you're in luck, dear pita readers: i finally went ahead and ordered my brand spanking new digital camera! pictures tk...
i just read in this week's time out all about the unemployed ice cream truck driver who managed to cheat the game show "press your luck" out of more than $100,000 back in the 80s when he figured out the pattern to the whammies. he memorized the sequence by watching the episodes in slow motion and wound up being able to walk away with the money. if you're intrigued. you can watch the actual documentary this sunday on the game show network. yup, the station is about more than frequent reruns of "let's make a deal."
during the later part of my weekend i watched the dangerous lives of altar boys. overall, a good flick, whether it was geared toward younger people or not. jodie foster plays a pretty mean nun. and i was completely not expecting the climax to the movie (i won't give it away for those who haven't seen it) and am still not sure how i feel about it.
so this was a weekend of sad departures. i went to my parents' house to pack up my stuff for the impending move. since i obviously can't take all of my childhood possesions with me, or convince my parents to keep it stored in boxes in their new digs, i had to do plenty of purging. out went letters from years and years of camp, random notes passed in junior high, beloved stuffed animals, and various mementos that i once thought were prized and secret enough to keep in a locked box in my top desk drawer. the tens of journals and diaries came with me of course as did ridiculous amounts of photos and yearbooks. my bedroom for the first 23 years of my life is now empty except for the bed. some nice family came saturday to pick up the rest of my bedroom furniture so their little girl (who also has a purple room) could get good use out of it. also on saturday, i said goodbye to my first and basically only car. my cute little '93 two-door maroon nissan sentra with the key scratch on the hood and the dent on the back right side is now in the hands of someone else, who will most likely tear off my grateful dead and u of d stickers and change all my preset radio stations. i may be a bit richer, though i'm pretty sad to see it go.
Tuesday, March 4, 2003
i saw a bunch of movies this weekend: first , "the pianist". truly amazing. a bit too much to take at times and i could have done without some of the graphicness, but overall really well done. the holocaust is one of those subjects that never ceases to amaze me. the fact that all this mass destruction and horror happened not that long ago and that the people in these villages just went along with what they were told to do is hard to grasp. it's also really sad to think that the survivors are few and far between these days and for the next generation, it will just be history like the civil war. anyway, adrien brody was excellent (though my oscar vote is still with jack, i think) and when you're sitting in the second row, his shnoz looks pretty damn big. here's an editorial written by the woman who roman polanski slipped some quaaludes to and took advantage of (via crazy knee). the second movie was seen by default when the line for the planetarium sunday was too damn long. "lost in la mancha", the documentary of terry gilliam's diasaterous attempt to make a don quijote move. what's amazing here is there was a camera crew all ready filming so when everything started to fall apart, they caught it all. first the torrential downpours, then the leading role has prostate problems and they happen to pick a shooting location right near a military base and therefore under constant air traffic. sorta reminded me of the failures that project greenlight dweeb kept encountering by the train tracks. anyway, interesting flick. check it out if you have the time.
for those of you out there who don't read daily candy, i'll share with you the find for today, which i think is great. operation fairy dust. you bring your slightly worn bridesmaid's dresses or old formal dresses and accessories to this charity, and some less fortunate new york city high school girls will now have the perfect prom dress. start digging through your closets people! you're never going to wear that eggplant colored sequin gown again anyway. why not give it to a good cause?
at the moment, i am in the middle of my first listen of the soon to be releasedwhite stripes album thanks to the help of a fewfriends, and as expected, it rocks, rocks, rocks. there is just enough crackling to make you appreciate it came from a vinyl, yet the sound quality is good enough to blast it on the stereo the way the white stripes should be played. other stuff i've downloaded or got a hold of recently that i've been listening to a lot of these days: ted leo, jesse malin, who i missed at maxwell's tonight, the new tim easton (g-d, i love his voice) and the guilty pleasure great gym soundtrack of missy elliott. in other music news, i saw rilo kiley sunday night at the knitting factory. the first time i saw them was sometime last summer, and i thought they were amazing. the lead singer has such a sweet voice and i just loved their sound. this time i wasn't as impressed, though it still made for a good show albeit a short one. it also could have been the fact that we were at least 10 years older than just about everyone else in the venue that made it not the best. some girl was crushed when she had to leave four songs in to catch her train back to connecticut. parents are a lot cooler these days that they'll let their kids go to rock shows in the big bad city on a school night. though according to catherine, the kids are a lot cooler these days too.
i know, i know, it's been a long time coming. so much to do, so little time, i guess. work kicked my ass last week and getting home after midnight every night did not help with the updates. but enough excuses, here goes. so the great housewarming fiesta was a success. if you consider the last of the 75+ guests didn't leave till after five and the ones who were staying decided to share the covers and drunk dial till sometime around six in the morning a successful party. nothing was broken, the red wine stain is mostly out of the wall, nothing was stolen (that i know of) and we have enough bottles of wine for semi-large dinner party. you can see michele's pics here. sorry there are none of mugsy's prolongued one-man dance party or the numerous cupcake fights, but you can see gossy doing his part and vacuuming up the mess. catwoman might still have some shots up as well.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
the guy who created the excellent "freaks and geeks" has written a collection of essays on growing up in the 80s. now that i can't get my f&g fix on tv, i may have to order the book.
what better way to start off a three-day weekend then to get out of work early to party it up with hours of free drinks at this swankypenthouse lounge overlooking our magazine's cool new times square billboard? did i mention a national cable station is filming a documentary on us? and even better was once i was all liquored up, i had a delicious meal cooked for me, dessert and all. after dinner, we headed over to the village underground to see ted leo and the pharmacists. the band rocked. who cares if we were the oldest looking people in the crowd? then saturday night it was time to celebrate holly's birthday (see catwoman's site for pics, that i managed to stay out of this time around) at the cool but crowded local 138 on the les. sunday was beat-the-clock shopping before the snow started falling and a state of emergency was declared.
thus far i have refused to watch "joe millionaire" but i said all along i wanted to watch the moment of truth when the gold-digging girl finds out that her prince is really a pauper. but now it's getting interesting. rumor has it that fox has a twist for audience members too. some say it's the girl who really has the millions, others say the girls are in on the secret. slate predicts that fox will give evan the money so he can keep his lady in style.
now that the oscar nominations have been announced, i have lots of movie watching ahead of me in the next month and a half. i'm only half way there in the best picture category and i have no plan to see lord of the rings. i finally saw "about schmidt" last week and it was better than i expected. way more depressing too. yeah, there was more than your fair share of comic moments, but overall we left the theater feeling really sad. it's a lot of pressure to make sure you live a fulfilling and worthwhile life. and then there was "chicago", which i loved, loved, loved. richard gere's singing and dancing left a little to be desired, but renee zellweger—despite how horrendously thin, pale and oily she looked—was awesome, along with the rest of the cast.
a little birdie today told me that it is apparently very uncool to use the expression "frisco." i, however, don't think it's so terrible. this guy doesn't either.
wouldn't you know it. the voice picks "yankee hotel foxtrot" as the the pazz & jop winner. "sea change" comes in at number two, but would you believe "the instigator" is as high as number 77?
i'm bad with this pita thing lately, i know. and my fans have been complaining so i feel i owe it to them. here goes: the whole world already knows this one by now, but it still makes me laugh: dude, your getting a cell!
Saturday, February 1, 2003
i also read in rolling stone last night about this new nick hornby book, which i just might have to buy. the book is essays he wrote about 30 or so of his favorite songs. and it even comes with an 11-song cd!
rolling stone has an interview with jeff tweedy in the latest issue. rather than talking about my being unimpressed with loose fur, i'll instead rave about the three uncle tupelo reissues i acquired from work. i had only ever really heard anodyne and had recently purchased the anthology, but now i'm hooked on it all.
i'm taking this oppportunity now to publicly declare my crush on the tall, dark and handsome rob morrison, the channel four anchor and ex-marine. normally when he's sitting behind the desk, he looks a little too much like guy smiley, with his plastic looking hair and stage makeup. but in recent weeks with the frigid weather in new york, he's been on location, wearing a winter hat with his black curly hair sticking out the sides and his rosy cheeks—and i'm smitten.
so apparently the missing and pregnant laci peterson was spotted at a supermarket in washington last month and told the cashier she had been kidnapped, but the cashier got distracted and forgot to report it. um, ok.
Monday, January 27, 2003
what could be worse than being a hollywood child star in a cult favorite one minute and starring in 30 unmemorable films the next, you ask? why, getting arrested at age 38 for shoplifting a deep purple cd of course.
as always the onion's got the funny including the laugh out loud "business traveler closes mini bar."
when i first saw the front page of the ny times style section yesterday, i was excited to read a story all about how teenage girls are no longer obsessing over their bodies in a quest to be skinny. they are more comfortable in their own skin and have no qualms about wearing low rise jeans with their bellys sticking out. rock on. the story goes on to say that our generation was self-hating, but this generation isn't so concerned with making their bodies thin enough to "woo men." all sounds good to me. but then i see the accompanying photos in which they list pink and beyonce as "chubby" and "zaftig." excuse me?! curvaceous, yes. bootylicious? why not. but where do they get off saying women who happen to have some shape on their bones and who don't resemble lara flynn boyle in a ballerina getupare chubby? i'm curious to find out what words they'd use to describe your average size 10 or 12 woman.
another weekend come and gone. besides watching a pretty boring super bowl while pigging out on good food and tasty beer i managed to watch two horrendous movies. the first: the rules of attraction, which i have no idea could have gotten any good reviews when it first hit theaters. yeah, james van der beek didn't play his normal dawson character, but that's about it. besides seeing fred savage play a heroin addict, the best part was the super fast european adventure sequence. the second movie: the extremely hokey john q. there was such potential for a good story there but the cheese took over. i knew it was horrible from the beginning yet i stayed up till 2:30 watching the rest of it. it did have denzel after all.
Thursday, January 16, 2003
i am now living vicariously through nathan, who recently got back from a jaunt down under. check out his trip journals including a very funny story about a drunkard named kenny. in other travel news, betsy has begun posting her pics from her excursion across the pond, and i'm really hoping to see at least one wacko jacko shot.
the teeniest of earthquakes shook my hometown yesterday. back in the 80s we had one a little bigger, though i was oblivious and slept right through it. my parents however assumed a small plane had crashed into our back yard.
with the 30th anniversary of roe v. wade coming up, this week's voice has some scary numbers about women from then and now. for instance, did you know that there's only a one percent chance that a woman of color would be a law firm partner? and that women's earning power to the male dollar is 76 cents? i think the craziest fact i learned is that in 1973 there was only one battered women's shelter in the united states. at least we've made some strides: there are 2000+ now. though i'd rather not think about the supply and demand rules here.
i finally read the cover story from last sunday's times magazine all about prison familys. the reporter studied this one bronx family for almost ten years as the father spent most of his time in prison and the mother continued to have babies. some interesting family dynamics here and a really sad story because you know in the end, the cycle is just going to continue once you see the daughter failing out of middle school. also while reading the magazine, check out this one about headaches being caused by the medicine you take to cure them in the first place which is a pretty common ailment.
i saw the soundtrack of our lives tuesday night at mercury lounge and boy did they kick some serious ass. they were such rock stars up on stage with their high kicks (not as good as bob pollard of course) and great poses and a drummer with a combover clicking his sticks. plus, the lead singer kept jumping down from the stage and walking through the crowd. the best part of the whole show though was that as we were leaving i spotted david cross standing in the crowd. what's freaky is i had borrowed the soundtrack cd from a friend at work earlier in the day. when i took it off the pile, david cross's cd was sitting underneath it and i proceeded to explain how i don't understand the hype. so here it was a mere few hours later, and he's standing right in front of me. coincidence? anyway, they're on letterman tonight. check them out.
Sunday, January 12, 2003
i went home to my parents' house this weekend for the massive purging of the attic that has been planned for months now. you see, when a family lives in the same house for almost thirty years and are notorious pack rats to begin with, they wind up accumulating a crapload of junk. for as long as i can remember after every school year, my brother and i would put a box or a big bag together of everything we wanted to save for the year (book reports, projects, art work) and chuck it up into the attic never to be seen again. until yesterday. actually, it wasn't as stressful as i thought it would be. granted our front lawn now resembles a garbage dump cluttered with several hideous lamp shades, a typewriter or two, a broken microscope, several old suitcases and a gazillion children's books, dolls and toys, but it was a lot less than i was expecting. my fam had a pretty good time taking a trip down memory lane reading through my 3rd grade autobiography, when my dream was to become a broadway star and then a hollywood actress (but i wanted to spend lots of time with my two children, so i couldn't travel much), staring at my mediocre artwork, which i once thought was up there with van gogh, and reading through my second grade journal to learn that i had a far more active social life as an 8 year old (ballet, gymnastics, acting, puppetry, cartooning, piano and plenty of play dates) than i do today.
i saw "narc" a few nights ago and despite some mediocre reviews and the fact that i usually don't go for violent cop thrillers, i actually liked it. i wished there was more to the ending and i could have done without some of the blood, but ray liotta was amazing. a pretty decent bad cop/worse cop movie with a few twists, cool cinematography and you can never go wrong with busta.
Sunday, January 5, 2003
also while i was in mountain brook, i got to try hoppin' john soup, a famous new year's day hangover cure. i, however, had it the day before new year's eve and had to carefully strain out the pork that was floating in the broth, which i didn't realize was one of the ingredients when i decided to be so daring.
happy 2003 everybody. yes i've been slow to update but i have reasons, you see. like snowstorms screwing up the cable. but anyhow, the week down south was much fun indeed even if we got there a day late because of the nor'easter and problems with cabs. alabama church weddings are quite different from the new york jewish weddings i'm used to but i would say in a good way. they make the party last all week long. what's so wrong with that? betsy was a beautiful blushing bride and gail and jessica did a perfect job not tripping as they walked down the aisle. we frequented many of the localwateringholes and several delicious restaurants, partied with british blokes and southern gents, watched the giants kick some eagles ass and learned to add "roll tide roll" to the most famous song about alabama. we never made it to the civil rights institute like we wanted to but i guess we'll save it for the next trip. the most disappointing part of though was the fact that cold stone creamery moved locations and we had to settle for marble slab. but now it's back to cold new york weather and five-day work weeks. sigh.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
here i am typing at an actual desk (well, old kitchen table) in my ridiculously spacious living room. more furniture was brought in today, and i'd say the place is really coming together. i'm awaiting the roomates arrival from work so we can celebrate christmas eve like the good jews we are: with chinese food and a movie of course. then tomorrow it's off the battle the snow and rain and fly to mountain brook for the big wedding festivities. happy holidays to all and to all a good night.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
for all you young journalism students, listen up. i just learned about this web site yesterday. perhaps my office and i are the last to know about it, but we all got a giant laugh over the premise after our editorial assistant introduced us to the site: a group of young journalism kids hoping to land their dream edit job by the year 2010. my question is if the web site continues to be succesful in finding internships and editorial assistant jobs over the next few years, are they going to have to change their domain as they get closer to their goal year?
i also wanted to wish a very happy and somewhat belated birthday to my wonderful, spectacular roommate gail. we were busy packing up and shipping out saturday but at least we made time for a yummy carvel cake late friday night.
the ethicist answers a very important question this week: is it ok to google someone? thankfully, he says yes.
here's an interesting article on how the yankee hotel foxtrot demos i recently acquired are so kickass they should be compared to dylan's basement tapes. truthfully, i can't stop listening to the demos album and now i feel even cooler, like i'm in some sort of special inner rock circle or something to have them in my posession.
since we last talked my devoted pita fans, i've since moved to my new digs and they are fab-u-lous. of course there are the annoying little things that should have been done before we moved in and a few broken things we didn't realize were broken till we moved in, but all in all i love it. compared to our old place, it's frickin' huge. party to follow next month.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
t minus three days until the big move. so far i've only had one almost panic attack about how much i have to do until then. now that most of the apartment is filled with packed boxes, i'm feeling a little better about the whole situation. anyhow, on to more exciting things. catwoman's party was kick ass as usual. you can read the rundown on all the craziness on her site and i'm guessing the pulpy will have some crazy pictures up soon. i'm also assuming that every picture will have an almost dead guy in the background. the dude was not well, and i'm not sure if he came into the party like that or the hop, skip and go naked punch did him in like the rest of us. and as always, it was great to share stories of finger sized penises, dumpster babies and elks flying through windshields with the review crew.
Saturday, December 7, 2002
i'm just about done with my crazy week o' fun. it started tuesday night with yo la tengo and an only half funny david cross as part of the channukah shows at maxwell's. if you want a more expert opinion on yo la tengo, check out catherine's pita. this was my first time seeing or basically hearing the band, but i liked what i heard. granted, it would have been far better in a sit-down venue and some of their stuff merged together a little too much, but i think had i known their songs, i would have appreciated it more. definitely a good sound though. as far as david cross is concerned, however, don't believe the hype. i chortled several times but there were plenty of jokes (namely about hooters) that just fell flat. i really don't see what all the excitement is about ryan. anyhow, on to wednesday and our big magazine party at eugene, where the hilton sisters have been known to dance on tables. however, that night i was more concerned with making sure aj soprano didn't steal my wallet (he's a lot shorter than you'd think). he also looked somewhat miserable that he couldn't drink ("there are too many cameras around"). i also got to bump elbows with john c. mcginley, the oh so cute ethan from survivor, the tall, dark and handsome liev schreiber and oh yeah, brooke burke. apparently, someone tried to hold her elbow for a little too long. i swear it wasn't me. i spent yesterday completely hungover and then tonight it was on to loose fur in dumbo. one of the worst shows i've spent my money on in a long time and i'd say our whole group was in agreement. the only way i can describe this jeff tweedy disaster is it's very much like the space/drums part of a dead show when whoever's tripping on something or other may be having a good time, but everyone else is checking their watch and waiting to hear "box of rain" or something you can actually get into. it was like one giant practice jam session or something. i was able to pick out a good riff or two, and one song that sounded eerily like dave matthews, but then they lost me in some sort of musical experimentation that was 20 minutes too long. i'll admit that st. ann's was a really cool venue to see a show (though what's up with no freaking coat check?). maybe next time they can book wilco instead.
happy thanksgiving and channukah to all. my holiday weekend was pretty decent. it started with a half day of work, which is always good. amy and i then went to see the emperor's club, which i'd say was your average feel-good movie. like i've said in the past, i love kevin kline, and i also have a weird obsession with prep schools. i'm just fascinated by them for some reason. the whole concept of basically being at college/camp at a really young age with a whole bunch of really rich kids in uniforms just intrigues me. maybe it's just so far removed from my public school life. after that we met some other work people at old town, which i usually stay away from because of the mouse problem, but i sat with my feet up on the chair the whole time and proceeded to get completely drunk at four in the afternoon. thursday afternoon i shuffled off to newark airport and then off to buffalo for a yummy thanksgiving dinner with my sister in law's family. friday when we got back it was one of my favorite nights of the year. we exchanged channukah presents and i made out pretty well. besides new sheets and peter max print, one of the best presents of the evening was the new 20th anniversay trivial pursuit, which is a lot harder than jared, michele and i though it would be when we played it last night. also did some shopping for my new apartment and watched the awful giants game this afternoon. and now it's sleep.
now i know why jared always puts a magazine on his lap before he starts up my ibook: laptop scorches man's penis.
just finished watching "the good girl", and besides the annoying "this is a promotional copy only" running along the bottom of the screen every now and then, i enjoyed it. not what i expected though i can't tell you what it is i expected, but jennifer aniston plays against type for the first time i can remember. and she does it well. and you gotta love john c. reilly. you think he's just a pot smoking pig and then you start to feel bad for him. kind of glad i didn't see it in the theater but i'd say it's definitely a good rental.
it's bad enough that "the bachelor" is taking ratings away from "the west wing" there are now going to be even worse reality shows such as "the will," where family members will compete for a dead relative's inheritance and "exhausted," which will make contestants stay up for 24 hours and then compete with each other for another 24. wouldn't that be considered some kind of torture in other countries if there were no prize money involved? i say keep "the osbournes" and get rid of the rest.
i finally saw "y tu mama tambien" the other night. a great flick. three sexy stars, a beautiful language, amazing scenery and a wonderful story. i could have done without the diving board scene (the dvd is the unrated version, fyi) but i still highly recommend it.
it's taken me a few episodes of "the sopranos", but i finally figured out that tony's substitute driver is vinnie delpino of "doogie howser" fame (check him out in the big picture on the link i just made). remember, his sex-crazed best friend who used to climb through the window and videotape doogie's every move? he hasn't grown much but he's come a long way.
i used my computer as a dvd player for the first time last night and watched "life as a house". sad, endearing, emotional, overall pretty good. a few parts i didn't exactly buy and thought they could do without just a few of the subplots but still worth the rental. besides, i've had a pseudo hot older man crush on kevin kline ever since i saw "the big chill."
i saw "8 mile" friday night. i'm not really sure who all these critics are who praised the film so highly, because i thought it was just all right. eminem is basically playing himself, which i'm not really sure how hard that is to do even if you're not a natural actor. kim basinger looked way too put together to play a trailer park mom. they should have at least not blown her hair straight and did a little better job with the makeup. and i was hoping for more of the rap battles and i think so was the packed movie theater i was sitting in. the kids in front of me were enjoying the alcohol they had snuck in inside a diet coke bottle but the newborn baby in one of the front rows wasn't having as much fun. can someone please explain to me why it's a good idea to bring an infant to a 9:30 movie? how about you don't buy popcorn and a soda and spring for a baby sitter instead?
i still think it's a little much to call him the bob dylan of a new generation, but i still think conor oberst is a damn good songwriter and apparently the times magazine agrees. i do think that "pokemon eyes," however, may be the worst descriptive phrase i've heard in a long time. what does that mean anyway?
