Cute YouTube video of the day

Like the best of the cute YouTube videos, it involves a little kid!

Our Possible Future President is Sexier than Your Possible Future President

You are not a proper New Yorker if you cannot say "stand clear of the closing doors" in less than five syllables. Listen for it if you ever happen to be in the city on one of the trains where the stops are announced by a human being instead of a machine. I have no idea how they do it.

Today I bought a corner bookcase from a Housing Works thrift store. Which would have been a pretty decent deal if I didn't have to drop $45 on getting it delivered. But housing works helps homeless people with AIDS, so at least it was for a good cause. And there's no assembly required.

After I left the aforementioned Upper West Side thrift store, I went to a cupcake bakery down the street. Awhile back, cupcakes became trendy, which I think is the fault of the Times style section. They even have a cupcake bakery in Eau Claire. The concept makes sense though when you think about it. Cupcakes are a lot like donuts, only cuter and more festive. Plus, they are kind of a pain in the ass to make compared to, say, cookies or cake or dessert bars, so why not get them from the bakery?

I also decided that I'm going to help out with Harlem Live, which is an online newspaper run by high schoolers. They had an ad up for people to help edit their stories and maybe come in and mentor kids. So I'm going in on Friday to talk to them more about that.

But to change the subject completely, Barack Obama recently was interviewed for Us Weekly:

US:
So, boxers or briefs? Bill Clinton said he wore boxers in a 1992 interview with MTV.

OBAMA:
I don't answer those humiliating questions. But whichever one it is, I look good in 'em!

She's a slave (to her own psychosis)

Because my mail gets forwarded, I'm probably a little slow on the uptake. But I just read this month's Rolling Stone cover story, The Tragedy of Britney Spears. After chasing the Britney circus around for six weeks, the closest the reporter can get to an interview with Ms. Spears is duping her inner circle into thinking she's going to pay them $2 million until the very last possible second. What results is basically a summary of Britney's lurid downward spiral. With pictures.

Now back in the day I had much less tolerance for Britney Spears then most people. But that doesn't make the unfolding craziness any easier to watch. It's disturbing on a level that's hard to articulate. Even moreso than the Michael Jackson craziness.

I think there is a certain generation that grew up with Britney Spears, and to watch her become such a freakshow is to watch something in our collective psyche get kicked and corrupted and broken. In large part, I think it goes hand in hand with the Bush administration and the toxicity of American culture in general. I think the reason that Britney became so adored — and so hated — is that all her life she was micromanaged and molded into what other people wanted her to be:

"These middle-aged guys were so intense about her not being sexual that they pushed her the other way," says the friend. "They'd tell her to put on a bra or that her lip gloss was too dark. They were literally picking out her panties for her."

I would continue this rant, but I would probably start to sound like a crazy person. Someday maybe I'll write a book about how Britney Spears is the embodiment of all that is wrong with America. But in the meantime, just read the article (if you have time on your hands; it's a long one). Really it's no wonder the woman is having a breakdown:

If Britney was really who we believed her to be — a puppet, a grinning blonde without a cool thought in her head, a teasing coquette clueless to her own sexual power — none of this would have happened. She is not book-smart, granted. But she is intelligent enough to understand what the world wanted of her: that she was created as a virgin to be deflowered before us, for our amusement and titillation. She is not ashamed of her new persona — she wants us to know what we did to her.

Snow: More bad-ass than New York City

Slug (of the hip-hop group Atmosphere) did an interview with Spin, I think it was, a few years back about what he liked about living in Minneapolis. One of the things he mentioned was that thugs don't like the cold. I think the East Coast thuggery would probably agree (well, unless there are gangstas in Maine ...) We had about an inch and a half of snow accumulate today, and it was amazing how much everything slowed down. Everyone was driving so slowly and carefully, and there was noticeably less honking. In Wisconsin, people would still be speeding on the highway. Or, to paraphrase Aunt Sarah, [New Yorkers] JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!

I was reading a story today about some families of 9/11 victims who are suing to get the (pulverized) remains out of a landfill. Do you know what this landfill is called? FRESH KILLS. I kid you not. If I were the judge in the case, my utterly unqualified non-legally-based opinion would be that it's impractical to sift (again) through all that garbage, I'd at least see what I could do about getting the landfill renamed.

Also, here's some YouTube goodness for the day.

Reading the News so You Don't Have To: College Journalism Edition

—At The Spectator, there are a lot of late-night deadline conversations about who would cover the story if the entire staff died in some kind of horrible calamity (as a freelancer, the greatest compliment you can receive is being known as the one to whom this responsibility would fall). Well at NIU the staff of the campus paper lost one of their own in the recent shooting.

—There is a student paper in Colorado fighting to stop the administration from brokering a "partnership" with the Gannett-owned local paper. Two reasons this would be a bad decision:
-The powers that be insist that any deal will ensure that it remains a student-run paper. But the move comes after uproar last semester over a four-word editorial in the paper that read, simply, "Taser this ... fuck Bush." Think what you want about the editorial (no way would I personally have printed it if it were up to me), but the timing on the administration's part is suspect.
-Even though college and local papers are not direct competitors, the competition on the beats that overlap still helps. Truly, in my experience working at both papers at once the relationship was often mutually beneficial. It made finding sources easier in both jobs. There were times when I would get permission to reprint our work in both papers — probably an easier proposition than at most papers because all I had to do was pop my head into the editor's office (five feet from my desk) and ask permission (an upside of independent papers). But there were plenty of city and general interest-related issues when I knew I was going up against another paper and that made the writing better. Gannett as I understand it tends to streamline things and share content as much as it can — which is arguably helpful for small papers with few resources in large, spread-out geographical areas like northern Wisconsin, but not so good when it threatens to squelch the competition in a smaller market.

— "You probably don't REMEMBER me, Mr. Woodward ..."

(About the schism between the Washington Post and its online counterpart.)

While I'm in link-happy mode, I forgot to mention in my post on Century 21 that when I was in line for the cashier the man in front of me, buying only a small bag of socks, insisted that he didn't need a bag. The cashier was completely flabbergasted, calling him back after he walked away to make sure he didn't want one and even remarking to me when I stepped up how crazy it was that someone would turn that down. But recently I read an article on how people in Ireland have been taxed 15 cents a plastic bag since 2002, and the move has been so successful that using them has become socially unacceptable (the guy in question looked like he could have been european).
Speaking of plastic bags, check this out. The part about the bags = the story of my life. And read the rest of the site, a lot of it is dead-on.

Ugh.

If you are ever at a New York deli, never, ever eat anything containing breaded chicken or (especially) slices thereof. Because I promise you it is not chicken. More like greasy chicken-flavored rubber that will fill you with loathing upon consumption. I have had this experience in at least 3 or 4 delis that were otherwise at least tolerable.

Moving on ... I love how Wisconsin is, yet again, a battleground state. It trips the hell out of me to see Appleton and Oshkosh and Madison datelined in the New York Times, and even more so, to see my alma mater get a mention. (On that note, this fine publication is also doggedly following the campaign season in Blugold country).

I know that the primary system is designed for the maximium benefit of special-interest groups, and it does drag on for an excruciatingly long period of time. But it does have the side effect of forcing politicians to go to electoral pip-squeak states like Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada and at least pretend to listen to their concerns. And since there was no coronation after Super Tuesday, the pandering continues. As Lauren Fox of Shorewood, Wis., puts it, "having zoomed from ignored to adored in one day, we might as well put on tons of sparkly eye shadow and enjoy ourselves, because no one will remember our name in the morning."

Of course, being that it's Wisconsin they'll be back to pander some more before the general election. I already miss living in a purple state, at least for now. But I've always had a love-hate attitude toward politics. It's the ultimate reality show, in that it has pretty much the same ratio of reality to utter ridiculousness as most reality shows. But follow it too closely and you'll start to lose brain cells and possibly your lunch.

But to end on a positive note, I the best story I edited today (well, besides the Wisconsin one, which was from the same series) was about the caucuses in small-town Maine. I think Jennifer Finney Boylan has a brilliant take on the Democratic race:

Toward the end of the event, though, someone asked, So what was it like, to grow up as the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton?

Well, she said, one day, when she was 6 and living in the governor’s mansion in Arkansas, Chelsea decided she’d like to have a coconut. So the Clintons went out and got one. When they got it home, though, the first family faced the traditional problem when it comes to coconuts: how do you open one up?

Chelsea allowed as how her father and she had gone outside, and thrown the coconut again and again onto the hard asphalt of the governor’s mansion’s driveway, hoping to make a dent. But the coconut, alas, refused to yield.

Finally, Hillary came outside with a hammer.

The point being, Chelsea said, that her mother knows how to solve problems.

In the 2004 election, voters repeatedly said that they’d rather have a beer with George W. Bush than with John Kerry. This election, it seems as if the question for Democrats is this: Whom would you call if you really, really needed to open a coconut? Hillary Clinton, with the Hammer of Experience? Or Barack Obama, with the Machetes of Bipartisanship and Change?

Mi casa es ... mi casa

Welcome to my first New York apartment.

"An art deco gem," wrote the broker who showed me this place. "The envy of its neighborhood."

I live on the 3rd floor of this art deco gem. Or something like that.

The curtains are a work in progress. I temporarily gave up on them when I got sick of hitting wall studs.

My kitchen is tiny, but it does have brand-new appliances.

Why is my kitchen tiny? Because it's part of the living room!

This is where the magic happens. By 'magic,' I mean the writing of this blog.

Sadly, that is all the photos I have because Blogger doesn't like verticals and I'm too lazy to take more. When/if I get it finished, I'll post more pics or maybe a video.

Adventures in Speed Dating

Today I went speed dating. But first I had to find something to wear. So I went to "New York's best kept secret": Century 21 in Lower Manhattan, the big daddy of discount designer stores.

Century 21 advertises "fashion worth fighting for." I would imagine, judging by the number of people in the store on a Tuesday afternoon, that fisticuffs could ensue on weekends. It's like an upscale Gordman's that runs its fitting rooms like the TSA. I bought a jacket, a T-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt and a dress for less than $80.

This took me much longer than I thought, and it's a half-hour train ride from my apartment, so I was scrambling to get ready by the time I got back. The bar where speed dating was, incidentally, was about a block from where I stayed when I interned last summer.

I was late. And a little scared. But I thought dammit, I did not take the train (two of them actually) all the way to the east village in the snow just so I could turn around and go home. So I went in and they were just starting.

"I thought you were going to stand me up!" said my first "date." There were 15 guys there but we each had seven dates. We sat down at a table and talked about stupid random stuff for about five minutes until it was time to switch, another guy sat down at my table, and the process repeated six times (down to the details of most of the conversations.) At the end of each date, we filled out a piece of paper with our name, the date's name and whether we wanted to see them again.

The age group was 23-33, and most of the guys I talked to looked like they couldn't have possibly been young enough for that age range. One asked me how old I was as soon as I sat down at the table. Four or so had jobs with some permutation of "finance," "software," "production" and "engineer" in the title (not that there's anything wrong with that). One asked me how the skiing was in the mountains of Wisconsin. Nice guys, all, but none for whom I felt, pardon the cliche, that spark. Of the seven guys I talked to, I checked "yes" for one of them. And that was only because I was trying to be open-minded.

At the end, we each got an envelope with our matches. Or in my case, a sheet that said 'sorry, you don't have any matches. Please come again.' No big loss, really.

And then I started talking to one of the guys I hadn't gotten to "date." And we ended up having a few more drinks and walking to the train together. Did we have a nice conversation? Yes. But is there potential? No. Am I picky? Yes. But is there hope for me? I hope so.

I've got sunshine ... on the No. 2 train ...

Yesterday I was on the train to work when this (black) guy came in with a guitar and a small amp.

"This song is for the white lady standing in front of me," he said.

I, of course, was the only white lady on the train.

"She looks like Britney Spears!" he said.

I told him I wasn't sure if he meant that as a compliment or an insult. He said to take is as a compliment. He then started singing "My Girl" to me.

"My girl ... my girl ... my girl ... the white lady is ... my girl ..."

Then he sang "La Bamba" to a Mexican woman* on the train and serenaded a black woman with dreadlocks with a Bob Marley song.

Gotta love subway performers.

On an unrelated note, I started a 2-week trial at a gym yesterday. There is a poster on the door that says:

Some states are red,
Some states are blue,
Mike Huckabee lost 100 lbs.
So can you.



*SIDENOTE: Never assume that someone is a Mexican, as they could be from Puerto Rico or South America or wherever. But he must have been right, because the woman didn't seem to mind.

Finally, a true statement from Fox News

Sorry, I lied about the photos. They're coming soon, but in the meantime you must check out this headline.

EDIT: That link no longer works, but the headline said:

Police: Crack Found in Man's Buttocks

I wish I was lying. But you can't make this shit up.

This is yor brain on second shift

It is now 2:59 a.m. And I am still awake. The problem with working 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. most nights is that I've become quasi-nocturnal. I get home from work, eat supper (at what time does supper officially become breakfast?), and putz around on the internet until 3 or so, then I sleep until about noon. Not the best way to really get things done. On the flip side, though, the city is a lot less crowded while all the 9-to-5ers are at work, and it makes shopping, etc. much less of a pain. That, and it's kind of cool that Monday is my Friday.

Tonight I wasn't tired whatsoever until about 2 a.m., so I decided to clean. And I took pictures, which I'll post tomorrow.

How about them ... Giants?

I'm still a little bitter that the Giants beat the Packers in overtime a few weeks ago, thus denying us the Super Bowl and Brett Favre the chance to go down in a blaze of glory. So a big part of me wanted to see the Giants get their butts handed to them.

But in the end I couldn't bring myself to cheer for the Patriots, premature-gloating little cheaters that they were. So in the last minute of the game (the only part I got to watch at work with the sound on) when the Giants got that last touchdown and pulled ahead, I couldn't help but feel that the divine was somehow in play.

That, and walking through Times Square after the game, it was hard not to be a *little* happy for them. It was hard to tell whether the honking cars trying to get through the throngs of cheering people in the street were some kind of impromptu victory parade or just trying to get through.

Today's New York moment

I went to the bodega across the street this morning, and the woman in front of me in line spent about 15 minutes trying to convince the man behind the counter to give her a book of 10-cent matched for free. "There's money moving up here," she said at one point, "And being nice to your customers is what will keep them coming back." She then went on about her friend from Armenia or Turkey or wherever that would always borrow her money but then he moved away after Sept. 11.

As soon as she left the man told me she does this every day. That for awhile he gave them to her for free but then he started charging. I felt like I was back in the Village for a minute -- Brewster Village, not the East Village.

Super Bowl-goers: Drive and drink and you'll wear pink

I can't wait to see what goes down come the Super Bowl afterparties.

Maricopa County Sheriff and feckless media whore Joe Arpaio is spouting off about how he won't hesitate to lock up any misbehaving celebrities in his tent city freak show. Arpaio, for the unfamiliar, has a rather unconventional imprisonment philosophy:

Arpaio has been sheriff here since 1992 and runs his jail like no one else, his most famous policies generating worldwide attention. They include:

# Pink underwear: When he noticed that inmates kept stealing jail-issued underwear, he dyed them all pink in an effort to humiliate male prisoners and cut down on thefts. It worked and he even sells a line of pink underwear to raise money for the sheriff's office.

# Bologna sandwich: Rather than serve inmates three square meals a day, Arpaio decided to save money and return to the days when the term "prison food" meant something.

"We don't give them breakfast anymore or lunch, we give them brunch," he said. "They get a bologna sandwich."

Inmates have said it is beyond bad. Arpaio noted that no one has starved to death.

# Tent city: Arpaio often says he wants the most populated jail in America. He came up with a solution to overcrowding when he got a hold of some old military tents and had them erected in the parking lot outside one of the county jails.

Thousands of inmates don't stay in traditional cells. Instead, they sleep on cots under the tents (the complex is surrounded by fences) whether the temperature drops near freezing or, as is often the case in the desert, climbs into triple digits.

"We have almost 2,000 people in hot, Korean War tents."

It's enough to make a felon dream of the hole, even before Arpaio pipes in classical or patriotic music. He even put up a giant pink "Vacancy" sign outside Tent City, which now gives tours to curiosity seekers from around the globe.

"I've got room," he noted of the players and party goers. "I'll put them in my celebrity tent."

How is that not a reality show?

# Chain gang: In 1995, Arpaio brought back the male chain gang for prisoners and a year later created what he calls, "the only female chain gang in the history of the United States, if not the world."

Wednesday morning, both "Sheriff's DUI Chain Gangs" were picking road side garbage along Glendale Ave. in the shadow of University of Phoenix Stadium, which will host Super Bowl XLII. They were wearing old school black and white striped prison garb and, presumably, pink underwear.

Beside the men's chain gang was a sign reading: "Bowl Fans: Drive and Drink and You'll wear Pink." By the women's gang: "Ladies: Horizontal stripes will make you look fat! So do not drink and drive."

"We want to make the influx of people know that if you come into this county and get arrested and convicted of driving under the influence you are going to the tents and out on the chain gang."

Now as much as I would love to see Paris Hilton eat bologna sandwiches and spend a few months sleeping outside in a tent in the desert (talk about the simple life, eh?), there's a thin line between creative and cruel and unusual. And regardless of where nasty outbreaks of MRSA and otherwise unsanitary conditions and shitty health care fall on that line, it's just plain expensive, costing more than $40 million in prison-condition lawsuits (that's more than 2,000 cases in federal court alone).

Oh, and then there's the whole matter of Arpaio's trying to take down the weekly Phoenix New Times by, among other things, having the editors arrested after printing Arpaio's address in a story about his shady real estate deals. Apparently he doesn't understand that once you make yourself a media sideshow you can't turn the press on and off at will.

But Giants in pink underwear ... cruel and unusual or not, it's kind of a consoling thought for a Packer fan right now.