My Beats Per Minute Never Been the Same

Dear Blog,

I am not neglecting you, I've just been busy with things like...

- My trip to E3
- My trip to London
- Third row for The Who
- Sherri's Wedding
- Fire Island
- George Michael at MSG
- I got engaged (yay!)

I will update you with all my news soon.

Love,
Meredith

Moving To New York

Ummmmmm why am I wide awake at 8:15 am on a Sunday? I'm a little bit anxious bc I'm supposed to be looking at some furniture over by Columbus Circle possibly at 11 am and I'm waiting to find out if the building will let me in. Still, definitely not a valid reason to be up so early.

Speaking of furniture, I finally moved (YEAH!!!) Although I had some reservations about living in this building (for my non-NY friends, this place is notorious for being everyone's first Manhattan residence straight out of college) but I really like it here so far. No doubt about it, it is a young building, but I've barely seen any 21 year olds (loads of families with small kids in fact.) So far, the best thing about living here are the doormen. I've never even lived in a building with an elevator before, so this definitely makes me feel a bit princess-y. To have someone actually spin the revolving doors for you when you enter the building is on a whole other level for me (what a difference from living in a 4th floor walk-up upstairs from a brothel.) Dave sent me flowers (because he's the best) and the front desk both emailed me and called me to tell me I had a delivery!! I'm still getting used to being up on 95th street but it's not so bad (I've even walked home from work a few times already which is a bit of shock.)

uufjyf

I haven't had much time to settle in yet (still lacking furniture as I mentioned above, and I haven't hung anything up or decorated.) Last weekend, which was supposed to be my first weekend back in the city, was one of our Fire Island weekends. Vicki and Thom came out this time as well as Brother Engelman. Vicki and I went to visit our old house which looked in almost as poor condition as we left it 5 years ago (except the hot tub doesn't work anymore...suckas!)

Fire Island 2003 Fire Island 2008 Dancing on the bench at Albatross The deer were walking around our house

They look like they're off to church, not Maguires

Rachel was at her house this weekend tooSpeaking of, she organized Philharmonic in the Park that week as well

Last night was Sherri's bachelorette party (again, why am I up so early?) We went to Mangia y Bevi which is an Italian restaurant that caters to the above. I have never seen a cluster of girls that big anywhere in my life. FYI to the single guys, the corner of 53rd and 9th is where it's at on Friday and Saturday nights, it was seriously ridiculous.

Sherri dancing on the chair

This was the gyrating waiter, he obviously couldn't get a job in an actual strip clubObligatory blow job shotWe went to Naked Lunch after where Sherri was dancing on the bench. One of the employees came over and was waving to her to get down and she was so drunk that she thought he was dancing with her and she kept pointing at him and dancing. (I guess it would have been funnier if you saw it in person.)

I'm watching the VH1 top 20 right now. Since when do they play Death Cab for Cutie on mainstream stations? Also, I didn't know that Rihanna did a song with Maroon 5, ewwwwwww. Kevin Bacon's nephew apparently has a song out and it's pretty good. I think his name is Jason Nozuka and he's slightly Eric Hutchinson-ish.

I've got RCN cable now which has solitaire, reversi, and sudoko on a games channel which is pretty weird. There are also like 210947 movies I haven't seen now showing on demand which I plan to watch all summer. I inaugurated this with The Last Kiss w/Zach Braff. Pretty unimpressive though the soundtrack was great (not to give myself too much credit but I already had most of the songs.) Me, Meghan, and Jenn went to Faith's on Friday night (did I tell you how much I love being back in the city?) and we watched The Heartbreak Kid with Ben Stiller. It was definitely on the stupid side and not very funny, I'd take a pass on that if I were you.

About 14 hours left in the day, what to do...

Hot in Herre

Agh, been totally busy lately. I'm most likely moving this Sunday into Meghan's apt in Dormandie which is super exciting! I really tried hard to avoid the UES but I think this will be a good thing, especially considering that I've counted it out, and I've got 9 friends in the neighborhood. On top of that, I'm in a really good mood because I've been handed my official offer letter from work and I "start" on June 30th, wahoo!
fhdxhbh

I watched the new movie version of Hairspray last night (not that I'd seen the original or Broadway show before.) Anyways, I thought that John Travolta totally sounded like Dr. Evil. Did anyone else think that? And speaking of him, I woke up two weeks ago to the sound of my mom yelling "YOU LOOK LIKE A NAZI!!!," later learning that my brother completely shaved his head.

=

I saw Augustana at Bowery a few weeks ago. I don't have the new album yet but the songs I didn't know sounded mostly slow and good. They took a very different approach to this show - singing together a capella, using a mandolin, etc.

Photos:

My favorite of the night was a song which I can only assume is called "Fire" which was just the singer and the piano/keyboard player (what was it, I can't remember?) They didn't play 'Bullets' (poo!) but they did play 'Stars and Boulevards':

I have to give a shout out to the first opening act David Ford. He did one of those record your instrument then add another and record it things and it sounded terrific.

There was a second opening act as well (this did not make me happy, I'd had a really long day), and they were called Wild Sweet Orange or Sweet Georgia Peach or something. They totally reminded me of guys I would have been friends with in college (if I'd have gone to some hippy dippy school in the middle of nowhere.)

I saw The Wombats last week. Not impressed. Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad, I just was bored. It was pretty standard, they sounded just like the album and I couldn't be bothered to be enthusiastic. Also, I felt kind of old listening to their music even though I do love a few of their songs (others just have ridiculous lyrics - Patricia the Stripper? Come on now.)

I went to Fire Island a few weeks ago. I did not have the best time as my sinuses decided to have a party in my face, but I did get to lay on the beach a bit (it was ice cold at night) and had my fair share of Rocket fuels.

Kat, we missed you :(

Heather getting her corn on Megra & Er Ilyssa & Faith Heather & Moi Travis & Kristine

We were peeing on ourselves watching Heather go "downstairs."

In my old FI days, I never used to go to Albatross. I found the music to be slightly delightful this time around (oldies and such.) Also the 5 rum punch is quite the shit as well. As you can tell from the guy behind us, all of Staten Island invaded Flynn's. I'm never going to Ocean Bay Park again.Miss Jessica came out on Sunday

Heather got "stuck" on the hook (thanks for almost making me pee in my pants again.)

Mr. Max came out as well Also, Mr. Pete's bday was last week. Celine baked cupcakes:

MTV coworkers Slaves

That was followed by Erica's bday:

Dave was here about a month ago and I hadn't posted photos. So, without further ado:

Dave and his Monkey

His umbrella broke in the middle of 2nd avenue which I found to be quite funny.

Rockin' the Rock Band after work (Celine, Cheryl, & Alexis)

Dave was very happy to finally find Chang in NY

We went to Johnny Utah's for Jessica's birthday where she rode the mechanical bull.

I drove over the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time on the way to Vicki and Thom's. Battery Park City shot I had to get my 25 cent horse on

We went bowling at Dave & Busters. Check out our form:

And our crappy scores:

About to go out to the 100 degree heat ugggghhhh.