C-Low Eats Park Slope: Miriam

i thought about writing about TBS’ Monday evenings comprised of 4 straight hours of great sitcoms (Seinfeld for an hour, Everybody Loves Raymond for an hour, then Friends for 2 hours)… and well…

instead i’ll do a quick restaurant/food review… here’s the first ever “C-Low Eats Park Slope: Miriam”.

Within a 10 block radius of the bat cave there is a ridiculous amount restaurants… and not just any restaurants… we’re talking really good ones. I figured I’d start with Miriam, as I recently visited and read a review of it today.

Miriam (Zagats: NA), 79 Fifth Ave, Park Slope-

A gourmet Israeli restaurant. I bet you’re asking yourself what is Israeli cuisine? To be honest i thought it was falafel and the likes, but apparently it’s a whole lot more, akin to Greek and North African food… so think: quince, olives, figs, flat breads, braised meats, a Mediterranean assortment of seafood etc, etc….

Today’s Gothamist.com review painted a fair picture of Miriam… though i disagree with it…while i can agree to Miriam being seemingly erratic, most everything i’ve tried there has been on par or exceeded expectations (which i had very little of…to be fair). I have always been completely satisfied with my meals, but perhaps what i would choose there is what they excel at (ahh). Plus it always helps that their Mon/Tues drink specials (1/2 price all bottles of wine) always lubricate the situation. In addition, at night time it’s almost always a great, romantic, and yet warm atmosphere (also, hot girls everytime i’m there… and though very crowded at brunch time it doesn’t lose it’s charm).

Personal favorites: braised short ribs over mixed vegetables (was a special) & 2004 Vicien Organic Cab, Argentina (i’d come here just for this wine).

Other Reviews: NYMag review

To come soon:

Al Di La

Moutarde

Blue Ribbon Sushi

Note: For future reviews I’ll put the Zagats rating (miriam made it into the 2006 book, but didn’t get a rating) … it’s on a 1-30 system with the best restaurants in NYC getting around 28’s… i also put any relative links to reviews.

web 2.0: “we have to rethink ourselves”.

Here’s a wonderful video about web 2.0. Created by a professor at Kansas State University.

“The computer is using us”

Couldn’t have described it more beautifully.

(via Josh Spear)

let’s play a game of “legal” or “not legal” (hint: always ask for id)

because NYC police and our other law enforcers don’t have better things to do with their time… alright so as it turns out i am probably breaking the law just about every time i go ou (and no, keep your dirty thoughts to yourself, i am an otherwise law abiding citizen… um yea right).

Apparently it is illegal to dance in bars (without a cabaret license).

ILLEGAL TO DANCE IN BARS.

Um, so why else would i go out? Which got me thinking, wherecan i get said “cabaret license”? which got me thinking even more: there should be a license to dance not give a bar a license to have dancing, that would be far more effective.

Oh and here are some riveting thoughts and conclusions that have come up over the past week:

- i need to get back to doing better posts that people might want to read rather than mostly personal or social life things

- do not start a conversation with two beautiful girls under the premise you work in online porn

- do not join in a conversation where your friend has operated under the premise as described above

- do dance with one of the girls on the dance floor holding her legs up (a la “wheelbarrow” style)

- do know what kind of toilet paper you have when around Sammy

- do call JME when you are having a good time especially when the “call when you’re having a good time and your friend is not there” rule was specifically enacted because of him

- do not live your life based solely on an email that someone may or may not have gotten

- do check out pics from m-rod’s blog regarding party in which the situations above are related to

and with that, i’m out for an apres ski party.

recap: nick zinner, the softlightes, bartender at hiro, the diner…

recap… quickly quickly….

dj nick zinner = awesome.

dancing on stage to indie-mixed versions of JT and the Rapture = brilliant.

drunk texting = amusing (i’m bad).

cute bartender pouring me her favorite shots (jameson neat) = also amusing.

facilitating a friend to drunk text = even more amusing.

wearing 3-D glasses out = ridiculous m-rod.

the softlightes = pretty good

the diner = don’t even remember

passed out in a plate of disco fries = delicious

the trendmill… (oh and the heel press comes to nyc…)

i remember one day last summer riding the L-train with Ben… discussing the dystopia (don’t quite get what he’s talking about? yea neither do i… so ask him about it here), anyways he and his girlfriend Sh-Ariel had this idea to do like a web 2.0-ish thing with clothing and trends… where people would showcase their own style and what they like and put it online and show where to get it, so you could kinda just surf around by style like how someone might do with tags on blogs/flickr.

It sounded pretty good at the time, but neither of us really knew how to get it off the ground… then some time went by, Ariel decided to go to work for MSN (that’s why we use google), and then we saw a site like thisnext.com, which was very much like we were thinking. Well low and behold, maybe about 8 months later i find this site: trendmill.com. Lots of fun to play on, basically it’s a site where you create your own profile, essentially become your own stylist, and people vote on the products.

on another note the boys from the heel press are in nyc doing some networking and marketing at the ground level… so be on the lookout for them, ask them what’s up, and be sure to check back here for some updates on what they’re doing (a party? a video? a dating service?).

models + bottles + investment bankers…

just a quick thought i had last week:

OR

stupid/embarassing/ridiculous/laughing stock videos all over the internet

cause “when we roll, we roll big”.

the breakup 2.0 (and no not a sequel to that jennifer aniston/vince vaughn debacle)

now i’m sure there’s plenty of people out there who have written something down like this, if i was diligent i’d even do a quick search, maybe even wikipedia it… but i’m not, so i wont. I am completely smitten at the fact i had not thought of this first, and just when i think i can write boston off as a city, their best blog, Bostonist, goes out and does something brilliant like this! alas, for all of you with myspace, facebook, flickr, and so on and so on here is the guidelines to breaking up in a web 2.0 world (straight copy and paste, i hope that citation will suffice):

“ Mobile Phone:
– Ignore phone calls. Don’t return voicemails. Do not delete their number, set it to something like “no” or “hell no!” or better yet “fuck-head” in your phone – you won’t pick up by mistake.

– Renaming their entry in your phone book will help you avoid the drunk dial or drunk SMS – neither are as harmless as they seem.

– Set the ring tone for their phonebook entry to silent. You won’t even know they’re calling.

– Reassign their speed dial number to someone you actually want to talk to.

Email:
– Stop returning emails.

– Assign a filter so an email from their address skips the inbox and heads straight to archive in Gmail, or into a tucked-away file in Outlook. You might want to marvel at how crazy that was and laugh when you’re a little past it in a few months. Straight to trash is always a good option, too.

Chatting:

– Set yourself to invisible or stealth on IM. You don’t want to lose touch with everyone, but you don’t want that certain someone to know you’re out there. GAIM has a plugin for this, as do most open source programs. You can always just block them from a chat, too.

Blog Presence:
– Ban their IP addresses (don’t forget their work computer) from commenting on your blog. Even better, let them keep commenting on your blog until they come up as the #1 Google result for “that psycho who blogstalks their ex.”

– Ban their IP addresses from viewing your blog. You can write nasty about them and hope they don’t log in at the public library.

– Remove their feed(s) from your aggregator.

Social Networking:

– Set relationship status to “single” on all your social networking accounts.

– Set your MySpace blog to “friends only.”

– Remove ex from your MySpace friends. Replace the ex in your top 8 with your more attractive, more intelligent, and single new crush. Bonus points for the newly “topped” friend who leaves semi-flirtatious messages in MySpace comments.

– Delete comments or testimonials the ex has left you.

– Remove them as a friend on Friendster – know their “friends of friends” network just dropped by 1/2 a mil.

– For Facebook there are two alternatives. 1) Drop them altogether. 2) Keep them on as a contact. When they log in they can see that you’re writing some wonderfully flirtatious messages back and forth and having heated wall-to-wall discussions with that more attractive, more intelligent, and single ex who’s now in your top 8 on MySpace.

Imaging:

– Remove any pictures of you and ex from MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook pics. Try and delete any photos that you’re tagged in together on Facebook.

– Remove ex as a “contact” on Flickr.

–Don’t want to actually lose the memories and delete photographs, but don’t want ex to feel like they’ve disappeared? Set your Flickr pictures with the ex in them to private. It might not be as gratifying as cutting them out of the pictures with scissors and Photoshop doesn’t have that effect built in yet.”

Note: the mobile one’s are cute (changing the phonebook entry), blogging and messaging ones are blah (there are far more dirtier things you can do… hello password protected entries with provactive titles… hmmm-rod?), obviously it’s pretty strong on the social networking (personal favorite: the re-arranging of the top 8, especially with someone who is hotter/smarter/everything-that-your-ex-is-self-conscious-about, and who happens to leave flirtatious messages… that’s just dirty).

In other news, Britney Spears is crazy and everyone just seems to be watching in awe – thinking to themselves well “a sex-tape might actually be a step up” – but instead, no one’s doing anything about it for fear of stopping one of the craziest and steepest declines ever. Which got me thinking…. Hello JT, you need a confidence booster (well aside from bagging Scarlett)? how about you help out Britney.

the story of the brimstone (read as: the best shot ever!!)

If you’ve hung out with me in the past 3 months or so, i’ve probably made you do one of two things, 1) take a brimstone shot with me and 2)jump up and down while i take photos. So you may be familiar… All you need to know is this is the best shot ever, and i highly recommend it. but first the story of the brimstone…

(All the names in this story have been changed to protect their innocence…)

So one of my best buddies from California Florida, let’s say his name is Sam Sean, and well we hadn’t seen in each other in a year or so, andwe made it an occasion … which is usually a shit show – inevitably someone in our party will get into a dance-off, while others are buying kale at the bodega next door to the bar, while others wake up to find themselves in dublin, while one is reading his top ten lists of goals to eager girls in the corner, and there’s probably one in the bathroom with a girl thinking he’s locked the door when he hasn’t (ahh i digress)… anyways, it’s nearing the end of the night, there’s only four people left… and we start taking shots… each person gets to choose one round…

We get to the last… we ask for something to send us off into the night… the bartender looks at us, looks at the half-eaten free pizza, 4 beers, 12 shots we put down, and says, “you need the brimstone”. I’m not going to lie, i got scared for a second… but after taking the shot, i realized it was the best thing ever and it kept me warm all the way home…

so here’s the brimstone, ask the local bartender to mix up these ingredients…

• Absolute Peppar (black pepper infused vodka, or just straight vodka with pepper flakes)
• A healthy dash of tabasco sauce
• A splash of olive juice from the olive bottle

Knock it back quickly, let it burn… then let it sit… it gives you life.

And remember where you first heard about the brimstone (the cute bartender at The Crocodile Lounge, 14th street between 1st and 2nd ave)…

Party safe.

first week of spring training and the yanks are making some headlines…

First off, what is this i hear about NASCAR and all this hub-bub about crew chiefs being suspended…??? Our culture’s getting so caught up with cheating (steroids this, steroids that, male hormones put in blood makes people peddle faster… he put a hole in an exhaust pipe making it more aerodynamic and now he can get that.001 mph faster…) All i know is there are car drivers crying on the front page of ESPN.com… But you know what, as much as cheating seems a bit unacceptable, this is what they do in competitive sports, you try to find an edge, and maybe it is cheating but this is what’s driven sports over the years… how about we focus on people/athletes saying “they hate gays” (i haven’t fully read up on this… but it’s atrocious)… more on this to come later.

YES it’s finally baseball season… and as for the Yanks in their first week, there were over 25 articles written about them today… most covering the following :

Andy Pettitte says he feels like he never left and he’s taken Pavano under his wings (figures get the most out of him in a trade?)

Seems to me the NYY are the best fit for Roger Clemens

The Yanks will be wearing a black stripe for Corey Lidle

Mariano seems a bit peeved about the lack of respect given to Bernie Williams and it seems as though he’s wary of the Yanks intentions. Truth be told if Mo does not retire as a yankee it is a travesty… See, Bern, Mo, Jete are all respectable ball players, so show them respect and they’ll show the club respect by knowing when to hang up the cleats and not pull a, Cal ghhmgmRipkeng…. excuse me i had a frog in my throat.

Joe Torre put a call into Bern Baby Bern asking him to come because he has a good chance of making the squad… saying maybe Giambi can play first base…hm.

I’m making a public call for some damn support for A-Rod, i mean come on, knowing him he’ll end up with the Red Sox and that’s just awful (no wait, i think i’m onto something).

Everyone’s saying Hughes is the real thing… so let’s put an over/under for when Phil Hughes hits the big leagues: i’m going with June 5th (that’s an early one there).

Enough for now… so i’ll leave you with this thought: It’s not coincidence the word “martini” starts with the letter “mmmm…”

a couple of things i thought you’d like to know about…

Keeping up my end of the bargain by pointing outwhere we’re heading with new product trends… here’s a few i’ve come across lately.

- Chocolate Covered Altoids… think after dinner mints with chocolate inside except, well, it’s the other way around (and the mint is much stronger).

- Metromint Water… yea, slightly minted water. Sounds weird? Well try it and then tell me what you think, it’s pretty tasty… There’s a lemon mint one that’s sure to please. It’s quite refreshing really… check em out.

- Think you’ve seen or thought about just about every iPod accessory possible? Well how about this one: OhMiBod. That’s right, a vibrator that… well it does it’s thing to be the beat and rhythm of your music. Damn.