Droid Doesn't

My Motorola Droid got stuck in a start-up or "boot loop" and I had to take it in to Verizon. While this is a pretty rare problem it is not entirely unknown on the interwebs with "take it back to Verizon" being the best answer. Shouldn't lose any data & am not quite ready to throw the Droid out with the bathwater just yet BUT... apparently there are only 2 Droids in all of Manhattan. So they had to have one shipped from Westchester and that means I am without a phone for 2.5 days. Not entirely unpleasant, but also a bit of a challenge for a start-up entrepreneur.... Grr...

An Open Letter to the Indianapolis Colts

To Whom It May Concern,

I am far too cute for you to win. Give up. I came in to this world during the playoffs & my parents met in New Orleans. If you fail to heed my warning... well.... I may just poop myself.

Strong letter to follow (once I can write).

Sincerely yours,
Handsome Young Prince in a Random Bear Suit

Chris Dodd

As most of you know, I am DEEPLY apolitical. I love character. So I love John McCain. But I am a registered independent. Both parties have let me down.

But I am very proud of where I am from. And after a self-serving tour in the Senate, The Great State of Connecticut's Senator Chris Dodd said he wouldn't run again with this line that truly, truly bothers me:

"There's nothing more pathetic, in my view, than a politician who announces they are only leaving public life to spend more time with their family."

But at least he had the class to make this announcement with his family standing right behind him.

How dare you sir. Is there really nothing more pathetic? Or have you just let the public in on the secret that that term is code for someone who has stepped down because they don't want anything untoward brought to the fore? Like you knew you couldn't win the next election because of your scandals?

No matter what I do, no matter where my career takes me, if I ever had to step down to take care of my family, I would be God DAMNED if it wasn't the right thing to do that made me do it.

NOTHING could ever be more important. So how DARE YOU compare career and the concept of family. Or even worse...

Politics.

How dare you sir.

Physical Activity & Time Constraints

Have been trying to make a concerted effort to get to the gym more, with mixed results.  Have tried going first thing in the morning which, while sub-optimal from an energy-level standpoint at least gets it out of the way for the day.  The problem is Time.

But I am trying to take back some time to hit the gym.  Today was one of those good days.  Haven't had much time for blog posts or social activities, but at least today I worked out.  Ran 3 miles, then lifted (abs, back & bi's), then ran another 1 1/4 mile, then swam a little over a quarter mile.  It felt great.  If only it happened more often.

Back to work...

DAMN IT!

Once again, an entry extremely similar to one I submitted appears as a finalist in the New Yorker's Caption Contest.

FINALISTS

	"It's sloppy work like that that gives the mob a bad name." Submitted by Gordon Baumbacher Kentfield, Calif.
	"We are trying to reduce our concrete footprint." Submitted by Tim Wilcox Miwaukee, Wis.
	"Two weeks ago, this was not considered torture." Submitted by Avery Clapsaddle Neche, N.D.

My entry read, " And on your right we are exploring a "green" alternative that, quite literally, reduces your concrete footprint."  

Tread lightly Mr. Tim Wilcox of Milwaukee, Wisconsin...  You're dangerously close to my "Dead To Me" list.

PETA is Stupid

Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!

Now, I have never been a supporter of PETA for obvious, carnivorous reasons.  But their recent effort to rename "Fish" "Sea Kittens" in an attempt to curtail seafood consumption is just inane.

On their web site they have a tool where you can make your own "Sea Kitten."  Mine, pictured above is His Royal Fishiness (HRF) Prince Liquida IV.  Delicious.

Yet again, comedic hero Stephen Colbert weighs in and discusses this and the appeal of "Land Fish" & "Sky Nachos"...  (starting at the 1:47 mark of the clip below:)

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Tip/Wag - Monkey on the Lam

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Colbert Report Tickets

Paul McCartney Appearance
More Funny Videos

Insomnia. Again.

Apparently, unbeknownst to myself, I have given up sleep as a New Year's resolution.  While it's never been a strong suit of mine, it is starting to get noticeable in its absence.  Despite my (& The Wife's) best efforts, I just can't seem to get a good night's sleep.  Grr...  Been up since 2:00am.  Well, I guess I'll go get a cup of coffee.  I'm up...

Rose Bowl

We are...  Disappointed.

$10,000 for a Snow Angel?!?!

In what I thought was the greatest TD celebration ever (and rewound to watch 4 times), the Patriots' tough Texan Wes Welker made a snow angel in last week's crushing victory over the playoff-bound Arizona Cardinals.  Now, after having been penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct during the game, he has been fined $10,000.  Doesn't that seem excessive for an exceedingly humorous, childlike and festive display?  As opposed to the self-aggrandizing showboating that normally accompanies an NFL touchdown, this seemed downright wholesome.  And funny.  To all of the Grinches at the NFL I say, "Boo."  I hope you got coal in your stockings...

Los Angeles

"City of Angels" my ass...

Just returned from an incredibly frustrating business trip to the West Coast.  A few days in San Francisco (which I am starting to enjoy - a larger proportion of authentic dive bars than in most cities) and a day and a half in Los Angeles.  

Our host on the West Coast was supposed to travel to LA with us and make some introductions.  Unfortunately, he got sick so we were sent by ourselves.  Suboptimal at best as these were his relationships and so, after our first meeting, we decided to cut our losses, return home early, and spend the rest of the day on an LA bar crawl to drown our sorrows.

Thankfully we have good friends like Alex who, despite being in NYC, quarterbacked us by text message on where to go in LA.  We changed hotels, went to the Beverly Laurel Motor Hotel (as previously posted) and went to Al's neighborhood near Hollywood & Vine, starting at The Bowery for a late lunch.  We then wandered, finding the Starlight Room (quickly left, as we didn't know it was a gay bar), The Frolic Room (which was delightful, and our favorite - very authentic and the poet Bukowski used to drink & write there.)  

Then we had dinner at Velvet Margarita:

Which was fine - well decorated with velvet paintings (including Elvis & Sinatra), a lot of skull imagery, and good music playing.  Food was just okay but the margaritas were great, as was the decor.  Walked across the street, per another Al recommendation, to the Hotel Cafe for live music.  An incredibly nice bouncer let us go in to check it out without paying the $10 cover charge.  Great venue but the chanteuse (resplendent in a Mrs. Roper-inspired muu muu-esque dress) "singing" that night was warbling Apple-ad nerd folk and I simply couldn't take her yodeling her never-to-be-a-hit "In My Garden."  (The internets tell me it was Obi Best singing "Within These Forest Walls.")

(For those of you who know me & my musical tastes well, you can imagine my horror...  Gano actually liked it.)

So we left and wandered to another Al recommendation, The S Bar.  Very slick (upside down lamps as chandeliers) with remarkably happy, attentive, & amusing bartenders making fancy drinks with very fresh ingredients and a very pretty - if stupid - clientele.  ("You've got a whale on your shirt!"  "Yes.  Yes I do.")

Finally we called it a night, feeling we made our best of it and retired rather early for us, after a late night meal at Swingers Diner where we had brunch the next day and then went to the airport and fled Los Angeles, very excited to leave.

Thank you very much Al for steering us to some good places.  However, in very much the same way that New Orleans speaks to me and I feel different, and better, when I am there; Los Angeles is the antithesis.  It is so abundantly not my town that it messes up my mojo when I'm there...

Amtrak blows

So... I missed my train to Philly (by 1 minute) & traded my ticket in for the next available train. Got a "Business Class" seat, as it was merely $1 more than my Acela ticket. Walked the length of the train to "Business Class" which was just the same as every other car. The conductor asked me "Business class?" I responded, "Yes, but it looks the same as all the others." His response? "Well if it looks the same, then it's the same." Thanks. Glad I spent the extra money.

Also currently enjoying an uncontrollable sneezing fit / allergy attack. Why, in the wealthiest nation on earth, do we have to suffer an incredibly disappointing rail system? FRANCE has us beat by miles... Unacceptable.

Shea

It's raining. And I'm wet. And watching 2 teams I could care less about. In Queens. At least it's cold...

Poland At Risk

I try to keep my blog light & frothy. It' s supposed to be for friends & family to keep abreast of our wacky misadventures and for the occasional musing. I figure there are enough sources of serious, depressing stuff out there and why should I waste time and energy when there are professional news sources?

But one recent news item has me really bothered and can't be ignored... Poland, land of my ancestors, was explicitly threatened with a nuclear strike by Russia for agreeing to host America's missile defense system. (A move they can hardly be blamed for given Russia's recent activity in Georgia and HISTORY.)

This is truly shocking. Poland has historically allied itself with the West despite the U.S & Britain shamefully leaving Poland to the Stalinist wolves after Polish aviators had saved London in WWII. Poland was & remains one of the most significant foreign contributors to the "Coalition of the Willing" in Iraq. ("He forgot Poland." - President Bush) And now they have, once again, laid themselves on the line and face NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION. From a recent issue of the Economist:

“We have crossed the Rubicon,” said the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, as the deal was done. Russia said any country involved in America’s missile defences made itself a legitimate target for nuclear attack. Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, who went to Poland to sign the deal this week, retorted that such threatening language “isn’t tolerable”.

Terrifying. What year is this?

Dead to Me

As predicted, Will Simon of Brooklyn, NY won the New Yorker's Caption Contest with MY quote. I am furious. And Will Simon of Brooklyn, NY is now - officially - Dead to Me.

"Objection, Your Honor! Alleged killer whale."
Will Simon
Brooklyn, N.Y.

See? I Told You So...

Speaking of my "Dead To Me" List... #1 is The Manatee. Someone recently asked me, "Why do you hate the manatee so much?"

I would think the answers would be obvious, and legion. But for those who have never stopped to think about it, they are useless creatures. Hideous, inedible, and they get in the way of boats. I refer to "the sea cow" as "Nature's speed bump." I also have to assume they take massive poos.

The fact that people would confuse these hideous beasts for mermaids also flicks my tail. Mermaids rule, manatees blow. The amount of energy that people exert to save this awful, awful creature is simply shocking to me and could be far better spent. And so, I really hate the manatee. (As Marvelous Matt S. said years back when I first explained my position, "Huh. You're kind of kidding, but kind of NOT!") You betcha. Screw the manatee.

I recently was pleased to get even more validation in my correct opinion from none other than my comedic hero, Stephen Colbert. Here is a photo of him punching a manatee dead in the face:

Dead to Me

Following directly on the heels of Kubica's historic win in Montreal, Poland played Germany in the Euro 2008 soccer tourney. Big day for Polish sport. Unfortunately the heavily-favored Germans proved too tough for the pesky Poles and Germany won 2-0.

That would be bad enough, but both goals came from POLISH-BORN Lukas Podolski with an assist from POLISH-BORN Miroslav Klose, both of whom also proved lethal against the Poles in the last World Cup. (!!)

Congratulations, you traitorous bastards. You have just made my "Dead To Me" list.

THE LAST G*D-DAMN STRAW!

Okay... THIS is infuriating... As even the casual reader of this blog knows, I am obsessed with the New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest. Imagine my rage when I opened up the current issue of the New Yorker to find a nearly IDENTICAL caption to the one I submitted as one of the finalists!!!

I submitted "Objection! Alleged killer whale." While Will Simon of Brooklyn's "Objection, Your Honor! Alleged killer whale." was judged superior. I am beside myself with rage. To come SO CLOSE...

It's a good thing we are traveling for most of this week, I would hate to run in to Brooklyn's Will Simon...

New Yorker Caption Contest

My friend Christian & I are obsessed with the New Yorker's weekly Caption Contest. We submit entries frequently, but I thought that we had this week's LOCKED UP. You see, in high school, I had submitted an entry to the Bulwer-Lytton Contest which is a contest to write the best opening line to the worst piece of potential fiction:

Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton was the author of that line, made famous by Snoopy of "Peanuts" fame, "It was a dark and stormy night..."

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

Dreadful. So they named a great contest after him to write a terrific / terrible opening line to a fictitious novel. Brilliant.

My entry, nearly 20 years ago, was "The vultures alit from their prey, their carrion luggage stowed away." So I get a call from Christian telling me that this week's New Yorker Caption Contest is PERFECT for a joke I made 2 decades ago. Naturally, I submitted a similar entry thinking that - at last - my time had arrived, destiny had come calling, and I would finally get national New Yorker-level recognition for my rapier wit...

Here's where I get angry. Christian & I had superior entries for this week's Caption Contest, neither one of which was chosen. So, I took it up on myself to write our friend Bruce, who is a film critic and editor at the New Yorker:

Bruce:

I apologize in advance for this rant, but I am afraid that I am really furious at your employer. As you know, Christian & I are obsessed with the Caption Contest. Now, of course we always think our submissions are superior, but this week it's no contest whatsoever and we are really angry that the three that were chosen were INFINITELY inferior to our submissions.

Here is the cartoon, and the 3 loser entries:

Drawing by Drew Dernavich

"Janice, hold all my calls. Indefinitely." Submitted by Peter Bruno Rutland, Vt. "Could you order me a B.L.T. on whole wheat with a side of carrion?" Submitted by Wayne Martorelli Lawrenceville, N.J. "Let me guess—the lab results aren't good." Submitted by Jacob Kono Jersey City, N.J.

Now here are ours:

Mine -- "No, no checked luggage. All carrion."
Christian's -- "No, I said we should adopt a corporate culture."

Obviously ours are better.

So, in short and in closing, you work for a bunch of communist-sympathizing whoremongers who wouldn't know good cartoon captions if they bit them in their pompous asses. Filthy animals...

Strong letter to follow,
LTG

Absolut New Orleans

Hardly.

The Wife & I went to the New York launch party for Absolut's new vodka: "Absolut New Orleans." Absolut has created a limited edition vodka (flavored with black pepper and, inexplicably, mango) to honor and celebrate New Orleans and all profits will go to some very worthy charities benefiting the Gulf Region. A great idea. The party was...

Awful. It was obviously concocted by some hipper-than-thou Marketing automaton as there was little to no New Orleans flavor. If you turned off the (admittedly cool) lighting effect pictured here, it could have been any party, for any purpose whatsoever. The space it was held in was very cool and I had very high hopes for the evening, but they failed. For instance, in the main room, they had a DJ spinning overplayed dance hits, NOT NEW ORLEANS MUSIC. They had a 3 person zydeco band tucked in a corner right by the entrance, playing to 6 people. There was some good post-Katrina artwork on the walls by a talented photographer and the food was very good, but only the crawfish appetizers were even reminiscent of NOLA cuisine. (The main caterer was Ruth's Chris which served great steak but it's more of a chain now, even though it got its start in New Orleans.)

There also was a silent auction with one item I bid on - a Tipitina's poster signed by Fats Domino. Thankfully the bidding for that was spirited. HOWEVER, the other items were a signed Little Steven guitar and a bunch of Absolut New Orleans bottles signed by such celebrities as Eva Longoria, Michael Imperioli, Will Ferrell, Brooke Shields, and Matthew McConaughy -- actors with LITTLE TO NO CONNECTION TO NEW ORLEANS!!

It was really dispiriting. The Wife & I left pretty quickly. We had such high hopes for the event, but it completely missed the mark. They had a real opportunity to make a statement and an impact, particularly as it was held on the 2 year anniversary of Katrina, but they failed utterly. With the ad budget I assume Absolut has, they could have hired nothing but impoverished & talented name New Orleans musicians to play (Mardi Gras Indians, brass bands, etc.), but instead held a bland and tasteless party populated by the soulless pretty-bots that frequent such events.

Boo. I was visibly distraught. The Wife kept asking me, "Are you okay? You seem... deep in thought." Yes. They really should have done this better. Again, particularly as it was held on the 2 year anniversary...

Razors

I've noticed something that really kind of pisses me off. I hate shaving (and I know I am not unique among men, or women, in that regard) but I purchase the latest and greatest in shaving technology, at every "evolution" of it. ("This one has 3 blades!", "This one is blue!", "This one has a battery in it!", "This one has FIVE blades!", "This one has 5 blades, a trimmer, AND a battery!") Well, I bought the five blade Gillette Fusion a while ago and I was STUNNED.
The shave was so close that the rubber guides would squeak on my face, like sneakers on a basketball court. HOWEVER, this was only the case for the 2 SAMPLES that came in the package with the razor - NOT the replacement blades. And I thought back to each iteration of new shaving technology at which I had marveled and realized, THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE! The blades that come with the razor are ridiculously great, and the replacement blades are just mediocre. Has anyone else noticed this? Does this also happen with ladies' razors? Infuriating... I guess the only thing to do is upgrade to the Gillette Fusion Power Phantom...