Random Recommends 8

Ant Farm – Simon Rich

Sometimes I think my writing is funny but it turns out that everything I’ve ever written is crap. But everything this college kid writes? Comedy gold. You should be embarrassed for even looking at my blog when you could be reading his book. If you need me I’ll be over here questioning my self worth. (Please don't leave me...)

Peanut Butter Co. Smooth Operator

I went to the Peanut Butter and Co. restaurant a couple of months ago and happily binged on a PB, banana and honey sandwich followed by chocolate peanut butter malt followed by acquiring diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It was totally worth it.

Then, a couple of weeks ago while browsing in Whole Foods I picked up a jar of Smooth Operator. My god it’s good. I wouldn’t have thought you could have improved upon peanut butter (well unless you’re going to sell it with handfuls of chocolate chips pre-stirred in, I will totally have sex with the CEO of the first company to do this.) but Peanut Butter and Co. surpassed my already high expectations for peanut butter. You should eat some right now and then email me your theories about if peanut butter consumption can lead to orgasm.

Hint Water

Once upon a time the makers of vitamin water made something called “fruit water” which was calorie free lightly fruit flavored water and it was awesome – through what I assume is the addition of cancer causing chemicals they were able to turn regular H2O into a product that could trick my sugar starved dieting self into thinking I was drinking a beverage with calories. Sadly this product all but disappeared from bodega selves sometime in 2005. Enter Hint Water. Sure it costs over $2 a bottle. Sure it’s a rip off of an old product. But it’s yummy and it has no calories! And the bottle is really pretty!

Friday Night Lights

In high school I had a number of cheer leader friends who spent large numbers of Thursday nights writing ridiculous Bishop Union High School Bronco football inspired statements on huge sheets of butcher paper. Because a girl can only spend so much time lying on the floor of her bedroom listening to the Cranberries and asking God why he has cursed her with such a tortured existence I occasionally would help out with the pep rally prep. One of the most embarrassing butcher paper slogans was “Bronco Butts Drive Us Nuts!!!” At the time I didn’t really appreciate the power of a nice ass and greeted this statement with the same eye rolling reaction as PE requirements, every word my mom uttered during the years of 1992-1996 and life in general. I have recently discovered that the fault lay not in the statement but in the butts. The inadequacy of Bronco butts is readily apparent when viewed in comparison to Friday Night Lights Panther butts. Especially the butt of one Tim Riggins (aka Taylor Kitsch). Especially when viewed in connection to his 6 pack and pout-y grape stained lips. Especially when viewed in my fantasy world where he doesn’t have on any pants.

The show is also entertaining and well written. Whatever.

The Land that Lunch Forgot

Up until a year and a half ago my place of employment was located in the Flat Iron district of Manhattan where foraging for lunch offered practically the full pallet of world cuisine. There were rows of Indian places 3 blocks to the east, a good hole in the wall Mexican place 2 streets over, and gourmet deli’s as far as the eye could see. I was also able to pop out at lunch to mail a package or go to the bank and after work I had easy access to shopping, bars, and night life. And then we moved to Dumbo.

This is the part of the post where I bait the people over at the Dumbo NYC to call me out as a hater which will probably result in a rain of rotten organic free-range fruit, used cloth diapers and Puerto Rican nannies being chucked at me from the windows of posh high rises on my morning truck from the dingiest subway station in NYC to the relative shelter of my office. Luckily writing for Alpha Astoria has given me plenty of experience as the enemy of an entire neighborhood.

Dumbo kind of sucks.

Oh sure, they tell you it’s the new SoHo with the wall to wall artist studios and cobblestones but what they neglect to mention is that Dumbo has next to zero shopping (unless you make millions of dollars), no post office, the neighborhood just got a drug store this week and there are fewer lunch options than taxi’s (I hope you weren’t hungry or looking for a ride out of this wasteland).

Out of the twin necessities of saving money and calories I am mostly a bring my lunch kind of girl but every Friday I grant myself the indulgence of a leisurely sit down lunch. When working in Manhattan this weekly outing was a much anticipated ode to noshing but now, stuck in Dumbo, I and my coworkers are left with very few sit down options none of which are up to our snobby Manhattan honed standards.

The worst lunch offender is Bubby’s. At face value Bubby’s seems like a harmless diner but if you look closer you’ll see that it’s actually the source of all mid afternoon sadness. The Dumbo Bubby’s outpost (I know nothing of the Manhattan version) is housed in a huge space that could probably seat upwards of 100 people but I have never seen more than 15 patrons in attendance at one time. You’d think the low customer turn out would at least result in attentive wait staff and quick order turn around but for reasons that remain a mystery it is impossible to get out of lunch in less than 90 minutes. Bubby’s: Dumbo is obviously struggling to make a buck as evidenced by their frequently revamped (and reduced) menu and hours. Time was they offered breakfast all day and 15 different sandwiches – these days they’re pretty much down to burgers and grilled cheese. When we first moved to Dumbo I would swoon over the mini sides of baked mac and cheese but even this small comfort was stolen from me when about a year ago a coworker discovered a crunchy cockroach center baked into his portion.

The other two most obvious choices for sit down lunch are Superfine and Water Street both of which rival Bubby’s for the much coveted slowest distribution of edible products award. Other than the lack of speediness both institutions generally meet the demands of Friday lunch though neither has a particularly interesting menu and the fries at SuperFine are awful enough to result in a veto virtually every week. Which leaves us with Rice and Miso both of which (especially Miso) would be completely acceptable lunch options say once every month or two – but how many Fridays in a row can I choke down the same meal?

I imagine that my non NY readers are laughing at this post. After all, I’ve listed FIVE options (and haven’t even touched upon the take out only joints), in most places this would likely be considered an adequate variety. BUT THIS IS NEW YORK! Where is my source for Thai or Mexican or Indian? Why doesn’t any place in the neighborhood sell magazines (or vodka, or candles)?!?

Go ahead, get with the bashing me in the comments – here’s to hoping I make to work safely tomorrow morning.

Shot at Love Makes Local Girl Want to Shoot Herself

The most ominous request for blog fodder resulting from my plea for reader suggestions was the recommendation that I give everyone an update on the latest low brow MTV offering, “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.” For those of you still pretending that you’re too highfalutin to even know what I’m talking about Shot’O’Love is a reality TV program where Tila Tequila, aka the girl with the most friends on MySpace (I am not kidding), announces that she’s a bisexual and makes lesbians and straight men compete for her, “love.”

Ok, I admit that I was already tivoing this program before my friend Eileen requested that I write about it. I managed to watch episode one even though Tila’s “sexy” voice is disturbingly baby like and her clothing choices so questionable as to require me to repeatedly pause and review in slow-mo. When episode two showed up on my Now Playing list I buckled in for some bisexual loving but after 5 minutes I wasn’t able to continue. I hit the stop button and deleted the episode. Keep in mind that I regularly watch I Love New York 2, Beauty and the Geek and Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Squad. I thought I had no standards but it turns out my limit is somewhere right above a fame whore slut pretending she’s into chicks for the sake of a TV show. I deleted the next episode after only 5 minutes of viewing (and likely began watching something of much higher quality, probably an episode of the Real World: Sydney). But because I love Eileen and because I am already in dire need of new writing ideas after only 5 days of Nablopomo I recorded episode 3 and now present the high and low lights for your amusement.

Nine Reasons Why Everyone at MTV Should be Charged with Ruining Society

1. As the episode opens Tila is wearing what appears to be a sweatshirt with long bell sleeves that has been chopped off just below her boobs and one of the guys is wearing a shirt that says “Vagatarian”. Classy.
2. One of the guys on the show will not shut up about how he normally sleeps on a couch at his mom’s house so being on a reality TV show is totally a step up. When asked how he likes his new bedroom (including one huge bed that is to be shared with all other contestants) Mama’s Boy replies, “I love it, I haven’t been in a bedroom in a while.” After kissing Tila for the first time he yells, “I live with my mom, and I sleep on her couch and I ride a bicycle to work!” I fear this is a foreshadowing of reality TV to come – give it 3 more months and all of the actor wannabes in Hollywood will have had their 15 minutes and MTV will be down to homeless guys. (“Welcome to this week’s episode of Bum Lovin’ with Crazy Dave!”).
3. Since this show is set in some sort of super sluty junior high they play a game of truth or dare.
1. Dare #1: some guy has to deep throat a bottle. MTV apparently decided that this hot bottle action was too much for the viewing public so they don’t actually show it on camera but everyone acts super impressed.
2. Dare #2: Vagatarian is challenged to turn one of the girls on – he chooses to rub his balls on her face cause girls (especially lesbians) love that.
4. For some reason this show is all about the straight guys proving how not gay they are. Being on a show with lesbians seems to have them convinced that their sexuality is being called into question. As part of a dare Mama’s Boy has to try on some chick’s lingerie – some other guy claims that he is SO STRAIGHT that just seeing a guy in lingerie made him throw up a little bit in his mouth. Personally I don’t have time to get around to questioning their sexuality as I am too busy questioning their sanity.
5. Apparently the “right reason” to be here is “Tila.” I would have gone with “dodging the draft” or “serving an unconventional sentence for gay bashing” or “got lost on the way to a drug treatment center”
6. Appalachian Mountain Man on his excitement over the “country fair” that the show had set up in their backyard “When I was like 3 I used to spray the poop off the elephants, the carney’s would get me to do it so [the fair] brought back some good childhood memories.” (Note: the “country fair” seriously sucked and did not appear to include elephants, or ponies, or rides of any kind – but the one way that it totally out did your standard fair was the distinct lack of poop. Small favors.).
7. Vagatarian tattles on the lesbian/straight guy fooling around that happened in the massive shared bed while everyone else was sleeping and Tila makes him show what he saw on a giant stuffed bear. The whole thing is very, “show me where the bad man touched you”
8. As part of the “country fair” facade they make all of the contestants participate in a pie eating contest – this is obviously a set up for cunnilingus jokes so here they are:
1. Tila announces the contest and yells, “lick that shit”
2. Tila spends the entire contest walking back and forth yelling, “Lick my pie!” over and over again.
3. This is not cunnilingus related but bares quoting, “I was literally eating pie and throwing it up and eating it and throwing it up and eating it and throwing it up…” – random lesbian
4. The single butch lesbian on the show wins – this is unsurprising since I am convinced that she is the only person on the show who has ever used her tongue for anything other than saying stupid shit. Sadly no one pointed out that losing this contest seriously calls into question Italian guy's "Vagatarian" claims.
   
5. At the end of the contest one of the guys says, “The girls did better at the pie eating because they’re all about licking and sucking and I’m not about that at all.”
6. MTV has no issue with showing girls eating pie on TV even though they wouldn't let us see a guy deep throating a bottle -- I can't decide if this is a double standard.
   
9. The Vagatarian dude is this retarded Italian guy – here are some of the awesome things he said over the hour long (!! WTF? Seriously -- AN HOUR?!?!) program:
1. After getting a massive wedgie from one of the lezzies, “She pulled my underwear into my ass and I couldn’t feel my ass anymore because it was too much.”
2. On why he sometimes sleeps in underwear to, “contain his trouser snake:” “it gets too long and I have to keep it in a cage.”
3. On his inability to hit the bell on the strong man game at the “fair”, ““I couldn’t ring the bell, I don’t know what’s wrong with my arms – besides I don’t care about my arms, I care just about my under muscle there ”

There you have it – the best of MTV prime time. Eileen, I hope you're happy. Just writing this has me contemplating joining Focus on the Family based on my assumption that they are working very very hard to keep this crap off of my TV set.

Now Accepting Applications for the Position of Wife

Being single is a pain in the ass. I suspect that other people have not noticed this mostly because they are too busy beating their spouses. Now sure, I’d like to fall in love, find my soul mate, feel my heart jump out of my chest and runaway with his heart so that both of us are left as empty heartless shells who must cling to one another for body heat for all eternity. But mostly I need help with the house work.

You couples probably don’t know how much of a chore being single is, let me paint the picture for you. Picture it – you pull a late night at the office, you’re trudging home at 9:30pm thinking about the laundry you were going to do, the gourmet meal you were going to cook for dinner, the online shopping for your mother’s birthday that you won’t be getting to. If you are half of a couple you can probably entertain the thought that *maybe* one or more of these chores was done in your absence, maybe you’ll come home to a cleaned shower and a pot of bubbling beef stew – it totally could happen! Now sure, we both know that your significant other is a lazy good for nothing who spent the evening lounging on the couch watching “What not to Wear” and starting yet another craft project that she will never finish. (Hi Joe!) But this could be your night! Maybe the Tivo broke down!

But for us singletons the dream was dead at the get go. The cleaning, the cooking, the hooking up of electrical equitment, the killing of bugs, the decorating, the social planning, the wearing of the pants (and the lying on the couch with my hand down them), the bringing home of the bacon? ALL ME. (except when my mom visits). When I get home at 9:30 I’m lucky to get through one chore before I want to curl up with a pint of premium ice cream. Of course, as a single girl I also can’t buy ice cream. If I had a live in boyfriend I could pretend that he was going to eat most of the ice cream and thus justify purchasing it in large quantities because he has a really big appetite. This same logic would also allow me to buy bratwurst and bourbon by the case. If Hagen-daz and Maker’s Mark go out of business this year you can blame my dry spell (and my amazing self control).

Next time you look at your significant other and say, “It’s your turn to clean the refrigerator and tweeze my eyebrows!” try to remember that I am having that conversation with a chinchilla and his reply is always the same, “Shut up and get me another banana chip you tired old maid.”

A PSA for My Adult Readers

First I’d like to say, Congragulations on making it to adulthood! As you’ve probably already noticed it’s pretty sweet here, we get to stay out past our bedtime and drink booze and it has been at least 6 months since someone called me a doodyhead. But like all of our freedoms this paradise ain’t free (you don’t get your habeus corpus without a little waterboarding).

The following rules are not suggestions or nice to haves – the’re actually requirements for being the kind of person who isn’t classified as a huge douche, so pay attention.

1. Adults return people’s phone calls and emails
2. Adults say “Thanks you” when they receive a gift (preferably in writing)
3. Adults arrive on time for appointments regardless of how casual the commitment
4. Adults remember and acknowledge the birthdays of family and close friends

If you’re “bad at” some of the things on this list that’s ok – everyone has challenges in life but, as I said, these are not optional skills, this is your job. When you’re bad at your job you either get better or get fired. So you need to be working on getting it together and in the mean time you need to be apologizing profusely when you fail at any of these.

Tomorrow we’ll return to your regularly scheduled mildly humorous blog posting.

In Search of a $200 Piece of Ass

This Sunday I engaged in that most New York of hobbies – shopping. I was in dire need of new jeans (my favorite pair having finally succumbed to the weight of carrying my ass around at least twice a week for 2+ years) and had decided to allow my usually frugal self to splurge on a pair priced at over $40. I don't normally even allow myself to try on expensive jeans on the off chance that my ass would look so hot that I would no longer be able to live within the confines of The Gap and all hope I had of saving my money to one day purchase a home would be lost. But on Sunday I was brave and decided that a true New Yorker should at least know what a $150 pair of jeans look like so after a stop at Lucky Jeans (where I had the sales clerk hold a pair of fairly hot $110 pants for me) I sauntered over to Bloomingdales and quickly gathered all of their denim offerings in a 3x3 dressing room.

There are a lot of ugly expensive jeans out there. In an effort to make my fitting room task more manageable I decided to cap my jean cost at $200 and so did not try on any of the pairs that cost more than an ipod but my general feeling about the $100 and above realm is that women are suckers. 7 for all Mankind, Joe's Jeans, AG jeans – all of them let me down. I was fairly impressed with the offerings of Chip and Pepper and True Religion but no where near $196 worth of impressed. The main issue with all of these jeans was my ass crack. While makers of jeans for commoners have finally dialed their rise setting from the Patriot Bill sponsored, "I Got a Crack Just Like the Liberty Bell" ultra low to a more modest "Mmmm hipbones" the seamstresses at the posh sweatshops haven't gotten the memo ("The Homeland Security Terror Alert level has been lowered from Yellow to Orange, Ladies: PUT IT AWAY"). So most of my time in the Bloomie's dressing room was spent using all of my upper body strength to yank each pair of jeans into waist territory – most of the time with no success. Considering the recent spat of celebrity underwear raids I would advise all jean companies to offer their clientele back up exposure protection in the form of jeans that actually cover the wearer's ass.

Besides the discovery that designer jeans are not offering enough coverage to be worth the cost I also made one less happy find. It turns out that I don't really have an ass. I'm not sure how I got to be 29 without noticing this but my first instinct it to play the denial card. I am not one of those apple shaped girls whose skinny legs lead up to a flat behind hidden under a few rolls of jelly. I am decidedly pear shaped and you would think such a designation would grant its owner a nice plump tookus free of charge. No such luck. Regardless of my weight my lower body is pretty much all thigh. And so while I have ample flesh to squeeze into the behinds of expensive denim none of it forms into the kind of mounds that Sir Mix-a-Lot would croon over. From the floor up It's pretty much little foot, calf, knee, thigh, more thigh, dark meat as far as the eye can see, GOD DAMN GIRL, relatively tiny waist -- this combo does not drop dead jeans make.

I did eventually buy that first pair of jeans from Lucky (Classic Rider fit) and I feel good in them. The jeans themselves are likely not worthy of their $110 price tag but after 3 hours in dressing rooms I was willing to pay that price just to get a subway ticket home.

Mo' Mo Mo' Problems

I know everyone was hoping that I'd be bringing you a hairy November and I'm sorry to disappoint but I will not be participating in Movember. It's not that I don't love the prostate, or even that I'm a little jealous of not having a prostate of my very own (I hear they're lovely). It's just that I know exactly how it would go if I were to grow a moustache…

Day 1

Time Spent drawing stubble on upper lip with eyeliner pencil: 30 seconds

Was stalked all day by quizzical looks and raised eyebrows, it's like the world has never seen a girl taking her au natural upper lip out for a walk before. Am saddened at the sexism in our society. Spent evening drowning my sorrows in Keystone and Nascar (suddenly finding both as underrated as the magnum).

Day 5

Time spent penciling in the peach fuzz: 2 minutes

I am happy to report that the mo is coming is great. It's just a wee mo right now but I see the potential for a cozy lipwarmer in a few days time, and with the weather we've been having I know I picked the right month to grow a protective layer. I don't want to seem too cocky but I've also been noticing a few heads turn my way when I'm out and about – you know what they say, the lads just can't say no to a tash.

Day 8

Time spent penciling peach fuzz for the 5^th day in a row: 10mins

Time spent agonizing over slow moustache growth and just how badly this reflects on my femininity: half an hour

Genetics is a cruel science. No matter how many times I try to draw on the full bushy moustache that would make my daddy (a mo man himself) proud I always come out of the bathroom looking like a high school freshman with overly defined pecs. I curse my sparsely haired German roots.

Day 13

Time spent fluffing the sea of fur that seems to have sprouted overnight: 5 minutes

Time spent glued to the mirror in awe: 2 hours

My prayers have finally been answered and all I can say is Halle-freaking-lujah this morning as I put pencil to skin I found the luscious strands easily pulled from the point, it's like my lips walked right out of an Herbal Essences commercial.

Day 15

Time spent contemplating a new do: 45mins

Now that facial hair is coming in broad strokes I'm starting wonder about style – one can only get away with the feral mo for as long as the shock of the new look lasts, after that people begin to expect a little panache. I'm thinking it's time someone brought back The Belvedere.

Day 17

Time spent lovingly combing my mane of lip hair: 30mins

This morning on the subway two men sat down on either side of me, one was tall and lanky with a sexy mess of bed head and the other had a sprinkling of freckles and a boyish grin that melted my underwear clean off. Both of them could not get enough of the 'stache. They spent the entire commute petting it and cooing my name. I don't want to get my hopes up but it looks like the mo could be the love catalyst I've been looking for!

Day 20

Time spent trying to resist picking up the washcloth and freeing myself of this hypnotic nose skirt: 53.4mins

I don't know what to do. All around me I see men walking away from families, jobs and really deserving sports teams to devote their lives to me and my mo. Of course I'm flattered but between my nightly talk show and the calendar shoot I just don't have time to give all of my followers the hours with me that they crave. I'm so disheartened by the challenges of leading a cult that I wonder if it can really be worth it….

Day 24

Time spent wringing tears from my sodden 'stache: 33mins

I'm sure by now you've all read about the stock market crash. I just want to say that when this month started I obviously underestimate the combined power of my god given charisma when gilded by a crumb catcher. I only wanted to make the world a safer place for prostates; I had no idea how dangerous this road would be.

Day 30, 11:30pm

Time spent scrubbing eyeliner off of my upper lip: 10mins

Well it's over. I've washed my face raw but black eyeliner will always live as a stain on my soul. I'm sorry for the disaster that I have wrought. I'm sorry for the marriages that will never recover, the crops left to rot in the fields and, of course, for the re-breakup of the Backstreet Boys (Private to Nick and AJ in LA: bros before hos with mos). I have thrown out my eyeliner pencil and will be a liquid liner only girl for here on out – I think it's clear that I can't be trusted with anything else. Men, please go back to your wives, your jobs, your bands -- the heaven you thought you'd find in the warm hug of my mo is not a reality. Girls, please heed my warning: There are good reasons for the taboo against female facial hair, wax it, nair it, shave it, do whatever you have to do – and stay away from the pencil.

I love the prostate but I can't risk the downfall of life as we know it -- please funnel your generous donations in the directions of my mo-brother Mike (donate here).