Could be great, could be a disaster

From Rufus Wainwright's website:

Rufus performs Judy Garland's songs! June 14, 2006.

Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Mark your calendars for June 14, 2006. Rufus will be performing the songs from Judy Garland's legendary 1961 Carnegie Hall live recording - at Carnegie Hall! Please check back for ticket information.

disturbing things to do with children's toys.

This is immensely amusing.
I particularly enjoy the authentic scripts they've written...
(much love and thanks to for the link.)

I'd say that it's amazingly beautiful in NYC today

... but it's 60 degrees in January, and I'm just about certain that means Jake Gyllenhall and Emmy Rossum are going to the New York Public Library very soon, and it doesn't look so good for Ian Holm.

One of the bonuses of doing what I do.

When 95% of your customers aren't certain how the Internet operates, you can tell them *anything*, and they'll believe it.

I just told a woman who paid for domain name renewal two weeks ago that it would take 1 more hour for her name to work again. (Because my coworker had forgotten to actually *renew* the domain name.)

The customer's response, "I knew I should have waited to call."

Project Runway last night

I was going to post a diary entry for last night's Project Runway, as my roommate inevitably says two or three things an episode that I feel should be recorded for posterity*. However, I've become selfish, and refuse to share them with you. Besides, doing a running diary is something you do because nobody else is there to hear your witty, catty remarks. It's not something you do when someone's there providing instant feedback and alternate opinions.


Last night they voted the wrong person off. Big time. I think it's one of those occasions where the producers went to the judges and said, "Yes, Santino's outfit is atrocious and he should be forced to wear it outside a Ranch 1, but he's much better television than Emmett, and it's not like Emmett has a shot of winning, so keep the whack job." Twas a bit disappointing. Of course, now Emmett can get back home to tend to all rotting corpses he must have in his basement. He's as creepy a man as I've ever seen on television. Well, besides Little Richard.


* The best thing that KL has said so far was last week. One contestant was explaining her approach to the challenges, and KL sneered, "And that's why you'll never win, Zuleema!" You'd have thought he was in a sci-fi movie.

Ahh fun.

So there's this guy on the train this morning, and I'm not going to say he's stuck up, but he's dressed in his 50's (at least), wearing a standard republican issue Brooks Brothers nay suit with a bowtie. Yes, a real bowtie.
But the capper (literally), was he had a maroon Exeter baseball cap on his head.

Of course, if I was spending $30+K a year to send my kid to prep school, the least I'd want out of it was a ballcap.

OK - I am not made of stone....

While waiting to gain some time on the 24 premiere on Sunday (got to wait 30 minutes so I can TiVo through all the commercials. It's more crucial with 24 than with any other show.), I channel surfed a bit until I came to the second hour of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Now, I've probably seen it before in passing, but I was paying attention to this, and NOTHING gets my hay fever going like watching people struggle to help other people out of the simple goodness of their hearts (and for Nielsen points).
This particular episode featured a house in Seattle where it rained all week, slowing the construction mightily, to the point where they were *gasp* going to have to push the reveal back an extra day. So the construction coordinator (who has been slowly deteriorating the entire episode from lack of sleep, frustration, etc) literally crumbles and says that while he appreciates the offer, he (through *buckets* of tears) and his men were going to get this house finished by the original deadline.
Well. You'd have thought I was watching Terms of Endearment with my mother, the way I was tearing up. Damn those manipulative gods of television!!!
Happily, they went back to Sears and Kenmore product placement shots within a couple of minutes, so I was able to build up my wall of cynicism again. Phew!

it's fricking freezing!

It snowed and iced yesterday, which is sort of par for the January course, but what was amazing was the wind! It whipped around all day yesterday, kept me awake most of last night, and continues today.
My windows were locked shut, and my blinds were still swaying all night. The wind was making that horror movie howling sound - twas creepy.
So I'm a little tired today, watching the football games, Devils are playing later, but I'll be damed if I'm going to go out in this!

stupid, but amusing link

working with computer guys has its perks.
Getting referred to pages like this is one of them.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

OK - maybe that's not true, but if you're like me, the end of the holidays is a much more pleasant time than the holidays themselves. Of course, that might be because I'm single and stuff. (And time is passing. I feel like a Nathan Lane character, "I'm not new...")

Anyway - I wisely took a break from blogging in December, as all the bad things happen in December (birthday, christmas, NYE, more family engagements than I care to mention).

Some cool stuff did happen in December - I went to a Railroad Earth concert on my birthday at the Bowery with my brother and his fiancee. Always good to see RRE. My sister's beau is the lead singer. They're a non-traditional bluegrass band (that is to say, they have a drummer). There was a nice surreal moment before they went on where I was chatting with my sister's boyfriend (Todd), and we were interrupted by some guy who wanted Todd's picture (I graciously offered to take a shot of the two of them. That guy's *never* getting his camera back!) and then a roadie came over and told Todd he had 5 minutes. I thought, "Todd has roadies AND stalkers. Cool."

I don't know what else I've got here. But I figured I'd post something.
Maybe some 2005 retrospective later. Who knows?