Hello Homeland!

Just got in to San Diego yesterday. A couple of things that I really miss about being here:

1. Unabashedly talking on my cell phone while driving. This is illegal in New York, and oh so frustrating. I felt like calling everyone I knew, just because I could. (note: I do not recommend driving while talking on the phone whilst reading a newpaper, as depicted to the left. I have merely included it for dramatic effect.)
2. Turning right on red lights. This is also illegal in New York City. Also oh so frustrating.
3. Burritos. Obviously.

I finally finished my xmas shopping today. Phew! (except you Casey, you get yours when you stop hanging out in India. I mean working. I mean, come home!) Now I'm making some CDs. Did you know that you can copy songs that are in your ipod to your laptop without buying software?? Not that I did this. Just sayin. Very handy to know.

"My Only Friend is Guitar Hero"

I was at a concert last night where you could text messages and they would appear on the big screens onstage. (Yay technology!) Anyway, that was probably my favorite text of the night. At first, I thought it was kind of sad. And then I thought, dammit, why haven't I played that game yet?!! I can't help but thinking there's a growing list of things I plan to do, and I keep forgetting all about them. Like I'm gonna wake up one day when I'm 80, and think, "Did I forget to take my pills today?" and then all of sudden realize, no, that's not it -- I forgot to play Guitar Hero!! Blasted.

In Defense of Parking Ticket Offenders Everywhere

How come on cop shows (I've been watching a lot of Dexter lately), whenever they have some suspect, and they are looking up that person's record, they say stuff like, "Nope, this guy has lived here 15 years and never had so much as a parking ticket". It's generally said in a way as to imply that s/he is less likely to be the murderer/thief/bad guy because of this.

Are parking tickets somehow the gateway to larger crimes? If so, I could be in some serious trouble.

Newest obsessions

Ok, this will be a short blog cuz i don't have much time, but I wanted to point out a few things.







1) I will be sending twitter updates to my blog which show up in the right hand column. You can also check www.twitter.com/jorli




2) I am in love with my new iGoogle pages, especially the Frogger game. If you haven't customized your own page yet, well get on it....it's effin awesome. Here's a screen shot of mine.

The Plane

(Note: This entry is transcribed from my messy hand-written notes. Also, it is now Sat and these are my notes from Tues. I'm a little behind, but oh well, more to come!)

- Arrive the airport (JFK). I figure I can just pick up a voltage adapter at the airport so that I don’t fry my laptop when I try to plug it in in Paris. Turns out this is not so easy. They only sell voltage converters, which allows you to plug in your cord, but doesn’t change the voltage and hence, just does a better job of blowing your appliance up. This confuses me to no end. I buy one anyway, making a mental note not to use it.

- On the runway, where we wait for over 2 hours to take off. Can’t help but feel it is a BIG mistake that I only bought one magazine (Allure). Keep accidentally flipping to the article on feet, which grosses me out every time.

- Finally take off and dinner is served shortly after. I’m having beef and mashed potatoes. Am I the only one that loves airplane food? Or is it that I’m really hungry? We may never know.

- Sleep for many hours. It’s alllll good because the seats next to me are empty and I get to sprawl across all three.

- I wake up to see that Andy Rooney is on the screen ranting about something or other. I’m surprised (and relieved?) to see that he is still alive. Cheers is on next. Man, that was a good show.

- They serve breakfast. It’s a “croissant” and OJ. I put croissant in quotes because it is really really crappy and can hardly be called one. Even I won’t eat it. (Scratch what I said earlier about plane food.) I’m a little embarrassed for our country that we are serving the French people on the plane this sorry excuse of a pastry.

- Land. Get in a car that takes me to the hotel. I am DETERMINED not to nap because it will make my jet lag worse. If only I can hold on till my meeting in a few hours.

- After about an hour, I take nap. Fuck jet lag. Luckily I set the alarm on my phone. I’m good like that.

Creative Wasteland

I have not written anything in forever. I'm attributing this to complete lack of creativity and laziness. but here I go again.

I'm going to Paris tomorrow for a last minute work trip. Here's to finding something interesting there!

Eddie Izzard alert!!! ATHF too!

I was once asked (on a Bschool admissions essay), if I could have dinner with any person, living or dead, who would I pick. Well, I picked Eddie Izzard. (I didn't get into this school, btw. It would have been better if I picked Jesus or Warren Buffet or something. Oops. Hindsight = 20/20)

My point is - he's a genius. Absolute comic/historical genius. If you've never seen any of his stand up, please rent or download some asap. It will enrich your life.

So imagine my delight when I heard the other day that he is going to be in a new TV series on FX, starting on Monday. It's called the Riches. I'm setting my TiVo now. The only downside is that he'll be playing an American, so he will be without his delightful British accent. Ah, well.

Oh! And if that's not enough exitement, I just heard that there's going to be an Aqua Teen Hunger Force MOVIE coming out in April!! (Thanks Steve.) I am beside myself.

One thing I do not recommend....

...is playing volleyball after you've been drinking. I really had no choice though, as there was a work happy hour last night in the city (which are only once a month and I've missed the last 4 or so) and my volleyball team only plays every Thursday.

I thought I had a good plan though. I showed up at the happy hour early and I wasn't playing for a few hours. It was a bad call to start with red wine, as it was putting me to sleep and probably making my teeth red. So, my second drink I switched to a vodka tonic, which just seemed like a more althletic alcoholic beverage (if there is a such a thing).

Normally, 2 drinks wouldn't make a big difference, but I hadn't eaten much all day and I was still feeling a little buzzed when I arrived at the gym at 9 o'clock to play. I bought a purple vitamin water at a deli on the way, which probably saved me. I ended up playing fine, but it took every ounce of concentration I had to do so. I already feel really nervous playing on this team because the people are good playwers and take it very seriously. Luckily, we won all three games we played.

Alls well that ends well, but no more happy hours and volleyball. Unless I'm in a Coors light commercial or something - which is not likely.

Gotta love Astoria

I'm trying to keep up with my goal of posting more to this blog, so it's just gonna haveta be that I'm gonna end up posting stuff that may be at times sub-par. Just a warning in general, not about this posting.
So, I'm still trying to work on meeting people in my 'hood. Don't get me wrong, I love going to Manhattan and all, but it would be nice to meet some people here in Astoria. Strategy #1 to extend my network here was joining the Astoria myspace group. The group is awesome. They crack me up.

So it turns out there's this online tv show called "We Need Girlfriends", which is all filmed in Astoria. I can't say that I'm 100% in love with the program (and perhaps I'm not the target age group), but it's sorta cute and I'm happy to see all the local shots. You can check it out here: http://weneedgirlfriends.tv/

Oh, and if I had to pick, I'd be on Team Tom.

one zero zero!

I just realized (because Blogger keeps track of these things) that is my 100^th blog posting. Holy crap. I would have guessed the number was closer to 30 or something. You wouldn’t know it by how infrequently I post.

I’m on a plane right now headed to Raleigh, so I guess I’ll be posting this from my hotel room later. This is one of those tiny little planes, which I hear bother some people, but I like ‘em because it means we all get off really quickly once we land. I was this close to missing my flight (probably close to the 100^th time that’s happened). I wonder when I’ll actually miss one. It’s bound to happen sooner or later. Incidentally, they charge for pillows and blankets now (at least on American). For some reason this makes me much angrier than charging for food.

I just finished reading the latest Chuck Klosterman book, and I have two things to say about him: a) I can’t help but think he’s a genius and b) this bothers me, because he’s keenly aware of this fact and is arrogant about it (as far as I can tell at least from reading all of his books). It’s like meeting a really cute guy who knows just how cute he is. That just ruins it for me. It’s fine for a hot guy to suspect how hot he is, but if he knows it…I don’t even want to be bothered, and he somehow becomes less cute. Have a little humility. Self-deprecation is much more attractive. Thankfully, Chuck Klosterman is (self-admittedly) a little funny looking, or there’d be a real problem. The last thing I need is to ever run into a really hot genius – my head would explode.

Happy Happy Birthday Casey and Hillary!

What better way to celebrate the birthdays of my Casey and Hillary than to post celebratory pictures of Hillary's dog Duke in some of his favorite costumes?













Well, I couldn't think of any. So there you are.

I miss you guys. San Francisco and Seattle are way too far away.

It's also Benjamin Franklin's birthday.

Procrastination kills

Well, it doesn't really. But it certainly kills time. Or sucks it away. The more I have to get done, the more I feel the need to check reddit. One word of advice....try not to procrastinate when you are supposed to appear in traffic court. I had a bit of a nasty run-in today.

Which reminds me. Most of my friends know me as someone that hates to break rules. This is still true (although since I've moved to nyc I've gotten over my fear of crossing the street on a red hand when there are no cars in sight). But there are some rules, that I flagrantly disobey. Somestimes really big rules. I have no explanation for this.

Do you know what's worse than writer's block?

...Power Point chart creating block. I'm begining to fear that my life has been reduced to drawing carefully crafted rectanges with rounded edges and trying to decide on which font color and size I should use. The humanity!

If it wasn't for football playoffs this weekend (Go Chargers! Go Colts! But Chargers more), I might be in complete depair. That and the new Apple iphone. I'm starting to save my pennies now.

Bye 2006

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope to catch up with everyone I can while I'm here in SD. (A looong time, btw, I don't get back until Jan. 4) I also hope to write more next year, on the blog, or otherwise.

Here's a little something to keep you entertained - http://www.viceland.com/int/dd.php?id=532&country=us
I forgot how much I miss Viceland's do's and don'ts. Do yourself a favor and check out a bunch of them. Thanks for the reminder Case.

Have a happy and healthly and above all fun 2007! I intend to.

** casey sent me this, btw.

Hey, on another note, I'm going to Boston tomorrow!! To see the Patriots/Colts game (thanks Galina!)

Then, I'm going to San Francisco on Monday for about a week. SO excited! Man, I gotta pack and clean right now though. ugh.

NY Times vs. NY Post

I know what you're thinking. How can I compare a world-renowned newspaper like the New York Times with a smutty, sensationalist rag like the New York Post? I would tend to agree with you, but please direct your attention to the except from an article I cam across in the Post today. (I like to read the Post when I know I'll be on the train for a bit and have no other reading on me.)

This excerpt is from an article about a guy that was holding a woman hostage at knifepoint in Brooklyn who the police ended up shooting, saving the woman's life. Still, in short amount of space, thank heavens they included the bit about that before getting attacked she was "on her way to buy yogurt". I'm sorry....what? How is this salient information?

However, clearly this kind of overly-thorough reporting, rather that answering my questions, has only generated more questions, such as, what kind of yogurt was it? Was she going to eat it with a spoon, or was she looking for the on-the-go drinkable kind?? We may never know. But I do know that these obscure, useless facts will keep me coming back for more.

US Open: Another example of all the cool things that happen in Queens

Here a are few pics from Wed, which I spent at the US Open. I was operating on roughly 4 hrs sleep that day (due to some travel snafus the day before), so much of the day is blurred. I do, however, recall that the players are very fond of Playstations and they were all very polite.

After I'd logged in my 8 hours staffing the players' internet cafe area, I was free to roam around the rest of the night. The blank statium picture (above), I took after I rushed upstairs to the Arthur Ashe Statium once I was free, only to find out that the night matches wouldn't start for another hour. So, then I proceeded to just wander around restricted areas to see where my credidentials would get me.

I ended up watching most of the night matches, which weren't very close that early in the tournament (Sharapova and Roddick both killed). It was fun, but I was fading toward the end - and woulda been more fun if I had a friend or two with me. Maybe next year.

P.S. How cool is that globe statue?

A Word About Automatic Hand Dryers

I went to Japan last year, and although many things impressed me (e.g. the toilets are more advanced than NASA scientists could ever hope for), none so much as their automatic hand dryers. I was used to the US version, where you could hold your hands under them for a full 20 minutes and still not feel dry. But in Japan, they don't mess around. It's like mini hurricane at the press of a button. For this, I would consider swearing off paper towels forever.

So you can imagine my surprise and delight upon encountering not one, but two such hand dryers worthy of Japanese praise. Pictured above is the Xcelerator dryer I found in the bathroom of the White Plains Target store. (Incidentally, the White Plains Target store is by far my biggest vice of late.)

You can also find the Xcelerator in the bathroom of my favorite Mexican Restaurant in NYC, Tortilla Flats. Suffice to say, although I go there for the Margaritas (they sell by the pitcher!), the mole sauce and the pretty twinkling lights in the bar, I stay for the hand dryers.

One of the proudest moments in my life....and i MISSED it!

okay, for those of you that aren't familiar with the sharing site, reddit.com, it's awesome. in a nutshell, people submit links to cool articles, websites, pictures, whatever...and then other people vote on if the like it by giving a positive or negative point. anyway, so many people vote on this site that the end result is that there are consistently good recommendations (updated constantly) to some of the most interesting stuff on the internet.

so, i've been checking reddit regularly since my brother told me about it a few months ago, and i've tried in vain to submit things to get enough votes to merit being placed on the reddit home page. sadly, all of these previous attempts failed miserably. last week i posted this dolphin-training article from the nytimes up, but never followed up on it. low and behold, i saw today that it frickin killed! 447 points!! that's unheard of. i almost cried.

Back in action

Um yeah. I don't even want to start by apologizing all again about sucking at blogging because you've heard it before. I was really just taking a break for awhile. And then you know how it is when you keep putting something off like this, and then you feel like if you start up again, you should really have something fabulous to write about. Well....not really the case, but I'm writing anyway.

However, I will add this...reason #117 why I love Astoria: If you need a gastroenterologist, you can find one within 3 blocks.

Although I've had so much fun traveling to a plethora of weddings lately (Congrats Kelsi&Vince, Hillary&Jason, Jess&Troy and Can&Paul!!), I am severely looking forward to hanging out at home for the forseeable future. Especially now that I have a couch (pictured here). And it folds out for you friends that want to visit NYC. :)

Okay, and I know that Amy sent this story out to some of you via e-mail, but I swear I was already planning on posting this gem of an story about Mickey Rouke's pinky. I hope now that he realizes how important it is to have 2 full length pinkys. I should know. Crazy bastard!