Standard - Deviant

Happy New Year already.

2007-01-17T01:42:00.000-05:00

So sorry for the overlong vacation from blogging. It's been a busy coupla weeks. Went home for the holidays and all that. Saw the family, enjoyed Athiest Kids Get Presents Day. Tons of fun. Blah blah blah Anyway:

Now, let me start this post by saying that I think I have a... healthy fear of chainsaws.

Not that I have nightmares or anything, but I know to stay away.

Father, though, he loves 'em. He got two for Christmas. Like, who needs two chainsaws? And they weren't even normal chainsaws, they were gimmick-y chainsaws. Obsoirve:

Horror Tool #1: Chainsaw on a Pole.

I don't think Gramma's gonna make it.

Because what better place to put a whirring death machine than at the ass-end of a third-degree lever?

Seriously, as soon as he unwrapped this thing, I got out a sketchpad and started talking about torque and fulcra and moment-arms, because let's face it, Father is roughly sixty years old and the laws of physics just aren't on his side.

But then I got to make jokes about not touching things with a chainsaw on a ten-foot-pole BECAUSE I'M SO FUNNY LIKE THAT.

But that doesn't hold a candle to...

Horror Tool #2: the "Alligator Lopper"

Because how can you make a chainsaw that much more terrifying? Anthropomorphize it.

I just imagine some Black & Decker engineer coming into work one day, all, "I had the worst nightmare last night. I was being chased by a chainsaw beast with teeth and a jaw," and some other engineer being all, "Eureka! We'll make a mint!"

The good people at Black & Decker want you to think it's for this:

But everyone knows it's really for this:

PS: Who gardens in white gloves? That's creepy in itself, geez.

Discretion is the better part of valor.

2006-12-18T08:52:00.000-05:00

So some big things are happening in Mr. T____'s Life.

The temping I've been doing between Sub days has finally come through, and I landed me a sweet job! Mind you, since the last time I mentioned my work on this blog, it ended up in the New York Post, I'm going to have to be extra oblique in the future.

So here we go.

I've been temping at Redacted, Inc., currently holding position n on the Fortune 500. I was just going through their files for storage, but I worked my way into their hearts and minds, and when I asked about open positions in the company, I was quickly whisked away in a whirlwind of career opportunity.

I'll be working right under Mister Redacted, the Executive [Title], which makes me Assistant to the Executive [Title]. I've got a friend who works in [the industry], and he tells me this is quite an important position and could be a great stepping stone on to higher things.

I guess I have to change my blog's subtitle, since I'll no longer be doing much educating. Feel free to offer your suggestions. I've been thinking "Asinine Urbanity from an Urban Assistant", but "urban assistant" is a tad redundant.

Flippity-Floppity.

2006-12-13T08:27:00.000-05:00

Note to frightened woman walking in front of me on the sidewalk last night:

If I really was a stalker coming to brutally murder you, I probably wouldn't be wearing flip-flops.

Of course, why I'm wearing flip-flops in this weather, I've no idea.

Monday Vanity Update: Smoke Free = The Way to Be

2006-12-11T07:55:00.000-05:00

This MVU is dedicated to the memory of how cool cigarettes made me look in pictures.

Not that cigarettes are cool THEY ARE NOT NO SIR.

I dug through my Picassa archives (love that Picassa), and found all the pics where I'm enjoying two lungfulls of flavor.

[Click through for the nicotine-fueled fun...]

Please to be ignoring the fluctuating hair.

Alveoli, alveoli, alveoli...

2006-12-08T11:02:00.000-05:00

Spent all this week not smoking. Go me!

Withdrawal symptoms are supposed to continue for about three weeks, but I've already noticed one or two changes to my body since quitting, which I will relate here because I know you all care.

1. I'd read that within the first three-to-five days, my senses of taste and smell would return. Now, I had never noticed them missing, but suddenly I can smell the stank cigarette breath of all my friends, Un-Boyfriend included. It's foul. Did I smell like that? No one will give me a straight answer.
2. I have to huff and puff less when climbing around in the Escher painting that is the Atlantic/Pacific subway stop. (Seriously, if there's a way to get from the Q platform to the R platform without walking sideways, upside-down, and travelling through time, let me know because I've yet to have found it).
3. I'm convinced my skin tone is improving. No one else can confirm this for me, but since I probably spend more time per day looking into mirrors than any one person spends looking at my face, I think I should be the authority on this matter.

I don't get cravings often, but I've at least discovered what all my triggers are (in order of the day):

First cup of coffee in the morning.
After breakfast.
Leaving my apartment.
Getting off the subway to work.
Midmorning break.
After lunch.
Midafternoon break.
Leaving work for the day.
Getting off the subway home.
That bitch Rachael Ray.
After dinner.
Evening TV watching.
Before bed.

As you can see, I was a bit on the heavy side.

At least I now know that I am perfectly capable of ignoring every cell of my body crying out for satisfaction, my subconscious screaming "Accio nicotine!", and my mouth chewing on all of my pens until they explode into my mouth AND INK IS NOT TASTY LET ME TELL YOU.

Sigh.

One week down, two to go.

Morose!

2006-12-06T10:39:00.000-05:00

So two of my roommates work for the City Morgue, identifying 9/11 victim remains.
Did I never mention that before?

Yeah.

It's pretty depressing work, I'm sure, and kudos to them for doing it, but they're both cute girls with ponytails and sometimes they'll say or do something that just makes me laugh inappropriately for hours.

Like, when one of them is fucking her boyfriend, and they both emerge from her bedroom wearing scrubs emblazoned with "MORTUARY".

And the "dead bodies smell" jokes never get old. Obsoirve:

Me: [describing the stench of something in the fridge]
Roommate 1: I know! I opened it up yesterday, and it was the most horrible thing I had ever smelled. And I work at the morgue.

And that's with emphasis added. She was being quite matter-of-fact about it.

Anyway, I bring it up because I was talking to one of them about one of the few perks about not smoking: no more Party Hair.

(You know, when you're out late some night hanging around smokers, and you skip the next day's shower because you're late for work, and don't realize until much later that your hair has been trailing around this big cloud of ash odor at work all day.)

Anyway, I was describing this concept to one of my roommates, and it resulted in the following exchange:

Me: [Describing Party Hair]
Roommate 2: Oh my god, I know! The same thing happens to me, but with decomposing bodies.

Heh. Heh heh.

Oh, I'm going to hell.

Cold Turkey: Not just leftovers anymore.

2006-12-04T07:16:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts last week. I've decided to give up smoking, and I've been ten kinds of cranky and not-care-y for the last little while.

Luckily, I've successfully replaced my addiction to nicotine with a selection of other addictions.

Namely, alcohol and ice cream.

At least for the time being. I'm told I'll get over that within the week.

So why did I decide to quit? I made up a budget for myself, and realized that I spend twice as much per month on cigarettes than I do on groceries. Fuck that noise.

Also, reading up on all the cool things my body will be doing to repair itself really steeled my resolve. Apparently, my alveoli will be regenerating for the next couple of weeks and my neural pathways will have to restructure to compensate for the lack of pleasure response nicotine gave me.

Neat!

If nothing else, quitting smoking is made worthwhile because I get to say "Alveoli" a lot. I mean, how often in my life do I get the excuse to use "alveoli" in conversation? Alveoli. Alveoli.

I just said it out loud, and it was good.

Monday Vanity Update: Napa

2006-11-27T05:41:00.000-05:00

Mother and Father are back in Texas, but they left with me their collection of pictures from the Golf Course Wedding, and I think I look dern cute in some of them.

And yes, my mother took that killer picture of my ass. Thanks, Mom!

[The rest under here...]

Blind Item Guessing Game: Fertility

2006-11-24T01:30:00.000-05:00

So Un-Boyfriend and I go to a Trivia Night every week. We do very well. Second place, mostly. First every so often. Our rivals are generally good people. Excitingly, though, one of them works at some local hospital/clinic/whatever, and happens to have looser lips than Brooklyn.

So let's play a game, shall we?

Ahem.

This medical professional claims to have personally verified (as in, under a microscope) the infertility of:

Which Canadian chanteuse?

Which adoption-happy aging sex symbol?

Which recently-married crazy person?

HINT: These are pretty easy, if you have half a brain.

I will neither confirm, nor deny, but have at it in the comments.

Thanksgimme.

2006-11-22T11:30:00.000-05:00

So my parents are coming into town for Thanksgiving. After the success of last year's dinner (see above), they decided that dinner was on me this year. I'm hella excited.

I got all my shopping out of the way yesterday. Made up a handy-dandy spreadsheet to take to all my local supermarkets and price-compare. You know, so I could get the best deals. And I'm not even Jewish!

Wait, was that racist?

I'm currently thawing the turkey in the tub in a bucket, so I can brine it all night long. Thanks, Alton Brown, for teaching me the methods of mafia-style turkey-drowning.

...using the Culinary Brick of Science!

I've also made one of those schedule spreadsheets so I can be nice and efficient come Turkey Day:

Because when cooking meets nerditry, I am unstoppable.

The Official Seals of the United States Federal Executive Departments

2006-11-19T18:41:00.000-05:00

...presented in order of ascending coolness.

	1. Department of Agriculture There's just nothing cool about the DoA's seal. Grain is not cool. Plows are not cool. Stars can be cool, but not when there's exactly 44 of them. That's just confusing.

	2. Department of the Interior Now, if you ask me, buffaloes are cool. Look over there to the right. That buffalo is one cool customer. Somehow, though, this seal remains decidedly uncool. Maybe it's the exploding sun in the background. Freaks me out.

	3. Department of the Treasury So they tried to find something to symbolize all the fun of money and money-owning, but all they could come up with was a scale and a key. If you squint at it, it looks like a face. And even the face looks bored. And just so you don't have to count: Stars: 13

	4. Department of Commerce Same here. I'm pretty sure the boat is supposed to represent mercantilism somehow, but still. Lame.

	5. Department of Justice This one almost made it onto the cool side, but check out the eagle's expression. This is not a happy eagle. This is not an angry eagle. This is a tired eagle. This is a fed up eagle. This is an eagle that has been posing, wings up, for the last three hours while that damned engraver finishes. Just wait til he turns his back, he's thinking, then he'll see what justice is all about. Stars: 3?

	6. Department of Labor This one's just confusing. The only close-ups I could find online are rendered in the strange hieroglyphic style to the right. Anvil, sure, I get that. Plow, too, tools of the workin' man (of the 1800s). But what's all that in the red row? I think the pinwheel is supposed to be a milling stone, but I can't be sure. And don't even ask me about the triangle and more-different triangle.

	7. Department of Education This almost made it onto the cool side. Modern design? Great. Evocative imagery? Awesome. Exploding sun? Love it. But that acorn is just silly. Boo.

	8. Department of Defense This one seems pretty uncool at first. That eagle imagery is just tired, and olive branches and arrows have been done to death. What makes this one so special? Claws, baby. Check out 'dem claws. Stars: back to 13

	9. State Department This one ups the ante by making the eagle look fucking pissed off. Plus, the flag-shield-thing appears to be censoring his genitals. Spread-eagle, indeed. Stars: 13 (+2)

	10. Department of Veterans' Affairs This eagle has clearly just spotted some poor, slow-moving veteran, and is about to swoop in for the kill. Plus, the bunching up of the flag is clearly a violation of Title 4, Chapter 1, §8 of the United States Code. Because veterans can do what they damn well please. Stars: 50 + 13 + 5 = 68. Winner!

	11. Department of Energy This eagle isn't angry or bored, just disapproving. In fact, I think it's a cameo by Sam the Eagle from The Muppet Show. The symbolism in this one is tops. Atomic energy is awesome. Hydroelectric generators are awesome. Even the windmill, which not usually awesome on its own, is rendered awesome by its proximity to the lightning bolt, sun, and oil derrick. All of which are awesome.

	12. Department of Health and Human Services At least we're finally getting into more modern design. In this one, a child is transforming into an eagle. And it bears more than a passing resemblance to the Girl Scout's logo, which is never not awesome.

	13. Department of Transportation Getting more and more futuristic. Reminds me of the symbol of the Klingon Empire. But, then, I'm a ridiculous nerd, so it might be just me.

	14. Department of Homeland Security I had no idea Homeland Security had such a cool official seal. It's the Robot Eagle of Counter-Terrorism! I can totally see this thing swooping down into Afghanistan and shooting lasers out of its eyes at Al Qaeda ne'er-do-wells. We're finally moving into the era of futuristic military design, like how the Air Force adopted their awesome new symbol (right) a few years back. And I know I'm not the first to point this out, but doesn't the Air Force logo look strangely similar to the Deceptacon symbol...? Do a side-by-side, it's eerie. *Stars: 22? The hell?*

	15. Department of Housing and Urban Development This one is the coolest of the bunch. So future-y! So dystopic! It's almost like it was ripped from the pages of 1984 (of course, I always get the INGSOC symbol mixed up with the Atkins symbol, anyway. Again, do a side-by-side, you'll be pleasantly surprised). HUD wins. They somehow found a way to make a Violet-and-Pine-Green logo look totally kick-ass.

Yes, I'm a big vain nerd.

2006-11-17T12:43:00.000-05:00

A few more pictures from this year's Come Out & Play Festival have turned up online.

I present them here mostly because even though the first three give the impression that I am really quite cool, the last one confirms that I am, in fact, not.

[Continue reading for the nerdy truth...]

Dating in the modern age.

2006-11-15T12:13:00.000-05:00

So New Boyfriend is now Ex-Boyfriend. It's okay, though. We were pretty much just friends before, during, and after the relationship, we just called it something different for a while.

We started dating at Trivia Night a few months back with the following exchange:

Him: "So, what do you think about us dating?"
Me: "I would be amenable to that."

I shit you not, I used the word amenable. And then we shook on it. Quelle romantique!

We ended it on a similar note:

Him: "So what do you think about our relationship?"
Me: "Eh."

And that was it.

[Click through for a stirring goodbye...]

Anyway, as a fitting goodbye to the relationship, here's a selection of pictures I took of him while we were dating, all showing off his superpower of never allowing his entire face to appear in my pictures.

Made possible by Viewers Like You.

2006-11-10T14:58:00.000-05:00

So a few days ago, my blog's hitcount, for lack of a better term, spiked. Check it out:

(And here I thought those 16 people last Sunday was a Big Deal.)

Now, I rarely check my site traffic (that's a lie), so I probably wouldn't have even noticed at all except for the emails I got when people started leaving comments. Imagine! Comments! How new and different.

Since then, I've had tens of thousands of visitors (well, ten of thousands), and the variety never ceases to amuse me. Seems a great swath of the population is interested in urban architecture shaped like female anatomy.

So let's check out some of my visitors, shall we?

[Click through for Traffic Log Fun. United Nations, Rupert Murdoch, Fermilab, and more...]
City Services!

I imagine a darkened room filled with men wearing fedoras and chewing cigars. It's over! Them architects double-crossed us! We're all wet! Oh, heads are gonna roll.

The Press!

I see a special-interest piece in the making. The Daily News will write about anything.

(Even Rupert Murdoch himself dropped by. Didn't leave a comment, though. Drag.)

Publishers!

Too bad blogger book deals are already over. I coulda been a star.

Magazines!

Rolling Stone and Maxim. Hey, maybe Maxim will do a spread about me. Hell, they did a spread on that bitch Rachael Ray. They clearly have no shame.

Sports!

Miscellaneous!

Check it out, it's Google Corporate, just sitting around, wasting time at work. What they should be doing is fixing my navigation pane. I've sent how many emails in? And they have time to sit and mess around on Curbed? Jerks.

The United Nations. Because they seriously have nothing better to do.

Dudes, love you. Send me some free crap. Please?

Lawyers. For children. Lawyers for children have no business reading this blog.

Forest City Ratner appears to be doing some new neighborhood research. Ominous.

This is seriously my favorite thing ever. Someone at Fermilab is reading my blog. Love your work, guys! Name a subatomic particle after me! You could call it the MisterTeson. Sure, everyone will think it's named after that B.A. Baracus guy, but we'll know the truth.

And that's not even counting the hundreds of banks, stockbrokers, and investment firms (I'm looking at you, Goldman Sachs). Now, I'm no dummy. I know all of these were probably just bored temps, but still. How much can I thank you guys for results like this:

UPDATE:

WHOA.

Grand Army Plaza is a giant vagina.

2006-11-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

So I was looking at my neighborhood on Google Maps, and I happened to scroll past the ~~pedestrian deathtrap~~ Brooklyn landmark, Grand Army Plaza.

Where, I thought, have I seen an arrangement like that?

OH RIGHT.

And just in case it's not blatantly clear:

UPDATE: Holy effing crap. Welcome, Curbed readers. Feel free to sit a spell.

Forgive the awkwardness of my site navigation; I'm trying to work around Blogger's tard-ness. You might want to check out The Other 25% of Subway Injuries or Club B38 or even that bitch Rachael Ray. Enjoy.

The most hilarious gang war ever.

2006-11-04T11:51:00.000-05:00

So I don't talk much about the schools where I substitute teach, you know, for privacy reasons and all that. I discovered something this week, though, that I had to share with the world.

The school where I do most of my subbing is pretty posh. We'll call it the Manhattan School of Ridiculous Awesomeness. They've got a rooftop garden and Dance Dance Revolution in their gym. It's wicked nice. The kids, too, are great. They're not wild hooligans like my last school. All nice, upstanding kids who want to go to college. They also call me by my full name, which I think is cute.

And yet, they want to be ghetto thugs. They're so not, though, which makes it funny. Whereas the kids at my last school would claim to be in the Crips or Bloods, these kids have to make up their own gangs to pretend to be members of.

And thus was born the next great gang rivalry, the Park Avenue Crew vs. the Lexington Avenue Crew.

That's right.

They even have their own gang signs, which I've learned after careful observation. Here is the Park Avenue Crew's sign:

P for Park Avenue. Its elegance is its simplicity. Here's the Lexington Avenue Crew's sign, though:

Slightly more complicated. I can't quite get the A part right with my meaty adult hands. Quite clever, though, I'll give them that. And more elaborate than that last fake gang war I had to deal with.

Anyway, the kids know me well enough that I can pretty much make fun of them to their faces and they know I'm just kidding. I overheard some of them talking about a rumble with the other group (they just said they were going to "jump" them after school, but I really like that word, "Rumble"), and I went up to them, all, "Do you know how many forms I have to fill out now? THANKS."

"Yo, but Mistah [my full name], them Park Avenue kids think they're better than us, like they all bad and sh*t."

(I still get a kick out of being called "Mistah". Like, they can't be bothered to pronounce the "-er" at the end, even in Grammercy.)

"First of all, we don't use that kind of language at [Manhattan School of Ridiculous Awesomeness]. Second of all, you realize this is kinda hilarious, right?"

"Yo, but Mistah [my full name], which is cooler? Park Ave or Lexington Ave?"

"I'm not playing this ridiculous game. Go home and play your XBOX 360."

They also have this weird ritual where, after school lets out on Fridays, they all hang around out front for a while before they head out and shout "AH-OHHHHHHHHHH!" back and forth at each other. And when one person starts it, the whole crowd has to join in. You can hear it echoing off the buildings from several blocks away. I had gone over to hide behind Grammercy Park and smoke a cigarette when I heard it, thinking, "Oh man, it's going down."

I presume that all they know about gangs is what they've learned from TV and movies, so I half expected expected to go back and find them circling each other, snapping, singing "Doo-DOO-Doodoo-Doooooo...".

Maybe I need a little more instruction than just 'Napa Napa Napa.'

2006-11-01T02:23:00.000-05:00

So remember the time I put a little icon in the corner of the page, claiming I update every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday? And you believed me? You crazy.

Anyway, as promised, here's some pictures from my trip to Napa Valley a couple weeks back.

[faux-artsy cameraphone pictures behind here...]

Now, I gotta say, shitty cameraphone didn't do so bad. Little blurry, maybe, little smeary, but not bad. We flew into San Francisco, and drove around the city for a bit, saw the sights. Driving in the city is harrowing. Obsoirve:

Father was driving. I do not look pleased.
(But bonus new haircut!)

Went to Fisherman's Wharf to check out the adorably bitchy sea lions.

Drove by that crazy wind-y street. Lombardi? Lombard? Something like that.

Then we went up so we could drive down it.
Not as cool as it seems. But what's that in the distance?

Could it be a giant phallus? HOT.

Eventually we were heading on our way, up to Napa.
Crossed that bridge they're so proud of.

We were there for my cousin's wedding. What a lovely pastoral setting, eh?

Tricked ya, it's just a golf course. We were sitting next to a sand trap.
How romantic!

I'm sure those golfers back there wish all the best for the bride and groom.

The rest of the trip was spent mostly touring wineries. Seriously, every inch of available ground is covered in grapevines out there.

Awesome 100-year-old graffiti on the wall of one of them.

Favorite was the Andretti Winery, which is apparently run by some racecar guy.
Because when I think NASCAR, I think fine wines. Sure was pretty, though.

The place couldn't have been more than, like, 20 years old, but they did their best to make it look really really old. And Italian.

They were selling photos exactly like this one in their gift shop for, like, 50 bucks.

Shit, I thought, I can take my own for free. So I did.

I like this one best.

This was taken at a monastery. A monastery! Every inch of open ground, I tell ya.

I know you're there, Lockline stalker.

2006-10-30T18:25:00.000-05:00

(Part 3 in a series)

Hello, creepy Lockline stalker.

Hey, I just want to know the story behind the nuclear stuff. Why is that specifially excluded? If you know, please leave the info as a comment, or email me at Mister.T.Online@gmail.com

I'm being stalked by insurance companies.

2006-10-30T14:47:00.000-05:00

(Part 2 in a series)

Quick update on the previous post.

Just in case anyone thought I was making up the whole "nuclear winter invalidates your cell phone insurance" thing, I looked around online for some proof. The first thing I found was a PDF of Cingular's own pamphlet about insurance, which you can browse here.

This must be an old version, as things are slightly off. Firstly, in this old version, the nuclear bomb and war bits are right up top, sections A and B. Obsoirve:

Compare that to the new version, which you can browse here:

As you can see, the nuclear exclusion is no longer the first clause, it's the last. I wonder if they were trying to hide it. Also interesting to note, the following clause from the old contract in nowhere to be found in my new one:

I guess this means if my phone is destroyed in a nuclear explosion, I can lie and say it was eaten by a raccoon.

Anyway, all that aside, the strangest part of all this is that now I've got insurance companies stalking my blog. Seriously, guys, nobody reads this, you have nothing to worry about.

How do I know? I've got one-a them site-tracker deals hidden in the code of the page that tells me where everyone who reads this is from, and how they got here. Here's an example of what it shows:

The top part is their server and where they are, then on the left is the date and time, and on the right is the page they looked at and how they got there. I check it about once an hour, because I'm just that pathetic. The first curious one is from something called "Road Rescue Merrimac."

On a lark, I do a Google search. Guess who Road Rescue Merrimac is?

Curious. Anyway, the next day, I find this entry, which seems to be for Asurion's "authorized representative," Lockline, LLC.

As you can see, there is no referring link (since, like, nobody links here anyway), not even the record of a Google search. Somebody typed in the full link into their browser to find me. How the hell did they know about it? Creepy.

And then, less than an hour later, Asurion proper checks me out!

I'm letting you all know right now, if I happen to just... disappear in the next few weeks, it's probably because Asurion's actuarial goons have gotten to me. They've probably busted into my apartment and broken my kneecaps (in such a way as to invalidate my health insurance claims), and threatened me with nuclear annihilation.

Be warned. They could be after you next.

UPDATE: My story was also picked up by Gizmodo.com. Come on, people! Credit where credit is due!

My cellphone insurance doesn't cover nuclear catastrophe.

2006-10-27T20:19:00.000-04:00

(Part 1 in a series)

So a while back, my cell phone insurance company changed. They sent me this letter along with the a new Coverage Certificate:

Dear Cingular Wireless Customer:

As you previously requested, your wireless equipment is currently enrolled in the Wireless Phone Insurance program for customers of Cingular. Effective November 1, 2006 at 12:01 A.M., the Wireless Phone Insurance monthly premium will increase to $4.99 per month. The program is underwritten by Continental Casualty Company, a CNA company, and administered by Asurion Protection Services, LLC, a licensed agent of CNA.

[blah blah blah insurance-cakes]

Fine, I think. Just one extra dollar, not a big deal. I don't even bother reading the terms of the contract.

Today, though, reorganizing my files (yes, I have files), I finally scan through it. Just in case, I check the reasons why they would deny the claim. It's mostly things like no claims because your phone is just old or outdated, or if your phone gets a virus somehow. The last section, though, gave me pause. I've added emphasis, and separated the text, which was originally one big paragraph, into discrete chunks, as each deserves careful scrutiny.

II. EXCLUSIONS.
We will not pay for Loss caused directly or indirectly or resulting from events, conditions or cause of Loss identified in this Section II. Such Losses are excluded regardless of any other cause or event that contributes concurrently or in any sequence to the Loss.

A. [blah blah]
B. [blah blah]
.
.
.
K. [blah blah]
L. Any Loss or damage caused by or through or in consequence, directly or indirectly, of Nuclear Hazard, meaning any weapon employing atomic fission or fusion; or nuclear reaction or radiation or radioactive contamination from any other cause; but we will pay for direct physical Loss caused by resulting fire, if the fire would be covered under this Certificate.

Loss caused by or resulting from war, including undeclared or civil war; warlike action by a military force, including action hindering or defending against an actual or expected attack, by any government, sovereign or other authority using military personnel or other agents; or insurrection, rebellions, revolution, usurped power of action taken by government authority in hindering or defending against any of these.

Loss caused by or resulting from Governmental Action, meaning seizure or destruction of property by order of governmental authority including economic and trade sanction as provided under applicable law and U.S. Treasury Department guidelines.

The hell?

Situation 1: My roommate characterized it thusly: "Uh, hi. I accidentally used my cell phone as the detonator for a bomb to take over the United States, and it totally blew up! Can I get it replaced?" "No."

Situation 2: If I ever damage my phone in the process of saving the world, it will not be covered.

Situation 3: Alternately, if my cellphone is ever destroyed by a nuclear bomb, I'll have to lie and say it was damaged in the "resulting fire" in order to get a new one. Which is, of course, assuming I've survived said nuclear bomb.

Is this common? Or does (the ominously-named) Continental Casualty Company know something I don't? Should I start worrying about nuclear attack, war, and revolution after Nov 1?

UPDATE: I sent this in to Consumerist.com last night, and it's already up! Click here for their post and some great comments. Also, their amazing graphic:

Oh god, I had no idea.

2006-10-17T18:41:00.000-04:00

So I just got back from a trip out to visit family in Napa Valley (pics to come), and while we were there, we went Outlet Shopping. To me, Outlet Shopping is so... déclassé. It's like going to a strip mall where every store is like Century 21, only with Major Brand Names. You get to rifle through bins of clothes from Calvin Klein or Banana Republic, and yet still only come up with x-smalls and XXXLs.

My parents, though, are from Texas and thus are huge fans of Outlet Shopping, and I know that if I ever deign to go with them and endure the embarrassment, I'll probably be rewarded with a handful of items that might actually fit me and look nice. Mother and Father are good like that. Father wanted to beat the rush (as if any outlet mall ever experiences a "rush"), so we got there at around 9 in the morning, and the only store that was open that early was a kitchen supply store, which was just fine by me.

I wander through kitchen supply stores like most women wander through shoe stores, announcing up front that no matter how many items I ask to see and try out, no matter how much a given knife block makes me melt inside, I am absolutely not allowed to buy anything.

Wandering through this little personal heaven of mine, though, I was faced with my most bitter enemy.

It never ends.

That enemy is Rachael Ray.

Here we see that she's begun marketing her own brand of "EVOO". If you've been to Napa recently, you know that other than wine, Napa growers are known for making olive oil. I, for one, sampled a fine number of fine oils on the various wine tastings we went on. Alas, Ms. Ray's was not one of them, so I cannot attest to its quality.

Home again, I went to her website to see how it could justify itself. To find it yourself, go to Rachaelray.com and click Shop » Kitchen » YUM-O » [sound of bone snapping]. Okay, I added that last bit myself. Anyway, here's what it says:

"HERE IT IS...the extra-virgin olive oil that impressed Rachael so much, she put her name on it! As everyone who watches her cooking show knows, she loves to add "zip" to her recipes with this time-honored cooking oil. In fact, Rachael coined the term "EVOO" because saying "extra-virgin olive oil" over and over was too wordy... Rachael's premium quality, extra-virgin olive oil uses 100% select olives from the finest groves in Spain... Now you can cook with the same EVOO Rachael uses-it's available in 8.5-ounce, 17-ounce and 25-ounce bottles!"

Emphasis added. Sigh.

This oil is SO FUCKING YUM-O!

So, presumably, the story is that Rache loves this particular oil SO MUCH she had to bring it to the masses. I actually imagine her vacationing in Spain, sampling various oils at wineries, just as I did, and when she got to this one, her eyes went wide, her ears perked up, and her sweater spontaneously untucked itself. She knew that she had found the one.

But I'm probably giving her too much credit. It was probably selected by her corporate masters, she probably had little to do with the whole affair. Look close, she didn't even pose for a new picture for it, that one's been floating around for years.

Anyway, worse than having her own oil, she's also branched out into yet more media. Did you know that she has two CDs? Rachael Ray's 'How Cool is That' Christmas, and Rachael Ray's Too Cool For School Mixtape For Kids, featuring such kid favorites as Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song" and Janis Joplin's classic "Mercedes Benz" (Really? Kids love Janis Joplin?). I'll leave you, though, with a selection of her t-shirts. Feel free to purchase any one of these for me. I wear a Medium.

You know I'll wear it. At least in the privacy of my apartment, so no one has to witness my private shame.

God, I hate that woman.

The other 25% of subway injuries.

2006-10-09T16:15:00.000-04:00

According to this here poster featured all over the subway, 75% of customer injuries are caused by caused by "slips, trips, and falls." What about the other 25%?

1% - Violent crime. Hey, only 7 felonies committed per day!
1% - Noxious Fumes. That unique combination of cleaning products, urine, and decomposing hobo is enough to make anyone feel faint.
1% - "Freaking laser beams."
1% - Being smothered by fat people. No link for this one, but by god you know it's true.
1% - Subway Rage. Tell the truth, how often do you want to murder a tourist in front of his children?
20% - TWU head, Roger Toussaint, showing up to personally fuck you in the ass.

But what else is there to watch from 6-7 PM?

2006-10-02T13:25:00.000-04:00

Now, if you know me, you know I'm addicted to the Food Network. Alton Brown, Giada Delaurentis, Dave Lieberman, I love them all. And yet, there is one one woman who threatens this harmony. One woman whose shrill, abrasive nature forces me to change the channel.

This woman is Rachael Ray.

AM I RIGHT?

At least, I think she's a woman, she might be a fembot. There's no way a human being can be the star of, what, 8 concurrently-running TV shows? And run a magazine? I've looked closely, she's not wearing an hourglass necklace (forgive the nerdy reference), so unless she's so pumped full of amphetamines that she's found a way to vibrate her own molecules out of normal time-space (didn't Superman do that once?), there must be at least three Robo-Rays out there, wandering metropolitan areas looking for great deals and tipping poorly.

Why do I hate her? Oh, the reasons are plentiful. First and foremost, I hate her little word-shortenings. Not because they're puerile (they are), but because she has to take the time to explain each one:

"You're going to coat the bottom of the pan with two turns of 'E-V-O-O', which stands for Extra-Virgin Olive Oil."

"Today we're going to be making a 'stoup', which is sort of a cross between a stew and a soup!"

"Whenever there's a kid in the kitchen, he needs a G-H -- a Grownup Helper!"

She takes more time to explain each saying than it would have taken to just say the original phrase. How quirky! How fun!

"Watch out! I'm gonna run over you with my Vapid Vespa! And then laugh. LAUGH!"

Anyway, she's got this new talk show, and they're hyping the crap out of it all over my public transportation. The ad to the left is from the Q train, but they're all over buses, too.

(I haven't watched the show yet, but I hear it's just awful. I wonder if she's invented any new "cute" little sayings. "I want to thank everyone in the 'studience', which is what I call our Studio Audience." "Everyone give it up for out 'spuest', which is short for 'Special guest'!" "We'll be right back after this W-F-O-S -- Word From Our Sponsors!")

Anyway, in the poster, she looks totally evil. And I'm surprised they weren't able to cram in more than two exclamation points. And nothing on the poster even attempts to interest me in the show, except for that "Everyone needs a little R&R!" (Ritalin and Rohypnol?).

I say, if she must appear on my subway, she should at least be doing a public service. Subway ads should have positive messages. Submitted for your approval:

Because, after all, courtesy is contagious.

Edit: Better proof of her sinister nature:

This will make sense if you live in Brooklyn.

2006-09-30T01:43:00.000-04:00

Before I moved to the PLG, I used to live up in Clinton Hill (pre-gentrification, so like 6 months ago). Back then, I was working a lot and there was never anything to do in the area, so I used to unwind every day at my favorite club, B38.

It's a fairly popular place, what with its low $2 cover charge (or you can buy a membership for $76 a month), but as with any popular venue, overcrowding is a serious issue. You walk in the door and have to immediately weave in and around the weary patrons, many of whom are content to stand their rightly-claimed ground no matter how much you try to squeeze by them.

The key to enjoying your time at B38, though, is making your way to the VIP section in the back (be careful, though, the usual crowd-navigation tricks like holding your drink out in front of you don't really work here, and you'll probably just end up spilling all over someone).

You'll know the VIP section when you see it. Nearly empty. There's no doorman, no code word, no velvet rope, and yet so few people venture back there. It's just a few steps up from the main floor, but compared to the pushing and crowding going on up front, the back area is like a freakin' SPA. You can always find someplace to sit, with plenty of room to stretch your legs, enjoy your beverage (coffee for me, please), and reflect on the long day you've had.

Looking up from the back, I'm constantly surprised that more people don't make it back there. Some actually seem to take offense to the idea, even when the guy who runs the joint urges them to ("Move to the back please, all the way to the back"). It's like there's some sort of invisible barrier (glass ceiling?) keeping people compressed toward the front, and only the brave may pass.

Anyway, since I moved, I've been spending more time at places like Q or Shuttle (I don't go to B anymore. Closes at 9, not even open on the weekends? Fuck that noise.), but with Le BoeuF living way up in Bed-Stuy, I end up at good ol' B38 at least once a week. I come in, move to the back, and take my usual seat, as if the seat had my name on it and everyone up front knew that. It's the closest thing you can get to feeling privileged in a place like B38.

Anyway, if you want to check it out for yourself, click here for directions and hours of operation.

The Most Fun I've Had All Year - Day 3

2006-09-27T17:27:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, we played The Go Game.
Click through for full report.
The point of this one was that each team got a digital camera and a really cool webphone and were given missions to accomplish, puzzles to solve, planted actors to find and talk to, and creative videos and pictures to take.

We all started off in Washington Square Park. Our team was Me, Chris, this British guy Alex we befriended over the weekend, and this other girl Lisa who needed a group. Here we are:

First Mission:

We had to go to a nearby CVS and figure out a puzzle: "If JS is on OUR, and SJ is on LE, then ____ is on IRE."

Wandering around, we finally were clued in by a woman wearing a labcoat (who was totally an actor helping out the game) to check the magazine section.

JS is on OUR meant Jessica Simpson on Glamour, and SJ is on LE meant Scarlett Johansen on In Style:

Which meant we needed BP, for Brad Pitt on Esquire:

Neat, huh?

Other missions:
Console the Widow:

"Agent GamerWidow's husband left her because she couldn't accept that he loved Everquest more than he loved her. Find her on the steps of [some church] and console her. If you succeed, she'll give you your next password."

We found her on the steps of the church, crying. We sat down next to her, gave her a hug, and tried to cheer her up. I gave her some medication (my roomie had given me some prescription-strength Motrin for my legs and feet), and we sang her a song, "I Can See Clearly Now, the Rain is Gone." It was fun.

WIFI ESP:

"Forget WIFI, ESP is where it's at. Go to [some park], sit in a circle and hum loudly, focusing your psychic energy. If the nearby psychic feels your power, she'll tell you your spirit animal and help you on your way."

We found the park, sat down, and started ohm-ing. Eventually, a gypsy-dressed woman came out, sat with us, and told us the story of our spirit animal: the Wookie.

Historical Ballet:

"On their own, Dance and History are both very boring subjects, but put them together and you've got something. Reenact a historical scene in dance, and have someone video it."

We did a VERY IN-POOR-TASTE 9/11 dance. It didn't go over well. I'll leave it at that.

Arcade Game:

"Video yourselves reenacting your favorite classic video game."

We did tetris. On the ground. Dirty. Another group did Katamari Damacy, which, while not a classic, was a great video.

Pickup Line:

"Agent Hotpants is sitting alone at [some bar]. Find her and try out your best pick-up line. Make it good, she's been around the block a few times, if you know what we mean."

We settled on "Would you like to go halfsies on an abortion?" and had British Alex say it to her in his British Alex voice. We did very well on that one, 54 out of 60 possible points.

Batgirl Scandal:

We were told at the beginning of the game that Batgirl was somewhere in the area, and if we found her, she'd give us a special extra-credit mission. Turns out the mission was to take a picture of her for a tabloid, doing something scandalous. Other teams had her stealing candy from a baby, giving beer to a minor, or beating up old ladies.

Ours? "Snorting coke off a dead hustler." Enjoy:

Audio Clues:

Programmed into the phone were audio clues, which were just a bunch of random notes that didn't sound like anything. Mission was to find out what animal was being referenced by the song.

When you paired up with another team, though, and played them together...

...it played "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from the Lion King.

Other groups did other missions, like taking a picture of themselves trying something new for the first time (getting cartilage pierced, buying a buttplug), or demonstrating a superpower, but we had plenty of fun with the ones we did.

After all the missions were through, we all congregated at a bar and watched each others' videos and pictures and voted on them for extra points. Again, our Historical Ballet did not go over well, even though other groups did things like JFK's assassination (HILARIOUS?) or the A-bomb at Hiroshima (LAUGH RIOT?).

Anyway, we didn't win, but we had a blast. Can't wait for next year.

The Most Fun I've Had All Year - Day 2

2006-09-27T17:20:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, we played Cruel 2 B Kind.
Stories and awesomely ridiculous pictures.
This game was played up and down Broadway, between 48th and 58th. About 70 teams of two got text messages assigning them a specific attack and a specific weakness, like Assassins, if you've ever played that.

But all the attacks were nice things. Compliments, offering to help someone, telling someone a knock-knock joke, things like that. And you had no way of knowing who was playing, so you had to do it to everyone you saw. How awesome is that? If you managed to kill someone, they became part of your team and you had to travel together as a pack. If you attack someone, but it's not their weakness, they have to say "You're too kind!" to let you know that they're playing, but you didn't kill them.

At the beginning, our attack was to wish someone a "spectacular day". Our weakness was being told to "keep on truckin'". We just started wandering around, looking for groups of two who looked like they might be playing. The first pair we saw we weren't sure about. So we went up to wish them a spectacular day, and they blew kisses at us. Nope, moving on. We wandered back down, saw a group of four, and managed to kill them. So now we're six. We catch a few more groups, and we keep getting texts with new attacks and weaknesses to keep the game interesting.

Here we are about a half-hour in:

Click to see bigger. That's me on the right.

We kept getting bigger and bigger, never being caught. Our group stretched back about the length of the block, and still growing...

...until soon we looked like this:

That camera was from one of the many documentary filmmakers who were covering the event. Apparently there's a big university movement studying "street games" these days.

We weren't the only big group, but we were certainly the biggest. Here's another:

At this point, discretion goes out the window, and people are shouting compliments back and forth across city streets. We tried to get a couple big groups by telling them knock-knock jokes, only to realize that they weren't playing, they were just waiting in line for Chicago or The Color Purple or whatever. People on the street seemed to be catching on to what was happening, because several people started laughing and replying with "you're too kind" even though they weren't playing.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE GAME:

At one point, complete coincidence, about five groups were centered around one intersection, with a big double-decker tourbus parked at the light. There was about five minutes of "CAN WE HELP YOU?" "YOU'RE TOO KIND! WE LOVE YOUR SHOES!" "YOU'RE TOO KIND! ARE YOU GUYS CELEBRITIES?" "YOU'RE TOO KIND! KEEP ON TRUCKIN'!" "YOU'RE TOO KIND! HAVE A DELICIOUS DAY!" "YOU'RE TOO KIND!" all with the tourists wondering WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON. I imagine they went home and told their families about how weird New York is.

OTHER HIGHLIGHT OF THE GAME:

At another point, we were sorta following another big group, and that group was attacked by a third group, using OUR weakness. So before they could do it to us, the whole group of 30 people turned around and hauled ass the other direction, weaving in and around frightened tourists.

Some people had to leave to go play other games, but we took a group picture near the end of the game:

It's over!

After two hours of this, we get text messages saying the game is over, and we should meet up at Columbus Circle for the prize-giving. We weren't absolutely sure we had won, but we had an inkling:

So we all get up there, and found the woman who designed the game, Jane McGonigal (she also designed the Halo 2 marketing scheme, "I Love Bees"), standing there with cupcakes and juiceboxes.

Awards ceremony:

The only prizes were little plastic sparkly hats, but it's all about the symbolism. Some shots of the awards ceremony:

Anyway, long story short, Chris and I totally won!

Check us out in our stylish hats (even though mine didn't quite fit my YEUUUUUGE NOGGIN).

All the filmmakers and reporters wanted to interview us. We even got interviewed by CNET News, but when the article went up, we weren't in it. Boo.

(We played a couple other games that day, but they weren't as fun. Nothing worth mentioning except that they both involved a LOT of running. On my already sore legs. Boo².)

The Most Fun I've Had All Year - Day 1

2006-09-27T14:17:00.000-04:00

Chris and I took part in the Come Out and Play Festival this year, doing all sorts of street games all weekend long. It was ridiculously nerdy, but ridiculously awesome.

First night recap: playing full-body Space Invaders, dueling Mortal Kombat guitars, being chased up and down Manhattan.
Friday night, we showed up at this gallery called Eyebeam for the introduction party. Highlights include:

Some guys who figured out how to control video games with guitars. Here they are playing Mortal Combat.

Outside, they were projecting a giant game of Space Invaders onto the building across the street. You controlled the spaceship my extending your arms left or right, and up to shoot. Wicked awesome.

The first game we played was called Journey to the End of the Night.

It was like a city-wide game of tag. We all put orange ribbons around our arms, and they gave us a map of the city with six checkpoints we had to visit (in order) to get signatures from the volunteers waiting there. Sounds easy enough, but we also had to avoid being tagged by "chasers", who had yellow Caution tape on their arms. If they caught you, you put on your own Caution tape and became a chaser yourself. There were certain safety zones where you couldn't be tagged: the block around each checkpoint, trains and train platforms (but not the rest of the subway station), the bus and bus stops.

Starting line: 21st and 10th ave (Chelsea)
Here we are, all 150 or so of us, signing our waivers and getting ready to run.

1st checkpoint: 32nd and 5th ave (Koreatown)

Still in the game.

As soon as they said go, we sprinted over to 11th and made it north about six blocks before we completely exhausted ourselves and had to resort to a brisk walk. The crowd thinned out pretty quick, and we were pretty far ahead. We didn't see many people until we got about a block away from the safety zone. After the first checkpoint, we went to the 1, 9 train at 34th and 7th, thinking that no one would suspect we'd go North in order to head South. Wrong. Got chased around some more, but we made it onto the train.

2nd checkpoint: Christopher st and 7th ave (West Village)

Didn't see anyone on the train, but once we got off onto the platform, we saw a chaser just standing there, waiting for people to exit the turnstiles. Bitch. Fortunately, she saw someone else and ran off to chase them. So we took the other stairwell and ran about a block and a half out of our way, the long way around, to the checkpoint. We found the address and started looking for "two girls playing cards", but it ended up being just one girl who was kinda bitchy. We took the long way around again to get back to the 1 train.

3rd checkpoint: The Labyrinth, Battery Park (southernmost tip of Manhattan)

Hiding from chasers on the next car.

On the train, some other guy came in from the next car and told us there were "two bogeys in the next car", so we pointed out the one sitting across from us, too. Nothing they could do, though, the trains were safe zones. But we followed him toward the front of the train, and by the time we got to the first car, we had a little group of 5 or 6. We figured everyone would be getting off at the last stop (South Ferry), and the chasers would be hanging out there, so we decided to get off at the penultimate stop (Rector St) and run from there.

I've never been to Battery Park and the Labyrinth was hella hard to find, especially in the dark of night. We were looking for "three girls with a lantern", so we just started chasing after every light source we could see. We were like a school of fish: We'd be spread out, all walking roughly East, then someone would change her mind and head back West, and everyone would assume she knew where she was going and turn to follow her. Found it eventually, got our sheet signed, but they told us the next checkpoint had been shut down by the police and had been moved down a few blocks. We started running again, but there were chasers everywhere and me and Chris had to split up. He got caught so I forfeited to him and we became chasers. Caught two girls right away.

We figured the other checkpoints would be chaseriffic already, so we went to wait at the finish line. We ended up getting two girls half a block away from Avenue C, and they totally would have been in the Top Ten if they had made it. Man, did we feel bad. But whatever.

The rest of the Checkpoints: some church on Wall St, underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and finally Ave C between 4th and 5th st.

Turns out the guys we were crouching on the subway with won the game. We had no idea we had been so far in the lead. So if we hadn't gotten caught, we would have been in the Top Ten ourselves.

Anyway, exhausted and in pain, we limped home to recoup for the next day.

Oh, almost forgot, HIGHLIGHT OF THE GAME:

Almost to the first checkpoint, we see some orange-armbanded girls ahead of us stop dead in their tracks and duck behind a car. We duck behind with them and peek up through the windows. There's a chaser standing on the corner, looking around. He starts to meander toward our car, and we shuffle around the opposite direction (into traffic), still hiding behind the car. When we're reasonably sure he knows we're there, we just break out in a dead sprint and manage to make it to the safe zone. Total spy shit.

Kill a Stingray for Steve Irwin.

2006-09-12T22:39:00.000-04:00

No, seriously.

That'll teach 'em.

Better living through perversion of space-time.

2006-09-08T22:38:00.000-04:00

For dinner tonight, I just made myself a smoothie. Just a random concoction of frozen berries, ice, orange juice, and rhubarb syrup. Nothing special.

But I was amazed at the blender's power (when you turn it on, you can smell that distinctive, ozone-y smell of electric motor-running. Some of you may know what I'm talking about). It's called The Osterizer. Look at it. This is clearly a device brought here from the future, an unholy relic that man is not yet meant to control nor understand, lest he destroy himself by its misuse.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I could use it to blend TIME ITSELF. Or at least turn branches and leaves into nutrient-rich mulch.

Just fucking eat it, it's delicious.

2006-09-07T03:37:00.000-04:00

Why must I always date "picky eaters"? "Oh, I don't eat seafood." "I can't stand mushrooms." "No cream sauce for me, please." "You can make that asparagus.... but I'm not going to eat it." "I hate everything good."

Anyway, New Boyfriend didn't like my pie. Had a whole one bite. Said he couldn't get over the rhubarb's texture.

Fuck him, more pie for me.

'Lacy Laplante? Why not just call me 'Mary-Jane DEALER'?'

2006-09-06T05:35:00.000-04:00

God damn, Weeds just keeps getting better.

The way Mary-Louise moves her eyes when she says "That's when they found cancer." Genius. Thank you, On-Demand, for letting me rewind and watch that scene over and over.

I want a bad-ass alter-ego of my own. Too bad the name "Anastasia Beaverhausen" is already taken.

Pie.

2006-09-05T14:34:00.000-04:00

So a few days ago, my dear friend Sarah showed us all how to make a pie when you are goth. Now I will show you how to make a pie if you are a Food Network addict.

Continue reading about this lovely pie:

First off, channel the ghost of Alton Brown.

Yeah, I know he's not dead. Channel the ghost of undead Alton Brown.

Second, accessorize!

You'll need two sticks of butter.

Chop them into wee cubes, and hold back half a stick's worth.

Put the rest in the freezer to firm up.

Next, prepare your filling. Here I've got the leftover rhubarb from my cobbler.

Chop it up into wee bits.

You've got a little less than two cups. Eh, should be okay.

Dump it in a bowl. Or a pot, since you don't have a lot of mixing bowls.

What else do you have in the freezer? Strawberries? Perfect! Chop 'em up, add 'em to the rhubarb.

Add a cup of sugar and 3 tbsp flour and mix it all up.

Dry goods include 2.5 cups flour, 0.5 cups cornmeal (because it doesn't dissolve and gives the dough a nice toothiness), 3 tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp salt.

Now, on the show, Alton put all the dry goods in the food processor to add the butter. Since you don't have a big enough processor, imagine you can get the same results using the blender.

Fail. Good thing you had a backup plan. Big bowl chilling in the freezer.

Dump it in the bowl and rub the butter in by hand. First the room temp stuff, rub it in until it's gone. Then half the frozen stuff, until the flour starts to get crumbly instead of powdery. Then the second half, and don't mix it in much at all. We want different-sized chunks of butter, so that when we bake, we get nice flakiness.

Now, the show said that it wouldn't look very dough-like, but after a bit of rest the flour would hydrate and be perfect. So wrap it all up.

Put it in the fridge.

Have a cigarette.

While you're waiting, consider how you'll be rolling it out, since you don't have a rolling pin.

It's about 11:00 PM, probably nowhere to buy one at this hour.

Brilliant! A wine bottle!

Retrieve the dough packet from the fridge.

Crap. Still not dough. What went wrong?

Oh, right. You forgot to add ANY LIQUID. Load up your culinary spray bottle with apple juice concentrate, and add 3 or so tablespoons.

Try again.

Have another cigarette.

Ok, we're ready. Retrieve your bottle and start the rolling.

Put your pie plate down over it, then flip the whole thing over. Peel off the wax paper and you should be good.

Make your lattice strips, place them haphazardly. Realize that your bottom dough isn't big enough to overhang for a real crust, so just roll up some dough for the exterior crust.

Crimp.

Consider using an egg wash for color, but then remember that you're low on eggs. Remember how much you enjoy eating breakfast, and decide just to sprinkle sugar on the top.

Pop it in the oven and have another cigarette.

Consider cleanup.

Wipe flour on your face, to high comedic effect.

Check on pie.

It's ready! Get 'er outta there!

Marvel at how well it turned out, despite all the setbacks. Realize that it's now about 1 AM and not any time for pie. Decide to wait until the morning to eat it.

Morning: Pie for breakfast? Delicious!

I'd make a 'crocodile tears' joke, but that would just seem crass.

2006-09-04T22:32:00.000-04:00

This is going to come as a great surprise to some of you, but it seems Steve Irwin has died.

Yes, yes, I'm sorry to see him go, too.

Personally, I think this "killed by sting-ray" story is a bit fishy (this is no time for puns). Could it be a suicide cover-up? Or did he have any enemies? And was there a suspiciously-large insurance policy taken out on him recently?

Together, let's hunt down the true culprit that did him in. All we need is the loot, the warrant, and the crook. Wait, I think I'm mixing up my PBS shows.

Whatever. Do it, Rockapella! Do it for Stevie!

I've got homosexuality down to a science. Literally.

2006-09-03T19:31:00.000-04:00

Just in case any of you ever wondered just how much of a nerdfag I am:

This is, of course, me figuring out how much cobbler-topping to make if the recipe calls for an 8-inch round baking dish, yet all I have is an 8 x 4 loaf pan.

What, your measuring cups aren't accurate to the 1/10,000 of an cup? AMATEUR.

It gets EVEN NERDIER after the jump:

Even better.

Damn you and your marketing brilliance.

2006-08-31T22:24:00.000-04:00

I have a jingle stuck in my head. It's from Empire Flooring's commericials:

"800 5-8-8, 2-300, Empiiiiire!"

(^{^eight} - ^hun - dred - ₅ - ⁸ - _{_8...} _{2 - three - hun_dred...} Em^{^piiiiiiire!})

For those of you back in Texas, it's not unlike Dalworth Clean.

"Call 2-6-7, 8-4-3-3, because the next best thing to new... is Dalworth Clean!"

(call _₂ - ₆ - se - ^{ven... 8} - 4 - ₃ - _{_{3... because the} next best thing} to new... is ^Dalworth ^{^Clean!} )

Fuck. Now that's stuck in my head, too.

Stupid companies cleverly tricking me into remember their phone numbers. I hate them.

Hompf glomph.

2006-08-30T14:34:00.000-04:00

I just made my first rhubarb cobbler and oh my god it's like eating SUNSHINE or possibly orgasms.

BREAKING NEWS!

2006-08-24T22:22:00.000-04:00

Our little friend Pluto is no longer a planet. I wish I had that kind of power.

But no worries, it's still a dwarf planet. It may toil in mines and have a long beard, but that doesn't mean it doesn't still have all the heart and spirit of a full-size planet.

'Soon, you will be like CHEESE, boy - melty, melty.'*

2006-08-24T03:29:00.000-04:00

Did anyone else hear about this? Little Haley Joel, smoking the reefer, drinking the liquor, and crashing his car about? And that's what he looks like now? He looks like a waxwork.

Here's hoping he becomes the next Macaulay Caulkin.

* bonus princess points for identifying the quote.

It's nice to get out of the city every once in a while.

2006-08-11T18:38:00.000-04:00

Road trip photos after the jump:
So the Wee Man's roommate is currently in a series of Offenbach operas upstate, so we rented a car to go up and see it.

It was up at Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson. Which is, apparently, different from Stratford-upon-Avon. And Washington-on-the-Delaware.

Here we are on our way.

The campus and surrounding countryside were just lovely. Turns out I turn into my parents when I'm out in the country:

Church! Gotta take a picture!

Rustic dwelling! Gotta take a picture!

Water tower! Gotta take a picture!

Another rustic dwelling! Gotta take a picture!

Weird building! Gotta take a picture!

(Don't know why the picture's all slanty. Took it while the car was in motion, so I blame relativistic effects.)

A... stone wall? Gotta take a picture!

This, I think, was the main campus area of the college.

And then you turn slightly to your right and.... what the hell is that?

Turns out the performance center, where we watched the opera, was inexplicably designed by Frank Gehry. It was so cool! Forgot to take any pictures of the inside, but it was wicked awesome. How the hell did this shitty little upstate school con Gehry into doing this? Why didn't I know this was here?

Anyway, the show was great. And we were treated to a lovely sunset as we crossed back over the Hudson.

Hurrah!

Stop the presses! Someone from a boyband - gay!

2006-07-26T22:14:00.000-04:00

I knew it. He was always my favorite. Especially when he was going to pretend to be an astronaut. Fucker's dating Reichen Lehmkuhl? Not fair.

Now we just need Anderson Cooper to come out. And we also need him to dump that guy Julio.

And then after that... who knows. They say they always come in threes, those gays.

I've had it with these motherfuckin' WORDS on this motherfuckin' PAGE!

2006-07-23T03:23:00.000-04:00

So I was wandering through Barnes & Noble yesterday...

A little closer:

I mean, why see the movie when you can read the book?

Because then I get to say things like "Oh, the book was so much better than the film."

OR:

"I'll never understand why they left out the scene with the green mambo just to show more of that whore boa constrictor." Then, when people don't know what I'm talking about, I can say all incredulous, "You mean...You've NEVER read the book?"

Fro-hawk.

2006-07-12T16:08:00.000-04:00

So remember that time I had a mohawk? Wait, you say I have one right now? I suppose we should take a look.

It started off innocently enough. Wee Man came over to watch the British version of The Office, which is wicked funny, by the way. Anyway, here's some Before pictures.Before:

Anyway, I had happened to ask him to bring his Wee Trimmer. And Oh, we went to town. Here's our setup, plus the first few buzzes.

Here's how it all started:

The Wee Man in action:

Almost there:

New hotness:

I'm so punk rock.After:

Watch the whole process after the jump:

Young Kirk Fogg, plz sit on my face.

2006-07-10T22:04:00.000-04:00

Now that I have premium cable again, I've been watching a lot of Nickelodeon's "Games and Sports" channel (GaS, for short). They just show all their old game shows and think people will want to watch them. Turns out they're right, because the shows ARE AWESOME.

I just saw an episode of Double Dare, and I never realized how preplanned the show was. It's like they had a quota of physical challenges per show, so they had to craft the questions to accommodate that. So the first question might be "Where on the scorpion is the stinger located?", but the next question would be "What battleship's explosion in a Havana harbor set off the Spanish-American War?" What thirteen-year-old is going to know that? I don't even know that.

But anyway, I never wanted to be on Double Dare, because I knew that they always had to navigate the monkey bars, and as a fat child, I never would have been able to and would likely just embarrass myself.

Legends of the Hidden Temple is one of my current favorites. It's best to get a group together, and have each person pick a team to root for. If alcohol is involved, so much the better. I love an underdog, so I tend to root for the Blue Barracudas. Everyone else always goes for the Silver Snakes or the Green Monkeys. Though, I would kill a man for a Silver Snakes t-shirt.

And I really want an Olmec head. Just to keep in my room. I'd find a way to hook it up to my computer and have it say things. "The time now is 3:23 PM. Let's Rock!" "Updates are ready for your computer. Would you like to install them now? The choices are YOURS and YOURS ALONE!"

But GUTS is by far my favorite. I remember watching it as a child and thinking the kids on there were so grown-up. Now I see them, and they're, like, 14.

My favorite part of the show is the referee, the accented Moira Quirk. I imagine that the whole show was her idea, and she's a physical fitness expert who wanted to teach kids that exercise could be fun. So she took the show to Nickelodeon, and thought she would host it, but Nickelodeon was like, "Actually, we think Mike O'Malley would be perfect for this. You can be the referee."

And she wanted the final event to be some sort of physical fitness quiz, but Mike O'Malley was like, "Fuck that, let's have them climb a mountain. And let's call it the AGRO-CRAG."

Moira clearly HATES Mike.

Fun fact: Mike O'Malley has a son named Seamus. Seamus O'Malley, the most Irish child in all the land.

Someone needs to do some internet research and find me a Glowing Piece of the Agro-Crag. Get cracking.

I had my helmet, gloves, neckerchief and everything.

2006-07-08T19:29:00.000-04:00

So speed dating (Go Speed Dater, go Speed Dater, go-ooooo!) didn't go as well as it could have.

We showed up at the place, all nice and early, but there was no one to be found. Like, three 30+ heavyset gentlemen. Not my cup of tea. Does that make me a terrible person?

The most fun part was trying to find ways to peer into the lounge area in the back without being conspicuous. The Wee Man had me pretend to play the pinball machine (convincing!) while he pretended to talk on his cell phone. We eventually decided just to fuck it and leave.

So then he got it into his head that he wanted to go to this ice cream place, Emack and Bolio's. He had been once or twice before, and had always found it by accident, so of course, he has NO IDEA where it actually is. So we get to go on a fucking HOUR AND A HALF LONG TREK THROUGH THE WEST VILLAGE. Now, if you know me, you know there are only four things I'm afraid of: moths, large interior spaces, things with long legs, and the West Village.

So we're wandering around, and I'm getting more and more pissed off and frightened, especially when we find things like the intersection of 4th st, 12th st, and 8th ave, and then walk ten blocks and find we're somehow only at the intersection of 4th st, 10th st, and 7th ave. I just. Don't. Get it. I'm convinced that there's some sort of odd space-folding happening on the west side of Manhattan. I don't know what causes it, but I definitely think many a dissertation could be written on the curious quantum properties of the area.

I felt like Marlee Matlin in What the Bleep Do We Know. Which, if you haven't seen it, you should. It's a feature film in the style of a Nova special. You know, where they have little talking-head experts explaining, like, quantum physics or seratonin reuptake. Only the experts are intercut with an ACTUAL PLOT. She's a deaf-mute wedding photographer whose husband leaves her at the alter or something. But then these strange things happen to her every once in a while, like she wanders onto a basketball court where the laws of physics don't apply, or she's involved in a coordinated dance where everyone's partner is an IV on a stand (ostensibly to illustrate how alcohol affects the nervous system), or she has a little freakout and smashes a mirror because she's ashamed of her (truth be told) monster thighs but then has an immediate revelation about self-esteem.

Anyway, all I know is that after a trip through the West Village, my heart is now on the right side of my chest and I've somehow become left-handed.

SPED Pride.

2005-11-12T15:15:00.000-05:00

So, if you've hung out in the ghetto recently, you've probably seen graffiti that says "B's up, C's down", or something to that effect. This is, of course, referencing the Bloods/Crips rivalry that is, apparently, still going on.

Well, my former co-teacher walked into her classroom recently, only to find one of her SPED kids holding another kid up against the wall by his collar, shouting:

"Special Ed up, General Ed down! Say it! Say it! Special Ed up, General Ed down!"

It seems it's not as stigmatizing as we'd all feared.

It's like an after-school special, but during school hours.

2005-11-12T15:07:00.000-05:00

We had a teacher/staff happy hour this Friday, and we were all sitting around, talking about why we got into teaching and what we hate about it. My old co-teacher was complaining about she has to be prepared for any number of things that can go wrong in any given day.

Another teacher dropped this gem:
"Yeah, but isn't the drama a big part of why you chose this job?"

I had never thought about how much drama there is at the school. Every day, I have to keep track of who's dating whom, whose family member was recently killed, where the stink bombs were set off, who may have written graffiti on the wall, who's suspended for doing what, and any number of other potential meltdowns that could occur.

Every day is different.

At least my job isn't boring.

My school's neighborhood is infested with whores.

2005-11-06T09:16:00.000-05:00

Friday night, I was in the after-school suspension room, giving a test to one of my best students who had been suspended for a bullshit reason (I hate this school), and one of the other suspendees calls us over to the window, pointing across the street at one of the many overgrown, fenced off, empty lots of the neighborhood.

"Look out there," she says, "Look at that truck in that field!"

Lo and behold, in the truck, we could see the silhouette of a person sitting up in the seat, with another silhouetted head bobbing up and down into his or her lap.

A few minutes later, we see them reposition themselves, and now we just see the silhouettes of two high-heeled feet up in the air.

I get my kid back to the test, but the girl at the window keeps giving us periodic updates. "They just threw the condom out the window!" Then, she yells that they're getting out of the truck. So, of course, we rush back to the window to see the skank.

She gets out of the truck, walks over to a lean-to that's set up in the lot, grabs her jacket that she'd hung up, puts it on, then (facing away from us) hikes up her leg and proceeds to wipe down her crotchal area. The truck leaves, and she wanders away.

Awesome.

'Hello, I'm Teacher T_____'

2005-10-29T16:21:00.000-04:00

Teachers need more respect in our society. Or at least more financial perks.

Like, if I'm on the bus and I'm tired, I should be able to announce that I'm a teacher, and someone will give up their seat for me.

Or, I should get reduced fare on my Metrocard, and possibly rent subsidies.

Teaching should be a desirable position, if not for the "satisfying feeling" I'm told it gives you, then for the finacial perks you get.

But what I really want is an honorific, like "Doctor ___" or "professor ___". Just some sort of title to put in front of my name. If I meet someone at a party, and they call me Mr. T_____, I want to be able to say something like "Excuse me, it's EDUCATOR T_____. I don't put up with your kids' shit all day to be called MISTER, thank you."

Gangs. Great.

2005-10-23T18:01:00.000-04:00

My school is run by the Bloods, apparently. I learned this a few days ago.

I wonder if I can somehow get gang protection from them. Or, like, "I'm having trouble with [so-and-so]. I want you guys to... take care of him."

But seriously, are people still in gangs? I totally thought that went out of vogue in the mid-nineties.

I just want to tell them, "Yo. Tupac's dead. Thug Life died with him."

But that might seem disingenuous coming from the whitest whitey in Whitetown.

Yo, I KNOW you ain't over there talkin' 'bout WHAT?

2005-10-20T23:56:00.000-04:00

I've taken to daring my kids to do me harm. When I don't want them to leave the classroom yet, I stand in front of the door just to piss them off.

I'm like, "Push me out of the way. Knock me down. Leave a mark. I could use some time off."

Joking, of course. Only not really.

Also, I'm still working on using their argot (their lingo, if you will) in true sociological fashion. My favorites to use in class:
"Yo, I ain't even playin' wit' you."
"Why you gotta play me like that?"
"Girl, I will snuff you."

The kids think it's hilarious. My mentor asked if I grew up in the area, since I talk like them. I was like, No. Not at all. I'm from Texas. People don't threaten to "snuff" each other in Texas.

All I do now is bitch and chain-smoke.

2005-10-19T23:22:00.000-04:00

Favorite quote from this week's Teaching Fellows class:

"It's like there's no incentive to succeed and no consequence for poor performance."

Now, a quick quiz. In context, was the above quote referencing

a) the students
b) the faculty
c) the administration
d) all of the above

Answer: C, actually. Though, taken out of context, I'd prolly go with D.

They're ALL about atonement.

2005-10-05T11:03:00.000-04:00

Perk of being a NYC schoolteacher: Jewish holidays.

Happy Rosh Hashanah, everyone!

Note: I don't actually have a pet monkey.

2005-10-01T14:46:00.000-04:00

My kids just don't get the point. They just don't get it.

They're always bitching about how cold the school is (Note to white people: "Brickin'" means "cold". Usage: "Yo, it be brickin' in here!"), but they refuse to dress more appropriately. I try to make a math lesson out of it:

"OK, guys, it's cold today. Was it cold yesterday? Was it cold the day before? Do we recognize a pattern here? Can we use our INDUCTIVE REASONING to make a CONJECTURE about tomorrow? Do we think it'll be cold tomorrow?"

Then wear a fucking light jacket, hellions. I don't wanna hear it.

And they always write down EVERYTHING I write on the board in their notebooks. I don't know where they learned this, but they're spending so much time writing all the shit I put up that they're not actually paying attention. We tried to make them see the error of their ways recently. This was their DO NOW problem a week or so ago:

"Mr. T____ has trained his pet monkey, Roscoe, to copy everything he writes down. Does Roscoe understand what he's writing? Explain."

But they JUST DIDN'T GET IT. Most of them thought the monkey did understand, and the rest started arguing about whether the monkey could write at all, since he doesn't have thumbs (sigh).

Sometimes I think my kids are retarded. And not just the actually retarded ones.

The First Church of 3v3rl@$ting Lif3

2005-10-01T14:00:00.000-04:00

On the bus ride to my school, I pass a church whose sign says, "U WILL MEET GOD SOON". Ominous as that is, I'm more struck by its l33t-ness.

And God said unto Abraham, "PWNED!"

Where Bed-Stuy meets Bushwick. Fuck you, J Train.

2005-10-01T13:53:00.000-04:00

Teaching, so far, isn't bad. Except that the little hellions stole my iPod. And I know I'll never get it back, seeing as I see so many "STOP SNITCHING" and "SNITCH-FREE ZONE" t-shirts walking down the halls. Any tips on acquiring a new one without paying for it and without resorting to a life of crime?

'Ain't my fault! Bitch smell like Goya milk!'

2005-09-29T21:58:00.000-04:00

Favorite quote from my weekly ~~bitchfest~~ Teaching Fellows class:
"My kids are literally unreasonable. Like, I can't get through to them because they just refuse logic."

And this week's favorite quote from the halls of my school:
"Get away from me, girl, you smell like GOYA milk."