Archive

Archive 16
prague
amsterdam
world's worst car names
prod test: pretzel m&ms
the dominican republic

Archive 15
titus andronicus @ maxwell's
miles kurosky @ mercury lounge
dinosaur jr. @ bowery ballroom
be your own dj
big apple circus

Archive 14
greatest actor of his gen.
why sirius/xm will fail
the 2nd worst block in nyc
prod. tes: dentyne blast
the subaru

Archive 13
the decemberists
philadelphia
tokyo police club
acupuncture
the antichrist goes home

Archive 12
bubba's secret campaign
celeb sighting 8: steve schirripa
the police @ msg
celeb sighting 7: andrew mccarthy
puerto vallarta, mexico

Archive 11
kurt vonnegut: r.i.p.
worst boss ever
best purchase ever
ogunquit, me
bummer movies

Archive 10
pearl jam
dodge earthfucker
montclair: hipster central
24
halo 2

Archive 9
the cali roadtrip
celeb sighting 6: rupaul
product 1: diet coke w/ splenda
cell phone headsets
casualties of war

Archive 8
celeb sighting 5: max kellerman
booze experimentation
deus ex: invisible war
the weakest fortune ever
celeb sighting 4: christina aguilera

Archive 7
the six flags guy
celeb sighting 3: len berman
celeb sighting 2: christena pyle
max payne 2
celeb sighting 1: amber valletta

Archive 6
st. thomas, usvi
mr. hipster goes domestic
the danger of googling
halo
why i love whitney matheson

Archive 5
joe strummer tribute show
london part deux
london
new jersey state fair
lake george, ny

Archive 4
hdtv
kennebunkport, maine
the ponies
slow jams
the opera

Archive 3
ford motor company
look kids, parliament
tuesdays with morrie
snow
the blogger bash

Archive 2
freedom
the geniuses at fox
the blvd of porn & trinkets
the ugly bar
city kids

Archive 1
suburban cops
fat loss miracle
the free gift
sunflower seeds
unemployment

GREATEST ACTOR OF HIS GENERATION

Everyone can appreciate R. Kelly's magnum opus Trapped in the Closet, but it's this little piece of theater that I think cements him as the greatest actor of his generation. So fuck Sean Penn (and his hackey rendition of gays, retards and Jews). Russell Crow and Tom Hanks can go punt. Anybody can play schizophrenic or act opposite a volleyball, but it takes a true talent to act/sing the line "there she is with some boy-shorts on!" right in Usher's face while ridin' dirty in an Aston Martin.

WHY SIRIUS/XM WILL FAIL

So Ms. Hipster and I went out and leased a new VW Tiguan to replace the old Subaru 3.0R. And, like all new VWs, the thing came with a free three-month subscription to Sirius Satellite Radio. Yeah, we get to experience Howard Stern again for 90 days! Granted, this is the car she'll be driving two miles a day from the train station and back, and we'll most likely use to drive Hipster Jr. to birthday parties on the weekends, and ourselves to Manhattan to go to dinner. I get to drive the Dodge Earthfucker the mile to Hipster Jr.'s school and back every day. So the satellite radio is hardly a necessity, and barely something that we'll get to enjoy.

So every time we got in the lovely little blue Tiguan with its glass roof, I turned on the Sirius expecting it to be turned off. Ninety days came and went, and still I got my Sirius XMU station and my Howard 100. And then about four months in, the stations went silent. "Oh well," we thought, "it was nice while it lasted, but now we'll just have to listen to the one station that is even tolerable in the tri-state, 101.9 WRXP, and supplement it with the iPod plug-in." And then one night I went to go pick up a pizza and accidently hit the satellite button on the stereo, and on popped Artie Lang with some heroin-filled rant about a trip to Vegas. I had paid exactly zero dollars for this, and here it was. What a deal! I came back in with the pizza and told the missus about the radio's miraculous resurrection. "Oh," she said, "We actually just got a letter from Sirius apologizing for turning off the subscription we weren't paying for."

So here's a company that is supposed to be making its money by charging fees for subscriptions. And they're giving us ours for free. Well, they're giving us a taste and then legally taking it away and giving us a chance to pay money to keep it going. We say "no thanks" and they walk away and we walk away and everyone's generally happy. And then they come back and say, "We're soooo sorry for walking away--please, please, please take some more of our costly product gratis. And we know we said 90 days--but we totally meant 180 days!" I don't get that business model. Meanwhile, they're losing money hand over fist, and I'm listening to Gary' Dell'Abate bitch about some stripper who missed her bus from Akron. Thanks, dudes. And this is why you're going to fail. See the evidence below.

THE SECOND WORST BLOCK IN MANHATTAN

I happen to work on the second worst block in all of Manhattan. At any given time there are at least a half million construction projects going on, two hundred and fifty Times Square Alliance trash cans gathering at its mouth on Eight Avenue, dog poop laid at the foot of its Ninth Avenue entrance and the last vestiges of the moldering Burritoville franchise adorning its Southwest corner. To walk its length necessitates at least three crossings and/or the inhalation of noxious fumes both urinary and smoked festering under the many scaffoldings.

Yes, you must walk into the street in order to get down the block. You are literally at the mercy of every Chinese food bike dude, cube truck and delivery van in the city. I can't imagine this is in any way legal, is it?	And the other side of the block literally corrals you in, pinning you between a window grate, a dumpster and a riot fence. Luckily this dead end alley is guarded by a veeery sleepy couple just basking in the glory of the stink.
The funny thing about this couple is... Well, funny isn't really the right word, but I swear the guy on the left has $175 jeans on and the same shoes I was wearing when I snapped this shit with my cell phone. It's really a sweet photo when you look at it, but the fact it's like 1:30 in the afternoon makes you wonder if they're sleepy or dead.	This is the sad hut where the 39th Street trolls live. They come out and pee under the overhangs of the construction sites and make that same dude smoke skunk weed day after day by the chain link fence next to the other construction site. I do so love those trolls, but the fact I have to cross the street to avoid their hut causes me undue annoyance.
And this is the rival dwarf hut on the opposite side of the street. Sometimes they come out and battle in front of taxis and BMWs and whatnot. On the day I took this photo I got a battle-axe to the t'aint. Sucky 39th Street.	Walking East, you are once again forced to not only walk into the street, but circumnavigate the giant orange cement-mixing truck while the orange vested dude whistles at the sassy Latina in the v-neck sweater.

PRODUCT TEST: DENTYNE BLAST

Dentyne Blast Arctic Chill: It tastes more like if you made a paste with saccharine and one of those pine tree air fresheners. There’s nothing cool or refreshing about it, and my thought that it would be like a hunk of Chewels (or its latter day copycat, Tidal Wave) was met with nothing but a fizzle. No liquid center shot into my mouth, nothing did anything but make me wonder how the bodega around the corner from my office has the balls to charge like $1.65 for this garbage. Plus, there are only 9 chicklettes in the package, which only adds to my wonderment and frustration. If I’m going to overpay for crap, at least make it multitudinous crap. Set your blasters on blech.

THE SUBARU

So our baby was summoned home. After four years of good times, fast driving and looks aplenty from folks who couldn't figure out what the hell happened to the back of our Outback, we sadly let our lease lapse on the 3.0R.

One of about three other Subaru Outback 3.0R Sedans on the street, we decided to once again lease a car that nobody else in the world seemed to want. It seems that other folks who decided an Outback would be a good idea also decided they didn't want an Outback with the interior space of a small Honda. Who knew? So they made our model for about three years and then abruptly stopped. Sad, really, as it was a nice car. It was fast (about 250hp) and sprung high like a crossover, but was small like a shrimpy Acura, so I could take speed bumps like a truck, but fly over them like a BMW. The only thing about the car that kinda sucked was the stereo. Oh well, nothing's perfect. In any case, at least we know there won't be anybody else diriving around in new versions of it any time soon. R.I.P., my friend.