VIP
It's good to have a mother in the adult beverage industry. She spent 10 years as the Director of HR at the liquor distributor Alied Domecq (Courvoisier, Beefeater, Sauza, Kahlua etc) and now recruits executive level marketing positions for all the major liquor companies (Bacardi, Absolut, Pernod, Remy). Growing up our liquor closet was a basement and I got to do a tequila shot way before I should have. Went VIP to all the clubs in Vegas during my spring break senior year of college and now it's another VIP event in the city tonight.

I belong to GenArt and every year they have an annual Ignite party. It's really big, there's art galleries, film shorts, open bar, entertainment, DJ's etc. Last year Alize Bleu launched at the party and my mom called in her Alize contact and got me and a friend in VIP. So it was champagne all night in a roped off section. I even got to paint a wall blue. I'm not an artist, so I just painted the word ME on the wall in white over the blue and everyone cheered me for it. I felt very creative if not self indulgent. Women were also getting their bodies painted and opting for the paint and glitter instead of their shirts, believe me, I didn't go there!

So this year the event is hosted by Stella Artois so I figured I'd have to pay the regular admission and be with the hoi poi because I sure as hell was not paying $100 for the VIP ticket. So my fabulously connected mother called InBev and LaBatt who distribute Stella and she got me in VIP again. How awesome is that? The theme this time is early nineteenth century Carnival/Circus. I have a short suede skirt in mind that I think will go, my friend has final approval though.

So I'm running home after work, jumping in the shower, styling the hair and then getting my friends advice on an outfit and heading to the party. Can't wait.

(July 4th's New Yorker by Paul Noth)

I thought this was a funny cartoon and very appropriate in the age of blogs, AIM, LiveJournals, cyber cams, Match.com, etc.

I don't Google people ... my friends do that for me! ;) Seriously though, on numerous occasions several of my friends have suggested that I Google this person or that person but I just can't bring myself to do that, too invasive and desperate. I have Googled myself though, lol, that sounds dirty. Do you Google people?

PS: OK seriously there should really be a law that prohibits me from leaving phone messages. You'd think I'd at least remember my script that I had prepared in my head and not try to read someone's IM message at the same time. For shame! If I got a voice mail like the one I just left, I'd think "loser" and "inarticulate wacko." James Earl Jones' voice should come on and be like "Verizon Wireless, you are prohibited from leaving a message!"

Block Island and the BI sticker

I will be on Block Island for 4th of July weekend on my mother and stepfather's sail boat, "Gone With The Wind." Get it? A sail boat, wind! Plus my name is Tara, it's all really cute in their yachting world.

Anyway, Block Island is a little Island off of Rhode Island that can only be reached by ferry. I'm taking Amtrak to New London, CT and then the high speed ferry over. I don't need my car since the whole island is walkable and there are bikes to rent on every bend.

You know those oval stickers that people put on their cars that say where they vacation, like VT or MV? I figured although I like Marthas Vineyard and I do go skiing in Vermont, getting a Block Island sticker would be more appropriate since I've been going there every 4th of July weekend and on other occasions since freshman year of high school. Two years ago, I tell my mom and stepdad that I'm going to go buy an oval BI sticker for my car when I went walking into town that day. My stepdad goes, "You're going to drive around with a sticker that says BI?" I had not thought of it that way, so I defend myself and the sticker by saying, "No one will think that!" He then says if he saw a woman with a BI sticker he'd think she was BI. I ponder this a minute, wondering if I could pull off a BI status or if I even cared. With a determined shrug I told him that I'm getting the sticker anyway. Much to my luck, I found a larger oval sticker that read, BI (a picture of the island) and then RI.

So although BI%RI sounded stupid, I figured it was a good solution to my bumper dilemma. I was pretty happy with it too, until the next year when a guy told me that the picture of the island's layout looked like "The Money Shot." Eww! Now that I'm living in the city my 91 Honda Accord is in my mother's driveway, rotting away, sticker fading in the sun.

Fortune Cookies
My family has a tradition when it comes to opening fortune cookies. You can not open your own. You select which one is yours and then hand it to another person at the table to open and read aloud for you. Then you or another table member will reciprocate until all of them are read out loud. It makes reading the fortunes more fun. I even make my friends do that now when we eat out for Chinese. Of course you can always make it more interesting by adding "in bed" to the end of the fortune.

I hate when you get ones that are not fortunes but words of advice and caution, grr that isn't a fortune that is a mini lecture.

I seem to get a lot star and cloud sayings. I've always been a wish-upon-a-star type of kid growing up, and I still do, but it is rare that you can see the stars here in the city. I've probably wished on dozens of 737 commercial planes.

My recent fortune:
There appear to be many clouds; but they quickly pass.
Lucky Numbers 13, 17, 18, 19, 41, 43

Years ago I got one that said "The stars appear every night, all is well." I always loved that one, which is why I remember it to this day. I had it taped to my computer screen but it faded until you couldn't read the red ink anymore. I just taped the new fortune to my office computer though.

Does anyone else save them, the good ones? Look at all those people who won the lotto by playing their lucky numbers.

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Remember the computer game and later TV show? I had the DOS game with the 5.25 floppy disks, good times, good times. I remember The Where in Time version was really hard, but I had liked that one the best.

Try This: If you type in "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?" in Google's search engine, it actually tells you where.

A location appears above the search results after you type in the question. lol! I thought it was funny. Go check it out HERE

RIP Tigger and Piglet: The voices of piglet and tigger have both died this week. Two in one week, it's a conspiracy. Do you think Elmer Fudd hunted them down?