5.31.2008

a not-so-secret secret

I could try and be pretentious and talk about obscure books all of the time, but the fact is that I don't read much. I'll get really into a book once in awhile and totally devour it - which I love - but I just don't have time. Which isn't entirely true either. I just have other things that I do in my spare time.

But there's some daily reading that I do - TMZ.  Yeah, fuck you, I love my "low culture." Seriously, though, I'm kidding. Everything I said is true, but I'm not picking on people who do a lot of reading. I wish I did. But, y'all, sometimes it's 12:30 in the afternoon and you are just itching to know how many gas station's Britney's visited today.  Try it!

[Incidentally, I realize the silliness of acting like I'm confessing to reading TMZ when I've got the RSS feed in the corner of this blog.]

5.29.2008

JQP to New Yorkers: Your shit stinks, too - and your rats are a hell of a lot bigger!

It's a little after 3 a.m. now and I have to be at work in five hours. As was somewhat expected, the new computer has held me captive for hours, which has led to some random website hopping.

Somehow I got it into my head that I needed to look up the recipe for Magnolia Bakery's cupcakes [for the record, they are dry, but the tasty icing more than makes up for it]. Somewhere along the way I stumbled upon this blog post about the bakery being briefly shut down by NYC's health department last summer. Out of boredom, I got sucked into reading what turned out to be a very long vitriolic mess of comments posted below the original blog.

I have no doubt in my mind that there are plenty of nice New Yorkers - I've met a few and also never felt an iota of rudeness in my visit there. So it is for those amiable citizens that I feel very sorry.  A few miserable, elitist dickheads can cast a nasty shadow over everyone.  I guess it's kind of how a lot of Nashvillians resent being seen as rednecks who love Big & Rich.

The thing that bothered me most in this commentary was the attitude toward tourists, ranging from vaguely irritable to outright venomous. I will be keeping this in mind next time I want to snipe about one of the tourists here in Nashvegas. New York City owes a great deal of what it is today to tourism, and they would do well to remember that when bitching about "fat Midwesterners." Where would they be economically if all of us fat ass lowbrow commoners quit visiting?

Anyhow, I don't recommend reading the whole thing unless you have a lot of time.  I've pulled a few select citations from the commentary to share, and those are below.  Click here to see the entire piece.

This was a fun one - you could pretty much apply this comment to all the hipster kids out there, too:
24.
Obligatory snarky comment to affirm that I would certainly never engage in something that so many other people seem to "enjoy". Man, I'm so much better than everyone else! I'm so glad I know about that other better (secret) place to get cupcakes, like all the real New Yorkers... pretty much just me and my friend, Keifer. None of you can know about it. The cupcakes are the source of my immense and immeasurable wit.

I'm pretty sure there is some very deep-seeded insecurity behind this:
45.
And so it was that thousands and thousands of fat Iowans had their Sex and the City tours ruined.

Don't know what the obsession is with Midwesterners. Had they started in on Southerners, Mama might have had to whoop an ass or three. But I've gotta stick up for the denizens of Middle America when it comes to this kind of crap. If they do it to Iowa, it'll be Tennessee next...
57.
thank heavens there won't be 400 midwesterners clogging up bleeker tomorrow. the cupcakes are way too sugary, and they taste and look like the ones i made for bake sales in elementary school: from the box.
cupcake cafe's cupcakes are so beautiful, and they're the ny originals.
i live on the block and there are, like 55 &56 said, tons of rats every night outside the joint. it is so gross.

Seriously. Points for the "condescending cupcake derision" thing.
60.
OMG, Snark, #24, TOOO EFFING FUNNY!
I totally agree-Jesus, people, calm down..nobody knows who you are, none of you are on real life Sex and the City and how pathetic and lame that you have to put people down with your condescending cupcake derision. I happen to think MB cupcakes are overrated, but it's a cupcake, not a kidney transplant. Who gives a shit? So don't go there. It's not like Billy's or Eleni's or Sugar Sweet Sunshine or Crumbs or the next supertrendy knockoff/joiner/newbie is going out of business.

This guy (or girl) had the right idea. I was sitting there getting pissed off at the elitism, but s/he had a sense of humor about all of the "condescending cupcake derision."
83.
I'm having a lot of fun imagining dozens of adults across NYC sitting behind their computers in their underwear getting really worked up and angry about cupcakes.
Life's hard in the big city.

And the award for most pretentious douchebag goes to...
106.
Magnolia's success derives from its tapping into a vein of regression to earlier stages of development; to regression of the object relations to infantile objects and to regression of ego achievements to a lower level. Take a few minutes to watch the childlike behavior of the people standing in the queue and you'll immediately see what I'm talking about. Magnolia fits perfectly with the ethos of Sex in the City - 4 little girls who don't want to grow up. The fantasy plays wonderfully to the hick from the sticks who wants to experience NY in a sort of Disneyesque cocoon - deluding themselves in the fantasy like the kindergartner eating library paste that it actually tastes good. Bad things (thank you BoH) may lurk behind those pretty colored cakes but if you don't look (or taste) too hard the fantasy can live on. If they close this place down can we focus our attention on the next stop in the idiot express - the stoop on Perry St.?

possibly the funniest sentence I've ever heard

A convicted felon who became a motivational speaker -- and used his life experiences to warn teens about the dangers of drugs and crime -- is accused of going on a bender, threatening to kill his girlfriend and her son, and smashing a former prison buddy in the face with a statue of John Wayne.

Motivational speaker accused of violent bender

5.17.2008

Sully, candidly

Sully has her own yard now, so this lends itself to a lot of picture taking....


5.10.2008

doggy dump

I said there would be more, and so there are. These are mostly of Sully. Expect many more of her whether or not you'd like to see them.

flickr takes a dump

I just got a bunch of pictures off of a camera I haven't used i awhile, so I thought I'd plop a few down here. These are just a few of friends from last September. I'll throw a few dog ones on in a minute.

proven leadership for america


After my grandma died, we went through her stuff the way that people do. My aunts found this mug and knew I'd have to have it.


However, I sometimes  worry that someone's going to see it in my kitchen cabinet and misunderstand ... but come on, it says "Proven Leadership for America." I doubt the misguided people who voted for him even believe that at this point. Anyway, It amuses me.


death penalty

'Kill Them All!' Camus and Administrative Murder

5.09.2008

Wiinis


eli, scott, wii
Originally uploaded by janeqpublic
We're settling in. Here's a picture of Eli and Scott having Wii times with Malachi (feet pictured lower right).

Our floors are pretty nice-looking. They compliment Eli's beard quite nicely. What?