Peace out, Penn State!

Got to start this entry by saying a big congrats to the ILLINI for defeating Penn State on saturday. It's too bad I cannot express the same enthusiasm for the Bears. What are we going to do about Rex Grossman??

Anyway, lately I've been watching the new CW show, Gossip Girl. Friday night somehow I ended up hanging out with Matthew Settle, an actor from the show (he's the one on the left):

My friend Laura knows him and his wife. Nice guy, drinks tequila straight up and likes to 'technocrump.'

Also, it was Dave's birthday a few weeks ago...here's a picture of us at dinner, which was held at Pop Burger:
May - I hope you feel better!
Peace.

Korean Movie Star?

Laura's older brother is a film writer, and he just moved to NYC to live with this Korean Movie Star, Joonhunpark. No idea who he is, but there were like 25 girls at this party that recognized him on the streets of New York and were just invited in. I know no one who reads this is Korean but this is him: Here is me with my neighbor and new gay friend Kirk:

Peace and love.

Life without Doris & John

So lately I've been adjusting to life without Doris and Joan - they left for Japan and Thailand last week...guess this is a little taste of what the future might be like for me if they choose to go somewhere else a little more permanently...


So you may be asking yourself, what does Michelle do if Doris and John aren't around? Answer: Movies. Lots of 'em. Including:

Stardust is kinda princess-bride like, I really liked it. Superbad was pretty hilare.

How to work the U.S. Open

So Laura and I went to the U.S. Open last night with no tickets in our hands, just to try our luck and see if we could get in to see a good match. Here we are on the tennis grounds - it goes without saying that Lexus was the main sponser this year. They were taking free photographs for all the fans:



For $10 we ended up in the main stadium, 1 section up from court side seats to watch the biggest match of the day, some frenchman vs. the #6 ranked tennis player in the world, James Blake:

Basically, if you show up at the box office on the day of a match, tickets for the main stadium, where all the good players are, will be sold out. But you can purchase "grounds tickets," which, for $10 you can peruse the area and have access to the 2 smaller stadiums, Grand Stand and Louis Armstrong. Those courts will still feature pretty decent matches (last night we got a glimpse of Tommy Haas, the #10 player in the world.) But if you stand outside the exit of the main stadium, there is pretty much a 100% chance that someone leaving will give you their tickets. Why? Because half the seats in that stadium are bought out by big corporations that give tickets to their non-die-hard tennis fan employees. The ticketing agent even gave us tips on who to ask: I-banking type guys in suits and old people who are tired and look like they're ready to go home. Awesome.

Tennis Time

So I know I was little irate towards New York City in my last post, but this one is dedicated towards giving it severely mad props. Why? Well, my friends, the U.S. Open started this week at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, bringing along with it the paragon of beauty also known as Rafael Nadal (also know as my future husband):

If things were not to work out with Rafa, who is currently the #2 ranked tennis player in the world, my back up would be Novak Djokovic, the #3 ranked tennis player in the world:

I have tickets to the Quarter Finals next Thursday, thanks to my roommate's American Express card. Apparently she gets first dibbs on all these events b/c she has an AMEX.....which leads me to ask -

Do any of you guys have AMEX cards? And if so, what are the benefits?

GO RAFA!!

NYC Subway SNAPS

So yesterday, on my morning commute to work I had a pretty underserving encounter with a lady that kind of looked like this:

Or actually, more like this:

And yes, that is the hunchback of Notre Dame.

So I walk onto the crowded F train yesterday morning and stand in front of these 2 ladies that show striking similarities to the images above. I open up my AM New York and one of them says to me:

"Do you mind? That newspaper is right in our faces."

She went right on talking to her friend as I put the newspaper down. I kept debating in my mind whether I should say something back. Finally I turned to her and said:

"You know, you could've asked me more nicely and I would've put the paper down just the same."

To which she replied:

"Well maybe YOU need to learn some manners and know not to open that paper in front of our faces."

To which I replied:

"Do you TAKE this train everyday? It's crowded, this is just how it is."

To which she replied:

"EVERY GOD D*MN DAY!"

To which I SHOULD have replied:

"You need to stop being a bitter old lady. It's not helping the 5 bajillion wrinkles on your crusty forehead."

Instead I rolled my eyes and walked off the train.

UGH. If a city is to be judged by its people then New York has really sucked lately.

Hobbit-fied

My life has been hobbit-themed lately. I just had lunch next to Elijah Wood. He stopped by the HBO cafeteria. I was so tempted to yell out Frodo, but I kept my cool.