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January 31, 2006
Japanese Things vs. Japan- There's a Difference
It must seem like I can't get away from all things Japanese. It's true, in some ways Japan seems like my kindred spirit country. But I have no desire to go to Japan really, never have. A long time ago, on the way to Bangkok with my high school boyfriend to visit his mom's sweatshop (yeah, a long story) I had a six hour layover in the Tokyo airport and I think that'll do me for a while. For some reason, I'm just not attracted to visiting the country. I wouldn't say no if I had a real reason to go, but I have many more countries higher up on the list of places I want to travel to. But I could eat their foodstuffs all day everyday (well, except for the Shing Shang)
So that is why yesterday even after a long day at work, I drag Marie out to KENKA! the Tokyo style "izakaya" (snack-shop/restaurant) on St. Mark's Place. I love Kenka: the chairs and tables are doll-size, the decor is psychadelic, the music is loud and the crowd is raucous. And, on top of all that excitement, you can eat a meal for two and share a large pitcher of Sapporo for around $20. And (can you believe there's more! ) as a complimentary desset, you GET TO SPIN YOUR OWN COTTON CANDY. I don't even particularly enjoy cotton candy, but you friend probably do, so go, and go now.
We also saw the 24 Hours on Craigslist documentary. We arrived late and had to sit in the front row and the entire show, my bladder was on the verge of bursting. Perhaps that's partly why I wasn't feeling the film so much. Good idea, poor execution. Shaky video, nonsensical transitions, some stupid subject choices, and it was all based in San Francisco. Anyone knows the real Craigslist wackos can be found in New York. Also, I had this idea five years ago and I am jealous someone else got around to it before I did.
Posted by debbie at 11:51 AM
January 27, 2006
Good Finds
First off, thank you to those who have been giving me positive feedback about the site. Feel free to leave comments wherever and whenever you fancy. Don't be shy.
Anyhow, I wanted so share with you a few of my favorite sites. If you don't know about them, they're a great way to waste away boring work hours:
OverHeardInNewYork
Funny conversations overheard on the streets of New York, often between homeless people on the subway or between retarded NYU undergrads.
PostSecret
It's getting pretty popular but I just discovered it, a site where people send in homemade postcards with their secrets on it. Sometimes incredibly funny, sometimes incredibly sad and touching.
MightyGoods
This woman has a knack for finding the perfect gifts, and she compiles them on this here site. If you're ever at a loss to find someone something, go here.
That's the update for today. I'm pretty wiped out. Went out last night with old college pals Michelle and Sheela. We went to this Vietnamese restaurant near NYU and the place had free wine. The wine was a flowin'. Of course, this wasn't a surprise. I knew well in advance of their free wine deal. But I was expecting it to be sort of divey- on the contrary, it was pretty classy and still cheap and the wine was very drinkable (and white, which is the only kind I can drink). A good find. After dinner, we stumbled across the street into a very strange and random (but open bar) event hosted by the Association for Architecture. Pretty much what you think an event like that would be like: serious looking people wearing black with serious looking haircuts, nodding their heads to obscure krautrock, looking at seriously confusing art installations. We sauntered into the office kitchen, helped ourselves to some snacks, and made our way home.
Speaking of free alcohol, this site is good for that:
Posted by debbie at 11:10 AM
January 26, 2006
Getting Buff in the New Year (don't laugh)
I joined a new gym on Monday. My new health insurance gives me a great discount and the gym is right near my work so I thought I'd give it a a go. The gym's owner Jim (funny, right) gave me a complimentary personal trainer session. We went the rounds on all the weightlifting and cardio machines. I tried about ten different machines all in all. I lifted weights! I tried out the rowing machine! I even tried a treadmill for the first time but that only confirmed my hatred of running. It seemed pretty easy at the time and he seemed pretty impressed considering my stature and the fact that I haven't worked out...um, ever, really. There was that sad two month stint at the gym down the block, but that doesn't really count. Rafe and I would bicycle side by side, he watching CNN and me watching MTV. It just seemed wrong. Plus, there was this pervy cleaning dude there and one day I found myself alone in the locker room and he was standing in there staring at me while pretending to clean. That was weird.
And then there was my brief membership at Curves, which if you don't know is one of the fastest growing chains in the world. It's for ladies only and in my neighborhood's branch it was seriously all ladies, as in ladies in their 50s and 60s. The set-up was bizarre. All the workout machines were set up in a small circle, so you'd to look at each other as you worked out. The music was horrendous, and often they would sneak in a not-so-subtle Christian tune. And THEN I found out via Bitch magazine that the founder (and Bush neighbor down in Texas) pumps millions of profit dollars into super right-wing anti-abortion groups. The kind of places that tell teenagers that it's a sin to abort, that advocate abstinence-only education. For a company that purportedly advocates women's health and female solidarity, I found this so fucking hypocritical. I couldn't support them anymore. I told the manager why I was leaving, and she said she had no idea about it, but what was she gonna do about it? And I told her she should be informing the gym's members and she didn't seem to like that idea. So I took it upon myself to hand out some flyers as the ladies would exit. And I posted some more around the neighborhood. But the place is still there. I guess some people don't really care.
But this gym is different. Despite waking up on Tuesday barely able to type or tie my shoes, I can tell I am going to be going places. I'm going to get fit and buff. Watch out.
Posted by debbie at 12:14 PM
Welcome to Version 2.0!
So the server this blog is hosted totally messed up tons of sites, including mine....But don't be scared- we switched servers and now I (with a bit of help, thanks to my html-savvy domestic partner) have rebuilt the blog into a brand new version. And you can bet your bippy it's going to be updated daily. So now you can look forward to posts like these about Headless Shing Shang everyday..and maybe some more profound stuff as well, too.
Posted by debbie at 10:54 AM
January 23, 2006
Headless Shing Shang
*
Anyone who knows me knows I have a fairly adventurous palate. And I especially love strange Japanese snacks. But this was...No Way to Begin a Monday Morning.
Imagine the scene: Mid-morning at my office. I haven't eaten anything yet, too busy replying to emails. I'm nursing a grotesquely large coffee.
Co-worker (this is the one with the cough so bad she's wearing a face mask-insert link to other entry): Would you like one?
In her hand is a plastic tub filled with what looks like some sort of thin cracker.
I pause. She looks to other co-worker conspiratorially...
They talk in Japanese briefly, then turn to look at me.
Co-worker: You should try one, it's full of calcium. Really good for you.
She holds out the tub. I accidentally take not one but four. Pop one immediately in my mouth. Look at other three in my hand- realize they are teeny tiny fish skeletons. Just bones, mostly spine. And, as bones tend to be, very crunchy. With an strangely sweet aftertaste. Belly grumbles. Coffee and fish bones churn around…
Co-worker: How do you like them? Fishy?
Me: Mmmm, yes, crispy.
*This “naturally crispy” snack is similar to the one I had but this one should surely score extra points for being a) headless and b) for having some meat on it.
Posted by debbie at 8:25 PM | Comments (1)
January 16, 2006
Events of the Day: Spilled Coffee, The Bermuda Triangle, SARS, and Eleanor Roosevelt
How bad is it to spill coffee on your keyboard? What if your computer is a 98 iMac on its last legs anyhow? I mean, how long are these things supposed to last? I must restart the fucker ten times a day. I'm sure the coffee didn't help though. Oh well, maybe I'm just helping it see the light. Go to the light, iMac! Go the to the light!
Work is so-so. I'm researching a story about...THE BERUMUDA TRIANGLE. This is almost as bad as our story on Big Foot, but not quite. There are a lot of new and somewhat scientific theories about the Bermuda Triangle going on right now, and I'm getting to talk to a lot of weirdos about their various conspiracy theories and experiences in the triangle. I was talking to this crazy man last week and he kept me on the phone for hours talking about his "electronic fog theory"- you see, this electronic fog attaches to planes that fly through the triangle and creates a "time-tunnel vortex" that can send people into a different dimension. Hmmm, sure buddy.
On the downside, I didn't get Martin Luther King Day off yesterday (I'm not going to say it was a racial thing, but come on, can't they recognize a great man!) and to boot half the office is very sick. Sure it's flu season, but two people are walking around wearing protective masks.
I hope an outbreak of SARS isn't starting in our office. If you are so sick yet considerate enough to wear a mask, mmmaybe you should stay home instead? Just a though. I'm washing my hands like I have OCD and not touching any doorknobs or common telephones (it's all about the protective paper towel barrier)
Last night we were lazy and watched a very long documentary about Eleanor Roosevelt on PBS. I cannot believe how much she accomplished in her life, goddamn. I think she is my new hero. And did you know that Eleanor was a Roosevelt before she married Franklin? They were (distant) cousins! I was really amazed at how little I knew of her before this eye-opening documentary. Funny thing was that it was produced by the company I worked for for almost a year. The company, which shall remain nameless, only produced a few documentaries so it was weird that I had never watched it. asndf I hadf necver aseren (oh dfucvk, my cvomputer isa totaslly fducvkerdf up nowq. i iwiash i was kidfdfing. it'as typing erxzteras lerttreas!@ OH ASHIT!!@
Posted by debbie at 8:31 PM
January 12, 2006
Down in the Pit, the Hog Pit
Just had lunch with Chris over at this lovely little Indian tea shop. While I certainly never latched onto the wraps craze, I do enjoy their roti style wraps. For some reason though when I'm with Chris, I'm very self-conscious of my grammar, and I often say things in a way that I feel weird about. Yes, he was my writing teacher in college, but I proved myself a good enough writer and an articulate enough of a student (among other things) so why is that, after knowing him for six years now and feeling totally comfortable with him otherwise, I still stammer away and have trouble constructing basic sentences? Perhaps I am a bit of a oral dyslexic. Sometimes I get things messed around. Is there a name for this? Last night I told Rafe he was walking on thin water! But that might have been due to the fact that I was drunk.
I had gone out with Dave, who I hadn't seen in awhile, to The Hog Pit in the Meatpacking District. I usually hate the Meatpacking District and the kinds of people it attracts. The last time I had been there was to review this popular frat boy/stupid girl hangout . But The Hog Pit is a bit different- it's the kind of place where you can have fried pickles or an iceberg wedge with bacon and blue cheese. So, of course, we did. And many pints of beer. We were supposed to go this gallery opening at CVB Space, owned by a friend of his, because I am trying to coordinate a fashion shoot there for a Japanese magazine called Frau. Long story. But due to a mix up the opening night is actually tonight so now I have to go again. Looks fairly interesting though, the exhibit is described as "featuring merry go-rounds, vertigo, politics, altered LP records, ballerinas, and much more"
Posted by debbie at 8:50 PM
January 11, 2006
2006: Back Up and Running
My blog's server got corrupted and was down for many days, and perhaps even several fortnights. Unfortunately during this time I didn't have the chance to write about Christmas or The Holidays. But in hindsight, this was probably a good thing. The trip was a logistical mess, and there was enough emotional drama to last me into 2007. Except for the trip to the La Brea Tar Pits in LA. That was actually pretty neat:
This is my dad looking at a wall full of prehistoric wolf skulls at the La Brea Tarpit museum. Photo courtesy of Vincent Goldberg
So 11 days into the new year and we've begun to seroiusly plan our trip to Central America. I'm getting anxious about everything that needs to be done in just three months time. This trip has been in the back of mind for almost a year and now as we're approaching the reality of it, I can't believe it and I'm freaking out. For me, it is more than a vacation. I'm having to face issues that I haven't dealt with up until now. It means finding my family in Honduras. It means trying to reconnect with that side of my life. It means trying to document it all for a radio piece that will broadcast nationally. It means risking my job and my stability in hopes of better things. I really need to start writing more about my project, about why I am traveling to Honduras in the first place...but I'm not sure if this blog is the appropriate venue. I had initially wanted this blog to be a supplement to my poor memory- a light and cheery record of my daily happenings. I wasn't interested in posting my secret diary. I mean, while the voyeur in me finds bloggers who blog very personally about their lives fascinating on some level, I think it can also be sort of dangerous to have everything out there for all to see.
Posted by debbie at 8:54 PM