I'd like to begin my blog post with a plug...

Reading
Caren Lissner, Laurie Graff, and Melanie Murray
read from
SCENES FROM A HOLIDAY
(including the novella "Carrie Pilby's New Year's resolution")
Thursday, December 1, 2005
7:30 pm
Barnes & Noble
Eighth Street and Sixth Ave, West Village
(396 6th Ave at 8th Street)
NYC 10011

So set your TiVos for "Survivor" and "Everybody Hates Chris" and be there!

Another busy offseason for the Mets, acquiring first baseman Carlos Delgado and closer Billy Wagner. Is it April yet?

I saw the film adaptation of "Rent" on Friday. It was highly faithful to the stage play. Jonathan Larsen's music is amazing and it translated well on the big screen. I highly recommend it. One minor thing that bugged me - the stage play came out in 1996 and was vaguely set in the early 1990s. Some of the song lyrics then made pop cultural references to stuff happening around then such as the line "Like Thelma and Louise did when they got the blues." But in the movie, they established that the time frame was 1989 and 1990. They still left that lyric in though... even though "Thelma and Louise" came out in 1991. And then there was the song that they sing about moving to Santa Fe. It was filmed with the characters riding the F train - a fun visual. But in one shot there is a woman sitting in a subway seat behind Jesse Martin... the camera pans away and comes back but she's not there anymore... then the camera returns to that spot a few seconds later and there she is again! Sloppy. Chris Columbus should have had me in the editing room with him.

A good time was had at Thanksgiving. My cousin and his wife cooked an excellent meal and plenty of entertainment was provided by their new dog, Rico.

In between licking each of the guests, running aimlessly from room to room, chewing on its many toys and barking at the deer that ran across the front lawn, Rico posed for pictures. Here is one that I particularly like :


Rico is a mixed breed - half golden retriever and half shetland sheepdog. He is just over one year old and was born in Puerto Rico (hence his name) where he survived on its streets before being snatched by the dog catcher, brought to the States and purchased by my cousin. What a cute dog!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I will be celebrating tomorrow at my cousin's house in Westchester. I hope all of my readers have a good holiday as well.

My building's super just replaced a bad electrical outlet in my living room. This makes me very happy.

On Friday I will be able to plug a brand new TV into that outlet as I bought a new one yesterday. (Technically I will plug the TV into the surge protector which is plugged into the outlet.) It is 27 inches - an upgrade over my 20 incher which will be relocated to the bedroom. (There's probably a dirty joke here but I'm not going there...)

For some reason the computer network at work is so maddingly slow. Sending a routine e-mail has become an ordeal. I find myself cursing at my computer more often than is probably prudent.

David Nalbandian won the Tennis Masters Cup yesterday which has caused a lot of people to find my blog by googling "Is David Nalbandian Jewish?" I don't know, is he? He's from Argentina. Would that make him a Span-yid?

I ran four and a half miles this morning. Woo! And I lived to tell the tale. Woo-hoo!

I would have done five but I measured the distance from my starting point to the Verrazano Bridge and back as exactly four and a half miles. And I liked having the goal of making it to the bridge as my halfway mark. I suppose that next time I could just pick a slightly further starting point so that it can be an even five miles.

But I couldn't have done it without my iPod shuffle loaded up with the three CDs from the WWE Anthology series. Listening to wrestler theme songs from the 80s, 90s and today, how can one not be motivated?

Hosting trivia was fun last night. I went into it thinking that it was getting old and it would probably be my last time hosting. But it was such a rush that I'll have to sign up to do it again. My co-host was a cool guy who was alot of fun to host with but he told a lot of intentionally bad jokes that turned the audience against him. One table took a liking to me in particular (they named their team "Phil Me Up!") and whenever my co-host started acting annoying they started up a chant of PHIL! PHIL! that was picked up by the rest of the 70-someodd people there. So that stroked my ego. In other words, I played the face while my co-host played the heel.

I did three rounds of trivia. The first was a top ten list where I asked for the top 10 fast food restaurants in the U.S., based on their number of franchises. Subway was # 1. Noone thought to include Dairy Queen which was # 5. Then I did an "audio" round where I read the first few sentences of classic novels and had the players name the title and author. I did "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Dracula", "Anna Karenina", "The Grapes of Wrath", "Ragtime", "Oliver Twist", "The Last of the Mohicans", "Lord of the Flies", "Crime and Punishment" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." Finally I did a visual round where they had to identify pictures of female tennis players. All in all, they did quite well. The event draws some smart people!

Since I haven't been home much the last few days I have so many programs saved up on my TiVo. No idea when I'll find the time to watch them all. And "Lost" is on tonight!

I've gotten over 100 hits on my blog today from people searching for information on Eddie Guerrero's autopsy. The initial results were just released by his wife, Vicky.

“It was heart failure. It was from his past – the drinking and the drug abuse. They found signs of heart disease. She (the examiner) said that the blood vessels were very worn and narrow, and that just showed all the abuse from the scheduling of work and his past. And Eddie just worked out like crazy all the time. It made his heart grow bigger and work harder and the vessels were getting smaller, and that’s what caused the heart failure. He went into a deep sleep.As soon as they saw his heart, they saw the lining of his heart already had the heart disease. There was no trauma, and Eddie hadn’t hurt himself in any way. It answered a lot of questions. I knew Eddie wasn’t feeling very good for the last week. He was home and kept saying he wasn’t feeling good and we thought it was just “road tired.” So we thought he just had to rest. It answered a lot of my questions, too, because he was just so exhausted. She said it was normal because the heart was working so hard."

Last night I scored an invitation to Gracie Mansion for a reception to welcome the Country Music Awards to New York City. It was my first time at Gracie and the place is quite swanky. Leading into the place I walked on a red carpet lined with paparrazzi. Nice! Now, I am not a country music fan at all and had to be told by my co-workers when I was standing next to someone famous. For example, while I was getting a glass of white wine, there was a very attractive woman near me who was garnering lots of attention from everyone else. I asked my co-worker Portia who that was. Her reply was "Leanne Rimes." Then there was an older guy in the same room who was also garnering lots of attention. My co-worker Bob gave me his camera and asked me to take a picture with him. Which I did. Afterwards I asked who I just took a picture of. Bob's reply was "Glen Campbell."

One person who I DID know of was Mayor Bloomberg himself. At these Gracie Mansion receptions, the guests stand on a line with our names and addresses printed on cards. We then give the cards to a staff member and the Mayor takes individual pictures with each guest. An 8 x 10 picture is then mailed to each person. So I'm on the line and when it's my turn, I say hello to the mayor, shake his hand and we turn toward the camera. At which point it runs out of film and the cameraperson has to reload. So Bloomberg and I stand there, still in a handshake as the cameraperson does her thing. I wished him congratulations on his victory. Then he asked me my name. I told him and he said to his staff "Make sure that Phil's card is the first one for this next role of film." Finally I get my picture taken and was whisked off as the line resumed. Not that this was my first funny meeting with Mike Bloomberg. Last year I met him at Coney Island and he gave me a kazoo. But that's another story.

So after getting my picture taken, we were offered a tour of Gracie. Since Bloomberg doesn't live there and the bedrooms are vacant, we were allowed to go upstairs and look around. We were shown the master bedroom where other mayors have stayed and all I could think about were the fights that Rudy Giuliani and Donna Hanover must have had in that room.

And on another note, I am co-hosting Tuesday Night Trivia tonight at the Baggot Inn! It's at 7:30 on West 3rd Street between Sullivan and Thompson. Hope to see some of you there.

My Checklist for Running :

New workout pants? Check!


iPod Shuffle loaded up with music? Check!


I guess the only thing left to do is... to start running regularly. Yikes.

Oh, one more thing - rest in peace, Eddie Guerrero. He joins the long list of professional wrestlers who died far too young. Autopsy results are pending but it looks like a heart attack. At 38 years of age. Joining a list of similar wrestlers who met the same fate : Brian Pillman, Mr. Perfect, the British Bulldog, Road Warrior Hawk, Rick Rude and others.

Happy Veterans Day! I'd like to thank all of the veterans and all of our presidents who took us to war, both justified and not. All so I could have today off from work!

I took advantage of my day off by going down to Shore Road this morning for a jog / run. I went from 71st Street down to 89th Street and back - a distance of about 3 miles. Not that I ran continuously... since it was my first attempt at running in quite some time I had to stop and walk a few times. But I'm pleased with my progress. I'm going to try to do the same distance again with less stopping to walk breaks. And then my next goal will be to run down to the Verrazzano Bridge and back. That total distance would be 4 and a half miles. Either way, it's good to be getting in better shape!

Oh... my... god. I won't ruin "Lost" by giving away any spoilers because I know some of you have not seen it yet. All I will say is Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Mayor Bloomberg has been reelected. Are you surprised? Well if you are surprised, then you are a fool. It was the most forgone conclusion in recent electoral memory. His 20-point margin of victory exceeds even Rudy Giuliani's 17-point margin of victory in 1997.

But hey, this now clears the way for Anthony Weiner to run in 2009!

Otherwise, yesterday was a good day for the National Democratic Party. With two wins in governors races in New Jersey and Virginia, it sets the stage for the 2006 midterms. Bush even personally campaigned for the Republican candidate in Virginia and his appearance seemed to have hurt him. Look for Republicans to distance themselves from Bush next year.

An excellent source of electoral news and analysis can be found at Larry Sabato's website. Director of the Political Science Department at the University of Virginia, Sabato runs an informative site known as The Crystal Ball.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in yesterday's New York City Marathon! I took advantage of living around the corner from 4th Avenue in Brooklyn to get a good, up close and personal look at all of the runners. Didn't see Bex amidst the 35,000 but I hear she survived it. Then I went into Manhattan later in the day to meet up with a friend and we watched some of the same runners in Central Park, albeit many hours and many miles later. Watching the marathon runners is inspiring and great fun. Here are some pictures!

Mayor Bloomberg waves hello...


Shots of the runners...






It was great to see so many disabled participants. One guy had no legs and was pushing himself on a skateboard with his arms.




This dog enjoyed watching the runners too...


The nearby Methodist Church had a steel drum band playing...


Remnants of discarded water cups...

More developments from our favorite gadfly...

November 3, 2005 -- A mayor wannabe was arrested yesterday for making death threats to a local political reporter, police said.

Christopher X. Brodeur, 38, who mounted a failed campaign for the Democratic mayoral nomination, was busted at his Lower East Side home yesterday for allegedly leaving the threats on the office voice mail of New York Observer reporter Ben Smith.

Brodeur was charged with aggravated harassment and resisting arrest, because he allegedly refused to let cops cuff him.

Authorities believe that Brodeur left the messages in retaliation for a column Smith posted on his blog, The Politicker, on the paper's Web site.

In a message left last month, Brodeur said, "I could shoot you in the f- - -ing face. I'd be a hero like Bernhard Goetz," a law-enforcement source said.

Brodeur has a history of making threats. Some of his other targets have been other members of the media and officials from the mayor's press office.

"We are also investigating similar threats against another reporter," said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

What would Election Day be without your crazy third-party candidates? For those who may not have been aware, this Tuesday is Election Day. I know, it's easy to forget about it as Bloomberg's 30-point lead over Ferrer has put this one to bed. But if neither Bloomberg or Ferrer floats your boat, there are other options on the ballot.

Such as The Rent is Too Damn High Party. Yes, next to Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independence, etc., there is the Rent is Too Damn High Party. It's candidate is Jimmy McMillan. And if you read his website, you will learn that he believes that rents are too damn high. When asked about other issues, he says that no other issues matter. The only thing he cares about is that the rents are too damn high. Nutjob or not, that's a platform that I'll agree with!

Or you could always cast a write-in vote for Christopher X. Brodeur.

I learned something this past Halloween. Eating lots of candy in the morning, followed by lunch at McDonalds, does not make for the most pleasant of afternoons.

Nor does the news that Bush picked an ultra-right wing conservative for the Supreme Court. His name is Alito but he's already been dubbed "Scalito" because he mimicks most of Scalia's decisions. OK, Democrats, time to fight! Let's filibuster his ass!

I hope he doesn't mind being called Scalito. There are far worse nicknames to be called. Like Scooter.

Lastly, happy birthday to Britta!