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august felafel

if the red sox are cursed, then the yanks certainly have some magical spell going for them. amazing stuff two nights in a row. it couldn't happen to any other team. it's a shame they won't be winning the whole thing in the bronx, but i'll take what i can get.

i'm starting to get really sick of this whole fat suit fad. now brad pitt is going to wear one for a sweeps episode of "friends." what is so funny about fat people? i have no desire to see "shallow hal" because i think it's way too offensive. a woman is only beautiful because she's thin? everyone has to make fun of jack black's character because he finds a fat girl hot, because he's seeing her inner beauty? i hate all those episodes of "friends" where monica is wearing her fat suit or where everyone has to crack on what she looked like in her high school days. hey, i have an idea. how about hollywood continues to make fun of overweight people and they can help increase the already high number of eating disorders of highly influencable and already self-consicous teenage girls and continue to give the majority of american women a weight complex.

"all you have to bring is your love for everything..." mt. airy lodge is closing its doors! no more heart-shaped jacuzzis! no more champagne-glass hot tubs! no more canopy beds with mirrors on the ceiling and velvet swags! oh, the horror! where can a couple go now to appreciate the kitcsch of shag carpeting and outdated performers? it's a sad, sad day.

there's nothing like speedy justice: massachusetts clears five witches in salem trials. they're only a few centuries too late.

thank you to gail for pointing out my simple-mindedness when it comes to other nations and cultures. you see, i never thought people actually lived in siberia except for russian prisoners. that's just what you always learned in movies and tv shows. but she's informed me that several of her students come from there and even traveled hours and hours just to have an hour interview with her in moscow. she supposedly has some "secret source" (whatever that means) who knows a lot about this town. but judging by the temperatures there, i don't think i'll be going for a visit anytime soon.

i had a fun celebrity sighting on may way to the doctor's office this afternoon. steve from "sex and the city." looking at imdb, i just learned he was in a movie called "charlie hoboken." i should check it out. but too bad the sighting wasn't aiden. but then i might have passed out on the street and never made it to the doctor's office.

trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!

here's an interview with the people behind snopes.com, the urban legends page that puts all those september 11 rumors to rest. besides the terrorism attacks, they talked about bonsai kittens, which i had never heard about.

here's an essay on the historic yankee stadium. i still love hearing stories about my dad and his friends, who grew up right next to the stadium, hanging out near the entrance to get autographs from players like roger marist and joe dimaggio. they used to just bring slips of paper and never even thought to save them. it was just the thrill of seeing their childhood heroes, i guess (am i still allowed to call an athlete a childhood hero?).

pony boy threatens skateboarder. i guess we know how he's been keeping busy since "soul man".

now we're getting a little ridiculous. pulling seinfeld reruns because susan licks a toxic envelope? puh-leaze.

dissing oprah will get your books sold too. now that franzen caused such a stir, they can't keep his book on the shelves. i guess he got away with making money without giving in to the "corporate logo." however, i guess he can be called mainstream now.

i went to the mall this weekend and was absolutely appalled. there in the center of the garden state plaza were giant wreaths hanging from the ceiling and a huge santa land set up complete with santa chair and big shiny wrapped presents. santa hadn't arrived yet, thankfully, but i bet it will be any day now. hello, it's not even november yet! does this mean the easter bunny comes to town january 1?

here's a great story about aaron sorkin from yesterday's times magazine. and unlike ryan, i watch "the west wing" religiously.i know i say it all the time, but i just have to reiterate that it's so damn good. but i never knew that sorkin wrote "a few good men" (at the age of 26, hello!) or that unused material from "american president" was incorporated into "west wing" or that he was from scarsdale, the far glitzier neighboring town to my home turf.

for all of you who like lists, e! online has a whole slew of them, from greatest sex scenes to best movies from books to best drug flicks to best dead celebs. i kind of wish they'd just put the whole top ten on one page instead of having to click through each one, but whatever, it passes the time.

here's another piece on the whole jonathan franzen-oprah melee (i really just like using the word melee). this one's all about high-brow vs. middle-ground novels that appeal to the masses. depending on my mood, i definitely enjoy both (i like a good maeve binchy any day), but i've never wished that public didn't know about the more "intellectual" novels. wouldn't it be better if the public was reading such important books instead of another mary higgins clark? why keep that to yourself?

update ryan has informed me that franzen wimped out on his stance against the big o and wrote ms. winfrey an apology for not wanting to be chosen as a book club selection. guess he needs her after all.

kids rate halloween candy. would you believe that the chocolate category is not number one? but the most important thing i learned from this article? there are such things as pumpkin peeps! i thought they were relegated only to easter, but now i know i can get my marshmallowy goodness fix twice a year. life is good.

oprah rescinded her offer to have author jonathan franzen appear on her show. she picked his "the corrections" as an oprah book club selection, but he openly expressed how she picks too many schmaltzy one-dimensional books and oprah wasn't too happy about it. i'd say it takes guts for a writer to turn down oprah, considering how she turns so many books into best sellers.

yes, it is ok to hate the yankees even though i don't advise it. they are the best team in baseball, after all. this whole thing with having to support the yanks because you should be supporting new york is such shozda. i mean, as much as it's so much fun to watch, it's just a sport and so trivial compared to what went down sept. 11. for people to keep saying, "new york really needed this win," just makes me cringe. yes, it's something to watch on a saturday night and get into, but win or lose, that 10-year-old kid who lost his dad in the rubble isn't going to feel like the world is great again because of a baseball game. yes, it's terrific that jeter and co. play like nobody's business come october, but they're just playing. and making a damn lot of money doing it. it goes along with the whole calling athletes heroes thing. just because you have a g-d-given talent and can make a really nice living doing what you love, doesn't mean you're a hero.

it's inevitable that with thousands of lives lost there will be some really interesting stories about the victimes. but this one is particularly sad, interesting and heartwarming all at the same time.

how are they going to find box cutters when airport security can't even recognize guns in the x ray machines?

i completely agree with leanne that we all need to read more poetry. that's why i've been flipping through "aloud: voices from the nuyorican's poets' cafe" before bedtime this past week. some really good stuff in there, of course i couldn't tell you the names of any of the poets at the moment, but well worth a read.

some good stuff in page six today, including a fireman's explanation why hillary clinton was booed at saturday night's concert and that one of our former cover girls is so scared about bioterrorism, she carries cipro at all times and is even looking for gas masks for her dogs. no mentions of canoodling today though, which makes me say it isn't a true page six.

happy birthday, mom!

the f the e the l the a the f the e the l... has anyone else noticed the recent trend in hip-hop music that everyone feels the need to spell things (most often their names) in their songs? there's p diddy's new one and jay z's, which i can't get out of my head. i also heard a snoop dogg one on mtv this weekend though that might be old. why is this, i don't know, but michele (who really should get her own pita) found this great music site that breaks down jay z's h to the iza song for all those not down with the gangsta talk. they do a bunch of other songs too including "bootylicious" and j lo's "i'm real". they're all hilarious, so check it out.

happy birthday, dad!

had a really great weekend that involved getting drunk with co-workers at revival, visiting random tag sales and purchasing some good books (five for $1!), including two toni morrisons, two poetry anthologies and one fountainhead, having a nice and delicious brunch for my dad's 60th birthday, listening to some great a cappella at the rutgers deep treble show (check out brian's sexy picture on his bio page. and for anyone who cares, he does not cook depsite what he says), which included the tufts beelzebubs, the unc clef hangers, upenn's quaker notes and the way-cool university of delaware y chromes (which got a lot smaller since my days as a blue hen but they were still sporting the cute overalls). whew, let me take a breath. but seriously, folks, the show rocked. since hanging around with brian i've seen my share of a cappella, but this show was definitely the best one yet. now if only deep treble would sing songs people actually knew, the world would be a whole lot brighter.

here's a funny piece on greeting cards. i've noticed in the past few weeks that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of funny cards out there when you need them. i had to go to two different card stores to find one for my mom's birthday and i wasn't even happy with the end result.

do you have breaking news syndrome?

so michele was kind enough to do some research about my anthrax/exposure question and this is what she came up with:

The anthrax spores are dormant, they need fertile area to germinate. he germination process can take 1-60 days. so i think when you test postive to exposure, it means they have picked up a reading of the spores in your system—not the disease.

now you can get contact lenses imprinted with your favorite NFL team. even if they're prescription, i still don't see (see, get it?) the point in showing your support with something so darn small.

i wish someone could explain to me the difference between testing positive for anthrax (which, according to ridge, is only five people in the us) and testing postive for exposure to anthrax, which is 31 just in daschle's office alone. i'm guessing exposure is not as serious, but how can you test positive if you're not showing the anthrax in your system and therefore having anthrax? i haven't read an article yet that explains the difference. if anyone can help, you know where to find me.

woo-hoo! the deer park is back. and it looks completely different, though let's hope the nachos taste the same. maybe i need to make another trip down there soon. (thanks to ryan for that one.)

last night's undeclared was definitely the funniest one i've seen yet. for the first few episodes i wasn't understanding what all the hype was about and was just wishing they brought back freaks and geeks instead. but last night seemed so true to college life that it had me cracking up.

after just reading that golden boy had more than $100 in change in his apartment, i have to share that i discovered sunday night my roommates and i have $59.50. and i won't be losing 8.9 percent of that to some machine's charges because i wrapped it all myself while watching the practice. if we didn't have to save our quarters for laundry, we'd be even richer by now. let's just see how long the rolls sit on our coffee table before one of us finally lugs them to a bank.

i just have to share how excited i was at lunch today when i discovered that since it's fall, my favorite soup is back at au bon pain. harvest pumpkin. dee-lish. especially on a windy day like today. you won't be disappointed.

this past sunday's times magazine was all about love. a good issue for the most part except for one way too depressing story about a woman watching her husband die. it reminded me too much of the last stages of my grandma's life last year and by the end, i had wished i never read it. but anyway, this story about an old stud in a retirement community is great. the best thing is the man, hy kaplan, spends his summers at the adult part of my camp. since i was eight, he's been riding around on his bike wearing a shirt that says, "hi hy," and the man's like 90. and apparently, the women really dig him.

last night friends and i listened to some university of virgina a cappella at the yale club. ooh la la. you see, the uva club is housed in the yale club. i wonder where the delaware club is. the jersey shore, perhaps? michele and i spent most of the time pretending we were smart enough to be there supporting the visiting columbia group since the uva alumni wouldn't have recognized us. but that might have been hard to do since gail was showing her overwhelming uva spirit in a bright orange fleece. gail, i wonder if that counts as athletic clothing and therefore you weren't wearing business attire after all. turns out though, my denim jacket was a no no as well. afterward, brian and i met up with some of my work friends to watch the yanks kick some major league ass while my mets-loving roommates were probably sulking at home. derek's the man, dawg.

yesterday, my roommates and i participated in the making strides walk for breast cancer. i never seem to do those kinds of events enough. when i'm doing them, i realize how much fun they can be and how happy it makes me feel to know i'm contributing to such a good cause, but then i forget about it till the next big event comes along. yesterday we ran into someone we know doing the walk who's been a survivor for two years and it made me feel even better for getting up early to give my time and money.

bob dylan couldn't even get back stage at his own concert.

i did a little cd shopping this weekend and picked up the new ryan adams, which i've listened to three times already and love. also got an old charlatans cd used but had to pass up some other new releases i want for lack of funds.

i was a movie-watching fool this weekend. friday night i saw serendipity, which i loved in all its sappy romantic comedy goodness. not only did it have john cusack in a perfect role for him, but my heart skipped a beat when john corbett popped on to the screen. i had no idea he was even in it. but i must admit i think i prefer him with shorter hair. saturday night i went back to the movies to catch training day. good stuff, dawg, though not sure if denzel will get an oscar nod like some people are saying. i've now decided i'm going to refer to my friends as dawgs as it seems to be the word of the moment. if snoop dogg (who seems to be in every movie this fall, by the way) can say it, so can i. this is the second time that i didn't recognize macy gray. the first being at the mtv music awards when she wore her self-promotion dress and this time as the sandman's wife. the long press-on nails might have thrown me off.

speaking of anthrax, our editorial assistant called the cops this morning after finding a black grainy substance in a letter mailed to us. he actually got it last monday but just thought about it over the weekend. the cops just came in with gloves (though not the big white suits and masks like i had hoped) a few minutes ago but seemed more interested that we have the new x box and the half-naked women on our walls than the fact that we might have been breathing in anthrax for the past week. just another monday morning.

hold on to your hats, boys and girls. ryan cormier has his own weblog. in his first installment, you can read about midgets, drunk escapades on the delaware memorial bridge and some old lady thinking the baby powder on her ass is the evil anthrax. oh, yeah, mr. pulp culture is back.

i agree with betsy, who said the other day that she always learns something from the west wing. last night i learned how much it would suck to be the press secretary. plus, the scenes where the speechwriters are all sitting around, trying to come up with the perfect speech for bartlett reminded me that i needed to finish this article from sunday's times magazine about how bush's speech after the attacks came to be. it's so interesting how many hands it passes through and how much thought goes into every single word—and how much is done before the president even sees it. i also learned that bush likes short sentences and active verbs. and has a dog named spot. how original. i also didn't know that they sent out sound bytes before the speech is given. i personally would have sent "history's unmarked grave of discarded lies." it has a certain ring to it, dontcha think?

feeling sad? just get yourself a pair of big pants and you'll feel much, much better. and i love how jared fogle is a household name.

osama and bert?!

i learned something very valuable yesterday on my sick day: all the really great tv is on when we're at work. i managed to watch "a different world," a first-season episode of "90210," "roseanne," "the practice" and here's the best one: two episodes of "little house on the prarie." i didn't even know they still ran reruns of it.

saturday night was filled with more fun. after stuffing our faces with some ok mexican food, my friend and i headed to de la guarda. believe the hype, people. it was so much fun. no one in the group got picked up and flown through the audience like i'd hoped, but we did get soaking wet. and some little man stuck his hands in brian's shirt. and squeezed michele's ass. or that might have been a woman. afterward we walked over to beauty bar, which had been on my list for a while. a really fun place to be if there were maybe 20 less people standing around. but after a few coronas, what's the difference?

i've been awol for a while but after an extended weekend and a sick day, i'm back in action. but i still need to flashback to the weekend and tell everyone how much fun i had. i won't bother going into detail about my friday night at river street in hoboken, because without you hearing me do the cheesy dj voice saying, "live from river street. it's flashback friday" or the bass beginning to pump, well, it just won't do the story justice. but saturday was more my speed with a trip to brotherhood winery, america's oldest winery. a lot different than my experience in napa valley last spring, but being in the old, damp cellars was really cool. and their ancient slide shows where you move the projecter when you hear the ding was pretty cool too. but if you go, don't bother tasting any of the wines in the end. not one of them was good. perhaps because the most expensive bottle was $9.99. but a good fall outing nonetheless. my only question: why would people bring their screaming toddlers on a tour of a winery?

he may be getting more fans these days but bush still can't get the words out right.

cops really love their doughnuts.

i have nothing to say except i'm so happy it's friday and even more excited that i have a three-day weekend. thank you, columbus!

i haven't finished the issue yet, but so far the 9/11 edition of rolling stone has really gotten to me. maybe it's that there's been more time for things to settle in that i'm starting to feel the sadness and fear all over again, but reading all these musicians' and journalists' accounts is just so sad. i thought i was actually starting to feel better, but then the same thing happened when i watched the west wing last night. i guess it just will never really go away. oh, and catherine, just so you know, rhett has a little blurb in there all about how he and erica were in their apartment three blocks away from the wtc when all the shit went down.

last night, we started off michele's birthday celebration with a few glasses of wine at the very dark but soho hip room. but when i say dark, i mean dark. even the lights in the bathroom don't work, making you pee by candlelight. then it was off to the snazzy jane for more wine and various fish, risotto, and salads that all resembled sand castles. but it was good times with good friends. though we all agreed that someone really needs to invent the ultimate party table. a long table is just not conducive to including everyone in the conversation. not even a big round table always works. who can i talk to about this?

there is some good in the world. joan and melissa rivers won't be doing their emmys preshow on e! hallelujah!

happy birthday, michele!

finally an article that doesn't scare the bejesus out of me. chemical or biological warfare may no be as likely as they've been saying.

had a great weekend in delaware and philly visiting old friends, playing with various friendly and not so friendly housepets, checking out the old haunts, rocking out to wilco, watching ryan drink four big gulps of lager in a matter of 15 minutes or so and never getting the chance to sample the j lo we brought with us. yes, boys and girls, catherine and i are trying to spread the new lingo so please do your part. all in all a good time. now if i could only get my burned copy of the newest wilco to play in my cd player at home. for some reason, some cds just won't play. so now i'm listening to it through my headphones at work, but it's just not the same.

i'm very excited to be getting out of the new york area this weekend and heading down to philly and delaware to visit some old friends, eat some greasy nachos, drink some yeungling and listen to some good ol' rock 'n' roll. i'd be even more excited if i could get onto wilco's web site to listen to their new cd since i've heard they played a bunch of it at their show last night.

i know these are difficult times, but bill maher has a right to say what he wants without the white house telling him to choose his words more carefully. do we not have the first amendment in this country? is our love for freedom not part of "america's new war"? part of what's great about the good ol' us of a is i can call ari fleischer a big poo if i want to and not worry about him tsk-ing and shaking his finger at me.

work being busy and all, i have no real updates today, except that i am happy i'll finally be able to watch the long-awaited "undeclared" tonight. and it won't even interrupt my continuous viewing of the family ties marathon. oh, the exciting life i lead.

this weekend i witnessed the most bizarre thing at mad one jack's, the hair salon on my street. i've always thought these people were weird (they have parties every night, stay open really late and are just weird, i can't explain it), but this one tops them all. my roommates and i are walking by, and michele notices balloons outside and a crowd in the salon. i thought they were the typical patriotic red, white and blue balloons but there were wedding ones too. we got a little closer to see if we could spot the bride and groom and finally did. they were dogs! seriously. it was a dog wedding. there was a white labrador type dog wearing a pink bride's maid's dress, some other dogs in tuxes, and then the bride and groom: what looked like two pugs, one in a tux and the other in a white dress with a big old train in the back. jack, the owner of the salon, is kneeling down with a microphone reciting vows such as "do you promise to never sniff another dog's butt?" the ceremony was complete with music, though i didn't see any rice being thrown. perhaps they were throwing purina? these people stopped working on saturday, the busiest day for a hair salon, i'd imagine, just to wed their dogs. all in the name of love i guess.

this story about how new yorkers are now scared of a simple siren at night, sums up how a lot of us in the metropolitan area are feeling. will it ever be like it used to?

last night, catherine and betsy came to hoboken to hear the dismemberment plan at maxwell's. i guess i'd describe it as loud, punky rock with a bit of funk mixed in. never heard them before, but i'd see them again. i think my favorite song was "ellen in bed," if that's what it was called. more of a poppy tune. i managed to make it home in time to catch the last two episodes of the nick at nite family ties marathon they have going this week. and i just learned tonight contains two more of my favorite episodes: when tom hanks guest stars as alex's favorite uncle and alex learns he's got a drinking problem, and the one when alex tries to impress a girl by joining some feminist group and gets himself arrested. oh, the madness of the keaton clan.

a very laid-back weekend. i think it was partly the nervousness factor that there was going to be some new attack this weekend and partly still not feeling up to having a grand old time living it up while things are just so shitty. i did attempt to make it out of the house friday night with brian to a fundraiser at the quiet woman, but when we got there it was way too packed for my old self so we settled in to watch the telethon instead. we desperately tried calling to give a donation (and to talk to brad and tom) but no such luck. i think i'll make an online donation today instead. yesterday, i was introduced to the fun time of cranium. it's like pictionary, trivial pursuit, charades, name that tune and pottery all rolled into one. and making fun of the beauty queens in miss america is always a good way to spend your saturday night.

thanks gail for this urban legends page about the attack. you have to click on the site once you link to this. they dispell the whole nostradamus thing and the songs banned on the radio but aren't sure about being cautious on the 22nd. doesn't really ease my mind all that much. there are a few other rumors listed in there that i hadn't heard about, including two hands found bound at the top of the towers.

i'm quite disappointed in all you felafel readers. it seems no one is taking my contest seriously. maybe i need to up the ante. a few weeks ago, i asked you guys who i don't know to email me and tell me where you're from. and now that our nation is supposed to be coming together and uniting as one, isn't it time we got to know each other. so email me and give a girl some excitement in her life.

thankfully congress is passing a relief package for the airlines, which means good news for my brother, a continental pilot. though my mom would probably be happier knowing he isn't flying for a while. but we all have a job to do i guess.

just wishing a happy new year to all of you who it pertains to. may it be a sweet one and though it will be hard to enjoy it, do what my friend ryo told me to do earlier today, celebrate life and and the lives of my family and friends. till thursday...

this hasn't gotten a lot of coverage but it's really hard to believe. jerry falwell partially blaming pagans, abortionists, feminists and gays and lesbians for tuesday's events. um, excuse me? the site even has video footage so you can see for yourself. kudos to brian and his coworkers at diversityinc for working full force last week with up-to-the-minute news while the rest of us took some time to let it all sink in.

just letting everyone out there know i'm ok. as much as i can be i guess, but my friends and family in new york are all accounted for. there are just no words to really say that haven't been said already. we've all seen the footage and most of us will never be able to get the image of a plane heading full force into the wtc out of our head. some of us watched the buildings burn, others watched them crumble and it still seems surreal. even walking down to the water in hoboken everyday to stare at the skyline in amazement and watch the dust rise it still isn't easy to comprehend. i just hope all of you out there are doing all right.

all right, we here at the felafel are doing a little experiment. every now and then i check my site meter to see how many people are actually reading this (i've even been surprised at the numbers). my goal now is to find out is where you people live. i figured this could be kind of like one of those balloon launches we used to do on july fourth. you send balloons into the sky with a tag attached with your name, address and a number to call when a person finds it in their yard. whoever's balloon went the farthest won a prize. while this may not be as fun as watching hundreds of red, white and blue balloons floating in the air (and will kill less fish and birds), please do me a favor: if you live farther then the ny tri-state area—and i don't know you already—email me your location, and perhaps you'll win a prize. i know some of you down under are reading. who are you, mate?

this is blasphemy! verizon is raising the price of pay phone calls to 50 cents! not that i really ever use pay phones, but still, it's the principle. i was screaming when it was 35 cents just a few years ago. i'm all for the collect call scheme and quickly stating your request in the amount of time given by the operator to say who's calling.

this weekend, the ny times had a great magazine, all about women. pluse it was the photography issue, so the pictures were great and the articles generally short enough to read, which is usually my big gripe about the magazine because i'm always rushing through it to get to the crossword. but one of my favorite stories from this week was about a female ceo and her female secretary. they followed them through their day and set up photos side by side about how different they were. interesting, because the two know a lot about each other and our friendly, but would never consider themselves "friends." sort of a "working girl" moment.

here's a good recap of the video music awards. if any of you missed it, i bet you can catch it no matter what time you turn on the tv this weekend. though i'd tell you not to bother. the best parts of the whole show were the commercials for mtv where the people wore black t-shirts with the names of the videos in the upper lefthand corner. no drunken escapades, only one curse word slipped through, macy gray's self-promoting dress was the zaniest outfit (except for those guys with blood dripping down their faces) and award winners only thanked the man upstairs seven times.

there was a slim chance i was going to the video music awards tonight, but alack, i'll be watching them in my pjs on my couch, eating ice cream. though it turns out my magazine is on the vip list for an after party at some club downtown and there is the possibility of boy bands arriving, but it's also being co-sponsored by some modeling agency, and i really don't need to feel fat and ugly tonight in all the wrong clothes. so like i said, i'll be on my couch, in my ratty pjs, consuming lots of calories. yum.

i hope you people were able to watch the us open last night and watch the battle between agassi and sampras in it's three-and-a-half-hour entirety. definitely the most amazing, exciting, nerveracking match i've ever witnessed. and live to boot! i'm still reveling in how great it was. of course, my boy andre lost, but what a fight. if i was a greedy little girl i could have walked away with a whole lot of dough, there were so many people looking for tickets. even capriati said she rushed through her two sets because she knew the crowd was really there to watch the next match.

here's a new spin on the whole danny almoonte fiasco from salon. i was one of the many who felt bad for the pitcher, since it probably wasn't his idea to begin with, but barra has a point: a 14-year-old is old enough to know that he's not going to school, old enough to know his own age, old enough to know the difference between the us and the dominican republic.

i'm very excited to report that tonight i'll be watching agassi and sampras duel it out live and in person. who to root for? i'll have to go with my high school crush of agassi, i guess, though i do love sampras too. plus i get to watch capriati. oh, happy day.

this weekend i finally finished the human stain this weekend, which i think might be my favorite roth book so far. my book selection seems to follow a racial theme lately, though i didn't know anything about this one when i took it off the bookshelf. up next: the very pink valley of the dolls, which has been on my must-read list for a while.

i really need to know what makes people think they can talk as loud as they want and chat on the phone in the middle of a movie theater, thinking it's their own living room? i've had this problem a lot recently, but never as bad as sunday night. i think part of the reason why i didn't love "o" were the obnoxious theater-goers at the loew's. picture that scene in "scary movie" when the chick is chatting it up on the phone and screaming at the rest of the audience because they're telling her to shut up. now picture at least 10 or 15 people doing that. and louder. i really think my little posse were the only ones not in on the joke. and if i had to hear them say, "can you say oj?" one more time, i might have lost it. and do people really need to guess out loud what is going to happen in the end? especially when it's shakespeare and you know they're all going to die anyway? argh.

another instance where advertising screws with our minds.

i won't bore everyone with the details of my long weekend (i didn't get to travel across the country like some people or rock out in the desert with burning objects like others). some highlights: possibly breaking the record for the longest day of shopping at woodbury. we arrived at two and didn't make it home till after midnight, granted we had a long stop at a diner where the waitress was super slow and michele's half a chicken held up the order. saw o (don't believe the hype), basked in the sun in battery park city and bought candy at south street seaport, danced along with underage college kids at a bar in new brunswick (i couldn't stop laughing when the dj stopped the music and turned on the "ugly lights" at last call. some people apparently picked some winners). i even tried to watch the telethon, but i only found it on the tube once. i heard jerry lewis cut back his hours, but come on.

gail and i watched this fight on espn last night at the quiet woman. of course it was on mute so i wasn't aware that what started the brawl was about calling each other "gay." amusing nonetheless, especially once the two men landed on the table and knocked it over and papers went flying everywhere. it looked a little staged from where i was sitting. something out of jerry springer. but the article made me chuckle in the way they described the actual fight.

catherine's pita
betsy's pita
leanne's knee
chris's blog
ryan's pulp