Visitors Welcome!

Darwin is on his way to visit me today, and I'm planning some sort of high school reunion for him. This should all be very, very weird, at the very least. I haven't seen most of my high school friends since 1997, the summer after we graduated. We've all traveled very different paths since then. I guess we'll see how it all goes.

I've been up since 7AM, running around like a chicken with its head cut off, making sure I am ready for all the visiting. Now its 11, and I just wish he and his girlfriend would show up already. I think its time to go make myself a bloody mary.

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home

There's nothing like John Howard Payne to say it like it is. And guess who has a new home these days?

Yes, my friends, that would be me. Anthony and I have a new apartment! We'll be living on U Street in D.C., and we have a whole 800 square feet to spread out in...

Check your emails in the coming days to get updated contact info...

Eureka!

My friend Starr once asked me what I would do if there were nothing barring my way - not finances, not talent, not ability, nothing. And I responded, "Write a book."

She followed that with, "So what's stopping you?"

Like a light shining on a marble head, I FINALLY have the answer. It's funny, actually, that I am sitting here at work, in the midst of a million repetitive phone calls, and the answer all of a sudden comes to me, completely unbidden.

When someone asks you that question, your response is invariably an answer of something you WISH you wanted to do. I admire a great many authors, avidly read, and like the idea of publishing a novel, but if I really wanted to do it, I would. There isn't anything stopping me except the desire to do so.

Sure, we all like the idea of being famous, of becoming a rock star, or of scaling Mt. Everest. However, if we truly wanted that experience, we would do it. Instead of writing my memoirs, I scrapbook, I watch movies, I go to the gym, I hang out with friends - whatever it is that I choose to do at the moment.

So Starr, if you're reading this, I finally figured it out. I love the idea of writing, but don't really want to. When you asked me that question, I was already doing what I wanted to do.

I, Robot

I have to post this article from the BBC:

Domestic robot to debut in Japan

The robot will go on sale in mid-SeptemberA robot that recognises up to 10 faces and understands 10,000 words is to be offered to Japanese consumers looking for a high-tech helper in the house.

The one-metre tall humanoid Wakamaru robot is being marketed as a mechanical house-sitter and secretary.

Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries expects the first robots to go on sale in September.

"This is the opening of an era in which human beings and robots can co-exist," the company said.
The company says the robot can watch over homes while the owners are away, alerting them to possible burglaries.

It can also apparently help monitor the condition of a sick person.

And according to Mitsubishi, the robot can act as a secretary, recording notes and appointments and reminding owners of them with well-timed announcement.

The Wakamaru weighs 30kg (66lb) and is expected to cost 1.58m yen (US$14,300).

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries says it is the first robot with communication ability to be sold for use in the house.

It is powered by rechargeable batteries and moves around on wheels, Japan's Kyodo news agency reports.

Can you believe it? Yael, is this what you have secretly been working on at Techtium all these years? (If so, I am SO PROUD! :)

In any case, I just thought I'd take a moment out of my day to revel in the ingenuity of the human race. Most days I wonder how we made it this far, and then there's moments like this that remind me how kewl we really are. And that's "kewl" with a capital "K."

1+1=3

Wedded Bliss
Originally uploaded by Pookah.

This is how Andrew crashes a wedding. Just as the happy couple finishes their vows and go in for the kiss, there's Andrew!

Okay, so maybe Andrew isn't that invasive, but he certainly got the lion's share of the love last weekend.

Mr. & Mrs. Dan are currently in Mexico, celebrating their new titles of Husband and Wife, but I was there when the magic happened (thank you, Andrew!).

And by "magic," I mean wedding (get your mind out of the gutter!!!). I have never before been to a Jewish ceremony - the closest being my cousin's Bat Mitzvah - and the singing was almost as beautiful as Eric's solo performances during the Seder dinners we had in college.

The day started with a few rain storms and the arrival of David from Germany - by way of NYC, of course. We introduced Andrew to Bloody Mary's, which are now his drink of choice, and lubricated our vocal chords with vodka.

Why, you might ask? Because we were all required to get out on the dance floor at the wedding and sing. I KID YOU NOT. As a group, we Penn people were called up to the "stage," each of us claiming that, "If I have to go, YOU'RE going," or, "Strength in numbers, guys, strength in numbers." The latter of which really wasn't true, though. I think it's official that only Andrew, Courtney and Dan know all the words to The Red and the Blue. I felt like a jackass swinging my arm back and forth Nazi-style (a little higher than it was supposed to be so as to avoid thwacking David upside the head), singing, "Hoorah, hoorah, Penn-syl-van-i-a."

But I get ahead of myself. All this Penn gusto was later in the day. We arrived at the farm with just enough time to talk to the wedding party, ask Dan where the loo was, and relieve ourselves of all that Bloody Mary goodness, before we had to find somewhere out of the way (all the seats were taken) so as not to take away all of Courtney's thunder on the aisle.

Nearly everyone did their catwalk before I realized I was taking lousy pictures because I forgot to turn the flash on. And then I was gearing up for some really great shots when the official photographer jumped in my way. If I didn't love Dan & Court so much, I think I would have beaten him to death with his own photo equipment (I say that in jest, mind you).

The ceremony was about a half hour, which I think is the perfect amount of time. Jeff and I once went to a wedding where we were a few minutes late and the wedding area ("area" because it was outside) was already cleared. Michelle, Vince and I have also been on time for a wedding that must have topped out at two and a half minutes, with the couple strolling down the aisle to R&B music.

In any case, the ceremony was really quite simple and heartfelt. Dan was telling me that his uncle officiated, and everything had to be repeated twice, once for Dan's family, and once for the rest of us who don't speak Hebrew. Did I mention how cute Andrew looked in his little Jewish skull cap? (Nobody take a fit now, I know it's a yarmaluke.)

Dan's uncle related a bunch of personal stories about Courtney and Dan, which is why if you've seen the pictures on Kodak Gallery, you'll note I've mentioned Blazing Saddles and Hook. The bride and groom's favorite movies were shown to be metaphors for how they look at and embrace life. It was all very deep, and also hardly audible as the acoustics in the farm weren't exactly at the level of a Rolling Stones concert these days.

But I enjoyed myself immensely.

That, however, may very well be due to the five or so screwdrivers that Andrew hand-fed me during the cocktail hour(due to the fact that they actually carded us at the bar - and I forgot my license!). It's either that or the soul-stirring rendition of What a Wonderful Life that David wooed Kevin with during the wedded couple's first dance. It was all very traumatic - I mean, romantic.

Have I yet mentioned our favorite HOTTIE, Heather? Well, I finally got around to meeting the girl who's most famous for making Kevin monogamous these past six months. We are still wondering how Kevin could keep someone SO HOT and not let us meet her until now.

(By the way, this HOTTIE thing I've got going on here with Heather actually has a story - when I met her at the pre-wedding luncheon on Saturday, Kevin kept saying to me, "Isn't my girlfriend HOT?" To which I responded, "Oh Heather, you're SO FRIGGIN' HOT. And now I'm going to tell you that every time I see you." So every ten minutes at the wedding, I told Heather she was a HOTTIE and Kevin just grinned and puffed out his chest.)

So there was dancing and the white-man overbite for Andrew, a little lesbian four-year-old who crawled under HOTTIE's skirt and then kicked her in the crotch (there's a way to NOT make friends), a live band, Dan & Courtney carried around on their chairs, a lot of watching David smoke out on the patio, a happy phone call to wish Martha a lot of "fucking" on her birthday, and a host of drinks.

Who was there, you ask? Well, a bunch of people I don't know, followed by a following from Penn, which includes me, David, Kevin, Andrew, that girl Jenny who was friends with Bjeorn and lived in Hill, her boyfriend Johnny (and NO, not Johnny Yau, Ben's favorite roommate - in fact, I have no idea who he is), and Akiva. There may have been more people from Penn, but I don't know them and I was so ashamed of my singing, I only saw the back of David's head.

The food was excellent, much like David's dancing, and we made friends with a beautiful red-head named Dana who was at our table. David was contemplating which stranger's bed he would attempt to be in by the end of the day, and she was definitely on his list. However, we were the last people to leave - other than the immediate family - and Andrew and I are pretty sure that the only two people that made it into the same bed that evening were Kevin and HOTTIE (they mentioned something about a Best Western, and Andrew and I kept a lookout to make sure they never entered the same bathroom during their "potty breaks").

So, we parked in a field. And at the end of the evening, after my failed attempt to steal a bridesmaid's purse (Heather told me it was Kevin's man-bag), we stood in that field like a bunch of schoolchildren out past our bedtimes. In fact, we were just trying to hide the certain something that certain someones shouldn't necessarily do out in the open amongst good god-fearing folk, but a few of us made it out of there a little happier, a little less drunk, and a lot more satisfied. The itch, as they say, had been scratched. (Let me just say here, for all future readers, both professional and personal - I did not partake. I am not of the partaking kind. Nor do I care if someone else is. So there's my awesome disclaimer.)

And while Kevin and Heather zoomed off for their evening of Best Western lovin', Andrew, David and I found our way back to my house for some instruction from my mother on how NOT to make an impression on my very impressionable friends. And while she was off getting us coffee at Dunkin' Donuts, we made some home movies with David and Andrew laying on my kitchen counter.

Those of you from Melslist, I have tried for two days now to email you those movies, but they have failed to send. Another day, another disappointment.

Anyway, I of course wish Dan and Courtney the best of love and happiness, knowing that each of them could never really be complete without the other. I have never seen two so deserving people find their right match. If I had another Bloody Mary, I'd say, "Here's to you, Dan & Court!" I might even add Andrew to the list, as he is such a big fan of tomato juice and tabasco sauce.

Wedding News Coming Soon, But For Now I Am Grossly Overweight

Well, the U.S. is anyway. I'm reading on the BBC that new figures for obesity in the U.S. are out, and it still manages to shock me. The good news is that Massachusetts is ranked 48th out of 52. Unfortunately for me, I am about to move to D.C., which is ranked 15th. You can check out your own state here.

Here's a sample of the article:

In the past year, the adult obesity rate rose in 48 of America's states, and nationally from 23.7% to 24.5%, Trust for America's Health found.

In 10 states, over a quarter of adults are now obese, despite campaigns and alerting people to the dangers of over-eating.

God, are we ever FAT! There are a bunch of comments at the bottom of the article, posted by readers from all over the world, and I tend to agree with most of the points that are made. There are certainly quite a few angles with which to view the obesity issue, and I don't know how we as a nation are going to solve this problem. Nor am I entirely sure that the federal government should have a say in how we eat, exercise (or don't), et. al. Are we trying to enter the world of Big Brother here? Or, should the government have a say because it is not necessarily a quality of life issue that they care about, but rather a lesson in economics? I certainly don't pretend to have a strong opinion here.

Yet, the cynic in me is thinking that perhaps now that we're making some headway with different cancers, Mother Nature is finding a new way to kill us off. It's almost like we as a people are programmed to be self-destructive these days - kind of like those rats in lab drug tests that have total access to the button and end up ODing... we keep wanting more, more, MORE. OF EVERYTHING.

Maybe too much of a good thing ain't so good.

Insert Sad Face Here

All you Penn people, did you know that Koch's Deli has closed??? Vince has just informed me of the following news, which I snagged from the Daily Pennsylvanian:

"W. Phila. loses popular deli owner
Bob Koch, owner of Koch's Deli, died Monday
August 9, 2005

Robert "Bob" Koch, owner of Koch's Deli at 43rd and Locust streets, died of heart failure Monday. Koch was 58.

Patrons said they saw Bob Koch on Saturday and he seemed in good health.

A message on the answering machine at the deli announced his passing, and said that the fate of the deli has "yet to be determined."

The deli has been a West Philadelphia mainstay for decades, and Koch was widely known for for his good humor while waiting on the notoriously long lines that frequently spilled out into the street.

Koch's Take Out Shop, located at 4309 Locust St., opened 39 years ago under the ownership of Koch's parents Sid and Frances. Their sons Bob and Louis also worked in the deli and continued to run it, almost unchanged, after their parents died. Lou died of a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 50."

This is a travesty! There is almost no reason for me to ever go back to Philadelphia (friends aside).

On top of that, our closest weekend brunch spot, Campus Epicurean, has also magically been turned into a Vietnamese restaurant. Next thing you know, Smoke's and Mad4Mex will be historic landmarks only in our memories as well...

What very sad news today (although Vince, I really did think you were going to tell me that one of the cats had died).