It was a full New York weekend, since, unless a knight-in-shining-armor comes along, or I win the lottery this week, it's my last week here! (BTW, Macy's offered me $11.00 an hour to do visual at Herald Square. I couldn't live as far out as the trains will go on $11.00 an hour! But, I'll have to let the visual manager take that up with HR. She said she knew it wouldn't be enough. But, then again, some dumb kid from FIT will take the job for less I'm sure. Say hello to your college debt and a 500-bedroom convertible apartment, sucker!)
Anyway, Sunday was the City Bakery's Hot Chocolate Festival. They shipped in snow, put down faux ice for skating, and gave away hot chocolate and marshmallows at their shop near Union Square. The homemade marshmallows were toasted over a grill (see pics). And that was good, because the square blobs just tasted like bread dough when they were raw. Something about toasting them actually made them marshmallow-like in flavor. Unfortunately the chocolate needed a dash of vanilla or something to curb the sugary but not sweet cocoa flavor. Leave it to Lillian and me to deconstruct everything from Petco store windows to the city's "best hot chocolate." I will concede, the sugared danish was tasty. Flaky baked pastry crust soaked in sugar water is a good idea to me!
Saturday, I spent the day shopping on Soho. Oh, how I'll miss shopping in Soho! I visited an outrageously expensive Frenchy chocolate shop called Vosges. I ordered a Cappuccino Bomb - a cappuccino with my choice of chocolate truffle dropped into the mug. I selected a Gatsby: dark chocolate combined with bubbly Joseph Perrier Champagne & dressed with a tear of a red rose petal. IT WAS GOOD! (And that's just how it should be for $6.50.) If anyone would like to send me over a Gatsby + Daisy box of Valentine's chocolates, you can for just $25 - $40! I prefer the latter. It's more bang for your buck! I can provide a mailing address by request.
Sloppy Joe/Dirty Jane had been marked on my calendar for some time now. But it was a disappointment and ironically, because of my distaste for its name, Yellow Rat Bastard was a veritable gold mine of apparel treasures! And of course, Daffy's is my favorite of all. One Daffy's is better than TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshall's and Value City combined. Dare I utter such words...
Amy, you are somewhat left-hemisphere dominant and show a preference for visual learning, although not extreme in either characteristic. You probably tend to do most things in moderation, but not always.
Your left-hemisphere dominance implies that your learning style is organized and structured, detail oriented and logical. Your visual preference, though, has you seeking stimulation and multiple data. Such an outlook can overwhelm structure and logic and create an almost continuous state of uncertainty and agitation. You may well suffer a feeling of continually trying to "catch up" with yourself.
Your tendency to be organized and logical and attend to details is reasonably well-established which should afford you success regardless of your chosen field of endeavor. You can "size up" situations and take in information rapidly. However, you must then subject that data to being classified and organized which causes you to "lose touch" with the immediacy of the problem.
Your logical and methodical nature hamper you in this regard though in the long run it may work to your advantage since you "learn from experience" and can go through the process more rapidly on subsequent occasions.
You remain predominantly functional in your orientation and practical. Abstraction and theory are secondary to application. In keeping with this, you focus on details until they manifest themselves in a unique pattern and only then work with the "larger whole."
With regards to your career choices, you have a mentality that would be good as a scientist, coach, athlete, design consultant, or an engineering technician. You can "see where you want to go" and even be able to "tell yourself," but find that you are "fighting yourself" at the darndest times.
Toto was one of my favorite bands when I was a kid. This makes me want to break stuff and stomp around in a tantrum.
As Pinnacle Entertainment prepares for the Jan. 25 anticipated release of its two Christian/gospel music-based compilations, The Pinnacle Project: Last Say So and The Pinnacle Project: BIG, the first single releasing to Christian radio stations across the nation is already generating a buzz among major radio programmers and industry insiders.
"Hosanna," the first single from The Pinnacle Project: Last Say So, is a derivative work of the 1982 smash hit single "Rosanna," recorded by mainstream pop/rock group Toto. The single skyrocketed up the charts to No. 1 and helped win the group five Grammy Awards including Record of the Year and Album of the Year, the two highest Grammy honors.
The Pinnacle Project's "Hosanna," was re-written and arranged by label founder and acclaimed music producer Marc Harris (Michael McDonald, BeBe & CeCe Winans). Harris rewrote the song with the blessing of Toto keyboardist and songwriter David Paich, who has admired Harris' work and was excited about the idea for a new version of the band's signature song.
The song's recognizable melody makes the perfect backdrop for the updated arrangement of vertically-driven lyrics and emotion-packed vocals that build into a powerful worship anthem. In early testing, Christian radio stations and networks in key markets have been flooded with listener phone calls after playing "Hosanna" on the air just one time. Radio programmers in markets across the country are already asking for the single, which will officially go for adds at AC, CHR and Inspo radio stations across the country on Friday, Feb. 4.
Well, the editor of the website for which I'm writing some commentaries has taken the role of critic and redirected my efforts. My first column, and I knew it did, needs some work. But it's good for a critic to be criticized, especially since I wrote for years and years and my magazine editors never advised me much. I got away with murder in my journalism classes, being published before college encourages ones professors to just pass you right through. Not that I was a horrible student or anything, I just didn't really try that hard. Or maybe I was a genius. [Natch.] Let's go with that. Perhaps I need to embrace my arrogance and judgmental attitude. All the things I think, I've been reluctant to put down in print. I don't want people to think me some horrible, elitist, opinionated snob. But I suppose a critic can't really ride the fence. So here I am, opinionated snob, where everyone can see it -- in black and white.
We lost a real class act yesterday. Johnny Carson was a wonderful comedian and a top-tier celebrity who's gift made him famous, not his personal affairs. He was a charmer on stage, and off-stage he maintained a quiet lifestyle. He was never overexposed. He never pounded us over the head with his political ideals, moral values or shortcomings. He was an entertainer, and that perfect image of the entertainer is how he will be remembered.
As a grade school kid, I would try to fall asleep in front of the TV so maybe, just maybe I could open my eyes later and sneak in some sights of the Tonight Show. I laughed at everything the audience laughed at. I always wished I would have a chance to be a guest and meet the funny man myself. There's talk of the many celebrities' careers he launched, but I'm sure there are many people in all aspects of show business who attribute their beginnings to having watched The Tonight Show. How inspiring to watch someone do what he loved to do, and it seemed so effortless. He just made people laugh.
The exceptional drop in temperature this week warranted almost 5,000 calls to 311 in just one day. The calls were all made in complaint of landlords not in compliance with city heat and hot water codes. What kind of a city is this that landlords even attempt to get away with not to turning on tenants' heat?
