The Circle Is Complete

First, me on ABC NEWS a few years ago:

This appeared on a rarely watched digital channel known as ABC NEWS NOW.

Then, Monday, Bwendy made it on to national news TV, as well:

Yes, this is a photo of my TV.

I guess the circle really won’t be complete until Charlie gets his air time, too. (Notice that you can discern our dominant hands by the location of our earpieces. Mine on my left ear, Brendan’s on his right. Yeah, that’s not a long corkscrew pasta dangling from my hair, silly.)

I think we both decided the hardest part is that you’re talking directly to a camera, and therefore you have no idea when you are being telecast, or when they’re cutting away to the anchor or b-roll footage as you drone on. So you can’t ever roll your eyes or make the “no shit, Sherlock” face that I’m famously known for.

(But, I would argue, cameras are smarter than most TV anchors, so I prefer talking to the camera.)

No Me Gusta

As I do every morning, I just went to the home page of The New York Times to see what’s new in the world. Holy crap. My high from the inauguration lasted 48 hours, and just ended with the sound of a balloon releasing air and flying across the room, before landing limply and empty on the floor:

Microsoft Plans to Lay Off 5,000 Workers

Home Construction Ends Worst Year Since 1959

Sony Expects $3 Billion Loss for the Year

Dismal Economic News Drags Oil Prices Down

New Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected to 589K

Study Finds New Evidence of Warming in Antarctica

Falling Pound Raises Fears of Stagnation

Shares Fall on Housing Worries and Microsoft Layoffs

Cringe-Alert: Mexican Tabloid’s Coverage of Obama

El Grafico, a tabloid publication put out by newspaper El Universal, is perhaps better known for its photos of barely-clad women and bloody dead people maimed in traffic accidents (whereas El Universal is more of a thinking man’s paper).

Today, however, they have a jaw-dropping message for Pres. Barack Obama (I know that Mexicans will argue this is not racist, it is normal — and as I’ve reported before, it can be weird just to be a light-skinned person in Mexico. As highlighted by the Olympics, racial sensitivity is QUITE different in Latin American than in the U.S. Still, I can’t get used to this):

[Update: ANOTHER Mexican magazine takes the racial insensitivity a step further!)

The caption reads "To work, my black person."

Me Encanta La Ley Que Prohibe Fumar en Cuidad de Mexico

Last night we had dinner at a terrific Italian restaurant, La Trattoria Della Casa Nuova in the south of the city with our friends Jeremy and Nancy.

Not long ago, Mexico City finally got around to banning smoking in restaurants and other certain public places. When I first heard about the ban, I was skeptical. The rich people here are the worst smokers. So f’ing rude. I’ve sat in fancy-schmancy, famed restaurants like The Rojo Bistro (which I can see from my apartment) surrounded by disgusting smokers brazenly blowing wafts of toxins into my face. It sours the taste of my food, and my mood. And I feel so sorry for the poor employees who have to basically smoke several packs of cigarettes every time they work, whether they want to or not.

So I am thrilled to report that at least a few restaurants, so far, are enforcing the ban. Last night I didn’t come home smelling like an ashtray, and my contact lenses didn’t feel like they were about to fall out into my lap, dessicated by smoke.

It really quite dramatically improves the whole experience, and so please, Mexico City, keep the ban and enforce it…it’s good for everyone.

Thanks to Spitzer, My Political Disillusionment Is Complete

Holy hay-zeus, could Eliot Spitzer be more stupid? Ain’t no lady of the night worth what he’s experiencing right now!

When the first news broke, I was emailed and IMd by a barrage of friends. Friends who remembered how I loved Spitzer when he was running for governor. Example, from my friend Connie:

“Spitzer your favorite gov was involved in a prostitution ring…oy vey! What a scam he is! I had so much faith in
him in the beginning…. “

And from my friend Marc:
“hear about NY governor elliot spitzer? best scandal of 2008″

And of course, from my better half: “sorry that your hero has fallen.”

Anyway, to make a sad, pitiful story short, I hate American politicians. All of them. As I’ve said before, and I guess I’ll keep saying it again, Politics…Primaries…Blah, Blah, Blah.

Congo: A Nation and Land in Peril

Mountain Gorilla

_{(Originally uploaded by het meisje met het rode kapje)}

My mother alerted me to the horribly tragic situation in the African nation of Congo, where unspeakable acts are being committed against women, and against the land, jungles and the precariously rare mountain gorillas.

It’s truly the sort of news story you can barely bring yourself to read. If you’d like to know how to help, here are two charities trying to wage war against the violence and brutality:

http://www.tearfund.org/

http://www.gorillafund.org/

Random Photo: FDNY Testing Ladder Over Tenements

Our temporary corporate housing overlooks a neat series of tenement-style apartments lining 2nd Avenue, where the MTA also happens to be busy building the new 2nd Avenue subway line. You can clearly see here how two lanes of the avenue have been absorbed by the subway construction.

The Fire Department, from what I could tell, was just testing their ladders — there was no actual rescue or fire or anything.

I like that ladder company 43 – serving this ‘hood and Spanish Harlem – is called El Barrio’s Bravest. And that De La Vega designed the logo.

Freaky Bizarre ‘News’: Cockroach Trapped in an Acorn

My favorite lil’ newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, inexplicably published a brief item online about a cockroach with its head trapped in an acorn. There’s a photo, but it’s not that exciting and it’s pretty gross — exactly what you would expect, basically.

The posting immediately made me recall my youth: Stepping into my parents’ garage at night was always a nervous affair — would one fly up at me in the dark (they are fantastic flyers) and land in my hair? Would I have to squish one scurrying across my bedroom floor, and see the green guts splatter all over my orange shag carpet? I remember once trying to chase one with a broom, scared to death it would turn and make an aerial assualt at me. Purely haunting. And inescapable. Man, Texas has some big bugs.

Still, I have no idea why they felt this roach-in-a-nut was news. It’s not. I think they knew it was more like “easy page views,” a term in the online biz that we kindly call “page view whoring.”

Yet, I also have to admit: The mere act of them posting the item led to a lengthy email debate between my husband and me about what people think of when they hear the word “cockroach.” Brendan maintains that the gigantic cockroaches that flourish in South Texas (and sometimes get stuck in acorns) are actually “palmetto bugs” and that when “most people” think of cockroaches, they think of the (much) smaller German cockroach. He can be such a snooty Minnesotan.

I disagree with him, although, admittedly, there is no correct answer when you’re debating people’s perception of the word cockroach. The American cockroach — which, really folks, could the name get more generic? — is the same breed that is sometimes called the “palmetto bug.” I grew up around cockroaches as big as a deck of cards. And so did anyone who grew up in the South – from California to Florida. So, I think I win: There’ s more people living in these states than in German cockroach land, aka the states that stretch from Washington to Maine, including Minnesota.

(and folks, I’m not really serious about this being an important issue to me, but I am curious of what you think of when you think of a cockroach. Gigantic and capable of flying? Or small and incapable of flying?)

There Goes My Neighborhood

Astoria, I Adore Ya

NYP — WITH numerous new developments and loft conversions – not to mention a slow but steady influx of new restaurants, bars and residents – Long Island City has generated the lion’s share of buzz about Queens. But just north of that emerging district lies Astoria, an area that’s long attracted a diverse mix of immigrants (Greeks, Italians, Arabs) and, in recent years, a steady stream of Manhattan rent refugees – young professionals drawn in by affordable prices, great restaurants and a quick commute to Midtown.

And now, a new trend is emerging in Astoria: shiny, new condo developments.

Photo Slideshow: Giant Texas Spiderweb

The one thing that whole “giant spiderweb in Texas” story was missing was really good photos.

But no longer. Here’s my Halloween gift to you — two months early. Click photo to see full slideshow, from About.com’s Guide to Dallas:

Isn’t It All Feeling a Little Too Apocalyptic?

I’m not much of an optimist when it comes to global warming – I’m pretty much convinced this planet is beyond repair. You just have to be a regular reader of NOAA press releases to know that.

And sometimes, it feels like it’s all going to hell very soon:

Massive Fires Sweep Across Southern Europe

Death Toll Climbs in Flood-Stricken U.S. Midwest

Mexico Battered by Massive Hurricane Dean

The Iraq Clusterf*ck

Too many words? Want a more visual sense of things? A 15,000 Year Tour of Abandoned Manhattan

Jeremy Races the Hurricane

My good friend Jeremy, a newspaper reporter based in Mexico City, wrote about his harrowing experiences racing Hurricane Dean across the Yucatan peninsula.

Uncovering Mexico – Racing Hurricane Dean 

The Inanity of the Barney’s Warehouse Sale

Oh man, life in New York City never fails to entertain. Today was one of those days when the city showed just how superficial she is; how she has too much money and too much time.

My office is located adjacent to the Barney’s Co-Op in Chelsea. It’s like the “discount” version of the uber-expensive Barney’s Department Store. On most days of the year, the Co-Op is a quiet, overpriced store, frequented by the sort of people who have no idea what it means to be on a budget. Curious, I went in once and hissed audibly when I picked up a sweater with a price tag close to my monthly rent. Then I rolled my eyes — oh, it’s one of those places — and left.

Twice a year or so, they also hold a monstrous, well publicized “Warehouse Sale,” where people wait in line outside (making my morning commute so fun) to go in and buy crap like this.

After the first few days, the crowds thin, so today my boss and I went there, and I was horrified: Because there are no fitting rooms, women change in front of everyone. Everyone. I saw one girl, bent over, tugging up a skirt in her beige boy short underwear. I saw another woman rip off her shirt, wearing her bra (thank god). As the Village Voice puts it, “you can see a lot of skinny bitches looking stressed out in their undies.”

I really couldn’t say it any better; that’s what it was. And I’m sure there are a lot of men who happen to “stop by” and “look at suits” and aren’t at all using that camera phone function while they pretend to talk on the phone.

Texas: Hotter Than Satan’s Armpit

Like the Eskimos and their many words for ice, Texans have many words for heat — and many great expressions, like my headline, which I unfortunately didn’t coin.

But nothing quite illustrates Texas heat as well as this story from the AP: Texas Playground Spontaneously Combusts and Heat is to Blame

You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Giant Lego Man Pulled from Sea (with grrrreat photo).

I am picturing a giant Lego boat, adrift, without its captain.