latkes

tonight we are having potato pancakes for dinner in celebration of the second night of hanukkah. we are only marginally jewish but that doesn't make latkes any less delicious!

however, i would not want to eat 46 latkes in eight minutes!

r.i.p. dock ellis

i posted about him before. man, what a crazy story, his supposedly pitching a no-hitter on acid. i don't think i'd really like to be at a ballpark on acid, much less try to play!

does he not look like a total badass? check out the ap/times eulogy here.

arts and crafts christmas!

celebrate the holidays with crafts! make your own snowflake. aseom!

http://www.tamponcrafts.com/snowflake.html

the muppets take brooklyn

this muppets christmas special was filmed in the heights. AND the first song is all about our awesome postal service! yeah, cadman plaza is not exactly singing and dancing. but i guess it would be if the muppets showed up.

check it out here!

HIBACHI!!

I've missed my favorite radio station!

Listen to 89.3 The Current at http://www.mpr.org

Adventures in Budweiser

On the A train, 9:30 am on a Wednesday. Breakfast of champions!

Best. Playwright. Name. Ever.

dad, i know they're your favorite but...

Rom-coms 'spoil your love life'

Films like Four Weddings and a Funeral could promote unrealistic expectations

Watching romantic comedies can spoil your love life, a study by a university in Edinburgh has claimed.

Rom-coms have been blamed by relationship experts at Heriot Watt University for promoting unrealistic expectations when it comes to love.

They found fans of films such as Runaway Bride and Notting Hill often fail to communicate with their partner.

Many held the view if someone is meant to be with you, then they should know what you want without you telling them.

Psychologists at the family and personal relationships laboratory at the university studied 40 top box office hits between 1995 and 2005, and identified common themes which they believed were unrealistic.

The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realise Dr Bjarne Holmes Heriot Watt University

The movies included You've Got Mail, Maid In Manhattan, The Wedding Planner and While You Were Sleeping.

The university's Dr Bjarne Holmes said: "Marriage counsellors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it.

"We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people's minds.

"The problem is that while most of us know that the idea of a perfect relationship is unrealistic, some of us are still more influenced by media portrayals than we realise."

As part of the project, 100 student volunteers were asked to watch the 2001 romantic comedy Serendipity, while a further 100 watched a David Lynch drama.

Predestined love

Students watching the romantic film were later found to be more likely to believe in fate and destiny. A further study found that fans of romantic comedies had a stronger belief in predestined love.

Kimberly Johnson, who also worked on the study, said: "Films do capture the excitement of new relationships but they also wrongly suggest that trust and committed love exist from the moment people meet, whereas these are qualities that normally take years to develop."

The researchers have now launched an online study on media and relationships.

They are asking people to participate by answering questions about personality, relationships, and media consumption habits by filling in a questionnaire which you can click on here.

the eyes are the windows... of your face.

i can't believe i never saw this before!

death of an icon - r.i.p. bettie page

this is a strange interview... bettie page hasn't let herself be filmed on camera in decades. but what a story.

in just seven years in the business, bettie page was featured in more magazine pictures than marilyn monroe and cindy crawford combined.

my favorite line from bettie in this video: "i never felt i was doing anything wrong when i started posing nude... i don't believe god disapproves of nudity. he put adam and eve in the garden of eden naked as jaybirds."

Carroll Gardens Christmas

baseball in december?

i know, i know.

but i am not the only one who was excited over the last couple of days to watch the mets finally put together a bullpen.

endy chavez, you will be missed.

awesomely canadian.

ok that movie i watched yesterday was pretty amazing. bill murray as gonzo! awesome!

also neil young did the music which consisted of multiple feedback-laden versions of where the buffalo roam. also some creedence. hard to go wrong there!

today's movie: looking out my window on a rainy day.

note: not actually a movie.

go bill murray go

i just discovered this movie: where the buffalo roam starring bill murray as hunter s. thompson.

and i have also discovered that it is available free on netflix!

no. really? REALLY?

Chinese girl gets 'kiss of deaf'

Couples are advised to "proceed with caution" A young Chinese woman was left partially deaf following a passionate kiss from her boyfriend. The 20-something from Zhuhai in Guangdong province arrived at hospital having completely lost the hearing in her left ear, said local reports. The incident prompted a series of articles in the local media warning of the dangers of excessive kissing. "While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution," wrote the China Daily. The doctor who treated the girl in hospital was quoted in the paper explaining what had happened. "The kiss reduced the pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear." The chorus of warnings was echoed by the Shanghai Daily, which wrote: "A strong kiss may cause an imbalance in the air pressure between two inner ears and lead to a broken ear drum." The young woman is expected to regain her full hearing within about two months.

white rabbit cult

i get a lot of spam comments. sometimes they contain remarkable advice. mostly they are just crap, and in russian.

but i received a request via comment to link to the white rabbit cult. which led me to a stunning series of images.

like this poster for the sequel to snakes on a plane...

2008 is the year of the potato??

Lebanese finds 'heaviest' potato

Khalil Semhat insisted he had not used fertilizer to produce his potato

A farmer in southern Lebanon has dug up what might be the heaviest potato in the world.

"This giant weighs 11.3 kilos (24.9 pounds)," Khalil Semhat told the AFP news agency at his farm near Tyre, 85 kilometres (50 miles) south of Beirut.

"I've been working the land since I was a boy, and it's the first time I've seen anything like it."

Mr Semhat, 56, said he had to ask for help from a friend to get the huge vegetable out of the ground.

He insisted that he had used no fertilizer or other chemicals to produce it.

Mr Semhat said he hoped his potato will be recognised as the heaviest potato in the world.

The current world record, as recorded in the Guinness Book of Records, is held by K Sloan of the Isle of Man in the United Kingdom for a potato weighing a mere 3.5 kg (7 lb 13 oz).

2008 is the International Year of the Potato, a project sponsored by the United Nations which aims to focus attention on the importance of the vegetable in providing food security and alleviating poverty.

living dangerously

Man Killed for 'Hogging' Karaoke

A Malaysian man has been stabbed to death for refusing to stop singing and hand over the microphone at a karaoke bar, police say.

Abdul Sani Doli, 23, reportedly angered some of the customers when he hogged the stage at the bar in Sandakan town on eastern Borneo island.

Witnesses said he was attacked, and the fight spilled out on to the street.

He was punched before being stabbed to death with a knife. His body was found a short distance from the bar.

Sandakan's police chief ACP Rosli Mohd Isa said two men were in police custody, helping them with their inquiries.

Karaoke, in which amateurs can sing along to their favourite songs, first emerged from Japan and became hugely popular across Asia during the 1980s, before spreading to other parts of the world.

drunk history

check out this five part series on funny or die. part one stars michael cera as alexander hamilton... i know the ladies loves the michael cera.

See more Michael Cera videos at Funny or Die

GIVE ME MY DR PEPPER

Guns N' Roses lashes out at Dr Pepper

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Guns N' Roses became Guns N' Roses N' Lawyers this week.

The band, which released its first album in 17 years last week, has found itself in a legal tussle with soft drink giant Dr Pepper over a promotion turned awry.

Dr Pepper rolled out a marketing campaign in March promising a "free soda" to "everyone in America" on one condition -- Axl Rose, lead singer and frontman for Guns N' Roses, had to "finally release his 17-year-in-the-making belabored masterpiece, 'Chinese Democracy,' in 2008."

Guns N' Roses, often called GN'R by its fans, released the album last week. And Dr Pepper followed through, posting a coupon on its Web site for a can of soda. There was one catch: fans had 24 hours to go the Web site and print out the coupon.

That's when the Pepper hit the fan. Video Watch why GN'R is so angry »

So many GN'R fans -- and, no doubt, fans of free stuff in general -- tried to get the coupon that they choked the site and it crashed. Disgruntled and downright ticked off, some blamed the band.

"When you go on the blogs and you read the responses from the fans, they associated Axl with this promotion ... and blame him for the fact that they didn't get their free soda," said GN'R lawyer Laurie Soriano.

That's when GN'R became GN'RN'L. Soriano fired off a letter to Dr P. No one is LOL.

Her letter asked the soft drink company to make good on its offer. She has yet to hear back, Soriano said this week.
Don't Miss

* EW.com: 'Chinese Democracy' gets a B

"We've gone public with the fact that we are not involved but are trying to clean up the mess," Soriano told CNN.

Dr Pepper told CNN it had "taken great steps" to keep up its end of the bargain. It said it extended the window for the giveaway from 24 to 42 hours, added a toll-free line to handle consumer requests for the coupons and set up an interactive voice recorder to accept coupon requests. None of those measures are still in effect.

"Additionally," the company said in a written statement, "for those who contacted us in the week after the giveaway about difficulties requesting the coupon, we continued to offer free coupons to address any problems they may have encountered."

That may be so, but the band still wants an apology.

"The door to a lawsuit being filed is always open until the fans are taken care of and Dr Pepper has done the right thing," Soriano told CNN.

The band may have other concerns. "Chinese Democracy" received mixed notices upon its release, and some bloggers are blaming Axl Rose for the new album's reception.

"The album was beaten to the top of the UK charts by The Killers' 'Day And Age' on Sunday," the British music news site NME.com said Tuesday in a segment labeled Today's Top Gossip. "Sources have said that record bosses are fuming because Rose has been AWOL for the last two months -- meaning he hasn't done any promotional work for the album."
advertisement

And an official Chinese Communist Party newspaper was widely reported as describing "Chinese Democracy" as a "venomous attack" on China, accusing the band of turning "its spear point on China."

As Rose once sang, "Welcome to the jungle. It gets worse here every day."

go my church!

welcome back.

i have decided it would be nice to engage in adventures again. i will not apologize for the hiatus because i was pretty regularly writing elsewhere.

i have spent the last month thinking long and hard about religion. after much consideration, i have come to the realization that there is only one god, and sorry my muslim friends but his name is not allah.

FROM NOW ON I WILL BOW DOWN TO THE GREAT AND POWERFUL SPONGEBOB.