Lake Tahoe

Two friends agreed to combine their bachelor parties and a group of 20 or so of us rented an amazing house near Lake Tahoe for the weekend.
The highlight was cruising around the clear deep blue lake in a speedboat amidst the mountains and enjoying the sun.

NOT hanging out with OJ

I'm at the wedding of a good friend whose bachelor party took place in Miami a month ago. I was all set to attend until I realized I had the worst sinus infection known to man and a weekend of drinking and fishing would probably make me die. I had a bad feeling about it - I canceling on a bachelor party just seems to invite bad luck somehow.

I was right. Apparently everyone showed up on Friday, went to a bar to have a few drinks and spent the evening hanging out with acquitted alleged double homocidist OJ Simpson. I can't believe I missed this. I want to kick myself in the nards. Questions I would have asked him:

1) No seriously, you did it, right?
2) Who wears gloves when they're not committing double homicide? In LA? In June?
3) Do you not think it's creepy to still date women who look like Nicole? How do you still manage to date anyone without them thinking you're going to kill them?
4) What could have possibly been going through your mind when you wrote the book?
5) Are there any plans to sell an OJ "The Juice" Simpson Juicer with Jack LaLane? For that matter do you even feel comfortable ordering juice at restaurants?

EDIT: After further investigation, I learned hanging out with The Juice means listening to him drone on for an hour about Iraq ("Eh-rabs") and how he was once Don Imus' boss among other topics while five strippers follow him around. Five. Also, none of my friends broached any of the above questions with OJ. I suppose when you've publicly decapitated your wife and some other dude while managing to get acquitted of the crime, people learn not to fucks with you.

On stage with the Arcade Fire

Last night at the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights, New York I saw The Arcade Fire in concert. In short, it was amazing - they put on a great show and are very pro-fans. During the encore, they played "Wake Up" after inviting all of the fans in the front onstage (including me and my pals). To quote my friend Matt, "It's always a good day when you end it up on stage dancing with a band."

The venue is amazing and the restoration job is incredible. If you get the chance to see a show there or just visit, definitely do so.

Actually seeing famous people

Okay, so after much bitching I finally have seen some celebrities in NY, although oddly, only on the subway. I kind of assumed they took cabs everywhere but apparently the subway is even convenient for them.

First I saw Carson Kressley, aka The Queer Eye guy. This one was a weird sighting since it was all people trying to get to work by 9am and the train was packed. Dude was wearing so much pink he looked like a lawn flamingo with enormous sunglasses. Just a wild guess, but I don't think he was trying to blend in.



Second, I saw Little Carmine Lupertazzi from the Sopranos, AKA Ray Abruzzo. I live near Little Italy so it spooked me to see faux Mafia types running around in the neighborhood. Then of course he got on the subway with me. I'm a big fan of the show (although its final episodes are really tanking quickly for some reason) so I wanted to grill him for spoilers but I didn't. IMDB tells me he has been in shows like Trapper John, Riptide, Falcon Crest, and 21 Jump Street.

Finally (today) I saw Ajay Naidu, AKA Samir from "Office Space". (Coincidentally, appeared in one episode of "The Sopranos") This one was hilarious since I was on the subway and staring at him like I knew him from school or something and he noticed. We exchanged hellos and then I felt bad - I figure he'd probably want to be left alone. Of the three, he's really the only one I would have wanted to talk to, largely about Office Space, but it seems like people largely leave famous folks alone in NY and that's probably why they live here.



I'll stop complaining now.

Eating Cookie Soup

A certain someone I know likes to make this gourmet dessert I like to call "Cookie Soup". It's like having Oreo cookies with milk, only you just say fuck it and go the whole way. Be warned: this is only for serious sugarheads. The recipe is:

- Several Oreo cookies
- Bowl
- Spoon
- Milk (whole is best)

Combine ingredients and let sit for 5 mins. Cookies will get soggy and you will get mushy Oreos and chocolate flake-infused milk solution.

According to it's creator, it's more efficient and less messy than the traditional dunking method. I have to say, it's pretty good, and I don't usually like sweets. Give it a whirl and post your reviews below.

At MIT recruiting

I went to Boston to give a recruiting presentation to the MIT kids (who are WAY dorkier than U-C types, by the way) and on the way I saw this bananas looking Frank Gehry-type of thing. Apparently its the Stata Center which houses all sorts of artificial intelligence, computer science, and philosophy folks.

I'm not sure if this is the coming style of modern architecture, but it looks like a Tim Burton movie set and I like it. I can't imagine what it looks like from the inside...

In cabs

As a business traveler (sigh) I am constantly in cabs, largely to/from the following four places: My house, the office, the client, the airport. You tend to notice many things about cabs and their conductors after a while.

• For example, the cabs in Boston have much less footspace than the NY ones do. I think they put the big divider thing into normal cars instead of semi-modified ones as you see elsewhere.
  
• In DC, there are no dividers, and the drivers are almost entirely of African origin, especially Ethiopia. The fares are also entirely calculated by the number of zones you travel through, not the time or distance traveled according to the odometer. The idea here is to disincentivize out of the way trips to pad the fare but a flat fee just for picking someone up (as in NY) encourages them to turn fares as fast as possible already.
  
• Additionally, DC cabs will think nothing of picking up other riders if they seem to be going in the same direction as you ("seem" being key here). This is wholly unacceptable in New York and will earn you a serious yelling/fistshaking by your existing passenger.
• When you throw your luggage into the trunk of a cab, you'll notice two things: 1) It's way bigger than it needs to be. I mean you could really make the cabin larger if you decided not to have a swimming pool sized slot in the caboose. 2) Junk. Lots of it. Most cabbies have some crap of theirs left in the trunk which they clearly don't care if people make off with. I've seen boxes, jackets, backpacks, DVDs, bungee cords, fuel cans, and babies. Okay, no babies.
  
• Also in DC, for no apparent reason, the (mostly African) cabbies drive around with the passenger and driver windows down. IN THE WINTER. You have to ask for them to put them up and even then they often leave a crack open. I have no idea what this is accomplishing
• One cab in DC I got into this past week had tons of little plastic animals in it (see photo) on the back platform thing behind the back seat under the rear window and all over the dash and ceiling. The contents were largely bobble-head turtles which were surprisingly freaky.