You'll need a drool bucket for this building.

The new Apple Store on Fifth Ave. in New York.



*swoons*

This means that I'll totally have to take the train in and oogle over this building one of these days. :-D

You know those Listerine Strips...

...well take that concept and apply it to food. I found this on the New York Times website and thought it was pretty badass actually. Essentially, they are developing different types of edible films that not only can be infused with practically any flavor you can think of, but also can be given antimicrobial properites as well. And just think of the possibilities, other than the obvious:


(which would definitely add about 100 more pages to Miya's growing menu of sushi rolls, by the time these come out the menu will be the size of a phone book)

Gelatos from Heaven

If you are ever in New Haven, go to Wooster Street which is the Little Italy of this fair city. When you are there, stop off at this very unassuming looking pastry shop called Libby's and you will be amazed and well taken care of.

I don't think I've ever seen that much of a selection of different types of cannnoli's ever.

I Haz a Chessboard!

'Twas a Good Day

Me and J went to a friend's birthday party (part II) which was filled with hand made appetizers (thank you L, you are the awesomest) and little slices of heaven for dessert. These incredible, mini cheese cake cups that were insane (and also made a great breakfast).

Then me and J were off to search for new modern art (and to evade the kitties in L's apartment since I just found out before then that J was allergic, I have to remember to ask those things first) in New Haven and stopped off at both the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art. I'm more of the modern art fan, but I was totally geeking over the architecture of the Yale Center for British Art; they successfully melded two very dissimilar materials together in one beautiful façade (yes, I remembered the squirrelly "c"), wood and concrete.

So picture grids of concrete that make up the super structure of the walls and floors and then this beautiful light wood used to dress up the walls. It's wonderful, I'll have to search for who the architect/interior designer was.

Then it was off for sushi at Miya's in New Haven which has all the bangs and whistles of the more expensive places, but without the added wallet opening.

'Twas a good day (and night). :-)

Dinner and Drinks

Tonight, me and a friend are off to get some martinis and munchies over at the Backroom @ Bottega Lounge. Now normally Bottega Lounge is something I avoid on a Friday night because those clubbin' and dancin' days are over with me and if I see another pack of guys all wearing the same outfits with that stupid Gotti, gelled up, hair mess, I swear to GOD I will not be held accountable for my actions!

However, this is the Backroom area which is completely separated from the madness and is a rather fine restaurant. They have some great mixed drinks and a really unique (but kind of small) menu.

T-Minus 1 Hour to martini time!

Snowy's Office Adventures

(and his owner's complete boredom at work)


So this is my little cat Snowy, who was rescued from the children's department at Target a while ago.

As you can see, he has a penchant for Dell computers since they're pretty awesome and even allowed his owner to purchase a computer from them even though her credit is not that good.

Snowy also loves his Sirius!

BABA BOOEY, BABA BOOEY!!!!

But, I think it's time to get back to work, because there are bills to be paid and Snowy does like that whole "electricity" thing that his owner has. There are these things on the wall that when you flip them, they make the room all bright!! So back to work with you to pay for that convenience!

Daily Mitchism

"This shirt is 'dry-clean only'...which means it's dirty."

Autumn Already?

I mean, don't get me wrong or anything, I prefer pretty much every other season besides summer, late summer especially. So I'm not complaining at all, I'm just confused.

It's been between 60-70 for the past couple of days, even 50 at night, so I actually had to wear sneakers (trainers for you UK people who think it's corny for me to say sneakers! :-P ) the other night and not my regular flip flops.

And I say...keep it up! :-) I like autumn and the sooner it comes, the happier I am.

Daily Mitchism

"You know, I'm sick of following my dreams, man. I'm just going to ask where they're going and hook up with 'em later."

Curse you Weather Gods!

OK, someone's got to make up their minds on what the f*ck is going to happen with the weather tonight. Is it going to rain, is it just going to be cloudy, are frogs going to fall from the sky...MAKE A DECISION ALREADY!!

Weather.com says 30% chance of rain.

Fox 5 in New York said that it "probably won't rain, since there's a pressure system that'll push the storm away."

Stop taunting me!!

Happy Hour

Well, I had a very productive night on Monday. I decided to join a bunch of friend's of mine at a great indoor/outdoor bar which is actually right in the same neighborhood as my apartment building.

It's a little restaurant/bar called Captain's Galley and they serve some great surf & turf in these massive, logic defying portions. Plus they have some great bartenders that know how to mix a drink properly.

Then afterwards I went over a friend's place and had a chance to catch up with her and others I haven't seen in the longest time. It was nice to have one of those meaningful, late night conversations that I had missed so much. Reminds me of college how in between late night studying sessions you may end up having a really intimate conversation with your study buddy and you end up really getting to know that person even more. Maybe there's something in the air late at night that makes people open up?

Well that was interesting...

Welp, sometimes in life you get tested and you have a choice: move on or keep your nose to the grind stone and try again.

We'll see how this goes.

Moleskine Obsession

Yes, I think I can finally say I'm obsessed with these little notebooks from heaven when I can proudly say that I own 4 different versions of them and have given one as a gift. Moleskine notebooks (some pronounce it "mole-skin-ay," I've said it both ways before, so I have no idea) are these travel sized, pocket notebooks that are now available in virtually any type of format you need and come with little goodies stuffed inside as well as wrapped up with a supple, leather cover.




I now own 4 types (STOP LAUGHING!!): the lined notebook, the address book, the London city book and now the personal organizer for July 2007-December 2008. I love them all, but the one that was most usful was the London Citybook because it actually helped me out tremendously when I traveled to the UK this winter.

It included everything you would need for London/UK: a tube map (this saved me numerous times), address book, city maps (REALLY beneficial), a big pocket in the back to hold stuff and it even came with tracing paper so that I could plan out my routes on the tube/roads. Plus there were bundles of tabbed sections that I could customize and keep all my friends personal information down as well as mark down the places I had visited.

So yes, if you are a friend of mine you have either already received one as a gift or will be soon. :-)

PIZZA!

Oooooo, free pizza for lunch today! The HR guy ordered up some pies for us and I am patiently awaiting their arrival!

And as you probably should know by now, I am easily amused. :-)

YAY FREE PIZZA! It's like I'm in college again.

It's not a tumor!!

Yes, I'm being that blunt about it, because my father is in fact tumor free!

He will, however, need to have tubes put into his ears for some length of time, but still, it's not like having deep brain surgery. This is an operation that some kids go under since they have recurring sinus problems, so this should be a breeze for my father to handle.

"This is the end...my beautiful friend..."

On Sunday, me and the sis took a walk around my beach and it was such a gorgeous day I decided to take some pictures to remember it, since this would probably be the last time it would be this nice (well, knowing New England, who knows...).

So here's my recent Flickr set devoted to the day. :-)

Google & Yahoo Shenanigans

Well, going through my Statcounter logs, I saw some interesting hits to my blog from random Google and Yahoo search strings. Some I understand, some puzzle me and hurt my head:

"tweed trousers" dandyism - I blogged about the kind of pants I wore to my interview, but I have no idea about that dandyism part.

"die in a fire" - He he he...

professional office clothing - I remember expressing feeling weird having to wear it all the time, but alas, I have gotten used to it and it's pretty kick ass, I must admit.

logic for getusedparts.com - This is a friend's company that I happily pimp (check the home page on the side).

how long is park avenue south of grand central going to block off in the morning? - This was probably because I was posting all the bits about the steam pipe explosion that happened in New York a while ago, and it's sad to say that even the cops down on the street wouldn't know about that information, your ass has just got to wait.

dana eris - ?? Who is this Dana?

dana eris pictures - NO! I don't know who she is and don't have pictures of her either.

Mediterranea Hookah Bar in New Haven - I had a such great time at Mediterranea in New Haven that I decided to blog about it. It is in fact a great place and I love their lamb.

"dirty pictionary" - I can't even count how many hits I've gotten to my blog from that stupid post I did about playing Dirty Pictionary with some friends in the winter. Go away! I don't house the rules for this game, so just go look elsewhere!

"What's Your Seduction" - He he he...this was a nifty little quiz that you could take to determine how you seduce people.

I saw this wino, he was eating grapes. I was like, "Dude, you have to wait."
"this bedroom has an oven in it" - both of these are from my Daily Mitch-isms, so keep those hits coming, I want to spread the holy words of Mitch Hedberg as much as I can.

"foxy lady", blogspot - Well, this is obvious... ;-)

LOLCATZ

*girlie squeal!!!*

This whole LOLCATZ phenomenon is really something else. I first caught wind of it on a message board that I frequent (ETS) and caught on with the pattern of superimposing cute/weird pictures of cats with phrases grammatically spelled wrong but also being cute in their own way. Because bad grammar=cuteness, in case you didn't pick up on that one.

I don't know how I feel about the whole thing, but I also don't really care how I feel. It's just very cute and I like my LOLCATZ, it makes me miss having a cat on my own.

Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis

Here's the CNN article.

This bridge was just checked out for fatigue 3 years ago and got a clean bill of health. To be honest, I don't really know what could have happened. The NTSB will be doing the forensics and they'll be able to tell from close inspection of the debris what actually happened.

Apparently, they were working on widening the bridge and were driving piles in order to support the new lanes, so perhaps it was a case of vibrations causes from the piles. Similar to the Tacoma Narrows bridge, but that was due to wind causing the bridge to vibrate.

I AM AWESOME!

I just needed to pat myself on the back for being able to decipher all the information that was given to me about a building and being able to figure out where all the problems were in the building...even though I never saw the building!!

My boss was happy too, so yay for me!

And I can't say anymore, because it's also a somewhat secret project. :-P Too bad for you.

Thank you photo boy for taking awesome pictures of every problem and keeping them in walking order, you made my brain not smoke!

Acoustic Neuroma?

My father has been having problems with one of his ears lately (well really for about a month or so now). He went to one doctor that said his dizziness, vertigo and hearing loss was a result of a pretty bad sinus infection that blocked his ear. So he treated him for that by sticking a needle in his ear, piercing the ear drum and shooting his ear canal full of drugs in order to clear out the blockage. This, however, helped a bit, but my father is still having problems. So, he went to another doctor that we've been going to for years, he's a great ear, nose and throat doctor plus a brilliant surgeon so we figured he's be the one to figure out what to do.

Based on the symptoms and my father's age (he's 47 as of 2 days ago), the doctor decided to have an MRI taken on my father's brain in order to rule out acoustic neuroma (or vestibular schwannoma). You can imagine my reaction when I was on the phone with my mother and all of a sudden we're talking about potential future brain surgery on my father...







Acoustic neuroma is a benign (the magic word in my book), slow growing (in most cases) tumor that develops in the internal auditory canal on the 8th nerve. "The 8th nerve is actually 2 separate nerves - the vestibular nerve and the cochlear nerve. The vestibular nerve is responsible for balance while the cochlear nerve is responsible for hearing." Hence, why patients normally have balance and hearing problems. Also, this tumor can put pressure on the 8th nerve's neighbor, the 7th nerve which is responsible for controlling facial movements, hence some patients experience facial paralysis or mild forms of loss of sensation (something my father has experienced, but a number of years ago).

All this, for some reason which they have no idea why, all begins to "appear" around the age of 48, on average. "No one knows why this gene waits until age 48 (on average) to appear but it does." My Dad hitting 47 was a definite flag that went up.

So, my Dad had his MRI yesterday and we are awaiting the results.

Now, this whole thing is probably the worst case scenario based on my father's symptoms, however it needs to be ruled out. For all we know, it could just be a simple blockage in his ear caused by a rampant sinus infection. We will find out soon enough.

Now I'm trying not to worry, since we don't know anything yet, but there's nothing like getting a call from your mother on a Monday night that your father might need brain surgery. That was beyond "worry" at that point, we went into uncharted emotional territory from then on. So I deal the only way I know how, by finding out as much as I can about it.