Just What I Needed

This weekend felt like a model of what a weekend should be. Well, to an extent anyway. It wasn’t the most fun weekend I’ve ever had by any stretch of the imagination, but it had good amounts of alone time and good amounts of social interaction. I wasn’t too bored at any point. Everything I wanted to do I did. That’s not saying much seeing as I didn’t have anything I really wanted to do. However, my original plan was to stay in and rest my aching foot. My slightly swollen foot was in a decent amount of pain through work day Friday, and I had only planned one or two drinks at Mars 2112 after work and then I would go home and watch Grosse Pointe Blank on DVD.

It’s amazing how far an exorbitant amount of alcohol can go as far as a pain numbing agent. I think I had 4 drinks in my first 45 minutes at Mars 2112. It was a good crew of folks (as our president would say). David Abbott, Matt Bier, Adam Starling, Lydia Zamacona, Bryan Hacken, Sergio Santos, Mike Haigh, Stacy Angeles, Vanessa White Wolf , Emily Anderson, Zoran Zgonc and many more made the trek to the Red Planet beneath our offices. I think we may have closed the place down. I’m not quite sure what time that place closes. I think I was relatively soused at that point. I think it was Vanessa who suggested we take the show on the road to Planet Rose (I think that’s where we were) a karaoke bar in the East Village.

As soon as I got there I put in to sing Against All Odds by Phil Collins which came on relatively soon. I don’t really remember what songs anyone else did. My memory of that evening is particularly hazy. I think I also sang (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding. I’m sure they were pretty awful versions.

“So take a look at me now!!!!” Take that Phil Collins!!!

Vanessa, Emily, and Stacey Bring The House Down.

Betsy Van Stone and her roommate Mary Therese met us down there. It was a pretty fun night but I think I left at around 1am. I’m not totally sure though. When I got home I watched 20 minutes of Grosse Pointe Blank and went to sleep.
I was settling in to my Saturday Morning/Afternoon laziness when my phone rang. It was Kristin Ertel and she and her roommate Jill Mercadante were apparently around the corner at Joe’s Pizza so I met them. They were going to an art show of some guy that Kristin sort of knew but had never actually met. We probably spent about 15 minutes there, tops. Jill needed to get coffee and Kristin wanted to eat so we went to Cornelia St. Café for brunch. I had a great time hanging out with them and really think we need to find a new drinking spot now that the Village Idiot’s been closed since the summer. It seems like our friendship has never recovered from that hit but I have faith we’ll find a new spot. That was a very melodramatic statement.
The rest of Saturday was spent primarily on my ass. I rented Broken Lizard’sClub Dread at night and I watched it with Sean. It was a pretty stupid movie but I liked it and I think Sean did too. It’s not a great movie but there are some good lines and it’s definitely good for some laughs.

Sunday (today) as it always is, was used as a day of rest (well except for walking a total of 40 blocks to and from Best Buy). I had a gift card to best buy so I bought The Office on DVD, as well as The Professional. Adam Starling had been telling me how good The Office is, and I have to say that I tend to agree. I watched 6 episodes today and laughed my ass off. So this is what one does on a Sunday when there is no football. Well, I guess I’ll have to get used to it after next weekend. Maybe I’ll even do something active on a Sunday. Who wants to do something active like…. I can’t think of anything.

Complete Carnage 2: The Reckoning and Increased Web Traffic

Today was the sequel to my dental visit referred to in the 1/20/05 blog. It was more of the same but with different easy listening songs in the background. It’s fun to rinse out your mouth in one of those little dentist sinks if only to realize just how red your blood actually is. When that ended I went back to work at the VH1 for what amounted to a pretty uneventful day. I sent out a whole mess of photos from the blog entry below to people at work and got some responses. Vanessa Whitewolf (not sure if its one word or two) told me that my apology to her in the blog made her day. It even made her blog. I’m glad she got the apology, I did feel bad and furthermore her blog mention caused a spike in my web traffic. By the end of the day I had about 30 hits for today. I think that’s a new record. Maybe people will start buying my shirts now, though I highly doubt it.

Towards the end of the day I got an IM from Sarah Fleischmann asking if I wanted to get wings with her. That’s a hard offer to turn down so we met at Down The Hatch and partook in some abusive wings and dollar drafts. You can’t beat that. Actually you can if you go to flip nights on Tuesdays. That was my other option. Maybe, I’ll go next week. It’s been too long and I’ve been telling Jenny Beck every week that I was thinking of going, and Jessica Smith and I were supposed to go the last three weeks. We’ll see what happens, but I enjoyed my wings and beer and time spent with Sarah.

Also, my February 2005 Mix is shaping up. It’s just about ready to be unleashed on John Vacanti’s mix of the month club. I made the first copy today and it will stay the same unless I decide to throw on this one Fred Eaglesmith song that I like. Anyway, when February hits I’ll unleash the track listing. It’s not like it’s a bunch of unknown bands or rare tracks, so don’t expect to get blown away or anything. I made it when I was feeling glum (who uses the word glum?) as a form of therapy. While it may have worked its desired effect on me it may turn all those who hear it into moping depressives, though I don’t think it’s that extreme. I’m building this up entirely too much, it’s just a mix. On another musical note, I got the Pixies concert I went to from CDBaby in the mail today. Sweet!!! Ok, I’m going to go listen to it and then go to sleep. Goodnight.

Blizzard ’05

What a weekend of wintry wonder! New York City was hit with 14.5 inches of heaven’s dandruff on Saturday. I have to say I found it quite enjoyable, but not quite as enjoyable as my Friday night. I left work at 5pm on Friday along with pretty much everyone because they were reorganizing our floor and told everyone to leave their offices by 5pm. Who were we to take a stand? Besides, we had planned a happy hour drinking excursion at Mars 2112 downstairs from our offices at 1633 Broadway. It was a pretty decent turnout. Beer was $2 and we all benefited from such a monumental deal. God Bless happy hour, it’s the next best thing to free beer. The VH1 folks know how to enjoy themselves with the drink. I made the rounds taking pictures and annoying people. I’m presently deciding which pictures to include below. They’ll probably be there by the time you read this. I’m not sure what time I left but I think by that time, only Maureen Hoban, Sierra Lindsey, and I were left. Oh, and I also want to apologize to Vanessa Whitewolf who waved at me and was ignored by me, partially because I was having a serious conversation with Maureen at the time and also because I thought she was waving at someone behind me. So, I’m sorry about that Vanessa.

I look like I’ve had a few too many. Deb Miran and Jess Sabin retain their poise.

Best Friends Drink at Mars 2112 Together. Maureen Hoban smiles and I give the drunk look again.

Anyway, I went home and grabbed some Wendy’s before heading to my next destination. I went to Rob Goodman’s moving out of Manhattan party at his place on 34th st. He’s moving to Park Slope. I had some initial difficulty getting there though since I didn’t have the printout with the address with me and when I got out of the cab I realized that I had lost my phone for the 2nd time in about a month. Luckily when I called it later I found out that I had left it at Mars 2112. Who knows how that happened? Anyway, so I had to take another cab home to find the address and then take a cab back to Rob’s. I had fun though once I finally got there. It was a good turnout and fun people were around. Several of whom may be pictured below. I don’t really want to list people for fear of leaving someone out.

You Can’t Spell P-A-R-T-Y Without Rachel Meyers and Rob Goodman. Actually I think you’d at least be missing a P.

Saturday I woke up and had a massive hangover and pretty much spent all day spacing out but I’m sure the spacing out doesn’t surprise anyone. I also shoveled snow off of our roof so it didn’t collapse and went to pick up my phone from Mars 2112. A side note about picking up my phone from Mars 2112, when I went to the front desk to ask if they had my phone, the guy paged the worker who had my phone to come to the “Spaceport”. Sometimes I think these theme restaurants go a little too far when every section of the restaurant is named after the space type things. It seems to me that they probably have a space name for the bathrooms (docking station) and the kitchen (spacelab).

So most of the day Saturday was spent working on a mix for my mix of the month club. It’s taking shape rather nicely and its up there with some of my best work. It’s a little depressing but then again, so is a lot of the music I listen to. Later in the evening I ventured out to Jessica Rash’s birthday party at Grace in Tribeca. As I walked outside and towards the subway I noticed how nice Jones St. looked in the snow so I took a picture. I think the city is a wonderful place to be in a snowstorm. Everything is that much more calm and quiet. Anyway, Jessica’s party was okay. It was a little weird because I didn’t really know anyone there and she’s pretty much the only person I talked to the whole time but I hadn’t seen her in awhile and it was fine by me. It was nice to be out of the house as well.

The Winter Wonderland of Jones Street.

This morning I hit up Cornelia St. Café for Brunch with Samantha Hahn (old college roommate) , who I hadn’t seen in awhile. It was okay, I was just hungry and tired and not very talkative but I always enjoy the brunch. Later on, Sean Maddison and I went to my brother’s place to make Chili and watch the AFC and NFC Championship games. It was a good if uneventful time. Anyway, it’s Pats vs. Eagles in the Super Bowl XXXVIX in two weeks. GO PATS!!! I hate the Eagles.

Complete Carnage and More Luck

Another day, another dentist appointment, another dollar…or seven dollars to be exact. I’ll get to the seven dollars in a minute but first, TO THE DENTIST!!! What isn’t bad about getting your teeth gutted with an ice pick? (rhetorical) This was my third trip to the dentist in one month, give or take a few days. Let me tell you, my experiences have not been pleasant. I hadn’t been to the dentist in 3 years when I first went in December. It was that first appointment that determined that I needed to get a cavity filled on the 2nd appointment and furthermore, my teeth were to be “scaled” on two subsequent occasions. Today was the first of two scaling visits. For those of you not familiar with scaling (I count myself amongst you) it is basically a teeth cleaning times one thousand, in which an evil Russian woman digs into your mouth with one of those hooked picks and other pointy instruments and drains your body of about 2 pints of blood using your mouth as a conduit between your blood vessels and the sink. All of this is done whilst listening to Lite 106.7 FM. Your dental technician may or may not hum along to Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero” while performing this procedure. However I don’t believe that step is mandatory. Or at least that’s what the dental manual led me to believe. I don’t really know what this has to do with teeth but apparently jabbing a sharp instrument into gums for a half hour or so helps the process of keeping teeth clean and healthy. I’ll let you know as soon as I start to see the results. I’ve got one more appointment next week so it’ll have to wait.

Though it may not seem like it after that wonderful depiction of dental misfortune, I was lucky for the 2nd straight day. While I didn’t come up with another one hundred dollars, I did play one scratch off bingo game and won $7. When will this lucky streak end? I need to get to Atlantic City or Vegas before my good fortune runs out. Who’s coming with me?

My Lucky Day!!!

I won the lottery!!! Well, not really, I got money off of a scratch off ticket. But the entire day wasn’t lucky. In fact, most of it was status quo. I even bought a scratch off ticket during work hours that didn’t amount to anything and I bought 3 megamillions tickets, but those numbers haven’t been announced yet. However, on my way home today I walked by the local magazine shop and bought two scratch-off bingo cards with the $4 dollars in singles in my wallet. I got home and just when it looked like I had lost with the 1st card, the last combination was B7. As I uncovered it I noticed that on that particular card I had all 4 corners covered and I knew that won a prize. I scanned down to the key and that’s when the magical dollar amount appeared “4 Corners= $100″. “SWEET!!!”, I exclaimed.

This is a re-enactment of my initial surprise.

I’ve never won that much money ever. Hallelujah. Maybe my luck is changing. We’ll know soon enough. Maybe I’ll win the big $130 million dollar lottery tonight. I think I’m a gambling addict. All it takes is a dollar and a dream. Remember that. However, bingo cards do cost $2 so scratch that last remark.

Dreams really do come true. I’m living proof. Thanks Bingo!!!

Update

So I didn’t win the lottery the other day but I’m trying again tonight. Wish me luck. Maybe I should move to Kings County. It seems as though anyone who wins the lottery from New York is from Kings County.

5 Dollars and 15 Dreams

They say all it takes is a dollar and a dream to win the lottery. Well, I’m a step ahead of the lotto people. I bought 3 megamillions tickets and 1 scratch off ticket ffor $2 that netted me $12. I put that $12 towards 12 more megamillions tickets. That’s how I came up with $5 and 15 dreams. So now I have to come up with 15 dreams. This is going to be tough, I haven’t really thought about it. What can money buy other than happiness? Well, I guess it can buy things to supplement the happiness that it has already bought you. So what are the 15 dreams I have that winning the lottery would fulfill. Here we go:

1. My first dream is obvious, winning $92 Million. That’s a hell of a dream.

2. I could finally buy that sleek expensive speedy sports car to compensate for my diminutive genitalia.

3. I would hire a personal assistant to go across the street and get me a cola and then I’d fire my personal assistant and hire another personal assistant to get me lunch, and then I’d fire that assistant, and so on…

4. I would buy a nice brownstone on Perry St. or somewhere equally nice in the West Village.

5. I would hire a mercenary to kill the dictator of a foreign country I have never even heard of and convince the hired gun that I have a personal vendetta against said dictator.

6. I would improve the design of Evankessler.com

7. …Give several million to charity to prove a point to professional athletes who make way too much money.

8. …Get a king sized bed in my new apartment and roll around in the money.

9. …Install one of those see thru glass booths that blow air and have money blowing around so that when my friends come over I can give them 60 seconds each in there.

10. …Pay someone to go to prom with the awkward but beautiful girl in a random high school and even though he’s paid he will eventually fall in love with her and when she finds out she’ll be disgusted but his simple, “yes I was paid, but I fell in love with you” will suffice as an explanation.

11. …Establish the Evankessler.com scholarship for sarcastic children with curly hair

12. …Buy a private jet and go around the world in 79 days, inexplicably spending 53 of those days in Winnipeg. Take that Jules Verne!!!

13. …Fund a massive kitten cloning operation that would result in China having 1 billion more kittens than people. That’s a lot of kittens.

14. …Run for Mayor of Pomona, New York, launching a mayoral campaign like nobody’s ever seen.

15. …Oh yeah, and sleep late the day after I won the lottery.

Crappy Day

Not only is it crappy as far as the weather goes but today we learned that our show is moving floors and that everyone from Segment Producers (me) down would be working in a cubicle. I know, this sounds like nothing but when you’ve been working in an office and enjoying your privacy for over a year it’s bound to piss you off. That being said, most everyone on my show was irate about the move except for those already inhabiting our target floor. Worst of all, nobody can figure out the actual reason for the move. I’m not a fan of sudden unnecessary change. They’re moving our show upstairs, when the floor we’re on now is the actual floor where our edits are. Meanwhile, the show moving to our floor doesn’t have edits on our current floor either. They say it’s so that our entire team will be together but as of now there are only 4 people from our show on the other floor and it hasn’t been a problem. They basically told us that they were moving us out of our offices because they like us and that they want us to be nearer to the executives and the people they don’t value as much can sit in our offices as a consolation for not being as valued, or at least that’s how I took it. I just think the execs want the bigger offices up there. Whatever the reason I think it’s going to be a complete logistical nightmare and will remain massively inconvenient for the next few months. It will also test friendships as some of my best friends will remain on the 6th floor as I am shipped off to 31. Oh and another thing, god forbid there’s an emergency in the building, we have the monumental task of going down 31 flights as opposed to an easily descended 6 in our current location. Ok, I’m going to move on before I completely lose it.

On the bright side I watched Syracuse route St. John’s in basketball tonight and I made some improvements on the website. Now there’ll be a weekly poll question. Hooray. And for the 3rd straight day, I’ve been extremely tired before midnight, which does not happen often, so I think I’m going to call it an early night. Tomorrow is another day and hopefully a better one.
Wait just a second. I’m talking on IM’s with Adam Starling and suddenly I’ve figured out what my calling is. Adam Starling and I are going to start a career in witty banter. We want to be the arena rock equivalent of witty bantering so much so that we can engage a massive crowd with our witty banter anthems and the crowd can banter along. We’ll eventually fill venues like Madison Square Garden, Wembley Stadium, and the Hollywood Bowl. People will come from near and far to hear our witty banter. We’ll release platinum selling albums of unrehearsed witty banter about current events, weather, politics, religion, sports, and other people’s witty banter. The future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.

A New Low and A Literary Portrait of Evan Kessler

As if reality TV couldn’t get bad enough, tonight it reached a new low. Fox aired a show called “Who’s Your Daddy?” If you’re trying to guess the premise of the show, it could only be going in two possible directons, so don’t strain yourself. The first direction could be that of some sort of show geared towards a woman finding her perfect sex partner and being that the show was on Fox this one doesn’t sound so far fetched. However the 2nd and actual premise of the show was that a woman who has been searching for her real father has to narrow down a number of men claiming to be her birth father to find her actual birth father. If she does, she wins $100,000. If she picks wrong she doesn’t get the money but still gets to meet her birth father. Nevermind the concept being so low, the double entendre in the title was enough to sink this one. What were they thinking? How can we sex up a family reunion? They obviously didn’t pick a homely looking person to find their long lost father. The woman eliminated who wasn’t her father after a series of “The Bachelor” style cocktail parties and personal time. I was relieved nobody made out.

Ultimately the girl picked out the right father and won the money, but dangling cash in the name of family values was completely tasteless. Anyway, that being said, what’s so real about that reality show? In the real world people don’t find their birth parents and get a monetary reward. This girl probably didn’t even need the money. She reminded me of the doctors and lawyers that used to go on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and win the big money prize to add on to their probably already sizable fortune. Anyway, that’s how I feel about that.

Also, I googled my name today and found some fun interesting tidbits. I found that my name was the main character in a Christian novel put out by Steeple Hill Books entitled

The Gift of Family (as part of the A Family for Christmas Anthology, by Irene Brand. Here’s the summary:

“Newly engaged Wendy Kenworth and Evan Kessler’s relationship is tested when Evan must leave college to manage the family farm. City-girl Wendy can’t understand her fiancé’s sudden need to work the land, but getting stranded at the Kesslers’ for Christmas gives Wendy cause for reflection. Can Evan’s strong faith inspire her to accept the gift of family?”

Reasons why this plot doesn’t work:
1) I don’t think I’d ever be engaged to anyone with a stupid name like Wendy Kenworth. It sounds made up. It would creep me out. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world named Wendy Kenworth. I would think she was a spy posing with a fake name. One day her Russian accent would slip out and her identity would be revealed as Russian Spy Natalia Bereckova.

2) Evan’s sudden need to work the land? Who gets a sudden need to work land?

3) The phrase “Evan’s strong faith” is an oxymoron.

4) And finally the phrase “Kessler’s for Christmas”… Everyone knows we Kessler’s are indebted to our lord in Zion… in a minimally spiritual way of course.

That being said the abovementioned story holds no water. Please, if you read this story, do not confuse it with the facts stated above. It is merely a work of a most irrelevant fiction.
This website alone is the gospel according to the one truly important Evan Kessler, not some silly story by Irene Brand. What does Irene Brand know about Evan Kessler?