In the series "the NYT prints stories about the tough life of a rich American", I give you the story of a Cynthia Habberstad, who didn't buy a parking space (then listed at $165k) when she bought her condo at 28th and 8th and is now "kicking herself". She is now on a waiting list to buy a space for around $200k.

The kicker, though, comes from this part (emphasis mine):

She and her three children, ages 7, 9 and 11, live on Long Island, but the children’s modeling schedules bring them into the city at least twice a week, and the apartment they bought in the building will be a pied-à-terre.

“If we’re coming in late from dinner or we have a lot of stuff in the car, do we really want to have to walk a few blocks to get home?” Ms. Habberstad said. “It all makes sense now that I don’t have it.”

I mean, seriously. Who the fuck at the Times comes up with these ridiculous stories?

Previously noticed in the Times:

• The terrible stress of throwing lavish dinner parties
• The Tyranny of the Second Home (their headline)

Labels: rants

The rest of the week in NYC was exhausting but fun. Had dinner with Eriq at some yummy sushi place, at Jane with Sara and Mel (where, I must point out, some straight boy totally hit on me), and went to Beige with lovelies LL and Fagat, where I drank too much of course, which made the next day's meetings particularly painful.

On the way back, I was passing out while reading the SkyMall catalog (who doesn't?) when my attention was caught by this clever little apparatus. See, it automatically dispenses ceral into the bowl, so you don't have to do it yourself. Automagically!


As the write-up says:

fixing the day's first meal will never again be a messy, time consuming chore.

And it's only 80 bucks. Really, the perfect gift for that special someone who's a fucking lazy, stupid housewife who's too ungodly moronic to muster enough brain cells to pour a bowl of cereal in under ten minutes and without making a mess. Happy birthday, you useless whore.

Labels: rants

I am blessed to live within walking distance of my office. But also cursed that there are two major commuter rail stations on the way. At rush hours, there are litterally streams of people rushing through the same streets, stopping at nothing and noone, marching on to their cubicles for yet another day of "Accounts Payable Nina speaking. Just a moment". Factor in the rain, which causes a canopy of umbrellas (notwithstanding the assholes that bring out the 6-ft diameter golf umbrellas) to form above the herds, and you have a fun, fun commute. In those situations, I just want to jump in the river and swim to work.

Just needed to share.

Labels: rants

Not only is this kid to the left just really smart looking, but he's also a murderer. See, turns out he was pissed at his family, so he went off, drove up the highway, and shot at people with a rifle, sniper style. One person died.





Why was he pissed? Says the CNN article:

The teen apparently had been arguing with relatives over gutting a deer during a hunting trip

Oh, I know the feeling. My parents never let me gut deer. Those bastards.

The article goes on to cite the kid's MySpace interests:

Huntin, Fishin, Muddin and goin out with friends.

What, no shoe shopping?

Labels: rants

Six hundred words that could be summed up as:

I like my email. I have a system. Email is nice. Spam isn't. I like my email. I'm pretty.

Labels: rants

The Brat has a Master Plan now. He manages to stretch "I have a Master Plan, email me" to over 400 words in his last entry. The kid is nothing if consistent.

Labels: rants

I'll admit, I am worried. Ethan has not blogged in days. Today saw massive protests about the government's proposed policy against illegal immigration, so he should have blogged about it, making sure to shift to uppercase for ILLEGAL, ALIEN, WORK, TAXES, TALKING POINTS. But no, zilch.

Can you die from using too many uppercase words in a blog post?

Labels: rants

If you're into web design, chances are you've heard the words "Web 2.0", "Ajax" or "Beta" so many times you could rip your eyeballs out and feed them to a Venture Capitalist if they would just please stop the madness. Start ups are partying like it's 1999 and throwing a bunch of shit to the wall to see what sticks. Fun and exciting, if, at times, relentless.

But quid of the names? The new trend is to use the oft-used .us extension. Like in del.icio.us or script.aculo.us. Cute. Yeah, that's going to have to stop though.

For starters, how do you expect people to remember your url? I remember the word, yes, but not where the first dot goes. Don't make me have to try them all. Second, we're running out of usable words. So, budding Web 2.0 invite-only beta all media revolutionary AJAX-powered start-up, hurry up before you're only left with:

• http://floccinauci.nihilipilificatio.us
• http://supercalifra.jalisticexpialidocio.us
• http://eellogofusciou.hipoppokunurio.us

Labels: rants, tech

Day Two of no TV. I am missing the Golden Girls! At least Internet access is now back to normal.

Ugh. Can I have my own satellite now?

Labels: rants

Funny how FOX really has sort of a knack for creating characters that are really just unpleasant. Contrary to my favorite show EVER, the main characters of Bones and House are just really, really aggravating.



There's the doctor who knows everything better than anyone else and who goes through life being a major asshole. He could save everyone a lot of time by just telling them the information they need but no, he has to be a dick about it. He'll make you beg for the info and then make fun of you for begging. This is aggravated by the fact that he always seems to have the final answers days before the others, but he likes to make 'em sweat a bit.

And then there's the forensic antropologist chick who is also so full of herself she's bursting at the seams. Something must've crawled up her ass and died because she's always angry at something. Probably at how the rest of the world is just too dumb to keep up with her exceedingly amazing intelligence. Added bonus, she can tell you, from a fingernail clipping, that the owner of said clipping was a 5'11 woman, age 32, who was a barmaid, died of a blow to the head, and had $1,295.76 on her bank account.

Isn't the point of a show to relate to the main character? A little bit?

Labels: rants, tv

As you probably know, similarly to low-skilled manufacturing jobs moving to Mexico, low-skilled service jobs are moving to India. That means that when you call Comcast to bitch about something or try to get something rectified on your credit card statement you have to sit there and try to understand someone who can really only pronounce 5 words in a way we can comprehend.

But now, they've pushed the perversity to the next level and have Indian call centers call up telemarketing targets. To give themselves an air of legitimacy, the callers will use American-sounding names:

Vijayalakshmi: Hello M. Flenchbenj, my name is [deciphers the name] Cyntia and I am kohling you to tell you have won a shopping splee of tlee hundled dollals!
Me: Take my name off your lists please
Vijayalakshmi: [Disappointed] Okay...

In the past I've had a Rachel and also a Monica... Apparently they just go by the TV to come up with their American names.

Labels: rants

One of my biggest office pet-peeves ever: cheap toilet paper. If you work in an office, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

To save a few bucks, the building's management company chooses TP that's so thin, the usual roll has 50 times the amount of regular TP rolls. It's so lightweight you end up using a huge wad of it (therefore raising suspicions in the other stalls that somehow your butt's really, really dirty). And then, when the first roll is finally over, you spent 5 agonizing minutes trying to get the second one started, only managing to peel off small pieces at a time.

There's a special Circle of Hell just for the guys who designed that toilet paper. As if pooping at work was not a lot of work already...

PS: I just realized I didn't use any "bad word" in this post. Before I lose my French passport for Délit de Political Correctness: ass, shit, crap, fuck. Pfeww.

Labels: rants

Just three random things that are annoying me at this very moment:

• Calling it SCOTUS. It's not a government agency, it's the Supreme Court. Lose the pseudo-acronym.
• Ridiculously ripped gay guys who wear Speedo, the Hulk, Ultimate Fighter "costumes" on Halloween, for the sole purpose of walking around shirtless in public and have the crowds ogle them.
  
• A semi-famous gay blogger who keeps peddling his supposedly über-cool T-Shirts, speaks of the readers that email him stories as his "correspondents", and uses "we think, here at ..." when speaking of his blog.
  

Labels: rants

I don't think I'm particularly stupid. I know my way around Chicago pretty well. I can study a map like nobody's business. Then how come I always get lost when I go to IKEA?! Getting there took me 60 minutes, 20 of which were backtracking and turing around...

Labels: rants