get closer to nature

Times Square New Year's Eve ball goes green

ooo, trashy

i love it.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/31/trash.man.ap/index.html

The 35-year-old Berkeley caterer said he has saved every piece of trash he has generated during the past year to see how much garbage one person creates. In his case, it was about 96 cubic feet.

it is december 31

and i am at work.

pms and midnight steak

i was starving last night. had a hankering for a burger. 25 was kind enough to accompany me, in the sleeting rain, to the spotted pig. they were completely out of the burger, so i had to settle for the skirt steak which was not as satisfying as the burger.

i am definitely PMSing. jeebus help me.




www.gourmetsleuth.com/beefcuts.htm

an even better reason to visit Stowe this winter!

The Sound of Music is on right now. I know it's cheesy, but I love the movie, not to mention Julie Andrews.

I looked up the real von Trapp family. Did you know...

• In 1957, the Trapp Family Singers disbanded and went their separate ways. Maria and three of her children became missionaries in the South Pacific. Maria later moved back to Vermont and managed the Trapp Family Lodge until her death in 1987, at the age of 82. Maria von Trapp, her husband Georg, and Hedwig von Trapp (1917–1972), the fifth child of Georg and Agathe von Trapp, are interred in the family cemetery at the Lodge. The Lodge is now managed by Georg and Maria's son Johannes. It remains one of Vermont's most popular tourist destinations and also serves as one of the main concert sites for the Vermont Mozart Festival. (Wikipedia)

• that Captain von Trapp's grandson Sam (son of Johannes) is currently living in Chile working as a ski instructor? He is very handsome and he hates to be asked about the movie because he considers that it is way too different from the real story. He says it's outrageous to see his granfather as the mean one and his grandmother as the goody considering it was exactly the oppossite in his eyes. (http://www.geocities.com/vlsmarble/rtrivia.html)

• The von Trapp's only made $8,000 from the Sound of Music, but they did get more popular as a result. (http://www.geocities.com/vlsmarble/rtrivia.html)

Maria von Trapp, photograph from her Declaration of Intention, dated January 21, 1944. (Records of District Courts of the United States, RG 21)

Barron Hilton will give most of his fortune to charity

Barron Hilton has announced that he will pass on 97% of his estate to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

read more digg story

Kipp Nelson | Outside Online

Retired Goldman Sachs partner becomes philanthropist skiing bad-ass.

read more digg story

kicking off an almost new year

or something like that. whatever.

it is friday morning. i'm a little hung over, a lot tired, and swamped at work.

i just realized that i'm headed to costa rica in under a week. thankfully i checked my flight date today, or else i would have missed the flight. i'm leaving next friday. i thought i was leaving next saturday.

i do not have all the gear i need for costa rica. where exactly does one go to buy surfing equipment in the middle of winter in nyc?

my passport has expired. i have sent it off to philadelphia where it is in the hands of a passport renewal expediter. pray for a miracle.

my laundry hasn't been done in over three weeks. i wear my gym socks for at least two workouts now before throwing them in the hamper.

i am broke. i have no idea how that happened. a trigger happy holiday season? damn you, holiday sale emails and flyers. i was unable to withstand your garish lures.

what was i saying now? right. here's to kicking off a new year.

I can't decide

if I think this is cute or a whole bunch of bullcrap.

Julia Boorstin and Couper Samuelson
By JAMIE DIAMONDPublished:
December 23, 2007
It is a truth not universally acknowledged that a single man who meets his wife-to-be at the Sundance Film Festival is likely to make his proposal of marriage a cinematic one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/fashion/weddings/23VOWS.html?ex=1355979600&en=68351362b646a852&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Nin the cat retires

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/worklife/12/27/cat.retires.ap/index.html

oh touch screen technology

i know you are cool and hip and up to date, but i have managed to avoid you so far.  why must you invade my gym?

Equinox recently switched to touchscreen treadmills, and it's just straight up silly.  it's hard enough to push buttons while sweaty and winded, but i'm not required to gently tap at a very exact spot on a screen while sprinting for my life?  really?  i can already see it, and it's an accident waiting to happen.

Merry Christmas

Now who loves an evil beaver?

This was bizarrely amusing, so I thought I'd share:

Erin Fetherstone Heart Scarf

Thought this was cute for B.

Ballsy

every holiday season, a fedex truck or two gets knocked off. but, in midtown manhattan and then leave the cargo behind?

http://wcbstv.com/seenon/fedex.truck.robbed.2.615688.html

[A FedEx truck driver was accosted] while he was stopped at a traffic light at 47th St. and 11th Ave., two men approached the truck, pulled guns on the driver and forced him out of the truck.

The truck was eventually located by police around 5:30 a.m. in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Police didn't believe any of the contents inside was missing.

this is awesome

don't just listen to this, but actually watch it. the violin play is friggin amazin'.

it doesn't hurt that the hair and 'stache are wicked cool.

it's only the two of them, but they manage to bring out an amazing range and depth of sound.

Perlman & Zukerman - Handel - Halvorsen: Passacaglia



Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman in their youth, playing Handel's Passacaglia, arranged for violin and viola by Halvorsen. Video directed by Christopher Nuphen.

my mother

says she doesn't understand my blog. she wants me to write more about what i've been up to. i didn't have the heart to explain to her that my life is boring. i don't do much. i just surf the internet and read the news.

instead of reading my blog, she now just wants me to send her pictures of things i've been up to. my mother is a very demanding consumer of my content.

We are all savages

What's happening in Abu Ghraib and to American contractors overseas just reminds me that in the end, we're just a bunch of savages.

Remember the Stanford Prison Experiment done in the early 1970s?

Phil Zimbardo: "I ended the study prematurely for two reasons. First, we had learned through videotapes that the guards were escalating their abuse of prisoners in the middle of the night when they thought no researchers were watching and the experiment was "off." Their boredom had driven them to ever more pornographic and degrading abuse of the prisoners."

Sound familiar?

Not much has changed in 2007.

Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR

This is so effed up.

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.

Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.

On the fifth day of Hannukah

25, KatieG and I went to the 5th night of Yo La Tenga's 8 nights of Hannukah extravaganza. Here's what 25 had to report:

Hi there. 25 here, guest-blogging for the day. Gotta pay the bills somehow, I guess.

Anyways, All Carbon asked me to report on the Yo La Tengo Hanukkah we went to on Saturday night. For those of you who have better things to do than obsess over critically acclaimed, moderately commercially successful indie rock bands (are there any other kind?), here's a brief history. Over the past 20 years, YLT (much like Sonic Youth) have aged gracefully into the elder statesmen of noise/art rock by continuing to release superb records and touring their a**es off.

After taking a year off, YLT has returned to their tradition of playing a series of charity shows on each of the 8 nights of Hanukkah-- all the shows take place at teeny-tiny Maxwell's in Hoboken, the band's hometown. Each night has a different special opener (typically a older band who doesn’t play live very often), a guest comedian and at least one unannounced special guest. And per tradition, every show ends with an encore set of cover tunes written by Jewish musicians.

Dew Claw (led by ex Hypnolovewheel guitarist Stephen Hunking) opened the show and also joined YLT during their set. I was relatively unimpressed-- as was our friend KatieG, who in a moment of auditory confusion conceded that she would have been much more excited to see Steven Hawking fronting a psychedelic indie-pop band.

Next up were a pair of comediennes, Sarah Vowell and Amy Poehler. Vowell (of NPR and "The Incredibles" fame) read a short piece that recounted the true story of a disheartened mapmaker on the Oregon Trail. Pretty funny in that NPR sort of way-- meaning of course that you laugh at all the jokes out of fear that the people around you will think you don't get them. Luckily, I had a head start as I had heard Vowell read the same story a year earlier at a different charity show.

Poehler (from SNL, Upright Citizen's Brigade et al) was great, doing a brief and largely-improvised piece on Kabbalah-- the whole time in "disguise" as Ira's (guitarist for YLT) aunt. On a side note, we also saw Poehler's husband Will Arnett (G.O.B. on Arrested Development) milling about in the crowd.

YLT was next, ripping through a 1.5 hour set that included songs from their entire repertoire, including their very first single from 1985. The show could have ended there, and everyone would have left happy-- but for the second night in a row, the band had a very special surprise in store.





Joining YLT for their encore was none other than Alex Chilton-- leader of the fabled early 70s band Big Star. Chilton and Big Star are often seen as the missing link between 1960s guitar pop and the new wave/college radio scene that developed in the early/mid 1980s. I don’t want to be hyperbolic (who am I kidding-- yes I do), but without them there would be no R.E.M., no alternative rock as we knew it in the 1990s. And given Chilton's reclusive tendencies, seeing him play live is the musical equivalent of J.D. Salinger doing a reading at your local Barnes and Noble.

Alex Chilton fronting Yo La Tengo playing the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale" followed by a Carol King tune-- it was like watching the evolutionary chart of indie rock implode in front of us. Watching them interact was nothing short of adorable-- there was obviously a mutual admiration and sense of deference on both sides. At least twice Alex asked "Is it OK if I count this one off?-- as if Ira would say no.





It was the perfect Hanukkah gift (sorry, dreidel-- maybe next year).

Note: Most pictures and youtube are from the Dec 7 show the night before.

How does that old saying go?

"Never trust a man with pigs."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/12/09/canada.murder.trial.ap/index.html

Prosecution witness Andrew Bellwood had testified that Pickton told him how he strangled his alleged victims and fed their remains to his pigs.

Congratulations, you've been promoted!*

I got pulled into a room today and told about my promotion. Er, I wasn't even aware I was up for a promotion?

* The following Terms and Conditions apply. Promotions will affect changes in title and increased internal politics and backbiting. Expect no additional responsibilities, no change in job description, and no increase in compensation.

Chuck hearts Huckabee

Since Chuck is all knowing and all powerful, he doesn't need to believe in evolutionary theory, the separation of church and state or the constitution.

Yep, this ad is legit.

Mister Splashy Pants!!!

Greenpeace is having a whale naming competition to draw attention to ocean conservation and humpback whales currently travelling the Great Whale Trail. Anyone can go on to the Greenpeace website and vote for their favorite whale name. (Yes, I'm talking to YOU.)

Great Whale Trail naming competition

One guess to which name I voted for (me and everyone else).

Competitive eating IS a sport

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/11/21/eating.contests.ap/index.html

The group's chairman, George Shea, said competitive eaters are athletes who train for their sport, working to improve jaw strength and increasing their stomach capacity.

Dr. Lee Kaplan, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center in Boston, said concerns over the link between the contests and obesity aren't well founded.

Brian Wansink, a food science and psychology professor at Cornell University, compared competitive eaters to other extreme athletes.

"It's the same sort of person who, let's say, would train really hard and compete really hard in a marathon," said Wansink, author of "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think."

"It has the same level of competitiveness and compulsiveness," he said. "One we label crazy and one we label as noble, but in reality it's the same sort of process that drives both these people."

"Seeing these guys go at a 20 pound turkey is like poetry," he said. "It's like a dance."

Chuck Norris update

When I last wrote of Chuck Norris, it was to tell you that he can solve our credit crunch if he really wants to. Well, he's no one trick pony. Just to remind you, Chuck Norris can do lots of other things too:

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.

Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.

There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.

When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.

Chuck Norris is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.

Chuck Norris’ hand is the only hand that can beat a Royal Flush.

Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink.

Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.

Chuck Norris gave Mona Lisa that smile.

Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.

Chuck Norris does not get frostbite. Chuck Norris bites frost

Remember the Soviet Union? They decided to quit after watching a DeltaForce marathon on Satellite TV.

Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship.

When Chuck Norris calls 1-900 numbers, he doesnt get charged. He holds up the phone and money falls out.

Chuck Norris once ate a whole cake before his friends could tell him there was a str*pper in it.

Some people like to eat frogs' legs. Chuck Norris likes to eat lizard legs. Hence, snakes.

There are no races, only countries of people Chuck Norris has beaten to different shades of black and blue.

When Chuck Norris was denied an Egg McMuffin at McDonald's because it was 10:35, he roundhouse kicked the store so hard it became a Wendy's.

Chuck Norris can't finish a "color by numbers" because his markers are filled with the blood of his victims. Unfortunately, all blood is dark red.

A Chuck Norris-delivered Roundhouse Kick is the preferred method of execution in 16 states.

When Chuck Norris falls in water, Chuck Norris doesn't get wet. Water gets Chuck Norris.

Scientists have estimated that the energy given off during the Big Bang is roughly equal to 1CNRhK (Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick)

Chuck Norris’ house has no doors, only walls that he walks through.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could Chuck Norris? ...All of it.

Chuck Norris doesn't actually write books, the words assemble themselves out of fear.

In honor of Chuck Norris, all McDonald's in Texas have an even larger size than the super-size. When ordering, just ask to be Chucksized.

Chuck Norris CAN believe it's not butter.

If tapped, a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick could power the country of Australia for 44 minutes.

Chuck Norris can divide by zero.

The grass is always greener on the other side, unless Chuck Norris has been there. In that case the grass is most likely soaked in blood and tears.

A picture is worth a thousand words. A Chuck Norris is worth 1 billion words.

Newton's Third Law is wrong: Although it states that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, there is no force equal in reaction to a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick.

Chuck Norris invented his own type of karate. It's called Chuck-Will-Kill.

When an episode of Walker Texas Ranger was aired in France, the French surrendered to Chuck Norris just to be on the safe side.

While urinating, Chuck Norris is easily capable of welding titanium.

Chuck Norris once sued the Houghton-Mifflin textbook company when it became apparent that their account of the war of 1812 was plagiarized from his autobiography.

When Chuck Norris talks, everybody listens. And dies.

When Steven Seagal kills a ninja, he only takes its hide. When Chuck Norris kills a ninja, he uses every part.

Wilt Chamberlain claims to have slept with more than 20,000 women in his lifetime. Chuck Norris calls this "a slow Tuesday."

Contrary to popular belief, there is indeed enough Chuck Norris to go around.

Chuck Norris doesnt shave; he kicks himself in the face. The only thing that can cut Chuck Norris is Chuck Norris.

For some, the left testicle is larger than the right one. For Chuck Norris, each testicle is larger than the other one.

Chuck Norris always knows the EXACT location of Carmen SanDiego.

When taking the SAT, write "Chuck Norris" for every answer. You will score over 8000.

Chuck Norris invented black. In fact, he invented the entire spectrum of visible light. Except pink. Tom Cruise invented pink.

When you're Chuck Norris, anything + anything is equal to 1. One roundhouse kick to the face.

Chuck Norris has the greatest Poker-Face of all time. He won the 1983 World Series of Poker, despite holding only a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoloy card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green #4 card from the game UNO.

On his birthday, Chuck Norris randomly selects one lucky child to be thrown into the sun.

Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee. Except Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn't throw up if he drinks too much. Chuck Norris throws down!

In the beginning there was nothing...then Chuck Norris Roundhouse kicked that nothing in the face and said "Get a job". That is the story of the universe.

Chuck Norris has 12 moons. One of those moons is the Earth.
Chuck Norris grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.

Archeologists unearthed an old english dictionary dating back to the year 1236. It defined "victim" as "one who has encountered Chuck Norris"

Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

Chuck Norris and Mr. T walked into a bar. The bar was instantly destroyed, as that level of awesome cannot be contained in one building.

If you Google search "Chuck Norris getting his a** kicked" you will generate zero results. It just doesn't happen.

Chuck Norris can drink an entire gallon of milk in thirty-seven seconds.

Little known medical fact: Chuck Norris invented the Caesarean section when he roundhouse-kicked his way out of his monther's womb.

Chuck Norris doesn't bowl strikes, he just knocks down one pin and the other nine faint.

The show Survivor had the original premise of putting people on an island with Chuck Norris. There were no survivors, and nobody is brave enough to go to the island to retrieve the footage.

It takes Chuck Norris 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.

You know how they say if you die in your dream then you will die in real life? In actuality, if you dream of death then Chuck Norris will find you and kill you.

Chuck Norris has a deep and abiding respect for human life... unless it gets in his way.

The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until Chuck Norris Roundhouse kicked one of the corners off.

There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Chuck Norris lives in Oklahoma.

Chuck Norris doesn't believe in Germany.

When Chuck Norris is in a crowded area, he doesn't walk around people. He walks through them.

Chuck Norris once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.

James Cameron wanted Chuck Norris to play the Terminator. However, upon reflection, he realized that would have turned his movie into a documentary, so he went with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Chuck Norris can touch MC Hammer.

Thousands of years ago Chuck Norris came across a bear. It was so terrified that it fled north into the arctic. It was also so terrified that all of its decendents now have white hair.

Chuck Norris played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.

It takes 14 puppeteers to make Chuck Norris smile, but only 2 to make him destroy an orphanage.

Holiday burnout

I'm all shopped out and haven't even set foot in a store. Since October, I've been bombarded with emails, flyers, catalogs, mailers and websites that have incessantly announced, peddled and pushed HOLIDAY SALE. So much so that I'm completely over holiday shopping. I'm tired of buying things, and I haven't even been buying. It's not even the holidays yet!!!

Oh wait, is that a Cynthia Steffe on sale? Gotta go...

what would jeebus buy?

November 23 is Buy Nothing Day.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/23/buynothing.day.ap/index.html

"People on both sides of the fence can agree on one thing, and that's that the holiday's gotten out of control," he said.

"We've been convinced that the way to show your love for someone is by what you buy them, by what the price tag is, by what is represented on the receipt. And that's the wrong message to send out," he added.

A review of "What Would Jesus Buy?" in "Christianity Today" questioned whether Talen's act, poking fun at both religion and consumerism, went too far.

"Yes, it's condescending. Yes, it cheapens Christianity," the magazine said, before concluding: "But the whole argument of the film is that our commodity culture has already cheapened Christianity."

Buy Nothing Day was conceived by artist Ted Dave of Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1992, and since then has been championed by Adbusters magazine, said Adbusters campaign manager Paul Cooper.

Happy Turkey Day!

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!
For more on the turkey, go here.

I'm a little rusty, having not written in some time, so I'll keep this short.

THINGS I DID TODAY

1. Finally make it halfway through QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter

2. Take four hours to get to Campbell Hall, normally a two hour train ride from Manhattan (refer to item 1)

3. Accidentally end up in Penn Station, Newark, NJ then missed two connecting trains due to delays (refer to item 2)

4. Spend an hour in Suffern, NY (refer to items 2 and 3)

5. Arrive two hours late to RB's house in Goshen, NY for Thanksgiving dinner (refer to items 2, 3 and 4)

6. Hitched a ride back to Manhattan with RB's brother's in-laws, which only took an hour and twenty minutes (refer to items 2, 3, 4 and 5)

7. Did not finish the other half of QED (refer to item 6). Plan to do the same next Thanksgiving so I can finish the damn book.

What I did this weekend

I was going to go to bed, but since Yems so kindly hinted I ought to post something, here's what I did this weekend.

Friday:
Pilates at 6:30am. Client meeting the first half of the day. Conference calls the second half of the day. Urgent issues the third half of the day. Off to New Haven.

If you wondered, no, I don't suffer from some bizarre New Haven fetish that compels me to drive there on my free Friday nights. Saturday was the Yale v Harvard game, and from what I understand from A, both schools were having an undefeated season so far.

(As of this telling, Harvard is having an undefeated season so far.)

A had already left for New Haven hours before, and I was to meet him there where he was having dinner with a bunch of fellow Yalies.

(Don't ask me to explain. I went to a small liberal arts school that had 2,100 students total. As in that's the number of students for the ENTIRE school. We didn't have greeks, football, and we barely had sports teams.)

Dinner was a rowdy affair at Morey's where we drank beer and other alcohol from ginormo trophy cups.  The game and tailgate party the following day was something I've never experienced before.

In some ways, seeing the school spirit and cameraderie that A has with his friends and alma mater make me wish that I had had a similar college experience.  I loved seeing him in his element.