Dream Home

Ok, for ONCE the NYTimes actually had a link to a place I think is worth living in. Usually, they link to $25M condos in the Waldorf-Astoria that still require all the walls etc. to be built and are nothing more than expensive space. This is TOTALLY different. I'm sure it's insanely-priced, and I think a lot of what it has to offer as far as the concierge services and library lounge etc. go are a bit useless (I want to be IN my condo, not with my neighbours!), but I mean this building is AMAZING.

I would actually kill a small puppy with my bare hands to live here. I mean I'd snap its neck. I really would.

Check it out :)

VC

Me and My Protozoa

Breaking news!

I DO HAVE A PARASITE!

I know this is not commonly said, but: "I'm so happy I have a parasite!"

It appears that my recent diagnosis of ulcerative colitis may not be correct after all.

I can't believe the nurse practitioner who counseled me didn't even want to do stool samples, even though I told her I was pretty sure I had a parasite and HAD had one for probably almost a year.

It shouldn't be a big deal. Antibiotic treatment. The kind of cool, except for the fact that it's in my body, thing about this particular protozoa (blastocytis hominis) is that it can actually carry diseases from animals to humans. I think that's pretty impressive. Now I just need to figure out if there is a particular kind of mad cow disease that makes one eat pizza all the time (anorexia is one of the potential symptoms of infection with this parasite, and we KNOW I don't have that! lol).

You can see a photo of my protozoa (well not mine, but a relative) here in the blog.

VC

PS: Went to the orthodontist to check on invisalign. He wanted $6500 (and that was after giving me a discount because he was a Persian Jew, so we had a lot in common...kind of). That is SO not going to happen, right now.

Bush 9/11 Instablog

30 Seconds Until Takeoff... (Yes Wolf Blitzer is actually having a countdown)

Here we go!

President Bush on 9/11: 5 Years Later

• The attacks were of a barbarity unequaled on our history
• It was the initiation of a war on the entire free world
• Today we are safer, but we are not yet safe
• People praying and calling their children in times of disaster are "uniquely American" acts
• Fire fighters and police officers are "choking up" (maybe because of the permanent lung damage they sustained when they were lied to about the air quality at Ground Zero?)
• What we've learned since 9/11: The enemy kills with purpose and despises dissent (sound like another regime we know?); their goal: lock women up and beat men who miss scheduled prayer
• We put Al-Qaeda and the Taliban on the run (it was a gradual circle they ran: through Tora Bora into the NWFP in Pakistan and now back to where they stared in Afghanistan!)
• The world is safer without Saddam.
• Sectarian violence in Iraq is directed at the US (hmmmm -- now THAT'S some good "this isn't a Civil War because it's not internally directed" logic lol)
• Bush is of the same mind as Bin Laden that this is WW3 and if the US loses then it will be forever shamed
• The Iraqi people have been steadfast (probably because we don't grant them visas)
• Home Land Security was the magic key to monitoring terrorist phone calls (ok...and our phone calls, too)
• The most powerful weapon in the Executive arsenal is the power of freedom -- the pulling of voting levers makes terrorists wet their beds
• This is not a clash of civilizations; it is a struggle for civilization (there is only one, apparently, and it's found in a Texas church)
• Do we have the courage to do in the Middle East what our fathers and grandfathers did in Europe and Asia (drop a nuclear weapon or two? ignore a genocide or two?)
• Bush believes that he is analogous to Roosevelt and Truman, because they also pursued global peace with unforseen negative short-run consequences
• The war will be over when the sky parts, clouds clear, and radicalism disappears (so no more Evangelicals?) at which point we will enter a shining age of human liberty, with faith in a loving god who made us to be free
  
• Sons should go to war, and mothers should cross their fingers and pray (I'm not kidding!)

V(omiting)C(hunks)

THE INTERVIEW IS FOUND

I know I've talked about it to people, and I've finally found it.

WENDY WILLIAMS'S INTERVIEW OF WHITNEY HOUSTON.

In three parts.

You can't make this stuff up!

The third part is maybe when she gets most excited...I mean it's full of choice soundbytes. Wendy actually explained later on that Whitney basically called her for like 2 hours and she just let the tape role, and that it was like she swung between regular Whitney and TOTALLY high f*cked-up Whitney, and it was hard for Wendy to even get enough clear parts to put together the interview!

VC

PS: For those of you who need to catch up -- Wendy Williams is the NYC radio host who I used to listen to in the afternoons when I'd run and sun in the part, and I got TOTALLY addicted to her and her...let's say..."unique" vocabulary ("professional" = blow job, "jump off" = person someone cheat's with, etc. --> In context --> Caller: "Wendy, I'm worried about my marriage. My husband and I have been together 7 years but you know, I ain't never ONCE given him a professional." Wendy: "Seven years? So he's had a least four jump-offs by now..."). She's SO real, and she will say directly what is on her mind (as you can see in the Whitney interview), but what's so great is that she's such a fixture in the R&B/Hip Hop world that these artists CANNOT ignore her. She is GREAT for gangster gossip, too, but it's like everyone respects her too much to take a shot at her.

Patriotism Prediction

ALERT!

Tiger Woods is sitting in Switzerland's Roger Federer's box at the US Open final against Andy Roddick of the USA.

I'm just waiting for the you-kn0w-whos to accuse him of being unpatriotic!

VC