January 19, 2009
I dream I finally discover why my father hasn’t been himself for a few years. He admits to having died several years earlier and to be keeping himself alive through a kind of voodoo. He has been concealing his own dead body and now feels guilty about it. To set things straight, he agrees to take me to the amusement park to celebrate. I am happy to go to the amusement park and I tell myself that I’ll go easy on him and take him to the animal show instead of making him go on the roller coaster.

July 5, 1998
I dream my computer is going nuts with images of Snoopy and since I am to pick my father up from the hospital I am anxious. Suddenly, my father and a social worker appear at the door. My father is crying and disoriented. I ask the social worker why they are here, since I am supposed to pick him up at the hospital in a couple of hours. The social worker snidely tells me that, if I want, he can take my father back to the hospital and I can pick him up in a couple of hours. I tell the social worker I don’t need sarcasm and if he likes sarcasm I’ll give him some. Then, I start jumping around the room telling the social worker how magnificent he is.

December 19, 1995
I dream I am in an apartment with my father and some Comedysportz people. My father wants to put some ice cream on the fire escape. He jumps out the window and onto the fire escape, but there is no floor to it and he falls several stories to his death. He reappears months later in a large, white car.

Tags: Fred's dreams by Fred Siegel
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Each week I will feature a few simple meals that can be prepared in 45 minutes or less (often much less).  So, put down those take out menus and get in the kitchen!

Roasted Salmon with Lentils: Serves 2

Ingredients: 1/4 of an onion, 2 cloves of garlic, a little olive oil, 3/4 cup dry lentils, salt and pepper, 2 pieces of salmon (5-9 oz. each, depending on how hungry you are), a little store bought chutney (for this dish I prefer plum chutney but use what you like). 

Finely chop 1/4 of an onion and 2 cloves of garlic. Warm a small saucepan (whatever you use to make rice for 2 people) on a medium low flame. Add 2 Tbsp olive oil (does not need to be extra virgin… save your expensive olive oil for something else), then add the onion and garlic. Wait 30 seconds then add 3/4 cup dry lentils (I prefer organic red lentils but any dry lentils will work). Stir once or twice. Add enough cold water to cover the lentils by one inch. Keep cooking lentils at a medium-low heat and stirring frequently. When the water is almost evaporated, add a pinch of salt and a little freshly ground black pepper. Taste the lentils.  If they are not tender yet, add more water. Continue doing this until lentils are tender, and even a little mushy. Taste again and add more salt and pepper at the end if needed.

Meanwhile, hopefully you have purchased 2 beautiful, fresh pieces of (preferably wild) salmon. Season both sides of the salmon with salt and pepper. Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. Heat an ovenproof skillet over a medium flame with 2-3 Tbsp olive oil. Add your salmon to the pan skin side down. Cook three minutes, then flip. Cook three minutes more. Put the saute pan with the salmon in it into the oven. Roast salmon for 12-20 minutes, depending on how well done you like it.  [Read more →]

Tags: recipes & food by Jessica Alfreds
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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was bitten by a groundhog yesterday (it’s about as cheesy a local newscast as you’re likely to see). Note what an ass Bloomberg is on the video, trying to be funny as he threatens to cut zoo funding. And take some pleasure in how delightfully uncomfortable he seems when holding up the animal that has bitten him.

Sources close to the groundhog tell me it was no accident. It seems that this groundhog — Charles G. Hogg, affectionately known as ‘Staten Island Chuck’ — enjoys activities that Bloomberg has banned or plans to ban. Like smoking. And eating fatty foods. And putting a bit of salt in his soup. And touring the UN on a class trip. And bringing a bicycle on the subway (a little groundhog bike). And taking a photograph without a permit. It’s a long, growing list, but Chuck is a wild and crazy rodent with lots of ‘vices’ that Bloomberg will eventually get around to banning. So Chuck bit the meddling bastard. 

The below video is shorter. Sadly, neither video captured any blood or screams of pain, but if you watch carefully, you can see the bite (because you have that kind of time). A still picture is here.

Tags: animals, Pitney patrol by Scott Stein
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Texting while you drive is dumb. I mean, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that your eyes should be on the road and your hands (hopefully both of them) should be on the wheel. I have people close to me who text while they drive and it infuriates me. It would be one thing if all you were doing was taking your life into your hands, but you’re not! Philippa Curtis found out, while driving in England, you might just kill someone else on the road.

Curtis, 21, made a couple of calls, sent a flurry of text messages, and then smashed into Victoria McBryde’s car, which was stopped because she had a flat tire. Even after McBryde’s death Curtis claimed she could send and receive messages without taking her eyes off the road. Is that just a bad defense? I mean, I can probably send a text message without looking at my phone, but does anyone know how you would receive a message without actually looking at the phone? And I don’t mean just accepting the text, I mean, how did she know what to write back if she didn’t read the text?

Curtis told the court “I can’t really describe in words how bad I actually feel. I just feel awful that I was involved and I can’t really imagine how the family must feel.” Honey — you weren’t only involved — you were the cause of the accident. Had you not been on the road and had you not been using your phone, this 24-year-old woman would likely still be alive today. Certainly, you wouldn’t have killed her. Twenty-one months in jail and a three-year driving ban does not make up for the young life lost.

People, if you need to send a text, just pull over or let the person on the other end of the line wait. It’s not Jack Bauer waiting for information that will save the world. Really, what you have to say is just not that important.

Tags: on the law, technology by Amy Boshnack
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“And it is all so sad and yet so sweet to muse over the past.” So wrote the composer Tchaikovsky to his “beloved friend” and patron, Nadezhda von Meck.

Theirs was a peculiar relationship. They never met, but poured out their hearts and souls to each other in their correspondence. The reference to the sweetness and sadness of musing over the past occurs in a letter he sent in connection with his fourth symphony, which he wrote when he was 37 and dedicated to von Meck.

I think the age factor is significant. I was perhaps most conscious of time passing and time past when I was in my 30s, and I suspect that is not unusual. But I was aware of Tchaikovsky’s letter long before that, thanks to the liner notes on the 1958 recording of the fourth symphony by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, which was one of the first classical LPs I owned.

I first heard the symphony when I was a junior in high school, not long before the Bernstein recording was released. I knew what the critics thought of Tchaikovsky’s music. But what they complained about — bombast and emotional excess — is precisely what put it so much in harmony (as it were) with my own adolescent Sturm und Drang. [Read more →]

Tags: getting older, that's what he said, by Frank Wilson by Frank Wilson
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10. Raymour & Flanigan salesman specializing in seats.

9. Professional liar.

8. Environmental activist (after changing first name to ‘Erin‘).

7. Stand-up comedian with routine “Seven words you can say on the telephone.”

6. Spokesman for Jacquin’s Peach Schnapps with catch phrase “It’s im-peachy keen!”

5. eBay auctioneer.

4. Corrupt private citizen.

3. Ethics advisor to Wall Street executives.

2. Spokesman for Alberto VO5.

1. Prison laundry.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, politics & government by Bob Sullivan
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If I had a girlfriend who made me leave a Super Bowl party in the middle of the game, I would break up with her on the spot. 

After almost heading out of my Stamford residence to watch the game in my native Queens, I was invited to a party at the last minute by one of my co-workers. Great shindig. The food was flowing; the guests were great to be around… it was a fantastic time. Well, not everyone was enjoying themselves — on the couch sat a couple I didn’t know, and while they seemed nice enough, the girl forced the guy to leave within the opening minutes of the 3rd quarter.            

Excuse me? Leave a Super Bowl fiesta early? She must be insane. Even worse was the fact that her boyfriend went along with it! When you’re bolting an event like that, there has to be a reason put on the table. It’s not like they had to go to Home Depot or Lowes at such an odd hour. No, there was no explanation. They simply picked up, said a few brief goodbyes, and left. The guy put up no fight.   

Embarrassing. Rest assured, their union was a hot topic in the post-game discussion.

Tags: his & hers, sports by Glenn Giangrande
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