How Did I Miss NYC's Real Spider-Man?

I saw this over on Collider. It's one of those tuk-tuk drivers in the city who dresses as Spider-Man and does all kinds of cool flippies. They made fun of him, but I think it's rad. I'd gladly take a ride from this guy (and promptly blow chunks afterwards). I think it would be worth it. Especially if you happen to run into Doc Ock or the Lizard while going from one place to another.

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Oh, DO go on.

Hey Kid, Your Mom Hated You

One of the things that worries me about this world of online tell-alls is that people divulge too much information. I believe that some things should remain private and worry about kids growing up now who have their entire lives on Facebook, Twitter and Blogspot archives. Well, apparently this isn't just a problem for young people. Has anyone else seen this HSBC Soap Box commercial? The second person who gets up (starting at 5 seconds and going to 10) says "I didn't want to be a mom. It took me three months to love him. I can't imagine my life without him." That's some cold shit right? Why would ever say that? I mean out loud. Ever. Not just to a commercial camera crew. Which she did. Your kid WILL see that. Especially if he somehow becomes such a UnitedMonkee fan that he's driven to read all my archives. Sometimes those things we think inside our heads should stay in there.

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Oh, DO go on.

NYSeen: Steve Martin Statue

It's been over a month since I've been a regular in New York City, but I just had to share this picture of a wall sculpture in Penn Station. It wasn't on our usual route, so I didn't see it for a while, but when I did, I stopped dead in my tracks (something I hate when other people do while walking anywhere in the city), pointed like David Brent points at the Bart Simpson doll and just looked between it and Rickey and Ben. The resemblance is crazy, right? It looks just like Steve Martin! Anyone know the story of this thing?

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Oh, DO go on.

NYSeen: Gross Clump Of...Hair?

I've been working in NYC for a few months now (I actually don't even remember when we moved down there) and I've seen all kinds of craziness. It wasn't until last month that I got a phone that could take decent pictures, so I've been sort-of documenting some of the weird and interesting things I've seen like this:


Whatever this pile of grossness is (hair? fur?), it got stuck on the bottom of my shoe after leaving Bryant Park. I was pretty grossed out, but just had to snap a picture because...well, I can. It's not the best picture because I wanted to get away from that monstrosity toot-sweet, but to give you an idea, it was about the size of a frolf disc and quit dense.

Any other thoughts on what it might be?

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Oh, DO go on.

Weekend Warrior

As loyal UnitedMonkee readers will have noticed, there wasn't much (or anything really) in the way of posting this weekend. Well, that was because, I actually did stuff this weekend instead of sitting around the house watching movies (mostly because my lovely wife Em made plans, also it was really nice out this weekend, so nice I got an awkward sunburn, but more on that later).

Friday night we kept it a bit low key with dinner at Woody's, the best all natural burger place I've ever been to (also the only, but it's still really good). If you're ever in Cornwall, NY stop by and have a Portabella sandwich, burger or Falafel, you won't be disappointed. After that we went to my favorite movie theater The Destinta to catch I Love You, Man which I loved. I'm sure I'll post something on it shortly, I can tell you're just dying to read what I have to say about it. We finished the evening off by watching more of the last season of Avatar before falling asleep. Hey, it's not lame, we had a big day planned on Saturday.

And by big day, I mean heading down to NYC to visit with some friends from college Adrienne and Katie (you can check out Katie's rad NYC food blog here). Before meeting up with Katie I showed Em and Adrienne the Wizard New York City office that I will be relocating to at some point in the future and they freaked out. Apparently it's in a building called The Atlas Building which is where something having to do with Project Runway happens, which makes sense because it's in the middle of the fashion district. That's right folks, keep an eye on the background of future episodes of Project Runway for me looking lost and confused wearing a Batman T-shirt and boat shoes.

After meeting up with Katie at those red bleachers above the TKTS booth, we went to a magical place I'd never been before called the East Village. Heck, I even recognized the name of the area: St. Mark's. How did I know that's where we were? We passed a place called St. Mark's Comics that I wanted to go to along with some record stores, but kept my mouth shut because I was hungry and didn't want to look like a bigger nerd than I am.

Katie guided us to a place called Yaffa Cafe where we had lunch and I had a couple beers. After having an awesome lunch Katie suggested that we spend the rest of the day drinking, so we went to a couple of different bars (the first had $3 Blue Moon's but didn't have orange slices, so Em wasn't impressed, but they also had a picture of Duke from G.I. Joe in front of an American flag that was clearly printed off of someone's computer in a frame) and then a place with $5 flavored mojitos and Bloody Maries. I wish I could remember the names of either of these places, especially the second because they had these awesome apple mojitos that tasted like candy. I wish I was drinking one right now. All I know is that they were both on Avenue C and were east-ish. I tried finding them using Google's street view with no luck (probably because I was on the back patio and not staring at the front of the building).

I gotta say, I felt very cool eating and drinking on these various patios. As Em pointed out, there's really nothing better to do in NYC than sit around drinking all day because you don't have to worry about driving anywhere. Just hop on your train, bus or subway and you'll be home. Even we sobered up by the time we got home (an hour and a half train ride will do that to you). Much fun was had by all. Even though I was tired, I tried watching Girls School Screamers on Netflix when I got home only to fall asleep about 20 minutes in. More on that later too.

Sunday was a lot more mellow as we went to Emily's friend from work Constantina's house for Greek Easter (it's a week after "regular" Easter for some reason). There was SO much food, it was awesome. We basically sat around and ate for five hours in the mountains somewhere kind of close to our house (about 40 minutes or so away). Everyone was super nice and the food was amazing, they even had a lamb on a spit cooking all day, but by the time it was done, most of us were so full we could only eat a little. It was awesome though.

All of which brings me back to my weird sunburn. We were sitting outside under an awning or tent or something all day and the weather was really nice, so I enjoyed being in the sun. I even wore shorts because it was so nice out (and it didn't even snow or anything). Well, later that night when we got home, I was reading and then playing video games and realized that the tops of my legs right above my knees were irritated on both sides. It wasn't until I scratched at itch and felt that all-too-familiar burning feeling that I realized that my legs were sunburned. But it was only from the point where my shorts stopped to my knees, so a splotch of about 4-5 inches. Awesome.

We also finished Avatar, I finally beat Portal and I finished Girls School Screams, but expect posts on those separately.
Oh, DO go on.