My local grocery store in Astoria, Key Foods, has started selling reusable grocery bags! This makes me very happy. I know plenty of larger stores, such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, have had these green items for a while, but it’s good to see them trickling into smaller stores.

If you’ve been to a coffee shop in the East Village or Park Slope that accommodates baby strollers and the parents that go along with it, you’ve witnessed this.

Sad babies. Expressionless babies. Babies that you can smile and grin at and invitingly call that will maintain the dull, depressed, and often-times “too cool hipsterish” ignorant faces of their equally expressionless parents.

What the fuck is wrong with you parents? Smile at your children. It’s not cool to be expressionless. Smiling is GOOD. They’ll have enough time to be sad/depressed when they reach their hormonal teens.

I spotted this impressive piece in Soho, right after I came out of Obivia. It looks like a giant sticker, I’d be interested to learn who did it – and where to find more. So if you’re in the know, please comment!

Tags: newyork, nyc, soho, streetart, sticker

My fiance and I have been dealing with the least pleasant wedding task that we’ve handled yet – our save-the-dates. According to wedding etiquette, save-the-dates are not required, but they can certainly help your guests – particularly if you have a lot of guests who are traveling or who are just busy people.

We decided we would design a simple flat card and magnet for these reminders. At first, I had a lot of fun playing with a design program (Draw) and making quite a pretty image of a floral arrangement. We used a similar font and look to our invitations – all in a purpley tone that matches our wedding colors. Both the card and magnet looked great. But then the fun ended.
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This is like the world’s biggest chanelier – ever! I spotted this around Wall Street – one of the banks had this when I walked by. And I hereby request a donation if you have one of those lying around at home. Please contact me and we see about shipping it to Germany! =)

I’m excited about the USA debut of Muji, the Japanese retailer that evokes memories of furnishing my first co-op in NYC. We were in that “techno” era in the mid-eighties and I tried to bring all those polished silvers and metallics to merge with my decor of red and black. By the time I saw Muji in London in the late nineties, I was more into my pastel stage. But I intend to re-visit the museum-like store which is aptly located on Broadway in SoHo. MoMA has been selling Muji products for a while, but this will be Muji’s first US standalone store.. check it out mujiUSA

A couple hours ago we snuck into the collegehumor party somewhere in the East Village (I believe).

Not that I am a huge fan of collegehumor – I haven’t even been to this (web)site before – but the party was great fun. Free drinks (this has been one in-expensive night in New York), great DJ and good crowd. For more impressions, hit up my drop on awesome drop.io (!!!).

(Disclosure, one of the drop.io guys lets me sleep on his couch while I stay in NYC!)

This morning in the elevator at work, a man told me I reminded him of ZZ Top for soooome reason

This evening my beard told me it wanted to grow longer. I say, let it.

Well, it was just this week that I saw the $25,000 dessert on the news. Yes, according to the Guinness Book of Records, Serendipity III, the famous sweet shop on East 60th Street held the record for the world’s most expensive dessert. Their famous frozen hot chocolate’s more decadent version with edible gold flakes, didn’t sound all that appetizing, even if it did cost almost as much as I paid for my co-op 20 years ago, and more than a year’s salary in the same era.

But it all came to end, hopefully temporarily, when the health inspectors closed the famous dessert place, claiming that, at the time of inspection, there was a live mouse, and cockroaches. The sweet shop is the choice of celebrities and tops many tourists’ lists of must-see stops during a trip to New York. The cafe was also a star in a movie that bore its name; “Serendipity” starred John Cusack, the king of romantic comedies, and several scenes were shot in the cafe, and one scene featured the popular frozen hot chocolate, minus the gold flakes.

Indeed, a TV news reporter today, relating the story outside the restaurant, interviewed on camera several tourists who had come to sample the famous dessert. Tourists from as far away as Australia, were disappointed to show up today in eager anticipation of the famous dessert.

Let’s hope Serendipity III can clean up and re-open quickly. First, the stagehand strike puts a damper on tourists’ theater plans, and now this. Hopefully both situations will be resolved soon, and visitors to the Big Apple can see the shows of their choice, and have a Serendipity dessert by Thanksgiving.

Yesterday, my friend Marisa’s elderly mother was attacked as she walked down the street in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. She’s an almost 70-year-old woman who is recovering from cancer surgery, and some rat bastard decided that knocking her down, putting her face to the concrete, and stealing her bag was a great idea. As Marisa says on her blog, people who attack frail senior citizens should have their asses kicked. Anyway, if you know anything about this attack, which happened near the corner of Emmons Avenue and Nostrand around 6PM yesterday, please contact Marisa here, post about it in the comments, or call the 61st Precinct at (718) 627-6611.