Josh Reynolds

The spelling bee was last night and we had some visitors including Michele and Abby who livened things up. The bee was not as well attended as it has been in the past but made up for that with the high amount of newbies or "frosh" on the spelling scene. We saw a newcomer named Mike walk away with the first pot of the night on a word I can't remember. I can barely remember where to come to work every morning so don't expect too much out of me. Kathy won the second round and she deserved. What a spelling workhorse! However, the real star of the night was none other than Al Duvall who when given some obscure word could not only spell it but also give the definition. "Oh, that's like bantering, right?"

We ended the night discussing plans for Andy's Rock Paper Scissors tournament.

What I didn't tell you guys about is the other two dinner parties I went to last week. The first one was Casa de Taaffe and Phyllis got up at six in the morning to go hog wild in the kitchen. Pun intended because we ate a delicious ham as well as a vegetarian lasagna and gingerbread with pears. Everything went great until my manhood was questioned when I brought up the fact that I had given up coffee in favor of green tea. You'd have thought I'd come in with a sparkly dress with a boa on and a copy of "The Devil Wears Prada" with all the hullabaloo. Let me tell you that you can still be masculine and drink green tea. Ok? OK! OK!

Dinner party III was at Sterling's domicile and the celebrity chef was the wonderful Josh Ploeg. I'm not actually sure what the hell Josh made but it was all vegan and all good. I strongly suggest hightailing it to one of his dates on his cooking tour. This year he didn't bring the deep fryer with him on the Greyhound which is a shame but he pulled everything of beautifully anyway. The best part of the whole dinner was learning that we were going to have cuisine from Suriname which I thought was in Africa! Nope. It's in South America. Whoops!

Hey Ya'll!

The bee is tonight! Come on down! 8 pm. It's going to be a fun time.

www.freddysbackroom.com if you need directions.

I'm a little surprised that more people didn't take the opportunity to use my blog's comments for their living will. Oh well, opportunity only knocks once. Your loss.

On to happier subjects than your total mess up, how about this article?

Or how about the 8.2 earthquake in Sumatra?

I am still number one in the office NCAA tournament! Yes yes yes yes yes!!! That forty bucks will be mine! All mine!

Never one to turn down a a good idea, Saturday morning was devoted to drinking Bloody Mary's and watching the 100 most metal moments of all time. Wow, wasn't that a good time. Like many things of this nature the good times only lasted for a short time until the inevitable paying yon piper. So, about four hours later I was feeling like Axl Rose had run over me with a car. Thankfully Karl and Alison had invited me over to their house for dinner. I walked all the way there and showed up to a home filled with delightful smells. Alison had gone nuts and cooked all sorts of great dishes including a rabbit dish that was a huge hit. I ended up eating a bunch and mingling. I was thrilled to meet a young lady named Margaret there who actually works at a rival investor relations firm. This NEVER happens. Usually after people say "Where do you work?" and I begin my "I work at an investor relations firm..." they start to kind of glaze over until I start in with whole bit about how the boss has nicknames for everyone and sings songs about them. Anyway, it was great to have someone as soon as I told them that I work at an investor relations firm look at me and say "No way! Me too!". Anyway, after the dinner Sterling and I headed out to Greenpoint to see Measels Mumps Rubella in their new incarnation which is Chuck in and Brett out. The show was good except that I felt like I might not make it through the night. Thus, I went back to Brandon's house and read some and then watched poker on television.

Question: If you were in PVS (persistent vegetative state) like Terri, what would you like to have happen? Keep you going? Take out the food tube? What?

This morning take two.



The train commute this morning was supercallafragihellacious. It seems that there was a fire at the Nevins St. stop. I met up with H. up at the Atlantic St. The 4,5 and 2,3 trains were not running so we brainstormed and decided to head up to the Lafayette St C stop. This seemed like a good idea until we saw two trains come by in about 30 minutes both of which were packed to the oyster with people. Yes, I made "packed to the oyster" up on the spot. Finally we decided that the G train was our only hope (how often do you say that?) and so we took that north going to the L train and then finally into Manhattan. I ended up being about an hour and fifteen minutes late to work and no one seemed to care which was nice.

Well, I was going to blog about the subway fire and then I wrote a long post about it which was just eaten by Blogger.

As you can see from the picture of despair over to the left, my NCAA bracket is straight FUBAR. I stand to win a cool 40 bucks in the office pool if I can pull of my picks but right now it seems highly unlikely. I suppose I shouldn't complain since I spent, oh, two minutes on picking the teams out.

I've given up coffee and replaced it with green tea. Although I was worried at first that I wouldn't be getting enough caffeine to satisfy my habit that has not been a problem at all although I now have to drink about twice as much tea beverage than I did coffee. The main reason I'm sticking with the non-coffeeness is the fact that my health is now markedly better. I had stomach problems for years and since I cut out the coffee the problems have largely vanished. While I'm happy about this I'm a little pissed off that it took sixteen years for me to figure it out.

This weekend was full of culture out the ying yang. Saturday Erin and I went to on the United Nations tour. The security was a bit more lax than I was expecting that is for sure. I went through the metal detector about four times each time taking more stuff out of my pockets(keys, ipod, etc...)until finally I still hadn't made it stop beeping and the security guard just went ahead and waved me on through which I thought was rather trusting of him. It was a Saturday so I guess it wasn't like I was going to be able to shoot Kofi or anything. We were on the last tour of the day and our tour guide was a very nice Japanese woman who was about as dynamic as bread mold. We got led around to the different rooms where the security council and so on do their thing and got very little information about anything we saw. "Here is the peace bell. It is a gift from Japan and is made out of coins collected by Japanese children. The bell represents peace." That is pretty much the level of explanation we got. At the final room we were looking at the tour guide asked if we had any questions. Now, this group really hadn't asked any questions at all so I thought I'd lob her a softball. "Who designed the U.N. logo?" I asked.

"I don't know." she said. I was very surprised. Doesn't this seem like something that would be drilled into you at U.N. tour guide 101? She did however say that Australia is pretty pissed off that they aren't pictured in the design.

The U.N. building was constructed in 1951 on it sure looks it. It has all the feel and charm of my elementary school and looks like someone built it with the idea that it was to be the "Office Building of the Future!". I mean, it looks totally old with lots of particle board with those tiny holes in it, bad auditorium seats, old.

All in all, I can't recommend the U.N. tour.



Sunday, we headed over to the Brooklyn Museum for the Basquiat exhibit. We also saw a photo exhibit of Marilyn Monroe which was a snorefest. I like a few pictures of Marilyn but this was rooms and rooms of her young, her in bed, her entertaining the troops etc...It was more than I cared about. MUCH more than I cared about. But I digress, the Basquiat exhibit was seventy five percent rube reaction to modern art ("What the hell is this?" and "He made money of this crap?") and twenty five percent actual appreciation and enjoyment on my part. It was obvious to me however, that Basky liked his methamphetamine. Two hundred paintings in a year is one clue and just his whole technique early on is another with crazy lines everywhere and half formed figures that got started and look forgotten about. I liked quite a few works from his jazz and boxing periods(are they periods really? I don't know what else to call it.)and I enjoyed this one especially.

Heather's college friend Linda posted a finger-painting she made with the blood from
her miscarriage.

Not sure what to say about this.

Can anyone articulate why they hate the word "prolly"? I don't know if I can. I just hate it. Please, fair readers, have at it.

One thing I will say that rubs me the wrong way about it is that it seems like it is only email speak. For example, would you leave a note for your roommate that said "You should prolly get the cat spayed?" or would you just go ahead and write "probably" on the normal analog note?

Now, I also know that there are some "prolly" likers in the crowd. Your thoughts?

This rates pretty low on the disappointment level but disappointing it is: Jane Pauley's show has been canceled. coincidentally, Jane is one of the few celebrity women I ever heard my father talk about and, in fact, he quit watching the Today show when she left he was so pissed off about her departure. Katie Couric leaves him cold. One time I came home from work at 7 am when I worked graveyard and the LL and I had a before bed beer and I remember thinking at the time that Ann Curry (who read the news) was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. This was obviously the effects of sleep deprivation and Miller High Life but the feeling was as real as could be at the time.

The reason that I bring this up is that this means the Freddy's Knit Night that was to be featured on the Jane Pauley show will most likely never appear. Isn't that a shame? Let me answer that one for you. It is.

Man oh man! All hell has broken loose in Atlanta! There is a total maniac on the streets just carjacking like nobody's business.

There is supposed to be more snow this Friday! What the hell is that about? Yes, I am sick of winter but in five months I'll be complaining about how hot it is so enjoy this flavor of bemoanment while you can.

Watched The Village last night which wasn't as bad as the reviews would have you believe but it unfortunately had one of my least favorite actors, William Hurt, in it. I was racking my brain this morning trying to think if I'd ever seen a movie with William Hurt in that I liked. Big Chill I guess but other than that I can't think of anything.

I'm not holding out on the Williamsburg bee report. I just happened to go on the wrong day. So, hold tight for I will sojurn to my competitors lair to report back on the doings over there.

AM New York be damned! Check it out!

Now I've got to target AM New York for my bee.

See why at Jenisfamous

So, I think I want to get into podcasting.

This site looks like it would make it pretty easy and with all the recording equipment here at work I sense opportunity knocking.

More Jared.

Very interesting post here about how at the NFL Web site you can't make a personalized jersey with a "naughty" word on the back such as "gay":

To the NFL it's naughty to be "GAY" but OK to be "BIN LADEN." You can be a "NAZI" but not a "LESBIAN." Even a gay man with the last name Gay can't buy a jersey.

This rather bizarre conclusion is reached when trying to order a personalized jersey from the NFL Shop, the online merchandise site run by the league. Anyone trying to buy a jersey with the single word "GAY" or "LESBIAN" or "GAY PRIDE" on the back gets a rejection message that states: "This field should not contain a naughty word."

via Wonkette

Kathy has written a bee review memoir that covers the things I've forgotten. Check it out.

Has it come to this? What am I doing? I'm looking at a slideshow of Lindsey Lohan pictures. I don't even think she's particularly wowza or anything.

However, it did remind me that she will be in the remake of Herbie the Love Bug.