News I Find Interesting, Part 1

In an exercise that will be beneficial to both me (emptying out my Google Reader’s “starred” items) and to you (a whole lot of stuntastic things from around the Internets), I’m bringing back an old segment that will be familiar to my oldest readers, “News I Find Interesting!” Here, I will be posting a long list of links and such that I’ve encountered that I found interesting, amusing, idiotic, titillating, or hilarious, but didn’t get around to sharing with you.

You may have already seen few, some, or all of the links below, but in any case I hope you will find an item or two of note that YOU will find interesting.

1. The New York City’s Department of Transportation has installed nine unique bike racks designed by David Byrne, yes of the Talking Heads fame, but did you know he is also a bike enthusiast? It is only temporary but I hope the powers that be change their minds and make them a permanent addition to the City landscape. More information, including rack location (hi-ho!) here.

2. Do your best Beavis and Butthead laugh when looking at this unintentionally funny sign.

3. Idiot TSA “inspector” breaks commercial airplane. TSA guy should be added to the “no-fly” list as he clearly is a danger to travelers.

4. The DUI Mario Kart experiment. Damn, I’m ready to submit myself as a subject for an experiment like this. Any fellow geek want to organize this?

5. Best $2k I ever spent!

6. Photos of cute animals + website = Profit! Cute Overload, the popular site of fuzzy wuzzy puppies and kitties, is making the owner some nice chedder from advertising. WHY DID I NOT THINK OF THIS FIRST?!?!

7. People taking photos of Obama. One dude got himself one of those green disposables just for the occasion.

8. All that music you kids are uploading and streaming from Muxtape is costin the company a whole lotta money in the hosting category. Looks like cloud computing might be expensive enough to bring a company crashing back down to earth.

9. Michael Phelps doesn’t want to make a splash and piss off advertisers and sponsors. He just wants to be a corporate bitch. Post-college idealist MRod is looking to do the same. Sponsors, sponsor me!

10. Selections from H.P. Lovecraft’s brief tenure as a Whitman’s Sampler copywriter. Haha!

11. What makes for a good blog. I agree with many of the points, but I break most of the “rules.” I think those traits make for popular blogs, but that is separate from what I specifically enjoy about blogging. In the end, there’s no hard and fast set of rules. Do you. Do what you like to do that will keep you blogging, even if it is for just a month or two.

12. LGBTA L.G.P.A, the Ladies Golf Professional Association, is requiring all its golfers to pass a verbal English test or face suspension. This new rule was especially aimed and communicated to the South Korean contingent. It’s so jarring to read of something so anachronistic as “English-Only” in the 21st century particularly when it pertains to professional sports which is becoming more and more globalized in a symbiotic relationship for new talent, bigger audiences, and more money. As the Times writes:

Women have been fighting against discrimination in golf for decades, as Augusta National Golf Club — home of the Masters Tournament and still lacking a single female member — shamefully demonstrates. For the L.P.G.A. to impose discriminatory rules on its own members is not only offensive, it’s self-destructive.

And IDIOTIC!

13. Campbell Soup Company’s marketing manager writes to Andy Warhol. So pop.

14. Eric Ripert, chef of top restaurant le Bernardin, is blogging recipes of dishes he creates using the common toaster oven. He’s JUST LIKE YOU AND ME! Okay, not at all.

15. Drawing with a cup of coffee and a spoon. Genius. I can’t wait to try this at brunch next time and piss off the server.

To read more click after the jump…but you’ve been warned: there’s a LOT more to read.

LAST NIGHT’S PARTY: BOWERY ROOFTOP

I headed to NoHo for a party thrown by the guys at Bowery on Saturday night.

Ugh! It’s so annoying when you just miss the subway train, especially at night when I’m heading out to get my drank and two-step on. And by that I mean, to get my party on.

But, the Party Gods were smiling down upon on me, because only a couple minutes after I had just missed the first train, another one train arrived!

I saw my fellow Bruno, Kevin (with his great wife and her friend) who I haven’t seen since graduation.

Stan (hilariously tan from his vacation out West) telling a hysterical [censored] story to Kevin. Hahahah. Stan: You are my inspiration for my new feature length screenplay.

The bartenders on the rooftop is always a classy touch.

Bucket o’ beer.

Kevin and Keystone beer!

[I'm sorry, I forgot your name!] is amazed by the novelty of the Natty Light.

Nate (who just returned to NYC from a pretty bad ass cross country motorcycle bike ride) and his gal. As I lifted the camera to take a candid photo of them, she reflexively hit the camera with the-arm-on-the-hip-pose which cracked us up.

Haha. Here’s take two.

“Hey Michael! Here, pose with these two girls.” “YES.”

“That was a GOOD idea.”

N triple fisting. No, not that, you perverts. I don’t even know what that means. I’m referring to N maintaining a grip of three drinks simultaneously.

Chris, N, and John.

John’s favorite pose. Haha.

This girl’s top was very…silvery.

Haha, I’m not quite sure what Chris is doing here.

N doing a little dance while a floating hand flips him off.

Bennnn!

Kevin’s wifey gives the party a thumbs up.

Michael and Nate and pizza. When I was looking at this photo today I thought, “Damn, there was pizza? I want a slice.”

NO PIZZA FOR YOU!

The Pizza Dance!

More Pizza Dance!

Pizza almost all done and nothing but crust left dance!

John tries to rush me. This is the last thing a man sees before John decides to break him in half.

And then we bounced to another bar, and I soon did a classic Irish goodbye for the night to head home. Thanks to the guys at Bowery for a fun party and dranks.

The End.

PHOTO

I found these couple photos while going through my camera today. Yea, I’ve had a REALLY BUSY Saturday obviously. OBVIOUSLY.

At Botanica. Natch.

Broadway and Spring.

LAST NIGHT’S PARTY: THE MAGICIAN AND RANDOMNESS

Pooja and Munira had a joint birthday party on Saturday night at the popular blogger bar The Magician.

Munira and some of her friends decide to get shots. They seemed unenthusiastic about this decision.

I don’t know what they ordered but those shots were gigantic (that’s what she said?).

Ben!

Chris!

Pooja’s temperamental attitude towards the camera. Right now, she’s anti-camera.

“MRod, you don’t understand. She is a bitch. See the back of my hand here? See it? Look at it. I just straight pimp slapped her with this hand. I’ve been working out. I’m skrong.”

I just noticed that there are a lot of empty beer glasses on this table. Poor show.

Haha.

Pooja and Ben.

Chris and friends.

Birthday gurl looking kinda sober here.

Pooja and random guy sitting behind her. He was very happy to get a photo with her. You’re welcome, guy.

Mun and her friend Katie–a fellow Providencer.

I can relate guy–trying desperately to continue a conversation with a girl who doesn’t seem really interested. Pooja, you. are. such. a. bitch! Haha, just kidding, obviously.

And then one of Mun’s friends was next door at La Caverna. And I think La Caverna translates to the “The Bathroom” because it smelled horribly in there.

Haha. The caption for this one is password protected.

Then we went to No Malice (I can’t believe we walked there. Sheesh.) Here’s Pam with her friend (forgot your name, sorry!) from DC. What occurred here the last time I went did not happen again, unfortunately.

Note N’s left hand. Excellent. I have to give props to Pam’s friend for asking N and I if we wanted a drink. That behavior from girls, especially from someone who we’d never met before is…so…unexpected, but it was just really thoughtful of her.

Ah, everyone’s favorite social activity at the bar: texting other people to see if there are cooler people doing something better. Or trying to set up, as the kids say today, “situations.”

Heading out back into the night for our respective destinations.

After I got out of the cab at my apartment, I suddenly decided that it would be an awesome time for a…shrimp salad with avocado, jalepenjo, cucumber and lettuce sandwich. Wow, 10 hours later that became a very poor choice I made.

LAST NIGHT’S PARTY: EAST VILLAGE ROOFTOP KEGGER

Just a few photos from a rooftop kegger in the east village in this recap.

My night started off inauspiciously as I rode a subway train that was covered in blood. This was the main source of it but there were blood splatters all over this train. And then David Caruso showed up and we were all like, “Dude, you can’t see the blood when you still have your sunglasses on.” And then he replied, “It’s okay. I’m CSI.” We said “That doesn’t even make any sense!”

When this drunk half-passed out Hispanic guy noticed that I was going to take a photo of the blood, he tossed his banana peel on to the blood.

And there was food. This was the source that I was tapping into towards the end of the party when I kept disappearing and reappearing with brownies.

Stan: “Yo yo, check it out!” Hahaha.

My friend Hector (and his friend) who hit me up with the head’s up about this party. And in another example of this city being way too small: It turns out that Hector’s roommate, a random situation from Craigslist, in that building is my (still relatively new) roommate’s boyfriend. Cue, It’s a small world afterrrr allll.

This girl admirably tried to take charge of the situation after the kegs were kicked and every drop of alcohol was consumed.

Hector hooked us up with a secret stash from his apartment.

O Canada!

THE PEOPLE OF THE SHORE

Get a glimpse into the denizens of the Shore where low aspirations, hair gel, and burnt skin reign supreme. Watch until the very end for the ridiculous no-holds barred catfight.

[Thanks N]

LAST NIGHT’S PARTY: GUITAR HERO

After work on Thursday I headed over to Stan’s apartment for a bit of Guitar Hero and beer.

Stan killing it on the hard difficulty level with his best hero of guitars face.

Ian came over and was all like, “Oh, I’m going to suck.” “I haven’t played this for months.” “Guys, don’t make fun of me.” And then he picked up the ax and ripped off a near perfect 97 percent performance. Asshole.

LAST NIGHT’S PARTY: THE ONE WITH THE CHAMPAGNE DUMPED ON MROD

I realized that drinking straight out of the bottle isn’t the most classy thing to do, especially when there were seven or eight lonely full flutes each filled with bubbly only an arms distance away.

But you know what’s even more unclassy (Is that a word? Auto spell check says it is not.)? Answer, getting champagne dumped all over you. That is ONLY classy when it occurs in the designated champagne room. Allegedly.

But I still rallied tho, if not soaked, for awhile.

FYI: Last Night’s Party segments and other retardo moments in MRod & Co’s lives are back so stop.

FOR MY READERS IN LOS ANGELES

I know that my blog is awfully New York City-centric. Anyway, here’s a bone, in the guise of an art show , I’m throwing out to you West Coasters, specifically the Los Angelesians which you should go check out because 1) it looks awesome, 2) Moye @ Chopstix is involved, and 3) top shelf open bar hosted by Megan Fox. Okay, one of these reasons may or may not be true, but go nonetheless to cleanse your polluted, silicone LA minds with a bit of culture!

Read more here.

[Moye: I bet you could get more people to show up for the opening if you promise that Megan Fox and Hot Girl--she looks like a Crazian--will be hosting an open bar. Just a FYI. Will there be any Crazy Alaskan Korean Mexican artists showing at the event? If not, you should find one. Cough.]