Objects in the Mirror are Crazier than they Appear

When I lived in Inwood (an area so far at the tippy top of Manhattan, it's practically Canada), there was a guy we called American Psycho. He sat all day in his window with jam box blaring 80s tunes and mock screaming along. By mock screaming, I mean he never actually used his voice, but rather mouthed screaming which is just way creepier. He would also mock scream at passers-by and do some kind of weird dance in the window frame.

Every neighborhood has their requisite crazy person - especially in New York. I only now checked on NYMag and they have only have 23 blogs tagged with "crazy people," which I actually found to be shockingly minimal. Clearly, we can all agree that we have run into more that 23 on the subways alone.

I have just come across a new one around the corner from my house. Well, I have not seen him per se, I have only seen the markings of a crazy person. And the markings alone are enough to spook the willies out of me. (see, it even has me messing up my idioms)

I was walking to a friend's house in the neighborhood the other evening when I saw what looked like a plastic bag tied to the window grate. It was an odd thing, so I had a stop pause while my eyes focused and my head tried to wrap around the idea of what I was actually seeing. That's not a plastic bag, that's a car side mirror. Tied and angled to each window grate in opposite directions. I stood staring for several seconds/minutes. Then I snapped a photo.

So obviously, at this point the crazy person knows who I am (of course I pass this street near daily, so I assume he already did), because I am 99% sure that there is some video recording device focused on these mirrors when the said crazy person is not on duty to watch himself. Ok, I don't know that for sure, but I welcome any other insight as to what is actually going on there.
















[shot taken in the day] [shot taken at night]

Mane Stream

Sunday's post on Osmium, left me in wide-eyed amateur-scientist excitement, as I followed his link to the Periodic Table of Videos. I haven't had this much science fun since my days with a rock tumbler and the Mad Scientist Experiment Kit (where I only really liked to play with the metal filings that created lots and lots of sparks and the coke bottle volcano).

I hungrily watched several of the elemental videos and, truly, his hair is something impressive throughout them all. Personally, I heart his homage to Einstein in krypton and plutonium best. But what's really exciting is how it grows exponentially in Pu.



Is there perhaps some scientific reasoning here? I mean seriously, if plutonium makes hair grow faster, then I think we could be onto the next hot beauty product.

I've already worked out the product taglines:
"your hair is bomb"
"gives your hair lift(off)"

Of Ships and Sees - Or New Phones and Life Portraits

I found myself sitting for over half an hour in the waiting area of AT&T - the toggle on my Blackberry had come loose requiring a special controlled effort when pointing and clicking; it was high time for a replacement.

I learned they see over 200 customers a day in the midtown AT&T Device Support Center. By support, they typically mean, "we're sorry, but your current plan does not offer any insurance, upgrades or exchanges" or "congratulations, you are entitled to a recommissioned phone."

Yes, recommissioned. A term previously used in reference to Naval ships, this is now the one they have coined for a phone taken from a previous owner and then passed onto you for its new journey.

My customer service representative actually said "well, we wouldn't want your phone to feel bad and dirty for being refurbished. So, all the phone's we give out are recommissioned."

Cool, thanks. My phone may need to check the self-help section at Barnes and Noble, but surely it can save the cost of a therapist for now.

As I sat waiting to receive my new shiny front of a recommissioned phone (yes, front, you get to keep your original back. And I won't even bother to guess how that makes the back of my phone feel), I sat texting and waiting.

I felt that strong sensation of someone's eyes on me. Looking straight up, I was met with the eyes of a young, artsy girl sitting directly across from me. As soon as our eyes met, she blinked back down to her lap. It was then I spied what she had, a little notebook and a pen scribbling away.

She was using me as a life portrait study. I continued to wait as other names with broken phones were called out ahead of me and all the while the eyes peered at me and the pen drew me. Every time I looked up her way, she quickly changed her sight-line back to her paper.

I was both disturbed and flattered to be the subject of this stranger's artistic study. But she and her little pad and recommissioned phone left on their new journey together before I. And I didn't see the result of her watchful eyes and scribbling hand.

As my friend D said, "your likeness will now be residing in someone's little notebook. That is kinda creepy."

Lip Treatment

This morning on NPR's The Takeaway, they were discussing trends and trendsetting. Since Labor Day, I have found myself drawn to wearing lipstick. I was going to make this fall all about lipstick.

So, there I was wearing lipstick, feeling girlie and yes, my rouge lips smirking slightly, a bit knowingly that I might be setting a trend. And then Heartbeat-Away makes that joke. The one with the hockey mom and the pit bull. Dammit. She just ruined my new trend.

Now, lipstick is on everyone's lips.

Shop For Barack

Oh how liberal and cool we Carroll Garden residents are!

Careful what you Wish

Me: "I wish I had red hair."

MK: (incredulous) "You wish you what?"

Me: (with a slight sheepish intonation) "I wish I had red hair."

MK: "Oh. I thought you wished you were a redneck."

Fight Club

Not to get all entomological, but this is pretty fascinating. It's like Iron Chef with bugs. Cool.
But you have to notice the little advertisements at the bottom of the screen. When I watched there were three different ads. The first one made perfect sense - an ad for an insecticide. Right on. You are watching bugs and getting grossed out and you immediately start considering fumigating your dwelling. The second appealed to your inner nerd - an ad for National Geographic.
But then I had a record stop moment when the third ad appeared. Girl Fights. Ok, I get that these videos are probably not aimed toward me, but rather a 13 (read 30) year old boy all twisted up in puberty and he gets riled up from either watching bugs or girls duke it out. But still, I could not bring myself to put those two things together, even if my marketing background told me their customer targeting was dead on. All I could think was eww cooties.

GG vs. McCain

I just love that the popular topics link on the NYMag site, ranked in order of most viewed, places Gossip Girl right between campaigns, Obama and Bristol Palin! OMFG! I am so sure McCain/Palin would be against such dramatic teenage reality.

Colorblind

J: "...he's the asian guy right?"

Me: "actually he's hispanic."

J: "I don't see color."

Offended We DeFriended You?

Last night over drinks with the girls, we got to talking about the people we've DeFriended on Facebook.
Most of us had Removed A's ex from our fb registrar. And A had also cut the worldwide cord to one of her first loves - a zombie phoenix that haunts repeatedly over the years and never disappears, but a swift Facebook Delete and we have found the secret weapon to finally killing them off.
Then there's the Randers that we'd FacedOut when we couldn't be bothered seeing the status change every five minutes (and, of course, all the Randers seem to be repetitive status changers) - we think he may be that kid from middle school, but can't really be sure because let's face it we don't remember their face or their name for that matter and wait, isn't this thing called Facebook, so that's a damn fine place to start when it comes to collecting friends.
(Now we've hit the nail on the head: so many of these people are collecting friends the way we once did Garbage Pail Kids or HotWheels Cars, as many as you can get. It's a status symbol.)

So, when they asked if I'd DeFaced N, and I said I hadn't, they were surprised. It's been four months since we'd stopped seeing each other - incidentally, the same amount of time that we dated. I hadn't really thought of him in the past couple months and short of a few "N and insert unknown name are now friends" and N was tagged in a photo, I hadn't paid too much attention to him amongst the remainder of my real Fakebook friends.
But this morning, I logged on and thought, they were right, I should send him to the fb trash bin. I typed his name in the little search box, but his photo and current status didn't appear. I was rerouted to the results page, where there he sat with a glowing blue Add as Friend label.
What? He UnFriended me? What a jerk! I quickly did a search in my sent messages folder - last week I hosted an event and invited everyone I knew in New York, unfiltered. I had included him on that message. This meant he only removed me as a friend in the last week. Pas cool. Super pas cool!
I mean, here I didn't care otherwise, but to know that he closed the book, admittedly it stung just a little, like a papercut.

I would like to recommend fb consider adding alternate buttons: Frienemies, Foes and Randers.

Sound Off

Now that both conventions are over, I have one question to ask both parties: Where did they find the sound designers? Did they create a craigslist post targeting former djs from oldies radio stations?

I would have appreciated hearing something released recently, like, perhaps, the last thirty years.

I could understand that the RNC might have skewed a little older, but I was particularly disappointed when watching the DNC. Where was the indie rock? What happened to running a younger campaign? Come on, why can't you hire the guys who do the Apple or Target commercials? Hell, I'd prefer the tunes from most car commercials.