Passalongs

I got the following wisdom from a forwarded email this morning:

"The best way to forget all your troubles is to wear tight shoes."

If I had a registered trademark motto in life, this would be the closest thing to it. Ain't nothing like that pair of peep-toes and an oozing blister on your heel to make you forget that you forgot to wear pants, or something troublesome like that.

Also in this email, the following womanly wisdom-filled image:


And the forward concluded, appropriately:

"If you delete this message, you will gain 10 pounds immediately. That's why I had to pass this on, I didn't want to risk it."

Well, I'm disappointed to report that I did not, in fact, gain ten pounds immediately. Myth busted!

News and Reviews

News:

1. Victoria's Secret is having a panty party. Seven pairs of underwear for $25. For those of you who've set nary a foot in a VS, that's a total savings of almost $40. Thanks to my efforts at rifling through a mountain of undies, I can officially go another week without calling my laundry man. w00t!

2. Payless has cute shoes on sale. Go get them. Go get them NOW.

3. Ollie's Chinese food restaurants, a favorite NYC chain of mine and my brother's, are in deep shit. Don't go there. I found a hair in my soup once, but was too schnackered to care. Then I remembered later and threw up.

4. My monthy Metrocard pass is about to go from $81 to $103. This is so NOT COOL.

5. Spring is the new winter, apparently. I guess I was the last person to catch on to this trendy new thing when I mistakenly thought I could go outside without a scarf, hat or gloves. Faux pas...

6. The rumors are true. I do make a marked appearance at the beginning of the film, "What Just Happened."

Reviews:

1. 'Knowing,' starring Nicholas Cage and Whatsherface Von Whatsitcalled. This movie 'could have' been good. It had all the right ingredients: fantastic director (Alex Proyas of 'The Crow,' 'Dark City' and 'I, Robot' fame), intriguing tag line and teaser, and star actor, the Cage-man himself.

Instead of capitalizing on that trio of awesomeness though, Cage phoned it in, and the plot jumped the shark. I mean, Fonzed-up-in-a-leather-jacket jumped the shark. I actually remarked as much out loud in the theater toward the end of the film.

I suppose it wasn't entirely bad. As cliched as the ending turned out to be, it was an "interesting" and somewhat inspirational idea to start, and the disaster FX were tre-effing-mendous. I just think Mr. Proyas tried to do a little too much with it.

2. 'Watchmen' = awesome sauce. I'm currently reading the comic for the first time, and I am appreciating how craftily Zack Snyder adapted it for the silver screen. I'm by no means a comic book purist though, and am well aware of how much my opinion differs from that of the purists.

3. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. I remember my high school biology teacher recommending this book to our class. I didn't get a chance to pick it up until now, and I'm kicking myself for having delayed. Krakauer's book details his own personal account of a disastrous expedition to top Mt. Everest in the spring of 1996. It's a breathtaking study of human nature as much as it is a description of life literally on top of the world...it's not what you would expect. Pick it up, but don't start entertaining ideas of climbing the mountain until AFTER you've read it.

4. Cakewrecks. My new FAVORITE BLOG. Just do yourself a favor and check it out.

And, I'm spent.

Fun with Millenials

My buddy Slarkpope makes a great point over at Slate this week, regarding the rampage of uploading "back in the day" photos over on Facebook. It's becoming a little too scary/trendy to scan all your old-school photos and then tag people in them without asking...

Which got me thinking on a semi-related theme...(dun dun dunnnnnnn. You know how that usually turns out.) Is there really such a stark difference between older generations and Gen Y/"Millenials" vis-a-vis the InterWebs and technology as a whole?

I fall solidly in the Gen Y category, which seems to be generally anyone born from the late 70's to early 90's. Being a child borne of the 80s, the days before checking my email every five minutes or texting my BFF with the latest gossip are hazy at best.

And while I'm on this rant, how did I find my way ANYWHERE without GoogleMaps??? (Sadly though, I just lied. I totally used Mapquest and Yahoo Maps prior to my discovery of GoogleMaps. Too many "slight rights" and "turn left on unnamed street"'s was a dealbreaker.)

How did I cope???

I'll tell you how I coped. The same way I would have coped if I'd been born ten years later. My parents likely wouldn't have allowed me to have a cell phone until I started driving anyway. My access to email, social-networking sites and instant messager apps would have been similarly limited due to schoolwork and extracurricular pursuits. And I STILL would have rocked my portable CD player, because there is no way in hell I would have been able to afford an iPod.

And I actually do have one clear memory of a time before the advent of the personal hand-held device. I was very young, probably 8-ish. My family had a clunky old Apple IIE from 1983 (which now I have discovered was ancient technology by even that point in time). I was beginning to learn that computers were useful for something other than just playing Battlestar Galactica and Frogger.

I don't remember the exact context of the discussion—although it was probably spurred because my little brother and I were fighting over who gets to use the computer next (at that time, I was fighting for game time and he—at age 5—was fighting to program his own games in BASIC). My dad intervened somehow and I remember him telling me that someday this fight would be irrelevant. Because someday, SOMEDAY, engineers would develop a computer that will fit in the palm of our hands.

I remember oohing and ahhing and trying to imagine such a thing.

Wait...hold on...my Blackberry is vibrating...

Okay I'm back. That was my grandmother messaging me about the latest on "Days of Our Lives."

ANYWAY. I guess I'll draw a conclusion. Technology is so much a part of all of our lives now. Does it really matter whether you grew up with email or with a slide rule? Or that you had to trudge both ways uphill in the snow to school without a shirt? Even my grandmother is texting now. My parents and their friends are on Facebook. We're all human. Can't we all just get along???

Things You'll Want to Flush Down Your Toilet

I know you've all experienced that "oh shit" moment. You know, the one where you're at someone else's place, and you clog their toilet?

Well, fortunately you might not have to escape through your friend's bathroom window and come up with an excuse as to why their toilet is overflowing and you've disappeared anymore. The alternative is much less damning. (And very regal)



But seriously, who flushes their chess set...oh wait, nevermind.

I want this toilet, if only to have a foolproof way of getting rid of the vile-smelling and furry leftovers rotting in the back of my fridge.

"Roid Rage"

NY Times blog The Lede brought a startling fact to my attention: a giant asteroid just missed crashing into Earth recently, where it would have created a collision force that would rival a small nuclear weapon.

Does this worry anyone else?

No?

Well I guess you all loved that craptastic classic Armageddon, whose resolution to the problem of asteroids hurtling toward our own hunk of rock in the sky was to nuke the shit out of it?

Or are you convinced that the techniques employed in Deep Impact were more realistic?

Yeah that would totally work...as long as there are peeps watching the skies.

But in reality, I personally would rather not know that there is a giant rock headed for Earth, destined to cause death and destruction in proportions that would make Hollywood cry. I guess I'm stuck on that whole ignorance is bliss thing...

The Best...Around!

The Times did a neat little piece on one of my favorite authors, Pat Conroy. Conroy is perhaps most known (or unknown) for writing The Prince of Tides, the story of a troubled family in South Carolina during the 60s. I LOVE this guy. He has written the shit out of everything I've ever read by him. His books are captivating, interesting, romantic, graphic and the stories are truly original. If you're a fan of the 1960s era, then you'll strike gold with this guy too.

If you're looking for a good (and emotionally intense) read, pick up anything by Pat Conroy. His works include. The Prince of Tides, Beach Music, Lords of Discipline, My Losing Season and The Great Santini.

The Times piece focuses on the rift and subsequent reconciliation of Conroy and his alma mater, The Citadel, that occurred in the years after he wrote The Lords of Discipline. The book detailed some of the more unpleasent aspects of a fictional school called the "Carolina Military Institute," but which shamelessly bore all the identifying characteristics of The Citadel. But everything's cool now, as The Citadel's normally unremarkable basketball team is having a record-breaking season this year, and heading toward the Big Dance.