Archive for 'The Offical Record' Category
VERY CROSS AT THE INTERSECTION.
27 February 2004The New York Times today reports that, In New York City, almost all of those buttons with signs telling pedestrians to press them for a walk signal aren’t hooked up to anything, and haven’t been since the late 1980s. Those intersections are now controlled by computers. However, a relatively small number, about 750 of them, […]
I’M BACK.
26 February 2004I went to South Florida for the weekend, to plan and execute my brother’s bachelor party, which was last Saturday. He’s getting married in two weeks. I also got to see my father on his birthday, which was on the 24th. For his birthday, I got him a set of 500 casino-quality poker chips.
TEASER.
17 February 2004Here’s a quick excerpt from my previous, longish blog entry to whet your appetite. “George W. Bush is saying that even though he used political influence to join the National Guard in order to avoid serving in Vietnam, back when 99.96% of the National Guard did not have to participate in combat, we should not […]
GEORGE W. BUSH THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS.
17 February 2004I don’t think I’m the smartest guy in the world, but there’s a lot of stuff about this war in Iraq that is absolutely through the looking glass, and nobody’s talking about it, and I don’t get it. First, people ARE talking about the fact that we were told that we had to risk American […]
LAST WEEKEND.
17 February 2004Thursday, I went to Wetbar with Steve K., his brother Charles K., Heidi F., Maria, Addi, and some other people I met that night. Then we went to Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy for a late night snack. Friday, I saw 50 First Dates with Andy M. and Sophie W., and then had dinner […]
NYC THEATER REVIEW: CARNIVAL KNOWLEDGE * * * 1/2 (3 and a half stars out of 4).
17 February 2004This delightful show classes up the old-time carnival side show with sophisticated banter and a behind the scenes look at how a lot of the tricks are done. It reminds me a lot of the first time I ever saw Penn and Teller, which I still think was one of the best shows I ever […]
MOVIE REVIEW: 50 FIRST DATES * * (2 stars out of 4).
17 February 2004There are some funny moments in Adam Sandler’s and Drew Barrymore’s latest hit, but it relies too much on the cuteness of children and animals, which never really works for me on the big screen. Also, I don’t really think I’m telling you anything you don’t already know, when I say that it relies a […]
NYC RESTAURANT REVIEWS.
12 February 2004I’ve been pretty lax in reviewing restaurants, so I thought I’d give a quick run through, all at once, of all the restaurants on my American Express year-end summary from last year that I remember eating at and are still in business. All stars are out of a possible four stars. MANGIA * * 1/2 […]
THE END OF THE BEGINNING.
12 February 2004Based on the premise that “Every passenger has a story,” the new reality series “Airline” premiered in January on A&E; under the tagline, “We all have our baggage.” It escaped my notice until I saw a poster for it tonight, walking past a bus stop. I will always remember that as the moment I first […]
MY FAMILY VISITS.
12 February 2004As I said in my last entry, after arriving on Sunday, my family and I went to my cousin’s house. Monday, we had lunch at the new Time Warner building. In the evening, we saw Gypsy on Broadway, and ate at the Stage Delicatessen. On Tuesday, we had lunch at Cosi, which they had never […]
LAST WEEKEND.
12 February 2004On Thursday night, I went to Mod again with Steve K. and Evan. On Friday, I had lunch with Jin K. at Blue Fin. It was very good, but would have been overpriced, were it not for the great deal we got because it was the last day of restaurant week. Then, we went to […]
THEATER REVIEW: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS * * * (3 stars out of 4).
12 February 2004This fun musical starts out very similar to the excellent 1986 movie of the same name. That movie, in turn was based on an off-Broadway musical of the same name, with which I am not familiar. Anyway, there are also a lot of nice songs in the Broadway version which are not in the movie. […]
JFK
6 February 2004Presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry’s initials are JFK. And he’s a Senator from Massachussettes. And he’s Catholic. Interesting.
DON’T LIKE SPAM?
5 February 2004I’ve got really mixed feelings about Microsoft and about software piracy in general. But I definitely don’t like spam. So whenever I get a spam advertising Microsoft software that I believe may be pirated (e.g., because it is discounted, say, 80%, or because it is sold without a box or manual), I always report it […]
IT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY, TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY.
3 February 2004This Saturday, February 7, 2004, is the fortieth anniversary of the Beatles first visit to America, and plenty of people are marking the occasion by mentioning that on that day you can say “it was forty years ago today,” after the line “it was twenty years ago today,” in the song Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts […]
SPAMMERS CANNED.
2 February 2004Wired Magazine reports that the people behind the Nigerian spam swindle were caught in a daring raid of 52 people in 23 apartments in the Netherlands. Recall that about a year ago, The Official Record reported that the Nigerian spam scam had resulted in the assassination of the Nigerian consul to the Czech Republic.
LAST WEEKEND.
2 February 2004On Thursday, I went to Mod on the Upper West Side, with Steve K., Heidi H., Maria, and Addi. It’s a really fun bar with a late-60s / early-70s theme, and with great drink specials. Friday, I spent the day with Jin K. We had lunch at a fancy Chinese restaurant that had a restaurant […]
THEATER REVIEW: ANNA IN THE TROPICS * * 1/2 (two and a half stars out of 4).
2 February 2004This play, about a “lector” that factory workers hire to read to them while they toil, was clever and well-written. But, with the notable exception of Jimmy Smits as the lector, I found the acting so distractingly bad that it took me out of the story. I would say that I can’t really tell the […]
MOVIE REVIEW: HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978) 1/2 (1/2 a star out of 4).
1 February 2004This cliched, predictable modern day fairytail about an athlete wrongly taken to heaven before his time, and allowed to return in the body of a recently deceased millionaire has the quality dialogue you’d expect from a porno movie. Not that it’s profane– just that it’s mind-numbingly dull and unbelievable. You know I’ve never seen a […]
MOVIE REVIEW: WAYDOWNTOWN (2000) * * * 1/2 (3 and a half stars out of 4).
1 February 2004This trippy, surreal black comedy was very funny and very dark, and kind of sexy. It involves a group of office mates who live and work downtown, and realize that they can work, live, eat, and shop without ever going outside, so they make a bet to see who can stay indoors the longest. Along […]
BEATLE JUICE.
28 January 2004I can’t possibly be the first person to think of this, but I think I’ve put my finger on exactly what made the Beatles so great, and why their greatness has yet to be duplicated, and how to duplicate it. The insight comes from looking at why John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who collaborated on […]
LAST WEEKEND.
28 January 2004On Thursday, I went out with Steve K. and Heidi H. and Maria to Happy Endings bar, which was really nice and quaint with very, very delicious cocktails, which we all let each other taste. Then we counted down the last few seconds to Heidi’s Birthday at Ben’s Pizza on MacDougall and West 3rd. She […]
THE MEDIA’S RED-FACED RANT.
23 January 2004How did this crazy idea that Howard Dean completely destroyed his campaign with his post-iowa “rant” and “screech” pass from a late-night talk-show joke into the conventional wisdom? It was a story the media almost completely missed on the first two days, but then picked up on after the Tonight Show, Late Night With David […]
ALWAYS.
21 January 2004Remember, no matter how bad things are–no matter how horrible life seems–things can always get worse.
BOOK REVIEW: GROWING UP REPUBLICAN (1996) * (1 star out of 4).
16 January 2004This biography of former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman starts out promising, with author Patricia Beard marveling at the fact that she was given such unfettered access to Whitman’s private records. But the book Beard wrote is so fawning and one-sided, that it really fails to convey any insight into her life or character. I […]