Celebrities: They're just like me!

This is just to let you know all know that Suri Cruise is officially as cool as me. 


I was minding my own business, scanning through TMZ on my iPhone following a delightful July 4th BBQ and saw the following picture: 

Suri was out getting ice cream with her mom, Katie Holmes, who you all know (unless you're hiding under a rock to get away from the heat) has recently divorced Tom Cruise/escaped the clutches of Scientology. Suri and Katie were having ice cream in NYC, laughing it up, having a grand old time just mom and daughter (and bodyguards). 


I immediately turned to the BF, shoved this picture in his face and asked, "Does this dress look familiar??" He responded with, "...Um, maybe?"


Yes. Yes it does. It's the exact same dress that I wore to the Derby earlier this year!

I love when celebrities want to be just like me. Do you think they sell this dress in child size? Or did they custom make it for her out of the same fabric? Did they buy it in adult size and just tailor it down to child size? Tell me your secrets, Suri Cruise!

"That's it, I don't want you talking to me for the rest of the robbery!"

Recently, I was chided by some of my nearest and dearest for being too snobby and stuck up about movies. Apparently it is unheard of that I have yet to see movies such as Knocked Up, I Love You, Man, Princess Bride and Get Him To The Greek. My philosophy is that I can only see so many movies, so why not see movies that I may actually appreciate and enjoy? Then again, I recently discovered that my DVD of Nicholas Nickleby (one of my all time favorites) is totally messed up, likely because I have watched it too many times. So, I could probably stand to spend my time more wisely in the movie department. 


In an effort to be more relaxed in my movie choices and broaden my horizons, I decided to watch Tower Heist last night. It already has the makings of many things I enjoy: New York, Ben Stiller, a heist and hilarious antics. The cast is kind of fantastic: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Michael Pena, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick and Tea Leoni. Ben Stiller basically plays himself. Eddie Murphy is the same character/voice as always. Casey Affleck and Matthew Broderick (a laid-off wall streeter who is being evicted from his mega-millions condo) are exceptional. 


Even before you watch the trailer, you probably know how this one will end. That's ok. Watching Eddie Murphy mentor and lead four hapless men new to the robbery game is just fun (he has them prove that they can do "the big job" by getting them to steal $50 worth of merchandise each from a mall). I also loved that most scenes take place in/around Columbus Circle, and the major showdown is during the Macy's Day Parade (a tradition to watch in the Landis household). 


Hopefully the trailer below will wet your appetite for this funny, fun, heist comedy. It was a welcome break for my brain! 

who let the dogs out?

This post is dedicated to C, who greeted me this morning with: "Are you going to blog about something today so I can read it?" You’re welcome, lady!

 As you may have guessed it, this one is about dogs. First off – our dog, Mimi. Do you see this picture? That’s Mimi. Now I ask you – does this look like a vicious dog? If you answered yes, you’re wrong. The correct answer is obviously no. All this dog does is sleep approximately 20 hours a day. She is almost a cat. (Seriously – she loves drinking milk from a bowl.) She enjoys napping in the sun and on heating pads. The only remotely dog-like thing she does is chase squirrels and she is good at playing fetch with a tennis ball. I only know two people in this world who don’t like Mimi and one is a child and the other is an idiot.

Said idiot brings me to the nub and thrust of our story. Last week, a certain Human who shall remain nameless (cough – dad – cough) took Mimi on a walk, as per usual. For those who don’t know, Mimi’s worst enemy is the mailman (yes, this is a dog cliché). Whenever the mail comes, she FREAKS OUT for at least a half hour. I think she feels like the mail is an intruder and she has to protect us. Clearly, the mailman is enemy #1, since he delivers this intrusion. So whenever she sees the Mailman during a walk, she barks and barks and barks like a crazy person (dog). On this walk, the Human was unfortunately not paying attention and this time, Mimi was able to get close enough to the Mailman to “bite” him. I say “bite” because, hello – this dog weighs like 1 pound and her mouth is the size of a dime (do I need to refer you back to the picture above ?).

Anyhow, the Mailman alerted a member of the Highland Park Police Department, and a police officer showed up at our door about five minutes later. My mom was able to get him to go away by saying my dad was unavailable at the moment, and the police officer said my dad had to call him back later to discuss the incident. At the end of the day, we had to get Mimi tested for rabies and she is not allowed to be walked off our property for 10 days. We will be fined if Animal Control does not hear back from our vet regarding the results of the rabies test. Also, the ticket we were issued indicates that Mimi is an “attacking and biting dog”. She is now an outlaw from justice. (Maybe that will be her Halloween costume…? Miniature striped jumpsuit and small handcuffs?) (Oh no - after further research, of course this actually exists. What is wrong with people?)

Hilariously, when I texted my mom today to ask how Mimi was doing, she wrote “Have taken her on secret walks. Don’t tell the Mailman! No Xmas prezzies for him. He’ll be sorry!!” My family is the best. 

Secondly, I’d like to alert you that it’s that time of year again – when crazy dog people dress up their dogs in unfortunate-yet-sometimes-hilarious-and-adorable Halloween costumes. I saw this gallery today of dogs in the annual Tompkins Square Park Dog Parade. I think my favorite is the Pan Am Stewardess dog. What’s yours?

Happy Doglloween (and keep your doggies away from our Mailman)! 

sunday.

i don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds illegal.

did anyone see fantastic mr. fox yet? i can't decide yet if i loved it, or if it was a bit too wes anderson, cutsey, hipster for its own good. pretty sure i'll land on the side of "awesome" though. you can check out the music at the movie's website and watch the trailer below, if you haven't seen that yet. additionally, i saw willem defoe (he plays Rat, of course) last night after seeing the movie. so, that was pretty cool. imdb also tells me that adrien brody (loooove) was in the movie, but i don't recall the specific Field Mouse that he played. then again, mario batali was also in it, so who knows?

enjoy -

for real....?

so we ordered in last night (too much to talk about with all the excitement going on - mazal tov L & A!!!). here was the receipt that came with our food (personal info concealed to protect precious roommates):

notice anything odd? i'm not sure if they were messing with us, someone got lazy, or this is unfortunately someone's real name (i really hope not).

i'm sorry. what?!

as i was rushing home today, i breezed past the gap on 57th street. since gap is making a huge push for jeans these days, perhaps its no surprise... but in the window of the baby gap section i saw - skinny jeans for toddlers. i kid you not. the description online is "cool skinny jeans for your future fashionista." whatever happened to kids just being kids? the days when children had separate types of clothes, and not just shrunken adult clothes?

fyi - gap is also selling "boyfriend" jeans (which look insane on even the adult models... how do they look on normal sized adults?! let alone toddlers!), boot cut jeans, wide leg jeans..... basically everything on the adult side, just shrunk down for the kids. gap? stop it!

will my kids kill me if i don't let them wear skinny jeans? (or the future equivalent... skinny spacesuits, maybe.) i don't want them to be forced to be "future fashionistas." just let them work on being kids.

you know you are a true new yorker when....

...a taxi is on fire and you don't walk the other way but go in for a closer look.

A taxi burst into flames today at 53rd and 7th Avenue. Of course, as firefighters tried to put it out, cars slowed down, and walkers stopped to check it out. Too bad I didn't know sooner, otherwise I would have gone outside to check it out! Z - this is what you're missing in NY!

sometimes, fashion posts are for the boys.

i'm a late bloomer to the j crew land. i used to think their pants were too boxy for me and therefore never shopped there. but a recent trip taught me otherwise, and i am now in love with their skirts and fancy tshirts (my new fav across the board).

so, i was walking by ex-co-workers mailbox today and saw the new j crew catalog. finders keepers! as i was flipping through, i noticed a picture of the moon is down. the pic looked exactly like what you see here, all vintagey and old. um, what? the line next to the picture said "shop our vintage book collection at the Men's Shop in Soho". so - now j crew is telling me how to further accessorize my preppy/hipster lifestyle with old books? that does work well with my already-beat-up leather messenger bag... ok, i'll bite. after some research i found this post about the new soho store, with a very cool slideshow. i lourrrrve the vintage cufflinks they show, as well as the general old-timey vibe of the store. have any of you lovely men been out to the new j crew manland? is it extra cool? or just regular j crew in disguise?

what up me!

e: you're famous
me: i am???
e: you're one step ahead of the approval matrix

does this look familiar to you? looks like nymag thought it was cool too, and put it in their approval matrix for this week. yea, i'm awesome.

need some europe?

so, we finally made it to the cloisters this weekend! considering im obsessed with early christian-y art, this was a delight for me. (i almost bought a book that only had paintings of the crucifixion. i'm cool.) you might also like it if you enjoy: museums, beautiful parks, flowers, architecture, getting out of the heart of nyc. seriously - gorgeous scenery, lovely smelling flowers, beautiful views high above the hudson river. maybe you will even run into the tai-chi-shadow-boxing-zombie man who managed to entertain us for a good half hour.

in other news, apparently farah fawcett is not alone. i still maintain it was ok that mj eclipsed her death (come on people! we knew she was going to die since like, forever!), but it's interesting to see how many other celebs deaths were overshadowed by cooler dead people. sorry, ray charles....

here you go, e.

aside from shenanigans at work, yes, everything is ok. i haven't forgotten about you.

apparently i am the source of all things lost for certain people, so i'd like to officially announce the lost hiatus rewatch project. several lost bloggers are getting together, have created a schedule, and plan on rewatching all 5 seasons of lost in preparation for season 6. sounds crazy, right? well, if you're a lostaholic like me, you'd think this project was super-awesome. it just started a week or so ago, and everyone is blogging the old episodes, but with our current knowledge of jacob, flocke, widmore, ricardus.....etc. one of my favorites so far is jo, but you can also check out docartz and lostpedia for other postings on the rewatch and scheduling.

last night, we saw mr. david byrne in concert in brooklyn at prospect park. (new milestone - the deepest i've ever been into brooklyn!) he played mostly new stuff, but got a few oldies-but-goodies in there, like once in a lifetime.

still will be my favorite, always:



in other news, has anyone been watching the new bravo show the fashion show? it's basically the poor man's version of project runway. no heidi, no tim gunn (but who could ever replace him?)... i've been watching just because what the hell else is on, but i'm really waiting for project runway to come out again. i don't even care that it will be on lifetime.

wish i was still in school.

did anyone else catch this wonderful article in the nytimes today? it starts off talking about kids in westchester, ny doing chores and you think "oh boo hoo, rich kids have to do chores." but they are doing chores to raise money for a program called chores mean more. they are paid money (by their parents - some pay as much as $1 per chore - ooooh!) to do chores around the house. the money is then sent to their sister schools in Kenya so kids there can have storybooks and writing supplies. also - Jewish 7th graders wrote rhymes to help african kids learn to read and write stories inspired by Jewish prayers. one student set up a laptop at her bat mitzvah last month for guests to tell their own stories, and created table centerpieces from markers, pencils, crayons, chalk and scissors that will be donated to the african schools. “stories can be written by anyone, no matter your race, religion, gender, wealth or where in the world you live,” she said.

um, i love it. if you want to learn more/get involved, you can go to the LitWorld website. they're having a benefit in New York next month! sign me up!

weather!

you'd be happy too, if you had spent all of saturday under this tree...

i must take the wrong trains.

thanks to e for bringing this to my attention.

dreams do come true.

one set of take shelves at my office. it's so tall i can't even begin to get to all the shelves, and books are stacked at least two rows deep. i don't ever want to leave.

few things from the week.

where i want to be for the weekend.

who i saw on wednesday night @ 9th & 46th.

where i work now. (!!!)

P.S. If you still care about Lost (which I hope you do, despite the complete out-of-control-ness thus far of in the season), read this. Hopefully it helps. Have a great weekend, all!

professor hilarity, take 2.

hopefully you caught my post a few weeks ago, where i began my "professor quotes" section. here we go again, with more gems from the master of organizational behavior.

but before i even get into what he said last night, let's discuss his clothes. i've seen him twice now, and both times he has worn really fancy looking suits with this stand-up type collar. his shirts have the same short little, standy-uppy type collar. what the heck?! where does one even purchase a suit like this?? also, he never wears a tie, but always has a little hankie, poofie thing hanging out of his pocket. he lives in italy usually, so maybe i can blame it on that?
anyhow:

• [again, about the overhead projector] "Can this light be turned off? Damn. I already used my near-death experience joke last time."
• "Let's talk about tooting your own horn."
• "In that type of role you have consultants working for you, if you're willing to tap them."
  

clear out, i'm workin' with pills up here!

cvs is on my shitlist. i decided to fill my new prescription there, since the duane reade across the street is officially run by morons. i dropped of my prescription yesterday afternoon, everything went smoothly. super. but, when i went to pick it up this morning - crisis. allegedly, there was a "problem" with my insurance. i was (rudely) asked to wait while they figured it out. i proceeded to wait close to an hour for them to "sort this out". i stood around with my best "i am extremely pissed off" face on, but that didn't seem to incite them to move faster. i was told repeatedly that "she is on the phone with your insurance" but i could not find a single pharmacist who was on the phone. the only time they did pick up the phone was when someone called to ask about a prescription. they were very quick to answer those calls. so quick that i thought about going home and calling them to bitch about the issue instead of just standing there. anyhow, after waiting around for a million years while every other tom, dick and harry was helped before me, i was graciously handed my prescription. but - problem #1: it was much more expensive than it normally is. problem #2: my Rx is written to get 3 months at a time, but i was only handed a 1 month supply. blerg. i wanted to book it and figure it out later. as i turn to leave, the pharmacist says to me "Thank you," in that tone that really means "Please thank me for my brilliant work with pills." I did not. As I'm walking away, she continues to shout "Thank you" at my back.

Through all of that, here's the best thing I heard while waiting around the pharmacy counter -
Pharmacist Lady #1 to Pharmacist Lady #2: "What's half of a half?"

Do not, I repeat, do NOT go to the CVS pharmacy at 86th and Broadway.

solution.

instead of going the old boring route to bookshelves, i (well, z) found a cooler solution. if you recall, i have had a slight book overload as of late (which is due to a disease called "Must Buy More Books Than I Have Time To Ever Read"), and this is due to only get worse in the very near future. hoorah for floating shelves! can you figure out the secret?