it's only defamation when it's a lie

sometimes i look before i leap. and when i do this, sometimes i regret it. for instance: softrice. i'm always surfing the internet for something interesting, particularly at work. usually it relates to a good restaurant in NYC, an interesting news article, etc. and when i find a particularly interesting website, i'll add it to my "Interesting" side bar on the right. that side bar is like my recommendation to ppl who may happen upon this site and have similar interests as me or just want something to read to waste a few mins. in the case of softrice, i stumbled upon his site while searching for info on Basta Pasta (see previous entry). i took a cursory glance and noticed he was providing information on places and events in NYC and i added him to my "Interesting" side bar with the intent of more thoroughly perusing it at a later time.

which i finally did today.

and boy did i regret it.

i only made it through the first 2 entries before i couldn't contain my gag reflex and had to close the window. the guy is a complete narcissist, male chauvinist, and overall egotistical pseudo-intellectual who believes himself better than thou. the 2 posts i did read contained multiple references to how "good-looking" he is and how ppl just like to be in his presence. i perused the first page but found no evidence of this so-called attractiveness, but i'll admit i found no evidence of any ugliness either. so softrice really could be very attractive, but come on, how often do you have to talk about yourself in terms of "i'm SOOO goood-looooking" (insert smarmy voice here).

as you've noticed, he's been removed from the side bar. although i have linked him in this post (above) in case you'd like to check him out for yourself and form your own opinion. maybe you'll fall in love with him the way he apparently expects you to.

but before i do any more disparaging, i have to talk about an article i read in the NY Post. i read the article this weekend while stuck in my first 16 hours of CLE at BLS. after further googling the matter, i'm not sure of the time-frame or exact details so definitely don't refer to me if you decide to to discuss this later. essentially, a Canadian model successfully sued Google to reveal the identity of a blogger that had called her a "skank", "whore", etc. (just in case you were curious and wanted to check out the "offensive" blog, Skanks in NYC, it's been removed. i, too, was curious). while the incident itself was pretty entertaining, it brought up a lot of unsolved issues regarding the internet.

immediately at the forethought of my mind: from what i gathered, the model was obtaining the blogger's identity so she could move forward with a defamation case. defamation consists of:

"1.a false statement;
2.published to a third party without privilege or authorization;
3. with fault amounting to at least negligence;
4. that caused special harm or defamation per se"

-quoted from Citizen Media Law Project

what i find personally interesting/entertaining in how to prove the blogger's statements were false, or conversely, how to prove the blogger's statements were true? would a judge or jury of peers get to decide exactly what qualifies as a "skank"? how many guys/partners do you have to sleep with before you're officially termed "whore"?

then there's the concept of the incident itself and what it may mean for internet use. with so many blogs out there (ahem, this one included), ppl write anything they want. and, when the concept was new, that kind of action was lauded and praised for being fearless and the new frontier. now, as more and more inane blogs arise (ahem, this one included?), there has arisen more and more criticism about the lack of intelligence, wit, and depth such blogs are providing. while that may be true, isn't what everyone writes just their opinion? and opinions aren't actionable, if i remember correctly. i disagree in interpretation with Brian Kumnick about the use of "whore" as a clear assertion of fact. "Liar" yes, "whore", no. in today's vernacular ppl throw that word around with little regard to it's actual meaning. there's "camera whore" and other terms, and, to me, they're all subjective perceptions.

but just in case, i better edit my above assertions about softrice.

Japanese Pasta? BLASPHEMY! Or Is It???

although i'm trying to save money, i can't completely close myself off from going out. especially when i live right next to and work in a place like NYC where there's so much to do, particularly eating and drinking.

case in point: i haven't seen Stitch in forever so we made plans to meet up for dinner. since we're both temping in the city right now and get out mad early from work (well, usually, until recently for me, but that's a whole different story) we also made plans to meet up for drinks first before going to dinner. i made all the drinks and dinner suggestions because i have an unending list of restaurants and places i want to check out in NYC and luckily for me Stitch is very flexible and accomodating. thanks Stitch!

we had drinks at Zampa, a wine bar i'd looked up on-line and the menu looked affordable and it was pretty close to where we were having dinner. the venue has a very romantic and relaxing ambience. the place isn't that big but that adds to it's charm. it's exactly the kind of place i would want to go on a date. i arrived horribly late (it's been a bad habit ever since i moved back to NJ. i just can't seem to properly gauge the amount of time it takes for me to arrive anywhere in the city) and found Stitch sitting at the bar with a glass of wine and a book. Egg and BBT were supposed to be meeting us as well but hadn't arrived yet (they ended up being ever more horribly late than me-which made me feel better). Knowing that we were going to be at least 4 ppl, we asked to be seated at a table. the staff was very acccomodating in allowing us to sit at a table until 7:30 pm because the table was reserved at that time. it worked out perfectly for us because Stitch and i had dinner reservations at 7:45 pm.

they have a medium-sized Italian wine list that ranges from moderate to expensive in price range. being the cheap skate that i am we ordered the $30 bottle of Salento Primitivo 2005, Le Sciare (Puglia). don't ask me what it means, but i can tell you it was very nice. slightly bold but not overly so, which is exactly how i like my red wine (hence pinot noirs tend to be my go-to red wine choice). we also ordered an antipasti plate. we had a choice of 3 salumi or i formaggi for $12 or 3 crostini for $8. we went with duck prosciutto and bresaola (i think) and robiola di tre latti which is a cheese mix of sheep, cow, and goat. the cheese was amazing because it was soft enough to spread like sheep or goat cheese but not too soft. they gave us a small basket of crostini to go with the cheese and a dollop of some type of yellow preserve which tasted like honey. eating the preserve and the cheese together was heaven.

after drinks Stitch and i headed over for dinner at Basta Pasta which i've been dying to try since forever. Basta Pasta fuses Japanese and Italian cuisine together and since i'm a big fan of both cuisines, it just makes sense that i would like this restaurant. continuing our wine trend, we ordered a bottle of red for around $30-something dollars and since we'd already snacked at Zampa, we skipped appetizers and went straight for entrees. i was torn between the Spaghetti con Uovo de Pesce (spaghetti with tobiko and shiso) or the Linguini ai Ricci de Mare (linguini with fresh sea urchin and basil in pink sauce but finally opted for the latter because of my love of the uni. Stitch ordered the Spaghetti con Prosciutto e Parmigiano which is spaghetti with parmigiano reggiano and parma prosciutto which is tossed in a half wheel of parmesan cheese which they wheel out to the table and toss for you table-side. it's a very cool presentation.

Stitch's meal was really good because the tossing of the spaghetti in the parmesan wheel provides enough saltiness in conjunction with the prosciutto to make the dish simple but flavorful. my linguini came with about 4 pieces of fresh sea urchin on top which i had to restrain myself from gobbling up all at once. i REALLY liked the meal although i can understand why some ppl might think it a little bland but i thought it was perfect because the pink sauce wasn't too heavy. after all, the restaurant does japanese and italian fusion. how else are you going to mix ultra-light tastes with extremely heavy flavor? i thought the marriage was just right.

after dinner we ordered a chestnut millecrepe desert but i was pretty stuffed at that point. the dessert was good but nothing extraordinary. the millecrepe wasn't light enough and the chestnut flavor wasn't bold or sweet enough as a dessert. after this culinary adventure, Stitch and i stumbled to our respective homes totally sated.

that is NOT my doctor

O was on 1 of his tri-annual trips into the U.S. so his friends planned a dinner get-together at Mexican Radio City for him. i tend to shy away from mexican restaurants unless they involve the words take and out (Fresco anyone? those attending BLS would understand this reference). i always enjoy mexican food, but i can never justify the cost of fine-dining mexican (if there is such a thing) and since i'm not a fan of tequila (pls refer to the Tequila is My Kryptonite entry) i never want to drink margaritas. however, since it was O, i made an exception.

we went to the Mexican Radio City on Cleveland, right around the corner from the Spring Street stop on the 6 train. O had told me dinner would be at 7:30 but when we arrived there nobody was there and i couldn't reach O on cellphone. Mexican Radio City doesn't allow a party to sit until everyone has arrived and i checked the reservations and it turned out dinner was at 8:30, so, with an hour to kill, AMW and i went around the corner to Spring Lounge for drinks. the drinks are decently priced for NY (nothing over $9) and it was busy but not over-crowded which is the perfect balance for a bar. you want to go somewhere where it doesn't feel completely dead but not so crowded that you can't move or get a drink or hear the people you're with talk.at 8:30 we sat down to dinner with a very large group of ppl. most of them i knew threw O but since AMW didn't know them, i spent most of the night talking to her. the food is "eh" and the prices are redonkey-kong for "eh" food, but once again, i may be biased because of my perception of mexican food and my lack of standards. since i wasn't that hungry i ordered the cheapest thing on the menu that still looked like a meal: the macaroni-and-cheese which comes with a salad on the side. the salad was good with crumbly but not stinky cheese on top (i know the name but it eludes me right now) and a tangy dressing. the mac-and-cheese was decent. there isn't anything really "mexican" about it except it's color (slightly green) with more crumbly but not stinky cheese on top. i had ordered it hoping that everyone would go dutch but alas, it wasn't in the cards.it's always so awkward when it comes to big dinner parties and the check. how do you broach the subject? if you're poor like me, you hope everyone will go dutch and just pay for what they ordered individually plus an even split for alcohol. but that doesn't happen often when dealing with ppl you don't know. you want to say something but you don't want to be that person. with my good friends, that always happens and is done w/o saying. que sera, sera: b/c it was O and i hardly ever see him, i deemed it a sunk cost.

since i didn't really get the chance to talk w/O, i went w/him and the group to Firefly, which it's website defines itself as a hot spot/sports bar in Soho. those 3 words don't really go together. the place was pretty empty on a Friday night, and although we were there from 11:30ish until 2:30ish, it never really got packed aside from our group. the drinks are mid-level (3 vodka, cranberry, and sodas=$30 including tip) and the music is forgettable (hence i can't remember what they were playing). i hadn't planned on staying at Firefly b/c i was supposed to eventually meet up w/Egg but 2 things caused me to stay:1. O's little sister ended up attending the dinner. i haven't seen her since before she left for UCLA for college which was over 4 or 5 yrs ago. it was so surreal to be hanging out at a bar with her. it was also really cute how her face immediately turned red after her 1st drink. apparently she's not the heavyweight her brothers are.2. i got to hang out w/Docha! Docha is a crush of mine back from O's NYU days and he's prob one of the only ones that i've managed to maintain an adult crush on since he's just gotten better with time and age. Docha is now a resident at Mt. Sinai whereas when i met him he was a simple pre-med student. i'm so proud of Docha for persevering. Docha is now happily involved w/a girl for about 4 or 5 yrs now, but that won't stop my adult (and not-weird) crush. a girl can dream can't she?

i haven't really hung w/Docha in a long time and the last time i did he was all mature and adult. but not this time! maybe b/c Docha had the time off from his crazy resident life-style but Docha definitely lived it up that night. he was hilarious. but it made me realize, i could never have Docha as my doctor. not based on his behavior at Firefly...

back to my roots

i've been looking backwards at some older posts from when i first started this blog and realized how different the scope and content of the blog has gotten since then. if i think about it, the main reason i started this blog was because i like to read other people's reviews of venues, restaurants, etc. for whenever i google them. it always seems more "real" and relatable when i read some Joe Schmoe's blog about his/her experience at a particular venue than reading the NY Times critic's review.

i guess the change in content couldn't be avoided once i became a poor and extremely frugal law student. once that i happened i became a big fan of the pre-game and started going to the same places a lot (hence the frequent Kenka blog posts). although i am still poor and (attempting) to be frugal, i refuse to be a hermit that stays home all day in order to not spend money. after all, i'm getting old and how will i meet anyone if i never go out? so, for instance, i am going out to drinks and dinner tonight with friends.

however, i will not be spending money will-nilly. for work i am bringing lunch every day and, if i forget breakfast, i buy a toasted cinnamon raisn bagel plain because it's only 85 cents. in my rush this morning, i wasn't able to pack a lunch or bring breakfast from home. because of such, i sought out a cheap lunch deal close to work that i could make stretch into tomorrow's lunch as well.

when i think about portions that can be stretched into 2 meals, i immediately think of chinese food lunch specials. they tend to be $6 (or they used to be $6 at most, but i found out they currently price $6-$9. crazy.) and come with soup and rice. i researched places in Midtown West and found out how expensive even their lunch specials were. all except China Gourmet. their lunch specials top out at $5.40 and come with hot and sour/wonton soup and brown/white/fried rice and are rumored to be GINORMOUS portions. YEAH!
but the cheap price comes with a caveat. reading reviews on-line i noticed a decent number saying the food was extremely greasy or that they felt sick later from an abundance of MSG. i weighed the frugality against the reviews and decided to take the chance anyway. i usually have a stomach of steel, and being chinese, i've eaten my fair share of take-out so i think i can handle it.
sitting down with my beef & broccoli it's immediately obvious that the portions really are GINORMOUS. on top of that the food was very quick. i called from my office and walked the 1 avenue and 1 street block to the restaurant and my food was already waiting for me to pick up. yes, the food was a bit greasy, but no more than the typical chinese take-away. the flavor was just ok, nothing great but not horrible. as for the MSG, so far so good, although it's only been about 2 hrs since i ate it. hmm, i am starting to feel a little uncomfortable but nothing awful and i can liken it to the feeling of having-eaten-a-heavy-meal uncomfortableness. i also wonder if i'm not being overly sensitive e.g. psychological side-effects of reading other ppl's bad reviews.

so for $5.40 and i have an abundant lunch for 2 days. that means i only spent $2.70 for lunch in NYC. but if i wasn't being frugal i don't think i would order from China Gourmet again.

resolutions?

Congrats on making it to 2010! [i got tired of reading happy new year on every blog and website i've gone to in the past 4 days].j

so since my computer crapped out, i only just got it back recently. since then i've been slowly rebuilding my computer by finding all my personal websites and preferences again. but i'm not gonna make the same mistake twice. i've added programs to make it better (or supposedly better) and to do this i've made Lifehacker my go-to bible at the moment. they just recently did a 2009 round-up and so i've come away with a list of programs i've deemed completely necessary (unless they end up causing problems on my comp):

1. CCleaner: completely cleans out your unused files to make your comp faster and removes any lingering viruses you've removed through anti-malware and virus programs.

2.Malwarebytes Anti-Malware: it cleans out malware aka ad-ware, spyware, trojans, etc. i picked this one in particular because it can remove Internet Security 2009 and 2010 which is one of the viruses my comp picked up when it crashed.
3.KLite Codec: i had this program before my comp crashed and i use it to watch certain videos that for some reason Windows Media Player doesn't recognize.
4. HJSplit: i also had this program on my old comp. i only use it to join video files.
5. AVI Trimmer: this one's a new program. i'd been looking for a simple, free, video editor and stumbled upon this one. it allows me to cut and edit videos to the content that i want without including any of the commercials or boring segments. it only edits AVI files.
6. iPodME: this converts my editted videos into mp4 so i can upload them onto my iPod. i chose this program over Videora because it's an independent program and doesn't need to download a whole bunch of dlls and crap onto my computer (which i'm clearly hesitant about now). the only drawback is that it's SUPER SLOW in converting. however, the quality is pretty good.

while cruising Lifehacker for all these fun things, i stumbled upon a to-do website they recommended. Joe's Goals allows you to create a chart on-line that you can use to monitor your daily activities and whether you have or haven't attained your goals.

in theory this should work VERY well and it's fun to click on the boxed. i signed up for it today. about half-way through using it i realized 1 important question: do i really care what the chart says?

outsourced

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

my holidays were of the usual sort: eating and drinking TONS with the fam, gift exchange, etc. however, since nothing good ever happens without the bad, of course i also had a technical nightmare of a holiday.

on Christmas Eve, as relatives were arriving for a hotpot lunch, my "trusty" HP Pavilion ze2000 was attacked by a virus. all of a sudden my screen went bonkers and the wallpaper changed from an adorable baby picture of my friend SFM to the words "you're computer is infected", my AVG anti-virus program was going nuts stating i had a million infections, and, although i could get on-line, i couldn't access any websites but instead was redirected to advertisements and other sites every time i clicked a link. it was a nightmare.

in this day and age, a person's computer is akin to their cellphone or iPod. it's something i've learned to not live without-ok, that's false. i could live without it, but would i want to? i doubt it. i brought my laptop to PC Warehouse to be looked at ASAP and luckily for me it was open on Christmas Eve. the guy at PC Warehouse could qualify for being in My Five recently. only in August i brought my comp to be completely re-installed back to factory default settings and then i've probably seem him at least 3-4 more times since them. the most recent visit my comp had been attacked by a virus and had to be cleaned for 2-3 days. and that cost upwards of $75-$100. suffice it to say that although PD is a great guy, i really wish i wasn't seeing him so often.

i prob spent a good hour and a half sitting there while PD manually went through deleting various trojan horses (yes, i know the term but what exactly are they i have no idea, just that they're bad news). i brought it home, relieved the crisis was over. or so i thought. INCORRECT. those nasty viruses were still there, just changing and evolving to evade capture and deletion! that was the end of my laptop for the Christmas holiday since i had to drop it off to be fixed on Saturday and will not see it again until Monday at the earliest.

when did computer use and surfing the Internet become so hazardous? according to PD, some site i went on must've had the virus and it attached itself to my computer just waiting for me to click it's link. and those tricky little buggers make themselves look all official mimicking the Windows insignia and claiming to protection programs (and no, i did NOT click any of them even if it did say that-i'm not completely stupid). what irks me is to get a virus on my comp without even doing anything: yes, i may have been on a site with a virus embedded or attached to it, waiting to pounce, but i didn't click anything that was remotely any advertisement or outside link. so how did it get into my comp? it'll always be a mystery. i remember the days when i was even more reckless with my Internet use, downloading this and that, clicking every link a friend sent to me, without ever seeing a virus enter my comp. now, i go on 1 harmless site and my whole computer's down for the count.

i also spent 141 minutes on the phone talking to Comcast and Linksys about our spotty wireless internet connection. what a nightmare. 1st it was Comcast to make sure the connection was good (which it was) and then it was Linksys phone support for our faulty wireless router. it was clearly outsourced tech support, but my technician, Mary, was very helpful and spoke english with a Canadian accent (which is ironic since she was clearly Indian-i knew this from her side conversations). however, i was seriously skeptical and pissed off when Linksys told me that i had to pay to get phone support!! what a rip! and so i handed the phone to my mom and let her rip them a new one before i ponied up and just let them sucker me (what else was i supposed to do? if i could've fixed it myself, i would've already).

it's times like these that i wish i was more tech savvy.

Quarantined in Sick Bay

for the past 2 weeks, i feel like i've been on a perpetual and never-ending airplane ride. one that just keeps taking off and landing, only those 2 actions. in actuality, i haven't travelled or gone anywhere, but my ears have been constantly plugged up. i keep trying to pop my ears by clicking my jaw, which ends up making me look like fish.

this winter is turning out to be more hazardous than any winter before it that i've experienced in the past. everyone in my household seems to be on rotating shifts of getting sick and being in my house feels like visiting the sick ward of a hospital. i just barely avoided a severe cough and cold (after self-medicating with Robitussin and Zicam for 10 days) and now i feel another itch in my throat that is quickly developing into a cough.

oddly enough, i've never been squeamish about being around sick people (at least when it's people that i know). i possess a completely unfounded confidence that i won't get sick, even when i interact with sick people. however, as soon as i feel even a twinge of illness in my own body, i get into hyper-defense mode and bombard myself with Airborne and Zicam hoping to head off the impending illness.

it seems i've become a hypochondriac in my old age (but only when i start to feel ill.).

i have to add a caveat to the above statement about not getting squeamish around sick people. i get COMPLETELY squeamish around sick strangers or people i don't care about. hence, flu and cold season on a NYC subway is not exactly a fun situation for me. however, MOST new yorkers maintain a level of etiquette while out in public. then there was the Cougher i met last week.

i was on the platform waiting for the E train to arrive on my usual morning commute to work. the train arrived and it was packed like a sardine. of course we all tried to squeeze our way onto the train but it was definitely impossible just as i got to the front of the crowd. i let the doors close and waited for the next one. i realized i was dangerously close to the edge of the platform and tried to back up and realized a woman behind me who was staunchly standing in her spot, refusing to move and refusing to let me back away from the edge of the platform. it took more effort and a blatant shove to get myself even 2 centimeters back from the edge. clearly, the woman was not happy with what i'd done. so she proceeded to cough violently all over me. although she had nothing in her hands, she did not cover her mouth. so while being all pressed up on me, she proceeded to cough all over me for a good minute. GROSS. that is just not acceptable behavior, particularly in NY (or anywhere else really).

Followers vs. Leaders

every paper and news feed has been discussing either the global warming/climate change issue in Copenhagen or else it's Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. usually i just read these things and shrug in a "hmm, so now i know what's going on in the world" kind of way, but not today.

really?! as if we didn't know we've screwed over the earth completely? are we really that surprised? or did we just assume that 80 degree weather in September is just a natural phenomenon? and there's all this hoopla about how the meeting in Copenhagen is to create standards and limitations for countries to try and combat the damage we've already done. ppshhaww. i'll believe it when i see it. in the scope of things that occur in each individual country, the last thing on a nation's mind is the climate. and honestly, we're the ones that did this to the environment, so to make a big hoopla now seems a bit hypocritical. i'm sure this will all be forgotten once the talks in Copenhagen end.

more interesting is Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Award. seriously?! they've awarded an acting President, in the midst of war, who just determined to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, the Nobel Peace Prize? gimme a break. because of this decision the Committee that determined the award had to come out publicly and defend their decision for the 1st time in history (or so says the NY Times). during the awarding of the prize, it was said Obama is the realization of Dr. Martin Luther King's dream. perhaps that's true. but that doesn't qualify Obama for the Nobel Peace Prize. shouldn't the American ppl be receiving the Nobel Peace Prize then? they elected Obama into office, he didn't appoint himself. of course, i'm trivializing the effort and courage and perseverance the Obama camp had to have in order to get to where they are, and that's not fair. and maybe that does merit the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. however, for some reason, it just doesn't sit right with me. i just can't accept that, based on Obama's current achievements, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. i don't think so.

it's really unlike me to rant on about real-world issues. if you've noticed, i rant about idiotic personal things usually. i'm chocking it up to my shortened amount of patience and tolerance for idiocy that commuting to NYC from NJ for work has created in me.