Have You Voted Yet?

If not, now is your chance to vote in this week's Lunchtime Poll.

From Today's Headlines:

The White House Has Been Lying To Us About Global Warming.

According to CNN, a congressional hearing has revealed that the White House frequently strong-arms federal scientist into misleading the public and obscuring the truth about global warming.

Is anybody actually surprised to hear that?

Peeping Jeff

Thanks to Gawker, I may have just found my new most favorite website. nycinside.com is a site that posts pictures of average people's New York City apartments. You can see how other people live and decorate, and as most New Yorkers can tell you, peeking in people's apartments is a fascinating, time honored tradition. It's sort of like flipping through a decorating magazine that you have edited.

Wii Gonna Party!

I was just perusing Nintendo's website when I came across some fantastic information - Mario Party 8 for the Wii is coming out in March! For anyone unfamiliar with the Mario Party series, they are hilarious and fun party games for Nintendo's consoles. Mario Party 8 is the first in the series for the Wii and promises to take full advantage of the Wii-Mote control.

Good show old bean!

Verizon DSL Sucks (Yes, Again)

It what is inadvertantly becoming a recurring post, once again I bring you Verizon DSL Sucks.

For the second time in less than a month,
we have no internet connection at work. This time, Verizon tried to tell us that the entire city was out. Can anyone else out there confirm or refute that for me. Fortunately, we have cable internet at home and rather than wait for Verizon to fix the office connection - I came home so I could get some work done.

Global Warming Hits Home

Sure winter didn't arrive until late January this year and one day New York City will be submerged by rising ocean waters. Those both pale in comparison to the report I just read on an even graver consequence of global warming - the destruction of most the Earth's vineyards. Apparently, even a rise in temperatures of just 2 degrees can destroy an entire crop of sensitive grapes. Vineyards are already undergoing change and if it gets much hotter, many world-class wine regions, such as the southern France and the Napa Valley, may be either at or nearing their optimum climates for growing.
My advice is to start stocking up your wine cellars now.

This Week's Lunchtime Poll

Since we are in the midst of awards season, the Golden Globes and SAG awards have already been given out and the Oscars are next month, I thought it would be fun to run a poll on these awards shows.

You can answer once a day and view the results as often as you like. I'll tally the votes at the end of the week.

So here's the question:

What's your take on the Hollywood award shows?
	I never miss all three!
	I only watch the Oscars.
	I don't watch any but like to know who wins.
	I think they are all self-congratulatory B.S.!
	What the hell is a SAG award?
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Finally!

The temperatures warmed up a bit over the weekend but that didn't stop the snow. It started last night and there's only an inch of accumulation but the temperature is supposed to stay below freezing today so the snow should stick around.

So This Is What's Called A Lunchtime Poll

Welcome to my latest recurring section - Lunchtime Polls. They may not always happen at lunch time but I couldn't resist the 'Heathers' reference.

Today's poll has to do with the mayor of New York City's proposed uses for the city's $57.1 billion budget for 2007.

How do you think NYC should spend its $57.1 billion budget
	Higher pay for teachers
	Replace transit workers with robots
	Divide it evenly among all New Yorkers
	Make neccesary subway improvements
	Spend it all on hookers at Scores
Free polls from Pollhost.com

So, How Cold Is It?

It's so cold today that the front door of our apartment building was frozen shut. There is a radiator in the stairwell that gives off so much steam that the door is usually covered with condensation. Today that condensation turned to ice and the door froze.

SciFi.com Giving Away Battlestar Galactica DVDs

SciFi.com is celebrating the one year anniversary of their tech blog by hosting a contest to give away the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica on DVD. This is the whole package, including Season 1 (with the miniseries), Season 2.0, and Season 2.5.

All you have to do to enter is write a haiku praising your favorite gadget. You can read all the entries so far. Most of them suck and many aren't even Haikus.

Here is my Haiku:
I'm lost without you.
Travel with me near and far.
My shiny white i-book.

Enter now at SciFi.com

Will It Blend?

Watch this guy blend a bevy of items from lightbulbs to crowbars at http://www.willitblend.com

HomerBot

Wow Wee, makers of the Robosapien, just unveiled the Homerspaien at London Toy Fair. Granted, this is simply a plastic Homer Simpson head on a Robosapien body with Homer's iconic blue pants and white shirt paint job but it still looks pretty cool. Adding to the enjoyment, Homersapien will be packed with classic Homerisms and should be available in time for this summer's movie's release.

Floorting Goes Hi-Tech And Hi-Cost

Check out this crazy sofa. It's a bunch of cushions sown together with a ball for support. You can roll it out however you like and add multiple units for maximum floorting. At nearly $6,000 you probably won't want to allow friends to eat, drink or sit on it but it's still nice to look at.

American Idle

My favorite part of American Idol has begun - the auditions. I loose interest once they go to Hollywood but never miss the auditions. I love this freak show and Simon's snarky comments. It seems that Paula has decided to hit the bottle a bit earlier than past seasons. Usually she keeps her drunken behavior to interviews and Hollywood episodes but this season she must be partying like a rockstar on tour because she appeared completely smashed last night. Did you happen notice, during distant pan-shots, that she was sitting at that table constantly buttoning and unbuttoning her blouse? Speaking of last night's episode, why was Joan Collins sitting in as a judge?

A Wild Ride In Park Slope

The driver of an empty school bus lost control yesterday and crashed into seven cars, two trees and a parking meter on 7th avenue in Park Slope. All of this happened just two blocks from my apartment. The bus and the cars had been removed by the time I was walking by on my way home from work but the trees and meter were still scattered all over the sidewalk.

Snow In London

Seth & I walked along that very spot just a few days ago. It was warm and in the 50's when we were there.

Have Bar Will Travel

As many of you may recall, in my 20's I rarely went anywhere without my suitcase (ie 30-pack of Bud Lite). Well now that I'm in my early 30's my tastes have matured and I've just discovered my new traveling companion. Feast your eyes on the Portable Bar!

Road trip anyone?

Don't You Hate Cutting Butter

Well for the low, low price of just $19.99 you can have this handy, dandy Once Click Butter Cutter!

I kid you not. Buy it today at WhateverWorks.com

The Japanese Have The Coolest Toys

Japanese toymaker, Takara, has taken one of the coolest classic Transformers characters, Soundwave, and turned him into a working MP3 player. The MP3 player actually transforms from robot to boombox just like the original toy.

Exclusive Announcement

Starting February 1, 2007, I'll be adding 'Professional Blogger' to my resume. I'm creating, launching, editing, and writing a blog for the Toy Guy! We haven't even announced this yet so keep it quiet. I'll let you know the address as soon as the blog is up.

No, That's Not Me Driving

Just Call Me Scoop

You may recall back on November 21, 2006, in a post titled "Survivor Sweethearts", I reported that there were rumors that JP, from the recent season of Survivor, was gay. Well, I just read that he is set to officially come out on tomorrow's episode of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.

I'll Drink Anything

Linda in my office just handed me this 16oz can of soda called Howling Monkey. Apparently it's a new hi-caffeine soda that they are handing out at Port Authority today. It tastes and looks like coke. I'll let you know if I start howling later. Head over to Port Authority if you want to try one for free.

A Song of Fire & Ice Comes Home

Speaking of winter (see earlier post), Adam sent me the following tantalizing tidbit:

HBO Plans To Turn The SONG OF ICE AND FIRE Novels Into A TV Show!

HBO has acquired the rights to turn George R.R. Martin's bestselling fantasy series "A Song of Fire & Ice" into a dramatic series to be written and exec produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

"Fire" is the first TV project for Benioff ("Troy") and Weiss ("Halo") and will shoot in Europe or New Zealand. Benioff and Weiss will write every episode of each season together save one, which the author (a former TV writer) will script.

The series will begin with the 1996 first book, "A Game of Thrones," and the intention is for each novel (they average 1,000 pages each) to fuel a season's worth of episodes. Martin has nearly finished the fifth installment, but won't complete the seven-book cycle until 2011.

The author will co-exec produce the series.

No word yet on when the series will begin airing but it will probably be a while so you have plenty of time to start reading these books. I'm almost done the first one and can't wait to start the second.

The Winter Has Arrived

For months people have been saying Winter is coming. It finally arrived while I was out of town. The temperatures in New York have gone below freezing and although I haven't seen any snow falling, there are some small drifts scattered around.

Evenin' Guvner

After an incredible trip to London, Seth & I are back in Brooklyn. Scroll down to read daily recaps with some lovely photos of our trip. I can't say enough what a great time we had and how much I love London. Not only did I love the city itself but the people as well. I hope I don't get the same amount of flack as Gweneth for saying this but the people there were just more mannerly and polite than they are here. The entire time we were in London we didn't experience any attitude, pushiness, or rudeness. However, the first person we encountered when returning to the US, the customs agent, was rude, gruff and abrasive.

With all that said, its still great to be home and I've decided to bring a little bit of London back to New York with me. For starters, I'll now call french fries "chips", refer to the subway as "underground", no longer tip bartenders, only frequent authentic pubs and drink good beer, take up chain smoking and drive on the left side of the road.

Cheers!

London, Day 4 Part 1

Our final day in London began with a visit from Kelly's sister, Jane and her husband and three kids. Seth & I hung out with them for a while before heading out on our own and meandering through a London flea market on our way to the Underground station. We exited the Underground at King's Cross station, an imense and beautiful train station.


We then walked to the National Portrait Gallery and stopped by one of our favorite bars before heading into the museum. After a very quick look at a few portraits, they were closing 10 minutes after we arrived, we headed to Trafalger Square.




From there we walked towards Big Ben and the Thames. The following picture is of a stone stairway that leads directly into the river.


We walked along the Thames enjoying the view across the river, which was dominated by the London Eye.

London, Day 4 Part 2

Strolling along the north side of the Thames, we came across a giant Egyptian obelisk, which was already centuries old when Cleopatra had it moved to Alexandria.


The obelisk was flanked by two black, stone Sphynxs.


We couldn't see the "666" on the head of this Sphynx until we looked at this picture.

London, Day 4 Part 3

After strolling along the north side of the Thames, we walked across the river over the Waterloo Bridge and headed to a pub located on the Jubilee Walk, which runs along the south side of the river. It was a bit cold but we sat at a table outside rather than inside the smokey pub for chips and beer before heading over to the Tate Modern museum to meet Kelly and Adam. The museum has three twisting, tube slides in a huge open room, with the largest going from the 5th floor to the ground.


After looking at a variety of art, from Lobster Phone to "NO!", we had a delicious dinner at the restaurant on the top of the museum with incredible views of the entire city and St. Paul's Cathedral directly across the Thames. Following dinner we crossed back over the Thames via the Millenium Bridge, which leads to the steps of St. Paul's cathedral, where Charles & Dianna were married and we cought a cab back to the Islington flat for a nightcap and a few final episodes of 90210.

London, Day 3 Part 1

On the third day of our London Holiday, Seth & I were up early and out the door to explore Kelly & Adam's neighborhood of Islington. We had a delicious breakfast at a Greek diner then strolled down Essex Street, which is filled with shops, bars, pubs and restaurants.


Eventually we arrived at the Angel Station and headed way underground to navigate the tube system, re-emerging on the street just north of Soho.


We strolled around shopping for a while and happened upon a church that distant relatives of Seth's might have been married at.


After stopping at a few pubs, we wandered over to Piccadilly Circus.

London, Day 3 Part 2

After Piccadilly, we headed up to Brewer Street and to The Crown pub, where they served an ale called Santa's Little Helper and we discovered that you can drink out on the sidewalks of London, which was great because we had a hard time breathing in the smokey pubs.

Kelly and her friend, Anthony, met us at The Crown and we then strolled down Brewer Street to another pub for a bite to eat then hopped in a cab and headed back to Islington.

Once back in Islington, we went to the bar The Green, where Adam met up with us and we hung out until eventually stumbling home.

Day 2 Part 1

today we were up and out at the crack of noon. Seth & I traveled by bus (it turns out they really use double deckers here for public transportation and not just sightseeing) to the River Thames, where we had to brave unprecidented winds that were blowing at 100 miles an hour. After a lite lunch, we went to visit the Tower of London where we explored dungeons, used 2005's Loo of the Year, saw the monarchie's weapons and armillary, and rode a rediculously slow moving floor past the crown jewels.

Day 2 Part 2

Afterward we gripped the handrail of the Tower Bridge and pulled ourselves against the wind to cross to the south side of the Thames. Once there, we strolled along the water and checked out the sites including Shakespear's Globe Theatre and the ruins of an ancient castle. We were in the shadow of the London Eye when we reached the the Jubilee Bridge and decided to cross back over the Thames and seak out Trafalgar Square.
Continued . . .

Day 2 part 3

By this time we both needed the loo and figured a pub was in order. We happened upon the Tom Cribb, a small pub named in honor of a boxer, where we had a few beers and called Kelly & Adam to plan the evening's event.

The plan was to meet at a restaurant across the street from St. Pauls Cathedral and we made our way there through the haphazard streets of London. Of course, we got misplaced but luckily stumbled upon a bar Seth remembered frequenting when he was here in 2000 with Mark Morris. We eventually made it to the restaurant where Kelly & Adam were waiting with their delightful friend Rina (who is about to give birth to a chain-smoking, whorish baby . . . possibly fathered by Adam). We had a wonderful dinner, which I'm still feeling stuffed from then stopped off at the Northgate for an after dinner drink before eventually heading back to the flat for disc 3 of Beverly Hills 90210.

Day 1

After last night's late-night hijinks (scroll down), we got a slow and late start to our first day in London. We visited our first authentic London pub, Talbot, for lunch where Seth had an English beer and we all had burgers with fat chips (french fries back home).
We returned to the flat to get Adam and then headed out to the Northgate for more beers. We are now back at the flat enjoying Adam's gormet grilled cheese sarnis.

Explorations in Wine

After a long day of traveling (we left our apartment at 6am and arrived at Kelly & Adam's flat at 9:30pm) we all decided a quiet night at home was in order. Several bottles of wine and a few 6-packs later . . .

Never Mind The Bullocks . . .

We made it safe and sound to London, England and the welcoming pad of Kelly & Adam. Stay tuned for more entries, including my recap of our flight titled, 'American Airlines, The Newark of the Sky'. Until then, here's my first photo from our European vacation.

The Queen's English

In preparation for my London trip this week, I've been reading the Londonist, rather than Gothamist and nosing around UK slang. I even had a sarnie for lunch. Barmy, isn't it?

Just Another Mundane Monday

Even though it's Martin Luther King day, I'm at work. I can't really complain though because I'm off to London this week for a few days of unstructured sightseeing and pub drinking with Kelly & Adam.

Unfortunately, I still have to get through Monday, which is always difficult, especially after a good weekend. We started the weekend on Friday with a trip to the Brooklyn Museum to check out the Annie Leibovitz exhibit - a collection of her photographs from 1990 to 2005. While there, we also caught the Ron Mueck exhibit. Even if you don't recognize that name, you may have seen or heard of his work. He creates incredibly life-like silicone sculptures of people in distorted sizes. One piece is a new born infant lying on its side that must have been 20 feet long. Another sculpture is of an old, dead man lying on his back but just 3 feet tall. All his sculptures are so realistic looking that if it weren't for the sizes, you would think they are real people.

On Saturday, I met Jen for some afternoon shopping then joined her and some friends of hers at their favorite sports bar to watch the New Orleans football team play the Eagles. I was expecting an empty and quiet bar with a handful of people there to watch the game. Boy, was I wrong. This place was packed! It took us 30 minutes of careful watching and planning just to get seats. I've never seen so many people is sports jerseys before. I don't know if there were just more Eagles fans than New Orleans fans but they were definitely much louder. They even sang the Eagles fight song every time the Eagles did something good. I left during the third quarter before the Eagles started loosing but Jen told me the singing stopped and the Eagles fans got more and more quiet as the game continued.

After all that activity, a Chicos Sunday was in order. We had a horror movie marathon yesterday starting with the 1965 Borris Karloff film, 'Die, Monster, Die!'. It was an odd story of a wealthy English family who had a radioactive meteorite crash onto their property, which they interpreted as a gift from the heavens, but would eventually come to destroy them all. Our next two flicks were from 2006 and both dealt with digital demons. The first, 'Stay Alive' was a lame story of a group of kids who got their hands on an underground video game that once they started playing, would kill them in real life exactly as their game characters were killed. There were so many problems with this movie that I won't even bother getting into them. It was basically 'The Ring' but with a video game rather than video tape. The next digital demon movie we watched was 'Pulse'. While much better than 'Stay Alive', this movie was just alright. It featured a group of kids at the world's bleakest university, where a group working in an apparently secret computer lab in the basement of the computer labs building, created a computer virus that could spread to any web-enabled device, then jump out of the device and go on a city destroying, soul-sucking spree.

So how was your weekend?

Can't Stand The Heat

Where do I even start? On this this week's Top Chef, the lamest character of all entrants made the mistake of reciting his poetry from the roof of a downtown LA building. All I can say is "stick to the kitchen dumb-ass!"

If you have never watched 'Top Shelf', then please don't bother. The entire show is a spotlight for the program's sponsors. Save yourself the invested time and watch QVC instead.

I'm Hate'n It

I don't know if I should be mad at McDonald's or Justin Timberlake but I am so tired of hearing people say "I'm lovin' it".

Seperated At Birth?

Is it just me or does the new Pope look an awful lot like the little dinosaurs from Jurassic Park? You know, the ones that killed Newman.

Watching What You Eat

For anybody that hates to read, as much as I do, but still worries about their caloric intake, as much as I do, Josh sent me a great website that has full color pictures of a variety of foods that all have 200 calories in them.

I decided to print out these color pictures, cut them and paste them onto index cards. Now I start each day by shuffling the cards and flipping them over to determine what I'll eat for each meal. Its sort of like doing a Tarot card reading but with more satisfaction because I don't have to wait years for the reading's prophecy to come true. I immediately eat what the cards tell me!

The cards have told me that today for breakfast I will eat one and a third hot dogs, a shot of Bailey's and four Tootsie Pops. For lunch, I'm having a pile of cornmeal, a shot of canola oil and a bowl of ketchup. And finally for dinner I'll be dining on two red onions, two glasses of Coke and a handful of Gummi Bears.

What do the cards hold for you?

Out Of The Woodwork

It seems like I may be in for a legal battle. After postings Tuesday's 'Genius At Work' column (scroll down to read it), I received an email from some nut, claiming they had the idea for the automatic bathroom door first and told me about it years ago. I've already turned the letter over to my lawyer but not without copying it first.

Here it is:

Dear Mt Mckinley, Sir.

I am writing to inform you of a most unfortunate incident that I feel deserves your immediate attention sometime in the next week or so. At approximately, 11:58 and 32 seconds, on the 11th of January 2007, I was reading your blog ("Pop-o-matic"). I was strangely disturbed when I read your posting with"your original" idea for automatic bathroom doors. Sir, I may bring to your attention that, in fact, it was I who had that very same idea many years ago. In fact, sir, I happen to know that I discussed said idea on the premises that you were inhabiting in Jersey City sometime between March 13th, 1998 at 3:01 a.m. and November 3rd, 2000 at 4:59 p.m. While the plaintiff does acknowledge that neither party may have adequate, or even any, memory of this time period (due to substances both known and unknown), I feel that I am in the moral majority and can defend my claim.

I strongly urge to you cease and desist, redact, retract, and refrain -- preferably all at the same time -- or else I shall be forced to contact my esteemed lawyer, Sir Vitimus. And he, in turn, will be forced to come out of retirement, dry out, and take forceful action.

Good day sir.
In vino veritas

Verizon DSL Sucks

After a tumultuous experience with Verizon DSL that took 5 months to rectify, I swore to never use their service again. Unfortunately, my office uses Verizon DSL and for the second time in roughly two months, we have no internet service at work.

We lost our connection yesterday afternoon mysteriously and incredibly coincidentally right after a Verizon technician arrived at our building to install internet lines for the office across that hall. While the technician refused to admit he was the cause of our outage, a Verizon customer service rep who our office manager was dealing with told us that the technician was absolutely the reason we lost service. This technician, who was still in our building, couldn't fix our problem, the one he was responsible for, because the home office hadn't issued him a work order for it. You've got to love corporate America.

Our customer service rep told the office manager that a new technician would be there to fix the problem this morning at 8am. This caused the whole office to laugh. Its now 2:00 and I'm still working from home where my cable internet connection is up and running.

Maltesers

I don't know if this is a real commercial but can you imagine something like this airing on American TV?

Time Magazine's Person Of The Year

I know I'm a little behind on this but I just heard about Time Magazine and their Person of the Year issue. Apparently, this print magazine picks a person every year who they think was great over the course of the year. I guess it's sort of like People's Sexiest Man Alive issue but with less sexiness.

Well guess who they picked as the 2006 Person of the Year? ME! And you also. Apparently in a transparent attempt to appeal to the masses, Time choose all of us who use the internet. While this is an obvious gimmick, you can bet that I'll be adding "Time Magazine: Person of the Year 2006" to my resume.

My New Favorite Song

Is Love Today by MIKA.

What's your current favorite song?

An Opinion From A Broad

Kelly, our friend from across the pond, contacted me yesterday with her theory on the strange gas smell that permeated the city on Monday. I think it's safe to say that Kelly speaks for most Londoners with regards to this gas issue when she issued the following statement:

You know that Jen just farted on her way to work.

When asked to comment on this allegation, Jen had the following to say:

The carbs I ate in Italy did make me gassy.

Well, it sounds like we are all in agreement then. Jen farted!

Genius At Work #3

Welcome to my irregular posting, 'Genius At Work'. This is where I share my ideas that I think can change the world.

Unarguably, one of the greatest inventions of the 20th is the motion-sensor activated toilets, sinks and hand dryers found in public bathrooms. But why did the bathroom revolutionaries quit before finishing the job? We still have to physically touch the doors to get back out of the bathroom. Studies* show that 1 in 4 guys don't wash their hands after using the toilet. That means a lot of hands are going directly from dick to door.


The solution is automatic doors! The technology exists. We see it every time we go to the supermarket. So why can't bathroom doors get with the program. This way we can all be sure that we are leaving the bathroom with the same amount of germs we had going in and not picking up any new ones.




*Based on non-scientific guess.