Did Bravo not get the memo?

Last night during the Real Housewives of Atlanta season premiere, Bravo played a shortened version of this commercial for the new season of Project Runway. Premiering August 20th. On LIFETIME.

After all the legal dramz that went down over the network switch for ProRun, why the hell would Bravo run a commercial for their competitor? Do they even realize how D-list that makes them look? It's like, "Look at one of the most popular and credible shows on reality tv that we lost and had to create a rip-off show to replace. It's great, change the channel and go watch this!" Seriously, Bravo, I thought you were better than that.

Yet, as much as I wanted to hate on Lifetime's version of ProRun, it looks just as great as in the good ole days and so does Models of the Runway. I'm hanging my head and changing into my mom jeans in shame because I will be watching.

Movie review on PMS

Warning: Do not go to see Funny People when you're PMSing. This movie is already confused enough (in a good way) if it wants to be a comedy or a drama or a romance, so you really don't need to put your own emotions which are changing by the minute through that roller coaster.

That being said, do go see it! Despite creative editing in certain promos to make it look purely comical, this film is vastly different than Apatow's previous efforts. The sadness/death element is real and very present in the film which provides an interesting, and at times haunting, twist to the movie's running theme of what and who is "funny".

I laughed, I cried, I felt my lady hormones raging...all of which I'm sure were the desired reactions to Funny People.

Guten Tag, Herr Hot-Stuff!

Zum Schneider
East Village
107 Avenue C (at 7th Street)
New York, NY 10009
212-598-1098
www.zumschneider.com

The equation to what makes Zum Schneider a great bar for the single girl in Manhattan is quite simple. Boys like beer. Zum has a wide menu of German beers that come in huge glasses. Thus boys go here in droves, so you should too to meet said boys. Zum also creates the perfect social atmosphere to meet new people with their traditional beer-garden style community tables. It's almost like they knew exactly what they were doing all along! I'm not the biggest fan of international beers but I can recognize a good beer list when I see it, especially by the looks of joy on the male clientele's faces as they clink their liter sized glasses together in cheer. So I shall grab my own (half) liter glass and join in the festive fun, indulging in as many Wieners as I can handle. I may come for the boys, but you should probably come for the Bavarian tradition and the beer, which are far more noble reasons.
Rating: 3.5 stars

Slumming it

JCPenney, welcome to Manhattan? The new Manhattan Mall store (33rd and 6th) had a soft opening earlier this week and will celebrate its grand opening on July 31st. The hype for the new JCP has been going strong for almost two years with much press and 3-story signage towering over Herald Square, but does anyone really care? I ventured into the store today (pathetically located on "Lower Level 1 and 2" of the mall) with promotional coupon in hand and more of an open mind than most Manhattanites will be able to muster, but found no reason to ever return except possibly for cheap bedding.

JCP does bring several notable designer discount collections into NYC for the first time, and the prices of these lines are obviously very attractive. However, despite my earlier enthusiasm I was unimpressed with the current season of I Heart Ronson by Charlotte Ronson, and Nicole by Nicole Miller misses the mark of playful sophistication brought by the designer's "real" collection and borders the line of "mom trying desperately to look young". There is also a Sephora inside the new JCPenneys, but anyone who's been trying to dub it as "full sized" is lying to you. This also makes me worry for the neighboring 34th Street location (b/w 6th and 7th) and question why they did massive renovations just a year ago. The layout of the new JCP as a whole is very awkward to navigate, and it's hard to tell where Penneys ends and Manhattan Mall begins. And this probably won't come as a surprise to anyone, but everyone in the store is obvi a tourist.

To think Arby's and the Manhattan Mall food court died to make room for THIS! So not worth it.

Watch for this in the +8's sippy cups

Today I saw a truck painted with a huge logo for Ed Hardy Celebrity Energy Drinks. Upon a little further research I discovered that these have been around since 2007 and come in 4 flavors: orange, apple, pomegranate, and sugar free. How have I never heard of these, and why the hell do they exist in the first place?

More importantly, where can I get some? I love energy drinks, and based on the genius name and marketing, these drinks will certainly automatically turn me into a D-List celebrity. Or perhaps just a 32-year-old douche trying to be young and...a celebrity. Jon Gosselin is chugging this stuff as we speak.

I kid, I actually love the Ed Hardy by Christian Audigier fashion line but have never been able to pull it off without looking like I'm trying way too hard. I have these kick ass purple Ed Hardy knee socks with little roses that are one of my favorite accessories that I've never worn because what does one wear with Ed Hardy knee socks, really now? If anyone can help me out with this dilemma please let me know.

And seriously dude, where can I get these energy drinks?

All you need is a dollar and a dream?

A handful of the top shows on Broadway have what they call a "lottery", only you don't win money but rather the ability to buy cheap tickets for these in-demand shows. Most shows who run this special allot about 20-30 tickets per performance to the lottery and sell them to winners for between $20-35. Policies vary, but to enter the lottery you need to arrive at the theatre about 2 and 1/2 hours before curtain time to put your name in the drawing which takes place 2 hours before curtain. If your name is pulled, you are able to buy up to two discounted tickets for that performance. Lottery and rush policies are listed at playbill.com and on individual show websites.

Pretty cool right? These lotteries are a great way to make affordable tickets available to the public, but personally I prefer when shows offer student rush so that the cheap tickets are likely to go to those who wouldn't be able to afford going to the theatre otherwise. Not to mention the fact that usually anywhere between 100-500 people enter the lottery on a daily basis, so your odds are quite low. Especially if you're in a group of three or more people and relying on the fact that two of your names are going to be drawn.

Like I was on Saturday. My mother and cousin were in town, and on a whim we decided to enter the lottery for In The Heights. Seeing over 200 people standing outside the theatre, I was pretty much resigning myself to a night of sadly no theatre but a long relaxed dinner. Well what do you know, Wendy C gets called promptly followed by Donna K. Of course not Megan K, but at that point what did it matter? I've entered dozens of lotteries in my day and found it's pretty much a statistical impossibility that the name Megan K gets pulled. Except for the period when Rent's ticket sales were way down AND no one realized that they had Sunday evening performances so there were pretty much 25 people entered to win 20 tickets, and even then my name was called last.

So the moral of the story is that cheap tickets are good, In the Heights is great, and perhaps all you need to combine them is family with a little bit of luck. Just please not that creepy lil two-inch tall guy they have in the real NY Lotto commercials...he creeps me out.

Take a drink every time they say it!

The guys at fourfour.typepad.com are my new bffs for doing this and it's SO TRUE! The sad part is that I've seen most of these priceless reality moments during their original air and could name the show without the captions. Except for that "ultimate gamer" crap. I mean who watches that shiz?

Emo-untry? Countr-emo?

It must be said that despite the seemingly tell-tale classification, there is by far a genre of music that can make me cry more easily than emo. We're talking full out, immediate, wheezing, ugly crying that ensues when I hear certain...country songs. It ain't pretty. So while we have a good theme running and I'm in an all around sucky mood (Sorry, I really miss Pittsburgh. Work with me here), I felt compelled to compile a list of the top 10 most tear-worthy country songs:

10. Taylor Swift, "Teardrops on My Guitar" - This one is pretty cheesy so it had to be low on the list, but it so perfectly conveys teenage heartbreak and what it's like not to be noticed...so you pour it all out in the music. It just gets me for pathetic girly reasons. (Admittedly almost every subsequent Taylor Swift song was about the exact same thing, but this was the original so it's better)
9. Brad Paisley/Alison Krauss, "Whiskey Lullaby" - Suicide over a lost love. That's all I got to say about that.
8. Darryl Worley, "If Something Should Happen" - A man going into surgery asks his best friend to basically father his children and take care of his wife because he's scared he's going to...well, you know. The description of the scenarios are what gets ya with this one.
7. Trace Adkins, "You're Gonna Miss This" - Watching children grow up and savoring the precious moments. When Trace sang this on the Celebrity Apprentice finale with his daughter in the audience I just lost it.
6. Keith Urban, "Tonight I Wanna Cry" - Ummmm, nuf said? Sometimes we really need to let it all out
5. Rascal Flatts, "Sara Beth (Skin)" - She had cancer so her prom date shaved his head to make her feel better. And he still thought she looked beautiful. She was dancing with her very first true love just like in her daydreams. *Sigh*
4. Brooks & Dunn, "Believe" - This song is simply haunting...in a beautiful way. Old Man Wrigley dies and a young man loses who he perhaps never knew was his best friend. This old man taught him some serious life lessons.
3. Brad Paisley, "Letter To Me" - For some reason I've been hearing this one a lot lately and it gets me every time. Re-living past loves, talking to your teenage self with grown-up wisdom, being proud of said teenage self, and Brad's melodic voice make this one a real tear-jerker.
2. Carrie Underwood, "Just a Dream" - It was hard to pick just one Carrie song for the list since on different days and different levels of PMS, 90% of her music can trigger the waterworks for me. However, I figured an 18-year-old widow with an un-wed fiance taken by war has the most universal tear potential. Runners up: "Don't Forget to Remember Me", "The Night Before (Life Goes On)"
1. Jamey Johnson, "The Dollar" - The son misses his workaholic father and pinches his pennies to literally buy time with his dad?!? Omg how could I not be a blubbering mess? I can't go on...

Country is so the new emo y'all.

To all my sistas out there keepin it country

The Patriot Saloon
Tribeca
110 Chambers Street (at Church Street)
New York, NY 10007
212-748-1162

I really try to keep it classy in the big city, but every now and then a gal like me needs somewhere to let loose and allow her true po-dunk self to come through. That is what dive bars are for, and The Patriot is quite possibly the only true one of the genre that you'll find in NYC. The country music is in full effect fueled by juke boxes on each of The Patriot's two floors, and it's not hard to find a cute drunk boy to dance with (even if he does think dancing to Brooks & Dunn is pleasantly ironic while I consider it a necessary part of life). The drink prices are unfathomably low, we're talkin $2 cans and $6 pitchers of PBR (don't hate), with most other drinks and shots along the same level of cheapness. And obvi the cheaper drinks are, the drunker one can get! As drunk as I may have been, I 'm pretty positive I also saw their food menu boasting the same heavenly prices with many items well less than $5, and from what I hear the bar grub is pretty yummy. My one regret from my recent Patriot trip is that I didn't take the barmaid up on her invitation to dance on the bar, but as fun and friendly as she was, the current song wasn't up to my bar-dancing standards and I wasn't about to break the seal and be the lone drunk girl dancing on the bar. To all you posh nay-sayers: yes, The Patriot is a BAR in the truest sense of the word and it's not apologizing for a lil grit. But if New Yorkers can take the sticks out of their asses and come on down, I think anyone would be surprised at what a good time they'll have. And when y'all come back, I'll be the hot blonde boot-scootin on the bar.
Rating: 5 stars

PC, I feel for ya

NYC Prep (aka The Real Gossip Girls of New York) has been on Bravo for about two weeks now and in general is a quality reality show combining just the right amount of trainwreck and legitimate study of a specific sub-culture. We're talkin Emmy worthy shit right here. Well part of last night's episode struck a lil too close to home and got me thinking...



Go to near the end of this clip, or just watch the whole thing for the fifth time like I did. PC (whom I consider to be by far the most interesting cast member on the show) gets stood up on a blind date. Last night I was also scheduled to have a date with a guy I really didn't know who neglected to call me to make final arrangements. Not as bas as being stood up but still felt really awesome. PC makes a comment that it sucks to put yourself out there and try something slightly out of your comfort zone, only for it to blow up in your face. Which is basically how I feel about dating at the moment. It effin sucks to go through a dating dry spell, try really hard to make yourself open and meet people in every way possible, and then finally get a date that ends up not happening due to the inconsiderate nature of another person. It makes you feel un-dateable and like nothing good will ever come to you. Even if you didn't get your hopes up or put that much stock into the date, it's a really big let down and a slap in the face.

So I feel for PC, I feel for myself, and I feel for everyone out there who has been single for a long ass time, not you bitches who just got out of relationships and are loooooooving being single. It's only fun for so long, and you're just going to turn around and get into another relationship in four months anyway while those of us like PC and I will probably still be all alone. This whole dating thing can so suck it, and leave it to NYC Prep to show us a glimmer into the perils of being single and effin lonely.