one more new culinary find in the FinDis

First, an aside:

I'm trying to come up with a trendstery name for my work 'hood. The financial district doesn't roll off the tongue like SoHo or Dumbo or NoLiTa or TriBeCa.

A few thoughts.

(1) FinDis
(2) FiDi
(3) 'Cial (pronounced 'shl')
(4) The District

Please add better suggestions. These suck.

Second, the main point.

Hot on the heels of hearing about one new culinary delight in The District comes another. Crumbs has arrived at 87 Beaver Street (between Hanover & Wall). !!! Delicious cupcakes a short jaunt away. Watch out waistline!! Again, another place where D.G. can eat away his depression at returning to the starship in October.

http://www.crumbsbakeshop.com/

[All these fine foods are arriving shortly after fance shopping has hit The District. Yes, in recent times, a Thomas Pink, Hermes & Tiffany's opened on or around The Street. I have always loved working in The District because it has a crazy, awesome history. Forget MidTown. The only thing worth exploring there is the Conde Nast cafeteria, which a schlub like me couldn't access anyway. The District is where Manhattan was born. Two complaints I hear from people working down here is that there are (a) less than prime eats (especially post 9/11. as K.R. and I were discussing, the Al Quada effort was to hit New Yorkers where it hurts most: their guts. But, I digress) and (b) no places to shop (though, heads up people: there is an outpost of the Strand not far on Fulton Street). So I suppose these new businesses in The District might chip away at those complaints. All I can say is: FroYo and Cupcakes!!!!]

olympic mascots through the ages

atlanta, 1996, named izzy for "whatizit?" 'nuff said. even the mascot for the 1986 chernobyl nuclear reactor accident was better.



los angeles, 1984: more like the mascot for a patriotic chain of greasy fried chicken joints.



Check this site out for a gallery of olympic mascots. the first official mascot was 1972, munich. there was also an unofficial mascot for the 1968 winter games in grenoble.

olympic hopeful cities

hosting the olympics is a pain in the a**. you have to spend ooodles of money preparing your bid, political capital trying to get your long-suffering population to get behind the idea (or at least some portion of your population), promise the IOC all sorts of venues and infrastructure you can ill-afford, move homeless people / alter regional topography to give those venues & that infrastructure birth, make your population somewhat presentable, promise all kinds of security that god herself couldn't provide, wine & dine IOC officials ... and all that before you even win the bid.

winning the bid is a huge nightmare: everyone has some sort of diametrically opposed opinion about your hosting of the olympics. it's a great boon to the economy or it's a money suck used on frivolity when there are urgent human needs to be met. or it's some local political hack trying to bump up his or her profile. regardless of whether you want the olympics in your town or not, hosting the olympics (even trying to host the olympics) is a colossal migraine. plus, you open yourself up to massive criticism -- who needs that? what's wrong with just slipping below the radar? do governments really want to open themselves up to that kind of scrutiny? alas.

but, if you do get to host the olympics, you get to have mascots!! i love mascots! there's nothing more adrenaline-pumping than a human being sweating it out in a plush costume, while acting so goofy. funny stuff. but i am sort of crushing on the vancouver 2010 winter olympic mascots: sumi, quatchi & miga. they don't represent anything particularly canadian. i guess sasquatch is canadian. maybe they are japanese-canadian. anyway, they are hella cute!!

fro-yo in the 'hood

the latest development in the financial district is the opening of a place called yorganic. a fro-yo place!

this is a watershed moment. for those of you not in the know, dining down here is equivalent to searching for the holy grail. there are a few okay eateries, but the quest for an appetizing lunch begins around 11:30, as i compile options.

there is always the well-subsidized cafeteria, which is not a bad option most of the time, but gets a little tired. the highlights of the cafeteria, however, are: good views (but i miss out on these, since i eat at my desk, hunched over the NYT, reading the news by the time it's over), freshly squeezed orange juice & butterscotch pudding. i don't think anyone else eats the butterscotch pudding, but they have it there every day of the week. god bless.

other options go two ways: cheap & less cheap. best of less cheap is all on stone street, my favorite (if you have an hour or three) is a "fancy" pizza place (i use the word fancy loosely; we're not talking babbo here). there are also some good steak places around (dining at which is sure to result in frantic blackberry checking & post-lunch slumber under one's desk to be followed by frantic blackberry checking). the cheap options range from au bon pain to subway to streetcart vendors. i like to change it up. but still, this is not an ideal lunching situation. nothing is appetizing after 4 years of lunching in the same locale.

the summer associates who flock our ranks to be wined & dined all summer long offer a semi-legit opportunity to dine outside the nabe, but those lunches tend to go for hours & also result in frantic blackberry checking. i have bad nerves, so frantic anything is not a happy situation. but, lo & behold, something new to munch on is now around the corner (practically). yorganic just opened at 3 hanover square. here's a link to their site: www.eatyorganic.com.

i went there with E.H. yesterday for a post-lunch snack. the fro-yo was delicious. i had a plain green-tea fro-yo and really rather quite enjoyed it. E.H. topped her green tea fro-yo with pineapples. the operation is still ironing out some kinks:
(1) slooooooooooooooooowest service for fro-yo. seriously, what's the difficulty level on fro-yo? this is not iron chef people! there should be no mystery ingredient. (2) they are still doing some construction on the place. there was a large ladder with a man atop right near the entrance way. hazardous. especially since the man on the ladder dropped something (like a clunky drill) and it landed about a hair's breadth from a patron. there was a collective gasp in the restaurant. i hope they got their fro-yo free. i don't think they did.

so that's the new food buzz in the 'hood. i am somewhat comforted by the fact that fro-yo might be healthier than some of the other crap i eat. i credit this new culinary discovery to Time Out New York, which i read cover to cover on the subway, being between books. any recommendations for my next read?

P.S. D.G., when you return to our humble digs in NY, you will have a new dining experience awaiting you!

this cute doll

is named raji. 'nuff said.

second generation spam

spam has reached a zenith. now, not only do i get the routine enlargement of manhood emails, but i get emails in asian languages. this isn't the first international spam i've received. no doubt many of you get that urgent message from a shady operation in nigeria looking for cash upfront for a larger payoff later. HA.

whenever you hear about people being scammed like this, it's always the elderly. look, i'm not always the number one fan of the elderly, but i think they deserve more credit in this area. the elderly were once the not-elderly, the yous and mes of this world. competent, dubious individuals (obvs there were outliers, as in any generation). how is it that they lost that perspective as they got older?

is it senility creeping in? it greed for a 500% return on their "investment"? is that their grandkids don't call or visit so they are just seeking correspondence with someone? someone attentive? young people pay for all sorts of sordid things. in the grand scheme, what's a couple of thou for the attention & pseudo-friendship of another. or maybe it's an adventure? something to brag about at bingo. <; .

whatever the reason, i prefer to think that the SAME elderly people are getting duped over and over again. it's one couple living in brighton, with hearing aids, a rudimentary grasp of the internet and ungrateful family members. no doubt they have some sucky-faced brat grandkids looking for a pay-off when the grandparents depart this world. ungrateful. so maybe, circling back it's actually a good thing that this couple is getting ripped off. serves those grandkids right.

shiatsu

i had written a wonderful post and it somehow got zapped into cyberspace and not posted here in this virtual journal-y thing. i hate when that happens. i could replay it. it was basically about my (well-documented) insomnia & a shout-out to my 4.5 (on average) readers. 0.5 because i am counting L.A.B.'s and J.B.'s children. don't laugh. they aren't going to grow up to be illiterate or anything. in fact one of them is named holden (i hope it's okay that i put that in there). eep.

so, the sentiment above does not apply to my current readership.
the writing is backwards, but it says: "no one was visiting her blog" - a card i found at barnes & noble the other night.

the insomniac's dilemma

+ to concede defeat and find a mindless task that will keep you occupied and feeling a little productive, while others are slumbering and getting that desperately-necessary recharge time you covet; OR
+ to fight the insomnia with everything you got. lying in bed, tossing, turning. wondering if it's too late to take a sleep-aid because if you take one now, you won't get up until 2 pm.

my sleep problems are well-documented on this blog. but the main issues are: occasionally, not being able to fall asleep (like tonight) but mostly it's that i can't stay asleep. i'll wake up at 4 am routinely fully awake and full of energy. maybe the crazy anxious knots in my stomach are a real pick-me-up.

[this is the post i thought i lost. but i didn't lose it. so smart interwebs designers]

has IKEA improved ...

or:

(1) i have low expectations.
(2) i was wowed by the ample parking & shiny, gleaming new IKEA in red hook. brooklyn
(3) i found this duvet cover and will now sleep (when i'm not insomniac-tic like tonight) in grandeur.
(4) i want to relive undergrad and my IKEA book shelf that was ultimately held together with duct tape.

J.H. and i made a spontaneous plan to go to the new IKEA in brooklyn. J.H. just moved into his new place & needed a book shelf. i needed to spend money. i bought a bunch of things, including a bowl i have dedicated to microwave popcorn. i had chicken tenders & fries in the IKEA restaurant. they were fantastic!! they ripped the hide of the UBC chicken strips and fries at place vanier cafeteria. those hard, full of fat door stops do not hold a candle to IKEA.

J.H. found a super bookshelf. & we saw really fancy "show-home" style displays that caused me to be both joyous and dismayed.

okay, i've given up on a photograph of my new duvet cover. it's going to be annoying to shift the computer camera around. or i am lazy. it's not much value-added.

my bike, mathilde

this is my bike, mathilde. she's super-rad: