Magic Jewball

I may post a real post later but this made me laugh and laugh. From today’s NY Times on the muted debut of Windows Vista:

“If there were a line, I would have been on there,” said Joe Torres Jr., 54, a security guard who bought a Vista operating system for himself yesterday morning at a Best Buy store in Midtown Manhattan, along with a Hewlett-Packard laptop fitted with Vista as a Valentine’s Day gift for a friend.

Can you imagine the scene at that guy’s place? “You called me your friend in the New York Times?”

Because, folks, I don’t know anyone who buys their friends laptops as gifts, especially for Valentine’s Day. Good call, Joe, good call.

Is there any cheerier subject to start the new year with than death? I mean, I’m not really the one who started it. If you’re one of the 96% of my visitors who are American you will have no doubt noticed that there’s been a wee bit of that on TV these past couple of weeks. Naturally, the first thing you will have surmised is that Gerald Ford was the most important president in American history and that his funeral will be visiting your town soon. Also, that James Brown no longer feels so good and that Saddam Hussein should have had the Madison Square Garden security staff search people for camera phones before entering.

But actually, I just came from a funeral and so even without all that I would have been thinking about birth and death, rather than my last post which was about the stuff that comes in between. It’s Jewish tradition for the mourners to all help bury the deceased and so once at the cemetery I pitched in. Either those shovels are really heavy or I need to increase my strength training. The birth part comes in because the wife of the friend who passed actually delivered me when my Mom couldn’t make it to the hospital. If you enjoy reading JBall, you should thank her. Not that I wouldn’t have made it out anyway but I could have been even more brain damaged.

In any case, between TV and real life, I’m getting tired of death. Except Saddam, I could probably stand to see him die a few more times. No, I kid, I haven’t seen it, don’t link me, I won’t go. You can tell the news people are getting tired of it as well because I have seldom seen a story reported with such glee as the dude who saved the other dude in the subway station. You can see it on their faces. “A story about someone not dying! YaY!” I mean, kudos to the guy, because I can’t see myself ever throwing myself on the tracks to save someone else’s life. There are rats down there! And used condoms! I know, because I stare down moodily each morning as I listen to the Deftones on my iPod and avoid looking at the untalented whistling Spanish guitar guy who plays at my station.

Anyhoo, I’m looking forward to watching the Flava of Love spin-off, “I Love New York,” not only because I can’t stand any more dead people on TV but because this way I’ll just wish death on a bunch of people.

 

 

The following song comes with an anecdote (I know you love those!). When I worked at the record store in high school, I would always put Depeche Mode on and the manager would always take it off. He told me it sounded like a funeral march and scared off the customers. Once, when I was busy arguing, “no they’re not depressing,” the following song started with its first morose line, “Death is everywhere…..” I didn’t win the argument.

Depeche Mode – Fly On The Windscreen

Yesterday I had lunch with my friend who works at CNN. Of course I was psyched because we work just blocks apart and yet have been doing the “we really should have lunch” thing for over a year. But I was also excited, being the mediawhore that I am, to see the CNN digs. You may remember my fond remarks about Pat Kiernan on NY1. Yep, CNN owns them too.

When I was in Atlanta some years ago I took the whole CNN tour. I got to see Sachi Koto reading the news right in front of me! And a couple of years ago I was just walking along, minding my own business in front of the Time Warner Center when lo and behold, there was Jeannie Moos doing a piece right there on the street. I have kind of a girl-crush on Jeannie Moos. She’s funnier than I’ll ever be. So I yelled out, “Jeannie Moos, you rock!” It was kind of spontaneous. She called me over and interviewed me for her piece which was about former President Clinton. I can’t be more specific than that because then you’ll find the video on their site and see me. Luckily, as you’d know if you read the first paragraph, I have a friend at CNN, so I was able to get a copy.

But back to yesterday. I forgot my camera but that’s OK. I have a feeling they wouldn’t have taken too kindly to me documenting the place pictorially on my blog. Hell, the security was comparable to getting on an El Al flight. I had to show a picture ID several times, they printed me out a badge, and gave me yet another badge to hand to the security guy not 10 feet away. I guess they’d heard about my fondness for Pat Kiernan. This is in stark contrast to my building, where a certain famous rapper once came and tried to off an executive with several heavy objects from said executive’s own office. And yet, anybody could get in here. They really know how to keep people from killing you at CNN. You have to admire that in a company.

And I know I’ve said before that the mall part of the center is plush, but man, they should film the Apprentice there or something. First off, there was CNN on in the elevator. If we played our music in the elevators here, well, I think the building would sue us. In the waiting area there was a bank of fancee screens playing various Time Warner channels. Fortunately for me, the sound was off on the one showing Becker on TBS.

Then there is their cafeteria. I mean, they have that fantastic Whole Foods in the basement and yet, they still have a gourmet caf with lots of tasty choices as well as a mind-blowing view of Central Park. Man, I wished I had my camera. Next time. Strangely, you are not allowed to use cash at the CNN cafeteria, I assume because Ted Turner never carries any. You have to load bucks onto a special card and use that. I guess with times as they are over there, they need the interest-free loan on your card balance.

One of the food areas is designated as the “International” food bar. The country of the day was “Meze.” Despite being graduates of good colleges, neither my friend nor I had any idea there was a country called Meze. Based on the sorts of food that was offered, we assumed it was an Arabic nation. Well, according to Wikipedia, it’s a cuisine, not a country, you fools!

“A Mezze (Turkish Meze), in eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine, is a selection of appetizers or small dishes taken with alcohol, similar to tapas of Spain.”

Sadly, there was no alcohol. Can you imagine if Anderson Cooper got wasted before his 360 show? I think not.

On a whole other topic, I have a hard time asking friends and family for money. This is one reason I don’t run “athons,” the other being that I’m lazyass and out of shape. But for me personally, I am extremely anal about money and have a strict budget. I was in debt for a long, long time (Who gives a credit card to a college student making $25 a week? Oh right, everyone.) and am enjoying my sixth year of other-than-mortgage, debt-free living. I have a certain amount set aside for charitable giving. So when friends run charity races, well, it diverts money from other causes I want to give to, like Doctors Without Borders (they really need a “Run For the Border”) or my high school, which desperately needs money. Because I like my friends and family, I end up giving a lot of money to disease research, which is what most of these runs are for. A worthy cause, no doubt, but not the only one.

But I recognize that not everyone is like this. Some people have ten bucks between the cushions of their couch and just need to hear that their friend is running five miles to motivate them to go digging for it. It is to these people that I address the following.

Some of the freaks, er, friends who are part of my online community are running the Susan G. Komen race for Breast Cancer research in Boston this year, as they did last year. Even if my Mom hadn’t had the last five years of her life ruined by this disease that ultimately killed her, I’d suggest you scrounge up that money and send it over to them. Why? Because many of them are Jewball readers, and, hey, my stalker stats would be empty without them. No, seriously, they are fantastic people who are using cancer research as an excuse to drink and party for an entire weekend. So if you have a few dollars lying around that you were going to buy a latte with today, why not send it over to some hot chicks running their asses off for a good cause? The website to give is here.

Speaking of asses, have you ever wanted a piece of Hot Blogger’s ass? That is, my BlogMentor, DuchessJane? Who wouldn’t! Now you can have it AND donate to this cause! So should you have a week’s worth of latte money and a desire to have your message advertised all over the city of Boston, please see this.

OK, time for the song of the day. Obviously, the post title is a tweak on a line from A Day in the Life but the Beatles don’t license their music to download services such as Napster. It’s OK, I’m sure you’ve got Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in your collection. And since I couldn’t find a song about CNN, let’s go with “you’re like a disease without any cure.”

James – Laid

Am I becoming tiresome? This one’s a little different, I swear.

Sometimes when I wake up and the TV or radio is on (that is, pretty much always), the media and my dream will become enmeshed, sort of like those storybooks they used to advertise where you could get the book customized for your child. “Then the train conductor said to Timmy….”

This morning it seemed like a news segment about the biggest nuisance fines charged to companies in NYC was about my company. Oh ha! Then I realized I was fully awake and Pat Kiernan had actually mentioned my company. Oops. Yay!

While channel-surfing those morning shows I hate this a.m. in search of some real news, I chanced upon this teaser on CBS’ The Early Show: “After the break, Prince Harry reaches a milestone in his life.”

Was it to much to hope that it would be this?

Nope, it was his graduation from military academy. They did manage to get in a mention of the better story towards the end of the piece, though. After this earth-shattering lead item they got to the other, duller news.