I just experienced my first snow in New York City.

:)


P.S. I'm going to see White Christmas on Broadway with my parents on Friday!!! What a week!

I know I never post here anymore, I need to get on that.

From Very Good Taste: Here’s a chance for a little interactivity for all the bloggers out there. Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (I've had alligator, but I guess that doesn't count??)
6. Black pudding (Mmmm, Irish breakfast!)
7. Cheese fondue (Possibly too many times...)
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
( The rest of this entry has been cut out of courtesy... )

Wow, okay. I have a lot of eating to do. Everyone should post this because I'm curious!

It's that time again. List-making time.

A list of my current obsessions (NYC edition):

+ Tastespotting (for the best food porn/recipe search around) and Supercook (the handiest recipe tool ever invented. EVER.)
+ Chelsea Market and mango-nectarines
+ Sunday in the Park with George
+ Urban garden planning
+ Nellie McKay - "David"
+ Half-day Fridays (We get out at 2 on Friday until August!)
+ Guy & Gallard coffee and the guys who now know my order because I go there every morning
+ SimCity 4
+ Black & white cookies
+ Never washing my dishes (I need to get on that)
+ Not mowing the lawn (I need to get on that too)
+ Billy Joel in a week!
+ Wanting things I can't afford
+ ETA: $3 Margarita Mondays at Maracas (How could I have forgotten that one?)

I wonder how many times I've used that as my subject...

Thursday will be my one month anniversary of moving to NYC, so I'm doing a re-cap of everything (notable) that's happened to me over the past four weeks in this fabulous city. TK - (meaning "to come" for all you non-journalists out there) An update on all of the things I'm still planning to do in this fabulous city.

+ Parked on the roof of a K-mart.

+ Painted my bedroom furniture.

+ Opened a bank account that is only in my name. (Bear with me, I'm quite psyched about this, however pathetic that may be.)

+ Got my first REAL job (you know, as opposed to all those other fake jobs I had).

+ Bought an obscene amount of clothes for said job.

+ Developed an addiction to the real-deal, NY-style Italian ice... not that lame-ass Rita's crap. My eyes have been opened!

+ Met Bernadette Peters at the Gap. (Actually, phuck did... I just saw her in line.)

+ Saw A.C. Slater in A Chorus Line.

+ Witnessed a "tornado" in Times Square.

+ Learned that the F train sucks.

+ Switched to the N/Q instead.

+ Mowed the lawn for the first time in my life. (And I need to do it again soon... blech.)

+ Subscribed to Wired magazine.

+ Went to Shea Stadium. (Didn't see a game because it was rained out, but got to enjoy a buffet, open bar and awesome view of the torrential downpour.)

+ Began decorating my cubicle.

+ Became obsessed with Apartment Therapy.

+ Fell in love with the cotton candy cupcake from Crumbs Bake Shop.

+ Created a new NYC / Independence Day - inspired LJ layout.


Life is good, my friends. Life is good.

I actually caught the 7:37 today!  TRIUMPH!

In other news...
I was sick last night. It sucked. I will never eat a banana from Guy & Gallard again.

29 days until Billy at Shea!!

I figure I do this about once a year.

I make a post (usually out of boredom) where I insist I need to start writing in this thing more because I believe it’s beneficial to document your own life from time to time. And I read my friends page religiously, so why shouldn’t I update more myself? But often after that one annual entry, my online musings wander and I neglect my LJ more and more until I’m limited to only posting the occasional curious internet finding with zero personal details.

So this is that yearly, obligatory “I should do this more often…” post.

This year it arose out of the fact that I now have a job. A “real person” job, as Noah would put it. I graduated from college, essentially completing my formal education for the rest of my life (unless I go to culinary school, but that’s another point entirely), moved to New York sans-employment and subsequently was offered a “real person” job as a copy editor in Manhattan. I ride the M to the F or the Q/N (depending on my mood) to Herald Square every morning, Monday through Friday, and report to my cubicle on the second floor of 463 Seventh Avenue from 8:30 to 5:30.

I’m still baffled by this.

I work next door to Macy’s and 2 blocks from the Empire State Building. I get an hour for lunch and all major holidays off, including 2 days for Thanksgiving and 2 days for Christmas. In less than 30 days when I am “officially” hired by The Doneger Group, I will have a real benefits package (as opposed to the fake one previously provided by my parents) and in 6 months a 401(k) plan. A 401(k) plan. Let me say that one more time… A 401-fucking-K plan. I am old. And I actually LIKE it.

I went back to Philly yesterday. To move Gary out of his house. I felt incredibly strange and out of place as soon as we crossed the Ben Franklin, and I think it just proves I’m done with that city and everything in it. I honestly thought I would miss it a little at first. Just the things I enjoyed the most and the places I frequented.

I don’t. Don’t get me wrong… I had such a great 4 years, really enjoyed myself, met some amazing people who changed my life, had fabulous internships and grew up into a stronger, worldlier individual. But as I tried to muster up a little twinge of nostalgia for Reading Terminal or the Book Trader or even a Great Pumpkin sundae from the Franklin Fountain… all I could think about was getting an ice from the little shop off Metro. Mmmm. Almond Joy.

And I couldn’t wait to get home. And get my ice. And figure out how to operate my electric lawn mower so I can get the grass cut so I can go to bed early so I can get up at 6:30. I am old. And I actually love it.


I wrote the following in various entries 4 years ago. It’s astounding how far I’ve come.

That city is my heart and soul. It's the only place I can be entirely alone, without a friend in sight and still feel at home anyway. I miss it, and my heart aches to be there and has done so now for 18 years… It's New York. It was always New York and it will always be New York. Now that I know I'm not going to spend my freshman year at NYU... deep down inside... the only part that is really, intensly bothering me... is that I won't be in New York City. For another year of my life, I won't be in New York City.

I see it like this... we all have a soul, an essence, a central part of our being, whatever you wish to call it, that defines who we truly are on the inside. I believe a little piece of mine lives in New York. I honestly do. It's the part of me that keeps me coming back and that makes me never want to leave. I don't think I can ever be truly happy w/o that little piece of me, either. I mean, I can come extremely close, 99.9%, but that one tiny bit that can get me to 100% is only a part of me when I'm in NY because when I'm there, no matter how crappy things may go, I'm still extremely happy… In a way, NYC is my soulmate. I get that feeling in New York which other people describe as the feeling behind finding the one person they are meant to live the rest of their life with. In other words, I feel as though I've found the one city I am meant to live the rest of my life with.

It’s good to be home. Still crazy after all these years…

I met Barack Obama tonight!!






I'm just sitting on the 3rd floor mezzanine that overlooks the news room, minding my own business, enjoying my usual "dinner" break of orange juice, pretzels and Tolkien... when I heard a large group of people laughing.

Now, ordinarily when I'm up there reading, all sorts of random noises float up from the news room floor - reporters chatting, sports editors cheering, people answering phones, what-have-you... But this was a noticeably LARGE group of people, so I was prompted to get up and see what all the ruckus was about.

Sure enough, standing there in the middle of a crowd at the city desk, was BARACK OBAMA.

Needless to say, I ran downstairs to join the group of about 30 people gawking, talking and shaking his hand. Pretty damn cool.

I had heard he was in the building, but didn't really think he would visit us regular folk in the bullpen, because when Hillary was here a few weeks ago, she didn't bother to meet with anyone but the big-wigs.

I understand that the basis of the visit was damage control for the "bitter" small-town, PA, mis-statement... but then again, Hillary's trip here was about how she "misspoke" as well.

Still... it was pretty frickin' cool to have him there, just casually chatting with everyone and making jokes. Very surreal. Most of the time he was talking, he was standing about an inch away from me, and my mind just could not grasp it! It did not seem real! (Can you tell I've never met anyone famous before?)

Here's the DN blogger discussing the visit.




In other news... Lauren Graham is filming a movie at the Book Trader, and I may just have to start "hanging out" at 2nd and Market... all day... every day... with a camera...

I'm not creepy at ALL.

I think it's these interstitial moments — the seamlessness and the attention to detail — that really stun Disney visitors and stay with them long after they've left. The rides are great, sure, but every amusement park has rides. Disney creates fully realized narratives.

The rest of this article is unimaginative dribble. But those three sentences managed to sum up everything I love about Disney World.

If God is in the details... than WDW is a holyland.

It's hard to spin when you don't win

Did I mention one week ago, in the wake of landslide losses in Virginia and Maryland, that the Hillary Clinton campaign resembled the Titanic just as the second-class cabins were starting to flood? I did indeed. But here's an update:

The water is ascending the grand staircase, and threatening the first-class dinnerware.

It's hard to imagine how the Clinton people can possibly spin away what happened last night in Wisconsin, when in reality the next round of voters, in Ohio and Texas, will awaken this morning to news stories declaring that Barack Obama has buried Hillary in yet another landslide; that, on a percentage basis, Hillary lost almost as badly as Mike Huckabee lost to John McCain on the Republican side; that Obama has now won 10 contests in succession (the 10th was Hawaii, last night), all of them blowouts; and that, most importantly, he has effectively whittled away at her electoral base, to the point where large chunks of that base seem poised to defect.

Read the rest here.

Yeah. This blog post is pretty much the apex of awesomeness.

I haven't updated in an ice age, so here's a list of my current obsessions (in lieu of my eminent boredom and unwillingness to do anything productive).

This is a basic summary of how I've been spending my time, anyway. Along with the whole working at the Inquirer and pH magazine, of course.

RECOMMENDED FOR ALL:

+ Flight of the Conchords. Both the band and the HBO series.
See my new layout!

+ GoodReads. Awesome site for sharing books. I need friends to give me suggestions of what to read, so help me out! Here's my profile.

+ Jim Hill. Jim Hill Media is the best Disney blog EVER. I like to keep up to date on all the best WDW info and updates.

+ Foo Fighters - "Long Road to Ruin." Hilarious music video! YouTube link.

+ Wired Magazine. Great articles and awesome writers. They have an awesome web site too, that's updated daily. Wired.com.

+ Candidate Match Game. USA Today has produced the best tool I've seen for helping you decide who to vote for in the next presidential election (in case you need some help sorting out your views on the major issues) - The Candidate Match Game.

+ Sara Bareilles. That "Love Song" is so freakin' catchy.


AND NOW, A GIFT FOR WHOEVER READS THIS: