The Fades Rant

Ode to Abba

2011-08-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

I got a recent e-mail from a friend asking us to describe the worst thing we have/seen heard while watching a sporting event (either live or on the boobtube). I don't know the purpose of this e-mail, but I believe it had something to do with helping a friend out with a survey of some sort, and this angers me. I do not like when people do things to help others, thus reminding me of how poor a human being I am.

I couldn't think of a worst moment, or even a bad moment. I could think of only good moments and I owe that to my father, known as Abba. Here is how it went:

We played in the Young Israel little league and it was inexplicably super-competitive. Parents from Beth Shalom would yell at parents from Young Israel of Woodmere; parents would get thrown out of the games; and parents would charge the field and scream in the faces of umpires. I am happy to say that West Hempstead parents were generally less guilty of this behavior, but we still had our fair share. It was a puzzling and discouraging thing for us to see, as a bunch of simple 8 year olds.

On the other hand, the way other had, possibly the 7th furthest hand or limb on an octopus, was my father, Abba. This was his ritual, as I remember it:

(1) Calmly bring me to game, and also fill car with as much of friends as possible.

(2) Unload lawn chair and unfold near third base line.

(3) Proceed to comfortably lounge on chair and enjoy the pleasure of watching your only son play the game of baseball with fun and enthusiasm and an innocent smile. It probably doesn't get better and he realized it.

(4) Remain in chair throughout game. Events of game, will not sway you.

(5) After game, no matter what the outcome, take entire of kids to local ice cream store because they are kids and this is a simple way to give them joy. Why not?

One time, the ritual hit a snag. We were on our way back from a loss to Plainview, and therefore in between steps (4) and (5) above. Abba had WFAN on in the car, as was customary in those days, and a trade was announced. The Mets had traded Lenny Dykstra for Juan Samuel. There may have been other players involved, but I can only remember Dykstra for Samuel. Abba slammed his hands on the steering wheel upon hearing this news, and simultaneously scared the something out of me. Afterwards, we proceeded to get ice cream and enjoyed the rest of our day. I continued to play little league until 8th grade, and I'm still a Mets fan today, besides my best efforts to shake it. Abba continued his serene ritual throughout my little league career, but he was never the same Mets fan.

And that's my answer to that e-mail I got today. Upon further, and intensely deep reflection, I can pinpoint the clear-cut worst moment in my sports fandom. It was this tiny snag in the ritual - when something changed between Abba and the Mets. Something that we had shared as father and son would no longer be shared to the same extent. And that sucks.

But can the worst moment simultaneously be the very best moment? Because what happened after the moment is amazing and spectacular and wonderful to remember. What happened after - Abba's reaction - was to continue the ritual. A smile on his face and we were on our way to unlimited ice cream after another disappointing loss. Because the loss to Plainview really doesn't matter. And neither does the trade of Lenny Dykstra. What matters in the context of sports, among many other things, is the ability it has to bond us and connect us and forge relationships that would otherwise disintegrate. And something as simple as a trade can break that relationship, if a large part of the bond is based on the mutual admiration for a team that will no longer be the same.

But the bond won't break if you take the kids to ice cream afterwards. And the bond won't break if you quietly sit in a lawn chair with a smile glued to your face because you get to watch your son make lucky plays in short center. And the bond won't break if you take your son to S'lichos in the early mornings, because he might just realize that perhaps the only way to reach out to G-d is to scream out for mercy. And when you teach these things to your son so that he can implement them when he becomes a father, the bond will certainly never break.

Lenny Dykstra got traded. Perhaps it signaled the beginning of a lengthy Mets decline. It sucked. Personally, it meant that me and Abba would never look at the Mets in the same way again. That also sucked. But Abba moved on. And little league moved on. And happiness moved on. And it reminded me why sports are powerful and awesome. The Mets trade Lenny Dykstra - the best moment I ever experienced in sports.

Baby Talk

2009-06-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

The time has come to discuss the fact that I have a child. This may or may not be the equivalent of putting up 5 million baby pictures on facebook, but hopefully it is more entertaining for the reader/viewer.

An "infant" (Query: When does "newborn" status end and "infant" status begin? Similarly, when does "infant" status end and "toddler" status begin? Is there a status in between "infant" and "toddler" that I am forgetting about?) engages in three different activities: Eating, sleeping and excreting. As parents, our job is to help the infant with these three activities. My wife is the one that assists our child with this, and I am the one that observes the activities w/out being able to contribute. However, my observations, while unhelpful to my unfortunate wife, have allowed me to share the following with you:

Eating: I want to know who came up with the infant's diet. I'm sure it was very smart people and I guess we just have to trust that this is the best thing for our infants, but can you imagine any other age-group being forced to sustain themselves on this diet? We have this giant can of "formula" sitting on our kitchen cabinet, and our child has to digest this formula about every two hours. This would be like asking me to walk around with a 40 oz. beer, but instead of beer, it is filled with milk. Every 2 hours, I have to drink this entire 40 oz. size milk drink. Do you think I wouldn't have a permanent reservation with the toilet? Is there anyone in the medical profession looking into possibly changing the infant diet? Is it really dangerous for them to have a little juice every few hours, just to change things up? We are sometimes shocked by an infant always going to the bathroom and having stomach pains, but wouldn't the same happen to an adult in a similar situation? We should probably find out, and probably can on some Japanese game show. All I know is that this can of formula is huge, and if a nuclear war breaks out, I won't have any real food, but I will have giant cans of formula.

Sleeping: When it comes to putting an infant to sleep, there is a huge dilemma. If you put the infant on her back, she doesn't sleep well (maybe 2 hours maximum). However, if you put her on her stomach, she will sleep up to 7 hours, but this is considered a dangerous practice. Apparently, if the infant cannot yet lift its head, it risks suffocation by sleeping on its stomach. I passed this information on to my grandmother, and she told me that they were told the reverse back in the day. They were warned NOT to place the infant on its back, as this may risk choking.
Wow. This is depressing. I don't know why I shared all this. I guess my point is that how do you know what to do with this stuff? Doctors used to say one thing, and now they say the exact opposite, so what the H? The Fades solution is to put the baby on its SIDE!!! This is the golden middle path in the intense infant-sleeping method debate. Of course, you will have to monitor the baby every 2-3 minutes to make sure she does not roll over on her stomach or back. The other thing that troubles me with the whole infant-sleeping thing is the baby monitor. We very recently decided to try and have our child sleep in her own room, as opposed to having her in our room. It took us 3 hours to figure out the baby-monitors, which had 10 channels/frequencies. Is this really necessary for a baby-monitor? Between these high-tech baby walkie-talkies and the giant cans of formula, the only humans that will be able to survive any nuclear attack will be the infants. (You see what I did there? Bringing back the nuclear war bit?)

Excreting: I will attempt not to be graphic when discussing this activity. I have little in the way of observations, as I am afraid to go anywhere near the baby during the process of diaper changing (for #2). I would consider participating in the #2 diaper-changing process, if I was provided a surgical mask, like Hannibal Lecter-style, or SARS-disease style. Do you remember when people were walking around with those SARS masks? I recently saw someone wearing one on the subway, and I was thinking that this may be this individual's chosen method for avoiding the swine flu. I wonder why many people felt the need to wear the masks to avoid SARS, but you don't see the same reaction with swine flu. Once again, I'm sure there are some very good medical explanations, but I am too lazy to research this topic. Anyway, I'm afraid of another human being's feces, even if that other human being is my own child. This makes sense to me, but apparently nobody else has this same problem, as far as I know. As a historical note, this is part of the reason I could never become a counsler at camp HASC; I have no idea how the counslers are able to deal with this aspect of the job. As the camp van driver, I did have to transfer stool samples (these are little viles w/ a person's crap in them) to the Harris hospital from time to time, but I tried to simply avoid looking at them. When I did catch a peak, I would gag repeatedly and swerve off the road.

I want to conclude by making a half-assed apology to infants everywhere, for unfarily portraying them as the only ones that do nothing but eat, sleep and excrete. This is pretty much what I do as well, assuming I am not at work. On a typical Sunday, I will eat...spend a few hours googling ex-girlfriends and checking their facebook pages...excrete...check fantasy basball stats...sleep (nap)...watch a movie I have seen over 10 times, such as Mrs. Doubtfire...eat...check updated fantasy baseball stats...excrete...play video games...and go to sleep.

When I wake up, I will look at my daughter and say - "you and me, we aren't too different after all". She might offer a smile in response. Either that, or she has gas.

Knock Knock Knockin' on the Bathroom Door

2009-05-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

I would like to relay to you a strange bathroom incident that occured at my place of work. As a matter of background, we have 3 bathrooms on our floor: The Mens' room, the Ladies' room and the handicapped person's room. For some reason, instead of giving the handicapped person the right to one particular stall in the non-handicapped bathrooms, the designers of our office bathrooms elected to give the handicapped person his or her own individual private bathroom. Perhaps this is meant to accomodate the shy, reclusive and handicapped demographic. In general, I use the Mens' room. I have never used the Ladies' room. If I am at work late or on the weekends, I sometimes use the private handicapped room, but I won't do this when other people are around because I am afraid that I will get busted. Is using the handicapped bathroom an "ayin harah" or 'evil eye", akin to testing out somebody's wheelchair or crutches or pretending to be blind while playing a piano? Maybe. Is mentioning this point tempting the "evil eye" even more? Certainly.

After reading the previous paragraph, you may be thinking - "how often does this guy go to the bathroom"?!? The answer is many times. I go whenever I am bored or whenver I need to concentrate on some work-related or sports-related reading. I once went to take a nap. This was fine, except that I needed to lower my pants so that nobody would question why someone was sitting in a stall for 2 hours without his pants lowered. Would anyone actually investigate this to the point where they would question it? Unlikely, but one can never be too careful.

I know plenty of people that are afraid or uncomfortable using public restroom facilities. They will only use the friendly confines of their bathroom at home. I am the polar opposite of these persons; to me- the idea of going to the bathroom in public facilities is an adventure that makes life worth livin'. "Dangerous" places I have used the bathroom include: Crowded coach bus, Penn station (but used NJ transit facilities), Poland (during heritage), my wife's apartment before we started going out, Mexico (but it was at Club Med), and my office. Until recently, I did not think that there was any danger/risk in using the office bathrooms, but two recent occurences have changed my mind.

(1) The awkward encounter: We do not have separate bathrooms for partners and associates, so there is always the chance that one can encounter their boss in the restroom. Usually, this is a harmless meeting, which starts with "Hi" and ends with "how are you". However, things can sometimes get tricky, as they did recently for me. As mentioned earlier, I enjoy bringing work-related readings with me, so as to maximize my concentration and provide the best finished work product for clients. I had brought one of those "documents" with me and had placed it above the sink while I was washing both of my hands. In walks the parter and we exchange pleasantries. It should have ended there, but I decided to mention that this document was for him to review after I was done. Why did I do this? I will never know the answer, but I think it had something to do with wanting to fill the awkward conversation at the sink with something of substance. The partner was less than thrilled that I had decided to take the "documents" on a trip to the bathroom before they would end up on his desk. I wanted to make copies and let him know that I would not give him this bathroom-tainted version, but the damage was done and it was too late. I decided to give him the bathroom-tainted version, but I attached a note saying "this is not the copy that I took to the bathroom with me".

2) The surprise knock: During my morning trip to the office restroom, I was enjoying the silence, when a loud and urgent knock sounded against the main bathroom entrance. Had I accidentaly wondered to the private/handicapped restroom and not realized it? If not, why was someone knocking on a public restroom door. Should I yell "Come IN!"? I decided to remain calm and silent and awaited the surprise visitor. About 1 minute later, one of the cleaning guys came in to change the paper towels and what-not. I asked him if he was the unknown-knocker, but he did not habla english. Still puzzled by this incident 24 hours later, here is my analysis: Cleaning guy was indeed the unknown-knocker, and thought that he was entering the ladies' restroom. I know that at night, there is a cleaning lady, and she always knocks on the mens' room before entering (which makes sense). This cleaning guy was probably doing the same proper thing at what he thought was the ladies' room. Another bathroom mystery solved!

I hope that I have provided everyone with an incentive to give public restroom use a try. The adventures, mysteries and possibilities are endless. Tomorrow, I discuss the proper etiquitte for handling a bathroom walk-in.

A brief study of the various methods of transportation used by officers of the law in the city of new york (and what it means to you!)

2009-05-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

Working in NYC, I always run into various policemen and policewomen. To cut down on writing the politically-correct "policemen or policewomen" over and over again throughout this post, I will simply use the gender-neutral phrase "cops" going forward. As a side note, would calling an officer a "pig" be considered to be a gender-neutral term - I don't know much about farm animals and their private parts, but I'm assuming there exists both female and male pigs, correct? Otherwise, how do we get piglets? In any event, calling them "pigs" is offensive for other reasons (not sure what those reasons are exactly), so we will stick with "cops".

Anyway I see these cops everywhere in the city and they come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes at the subway entrance, there are cops with machine guns and huge dogs. This is not from a video game, this is true. I guess they are more "bomb squad people" than cops, but I don't know where the line for "cops" ends and the line for "bomb squad people" begins. It probably has to do with taking an extra 6 month course in "bomb squadding", which mainly involves overcoming the fear that the giant dog will bite your face off.

Essentially, this is what I wanted to get to: How is the determination made as to what method of transportation a particular cop will be given? I'm assuming this critical determination/decision is made upon graduation from police academy, but strangely, nay, incredbily - not one of the various police academy films deal with this aspect of the police academy. In fact, all I remember about the police academy movies is that the first one has some brief nudity. I'm pretty sure we rented this when we were in 4th grade for this reason alone. I think the remainder of the police academy movies were all either PG-13 and PG, and thus lost out on the possibility for brief nudity (In general, PG-13 movies do not all for brief nudity. The only two known exceptions are Doc Hollywood and Titanic). Obviously, this led to the eventual downfall of the police academy movie franchise after 87 films.

But what really happens in the real-life police academy? I'm pretty certain it goes something like this: The police academy has rankings of all the graduating cops, just like we had in law school, or like they have in overly-competative highschools. The top tier of graduates are rewarded with cop cars and partners. This is obviously amazing because they get to travel around, turn on the sirens to scare people/get through traffic, stop for donuts - and do all of this with a friend (assuming that the top graduate cops are rewarded with a partner they get along with). This is perhaps best exemplified by the relationship and antics we are shown in the film "Superbad". The only problem is that I can't imagine that those two cops graduated at the top of their class, but maybe it was a rough year or a weak police academy class. Anyway, just as we see in the film, these guys have a great time and get to drive in circles while Van Halen blasts in the background. That is the reward for graduating at the top of the police academy class.

The middle-tier of cop graduates are given the option to take extra classes and become those weird cops that either drive the NYPD boats or fly the NYPD choppers. Who needs these guys? I guess one can make an argument that the plane-landing-in-the-Hudson River-incidents showed their possible utility, but I'm sure Capt. Sully could have done it all himself. Plus, there is the Coast Guard, so I don't see any use for these guys. But the second-tier of cop grads. are allowed the option so as to avoid the other (worse) alternatives available to the bottom-tier.

The bottom-tier of cop graduates are not given any method of transportation at all! Can you imagine this garbage? Their classmates are given a specific vehicle, while they are assigned to walk a "beat". The worst of the worst are forced to walk the beat in a dangerous neighborhood, while the best of the bottom-tier walk the subways and do random/boring checks of the subway cars. I guess they have to take public transportation to get home. Or maybe the top-tier cops pick them up and give rides, b/c the top-tier cops are also the nicest, just like the top-tier kids in highschool that are also nice.

Any centaurs that are in the police academy become cops on horses.

Finally, A guide for Mustard Users.

2009-04-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

If you are anything like me, you have a huge butt, large stubby fingers and a tremendous bottom lip. Also, you adore mustard and insist on using with as many foods as possible. I've always enjoyed the many benefits of mustard, but my possible "over-using" of it was only recently brought to my attention, courtesy of my in-laws. Whenever we eat meals at their house (this usually occurs on the Sabbath), I insist on using mustard on most of the food items, and my mother in-law is now always prepared with a new bottle of Guldens spicy brown. Last time, I used the mustard on both chicken cutlets and a meat-pie type dish, drawing a mixture of ridicule and incredulity from the other peoples. This was the first time my use of mustard was called into question, and now I am wondering if I am using it for inapproriate foods (by which I mean foods that are not considered suitable to be dressed with mustard; i do not mean "inapproriate" in the sense that the food is shaped in a manner that brings inapproriate thoughts to the eater of said food, for indeed the "hotdog" is perhaps the most approriate of the mustard-foods).

The end result of all this self-analysis and questioning (which lasted for at least 1 minute at the time) was that I didn't care about my potential over-use of mustard. Instead, I want to help other mustard users with the problems we face, as a group. I am of course referring to the ever-growing problem of "Choice of Mustard". To put it simply, there are just way too many choices and varieties of mustard on the shelves of grocery stores everywhere. One solution is to petition grocery stores to eliminate some of these less-useful varieties, but this would take time and effort. Instead, I offer a simple guide to illustrate when various types of mustard should be purchased and used. I hope that my fellow mustard-users find this useful and that my non-fellow non-mustard-users will join us in our yellow delight.

1) Yellow Mustard: According to wikipedia, "Yellow mustard is the most commonly used mustard in the United States and Canada, where it is sometimes referred to simply as "regular mustard". I think it should be referred to as "crap mustard" or "mustard for poor people". Yellow mustard is a last resort and offers the weakest of the mustard flavors. Yellow mustard is more of a color than anything else; it is the equivalent of coloring your food with a yellow highlighter. Yellow mustard should only be used when there are no other viable options available. EXAMPLE: You are a guest at a meal and no mustard is on the table. You excuse yourself to check fridge and only see yellow mustard. DO NOT YET USE THIS MUSTARD. Make sure to also check garage and other possible storage places for possible better mustards. After performing complete examination of host's abode, proceed to use yellow mustard, but do not enjoy it.

2) Spicy Brown Mustard: Is there a plain brown mustard w/out the spicy involved? If so, I wouldn't trust it, but the Spicy Brown combo is a true delight. This should be every person's go-to mustard for the majority of food items. I believe that "Deli mustard" is the same as "spicy brown mustard" and this is no mistake my friends. The mustard makers are giving us a key clue by inserting the suggested mustard use as part of the mustard name. One thinks "This spicy brown mustard definetly looks like the best mustard, but how should I go about using it...what foods would be enhanced by the presence of this mustard?" The answer is on the label: DELI (or items similar to DELI by gezeirah shava). Of course, if "Deli Mustard" is not the same as "Spicy Brown Mustard", this entire paragraph is incorrect. Who cares though.

3) Honey Mustard: To be used as a flavoring in cooking (I am told), as a component of honey mustard tuna, or as a flavor for a variety of pretzel. If used as a cooking flavor, one should not be able to taste the actual honey-aspect of the mustard, b/c that would be gross. Now that I think about it, the entire Honey-Mustard concept is completely paradoxical, much like Barad, which contained fire AND ice! I personally try to avoid honey-mustards, but some folks seem to enjoy it. As a compromise, I would spicy brown honey mustard for use w/ meat items, but not plain honey mustard.

4) Grey Poupon: This is a brand and not a variety, but it deserves its own special category. The Grey Poupon is still reserved for the upper-class of mustard users, as was originally brought to our attention by the famous scene in Wayne's World. But you don't have to be a jerk to use grey poupon. Other explanations include: a) Amazing bottle shape: It comes in a huge wide-rimmed bottle, allowing you to scoop tons of it out at one time. b) Rich: You are rich and choose to spend too much money on mustard rather than less costly, yet equally delicious, alternatives.

5) Chinese mustard: This is to be used to kill oneself.

The Curious Case of the Overzealous Samaritan

2009-02-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

Today, like every weekday morning, I took the NYC subway system to my place of work. As usual, the subway had its share of bizzare characters, events and sights. However, this time I was the unfortunate victim of a new type of strange subway character. I refer to the Overzealous Samaritan.

Overzealous is probably not the right description for this woman's behavior, but I am not sure if overimposing is a word. I will explain her behavior and then the dear readers can vote on the correct description. Text in your answers to American Idol.

Sometimes the subway cars make sudden stops and people without good balance can fall or stumble. I am one of those people without good balance. I wonder if this is directly tied to the fact that I am a terrible athlete. Is having a good center of balance a prerequisite to being a good athlete? Has there ever been a good athlete with vertigo? I always try to bend my knees and maintain a low center of gravity to prevent from any possible stumbling or falling, but I have no idea if this is actually an effective technique. The easiest way to conteract the possible dangers of subway stumbling is simply to grab hold of the handbars, but there are a number of problems with this technique. 1) Handbars are often not available to be grabbed on crowded cars; in that case it may be better to just allow yourself to fall into a fat person's cushiony belly. 2) Some are hesitant to touch handbars b/c of germs. I am not concerned with this b/c the subway is already one big germ bubble. This has been scientifically proven. 3) I prefer NOT to hold the handbars b/c it is more fun not to. Trying to keep your balance while a drunkard drives the train is about as fun as it gets on the way to work. If you fall, deduct 2 points. If you stumble, deduct 1 point. At the end of the month, compare your rankings with friends and win a free metro card.

Anyway, I was having my fun and living on the edge this morning, when the Overzealous Samaritan ("OS") felt the impulsive need to ruin everything. Keep in mind that I was also listening to my Ipod Nano-Nano on the highest of volumes, so as to possibly annoy as many other people as possible. This OS starts talking to me, but I try to ignore her. This works for about 5 seconds and then she starts tapping me. I have to now recognize her tappage and remove my headphones for what I expect to a message of some importance. Instead I get: "You have to hold on to the bar, otherwise you will fall". I understand that the OS behavior can be defended as genuine and other nice things, but I disagree. I think the OS oversteps her boundries by directing me to hold the bar. That is my personal choice. I also believe that part of what drives the OS behavior is a self-serving drive to feed the ego. This probably is not true in many OS cases, but it sure makes me feel better about being a much worse human being than these people.

The end of the Subway ride went like this: Obviously, I had to follow her instructions or else it would have been incredibly awkward and hostile between us for the remaining 6 minutes of the ride. You do not want to create an awkward and hostile tension with someone you will never see again, but have to spend 6 minutes standing next to.

"In what other situations can the OS strike"?, you ask yourself, with that voice in your head. Apparently, the OS has struck enough in the context of plane crashes, such that the airlines now have to warn us during the safety talk to first secure our own oxygen masks and then worry about other people. I understand a parent first trying to help a child with their oxygen mask, but this type of extreme benevolence is inexcusable in any other situation. Who are these people that feel the need to go around making sure everyone else can figure out the oxygen masks before actually making sure they will live? How good must a good Samaritan be! It sets the bar way too high for other good Samaritans, imposing on them a threshold of "Great Samaritans". This is not fair to society. If everyone feels compelled to be a Great Samaritan, we will lose our Good Samaritans. Is it not better to have many Good Samaritans than few Great Samaritans?!?

Well that was fun. I hate people like the OS. I hate people that would try to help me figure out the oxygen mask w/out first helping themself. The oxygen mask game is fun, just like the subway falling game. Let me just play on my own.

An analysis of early love interests (or "Shabbos walks")

2009-02-24T14:45:00.001-08:00

In my last rant, I touched briefly upon the never-ending topic of the now defunct Camp Hillel. I could probably write an entire book about this place. Not the size of Uncle John's bathroom reader, but maybe like a 500 page paperback. Here is a glimpse of what a chapter would like...

When I think about past love interests or girls I have been maniaclly obsessed with, I always forget to include those first few girls from my days of Shabbos walking in Camp Hillel. Well, no more! I distinctly remember going on a set of shabbos walks with 3 different girls in Bunk 5 and Bunk6. These were the summers of 1993 and 1994, so I was 10 and 11 when these occurred. I will present a brief description of each wonderful lady, followed by the lessons I hope to glean from these memories. I hope that you all can join me in my gleaning. Identities will be protected for the sake of all involved.

1. Lady #1, Summer 1993, Bunk 5: I have no clue as to how this Shabbos walk came about. It must have been arranged by counselors or other campers, b/c I have no recollection of ever initiating a conversation with a girl until last year, when my secretary asked me why I never say good morning. Now, I initiate every day with a "Good Morning secretary!". Anyway, this llady #1 was no secretary. In fact, she is now an ultra-orthodox jewish woman that shaves her head. Scary stuff. I started the Shabbos walk by asking the following "go-to" questions. I would suggest that people dating for the first time also start their dates with these innocent tidbits: A) What is your favorite color? B) What is your favorite number? I do not recall either of her answers to these questions, but I do remember her burping in my face. I was grossed out but also intrigued by her carefree attitude. I told my parents of my Shabbos walk-success in a letter delivered by postal carriers (or perhaps, only one carrier), and word got back to the girl that I was talking too much about our escipades. She decided that one Shabbos walk was enough and promptly shaved her head in protest. THE LESSSONS: Respect a lady's privacy. Sometimes they are embarrased to be seen with you or for people to know that they are associated with you. You should respect their wishes and try to carry on a secretive relationship until they dump you. Additionally, if the lady answers your questions about numbers and colors, you should remember these answers. If her birthday comes, and you are still dating, you can get her a present based on her answers. If she said "10" and "yellow", simply get her 10 yellow balloons and call it a day.

2. Lady #2, Summer 1994, July, Bunk 6: This may be the first time I felt rejection and heartbreak. Specifically, I remember that my left ventricle was severely damaged. I remember being very satisfied with Lady # 2 and really looking forward to our next Shabbos walk (we did not talk during the week). We went on two shabbos walks, but I was then victimized by a nose picking incident. I had a menacing urge to pick my nose, so I went behind the stage curtain in the Camp Hillel social hall and went to town. Unfortunately for all parties involved, Lady #2 was able to see what I was doing and called off all future Shabbos walks (although I didn't find out that this was the reason until later). I cannot fathom why I didn't just pick my nose in a place where it was absolutely certain that nobody could see. Why not go to the bathroom? Maybe because the bathrooms in the social hall always had overflowed crap from the toilet on the floor. Or maybe it was just the sense of adventure that we all love. I'm a risk-taker and it was a huge risk to pick my nose behind a stage curtain...a risk that didn't pay off. To add insult to injury, I tried to win back Lady #2 by winning her a doll in Woodbourne. It is a miracle that I won the doll to begin with from one of those grabbing machines, but she did not accept my gift. Or, she might have accepted but laughed in my face upon accepting. Either way - bad result and no more Lady #2. THE LESSONS: No nose-picking or other bad habits in front of girls, this includes holding in gas until marriage/engagement/or reasonable comfort level reached. Furthermore, it is generally a bad idea to come begging back to the girl right after being dumped. If you do come begging back and decide to forfeit your manhood, it might not be prudent to offer her a green frog doll in the process.

3. Lady #3, Summer 1994, August, Bunk 6: This is an interesting one b/c it shows that I was somehow able to rebound from the nose-picking disaster and still find a lady to escort me around camp for those long August saturdays. Once again, we went on 2 shabbos walks and this lady wanted to kiss me as well. I remember being shocked and scared and denying all her advances. The summer ended without any physical contact and I went home as the same innocent boy that had arrived 2 months earlier. I'm sure my parents were proud. THE LESSONS: Not sure exactly, but I think the "big picture" lesson is the power of the rebound and the "Plenty of fish in the sea" attitude. I was embarrased and humiliated in July 94, and had to fight off a vixen's sexual advances (kiss on the (butt)cheek) in August 94. That is quite a rebound. Sure, the second girl was not around for July and probably never found out about my nose picking, but who cares. The Fades lived another day.

The Obama Pin

2009-02-03T07:07:00.000-08:00

As all of my non-Amish readers know, Barak Obama was elected president in November 2008 and took office in January 2009. I'm assuming that Amish people know this as well, although I doubt I have any Amish readers and also have no clue as to how Amish people get their news. The news of Obama being president was probably reported by a "town crier" sort of fellow and was probably met with some skepticism. This is because I don't think there are any African Americans in Amish country (I visited there once 15 years ago, so my information is somewhat reliable), so the Amish have never seen an African American before. They probably think that the country is now being led by some other form of life and are preparing for a battle with old fashioned weaponry. They will lose (b/c we have newer and more-effective weapons). And if you are an Amish person and are reading this - tsk tsk. You are not allowed to use the computer, unless the rules have changed since I last visited your Amish country 15 years ago.

Anyway, we recall that the build-up and subsequent celebration surronding Obama's victory was huge. It was not uncommon to see many people on the New York City Subway system wearing Obama gear to pysche themselves up for the upcoming election and show support for their candidate. One would expect such gear to stop appearing after his victory, but today I still saw one lady wearing his pin on the subway. It had (brace yourselves) a picture of Obama and the words hope and change. I don't know why I felt the need to describe the actual pin.

My question is as follows: What is the time or event cut-off for wearing Obama-supportive gear? I will make a comparison to sports because it is all I know, and then give some alternatives based on that comparison:

When the NY Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994, this was a huge deal for New Yorkers. I was in 6th grade and didn't care about hockey. Since that time I have not cared about hockey. But during that playoff run and stanley cup victory, I cared about hockey. Everyone cared. I didn't have cable, but I sat next to my radio and listened to the games and watched the parade. I went to Modells b/c you gotta go to Mo's and I bought my obligatory NY Rangers Champions t-shirt. When I got to Camp Hillel that summer, I saw everyone else wearing that same t-shirt and it didn't surprise me at all. But when was the appropriate time to stop wearing that t-shirt? When I saw the Camp baker wearing it (3 sizes too small) in 2001, it felt like the celebration was long over. I was embarrased for the baker and I was embarrased for the NY Rangers. The last part isn't true, b/c I didn't care about hockey.

I think there are three alternatives for when to stop wearing the Obama pin:

1) Objective time-based cut-off. Not sure when this should be (1 year? 1 month?) so I guess it isn't objective. Obama himself should announce this time-frame in a press conference so that it becomes objective. He should say, "no wearing pins with my face on it starting April 1, 2009".

2) Until he starts sucking. You wouldn't want to wear the Rangers championship t-shirt if they started sucking (too lazy to research when they started sucking after 1994 and also realizing that "sucking" is somewhat of a vague term). Similarly, it would be awkward to wear the Obama pin if he started performing poorly as our president. Like if he made a rule on how many children we can have and threw extra babies down the river, you wouldn't want to be the guy wearing his pin, unless you live on said river and profit from baby-trading.

3) Until presidency ends. In the sports comparison, the NY Rangers were the Stanley Cup Champions until the next team became champions a year later. Obama is president until someone else is, so you can wear his pin every day lady.

Free Papers?

2008-02-07T06:35:00.001-08:00

I don't understand the concept of AM New York and Metro. For those of you who do not ride the NY subway system, there are various people that stand around the subway entrances and urge you to accept these papers. They usually will add outrageous claims, such as "this paper will enhance your morning commute dramatically" or "have a wonderful day". These people often look poor.

Anyway here is what puzzles me about this seemingly free paper daily giveaway. First, are these people being paid to stand outside in the freezing cold, or inside in the urine-soaked subway, and hold bundles of papers? I have to assume that they are being paid, or else it makes zero sense for them to be doing this. There is a slim chance that they are just very nice giving people, but if this is the case, I feel like they would devote themselves to a different cause. It seems strange that a bunch of giving people would get together and decide that their collective mission in life is to give other people newspapers on the subway. Possibly, they would rather devote themselves to feeding the hungry or taking care of the ill. Possibly, they themselves are the ill.

So if they are being paid, who is paying them? We are, I think. This is probably what happens with some of the taxes we pay. The government takes some of it, and then pays these people to give out papers to us. In a sense, we are just paying for the AM New York and Metro through the conduit of our NYC govt. Does this make sense? Maybe...it depends on if these people would have other jobs or not. I don't know the answer to that brain-teaser, so I don't know if this whole thing makes any sense.

And finally, why, please tell me, are there 2 of these papers. I've never actually taken either of the 2, but I'm wondering what the difference is. Are these papers in competition somehow? Is one more of a tabloid and the other more serious? My bet is that the government or whoever is running this racket is playing a game with these people. They tell them "Hey, whoever sells more (the AM team or the Metro team) will get some extra money at the end of the day!" This encourages the sales teams to really push the papers on us commuters, even if we just want to listen to our I-Pods. Ironically, this extra bit of cash incentivizer will also allow these people to purchase other papers of their choice.

Toilet words.

2007-10-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

I was recently talking to a lady who teaches little kids/ pre-school teacher. Among the various topics that came up was "toilet words". She told me that she heard some of her kids using words like doody and pishy, but that they were shockingly using such foul language outside the friendly confines of the toilet area. She told them what we have all been told one time or another: "Kids, those are toilet words and you should only say that stuff in the bathroom." I have been reprimanded for using toilet words in unauthorized places as recently as yesterday, and I am 25; clearly this is an ongoing issue for some of us.
But something funny happened in the evolution of the "toilet words" category. As time went on for us as kids, and as we got older, we learned other words. We learned the F curse and the S curse, and we learned about the word a-hole and B-I-T-C-H. And if any one of us dared to utter one of these words in front of an authority figure, we would 1) have our mouths washed out with soap (or threatened) and 2) told that these words were "toilet words" or words for a "potty mouth".
Now this is where I get confused. When did curse words mesh with words like doody and pishy and get thrown in the toilet words category. Are there a bunch of people that specifically go into a bathroom so that they can finally scream out curse words? Hey, Mother Effers!!! So happy we can curse now that we are at the urinal!!! You Sons of Bitches!!! Fun to meet you here in the ole' bathroom!
I do have a theory about how this happened. The "S" curse is used to describe bowel movements, among other things. This is probably how curse words moved into the toilet word category. Once the S curse got into this category, the other curses followed suit. And now...we have teachers/parents/mentors telling kids all over the place that they should go to the bathroom and curse to their hearts' content. See you in the Effing bathroom.

Fake old people.

2007-10-25T16:15:00.000-07:00

Hey old pals,

I just saw an ad on the television for something by a company called "Genworth Financial". I have absolutely no idea what they are selling, but the main theme of the commercial was alot of old people saying how they are 100 years old and very lucky. I have very many problems with this premise.

1) You should have seen what these people looked like, they don't look even close to 100. I think a few of them might be 90 or 85, but definetly not the big century mark. I guess this makes sense b/c there is no way to find a bunch of 100 year old actors and actresses. So they probably hired a bunch of 85 year olds instead, which are much easier to find. But they could have at least done a more convincing job with the makeup. Let me see some weird growths on the faces, or more wrinkles. COME ON Genworth!
2) The activities they showed these so-called "100 year olds" doing. One old maid was swinging on a swing. I kid you not. WEEEEEE! I'm 100!!!! I can swing all day with perfect balance and agility...I (The Fades) recently found myself on a swing and it made me nausous. I'm supposed to believe that a 100 year old hag can swing back and forth in the breeze all day without keeling over and dying. Sorry.
3) Overall unrealistic things these actors are saying. One dude says "I'm one of the lucky ones!" You are? Really? Not in the world i live in. I don't know any 100 year olds perfectly, which is good b/c they probably have a very strong old person smell. But if i did, i betcha they don't feel lucky. They probably don't remember who they are and are too doped up on all kinds of things to know how they feel.
4) Suggestion for Genworth: show me some sick old smelly people wetting themselves and I will buy your product...as soon as i figure out what it is.

Free Menorah give away!

2006-12-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

I had 2 finals in the past 2 days (thursday december something and friday december somethign), so I have had little or no time to prepare for the chanukah festival, or Hanukah festival, as I like to call it when I am talking to gentiles, which is never. I don't know why I felt the need to announce to everyone just now that I just had 2 finals in the past 2 days. Are people supposed to feel bad for me b/c of this terrible burden? I'm sorry I mentioned the finals.

In any event, I was not prepared for the holiday, which meant I had no menorah, no candles to light said menorah, and no latkes to eat. Are latkes really an essential part of the holiday, on par with the menorah, you may be asking yourself? Well my grandfather told me today on the phone that he read an article comparing the different holidays that come around this time of year, and that the article described chanukah as the "time jews eat latkes". This shouldn't be confused with the time jews eat kugel, gefilte fish, or even farfel. Is farfel a jewish word or generic secular term? I always wanted to know that. What about kasha varnishkas? If i walk into foodtown (is foodtown still in existence), and I proclaim that I am in search of kasha varnishkas will they know what I am referring to? But back to this newsday article- it compared the different holidays- and there are 3 you should know. Besides chris'smas and hanukah, there is also kwanza, which to my understanding is hanukah for african americans. here is my question, fellow americans who are also african...are white people allowed to celebrate kwanza?? If so, what is the process by which I can accept kwanza upon myself. Furthermore, are there in fact any white people that do celebrate kwanza. If so, where can i find such a person? Of course, if i did try to celebrate kwanza, i would have a potential problem with my own judaic practices, b/c this might be considered idol worship. I will therefore, look up kwanza on wikipedia, decide if i can take it upon myself without being an idol worship, and then attempt to become the first white male kwanza observer.

The good news is (not sure where the bad news was) that the Hillel house in Upenn had free menorahs and candles to give away for lighting purposes. When I heard this announcment, i quickly took all 150 sets, and sold them 2 days later for a nice profit. I'm the grinch that stole chanukah, but not really...b/c i'm not green. Joe greene, on the other hand, could potentially be the grinch that stole chanukah, but only if he in fact does something corrupt like taking all the free candles and selling them at a premium. But is this even corrupt...isnt this pure economics, the invisible hand at work, whatever the hell...The answer is that I dont care about economic theory and either should you.

The weird thing about this hillel free menorah give away thing (besides from the last paragraph) is that the candles they give away only burn for 20 minutes. I know that is halachically problematic- either on fri night or on all nights, but I'm not sure which. They sent out a guideline packet but I am too lazy to read through it. So basically what the hillel is saying is as follows: We will let you almost perform the lighting mitzvah for free! But if you want to actually fulfill it in a valid manner you will have to pay an additional 2 dollars for longer lasting candles.
This would never stand in the Shammai house, Abba.

Anyway this all reminds me of that story where the Vilna Gaon was on his deathbed, and remarked how great this world is b/c you can pay just a few cents, or kopecks rather, to purchase a mitzvah, and share of "olam Habah". Well, in this case it is 2 dollars b/c of inflation, but you get the idea.

I'm not sure why so many stories involving great pious men involve a deathbed.

Davening foes.

2006-12-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

This semester I had class every morning at the very early hour of 10:30 Am. If I want to go these classes, and not steal money from my parents, then I have to wake up about 9:30 Am or so, to leave ample time for showering, reading of sports on the internet, dressing, stealing deodarant from roomate, putting on teffilin, and walking to the law school building. However, there are times when I decide to attend a minyan for morning prayer services which is conveniently held at the Hillel- on the way to my walk to law school. This minyan occurs at the even more ridiculusly early hour of 8:40 AM, which means I will set my alarm clock for 8:15- to ensure that I will get to minyan exactly 10 minutes late. Obviously, I am always happier after attending the prayer services, b/c I really do believe it helps my day get started on the right "foot". BUt there are certain negatives I have encountered with this morning minyan experience, and those negatives are actually certain individuals.

First, we have the guy(s) that brings his tefillin in a canteen, like that my Mom packed me for camp in 6th grade. There are a bunch of these guys that have decided to forgo the traditional tefillin bag, and now put their tefillin in these canteens. Can anyone please explain to me how this practice has come about? Do these people also carry reserve water supplies in a tefillin bag. Maybe they are expecting to be led on some type of rugged hike during davening, and so now they are at least prepared to pack up their tefillin and go! I think the real reason for these canteens is that presumably soldiers in Israel pack their tefillin up like this, although I have no proof for this assertion. I will have to ask one of 3 people I know who actually were Israeli soldiers. Until then, I will assume this is how the practice started. The problem is, of course, that minyan in the Hillel at Penn is not a battlefield in which we are fighting arabs. Therefore, there is no need to bring the tefillin in this canteen type device. Please stop.

Second, we have the guy that comes to minyan daily and davens every word, and seems to be a real solid consistent Jew, yet inexplicably brings a newspaper with him, and reads it whenever he has a free moment. He seems to daven faster than everyone else, only to have time to read the top stories from today's news. Is it important to stay up to date with the current events? Probably, although I am not good at that. But does this have to be done during davening? Probably not. I'm not trying to rebuke this fellow, i just find the process to be odd. Also the folding of the paper is noisy. And it isn't really even a legitimate paper this guy is reading, its usually just the daily pennsylvanian, which is the school local paper. One other note about papers- why is the NY Times designed the way it is? It is very very impossible to read it while sitting on a toilet.

Third, we have a guy that sits right next to you, and moves his chair really close for some reason, and then proceeds to blow his nose and examine it for the rest of the services. He uses every tissue that exists in the room, and crumples them up in little balls on the table. Some of these tissues touch the edge of your siddur and make u want to vomit. Sometimes he will sneeze and cough to give himself a break from the noseblowing. Usually, the sneeze or cough will result in some spit being fired onto your face. This will ruin the morning prayer experience.

So there you have it folks. Is it good to start your day by praying ? Sure is. But just make sure to avoid some of these known foes along the way...or else your prayer time won't be too enjoyable.

My poor attempt to copy Bill Simmons' diary idea

2006-11-20T20:00:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't read Bill Simmons of espn.com's "page 2", you probably don't understand the title of this Rant, and you probably do not enjoy sports at all. (or, you might in fact enjoy sports, but not have a sense of humor). In any event, one thing Bill Simmons does on occasion is keep a diary while watching different sporting events. I always found this to be one of the most entertaining things he does, so I figured, why not copy it. Here goes nothing...

It is Monday night football, and the Giants are playing the Jaguars. It is currently the 3rd quarter, so let me summarize some of the things that have happened so far.

Before the game, I was at my friend "Av" and we played Madden o7. I used the Giants and he used another team I cannot remember. He beat me by a small margin, and said "I hope that doesn't happen to the real giants tonight". Strangely, it seems like that will actually happen. Voodoo s.

Another thing I noticed before the game is that Chris Berman's hair is very terrrible. Its not just a combover, but a combover plus. He has like a big bush of hair blowing in the wind behind his comb over and it is bizzare. If I end up going bald, I will choose to avoid that fate and instead just suck it up or shave my head completely. I mean, suck it up AND shave my head completely. Sometimes the word "eem" in the Torah can mean 4 different things according to rashi, but the word OR cannot mean the word AND,which is why I fealt the need to correct the previous sentence. This ain't no Torah, despite what you loyal readers may think. A final thought on baldness is the "toupee". I think the key to wearing the toupee or however the hell you spell it, is not simply to get a great toupee (that goes without saying), but to make the toupee switch early on in the terrible "going-bald" process. Then, once u make that early bold decision ,your friends can make a party and roast you, and then just get used to it. 10 years down the road, people will only make fun of it behind your back. I know some friends that are going bald, but they have already missed this "switch to the toupee" deadline. Good luck guys.

Another thing that happened during this first half, is my friend and one time sleep partner "meir" sent me a text message, saying that it seems like the Giants play alot of night games. He is a Pats fan, so his team is very boring. But so are the Giants, so I think his point is : why should all of America have to sit through so many nationally televised (and boring) Giants games? The answer probably has something to do with allowing me to spend my sunday's watching all my fantasy football players while shifting the focus purely to the Giants for my night games. In reality, of course, this game I am watching right now has huge fantasy implications as well. I am down 7 points to some dude, and I have eli manning, and he has no one. Basically, I should win...and I think I already have. No one even knows what I am talking about right now. When you tell someone else (presumably a straight male) about your fantasy team, you think it is the most exciting thing ever. Then when some dude tells you that he just made a great trade for joe borowski, you think to yourself "I dont give a damn loser...shut up and pass me the diet wild cherry pepsi". It is the same thing as discussing your dreams with someone else...jim gaffigan discusses this in his comedy routine. Great. Now I am stealing from both Bill Simmons and Jim Gaffigan. Now there are 2 guys I'd like to meet in a pub. And Chuck Klosterman. And Chaninah Ben Dosah. He'd turn all the beer into flax.

So, the Giants are playing in Jacksonville, and the mascot for these Jaguars is a large yellow creature of some sort. I'm happy the Giants don't have any mascots (or even one) , b/c most mascots are stupid and irrelevant. But if the Giants were to get a mascot for some absurd reason, I would want it to be named Gino the Giant. I would want this mascot to be a real actual giant, preferably the one that played Carl in the amazing and emotional "Big Fish". If not, I would choose Yao Ming. Could you imagine that? IF Yao Ming was on the Rockets, but in his spare time, he would be a mascot for an NFL franchise. Would that count as being a "2 sports-star"? Are any females still reading this?

One thing the fat yellow Jaguar mascot keeps doing is after the Giants make a FG or extra point, he stands under the goal post and waives the "no good" sign. This is dishonest, as the FG clearly goes through the uprights. He is also guilty of mocking the refs and trying to cause machlokes on the field. The Jaguars mascot has bad middos, but as a "rasha" will be awarded in this world, thus helping the Jaguars beat the Giants tonight. And yes, that is a pessimistic fan's prediction. Its the 4th quarter...so I will now turn my whole focus to the TV. After the game (and inevitable Giants defeat) I will continue with some final thoughts.

After the game...

Crap, I was right. I didn't really think they were going to lose, but I thought that if I write that it will become some type of reverse jinx or hex, and that they would actually win. I actually do believe in this type of reverse s, but I cannot tell you why. Anyway, Giants played like crap, so they deserve this loss.

In more important news, I just watched the video of Michael Richards' racist tirade on youtube. I also just saw his apology on Letterman, and this is some entertaining stuff. I personally think this all just shtick, like Andy Kaufman, b/c that is the only way Richards can save his dying career. Good move by him doing this Kaufman-esque shtick.

Good night.

Gelilah Guy

2006-10-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

I've noticed that there are a grand total of ZERO comments on my previous entry which discusses the various elements of a "favor". Should I take this to mean that no one is interested in this topic? Perhaps no one is reading this blog anymore and everyone has forgotten about me. Or perhaps I'm not funny anymore. No matter, I will continue to rant starting now:

I used to be good at this thing called "going to morning services" or "minyan". Now, I don't go as often as the glory days (years 2001-mid 2003), but I still try to put together some good streaks. For example, during the 10 days of repentance, I made it to every morning service except for one...so that was pretty good. Anyway, I'm not so hard on myself for this lazy behavior because I have rollover minyans from the glory days. What are these rollover minyans, you might query? Well- rollover minyans is a system I thought off back in the days of Reishis. I decided that I should be allowed to miss one morning minyan a month. Now, since there are some months I haven't missed any minyans from back in the day, I have all these rollover minyans stored up for now. And I am cashing in baby. Now that I think about it, I think it was that I could miss one minyan a week or maybe one a day. Yeah...that makes more sense.

Anyway, it seems now that every time I show up for these services I am offered the honor of "Hagbah", or lifting up the ToYrah using only the power of your wrists. I think that this is happening to me b/c G-d is playing a practical joke on me. I have a bunch of normal fears- clowns, bees, long-term relationships, the dark, fruit, but I also have this one fear that isn't very normal. I am afraid of Hagbah. There. I said it- and i feel better. I'm simply not a Hagbah guy, I'm a Gelilah guy. In fact, I'm pretty good at Gelilah, and I once was able to dress the Toyrah in under 8 seconds. Granted, that was one of those small Toyrahs that kids sometimes have for some weird reason but still. Also, I have been know to perform 3 Gelilahs in one service! This obviously occured on everyone's favorite- Shabbos Rosh CHodesh CHanukah, but you all knew that.

Why am i so afraid of Hagbah anyway? It is a culmination of other fears- it stems from the fear of the unknown and the fear of failure and public embarrasment . All 3 of these factors come together to cause my fear of the Hagbah process. Hagbah is not something I have ever had the chance to practice, and so I don't know if I can even do it. Sure, my friends "chief" and "kogz" would sometimes spend random afternoons going to the Beis Medrash and taking out all the Torahs to practice Hagbah, but I had better things to do with my time like watching the Steve Harvey show. (hey steve!) As a consequence, I missed out on all this potential Hagbah practice, and now I am paying the price. By the way, re-runs of the steve harvey show are still available on BET- subscribe now.

I also just don't think I'm physically capable of this feat of wrist strength. I need not look any further than the activity of bowling to prove that I simply don't have strong wrists. I once went on a date to a bowling alley that cost like 45 dollars a round or whatever its called. A frame? I don't know, who cares, not the point. First of all, the girl, who appeared to be of averege female strength, was able to choose a ball that was much heavier than mine. I chose a 7, which is the same size ball I chose when going on bowling trips with ruach day camp 15 years ago. But this girl was able to choose like a 9 or 10. Secondly, she was able to bowl the right way, with the straight wrist s, but everytime I gave it a go my wrist would strangely turn and the ball would be sent to the gutter. Overall this date was a debacle for me, and it made me question my manhood. Luckily, I was able to stare at the girl's rear end every time she bowled, so the date was pretty good. But I think she knew I was doing that because my mind, like my bowling ball, was in the gutter.

Anyway- bottom line: Hagbah, like the mundane act of bowling, requires strong wrists. Clearly, I lack that. (and i'm not even getting involved here with the cases of "uneven Hagbahs" i.e - where one side is much heavier than the other...man, I am so afraid that the Torah is gonna drop during those dangerous Hagbahs. Am i the only one?) Since I lack the physical wrist power, I must stick with my Gelilah talents. Although, maybe if I am staring at a girl's rear end, I shouldn't be allowed to do Gelilah either.

How to ruin a favor (or maybe not).

2006-10-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

Let me just start by saying that tonight I will turn 24 years of age. I know this because facebook says so. I will be celebrating this birthday by studying for a midterm in securities regulations. If anyone wants to join in on this festive celebration, please let me know. In all seriousness, birthdays defintely have lost the excitement they used to have. 21 was a big celebration, b/c of the legal drinking and all. 22 was also good for some reason, and 23 wasn't bad. For whatever reason I'm just not feeling it anymore. Perhaps it is b/c of a song that "mom" reminded me of today, which I have probably listened to over 500 times during my life so far. That song is "Old Man" by Neil Young, and it is depressing s. It mentions the age of 24, and if you are so inclined to be in a state of depressing s, i urge you to view the lyrics.

And that is enough of that. Something I always had a hard time doing for other people is this strange thing called "Favors". I'm not talking about when people ask me to do something completely unreasonable; I'm talking about a simple favor- like if you are driving by here, can u pick me up or something. By the way, me and my former roomate ("eric") used to come up with all types of characters as if we were about to write a sketch comedy show and perform it in our apartment. (we did make some small videos, to be viewed by special request). Anyway, one of these characters was "Unreasonable Favor man" - a character that always asked you to do the most unreasonable and inconveniant favors. I definetly have a problem doing unreasonable favors, and when people ask them from me I think that is absurd. But I also had a problem with regular favors.

I decided with the new year rolling around and all that, I should try and work on this and kicked things off with a major favor operation. My former chavrusah who may or may not be named Uri Burger runs a little "4 species business" in his spare time, and sells the species to UPenn. He knew I was driving from NY to Penn and asked if i could bring down the 80 or so species multiplied by 4. Now then, one might even classify this as a manifestation of "unreasonable favor man", but even then- I was willing to do this favor. This all sounds like a major step for a self centered shmuck like myself, but I will now explain how I proceeded to ruin or "federize" this favor.

I Federized the favor in two distinct ways. Uri offered to let me take a set of species for my own use as a reward for doing him this favor. First of all, this might ruin the favor right here. If one is receiving a reward for doing a favor, does that remove the status of favor. Perhaps a small reward really doesn't... but I kind of turned it into a big reward. In the store, I told the people that Uri said I can take an esrog of my own, and asked them where the most expensive esrogim were. I then grabbed a 70 dollar esrog and said "in your face esrog workers of uri". So now I had abused the reward system of this particular favor and perhaps tarnished it completely.

By the way, you might be thinking that this is halachically problematic, b/c I was given my esrog as a gift and it is not really my own esrog. You might be right or you might not be right, but this is not the place for this discussion. But if you were thinking of the Halachic ramifications of this long winded story, good job by you.

The second way in which i "federized" this favor was upon arrival at the Upenn. I found a great parking spot near my house, which is no easy task. As many of my readers know, finding a great parking spot is perhaps the best feeling in olam ha'zeh. Anyway, the delivery spot for all these species was 3 blocks away at the Hillel, but there was no way I was leaving this spot and driving to the Hillel. The result of all this was that 3 guys had to walk from the Hillel to my car and carry all the species through the dangerous streets. And all of this was on erev yom kippur, so these guys were probably busy. But I was busy too- watching Sunday NFL football, and that was no time to complete the favor in the right way. So I watched these 3 pious guys struggle with the boxes of species, and wondered if the Jets would indeed finish the job against the Colts that day. Sure enough they couldnt, just as I couldn't complete the favor.

The Rav's Machzor

2006-10-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

This marks the beginning of the third season of the Fades Rant. If you missed the first 2 seasons, you should check the archives. I would say that the first season is the best, and the second season has some memorable moments as well. As for this new third season, I don't really know what to expect. I will attempt to be honest and self-depricating, and all should enjoy. During the break between writing this blog, I was very busily(made that word up?) involved in religious processes. First there was the new year and 10 days of repentance, followed by the day of atonement. Then, we just finished the tabernacles holiday, culminating in a day of drinking heavily and stumbling through the streets of new york city. Here is one of my favorite highlights from this year's High Holiday season.

Using "The Rav's new machzor" on yom kippur davening: I first saw this new machzor at one of those Judaica stores, and was immedietly tempted to purchase it for 35.95 or whatever ridiculus price they chose to charge. Was this another one of The rav's minhagim - overcharging for a machzor? Anyway, I decided to hold myself back from purchasing this machzor, b/cng I realized that I had built up a pretty large collection of religious books which I hardly ever look at . I decided that maybe it is time to read the books I already own, before going out and purchasing every new book that comes out. Anyway, this turned out to be a great decision, b/c when I walked into the minyan at UPenn for kol nidre, there was a table with 400 of these new machzors; apparently someone had decided to donate them for use at Upenn on yom kippur. This makes sense to me. Upenn likes to be one of these very intellectual places, and the Rav was a very intellectual Rav.

I was quite happy to use this brand new machzor, mainly b/c it had that "new book" smell. ON yom kippur, when I cannot use my mouth device for eating, i like to replace it with my nose device for smelling. I feel very satiated when I smell delicious food or other pleasent scents. I think this is b/c 50% of the satisfaction we get when eating is purely from the taste. The other 50% is from the food in our stomach. I made this up, by the way. I'm no effing scientinst. Anyway, so while there is nothing you can do on Yom Kippur about the stomach-satisfaction part, there is definetly a way to replace the taste-satiation part. All you have to do is replace it with smell-satiation. I did this by smelling packs of gum, standing outside food carts during the break and smelling mexican food, and of course- smelling the amazing and incomparable "new book" smell.

The Rav's Machzor also brought me an unexpected source of entertainment during the lengthy Yom Kippur services. I was expecting the machzor to have a different nusach- accoring to the way the Rav davened himself. But ALAS! or LO and BEHOLD!, the nusach was the same as any other artscroll machzor. The main difference was that little footnotes (as opposed to big footnotes) , on every single page with said something like "the Rav's practice was to omit this paragraph" or "the rav would say this only once". etc... Luckily, me and my former roomate who was sitting next to me, are good at the skill known as "mocking". We started making up our ownartscroll footnote minhagim highligted by me saying to him "Here, the Rav would eat a hot dog, but not with sourkraut". After making this joke, I said the AL Cheit for "mocking" with a little extra kavana. The other very bizzare aspect of this machzor was the sources. Most of them are from sifarim written by the Rav or his talmidim, which is to be expected. However, I did come across some "questionable" sources. For example, a footnote told me that the Rav switched the order of a few tefilot during mussaf. The source for this minhag was simply "Shucky Friedman". Umm- was this just some guy who was sitting near the Rav one yom kippur and heard him switch the order of 2 tefilos. Is he sure he heard this correctly? Did he then call artscroll and say "Hey, just wanna let you know, I'm pretty sure there was a switch in the order here...oh, who am i? Well, i'm shucky friedman...no, i'm not a rabbi, just an carpet salesman...i once sat 3 rows behind the rav."

Thanks- Shucky Friedman, u made it into the new machzor.

In all seriousness, the new machzor has a nice introduction and explains some parts of the service very well. Additionally, I am not sure if the Rav had sourkraut on his hotdog.

Hate on an elevator

2006-08-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write these two anicdotes (not to be confused with antidotes - like how torah is the antidote to the satan) for quite some time and I believe that they indicate why there is prevalent anti-semitism in this world.

Story one occured before getting on an elevator, in the James Tower, located on the Upper West Side. I was with my friend Owen, and we were going to visit the Steens in 8-H. As luck would have it (or wouldn't have it) only one elevator was working on this rainy friday afternoon, and all the Jews in James Tower were returning for the pre-shabbos rush. For readers not familiar with some of the basics of the Upper West Side, there are 3 buildings in which 90% of all single Jews live. They are (in alphabetical order) "James Tower, Key West, Westmont"...and all three have a "the" in front of the name, but i didn't include that just now b/c that would make alphabetical order annoying, and who doesn't love a good alphabetical order.

Anyway, this James Tower has 20 something floors, and only had this one elevator, and it was taking forever. I even considered walking the eight flights, but then remembered how I am extremely lazy. After repeatedly pressing the UP arrow, even though this doesn't help at all, I decided to also press the DOWN arrow as well. I'm not sure why I did this, b/c DOWN goes to the basement, and me and Owen didn't need to do laundry...we needed to get UP to 8H. Finally the elevator arrives and it is apparently going to go down b/c of my mistake. But then it does that weird elevator switch thing where it decides its not going down, but instead is going up, and the doors almost close without anyone of th 343 people wanting to go up even entering. Luckily, a heavyset bald man who was sweating stuck his fat foot inbetween the closing doors and saved us all another long wait.

So why is this a negative portrait of the Jewish people, you might ask? B/c once we got on the elevator this man unleashed a verbal tirade on me and owen, but mainly on me. He called me out in front of everyone on "my pressing the down button and wasting all of our time". I shook my head and laughed at this stunning accusation and that just got the fatman angrier and angrier. He said "Yeah...you shake your head, that will get you far in life". But so far its been working, so I'm not sure what the meaning of that comment was. Finally, after he finished his diatribe, I remarked out loud to the elevator "Is this an episode of Curb your Enthusiasm...is this guy for real?" Of course, this was merely a rhetorical question, so nobody answered.

People like this guy...he is one reason for anti-semitism. You cannot freak out if someone accidentally presses a down button. Then again, I didn't do it accidentally, just for no reason...although there isn't that great a difference. Also, the guy wasn't wearing a yarmulka so I actually have no proof that he was Jewish. But only Jewish singles, and some african americans live in James tower, so I must conclude that he was in fact a very stressed out Jewish male. As far as my research goes, there are no african american Jews in James Tower, but there are many in Beit Shemesh.

a young man's journey through bloomingdales

2006-08-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

I'm done working and I got a job offer from my law firm (mazel tov, kiddush), so now I feel like I can write about my summer working experience just a little bit. I still am always nervous that the firm will somehow find out I write on this blog, and somehow interpret everything I say as racist or sexist or something (and usually it is), and then fire me before I even set my small foot through the door. In any event, here is what I now feel comfortable discussing...although this blog will probably still be somehow traced back to me, at which point I will be fired.

Alot of the summer working at the law firm is really not spent "working" at all. Rather, there is a sizable amount of "wining and dining" going on. In other words, we go to lunch at solo and prime grille everyday, order lots of food, and then get back to the office and take naps. The dining becomes so excessive that I started to hear myself complain "that I'm sick of solo", or "why can't the service at prime grille be a bit quicker". When I hear these types of complaints being voiced, I always imagine if homeless people were able to listen in on this. If a group of homeless individuals would somehow hear this, I think they would throw their bedpans and loose change at me. I actually am not sure if they have bedpans, but what I'm trying to tell you is that they would be so angry that they would actually throw away the change they have earned by begging all day. By the way, if NYC is so concerned about the homeless (but they aren't) they should do something about the bathroom situation. I mean, that would at least be a good start. Maybe bedpans should be distributed and there should be bedpan emptying centers. Or even better would be public bathroom facilities with showers for the homeless. B/c really- I am tired of waking up every morning and smelling urine on the streets. I was actually walking by a homeless man once, and he started to urinate as I walked by him... I.e- he wasn't even obeying the "Drunk wall rule". To quickly elaborate, the drunk wall rule is that if one is drunk and wishes to urinate in public, he/hopefully not she MUST find a wall to urinate on. You can't simply just stand in the middle of a street or alleyway or muvoy (from gemara) and urinate. The only exception to this rule is the "Drunk telephone rule", which is to pretend you are talking on a public phone in NYC and actually just stand there and urinate. I only know these rules based on hearsay.

Anyway, the point is that we get wined and dined a ton,and part of this is that we get taken on trips or outings, like Lag B'omer back in the day. So one of these outings was a trip to a country club for a day, and you can choose golf or tennis or kayaking for your activity. I decided to choose laying on my ass by the pool all day, which wasn't actually a choice. The only problem with my decision, was that I lacked a bathing suit, which meant I had to go purchase one on short notice. In my defense, I tried to go to urban outfitters, but all of their "board shorts" were hanging off me and showing my butt crack, and i didnt think that was a good country club look. So I decided to go to BLoomingdale's (Or Gehennom) b/c it was the next closest store to the office. Now I should have realized that I was in for trouble when I saw a limo pull up, and a lady and her daughters got out for a day of shopping. Now- realize that this means that this lady has a limo take her shopping. Lets just stop and realize that and recognize that it should blow our minds...

That being said, I entered the flagship Bloomingdales, thinking that it was similar to Macy's and JC Penny, and not more similar to Nordstrom and Sax 5th Ave. (i think the hierchy is Nordstroms, Sax 5th ave, Lord and Taylor, Bloomingdales, Macys , JC Penny, National Wholesale Liquidators). I was immedietly greeted by a older male who smelled better than anyone I have ever met and had very small cool glasses on. He was either a flamboyant homosexual of european descent, or was just a metrosexual. Either way, he asked if i could use help with anything, and instead of just saying "just looking around", i found myself asking for a bathing suit. "Peter" as he was called, already knew that he had me and he told me to follow him to the bathing suits "section".

What happened in the next few hours is somewhat inexplicable, but it should teach everyone some important lessons. Peter first asked me if i want a tight bathing suit that highlights my dimension, and thus confirmed his true gayness. After insisting on a loose bathing suit, Peter barraged me with expensive bathing suits, until i finally was forced into buying one for 55 dollars! Thats right, i now own a 55 dollar bathing suit, and I will probably wear it no more than 3 times. The story unfortunately got much worse, as Peter decided that I could use new cologne, and perhaps a nice polo shirt to wear at the country club dinner/cocktail party. The bottom line is that I was brainwashed by this gay peter. I was willing to do whatever he told me to do or buy. I found myself in love with this salesman and his shopping acumen, and wishing that he was jewish and sitting next to me in shul on yom kippur, b/c he smelled really amazing.

Total bill at Bloomingdales: 189.76
Realizing that if someone approaches you and asks if you need help, to simply say "Just looking around": Priceless.

subway stories.

2006-07-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

As some may know, I reside in NYC for the months of the summer. More specifically, I live on the upper western side, yet my place of work is located on the east side, somewhere in the 50s. (I know the exact address, but I don't want to write it here, lest I become that "one guy" who started blogging about his job and put some inappropriate things on his blog and got fired. That guy's name is Lester. Lest I become that guy lester...strange.) Anyway, what this all means is that I have to figure out a way to get to work every morning, and that usually involves a lot of subway riding. There are some mornings where I will even ride 3 trains, and this is very bad.

Why is this very bad? A few reasons. First of all, the subway platform is the hottest place on the face of this here earth. I was thinking about this while I was sweating profusely this morning, and wondering if there is any way they will ever ever install air conditioning down there, or maybe gigantic fans or something. To make matters worse, I am usually wearing long sleeved shirts, even though many people at the firm wear short sleeve polos right now. I have about 5 solid (as opposed to striped or patterned-which I am inexplicably afraid to wear) short sleeved polo shirts, but I usually only wear them on fridays and weekends. By the way, not that I am a fashion guru or anything, but I beg any male who is reading this not to wear a button down short sleeved shirt to work. OR ever. Don't do it, its worse than wearing a turtle neck. So the point is that I feel compelled to give all my shirts "even-wearing" time, although some of them are old, stained, or missing buttons. I don't know why I do this with my shirts, b/c they are inanimate objects and do not have feelings. It is Ok not to wear all of them equally, yet I refuse to do so.

So I am sweating my butt off on the platform, and the train finally arrives, and this is good b/c the inside of the train has AC. If you see a car with no one in it, that probably means that the AC is broken so do not enter. It is either that or someone went to the bathroom in it, vomited, or was murdered or maybe only stabbed. But crowded air-conditioned cars have problems as well. Of course there is always weird contact moments where I find my hand on other people's butts, but thats all fun and games. The real awkwardness sets in if you actually get a seat, but people then hover over u menacingly. This happened to me last night, while I was traveling with some females who I know by name. I sat down, and a second later, some old dude's crotch is right in my face. To make matters worse, he stared menacingly at the female, thus accomplishing the rare yet amazing feat of "freaking 2 people out at once by simply standing still". Thank you old crotch man.

The subway also provides for the most random of all run ins. ("Random Min Ha'Random") I have no idea what the proper etiquette is for these type of run ins. Inevitably, you will run into 2 or 3 people a week who u have not seen or spoken to in the last 5 years. About once every two weeks u will run into a girl you dated. Once a month, you will run into a person you added to facebook, thinking you will never see them anyway, so why not add them at 5 AM. The subway is crowded and you cannot really even stop and chat to talk to them. I say give em a wave, a smile, and say "i'm sorry, i gotta run to work". This excuse doesn't always work, especially at like 10 PM. Or if they know that you don't have to run to any work at all, b/c you spend your time writing crap like this.

Enemy territory

2006-07-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

It has certainly been awhile, and this is because I got the ole writers block, which is better than having the ole scurvy...I was recently home for a July 4th extravaganza and Mom began to criticize my recent posts on this here blog. Mom asked me why all I seem to write about is synagogue and stuff of that ilk. The truth is that I used to write about food and deli alot, and before that I wrote about dating alot. But something I really never got to discuss in full detail- and it really deserves more than one rant- is going to the bathroom. I love going to the bathroom b/c it is when I can concentrate the best. I can study there for hours at a time, and the knowledge just flows into me...maybe as the waste leaves my body, I am able to replace it simultaneously with exciting law knowledge...who knows. At work, I sometimes go to the bathroom to take naps, b/c I cannot nap at my desk, as this is deemed "unprofessional". Now that I think about it, taking a nap on the toilet is probably more "unprofessional" but no one is able to see. To make it super-authentic, I even lower the trousers, so I can trick people into thinking I am actually using the bathroom. I am devious. Is this too much information for you people?

Anyway, so u all get the point- I appreciate a good bathroom outing. Sometimes, however, bathroom conditions are far from ideal. This tragic situation occured to me on Wednesday evening of this week. A female companion of mine suggested that we go get Ben and Jerry's ice cream on 104th street in NYC. As a side note, since when is there a Ben and Jerry's on 104th street??? Why was I not notified of this amazing discovery until this week. I am very upset. Anyway, I got chocholate fudge brownie frozen yogurt, b/c Mom has instituted a new rule that I can no longer eat ice cream b/c it is making my romp get fat. I also have to drink diet snapple, diet coke, and skim milk and splenda in my coffee. This won't ever work b/c I still drink beer. Strangely, Mom has not yet passed a rule against beer drinking.

So as you might remember from a post entitled "The Lactose Intolerance", sometimes my stomach reacts unfavorably to the presence of Lactose. I just realized that Lactose is similar to the expensive brand Lacoste. Not sure if there is any other connectionl, other than the fact that I am "Lacoste intolerant" as well, b/c I hate people who wear those shirts. Ironically, however, I myself have some lacoste items, so this may mean that I hate myself. More on this at a therapy session later. The point is that I had to really go to the bathroom, and so I asked the female companion if I can use her facilities. I knew that this was a dangerous proposition, but I was getting hit hard, and I had to do this. I asked her where the spray was as well, and this made us both uncomfortable.

This female has two roomates and they were both home = 3 girls in the apartment that I feared would all stand next to the door and try to listen to me on the toilet. That is why the first thing I did upon arriving in this strange, rose-scented bathroom, was turn on the faucet, shower, take out a set of drums, and make any other noise I can so that they could not hear me actually excreting. I'm pretty sure this plan worked to perfection, but I then encountered 2 more obstacles.

First- I wanted to make sure the bathroom was as clean and pleasent as it was when I entered. This meant that I would have to spend the next 14 minutes cleaning every spot of the room, so that the 3 ladies would never ever remember that I desecrated their bathroom palace. I scrubbed, I poured toilet cleaner in the toilet, and that just turned all the water blue. I also had to spray, which brings me to the second obstacle...

Second- Remember how I asked the female if they had spray? Well, they did, and she even told me that it was in a corner next to the toilet. What she didn't tell me was that said corner was also stocked with female-oriented products known as tampons. Now, I mean stocked...like when elaine wants to stock up on sponges on Seinfeld. I guess these girls get this stuff at Costco or whatever. The point is that I did not plan on sifting through boxes of tampons in order to locate a spray.

I gotta tell you- I was seized with such a mad panic when I didn't see that spray at first. I had no idea what the hell I would have done. Luckily, I found it and sprayed it for 10 minutes straight, before passing out on the floor from the chemicals. I never want to go to a girl bathroom again-its forever marked and etched in my mind as "enemy territory", and I want 2 bathrooms when I am married, and I want mine to have a piano in it, so my musically talented friends can play tunes for me...preferably show tunes, and no jewish music, b/c then I would sing along and i think that is not allowed.

shul seat stealer

2006-06-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

It seems like all I ever write about these days is my time spent in synagogue. I'm not sure what that means. In any event, I will now record a completely true and somewhat disturbing incident that occured right before my very eyes this past shabbos.

I was in western hempstead, and decided to attend the "teen" minyan, b/c the "young adult" minayn did not meet this week. I'm not sure when I'm gonna have to start going to the old adult minyan...i wonder what the cut-off is. I say that under 30, you can still go to young adult minyan, but over 30 you should never be seen there. In addition, if you are bald or have grey hair, you should go to the regular adult minyan. I would make some type of married-rule and say that all married people should go to a regular adult minyan, but it seems that people like to get married as young adults these days, and thus belong in the "young adult" minyan. Then again, if you don't live in west hempstead, you probably don't have any clue what the hell I am talking about and you can just pretend you didn't read this whole paragraph.

Anyway, sometimes there are strange adults that sneak their way into these younger-generation minyans. I'm really not sure what these guys are doing here. The "leader/founder" of the minyan is an older fellow and he belongs. Same goes for parents that are drifting in to hear their kids leign and s like that. U know...to "shep nachas". But there are also alot of parents who come by to spy on their kids and make sure they r in the minyan. Those parents annoy me. I am going to start coming to their minyan and spying on them and make sure they are davening properly and what not. I'm also gonna come to their office and spy on them and make sure they r doing their jobs. But even worse than these parents, are the parents that come to the minyan with their kids and sit with them the entire time. This has to be torture for the kids. I think the whole point of these minyans is to give the kids some freedom and time to develop their own davening feelings and skills. Actually, I have no idea what I'm talking about and I don't really know what the point of these minyans are. If anyone does, please tell me. The point is that the parents that come to the minyans with their kids are annoying to their own children, and more importantly, to me.

And this weekend in particular was dificult. I got up from my seat to tell my friend yoni wiesel what happened in every MLB boxscore that I had read at home. Naturally, on shabbos, no matter how late I wake up, I still go through every box score in the paper 900 times so that I can be even later to shul. Now then, telling all the boxscore details to yoni during torah reading can be quite a long process b/c you can only say them in between aliyahs, and that is a minimal window of time. So I must have been standing next to him for about 2 aliyahs, when I large balding man decided to take my seat. This is bad b/c he clearly saw me sitting there 6 minutes ago, and he clearly saw me standing in the back discussing important baseball pitches, like chris capuano's increasing # of quality starts. It would be one thing (a misdemeanor) if he would have stolen my seat while I went to the bathroom. It is a completely different thing (a felony, for which hot malten lead should be poured down his fat throat) to steal my seat right in front of me. And to top it all off, it was an aisle seat.

The guy spent the rest of davening harrasing his own children and ruining their day. I was angry for a few hours about this, but now I realize that his children probably hate him, so that is enough punishment.

Happy Father's Day you seat stealer.

top 12 list

2006-06-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

I went to synagogue services this past saturday morning, and much to my chagrin or dismay or any other word that you wanna insert here, I realized that I was in for the longest Torah reading of the year - Parshas Nasoh. Don't be a wise ass here and tell me that the double parshos are longer, I am only talking about single parshos. To make matters worse, Parshas Nasoh is really long AND repetetive, b/c it goes through all 12 of the Nesi'im and the gifts they brought to the Tabernacle's Inaguration party. Now, that was a party! In any event, it is very hard to sit through this part of the Torah reading, b/c you cannot really even entertain yourself by reading the english notes in the bottom of the stone chumash. Luckily, however, I am distrubed, and was able to entertain myself by compiling the following top 12 list: And before I present you with this list, I just want to say that i am kind of stealing this from Dave Letterman, and I probably won't make any more lists again, but I figured I should give it a shot, so thanks Mr. Letterman...

"Top 12 Nesi'im":

12) Achirah ben Aeinan, from Naftali: Does anyone know this guy? he seems to constantly slip through the cracks
11) Achiezer ben Amishaday; from Dan: his name is a tounge-twister, knocking him down on the list.
10) Pagiel ben Achran;Asher: Nickname "pag", not very popular
9) Gamliel ben Pidatzur; Menashe: Was Menashe the son that was supposed to get the Bracha, but Yakov switched his hands? I think so.
8) Elishama ben Amihud; Ephraim: Or maybe it was Ephraim...can't really remember.
7) Avidan Ben Gidoni; Binyamin: I associate him with a Professor Giloni I had in YU. Our personalites clashed.
6) Elyasaf Ben Diuel; Gad: Brought one silver plate as part of gift.
5) Shlumeil ben Tzureshaday; Shimon: It's not everyday that one man bring a Par, Ayil, and Keves to the Tabrernacle!!!
4) Nesanel ben Tzuar;Yissacher: His tribe learns alot of Torah, so that is nice.
3) Eliyav ben Cheilon; Zevulun: his tribe supports Yissacher's tribe, so he is the man.
2)Elitzur ben Shdeyur; Reuven: I moved him up to #2 b/c he comes from Reuven and Reuven was the oldest...so why not #1 u ask?B/c...
1) Nachshon ben Aminadav; Yehudah: This was an easy choice. He jumped into the ocean and put his life on the line...Respect.

And I'm done.

wireless distractions

2006-06-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

Did you all have a nice Shavuos? It is also known as Pentacaust, which doesn't sound nearly as nice. The Rabbis also refer to it as Atzeret, and that just confuses me. I think there are 6 other names but they escape me at the moment. Speaking of Pentacaust, I just got my grade back for a class I took called Law and the Holocaust. I got a B; I might have simply gotten a B because my final was a bit on the short side. I simply wrote "The Holocaust was against the law, just like Darfur." (Cr: Abba) (Mom- don't be upset...the professor is an anti-semite) Seriously though, I had a very difficult time paying attention to anything in this class. Perhaps it is because I have heard and been educated about the Holocaust since I was little, so the material in this class seemed very repetetive to me. Or perhaps it is because we have wireless access in the classroom (which I think every school has except for YU) and I have mlb.com, which means I can watch baseball games during class instead of listening to the professor. As a side note, maybe it is great that YU does not yet have wireless because absolutely no one would pay attention in shiur if you could go on espn.com. I had enough problems paying attention as it was, and I had to have this guy kick me whenever I fell asleep. But here is the kicker; sometimes, the "kicker" himself would fall asleep, and this was trouble, b/c Rav H. would just pull me up by the back of my hair. I think this was his way of simply insisting that I get a haircut.

Although Law and the Holocaust seems depressing, I can tell you all one funny story that occured in this class: One time my friend (also Jewish) was watching a game, while the professor was showing us a video on Nurenberg Trials or something. Then his sound suddenly went off, and everyone knew that he was watching a baseball game instead of watching the informative Holocaust video. I found this humerous, but I think I would have been mad if it happened to a non-jew b/c I would have thought that it is insensitive for him/her to watch sports instead of paying attention. Even more insensitive and offensive would be if a guy was on a pro-nazi site during the law and holocaust class. That would not be nice.

codifying the theory

2006-05-31T11:08:00.000-07:00

Upon reviewing my last entry, I realized that I did a poor, if not terrible job, of explaining my theorietical justification for not ever planning on learning how to cook. So here, being that I now work at a law firm, I will attempt to clarify and codify the theory. I'm pretty sure that codify is the wrong word here, but I am enjoying using it.

We will now refer to the theory as "The NON-COOKING JUSTIFICATION THEORY", and it will be stated as follows: "A male is justified in not cooking, nor ever attempting to cook, if he meets the following two qualifications:
1) He must be able to afford to buy food from a professional chef or store.
2) He must not be a better or more skilled cook than said professional chef or store.
First, notice that this theory only applies to male humans. If you are female, this theory will not exempt you from attempting to learn the art that is cooking.
I arrived at this theory based on the rational presented in the previous entry. Once again, that rational stated that we should not cook our own food, just like we are not expected to make our own clothing. Implicit in this logic is the 2 conditions mentioned above - that we can afford to buy our own clothes (and food), and that we cannot do a better job making our own. If we cannot afford it, then we should do it in a cheaper way...i.e-make the food. And similarly, if we can make it better ourselves, we should do that. Otherwise, however, there is simply no excuse.

So for me- i fit into both conditions. 1) I can (thankfully) afford to buy my food, rather than spend time laboring in the kitchen. I hate laboring, but I love labor day, and that is somewhat of a paradox. In any event, I'm not trying to brag here and say that I can afford lavish meals at prime grill every day, but I can afford the empire packages of turkey bologna, chicken bologna, and just plain bologna (pronounced Bah-low-knee). Again, the clothing comparison comes into play here...we buy our clothes, even if not everything we buy is the most expensive of things. We will buy some banana republic, some gap, and some old navy. Sure, I'll have the occasional steak dinner, but I'll also mix in plenty of gross empire deli. And that is no excuse to attempt the art of cooking, unless of course, my cooking would be superior to the gross deli.

All this talk about bologna reminds me of one good Rav Hirsch("Rav H") story from my days in the University of Yeshiva. One time Rav H made us a party in shiur because we had finished something. I can't remember exactly what, but I know it was talmudic. Anyway, there was a plate of pastrami, a plate of corned beef, and a plate of bologna. Obviously, everyone went straight for the first 2 superior meats, and everyone just ignored the plate of bologna. The entire pile was just sitting there, and it was getting Rav H upset. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore, and he gave it to us. "It's a Bizzayon to the bologna!!!" he shouted.
It was indeed.

the cooking disability.

2006-05-30T20:39:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying that I actually wrote this rant on some sheets of paper at my law firm orientation some time last week. I'm not gonna mention the name of the law firm, b/c then it will somehow get back to the head honchos (or regular honchos), and they will find out that instead of paying attention to their interesting words and advice, I was writing a rant about how I have no idea how to cook food and trying to justify this "disability" somehow. They will then go through my desk and find these sheets of paper on which I wrote this very rant, and they will use it against me and fire me for being a bad worker. They will then sell the rant at one of those auctions once I become famous in 31 years.

The reason I wrote this rant was because I was thinking about shabbos last thursday. Don't get the wrong idea folks- this does not mean that I am a super-pious person that thinks about Shabbos all week long or anything of that sort. In fact, we all know (or maybe just a few of us) that the proper time to begin thinking about the Sabbath is during the Shir Shel Yom Prayer of the Wed-ness-day Morning service, and this is the reason we say "L'Chu N'Ranenah". But to be honest, I'm not thinking like that at all, I'm usually thinking somethig to the effect of "Why is davening so long" or "i'd rather be asleep right now". Nevertheless, on thursday- especially late thursday- it is definetly time to start thinking about Shabbos, at least in regards to Shabbos plans.

I decided to go to the Upper West Side ("UWS") to the Steen family. Everyone should visit them as they are a nice group of young men. Now of course, the main issue with this: Meals- what would we do for them, who would cook them, etc. Luckily, everyone else involved basically took care of every type of food item, and I was left buying scotch as a contribution, but only because I felt guilty for not contributing anything else. And this cooking-associated guilt is something I've struggled with for quite some time now. IN Penn, it is the same deal. Everyone- male and female alike - contribute and cook foodstuffs, and I am usually either buying beer, scotch, or paper plates. Sometimes I buy the nicer paper plates, but I still feel like a jerk for eating all the food that everyone else made.

This cooking "disability" has hurt me in other ways, and the most recent example occured a mere 2 weeks ago at home in Western Hempstead. It was just me and Abba for Shabbos, and neither of us were gonna cook anything. Such being the case, Mom provided me with a list of things to buy from Gourmet Glatt so that we can have food to eat. One crucial item on the list was a BBQ chicken - cut into quarters. It all sounded easy enough, but when I got to the counter, the guy told me the BBQ chickens were too hot to be cut right now b/c as he put it
"We only sell fresh chicken". In my head I thought : "This guy is bragging about BBQ chicken...that is bizzare". Anyway, I told him that Mom had insisted on it being cut into quarters and I would not buy it unless that was the case. He finally complied with my annoying pleadings, only to BURN HIS HAND. I wouldn't have ever noticed this, b/c I don't pay attention to the hardship or pain of anyone else but myself, but he made a point of mentioning this to me. Upon handing me my BBQ Chicken, cut into quarters, he stated: "You are a little spoiled Jew, and I am a poor Spaniard. I burnt my hand off cutting your chicken into quarters. I wish you would have cut it yourself, but you have no real skills." I think he went a little over the top here, but the moral of this whole story, is that if I was simply able to cook- this whole awkward type of guilt would be completely avoided.

So why don't I cook, and why won't I ever cook? By the way, this goes for baking, broiling, boiling, grilling, and anything else done in the kitchen as well. One answer for this behavior, as told to me by Abba, is that just like we don't make our own clothes, but rather purchase them from a professional store, the same should be true (or can be true) with our food. Why should we try and cook our own food, when it would taste much better if we leave it to the pros. Now there are many counter-arguments to this line of reasoning, but it works pretty well in my individual case, b/c I would be a terrible cook. I once tried to make eggs, and they just stuck to the pan. Maybe its because i forgot oil or something. So for someone like me, it makes sense to leave cooking to the pros. As a side note, I do know of a woman who makes her own clothes for her family instead of buying them from a store. I do not condone this behavior.

Another thing I hear from people is that girls will like me better, or it would be a great quality to have to know how to cook for the dames I am taking out on dates. I don't like hearing this at all, even if it may be completely true. I don't like to think about what these dates would be like, b/c I associate them with candle-lit dinners, and where am I gonna get candle sticks? Also, do i really want to date a girl who wants me to cook her big plates of spaghetti or pasta or whatever it is you people like to eat? Does anyone want to date this spaghetti-wanting type? NO- none of us do; in fact, we'd probably just want the opposite, for the girls to make us big meals of steaks, and then to cut them for us and feed it into our mouths like Julius Ceaser gets fed from his servants. So what I am really doing by refusing to cook is coming to terms with the truth and being honest about myself and my wants. And honesty is the best policy... or maybe not, being that I am single.

more weird sleeping habits

2006-05-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

When we last spoke, I was discussing how I would much rather be freezing cold and be wrapped in my blankets, then be boiling hot, and have to sleep without any blankets. This got me thinking about all my other strange sleeping habits and I have decided to finally share them with the reading public. Without further ado...
I was never a solid sleeper and that means that I always had trouble going to sleep/staying asleep/sleeping through noise/ etc. I don't know when this problem actually began, but according to reports from my parents, it took them hours to get me to fall asleep as a young baby. I first remember having trouble falling asleep by myself at around age 3 or 4, and I think this problem was closely associated with watching things on TV that I shouldn't be watching. For example, I saw the horror movie "It" when I was 3, and this made me afraid of clowns forever. As a side note, I wouldn't go to parties if there were clowns present. I don't know why every kid insisted on having a clown at their party. I had a magician at my 5 year old party and it was much more enjoyable for everyone, especially when he did this trick on a lady there and got her bra off somehow without removing her shirt. I knew this was inappropriate even at the young age of 5, but I found it humerous. I wish that magician could teach me this trick now, as it could prove to be helpful.

Anyway, so I was afraid of clowns, and I also saw Freddy Krueger # 3 on TV, and that just made my sleeping problems worse. B/c if you know the premise of Freddy Krueger, he is a guy that kills you in your dreams, and so I was always worried that he would come into my dream and kill me! As it turns out, the only people that appear in my dreams are girls I know, and when I try to give them a kiss, they tell me to go away and they run away cackling like witches.

I got over my fear of going to sleep by forcing Abba to lie on the floor next to me every night and tell me stories until i fell asleep. These were very bizzare stories about either Rambo, or Mario and Luigi... but not all three of them together. I will not get into the details of these stories here, as I will save that for another time. Anyway, the problem is that even though I was able to fall asleep with the help of Abba and his interesting stories, I would still wake up about 4 hours later and then I'd be screwed for the rest of my mind, b/c I would talk myself into a state of panic that I will now no longer be able to fall back asleep. I would then think about every small thing I have to do the next day, and worry about how tired I am going to be and how I won't be able to do anything effectively. The weird thing is that I didn't have anything very strenous to do the next day at such a young age. What was I so stressed about? Not being able to build blocks well in nursery bet?

This problem did not go away quickly or easily. Until age 13, I would bring my pillow and blanket into my parents' room (note proper placing of apostrophe), and sleep on the floor for the latter part of the night. This cured me, but if we logically analyze it, it is hard to understand why
If I was concerned with Freddy Krueger killing me in my dream, then I could still have had that dream while sleeping on my parents' floor. And if it was robbers I was concerned with (as i later was), then they could still kill me-no matter what room I was in. Whatever...the point is that it made me feel better and helped me sleep, and that I [ersisted in this behavior until age 13.

Sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes i lie when i write these rants. So the truth is, that this problem actually continues...right now-to my current age of 23. I am on the floor right now and am writing this rant. My parents are bothered by the clicking sound, and the IM noise. Happy Mothers Day.

the air up here

2006-05-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

Last night at around 2 am, I was getting ready for my sleep ritual (which is composed of sleeping), when I encountered my mom walking around the upstairs level of our two story dwelling in west hempstead NY. Now this was strange because only me and my sister live on this floor of the house, and my sister is in Israel right now. So I was a bit startled to hear somebody's footsteps outside my door. It turned out that my Mom was upstairs to turn on the AC. This made me ask myself: Why would my Mom wake up in the middle of the night to come upstairs and turn on the AC...if I wanted it on, I could turn it on, and if not, I could leave it off. The answer to this puzzling riddle turns out to be that Abba likes the the temp. on the warm and cozy side, while Mom likes it on the cold and chilly side. Therefore, with my sister's room available for sleep comfort, Mom decided to go upstairs and crank up the AC, providing for a nice cold climate.

Now this all seems like a bit of craziness, but I do understand it. When I am on my first date with females, I usually like to open up with something like this: So...would u rather be really hot in bed, or really cold? Some more uptight females do not like this question because it has the word "bed" in it, but I think it needs to be asked...especially if you plan on getting married to this person that you are on your first date with. B/c what happens if you get married to a person that likes to be warm/hot, and you are a person that likes to be cold/cold. The answer is that one of you is gonna kill the other one so that you can sleep in comfort. And that is not good.

I'm definetly one of those people that likes to be on the cold side, and not only that, but I cannot even understand those people that are in the hot-camp. If you are cold, you get to wrap yourself in the blanket and pretend you are a little baby again, being wrapped in one of those small towels after you take a bath in the sink. I love that feeling. BUT- if you like to be warm, then when you put the covers on, you will be even MORE warm until you start to sweat, and I don't like that feeling. What is the only way to circumvent this isssue? Remove the blankets? That is a terrible solution. Blankets are an essential part of the sleeping process, and it baffles me that people would rather remove them and remain warm, then wrap themselves in them and be cold.
You people make me sick.

stressful things that shouldn't be stressful

2006-05-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

Many people have been wondering if this rant was dead, and I thought it was, but alas! I have decided to once again post some bizzare, angry, and incoherent thoughts about nothing in particular. ..

There are three things that I am constantly thinking about now that school is out (for summmmahhhh) and work has yet to begin. I am in the midst of what should be a 2 week worry-free vacation, but instead I am torturing myself with constantly thinking about these 3 topics, yet doing very little to handle them.

1) Buying clothes so that I look like a normal human being at work:

A couple weeks ago, the law firm that is employing me sent me a whole letter about which clothes are OK and which clothes are not OK. The firm has a "business casual" dress code, and of course that leaves lots of room for interpretation. Most of the things on this list really only applied to girls- such as no halter tops, or tube tops, or tank tops...or is it tang-tops. Whatever. Does any male actually know the difference between these three similar types of tops? As for things on the list that applied to me, they said that sideburns and facial hair should be kept trim and neat, which practically means that I will spend 282 hours in the mirror trying to make sure that my side burns are aligned perfectly. Of course, who are we kidding here- I'm using an electric shaver, and there will always be that one hair left on the face, and I expect a partner to come up to me and rip it out, and then spit in my face and fire me on the spot.
And what is with this whole business casual dress code anyway...I wish that the "casual" level of doing things also applied to the quality of work we can do. I'll do some crappy job on my first memo and spill some coffee on it, maybe wrinkle up the pages a bit, and hand it in to the partner. He'll say..Great Job Sunny Boy...this is a very casual level of work, It is not excellent, it appears that you just casually did it while looking at boxscores on espn. Great!" In Jewish circles, I would refer to this as the "B'dieved standard of work". It should be implemented immedietly.

2) Moving out of my apt in Philly:
This is a pain in the A. I have some great qualities (at least that is what my Mom tells me), but one of them is not my physical strength. I do sometimes go to a gym and lift 15 pd. weights, but that is about it. Therefore, it might be quite difficult for me to figure out how to move 2 beds, 1 dresser, 1 night table, 1 book shelf, and 1 desk out of my mice-infested craphole. I need to find another person to move this stuff with me, so if any of you out there are interested, I will pay some good cash. Well, probably only 100 bucks. But that might be good cash to some of my poverty stricken readers. Some people have suggested that I just find a man on the street and offer him money to help me move. That suggestion makes me uncomfortable. Do you want to know why? I don't care if you do. The reason is b/c most of the "street folk" in Western Philadelphia are of african american descent. Once I start asking them to move my heavy furniture I will begin to feel much like a slave driver, especially if they start singing ancient african tunes. Now, I would pay them after the task is over, but I would still feel quite racist, and I dont want to feel racist, b/c then I am worried that the african americans will sense that I feel racist and actually label me as one. And then they will surrond me and beat me. This is much the same way I feel when I ask for "dark meat" at the lines in the Hillel in UPENN. The workers are black, and I always try to ask for a "bottom" or a "leg" or a "thigh". But they somehow never understand what I am saying until i am forced to say "DARK MEAT...just like the color of your skin!!!" And then it is just a bad scene man. Trust me.

3)Apartment searching in NYC.
This is an even bigger pain in the A, but I seem to have found a place for a decent price. The furniture situation is a little rough, but I think it will all work out just great! or not. probably not actually. In any event, this apartment searching business has just turned me into an animal of sorts. An apartment hunting animal. To demonstrate the negative impact that this has had on my normally pristine middos... I recently contacted a lady about getting her studio for the summer in the upper west side. She was charging a hefty amount, but it was a good location and i was willing to take it. Then she told me that the reason she is subletting is b/c she is going to the hospital and will probably return by June 3oth. She also said that it could be a longer stay or she could move in with her mother for a bit of time while I stayed in her studio. My response to this was the following:
"Man, I really hope this lady stays in the hospital for a long time, so i could get this studio."
Woe is me! BUt it is not me that is evil, it is the apartment searching game that has turned me into this. Woe is the apartment searching!

the history of pathetic violence

2006-03-05T23:29:00.000-08:00

Right now I am in LA for spring break, and I gotta tell you people - it's nothing like the OC or Beverly Hills 90210 or Melrose Place or any other show that portrays LA as this mystical hedonistic city. So far, all I see are fat women and kosher restraurants, and fat women in kosher restaurants. Basically, it is the five towns with warmer weather, at least where I am staying.

Lucky for you people, this is not the topic of the rant. Also, I am eating "sea salt and vinegar" kettle chips right now, which cost 3.00 at the hotel store. This is b/c my mom made me 4 sandwiches (1 tuna, 1 egg salad, and 2 deli) which I have already eaten. Yes, I am 23 years old and my Mom made me four sandwiches. This means it is time to get married. Additionally, why did my mom put turkey in the deli sandwiches??? Was this her way of trying to send me some type of "health" message and saying that "yes, you can have 2 deli sanwiches, but I'm gonna screw you over and put some turkey in them so that you cannot enjoy it like you would if it was just a juicy plump pure pastrami sandwich? Is this the first ever pastrami/turkey combo sandwich!!! Am I over-analyzing this?

BUt ALAS, this turkey dillema is also not the topic of this rant. Tonight, I have a specific agenda, and that is to discuss my violent past. You see, last Wednesday night I was at my weekly basketball game for subpar-mediocre (At best) Jewish players in the Philadelphia area, and there was a violent outburst from one of the players. There had been bickering all game about fouls and what-not, and finally it culminated with this particular individual "losing his cool". He let out an expletive-laced tirade and also threatened to do physical harm to 2 of my pals. I tried to restrain him for a bit, but quickly realized that I would much rather sit back and enjoy a potentially entertaining physical conflict. Unfortunately, this animal left before any actual physical harm would ensue. The point is that I probably spelled "ensue" wrong. BUt that is not the real point. The point is that it made me think of a timeline of violent incidences that I have been involved with.

1984 or maybe 1985: I was 2 or 3 years old and having a nice play-date with Joe Greene. What do 2/3 year olds do on these "play-dates" by the way? It is probably very boring. I guess I realized this back then, and I decided to take a bite out of poor Joe's stomach, thinking this would bring some excitment to the play-date. Basically, I was worse than Mike Tyson, and Joe didn't see this one coming. I still feel bad about this right now, and I constantly offer Joe to take a bite out of my stomach as a sorta "midah k'neged midah", but he consistently declines. I guess it would be awkward, and slightly gay.

Senior year of high school, 2000: We used to play basketball on Fridays with the Rabbis, and things were always heated, but never went overboard. One time this tall Persian 11th grader started insulting one of my pals. This is a guy that I would always insult and make fun of also, but it's ok, b/c he was my friend. Suddenly, when this 11th grader was doing it, it was no longer OK. I gave him a few warnings to shut his trap, but the insults continued. Then things pushed me over the edge. He started talking trash to the Rabbis and threw an expletive in their direction. That was it for me. I lunged at this taller fellow and scratched his face/ripped his shirt. Note that this is how I decided to fight- "scratching". I am a female. After 43 people separated us, 2 different Rabbis backed me into a corner and screamed at me. One kept saying "STOP IT, DON'T USE SUCH LANGUAGE, STOP FIGHTNG", but the other one curiously said things like " YOU DID THE RIGHT THING!!! STANDING UP FOR YOUR RABBIS! YOU ARE A ZEALOT LIKE PINCHAS!! AND THAT BOY IS ZIMRI." strange.

Summer of 2000: A low moment in my violent history. I had this camper who was slightly "off" and we had a love/hate type relationship. This kid was a big boy and he would often jump on me and get overly aggresive. One time he kept jumping on me and I told him he must stop or I will beat the crap out of him. He then took my kippah and threw it into the pool. Now, this was a damn good Kippah, so I was forced to punch him in the face. His glasses scratched his face, and he laid flat on the floor bleeding. The head counseler of camp's wife saw me punch the kid and told me I was going to be kicked out immedietly. Then the head counselor told me to go back to my bunk, and that was all. I wasn't kicked out and I don't really know why. All I know is that it felt good to knock a kid out like that.

The Lactose Intolerance

2006-02-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

The following story is completely true, only the details have been changed dramatically for comedic effect:

About 2 weeks ago I was on a "date" and I was starving so I decided that we should go out and eat dinner. Notice that I made a unilateral decision here, and it didn't matter to me what the female's opinion was. The bottom line is that I was starving and so therefore we would be eating a meal of some sort. This shows that I am a selfish person who fails to take account of other people's wants, needs, and feelings. Maybe I am being too hard on myself, but I like to pretend that I am a therapist sometimes, and that I am also my own patient. So therefore, if I was acting as "Fades the therapist", I would tell "fades the mental patient" that maybe he is too selfish sometimes. Anyway, we went to look for dinner...

My first choice was Sushi Mitzuyan, but of course I didn't make a reservation or anything. We got there and it was a 45 minute wait, which is longer than I will wait for a meal when I am starving. Compare this , if you will, to the lines you would be willing to wait on at amusement parks. I have definetly waited over an hour for some roller-coasters and water rides, especially the ones where you get to go in a tube with lots of people together; the best is when you are in camp and you go with girls and guys together, and then the tube bounces around and then maybe you can make some incidental contact. Anyway, I think a new rule can be stated here: A reasonable person will wait up to twice the amount of time for a 30 second amusement park ride than he/she will wait for a decent meal. This rule makes sense only if you are starving, but if ure not so hungry maybe you will wait longer for food. Also if you are starving while waiting on the amusement park line you might be forced to leave the line and go get one of those non-kosher turkey legs that everyone walks around eating like sick animals. Or you can just take a bite out of a fat lady's thigh if she is online, but that is only if you are a cannibal.

So getting back to this whole "date", we decided to go to Central perk and eat dairy, which I wasn't too excited about, b/c I love eating meat, and I was looking forward to "sushi mitzuyan" in particular. By the way- does this place get too much credit? I went there two nights ago with a male companion of mine, and this time we made reservations, yet we still had to wait for 20 minutes. As Seinfeld would say "they know how to take the reservations, but not how to hold the reservations" or something like that. Some other problems with sushi mitzuyan include the fact that my male companion ordered some type of weird sushi that had peanuts AND mangos in it! Ok that is maybe the grossest thing I have ever seen. Apparently, we can now pick any 2 or 3 foods and wrap them in seaweed and rice and its gourmet and we'll pay 10 bucks for it. Makes a lot of sense. Umm..what kinda sushi you got there, sir? Oh- this is the pear and jelly and mock-crab roll! (Is it right that there are these fish going around mocking crabs!!) What a true delight! I am a psycho path. So to summarize my criticisms of sushi-mitzuyan : 1) they don't treat the reservations with respect 2) they make gross sushi with peanuts in it. Oh, and 3) they have tables right on top of each other so that you can be sitting next to 2 complete strangers and if they sneeze it can even hit your food. But this can also be good, b/c you can have fake conversations about homosexualityt and heroine with your friend, and watch as the people next to you give you horrified glances. (hey people, you shouldn't be eavsdropping)

Anyway, we ended up eating dairy at Central Perk, and the food there is pretty good. I got mozzeralla stix (same spelling as everyone's favorite pesach treat "potatoe stix") and a tuna melt which was impossible to eat without looking like a gross animal. I gotta say this place makes excellent mozzeralla stix, and the cheese was melted completely in the middle, whereas most other places screw this part up. All in all, it was a pretty pretty pretty good meal.

But almost immedietly after reciting "grace after meals", I regreted my decision to order not 1, but 2 cheese-oriented items. I felt my the angry wrath of my bowels and started walking in a weird manner and making some strange faces. The bottom line is that I really had to go to the bathroom and there was no stopping the ultra-quick fades metabolism. I tried to stop the process but it kept coming back, so I told the dame i was with that "I wasn't feeling too well, and had to go home". The truth is I never even made it home. I made in my pants. No- that is not true, but I did have to go to some fans of the fades rant to use their restroom. I almost did lose control, however, when I got to the house and the dog charged me to smell me for 5 minutes. I was scared and it was a very close call, my friends...verrrrrrry close.

So whats the moral of the story? There obviously is none, b/c this is really just a "mashal". What is the "nimshal"? I represent "am yisroel", and the king in the story represents "Hashem", and the tuna melt is Yerushalyim.

In all seriousness, I am left asking myself "AM I LACTOSE INTOLERANT"? I don't think I am, I think I just ate too much cheese in too fast a time span. I can tolerate lactose, just like America tolerates the Jews. But too much lactose and I will be forced to expunge it. Ok so maybe there is a "nimshal" to this whole thing after all, but I'll let you all figure that out.

the open house

2006-02-19T07:21:00.000-08:00

Is it weird that I still get excited about having an open house? Soon, I am going to drive my parents to the airport, b/c they are going to Israel for a week. I will then have the house to myself for about 24 hours, at which point I will drive back to philly for law school. In my head, I envision a large President's day/weekend bash taking place tonight, with lots of females and booz and people swinging from chandeliers and sliding down banisters and throwing vases and things just getting really out of control. I even have this amazing idea that everyone will wear masks of their favorite presidents, but I'm not sure if you can get a william taft mask, and he is my favorite president b/c he was a fatso. I also enivisioned many people coming over and playing like a president triva game. But Alas...these are mere fantasies- a far cry from reality. How will I really utilize the amazing oppurtunity that is the "open house"? I will most likely watch the NBA all star game, and play video games while eating shabbos leftovers. My biggest form of "open house rebellion" will probably be drinking liquid in a glass without using a coaster! Ahh it feels good justing thinking about this type of sinister behavior.

Does it make any sense that I still look forward to an "open house"? Not really. If I think about it, I have an open house/apartment every day of my life in Philadelphia. So what is it about having an "open house" that still gets me "stoked"? Lets take a trip into my mind and find out...

1) house vs. apartment: it isnt the same at all. Having an open apartment where I can do whatever I want is not nearly as exciting as having a whole house to do what I want in. Lets say i want to run around and scream and bang on a pot with a spatula while wearing underwear on my head, while singing "Chazak" by Avraham Fried. (this is my normal open-house ritual) So if I am in my apt. there are only a very limited of rooms I can run into and do this; basically only the kitchen, den, and my bedroom. I am excluding my roomate's bedroom b/c I don't think he would like it if i ran into his room doing this. But, in my house, I have 3 whole Floors to run around doing this. It makes all the difference.
2) Not mine. what I mean is that the apt is mine, so there is nothing exciting about using it. The house belongs to my parents, so there is some type of intrinsic thrill to getting full possession of it, even if only for a very limited amount of time. Maybe this is what they mean when they talk about the "American dream" and having your own house and all that crap.
3) Living in the past; When I harken back to the days of old and think about the fun times I had, a good number of them occured at an open house. I recall being thrown in a pool with all my clothes on and pretending to laugh about it, when I was really thinking...I am very upset right now. I also recall that I was holding a bottle of wine when this occured. Also, I am talking about one of those makeshift kid-pools that you buy at toys r us. good times all around.

Anyway, there is this famous line in a CSN & Y song that goes "Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now". But in all respect to David Crosby, I would like to be reminded of certain things, and one of those things are the exciting and fun times brought on by the "open house."

the workout routine.

2006-02-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

Many many people (or about 7) have been asking me to update this damn site already. Some people have said things like "Fades, please update the blog...I have nothing to do at work now." My response to you people is to do your work and stop reading this rant. But, for all of thos who are unemployed or still in college, or just refuse to get back to doing your boring jobs, here is a chance to read all about the first ever "ari feder workout routine."

The U of Penn has a gym that is free for undergrads and costs money for people in grad school, such as myself. Last year, I used this as the excuse in my head for never going to the gym. I would tell myself things like "why should I shell out 200 bucks, if the undergrad kids dont have to!" Meanwhile, I would shell out 200 bucks and perhaps much more on dvds, cds, beer, scotch, and other assorted illegal items. But since this "too expensive to go to the gym" excuse was only going on in my head, there was no one to point out the obvious logical flaws.

Anyway, as this year rolled around, and my belly began to expand to record proportions, I decided that even I must admit that I can afford the 200 bucks. So I went to the gym, paid the fee AND... did not step in to the gym for about a month after I had paid. Then I began to realize that no matter what I do, this gym was gonna be charging me the 200 bucks. I could go only 1 time or I could go 1 billion times and it would be the same 200 bucks. So I decided in my head that I better start getting my money's worth and hitting the gym. At first I would just go inside the actual building and walk around for 5 minutes or so. I did this for a few weeks, but only to justify that I had paid the large fee. But the problem with this was that it wasn't helping my belly shrink in size and I wasn't regaining the "six-pack" I once possessed in 8th grade. Actually, if you think about it, in like 6th-8th grade, it seems that all the male children are either really fat, or skinny with six-packs or skeleton-like bodies. There are no avg. kids who have "pot bellies", b/c I guess that comes later when you get married or when you are single and have terrible eating habits. Anyway, I'm not suggesting that some pervert go to a 6th grade class and ask all the boys to take off their shirts, but I am pretty curious about this.

I have to admit that I always looked down upon the people who worked out all the time. In yeshiva in Israel, we had a work out room, and it seems like some people would spend every night in there. I would think to myself that those people are wasting time and they should be learning or something. But now, those people are probably all physically fit, so who is laughing now? Maybe no one is. I never liked that expression, b/c why does someone always have to be laughing?

In terms of selecting the workout routine that is actually perfect for my odd body, this was quite a difficult task. I obviously wanted to flatten out my beer belly, so the first machine I looked towards was the torture chamber thing that you hang upside down on and do sit-ups. Each time you do the sit up your stomach feels like it is about to be torn open. OK- the machine is probably not upside down, but it is on a 90 degree angle or 45 degree angle or some type of angle. By the way, I never knew how to measure angles, and I hated it when they told us to bring those protracters in to class. Did anyone know how to use those things? I just used them to draw big circles, and then I made the circles into people with really big heads. Not much help with angles though.

My next task was to shrink my large expanding buttocks but I do not know of any machine in the gym that is geared to shrink a butt. So instead I try and lift the weights. There are alot of macho men who are lifting these huge weights, so it is a bit embarrasing when I stand next to them and go with the 12.5 weights. Sometimes there are also women next to me who are lifting much heavier weights, and they laugh at me and call me a little weinie. But this is all good for my "anavah" so its ok.

Finally, I like to always finish my workout routines with a run on the treadmill. There is not much to say about this other than I always feel like I am about to collapse at the end of the run. Also one time I got tangled in my own I-pod nano-nano wire while running very fast and almost killed myself while alot of people stared at me like I had just escaped from a mental institution.
But if I really have just escaped from a mental institition would I come straight to a gym to run on a tread-mill? I think not.

The last thing I need to mention about this gym workout routine is that in the mens locker room everyone is naked for a prolonged period of time. I understand that some dudes like to shower there but it seems like they also prolong the nakedness time more than neccessary. Like there is no reason to just stand around naked and take a drink from the water fountain as far as I am concerned. Anyway, I gotta go hit that gym..

The club/bar distinction

2006-01-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

Did I ever tell you all how much I hate "clubs"? Furthermore, have I ever told you all how much I love "bars"? I wonder how many people out there have a similar love/hate distinction for two somewhat similar concepts. But the truth is, clubs and bars are not similar at all and here is why:

Lets begin with clubs, because I don't know if there is anything I hate more besides comedy clubs. And I only hate comedy clubs b/c the comedians there are so dirty and it makes me uncomfortable if there are girls at my table. B/c either way it's weird: If I laugh at the sick jokes the guy is telling, the girls at the table think I am a real pervert, and if I don't laugh I can see that the girls are thinking "Does Ari even get that joke?...probably not, he doesn't understand anything sexually related b/c he is challenged when it comes to physical intimacy issues." I may be reading too much into this, but I really hate the dirty comedians.

Anyway, back to clubs in general- there are so many things about them that get me angry. The first time I went "clubbing" was as a senior in high school, and I remember going with a few friends to Banana Republic to buy "clubbing clothes"...otherwise known as "clothes that make you look like a big homo." Basically, the tighter the shirt, the more club-worthy it is, and unfortanetly, for us guys, the same goes for pants. In addition, you have to get all this hair gel and slick back your hair so that you look as syrian as possible. Truth is, I still do this on Shabbos, so maybe that part of the clubbing ritual is acceptable. But only b/c I do it.

The worst part about the clubbing dress code is that if you try to wear a hat the big bouncer men tell you to remove it. I always go through the same garbage with these guys. I take off my hat at the door when they inevitably ask me to, and then I put it back on as soon as I am back inside. Then, 20 minutes later, another big black guy comes over to me with a flashlight, like he is sherlock holmes or something, and tells me to take off my hat again. This process usually repeats itself 4-5 times, until I am escorted out of the establishment. I guess "clubs" can have the right to set their own dress codes, but it seems a bit unfair to me. If a Jew is wearing a kippah they would not tell him to take it off, so why should I be prohibited from wearing my baseball caps? I bet that if I made a whole big deal about this next time it happened, I could turn it into a big "freedom of religion" constitutional law debate.

The dress code gayness is just the beginning of my clubbing misery. Inside of the club= total disaster. First of all, you got this loud terrible music blasting, so you cannot have a normal conversation with anyone. Either you can try to shout over the music and repeat each sentence you say 6 times, after the person says "What?" over and over again OR you can lean really close to the people and say it in their ear. But that is even more bizzare b/c if it's a guy, you feel like you are dangerously close to licking his ear, and if it's a girl you are paranoid about having bad breath or alcohol or breath which I guess is the same thing. So communication is a major problem.

I guess the reason communication is a problem is because the ikkar of clubbing is to dance, and not to talk. If this was "ballroom dancing" or the cool dancing that they did in "Grease", I would have no objective problem with this type of activity. (Personally, I'm not gonna dance at all ever, but that is not for this public fades rant forum). But, what actually goes on at the "clubs" is the "grinding": 2 people or more rubbing up against eachother like Will Ferrel and Chris Kattan did in Roxbury Brothers skits and amazing movie. For various reasons, I am against this grinding, but my main question for the men out there is what happens if you get "excited" during this activity? Isn't that really awkward for you and the lady? I guess maybe these experienced grinders are so used to this type of thing, that it doesn't excite them at all. I cannot really think of any other possible explanations.

So you can see why I hate clubs. Bars, on the other hand, are everything that clubs aren't. Bars are for groups of friends to go out and communicate with one another while enjoying a moderate amount of alcoholic beverages. At bars you can wear your hat or anything else you want to wear, and no one will tell you to remove it. At bars, there are jukeboxes where you can pick normal good music, or there is good live music. At bars, there is no "grinding", just conversing.
And at sports bars you can even watch sports while enjoying a beverage. And so I think when people say that going to bars and clubs is "not proper" or not "frum" or whatever...a real fine distinction should be made: Clubs = Assur, Bars = patur aval assur. Thank you.

The hearing aid excuse

2006-01-16T16:18:00.000-08:00

To start with, can we all agree that www.thefacebook.com has surpassed www.onlysimchas.com as the number 1 site that modern orthodox jews check over and over again each day for no particularly good reason? Lets face it, everyone in college and grad school has a facebook account, and even the people that we would normally classify as "too cool for facebook" seem to be getting in on the fun. Sure, there are definetly some holdouts left, but its a very small minority. Facebook has become the new waste of time-juggernaut that onlysimchas was for so long. Congrads to a new champion.

Now today I decided to attend afternoon services in my home town of West Hempstead and an odd incident occured. I was participating in the part of "tachanun" where we put our heads down on our forearms, and the guy in front of me leaned back right into my head. I thought that once he felt my head on the seat he would move back up and let me do my "tachanun", but he continued to press back stubbornly into my head. Obviously, I was quite enraged, and when I looked up to see who this character was, I was surprised to see an old man with a hearing aid. Which brings me to the following critical issue? Does the fact that this man has a hearing aid give him the right to have bad manners? As far as I know, having a hearing disability does not effect the sense of "touch", and this man should have been able to feel my head as he rocked back into it for no apparent reason. What about being old...this guy was probably close to 80. Is old age an excuse for this type of behavior? I'm not sure what the answers to these mysterious are, but I let the guy off easy, without any type of verbal diatribe. But the real reason I did this is because I am afraid of altercations, and I knew I could just have a rant about this.

By the way, the putting the head down part of tachanun is no doubt- one of the most fun parts of the services. Did u ever put your head down and see if you can get away with just leaving it there for the rest of the time, and just take a nap? I tried that a few times in high school, and it was very effective. Only problem is on mondays and thursdays when Torah comes out right after, and everyone knows that you just passed out b/c otherwise you would stand up. To simplify and phras this as a new rule: the "secret nap method" is NOT EFFECTIVE on mondays and thursdays.

Some of the other parts of the services which I find to be quite enjoyable/fun include (in no particular order):
1) Modim D'rabanan: Its fun for me to see how much of this I can say out loud without looking at the words...I can never get to the end. I always end up just saying things like "B'rachos V'hodaos al..(make up some words here/or remain completely silent)...Baruch K-el Ha'Hodaos. I wonder if people hear it when I am ad-libbing on the modim D'rabanan?
2) The "Mah Na'aseh" part of Tachanun, when you suddenly are supposed to stand up. This is one of the rare parts of the services where we get to act out how we're supposed to feel when saying the words. Sometimes I like to jump up very suddenly and also hold my hands up. This usually makes others around me uncomfortable, kinda like when people open their hands and hold them out for a prolonged period of time while saying "poseyach es yadecha" during the "ashrei" prayer.
3) The three-step hop during Kedusha. I love this part, it gets me pysched; what can i say...I like jumping and hopping.

For those of my readers who are not Jewish, I guess you can just focus on the central issue of this rant: Should a disability give the person an excuse from bad manners/and proper etiquitte?
Obviously, if the behavior is related to the disability, then the person has an exemption, but this was not the case in the incident that occured to me today. I man with a hearing aid should still apologize or be careful not to shove his entire body into my bowed head. The hearing aid is no excuse.

the hotel life

2006-01-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

I have always been fascinated and slightly obsessed with hotels, and I cannot really explain why. It could be that I just love the idea that I can mess up the room as much as humanly possible, and immedietly after I leave, a person will come and restore it to impeccable cleanliness. The blankets will be folded perfectly, and I will be given new towels, and small shampoos and "bathroom foams". This is noy just regular "cleanliness", this is "impeccable". I am very unsure if I used this word correctly. I also am pretty sure that i spelled it incorrectly.

Anyway, it is for this reason, that I decided to book myself a hotel room in the " Prima Kings Hotel and Casino" located in Jerusalem, Israel. Now, I know what you are thinking...why didn't you just stay in your old yeshiva, which many people consider to be a "hotel" in its own right. Well, there are a few reasons why I didn't, but the main one is that so many people are visiting yeshiva right now, that I probably would have had to sleep on a mattress on a floor. Last time I did that, I got sick from all the dust and foot odor and also because I didn't bring my own blanket and pillow. This meant that I was forced to borrow some old blanket and pillow from someone else and it smelled like a dead old woman. Actually, in reality, it probably smelt completely fine, but whenever I use someone else's blankets/pillows/sheets, I always smell them and force myself into thinking that they have some weird foreign smell attached. Does anyone else do this? Anyway, the end result of all this was that I needed to stay in a real bona-fide hotel. Also, I wanted to be close to ben-yehudah.

So I get to this hotel, and I get my keys, and I go to room 432...and let me tell you something- this room was just as "dead old ladyish" as any room can get. But i wasn't about to go complain b/c i was dead tired and so i just went to sleep. As luck would have it though, I complained the next day to "mom", and she made a couple phone calls and a was moved to room 116. Now room 116- this is what i had envisioned as my dream hotel room. I had a balcony, new furniture, marble stuff in the bathroom, etc. The truth is- it was really the exact same room, but everything was new, whereas in the old room everything was from 1934. So I think that it's interesting to note how much a change in style effects my mindset. What is even more intersting to note is that I could not be a mature adult and get my room changed myself. Instead, I had to place a call to "mom", who was in America, and she had to call my travel agent, who was in Israel, and she had to call the hotel front desk, which was 4 floors lower than my current physical location. It seems that it would have been easier for me to simply go down and switch rooms. But Alas- I am not good at doing things myself.

I think the main thing I learnt from my 12 days in the Kings Hotel and Casino, is that hotel life is not all that its cracked up to be. At least it wasn't at this particular location. First of all, I think that the " please do not disturb/please make up my room" sign was completely ineffective. I hung this thing on my door every night, but housekeeping still knocked on my door starting around 9:30 a.m every morning. Now here is my question: Doesn't knocking on my door every 15 minutes constitute a disturbance? I think the problem is that the Israeli or Arab housekeeping staff could not read english, and therefore could not determine whether my little sign said "do not disturb" or "make up my room". Maybe an argument can be made that they should be able to tell the difference since the words are different, but I can see it being confusing. I know that when I look at arab words they definetly all look the same to me.

Some more problems with the "do not disturb sign", while we are discussing it: It is a demeaning thing to the housekeeping staff and violates their human rights to a certain degree. Its kinda like slavery: Ok- i am in this hotel room, and you are my housekeeping staff- now whichever way I turn this little sign, you will do what it says. If I turn it this way- stay away from me! Do not disturb! And if i turn it the other way- MAke up my room! Fold everything, pick up my dirty clothes, give me new towels, and do not steal any agurot i leave lying around!
Umm...isn't there some more humane to work this system out. I think the hotels should institute some type of policy where you sign up for what half hour you want the cleaning to be done. That way you know when they are coming, and you get the hell out. One additional problem with the whole do not disturb sign is that its misdirected at the wrong audience. Sure, its annoying when the housekeeping knocks on your door, but you know what is an even greater disturbance? Babies and toddlers running through the halls at 7 am. Perhaps, if this occurs, I should be allowed to walk out of my room, and slap the mother of these children across her face with a do not disturb sign. And yes, this did happen, except I didnt go out and slap the mother. Instead, I just rolled around in my giant double bed and yelled "quiet, sheket, quiet, sheket" over and over.

You know what else didn't live up to the hype? The "included free breakfast" that lasts till 10 AM. My first day there, I woke up at 9:52 and panicked as if I was missing an interview or something. I ran down to the dining room without any shoes on, in a wife beater, and my shorts on backwards. Of course, I ran into 43 people I know, and never saw them again the rest of my trip. This was my first and only time attending the breakfast. I first went for some refreshing juice, but then realized there was pulp in it, and spit it out everywhere. I tried this with a few different juices, and finally just had to settle for cold water, which I could have just gotten from my sink. There were many things that made me nauseous at breakfast. Lots of fish, with the heads and the eye...don't know why those were at breakfast. Also, lots of fruit and cheeses that looked old. Also, the eggs were old looking. But, i guess this all makes sense because the breakfast is free, so why should it be appeatizing. In economics they teach us that there is no 'Free lunch" (or in this case "free breakfast") but the truth is there is a free lunch- it will just make you wanna vomit.

I guess, reflecting now, I am complaining a bit too much. The hotel was nice, and the beds were comfy. And nothing at all was stolen from my room at all. And like I said before, the location was great. But the best thing about the hotel was the lesson it taught me: that hotel life is certainly not all that I had hoped for.

the science questions.

2005-12-26T14:08:00.000-08:00

I am sitting at my computer wearing a tuxedo as I type this pre-wedding rant. I am not getting married, but my long time friend Jon M. is marrying a person. Jon M. is a twin, and the person he is marrying is a triplet. Thats some weird wacky stuff. By the way, I refer to my friend simply as Jon M. to protect his identity and to protect him from being associated with this unsavory website. Unsavory is a strange word that always makes me think of one thing: Slimer from the ghostbusters movies. Now then, I am curious as to how often a twin marries a triplet. I am also trying to figure out the biological difference between the two types of twins. All I remember is the following: You can have the kind of twins wear the egg splits, and then you can have the other kind of twins...but what is that other kind? It can't be that the egg doesn't split, b/c wouldn't that be only one child and not two? Furthermore, what happens with triplets and quadruplets and fivelits? Does the egg simply split into 3,4,or 5? That can't be right, b/c I think that would mean that all the kids would be identical and thats kinda freaky. Thats like cloning. If the triplets at this wedding are all identical, I am gonna be nervous and feel like I am partaking in some type of science experiment. I'm sure they are not identical, so this really isn't a concern for me. But if there are siamese twins at the wedding, I'm outta there.
I guess I am a bit paranoid about going to law school in Penn, b/c I see all these other people in med school and science grad school for things I cannot even begin to understand, and they all seem much smarter than I. Like for example, they can probably answer my question about the different types of twins. There are a few other biological/science things that I am fascinated with and maybe some of you science geniuses can answer them for me:
1) whats the difference between meiosis and mitosis? Are they really the same thing, but different elementary school teachers pronounce them differently? Which one do humans do?
2) Who would win in a fight between the "ameba" and the "paramesium"? I mean, the "ameba" has those arm like structures and thats good for grappling, but the paramesium has those hair-like cilia, which probably means they are gross to fight with...so the ameba is probably uncomfortable with the hairy paramesium. One thing is for SURE- I would pay to watch this fight.
3) what would happen if I didnt have an epiglottis? I love the epiglottis b/c its just a simple flap that opens up when I want to eat my food. But lets say there is no epiglottis at all??? Does it matter, or now its just always open? Basically, what I am asking is - can i cut out my own epiglottis?

As a final thought, I am probably the first person ever to have lit hanukah candles in a tuxedo. So mazel tov to me on that accomplishment.

The fat proctor

2005-12-20T21:12:00.000-08:00

Before I begin this disturbing rant, I think it is time for me to tell everyone a joke that I made up on my own. Here goes...Why do the words proctor and proctologist have the same shoresh (root word)? Ready for the answer tp this amazing side-splitting, knee-slapping joke? B/c they are both a pain in the ass!!! ahhh man...where do I come up with this stuff. While I am at it here is one more joke that I thought of while lying in bed between the hours of 4 and 5 am on a random night: Who is the highest paid plumber in the country? The answer - Jake Plumber(plummer)! OK thats it for my jokes, which I have somehow invented on my own. On to the subject at hand...

After the last rant about my study habits and the related distractions, I know that many of you must be thinking and wondering how my finals are going. And if not, I'm going to tell you about them anyway. First of all, I had a final on Sunday morning. There should be some type of universal rule that no tests are allowed to be administered on a Sunday morning. Being that I am a Sabbath observer, the studying was somewhat problematic, and much was left for Saturday evening. On every Saturday night of my entire life, I have not been able to fall asleep before 2:30 AM. Of course, this saturday night proved to be the one exception, and I felt myself drifting away by midnight. I decided to just call it a night, and set my alarm for 6 am, figuring I could just study for 3 hours before the test. This actually ended up working out, but it meant that I had to take the second most depressing walk of my life. Let me make this perfectly clear: there is hardly anything worse than walking in the dark on a sunday morning to a law school library. The one bright spot in this whole thing, was that I saw four Asian adults outside of the Hillel building playing a game of haki-sak. I guess Americans wake up early on Sunday for golf, and Asians wake up early for haki-sak. Very bizzare.

By the way- so whats the most depressing walk of life? About 3 years ago, on a snowy december night, I was at a pal's house fri night, and many other(male and female) acquintences were there as well. It was a real "feast of friends" if you know what I mean. (does anyone know what I mean?, its a jim morrison reference) In any event, I felt kind of ignored and just decided I was going to prove some kind of point and walk out without saying goodbye. About 10 minutes later, one of those snow removing trucks drove by slowly and pelted me in the face with 1 million pieces of salt. At that point, I clearly remember thinking - this is really really bad. I am alone, its cold, its past 1 am, and I just got pelted with salt in the face. Then I made a joke to myself about Lot's wife, and I felt better.

Today I had another final, and there are so many things that got me angry before the test even started. For one thing, the school has all these different proctors and I dont know where they get these people from. I knew I wasn't going to do well today the moment our particular proctor walked in. It was (gasp) the FAT PROCTOR. I am scared of obese women, I'm not going to lie to you. In the Maryland Hillel, there is this scary lady who will not allow any alcholic beverages inside, even on Simchas Torah, and even just for kiddush club. I call her a "fun-ruiner" or "fatso". I don't think "fatso" should be a deragotory term at all, for the record. When I think of a "fatso", I think of a bunch of people yelling out in utter joy "Heyyyy.....fatso is here!!! Beers for everyone!!!!". But maybe an actual fat person would disagree with me on this. In any event, feel free to call me fatso. I like it. Back to fat proctor- whenever I have this lady as my proctor, I do not do well on the tests. She is a bad luck charm for me, and maybe its just because I am terrified of her.

To make matters worse, we take all these finals via some high tech computerized thing, which requires a password to access. I don't know who gets to choose the passwords, but I think its the proctors or some other group of individuals who are trying to annoy me. The passwords chosen are always completely not what one would expect. Appropriate passwords for a law school final would be "hell", "nightmare", "pain in the ass", and "torture." Instead we get these passwords like "sunny", "flowers", and today's special - "Jolly". I guess this was only fitting, b/c most fat people are supposed to be jolly, so fat proctor probably picked it. Of course she then had to make an obvious and annoying joke -something to the effect of "i'm sure all you students are feeling jolly." Ok lady. Thats enough out of you. Please have another poundcake and shut up.

I know I sound bitter and upset, but I should note that one last thing happened before this final to put me in a great, upbeat, positive mood. There is a slight possibility that there are people in the class who have a better work ethic than I do. And it is similarly possible that they are much more prepared for the exams. In particular, there is one individual I know, who is constantly working and preparing for finals. So there is nothing that brings me more joy than watching this person's computer break a minute before the final. What happened buddy? Didn't prepare for that one, did ya? Thats a shame.

I had a big smile on my face after seeing computer disaster befall my peer. This shows that I am a sick individual who enjoys the misfortune of others. But not real or significant misfortune. Just minor things, like computer crashes, and i guess a woman's obesity. Thats Ok, isn't it? And just to prove that I'm not a bad guy - here are two other good other blogs to check out.
www.majorleagueidiot.blogspot.com
www.minksgarbagedump.blogspot com

I gotta study now for 2 more finals, and I will do fine as long as I avoid the fat proctor.

the study distractions

2005-12-13T11:31:00.000-08:00

Yes Oh Yes. Its that happy time of year once again. Of course, I am referring to finals! I always found it to be painfully ironic that "Fall Semester Finals" come at the same time as the "holiday season." It seems that the rest of the country is constantly buying presents, decorating trees and houses, and going to special concerts and shows---while students are locking themselves in libraries and pulling all nighters over and over again. Something about this dichotomy strikes me as quite unfair. Nevertheless, I guess at the end of the day, we students will be able to cash in on all these long hours, and enjoy our holiday season with the rest of America. Nevertheless, it sure is bad right now.

Actually, I remember when I spent 3 years and 6 semesters in YU, that all the secular schools had finals, while we just did nothing at all. I would laugh as I read all these people's away messages that said things like "FINALLLS OMG!!!" or "3 down, 1 to go" and other gay things like that. Then I would wonder why I was taking up a significan portion of my day reading other away messages. Then I would get depressed. In any event, YU decided to start finals later than everyone else in the world so that they could give us a "reading week." Its very unclear what the purpose of this week was. Its very bizzare that the one school that does not need to give extra preparation time for study, gives an entire week. I know that in law school, we aren't getting any such "reading week", and I sure could use one right about now. Which brings me to my next point - all the distractions that I am battling today.

Mom- I know you want me to study hard and do well, and even I must admit- I also want to do well. So I knew that this day was going to be a non-stop study marathon. I have planned a strategic break at 6:30-10 to play basketball and fulfill everyone's favorite halachah of "U'shmartem es nafshoseychem". Other activities that can fulfill this Halachah include: 12 hours of sleep (b/c u need your sleep), watching a few hours of tv (mental health break), and not smoking. That was a fun list, except for the non-smoking part. Anyway, I decided that I would study in the "Graduate Student Lounge" in the Hillel. This is where I have been studying for the past few weeks, and the room has proven to be quite the study-conducive enviRONment. Besides having desks, wireless, and comfy chairs, there are also couches for me to pass out on when I cannot take this anymore.

But today just isn't going the way I planned. It seems that everytime I get a nice flow going, some weird distraction thwarts my efforts. I've only been here for about 5 and a half hours, and I have already encountered the following weird s:
1) Angry black janitor: My encounter with this fellow started after shacharis when someone asked me the date, and I said the 14th. The janitor yelled out: NO- its the 13th!, and then glared at me. It might be his birthday or he might just hate me b/c i am a small white man. Later on, I was eating an everything bagel and lox spread (tradition..1 person gets that) when I was treated to a lecture from this man about not eating in this room, and cleaning up after myself. For the remainder of the day, the janitor has hovered around menacingly outside the room and has mouthed obsenities at me.
2) Girls studying near me: Impossible to focus b/c get stuck staring at the attractive or even the semi-attractive ones. Seems like studying environment somehow lowers standards and suddenly I find 900 pd. girls to be very beatiful. Also, whenever I put my head back in my books and highlight away, I always keep thinking "maybe the girl is looking at me right now...I gotta look cool here with my highlighter...cool, yet dilligent...maybe if i tilt my cap a little...maybe if i pretend the highlighter is a cigarette and smoke it...wait, girls don't think smoking is cool...crap, did she see me use the highlighter as a fake cigarette?
I really wish I was making the above "thought process" up, but I promise it occured earlier today. I need to check into a mental hospital.
3) The most inconsiderate lady ever and her nerdy little kid: You won't even believe me if i told you what is going on right now. Earlier, at around 10:34 a.m, some nerdy looking lady and her clone-kid walked in here so that the kid can watch the t.v. (oh yeah, there is a t.v in here also, which might be why I like this room-seriously, i should just live here). Anyway, the T.V was thankfully locked, so they went away. But they returned with another lady who opened up the cabinet and the kid has been here watching T.V. ever since. Was I studying in here before your damn little kid wanted to watch t.v???? The lady did not even glance in my direction, she just threw the kid on a chair and he has been here ever since. Am i invisible? To make matters worse there appears to be a "Steve Harvey Show" marathon on right now, and for some reason a nerdy little jewish kid has picked this as the thing he wants to watch. How am I supposed to study tax law when the amazing Steve Harvey show is on???

The moral of the story is to study in the library where none of this can happen. And thats where I'm going right now. Actually, there are still girls to stare at there. F, I gotta get one of those booths where all you can do is stare at the wall. I gotta go, another great show, the Drew Carey Show is coming on.

Double Shot Zeicher, new washing rule, and exotic salads.

2005-12-05T10:23:00.000-08:00

In my last rant, I discussed my saturday night activities, and included a brief examination of what I called "The Saturday Night Dillema". This was not the first time I have discussed Saturday Night in detail, as you may recall an early rant entitled "An Introspective One....Sorry". Anyway, it occured to me recently that I have yet to discuss Friday Night- and that hardly seems fair. After all, Friday Night is the holy Sabbath, and definetly deserves its own rant....

I guess back in the good ole days of my teenage years, fri night was a pretty simple formula. You go to shul, you go home and eat with your family, and you lie on the couch and read a book untill you pass out. After I went to Israel for the year, the formula remained almost the same. Now, the book or Sports Illustrated was replaced with a sefer, and the time until I passed out was reduced significantly. The only time I really veered from this formula was if I would visit my friends in their respective secular universities. But now, here I am- spending some time at one of these universities my self. And the truth is, the Friday nights here are not like they are at home, and they are not like they were when I visitied my pals in Binghamton, Maryland, Rutgers, etc. They are simply very very awkward.

I need not look further than this past friday night to prove my point. Usually what happens during the week, is that you get invited to someone's house for meals. I have already made up my mind to no longer accept lunch invitations. If you are reading this, and you go to Penn, do not invite me for lunch. On a short sabbath, these lunches signal the immediete end of all possible nap time. I would much rather get a normal nap and eat a challah roll by myself, then eat a large meal and not get to sleep at all. Anyway, for Friday night- this problem does not exist, and I found myself going out for one of these large meals as usual.

One problem with these meals is that they create burdens before they even begin. Like you will get the invitation to the meal, but then you will get a list two days later of things you are supposed to bring. Luckily, this time I was simply instructed to get a "Handle of Vodka", which I felt was a perfectly reasonable request. But sometimes these requests can be out of control. In fact, the whole idea of asking people to bring things to your meal seems a little bizzare and twisted. On the other hand, its kinda unfair to make the host buy/make every single thing at a student meal of 20 people. Therefore, the solution should be a guest-initiated offer to bring things. The guests should always ask, what can I make to help out? or what can I buy for you? Or how many handles of vodka do you want? You get the idea.

But the much larger problem is the awkwardness that can occur at these meals, and I guess at Friday night meals in general. Last week, we had some guy make kiddush (which was already a plus, b/c it coulda been a girl..thats happened before- and I always end up trying to stop myself from cracking up and just making an odd constapated face). Still, this guy decided he needed to make a nice fancy tune, and also for some reason which I will NEVER fully understand said "Zeicher, and then in a weird high note- ZEICHER, Masaey Breishis". Umm. Last time I checked there is only one "zeicher" there buddy. Thats a double word infraction. I know your not supposed to do that in davening, which is why some people have the annoying minhag during Hallel of singing "Mey'atahhh v'addd olam....Na Naay Nayy Naayyy Nayyy Nayyyy....Hallelllukah". Actually, in that case, I think its better just to repeat the words again, b/c I think the Nay Nayiiiing just bothers G-d. But i don't actually know that for a fact. Nevertheless, this guy's double Zeicher dip really annoyed me- and that I do know for a fact.

And then came the endless procession to the washing sink. As my friend Joe astutely pointed out, "you can't be polite after you wash". (Unless its Urchatz at the seder). This was incredibly awkward at this meal, b/c a girl host lady was handing us paper towels, but we couldn't say thank you when we ripped them out of her talons. Also, when we were trying to get by our seat, we couldn't say excuse me when shoving the people out of the way. Luckily though, I have a great solution for this problem. Everyone knows about that rule that says something like you can talk after you wash as long as your asking for the salt. So, in order to be polite...why not just try adding a salt request to the end of your polite thank you's and excuse me's. Something like this: "Thank you for the salt towel". Or "Please move in your salt chair so i can get by." Works like a charm.

And then the meal starts. And inevitably you are a guinee pig, forced to eat all types of bizzare salads b/c no girl will simply make a plain salad. Please just give me a bowl of lettuce. And cabbage. And tomatoes- but only the thinly sliced ones from the middle of the tomatoe. I don't like the ends at all, b/c of that black dot at the end. Also some thinly sliced cucumbers would be good if i can't see the seeds. Thats all I ask. I don't know why everyone feels the need to come up with the craziest salads of all time. First of all, its more work for you-the makers of the salad. Second of all- me-the eater of the salad- wants to know what I am eating. I don't want the unpleasant surprise of finding a strawberry in my salad, and then having to spit it into my napkin when nobody is looking, only to find out later that the most attractive girl (obviously sitting at the other end of the table) actually saw me spit the food into the napkin.

Thats about it. The meal then goes for 5 or 6 hours and you feel like you are in prison. Only in prison you can get a much simpler salad. I just realized thats a pun. Ok. Goodbye for now.

Saturday Night's allright for anything

2005-11-15T10:31:00.000-08:00

This rant may be a bit more rantier than the usual ones, b/c I really am just gonna go through how I spent my last Saturday night, which was probably as abnormal and random as saturday nights can get. But before I get to that, I just want to express my anger concerning a recent purchase I just made. I just bought a "case" and "car adopter" for my i-pod nano-nano, which cost a combined 38.36 american dollars. I just want to say that this is getting absurd. If one purchases one of these I-pods, one should not need to pay any additional money for it to function at its highest level. The 250 bucks should already ensure that the screen won't get scratched and that it will play in my purple ford taurus. Its gonna get outta hand soon....I can imagine the following scenario in my head:

You cannot eat that bagel while listening to your I-pod, You need to now purchase a special I-pod bagel. It cost 343 dollars. And no, that bagel does not come pre-sliced. You need to buy an extra I-pod bagel slicer for 23 dollars. And special I-pod cream cheese also. You get the point.

Back to Saturday night. My friend "knolly", tells me about a gathering in NYC for someone I don't know. This immedietly placed me in the typical "saturday night dillemma". Stay home and most probably engage in halachically muttar activity (b'tul z'man aside), or go out and potentially engage in non-muttar halachic activity. I consulted "Mom" on this issue, and she advised me "not to be a loser, and get the hell out of the house". So, knowing that I was fulfilling Kivud av v'eim, or maybe just Kivud eim, (which is easier to fulfill, which is why Av is put before Eim- not b/c men are better or anything, so if any femanist idiot tries to tell u that, punch them) I consulted a train schedule and was on my way. I also was accompanied by two other characters named "chief" and "romper", and we made a collective decision to attain food items before bording the LIRR party train. We got pizza and fries to go, and made the train w/ time to spare. This is all boring.

Now, u will notice that I referred to the train as the "LIRR party train", and I do not give u any guzmah here. If you go on the train on a saturday night towards NYC, everyone on the train will be drinking an alcoholic beverage. Most people will have this drink called "Olde English", which is for the lower class masses. Of course, since my parents, teachers, and rebeiim probably read this thing, me and my pals did not buy 24 oz beers at the exon station in west hempstead. We also did not bring some scotch in a water bottle with small l'chaim glasses. None of that happened. Good. Anyway, that being said the following weird incidences occured throughout the evening:

1) Slick Italian train car incident: We were stuck in a car with what seemed like 12 greasy Italian guys drinking the "Old E". I was too afraid to speak during the train ride, but I did listen to everything they said. Inevitably, the Jew slurring came, although I'm not quite sure this really qualifies as an anti-semetic comment:
"Hey, maybe i should get a falafel, with a side of babaganush, and MENAKEM SHNEERSON"
Umm...how the heck did these guys come up with that one??? I still don't know if I actually heard them say that. Very strange remark.
2) Super expensive Chinatown convenience store with upstairs seating area: Not sure if this was really in chinatown, but on our way to the gathering we saw a lot of chinese writing on all the stores. Since 1 or all 4 of us had to urinate, we decided to stop into one, and lo and behold- there was a whole seating area upstairs. We realized that we can just buy some non-alcoholic beverages here and sit upstairs and enjoy them. We also realized that we needed a key to the bathroom. Luckily, the Chinese guy gave it to us, but he also charged 5 times the normal price for a beverage. I think its b/c he knew we would make a copy of the key down the block, so that we could use it anytime we want in the future. That would be awesome....even if someone is in there, u can simply open the door and explain to him that this is your bathroom. Anyway, we stayed upstairs in this place for about an hour b/c we lost track of time and we are idiots.

3) Homeless or just maybe really drunk Asian guy in penn station: I have skipped the details of the gathering I attended b/c they do not concern the public. For details, you can consult my newest blog - "CheshbonHanefesh.blogspot.com". Anyway, we are sitting around penn station waiting for a 4 am train, when we see this asian guy sitting against a pole, and repeatedly screaming the same phrase over and over and over.
"Nice POakkk" Or maybe it was "Nice work" Or maybe it was "Nice Pork". Very unclear. A few observations here. Firstly, if you are really drunk or homeless or both, would u want to repeat the same meaningless phrase over and over. I know that when I talk to myself, I always like to change phrases to keep myself on my toes. I also change voices. Secondly, has anyone ever ever seen a homeless asian person? The answer is obviously no. Why is this? Maybe b/c every Asian person who makes it to America is presumably talented enough to have a profession. Maybe the homeless Asians are in Asia. I dont know.

Oh yeah..finally- to top this whole night off we see the same Scary Italian group waiting for the train at 4 am. I asked them how "Menakem Shneerson" tastes. They were puzzled, and luckily no punches were thrown. Just another saturday night of randomness.

A healthy addiction?

2005-11-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

Now that my mourning period for rosa parks has ended, I can get back to concentrating on writing these rants. One thing that I have been thinking about alot lately is: Am I obsessed with sports to the point that it has now become unhealthy? For example, today I got home from class and I really had to go to the bathroom. I also realized that I had mysteriously forgotten to take out the garbage from the night before, and the entire apartment smelled like it. I also had to clean the George Eric Foreman Grill that I had used, and that also takes alot of time b/c you have to scrape off all the dried out burnt meat. I was also really hungry. To summarize, I had alot of important things to do. Also, the above list of things should show why I might want to consider the option of marriage. Anyway, the real point here is that I did not do any of the above things b/c I had to sit on the couch and watch SportsCenter. And I told myself I would only watch the first few minutes, but an hour later, and I really really had to pee. This is not the only recent example I have of this type of behavior. Let me tell you about my Sunday. I am not making this up or using any "guzma". If anyone knew what "guzma" was, extra points for you.
Anyway, on Sunday I woke up to attend minyan, and then took the oft-quoted "post minyan nap". I then woke up and proceeded to go straight to the television for a day of football. When football ended, so did my day, I pased out on the couch till monday.

Its not just watching and following sports on the internet. Its also the "fantasy sports", which I have been involved with since age 8 or so. I'm not gonna use this rant as a place to explain to my female readers what "fantasy sports" means. Just know that if your husband/bf/etc. has never been involved with them he is either very orthodox or gay or both. I guess I should also apologize to my female readers for devoting an entire rant to the topic of sports. Although, some of you may follow it, lets face it- its probably a select few. To make it up to you, I will try to devote my next rant to a more female oriented topic- such as knitting.

Is this sports-related behavior unique to me? Definetly not. Anyone who has been to an NFL game knows how this thing is a religion to many people in this country. But I do think that the whole sports fascination does occupy a unique place for Orthodox Jews. Think about your highschool class- was there any guys in the class that were not into sports - either through playing them or following them or both? There were a few, but they were either the computer geek kids that liked star wars, or the really big crackheads. Even the regular, averege-crackheads were still into playing sports. And go to your local teen/young adult/young couples minyan on shabbos, and every single guy will be talking either fantasy or real sports. The reason for this might be b/c alot of other pleasureable things are off limits to us growing up. And of course, we just wanted to be normal and fit in with the rest of this culture, but how could we do that? Mcdonalds? No. Sex at a young age? No. Sports. You better believe it. As I always say "fantasy sports is the only kinda fantasizing that is muttar"

Now I was never one to really play that many sports. I was on the tennis team, but we only played like 5 games in 3 years, and I don't think anyone actually came to see them, so basically I can be making this all up. I was also on the chess team, but even espn2 doesn't ever show chess, so I don't think it qualifies. The one time I was really consistently involved in sports was "little league". Although I cannot remember everything from those days as clearly as I wish I could, I do know that these were some of the greatest times. There were only a few bad parts to the whole little league experience. 1) Parents who came to game and yelled at their own kids and at umpires. (usually from five towns teams). These parents should be shot or arrested. I distinctly remember seeing a kid get screamed at by his own father and feeling so bad for this kid. I remember thinking "this is why kids do drugs." It turned out I was wrong, and that kids do drugs for a wide variety of other reasons which are beyond the scope of this rant. 2) Coaches who dressed in the little league uniform. This was strange. When the father/coach orders all the uniforms is it weird when he asks: "And also, do u make those in adult sizes? Oh you do? wonderful- I'll have one that says "coach on the back." These people always just looked silly.

Other than that, little league was a great time, and it just infused me with a love for baseball, and perhaps sports in general. My father, thank g-d, did not try and wear a tight uniform to the games. Even more importantly, he did not ever come close to yelling at me or any umpire or kid. He just sat in a lawn chair and enjoyed the whole experience. And it didn't matter if we won or lost-, b/c after every away game, he would take us to ice-cream. Sports was fun then and its fun now. Its a diversion from the real world, and I think we definetly need it. But beyond that, it creates bonds and memorable moments, whether its watching the Yankees crumble to the Sox, or remembering when your friends won the basketball title in 10th grade, or going to ice cream with your Dad after embarrasing little league loses. So my conclusion, dear readers, is that sports is a healthy diversion after all. Enjoy it.

penalty box meltdown

2005-10-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

This is one of the few times that I am going to rant solely out of boredom. Usually, I have a specific idea swerling around my averege sized head, and i use the rant to develop it and make it even weirder. But this time, its Saturday night, and I am doing absolutely nothing, so what better time then to write a bizzare rant that will entertain millions (and millions) of fadermaniacs out there. Ok getting carried away to fantasy land again.

Its not exactly true that I am doing absolutely nothing. "Mom" got me this new Ipod Nano, which is perfect for me, b/c its remarkably small as compared to other Ipods, and my hands are remarkably small as compared with other human hands. So proportionally, the ipod nano looks perfectly normal in my small and cute hand. Another point I must make about this device is that whenever i say the name, i can't just say "nano", but am forced to say "Nano-Nano" - like that guy from Mork and Mindy. I guess the guy was mork, b/c it wasn't mindy. So, I mean- like Mork, from Mork and Mindy. Anyway, I have spent the night downloading songs from my cd collection onto my computer, and then onto the ipod nano-nano. One person told me that I can just do my "work" while i download the cds, and just change them when I am ready. But of course, I just sit and watch each song download and then look up the lyrics, and read them, and think of weird stuff, and dont do any work. Great. Additionally, this was the first time that I could go through every CD I own, and I found some real weird stuff here. I got a CD "Deep Blue Something", which I must have bought just for that "Breakfast at Tiffany's song" which still reminds me of this girl i liked in 8th grade, for a reason I'll never fully understand. I also found an "Everclear" CD (yes, i admit to this) and a Yehudah! CD. Only one Jewish singer deserves an exclamation point, and his name is Shwecky. Sit down Yehudah.

I was in my hometown for the sabbath, and it made me remember why I like this place so much. I'm not talking about seeing my family and friends...thats a give-in. I'm talking about the strange moments that will inevitably occur when partaking in the service in the YIWH. Allow me to elaborate. I usually go to the "young adults" minyan which starts at 9 am. This means that my target time for arrival is 9:20, as per the "comfortable lateness" rule. However, I had an "aufruf" this Shabbos, so i was forced to go to the "main minyan" with all the older adults, which starts at 8:45. As per the rule, I should have arrived promptly at 9:05, but I arrived at 9:20 anyway. I know what you're thinking: "Where is your commitment to G-d, Fades?" Actually, I don't know if anyone was thinking that. Whatever. The point is that I suffered some great consequences for this lateness.

You see, in the main shul, there is a section in the back with a machitzah which was originally intended for handicapped women who cannot go upstairs to the true women's section. But for some reason, this section is only used for that purpose on the high holidays. Does this mean that handicapped women only come to shul on these days? What about handicapped men? Unclear. Either way, on regular shabbosim, the "penalty box" as we like to call it, is occupied by 1) young people afraid to sit with other older fatter people 2) late people 3)strange people 4) talkers. Note that I fit into all 4 of these categories, so I was a sure-fire candidate for a davening in the penalty box. But today, the penalty box produced a truly interesting incident. The Rabbi was giving the speech, and all was silent. Even the "talkers" become "sleepers" during the speech. Its a magical transformation! Anyway, this time, the dude in front of me starts snoring really loud. I mean, this was like a snore from a gorilla or something. What made the whole thing even more crazy was that a black hat guy had just sat in the penalty box, b/c he wanted to hear the speech, and had probably davened at 5 am or something pious like that. And the second, literally, this black hat guy sits down, the other guy starts snoring. Meanwhile, you got me and 3 other clowns in the back cracking up beyond belief. And we are trying to disguise the laughing so that it sounds like coughing or sneezing. There is no great end to this story. The Rabbi, and the other congregants managed to ignore the commotion from the penalty box. Maybe they just thought collectively "Nothing normal ever happens in the penalty box anyway." For that matter, Nothing normal ever happens in west hempstead anyway either.

Later on, there was a kiddush, and some girl I was talking to was eating salad of the "ceaser" variety. Now I love a good bowl of lettuce anyday, especially if it has the ceaser stuff on it. This time however, the girl asks me if I want the rest. I must have said something like "I love that salad, give it to me" to prompt her to make this offer. Anyway, now I am standing here with a plate of salad, which begs two important questions: 1- Was i supposed to accept that offer and eat her leftover salad? B/c she was kinda surprised when I just grabbed the plate and began to eat. 2- Is it socially acceptable for a young single male to be seen at a "fleishik" kiddush, and be only eating salad. Should my sexuality be called into question based on the facts i have just presented to you. Keep in mind that I also have seen "The Notebook" more than once, and one of those times I was by myself. thats it for tonight. GN

the tipping point

2005-10-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

I'd like to commence this rant by wishing a very happy Chol Ha'moed Sukkas to my YU modern orthodox readers, a Gut Moyed to my more Yeshivish readers, a Happy Chol Ha'moed Sukkot to my readers in secular colleges who try to pronounce everything with a fake Israeli accent, and a Happy Tabernacles to my unaffiliated readers. Hope I covered everyone with that.

I always love the Intermediate days of the long holidays, b/c of the unclear Halachic implications that accompany them. I have heard everything from "you cannot do any work at all on Chol Hamoed", to "you can do absolutely everything on chol ha'moed." I think the truth is somewhere in between. All I know is that a lot of really frum people like to go to the zoo now, and that I should be writing this rant with a "shinuy". I guess the only way I can really do that is by typing with my left hand. There is a guy in my class in law school who only has 1 arm, so I wonder how he would approach this shinuy problem. Maybe he would try to type with the stump part of the cut off arm, but maybe he gets immunity from this halachah b/c of his disability. It might be a moot point b/c I dont think he is Jewish, but its fun to think about if your deranged. As a side point, I would like to add that I bet this guy had no problem getting a job at any law firm. I can see the conversation in the hiring commitee's office going something like this:
"Lets see, this guy has 1 arm. Umm. Frank...How many one armed attorneys do we currently have in the office? OH, zero? Really...thats not good for our statistics. Lets give this guy the job so we can say we have a one armed guy working here".

I know the previous discussion made me sound insincere and callous, but I am merely attempting to point out some of the inherent advantages that can come up for someone with one arm. I definetly still feel sympathetic for this individual and his disability.

Switching gears now, I was on one of my famous east coast trips this past weekend. This time the destination was Baltimore MD. On my way back, I saw the little red/orange (color blind with that kinda stuff) gas tank sign light up, and realized that I probably only had anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 hours of driving time left. Naturally, I continued to check the light evey 3 seconds, started to panic, and eventually pulled into a "full service" gas station in Delaware. I had no idea what i was in for.

Out rushes a nice young caucasion with a badly shaped mustache, and he apologizes for being late. My thoughts included: "Late for what?" ; "is this guy going to murder me"; and "I feel bad for this guy." Anyway, I tell him i want 20 bucks regular, b/c for some reason i only put in 20 bucks every time. Not sure what the reason of this fades minhag is. And while this is going on, the young buckaroo immedietly begins washing my car so that its completley spick and span. (can i say that? Hispanic and span? terrible) Anyway, my windshield is completely clear now, and its like a whole new amazing driving experience. But the problem is that I only payed the guy the 20 bucks and I felt like I should have given him 21 bucks, but didnt have any singles. I saw a tear roll down his cheek as i handed him the 20, and I quickly stepped on the pedal, leaving him there in the dust.

This all just gets me thinking now...I dont understand how this society has decided who gets tips and who doesnt. The top tip-getters are: 1)waiter 2)Barber/haircutter person 3) Parking garage dude, but which one? The one in the booth, the one that gets car, both? Whatever. I was talking to my cousin about this pressing issue, and he said that maybe the tip is based on going beyond the "letter of the law." From now on , this will be referred to as the "Middas Chasidus Tipping theory". But, in practicality, i dont see this theory working out. We tip our waiters for simply bringing the food, and I dont know how they can make that into a "middas Chasidus", unless they give u a massage or they are one of those awesome waiters that always fill your cups up with water the second it gets empty. Actually, thats the bus boy or other dude that does that, so really he should get the tip. Strange. And as for the barber and parking garage guy- they dont do anything beyond simply doing their job!

Therefore, I would like to suggest another possible theory called the "Control theory of tipping". The three groups I have discussed above all have immense control over important things in our lives. The waiter can poison our food, the barber can cut off our head, and the parking man can crash our car. (Important caveat - has anyone EVER seen a woman working in a parking garage). B/c we are so worried about these things, and we are so thankful when they are performed without harm, we feel the need to give a little something extra in gratitude. The only hole in this theory is the hypothetical case of a doctor performing surgery. Lets say Aunt Ethel's triple bypass goes well, and all the ventricles and aortas are good to go. Shouldn't she give the Doctor 5 bucks or something, as a sign of ultimate gratitude for not killing her??? But thats what makes this a great theory - all great theories have some holes.

I dont know why I think of things like this. Happy Sukkos.

repentance rant...unclear how to spell repentence

2005-10-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

This is it everyone, its the 10 days of repentance...a time when I really believe that everyone has at least a minute of introspective thought cross through their head. Sometimes it can be even more, depending on who u r. Whatever...thats for everyone's own personal stuff, not for now.

I'll tell you what I like about Rosh Hashana, and you can agree or disagree. First of all, I am hesitant to even write this, b/c I am afraid that it will be mis-conceived or taken to be a mocking of the Holiday. Thats the last thing I intend to do here; rather I intend to present an honest and possibly humourous approach to my personal experience with the High Holy Days. Hopefully, you all can relate to some of the stuff I say.

Lets start with one thing I dislike - the fact that the secular name is called "High Holy Days", which enables all these different organizations to put out pamphlets and posters w/ slogans like "Its time to get High---spiritually" or something to that effect. I view that as a real lame slogan, and its annoying that these people think I'll be more interested in going to their speeches b/c I can now try and associate them with marajuana. If the speech is about Teshuvah then tell me its a speech about that. And if its about smoking pot, then tell me its a speech about that. But dont mix them together and tell me I'm gonna get high when I go to a shiur.

But even more annoying then these type of slogans, is the raisans in the challah. Is everyone with me on this one??? Challah is such a great treat, especially now that they have breakaway, and you can pretend u are a rugged caveman and tear it apart piece by piece. And its an even more special tasty treat during this season, when we get to dip it in the honey. Its the second best tasting food-bite for bite- right behind a glazed krispy kreme donut. But its so terrible when this entire experience is ruined by the presence of raisens which are hidden throghout the challah. Raisens look like bugs, and I don't want to eat anything that resembles a bug. And b/c they like to hide deep in the challah, sometimes you don't even have warning that you are about to bite into one. That is the worst feeling ever...if you are enjoying your challah and then there is suddenly an ant-like raisen in your mouth, and you are forced to vomit at the table.

Enough negativity. One great thing about this time is the tiered system of forgiveness/new years wishes you get before the holiday. Now there are a few tiers here, so stay with me closely. Top tier is a personal meeting before the holiday, but this is difficult and uncommon, due to logistics and busy-ness before the holiday. Second tier is really solid - and its the phonecall. If someone calls you to say the wishes and forgiveness thing, it probably means they r very sincere about it. They know they will have to talk to you or your voicemail, and they are willing to do that. This means they cannot be generic and say the same thing to everyone, or else they will sound robotic and foolish. Third tier is the text message, and also deserves some credit...b/c its annoying to type out the message, b/c each button can either be capital, lower case, or a #, and sometimes u have to switch to make the sentence correct. A good way to assess the sincerity of the text message is a 3-prong test. Part 1- length: if its longer its probably more meaningful. Part 2- punctuation: did the person capitalize at the beginning of sentences, and use commas and periods. No dangling modifiers! I dont know what that means. Part 3- individuality- does the text message seem like its directed towards you, or could it be one general text message that the person sent out to everyone on their phone. hmm.. gets you thinking. Anyway, the last tier is the IM, but it still deserves credit, b/c it does mean the person is making an effort to say happy new year and beg for your forgiveness. But something has to be the last tier, and IM takes it.

I also like the tunes used in shul, and sometimes i sing them to myself at random points during the year. I mean like at 3 am on a saturday night or something.

Actually, now that i think about it, maybe the last tier is asking forgiveness on your blog: So if I have hurt or offended anyone by doing anything, I really apologize. I wish everyone a great year filled with only good. I'm choked up.

-[name redacted so that it stops appearing in google searches]

bears

2005-09-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

This will be very short. I just want to know why everyone has those bears with them when they get engaged. If you don't know what I mean, you can check many engagement pages on www.onlysimchas.com, and you will find pictures of many couples with an imaginary "bear couple", often dressed in a nice tuxedo and wedding gown. I want to know who started this bizarre wedding bear thing, is it connected to "Vermont teady bear". I also want to know if bears take pictures with an imaginary human couple when the bears get married. Maybe its only the jewish bears. Finally, I would also like to know if perhaps the purpose of these bears is to create a buffer between the couple so that they don't have to touch during pictures. If this is the reason, they should really bring the bears with them everywhere untill they are married. It is my opinion that the bears look stupid, especially in a tuxedo and wedding gown, and that there has to be a better "buffer" for shomer nagiah purposes. Perhaps giant flowers, or even regular sized flowers....thats it for me now.

drive rant

2005-09-25T06:35:00.001-07:00

Something I find myself doing alot these days is the super fun activity known as "driving." As some of you may know, I am actually a professional driver, and have spent parts of the last two summers using my skillz (with a "z" like the ballers say it) at Camp Hasc - where my major responsibilities included getting iced cofee at dunkin donuts, mingling with the locals at ace hardware, and picking up beer and cigarettes for lots of people. Needless to say, it took a real professional to handle these types of difficult tasks. But alas, it seems that my professional driving days have come to a close, and most of my driving is now of the personal nature. I spend so much time on the road these days, that its only fair that I honor my driving with its very own deranged rant....

What do i drive? I drive a car that makes men want to be me, and makes women want to be with me in that very car. I drive a 2002 Purpley (that color is used in the movie "Elf" so its a real color) Ford Taurus which I purchased on the website service known as Ebay. This is not a joke. 2 summers ago I was driving my 1985 Volvo back from Washington Heights with 2 of my associates named Mr. Koegel and Mr. Knoll. Just a side note on this 1985 Volvo- it was my first car, and it had something called a "Turbo" feature thing going on. I have no idea what this thing was supposed to do, but when you drove over 40, something would suddenly click and my head would be jolted to the back of the seat, and I felt like I was going back to the future. And a little light would say "turbo". Cool stuff. Again, girls were very excited to ride in this bad boy. Anyway, as we were driving home, we realized in the following order that:
1) the car had somehow began to flood with water
2) there was black smoke coming out of the hood
3) my playstation 2 was in the car
4) we should get out quickly

To make a very long story short, the car was on fire, we got out, and more importantly - playstation 2 emerged unscathed. The only victim of the fire was a pearl jam concert cd which I was able to replace. The point of this emotional tale is to explain what brought me to the unfortunate position of bidding for a Ford Taurus on ebay. Anyway, when I actually won the bid, I think me and my father , who will now simply be known as "Abba", both had a very similar reaction of: "Oh no, didn't really expect to get the car." So now I have it, and goes with me on all my drives.

Where do i drive? I usually go from Long Island to Philadelphia, and sometimes I do that trip in reverse. Its a great drive b/c most of it is on the NJ Turnpike, where you have lots of fun rest stops to go to. A rest stop is a real nice slice of this great country we call "America" and you get to see that whole melting pot idea at its finest. At any rest stop you can find black people, poor white people, people from the country of asia, 3 or 4 wealthy people, and a chasidic guy. Also, I once ran into my very own set of Grandparents at one of these rest stops. Definetly one of the top 5 "this has to be a dream" moments of my life. But it was great, b/c I got to see them, and got 20 bucks as well. Its important now that I rank my favorite rest stops so that everyone knows which are the best when they are out on the road.
1) "John Fenwick" Service Area: Who the hell is this guy? How did he get one named after him?
2) "Vince Lombardi" Service Area: Football. respect.
3) Walt Whitman Gay Service Area: Poetry and being gay. They usually go together. respect.
4) Clara Barton Service Area: Had to put a woman on list to appease the female readers
5) Richard Stockton Service Area: Father of John Stockton, did a good job in parenting.

The perceptive reader will note that there are already 2 lists of 5 things in this rant.

What do i listen to on the drives? I listen to everything and get to hear all kinds of bizzare shows and commercials. I also listen to the traffic and call in on the jam hotline. Usually the guy will say, "ok judah...where r you, where is the jam?" I'll say "there is no jam pete. I'm just lonely and I need someone to talk to." Pete will then hang up. Sad yet humorous.

On my most recent trip, I heard a very bizzare advertisement. It was for the most amazing gift ever, to really let someone know that you love them. What is this gift? (Drumrollllllllll)
YOU CAN NAME A STAR AFTER THEM. Ummm. excuse me? Thats not a good gift at all. Thats like something you would do for a dead person if you aren't rich enough to name a building after them. Its ok. I named a star after you. Thats very meaningful. Also, who exactly is in charge of naming the stars, and where can I see what all the names are? Is it hard to get names now, b/c all the good names are already taken, like on IM? Lets say I want to tell my girlfriend I love her, so I call up and ask to name a star "Clifford" after her. Will they turn me down and make me change it to "Clifford2". I don't think a girl would be too happy with that at all. Neither would a dead relative.

Be safe on the road.

of mice and non-men

2005-09-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

As 3 or more of you may know, I am in the process of interviewing with 5 billion different law firms. These firms each send down a person to philty-delphia, and they proceed to interview 25 people or so in one day. I would go into detail about this grueling process, but I don't think anyone would want to hear about it. In any event, one question that most of these fascinating individuals ask me is "why are your hands so small"? But not really. One question they really do ask is "Why do you want to work at our law firm"? The true answer is that you pay 125,000 dollars in the first year, and we are willing to sell our soul for that price. But you can't answer the truth, so you have to say something about the work being intellectually stimulating and exciting, and the atmosphere being enjoyable or something. In any event, my true answer does involve the money, but there is alot more to it. My true answer to these people involves our furry little friends called "mice."

Its sat night, around 2 am and I am alone in my apartment, b/c my roomate has traveled to new york. I hear them running in the ceiling but I pretend I don't. Instead, I just make the tv louder and louder, and turn on lots of fans, and blast the AC, and hire a marching band to play in my room. Anything to drown out the very uncomfortable sound of scurrying mice above my head in my crappy drop ceiling. As time ticks on, I realize that I am very hungry and thirsty, and could really use a short trip to the kitchen area. But this is not going to happen, b/c I have seen a mouse in there recently, and am worried about seeing it now, by myself. Usually, when my roomate is around, and one of us wants to make a trip to the kitchen we call the other one for "backup". We then both creep very slowly into the kitchen, and one of us usually holds a broom. It is unclear what we would do if a mouse actually zipped across us at this point. I think I would jump into his arms, while he swings the broom wildly, and we both yell together. I'm not sure how this would solve the problem, but i sure as hell will not enter that kitchen without him. Not at 2 am.

My fear of the creatures did not begin here in the U of Penn. My life has been checkered with some disturbing mice-related incidents, starting at around age 10 or so. I was playing in the basement on a sunday morning, with my legos, and my sister was down there also- i think she was watching wee sing in sillyville. By the way, wee sing in sillyville is one of the most enjoyable movies ever made. Anyway, all of a sudden I hear my mom yell out "you son of a bitch, you bastard, and some other choice obsenities. I assumed that a burgler or robber (not sure what the difference between these 2 are...is it the same as between a "ganav" and a "gazlan". For 5 points can anyone tell me which is considered worse, and why? tough stuff) had broken into the house, and I immedietly grabbed my sister and ran into a closet. Now, had this really been a human intruder, this would not have been the wisest of responses. Instead, a better response would have been to dial 911. Anwyay, it turned out that this was a rodent intruder, and my mom was simply much more brave than me, and she was trying to catch the creature while yelling curses at it.

In terms of my choosing to write the words "bitch" in the previous paragraph, instead of b--ch, I can easily rely on the "It really just means female dog rule." I love this rule, but I also love the "my rabbi once said it, so i can also" rule. Unfortunately, i cannot remember any of my rebeim ever saying the word bitch, so I have to rely on the first rule. I did, however once have a rabbi say "i didn't come here to get flucked by you kids!!" So i guess i can say fluck. In any event, I am wondering who decided that bitch actually means a female dog. Also, according to this rule, I should be able to say the "f" word, and the "s" word, b/c they both have alternative meanings which are just normal words. Whatever, just something to think about.

Mice incident #2 occured in the magic world of disney, on a ride called "Honey I shrunk the kids". This is one of those 3d rides which scare the hell out of everyone, but everyone pretends they like it. Anyway, they really go too far in this particular ride. At one point you see mice on the screen, and the next thing you know, they make it feel like they are crawling under your feet. This was the second most terrifying moment of my life (right behind my car igniting on fire while i was in it), and I felt like that dude in 1984 who has the cage of the mice put around his head so they can gnaw at his face. Disturbing s.

There are some other mice sightings later on, such as numerous times in camp hillel, but i am not going to go into all of them. The point of all this is to understand that I have been plagued by these damn things for quite some time now, and I shouldn't have to live in fear of them any more. Yet somehow, i am 22, in law school , and I cant walk into my own kitchen without my roomate as "backup".

And that is why I wanna work at your stupid law firm. I need all those dollars so I can make sure that I have a house in which I never have to see or hear mice. Never.

awake from my slumber

2005-09-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

Just like all great tv shows, this rant had a long summer break. But Alas! the time has come for a brand new season of the fades rant; one which promises to be much more disturbing. The wait is finally over, now lets begin....

One of my famous quotes is "Happy is the man who experiences the post-minyan nap, for he is both spiritually and physically satisfied". I am not going to launch into a discourse on the deep meaning of this well known adage (i just wanted to use that word- "adage", and its unclear if I even used it correctly), but it is important as a basis and foundation for the rest of this particular rant. You see, I am especially fond of my post minyan naps, and they are known to sometimes last untill 2 or 3 pm. It goes without saying that I will not tolerate any disturbances during this slumber period.

SO you can understand how I felt when a person I will simply refer to as "Mom" decided to break into my bedroom, and violently shake me from my deep and comfortable sleep. Now this is not the first time "Mom" has made efforts to stop me from enjoying a restful day. I will direct the reader to last summer, almost exactly one year ago, when I returned home for a few days before moving down to the school of lawyering. I was enjoying a nap, when I awoke with a painful sensation in my right arm. I immedietly started yelling in a frantic panic - "My Armmmmm, My armmmm, it fellll offff!! Call the ambulence man!" I then realized that no one was in the house, except for my hispanic cleaning woman, and she had no idea what i was saying. As a side point, I simultaneously realized this is probably a violation of yichud.

Anyway, it turned out that "mom" had planted a bee hive in my window, so that if i ever tried to take a nap, I would immedietly be stung. This begs the question- Why is "mom" so against my taking a 6 hour nap during a weekday. Indeed, I have heard many other youths complaining about similar occurences. And the answer, my friends, is that the parental units cannot stand to see us have what they so desperately want. Remember that they work hard every day, and seeing someone nap all day will drive them into a fit of violent anger and jealousy. Also rememberthat many of you will soon have to live their lives, or already do-so be sure to take advantage of every post minyan nap experience you can get.

In any event, the point is that "mom" had awoken me yet again, and for a truly bizzare purpose. "Mom" carefully explained to me that me and my sister would be going to JC Penny to take a family photo. At first I thought that this must have been some type of joke or dream, but it was not to be. I was instructed to get out of bed, shower, shave, put on some "slacks" and a clean shirt, and report to the family vehicle in 45 minutes. When we arrived at JC Penny, I quickly realized the awkwardness of my current situation. It seems that every single Long Island woman and her small child had decided to take pictures in the basement of JC Penny today.

Is this what women do when they have small kids? Hmm.... what should we do today?? I know! Lets go to the basement of JC Penny and have an odd looking fellow take pictures of us! They even have props there! You can pretend your driving a car! Or play with giant blocks or a giant ball that is bigger than your head!! Strange.

The wait at JC Penny was about 2 hours long, so we quickly went to the mall directory and found (amazingly) that there were 3 other places that did this same thing. The first one we tried had just as many women with kids, and was a long haul. The second one we went to was called "Glamour shots" and it really creeped me out. This place apparently speacilizes in dressing you up, and making you look "cool" , and then taking pictures of the "cool" you. First of all, you cannot make someone look cool by spiking their hair and putting make up on them. All the pictures they showed in the front of the store just made the kids look strangely gothic. Secondly, the concept of a stranger dressing me up and then taking pictures of me, made me frightened, and I literally had to run from the store.

Eventually, we got the picture taken by a man who clearly had no idea what he was doing. But it came out fine, and now it will sit on the parentals desks, and in the living room, and in their wallets. So it was worth it- even at the cost of the most treasured post-minyan nap.

closing thoughts.

2005-05-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end" or something like that.

You all remember the overplayed song during our highschool years, right? Hopefully you do. Anyway, it happens to be that the song is very simple, yet very true. Here I am, on the eve of my departure to Israel, which can certainly be considered a new beginning to some extent. Yet it really stems from the ending of my first year of law school. I would not have gotten a job in Israel if I had not seen the flyer posted in the halls of my law school. And I would not have had the desire to stay in Yeshiva for the upcoming weeks untill shavuos, if not for my spending a year in a spiritually void environment such as PennLaw. Therefore, I can go so far as to say, that if not for spending my first year in PennLaw, I would not be going to Israel for the next couple of months. SO the year of law school was really all for the best as it has led me back to Israel, both to learn and to work. We call this line of thinking "Hashkacha Pratis", and it is a cornerstone of our faith.

As you may have realized, I have begun to write less and less on this blog. This will now be the last post for a good while, and perhaps the last one ever. Therefore, I simply want to write what I feel- for better or for worse... b/c that is how this whole thing got started. I just wanted to write how i feel, and try to communicate that to others. I hoped that it would help them and make them laugh and smile, but the main purpose of this blog was just to get my thoughts onto paper. So that is how its going to end.

22 years old, trying to cling onto your religious beliefs, and single, is not the easiest place for a person to be mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. What are the lessons that we can all learn from this? First of all, anyone who is still in college should learn to enjoy every single day they are living. Once you leave, you have officially entered the "real world", and as much as you may try and run away or ignore it, its gonna be there waiting for you. You will need to find a job, or bust ur butt in gradschool or something. Its not pretty- this concept of finally growing up, especially if you just love being a clown like I do. But it happens, and it happens fast, and its a struggle. What gets you through it is two things: friends and family. So look around you and be thankful for your friends, and know that you can call them at any time and cry on their shoulder and tell them every little thing that bothers you. And look at your family, and give them a hug, and don't be afraid to look them in the eye and say I LOVE YOU. No one can get through life alone, thats why we have friends and family.

Another huge lesson is just to be happy, and not let little things get you down. I can't tell you how many times I have been a victim of this one, and I am definetly still working on it. Anyone who has spent a summer in HASC knows this lesson and probably no longer struggles with it. I can honestly tell you that last summer in HASC was the happiest I have ever been in my life. Why is that? Were things so good for me socially? Absolutely not. Was it b/c I got paid tons of money to do nothing? No, although that certainly helped. I was the happiest man on earth b/c every morning I got to wake up and walk to minyan, and just hug the campers. And thats all they wanted. They just want a hug or a pat on the back or something so simple. And then they just smile, b/c you showed them love and you showed them care. And i just loved that, it just made me so happy. And when a kid falls in the dining room and is crying but at the same time he says "Gam zuu l'tova", that also just made me so happy. And at Eicha, when I saw an adult camper sobbing at the words of the Megillah, even though he had no idea of what it meant, that also just made me so happy. B/c it was simple, and it was beatiful, and it showed that every jew really does have a Neshomah, and I had seen living proof of that. A nerdy highschool teacher of mine used to say "simplicity is beauty and beauty is truth". Never knew why he kept saying that or what it meant, untill last summer. So learn to appreciate the little things. Learn to appreciate your health and a hug and a smile. It will make you so happy.

Last lesson is to take advantage of the oppurtunites we are given. This really can cover anything at all. If you are given a chance with a girl, don't make a stupid mistake that can ruin it. If you are given a chance to learn in Yeshiva for a few weeks, you go and take it. You dont think about it b/c there is nothing to think about. And certainly, if you are given a chance to work in Israel, you take it. Everyone likes to talk about how they want to move to Israel. For some people, its a condition before going on a first date. For me, its a dream, and I have no idea how to make it a reality. But trying to work there for part of the summer is definetly a start. This was not an easy decision. Its not easy to live alone in America, and may even be more difficult in Israel. But its the chance of a lifetime. We are all going to be given these types of chances in different aspects of our lives. Are we going to take them or just keep on walking?

I want to thank my friends and others who really got me through the dreaded first year of law school. I want to thank my family for everything, I'd be screwed without them. I Love you all. I want to get on that plane to Israel and see everyone at the airport. We will all get on our flights and arrive safely. We will all land and go to the Kotel and it will be a really big social scene, but no one will care. On the guys side, there will be a huge circle, like nothing we have ever seen. There will be chareidim, and chilonin, and soldiers, and rich americans from the 5towns, and baalei teshuvah types, and carlebach people, and we will all be dancing. We wont get tired of it, and we wont get hungry, and we wont ever need to stop. That is my dream. Thanks for listening.

Just a day at the ballgame

2005-05-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

First of all, I gotta be honest with you people. I have had writer's block for awhile now, and I probably still have it, but since school is over for me (lasted 4 months), I should probably at least take a few minutes to provide everyone with something entertaining to read. So, I will do my best...

Today is a great day for people who live in Washington Heights or Spain, b/c it is "Cinco D'Mayo". I believe that this day commemorates some obscure battle in which the Spaniards beat the French somewhere. Its really a great day to live in a Spanish neighborhood like the Heights because all the people are drunk and roaming the streets, and selling lots of "trinkets" and old clothing. Now that I think about it, thats really everyday in the Heights, once the weather turns somewhat nice. And its not just the Heights; I really really believe that every person starts to get a little wacky once the weather turns somewhat nice. Older female teachers in elementary school used to call this "spring fever", but its really just that people are happy that its not freezing cold. Either way, to me that is the symbolic meaning of "Cinco D'Mayo". Its the day that ushers in thelaid back atmoshphere that always accompanies the spring and summer.

And yet, for Jews, we must contrast this with Sefirah, symbolically a time of mourning. Then again, I guess this is only a contrast today, and only if you are of spanish descent. Still, it is very difficult to feel any sense of mourning b/c of the nice weather and various other reasons. Sefirah means no shaving, but that doesnt bother me b/c I look like a rugged mountain climber or spelunker. (carmen sandiago reference). Sefira means no music, but I changed that to mean no LIVE music, so i am unaffected by that halacha as well. Additionally, there are so many exceptions to the shaving thing, s/a dating, job, interview, meeting, shabbos. Basically, there is probably one day that you cant shave before Lag B'omer. Also, Sefirah becomes somewhat fun for me in light of the counting madness that occurs. Only March Madness is more exciting then seeing how long I can stay alive in the count. Whats even more fun is the "hinting" to other people of what day we are up to by saying "last night was so and so". I always want to give them a little wink when I say it, but since I cant really wink, i usually just say "wink, wink". Its pretty awkward for everyone after that.

Anyway, b/c it is Cinco D'Mayo, I went to a Mets game. For those of you who don't know, the Mets are the greatest collection of Spanish men, since the Conquistadors. It was a great day, with good tailgaiting in a parking lot that we didnt pay for, good seats that we didnt pay for, and a Mets victory over my hometown phillies. In the back of my mind, I kept wondering if I should be celebrating Cinco D'Mayo at a ballgame, during Sefirah. But then I saw a few shidduch dates, and I knew it was ok to go to the game, at least for "tachlis". On a small sidetrack, there is a kiss cam at Shea which shows "couples" in the crowd and urges them to kiss. The entire crowd roots them on, and its usually an older couple and its kind of sweet, although I feel mildly gay for just writing that. (if there is such a thing as "mildly" gay.) ANYWAY, a couple nights ago, a friend and former chavrusah of mine who is single and very handsome, told me that they showed a shidduch date on the kiss cam. Somehow, despite the entire crowd booing them, they managed not to engage in the kissing motion. Would I have been able to resist this insane amount of peer pressure? NO. Would the girl have slapped me right after? YES. This guy who was able to resist is a tzadik. I salute him.

But i digress. At the end of the day I returned to my car to find that someone had decorated it with bbq sauce. This is indeed a new and unique form of anti-semitism/vandalism. Maybe this was G-d's way of telling me that I should not be celebrating with the Spaniards so much, but probably not. G-d's way of telling me that will probably be an eternal feeling of regret and despair in Gehhennom. But it was all for the best, b/c it forced me to get a carwash, which I had never done for my new car. And if this RANT wasnt so long , I would tell you all about the carwash. I guess I'm outta the writers block. Good luck to everyone with finals, and happy cinco d'mayo.

Just because its been awhile...

2005-04-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

I promised myself I would not RANT during finals, and as usual I will now break that promise. I just finished my first of 4 finals, which was a "24 hour takeaway exam" according to the lashon used by the law school people. I have never experienced a test of this nature, and hope not to experience it ever again. They give u 24 hours, which made me feel compelled to spend all 24 hours working on this test. Furthermore, there was a word limit of 3,000 words, which meant that I spent the majority of my time trying to cut out things I already wrote in the first 6 hours. Now, in all seriousness I did not spend 24 hours on this test, but I bet there were some overly-efficient Asian students that may have. Consequently, their were work is probably superior to mine and they will grab the few A's and A - 's that are available as part of this unfair bell curve. This all means that I, who spent about 8 hours on this - which is what a normal person would do- , will most probably thrown into the B category. If anyone understood that entire discussion, good job.

So what else did I do during this 24 hour period of exam-fun? Well, I did what every 22 year old introspective person would have done...thought about deep life issues. The first of these issues is how school is going to completely ruin my Pesach. Forget the fact that I will have to read this crap during the holiday. More important is that my "simchas Yomtov" will be completely destroyed. How am I supposed to enjoy time with my family and friends when I have two finals hanging over my head? Yes, life is tough indeed. I
It was quite the polar opposite scenario last Pesach. I was a guy with no worries, and was down in Florida for a little vacation. This now leads to an inevitable discussion of Florida on Pesach. Is there something inherently wrong with spending Pesach, the symbolic holiday of our redemption from exile, in Florida? I think the answer is no, but you still have to wonder about many many people deciding to spend their money and take their families to the beaches of Miami, rather than taking their children to kiss the Kotel in Jerusalem. Can one go to Miami on Pesach and still make it a spiritually uplifting experience? The answer is probably yes, but it also probably requires a much higher degree of effort. Lets be honest right now. The majority of us go down there, and love the "scene". Some of us will speak openly about how we hate the "scene" but our actions do not validate our words. Some of us will comfortably label ourselves as "religious", but then make our Pesach holiday about what color shirt to wear at the Eden Rock. Thats not freedom, thats exile. Thats not L'shana habah B'yerushalayim. Thats L'shana Habah B'eden Rock...with nicer pants from Banana Republic. And if anyone feels upset by what I just wrote, I am talking to myself here, so dont take it so personally.

So this year I did something that I never thought I would ever have the will power to do. I had my flight to Florida booked and ready to go. I was only going to be down there for the last 3 days, but hey "thats plenty of time to show my face, and make my presence known." 3 days is plenty of time to run into people, pretend you dont see them, and then run into them over and over again. But this time I broke the pattern. This time I called up the airline, cancelled my ticket, and payed the cancellation fee. This year I realized that spending my Pesach in Florida, as carefree as it may have been, will not help me yearn for our people's redemption. If anything, it will make me feel comfortable with the way things are. This year I decided I wanted to feel Pesach.

wedding notes

2005-04-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

As far as I know there were at least 3 jewish weddings in the tri-state area this past sunday, which means that 78% of all Jews over age 20 were at one of these events. As for me, I was at Marina Del Ray, and I would like to extend a Mazel Tov to Yoni and Kiss. Here are some observations and thoughts from my day at a wedding.

Walking down the aisle: I knew this would give me some difficulty. First, I wasn't sure how fake to make the smile. I knew I couldnt walk down without any smile at all, but on the other hand, I knew I shouldn't smile like a moron either from ear to ear. So I tried to come up with some type of half smile, but that also looked ridiculus. Additionally, I was unsure at what speed to walk down the aisle. Eventually, I realized that it was completely pointless to think about this b/c it was completely dependant on what song was played while I walked down. Of course, no one told me what song would be played, and I dont even remember what actually was played, but I think it was one of the various "Ani Maamins". By the way, how come almost all the Ani Maamin songs are written to that one Ani Maamin. Why not make some of the songs go with some of the other ones, allowing for greater lyrical variety?
Another thing I failed to realize is that I would be walking down with a friend of mine (smith), and would have to somehow walk in-step with him. This reminded me of olden times, when girls used to try and lock arms and walk with me. To be honest, this happened at most 3 times in my life. I hated it if a girl would try to do this b/c it always made me paranoid about my height, and I felt like as we were walking the girl was getting taller and taller, and I was shrinking. I'm not sure why walking arm and arm led to these feelings. Anyway, to solve this aisle-walking problem we came up with a brilliant solution; we would simply hold hands while we walk down. I guess this offended some people, as it suggested that we were homosexuals,(not that there's anything wrong with it) but I really don't see the problem with it. It was a showing of unity and solidarity, and most importantly - friendship. If guys kiss eachother at a wedding, why can't they hold hands while walking down an aisle? Is my logic sound here? Point out the logical flaws in this argument for 5 points.

Dressing room: Being a groomsman or usher or whatever you call it, allowed me to go "behind the scenes" of the wedding for the first time. I got to see the dressing room, which I envisioned would be a nice private area for me to study my chiseled body for hours in the mirror. Instead, I walked into a community dressing room...and was awkwardly cornered between two middle aged men while we all tried to change. Not fun for anyone.

Bathroom: I'm very confused about what I saw in the bathroom at this wedding. You had one of these guys sitting on a chair by the door, so I immedietly thought it was one of these bathroom attendant dudes, who i absolutely hate. Its a "lose-lose" situation with these guys. Either you gotta tip them for doing nothing, and to make matters worse you usually don't have any small bills at these events. OR, you can avoid the tip by not washing your hands, and quickly rushing outta there. Some may choose the non-washing option for a #1, but everyone will agree that you gotta wash for #2. The smartest idea is therefore to wash your hands at the water fountain. Also, I wonder if there are these attendant types in the female bathrooms. Are these attendants female, or do they put male attendants in the female bathrooms? I can't imagine they do, but I also can't imagine a female bathroom attendant.
Anyway, in this case, the guy was just sitting on a chair, and was not offering us towels or soap or cologne or potpurri to sprinkle on us like magic dust...so I am not sure at all what he was doing there. He may have just been a tired guy with diahreaa who was camped out in the bathroom. Thats enough for now. Mazel Tov to all the newlyweds.

2000 anniversary special

2005-03-29T17:35:00.000-08:00

If you look at the little counter on the bottom of this website, you will see that it reads some # above 2000. I have to say, that I never expected that this website would attract this many readers and would last this long. Like most things I have done in life, I figured it would last for about 3 weeks. But somehow, I keep going, and you guys keep reading, and the feedback I get is great. I want to thank everyone who reads this, and I would like to reward you right now with a very personal story.

Nothing is more fun for people, then when something completely embarrassing happens to someone, and everyone else can laugh at them. So I will now discuss the single most embarrasing moment of my life, and you can all laugh at my expense. Again, I wont do this often, but you all deserve this...

It was a time of simplicity and innocence for us in the first grade in HANC. It was before the desks were seperated and we still got to sit at co-ed tables in the class, and you could whisper things to the people around you and hope that the teacher didnt hear. This was considered to be living on the edge. I would pass the time by picking my nose, and trying to do it so that none of the girls at my table would see me. In this regard, not much has changed. I had a set of teachers we had cleverly nicknamed "THE GRUESOME TWOSOME". I think this name came from a ghostbusters character who was a monster with 2 heads, although i could be making that up completely. I am almost sure I had a figure of this monster, but I don't remember ever seeing such a monster in the classic Ghostbuster movies. The discrepancy between the movie and the action figures is quite puzzling, especially in regards to Slimer (or Sliymer??). Slimer the action figure, along with the other "ghosts" are meant to be frightening creatures, yet Slimer is depicted as a friendly and goofy ghost in the movie. And this gruseome twosome 2-headed monster is not even in the movie at all. Anddd the movie has a black guy as one of the ghostbusters!! In any event, this nickname was not exactly accurate for these teachers, because they were actually 2 seperate monstrous women, and not one monstrous woman with two heads.

Anyway, one half of the gruesome twosome had a brilliant idea: She loved coffee and decided to brew her own in the corner of the classroom. Lets see here...1st grade kids who are hyperactive and like to run around the class. A good idea would be to put a pot of boiling liquid in the corner and see what happens. Brilliant! So let me tell you what happened. I dont remember the exact details, but I was running around the room, and i tripped on the plug to this coffee pot, and somehow the entire pot of coffee ended up on my pants. Now...this is bad enough, in that I had burning hot liquid on my legs and other areas. But the punishment was not over. The teacher decided that it would be a good idea to strip me of these pants immedietly, and in front of all the females in the room. After all, I was in first grade, so I guess I had no right to privacy of any sort.

The real problem of course was that I was wearing my mickey mouse underwear that day. You see, I didn't get the memo in kindergarden that we werent supposed to wear cartoon underwear anymore. Well, there I was standing in a drenched pair of mickey mouse underwear in front of an entire class. I still do not understand why I was stripped of my pants in the classroom. Did Gruesome Twosome think that this was a major emergency, and I couldn't just walk to the bathroom and change there???? Whatever the reason, this was social suicide. For the rest of my life, I have had a problem approaching girls b/c of this. I always am insecure and think that they are one of the girls that saw me standing there in my mickey mouse underwear.

So for all of you out there who think that you have had something embarrasing happen to you, or who have social anxiety at times, just remember this story. Remember it and be happy it never happened to you. When you thank G-d for all you have, throw in this line. "Thank you G-d, for not having me stripped down to my mickey mouse underwear in front of the entire class". GN and keep reading.

don't be shy

2005-03-24T22:32:00.000-08:00

Last chance to get some purim torah before your seudah. I'll email you, at no cost. Just send me an email at fade316@yahoo.com requesting it.

PURIM SAMEACH

Purim Night

2005-03-24T22:10:00.000-08:00

So I hope everyone is having a very happy and meaningful Purim. I traveled back to NY and was able to attend the YU chagiga which has really become "the place to be". But before I discuss that, let me fill you in on the events of Taanit Esther and Purim night that eventually found me dancing in YU with my Mom's fur coat on.

I usually have no problem with fast days, but I knew Taanit Esther was gonna be a bad one. First, I would have to sit through 3 law school classes without my daily does of coffee from Dunkin Donuts. The ladies who make this coffee should be honored at some kind of dinner for the simpletons. They are all of Asian dissent, and are amazing workers, just like all the Asians in my class, except they are all going to be wealthy instead of working at Dunkin Donuts. Anyway, these asian women are like robots behind the counter. I have learnt their secret asian robot language and to order I simply say "medium Ice..cream and sugar" and they know how to interpret it exactly. And what gives Dunkin Donuts the edge over Starbucks is not only its price, but also that I understand what I am actually ordering. Medium Iced Coffee means exactly that, and I dont have to order a Mochha Froccha Latte, and then put the sugar and milk in myself. Why is life so complicated??? Anyway, without my cherished coffee I knew this would be tough.

But I almost made it through everything in Philly today, untill right before i was set to depart for the road. Feeling weary and hungry, I went to my car, only to find an officer writing me a ticket for a parking violation. I had not put money in the meter b/c it said "out of order" when I parked there, so i figured I could get a nice free space. Wrong, instead I got a nice 20$ space. I'm not sure why I felt the need to discuss this, being that it is very uninteresting.

Lets get back on track with Purim. I went to Megillah reading in a house, kind of like a break-away megillah reading where they have a nice assortment of food for everyone to stuff themselves with after the Megillah. This all sounds very pleasent, except for the awkward crowd that gathers here. You see, when my parents moved into west hempstead a long time ago, they were friends with all these people. However, as time has passed, and we have moved to the "other side" of town, we no longer really talk to these people at all. Not saying anything is wrong with them at all, just that things have changed. But somehow, and I really dont get this at all, we always end up reading Megillah with them at this house. Can anyone make sense of this? You stop being friends with people, yet you gather around with them once a year to hear Esther and then eat alot of ziti. Very bizzare. But I got over it and mingled with some older women before departing.

And finally, decked in a fur hat and a fur coat, I arrived at YU at approximately 10 15 pm. Back in the day, the YU chagigah used to be in the beis medrash, and things were very different. It was much more "yeshivish" in that a girl could not be found in sight, and the smell was 10 times worse. YU has "mainstreamed" the chagigah now, and it was hopping. Here are the groups I found there. First you had the guys that came to dance, which included all kinds of guys, from Yeshivish guys, to drunk guys, to Yeshivish drunk guys. But then you also had the guys that came to scope out the ladies. And also, you had ladies who were scoping out the guys when they dance. The YU gym has a track around it that some strange people sometimes use, but tonight it was used for girls to stand around and watch as the guys went crazy in song and dance. When I realized the girls were watching, I shut my eyes and made very accentuated mouth motions to show that I was very spiritual and singing the words of each song. But then I realizedI was still wearing a ridiculus costume, and kind of gave up on the whole thing. OH, there was also the smoking group outside of YU, which I get a real kick out of, and I dont know why.

Now, at 1:30 am, I am home and completely sober. In previous years I have made the "rookie" mistake of drinking on purim night, and then having it impede my ability to drink wine at the seudah as we are supposed to. Tonight, i played it sober, and left the party early. All I can say, is it better pay off at the Seudah tommorow, b/c now I am going to watch the movie "the notebook" instead of staying and dancing. GN and PURIM SAMEACH.

words on purim available via email

2005-03-20T22:37:00.000-08:00

A few of you (very few) have asked about divrei torah/words/rants whatever u want to call it for Purim. I will not be posting any of that on the site, but I am composing a rather long piece that I think should be discussed at the Purim Seudah. So, if anyone wants a very rough draft of this discussion, there are 3 ways to get it.
1) email me at fade316@yahoo.com
2) post a comment on this site w/ ur email
3) IM me ur email address @ misterlyde99

I should just note that the piece is serious, and sometimes a bit intense. Just fair warning.

Janice

2005-03-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

This weekend left me plenty of time to think which is never ever a good thing. In any event, I began wondering how I became who I am today. What events in my youth made me crazy? Lets see...

One bizzare phase of my life centered around a woman named Janice. Janice, was a large african american woman who lived with us for a period of 4 years or so. Her official role was "house keeper", but she also served as my body guard and chef. I think I realized the raw power of Janice, when a neighbor's dog was chasing me one day. It chased me all the way to my door, when Janice suddenly appeared. Her voice boomed at the dog "What u think ur doing!!! You best be getting away from him!!! " The dog quickly retreated, as any smart animal would, and I was safe. But at the same time I had realized that I was in the care of a very frightening woman. If Janice made fishsticks, I felt compelled to eat all of them, even though that sometimes meant eating 48 in one sitting.

Janice also wore strange outfits, which only added to my fear. All those old clothes that we put in the basement to throw out or put in one of those clothing charity bins, somehow ended up on Janice. So sometimes I would see Janice walking around with one of my old winter hats from when I was 3 , you know, the kind that has the giant pom-pom on it. And she wore this hat even in the summer, making the whole thing very comical, yet disturbing.

The whole concept of having a housekeeper needs a bit of examination. First, we must distinguish between a housekeeper, and a cleaning lady. In essence, the housekeeper denotes a woman who actually lives in the house, and she is its keeper. This is strange, b/c my parents own the house, yet they have entrusted it and its keeping to an immigrant woman who wears strange hats. Also, I cannot recall if Janice had another place to go on weekends, or if she was always with us, even on the holy Sabbath. If so, what did she do on Sabbath? I know she didnt eat with us or anything, so did she just stay in our basement all day with nothing to do but play nintendo? Actually, that sounds pretty good. Another issue, is what happens when the housekeeper gets fired...where does she go? Is there some type of temporary housekeeper center for all these people untill they find another Jewish family to live with? If so, i bet that housekeeper center is very clean.

Anyway, a cleaning woman is just what the name suggests- she arrives, she cleans, she's a woman, she leaves. Kind of like a wife, except a wife doesnt leave. Some Jewish families have these cleaning woman once a week, some twice, and some everyday. There is also the "cleaning service" crew, which is usually 2 or 3 men who get out of a truck with a few giant vaccum cleaners and clean the entire house in 32 minutes. They are probably more efficient, but I'm guessing more expensive. I just wonder if non-Jews have the cleaning woman come in as well. Maybe its like bizzaro world, and they have Jewish cleaning woman only. Like maybe all our Grandmothers are secretly cleaning the houses of the non-jews, but they just don't tell us about it b/c we will feel bad. Yeahh....maybe. Have a good day.

Looking back at vacation

2005-03-15T20:23:00.000-08:00

Ahh yes. I have returned from my vacation to the lovely confines of western philadelphia, where you can find plenty of african american folk. Now, a look back at the rest of my spring break and some of the highs (and lows).

This vacation definetly had it all. Day 1 was Universal Studios, and you can read about that on the previous rant. Day 2 sent me to Fort Lauderdale to a Mets spring training game, but I'm gonna ignore that for now, b/c I can think of only about 10 people who would wanna hear about it. So instead I will talk about the tail end of my spring break, which brought me an aufruf and a wedding. Yes, Mazel Tov to my dear friend and ex-roomate, Buddy or Bavi, and the wedding was great. But of course, it had its awkward moments for me.

Lets start with the aufruf, which took place in a hotel named the Saxony. This hotel confuses me b/c it was only occupied by people over 90 years old and us. I had some good fun in the lobby by yelling out "Bubbi!!" and seeing how many women turned their heads. But then one lady turned her head so suddenly, that she had to go to the hospital for a neck problem and I felt badly. So that was the end of that. But we youngsters tried to bring a renewed vibrance to this place, and I think we succeeded somewhat. We sang in the dining room with some random fat guy who was the mashgiach and chazan and everything all in one. We could not take over davening, however, which lasted a torturous 3 hours. It was a long haul that felt like Yom Kippur.

Shifting gears now towards the actual wedding which took place on sunday evening...I will skip my saturday night activities in south beach, but you can always discuss that with me privately if you are curious. Wedding was great...had it all- great food, great band, great friends reunited and dancing with arms around eachother. Really the kind of moments that you just love and make you smile non-stop. But the wedding also brought me two basic topics which I knew right away would make this RANT.

Firstly, a wedding like this always brings you the awkward encounter. You forget about it and don't think about who you may run into from your past. and then BOOM...it smacks you in the face. And so, I was enjoying myself at the shmorg and trying to figure out why they don't cut the deli into smaller pieces b/c its really hard to eat those big pieces w/out a knife, and then I saw a girl that I had once pursued from my past. It should be noted that she was not married or with any guy, so it wasn't at the highest level of awkwardness. Still, this is a girl I had tried to call a few times and go out with, and then given up on b/c she seemed very apathetic to my shinanigans. So the question I faced was how to go about doing this tonight. Should I take the high road and just walk over and go with..."hey, u remember me? how have u been?" Or should I maybe wait to see if she takes the initiative. Or should I just play the ignoring game, which I believe every girl sees right through. (They just know when you are lying...frustrating s) Anyway, you guessed it, I not only played the ignoring game, but also the "scurry away like the three stooges" game, anytime I got near her. I think she actually saw me running at one point. But anything goes in March Madness.

Secondly, I was minding my own business at dinner, when I encountered the terrible "PDA" or public display of affection. OK, I am not a fanatic who is going to push my religious views on anyone. If you wanna touch ur g/f or b/f, thats your business, but don't do it in front of me please. Especially if the two of you do not make an attractive couple. I should add that I am not anti all PDA. I think a hug when you see the person is fine, and a hand hold is fine as well. But the following is not fine and makes me want to vomit: 1) Sitting on lap. I'll get you a chair honey, please spare me. 2) The wing thing...not really sure how to describe this, but usually the guy gets behind the girl and grabs her arms and they sometimes make a weird wing motion like in Titanic. Its gay, don't do it in front of me please. 3) Making out. obviously. no explanation needed at this point. Furthermore, I must also acknowledge my disgust with couples who use openly affectionate terms in front of me. Don't call your g/f or b/f "honey", "sweetie", "baby", or anything else that makes you sound like an old married couple. No one wants to hear it.

In closing, I just want to wish everyone a happy Adar and an enjoyable March Madness. Remember, anything goes b/c its March Madness. GN

vacation report...live from FLORIDA

2005-03-12T17:56:00.000-08:00

Its been awhile folks, but I have been on my vacation down south...and what a vacation it has been so far. Allow me to RANT to you about it.

The vacation started off a little slow, as my flight was delayed 9 hours. Luckily, my associate, Mr. Zanax, had access to the various clubs in the airport, where all the high-rollers hang out and conduct their business activities. So I pretended I was a business person and hung out with them for about 5 hours, but the delay was still unbearable. In any event, I arrived in Orlando sometime after 1 am, and the cab driver told us it would cost 50 bucks to get to the hotel. This clearly wasnt happening, so we spontaneously decided to rent a car. This was the second most spontaneous car moment of my life, ranked behind my decision to purchase a ford taurus on E-bay. Actually, this was the third most spontaneous car moment, also ranking behind the time my car spontaneously burst into flames on the Southern State Parkway. (shoutout to readers knolly and koegs). Back to the rental car; we got a compact which is for midgets, and had no idea how to get to the hotel. Luckily, a toll booth man knew the map of Orlando by heart (i used to think that expression was "by hard"...its such a strange expression) and we got to the hotel safe and sound at about 3:30 in the A.M.

DAY 1 was a rainy trip to Univeral Studios. We overslept and went to the late minyan in the east area of my room. This will be a continuing theme of the vacation. So a few tidbits about Universal for you. I was last there in 8th grade, and its amazing how much they have built since then. I remember my favorite ride being "back to the Future", but this time it seemed like one of the worst there. It just felt like i was watching a tv screen and being shaken around in a box. If you ever head out there, the top 5 rides are now...1)Mummy 2)Shrek 3)Incredible Hulk 4) Dueling Dragons 5) Spider Man. Its also amazing that every person in Orlando probably works in one of these theme parks. Imagine a social gathering of Orlandonians...or Orlando-ites...or something. It would go something like this:

Hey Frank, what do you do for a living? OH, I operate splash mountain, how bout urself, Rob? Well, I'm just a hand-stamper right now, but I'm hoping to one day operate the Jurassic Park ride.

Another strange thing about these parks is that they now sell an "express ticket" which allows you to cut the line, but now its completely legal. Luckily, it was pouring rain, and no one was at the park, so I didnt need to purchase this express pass. Additionally, the park encourages "single riders", ans allows them to cut the entire line as well. So basically, as long as you don't mind sitting next to a stranger on the ride, you can cut the whole line. Its unclear to me why anyone would not do this, unless they have a small kid who is afraid of the ride. I did it for the rides with long lines, and I sat next to some strange people, but who cares. A ride is 3 minutes, and your upside down and spinning in the dark for the majority of it. If you think about it carefully, wouldn't u rather be spun around in the dark next to a stranger, then next to a pal or family member??

Anyway, thats how Day 1 went. I'll discuss some other vacation highlights a little later. Enjoy your Second Adar.

spring break

2005-03-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

I am in the midst of my first ever "spring break", and this is why I have not been able to write for a while. I am set to depart to Florida for an amazing trip, but have just recieved word from my associate, mr. zanax, that my flight has been delayed. Henceforth, (always wanted to use that word instead of "therefore") I now have ample time to RANT to you about vacations, spring breaks, and anything else that pops into my head.

One thing that puzzles me about vacations is the tendency some of us have to fill them with activities. I myself am guilty of this, as I plan on going to Universal Studios, and a Mets spring training game. Both of these endevours will require an early morning wake up. Now, doesn't this somewhat defeat the purpose of a "vacation"? A real vacation would be just lying in bed and watching nickelodeon for as many hours as you can before you have to get up and go to the bathroom. I remember being in Florida with my pals on previous vacations, and some of them yelling at me to wake up because its already 9 am!!! They would tell me that I have to get out early if I want to get a full day of the sun at the beach. This really never made any sense to me at all. Why would I want to lie in the hot sun and try to sleep out there, when I am already sleeping comfortably in an air-conditioned econo-lodge?? Again, its that tendency to always force ourselves to be doing something, because we cannot stand the idea of just sitting around and doing absolutely nothing.

But in my humble opinion, sometimes thats exactly what we need. We are in school, or working for a living, and the stress of those things can really get to us. Throw in the social stress that many of us are going through at this time, and you really just need to give your mind a break. Nothing can provide your mind with that break than...simply doing nothing. Of course, its better to go to a warm place and do nothing, then to do nothing in cold,dreary NY or Philly or wherever. We all know that our moods get much happier when that first day of spring hits, and we can wear short sleeves, unless you are a girl reading this who never wears short sleeves anyway. But imagine that you did. In any event, thats why I am going to Florida on this vacation. I just need to sit and do nothing in nice weather. Thats simply all I want from my vacation.

But as I have said earlier, things will always try and prevent that serenity of mind. Already, I am dealing with the delayed flight. How many delays will there actually be? How long will I be stuck in the airport, and how many bad purchases will I make while sitting there? Getting stuck in the airport can be one of the worst experiences possible. I was once stuck in Cleveland for 9 hours and simply went outta my mind. I started calling girls and just saying crazy things to them; at least it provided me with entertainment and gave me someone to talk to. So how can I have a peaceful vacation when I am already thinking about the horrible possibility of being stuck in the terminal forever.

And there is also the packing issue. I have no idea how to do this. I try to pack all my stuff, and then my Mom comes into my room and takes it all out, and re-packs it. Somehow it only takes up half the space when my Mom does it. It might have to do with this trick called "folding", but I do not wish to know of such concepts. So i pack twice as much as I need, b/c I'm always concerned about missing something, and I end up having more outfits then a seminary girl on pesach break. And I end up forgetting something anyway, like a toothbrush or a shaver or my driver's license or sneakers.

Ideally, I really crave a peaceful vacation, in which I can just temporarily ignore and escape from the educational and social pressures that are constantly present in my life. I am stressed now about the packing, and the airport, but I think I'll be Ok when I finally arrive in Florida. I hope to update you on the highlights of my vacation, and I will be documenting every day via video camera. take care, my dear readers, and I'll think of you when I'm getting woken up at 6 am to go to the beach.

thoughts on siyum ha'shas.

2005-03-02T07:26:00.000-08:00

Toras Hashem Temima - The Torah of G-d is "whole"

As you all probably know, the siyum ha'shas took place this week in Madison Square Garden. While I did not have the privelege of attending this inspiring event, I do feel compelled to give over my thoughts to you...

In discussing what took place in MSG with people who attended, everyone used the same word...""unbelievable". But what is really so unbelievable about what took place? I'm sure many of us have experienced moments at the kotel in which we are dancing among many jews or davening with an intense level of concentration. Surely, these experiences have provided an equally uplifting glimpse of what our people are really all about. At MSG, I have also had some memorable experiences. I was there to see Simon and Garfunkel play "sound of silence" while 20,000 people sat in absolute silence. I was there to sing " better man" with every other person in the crowd, together in unison. Both of these experiences made my skin prickle up and put that weird lump in the back of my throat. But what is so unique and unbelivable about an experience like the siyum ha'shas, is that it meshes 2 very different type of experiences into one complete picture. It is the picture of what our role is supposed to be in this world, and it is a picture that we should constantly be thinking about and focusing on.

To explain and elaborate, understand that MSG is usually used for the mundane. Whether it be a sporting event, concert, or something else, the Garden is not a place that is associated with "kodesh", but rather with "chol". So, when we as Jews, are able to take a place that is solely used for "chol", and completely change and uplift its purpose to something utterly "kodesh", well...we have accomplished what this world is really all about. You see, there is this mistaken premise that our whole religion is built on trying to get a reward in the next world. This is certainly important, but we tend to lose focus on this world as well. Our religion gives us the best possible life HERE AND NOW. Imagine a week that didn't have a Shabbos meal with your family and/or friends. How empty would you feel, if Shabbos was replaced with Saturday. We would all get to live "sunday" twice, and that thought makes me sick.

So the idea is to be able to take things in this world and elevate them to something more than purely physical. And that concept occurs in every aspect of our religion, and occured on a very grand-scale at the siyum ha'shas. B/c it occured in such a magnified way, people found it unbelieveble. The singing after the siyum, was a meshing of davening at the kotel and singing "betterman". Davening with 20,000 jews made people cry and think like they haven't done in a long time. And this is why the Torah, and our religion, is Temimah or whole or complete. No one is gonna deny that we have a body and a soul. And no one is gonna deny that we often try and satisfy the needs of our body. But it is the rare and amazing event that comes and satisfies both at once. It is the davening and singing with 20,000 jews that somehow breaks us down to tears, b/c we are whole, and everything is being satisfied at once. And don't you just wish that feeling would never end? But somehow it creeps away from us, time and time again. If you were at the siyum, I envy you, b/c you now have a visual of 20,000 jews coming together to show exactly what this religion is about. Being M'kadesh the Chol. Thats it. Don't forget what it looks like. Don't forget how unbelievable it is. Don't forget how it makes you feel whole in this world.,

Gift-ranting

2005-02-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

Today I was talking to a female friend of mine and she asked me what she should get her significant other for their one month anniversary. I had no suggestions, but it did inspire me to go on this RANT.

So if 2 people are "shidduch" dating, do they keep track of the month anniversaries. I would think that they keep track based on dates, and the really "frum" people will be engaged before a month passes, so I guess this isn't a concern. But these people probably aren't reading my RANT, so lets focus more on the typical modern orthodox dating scene, which I proclaim to be a significant part of. I think there should be a service or website that keeps track of when the relationships officially begin so that guys remember when they hit their anniversaries. From what I understand, girls like to write everything down, so they always remember. Also, b/c I am disturbed, I keep a timeline on my wall, with all the different girls I have dated, and break it down into "eras"; this is great b/c its like I am comparing myself to an ancient empire. So maybe I should be in charge of this service that keeps track of when people "officially" start "going out".

The careful reader has probably already noticed the inherent problem in this calculation. What is considered the official beginning of a relationship? This has been a significant issue for me in the past, b/c I never know how to determine when I am actually dating the girl. Its weird to hang out a bunch of times and then say "Will you be my girlfriend?" I think that the true answer is that "acharei rabim l'hatos", we go after what public opinion thinks. If everyone says u r going out with someone, then u r. If you don't like it, get the hell outta there fast. I am definetly not fit to give relationship advice, but I still would advice against actually asking a girl what ur status is with her. Let public opinion answer this question for you, or let her bring it up and answer it. Ok, that was weird, I just felt like I was writing for "dear abby".

These anniversaries create yet another need for giving gifts that will probably be ineffective and useless. There is already the problem of birthdays, and the gifts that go along with them. Let me make this absolutely clear: Do not date a girl, if her birthday will be w/in a month after u start dating. You will be forced to buy her a gift, which will either be not good enough, making her think you are cheap , or too good, making her think you wanna marry her and freak her out. Also, its best if your birthday comes before hers, b/c then she sets the "gift giving precedent", and all you gotta do is follow her lead. This will now be called the "birthday rule."

Let me now talk about some gift problems I have run into. First time I met a girl, I decided to tell her I read philosophy and threw out some names I had heard of. Its unclear why I did this, but it came back to bite me on the rump, when she went and got me a philosophy book from Barnes and Noble. Luckily, I got a gift receipt and I was able to get espn magazine instead. I was gonna say that the moral of this story is don't lie, but I ended up getting a good magazine, so I guess there really is no moral. The best gift I ever got was Madden for PS2; this is really the gift that keeps on giving. But I haven't heard of too many cases like that, so lets continue with the premise that a good gift is very uncommon. I think its a good idea to steer clear of getting clothes for girls. I tried to do this a few times, with a winter hat, and sweatshirt, but I gotta believe that this was a terrible idea. Firstly, how do I know what is considered cool or fashionable for a girl to wear? And secondly, its really awkward to stand around in the woman's section of the store and try to discreetly look through the clothing to find something. I'm always afraid some old lady will run up to me and hit me with her pocketbook, and call me a pervert, even though I'm only looking at sweatshirts. (side point- remember there were ladies that hit u with their pocketbooks in double dragon 2??? )

In closing, I must conclude that the gift-giving issue is indeed a major problem. I would try to limit gifts to 6th month and 1 year anniversary, but I have never lasted that long. Awwwww.
Perhaps, it really is "the thought that counts." So go to a card store, pick out a nice card, pour out ur heart to the girl, and u'll be good to go. Or she'll think ur awkwardly feminine and get weirded out. GN

Snow Day!!!!!!! but not really.

2005-02-25T08:25:00.000-08:00

Last night in Philthydelphia, it was snowing and the weatherbug thing told me it would be up to 9 inches. An email went out from law school telling us who to call to find out if class was cancelled. Naturally, a flame of hope was kindled in my belly. strange. But seriously, I thought that this might be my first snow day in law school ever. I was filled with excitement at the proposition of wasting an entire friday, but alas...school is in session. But this won't stop me from making this RANT in respect for the concept of a "snow day."

You see folks, there are 3 types of days that gave us a much-needed break from our mundane and often stressful life in highschool. First, we had the sick day, which was more of an individually imposed break. You needed to get sick and only then could u take the break from school. When I was a youngster, my Mom would take out movies from the library, so I could watch them when I was sick. For some reason it was always the same 3 movies: "Doc Hollywood", "The Burbs", and "Groundhog Day." Lets briefly discuss each of these masterpieces. Doc Hollywood should be famous for being the first PG-13 movie to contain nudity. I'm not sure how the ratings board lets this one go. I guess they just decided that the human body is beautiful or something to that effect.(same rational for titanic??) Anyway, I cannot tell u anything else about this movie, b/c i only remember that it had nudity. Next, "the burbs"...again, I remember absolutely nothing about this movie, but it has to be Tom Hanks absolute worst one. Its a tough call what his best one might have been, but thats a whole nother RANT. Next, "groundhog day", which is a solid pick. But it was really weird that my Mom kept taking out a movie that is about a guy who keeps living the same day over and over again. So everytime I was home sick, and seemingly living the same day over and over, I watched a movie about a guy doing just that. Did anyone just follow that? Me neither, but maybe it explains some of my mental health issues.

The second day that gave us that amazing break was "The Fast Day." Disadvantages include only getting a half day off, and NOT BEING ABLE TO EAT OR DRINK. I dont know about you, but we also had to sit through this long assembely and then daven mincha before we could get outta there. It felt like Andy Dufrein crawling through all the crap to get outta Shawshank. (I'm not saying that Mincha is crap, just that we finally felt free when we got out.whatever) But the fast day was nice, because it was a good day to just play as much video games as possible, untill your eyes no longer work. good times. I wonder what girls did on the fast day, b/c they really dont play video games. Just something to think about.

And this brings us to the "snow day", which I thought I would get a taste of today. The most interesting thing about the snow day was the way it started. The Dean of HANC, Rabbi Gottesman, would look out his window in the early morning hours, and decide if there should be school. So let me get this straight. As far as I know, the dean of the school was in charge of 1)snow days, and 2)ummm... very strange. Anyway, there was some phone squad that was supposed to start a chain untill every single person was called. I was on that squad one year, and I got a call from Rabbi Gottesman himself. He said "Ari, no school b/c of the snow. Your a good boy, and zero tolerance for drugs!!" I thought this was really weird, especially at 6:32 am, so I just went back to sleep.

In any event, snow days were absolutely amazing. The possibilities for kids on a snow day or just endless. You can play tackle football in the snow, build snow creatures, shovel snow for money, throw snowballs at people, go sledding, man--its really the best possible thing that can happen ever. Snow days: I salute you, you gave me some of the best days of my childhood, and I expect many more. And when u melt, I will miss you.

the restaurant enemy

2005-02-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

Last night at 12:45 am, I ate a package of pastrami and drank grape juice. While this may be very disturbing, I must remind you that today is "purim katan" , so my festive meal last night was warranted. Furthermore, it would be appropriate for all of us to have some type of celebration today, unless you are from Shushan...then u should have the celebration tommorow. But since this is Purim Katan, the celebration should be less than the one that will occur in 1 month. So, instead of wearing a costume, just wear a funny hat. Or instead of drinking 2 bottles of wine, just drink 1. You get the idea. And b/c this is purim, this RANT will be extra wacky.

Lets continue to discuss the 5 towns, a very important topic. Now, I had the pleasure of meeting my friend Yoni Rosenblatt for brunch on sunday, who is 8 feet tall. Yoni was bothered by the fact that all meetings among friends, family, etc. has to be over a meal. I would like to express my agreement with Yoni on this puzzling issue. Think about any time you have met someone recently. There always has to be some type of meal involved. Did I just eat dinner in my house? Yes. Doesn't matter- i am forced to now go to another meal and force myself to order more food. Maybe guys love to meet for meals b/c there are no girls around, and we can finally eat with our hands and drink the soup straight from the bowl. And I would say the same would apply to a bunch of girls meeting together for food. No more salad, lets go straight for the buffalo wings ladies.!!!! Nevertheless, the insistence on meeting over a meal is still strange. Maybe, there is simply no other meeting places available, and there is simply no other choice.

Anyway, we were supposed to meet for "brunch", which I have never done b/c sunday morning is reserved for the heralded "post-minyan" nap. Everyone knows the famous passage from Chronicles of the Fades: "Happy is he who experiences the post-minyan nap, for he is both physically and spiritually satisfied." But this sunday was reserved for a brunch and by 10:45 we were ready to eat. So here is my question...if a restaruant serves omelettes and waffles, what time would u expect it to be open? 24 hours? not likely for a kosher establishment. 8 AM? maybe. 9? for sure. But here we were outside this place, and it was not yet open at 10:45. strange s.

Delay of the meal forces us to Judaica store. This place is awesome b/c you can listen to the latest jewish music on earphones. People reading this should check out this band "mizrach", which i heard on the earphones. Amazing. The lead singer is very handsome, as well.

And now, we are finally ready to eat our brunch. We get a table for 2, and I feel like I am on a date with another man, who is twice my height. A heavyset fellow is hovering around us and throws 2 menus at us angrily. He continues to hover , and finally drifts elsewhere. Yoni whispers to me "that guy is my enemy", but offers no further explanation. I am about to continue the discussion, but the enemy is back, hovering over us in a menacing fashion. Feeling pressure to order quickly, I order the soup in a bread bowl, and realize i have been tricked into washing. Enemy tries to grab the menus away from us, but we tell him we still haven't ordered our main meal. Enemy makes an odd motion with a clenched fist, and goes to harass some other costumers. Luckily, we had a great waiter, who was wearing his tzitis out w/ jeans (the cave dress code), so we wanted to give him a good tip. We left it in the little book they give u, and started to bench. Big mistake. Enemy quickly came back and swiped the book up in his talons. No tip for the waiter. Enemy wins again.

I'll never understand people like the enemy, who seem to be angry at people for coming to their restaurant and paying for a meal. There is an enemy at a pizza shop near me, who also gets angry when you order from him, and mocks you no matter what you order. I guess we just can never understand the enemy, thats part of what makes him so evil. But its purim katan today, so dont worry about the enemy right now. Dont worry about the angry people walking around and permeating every place we try to go and eat soup out of a bowl made of bread. Dont worry about the negativity. Remember Haman was probably gay. Chag Purim katan sameach.

Third time is a charm...or not.

2005-02-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

I would like to begin by thanking everyone who reads this thing. When I wrote my first RANT, I never dreamt it would have spread so quickly throughout the jewish community. I am honored and moved by the fact that so many people are reading this, and that it is bringing smiles to your faces. It is absolutely crucial that we are going through our daily routine with a smile on our face, and I hope this helps every single reader get that. For those of you who no longer get to speak to me or see me as often, you should realize that this is my way of communicating with you. When you read this, you should imagine my voice saying the words, and see my face making strange expressions, and then you shouldn't miss me so much. I realize that sounds very weird, so maybe don't do that. Anyway, here we go...

3 saturday nights and 3 dates...with the same girl. Has to be some kind of record being set here. The attempted activity was a place called "jillians", which is basically an arcade/activity type place which attracts young co-eds,shidduch types, and various minority groups. I would like to point out that i fall into all 3 of those categories. Anyway, we get to the door of this place at 10:03, and I am looking forward to participating in a game of rock and bowl. I am hoping that they play that song "its getting hot in here...", so that I can take off my awkwardly small cardigan. But its not to be b/c of the rules of this "jillian's" establishment. Apparenty, after 10 PM, everyone who is under 21 has to be exiled from the place, and no one under 21 is allowed to enter. This made me think of the humourous scenarios that can develop. Lets say little timmy is in the middle of a game of air hockey. Is he removed right in the middle of his game? poor timmy. Futhermore, this rule can really tear apart families. Imagine a large family out for a night of bowling. When the clock strikes 10, half of the family has to leave and wait outside in the cold, while the rest of the family (over 21) gets to live it up on the inside. Anyway, the bottom line is that I couldnt get in b/c even though I am 21, the guy said i am still stuck in senior year of high school so I cannot enter.

So it was time for plan "B", which brought me to the coldstone creamery, where ice cream and singing come together. Supposedly, some of these coldstone places are kosher, but this issue remained unclear to me, even while i was shoving the ice cream down my gullet. By the way, do human beings have gullets? I know we have this amazing part called "the epiglottis", but I'm not sure about a gullet. Either way, I guess I kinda ignored the kashrus on this one. This has been a theme in my life for quite a while. I remember telling my father,Abba, a few years ago that "I like the danger flavors" at Carvel, b/c its fun to not know if I am eating kosher or not. So here i was again, at the coldstone creamery, telling the men to put as many risky things in my ice cream as possible. But the real "gadlus" of this place is that if u tip the ice cream men, they will sing u a song. I think this is an excellent idea, b/c now u get a little something for your tip. Both parties are winners, b/c it gives customers more incentive to tip, and the workers get to put on a nice performance. On the other hand, maybe the workers find this practice to be extremely demeaning and feel like they are our servants, forced to sing when we throw them a buck. I am curious what the consensus among coldstone creamery workers is on this topic.

For those of u keeping score at home, thats ice cream 3/3 dates. Part C of this date sent me to pizza b/c I was starving. I really am anti-central avenue when on a date, but my grueling starvation left me with little choice. The problem with Central Avenue is "worlds colliding", an idea originally developed on Seinfeld. You wanna be in your own private realm on a date, but then you see all these other people that know you from all other realms of your life. And when you have been in too many realms, this can be a problematic situation. In any event, this may explain my aversion to central avenue on a saturday night. I was once again plagued by a "worlds collide" situatuion, which had some embarrasing implications. I saw my parents' friends, as well as my friend's parents, in pizza. I immedietly decided I would get up and give them a warm greeting, but was entagled in a labyrnth of chairs, tables, and a heavyset balding man. I tripped on one of the chair legs and elbowed Mr. Clean in the back of the head. The following exchange occured:

Bald man: Heyyyyyy! watch it buster!
Me: I'm really sorry sir, won't happen again.(of course it wouldn't...what a dumb respoinse)
Bald man: you ruined my night and my life!!
Me: I would say ur life was ruined when the baldness set in sir.

The man proceeded to pummel me. In between punches I realized that this man may not have been Jewish, and wondered why a non-jew would eat at a crowded kosher pizza store. But thats for a whole different RANT. GN

pressing the panic button

2005-02-13T10:59:00.000-08:00

Another saturday night, and another so called "date", which means another chance for me to write something about it. But really this is more a self-analysis and everyone is welcome to come along for the disturbing ride.

Lets see, b/c this was a date, I had to do some type of activity. My Mom would always yell at me if that activity was sitting in my den and watching my Hanc or Reishit video. Sure enough, i found myself showing some clips from my reishit video, but then quickly realized that I had to go do some type activity. I tried to sit in my apartment and avoid the inevitable activity, but I kept hearing mice scurrying through my walls and ceiling. Now, this is probably the most disturbing thing you will ever hear. I feel like I am a character in a horror movie whenever I hear them. The worst feeling in the world is being awaken by the sound of mice in your ceiling. Also, waking up to the realization that you have soiled yourself is pretty bad. So I guess this would be 2nd on the bad wake up list. In any event, all these factors aggregrated together really made me realize I needed to get the hell out of my apartment and do an activity. So we took a walk to Ben and Jerry's and got some ice cream. And this led to some serious trouble.

1)I got two flavors, one called "brownie batter" and one called "cookies and cream". I was ripping through my ice cream meal, when I suddenly realized that there was something weird in my mouth. I spit it out and I think it might have been a cherry. I'm still not sure what it was doing in there, as cherrys are not an essential ingredient of either of the flavors aformentioned. Anyway this completely ruined my ice cream experience and made me gag and almost vomit.

2) This morning I was examining my date outfit in the mirror and thinking how wonderfully dressed I was. But then , to my horror, I spotted a huge chocolate stain all over my shirt. Like there was more chocolate then standard-stripe pattern. And I simply went into a panic attack. Questions started flying at me at ludicrus speed. Did she see this stain? Was I just dripping ice cream all over myself when I was eating? If she saw it, why didn't she say anything? If she didnt see it, how did it happen? Why did i get "brownie batter" and not "chocolate fudge brownie"? What is the difference between those 2 anyway? And finally, why did we go out for ice cream if its 37 degrees outside?

This type of reaction is abnormal, and its called "pressing the panic button." This type of reaction may be normal for other scenaros, like a traumatic break-up, but not for a realization of a stain. Anyway, I had to call my date right away and find out what the story was. Thank G-d everything seems to be OK. We think, in an attempt to be a gentlemen and throw out the ice cream, I may have gotten it on my shirt. Still, its unclear how this went unnoticed. So does anyone know how to get chocolate out of a shirt?

eye contact

2005-02-09T15:14:00.000-08:00

First of all, its Adar, so everyone should get happy. Do whatever u must to be in a constant state of glee and know that this is what G-d wants. Now, I must RANT.

First, the rumors are true. I went on a date on Saturday night, which means that I definetly have some more entertaining stories to add to my long list of disturbing and awkward date incidents. But somehow this date went very well, as I'm sure my date will agree. During my post-date analysis, I asked how I did with eye-contact. My date said I was fine, but I am still quite unsure. You see, eyecontact has been a major problem for me throughout my social history.

It all started in 8th grade when a female friend, who was probably genuinly looking out for me, informed me that my eyes seemed to focus on a place they should not be. I told the girl that I was simply short, and I was looking straight ahead, and in 8th grade girls are still taller than boys (or at least were still taller than me) So while other guys looked straight ahead at girls' faces, I ended up looking straight ahead at...well, not at girls' faces. And the problem has only grown throughout the years. Now I am at a normal height and able to look at a person's face, but I always find myself thinking of crazy things during these moments. If i am looking at a person, I will think of what would happen if i suddenly punched or kissed the person. Or i picture the person's skin being peeled off to reveal an alien or robot. And it totally ruins my concentration to the pt where I can't even hold a normal conversation, b/c I am imagining these ridiculus scenarios. Somehow, I am able to maintain eye contact at the worst times. Like I have no problem looking at girls through the machitzah, and I wont even look away when they see me. So I'm always looking at the wrong things and times, and I cant keep eye contact at the right times.

And this is part of a much greater physical contact/intimacy problem. Lets go back to the first (and only??do u buy that?) kiss , when the girl had to tell me that I was supposed to kiss her. SO i went for it, and ended up kissing her nose. Great. Similarly, there was (and still is?) a minhag in highschool that you were supposed to quickly exchange kisses on the cheek upon seeing a female at a social scene. And I hated this minhag, b/c I always screwed up this simple manuever. Either I would turn my head the wrong way and bump heads with the girl, or end up kissing her forehead or hair. Never ever did it right.

So for a guy like me, who may very well be "intimately challenged", shomer nagiah is a real blessing. Previously, this is how a conversation would go with a girl and me.

Girl: hey the fades, give me a hug u cute member of the loli-pop guild
Me: Ummm...nah
Girl: Why not!!
Me: Get away.

But now, with the availability of shomer nagiah...watch what happens for me.

Girl: The fades, give me a hug
Me: No
Girl: Why?
Me: B/c I am Shomer Nagiah
Girl: Wow, that is awesome. good for you!!!!

So no more awkward physical moments for me. The lesson? be happy about all the halachos b/c they can sometimes help us in some unexpected ways. Maybe this RANT doesnt apply to you, but I'm sure you can apply it in some way. GN and Chodesh Tov.

Super Bowl Thoughts.

2005-02-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

Well Super Bowl XVIIIRQVVVVS has finally arrived. I am actually sitting and watching the game as I type this. The entire first half, I thought about actually writing this RANT, but was simply too lazy to walk from my couch to the computer, a distance of 8 feet.

So this year's superbowl is quite different from last year's. Lets compare and contrast, like we had to do in first grade, when we had that book called "critical thinking". First, in terms of comparing, we have the Patriots in both this year and last year's game. And thats it for similarities. In terms of contrasting, lets start with the halftime show. It seems that the people in charge wanted to find the individual least likely to do something even remotely inappropriate on national TV. So they chose Paul McCarthey, who put on a decent show, but it was depressing to see the jello-type wrinkles on his face. My venue for watching the game is also very different this year. Last year I was at a Superbowl Party in Washington Hizzeights, with dougies, beer, and a girl wearing a football jersey, which is essential to any good party. Right now, I am in my apartment in Philly, with 2 other males, and we are eating shabbos leftovers. (which are delicious, thank you Mom) Also, I am currently drinking a glass of tap-water which has a strange milk-like after taste. So the emerging theme is that last year's events were more controversial and "on the edge", while this year's are more dull and subdued.

Lets talk commercials. So far, I am loving these commercials which depict a man working in an office full of monkeys. These monkeys are a real great lot. In one commercial they pranked the man by putting a whoopee cushion on his seat. Made me realize that the whoppee cushion has become such an under-utilized prank lately. Its definetly time for the re-emergence of the whoopee cushion, and I plan on trying it in school tommorow. The other commercial I want to discuss is one in which the army people are shown returning through the arrival hall of an airport. All the people are clapping and cheering for them as they have finally returned home. (see the Movie "love actually" for more on the theme of airport arrival halls) This commercial was emotional s. It made me get a weird pain in my throat and made my skin prickle up. Also, I got tears in my eyes and I think the other guys saw. Its nice that this commercial was made, but I'm not sure if the Superbowl was the right time to air it. I think it probably caused lots of emotional confusion for folks, and might have lost its desired effect. Large beer-guzzling men all over America are probably not going to stop and cry when they see this commercial , and many were probably in the restroom. Instead, they should show this commercial right before "scenes from the next OC", when no logical human being would change the channel or even move.

Before I return to the game, I must make my prediction. I say the Patriots win but don't cover the spread. I base this on my former chavrusah and present friend- Uri Burger, who explained that the Patriots are all about "achdus". For this reason they can overcome any obstacle and have met great NFL success. So, these are the lessons from watching the superbowl. 1) we gotta have "achdus" like the patriots. (unless they lose, then this theory is problematic. 2) its awkward to cry from a commercial in front of other people. Later.

an introspective one. sorry.

2005-02-03T13:12:00.000-08:00

"Saturday Night and you're still hangin' around, you're tired of livin' in your one horse town"
-Billy Joel , lyrics to "captain jack"

"It can be the absolute best or absolute worst part of your week. I refer to Saturday Night"
- Ari Feder , speech given at Saratoga Springs Youth Conference, September 1977

I have always been fascinated by my own behavior on Saturday Nights. When I was a youngster, I remember counting down the seconds untill shabbos was over , so I could rush straight to the Nintendo and continue my season of Bases Loaded. Bases Loaded, keep in mind, did not even have real players in it. But that didnt matter. Saturday night was reserved for nintendo, tv, movies, and snacks. And so it went through the so called "innocent years" of my life. I'll always remember watching strange shows on Saturday night, simply because there was really nothing else to do. For example, I would not miss an episode of "Empty Nest". DO I know what this show was about? No clue. Can I tell you who any of the actors are? Nope. All I know is that this show was aired on Sat night at 8 or 9 or something, so it was obviously geared towards children from the ages of 4-12, who could not yet get outta the house. But after years and years of being subjected to "Empty Nest", I started to get restless.

I think this probably happens to most people and may be the source of our unique insistence and complusive behavior on Saturday nights. We feel that it is an absolute neccessity to go out on sat night. It doesn't matter where, and it really doesn't even matter with who, as long as we avoid the dreadful fate of sitting at home all night. And we really dont even realize that this is happening to us as we grow up, but it clearly is. Its not our fault; this is the normal and expected reaction that any human being would have after viewing empty nest for so many years.

As Jews, the problem is magnified. We "lose" the "oppurtunity" to go out on the town on Fri night, so all the pressure is on Sat night. And as a kid grows up, and gets to high school, the sat night syndrome becomes more complex. B/c of the social structure of a typical modern orthodox high school, sat night is really what its all about. If one has a girlfriend or boyfriend, sat night is usually reserved for some type of quality time with that person. If not, a common option is to go to a high school game. These games are always the biggest scenes, but they often end early, leading to a delayed "what the hell do I do know" problem. There is also the "open house" option, which is not always available. (but if it is, u gotta go with that one) In senior year, I must confess, I tried out the "clubbing" option. This was taken to a ridiculus extreme, as I remember going to banana republic to purchase some "clubbing clothes." Then I realized you could get the same tight shirt at target for 50 dollars less. Either way, clubbing was never for me. Sometimes, some shady dudes would rent out clubs in the city and have a "jewish" party, where u would see all these people that u know by name, but they probably didnt know you. It was all very awkward, especially when I tried to dance. But again...it was better than the alternative, which was simply being alone at home.

So, when I got to Israel, i had already realized this problem , and hoped that it would go away. But it never did. I always felt compelled to run to Ben yehudah, and simply stay there for as long as possible. Learning in Yeshiva on a saturday night was simply not an option. That summer I went to Mesorah Kollel for a short stint (very very short), and saw people who learnt on Saturday nights. I couldn't believe it. I had to do something, so I went to gamble at an Indian reservation. Again, the point here is that me, and maybe many of you, cannot face the possibility of just sitting home on a saturday night.

Its havdalah time again, but things are very different. I am not counting down the seconds so I can run to the tv. I wish time would just slow down and stop moving. I finally understand the sad and somewhat awkward tune "shabbos is going away". On Shabbos it was perfectly fine to relax. There is no tv and no waiting for that IM. There is family, and friends, and smiles, and laughter. There is l'chaims and more l'chaims and singing, and good food. There is a kiddush club. There is davening and there is talking during davening. There is warmth and there is the ultimate happiness. Soon I will be searching for a new episode of "Empty Nest". Soon I will be reading away messages, and waiting for sportscenter. But I am satisfied, b/c this entire "saturday night problem" has made me appreciate the good stuff in life . And there are no words that can do it justice. Good Shabbos.

The alien theorem

2005-01-31T15:55:00.000-08:00

If u ever saw the film Men in Black u r probably wondering what ever happened to bernard gilkey. Additionally, u probably remember that wil smith and tommy lee jones went around and found aliens that disguised themselves as regular human beings. I spoke to the writer of this film , and he informed me that the plot is based on his experiences in washington heights, on the Wilf Campus. There is startling evidence of many aliens walking around who are disguising themselves as human beings. And this terrifying phenomenon (pl. phenomenahhh?) has spread to college campuses in all over the world, including penn, maryland, binghamton, and...thats really all i can personally attest to. But trust me, my dear readers, this is a major problem. Therefore I present you with these FAQ concerning the Alien Theorem, and my answers....

Q. Is there a way I can identify whether a "human" is really an alien? - timothy, chicago, IL

Little Timmy, identification is the first step, and requires complete knowledge of the basic signs. Firstly, aliens will almost always be wearing glasses. Aliens have weak alien eyes or something, and they need to protect them from the suns rays. Actually, that makes no sense, b/c then they would wear sunglasses. Anyway, be on the lookout for old librarian-type glasses with very thick lenses. Aliens do not have any fashion sense, so their frames will be from the 1980s and early 90s. Additionally, skin problems on the face is a major sign. Aliens have weak skin from their traveling around the planets and stuff. They are known to have zits, warts, moles, etc. Do not comment on their facial disease, for this will only enrage them. Another sign is the "backhair to neckhair" merge. If you see backhair creeping up around the neck area, you are almost definetly looking at an alien. I know these signs are a tad graphic, but this is pikuach nefesh, and must be spoken about. For girl aliens, look for obesity combined with an exposed mid-drift area. uch. thats enough.

Q. Are there aliens in high school or only college and older? - regis, west hemptead

Reg, I'm glad you asked this. All studies show that there are NO aliens in highschool. There are indeed nerds, geeks, etc... and about 62% of these will eventually become aliens somehow. Not sure exactly how that works. But you cannot persecute all the nerds b/c a % of them may in fact be evil aliens. We do not have an anticipatory corrective justice system in America or in Judaism (unless its a ben soreh u'moreh, but that never happened acc to sanhedrin) and therefore, I cannot condone any evil treatment of nerds in highschool. In fact, its better to treat them extra-nice, b/c maybe that will help prevent them from being overtaken by alien forces. Also, u may need their assistance later on in life for something. u never know.

Q. So, i think I spotted an alien. What now the Fades???? - zak , plainview

Zak, u sure its not just a regular person? Don't be overzealous and go killing regular people. That will simply lead you to prison and that would make me sad. Instead, spy on the suspect for a two week period and observe his behavioral pattern. Does he watch scifi channel only? Does he eat hotdogs with both ketchup and mustard? Things like that will help you in your final determination. If after the two week period, u r absolutely convinced that he is an alien, find out where he sleeps and kill him in his sleep. Or maybe just beat him with a bat or something. or do the game where u stick his hand in hot water and make him pee in the bed. Thats actually the best method. Do the hot water trick.

Special thanks to la homos; my prodigal roomate and billy for initially developing this interesting theorem. My reports outta the heights and stern school of obedience for women say that the number of aliens is dramatically increasing. So be on the lookout. GN

2005-01-30T16:52:00.000-08:00

Lots of beans in Aretha's chulent

In honor of black history month..

2005-01-30T16:27:00.000-08:00

Its almost Feb-o0o-erry, which means that all of you should be examining your ancient black heritage and getting ready to celebrate black history month. Highlights of this month include a celebration of Washington's birthday, who himself had many black slaves. But then again, it also includes Lincoln's birthday, who went and freed all the slaves. Interesting that both of these famous presidents have birthdays in such close proximity. Anyway, in celebration of my favorite month, I have complied a fun list.

At minyan this morning, there was a black man among us. In fact, I have seen at least 4 different african americans at shul during my time in philadelphia. What does all this mean? It means that I have made a brand new creative list of "FAMOUS BLACKS WHO WOULD MAKE GREAT JEWS" Yes, i thought of this amazing idea during my recitation of the Amidah this morning, so I guess it was divinely inspired. Please ( I really encourage this) feel free to add to this list in your comments. I am looking forward to hearing what my clever and entertaining readers have to say.
1) Ray Charles. Fits the perfect mold of the old respected man who has lived in your community for 50 million years. Can't you see him being escorted in to your shul and sitting in the front row. You politely go over and say good shabbos to him and he gives you a little candy. He is well respected in the community and everyone stands when he gets an aliyah. I can see it happening if he was still alive.
2) Oprah. Its close to Orpah from the book of Ruth, which many of you may know from taking the torturous bible classes in YU. Its true, Orpah never did convert the whole way like Ruth (its so weird to write "Ruth", but how else can i write it... Rut? Root? Russ? unclear) , but she was married to one of those machlon/kilyon guys, and she's in a book of tanach. If Oprah would convert, i can easily see her causing trouble at her shul by starting an all women's minyan or asking to kiss the Torah, or give announcements. It would be annoying.
3) Micheal Jackson. He can easily continue the tradition of being a Rabbi who gets charged with some type of sexual molestation. A nice fit for him. And then there is the whole question if he should still qualify as "black" and make it onto this prestigious list.
4) Aretha Franklin. She just looks like she would make a really good chulent. I'm talking a chulent that will knock you out for 7 hours, and then 3 more in the restroom. But i guess she doesnt have to be jewish to make the good chulent, unless we wanna get into issues of bishul akum, which is way way way beyond the scope of this blog.
5) Reggie White. I heard he was converting before he died. Also, he made some anti-gay comments, along the lines of saying that homosexuality is an abomination. Would make for a powerfu and controversial pulpit Rabbi.
That is the entire list. By no means do I mean for this to be a racist type RANT. I was actually raised by an African American women, and she only beat me sparilngly. And she told me it was payback b/c my people had oppressed hers for millions of years. So everything evens out. Enjoy your Feb-ooo-erry. GN

2005-01-29T16:17:00.000-08:00

Barbra, the first frum cross-dresser

Pardon me Ms. , Is that my Yarmulka??

2005-01-29T15:49:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has ever spent a Shabbos on a secular college campus, or perhaps even in Stern School of Obedience for Women, will be able to relate to this very important post. Here we go...
I was at the Hillel House, when it was pointed out to me through the transparent Machitzah, that a girl was wearing a yarmulka during davening. She also had a lovely tallis. Now, lets get something straight right now- I have no problem with this girl's gender confusion. In fact, I really found it fascinating and humorous to observe. But it also made me think of some interesting questions. I have seen numerous yarmulka-clad women in my day, and all of them wear the serugah-type. Now, why is this?? Why don't you ever see one of these mixed up maniacs going "yeshivish" with the black velvet, or better yet, going black hat. One might think, (and I do) , that Barbra Streisand would have set the cross-dressing precedent with her spectacular performance in "Yentel". BUT, if this theory is true, you would see these wackjobs wearing a much more yeshivish style, instead of the colorful serugah types that are more common. Now, do these girls only wear their yarmulkas when they come to shul, or do they wear it in the comforts of their own home as well. Do they act like certain guys do, and remove the yarmulka when they go to a club or bar or whatever? Do they switch to a baseball cap for certain scenarios...or is it simply always that yarmulka. And furthermore, do they have a large selection sitting at home somewhere, or is it always the same damn one. You would assume that they want to pick out a matching one, depending on the outfit they are wearing, so my guess is that they have a nice variety to choose from.

Personally, when I look at one of these girls with a yarmulka, its the equivalent of looking at a girl with a mustache or beard or horrible mole or something very "off." There is something blatantly attached to her face/head that simply doesn't belong, much like facial hair. I would go as far to say, that even if the girl was very attractive, she would lose that element somehow by wearing the yarmulka. Why is this? B/c in my head, she turns everything upside down and causes me great confusion. But then again, this is a major hypothetical, b/c I have yet to see an attractive girl actually doing this.

What is the message that we should take from this rant? One message is to realize that girls who do this are acting illogically. They probably think this will help them achieve some sort of twisted equality, but this is biologically impossible. Last time I checked, these girls didn't have to go through the painful process of BRIS MILAH. My proposal is that if girls want to wear male-stuff, we should be allowed to cut off a part of one of their appendages. (is that a human- word, or only grasshoppers have that, or something?) Now, that would be true equality, as well as very disturbing. But then again, seeing this girl wear a yarmulka is also disturbing. Funny as hell and yet disturbing. GN

2005-01-28T11:21:00.000-08:00

meatloaf would do anything for a bigmac right about now

2005-01-28T11:20:00.000-08:00

me and cohen..no similarities

2005-01-28T11:18:00.000-08:00

Ace of Base defined me in 6th grade

6th Grade Memories...good times.

2005-01-27T18:42:00.000-08:00

Today I was walking in the freezing cold and listening to the radio, and lo and behold (strange expression) I was given a true gift. Meatloaf's "I would do anything for love" came on the radio, and I was immedietly warped back into 6th Grade once again. Yes, thats correct, this happens on a normal basis. So without further ado (spelling?) lets take a quick but memorable glimpse into my 6th grade memories.

SO it was around this time that I got my first CD player , old-school boombox style. I think it actually still works. And the major issue was..which CDs to buy for this musical device? And the answer was fairly simple and extremely homosexual....1) ace of base and 2) meatloaf. Now Meatloaf is understandable simply because of "i would do anything for love." Its great to listen to a very fat man sing about doing anything for love. Would Meatloaf go on a diet for love? Would he get lyposuction? Another questions to ponder is ..would U do ANYTHING for Love??? But alas, this question is way too deep to be discussed at this time. (but if u have comments on that question, post em up)
Back to the CDs...so I'm finding it very hard to justify buying an ace of base cd. I remember there was "the sign" and we all know and love that one. There was also "all that she wants" and i think the next words are "is another baby." I dont know why these swedish women needed or wanted another baby. But in China, u should know, u cannot have that many babies. If u have more than the amount allowed, they will kill your baby. Or throw it in a garbage.
I was really really into this ace of base cd; i think the group was composed of 2 women- 1 blond, 1 brunette, and probably 2 men also. Although, i may be confusing them with other european powerhouses such as "the real mcCoy" or "eifel 49". Either way, I used to pretend 2 girls in my class were the 2 female singers, and me and my friend were the 2 male singers, and we were an import rock group. And I would sing the songs in the mirror...alone, b/c the other 3 people didnt know about this little pretend game I played. My imagination was really crucial in 6th grade, and I also liked to try and relate popular tv characters to my own personal life. For instance, I was exactly like Brandon of 90210, b/c I was smart and had long sideburns. Which brings me to the point of this rant...The OC: great show, but I am having trouble relating to any of the male characters. Cohen is a Jew, but I really dont see any similarities between him and myself. And this is why I miss 6th grade, a time when my imagine seemed endless, even to the point where i was a member of Ace of Base. GN

Awkward day in class

2005-01-26T17:05:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to all my loyal fans. Please don't be shy about posting your thoughts, jokes, criticisms, stories, etc... (3 dots)

So today I had an awkward encounter that I would like to share with the public. In school, there are about eighty students in a class, just like in YU. Seating is picked electronically via the Internet, on a first come first serve basis. Not suprisingly, I was one of the last to be served, and got stuck with a seat in the front row, next to the strangest people in the class. Now keep in mind, alot of socializing depends on who u r sitting next to. Those few minutes before and after class are critical moments in which solid friendships can be built. So maybe its good that I'm not sitting next to an attractive, sweet, intelligent girl, b/c who knows where that would end up.
So who am i sitting next to? I am sitting next to a lady. She has to be at least 40 and she just looks like her house smells from mothballs. U know that look. She has some heavy Scandavian accent as well, but I dont know enough about the world to tell u what country she is from. In any event, she is a lady, and I am a little guy, so sitting next to her is strange.

Today I wore my much-heralded argyle sweater. Its my go-to sweater, my "old reliable", the sweater u know u can always turn to in times of dressing-confusion. Well, at least it was. To my horror, old lady next to me is also wearing an argyle sweater. And it gets worse. The Professor stops his lecture in the middle and says.."hey, you guys are twins!!!". Then the lady says."yahh, we should take a family photo, and starts cackling like a drunk witch. I'm thinking, "ummm, when did i enter the twilight zone. I'm telling you, these things only happen to me.

Furthermore, this lady was drinking V8 the entire class. This is a beverage composed of vegetables that should never be turned into juices, like carrots and zuchini. Why is this beverage being sold? Zuchini, and olives for that matter, make me nausuous no matter what form they are in. One time I ordered an egg salad wrap in YU, without realizg there were olives in it. I'm telling you, when I bit into it, I was wretching for 10 minutes. Shouldn't there be some kind of warning on products that have hidden gross ingredients? Fruit also makes me nausous, but that might be genetically inherited from my father. Or it might come from my grandmother's insistance that I eat pear after pear when I was 3 years old untill I vomit. Either way, I am disturbed by most fruit and certain vegetables. And b/c Tu B'shvat has just passed, I felt it was appropriate to discuss all this. And also b/c that old mothball hag was drinking V8. But now she is my twin sister. Great. GN

The First Post

2005-01-25T20:02:00.000-08:00

I gotta tell u , this Blog thing is gonna change everyone's life. I mean, everyone is gonna start reading this, and then tell their friends, who will tell their friends, etc.. So bottom line is that I have very high hopes (a good song by pink floyd) for this thing.
Second thing is that I am gonna be really honest on this thing. I'll tell it the way I see it, and if that means being a little controversial, so be it. ( and I apologize)
As u all probably know, I am rotting away in my first year of law school in philly. This gives me some time to write down my thoughts at the end of the day. I am living in West Philly, where will smith is from. Why did Will Smith leave here? And why was he wearing that awkwardly colored cap when he arrived at Bel Air. I feel like he got that in the airport. Recently, I was in the new airport in Tel Aviv, and I purchased a Shwecky CD. How crazy is it that you can buy a Shwecky CD at an airport. Does it get any better than that? I tried to listen to it on the plane, but I kept passing out and then waking up in the middle and thinking I was at someone's wedding.
But back to living in West Philly...this place is perhaps worse than Washington Heights. U see, orignially, Western Philadelphia was an all african american community; as time passed, the upper class white college students began to move in to every single house that existed. So..we have a little culture clash going on, in which the each group really wants to just kill the other. its kinda like the heights, b/c u gotta believe that the Hispanics wanna kill us. And how can u trust the security guards in the heights...if they themselves are of the Hispanic origin. There are Penn security guards here, and they are both black and white..so maybe they are to be more trusted than in the Heights. But here is the clincher...these guys ride bicycles. No man on a bicycle can be trusted to defend me. Some of them have little horns that they honk at the car jackers and thieves, and bandits, and crooks, and pirates. I wish they had unicycles. That would be amazing.
tommorow I'll try to talk some Torah tommorow and relate it to some other stuff. GN.