Things you can buy for $7.00

I received my first (really? maybe not - could be my second) class action litigation settlement check the other day! Seven dollars from PayPal. It would have been $8, but I had them mail me a check instead of depositing it straight into my PayPal account which is attached to a long defunct Wells Fargo account.

Seven Dollars. Don't you love the way that rolls off the tongue? Say it again. Seven dollars.

I haven't figured out exactly what to do with my earnings/winnings/pro rata share of the Net Settlement Fund for my statutory form claim submitted in the In re PayPal Settlement Litigation.

Some thoughts:

• If I were still a smoker, and this weren't my 50th day without a smoke, I'd buy a pack of parliaments. But I'm not a smoker, so f*ck the ciggies.
  
• I could buy one Italian ice every day for a week...
  
• A used book
  
• I could take advantage of Amazon's $5.49 DVD sale and buy a copy of Grumpier Old Men
  
• Two subway meal deals on my trip across country with Babe
  
• A metro card
  
• My lunch.
  

Let me know if you can think of something I'm missing. I really want to make wise choices with my newly acquired fortune. The last thing I want to be is the person who squandered her settlement.

ps congrats nancy and jim!

Heck Yeah!

One lovely thing about Blogger is the "next blog" feature. I find it incredibly entertaining to see whose blog is after mine in a long list of bloggages. I've found some random and scary things - lots of freakish conservative people talking about loving god and president bush, some sad middle aged women discussing their failing marriages, a lot of REFINANCE YOUR HOME NOW types.

Today, I found a guy-who-sited-a-guy called Angry Asian Man who details on his site every single pop-culture reference to Asian Americans.

The breadth of this site is incredible! Its really expansive. If you click that link above, you'll see a tremendously funny interview with the actors who play Harold and Kumar from the stoner comedy "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle."

Enjoy! And to the owner of that website, you go friend!

They've got their eye on Coche

Stinkers at the NYPD:

"The city has added hundreds of agents to issue summonses for parking violations. It counts on them to generate more than $500 million for its budget. And it has definite "expectations" for how many tickets they write."

Ya, no kidding. If you've ever received a parking ticket (and having had coche in the City for less than one week, we already have), you may have wondered if the City was out to get you. They are.

NYTimes tells all.

State of affairs

• Going on a road trip with Babe starting on Saturday. We're taking dear little coche home to Denver to chill for awhile. She'll be rehabilitated and taken care of by the dad.
  
• I've not had a cigarette in 1 month, 2 weeks, and 4 days. Looked at another way, 46 days. Technically, I should have an extra $300 dollars in my pocket book, but as of yet am still runnin on E.
  
• I forgot to mention in my list of good movies I've seen that Lemony Snicket was a good ole movie. It was really pretty to look at, number one, and number two, Jim Carey is perfectly hilarious. I also thought it was great the way the kids in the movie were always carrying around their baby sister. Can't explain it, but its cute. The baby sister's name is Sunny. Like my sister.
  
• I guess thats all for now. Any idears on where we should hit up on our road trip from NYC to Littleton Colorado, let me know!
  

Finally

At long last - after weeks and weeks of horrible movies from National Treasure (I know - no one made me watch it!) to Ocean's Twelve (But George Clooney is so incredibly suave and debonair) to Shall we Dance (I'm embarrassed to admit I thought it would be cute) - I've seen some great movies!

It all started with Lowell Drear, a creepy and wonderful short film made by my good friend Mark Wasserman, about a musician who goes off the deep end. Then I watched for the first time Saturday Night Fever - which showcases the now lost forever light up dance floor at the Spectrum club in Bay Ridge Brooklyn (upon which I myself have shaken my groove thang). That movie is heavy and delicious - heavy b/c of the various violent moments in the film, and delicious b/c Travolta is so young, so slim, and such a fabulous dancer!

Then I watched Finding Neverland, the much-hyped Johnny Depp movie about the guy who wrote Peter Pan. Pretty and sad, and Johnny Depp is so cute.

Finally, Spanglish, with the apparently incredible Tea Lione. She really makes the movie laugh out loud funny.

Werd.

Pride!

Happy Gay Pride weekend!

For those of you who do not live in the Bay Area or NYC - this weekend may pass without any acknowledgement. Here in the West Village, however, you can't miss it! Huge parade coming downtown tomorrow, plenty of public drinking and leather chaps & buttcheeks to look at, plus a few marching bands, great floats and loads of dancing!

Each business is eager to show its support, painting rainbows in the window, general banners and signs around. I even walked by the Riviera Cafe the other day that had a huge sign outside that said - and I kid you not:

"MILLER LITE SUPPORTS GAY PRIDE"

What's your political persuasion - here's mine

You Are a New School Democrat

You like partying and politics - and are likely to be young and affluent. You're less religious, traditional, and uptight than most Democrats. Smoking pot, homosexuality, and gambling are all okay in your book. You prefer that the government help people take care of themselves.

What political persuasion are you?

FreshDirect

It's more than speedy service and fresh vegetables that makes me love FreshDirect grocery delivery service. Check out the story about the FreshDirect delivery person who jumped into the East River to save victims of a Helicopter Crash.

He jumped in the River, "swam to each of the victims, and one by one threw them over his shoulder and then dog-paddled over to the seawall, where a growing crowd pulled them out of the drink."

And then he borrowed a dry uniform, hopped in his truck and went and made 20 more deliveries. Now thats dedication!

Public Service Announcement

Apparently, I'm going to use this space to make PSAs. I just found out you can take your old cellular phone to The Body Shop and donate it to help victims of Domestic Violence. Who knew? I have an old phone laying around that I was loathe to just throw away - but here! This is a good ol cause! For more info, you can click here

Overhead on LIRR

Long have I wanted to post an entry on items I've overheard in NYC. This topic is too varied, though, and I usually forget what made me want to write that in the first place. But, this time, I diligently held on to two delicious pieces of conversation.

Heading eastbound on Friday's Port Jefferson train, Mike and I are wedged into seats behind 7 or so teenage girls, about age 15 or so. One of the girls is on her cell phone, clearly talking to a boy she met that day shopping in Manhattan. She's talking loud enough for the whole car to hear, so naturally, we all heard. She says to the boy on the phone...

girl: what race do you think i am? do you think i'm puerto rican?
boy: (I don't know what he says because I can't hear his side of the conversation.)
girl: persian.

Friend of girl to other friend of girl: What did she say? She's persian?
other friend of girl: Yeah, persian. I'm persian, too.
Friend of girl: Where's Persia?
other friend of girl: It's not Persia, Bitch.
___________________________________

The second is just a snippet, said by a woman walking hurriedly to catch her train, "I drank every night this week."

LOL

New York Magazine

This article from NY Magazine about why couples aren't getting pregnant does a pretty darn good job at pointing the finger at women:


"But there are other reasons couples aren’t getting pregnant. For example, Vargo and Regan speculate that long-term use of the Pill can lead to fertility problems for some women. ... “Our generation is the first generation to have been on the Pill so long,” says Regan...

Other women have problems, they suggest, because they’ve been pursuing a narcissistic lifestyle for so many years: smoking, drinking, having unprotected sex, dieting, and exercising excessively. Certain STDs can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which can affect fertility. As for chronic dieting, “estrogen, which is essential for conception, hangs out in your fat cells,” says Vargo, and trying to be ultraskinny is counterproductive.

The same culture of self-worship can trick older women into thinking they have more time than they do. Many fortysomething women, they say, look at their well-maintained, twentysomething-looking bodies and believe they have eggs to match. “Women need to know that you may look great, but your eggs don’t,” says Regan. “They age.”

Well, well, well. Ladies, stop your smoking you heartless wenches! No more drinking or f*ckin! You're RUINING YOUR CHANCES TO HAVE CHILDREN! (Even if you didn't want them.)

I totally bought this when I read it - I was like oh my! I never thought about that! But really, who are these people trying to kid? How simplistic can you be? Women have been drinking, smoking, screwing and "pursuing narcissitic lifestyles" for 1000s of years. Give it up, NY Magazine.

Go Bears!!

Poor golden bears. Today was the playoffs for the softball world series. Cal was in it to win it, but they totally lost! MAN! They gave it there all, though.

Until last year, I didn't even know such an event existed, much less that my college team was in it every year (or nearly every year). I also had no idea that such events were broadcast on ESPN! WOW. Babe was flipping channels last year and noticed the jerseys. We nearly lost sleep over the outcome of that game. This time all we lost was a couple of hours walking around the city.

Today's showdown was between the Bears and the stupid Wildcats from Arizona. Better luck next year, kids!

Mets Game! Mets Game! Look at those seats! WOW!

Yesterday, me and mike and bober and duda went to the Met's game! They totally won!

Speaking of The Breakfast Club

In high school - I went to a small Catholic school in Oxnard California, for the sake of context - we used to have to attend retreats. From Freshman year up til Senior year. Senior year was the big one, where we actually went away for a few days and shared our feelings with each other about life, god, and our parents.

Junior retreat, however, was an entirely different animal. We hopped on a charter bus and went up to some woodland retreat (prolly in Ojai) and went on nature walks, participated in prayer sessions and just generally hooked up. One activity we were asked to partake in was where we sat with our group (ah, retreats! ah, groups!) and watched a clip from The Breakfast Club and discuss who we most idenitified with. I was in a group with Claire, the Molly Ringwald character for any of you who have lived in a cave, so I naturally became the Ally Sheedy character. Though I'm sure I felt more like Bender. Who would you be?

The Breakfast Club

Saturday...March 24, 1984.  Shermer
               High School, Shermer, Illinois.
               60062.  Dear Mr. Vernon...we accept
               the fact that we had to sacrifice a
               whole Saturday in detention for
               whatever it was that we did wrong,
               what we did was wrong.  But we think
               you're crazy to make us write this
               essay telling you who we think we
               are, what do you care?  You see us
               as you want to see us...in the
               simplest terms and the most
               convenient definitions.  You see us
               as a brain, an athelete, a basket
               case, a princess and a criminal.
               Correct?  That's the way we saw each
               other at seven o'clock this morning.
               We were brainwashed...
Well today I had Jury Duty and all I can say is that I was in
Saturday detention just like those kids in The Breakfast Club.
No eating, no drinking, no cell phones, no loud talking, no sleeping,
no smoking (3 weeks!), on and on and on... right down to the moment
when the Jury-Assembler-Person called into the microphone "WAKE
UP JURORS!"I half expected her to say "Does anyone need to use
the lavatory?"and all 180 potential-juror hands would have shot
in the air.