In the past few years the Moleskine notebook has become a ubiquitous part of New York City culture, from Williamsburg to Inwood it seems like everyone is carrying one of the things. I even use the sketchbook variation myself when I’m sketching on the subway. They’ve opened up the product line quite a bit in the last few years adding watercolor books, and the new City Notebooks.

The City Notebooks started in Europe, but this spring they released the first ones for American cities, Washington D.C., Boston, San Francisco and of course New York. Later this year they’ll be adding Chicago, LA, Seattle and Montreal. The city notebooks are basically travel books. Maps, sections on bars, restaurants, shops, hotels, galleries, etc., except it’s all blank. The idea is that you use it to create your own guide to the city, filled with your own favorite places and things.

So, at nearly $30 a book is it worth it?
Read more

If you’re in the mood for Karaoke tonight, plenty of options exist in the city. But if you want somewhere a bit less known and less popular, try Albatross in Astoria.

Albatross is a gay bar located not far from Astoria Blvd. It hosts various events throughout the week, including karaoke, performers, burlesque shows. It’s an interesting place since sometimes it’s completely packed and other times it’s empty. There’s a pool table and other games available. Definitely a unique spot for Friday night Karaoke.
Read more

We’ve survived the first snowstorm of the season, but does that mean our wintry adventures are over? Far from it. Here are 10 ways you can get the most out of the icky sludgy stuff.
Read more

I met up with some former housemates at the Vegetarian Dim Sum House in Chinatown. We had all lived together at one point, united by our common use of craigslist. I was excited to try out this restaurant since I enjoy Dim Sum, but find eating it can be confusing since it’s hard to tell what you’re eating. As a vegetarian, this poses a problem since it can be challenging knowing what items contain meat. At this place, we might not know what we were eating, but we would know that it wasn’t meat.

Read more

Name: Eloise
Address: Plaza Hotel, 5th Avenue at Central Park South
Occupation: enfant terrible
Notable Quote: “Paper hats are very good for talking to Mars.”

Born November 4, 1949 to rawther wealthy parents who travelled constantly, Eloise grew up under the care of long-suffering Nanny, her british governess. The staff of the grand Plaza Hotel were accustomed to seeing Eloise, at six years old; rollerskating through the hallways and shouting through a bullhorn, attending fancy private soirees dressed as Sherlock Holmes, and placing her pets Weenie the dog and Skipperdee the turtle in unusual places. However, Eloise did not limit her adventures to the Plaza, she also wreaked havoc in Paris and instigated mayhem in Moscow while on holiday.

So dear is Eloise to the Plaza Hotel her portrait, painted by Hilary Knight, still is grandly displayed. Eloise would have rawther liked that, I imagine.

Other Fictional New Yorkers in this series

I just got home from my night in Central Park to see the NY Philharmonic and I am SOAKED!! No complaints since it wasn’t from melting in the heat. The rain (and the thunder and lightning) started just after the fireworks ended.

Actually, the timing for the whole night was perfect. It rained a little bit just before the concert started to cool things off and then it held out until everyone started to slowly file out of the park. Thousands of people worked their way out of the park as sheets and sheets of rain came pouring down. What a SCENE! It took soooo long for us to get to Central Park West, but we were all in good spirits. Actually, our good mood brought us and a few friends we made along the way to George Keeley’s for a few last drinks before heading home.

Sad that the post concert events may have been more memorable than the actual concert, but I’ll definitely try it again next year. The little bit that I heard was beautiful and people really go all out for this. I even saw a group with a portable table, a tablecloth, and a vase with flowers. I think they may have brought out the good china too. Crazy! We just brought some blankets, snacks from Whole Foods and my famous White Sangria. Nothing like a little alcohol while taking antibiotics. :)

Was anyone else braving the elements in Central Park tonight??

Title of a great film with Adam Sandler, but also what I heard this morning on my adventures in radio scanning!

92.7 used to be an all electronic station until one morning, without notice, (very literally) it changed into an all Spanish music station. I wasn’t as concerned because I had passed my electronica stage at that point, but I was annoyed.

So, since that day like 2 years back, I had not tuned back to 92.7 until thsi morning. What did I hear? English commercials, spanish commercials, Spanglish commercials that mixed both - then came on the traffic report. BQE South is jam packed - (Spanish) - back to some random English and then Reggaeton!

I hate Reggaeton on the hip hop stations like Hot 97 and Power 105.1; it stinks. They even play it on that idiotic Z100 (but not that idiotic because that’s how I get my Kelly Clarkson fix). But the reggaeton on 92.7 was actually pretty good. Instead of cringing and changing the station, I listened to it all the way to work! It’s perfect for those who want to slowly transition into speaking slang Spanish. You’ll hear a lot of traffic directions, yelling, and useless English being jammed along with speedy Spanish. . . and one fine day, you’ll wake up and realize that you know what the word culo means. It will be glorious. I think 92.7 is going to have to replace 103.5 on the 2nd set of memorized buttons.

Here’s what happened on Friday night.

I’ll start by saying this… I can now check LQ off my list and I NEVER need to step foot in that place again.

In fairness, it’s just not my kind of place. I’m not a fan of Latin Clubs, nor am I a fan of Hip-Hop or Reggaeton. I’m also not a fan of places where guys feel that it’s ok to just grab women because they’re at a club.

Of course, that didn’t seem to bother my co-workers. I guess when you’re used to going to clubs like that, it’s acceptable. So, I decided that it would just be futile to play babysitter.

Around 8:30, birthday girl got upset because of another practice that seems to be acceptable. Turns out that when at these clubs, it’s ok to slap the ass of the girl that you’re dancing with - even if you just met her. Yes, you read that right. I have to say that I came very close to finding that guy and slapping him a few times myself, but I decided I would be better off if I just stayed out of trouble. So, by 9:30, I heard enough, saw enough and walked out. Not a scratch on me or anyone else.

Apparently, grinding isn’t bad enough - these guys take it a step further. The worst part is… these girls let them. So really, I can’t place 100% of the blame on the guys, it’s not all their fault.

My clubbing and babysitting days are over. Michael can take my place.

I’m not big into clubbing anymore. That ended in somewhere in my 20’s, but tonight a few of us from work are heading to LQ for a co-workers birthday. I was hoping they’d pick a nice neighborhood lounge, but when the birthday girl is turning 23, it’s all about the dancing.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind hitting the dance floor, but I know this will end up being one of THOSE nights.

So far, every time I’ve been out with the work crew - someone gets drunk, I ended up holding their hair up while they’re throwing up, sending out for Gatorade, and then I get to play protector to my little drunken female co-workers until I get too tired to baby-sit. Going out shouldn’t be work, but silly me - because I’m a little older, a lot more experienced, and a lot taller, I feel like I have to look out for these girls. The thing is, they really are sweet and fun and I really do think they’re getting better at this. Besides, they like having their “big sister” around. I feel like I need a Wonder Woman costume for these adventures. (i wish)

The only group that doesn’t appreciate my presence are the misbehaving guys, but I love hard timing them.

Here’s to hoping I don’t get myself into TOO much trouble.

Some may think it strange that The Elijah Wood would happen to sit down next to me on my Delta flight from Los Angeles to New York last night. And it was. Not because I have written satirical (though entirely accurate) accounts of his LES travails for this site, but because