Yes, there are Mens who are Gentlemen

Saturday night I went out with the lovely Hope Tarr to an event given by 9 different Meet Up groups. To tell the truth, I wasn't really interested in going out, but I felt that I should really make the effort. After all Mr. Right is not going to come knocking on my door while I'm in my jammies watching Baby Mama with Tina Fey.

I'm really glad that I ended up going because there were lots of men there and they actually went out of their way to talk to us! And buy us drinks (well actually only one of them bought Hope a drink, I was still nursing my Cosmo). I'm not saying that we met the loves of our life Saturday night but it restored my faith in mankind, which has been sorely battered this past year.

My only quibbles were the fact that the so-called fashion show consisted of just people at the party voguing while Benny Ninja (from ANTM) exhorted them to give their fiercest poses. And the open bar was only for an hour, so hordes of people were thronging the bar trying to get their free Vodka drinks before 8 p.m.

One of the guys that we met, a Brit, apparently spends a lot of time in Miami working for drug lords, which I hate to tell him, is not exactly a selling point, at least not for me. Keeping criminals out of jail is not exactly what I'm looking for in a man. But he was certainly fun to talk to.

I'm so glad that I joined like 9 Meet Up groups in the past week!

Movie Review: The Spirit

On Christmas Day, I took myself off to the AMC movie theater for my annual xmas movie. This year I decided to see The Spirit. Since I was planning on seeing the movie before noon, my ticket was only six dollars which was great, because I'm unemployed and also because that's about all the movie was worth.

The plot is fairly simple, the Spirit is sort of like Batman, in that he fights crime alongside the cops of Central City. No one knows where he came from except this one cop who knows that he's really a cop named Denny Colt that everyone thought had died, hence the name The Spirit. The Octopus (played by Samuel L. Jackson) and his gang of cloned goons, are trying to take over Central City. The Octopus wants the vase of Herakles which is supposed to make him immortal. Meanwhile The Spirit's old flame Sand Serif is in town looking for Jason's Golden Fleece. Due to a mix-up, The Octopus has the fleece and Sand has the vase of Herakles. And The Spirit wants to stop them both.

To say that I was disappointed in this movie is an understatement. Perhaps my hopes were just too high, but I thought hey, it's Frank Miller and the late Will Eisner, this should be awesome. I had familiarized myself with the character of The Spirit in it's new incarnation from DC Comics and was thoroughly intrigued by him. However, the movie while stylistically beautiful, falls short on things like character development, fun, and action.

The lead actor Gabriel Macht is not nearly charismatic enough to play the role of The Spirit or at least he's not allowed enough moments in the film to let the audience see why women swoon so much over him, and why Ellen, the doctor who tends his wounds, spends all her time waiting for him. There is a cute little backstory of his relationship with one of the female villainesses Sand Serif (and not one person made a joke about how her name is the same as a computer font). But again, her character is not very well-fleshed out, and Eva Mendes, although beautiful, is not a good enough actress to give her any weight beyond what's on the page.

Scarlett Johanssen comes off much better, but as much as I love Samuel L. Jackson, I think he needs to take a step back and not do every single film script that comes across his desk. The man needs to work with directors like Ridley Scott or even Martin Scorcese, even Clint Eastwood for god's sake. I'm even willing to add Spike Lee to the list. He does way too much crap. He's like a black Michael Caine, and Caine didn't start winning Oscars until he took a step back and became a bit pickier about his film scripts. Put Samuel L. Jackson in a movie with Will Smith or Denzel or DeNiro, actors who are worthy of his talent.

The Spirit, even for the most-die hard graphic novel and comic book lover is a miss.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or Winter Solstice!

I'm off to the movies tomorrow to see The Spirit and then over to a friend's house for holiday cheer and lots of wine.

It's raining here in New York today so I leave you with this lovely image of Daniel Craig to keep everyone warm and toasty for the holidays.

Fat Free Phooey!

I have a recipe for the most amazing gingerbread ever made that I got from my ex-best friend, but it requires buttermilk. Now that wouldn't be a problem except every single grocery store and supermarket that I have been too lately is only selling 'Light' buttermilk. Yes, low-fat Buttermilk, which the recipe doesn't call for.

When did this become an issue? Who out there drinks buttermilk like every day? As far as I knew buttermilk was just used in pancakes or ranch dressing or in my case gingerbread. So what's up with the low-fat option? And if you are going to offer low fat buttermilk, don't stop selling the full fat stuff.

Anyway, according to Wikipedia, buttermilk actually has less fat than regular milk anyway, so there is no need to make it low-fat!

I tried to make the recipe with the 'light' version but it just didn't taste the same.

Arghh!

Play that Funky Banjo!

Saturday, I dragged myself to The Philoctetes Center to see Bela Fleck and Lewis Porter in a roundtable called Living in the Musical Moment: Banjo Innovations. Although the week was pretty good, I had been suffering from female problems of a certain nature and I was pretty under the weather. Plus it had snowed on Friday and all the pretty snow had turned to slush, meaning I couldn't wear a cute outfit. Still I perservered.

I admit that when I think of the banjo several images come to mind. One Steve Martin in his early comedy days. Two, Hee-Haw and Deliverance. Yes, I'm that kind of East Coast liberal. But I'm trying to be open to things and new ideas which was the whole point of going to Philoctetes in the first place. And I'm glad that I went.

There is a reason why Bela Fleck is one of the most well known banjo players in the world. I had never head banjo playing like this. At times, he could make the instrument sound like a guitar, at times he could almost make it sing. I had no idea that the banjo was such an incredible instrument. He's won 8 Grammys and been nominated numerous times for his music. He's even played classical music on the banjo. Who would have thunk it. The banjo is not just for bluegrass anymore!

I also learned that the banjo was developed by the slaves in the South (yes, another thing that people have color have come up with that has been appropriated by the white man! Just kidding). Bela Fleck told a story about traveling in Africa for a documentary that he was working on and meeting musicians in West Africa who played a similar instrument. Which makes sense because most of the slave trade was from West Africa. I love hearing stories that trace the origin of something which is why I watch too many shows on the History Channel and the Food Network that trace the origins of certain foods.

Anyway, I was so impressed by the music that I ordered a Bela Fleck CD from Amazon. Of course he's also pretty good-looking too. But of course, just my luck, he's taken. Although he did compliment me on my mint chocolate chip cookies, courtesy of Nestle. I just can't a break.

To cheer myself after yet another romantic disappointment (don't ask), I put on one of my prettiest and oldest party dresses and headed out to The Dove Parlour for a Christmas do thrown by the Rebels of Romance. They were serving mulled wine that was so hot you could see the steam come off of it. Despite the snow, it was a wonderful party and we all received little goody bags.

Sunday, I dragged myself to the library to do some research and ended up coming home and watching all ten hours of season 4 of Monarch of the Glen, a series set in the Scottish highlands.

So despite a few bad apples, it was a pretty good weekend.

Dancing in the Dark

Yesterday, I took myself off to the Betsey Johnson sample sale in the Hotel Millennium, which is a gorgeous art deco hotel located in the theater district on 44th Street. I was looking for a party dress for a Christmas party that I'm going to tomorrow night. Although I shouldn't be spending the money, I can't resist a pretty party dress. Well, I was tres disappointed. All of the party dresses were strapless! What's up with that Betsey? The last time I wore a strapless dress was for a beauty pageant in college, and I spent the entire night wondering if it was going to fall down. I just don't have the belle poitrine for that kind of dress. What happened to all the great dresses that she used to create? Oh, I know, they don't end up in the sample sale pile! I remember when her dresses used to actually be relatively inexpensive, now they cost like $300 and $400!

Afterwards, I schlepped over to Banana Republic to look for a dress and I couldn't find anything which may be God's way of keeping me from spending huge amounts of money I don't have. Still I had a good time trying on clothes. They had way nicer dresses on sale that the ones I saw at the Betsey Johnson sale.

I also went to the Best of 2008 night at Dancesport where I've been taking ballroom dancing classes for the past two years. This was a mammoth evening of 27 performances by either students or student/teacher combos. There were even a few wedding dances thrown in. I bought a class of Chateau Dancesport 2008 and settled in for the evening. Beforehand though was dancing, and I even got to do the hustle with Paul Pellicoro, who is the owner of Dancesport which was fun. By the time the evening was over at quarter of one in the morning, I had seen some great performances and some scary ones. I even got to vote for best performance of the evening.

I'm glad that I went instead of staying home and watching Grey's Anatomy re-runs, that would have been painful given the dismal state of the show this season.

Yeah, I have a laptop!

I finally went out and bought myself a laptop. I know, I know, it's the 21st Century, everyone has one. But I had gotten spoiled using the computer at my various jobs that I never bothered to either upgrade my computer at home, or buy a laptop. Of course, that I'm a lady of leisure, I need a laptop, since my home computer is 12 years old and doesn't really have a place for my flashdrive, and even if it did I would be afraid of blowing it to Kingdom Come if I tried to use it.

So I went over to Best Buy and Circuit City to buy a Netbook but the cheapest one they had was $279 and it didn't even come with Microsoft Word but some weird software that belonged to the company. Plus the screen was really really tiny, and I can't afford to go blind right now since my health insurance expires in March of 2009. So I remembered this place I had read about in New York magazine called The Little Lap Top Shoppe and I googled it and found out it was on the Lower East Side.

I hopped on the train, well actually 2 trains and went on down. Sitting on the shelf was a Dell Latitude for $179, completely rebuilt! After I added the modem and a carrying it bag, it still came out to $237 which was way cheaper than the ASUS model at Best Buy.

So now I've joined the 21st Century!

The Word of the Day: Truthiness

Saturday I went to a roundtable at The Philoctetes Center concerning the twin topics of autobiography and biography. Given the fact that I write mini-biographies over at Scandalous Women, this topic was right up my alley. And the list of guests was impressive, Simon Winchester, Nicholson Baker and Judith Thurman who has written biographies of Isak Dinesen and Colette. One of the topics that came up was of course the infamous James Frey. One of the panelists, David Shields, felt that Frey had been made a scapegoat, which I disagree with. He set himself up by insisting that everything in his memoir was the absolute truth and then he turned out to be a big fat liar. Nicholson Baker brought up a good point that when people pick up an autobiography there is an unspoken pact between the reader and the author, that what they are about to read is the truth. And then Judith Thurman said that there are facts and then there is the truth and they are two different things.

Whoa! I had never thought of it that way, but after I thought about it for a bit, I realized that she was right. One of my favorite Scandalous Women, Lola Montez, completely reinvented herself. Born Eliza Gilbert in Ireland, she went to Spain to study dance and when she returned she was Lola Montez, complete with the accent and a made up story of an aristocratic background. She told this story so many times that she actually began to believe it, and when she wrote her autobiography, she kept up the lie. It had nothing to do with the facts, but with her own version of her truth.

I was so fired up that I actually got up at the end of the roundtable and actually made a comment and asked a question, which I never to do at the roundtables at Philoctetes. In almost two years, I have asked precisely two questions. Part of the problem is that I'm not exactly a quick thinker, quite a few times I've thought of questions I wanted to ask later on after I got home. The other problem is sometimes the roundtables are either so over my head or out of my comfort zone, I wouldn't know what to ask. Anyway, I made my comment about Lola Montez and then I asked Judith Thurman if she felt like Amanda Foreman, that if she had a chance to write her biographies of Colette or Isak Dinesen again, would she take a different tack, now that she's gotten older or would she emphasize another aspect of their lives? I felt really proud of that question, particularly when a gentleman after the roundtable told me that he thought my question was very intelligent. Yeah, score one for me! Oh, and I remembered to mention the blog when I made my comment. Got to self-promote.

I was disturbed however when Francis Levy, the co-director of the center, made an announcement that things were kind of dire at the moment, due to the economic climate and losing some of their funding (?). That worried me. What would I do with my Saturdays if I didn't have Philoctetes to go to? Even though some of the roundtables were over my head intellectually, I've always gotten something out of them, and I've felt like I've expanded my horizons considerably since I discovered the center.

It is times like this that I wish I could win the lottery, so I could set up a foundation and continue to make sure that places like Philoctetes continue to exist. I would be such a good rich person. I hate getting letters in the mail from worthy causes and not being able to contribute. It sounds a little like playing Lady Benevolent, but I've always thought if I had access to a great deal of money, I would set up a foundation to make sure that the arts, particularly small theater companies, were decently funded, as well as research into diabetes and lung cancer.

Ah well.

Fair is Foul, and Foul is Fair

Okay the weather has been particularly crappy this week here in New York. Either it's been raining like Noah is about to build another ark, or it's been cold and windy. Of course earlier in the week it was warm for December. I wish the weather would just make up its mind what it was doing so that I would know how to dress accordingly.

Still unemployed but not quite as depressed about it as I was last week. Perhaps it is because I had the best pizza of my life yesterday at Artichoke Basille. They are famous for their spinach and artichoke slice so of course I had to try it out. It's pretty pricy for a slice of pizza at $4.00 but it was humongous. Imagine the best spinach and artichoke dip possible, now imagine it on a slice of pizza and you have an inkling of what it was I ate yesterday. It was so good and filling, I didn't have to eat anything else for the rest of the day. Seriously.

Next week, I'm signing up with every temp agency known to man, plus I have a meeting with my career counselor, courtesy of my old company. Yes, they have a service set up to help you find other employment, which is pretty cool when you think about it. Plus, I'm hoping that the fact that I've employed for two jobs in-house and went for my orientation will help in the long run.

So all in all, not a bad week, despite the fact that I'm apparently out of the age demographic for CrazyBlindDate.com.

Woo-Hoo, I got Canned

Sorry I haven't blogged lately. My position at my company was eliminated on Monday and I'm going through the states of grief, shock, denial, bitterness and chocolate. Trying to decide what my next move is. Keep you posted!

I Heart Hugh Jackman!

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving and it is slowly crawling their way out of their turkey coma.



My thanksgiving encompassed seeing the movie Australia with the lovely Hope Tarr. This epic movie stars Hugh Jackman (sigh!), the sexiest man alive 2008, and Nicole Kidman. The description of the movie from Yahoo!:



"In Australia, on the brink of World War II, an English aristocrat travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world's most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. "



Sounds exciting doesn't it? And it was, up to a point. I'm not a huge Nicole Kidman fan, and she was working my last nerve in the beginning of the movie. I felt that she was overplaying just a little bit the whole "grand lady of the manor." But Hugh Jackman? Mamma Mia, is he hot in this movie or what? Just thinking about the scene where he's soaping up and washing himself off in the outback is enough to make me sweat. I have to admit that there was a good chemistry between the two of them, and I found the love story believable. Of course, Nicole Kidman's character, Lady Ashley has to spoil it by giving Hugh Jackman's character The Drover, a stupid ultimatum.



The movie is a strange hybrid of epic love story, war picture, and drama about what happened to the aborigines during this time period. At times, it didn't quite jibe. The young boy who plays Nullah, the half-caste child, is absolutely adorable and the movie is narrated by him. You really feel for what he's going through, and how hard it must have been to feel like you have no place in your own country. Watching the movie and seeing how all the aboriginal children who were what they derisively called "creamy" being removed from their families to as one gentleman put "to breed the black out of them" was heartbreaking. And the end note about how the Australian government only just apologized this year for a policy they pursued up until 1973, well it just doesn't cut it. By the way, as the American government ever apologized to the American Indians for stealing their land or for slavery? Just a thought.



Hugh Jackman is so wonderful in this film that I feel that producers should be whipping up romantic comedies for him. In fact I have a plot for one. It would star Hugh Jackman and basically any actress who is not Renee Zwellweger, Nicole Kidman, or Hilary Swank. Ideally it would star Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock. Better yet, make her Tina Fey! Hugh would play an Australian newspaper tycoon like Rupert Murdoch but younger and sexier. Tina Fey would play the owner of a newspaper like the Wall Street Journal that has been in her family for generations. Her crazy relatives who also co-own the newspaper are a motley crew of hippies, greedy yuppies, and other assorted eccentrics. They are eager to sell the paper to Hugh, but Tina still has a significant number of shares that he needs to truly own the paper. So he decides to woo her into selling to him.



Meanwhile she has a fiancee, the Bellamy of the picture (The Bellamy is named after actor Ralph Bellamy who played this character in an assortment of 1930's rom-com's like His Girl Friday and the Awful Truth. He's the good guy, but just a little dull. He's the editor of the paper. Hugh has a secret weapon to neutralize him though, Lucy Liu as his sexy but vicious forensic accountant, who is also his girlfriend. I see the Bellamy as played by Peter Hermann or Patrick Dempsey. Tina, of course, doesn't automatically succumb to Hugh's charms, particularly since he owns tabloids like the Sun where there's a topless girl on Page 3. She's worried that he's going to do that to her respectable paper.



There has to be moment where Hugh shows his vulnerable side to make Tina soften towards him. Perhaps she accompanies him to his remote outback ranch in Australia and sees another side of him. Perhaps he has a mother who treats him like less than his older brother who died in an unfortunate kangaroo accident.



See where I'm going with this? More romantic comedies with Hugh Jackman where he takes shirt off in every other scene, and perhaps gets to sing a tune or two.

Happy Turkey (or Tofurkey) Day!

Happy Evacuation Day!

Today is apparently the day over 225 years ago that the British finally left New York after we colonists kicked their arses in a little thing called the American Revolution (yes, the French helped a little as well).

As I write this, reenactors are busily commerating that glorious day downtown in the rain and the cold. Well, better them than me! Apparently back in the day, men used to climb a greased flagpole to hoist the Stars and Stripes to celebrate.

However, it did get me thinking that we need some good American Revolution historical novels on the shelves. Picture it, star-crossed lovers, she's a loyalist, he's a revolutionary, trying to find their way to each other. Or a young woman, who doesn't want to be apart from her beau, so she disguises herself as a boy, to try and find him by joining up with one of the regiments (hey there were plenty of women who did just that). Or a Scarlet Pimpernelesque story set in New York while the British were occupying the city. Or the aftermath of the war, where the scarred and embittered battle veteran comes home to his woman, suffering post traumatic stress disorder while she's been holding down the family estates.

There are so many options. I say we need more historical romances set in this country, celebrating our own history.

Excuse me, while I go hoist a glass to our liberation.

Party Like It's 1779

So this past Saturday was a whirlwind of activity for me. First I went across town to the Philoctetes Center to see several short films of Samuel Beckett plays and then there was a roundtable with Edward Albee, John Tuturro, Tom Bishop and Alvin Epstein. I was one of the lucky ones who got a ticket to be in the same room with Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Albee, a living legend. Seriously, while other people swoon over Brangelina, I get farklempt over theater folk.

And John Tuturro! Star of Barton Fink and The Big Lebowski. I almost went over to him and told him how my ex-sweetie pie looks like him and they both played Herb Stempel, Tuturro in Quiz Show, and ex-sweetie pie on stage in LA in Night and Her Stars! But I refrained. Plus ex-sweetie pie would have killed me if he knew that I'd done that.

There was some talk about doings at Philoctetes Paris, and someone who wants to open Philoctetes Berlin, but I'm thinking Philoctetes London! Seriously, I know tons of theater folk and one actual psychotherapist. If I won the lottery, I would totally want to be the one to run that.

That night, I met up with Liz Maverick, Marianne Mancusi, Leanna Renee Heiber, Hope Tarr and Megan Frampton for a Dances of Vice party at the beautiful Montauk Club in Park Slope, my dream neighborhood in Brooklyn. You can see some of the lovely photos on Megan and Liz's site. I met up with Hope on the no. 4 subway platform to Brooklyn, and we made our way to the club. However, we got a bit discombobulated coming out of the train and we dashed into a liquor store to get our bearings where we had samples of Thai rum laced with apple juice. Just the thing on a cold winter's night!

We finally made our way to the Montauk Club where we met up with everybody. I had sent out an email weeks ago about the event, and no one jumped on the idea, until this past week and then all of a sudden we all decided to go. I wore an evening gown I've had for a long time which is beautiful but has no sleeves. The Montauk Club is beautiful, it reminded me very much of the Players Club, which is a private club in Manhattan, founded by Edwin Booth. I'm dying to join, if only for the all you can drink champagne brunch buffet for $20.

Everyone looked fab, although I felt a little underdressed compared to some of the revelers who were in full 18th century regalia. We bought drink tickets (2 for $10) and enjoyed the entertainment including one performer who looked like the lovechild of Beethoven and Bob Dylan. There were stripteases, a man in a gorilla suit who later sang 'Rock Me Amadeus' and a male performer in 18th century costume and gold high heels who sang a beautiful version of 'Nessun Dorma.' As I normally do, I had a flash of inspiration after my second glass of wine. Seriously, it would help if I could find a way to have these flashes when I'm sober!

The others went off to go dancing and Hope and I stayed until the bitter end before taking the train back to the city. I confess I ran into Mickey D's for some fries when I got home to go along with my mini veggie burger that I had left over from my dinner. After taking off my make-up, I finally put my head down on the pillow and went to sleep.

I can't wait to go to the next Dances of Vice party!

Celebrity Baby Madness

Congratulations to Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz on having a healthy baby boy, but seriously to name him Bronx Mowgli Wentz? I hope they're planning on giving him martial arts lessons, because he's going to need them for all the kids who are going to give him grief in school.

Seriously people, why do celebrities do this? Why name your child after a borough? And since Pete Wentz is from Chicago, couldn't they have named him Lincoln or Wrigley or something else? Heck, they could have named him Barack Obama Wentz and it would have made more sense to me.

I know, I know that Posh and Becks named their oldest son Brooklyn, but at least you can shorten the name to Brook or Brooks for a nickname. What are they going to call little Bronx? Bro? And Mowgli? Isn't that the name of the kid in the Jungle Book stories?

Rudyard Kipling and Disney have a lot to answer for.

I iz Tired Today

Is this week over yet? Seriously it feels like it's been going on forever. I have so much stuff to watch on my DVR, it's not even funny. Top Model, Top Chef, Monarchy, Real Housewives of Atlanta are all waiting for me as we speak. I'm also pretty broke until my next pay day, so I'm hoping that I can convince some guys on Saturday night to buy me some drinks at the Dances of Vice party I'm going to.

I went to see Frank Langella in A Man for all Seasons last night at the Roundabout and now I'm bummed out this morning because I found out I could have saved $30 on my subscrption since JPMorgan has a deal. I'm wondering if I could get that retroactive. Oh, and how was the play? Well it was a lot of talking, and talking, and talking. And the theater was freezing. It's not good when you have to keep your coat on during the performance. I shouldn't have had that Henry VIII drink during the intermission because it made me sleepy. I will however say that Mr. Langella didn't disappoint on the acting front.

But there was something that bothered me. I ran into an someone who I had invited to my birthday party a week ago. She's not really a close friend, she's more like an acquaintance. We worked together at my night job, and we've seen each other at parties over the years (she's a good friend of a friend of mine). So last night, during the intermission I went to get my drink, and she and her friend stood right next to me at the bar and proceeded to chat away and ignore me. Now fine, I get that she wanted to chat with her friend, but don't stand right next to me, and not include me in the conversation. Go stand somewhere else. I thought that was totally rude and uncalled for, since I had made a point of going over and chatting with them while they were waiting on line.

Am I crazy that I thought that was rude?

Welcome the PMS Dwarves

Well, the PMS Dwarves arrived at my house last Friday and unfortunately the little gnomes are here until the end of the week. Bitchy arrived first, along with psycho on Friday, and came along for drinks after Quantum Solace. Then Sleepy and Bloated arrived on Saturday with a huge bag of bagels. Forgetful and Sweaty finally arrived on Sunday and yesterday Itchy came along.

To keep them occupied, I took out the first season of 30 Rock from the library and sat them down in front of the TV set the past two days. I thought if Tina Fey can't make them laugh, I'm out of luck. They're already eating everything in sight, including a huge bag of soft baked Pepperidge Farm cookies. Fortunately, they've been riveted by the show. I sat down with them, just to get them to stop fighting amongst themselves, and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it. How have I missed this delightful show?

For anyone who has been under a rock, 30 Rock is the fictitious goings on behind a TV show sort of like Saturday Night Live called The Girlie Show that Tina Fey as Liz Lemon serves as the headwriter. The writers are a motley crew of guys with one lone woman who seems not to have a name. Tracy Matthews plays Tracy Jordan the Martin Lawrence/Eddie Murphyesque star of the show and Jane Krawkowski plays the female star who gets pushed aside when Tracy joins the show. But what I'm intrigued by is Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy head of primetime and microwave programming. He's hilarious, the episode where he was dating Condoleeza Rice (although they never said her name) was too funny.

The show is not bust a gut funny, but it is so enjoyable because the laughs come from the situations and the characters. As the show continues and the characters become more familiar, the funnier the show gets from Liz dating Dennis, the only guy still selling beepers in New York, to the hot guy at MSNBC who turns out to be her cousin. Even Jenna has become more than just a blonde bimbo.

So, the PMS Dwarves and I will be spending the rest of the week, ensconced in front of the boob tube, finishing out the rest of the 24 episodes of Season 1. I'm afraid that they've promised to come back in a few weeks to watch Season 2. I may have to change the locks.

Would You Wear This Bra?

This is Heidi Klum at the recent Victoria's Secret fashion show wearing one of their $5MM bra extravaganza's. Now tell me, how is going to buy this thing or the one in the catalog. Have you seen that thing? What would you wear it under? It would snag on a blouse or a sweater. And I can't imagine that it's comfortable.

If I had $5MM, I can think of tons of other things that I would want to buy, you know, like real estate. I could buy a whole house with $5MM, not to mention all the Jimmy Choos and Manola Blahniks my little heart could desire. I could retire if I had $5MM (well okay work part time, given this economy).

The last thing I would do would be to buy an ugly bra!

Quantum of Daniel Craig

So Quantum of Solace made $70MM over the weekend, the best Bond opening ever. There's talk that the movie may make more money than the last Bond film, Casino Royale, which made more money than any Bond film ever. So much for all those people who thought that Daniel Craig would tank as James Bond.

If you want a good review of the film, head over to Hope Tarr's blog here. My five minute review is that while I loved it, I'm looking forward to seeing him lighten up just a little in the next film. Not a return to the crazy gadgets and silly quips, but just Bond having a little fun while chasing after criminables.

But still he does make for a great, tortured hero as Hope so rightly points out and he looks awesome in a tux. And man can this dude kick some serious ass!

The End of the Road

Today, I wrote my last President's letter for our chapter newsletter Keynotes. And I'm a little sad. It's been a long four years, and not always pleasant. I've had a Vice President drop out before taking office, another board member quit in a snit, who left a stink bomb on our chapter loop instead of just leaving quietly, but I've also enjoyed the chance to be a leader.

I never expected to be chapter President. It was just something that happened along the way. One minute I was sitting in the back of a meeting, the next I was a Vice Presient of the chapter and before you know it, bingo, President! I hope I rose to occasion, and I hope that I was a good president, that I left the chapter in better shape then it was when I took office. Four years is a long time to be President. So I can imagine just how hard it has to be to govern a country for four years, let alone eight.

As much as I can't stand George Bush, he's had a rough 8 years in office man. I can't help but think that Al Gore must think he dodged a bullet when the election was stolen from him. He can sit on his front porch in Tennessee with his Nobel Peace Prize, and his Academy Award (I don't know if he actually got to have one for An Inconvenient Truth) and look back on these eight years laughing his ass off.

Anyway, I'm still hopeful for our new President Elect Obama (I just entered into a lottery for inauguration tickets on Chuck Schumer's web-site) and our new President Elect for RWA NYC Karen Cino. I wish them all the luck in the world and a great four years/1 year as President.