How to dent the plastic in your pocket

So after the parade I get a call from DP who wants to make an impromptu trip to Philadelphia. So I'm like what the heck as that sure beats looking at a washing machine in the spin cycle. Two hours later I find myself in downtown Philly on Chestnut St. trying to find a cheese steak sandwich. I'm accused of having limited gastronomical horizons and wind up at Morimoto's (apparently some Iron chef guy) restaurant instead. Another two hours goes by and I find myself to have digested an extraordinary amount of food of which a good portion I cannot remember the correct pronunciation or species for that matter. Food is great although my credit card screams "Recession!".

Past 24 hours

Consisted of a attending a jazz recital by Pauline Jean at Cachaca (Greenwich Village, NYC), dinner at SEA (Williamburgh, Brooklyn), taking a power nap at the Tea Room (Union St., Brooklyn) while listening to what I believe was a live Bluegrass band and then a late party at Cafe Dore (Smith St., Brooklyn) followed by just enough sleep to get into Chinatown to catch the tail end of the Chinese lunar new year parade.

The snapshot represents either the Peruvian, Mexican or Colombian contingents that marched.
The blasts of the confetti firework devices had me wanting to jump for cover constantly so I wouldn't recommend the parade for those with heart ailments. Considering it is the year of the rat I was hoping get a good picture of someone dressed in a giant rat costume but the closest I got to that was someone wearing Mickey Mouse ears. Oh well, I can try again in another 12 years.

More comedy

So the last 24 hours consist of complaining of the difficulty in eating Korean food at Noona (Vanderbilt St., Brooklyn) with plastic or metal chopsticks and then stopping over at the Comedy Cellar (West Village, New York City) right after Jerry Seinfeld walks out. Not long thereafter I find myself pushing through a crowd at the Atlantic Ave. subway station to see a dancing midget (I'm not sure if that's the politically correct term) performing moon walks to Michael Jackson's "Beat It".

Ironically, today's Wall St. Journal had an article regarding the environmental concerns caused by the deforestation of China's forest due to the demand for disposable wooden chopsticks and its adverse impact on the orangutan population. Geesh... Now that I finally feel comfortable using chopsticks I now have to feel guilty about using them.

Very interesting week so far

So it begins with a weekend of complete debauchery in Puerto Rico that witnessed parties and/or activities in the cities of Aguadilla, Mayaguez and Ponce. An amazing Superbowl win by the NY Giants followed by an afterwork birthday party on Monday in NY for my coworker JV. Followed by a ticker tape parade on Tuesday in the Canyon of Heroes (lower Manhattan) for the Giants, followed by a primary election (mostly Obama supporters)/mardi gras/Giants party at Ripple. Wednesday happened to be Ash Wednesday which for some reason eerily reminds me of the movie "Serpent and the Rainbow". As I write this we have officially moved into the year of the Rat (or perhaps I should say Mouse as one may be seen as less diabolical than a Rat).