Hey! When was the last time you backed up your personal computer? Why don't you go do that right now, and I'll wait for you to come back. Go ahead, I'll be fine here.

Ok, hi again. Why the service annoucement? Well, my 8-month-old MacBook bit the big one yesterday, suddenly going to an all-white screen. When I went to the Genius Bar, the Genius guy diagnosed it before he even opened it. And the diagnosis: murder. Er, hard drive death, which is in no way an Apple problem, he assured me. Could happen to any computer, ever! Macs are perfect! Well, everything I've done since 3/23 is gone, so pffftt to that.

Sigh. Now I know that an Apple employee would never cop to it, but if I've said it once, I've said it a million times. PCs slowly die, Apples go from perfect to FUBAR. I've had iPods do it. They made a freaking "Sex and the City" episode about it, for chissakes. (Don't fight my anecdotal evidence!) It's why I backed up my new Apple laptop, despite never having done it on all my PCs (most of which still turn on, even if they're slower than molasses, MacBook). And I'd probably have never gotten around to backing it up at all if Cossar hadn't given me an external hard drive, so ten points to you, Cossar.

Yesterday I had blisters from my new sandals, sneezes from my allergies and a dead computer that is still under warranty (therefore a personal but not financial shitstorm). Such minor indignities and injustices this world throws at me! The worst part is that I couldn't sleep all night, freaking out about some pictures I lost (they were for a Time Out story and really important) and how hellish it would be today trying to find replacements. Even though I knew that today I'd just buckle down and handle the frickin' problem, I lost most of a night's sleep tossing and turning, and that just blows.

Sara recommended this Esquire story, about an army funeral, and I read it this morning. Warning — not a particularly good think to read at work, because you might tear up, as I did. Multiple times.

The really ugly issue has Jessica Simpson on the cover, with a coverline that says she's just there to make you pick up the magazine and "immerse yourself in the most gripping story you will read this year," i.e. the funeral one. I find that kind of obnoxious — don't pretend you get a pass on the sexy celebrity cover just because you have good features as well — and I wouldn't call the story gripping, exactly. More like engaging. But definitely worth a read, especially online without Jessica Simpson being involved.

Pet peeve: People whose e-mail signatures ask you, the recipient, to "think twice" before printing. Shut up, seriously. Anyway, I've done so much this week. Unfortunately, "work" isn't one of the many things I've managed to fit in. Well, some! Kinda.

It's been a week of Having Plans, with drinks almost every day with a different, equally drunky group of friends. Tuesday was old (2 jobs ago) coworkers, the Museums crew, who are artsy and cool. Three drinks in, someone announced "Can I say something? Why haven't we talked about the election yet?" Good question! I also got to get the inside scoop on a book club I can crash.

Then we had a good Bar Hop Wednesday. Well done, everyone—it went late, decent turnout, Katie danced. Derekh and I were trading movie quotes and I totally got both "No more secrets" and "He touched my breast!" immediately, introducing the possibility that Derekh and I may have traded brains at some point.

Thursday was also solid, with ex-coworker Dan's last day at Metro (this city is just turning into one sprawling mass of my ex-coworkers). We celebrated that momentous occasion with styrofoam cups of beer at a bra-littered dive down near the Seaport. It was very Key Westy, down to the grizzled old drunks in polo shirts at the bar. Also may end up as a Bar Hop spot.

And today was meeting up with more visiting ex-coworkers; we took our boss's credit card and bought lunch for ourselves. I still don't like Chipotle, but free Chipotle is better than some other things. Like being at work. I made tentative plans to get an amazing Copper River Salmon meal (nine courses! six wines!) for mid-May when I go home for the weekend, but that might not pan out. Regardless, our whole immediately family should end up in the same place for the first time in three years, so that's exciting.

This weekend: Anyone want to have brunch at 10:30 or 11 am, on the Lower East Side, on Sunday? Other than that, I've got Iron Man and Maggie's party tonight, so my odds of having popcorn for dinner and being out too late & getting too drunk are tipped to favor of immaturity.

This link is great — not for the Gossip Girl* stuff or the porny shot of one of its stars, but for the incongruous video below all that of Jerry Orbach singing the "September" song from The Fantasticks, cabaret-style. Aw!

*Gossip Girl is like cheesecake. I don't doubt that it's a lovely guilty pleasure for those who like it, but I have plenty of other fattening desserts/cheesy television shows to indulge in, so why force myself to like this particular one? It's not like The Wire or tilapia, something I really should force to try since it's supposed to be good for you.

Also I really, really hate watching privileged teenagers.

Saw a film for the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend, called The 27 Club, about a fictional musician OD-ing on his 27th birthday to join Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain in the group of rockstars who died at that age. DUDE. 'Dying young' has gone in my head from "dying in your teens or twenties" to "dying in your early forties," and I'm glad I didn't know about that weird coincidence before my 27th birthday.

It's been a few weeks since my last totally useless day. I sadly picked a pretty sunny Saturday to crash on the couch, but I did get outside to do a single load of laundry and I tried the new Grom gelato place across Sixth Avenue, so I guess the day wasn't a total waste.

I meant to catch up on the TiFaux today, but instead I watched the Cutting Edge sequels on ABC Family (oh god, I'd forgotten that y'all told me they skate to "She's Like the Wind," but you really weren't lying). And read a lot of Slate.com, which is something I do about once a quarter. Learned that there's a reason I guiltily liked that catchy Dunkin Donuts commercial (the "Doin' things is what I like to do, YES!" one) — the jingle is by They Might Be Giants. Huh.

Last night I went to Williamsburg with Heidi, Nadia and Mags, and it was decently fun and was highlighted by one memorable happening: I tried the door on the co-ed bathroom at the bar, found it locked, so stepped back. A moment later a guy emerged, and tells me "I heard heels outside, so I put the toilet seat down."

The last gentleman of New York City! I found him!

Man what a weekend. Spent it in Cohasset, outside Boston, at a wedding that can only be described as the most Catholic WASP convention ever. Lots going on with, including ex-work friends quitting/losing jobs and Katie off with her family, but I'm going to focus on the single coolest thing to happen this weekend:

"When looking for the dessert buffet, you'll see the chocolate fountain through the window."

No, wait, that was the second most amazing thing. The first:

Roommate's DONE! Yaaaaaaaaaaay! Tuesday she says goodbye to grad school and FLAG magazine, a project that never fails to remind me of Janeane Garofalo in Reality Bites saying "Pa-flag. I am beginning to like the sound of that." Champers on Tuesday!

Weekend in Durham, five year college reunion. A half dozen people crashing at Scotty's, a barbecue, a Cameron shindig, a hello to Bassett's Rick and Dalene, Southpoint stop-in, big tent gala, frat party (?!), gardens wander. Food at Elmo's, 4 am Cosmic, Bullock's, Alpine.

Pictures below; I managed to not get many pictures of anyone other than, uh, Cossar, Ali and Scotty, but I saw a hell of a lot more people than that. Anywho:

So this company in Chicago will take your leftover cremated remains — "cremains," apparently, is what they call them in the biz — and turn them into a diamond. That you can wear. For real.

AND they have an online chat on their site, so dude, your questions answered!

Q: Can you do it with a pet?
A: Pets are 25% of our business ... you can also add some of your hair to your pets cremains.

Q: How long after cremation do you have?
A: We have made stones from cremains over 40 years old.

Q: Would a jeweler be able to tell?
A: No. Because it is a diamond - the colorless stones seem to have more sparkle than a mined diamond.

That's because it shines with someone's soul, yo.

Some of you also wish Center Stage was real. There's no shame in that. Not a lot of shame, anyway. And if this Big Boi ballet was playing in New York, I could see myself attending, but then I'd bother everyone around me by, well, quoting the movie throughout the whole thing.

The point  — the video of the hip hop ballet is pretty cool.

(Bears repeating: Dancer Risks Everything)

I refuse to acknowledge that my sore throat and general sickiness is from going out every night for a week. But my birthday week was fantastical, thanks so much to everyone for the drinks and dinner and pictures and presents ... who gave me the I Paint The '90s book? I can't even remember anymore. Good lord.

Like some guy at the MTA, I'm a big fan of the semicolon. I know it's not quite as popular as it should be, but I use it so often that I didn't realize the poor little punctuation was dying. For chrissakes. Save the semicolon! Also, the article's correction is funny if a bit too fond of the word "deft."

Four days til Durham. BBQ Friday night at Scotty's house, 6 pm. Email me if you haven't gotten the info. If you're not going to be in Durham, well, then you're NOT invited.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, everyone! I had an excellent birthday week, with dinner at Spice Market (the company was infinitely better than the food, but that's a good problem to have), coffee cake from Hoboken and even yellow cake with chocolate frosting and a birthday candle at an impromptu ex-Metro gathering. Haven't even gotten to the night-out bar celebration! (That's Stanton Public Saturday at 9, fyi).

New job is ... well, it's going. Some good, some bad, you know. Hate not knowing how everything works, because then you're at the mercy of other people instead of doing your own thing. In another week or so I'm sure that'll get better, of course.

One big peeve right now is my keyboard. Apparently this company can offer me only a broke-ass Mac one that sticks and has non-functioning arrow keys. So I'm putting aside my ire (let go and let God, as an old co-worker used to say) and buying my own damn keyboard.

But! The Apple Store is only selling their superflat keyboards now. Tried one at Metro, hated it. Gave it a few days to get used to it, and no dice. It's like typing on a laptop, which is something I put up with for portability sake on my own MacBook. But flat keys are not conducive to typing a lot. If you write all day, it's like ... hmm, like giving someone who does design a laptop touch pad instead of a mouse. Ok for checking your email, not for longer than that. Not being able to type uninterrupted is, frankly, a deal-breaker for me.

So. I'm off to TekServe during lunch; apparently they stockpiled old Mac keyboards. How smart! Gold stars for them, seriously. The spacebar on this broke-ass one worked only about 50 percent of the time while writing this entry, so I'm just saying that lunch may be happening in like 14 minutes.

Night before the first day of school! Nerves time!

Ok not school, is actually a job. Tomorrow I start a new job at Time Out (non-New Yorkers: a weekly local magazine). This should be interesting. Trying to keep an open mind, but I'm much more skeptical about this job than my last one. Once bitten and all that (also, Alaska is still a possibility — not that I plan to quit right away or anything, but if this devolves, at all, ever, into the kind of unhappiness that Metro sometimes did, I'm out of there so fast).

Hopeful, excited ... but a little cautious. Unlike most other jobs I've started, I walk in tomorrow knowing my boss already, with one friend freelancing in the office and having worked with a couple more staffers before, albeit via email. So not exactly the great unknown.

But looking back — Thursday was my last day at Metro. It was very, very bittersweet, what with Metro being the best job I've ever had. And, well, the worst, at times. Everyone was sweet on my last day (literally so, getting me a giant chocolate cake, ROCK), forgetting whatever ways in which I annoyed them or pissed them off. You know, like the last day of school. Wait, that means that my summer vacation went from three months when I was 17 to THREE DAYS a decade later. God, adulthood sucks.

Then we went out and drank hard, as is the Metro way.

So I'm watching "The Sound of Music" on ABC Family, despite the fact that I own it (twice) on DVD. And it occurs to me that while I still adore Julie Andrews in it, as I get older a truth has emerged: Baroness Schraeder is the modern woman's heroine of the movie.

First of all, The Baroness — Elsa, which is a great name — is deliciously manipulative, managing to drive out her romantic rival (Maria) by doing nothing more than tell her the truth (that the Captain is in love with her). Awesomely sarcastic ("I'm sure you'll make a very fine nun."). And she's got what I now feel is a very reasonable attitude towards children — "Haven't you heard of a delightful little thing called boooaaaahrding school?" They're seven bratty kids that fall for teenage Nazis and bring toads into the house! I'd ship them off too. And when La Baroness realizes that her rich man-toy is still oogling the help, she excuses herself faux-graciously, reminds the Captain that she's loaded and leaves.

So to recap: Fraulein Maria is wide-eyed, honest, wears dresses made of gray lint, loves kiddies and would let them sleep in her bed, and is really freaking Catholic. The Baroness is catty, wears glittery haute couture, drinks heavily, loathes kids, and is independently wealthy and a effing Baroness!

Don't get me wrong, I worship Julie Andrews. But as for whom I'd rather invite over for a cocktail and to say nasty things about religion and people with $400 strollers? Totally the Baroness.





"Hey honey! The nanny over here blushes when we do no more than dance on the patio! As a man who's already fathered half a dozen kids, I still find that appealing. Creepy, huh."

Wicked hangover. Not the worst, but not my favorite way to start a ... what day is this? Wednesday? Sounds about right.

Ok, so I'm going to geek out now. If the words "Battlestar Galactica," "cylon" or "hot Jamie Bamber" offend or confuse you, leave now.

The Sci-Fi event was freaking excellent, especially because it was an upfront thing for advertisers. Which means a much nicer spread and open bar than they usually bring out for mere journalists. Q&A with the cast and creators was a little dry, though my question sparked some of the better conversation ("Who wants to be the 12th cylon?" Answer: No one, being a cylon is a pain, and Aaron Douglas is still rather bitter). Grace Park is tall and has awesome sparkly shoes, and Katee Sackhoff is funny, as is Douglas, who has an earring. I mean, I think Sackhoff probably had earrings too, but less noticeable. Jamie Bamber is not the chattiest, but damn he looks nice in a suit.

Still transcribing my notes, but choice bits:
Aaron Douglas: "Hillary Clinton is the final cylon."
Katee Sackhoff: "Starbuck has slept with everyone I can on the show ... There's footage of me and Tricia doing it locked away somewhere in case the ratings ever got really bad."

At the party afterward I talked with James Callis (small, lovely, we talked about Delhi), Tricia Helfer (really thoughtful and cutely still so pumped to be there, also tall and gorgeous, natch), Mary McDonnell (... wow. We talked politics and Hillary vs. Obama and damn the lady is as amazing and intelligent as her character) and Michael Hogan (my new favorite person; we chatted for a long time about Canada and skiing and Tigh and his career, and he told me to look him up if I'm ever in Vancouver). Also had a few words with Douglas, Olmos, Bamber and Sackhoff. Too much goodness.

Oh, and there was a Season 3 DVD set in the goody bag. Score! It was a nice final helping of swag and stars before I leave Metro.

So our TV editor, Amber, is out sick today. Sucks to be her, but not to be me, cause she was going to go to a Battlestar Galactica press party tonight at the Morgan Library, and now I get to go in her stead.

I had decided not to borrow the screener disks for the new season, since I figured I could wait til April. But I love this crazy spaceships-and-talking-robots show, for its political mindfulness and hot space cowboys both. And while a big network event will be undoubtedly crowded and corporate ... I can't say no. Besides, all that's left for me to do at work is pack up my desk.

Oh shit, my face is still sunburned from skiing. I may meet Jamie Bamber or Michael Trucco looking like a nine-year-old after the first week of Girl Scout Camp. Well that's lovely.

Rather sunburnt right now. Not gonna lie. Spent the weekend skiing in the Adirondacks (as you do). Nadia had a friend whose parents own a B&B up there; the parents were on vacation, leaving the B&B empty. As long as we washed our own towels and didn't smoke anything in the house, we were welcome to stay there. (Because they were so awesome, I'll give them a plug: Landon Hill B&B, for all your Adirondack bedding and breakfasting needs.)

So it was a weekend of s'mores in the wood stove, skiing, sleeping, boozing and eating. AWESOME. It was 20 minutes from Gore Mountain ski area, which was just on the right side of the charming/provincial divide. First day was sunny enough to make me almost forget that I'm a total ski snob about decent snow and, uh, real black diamonds. Fell in love with my demo skis until I discovered they were 800 bucks. And I broke my ski poles in half in a chairlift ... incident. Oops. Chatted up some people in the gondola (it's what you do on lift rides, people, skiing's a social sport) and met a chick who went to Capital High School — Oly's rival school — and graduated the same year as me. Now an opera singer in the city. Her mother was in my mom's book club, natch.

Second day, slush and clouds. In the afternoon I decided to take a snowboarding lesson — something I can never force myself to do when there's good snow. My instructor was 17 years old. Wearing electric blue braces. Amazing. I think I've finally picked up the whole snowboarding thing, and all I need is practice now. I'm reeeeeeeally impatient on skis, so now if I go with beginners up to a mountain I can rent a snowboard rather than ditching my friends.

Last year, when I watched the BRIT Awards, I developed a very serious crush on the song "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" and the Scissor Sisters. The BRIT Awards are are great because they're all about Take That — in 2008, really — and everyone manages to be pissed drunk but perform reasonably well.

This year I managed to miss the Mika opening act (damn you, BBC America!), but I really dig this Kate Nash girl that popped up later. I mean, I hate that she's like 20 years old and has both bangs and shoes I covet, but she's fun.

By the way, I really hate shoe shopping. But I'm always finding shoes on TV or movies that I love. Odd.

Anyway, Kate Nash. Seems to be a little bit Bat for Lashes, a lot Lily Allen and a sprinkling of Jenny Lewis (in the bangs, you think?). So ... Wednesday April 23, $20 at Webster Hall. Anyone in?

Let's see if we can make YouTube work:

I need Irish.

Irish bars, but not douche-y ones. Ones with old Irish men in the corner, and grumpy Irish bartenders. Dusty places.

If you have Irish bars or Irish friends, let me know.

I am not a fan of how, in the small window between when my work start time moved to 10 a.m. and when I quit, Daylight Savings time had to fall. It's 10 a.m. and it feels like 9 a.m. and it's Sunday and I'm more mentally checked out than ever? Boo.

Oh, and thanks so much to everyone for your congratulations. I was really conflicted about leaving my job for a new one, and having y'all be excited made me feel so much more at ease. Because I fear change, as much as I wish I didn't.

This weekend, movies: "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" and "Penelope." Both super-cute. "Pettigrew" had better dialogue and '30s fashion, while "Penelope" rocked better sets and shoes I really, really, really coveted. (The olive green Mary Janes Penelope wears the whole time, I want 'em.) Both had mussed, skinny leading men putting on an accent, and I'm surprised to say that Lee Pace in "Pettigrew" beat James McAvoy in "Penelope" by a scuffy whisker. I'd be much more into "Pushing Daisies" if the piemaker stopped shaving and got pissed off.

Also saw "In the Heights" on Broadway, which was perfectly charming. It's a musical about Washington Heights, and it's one of those shows that appeal to New Yorkers (one of the biggest laughs came when someone informs the returning college student waxing poetic about the 1/9 that "The 9 train doesn't exist anymore") and tourists (look, New York is spicy and ebullient! We dance in the streets!). Believe me when I say that I've seen "Young Frankenstein" and this is way more worth $250 per ticket. Only it's  not! So glad Jesse and Marisa were so vocal about it.

Oh, and the new trend of making commercials for Broadway shows? I like it ... I think.

Finally, Duke lost to Carolina in Cameron. Horrors, tears, etc.

This is really just for Jesse and Marisa and the other Rilo Kiley fans out there:

I just edited a news item saying that Winona Ryder is engaged to Blake Sennett. Is this true? Won't they look like twins, both with little petite faces and the same pixie haircut?

I guess I can stop feeling so sorry for him. When "Under the Blacklight" came out and he only had one song on the album and the "Silver Lining" video showed him getting left at the altar by his hot fiancée who was played by the hot indie queen who dumped him in real life — I wanted to mail the boy some Zoloft.