Saturday, July 31, 2004

In the event that something bad should happen, I wanted you to be aware

I just got three phone calls from a 14-year-old girl in Chicago who thinks I stole her boyfriend, or that this is the phone number of the person who did steal her boyfriend. The first time she called, from a restricted number, she was whispering and cursing, so I hung up on her. A minute later she called, and said, "Why'd you steal my man?" I told her I thought she had the wrong number. She said, "No I don't." I was kind of laughing at this point, and asked her if she thought she was calling Chicago. She said yes, I told her I was in NYC. She said she was coming round this way. I told her to look me up when she got here and hung up. The next call I let go to my voice mail, and the message was, in a sing songy, whispery, laughing voice, "We're coming to get you, we're going to kill you," giggle, giggle. Except I don't really think that's funny anymore. Now I'm wondering if I'm in the opening scenes of Scream and I just don't know it yet.

Friday, July 30, 2004

And why are they the cookie of AYSO halftime?

I just made instant coffee, with the hopes that after I cooled it and combined it with condensed milk I would have a fair impersonation of a Thai iced coffee, without having to pay for it. Or only having to pay for the condensed milk and coffee this once. I forget that food from the supermarket costs money once it's in my apartment. Sunk cost and all.
I bought the cheapest instant coffee at the store, Cafe Caribe in festive yellow and green. I am doubtful that Cafe Caribe contains any cafe. When I put it in water, a suggested one teaspoon per cup, it turned the water brown, but it smelled like a mixture of soy sauce and molasses. The water, no longer water, definitely not coffee, tasted vaguely bitter. So I kept adding more coffee. It got darker but still doesn't taste a thing like coffee. It'll probably be good with condensed milk though.
While at the supermarket purchasing coffee I started wondering about Entenmann's baked goods. Why do they always have a stand-alone display section? It'd be one thing if Entemann's products were all in one place, that'd still be an exception to the usual rules for sweets, as cookies and donuts and cakes would all have to be shelved in the same place, not spread throughout the baked good's aisle, but they're not even in the baked good's aisle. In my Chicago supermarket they were on an island in the milk & cheese aisle, here they're in front of the produce, first thing you see when you walk in. Do you think they pay extra? or just sell well? I might have to call and find out.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

He's not even the famous one

Following is the order of speakers at the Democratic National Convention tonight, beginning at 7pm (dems2004.org):

  • Gavel In by "Gavel In" Contest Winners Kristen Turner, age 13, Boston, Massachusetts 
  • Steven Ruperto, age 18, Moon, Pennsylvania
  • Kids for KerryRepresentatives from Kids for Kerry, Boston chapter Nubia Smith Whitaker, age 12, will speak on their behalf
  • Benjamin McKenzie, Actor, "The O.C."
  • City Youth Dance Ensemble
  • Tribute to Fannie Lou Hamer, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Actors
  • Bennie ThompsonU.S. House of Representatives, Mississippi
  • Dr. Maya Angelou, Poet and Activist

Monday, July 26, 2004

Hello Dave

I walked home from work today and saw a girl speeding by on her bicycle with a trombone peeping halfway out of her backpack. I wonder if she was in the Orchestra.
I stopped at Burritoville (which is, quoting from the sign behind the counter, Mexcellent) and was waiting around for my order, when I realized that the 5 kids sitting in the corner, 3 girls and 2 boys that looked about 16-18, were saying grace over burritos and sprite. Very few behaviors mark you as a tourist quite as completely as praying in a Burritoville in the East Village.
At my table was a bucket of candy, Reese’s and Hershey’s kisses that are free for customers (and they give out free chips and salsa. Mexcellent). One of the praying kids, tall and blond and 16, walks over to the table, grabs the entire bucket and hustles it over to his friends. The girls sitting at the next table over looks at me and we both start hysterically laughing. Take a handful of candy kid, take two, but don't grab the whole thing like you're going to devour it while making it impossible for anyone else to use it. He may pray, but he has no manners.
On one of the phone booths right outside was one incarnation of the "Anti-Semitism is Anti-Me" ads that star Naomi Campbell, a little Asian boy, and a mysteriously gendered pastor. (Is NYC really in serious need of an anti-Semitism campaign? Or is this for the RNC? I think the ads are probably, intentionally or otherwise, more of a booster shot for a flagging pro-Israel sentiment than pro-Jew. And yes, those things can be separated). I think one of these ads should contain an obviously Jewish person. Yes, that kind of defeats the ostensible logic of the ad, that anti-Semitism hurts more than just Jewish people. And if you're actually anti-Semitic, why would you care if the "me" in the photo you're anti is obviously Jewish? You in fact are anti that person and you know that. If you're anti-Semitic, however, you might not know that you're anti-Naomi Campbell and really cute Asian babies. And once you learn that it's only a matter of time before you renounce your Jew-hating ways. Right.
So why not pictures of Jewish people that look Jewish? In the sense that the ads are really saying it's bad to hate Jews because it's bad to hate humans, it might be good to show that some regular looking Jews are humans too.
The other thing I think whenever I see the ad with the pastor is, don't you have enough fish to fry being a kind of mysteriously gendered member of some Christian church? No offense or anything, but I'm not sure you're actually helping the cause, seeing as you kind of need ads protecting yourself from defamation. It also further clouds the purpose of this ad campaign: a lesbian pastor is only a welcome figure in certain communities, and most of them are already entirely accepting of Jews and/or Jewish themselves.

Finally, and unrelated to walking home, in Slate's lead article today was this observation:

"Even a casual viewer of Hardball knows that the first rule of an election that involves a sitting president is that it's a referendum on the incumbent. This election, however, has turned out to be the opposite. It's a referendum on the challenger. Kerry probably isn't responsible for this turn of events, but he's benefiting from it: The referendum on the incumbent is over. President Bush already lost it. This presidential campaign isn't about whether the current president deserves a second term. It's about whether the challenger is a worthy replacement."

This struck me as being true when I first read it. And then I wasn't so sure. Interesting either way.

Friday, July 02, 2004

Questions I had last night and no longer have today.

Heart cancer:does it exist? Or do people die instantly making it look like a heart attack?
How tall can an onion grow left unattended in a refrigerator? Pretty tall. Rummaging around for some yogurt I saw green stalks poking up through the grate that is the second level shelf in my fridge. Celery? Nope, an onion stalk at least a foot long and about four months in the growing.
Worst logo ever? Yes.