ANNOUNCEMENTS MADE CLASSIER BECAUSE THEY ARE IN ROMAN NUMERALS

ROMAN NUMERAL NUMBER ONE

Q: Is there anyone hotter than a Convoy-era Kris Kristofferson?

A: No.



ROMAN NUMERAL NUMBER TWO

My friend Stephen and his brother Joel are competing in this batshit crazy contest sponsored by Delta.

It's down to the last two teams and they need your VOTES in order to win the grand prize of 1 MILLION FREQUENT FLYER MILES.

The final round of voting ends midnight Wednesday, which is TONIGHT.

You have to register (use BugMeNot) and watch both videos in order to vote. Kind of a drag, but the good thing is that you can minimize the screen and have it running while you're doing something else.

YOU GO HERE NOW!

If you've never met Stephen and Joel, they are two of the nicest people in the world.

Neither is as attractive as Kris Kristofferson, but they still deserve your vote.



ROMAN NUMBERAL NUMBER THREE

I've been having a shitty run.

In the past two weeks:

-work computer died and my hard drive was wiped
-scary subway incident
-stood up by boy
-got a 'step it up, kid' talk from my boss

It's looking up though. I just caught strep throat.

old peoples is my peoples

**just got first party invite saying "children welcome"

**ate handful of tums. actively savored the pineapple.

**warned 7 year old not to hang off tree branch sunday at central park

Swipeout

I know I'm an idiot. But am I racist idiot? That is the question.

Worked late today, had an article due and a dirty catbox waiting for me when I got home. Just thinking about it made me feel hopeless and tired.

I'm at the turnstiles when I hear the train approaching. Rock! I swipe my card. Insufficient fare. Fuck.

I walk toward the machine. Oh well. At least I'll get to read some of my book. It's a memoir by a blind guy and relatively funny. Not amazing funny, but good enough to take my mind off what's going on at work right now.

"Miss? Miss? I'll swipe you."

Out of the corner of my eye I see a black man hanging around by the turnstile.

Fuck that, I thought. Another homeless dude scammer.

I move forward with my plan to buy a Metrocard.

"Miss? Miss! Come here. I'll swipe you."

I take a better look. Huh. He doesn't seem that homeless. He's my age, kind of cute. Maybe he's like my friend Marc, the super gentlemen-type. Perhaps he's trying to pick me up.

Train's still coming and it's time to make a decision: Buy a Metrocard and wait another 20 minutes to a half hour when I'm in no mood to do so or believe in humanity and accept the swipe.

I accept the swipe.

"Thank you very much," I say as I push through the turnstile. I glance down at the fare reader. Unlimited ride.

Shit. Trouble.

***For anyone not from New York, there's a common scam on the subway. Con artists beg, borrow, or steal unlimited ride Metrocards, which let you get on the subway as many times as you want for a set time period. They then sell the swipes to people getting on the subway or offer to swipe them through and then start asking for money. If you buy a 7 day unlimited for $24 bucks and manage to sell 12 rides in one day, anything you make on top of that is gravy. It's a tough way to make money, since 99% of people know the scam and will turn you down, but to the persistent and desperate it's well worth it.***

Subway Guy says, "That'll be two dollars." He's all speedy, plucky and efficient, like a 1950's soda jerk.

Fuck you, you lying asshole. I didn't even want your shitty old ride. You asked me three times to take it, didn't say anything about paying you back and now you're trying to charge me?

I give money to homeless people all the time. I also donate online and volunteer. I'm all for handouts, but being tricked like that pisses me off.

I ignore him and keep walking.

"Miss! Miss! You owe me $2 dollars."

OWE you? I'm sorry, did we enter into some kind of contract or something?

"Miss! Miss! Get back here and pay me my $2 dollars."

"No. You're a scammer!" I yell as I'm descending the stairs.

The train arrives. I get on.

Oh shit. Are you serious? Subway Guy is running down the steps. He dives into the car just as the doors close.

"GIVE ME MY TWO DOLLARS BITCH!"

He's all up in my face.

I try to move to the other end of the car.

He follows.

I change direction and move to a different, more populated area.

He follows once more.

Flirt.

"YOU OWE ME! YOU TOOK MY SWIPE AND NOW YOU OWE ME TWO DOLLARS!"

"Leave me alone!" I say, over and over. I sound like a 1990's self defense video.

He uses the overhead bar for support as he leans over and puts his face inches from mine. He has nice skin, coffee with cream-colored eyes and large pores.

"I TRIED TO HELP YOU! I TRIED TO DO SOMETHING NICE!"

"No you didn't," I say. "You lied."

But did he? The whole time he's yelling I'm studying his appearance. His hair, his nails, his backpack, his clothes.

What if he's NOT a con artist? What if he's NOT a scammer? What if he really did expect to be paid back and I'm an asshole for assuming he's not some rude cheapskate and instead a thief and a hobo?

"I OUGHT TO FUCKING SMACK YOU, YOU LITTLE BITCH. I SHOULD SMACK YOU RIGHT HERE. SOMEDAY SOMEONE'S GOING TO SMACK YOU AND YOUR MAMA."

"If you don't leave me alone right now I'm going to call the police."

And I'm sure the police would have been a big help, were I able to get a signal on my cell phone, somehow convince the conductor to make the train stop moving and convince New York's Finest to stop going through people's purses in search of dirty bombs and Al-Qaeda pamphlets and locate me underground.

Subway Guy continues yelling and bitching. I do my best not to engage but it's hard.

"I OUGHT TO SMACK YOU BITCH!"

"I'm scared."

Holy mozzarella sticks, did you really just say that? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU ERIN? DO YOU WANT TO GET KILLED?

Luckily, Subway Guy and God cut me a break and he gets off at the next stop.

"Good for you!" a 50-something man with a guitar case tells me, giving me a thumbs up.

Thanks, asshole. Where were you when I had a 6'2 ball of rage swinging his fists near my nose? And it wasn't just him - the entire time this was going on no one said anything or tried to help me.

Before I moved to New York I'd always hear those stories about how people get stabbed to death on the street and regard them with suspicion. Now I realize they're all true.

Not that New Yorkers are a rude people. They're actually very nice. Carry a heavy package and 10 people will try to hold the door. Drop a quarter and you have a good chance of bumping heads with someone as they bend over and help you pick it up.

They only get selfish and self-interested when it comes to life-threatening situations. I don't totally understand, but I can't say I blame them.

Anyway, I'm home now and my brain is still churning. I keep replaying the scenario and wondering if I acted appropriately. Should I have paid him the $2 dollars? Did I cause someone to snap who's otherwise very normal? Did he just get cheated on by his girlfriend or fired from his job?

Or was he a piece of shit pissed because someone beat him at his own game?

I honestly don't know.

THESE ARE SOME OPINIONS AND THE LAST ONE IS REALLY MORE LIKE AN OBSERVATION OR COMMENT

Carrot cake is cool because it's one of the only foods with a picture of that food on top. You don't see steak with a drawing of a steak or corn flakes with little corn flakes on them.



If Jim Morrison had an online personal he would have totally used this as his photo.



Then he'd show up looking like this:



and the girl'd be all disappointed.

Calla lilies irritate me. Hoity-toity Gwyneth Paltrow think you're better than everyone else flower. I'm going to go with Carnation. Say what you want, but at least she puts out.



When I was little I told everyone I was named after Erin Gray. Not true. I'm named after a character in a late night movie or something.



My dad wanted to name me Penny but my mom stopped him. Eight years later he gave that name to our Golden Retriever. We also had dogs named Pooky and Patches.

My grandma says good pet names are Lady and Flossie.

Love: Soft As An Easy Chair

I am not an obsessed freak who spends all her time on the Internet looking at pornography and cat pictures.

I am a "curator."

I enter keywords like "cattery" and "fanciful kitten" into Google Image Search and I can't help it if MAGIC is what I come up with.

Click here for animated butterfiles, fluffy white Persians, and a Barbra Streisand number.

I am so fucking good at this. If only there were a way to monetize it...

ROFL Recap

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Took part in ROFL! last night at Joe's Pub.

The idea is that 8 blog nerd/comedy/writer types get up and make a presentation about the Internet - a funny link, a comedy short, something off your website - basically anything you want.

The audience then votes by applause which stuff they think is funnniest and eventually it's narrowed down to a winner.

I won the $150 grand prize, despite major tech issues that pretty much rendered the first part of my presentation useless.

Imagine getting up on a stage, which you hate because you hate public speaking. Then the presentation you're supposed to give doesn't load right. Then to kill time while the tech guy is trying to work it out the host asks you to SING, which is your SECOND worst fear, so much so that your esophagus fills with sawdust at the thought of doing karaoke, even if it's in a room full of people you've known all your life and you've just downed 2 liters of tequila.

THEN the tech guy makes some cute remark about how the file you gave him for the music is DRM-protected and makes you look like a tech-idiot grandma square who doesn't belong on the internet, let alone a show that's supposed to be about savvy kids on the cutting edge of online trends. He does this over the loudspeaker, so the whole audience can hear.

You tell the tech guy "Play anything! Play a polka! Just give it some music!" and instead of taking the cue the presentation remains silent and the slides start going by. SLOWLY. PAINFULLY.

The host asks the audience to sing along to the slides and make up their own music, which they do. And it's funny. And it's a happy ending. But for 5 minutes you were about to cry and pee your pants like grade school.

Anyway, we don't have to worry about any of that now. Because it's online and it's all good.

Thanks to Joe's Pub. Shit happens. I ain't mad at ya.

COME SEE ME TALK ABOUT THE INTERNET

ROFL!
Joe's Pub
9:30 tonight

Full details here.