Best Pritchett Party

Saturday night, a big big night. It was the night we celebrated Claire's birthday.

Wooo! Birthday!

Birthday! Birthday! Birthday!

Amigos got together to celebrate with tacos at La Esquina. Basically this is the number one way to party below 14th street.

Amigos like Di, Jacob, and Alpha were there.

Leslie, Lars.
Me! And Claire's brother Will in town from MIT.

Jessica, in town for a spell after a summer spent in South America.

Nick, Casey.

Here Austin and Casey try to be totally candid bros.

These candid bros photo efforts are a tribute to an excellent candid picture I got of Claire and Alpha that, while it's super excellent, I am not posting here as a present to Claire until this post gets 200,000 Likes on Facebook. Don't worry, I'll email you daily to remind you to Like This Post.

I think all introductions have been made. Let's just focused on the sidewalk partyin' now.

Oh! What's this?! COUSINS!! Surprise, Claire's Mom! It's Cousin Time at La Esquina!

This is me, I was there. I let Jessica have a go with the M8 and she took a lot of these pictures. Credit where credits due, yo.

Oh wait, more introductions to people you may or may not know: Here's Broek and Ryan.

And, What? Suddenly Maria just rolls by in a van? Out of pure coincidence? What in the world? Crossroads of the Universe, this Esquina can be.

Oh, this is Amber.

This is a dude in a car.

Back to partyin. And reading BlackBerry birthday wishes, I'm sure.

Man! Everywhere you go its just blonde girls with their BlackBerries now.

Jessica was getting ambitious with the candids


and I'm not even sure if this guy was with us

And I definitely don't think this guy was with us either.

Listen. It was fun on that sidewalk, I don't want this picture to leave you with the wrong impression. And after everyone partied with their tacos they went to some place to dance and party and some of us (me) went home to stress out about Isaiah.

One More Thing: This party wasn't the only party Saturday night, there was also a Mulcock Party, celebrating Jeff's birthday and celebrating him bringing his family back to New York for a visit. We partied at Fatty 'Cue in Brooklyn and soon you will see how excellent it was.

Best It Only Took Me 1000 Years

Crif Dogs has been famous for its deepfried hotdogs (and its "secret" bar nextdoor, PDT, the domain of fellow OPRF Class of 95'er Jim Meehan) for I don't know how long now and Wednesday night I finally went there for the first time. Finally.

I met up with frequent East Village dining-companion Leslie, back from a summer in Asia. We shared a Chihuahua Dog, a Spicy Redneck Dog, a Corn Dog, and some tater tots.

I made this myself! Half a Chihuahua, half a Spicy Redneck. Both were out of this world, the Chihuahua a bacon-wrapped dog with sourcream, avocado, and salsa. The Spicy Redneck a bacon-wrapped chili dog topped with jalepenos and coleslaw. I could have eaten four of both. Or, I like to imagine having eaten four of both.

The tater tots were tot perfection but the corn dog, as delicious as it might look here was, sigh, a bit of a failure. The breading . . . tasted like bread? Not cornbread. It tasted like it was wrapped in fried white bread, no, it tasted like it had been dipped in pancake batter. And you know I hate to give a corn dog a less than glowing review. (Find HERE an example of a corn dog that was to my liking)

But two out of three, dogwise that's a good way to go. So, if you are the other person in the world that hasn't been to Crif Dogs yet, please go. I recommend it highly.

Best And Here's The Rest of Labor Day

Second and final Utah Labor Day Photo Supplement is up!




Go! Check it out!

Best Movies of the Summer

Wow. It's September 15th, it's getting dark by 7, and I wore a sweatshirt Friday night. Summer is over and so is this year's summer movie season. I'll just say it: 2010 was one of the wackest movie summers in memory, but there were some highlights. Let me count them down.

Third Best Movie of the Summer: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim bears the honor of being the only movie I saw twice in the theater this summer, so that must mean I liked it. Also, it's the only movie of the summer I've considered seeing a third time, so that must mean I definitely liked it.

Runners-Up of Sorts: I would have seen Toy Story 3 again had the occasion come up. And for a while I was thinking about seeing Inception again but the feeling passed. And you know what, maybe I'd watch Salt again. Maybe.

Second Best Movie of the Summer: Breathless

As in the French movie from 1960 that was already one of my favorite movies. But it was playing at the Film Forum and I had never actually seen it on the big screen before. It had new subtitles that fixed some long-running gripes of Godard fandom and I feel I noticed a lot of new things, like: Wow, Belmondo's jacket doesn't fit him well.

Runners-Up of Sorts: 1. Came home from the best night of the summer with a bag full of tacos and found Star Wars was on TV in time to catch the Death Star run. 2. Came home from the 4th of July to find the Empire Strikes Back on TV in its third act. 3. And then there was that Saturday where my roommates and I watched just about the whole Original Trilogy when we found it playing on TV.

Best Movie of the Summer: That Commercial With the Hamsters

A highlight of every trip to the multiplex was this commercial was just about guaranteed to play before the movie. Who knew hamsters had the perfect bodies to play rappers? It was like seeing Biggie Smalls brought back to life.



I still don't know if I like the hamster in the washing machine or hamsters in the cardboard car best. That's what I like. A movie that keeps me thinking.

And the Worst Movie of the Summer? I did a good job of just not going to movies I sensed would be bad, but for some reason I thought Knight and Day wouldn't be a bad way to spend a morning and $6. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Best First Utah Labor Day Weekend Supplement

Hey! First two days of my latest Utah trip are up at the photo supplement blog!

Check it out!
Seriously!
Please?

Best if You Would Just Bear With Me, Please

Two Fridays ago when I flew out of La Guardia (bound for Utah) I was like "Holy smokes, look at this view of Manhattan I'm getting!"

And then I was like, "Holy smokes, we're turning down the Hudson, I can totally see my house from here!"

And I wasn't just saying that, I COULD totally see my house from there, as illustrated here in Figure 1. I looked for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (Fig.2, below) and then looked up Riverside a few blocks and there was my house. And now that I have the picture, I can zoom in and see my own bedroom window! (Fig.3, below)

Figure 1: How to see my house from the airplane:

Figure 2: This is the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument.

Figure 3: This is what my bedroom window looks like from the ground. So now you've seen it from both angles.

Coming So Soon: Utah Trip Photo Supplements! They're totally all ready to go!

Best Weekend Amazingness

It seems that, in the course of roughly one week in August, Mitch conquered just about the entire Momofuku cookbook and then turned around and vegetarianized it for Niall.

Check It Out

(you'll have to click "Older Posts" a bunch of times to see everything)

Best Breakfast Ever!

First of all, took too many pictures in Utah. Don't even know where to start with them

Second of all, actually I do know where to start. Labor Day morning I had breakfast with Andrew, my first choice was CLOSED for the holiday, so instead I had the Best Breakfast Ever at Carl's Jr.

I went in there thinking I wanted something like a sausage on a biscuit and then I beheld the menu item known as the Breakfast Burger. And that's when I stopped looking at the menu and made my order.

Just a cheeseburger with egg, bacon, hashbrowns (that's the magic touch right there) and lots of ketchup.

I already told you it was the Best Breakfast Ever but let me show you a picture showing you that I gave it a thumbs up.

While I ate Andrew interviewed me and filled out a Comments card. Click and read for my feelings at the time. Oh, and why'd I give them a Fair for Quality of Service? Serious shortage of cashiers that morning. Had to wait longer than expected to order my Breakfast Burger.

The saddest part of the morning: My last bite of Breakfast Burger.

Andrew discovered our Customer Service Survey card had had a butterfly drawn on the back.

So he drew a horse on the next card in the stack to keep the spirit alive.

After the sandwich I was telling Andrew this story about how I had been trying to be a good uncle (and brother) the day before and instead made Rachel cry.

It was because I wouldn't let her have her silly rubber band back until she changed her clothes on Sunday like her mom had asked her too. I kept it in my fist, Rachel could not open my fist. That's what I illustrate here.

And then Rachel started to cry and cry when she couldn't get it, which wasn't my plan. I thought she'd go change out of her church clothes. No, she cried. And then, when she finally did change, I lost the rubber band and we thought the dog had eaten it. Nope. Ellie had it.

Would my breakfast have been even better with some chili cheese fries? Probably.


All right, you might be thinking really negative things about my wonderful Breakfast Burger right now but it gave me the energy that I needed to go on a hike designed with children, the elderly, and the handicapped in mind that afternoon. So it's not like it wasn't good for anything (besides deliciousness, of course).

Best This is Funny, Right?

I mean, if you're out looking for a church to join?

Best Adios, Muchahos

Running off on one of my last minute vacation adventures, again. See you Tuesday or Wednesday.
(Just going to Highland, Utah. Nothing big. [Geographically])

Happy 9/02/10

Best Little Disappointments

Both of these, mostly I'm disappointed because I hoped for so much better. Because I was cheering for them to succeed.

Two years ago I read Sloane Crosley's first collection of essays, "I Was Told There'd Be Cake" and I really liked it, I think all but two stories really did it for me so I was really looking forward to this second collection. Well, I hate to say it but this book just isn't ready for prime time. If I were her editor I'd say, "Listen, kid—I like you, I like your spunk, you give great interviews . . . but this new book, well, the last essay can stay—that one's good, that one's got heart—but the rest, 1/2 of them need to be totally rewritten and 1/2 of them just have to go."

Ms. Crosley's stories asked me to connect dots that I couldn't find any way of connecting, asked me to be interested in situations by virtue of being told that they were interesting by their very nature, jumped between tones jarringly, and you know how you need to stick a little moral or closing thought on the end of the essay so people know it's an essay and not just an anectdote? Yeah, just about all of those were bolted on really awkwardly. Also, and I have to say this and excuse me for using the roughest language ever found on this blog, but some of the word choice was so distracting to me, and I admit I say this as a guy very prone to being hung up on word choice. Case in Point: In a story involving a building on the Bowery that was once a turn of hte century house of ill-repute she calls the prostitutes "sluts" and to me there is a definite difference between the two words, they aren't synonyms.

Anyway, as a big fan of "I Was Told There'd Be Cake", it hurts me to have to say these things about this book.


I've happened to see the Smith Westerns open for other bands twice now and I liked them, I liked their young, capable, mildly-garagey fuzzed out sound, so I was keen on checking out this record. Yeah . . . unfortunately this record is, err, unlistenably bad. I mean the music might actually be good, I wouldn't know, because the whole thing is produced so poorly—and probably they were going for a low-fi sound but this thing sounds like a recording of their record being played from the bottom of a well. Listen, I've heard low-fi, I am not afraid of static or distortion, but this thing is just a muffled, muddled mess and that's a terrible shame. Gents, please make this record again, please record those songs I've heard you play on stage and make it loud and clear because I think you're a good band.

Best Party Right Supplement

Yo.
I've been partying so much these last two weeks. Head over to the supplement to learn all about it.

Please.

Thanks.