrug.

-- while hersh was writing the iran article he'd sent remnick an article right after rosh hashanah. remnick said, "i will never forget that e-mail. it went, 'david, comma, happy new year, semicolon, i need more space." "no, i think i used a comma." like a true editor remnick shot back, "you should have used a semicolon"

the most distressing part of the interview was his statement that the democrats are going to lose this election if we don't change our stance on war.

at the time he didn't elaborate and nobody asked him what he meant but i rushed up to him post-lecture and, thankfully, he expounded on it a bit. his response: "because all the top three want to do, at this point, is lower troop levels. nobody [with a chance of winning] is talking about pulling them out entirely. bush and the white house have solid plans to dramatically decrease troop levels next summer." he explained that bush's withdrawal would meet, if not beat, the withdrawals currently called for by the democratic candidates. he's going to pull the rug out from underneath them and the democrats are going to be screwed and without a plan in iraq. meanwhile bush will use the ridiculous logic that the surge has worked so well that, as a result, he can bring troops home. it allows the republicans to parade around heralding that we're (still) winning the war and they all look like heroes when the families of those serving get to see their sons and daughters back home.

of course the "surge has worked so lets withdrawal" idea is completely counter-intuitive. if the surge was working so well, we'd send more troops over so that we could actually "win" this damn war, not pull troops back out. "i think you have two options. 1.) pull all troops out by midnight tonight. 2.) pull all troops out by midnight tomorrow. i firmly believe that once we get out of the way they'll have no other option but to compromise."

i hear what he's saying but i was pretty persuaded by george packer's article about how immediate withdrawal is just not an option. (for those of you who haven't read it, i strongly recommend you taking time to do so.) regardless, hersh was adamant that this course the democrats on is a losing one and that's a pretty scary proposition.

at the end, remnick asked him why he hasn't retired. "you could stop writing and have a lucrative time lecturing from here on out." "david, i'll retire but now is just not the time to do it. there is too much important work to be done."

and here ir glynnis macnicol and rachel sklar (i.e. real writers) with an excellent rundown of the event.

new yorker festival: denby, rogen, apatow

a few of you mentioned yesterday you didn't know who these folks were (even though i was kind enough to have linked their imdb profiles). apatow established cultish fame with freaks and geeks which is where seth got his start. since then the pair has worked together on 40 year old virgin, knocked up, superbad and next year's release pineapple express.

denby did his best to cater to these funny guys but still came off as too stuffy to really engage them. even less engaging? all the cult rogen wannabes who showed up. you know, the chubby dorky kids with big hair who think because they look like rogen that they can somehow achieve his level of success. rogen and apatow made their fair share of jokes at the expense of the new yorker which stemmed from their near disbelief that such a "highbrow" magazine and it's followers would want to talk to them. rogen, about a dozen times, referenced the new yorker just to keep putting things in perspective, to acknowledge his awe at, i think, the extent of how widespread his appeal had become.

first off, i fell in love with rogen's laugh. i NEED my husband to sound like that when he laughs. it's this dorky giggle/chuckle that i couldn't get enough of. it was thick and loud and sweet. the highlight, for me, was a 7 minute scene that did not appear in the movie knocked up. apatow knew people were going to want more abortion talk (and though the critics wanted that discussion from heigl's character) apatow filmed the guys having an abortion conversation. he prefaced it with a comment about how abortion isn't really all that funny and while he suspected this scene wouldn't make it into the movie and it didn't, i thought the clip was hilarious.

it begins with the guys talking about first how to avoid pregnancy ("i make her take a walk with me after sex so that all the bouncing up and down will make the sperm fall out" to which someone else responds, "no dude, sperm can live for like 2 months" and implies that even if you don't cum in someone, that they'll still find their way up to an egg -- a terrifying thought, actually). when the topic of abortion is breached only one of the guys (the skinny one that everyone picks on) argues that a fertilized egg is life. the counter argument to prove it is not a human being yet is to ask who remembers anything from inside the womb. in mocking the anti-abortionist in the crew, they ask him whether he saves all the socks he's cum into and whether he tries to breathe life into his sperm in an attempt to save all those precious little lives. it, of course, bordered ridiculousness but i really do believe that there are more men who believe these things to be true than i care to think about.

cute tidbits about casting...they had a hard time casting katherine heigl's role in knocked up because seth isn't a tiny guy. he said that there was so much fighting and yelling that when they read it with smaller girls, it just looked like he was beating up on them and that it bordered on abuse. when katherine auditioned seth said that she scared the crap out him. she's some 5'9" and, apparently, held her ground almost too well. in order to fill the role of mclovin in superbad the casting director sent letters to drama departments all over the country asking for, essentially, "a really dorky guy who thinks that he's really cool." a friend of christopher's showed him the letter and said, "dude, that's you!" when he came in to audition he asked seth and evan to sign his script. cute! also worth noting: rogen said that he didn't know anything about michael cera and also did not know how funny he was. that, in my opinion, is complete madness. i thought it was common knowledge that cera was brilliant. although, i suppose more people would know that had the best show on television, arrested development, not been cancelled. may it rest in peace.

a million studios told seth that superbad was "fundamentally unmakeable" which highlights the new genre that these men have created by bringing awkwardness and geekyness to the forefront and parading it around in all its glory. they made it cool to be dorky.

read more (and better) recaps here and here.

weekend tidbits: new yorker festival weekend

the new yorker festival was this weekend. i went to the david remnick interview with sy hersh and the denby interview judd apatow and seth rogen. i'll do full posts on those in the coming days when i can get my notes together. both were excellent.

i went to the lucinda williams concert at town hall on thursday. i'm not all that familiar with her work but my good friend from law school (and my mentor in all things political) flew in from houston for the concert and asked me with. that woman is hip as hell. she told dozens of stories in a way that was honest, a bit self-depreciating and rebellious all at the same time. updating to make a comment on cousin's comment below: she started several songs several times over because there was something minute about it that she didn't like. "i'm sorry guys but they're taping this! i don't want to have to look at it later and be annoyed that my voice cracked in the wrong place!" and she'd say it in a kind "feel bad for me that i have OCD" kind of way and it was always funny and charming. also, at one point she was tuning and started singing and realized she was in the wrong key. tuned some more. started again. "no, that's not right either." then she stood hopelessly in the middle of the stage and in desperation she childishly whined, "somebody help me!" and she hopped up and down a bit. and on ran a stagehand, pulling off her capo and writing on her music stand a big "D" to let he know what key she was supposed to be in. it was so cute. she is just so cute.

alex balk has left gawker. i fell into my gawker addiction right about the time he started over there. i fell into my internet crush of him not long thereafter. he reveals a lot about himself in his posts and i, rightly or not, feel like i know the guy. and i adore him. i'm also not afraid to admit i teared up at his "farewell post" and felt a bit mopey for a couple hours after i left work. it's strange, that feeling you've lost a friend you never had to begin with. regardless, i wish him the best of luck over at radar. i suppose i'll have to add the rss into my feed reader now...

SWAG. there will be an entire post devoted to the free things i got this weekend. it was christmas in october!

saturday night was a bbq at em's. i'm getting tired of the hedge funders. sunday was brunch with my beloved gorgonzola fondue at extra virgin.

the yankees continue to hang by a thread. but at least, AT LEAST mariano pulled himself together last night. i was starting to lose my faith in the man.

500th post

so blogger tells me it's my 500th post here. that sounds like a lot. and in 500 posts i've come halfway towards figuring out what i'd like this place to be.

it's a fun hobby but only when i have time. otherwise the pressure i feel to post is amazingly irritating.

half-naked posts get hits. and they're fun for me. but they're also not good lest, at some point, i make this blog part of my public life.

writing about my love life isn't nearly as fun when a disgusting ex may be reading.

the more posts i have, the less i care how many hits i'm getting. at this point, this place is about preserving a bit of my life here. remembering the good times i'm having here (and sometimes the bad) in this city of mine.

some of you have been with me from the very beginning and i thank you for that.

i'm always happy to have you here playing with me folks. here's to 500 more.

violence in the city

when you move to new york, you learn that you have to be a little aggressive. otherwise you're facing a life of getting pushed around and stepped on (literally and figuratively). you'll never make it onto that crowded train car without some assertiveness. you'll never make it through bloomingdales on a saturday without a little force. and sample sales? those are in a league of their own. you need to take martial arts classes to successfully navigate those things.

so i've been known to shove with an elbow when a loud "excuse me!" doesn't work as i'm trying to edge my way out of a subway car so i won't miss my stop. sometimes when people start ramming themselves into the train before the passengers on the train have had a chance to get out, i'll nudge my shoulder out at them. it's a little, "bitch, wait till we're off the fucking train to get in the car!" love tap.

so last night i get off the bus. scaffolding was covering the sidewalk and the only entrance onto the sidewalk from the street was being blocked by a stump old woman. a girl in front of me pushed through and i saw the old woman's elbow fly out at her. "whoa, that's uncalled for" i thought. the woman was totally in the way but i didn't hear the girl ask her to move either. so i say, "excuse me!" the old woman turns around and i'm thinking she's making room for me to pass. as i slide by, i feel a fist on my back. it wasn't that hard because, well, it was an old woman. but can you believe that crazy ass bitch hit me because she didn't like that i had to pass through?

i stopped and turned. all the people around her must have seen what she'd done because there were an awful lot of wide eyed stares looking her way. i briefly contemplated spitting in her face "pumpkin style." but then i remembered i don't know how to spit. i gave her a look of disgust and the finger instead.

only in new york kids, only in new york.

help me out

i know the picture is small and grainy, but anybody know who that guy is?

"don't try to understand it"

is how my friend lacy introduced this clip to me.

zero inspiration

i got nothing as far as posts go today folks.

if you're not sure what candidate you favor, or want to know which one represents your views better than the others, try this place.

these days, every time i sneeze i say "oy" afterwards. i don't even mean to do it, it just happens.

i bought an extra pair of tickets to sufjan's concert BQE at BAM. on craigslist tickets are selling for $200 a piece. mama's gonna make some nice extra cash! also, who in their right mind would pay $200 to see sufjan? i love him but he's not prince or michael jackson or bono. seriously.