MyUrbanKvetch.com
I'm pleased to announce my acquisition of MyUrbanKvetch.com, your one-stop shop for all your urbankvetching needs. Change your bookmarks, and visit often...
New York, dating, freelancing, celebrities, Jewish life, humor and heart...it's all in My Urban Kvetch.
All entries are the intellectual and creative property of Esther D. Kustanowitz. Consider them copyrighted. For reprint information, please contact me.
I'm pleased to announce my acquisition of MyUrbanKvetch.com, your one-stop shop for all your urbankvetching needs. Change your bookmarks, and visit often...
If you haven't changed your links yet, here's what you're missing over at the new site:
Over at the new site:
MARCH POSTS
FEBRUARY POSTS
As Gwen Stefani asks, What U Waitin 4?NEW POSTS AT THE TYPEPAD SITE:
Finally, you can attain a celebrity's physique! International megastar of the BBC's hit show The Office Ricky Gervais reveals his sexy dieting secrets:
An interesting post over at JDaters Anonymous (if I do say so myself) about the merits of alcohol in social situations.
And the Hubris Award Goes to…
Welcome to what I suspect will be a continuing series on fad diets and the crazy people who adopt them. (Add Ryan Seacrest and it sounds like a reality show for FOX.)
Claiming the title of "The Ultimate Jewish Website," and boasting the slogan of "Your Gateway to the Jewish Community," along comes Machers.
I’ve recently begun thinking that we should take everyday verbs and create proper-name oriented slang for them.
According to Mediaweek's A.J. Frutkin, Practice's McDermott to Star in CBS' 3 Lbs.
That question aside, if you want to watch "Law & Order" but don't know if it's on, here are a three easy ways to find out.
In this article in the Forward (free registration may be required to read the story, but copious excerpts are available here), there is a discussion of the Jewish meaning that can be applied to the famous "Gates" installation in Central Park.
Sandra Dee passed away at age 62 after a long bout of kidney disease.
Now there's more than enough Brad to go around. One for Jennifer, and one for Angelina.
Welcome back to everyone's favorite place-to-visit-but-you-wouldn't-want-to-live-there, the Hall of Celebrity Weirdness.
I know. I'm pretending to be a web geek. This may not technically be a beta site. But it is where my blog will be once I negotiate the dang "import your posts from Blogger" feature. Until then, I will continue to post mostly here. Once the move is final, I'll post an official announcement here so you can update your links.
Let it not be said that bloggers get no perks. Tonight, I attended a preview screening of CONSTANTINE, which turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
As I previously said, I'm having some problems switching over to Typepad, so you may encounter posting problems when you try to comment. So far, seems like the comments are being recorded by the system (and I get them emailed to me), but are not always posted immediately. Your patience is appreciated...
Since the Daily Show does NOT seem about to hire me as an entertainment consultant (I guess there's no comeback in the cards for "We Heart Showbiz") and since I am therefore NOT poised for discovery by Comedy Central (my favorite network since 1993), I've had to do some contingency planning.
The year was 1985. I was in high school. So were Bender, Allison, Claire, Andrew ("Sporto") and Brian.
My new column in the Jewish Week, "The Skinny on Using the F-Word," is now available online. Enjoy!
February 20 is the 64th birthday of singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. However, it is also the 51st birthday of actor Anthony Stewart Head, who portrayed Watcher/crooner Rupert Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Change is hard. Everyone says so. And after spending hours trying to transfer my posts from Blogger to Typepad, I'm inclined to agree.
Hello, boys and girls. And welcome to the hall of celebrity spiritual weirdness.
Clay Aiken! Low-cut scrubs! Colin Hay, from Men at Work!!
And the winner, for best karaoke song rendered while naked and behind a screen, goes to Ray and Marie LeBrun, for their rendition of Bob Seger's "Fire Down Below."
“You’ve got your blog in my Israel trip!”
Well, it's been a long month or so, as Jewish and Israeli blogs battled it out, some through amity and others through enmity, in competition for the JIB Awards. Polling is now closed, and the unratified results can be viewed here. But to sum up, for a new blog that isn't overwhelmed by traffic on any given day, we did very well here at My Urban Kvetch. And FOEs (Friends of Esther) did pretty well too.
There's nothing like keeping romance all in the family.
For those of you who always knew James Gandolfini--and carbohydrates--were dangerous...
You know that kid on the playground? The one who called you a stupid-head, or a kaka-brain, or who was more than gleeful to be able to tell you that you had more than a few cooties? His persistence was obnoxious, even if his comments held no truths or resonance. He was more annoying than harmful, even to the fragilest egos. He was the one who would pull your pigtails, then run away before you could find a teacher. When you were growing up, adult figures told you not to play with kids like him--if you ignore him, he'll go away. But the truth is, he never goes away, and never really changes.
At last--karaoke singers can bare their souls without the pesky restrictions of clothing.
As a reminder, here are the categories in which I'm nominated:
Yup. Me too. But as this article at GenerationJ.com tells you, this holiday isn't about bemoaning your singlehood, it's about celebrating yourself. Or at least trying to.
Grab your brown fedoras, your whips and your Zionism--the three must-have fashion items of the new century for all budding Jewish archaeologists--and head East. Due East. To Jerusalem...
Since everyone’s been captivated by the Tale of the Mohel and the Herpes (a messed-up fairy tale title if e’er there was one), when I found this medical abstract about oral suction used as a medical technique in ritual circumcision, I thought I’d post it here for your edification.
So, last year, as we may recall, I interviewed Average Joe's Adam Mesh over lunch with his parents, and his mother made some very interesting comments about me.
Dear Nicolas Cage,
Getchyour Kate Dates, right here!
Thanks to Dawn Summers, the Key, for this alternate script for the Buffy finale. I have to say that I cried at the end.
I'm definitely starting her book today. But in the interim, here's Tova Mirvis's response to last week's Wendy Shalit piece.
Ask Jeeves just bought Bloglines. Just thought y'all would want to know. They have a new Ask Jeeves blog, which one hopes will become slightly more interesting than it currently is...
Ashton Kutcher in talks to hawk Kabbalah energy drink?
"Write What You Know": The Role of Jewish Education
"Ortho-Bashers"
The Role of Religion
Not to Generalize…But
This may not surprise any of my regular readers, but it turns out that my response is running so extremely long that I'm breaking it up into chapters. (I know. Bear with me.) Apparently, I have a lot of opinions that are kind of inspired by, instead of being a direct reaction to, the Shalit piece.
This is the fourth time I'm trying this through Blogger. Damn it. Keeps trashing my posts even after I've saved them as drafts. The damn URL links erase the rest of the post....
Before career. Before paycheck. Before social life.* Before all those things, I must prioritize the blog.
I’ve been trying to piece together a coherent response to Wendy Shalit’s piece on "The Observant Reader" in the Sunday NY Times, but keep hitting wall after wall. Perhaps it’s because I feel like I'm constantly on deadline for other projects, or perhaps it’s that I just can’t wrap my brain around her premise. I’m finding it hard to address her points item-by-item; I think it’s just going to be its own essay.
My new article, "The Drama of Dating," is now online at the Jewish Week website.
(Note to J.J. Abrams: As soon as Lost comes back with a new ep, I'm yours again, baby. But till then, I'm all about the Idol. A straight-up Idolater. Idolicious.)
Finally a show worth watching.
I hesitate to share this link, as I might be enabling all sorts of unhealthy eating habits by disseminating this information. Blame the Urban Achiever, for tempting me with information on where to get Marzipan rugelach in the US.
I don't even know where to start with this story from the Daily News:
Tara Reid wants you to be her boyfriend. (Well, not YOU. But maybe "one of yous".)
According to this report in the JTA, Triaminic has now been declared kosher:
Remember Lucius Yahoo Dragoman? Well, the story was a hoax.