"Playing Chess and Screwing: or How I Learned to Never Look at Family Members' Myspace Pages"

Ever since Friendster bullied its way onto the scene, striking fear in the hearts of every former nerd who foolishly thought that high school was behind them, I have hated the very concept of “Virtual Cliques.” Nothing made my skin crawl more than hearing the phrase “how many Friendsters do you have?” Since most folks over the age of five don’t usually ask each other to quantify their friends, Friendster made it possible and even cool to find out just how unpopular Joe in Accounting or Elaine in HR was. If your total number of Friendsters equaled less than 50, you had some explaining to do. Were your interests not cool enough? Was your picture too desperate? It didn’t seem to matter any longer if you had a great job, a fantastic significant other, a gorgeous apartment that you paid for with the incredibly high salary you made. No. Friendster would determine whether or not you were truly worthy. Of what? I have no idea.

But the mighty must fall. Every cool kid has their moment of reckoning and Friendster’s was Myspace. This baby was the real deal. You can put moving music, video, backgrounds, sparkly things on your page. You have to know at least some HTML code or at least how to copy and paste code which de facto gives all of us who rely on computers purely because of bad penmanship a chance to seem like tech heads. Not content to be merely popular, Myspace wanted to rule the world and rule the world it has. For awhile it remained solely in the domain of the young, until the older folks who couldn’t hack it on Friendster decided to try to get in on the action. Myspace seemed to be a little more democratic and willing to believe that even the former heavyset tuba player from band camp might actually have a cool kid inside of him waiting to come out and explode his entire life onto a web page with a headline and a YouTube video.

My 30+ (and I mean age not number of) friends and I decided to finally get in on the action when we realized that a couple of young hotties that we had spotted at the gym had Myspace pages. Our decision, therefore, was based solely on the ability to legally stalk under the guise of “networking.” So I filled in the blanks, put on a song, got frustrated trying to design a background that still allowed one to read what I had written, and sat back feeling content and maybe, dare I say?, edgy. That afternoon, I spoke with my younger sister – a genius, 90-pound waif and veritable cool kid since birth, - and informed her with some delight that I now had a Myspace page. “Great” she said and I could hear her take a drag on her cigarette. Figuring this was going to be the way for us to rekindle our childhood bond – a shared love of Latin and Greek, nerdy euphemisms, and stories of family foibles – I eagerly fired up her page. She told me I could check out her new boyfriend who also, unsurprisingly, has a profile and photo up. Still wallowing in my hipness I clicked on the new boyfriend’s page. He seemed cute enough, the music was good, nice background. Then I got to his interests -“Playing Chess and Screwing” - and this was when I decided that lo, I am too old for this. There are certain beliefs that I hold sacred and one of them is that no one in my family has ever had sex. This includes my parents. I’d prefer to think I was adopted than have to remember the time I accidentally walked in on mom and dad en flagrante delecto in the living room tangled up kama sutra style. But I digress.

So my sister has found herself a studly chess player and my sensibilities are permanently scarred. I blame this all on Myspace.The moral of this story is simple: coolness is a thing to be, not read. And if you must give yourself a headline, for the love of god and the sanity of your relatives, do not use the word “screwing.” Be kind.

the most ridiculous Craigslist ad ever

Even by New York City standards, this listing for an apartment rental takes the cake.

Here's the link: http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/nfb/194349381.html

I've posted the ad below for posterity's sake in case the link doesn't work and/or the person who posted it came to their senses:

$1500 / 3br - █ PERFECT 3 PERSON LOFT IN E. WILLIAMSBURG WITH ALMOST NO LIGHT!

THIS HIGH-CEILINGED (13 FEEET!) BASEMENT LOFT FEATURES CONCRETE FLOORS, ON-SITE LAUNDRY, FREIGHT ELEVATOR, SUPER IN THE BUILDING, ROOF ACCESS, PARKING, AND IS LESS THAN 3 BLOCKS FROM THE L TRAIN!

Which part of this ad is most ridiculous? The admission that it has no light or that it "features" concrete floors? Note also that the ceilings are "13 feeet," the extra e's are there to distract you from the fact that YOU'RE LIVING IN A BASEMENT.

where's the stink? there's a flower?

There have been a lot of reports in the local news as of late about the blooming of the Amorphophallus titanum (aka Corpse Flower), for the first time in NYC since 1939, at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. My friend Ali and I were convinced that our fave crack reporter Roger Clark(iheartrogerclark) would certainly be all over this story. For a guy who has rapped about his reporting skills and dabbled in competitive eating for the first time on live television with stomach-churning consequences (heretofore known as The Hot Dog Incident), dropping by a greenhouse to check in on a flower that smells like rotten meat seemed like a no-brainer. We guessed wrong and the flower went unreported in lieu of segments on fishing in Staten Island and other stultifying activities.

I decided to take matters into my own hands this weekend and check in on the flower myself. As Jackie and I waited in line, reading the posted signs about the name (note the word "phallus" is part of it) and the reason why a flower would choose to smell like death (to attract bugs that normally hang out on carcasses...for pollinating purposes only, apparently, not because they're you know IN to that kind of thing), we anxiously sniffed the air. Nope, no rotten meat yet. We peered into the greenhouse windows and noticed that none of the security guards or the many spectators with camers seemed to be in the least bit queasy. My excitement immediately started to wane. As we turned the corner and entered the room, I was officially disappointed. What stood before us was not a smelly penis-shaped freak of nature, but a scentless, gargantuan plant that looked like corn without the kernels. I sniffed eagerly hoping to catch a whiff of something. At one point something did offend my sensibilities but I'm pretty sure that came from the guy behind me. Anyway, I brought back a photo. It's not much, but trust me when I say it's about as interesting as the actual event. Maybe Roger had the right idea.