Damn, have I ever said how much I love Missed Connections on Craiglist? If not, well…check out this winner and see why…

I saw you on the LIRR comming back from the Pixies concert. You had a blue striped shirt on and glasses and were reading a book. You had that adorably hostile look I love in boys with glasses who are very serious. I also had glasses, was wearing a pink tank top, had an enormous yellow bag and was really sweaty. Gaze upon me with your hostile, bespectacled eyes again.

Disclaimer: This post may contain some snobby and/or elitist attitudes about food, mainly acquired by residence in NYC and realization that pricey food is often much better than cheap food. People that live in Jersey City and eat at White Castle need not get upset.

Get your reservations ready to lunch and dine at some of the best NYC restaurants. Started in order to boost slack times during the summer, NYC Restaurant Week allows people to try out upscale restaurants at a prix-fixe price: $20.12 for lunch (the price is a nod to the NYC Olympic Bid) and $35.00 for dinner. But watch out, drinks, tax and tip are not included. This whole thing will be going on from June 20-24, and June 27-July 1.

I, for one, am planning on checking out Nobu and possibly also Spice Market. Even if you think $20.12 is a lot to spend on lunch, why don’t you treat yourself and check out some creative cooking with a friend.

Where will you indulge this Restaurant Week?

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24pbr, originally uploaded by anna maria regina.

Last weekend, I was craving tiny burgers on tiny buns so my boyfriend scooted us over to Schnaeck, which serves aforesaid items at dirt cheap prices in a lovely food-themed retro setting.

So, I munched on my tiny burger and my double tiny burger with cheese whilst enjoying a 10oz of draft when something caught my eye on the blackboard menu:

24oz cans of PBR!

I bravely ordered the $2 beverage (YES! $2! ALL SUMMER LONG!) and when it came I had to just stare at it for a bit. I didn’t dare touch it yet so when I finally cracked the top, it hissed approvingly. I couldn’t hold conversation with my boyfriend because I was so in awe of this jeroboam of beers. Amazing! You really have to go see it for yourself.

In the ongoing Tenant vs. Landlord battle, the landlords recently scored a huge point. Even if Real Estate isn’t your thing, there’s still some stuff you might need to know in here. Basically this article in the New York Times Real Estate Section details the fact that the courts in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island just made it a hell of a lot easy for landlords to evict illegal tenants from multi-family dwellings. Now they can go through Housing Court instead of the Supreme Court, which is much faster and cheaper, not to mention a bit more

It

Last night, I stayed out in Bay Ridge Brooklyn… the 2nd to last stop on the R train. Basically, it’s way the hell out there.

Since I work in the Bronx, I left the apartment at 6:50 and when I got to the subway, a crowd of people poured out. I thought I had missed the train, but there was a fire at the 53rd street stop and there weren’t any R trains running into Manhattan. OK, so NOW what. I really don’t know Bay Ridge all that well, and I asked if anyone knew what the alternative was… most people I asked were just going to head back home. Funny – I don’t remember seeing anyone in a panic, or pissed off about being late or missing the day.

So, how DO you get out of Bay Ridge? I figured there had to be a bus that would take me to a stop that was running, but when I asked people, they shrugged their shoulders. I either caught a group of people that really didn’t know or just didn’t want to help.

Anyway, I caught a bus to 36th Street, jumped on the R train there, and 3 hours later, I made it to work.

I feel sorry for anyone trying to get out of Bay Ridge when the trains are screwed up, but I guess that’s why people just went home… it’s too much of a pain in the ass to get out.

A person outside my office constantly reminds me of that Seinfeld bootleg episode. Do New Yorkers really love bootlegs? Heck, she is selling Starwars III DVD since past 3 weeks and infact every single movie that is right now running in theaters too! And those DVDs are “professionally” done. It has a colorful cover with a “real” poster image (my wife pointed out that some scenes in that poster might have got cut from the movie) and even credits to director! LOL! And guess what? All of them are just 5 bucks a pop, half of the ticket price to see just one show of a movie in the theater! Bootlegging is definitely a booming business in NYC these days. I know as a fellow New Yorker you are dying to know about the quality for if you should get your copy while Lucas is still not satisfied with his $400 million and refuses to release an officially DVD. Well, quality is pretty good if you are running on your laptop and just bearable if you are using a projector. Of course, it’s not Dolby 6.1 surround (I still have to check if it’s even stereo) but quality of picture and sound is pretty bearable for such a bootlegging work. I think most people buy this just as a stop gap measure. It neither replaces the nice cool official DVD nor does it replace going in a theater to watch it in all fancy DLP projection and superb sound system. I wonder if the bootlegging phenomenon with such a scale is a characteristic of other cities too.

Note: The author or Metblogs do not endorse, promote or encourage infringement of copyrighted work and hence location of places which sells such material are withheld.

Thanks to Colleen in LA for the heads up on this…

Remember Ken Jennings? Remember he’s getting his own show on Comedy Central? Now the network is looking for intelligent, competitive contestants for run-thrus. Trivia contestants of all ages & abilities have the chance to participate in game show run-thrus, and perhaps the chance to come back and compete against Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings in a non-airing presentation. All takes place in NYC from now until the end of July – you may be aksed to hang around for one afternoon or a few. Send your name, phone number, recent photo and why you’d be the perfect contestant to casting-AT-embassyrow-DOT-com

Deepest apologizes to our faithful readers for the lack of recent updates. Our site was down for some maintenance yesterday, but mostly (and I think I speak for everyone here) it’s just been too hot to think, write, type or do anything even remotely productive. Summer hit us here in NYC this week like a ton o’ bricks and to say the heat is oppressive is definitely an understatement. Stay tuned for some updates this weekend. For now, here’s a little haiku I wrote about the heat:

What happened to spring?
Cheers to Air Conditioning
Without which we

Um, yeah