The Caffeine Workout
I read somewhere that a half an hour before you head to the gym you should have a cup of coffee or some sort of caffeine, that way you will increase the duration of your workout and be more awake and up to exercising.

Since I head to the gym after work and am usually a bit tired, I thought this made a lot of sense, I also have a Starbucks conveniently located at the base of my building. So, I would order a latte and head to Crunch. As a result I was going at least 5 mins more on the Elliptical machines and doing more reps. Who knows if it's a placebo effect or indeed the caffeine, but it was helping. I also felt more jazzed while there.

Until I finally realized that the calories that I was burning were only the calories that I just consumed while drinking the sugary, fancy latte's I had just ordered like the White Chocolate Mocha or Cinnamon Dolce Latte. I'm not a big coffee fan though and these are the only coffees that I drink, since they taste more like a hot chocolate or warm milk.

I love tea though, but usually drink decaffeinated since I'm a wimp when it comes to caffeine in the first place.Before I go to the gym now I'm going to have a cuppa Earl Gray or Green Tea--hold the calories--for that extra energy surge that I need.

I also just ordered some sample packs of loose leaf white tea from Adagio Teas, they come in these cute little tins too that look adorable on my counter. Let me know if you'd like me to email you a free $5 gift certificate, just put your email in the comments section and I will. FYI the sample packs cost only $1-3.

Blogging is the New Black, the Glam.com conference
This blog recently joined the GlamMedia blogging network, per their recruiting, thus the ads on the left side. I'm pretty excited about it, I was also invited to their conference and panel discussion this morning at the W Hotel in Times Square called, Blogging is the New Black, how the hottest media trend is changing fashion coverage.

Although, the British guy seated to my right from ZooZoom said that the conference's title implied that blogging is on it's way out and just a fad, instead he said that, blogging IS black. To my left was a very quiet but sleek female editor from Cosmopolitan who simply listened on and chatted with Glam.com VPs. I also briefly met a couple from girlawhirl. Oh and here's a quinky dink, in the row ahead of me was my former NYU J-School classmate who is now with The Daily News, yay for her! :)

As opposed to the technology and financial conferences that I have been to for work, the attendees here were 80% female and of course much better dressed. Although one woman did have a hole, shaped in almost a perfect circle, on her black tights, but maybe she was going for the Cyndi Lauper look? The other women present varied in chicness and styles, but it would appear from looking around the room that red shoes are in. Since there were red cowboy boots, red pumps and red patent leather sling backs in toe <--I spelt it that way on purpose, was trying to be cute). Even the VOSS water at the conference was stylish; my friend Massiel always buys VOSS because she likes the bottles' cap and shape. I snagged a bottle for the road on my way out.

During their slideshow I learned an interesting fact, apparently there are 25 million blogs worldwide and doubling every 5 months. Wow! I feel pretty insignificant now, lol. Oh and 10-15% of those blogs are fashion oriented. Which makes sense since everyone is a fashion critic right? And blogs are about personal expression after all.

Speaking of expressing their opinions, the model casting director/fashion blogger from COACD had plenty to share during the panel discussion. Oh and bachelors, he is auctioning off a date with a very pretty and nude female friend. Then there was The Sartorialist, who actually kept to the panel discussion about the impact of blogging on fashion. On his blog he has fashion portraits from man/woman on-the-street photo shoots, a lot of which have been taken in my neighborhood. I actually walked by when they were photographing the two women on Little West 12th Street. The final panel member with more of a fashion journalism background, dressed in a very cute flapper girl/depression style outfit complete with fur color and hat was Lesley from Fashion Tribes Daily, whose site has a lot of good fashion highlights.

News: According to MediaPost it only takes 50 Milliseconds for a visitor to a Web site to decide how appealing that site is. Hope you like.

A Graceful Exit
When Tara Met Blog is mentioned in the Jan. 25th issue of Exit Weekly magazine in the Geek Chic section. Reporter, Amy Kuperinsky, had asked me a few questions about music on websites. There's a quote from me saying "I detest when I go to a page and their choice in music assaults me," said Tara, the author of When Tara Met Blog (URL) "My speakers on my computer are usually set on high since I watch DVDs through my computer so when I enter a site with embedded music it's really annoying."

EXIT is a new North Jersey launch serving 21 to 34-year-olds. Copies can be picked up for free in Hoboken, Jersey City and for a list of lots more places check out their website exitweekly.com or myspace.com/exitweekly They currently have another interesting article on foot fetishes and other kinds of fetishes.

Video: Conference call with technical difficulties I'd have to quit if this happened. Thanks Rob for the link.

I've been tagged again, but I spared you all and just put my responses in my comments section here

The morning after drinking...
the things that I do not particularly relish:

Smelling the light perfume mist that I happily walked into the night before, which now lingers in the bathroom, causing nauseousness.

Going up and down my ladder.

Having to force my eyes open in the morning, since they are apparently stuck with some sort of invisible tape.

Forcing myself to drink water and greasy food after waking up (well the greasy food isn't much of a chore, just the chewing part ;)

Cleaning yesterday's glasses left in the sink which still have the syrup of liquor on their rim and stem, despite the quick rinse from the night before.

Yesterday's worst pick-up: "Hey ladies, I need a woman's opinion," not a bad intro, but then he proceeded to tell an elaborate story about how his 'friend's' girlfriend found a shoe box with photos of an ex-girlfriend, which resulted in an ultimatum and how would we react? Then pretended the phone call he received wasn't in fact from his girlfriend. Our consensus by the way was as long as the photos of the ex weren't on a mantle or something, then whatever. I have some pictures of my exes and even though I don't have feelings for them any longer, I wouldn't want to have to give them up if I didn't want to.

Yesterday's best icebreaker: Leans in though the crowd and says "How am I gonna be able talk to you with all these people in the way?"

Pink Champagne...check!
So only a month after my 2005 resolution deadline, did I finally complete my last lingering resolution from the year before--tasting Pink Champagne. I've always wanted to try it, ever since Affair to Remember, but it's not something usually ordered or around much, so I kept putting it off or forgetting about it altogether.

When I recently posted a recap of my 2005 resolutions and their outcomes, one of my male coworkers gave me a few Rose suggestions ranging from 39-69$ per bottle in price and Hiromi at Just Another Week posted some excellent suggestions in my comments section as well, actually they both mentioned the Moet & Chandon Brut Imperial Rose.

While on vacation I spotted the Moet Rose for the duty free price of $60, but I couldn't bring myself to spend the 60 bucks that I had just fought to earn and hold onto in the casino on something liquid. Then again, I did put $15 towards the Brinley Vanilla Rum, which I had a little glass of last night before going to Pastis for K's bday dinner where I finally ordered a glass of pink champagne.

I ordered the only sparkling Rose option they had available, Rose Cremant De Loire, which was a little darker in color than I expected, more on the orangey reddish side. Other then it not being really pink, it was yummy, sweet and bubbly, very similar to regular colored champagne, but just a little more fun because I knew it was different lol. It couldn't rival the awesome crisp fries and hangar steak rare, that I ordered though. Yum! The New Year can really begin for me now that I finished up last year's to do list. This year I don't have a list, just to keep up my old ones like trying to eat veggies and going to the gym. The rest I'll make up along the way.