Sorry for missing yesterday; the Ms. and I were wrapping up our periodic “oh right, this is why we could never live in New York” trip. Nothing against The Center of the Known Universe© (other than the Yankees); it’s just not our preferred stress level (that is, EXTREMELY HIGH, ALL THE TIME). Full disclosure: me being sick and it being extremely cold the whole time may have played a role.

It wasn’t all bad, though—there were a lot of great things about the visit. So to that end, this week’s list is actually a 5-item list of our favorite parts of the visit:

Top 5 Best Things About Our NYC Visit:

5. Visiting and catching up with  some of our friends and family
4. Getting to walk down Broadway in Soho and visit all the different boutiques and see what other designers are up to and into
3. Experiencing Strand Books for the first time. That place is incredible (though the organization is not at all intuitive)! If you’ve ever been to the Amoeba Music in Los Angeles, it’s like that, but with books; kind of paralysis-inducing, it’s so full of books. You just don’t know where to start, and before you know it it’s been three hours and you’ve only scratched the surface. I wanted all of their beautiful leather-bound classics (sorry cows! Let’s hope it was synthetic.) But I did pick up a very cool book on modern poster design for inspiration.
2. Our dedication to food tourism is well-documented here, so it was great to discover Cocoa V in Chelsea Saturday night, a tiny, very cute and romantic chocolate & wine bar that sells artisanal bon bons and caramels that are so pretty you almost don’t want to eat them. Following our visit to Cocoa V, we ate at Pure Food and Wine (between Union Square and Gramercy Park) on Sunday evening and had a raw food extravaganza. The food was wonderful, the service impeccable, and despite it being a little on the loud & crowded side, a really cozy, romantic atmosphere.
1. Le Scandal burlesque show Saturday night at the West Bank Cafe on 42nd St. Sooooo hilarious and entertaining; completely made up for the rocky trip up. Not for the straight-laced, but if you enjoy bawdy humor interspersed with occasional pasty-covered breasts (who doesn’t, amirite?!), then this is definitely worth checking out.

Also, I am super-envious of NYC’s cab fleet. Nice, new-ish, clean vehicles with TV’s that take cash AND cards? Sign me up!

What about you guys? What are some of your favorite things to do in the Big Apple? Let me know in the comment section below!

When you think of Back to School, what’s the first thing you think of? I know, deeply discounted wine. Me too.

(Via Top Cultured)

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P.S. I still wanna see your smiling face. Or your sneering face. Whatever suits you. Send me a picture of you in your Ex-Boyfriend tee or hoodie. Be sure to include your mailing address so I can send you a thank you gift.

Lots of great booze news today!

First off, apparently Science got the memo AND the apology: they’ve stepped up and grown liver cells out of skin cells. This is a small but important stepping stone in the pursuit of consequence-free binge drinking. Thanks, Science!

Secondly, as I mentioned the other day, the good folks at Drinkwel have offered to pony up some free samples of their little miracle drug. To that end, I think it would be beneficial (strictly for the purposes of scientific research) to approach this whole thing like an experiment. So based on the number of pills they send, I’ll be dividing up my drinking into three phases comprised of an equal number of days. Phase I will focus on Drinkwel’s efficacy on beer, Phase II on wine, and Phase III on mixed drinks. I briefly contemplated a Phase IV involving all three, but I don’t hate my liver that much.

Here’s where I need your help: to keep the variables to a minimum, I’ll need to select one beer for Phase I; I can’t hop from Miller Light to Blue Moon to Resurrection Ale. I need a constant alcohol by volume percentage. What shall I drink? Same for mixed drinks; I’m leaning toward mojitos or dark & stormy’s, but am always open to suggestions (that don’t involve whiskey, bourbon or scotch—this is supposed to be fun, remember?) Leave your recommendations in the comments!

Well, this is simultaneously depressing and awe-inspiring. Lester Hutt of BevShots had the brilliant idea of creating photographic prints of booze droplets as they appear when magnified 10,000x. The resulting abstract masterpieces are enough to make any creative type want to curl up in the fetal position, lick the booze right off the slides and cry, because honestly — how can we possibly compete with nature?

(Via Telegraph.co.uk)

So, those of you who read my blog regularly (all ten of you) may have noticed that I was MIA all last week. I wish I had a good reason for my lack of communication, but I don’t. The fact of the matter is, my wife was out of town (Way out of town. London, to be precise) last week, and if I’m being honest, it’s very difficult for me to stay on-task when she’s not around.

Tempting as it is to do the revisionist history thing and post a bunch of entries time-stamped for last week, let’s just pretend that it never happened (which is, in itself, a revisionist undertaking. Tautology! Look it up, kids. Also, what’s up with all the parentheticals today?)

Since only TWO of the aforementioned TEN readers have taken me up on my Meet the Fans Monday feature, I’ve decided to ease us back into the swing of things by interviewing myself. This exercise is two-fold: it give me a chance to mention Chuck Klosterman’s latest book Eating the Dinosaur, which examines the nature of the interview from the quasi-philosophical angle that Klosterman does so well, and it also allows me to talk about myself, which I love doing.

How did you first discover Ex-Boyfriend?
I started designing some stuff. It needed a name. And “The Beatles” was taken.

5 10 desert island musical artists?
Yikes! Idlewild, The Smiths, Waylon Jennings, The Who, The Beatles, The Cure, Miles Davis, Wilco, Elliott Smith, and Blur. I will rue this list on the days when I crave some Johnny Cash, Radiohead and/or Oasis.

Tell us about your pop cultural guilty pleasures.
I don’t ever really feel guilty about the stuff that makes me feel good… but I suppose the stuff that is the most incongruous with my persona would be my appreciation of certain Britney Spears singles, Jane Austen novels, “good” romantic comedies (Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, etc) and Gossip Girl.

What kind of tees do you hope we design next?
The kind that sell a lot! Ideally, stuff with monsters and robots and critters. You know, the usual.

Favorite haunts on the web?
Alright, time for some true confessions… I’m a bit of a sports nut. Not exactly the sort of thing you’d guess based on my job, wardrobe, haircut, listening habits, etc. But I LOVE baseball and football. So a lot of the places I visit deal with sports. Pretty much every one of the Yahoo! Sports blogs is choice. Fangraphs.com. CamdenChat.com. All are pretty entertaining reads. But I also love to drop in on chromewaves.net, because Frank Yang and I share a lot of the same taste in music (and I like free mp3′s), videogum.com is excellent because Gabe is one of funniest bloggers I’ve ever read. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention andiamnotlying.com, which is partially contributed to by my friend David William, who is an amazing artist “living the dream” in hipper-than-hip Brooklyn. And of course tastespotting and liquorious!

Do you have any pets? What are they, what are their names?
I think this is pretty well-documented, but I’m pwned by two cats, Oliver and Bigby. And let’s not forget the seemingly never-ending parade of foster animals.

If you had a time machine, where in history or the future would you go?
The future. To paraphrase Brian Fellows, I don’t do dinosaurs.

Beer, liquor, or wine (be specific)?
Beer and wine are more or less in a dead heat. I love a good Belgian-style wheat beer, but I also like a nice, flavorful copper, amber or red ale. As far as wines, I’ve graduated from the “I only drink whites” camp to almost exclusively reds. I tend to shy away from the drier stuff—no merlots for me, thanks. I like a nice full-bodied shiraz, cabernet savignon, malbec, or pinot noir.

What’s the first thing you notice about the ladies (or dudes if you prefer them)?
Teeth/smile. I can look past a lot of physical flaws, but bad teeth are pretty egregious.

Cake, pie or cookies (ice cream and candy are also acceptable, but be specific)?
This is tough! I love Starbursts. I like cupcakes a lot (though I’m pretty no-frills; plenty happy with vanilla-on-vanilla), and certain pies really get me going (key lime, blue berry, pumpkin, pecan). I appreciate a well-done cookie, but they’re more of a stop-gap dessert in my book—a sort of “well, if there’s nothing else around” treat. My wife’s cherry cheesecake is pretty awesome, as is her pumpkin cheesecake topped with toasted pecans and caramel-bourbon sauce.

This warmer weather has me seeking cold, refreshing libations. When the guys come over to watch a game it’s beers all around, but when my wife has friends over the drinks get girlier. and I can’t say I entirely mind. When else can I get away with drinking something fruity other than in mixed company? My wife’s current favored drink is sangria, and not just a cheap bottle of red with brandy and some diced pears. Last week she made Martha Stewart’s Prosecco Sangria. The bubbly makes for a more refreshing drink on a warm spring afternoon. Plus white sangria is so much easier to get out of your pants than red. Not that I’d know anything about that.

Here’s the recipe:

• 1 peach
• 1 nectarine
• 3 apricots
• 5 ounces peach brandy
• 1 bottle (750 mL) chilled Prosecco, (Italian sparkling wine)
• 1 cup peach nectar

1. Pit the peach, nectarine and apricots, cut them into wedges and put them in a pitcher.

2. Stir in peach brandy and let it sit for an hour.

3. Stir in Prosecco and peach nectar and serve chilled.

recipe via Martha Stewart