I Heart iTunes

Have been listening to Pandora a lot and stumbled upon some new music that I've subsequently bought on iTunes.

Namely The Pimps of Joytime (funk like your daddy used to make), Chromeo (electro pop from some Montrealers) and Royksopp, and then just a bit more Cassie, Kelis, Kanye, Missy Elliot, Talib Kweli, Common and Timbaland just for Jus (he hates the RnB, G, but when it kicks in on the iPod when he's on the cross-trainer at the Y then he's all over it).

Anyhoo, so good to have some fresh music to listen to. I've taken to noting on the phone every time I hear a song I like and then looking up the artist on iTunes and buying some. I don't think I've ever been this attentive to new music since I was a teenager listening to the radio while I did homework and taping songs on cassette, usually losing the first few bars while I worked out if this was the song I liked.

iTunes has just released rentable movies too. You can download a movie for $2.99 for 24 hours and watch it on your laptop, or transfer it to your iPod or iPhone. After 24 hours it 'self-destructs' and disappears. We are getting away with this no TV thing like pros.

Any favourite songs/albums/artists from last year that you wanna share? Email me, homey.

New York is funny (and so can you)

• A $2400 stroller with DVD player, iPod dock and temp gauge.
• The Missed Connections section of NY Craiglist is the home of unrequited love.
• The You're Loved Self-Esteemizer - good for those winter blues that are months away for most of you
• $31 million full floor apartment floor plan on 5th Ave, overlooking the Met: 11 walk in closets!
• Barbecue & comfort food menu at Bone Lick Park. Brisket, catfish and baby back ribs with candied yams and collard greens, momma.

Should I go out this weekend or stay home and watch a DVD?

TimeOut published a formula, to help you decide:

(a+b)-(c+d)= e

a= no. of days since you last danced (outside your home)
b= no. of days since you were up past 1am and not online
c= no. of days you've had that unwatched DVD sitting at home
d= no. of days since you last flirted with someone not counting your pet

If e= positive number, go out! Your pet needs the space.
If e= negative number, stay home. You need the rest.

My last dance = Xmas party = 30
Up past 1am= Friday night = 5
unwatched DVD= 0. downloaded Transformers and watched it last night. Apallingly B-grade flick!
last flirted with someone= 0. every day at work man! just joking. last flirted = do BC dates count?

I'm going out anyway!

I'd like to make weekend plans with you and your husband...

Not what it sounds like, and too close to the bone:

Would you drink the milk from a cloned cow?

The US Food & Drug Administration is hot on the heels of its EU equivalent with its announcement that meat & dairy products from cloned animals are safe to eat. And they aren't issuing a requirement that cloned foods be labelled as such, so consumers won't be able to make a conscious decision about whether they want to eat cloned food or not.

Here there is also no labelling about whether agricultural products have been genetically modified or not. So now we will have cloned cows eating genetically modified grain. Sounds like something out of Oryx & Crake. So Big Food is real!

The decision feels a little premature to me. Dolly was only cloned 11 years ago, and she lived to 6, not the usual sheep lifespan of 12-15 years, because she was euthanised to relieve her from lung disease and arthritis. Cloned animals are known to suffer from poorer health than conventionally bred animals.

Why don't they clone endangered species instead? We know there are enough cows in the world.

Vegetarianism never looked so good.

What we got up to on the weekend

Come winter, many gardens and patches of earth have been planted with decorative cabbages. They are everywhere and seem to be one of the only plants hardy enough to withstand the snow and ice. Who knew the humble cabbage would have a place in New York's city streets?















Justin made icecream sandwiches from scratch on the weekend. He baked ginger cookies and then shaped the vanilla icecream into a tube, sliced off ice cream patties and refroze them to make the most delicious icecream sandwich ever. It was so thick it was more like an Icecream Burger. I think he invented something.















Wandered around Chelsea with the aim of popping up into the mryiad of galleries there but they're all closed on Sunday. So we know that for next time.

Doorway of someplace that really wants to be found.

"Climate change and wine"

I read this headline on Wine Spectator and felt true panic. Pacific islands disappearing and more prevalent hurricanes and snowless winters are one thing, but a risk to wine production is another altogether. Remember the 9 months Australia endured without bananas? People were losing it! There is a conference in Italy to discuss the issues, thank god.

At work this week I stumbled across the Climate Confidence Index published by the bank HSBC: it reveals that people in developed countries are more apathetic and pessimistic about climate change than those in developing countries. I took their environment quiz and only got 50%. Alarmed but not alert, it seems we are.

My favourite NY news story of the day: "Corpse wheeled to check-cashing store"

You gotta read it to believe it.

I want to say 'Only in America' right about now...

And I'm also loving the arrival of the term 'Big Food' (along the lines of Big Tobacco, Big Pharma) and the 'Nutritional Industry Complex' (along the lines of the Military Industrial Complex).

Celebrity sighting #24

Craig Ferguson
Originally uploaded by Darko.

Craig Ferguson, who Drew Carey Show fans will recognise as Mr Wick, was at the mountain we skied at in Vermont with his family.

He has a TV show here called The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, where I discovered he actually speaks with a heavy Scottish accent. Who knew?

Visitors from across the pond

The Bink & Jez Show rolled into town and we had front row seats. We reminisced, sampled awesome cocktails involving elderflowers, pears and prosecco, and ate a week's worth of breakfast in one drowsy sitting at the Waverly Diner (not to be confused with the Waverly Inn, which is an altogether different kettle of celebrity fish).

We strolled through the park and laughed at ice skaters and disco skaters alike, baulked at the queues at Moma and found respite in Dean & Deluca where we stuffed in cupcakes because they were so cute. It was great to be with familiar friends and waffle on, and share their exciting news about moving to Abu Dhabi!

Today was 20c

That's a 30c temperature swing, week on week. The squirrels are confused. But the warm weather means that more people are expected to turn up to vote in the New Hampshire primaries. So global warming has its benefits.

Time for the thermals

It was -10c when I was heading to work this morning. My eyes were watering it was so cold.

I'm going to buy some thigh-high woollen socks that they sell here, to wear under trousers and jeans. Jus has jone ahead and just cracked out the longjohns.

The death of the word 'fewer'

I don't know if you've noticed but people have stopped saying and writing the word 'fewer', in favour of using 'less' for everything.

The traditional grammar is that 'less' is used for mass nouns and 'fewer' is used for countable nouns, so you would have less chocolate and fewer chocolates, less time and fewer minutes, less patience and fewer scruples.

But people now just use 'less' all the time. Even in august publications like The New Yorker and the NY Times and The Age it crops up again and again in the wrong usage.

This is something I would like to see rectified in 2008 people, please. So if you haven't set New Years resolutions for yourself you now have one: say 'less' less.