Things What Are For Holydaze

Having a cold


Being cold


Ginger flavorz


Family


Shopping with all my best girlfrienz

Erin Y.: Soothsayer

Erin says, "Life sucks, is unfair, and is mostly boring." That's true! What's also true is that we should be grateful that we don't have to listen to reggae all the time. Or ever if we don't want! So that's a thing what to be thankful for this holiday season. Also Airborne has 1,667% of your daily recommended dose of vitamin C which is just hilarious.

LIVEBLOG: Quartet of Doritos

I'm live blogging from my living room about to consume two kinds of Collisions Doritos.



8:57pm
I just opened the bag of Hot Wings/Blue Cheese. I can tell the difference in flavors by looking at the chips (one red, one white).

8:58pm
Blue Cheese alone tastes a lot like Cool Ranch, but with that blue cheesey aftertaste.

8:59pm
Hot Wings alone tastes just like regular Doritos, but with a tiny spiced aftertaste. Not very noticable. I'm disappointed so far.

9:00pm
Taken together the flavors compliment and enhance each other a bit. I dunno. This is not as cool as I thought it would be. Ok I'm opening Zesty Taco/Chipotle Ranch. Coke is serving as my palette cleanser.

9:02pm
I think some of the Zesty Taco rubbed off on the Chipotle Ranch because it tastes kind of taco-y.

9:03pm
Zesty Taco tastes a LOT like a taco. Or it tastes like that powder taco seasoning. Which is probably exactly what they used to flavor this chip.

9:05pm
The Zesty Taco and Chipotle Ranch really go well together. The spice of the Taco comes in and then the Chipotle Ranch cooooools it down. Chipotle Ranch is a misnomer though b/c it's not spicy at all.

9:10pm
Things are getting difficult to decipher as the flavors keep building in my mouth. All that powdery seasoning is lingering too much for me to keep these taste sensations straight.

9:12pm
Ok I really can't tell what's what now.

Fall Break Part II: Chicago

THURSDAY:

Since Zoë decided to have Thanksgiving with us this year (something that hasn't happened since veganism took hold of our youngest several years ago), we only got three items from Boston Market: turkey, mashed potatoes and corn bread. The rest of the meal which included dressing (or stuffing, but not so-called because it wasn't prepared inside the bird), haricot verts, sweet potatoes, salad (endive/pickled beet/walnut (I forgot the pear)), cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie were all vegan! 66%!!!!! It was delicious. We also had a turkey-shaped butter.

Dad gave thanks for antibiotics, that we aren't dead and that we all speak English (which is God's language (which we know because the Bible was written in English (obviously))). Then mom tried to finish naming all the presidents. Zoe got mad. It was a really fun family time! Here are the boys, deliriously sated after the big meal.


FRIDAY:
Dad planned every meal for the vacation. Today's breakfast was challah french toast. It was moist and delicious. After breakfast and lounging, we went to see Margot at the Wedding which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I learned that Mom always gets the Kid's Pack at the AMC. She likes it because it comes in a tray.

After the movie, we ate salmon for dinner. Then I picked up Alison, Jeremy and Noah in Hyde Park and we went to Rainbo Club. I love it there. It's so relaxing. We drank some greyhounds and ate Mamba.

I ran into MC! Hi, coquettish cutie!!!

Then we went to Katie's party and ran into lost of people from high school which was both pleasant and unpleasant. There was a tasty cake there. I ate some of it. We also played games with a plantain.

Here's Katie on Katie's fridge twice.


SATURDAY:
Today's breakfast was buckwheat pancakes, Dad's specialty. They were good as ever. There was also bacon. After eating and lounging, Mom, Dad and I went to see No Quarto da Vanda, or In Vanda's Room at The Siskel Center. It's a documentary about a heroin addict living in a Lisbon slum, directed by Pedro Costa (who I learned later is kind of famous). The woman profiled in the film we also later learned stars in many of Costa's fictional films. I'm not sure I understand the logic of hiring a heroin addict to star films that aren't documentaries about heroin addicts, but I don't understand lots of things, soooo yeeah. The film looked like a Caravaggesque Vermeer.

See kind of?
Anyway, it was very dark obviously, but very beautiful looking, well shot and produced.
When we got home, Dad made lamb chops. Lamb taste good.

SUNDAY:
Today we ate lox and bagels in the morning. Robin picked me up and we went to Target. I got some tampons!! After that I went shopping with Mom. She bought me a dress. Thanks Mom!!!
For dinner we had turkey divan which is a casserole with some creamy dressing sauce on top and a bread item and a vegetable. I'd never had it before, but it's really the best way to use the greatest number of Thanksgiving leftovers all at once.

MONDAY:
I woke up at 3:30 am to get to the airport. Then I went immediately to work. I felt like this:

Fall Break Part I: Los Angeles

SATURDAY
I arranged for Jerry to pick me up for the airport at 4:30 am on Saturday morning. He called me at 4:15 and said (in a thick Brooklyn accent), 'Look, I'm coming to pick you up in about 10 minutes. There's a guy in the car, but he's got nothing to do with you. You're going to the airport, ok? He's got nothing to do with you.' So I got in the car and there was indeed a man in the car, passed out in the front seat. 'He works at Blue Ribbon. You ever been there? Oh, it's delicious.' Jerry proceeded to talk to me the entire ride, pointing out interesting sites on the way to JFK, including the Federation of Black Cowboys located somewhere between Brooklyn and Queens. I got to the airport and slept nearly the entire flight since I had only gotten two hours of sleep the night before (and four hours of sleep the night before that). Michael picked me up and we went to brunch at Toast. Juliette met us there too for a special surprise!! I love Juliette1!!!111 After brunch, we met up with Lauren and Rachel to thrift shop in Pasadena. I got a flannel and grey cut-offs. After that Mike got his hair cut!! Finally!! I was so proud of him for going through with it. It's still in transition but I think it's a vast improvement. He looks great!
 
We got some Thai food for dinner in Silverlake and then went to a party with Juliette, Rachel and Max. This party was awesome because
(1) it was in a big house with a large backyard and a bonfire
(2) it was amazingly well stocked (lots of kinds of beer, hard alcohol and food (including oversized Pocky))
(3) there was a gorgeous fluffy dog there named Frannie


SUNDAY
We met up with Juliette, Rachel, Max, Jessie and Olga (aka Big Love +1) at Joan's on Third. It's like Dean and Deluca, LA-style. Very delicious and overpriced (which I think makes it taste even more delicious).

After that we went to some stores and walked around The Grove and stuff. I bought some books and a sun glasses case. I went to Ken's house for dinner. He made a delicious steak with potatoes and a salad. We had a Ritter Sport for desert and drank non-headache-inducing red wine. Then we went in search of open bars which, at midnight on Sunday, was a difficult task. We ended up at The Prince which was awesome. You can smoke inside and they play Korean pop music. They also inexplicably serve tortilla chips and salsa as a bar snack.

MONDAY
I met Juliette in the morning at Griddle Cafe. It was DELICIOUS and DECADENT! We ordered an egg dish with Big Mac sauce on it and really tender french toast. After eating, we took a magical trip to the Valley to test drive a new Prius at a kind-of-used car dealer. There were a lot of analogies about shoes made of paper to explain why the price our salesman was quoting us was about $2000 more than the price indicated on the Prius website.


I had about 6 hours to kill before Mike got off work so I went to a movie at Arclight and hung out at Borders. It was boring, but not that boring. Southland Tales is weird. It's not as good as Donnie Darko. Mike picked me up and we met Jeremy for dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

After dinner, Mike and I went to Metal Skool at The Key Club. It was the sickest scene ever. There were disgusting people there. The opening band was completely ridiculous. It was 4 'roided out dudes wearing sleeveless denim shirts (shaved armpits (vomit)) singing this really poppy 'metal.' It was hilarious.

As a warm-up before Metal Skool came on, this dude video taped the crowd and projected the video above the stage. He basically asked girls to show their tits and if they didn't he called them prude cunts and if they did he called them slutty whores. It was very disgusting -- a real Girls Gone Wild, date rape, peer pressure situation. I was extremely uncomfortable. The band finally came on and it was more of the same. Girls went on stage and the lead singer told them to get naked and if they didn't that the band wouldn't fuck them after the show. I found out later that all the people in the band are married with children and the whole thing is just a complete act. I don't know if that makes it better or worse. It was kind of shocking to see how into it everyone was. It was so sad for everyone! What's fun about it? Seeing what terrible things you can say to girls to make them feel bad enough about themselves to show their vaginas to thousands of people? Is that exciting? Like, do men really need to exercise power in such a retarded, base way? And why is it exciting for the girls who do it? Because they need attention? It was insane. Also the music wasn't even that good. It was just mediocre covers of songs I don't even like in their original form. The one funny thing was that everyone in the band represented an archetype of a 'metal' character and the 'effeminate' one was really well done. He had wind on him the whole time and kept checking himself in a hand mirror. The scene outside was kind of hilarious. This one guy was begging to get in. Like insane begging. It was just a weird thing through and through. I hope I never go somewhere like that again. It made me feel gross and sad.

TUESDAY
I did some web work for Andrew Kreps in the morning and then Ray picked me up for lunch. We went back to Joans on Third which was also delicious for lunch. We shared an iceberg salad and I had a ham and brie sandwich. We drove around listening to an English-accents-for-actors CD. Ray's accent isn't as good as mine which made him jealous. It's ok, Ray!!
We went to hang out at Mike's work, Anonymous Content. He has a fun job with free food and movies playing all the time.
We met Juliette for dinner at a noodle place in Silverlake. It was very brightly lit. We got gelato afterwards. Then I had some drinks at Ken's house to help him use the copious amounts of ice his ice maker produced over the preceding 24 hours. I <3 Jameson and Ginger Ale.

WEDNESDAY
I got to the airport insanely early, worried about the holiday rush. I got through security in about 7 minutes and would have gotten through faster but I was behind a HP salesman in line who extracted about 1010039839 laptops for x-ray. It was hilarious. Jeremy insisted on boarding the plane before me (even though we were sitting next to each other) because he was in Seating Group 2 and I was in Seating Group 3. The guy sitting in front of me immediately upon taking his seat pushed back all three seats in his row. Even though no one else was sitting in the other two. So Jeremy finally leaned over and righted the seat in front of him telling the guy, 'Sorry bro, I'm just gonna fix this since nobody's sitting here yet.' 'Well someone will be.' 'Well we're also going to take off in a minute, soo...' He was a complete dick. We spend the entire flight passive aggressively kicking the backs of their chairs while he and his girlfriend got plastered and necked inches from our faces.

Note: Jeremy is not leaning forward.
I'm never flying United again. NO LEG ROOM!!!!

When I got home, I went to Hyde Park to meet up with Alie, Joe and Jeremy to go to Jimmy's. Noah and his brother came later too.

wow

yesyesyesyeyseysyeysyse

i just ordered a 40 pack on amazon. YESYESYEYSYEYSYES

Most Awesome Dream

I was flying to Paris and at the last minute me and Sam got on this Australian airlines (which was called Quantanas in my dream which i think is close to what it actually is, but not exact) flight. We were really amped b/c it was supposed to be the nicest airline ever. And it was. It was like an enormous ship with tons of recreation activites and areas and stuff. Like it was huge and there were no seats, it was open air. It took off normally, but since there were no seats, people were kind of flying around and bumping into each other, but it was ok b/c it was luxurious. At one point we almost hit into something in a city, but then narrowly missed it. It was pretty scary, but the fancy business people who travel Air Quantanas all the time were like, 'No that's what makes this airline the safest ever b/c they have such finesse with the large aircraft.' There were stages with performers and people milling around drinking cocktails. There was this forested area where you could take a little walk through and see some neat trees. Also we were in the water at one point in a pirate themed part of the 'plane.' There were tons of whales swimming alongside us! I think we steered into Sea World by accident and then somehow the plane mimicked the motion of the whale to make it think it was a whale too (no water came inside though). Then there was as small area with some rocks just across the water from us and Brody Jenner was there!!!! So he came aboard b/c he thought Gretchen (who was with me at that point after Sam magically disappeared) and I were smoking fine. He had a friend there too. Maybe Frankie. So we were about to go back to the main area and get drinks when we run into Johnny Knoxville with whom Brody has huge beef! So there was a skirmish and Johnny tried to tell me not to go out with Brody, but I was like, ‘Look I have to find out for myself.’ Then it seemed like the plane was going to be diverted to Tel Aviv which I wasn't clear about. Sam came back, Gretchen disappeared. End!

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!111

whoa!@$@%$&^%*

If you select text in ms word and click option+apple+c, it changes from all caps to all lowercase to regular (caps for prop nouns/sentence beginners) and back again!!! AMAZING!!!!

places i'd rather be / people i'd rather see

(no, that's not a death cab for cutie lyric)

Three Couch Living Room

This weekend was one of extreme ups and downs. After initial elation Friday morning that I might get to go to the US Open with Sam and Paul, the rest of the day was spent reeling from the missed opportunity. I was so disappointed and really shocked myself at what a baby I was being. Several extremely annoying comments from coworkers made it even more depressing to be stuck at work while friends were off doing fun things outside.

The end of the day finally came and Hannah and I decided to get a naughty after-work drink. We wound up at an extremely expensive French restaurant bar, primarily because of its proximity to MOMA (my next stop for the evening) and the E train (important for Hannah's airport route). La Grenouille looked too fancy for us from the outside, but, unfamiliar with the midtown bar scene, we decided to give it a whirl. We were the youngest people in the restaurant by at least 30 years. With wine starting from $15, I was curious what a mixed drink would set me back. I asked. $16. I said, WHY NOT I'M BEING NAUGHTY TONIGHT!! The drink was well mixed and to compensate for the exorbitant prices, there were TONS of delicious bar treats including: kettle chips, peanuts, and green olives. Hannah put her olive pits on the wrong plate at first and was reprimanded for doing so.

The owner of the restaurant must have noticed that we were ripping into the snacks, because he came over to us and said, 'Eeet lookz like you gerls are uhngry.' He presented a tray of puff pastry hors d’oeuvres and some other kind of roasted nut. We kept using the wrong plates for things and being told (very nicely) what plate was for what refuse. We were also given what I thought was a generous amount of napkins, but maybe they give everyone that many napkins. Anyway, the service was top notch and the "free" snacks were very tasty. We got the bill and were confused to find TWO lines for tip. One said waiter and one said something else. Very weird, especially considering that we didn't order any food. I wrote 'Thanks!' in one of the tip lines and left a hefty tip in the other, as the bartender was very attentive and sweet.

After that I was way late to meet Adrienne at Moma for the last days of the Serra exhibit. I breezed through (my preferred style of museum patronage) and then walked her to Hell's Kitchen. After that some annoying stuff happened for a few hours. After the annoying stuff, I got to meet up with Joe and Alison who were in town!!! YES YES YES THANK GOD. It's just so much fun to be around Joe and Alison. Just a real treat every time. We hung out at a party in Cobble Hill for a while talking to their friends (one of whom insisted on interrupting me every time I spoke) and then headed to Gowanus Yacht Club. All in all, a very interesting, minorly naughty night.

Saturday Sam Haley and I met up with Joe and Alison for brunch. Burgers and junk, very tasty, terrible service, Bar Toto why must you torture us!?! At night, we met at Kyle's really nice apartment for to drink pims cups before heading to see Tasting Rachael Ray at the NYC Food Film Festival. Joe made great pims.

There was a pretty good turnout at the Water Taxi Beach. People laughed at my film which was nice. Then we went to Surf Bar in Williamsburg where I will never go again. The plantains were fucking disgusting, the service was terrible (we never got our calamari, but it somehow wound up on the bill twice and remained there even after we instructed the waitress that we never received the item), and sand in a restaurant isn't cute.
Here's an inspiration photo of the experience.

After that, we went to a roof party. After that we went to Gingers. After that we went to Great Lakes. After that I fell asleep in my bed with all my clothes and lights on and there I stayed until 4:00 pm today.

The most fun thing about last night was the couple-themed pics we took. It's hard to tell which ones are real couples and which ones are just friends couples. See if you can figure it out! First generic, then candid.










Tonight I reluctantly watch the VMAs at Adam and Zara's. Highlights included, Chris Brown, TI's leather hoodie, and Miss Teen South Carolina.