The Saturday Before Halloween Is Sooooo A Holiday

First off, our Jack and Meg costumes were a monstrous success, as was the Tallywhacker's Waldo.




I found him!

But before Stripe-ifying, the host of the show I work for was having a party at the Brooklyn Brewery, and Dan and I went five blocks out of our way to stop by. You all know my feelings on the Brewery: it is manna, heaven-sent. Now imagine that same ideal friend's-basement feeling all classed up with tea lights, make all the beer free, and cater it from Blue Smoke. Add classy people to spot and then feel superior about being able to spot; ie Maureen Dowd. Smug and full from an eighteen-pound plate of pulled pork, wings, ribs, smoked pork butt, mashed potato and the best vinegary-mustard seedy-tangy coleslaw ever, we ran home to dress in red and white and smear white clown makeup all over our faces. I also got to put eyeliner on Dan and he was a big baby about it.




I still needed black hair, though. We stopped by the Halloween Outpost in Union Square, which was hopping. And huge. I picked up a spray can and disappeared into the Most Disgusting Starbucks Bathroom on Earth to Goth up. Honestly, I had been secretly indifferent towards doing the hair, because our party was in Park Slope, which is far, and I wanted to keep my Brewery buzz going, and that spray makes your hair feel like a wig, but Dan's Jack turned out so uncannily that it really required a full-out Meg. So, black hair. I kind of like it, actually.





(We're performing. Imagine the instruments).

People were singing Stripes songs to us on the street. It was awesome.

The party was fun, too. A Colbert intern showed up uninvited with eighteen friends, including a very drunk Large Brite.




Kate was not amused.

In Rainbows (Cheap Rainbows)

Just downloaded the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows. In case you've been living under a stone, the band decided to offer the new album via "disc set," which is a million dollars and includes lots of spiffy extras, or a pay-as-you-wish download. That's it. You can't get it at Best Buy or Scotty's. You can't have them tell you how much to pay. You just go to their website... and get it.

And however much I try to support the arts, dude, it's pay what you want. And they don't even have any guilt-inducing pop-ups that make you feel all shady about taking something free.

Not that it has to be free.

It was free to me, though.


Oh, and if you taped tonight's 30 Rock, pause it just as Jenna's leaving the Page Pit. If you look in the background, you can see some douchey signs that are... taken from the actual office.

Halloween

So Halloween is my favorite holiday. It ages so well.

Halloween at 1: your parents dress you up as a pumpkin. You are adorable.

Halloween at 5: unlimited candy.

Halloween at 15: you're too old to trick-or-treat, but do anyway, AND take petty revenge in the form of TPing on those for whom you don't care. Double whammy!

Halloween at 19: candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.

Halloween at 25: um... see previous. Except now you have a job and dressing up as an iPod ad also acts as sweet release.


So this year, Dan and I are taking that all-important step of the Couples Costume. Last year the iPod dancer and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran got along fine (yes, last year. Dan was very ahead of the curve), but this coming 31st, we want people to know we are an ITEM.

Ideas included lederhosen, George & Martha Washington, ketchup and mustard, until j.Lo hit the jackpot:




Can Dan obtain a shady goatee and porkpie top hat by this Saturday? I'm thinking definitely.

I Am A Ratings Powerhouse, Therefore I Am...

...a CBS procedural that you have never seen.

So I've been paying more attention to ratings, b'duh. Here's what I've learned: Criminal Minds, NCIS, CSI: Anyhere, Dancing With The Stars, House, Law & Order: SVU, and Heroes are reliable (kind of. Heroes has only been ok). Sports are reliable. The Office is reliable. American Idol is a ratings juggernaut.

OH! SPEAKING of The Office, I stood next to Ricky Gervais last weekend. Eddie thanked him for having an idea that has saved our network (kind of). It was REALLY EXCITING. Ummmmm anyway. Maybe we should do a network Extras.

I guess my point is, we are in a Golden Age of Television. Reality shows force regular shows to be better (it's a lot cheaper to make a reality show than a crappy low-budget sitcom = your idea for a scripted show will not get off the ground if it sucks). But I find it odd that good shows with what I would assume to be broad appeal-- How I Met Your Mother and Friday Night Lights come to mind-- don't get watched at all. And that slightly quirkier shows like Dirty Sexy Money and Pushing Daisies (even Life) started out strong and have fallen off in the ratings, which means people gave them a chance and then decided to watch NCIS instead, which totally bakes my noodle.

Ummmmm... that's it. I guess I didn't have much of a point after all. Oh wait! I know-- commitment-phobia extends to TV viewing, because no big show requires regular viewership! And that the shows asking only a casual commitment command a committed audience is kind of strange.

Also, I went to Moustache with Dennis Tash Dan TL last night and it was awesome.

It's Here! It's Here!

My new camera! It arrived! Oh my goodness this is so exciting. Now when I run into ck on the L I can document it, along with proof of why Drunken Biking = Bad Idea.




Also it has sweet "Color Accent" and "Color Swap" features, which mean I can make Dan's apartment look like an acid trip.

Or make Jessio look alternately like a Gap jeans ad/Oompa Loompa.

Or take arty pictures of 80s memorabilia!!!!

Woo hoo!

Je$$iqua Is Famous

Now I know TWO top models!!!!!!

Day Off

The show was cancelled today, so I'm home. This is very good. I'm going to do a closet purge of sentimental t-shirts. You know sentimental t-shirts? If you're like me, you're drowning in your Clocktower Quad 2002 t-shirts, your Kent Place Sophomore Jamboree 1998 shirts, your high school field hockey camp shirts, your shirts from every time you signed up for a credit card just so you get get a free shirt shirts. The worst is that these shirts are all huge. As someone who rarely works out and has need of maybe 3 "I can wear it to the gym" t-shirts, total, this is kind of a problem. I live in New York. What's more, I live in New York and like to cook, so I can't use my oven as storage. My closet is in the hall, people. It's time.

It's also time for something else. I realized this this morning, as I thought, "Hey, I'll take before and after shots of my room and post them on the blog so I can see my progress!" before remembering my camera broke like a year ago (you might have noticed how I suddenly stopped putting pictures up here). Dan's new one doesn't work on my computer, and it's really time I stopped depending on others to document my funtimes.

So I ordered one! A Powershot SD1000. It was on sale.

Weekly Pressures

Oh my Lordee peeps, I am so overwhelmed. First off, we had a stressful day at work yesterday, one of those days where the crowd got out of hand and began to (although did not, in the end) win, one of those days in which, as David Sedaris puts it, "the managers spent a great deal of time with their walkie-talkies." It's 1 versus ~207, my friends. And I am small.

Second, I have about 17 hours of high-quality television waiting on my DVR and a busy weekend ahead. This is a problem. I still don't know who won Top Chef. I haven't watched the reshot Bionic Woman pilot. We're two deep into Ugly Betty. I made Dan tape Damages and that's been there for over a month now. I can't even look at Television Without Pity for fear of a weecapped spoiler. How am I participate in my culture??? There's:

30 Rock
Dirty Sexy Money
Friday Night Lights
Gossip Girl
Grey's Anatomy
How I Met Your Mother
Mad Men
The Office
Pushing Daisies
Top Chef
Ugly Betty
Weeds
Plus umpteen never-to-be-watched episodes of The Daily Show, Barefoot Contessa, Meet the Press, etc.

OH MY GOD I AM THE AMERICAN PUBLIC I CANNOT WATCH THIS MUCH TV.

Ok. Ok. Top Chef is about over. Mad Men has 2 eps left. Including last night! So it's basically over (and really, really good, BTW) (I've startd saying "BTW" out loud, on occasion. See paragraph above). Weeds is almost over. Gossip Girl'll be cancelled soon. That leaves nine. Let's prioritize.

Shows for which I will watch every single episode in its entirety, including the opening credits:

30 Rock
HIMYM
The Office
Friday Night Lights

They are unmissable because they bring me great joy. Also, for the first three, I'm never on the edge of my seat, like, "I have to see what happened with Barney and that girl he met at the bar!" and can therefore watch them whenever. These shows don't pressure me. They never make me feel guilty for abandoning them (did you ever feel bad when you were little for playing with certain toys more, like it was going to hurt your other toys' feelings? No? Oh. Me neither). They're a little treat when I discover a spare twenty-two minutes.

Friday Night Lights, of course, is the best show on TV.

I think the rest I'll just watch casually. Grey's is already relegated to background noise on Sundays while I clean. I can jump into Ugly Betty mid-season. So that leaves Dirty Sexy Money and Pushing Daisies. Creative and well-cast.

Remember the time before DVR, when if you missed a show you just missed it, maybe got someone to fill you in, and either jumped back in the next week or let it fizzle? When casual viewership was a commonplace, default option, rather than a thoughtful choice?

Oy oy oy.

I'll get back to you on those two ABC Wednesdays.

I'm Old, Y'alls

What UP what UP!!!!! Yo yo this is fo' realz. I's twenny-six, y'alls. Brit's got no kids, I can still run for Congress but not Senate, I sliced my finger open and should've gotten stitches but didn't so now I's gon' look all badass wit a scar on my left pointer!

(This is what happens when I listen to hip-hop in the apartment).

Craft = Very Different From Kraft

So Dan and I went to Craft last night--Tom Colicchio's restaurant, for Top Chef watchers. It's an interesting concept-- meals come family-style and you customize them with sides of your own choosing. It's very ingredients-driven, and although it's a really dramatic space, the focus is squarely on the food. Basically, I read that something like "potato puree" was going to blow my mind. This is a tall promise. Potatoes are potatoes, you know?

We had:

starters of:
Oysters
Foie Gras with Peach
Beets with Tarragon

followed by mains of:
Braised Pork Shoulder with Tomatillo
Sauteed Cod with Almonds

with sides of:
Corn Risotto with Pancetta
Mixed Mushrooms
Potato Puree

and finished with a single scoop of:
Coffee Crunch Ice Cream

And then we died.

Seriously, people. A potato, it is not just a potato. I don't know what's in that puree, but I don't care if it involved torturing babies. Then we went to an Iron & Wine concert and commented that this was a very adult date, which was fitting, because it was for my birthday (big day is tomorrow). Since I'm turning 26 and work with recent kindergartners, I've been keeping the Big Bday on the DL, but if that's what being a grown-up is like? I think I can deal.

Jack McBrayer Is Not The Today Page

My friend at work, Kevin, is currently assigned to Today. It's a pretty cool assignment; he runs around all through the show, making sure the guests are where they need to be and that things are going on point, and is done for the day at 1 PM. He also gets lots of face time with Matt and Meredith. They know who he is! They appreciate him! That's so cool! Last week, while 30 Rock was using 1A to shoot some scenes, Meredith went up to Kevin and said "I just think you're so great. You do such a great job. You're so funny."

Kevin's like, this is awesome. I'm gonna ask her for a job. Then she continues.

"We have a page on the show who looks just like you!"

Oops.

They can tell you all about it themselves right here.