2005 – The Year in Review... Conclusion
October
I forgot to include this in yesterday’s post, because it appeared in my October Archives, but on the last day of September, I went to Great Adventure with Caren and Brad. Couldn’t leave that out!
And then October began. It has long been my favorite month because of the fall weather, my birthday, the baseball playoffs and Halloween. On October 5th, I turned 28 years of age. And my birthday also fell on the second day of Rosh Hashanah
from my blog entry of October 4...
It's now the year 5766. I just got back from temple where the tickets were mistakenly printed to say 5765. Temple, as always, is a grueling experience. Tamara hit the nail on the head last month when applying the Five Stages of Grief to the synagogue experience. First there is denial (It can't last that much longer, surely it will be over soon and we can go home to eat lunch). Then there is anger (Why are they still chanting? How many times can they give thanks to God?!?) Then there is bargaining (I'll take a bathroom break and then a quick walk outside. That should speed things up). Then there is depression (Sigh, they'll never get to page 420.) And finally acceptance (Well I only go these two holidays a year)
For my birthday, my brother got me a TiVo. If I didn’t watch too much TV before, I sure do now! The birthday was also celebrated with various friends at the off-Broadway show “Jewtopia”, at a dinner at “Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.” and at a house party in Astoria thrown by a Vassar friend who shares the same birthday.
Also in October, some of my comrades from Tuesday Night Trivia participated in a TV taping for VH-1’s “The World Series of Pop Culture.”
from my blog post of October 24...
On Saturday afternoon I attended a taping for the pilot episode of VH-1's "The World Series of Pop Culture." Picture teams of three in a quiz show where the questions focused exclusively on movies, TV and music. And if that wasn't enough, it was hosted by Pat Kiernan - morning news anchor for New York 1. (Love his "In the Papers" segment)... I thought that if I were a contestant, I would have done moderately well. For example, I knew the answers to some of the questions that they didn't, such as the insect that carried dinosaur DNA in "Jurassic Park" was the mosquito. But on the other hand they knew answers that I had no clue about, such as the name of the terrorist organization in "Die Hard."
The month concluded with two parties on Halloween weekend. Oddly enough, neither was a costume party. The first was an engagement party for Jay and Lisa. (Briar also was the first to use my sleeper sofa!) The second was a birthday party in Hoboken for Britta.
November
As November began, I imparted to my readers a very important lesson that I learned on Halloween.
from my blog entry of November 1...
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.
The next weekend, I helped Ben and Tracey move into their new apartment in Astoria. Yeah, manual labor! And then I enjoyed watching the New York City Marathon! Part of the route in Brooklyn is right around the corner from my apartment building so I was out there to cheer on the runners and snap photographs.
from my blog entry of November 7...
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.
Two days after the Marathon, Mayor Bloomberg was reelected. No surprise there. But the next week, I was invited to a party at Gracie Mansion!
from my blog entry of November 15...
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."
Around that time the wrestler Eddie Guerrero passed away and my blog got hundreds of hits a day from people doing Google searches for “eddie guerrero autopsy.” The only time I got even more Google searches was back in April when people were putting in search words likening the new Pope to the Emperor in “Star Wars.”
I hosted Tuesday Night Trivia for the fourth time in November, this time with the wacky and zany Jon C. as my co-host.
from my blog entry of November 16...
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.
As November concluded, I bought a new TV set, celebrated Thanksgiving with my family, and inspired by the Marathoners attempted to start running!
December
On the first day of December, I attended Caren’s reading from her new book “Scenes from a Holiday.” Buy it on Amazon today! Then on the first Saturday night in December, I had two birthday parties in one night. Aren’t they always scheduled that way?
from my blog post of December 5...
First stop on Saturday was Nobi's party, held at Jappas 38, a Japanese kareoke bar in midtown. Nobi required all attendees to sing a one-song minimum. Now when I do kareoke, I only choose the most difficult songs with the most lyrics. A few years ago I did Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." And this past Saturday I did Eminem's "Lose Yourself." Snap back to reality, oh here comes gravity... Also at that party were several people from Vassar including Rouslan, a native of Kazakzstan. See, not only Borat comes from Kazakzstan! Then it was off to Brooklyn for Daryl's party at The Living Room Lounge. Good to see alot of people there including Jess, Brad, Sarah, Sydney, Britta, Ned, Matt and Lori.
One week later I found myself in Brooklyn Heights leading me to recall a memory from my childhood.
from my blog post of December 13...
Last night I had a nice dinner at the Henry Street Ale House in Brooklyn Heights. Right around the corner from the bar/restaurant is the Plymouth Church on Orange Street. That was a significant locale in the Underground Railroad. And right next to the church is an old home that I used to visit years and years ago. It belonged to an old friend of the family and I remember going there once when I was 5 or 6. I went to use his bathroom and in order to flush the toilet, you had to pull an overhead string. So I did but I possibly yanked too hard on it and the string came off in my hand. I then remember telling our friend that I broke his bathroom.
As the year concluded, I ranked my Top 10 TV shows of 2005. God bless TiVo. To recap, the Top 10 was Lost, Everybody Hates Chris, Entourage, How I Met Your Mother, Grey’s Anatomy, Rome, The Office, The West Wing, Survivor and 24.
And then there was the transit strike. Ah yes, the transit strike. I’m not going to copy and paste it. It was last week. You remember.
Then it was Christmas and Hanukkah with the family and that led us up to this week.
And that was 2005! Hope you enjoyed reading my Year in Review. Comments have been light this week but as someone said to me “That’s because we commented on this stuff the first time we read it!” Ah well, TV shows have occassional clip shows and so does this blog.
I wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year! Here’s to good things in 2006.
