It was a full New York weekend, since, unless a knight-in-shining-armor comes along, or I win the lottery this week, it's my last week here! (BTW, Macy's offered me $11.00 an hour to do visual at Herald Square. I couldn't live as far out as the trains will go on $11.00 an hour! But, I'll have to let the visual manager take that up with HR. She said she knew it wouldn't be enough. But, then again, some dumb kid from FIT will take the job for less I'm sure. Say hello to your college debt and a 500-bedroom convertible apartment, sucker!)
Anyway, Sunday was the City Bakery's Hot Chocolate Festival. They shipped in snow, put down faux ice for skating, and gave away hot chocolate and marshmallows at their shop near Union Square. The homemade marshmallows were toasted over a grill (see pics). And that was good, because the square blobs just tasted like bread dough when they were raw. Something about toasting them actually made them marshmallow-like in flavor. Unfortunately the chocolate needed a dash of vanilla or something to curb the sugary but not sweet cocoa flavor. Leave it to Lillian and me to deconstruct everything from Petco store windows to the city's "best hot chocolate." I will concede, the sugared danish was tasty. Flaky baked pastry crust soaked in sugar water is a good idea to me!
Saturday, I spent the day shopping on Soho. Oh, how I'll miss shopping in Soho! I visited an outrageously expensive Frenchy chocolate shop called Vosges. I ordered a Cappuccino Bomb - a cappuccino with my choice of chocolate truffle dropped into the mug. I selected a Gatsby: dark chocolate combined with bubbly Joseph Perrier Champagne & dressed with a tear of a red rose petal. IT WAS GOOD! (And that's just how it should be for $6.50.) If anyone would like to send me over a Gatsby + Daisy box of Valentine's chocolates, you can for just $25 - $40! I prefer the latter. It's more bang for your buck! I can provide a mailing address by request.
Sloppy Joe/Dirty Jane had been marked on my calendar for some time now. But it was a disappointment and ironically, because of my distaste for its name, Yellow Rat Bastard was a veritable gold mine of apparel treasures! And of course, Daffy's is my favorite of all. One Daffy's is better than TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshall's and Value City combined. Dare I utter such words...
Amy, you are somewhat left-hemisphere dominant and show a preference for visual learning, although not extreme in either characteristic. You probably tend to do most things in moderation, but not always.
Your left-hemisphere dominance implies that your learning style is organized and structured, detail oriented and logical. Your visual preference, though, has you seeking stimulation and multiple data. Such an outlook can overwhelm structure and logic and create an almost continuous state of uncertainty and agitation. You may well suffer a feeling of continually trying to "catch up" with yourself.
Your tendency to be organized and logical and attend to details is reasonably well-established which should afford you success regardless of your chosen field of endeavor. You can "size up" situations and take in information rapidly. However, you must then subject that data to being classified and organized which causes you to "lose touch" with the immediacy of the problem.
Your logical and methodical nature hamper you in this regard though in the long run it may work to your advantage since you "learn from experience" and can go through the process more rapidly on subsequent occasions.
You remain predominantly functional in your orientation and practical. Abstraction and theory are secondary to application. In keeping with this, you focus on details until they manifest themselves in a unique pattern and only then work with the "larger whole."
With regards to your career choices, you have a mentality that would be good as a scientist, coach, athlete, design consultant, or an engineering technician. You can "see where you want to go" and even be able to "tell yourself," but find that you are "fighting yourself" at the darndest times.
Toto was one of my favorite bands when I was a kid. This makes me want to break stuff and stomp around in a tantrum.
As Pinnacle Entertainment prepares for the Jan. 25 anticipated release of its two Christian/gospel music-based compilations, The Pinnacle Project: Last Say So and The Pinnacle Project: BIG, the first single releasing to Christian radio stations across the nation is already generating a buzz among major radio programmers and industry insiders.
"Hosanna," the first single from The Pinnacle Project: Last Say So, is a derivative work of the 1982 smash hit single "Rosanna," recorded by mainstream pop/rock group Toto. The single skyrocketed up the charts to No. 1 and helped win the group five Grammy Awards including Record of the Year and Album of the Year, the two highest Grammy honors.
The Pinnacle Project's "Hosanna," was re-written and arranged by label founder and acclaimed music producer Marc Harris (Michael McDonald, BeBe & CeCe Winans). Harris rewrote the song with the blessing of Toto keyboardist and songwriter David Paich, who has admired Harris' work and was excited about the idea for a new version of the band's signature song.
The song's recognizable melody makes the perfect backdrop for the updated arrangement of vertically-driven lyrics and emotion-packed vocals that build into a powerful worship anthem. In early testing, Christian radio stations and networks in key markets have been flooded with listener phone calls after playing "Hosanna" on the air just one time. Radio programmers in markets across the country are already asking for the single, which will officially go for adds at AC, CHR and Inspo radio stations across the country on Friday, Feb. 4.
Well, the editor of the website for which I'm writing some commentaries has taken the role of critic and redirected my efforts. My first column, and I knew it did, needs some work. But it's good for a critic to be criticized, especially since I wrote for years and years and my magazine editors never advised me much. I got away with murder in my journalism classes, being published before college encourages ones professors to just pass you right through. Not that I was a horrible student or anything, I just didn't really try that hard. Or maybe I was a genius. [Natch.] Let's go with that. Perhaps I need to embrace my arrogance and judgmental attitude. All the things I think, I've been reluctant to put down in print. I don't want people to think me some horrible, elitist, opinionated snob. But I suppose a critic can't really ride the fence. So here I am, opinionated snob, where everyone can see it -- in black and white.
We lost a real class act yesterday. Johnny Carson was a wonderful comedian and a top-tier celebrity who's gift made him famous, not his personal affairs. He was a charmer on stage, and off-stage he maintained a quiet lifestyle. He was never overexposed. He never pounded us over the head with his political ideals, moral values or shortcomings. He was an entertainer, and that perfect image of the entertainer is how he will be remembered.
As a grade school kid, I would try to fall asleep in front of the TV so maybe, just maybe I could open my eyes later and sneak in some sights of the Tonight Show. I laughed at everything the audience laughed at. I always wished I would have a chance to be a guest and meet the funny man myself. There's talk of the many celebrities' careers he launched, but I'm sure there are many people in all aspects of show business who attribute their beginnings to having watched The Tonight Show. How inspiring to watch someone do what he loved to do, and it seemed so effortless. He just made people laugh.
The exceptional drop in temperature this week warranted almost 5,000 calls to 311 in just one day. The calls were all made in complaint of landlords not in compliance with city heat and hot water codes. What kind of a city is this that landlords even attempt to get away with not to turning on tenants' heat?
But anyway, a guy sang a Switchfoot song during the service, and it almost made me cry! Not that it was bad or anything. He had a nice voice. It was just one of those songs. It's just one of those lives, and a poignant Switchfoot song makes me cry, that's all.
While I was down in the village, it seemed like a good idea to hop over to Brooklyn and visit the nice Target. I called Olga and she came down from the Upper West Side. We found a yummy little Mexican restaurant on Greenwich Avenue called Taqueria de Mexico and ate brunch. We found an express train to the Target at Atlantic Terminal.
The girl at the checkout register totally bossed me! I was taken aback.
"Take your stuff out of the handbasket," she bossed me first.
Then after I paid up, "The handbaskets go back over there by the exit."
What!? She bossed me AGAIN? Oh, no, honey. I pay Target's overhead by shopping there regularly. They HAVE people to collect shopping carts and baskets and recycle them. It's not that I'm unkind, or that I was wanting to be arrogant and unhelpful. She didn't ask. She didn't even suggest. She totally bossed me! And that is unacceptable of my beloved Target. Target is supposed to be such a happy place.
I hate New York. It's full of miserable people and they want to make everybody else miserable, too.
Right before Christmas, a new McCoffee was installed in an empty storefront on the ground floor of my (temp) office building. It's on the map over there with all the other locations on lower Manhattan. (Man, I thought for sure there were more than that.)
Anyway, no worries, I still get my medium coffee, cream, no sugar I'm-sweet-enough-already-thank-you, from Raf's coffee cart every morning. But occasionally I purchase some sort of McCoffee blended beverage or espresso drink or snack downstairs. Today I picked up a Toffee Nut Bar, and a young hipster woman behind me ordered one of those irritatingly "healthy" forms of a McCoffee. And I wondered, "Hm, I wonder why people who order those kinds of drinks always order them with the same inflections and accents?" (i.e., "Yaah, can I haave a soyyy laaate, pleese.") And it's never a question. It's posed as a statement. A statement of their hipsterness for drinking McCoffee with soy instead of that god awful milk, and they are so better than you for doing it.
Well, I use half-and-half. Sometimes I even wanna drink it straight. So, there, you hipsters, take that. Yaah.
After work, my friends took me out to dinner as a belated "thank you" for dog sitting. We ate at Haru and then had dessert at Cafe Lalo, the cafe featured in the movie "You've Got Mail." It looks quite different than in the movie. There's hardly any room to walk between the tables in real life. But the desserts are amazing and it's a very bright and cheery place with lots of Christmas lights and shiny ornaments still hanging about. Although there was no wait, it was packed with locals
I earned a kind lecture about picking one career and sticking to it, and, as usual, the question, "Why aren't you writing? You're such a good writer!" And all along I thought, it's not that easy.
My friend Mark works with Compassion International, another hunger-relief agency. He compiled this information about how nations have contributed to disaster-relief in Asia.
(As of Jan. 5, 2005.) Contributions pledged by governments and the World Bank to help Indian Ocean nations hit by the Dec. 26 earthquake/tsunamis. Compiled from reports by Reuters and U.N. agencies.
NATION | DONATION | POPULATION | $US PER CAPITA | % OF | |
| 1 | Australia | $810,000,000 | 19,000,000 | 42.63 | 2.20% |
| 2 | Qatar | $25,000,000 | 600,000 | 41.66 | 0.70% |
| 3 | Norway | $181,900,000 | 4,500,000 | 40.42 | 5.00% |
| 5 | Luxembourg | $6,800,000 | 450,000 | 15.1 | 0.10% |
| 6 | Denmark | $76,830,000 | 5,400,000 | 14.22 | 2.00% |
| 7 | Sweden | $80,000,000 | 9,000,000 | 8.89 | 2.20% |
| 8 | Germany | $680,200,000 | 83,000,000 | 8.5 | 18.40% |
| 9 | UAE | $20,000,000 | 2,400,000 | 8.33 | 0.50% |
| 10 | Kuwait | $10,000,000 | 1,700,000 | 5.88 | 0.30% |
| 11 | Japan | $500,000,000 | 128,000,000 | 3.91 | 13.50% |
| 12 | Ireland | $13,620,000 | 3,900,000 | 3.49 | 0.40% |
| 13 | Bahrain | $2,000,000 | 600,000 | 3.33 | 0.10% |
| 14 | Switzerland | $23,810,000 | 7,300,000 | 3.26 | 0.60% |
| 15 | Taiwan | $50,250,000 | 23,000,000 | 2.18 | 1.30% |
| 16 | Canada | $66,000,000 | 31,000,000 | 2.12 | 1.80% |
| 17 | Netherlands | $34,000,000 | 16,000,000 | 2.12 | 0.90% |
| 18 | Great Britain | $96,000,000 | 53,000,000 | 1.81 | 2.60% |
| 19 | Spain | $68,002,000 | 40,500,000 | 1.68 | 1.80% |
| 20 | Italy | $95,000,000 | 58,000,000 | 1.64 | 2.60% |
| 21 | Belgium | $16,320,000 | 10,000,000 | 1.63 | 0.40% |
| 22 | Saudi Arabia | $30,000,000 | 21,600,000 | 1.39 | 0.80% |
| 23 | Austria | $10,880,000 | 8,000,000 | 1.37 | 0.30% |
| 24 | USA | $350,000,000 | 290,000,000 | 1.21 | 9.40% |
| 25 | Finland | $6,120,000 | 5,200,000 | 1.18 | 0.10% |
| 26 | France | $66,380,000 | 60,000,000 | 1.1 | 1.80% |
| 27 | Portugal | $10,880,000 | 10,300,000 | 1.06 | 0.30% |
| 28 | South Korea | $50,000,000 | 48,000,000 | 1.04 | 1.30% |
| 29 | New Zealand | $3,600,000 | 3,800,000 | 0.95 | 0.10% |
| 30 | Singapore | $3,100,000 | 4,100,000 | 0.76 | 0.10% |
| 31 | Cypress | $370,000 | 700,000 | 0.52 | 0.10% |
| 32 | Libya | $2,000,000 | 5,300,000 | 0.37 | 0.10% |
| 33 | Greece | $1,340,000 | 10,600,000 | 0.13 | 0.10% |
| 34 | Hungary | $1,200,000 | 10,000,000 | 0.12 | 0.10% |
| 35 | Venezuela | $2,000,000 | 24,200,000 | 0.08 | 0.10% |
| 36 | Czech Rep | $668,000 | 10,300,000 | 0.06 | 0.10% |
| 37 | Algeria | $2,000,000 | 31,000,000 | 0.06 | 0.10% |
| 38 | China | $60,420,000 | 1,300,000,000 | 0.05 | 1.60% |
| 39 | Slovenia | $110,000 | 2,000,000 | 0.05 | -- |
| 40 | Slovakia | $230,000 | 5,400,000 | 0.04 | -- |
| 41 | Poland | $1,000,000 | 39,000,000 | 0.03 | 0.10% |
| 42 | Turkey | $1,250,000 | 66,000,000 | 0.02 | 0.10% |
| 43 | Bulgaria | $140,000 | 8,000,000 | 0.02 | -- |
| NA | Euro. Union | $31,290,000 | NA | NA | 0.80% |
| NA | World Bank | $250,000,000 | NA | NA | 6.80% |
| TOTALS | $3,695,318,000 | 2,532,550,000 | 1.35 | 100.00% |
United States makes up 11.5% of the population represented by the 43 countries who have donated. It has contributed 10.25% of the total from these 43 countries.
Despite being the second largest nation in population to give, the U.S. ranks 4th in gross gift size behind Australia (U.S. 15 times as large), Germany (U.S. 3.5 times as large), and Japan (U.S. 2.25 times as large).
The 23 nations ahead of the U.S. on the chart account for 58.5% of the total giving.
Of the 23 ahead of the U.S., 13 are from Europe.
European nations made up 40% of the total gross in giving, compared to the USA’s 9.4%
The United States is the third most populous nation out of 233 in the world at 290 million, making up 4.6% of the total. The U.S. consumes over 45% of the world’s natural resources, and controls 45% of the wealth. Meaning that over 6 billion people (95.4% of the population) exists on the remaining 56% of the money and resources. Over half of the population of the planet lives on less than $2 per day (according to the ILO World Employment Report for 2004 released this week in Geneva).
Therefore, the $350 million (9.4% of the total world government gifts so far) that the U.S. government has contributed to the Tsunami relief effort is still substantially short of what our fair share should be when compared to what other nations are giving.
(As of Dec. 29, 2004, four days after the disaster.)
The U.S. became the 11th nation to step forward to give at total of $35 million ($20 million of that was earmarked as a loan at that point) on this date. The U.S. also ranked 11th at that point in per capita on the giving list, with the others being:
1. Denmark $2.96
2. Norway $1.82
3. Australia $1.42
4. United Emirates .83
5. Finland .67
6. Great Britain .54
7. Saudi Arabia .46
8. Japan .23
9. Taiwan .23
10. Netherlands .17
11. United States .12
6 days later, there have been 32 additional nations that have stepped forth, the U.S. has raised their support level by 1,000% to $350 million, and STILL fell another 13 places in the ranking of per capita giving to #24.
Personal Giving for Tsunami Relief
It appears that the U.S. is also lagging behind in this category as of Jan. 4, 2005.
Rank Nation Per person
1. Switzerland $5.38
2. Finland $3.40
3. Great Britain $2.75
4. Germany $2.41
5. Austria $1.70
6. Greece $1.39
7. France .87
8. United States .56
Trackable world-wide totals so far as of Jan. 4 is $667 million, of which the U.S. at $163 million represents 24%.
The U.S. total seems to be climbing at a very strong pace, and could easily double within the week. Other nations are on similar growth rates.
Corporate Giving
It appears that approximately $140 million has been donated so far in financial gifts and gifts-in-kind (products/services) by multi-national corporations. Some experts believe this could go as high as $750 million by the time all is finished.
Grand Totals as of Jan. 5, 2005
Combining government, individual and corporate giving so far, it appears the U.S. has contributed about $700 million to the world-wide total of $4,562,000,000. That’s a 15% share of the load.
Comparison to Military Spending
The U.S. government gift of $350 million is equal to:
- The cost of 1.5 B-2 bombers.
- What we are spending every two days ($177 million per day) in Iraq.
- Is less than 2/10 of one percent of the total of what has been spent on the Iraq invasion/occupation.
The world-wide grand total giving of $4.5 billion is just 2.25% of what we have spent on the Iraq War.
Our government has paid Halliburton $10.8 billion in war support services. What we have given for Tsunami victims so far equals 3/10 of 1 % of that.
It came out this weekend that President Bush is about to ask Congress for an additional $100 billion for the Iraq conflict. This will be 99.965% more than we have offered as a government to Tsunami Aid. That equals 3 one-hundredths of 1 % spent on behalf of 5 million homeless, recovering from 160,000 + dead, and all the new infrastructure needed.
