Pittsburgh Penguins to Jaroslav Halak: "Hey, kid, get off my lawn!"

Something is up with the Penguins. They were 4-for-4 on the power play tonight. I thought maybe they fired the power play coach, Yeo, but he's on the bench with Dan Bylsma tonight. Maybe he got a little come-to-Jeebus talk.

Stat on the screen: highest point-per-game average in the playoffs:

Gretzky
Lemieux
Crosby
Malkin

Three Penguins and The Great One. Nice.

Sadly, Jordan Staal left the ice at the beginning of the 2nd period, after a weird collision with Habs hotshot rookie PK Subban. Looked like he took a skate across the foot, but of course, it will be listed generically as "lower body injury." Huge deficit for the Pens if he's out for any period of time because he's a very important player for the Pens, especially in the playoffs. He also hasn't missed a single game in his career due to injury, and I'd hate to see that streak broken.

Keep your eye on this Subban kid. He's really, really talented. A little rough around the edges, still, but he could make a real difference to a midleague team.

At one point badass Brooks Orpik was coming off the bench and you could read his lips very clearly: "I'm on Subban." So he is aware.

I don't know WHY Montreal waited until the Pens scored 5 goals before pulling Halak. The guy just played the game of his life on Wednesday night, dontcha think he might be a little tired?

It was really nice to see Sergei Gonchar looking like his old self again. I guess the old guy still has some gas in the tank.

As always, Sidney Crosby is simply magical to watch. There is just nothing he can't do. I am agog every time he gets the puck.

Annnnnd Billy Guerin closes it out with a casual empty-netter.

6-3 Penguins.

Tonight was a grinder's game: goals credited to Gonchar, Staal, Letang, Adams, Goligosky, Guerin.

Play Day

I am using up vacation days, and today was a perfect day to call in well.

God, it was gorgeous. It was one of those days that makes me miss Colorado, warm but not hot, with hard blue skies and an occasional breeze. It was a Denver day, for sure.

Just got back home after sitting all afternoon in the sun with a bottle of wine and some bread and cheese. My Vitamin D feels replenished and I am feeling energized.

Now go away. There is a hockey game on and I am watching.

Penguins vs. Canadiens. Round 2, Game 1.

Will check in later if I like the outcome.

Be Vewwy Quiet, We're Hunting MODELS

Ladies, we are casting for our Fall Men's Campaigns, and there are MODELS all over this office.

Frankly, I'm finding it very, very distracting.

NOVECHKIN

This man was a SUPERSTAR in the last 3 games of Round 1. Come Friday, I will want him dead.

Montreal Canadiens shocked the Washington Capitols in an EPIC Game 7 upset.

The worst team in the playoffs just routed and ousted the BEST TEAM IN THE LEAGUE in the first round.

Backed by insane defensive play, Habs goalie Jaroslav Halak Stood On His Head and stopped everything the Capitols threw at him. The last three games have been absolutely career-defining for Halak. He was breathtaking in the net last night. In the last three games of the series, Halak stopped 131 of 134 shots. If you don't know hockey, trust me, those numbers are insane.

NOTE: This is the last time you will hear Jane cheering for the Canadiens, as they go to Pittsburgh on Friday to take on Sidney Crosby and my Pens.

Can they stop Sid? Sid's a different animal than Ovechkin, which I wrote about in a prior post, and Sid's the more complete player. In fact, the Pens are a much more complete team than the Capitols.

In any case, I lift my glass to the Habs for providing one of the highlights of the first round, coming back from a 3-1 deficit, finding their swing, and taking out the biggest kid on the block. I'm sure this morning Washington is still sitting in the dirt, rubbing their jaws, and trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

If Montreal goes no further than this round (I pray), they will always be able to say, "We were on our heels, and we came back and we took out the Washington Capitols." Those are pretty sweet words.

On to Pittsburgh. Where they now have to face the defending Stanley Cup champions, who have appeared in the last two Stanley Cup finals. I don't think this is a mountain the Habs can summit, but they are to be commended for making it to base camp 2.

I Like My Job

Because every now and then you get an email like this, (re: a quote revision I requested that showed up a speedy three hours later.) When I expressed my astonished gratitude via email, my vendor wrote this:

"You said you needed it fast and I need the work + you're my favorite client so you go to the head of the pack."

Not to blow my own horn or nuthin', but you want me to be your client.

Not Just Another Pretty Face

Faces like these make me love hockey:



Jody Shelley -- Journeyman enforcer. 30 fights in the 2003-4 season. The man with the windblown face. Came to the Rangers and made a difference, but not enough of one, at the end of the 2009-10 season. Quiet and well-spoken in post-game interviews.



Alexander Ovechkin -- Possibly the best hockey player in the world right now. Maybe even better than Sid. Reckless. Out of control. Nearly unstoppable, but starting to get a rep as a cheapshot artist. I'm still pissed at him for that knee-on-knee mugging he perpetrated on Sergei Gonchar last year.



Evgeni Malkin -- Jane's favorite intermission interview quote from Geno, "I'm play one-timer and goalie not see puck and I score." Okay, I'll confess this was really an excuse to post another picture of Jordan Staal and his overbite. And don't let me get started on the dimple in his chin.



Tahir "Tie" Domi -- 5'10" of pure terror. Once beat up a heckling fan who fell into the penalty box, which earned him a fine, but not a suspension, from the NHL. Don't you love the NHL?



Mike Ricci -- What can you say? This is quite possibly the ugliest man who ever played hockey. Geddy Lee doppelganger.



Ken Daneyko -- "Mr. Devil" played 19 seasons in New Jersey. My personal favorite color analyst on MSG, but then again, I've always had a soft spot for broke-down defensemen with a history of alcohol problems. Daneyko cleans up nicely, and looks pretty cute with his teeth in.



Colton Orr -- To quote DownGoesBrown, if you value your hide, never, EVER, look Colton Orr directly in the eye.



Stu Grimson -- aka "The Grim Reaper." 'Nuff said.



Bob Probert -- One half of the "Bruise Brothers." One of the baddest motherfuckers to ever lace up skates. If you knew Probert was coming, the only recourse was turtling.

I couldn't find scary pictures of Dave Semenko or Marty McSorley, but trust me, they were Gretzky's assassins, and you did NOT want to mix it up with them. Also, Joey Kocur, the other Bruise Brother. For some reason, no scary photos of him, either.

25-Year-Old Shithead of the Day

You know, I will refrain from ranting until another post, because it's a nice day, and I'm in one of those someone-please-smack-her good moods.

This speaks for itself.

Another graduate of Self-Esteem Academy, aka your average 25-year-old.

God they bug the shit out of me.

Here Comes the New Luna Park

Your Coney Island Fix for the day.

Make sure you watch the cute little video, which I'm quite taken by for some reason. I think it must be the cover of John Paul Young's "Love is in the Air." A classic from my 70's childhood.

Best Profanity Filter Message EVER

Those of you who work for big corporations will be familiar with a little something called the "Profanity Filter." If someone sends or is the recipient of an email that says, "What the hell is wrong with you?" it will be snatched by the Profanity Filter and sent to email purgatory, never to be seen again.

Well, today, someone forwarded this to me, because her contact received a Profanity Block Notification from our server:

Fw: Profanity Notification (Email with Profanity quarantined by US-NJ-XXXXXXX-1)

Hi Karin--I got this e-mail in response to your new Itinerary. I'm really having name problems today. The only thing that could be wrong with the e-mail I sent you is the agent's name which is Eddy DeCock with a space between the e and the C. Let me know if you got the Itinerary. Tnx, Judy

I am still laughing. I would like to know what middle school was like for poor Eddy.

Game 6, Penguins 4 - Senators 3 in 1 OT

After a grim 3-0 start, the Pittsburgh Penguins finally showed up in Ottawa and began playing hockey.

Pissant cheapshot artist Matt Cooke was the surprise impact player of the game with 2 goals. In a post-regulation interview Cooke mentioned that during the break before Round 2 begins he will moonlight as a jack o'lantern model.



What can I say? I don't like the guy. But he did his job, and really well, on Saturday night.

Geezer Bill Guerin scored the 3rd regulation goal to tie the game, determined to kick seriously righteous ass in what is probably his final season with the Pens.


This is not a handsome man, in say, a Henrik Lundqvist sense. But oh, how hot he is. I believe the term is jolie laide. I can relate.

Scrappy blue-eyed cutie-pie Pascal "Eyelashes" Dupuis, sporting the fastest-growing and furriest playoff beard of any Penguin, slapped in the game-winning goal in overtime, at which point he adjourned to the Millenium Falcon for his ride back to Pittsburgh with Han Solo.



Just say it aloud. "Pascal Dupuis." It starts with a smile and ends with a kiss. How do you not love this man?

Sidney Crosby, with a frankly shocking -2 on the game, continues to sport the saddest playoff whiskers of any NHL player.



Really, this line is just an excuse to post this picture, because, hello, this is hot.

Pens win, 4-3, and advance to Round 2, which means that you all now have to deal with periodic hockey posts for at least two more weeks. So too bad.

And if you missed tonight's Weekend Update on SNL, it was the funniest it's been in years. My neighbor must think I'm insane.

Game 6, Pens-Sens Tonight

It's not a must-win, since the Pens're still ahead in the series 3-2, but it's an oughta-win, since from a pure talent perspective there is no reason on the planet this team should be losing to Ottawa. But after Thursday night's 3-overtime grinder at home, the Pens are back in Ottawa. If the Senators win this series and eliminate the Birds in the first round, then they just must want it more.

I am cooking dinner tonight for Veronica's birthday, and we are having a Bacon Explosion and Dom Perignon. I know, I'm some kind of philistine, but what better way to crack that bottle than to toast my beautiful best friend?

I got her a gift certificate for her favorite Williamsburg tattoo parlor. Is that weird?

Stopped by UVA wine shop, and guess what, it's rose season! Yay! Don't confuse it with zinfandel, you rubes.

Getting on the L train at Bedford, a guy saw my Crosby tee shirt, threw his arms in the air and bellowed a stadium voice, "PENGUINNNNNS!"

The word of the day is "sassy." Everyone is sassy and bushy-tailed today. Must be the weather.

Sorry, They're Just so Freakin' Cute

Jordan, Eric and Marc Staal. Just standing there being tall, redheaded, and hot.

5 Reasons Jane Loves Hockey (Penguins Edition)

1. We have Sidney Crosby and You Don't. Get Over It.

I've been to enough New York Rangers games and watched enough hockey on TV to know -- you guys hate Sidney Crosby. No matter where the Pens play, you're sure to hear several rousing chants of, "Crosby Sucks!" and a chorus of boos when the puck so much as passes in his vicinity. Even in Canada, the land of inborn politesse, the opposing fans are shouting, "Crosby Sucks!"

The ugly truth is I know Sidney Crosby doesn't suck, and you know Sidney Crosby doesn't suck, and if, at the end of this season, Sidney Crosby demanded to be traded, you all would be lining up on your knees to polish his knob if you thought that would get him to come play for your team. Now fall on your knees and worship your hockey god.

Why else do you think Mario Lemieux makes him wear a doggie shock collar from October through April and keeps him chained in his basement like the Gimp during the off-season?

Wanna know how he got so good? Read this.





2. We Also Have Mario Lemieux and You Don't. Get Over It.

When the Penguins were bankrupt, their superstar Lemieux deferred his salary for a couple of seasons so they could keep playing. He probably could have packed up his skates and gone to a market that would pay him in actual money instead of just fan goodwill. Instead, he went to management and said, Look, you owe me 30 million bucks that I am probably never gonna see, and I love Pittsburgh, so why don't we just convert all that into ownership shares and you can call me the President?

Then, when the City of Pittsburgh blinked again on whether they could afford to keep the Pens around, Mario deked and flew to Kansas City (can you imagine? The Kansas City Penguins? My eyes! My eyes!) Of course, Mario probably just had a drink at the airport and got back on a plane home, but it didn't matter. Then he flirted shamelessly with Jim Balsillie, the Research in Motion guy who desperately wants to put a franchise in Hamilton Ontario, but the NHL shut that one down (they don't seem to like this Balsillie guy, because last year they denied his bid to buy the Phoenix Coyotes, too. He must have fucked Bettman's daughter or something). These tactics worked and the Pens stayed around.

Friends, that's how love works. Hardball, scare tactics and ultimatums.




3. We have a Staal Brother and You Don't. Get Over It.

Four brothers in the biggest NHL dynasty since the Sutter boys, and we've got the best one. He was a 2nd round draft pick when he was something like 17, and on any other team he would be a first-line forward. (It says a lot about the depth of talent in Pittsburgh that this kid is a 3rd-liner, behind Crosby and Malkin) Great defensive forward, a finalist for the Selke Trophy this year, in fact, and the cutest of four Viking-giant (they are all something like 6'3" and taller.) sod farmers out of Sudbury.

He's the only towhead in a litter of redheads, but you can tell that Jordan Staal is a redhead, spiritually.

Hockey trivia to make you sound smart: His brothers are Marc (New York Rangers), Eric (Carolina Hurricanes), and Jared (Phoenix Coyotes). When there is a game with two of the brothers playing against each other, you can play a drinking game.

Shoot, they're all so effin cute I'll put up another picture.






4. Now that the Igloo is going away,

We will have the newest, shiniest hockey venue in the NHL, and it will probably have the best nickname EVER.

See, in this era of Corporate Naming Rights, companies pay lots and lots of money to franchises to have their names on the front of their buildings. The Igloo, or as it's now known, Mellon Arena, once had the lowly moniker The Civic Arena.

The new venue's naming rights have been bought and paid for by Consol, so it will be called the Consol Center or something like that. Now, Consol used to be called Consolidated Coal, but the branding people decided that people didn't want to get their power from a polluting, mountaintop-stripping environmental disaster of a company, so they changed the name to the bland and hygienic Consol. (For this reason I will soon be changing my name to The Virgin Mary. )

Pensburgh had a poll recently on what the new Consol Center should be called, and the near unanimous winner was The Goal Mine.

Geddit?

Hockey trivia to make you sound smart: the new area has 18,087 seats. I think they crammed those random 87 seats in there because Crosby wears number 87.

5. Three Stanley Cups. And Sidney Crosby. So shut the fuck up.

Rockin' My Inner Joan

Today for some reason I was feeling frisky and decided to dress a little. Since I'm normally a jeans and boots gal, I went 180 degrees and I'm rockin' the full-on Joan Holloway look, which pretty much every person in my office has identified on their own. I've heard "Wow, you look like Joan!" about seven times today.

It's been kind of awesome, but I don't know if it means that I look pretty great today, or if I look like shit the rest of the time.

Workin' the Joan basically means: pack yourself into a pencil skirt that forces you to wiggle when you walk, flaunt your bodacious curves in a 3/4-sleeve sweater, wear your most ladylike crocodile pumps and big pearls, put your hair up, and greet everyone you see, especially men, with a withering look.

I need a pen on a chain.

News Embargo Week

Today is Day 3 of my latest news embargo. This is a healthy thing for me to do occasionally, as I found myself getting wrapped up in the latest right-wing fake outrage/left-wing overcompensation and ultimate turtling to the shouters. I was arriving at work in a quivering ball of rage, which is never a good way to be, especially if your job requires you to actually talk to people.

So now and then I declare a news embargo and will only listen to music as I have my coffee and ablute myself. (I don't think that's a word, but tough beans. I just made it one) No radio, either. I don't want commercial intrusions. I go old-school and pick a CD and plop it in while I paint myself up for the day.

It's a good thing to do. I like sunshiny music with a Latin beat. Anything that starts with beans in a gourd is perfect.

In fact, I dare you to listen to Oscar Peterson's version of "Wave" and not be convinced that it's the sexiest thing you've ever heard in your life. You'll wonder how you got so far in your life without "Wave" in it. You'll wonder how you managed to start every day without repeating it four or five times.

After listening to "Wave" you may have a hard time shaking yourself out of a coconut-scented reverie, but once you do, I guarantee you will step into your day with a sway to your hips and a stoned-out smile on your lips.

Just go download it.

And quit reading the news.

Penguins-Senators, 7-4

I don't even know what to say. That game was insane.

I am spent. Does anyone have a cigarette?

Pens lead the series 3-1 and head home to the Igloo on Thursday night. One more and they're done and on to the next round.

Now to Chicago-Nashville, and I want Chicago to beat the everloving shit out of Nashville because THERE SHOULDN'T BE HOCKEY TEAMS IN TOWNS SOUTH OF THE MASON-DIXON LINE. Yes, I'm shouting and I won't apologize..

2nd Period Intermission Report

Kids, this game 4 is what hockey is all about. Penguins scored FIVE goals in the 2nd period.

More later. If we take a win back to the Igloo, it is OVAH.

My heart is about to burst and I am making a scene all by myself.

The Horror, The Horror

I was just in the grocery store, grabbing milk and cat food, and while I was pondering the merits of Purina Seafood Sensations versus Meow Mix, I realized that I was singing along with Taylor Swift.

"She wears short skirts, I wear tee shirts. She's cheer captain and I'm in the bleachers..."

Can someone please hold me down and perform a lobotomy without anesthesia, right fucking now?

And Another Thing

I got home in time to catch the third period of the Boston-Buffalo game, and the Boston goalie's name is...

Tuukka Rask. Another guy with two "u's" and not two, but THREE "k's" in his name.

Those nutty Finns.

Hockey trivia to make you sound smart: Zdeno Chara's slapshot is reputed to reach speeds of up to 104 mph. If I had a 6'9" guy on skates bearing down on me, I would immediately turtle and start screaming like a little girl.

And former Penguin Miroslav Satan's name is pronounced "Sha-tahn" but it still must be really cool to be able to skate around with "SATAN" emblazoned across your back.

Pretty Good Burger, Unisex Bathrooms

I just had dinner with my friend Judy at DBGB down on the Bowery. This is yet another restaurant in the Daniel Boulud empire, but more casual and less pricey. Nice room, lined with their entire wine cellar and beer list, with a wall of windows facing onto the Bowery so it's filled with lots of nice late-afternoon light.

Kind of an LA feel to the room, but in a good way. With the exception of Wall Street types, New Yorkers actually go to restaurants to eat and have conversations. (If you're wondering, Wall Streeters go out to dinner so they can unzip and slap their dicks on the table, then make the waitresses bring out tape measures.)

Great, friendly service and a pretty good burger, though I have to say Royale still wins, and they have a backyard where you can smoke. The strawberry-rhubarb tart was heavenly, just tart enough, and if there had been enough of it, I would have rolled around in the pistaschio mousse.

My only gripe is unisex bathrooms. I hate unisex bathrooms, because they present me with one of the great mysteries of life. Men, you basically have a hose and a giant bucket for a target. How is it that when presented with these things in public, you PEE ON THE FLOOR? I ask you, do you go home and pee on the floor? Which leads me to my next question: if you are a guy who pees on the floor as a matter of course, how the HELL did you find someone to marry you, you filthy motherfucker?

Monday Morning Moment of Geek

Here. Read this. Just wondering when they will send in Will Smith and Harrison Ford to save us all.

NHL Playoffs, Game 3

The Pens found their fangs and claws, finally.
Wait, there's something really wrong with that. Flightless birds. Fangs. Claws.

Do-over.

The Pens found their clubs and fists, finally.

Ehhhhh. Still not great.

Oh, the hell with it. The Pens and Sens played a fast, great, aggressive game, with a lot of snarling on both sides. Many penalty minutes assessed, mostly on that animal Jarkko Ruutu. I mean, honestly, what kind of name is "Jarkko Ruutu?" Who has two "k's" and three "u's" in their name? Huge scrum in the 3rd, with a massive dogpile with Brooks Orpik at the bottom, and when he was finally able to get up, he had a big grin on his face. God, I loves me a defenseman who loves his job.

Hockey trivia to make you sound smart: Brooks Orpik is named after Herb Brooks, the coach of the 1980 USA "Miracle on Ice" team.

Pens win, 4-2, and lead the series 2-1.

In other games, my favorite scrappy upstart team, the Phoenix Coyotes, caught the Detroit Red Wings completely off guard again, also winning 4-2 to lead their series 2-1. I am hereby, for the duration of the playoffs, putting aside my ironclad belief that there shouldn't be NHL teams in regions that don't have four distinct seasons. After all, Phoenix did used to be the Winnipeg Jets, so this round I give them a bye. I also have a soft spot for them because they have the fourth Staal brother, Jared. More on the Staals in another post.

Do you know how much hockey I have watched this weekend? ALL OF IT.

I'm spent, and need a cigarette and a shower.

Mermaids Are A'Comin!

More reason to be excited for Mermaid Parade, June 19th (well, other than lots of half-naked girls in sparkly costumes.)

Lou Reed as King Neptune, and Laurie Anderson as Queen Mermaid, in a final flash of Coney Island's seedy glory before it gets all shiny and suburbanized.

I wonder what will happen to the parade once that happens? Will all the raunchy, not-suitable-for-children fun (think topless porno-mermaids on a flatbed simulating cunnilingus, no lie), be excised so the Park Slopians can tote their ankle-biters along? (These are also the folks who insist on bringing toddlers into bars, which for some reason inspires me to tourette's-like behavior, and I'm sure leading to lots of later conversations that begin, "Mommy, what does 'cunt' mean?") To them I will say, if you wanted wholesome All-American kid-friendly fun, what made you think CONEY ISLAND was where to find it?

Plus, you can pretty much bet that if I'm there, wholesome and kid-friendly are not the first words that come to mind.

You're all invited to come with.

Do You Hear Music?

Okay, Jane is ready to come clean about the really embarrassing thing she did in the middle of a meeting on Friday.



Before I get to what happened, I need to tell you about music and me. I don't know if this is a psychological condition, or if I am more than a little bit crazy, but I hear music. And I mean All. The. Time. My brain is porous that way -- whatever is the last thing I heard stays in my brain, and given the right squeeze, it WILL come out of my mouth. When I blurt a line from a song, trust me, I am hearing the WHOLE ARRANGEMENT in my head.



I sing constantly. Sometimes I whistle (my mother would die of shame, she always told me it was unladylike to whistle, but hey, now and then I have to get my Peter Lorre on). If I walk past my friend Paul's desk and I'm not singing, he immediately asks, "What's wrong?" I sing at my desk, I sing walking down the street, I sing in the shower, I sing while I'm washing dishes.



So back to Friday. We have this annual thing in our department called "Paper Day." Reps from all the different paper mills come to our office and make presentations about their paper. I know, it all sounds too terribly sexy, but ya gotta understand, Jane looooves paper. Paper actually is sexy to me.



I love the look of it, I love the smell of it, I hold it up to the light to admire its conformation, but most of all I love the way good paper feeeeels. I love new currency not for its spendy qualities, though those are nice, but for the rich cottony feel of it, brought to you by the secret formulas of the good people at Crane & Co.



I particularly love when a brilliantly-designed, printed piece demonstrates a perfect marriage of ink and paper. I fondle printed pieces, I hold them up to my face and breathe them in (you can always tell who works in print production -- we're the geeks who smell brochures and finger particularly luxurious restaurant menus).



And at Paper Day, the mill reps hand out samples of the most over-the-top printed pieces you can find, plus a lot of great swag.



This goes on from 9am to nearly 4pm. Breakfast and lunch are served. (There's free food, too! What can I say, on top of all my other huge character deficiencies, I'm a food whore to boot.)



Needless to say, as thrilling as this all sounds, by 3:30 we're all a little punchy and prone to woolgathering.



So everyone is punchy at 3:30, and we are handed a particularly gorgeous printed brochure which the mill rep begins to describe to us. My brain tunes out her voice and I get lost in the tactile sensations. I'm running my fingertips over each page, feeling spot varnishes and laminations, inspecting bindings and trims. I am loving the hell out of this particular piece, when I realize that the room has fallen silent.



I look up from the brochure, and see that everyone in the room is staring at me. And I realize, I am singing. Softly, but I'm singing.



My office mate, sitting next to me, is nearly purple with held-in laughter.



"I just burst into song, didn't I?"

Sam Waterston's Nose

So I'm doing my Sunday morning thing -- New York Times, strong Bustelo, an embarrassing amount of laundry -- and Sam Waterston is on "CBS Sunday Morning."

I have loved Sam since "The Killing Fields." (What? You've never seen "The Killing Fields?" Rent it. Right now! But stock up on tissues, 'cause you will need them at the end.)That voice! Those caterpillar eyebrows! That enormous nose!

I love big noses, on men AND women. Angelica Huston and Paloma Picasso come to mind as fine feminine examples -- aren't they gorgeous with their large, proud honkers? And Adrian Brody? Heartthrob!

My favorite of our male models is a young Spaniard named Oriol, whose nose is a definite presence on his face. Shot at the right angle, in the right light, it appears to wander a little to the side. The first time I saw him in person, he was in our offices for a fitting. I was heading back to my office from a meeting, turned a corner, and there he was, with a profile that should be on a coin.



He glanced up from the magazine in his lap, and gave me a half-smile. (Have you ever seen a person who is so beautiful that you have to look away? It's like looking at the sun; you can't do it for fear your eyes may burn up in your head.) All I could do was pin my eyes to the linoleum and speed by. Dazzling. That profile! That nose! (I will wax rhapsodic about Ollie, one of our other models, and his petulant, slightly depraved mouth at another time. Today we're talking about noses.)

Ok. If you insist.



Aside: You can always tell when one of the models is in for a fitting, because a palpable buzz arises as the women go from office to office -- "Oriol's here!" "Nacho is in the fitting studio!" "Valentina just walked in!" Suddenly everyone has to take a slow stroll to the ladies' room. What can I say, we are as mesmerized by beauty as anyone else.

But back to Sam Waterston's nose. If it was attached to, say, Jon Voight's psyche and politics, I'm sure I wouldn't find him nearly as attractive as I do. But the fact that it's attached to such a fine lefty liberal soul makes him hot hot hot to me. Do you think I tune in to endless Law & Order reruns to see Fred Thompson?

Now, Sam the man is turning 70 this year and I think he's still sexy.

Who knows why I like big noses? Maybe it's because my dad had a fine, large proboscis, and every girl, like it or not, for good or for bad, is imprinted by her daddy, whether he was a loving father or an unremitting bastard (I'm one of the lucky ones). Some things just become our DNA (witness my own definite nose).

I don't know what this says about me, if anything, but that voice! That thatch of silver hair! Those fierce eyebrows!

And that nose!

Wading in the Internet Dating Pool

I was one of the pioneers of internet dating. Way back in 1997, before you could even post a photo on your profile, when you had to construct a profile full of witty and charming little peanuts to lure in the cutest squirrels. It was a total adventure, and a complete crapshoot. I actually met a few cool guys, but no one who rocked my world. One guy who became a friend who ended up producing another friend's record. Another guy who told me he was 5'9" and thought I wouldn't notice when all 5'5" of him appeared before me (he was not four inches more charming, and I don't fancy guys I would kill in bed.) Another from Colorado who recently found me 10 years later, hello? We had one shitty date, why do you still have my email address? Still another a 6'6" cutie who was inappropriately 7 years younger, and from Baltimore to boot, who traveled to New York to meet me. One guy, a recent widower with a hot tub in the back yard of his Manhattan townhouse actually became my boyfriend for a couple months, until he hit on one of my friends IN FRONT OF ME (why do some guys mistake "laid back" for "irredeemably stupid?"), and I found his 20-year-old nanny's tiny wet bikini wedged between the sofa cushions in his living room. Her name was Brigitte. (Aren't they all named "Brigitte?")

Match.com was full of sad loners and divorced single dads looking for walks on the beach and soul mates (picture Jane putting finger down throat here). Guys who put up 10 year old photos (once photos were possible) in the hopes women would be so blinded by the pairing-off instinct that we wouldn't notice the twenty pounds of belly and ten years of hair loss. Nerve.com had an entirely more fun dating pool. I got laid an awful lot through Nerve.

After the nanny-banging, friend-hitting-on incident, I washed my hands of the whole thing. It was just too fucking exhausting, like going on a string of really shitty job interviews. I lost count of how many times I sat through awful stilted conversations wishing I could be a the kind of person who walks in, takes one look at a person, and says, "Uh, no. I don't THINK so," and marches back out the door. You either have to have really terrible manners or be a gay guy to pull that off.

But lately, I've been thinking it might be nice to meet someone. It doesn't have to be THE someone, just someone to hang around with a few nights a week, someone who can stand on the ladder for once and change the lightbulbs, someone to maybe loll around with naked on a rainy Saturday, having that great rainy-day sex and dozing with his back pressed against mine. Nothing too demanding.

To that end, I threw a profile up on something called, horrifyingly, okCupid. Tossed in a couple of photos, dashed off a careless profile (I like old rock and roll and the Pittsburgh Penguins, blah blah blah -- gone are the days of the artfully-crafted profile that shows how witty and full of character I am! Now it's more like, "Here. I'm not deformed and I don't have any diseases.")

So I get random responses from guys, most of whom are clearly only going by the photos on my profile and not by the super-secret webmetrics that say we are 96% enemies based on how we answered questions, leading me to think I should headline my profile with "SCREAMING BLUE-STATE OBAMA-LOVING, ABORTION-SUPPORTING LIBERAL, IN FACT I HAD THREE ABORTIONS LAST WEEK AND OH BY THE WAY I'M ALSO A FLAMING ATHEIST GOD-HATER AND GAY-LOVER" or something equally subtle to ward off the crazies.

And the guys with no photos? Dude, I know you're married, you're just too cheap to use Ashleymadison.com. Honestly, if you put up a photo and said, "I'm married but looking for a little sumpin-sumpin on the side," I'd respect you more.

So today I get one of those emails from my pal the server at okCupid and it tells me that someone! Has! Picked me! Actually, the computer picked me for him and he just validated the computer metrics or whatever the hell they're called. So I dutifully click through, and this is what I have received:

"I am a Man with full Of Courage with Good Ideal Of Hommour and Good Character with full of Great I deal Character, well i have being on INTERNET, And search The whole Planet to Find Some One With Great character wish Could Match My Search, But I could NOT see such On There, so am Now Here In OKcupid to Look for good Woman, to Live The whole Of My Life with, That is why i was On Here, am Not Here to Play Head Game.... well i know is not be Beautiful , But By Character. so i will be Glad if i could meet some one with That...Thanks...."

After ascertaining that I hadn't accidentally signed up for Sarah Palin's facebook feed, I clicked onto the photos to see if maybe my favorite mouthbreathing, ice-skating, Frankenrussian, Evgeni Malkin, had finally realized I was his one true love, but alas my hopes were cruelly dashed.

It would be hilarious if it wasn't also kind of really sad.

Look, I know I is not be beautiful, but really?

Are We Gonna Have a Substitute on Monday?

Our entire senior management team, from the CEO/Guy Whose Name is on the Door to the Senior VP of Advertising went to Paris this week to celebrate the gala opening of our giant new store, which is part of our quest to take over the entire world.

It was kind of a cool week of events, as the GWND received the Legion d'Honneure from French President Sarkozy. (I have no idea if I spelled any of that correctly) (I know it sounds strange, but the I love the French for honoring fashion.) We've been getting updates via company intranet, and everything about it looks so, so cool. Oh, and once again, we were on the cover of WWD this week.

So by virtue of a giant cloud of volcanic ash, all those poor, poor executives are now trapped. In luxury hotels. In Paris. In France.

Damn, that must totally suck.

Aside; I just watched a friggin' AWESOME Game 2 between the Pens and Sens, which saw the Pittsburgh Penguins SHOW UP instead of that AHL team who played the Senators on Wednesday. We won. Sidney Crosby is a GOD. Series tied at 1 each.

Memorial Day is Around the Corner

That can only mean one thing -- Coney Island!


It's almost time for Nathan's hot dogs!!!!


And beers as big as your head!!!!



Weird FUNCTIONING ATMs sitting at the edge of a wasteland which has been reclaimed by the City and will become the new incarnation of Luna Park.


And of course, Mermaids.

Happy Day After Tax Day (and Friday)

So now that I've cleaned up at least one nasty habit and started getting my taxes done ahead of April 15th, I was a little bit shocked to find people here at work, during a 2:00 meeting yesterday, who HADN'T STARTED THEIR TAXES. I wanted to beat them about the shoulders and head and say, DON'T! DO! THAT!

I think what surprised me most about it was just how open they were in admitting they hadn't done a damn thing on their taxes. My personal procrastination is my secret shame (that, and my love of frozen Jeno's pizza, raspberry Zingers, and blue Kool-Aid), and frankly I know it would shock my co-workers to know that outside of work, I'm one indolent motherfucker. I'm Miz Proactive at the office. I don't just get shit done on time. I get shit done early. And I swear, it's not an apple-polishing thing -- I just know that if I don't tackle a "doable in 5 minutes task" that second, I will forget about it altogether.

So I kinda feel like I have to hide the lollygagging ways of my off hours.

Maybe it's a backlash against being so friggin efficient at work...I go home, put on my stretchy pants and slip-ons, and I'm overcome by the seductive tentacles of that special slugdom known as "laying around watching crap television and smoking cigarettes." If I'm working around the apartment, simple things like mopping the floors can take all day. I'll mop the kitchen, then lay around and watch crap television and smoke cigarettes. Then I'll mop the living room, then lay around and watch crap television and smoke more cigarettes. Then I'll put on an old disco cd and sing along for awhile. Then I'll mop my dressing room, and lay around and watch crap television and smoke more cigarettes. Then I'll call one of my sisters and chat for an hour or so, watching crap television and smoking cigarettes the whole time...you get where this goes, right? The simple, 45-minute process of mopping my floors becomes a 3 hour marathon. Luckily, I'm an early riser, so I can finish this by noon and usually be sitting on the steps in Union Square by 1:30 or so, watching break dancers and smoking cigarettes.

What can I say? My life is one glamorous "Sex and the City" moment after another.

Anyhow, my next goal is to be one of those annoying people who files taxes on February 1st, 5 minutes after my W2 lands in my mailbox. I hate those people, don't you?

Of course, I'll probably manage to put off that goal for another 4 or 5 years.

Quote of the Week and a New Song Reco

“I follow Twitter for the Tea Party and just show up to fuck with them,” he told supporters at a recent appearance. “No, I don’t do that. I just sit at my desk and they send me talcum powder every couple of weeks.”

-- Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-NY


Things are on the upswing at work toward being kooky again, which is good for me. I operate on a higher level when I have more to do.

It's been a good day. I've been listening to WFUV. Any day that includes hearing Julian Cope AND Michael Penn on the radio has to be counted in the good ones.

Plus -- I heard this amazing song called "Swim Until You Can't See Land" by a band called Frightened Rabbit. I kind of love it.

Surprise! Teabaggers are Old, White and Resentful!

I got nothin.

Another Busy Day, Another Cute Kitty

Here.

But What Do I Know? I'm Just One a Them East Coast Elitists

This is actually really cool and I'm so going. Remember kids, it's a "suggested" donation to get in. You can walk up to the desk, say "one, please" and slap down a quarter. And they'll let you in.

Now go. Look at some art. You might feel something.

Because It's Totally NOT GAY If You're The One Whose Balls Are Getting Sucked

The good people at Fox News have decided to embrace the "teabagger" label, making it much easier for all us homo-loving, socialist commie fascists to join the party at their big gun rally next week, where we can pants them and get a good mouthful of teabagger balls and maybe stroke their taints while we're at it. Fingering teabagger assholes is off-limits, because that's totally gay.

(Somewhere, in some fucked-up teabagger mind, someone is doing some kind of mental contortions with this to justify calling the President the "n" word in public or on television. Look for Pat Buchanan or that numb twunt Monica Crowley to step up and do that.)

Sorry for all the ball-sucking, taint-rubbing, asshole-diddling talk. But honestly, has there ever been a bigger group of morons in American politics than this? The scary thing is that they are allowed to vote! And have babies! And drive cars!

Sheesh.

Dumbasses.

I'm the Most Evil LOLcat EVER! (And I Like It)

So I took some random quiz on okCupid and I am:



SurpriseAdoption Cat
49% Affectionate, 64% Excitable, 24% Hungry

Calloused. Heartless. Exuberant. You carry the heavy burden of informing children that they are adopted by jumping out of their birthday cake. A difficult task, but somebody must break the news to children on their only day of happiness.


Oh, how answering nine simple questions can reveal your shiny metallic soul.

My Prosaic Life in New York City

New York City, man.

Fuckin' A, bitches, that's the Stanley Cup!

And yes, for the record, that's me.

Very Busy Today

So look at this cute kitty. Not bad for a crappy Blackberry photo, huh?

Sidney Crosby Wins Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy

Sidney Crosby scored his 50th and 51st goals of the season today in the final regulation game of the 2009-2010 NHL season, tying Steven Stamkos to share the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy.

The New York Rangers, though they did lose their game and an entry into the post-season race, shut down the Russian Machine of Alex Ovechkin. Heh.

I would upgrade Crosby to "Sid the Man," but I think he needs to move out of Mario Lemieux's guest house first.

On to the playoffs, and may the Mighty Flightless Birds still be skating in June!

A Few Words About Alex Ovechkin

Today's NYTimes Sunday Magazine has an article about Alex 0vechkin that draws a fast pencil-sketch of the deadly Washington Capitols winger.

Now, I'm a die-hard, super-partisan Penguins fan, in awe of the sheer skill and talent that Sidney Crosby shows every time he puts on his skates. I.m bleeding and sweating black and gold with the best yinzer out there, but that doesn't diminish in any way
my admiration for players from competing teams who are, simply put, breathtaking to watch. Players who bring a level of wizardry to their game that make you sit back in your seat and just say, "How the FUCK did he do that?" Pavel Datsyuk. Marian Gaborik. Steven Stamkos. And the insane Alex Ovechkin.

Ovie and Sid are clearly the best the game has to offer, but they are two completely different players, as the Times article makes amply clear. If Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin were muppets, Sid would be Kermit the Frog, measured in speech and self-effacing to the point of invisibility. Ovie, on the other hand, is Animal from the Electric Mayhem, wreaking havoc all over the ice (go on youtube and search for "Ovechkin hit on Jagr". During the Games it was the hit heard 'round the world, with Ovechkin counting coup on the last generation's greatest European player, and basically stealing his spirit in the process.)

While Crosby looks like he just might be wearing a necktie under his sweater, Ovechkin is all grinning uni-browed sweatiness, rearranged features and missing teeth. At the risk of sounding disloyal, Sid looks like a hockey product, and Ovie looks like a hockey player.

So I'm reading this Times article about Ovechkin and it says "he has included a Crosby stick in a collection he has been assembling of sticks owned by the players he most admires."

Now, only hockey nerds might remember how Crosby's Olympics gear --including the gloves and stick he tossed aside in jubilation after scoring the game-winning goal against USA's Ryan Miller -- went missing after that game. Trust me, this was a national crisis in Canada.

After a few days of national anxiety, it turns out the missing gear ended up "mixed up" with a bunch of Russian gear after the Games before being recovered and returned to Crosby.

Hmmmmm. I'm not saying j'accuse, Ovechkin, but really?

I'm just sayin'.

Afterthought -- the Times says that Ovie is not a goon, and I do take issue with that, a bit. The Great Eight is known to be reckless on the ice, and has been suspended at least twice this season, and he is known to League officials, delicately, as a -- ahem -- repeat offender. The guy leads his team in penalty minutes, 'nuff said. I'm still holding a grudge against him for that knee-on-knee (an Ovechkin specialty) mugging of Sergei Gonchar last year.

Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown

If it turns out this guy is fucking his daughter, it would be gross, but also kind of awesome in a life-imitating-art kind of way.

Missing

I had a great day with my old friend Nancy, who had me in stitches for the hours we spent together. Not to mention the delish American craft beers we tried, plus yummana sangwidges with homemade potato chips.

Still and all, lately I've been a little sad, the putting on of the happy face be damned. I think it all boils down to one thing.

I miss my dad.

Every now and then I realize that I am walking on this earth as the apple of no one's eye, that I'm no one's little girl, and honestly, it just sucks. There is a lot of security to be found in the knowledge that there's that one person on the planet who thinks you are just terrific, no matter what you do, and losing that can really knock you sideways. I'll be fine, but I kinda still miss being able to call him up on Sundays and having him laugh at my blasphemous jokes and terrible puns.

I can walk this off, but I just needed to unload it or I would be sitting here having a crying jag and thinking it's because the Penguins lost to Atlanta tonight.

Special Kind of Stupid 4/8/10

Look closer.

Well, DUH.

For the love of GOD, you guys are slow. And by "you guys," I don't mean "a group of people that I know," I mean, "You, men, as a general rule, are slow."

We've been in the cellular and email age for nearly 15 years, right? And it's no secret to anyone that we are all leaving digital DNA all over the place, and everything we send or receive is out there, just waiting to be discovered, tracked, traced, and archived. If the computer CSI guys crawled into our hard drives with UV lights, there'd be blood splatter (or worse) across the ceiling.

And yet, Slate's William Saletan writes today about "The Idiocy of Text-Message Adultery" as if he's so surprised that people do this shit.

Well, DUHHHHHHH.

And yet, stupider than Saletan, I suppose, are the knuckleheads out there who think they are not going to get caught if they are texting and emailing oh so carelessly. Or maybe the ones who are that careless really want to get caught. I mean, here's Tiger Woods, arguably the richest athlete on the planet, sitting next to a girl at a party, and instead of turning to her and having a CONVERSATION to plan an assignation with her, he TEXTS her. Nope. A conversation, that as soon as it's been had, as long as no one was within earshot, disappears into the ether and becomes forever deniable. But no. Ole Tige TEXTS a girl sitting RIGHT NEXT TO HIM. Man. Dude wanted to get caught so bad.

Trust me, I know how this shit works.

And you know what, even if you never send a single text message to your jolie fille, if you receive a paper bill at home for your cell phone, the wheres and whens of all your cell calls are right there in guilty black and white. This happened to me way back in 1991, when my boyfriend's wife opened his cell phone bill (he had one of those big Gordon Gekko bricks, which is pretty funny in retrospect, and it cost like seventeen bucks to make a one-minute call), and saw repeated calls to the same phone number -- mine. So she started calling and asking for Rocky. (yes, I blush, his name really was "Rocky" -- whaaaat? I was young and he was a Puerto Rican-Irish beauty with lips like pillows and a, well... let's just say his PR side won all the genetic battles). And that's how she found me. Death threats from a Brooklyn chick named "Hyacinth" are not a fun way to spend a Christmas season, let me tell you.

But back to the subject, which is, are you guys really this dumb? Do you need a coach for this?

Seriously, I will offer my consulting services for this kind of behavior. BECAUSE I KNOW HOW TO DO IT.

Because the one thing that annoys me more than anything else is just how DUMB smart people can be.

SHEESH.

Oh, and let me add -- if you are a guy, sitting next to me at a party, and can't find the words to say to me to earn the favor of my time, but instead TEXT me, you deserve to be outed for general creepiness.

From the Mouths of Babes

Every day I receive a "Peace Quote" emailed to me from a zen monastery. Usually I read them and move along. Every now and again, one lands in my inbox that just makes me happy. Today's was one of those.

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." - Billy, age 4

I Have Very Cool Friends

Yayyyyy! Just got off the phone with my friend Nancy. We met in 1999 when we were both training ride leaders for the Boston to New York AIDS Ride. We used to spend our summer weekends herding wobbling lines of beginning riders up and down Route 9W to Piermont and Nyack, or through Palisades Park up the big Alpine hill, or down River Road to Hoboken. We drank gallons of Gatorade, ate a million Clif Bars, had lots of fun, got really weird tan lines and very, very powerful haunches. We had many, many post-ride beers together and more laughs than I can count. Nancy has the perfect example of a "deadpan sense of humor," the kind that slides by you for a second and makes you do a double take before you find yourself in stitches.


Good times.

By 2001 both of us had bailed on New York City, and I haven't seen her since then. She moved to Chicago, met her partner, and settled down. I went to Colorado for a year, came back to NYC, and life has gone on from there. We emailed occasionally and sent each other pictures of our cats.

But now I'm grinning madly because Nancy has returned to New York! She has an amazing, super-cool job in emergency management, in which Nance is working toward a Master's (when did that become a major?), so she gets to work on really neat stuff like how do you evacuate New York City when a Category 5 hurricane takes a funny swing north, or a giant asteroid crashes into the ocean, flooding the city to the gunwales.

Did I mention how cool my friends are?

We're meeting for drinkies this Saturday at the Pony Bar, where we'll do 10 years of catching up and sample many American craft beers.

I am very, very, very excited.

This is a Real Place

No, really, it's an actual destination.

I know, it sounds like something out of an Austin Powers movie, doesn't it, or some huge joke that the Europeans are playing on the rich American rubes.

Wonder if it has a see-ment pond.

Liberal Arts Major

Or something. Click on the image if you want to see what ADD looks like.

What do you do when you run out of shelf space in a New York apartment?

Travel and Entertainment

You know, when I think about it, I don't actually mind traveling all that much. Truth be told, I mostly enjoy it. I know it's fashionable to kvetch madly about everything from the time you leave the house until your flight lands, then huff and sigh as if you just disembarked from the Santa Maria, but for some reason, almost nothing about traveling bugs me too much. It's as if, knowing that there is absolutely nothing I can do about anything, I enter a deeply calm and zenlike state. Traffic doesn't bother me, security lines don't bother me, delays don't bother me. It's all out of my hands, and therefore not worth being upset about.

(Turbulence is another story, since at the first bump on takeoff or landing I'm envisioning my death in a fireball, complete with Pei-ze Chang standing in front of a flaming Queens neighborhood with his microphone.)

What do I like so much about it, you ask? Here, a list of just a few:

* being completely unreachable for a time while airborne.

* cruising the airport shops to see which city has the tackiest souvenirs. LA wins, hands down. I was going to buy a baby tee with a bedazzled reproduction of the Hollywood sign, but it sure wasn't fifty bucks worth of irony.

* going into the airport bookstore and moving Glenn Beck books around. This is an entertaining way to spend a quarter of an hour. Also, placing handwritten notes inside "Going Rogue" that say things like, "You have wasted your money," and "Good for one free Big Mac combo meal if redeemed by 10pm."

* finding the one or two non-chain stores in the airport to see what they are calling "local art." ORD's United terminal has a tiny store next to gate C6 called, appallingly, "Hoy Polloy" with bad Blue Dog imitations and crappy new age books that must have been culled from some Haight Ashbury remainder bin. The upside is that directly across the hall is a Vosges store. Yummmmm!

* just walking through O'Hare, where I look like one of the skinny people.

* sitting in an empty gate area where it's quiet and I can read a magazine and judge people in peace. (You know, straight American men, I will tell you honestly, y'all dress like shit. How many times do I have to tell you? NO PLEATED PANTS! And please, go to Brooks Brothers and have one of the salesmen show you how to buy a shirt that fits. Repeat after me: if it looks like a blouse, you look like a schlub. Cuffs should be at your wristbone, not resting on the back of your hands. Dudes, you just don't look good.)

* Mr and Mrs T! For some reason I only drink it on the plane. Hint: if you aren't worried about a sodium-induced DVT, United gives you the whole can, not like those cheap bastards over at American.

* the delusion that anything you eat inside an airport terminal has no calories. Bring on the Sbarro's! And wash it down with a venti vanilla bean frappacino with whipped cream!

* buying a magazine I normally wouldn't buy, like Outdoor Life, Men's Journal, or Juggs. KIDDING!

All right, time to wrap up with a teeny tiny little hockey gripe. WHAT THE EFF ARE THE PENGUINS DOING??? Okay, so they've already clinched a playoff berth, but the shit I saw tonight was slow, disorganized and uninspired. I think they want to play golf in May. Sarge is lost without Geno and Dupuis is going to have to dial up his game if he wants to stay on the first line with Sid. Very frustrating loss against Washington. Caps 6- Pens 3. Grrrrrrr.

A Special Kind of Stupid

I am sitting in LaGarbage, waiting for a 7 am flight to Chicago. Unfortunately, due to both my car service driver and I having simultaneous blonde moments, neither of us paid attention to the fact that I was booked on a 6 am flight.

Ummmmmmmm.

I honestly don't remember the last time I have done something so spectacularly airheaded. Victor called to confirm the pickup last night and I stood in my kitchen with my itinerary IN MY HAND and said to him, with my own mouth, "Sure, a 5:30 pickup will be fiiiiiine."

I do remember a time when you could arrive at the airport 15 minutes before your flight and stroll onto the plane with seconds to spare before they closed the doors. Anyone else remember gate check-in? It's proof that I'm old.

Ahh, I miss the days of the OJ Dash through airports. (More proof that I'm old: that I remember a time when "OJ Dash" was a reference to a commercial and meant running through an airport and not "cruising the LA freeways with AC Cowling in my white Bronco on my way to skating on a double-murder.")

Hope this counts as my sole act of supreme dumbassery for 2010.

Blogtarded

For some reason, I am able to read but unable to comment on other people's blogs when I'm on my Blackberry.

I just want you to know, I'm THINKING of really good responses to your posts.

In the meantime, we're down to the last fistful of games in the NHL regular season. For teams on the bubble, like the New York Rangers, those games mean the difference between hanging up their skates before tax day or possibly playing until the middle of June.

As a fan, I'd love to see my boys of winter lift another cup, but they have been so inconsistent of late that I just don't know if they'll make it past the first round. The Old Man, Badass Billy Guerin may have to get into a fight every night to keep the team motivated.

Tuesday, April 6th, Pens host archnemesis Washington Capitols (Crosby vs Ovie is always worth watching). Thursday is the last regular-season NHL game EVER at the Civic Arena, aka "The Igloo."

Bernie Carbo: Oh Big Deal!

Bernie Carbo brags about being high during the World Series.

I say BFD. Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while he was trippin' balls.

So any professional athlete who wants to pitch a came-to-Jesus/AA tale of redemption, you're gonna have to come up with more than speed, booze, and steroids..

You got that, Dany Heatley?

The Unbearable Lightness of Finishing Your Taxes

Those who know me very, very well will understand exactly why I did a Whiteshoes dance all the way up Grand Street after an hour with nice little Jorge at H&R Block. I don't want to be gross, but I understand why Miss Kitty does a lambkin frolic after spending 10 minutes in the big open box of poop and weewee (hey, that's Dave Barry's name for it, not mine!)

Now I'm back home and have rewarded myself with a beer. Unfortunately I just realized that it's a non-alcoholic Beck's. And I ask myself, as I'm sure you're asking, how the HELL did that get into my refrigerator?

I'm sooooo tempted to crack that bottle of Dom that one of my vendors gave me for Christmas.

Beautiful Saturday

Ay que dia!

For some reason I set my Blackberry alarm to go off every day this week instead of on weekdays only, so I was forced to stumble into the kitchen at daybreak, and I'm glad I did. It is AMAZING outside.

I also realized with one of those mental jolts that I forgot to pay my rent, which resulted in a hasty shower and a mad dash to the Chase Bank around the block to keep a roof over my head for another month. Thank god for New York rent regulations and 5 day grace periods, plus a landlord who knows I usually pay a couple days ahead of time.

Now I'm left to ask myself WHY I scheduled my tax appointment for 4 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, especially since Roni called last night and wanted me to come to an 11am children's show at the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg. (I know, even the Knitting Factory has been priced out of Manhattan, which is just wrong). Alas I have to spend the next couple of hours sorting through receipts and piles of crap to make sure I don't overlook something like the fact that I bought new glasses for 500 bucks last January.

So, a fresh pot of coffee on, I'm settling in with my big "TAX STUFF" envelope and a bunch of music that makes me happy. (Today it's Ivan Lins because anyone who can sing a lyric like "Here's your chance tyrannosaurus/Maybe we can get it right this time" and make it heartbreakingly poignant is a-ok in my book. Plus, I remain convinced that if I play his cd's enough times, one day I will spontaneously break into song -- in Portuguese! Okay, so it hasn't happened yet, but a girl can dream, can't she?)

Miss Midwesterly, one of my many friends who is WAY cooler than I'll ever be, is off to Haiti today for her Shelterbox deployment. I look forward to her dispatches from that devastated country.

She did make noises about me going to White Plains so we can start riding again. Her generosity knows no bounds, as she equates her not having ridden her bike since the Ironman she did last summer with my not having done a tri since, well, ever. When I told her I broke down and bought a fluid trainer that I haven't yet used, her voice got a slightly menacing edge as she said, "Well, we'll just have to do something about that, won't we?" Oh shit, she is going to make me...play outside! On my bike! Which I love! The horror, the horror.

To be honest, I'm kind of looking forward to those weekend rides up 9W to have lunch in Nyack, and tan lines on my fingers from cycling gloves. To say nothing of having thighs that can snap a person in two.

Final note of the day, did anyone SEE that Rangers game last night? Who were those guys and what did they do with the New York Rangers? Incredible. They shut out the Lightning 5-0, playing the game the Pens SHOULD have played on Wednesday night. My only comment on Mark Messier's presence in the management booth is that I don't think he was really scouting for Team Canada's world squad. Are you listening, Glen Sather and John Tortorella?

The 52-Hertz Whale

I was doing some lazy, Friday nosing around the web, idly looking for more information about the 52 Hertz Whale, which somehow led me to "The Bloop" which then caromed me to Brian Dunning's site, which means that I have effectively lost the next couple of days.

But I want to talk about the 52 Hertz Whale.

This is a creature that the Navy has been tracking in the Northern Pacific since 1989. Its soundings have the sonic signature of a whale, but like no other whale known to science or man. Scientists speculate that it may be a hybrid of a blue whale and another species, or that it may have some physical deformity which causes it to sound at a different frequency than any other whale.

Now imagine. This creature, born with a call that its own podmates don't recognize, gets lost, and wanders the sea for nearly two decades, crying out for something to recognize it. But because no other whales sound at the same frequency, no other whales respond. So the whale swims and sounds, swims and sounds, calling, calling, calling. And there's nothing out there to answer.

Why does the story of the 52-hertz whale make me cry?

But as I read a message board about this whale, one commenter offered something that makes so much sense, that could solve the mystery, that I wonder why the Navy or WHOI or SOMEONE hasn't done it.

Answer the whale.

Good Friday Afternoon Time Killer

Since the entire world either took the day off or bolted early, today has been an exercise in killing time.

So the world's Catholics are off to the biggest NAMBLA meeting of the year on Sunday, in the expectation that the Easter Bunny will roll back the stone and drag Punxsatawney Jesus into the sunshine, where he'll blink, then predict another six centuries of child abuse, and shuffle back inside, flapping his hand and snarling, "Fuck alla yiz."

I Am Just Pathetic

I am really, really happy to be back at work and talking to humans. And back at a desktop computer. Do you believe I was blogdumping all that crap on my BLACKBERRY? I KNOW!

Took the opportunity to do a linkpurge today.

And for the record, I'm with Stanley Bing on Tiger Woods. I hope he comes back and decimates the Masters.

As for Jesse James, I hope he gets chlamydia.