A Recession? I Hope So

The Times take on the recession. I was excited to see a reference to "masters of the universe" which is a reference to Bonfire of the Vanities which I am still reading and still enjoying thoroughly. All I want to know is who the hell is making $240 million a year? That is obscene!

NYMag take on the recession from a few weeks ago.

And it looks like my goal of traveling to London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Barcelona is about to get cheaper and easier! Yippee!!!!

I'm sure the five people who still read this already know about Stuff White People Like aka Stuff Nina Likes but just in case. #76, 68, 64, 61, 46, 44, 40, oh who am I kidding? It's all me, sadly. The one that really hit home was #76, bottles of water. I mean I have FIVE Nalgenes. Granted they are all useful (Halloween one, Christmas one, everyday use pink one, mini pink one, and Good for the Planet Green one) but still ....
And #61. Who doesn't like bicycles and who hasn't fantasized about living in Amsterdam where bikes, danishes, tulips, and weed are plentiful? In the past 8 years, I've bought three bikes and for one reason or another, I had to get rid of them. And now that the warm weather will be here (hopefully) I find myself itching to get another one. The problem though is that I've never found my dream bike and I'm not willing to spend a small fortune on it either. Being white is hard.

As of yesterday, I started on my "get ready for summer" regiment meaning no more beer, no more belgian cheese/chili fries, no more pizza, basically no more fun. I tried on my summer clothes and I could not get my shorts on!!!!! My thighs are devastating. Or they are devastating me. My goal is to be svelte by my birthday. But I think the no more (less) beer is good because apparently me and everyone in NY is a binge drinker. The rule according to wikipedia is 5 drinks. Are you kidding? That is called Thursday.

I also had an idea for a BYOB bar. Is that genius or akin to Kramer's "make your pizza" pizza place? My idea is that people go out to drink to be social and chit chat with friends and to get out of the house but it's damn expensive to do that especially in New York so what if I opened a place that had couches and a nice atmosphere and sold fries and people could just bring their booze and chill and play Scrabble? If there was a place like that, I'd totally go.

Easter pics:
New York has a parade for everything although this "parade" was really just a gathering in front of St. Patrick's to show off your bonnets.

These head gear things made me think of that sing song show in SF where they wear really gigantic replicas of SF things on their heads. What is that called?

Weird.

The crowd leaving St. Patty's.

Used subway Metro cards.

Anyone could try one on.

My favorite were these cats dressed up like they were extras from Mary Poppins.

Easter bunny and his friend.

Ah, and this is the electric fountain sculpture in front of Rockefeller. I really need to go back and see it at night.

Neato.

I tried to go to Macy's Annual Flower show but they were closed on Easter. I peaked in and it looks very extravagant. Indeed!

Wolfeman

The man in full himself. I wonder if he really does wear a white suit all the time. He was very cool. Talked just like the Southern gents he writes about. Like he said memwahs (memoirs). He read from two of his books, Bonfire and Right Stuff, and read from a soon to be published book Back to Blood. I just started reading Bonfire and I LOVE it. I can't think of a more appropriate book to be reading right now what with the Spitzer stuff and the chaos on Wall Street. It's been twenty years since Bonfire and not much has changed. Even cooler that I work in the South Bronx just like Lawrence Kramer.

And here are some more burgers I've eaten. These are from Pop Burger, the deal being you get two mini burgers for $5. No one told me they raised their prices to $6.


They were nothing to write home about, though, despite their size, I was pretty full afterwards.

An assortment I got from Venieros: cheesecake, raspberry tart, cannoli. All excellent.

What else, what else? I did my taxes, sort of. I thought I had finished them early but last week I got my NY return sent back because there was missing info. Thanks for nothing stupid H&R Block program! After a couple of calls to the Department of Taxation and some of my mine own minor number crunching and filling in some blanks, I mailed it off. At that point, I felt like Homer did when he balled his tax return with tape and chucked it at the Post Office on April 15th. I will honestly have a stroke if it gets sent back again.

I also briefly met a friend of a friend who is in a grad program for environmental policy. For about 5 minutes, I had a Nina moment and wished I had studied environmental policy but then I found a job posting at an environmental company in NY that is relevant to what I did study so now I'm setting my sights on that.

Miso happy because:

I got my camera back!
The foggy pictures were fun and all but spring is just around the corner and fog in the spring just wouldn't make any sense. Plus, I've been eating a lot and it's all gone undocumented.

We had a taste of spring these past two days.
No more ten layers of clothes, no more hunching, no more having to comment on how cold it is. Spring also means I can finally start running again and shed my winter weight.

Ate 8(?) fish tacos at all you can eat night at Mercadito.
Pescado, baja, carne, mole, cactus leaf, carnitas, shrimp. . .

I'm only 26 and three quarters.
It was Anne's birthday weekend this weekend and she celebrated with the above fish tacos and an almond cookie ice cream cake that declared her age.

Ate Five Guys Burger for the first time and Red Mango.
Not so happy afterwards because my slight spare tire is now a full fledged one. I got a cheeseburger with tomato, lettuce, and mayo and an order of fries. Apparently at Five Guys the cheeseburgers come with two patties. That's just ostentatious, not too mention gross. The burger was juicy and fatty but again not so tasty. The fries were good though, like Belgian pommes frites. I think I might just like burgers as a concept unless it's from In-N-Out or Hamburger Haven. I might try to just eat things that I wouldn't want as pets like poultry and fish because they're not cute. Red Mango was alright but I still prefer the tartiness of Pinkberry.

Got the Mark Ronson Version CD from the library and it only took a few weeks.
I really heart my library!

The monster zit that is right smack in the center of my chin has finally imploded.
After boozing it up Saturday night for Round 1 of Anne's birthday, I came home and scarfed down a slice of pizza and went to sleep. I woke up the next day sneezing and sniffling and with a zit the size of of a Buick. I don't get pimples very often but when I do they have this uncanny knack of being in very prominent places on my face but then again, I guess anywhere on my face is prominent.

And for the inaugural picture from my now repaired camera:


Tusky and her new toy the crumpled piece of paper.