The Protocols of the Yuppies of Zion

September 30, 2002

Birthday Money + CD Store = Kids at Locksmith School

Went on an absolute binge this week, due to the presence of some much-appreciated birthday cash. New to the collection are Herbie Hancock's "Takin' Off", "My Point of View", and "Inventions and Dimensions". More challenging is the fourth addition to the Love Bunker's jazz library, Miles Davis' "Miles Ahead". Hancock's Blue Note era features a pretty basic team of musicians, resulting in a classic, accessible... [ Read More ]

September 28, 2002

THE ARAB NEWS GETTING BRAINWASHED BY BLOGS?

Congratulations to Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs for having the word "idiotarian", which he coined on his blog some time ago, appear in print in the Arab News! Irony abounds.... [ Read More ]

NOT REALLY ROSIE

Disturbing discovery of the day: Carole King wrote and sang "Care-A-Lot", the theme song to the Care Bears movie. In related news, I'm becoming fascinated by her and other Brill Building songwriters. Goffin-King, Mann-Weil, and Leiber-Stoller were some damn fine songwriting teams. Combine that with Phil Spector's producing and you got sheer magic. UPDATE: My God. The Care Bears, and therefore Carole King, may actually... [ Read More ]

A WHEATARD NO MORE?

According to the BBC, it looks like there may be an actual cure on the horizon for people (including yours truly) who have gluten intolerance (a.k.a. celiac disease). Gluten intolerance means that any foods containing gluten--which is damn near anything made from wheat, rye, or barley, including bread, pizza, cookies, beer, and all that other good stuff--makes the person sick. Stomachaches, nausea, fatigue, fuzzy-headedness, hives... [ Read More ]

WAY COOL BALLOON ANIMALS

...over here. Also, balloon boobies. Just don't play too rough; you might pop them. [ link found via waxy.org ]... [ Read More ]

MY OLD HOMETOWN

...is back in the news with yet another minor scandal. Last Friday night, Scarsdale High School held its annual Homecoming dance, and out of the nearly 600 kids attending, about 200 kids turned up drunk. No, that's not an exaggeration; that's the actual official estimate. 28 kids have been suspended from school, and 5 kids were taken to the hospital with acute alcohol poisoning, some... [ Read More ]

September 25, 2002

Please, Mama... No Mo' Dowd!

I hope I never find out what Maureen O'Dowd was paid for today's oppressively bad opinion piece in the New York Times. I suppose, however, that they got their money's worth. The cost of compressing pure horse shit into newspaper form is a daunting one. The idea, then, that O'Dowd can convert pure, stinking, putrid, ghastly horse shit into verbal form that can be easily... [ Read More ]

September 23, 2002

Lest We Forget

An Israeli reader I never knew I had sent me a link to Remembering Shiri Negari. You are all most likely very familiar with my warm feelings towards Israel and my venom towards her enemies, but a barbed political rant seems to me very inappropriate right now. Instead, please visit Shiri's memorial and feel free to draw your own conclusions. I will resume battering you... [ Read More ]

September 22, 2002

When You Pry It From My Hot, Sweaty Hands!!!

They say most people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid pain. I am clearly not most people. I bought it for myself as a birthday present. Mr. Rockwell and I spent the better part of our valuable Sabbath training to defend ourselves from handguns. We spent four hours ripping rubber guns out of each others mitts, and now my forearms look like I've spent... [ Read More ]

September 19, 2002

THE MONEY SHOT

"It's good to show that Ivy League kids aren't just rich, snobby and goal-driven -- that they like to watch porn and eat fried chicken too," Ahmed said. Hear, hear.... [ Read More ]

September 18, 2002

I Know, I'll Just Stop Sleeping!

I'm pulling a double shift at work tonight, so my planned blogging time has been eaten. In the meantime, enjoy this link. If you can create a coherent sentence out of the sounds included, transcribe it into my comments section. The winner will receive some trifle of limited value. (Thanks to our very own SiGuy for the link)... [ Read More ]

LILEKS DOES IT AGAIN

Scott Ritter, Restaurant Inspector.... [ Read More ]

AND THAT'S NO WHOPPER

PatioPundit Martin Devon has discovered shocking new evidence that Sadaam Hussein really is in league with all those anti-globalization, anti-American, and anti-fast food folks like Jose Bove. This is just one more reason why having the Golden Arches over Baghdad by this time next year would be a welcome sign.... [ Read More ]

I CAN SEE MY HOUSE FROM HERE

...said Cameron, in one of my favorite movies. Well, I actually can see my house--er, apartment building--from this satellite photo of New York taken on 9/11 last year. (Warning: it's a high-res 14 MB TIFF file---stunning, but bandwidth-intensive) The street bordering the bottom of Central Park (of which you can just see a sliver) is 59th Street; count up from there and in the very... [ Read More ]

September 17, 2002

AVOCADOS AREN'T CALIFORNIA'S ONLY GREEN CROP

I knew there were good reasons (besides the obvious) for my thinking about moving to California in the next year or two.... [ Read More ]

September 16, 2002

[LOW MOAN OF ANGUISH]

Dammit, if Mom and Dad don't get back from end-of-Yom-Kippur services at Temple within the next twenty minutes--no, make that ten--I am marching upstairs and stuffing my face with that lox that's sitting there in the fridge! I will! I can't take this fasting bullshit anymore! This is my first time fasting for Yom Kippur, and it sucks donkey balls. Previous years saw me secretly... [ Read More ]

HACKING HAMAS

In a stroke of good fortune sure to warm this (war)blogger's geeky lil' heart, I stumbled across an excellent new blog. It's called Haganah, named for the 1940's/1950's Zionist group that was the precursor to the modern-day IDF. The blog's focus is to monitor radical Islamist websites: who owns the domain names, where the sites are hosted and who the ISP's are, what operating system... [ Read More ]

September 12, 2002

IN AN UNEXPECTED BIT OF GOOD NEWS

...I just found out that I'm getting a 14% raise at work (it sounds more impressive when your previous salary wasn't all that high to begin with). Go me!... [ Read More ]

FRIGHTENED INTO SILENCE?

Two nights ago, I saw on my local news (Channel 2 [CBS], I think?) a "Breaking Story" about a cargo ship in New York harbor that had been ordered to dock in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where it was being searched after conflicting reports that material onboard was registering as radioactive. They had a map up on the screen of the area where the docks were,... [ Read More ]

THAT TEXAN TROUBLEMAKER

Quana has three lengthy pieces up on her blog about her experiences over twenty years working with and teaching Saudis at the chemical plant where she has long worked. Makes for interesting reading. Here's Part I, Part II, and Part III. It was my first time visiting her blog; judging by her links list, it looks like she's a fellow geek, too. Awesome.... [ Read More ]

IN A WORLD...

Funniest movie trailer I've seen all year. (That is, funniest trailer that's intentionally funny.)... [ Read More ]

FUCKED-UP FONTOGRAPHY

Three World Trade Center rubble-inspired fonts are available for sale here. Sure, aesthetically, they're well-made fonts, but politically, I find them to be disgustingly callow. They're also $40 each, with $10 of that going to a WTC-related charity, the Uniformed Fire Fighters Widows and Childrens Fund. I'd rather donate to the fund directly by going to this site instead of paying this exploitative jerk. For... [ Read More ]

YESTERDAY'S TRIBUTE

The page I put up yesterday was scanned in from page 325 of the siddur (prayerbook) that I recieved as a Bat Mitzvah present from my synagogue ten years ago; it's from "Sabbath and Festival Prayerbook", copyright 1949, 1973. That particular passage was written by David Shiminowitz and translated by Morris Silverman. The Hebrew version rhymes.... [ Read More ]

September 10, 2002

Better Half Indeed

Brava, sweetie.... [ Read More ]

Mom Caught Me Waxing Off

Actually, she didn't. But as a long-time sufferer of Macchio-sis, (The crushing need to watch any and all of the first three"Karate Kid" films every time they're on cable) I have sought comfort in vain for many a year now. A veritable Typhoid Mary among my peers, I alone have suffered under the cruel yoke of this oft-overlooked addiction. I alone knew the cold, grating... [ Read More ]

BALLOT BOXING

Today is Primary Elections day in NYC. Go vote! Preferably for Andrew Eristoff! (Seriously, how many candidates can credibly claim to be representing the Republican, Independence, and Liberal parties, and who even got the crusty Ed Koch cross party lines to give him his endorsement?) UPDATE, 9/12: I am a big civic idiot. I left work around 2:00 PM and showed up at my polling... [ Read More ]

Once Were Worriers

One of the great dinosaurs of Idiotaria, Susan Sontag, offers a useless bout of hand-wringing today in the NYT Op-Ed section. In one piece, Sontag manages to produce enough hedging to satisfy an entire battalion of the Knights-Who-Say-Ni. First, some minor qualms. “And there will always be despicable terrorists, mass murderers like those who perpetrated the attack a year ago tomorrow — as well as... [ Read More ]

BEIJING CALLING

Well, this here site may be blocked by a number of American-made web filtering programs, but surprisingly, it ain't blocked in China, according to the Real-Time Testing of Internet Filtering in China site. Guess they know better than to annoy a loyal General Tso's chicken devotee. [Link found via little.yellow.different.] UPDATE: Of course, if I'd actually bothered to check my Geobutton reports once in a... [ Read More ]

LITTLE GIRL LOST

This is sick. But not, sadly, unbelievable. I first saw mention of the story over at PejmanPundit. Silflay Hraka has the best response to the story that I've seen so far. What a fucked-up world we live in. Rest in Peace, little girl. Burn in Hell, Khazir.... [ Read More ]

September 09, 2002

THE VODKAMAN SERVES UP A TONIC

Thank you, Stephen Green, for being the cool and clear-headed guy you are, even when angry.... [ Read More ]

THAT OLD-TIME RELIGION

Happy New Year to all my fellow Yids out there! I spent Rosh Hashannah (Noo Yawk pronunciation: Russia Shawna) celebrating the traditional way: half in synagogue, half sitting around my kitchen table with my family stuffing our faces. In a switch, though, the latter was more satisfying, and the former more exciting: this year, we had to evacuate our synagogue. It's about 1:15 PM and... [ Read More ]

BACK TO BROADWAY

I'm back from LA. I had a lovely time with Scott, that smooth-talking rapscallion of a loverman. And I'm still ever-so-much head over heels in love with him. [happy sigh] We're so schmoopy together, we worry that we'll give any onlookers tooth decay. I already miss him terribly, even though I just spoke to him on the phone a few hours ago. Forget leaving your... [ Read More ]

September 08, 2002

*BUUURRRPPP* Wooooo!!!

What Drink Are You? Beer and I met freshman year, and became fast friends. Beer was always around, never judging, asking favors, or borrowing my tapes. Just there to say "cheer up, old boy! Let's sit around and watch some porn. Then, after a few of my friends show up, we'll run onto the roof and yell obscene things at passersby. How's that sound?" I'm... [ Read More ]

September 06, 2002

Thanks for the Memories... And the Fried Dough!

Waaay back on Sunday, Brookie and I had the pleasure of lunching with Pejman Yousefzadeh and Emily "Hey! Summit protest people! FUCK YOU!" Jones. And let me tell you, what a pair of walking cadavers! Seriously, folks, the sooner we get these two troglodytes into the salt mines and away from neighborhoods with schools in them, the sooner we'll get our fetid society back from... [ Read More ]

Melon Call Ya

The first week after seeing Brooke is always the hardest. It's not that I've been depressed... far far FAR from it. I have, however, been totally preoccupied replaying the best five days I've had in a long, long time. Despite the fact that she's alive, well, and a phone call away, she's become something of a ghost in my apartment. There's a her side of... [ Read More ]