I started watching "Lost" on my awesome non-ipod MP3 player that played video 7 months before the video iPod did... and it's a kickass show. It's nice to get lost on a desert island while standing shoulder to shoulder in rush hour subway traffic or sitting on a crowded bus. I really ought to read a book instead, but damn these TV shows are addictive.

Wanna know what it's like not to have heat or hot water for 3 days? It smells and it's damn cold. It smells because you don't shower. It's cold because there is no heat to warm you up. It just sucks, all around. I had to turn on the oven and hover around it for 20 minutes to heat up my face and my blue fingers. I had to wear a sweater to sleep, under a down comforter and a regular blanket. And it's not even that cold outside.

I called up my spanish-speaking super and the first thing I said is: "Benny... I'm cold. What's the deal. " He said "yes, the heater's broken, someone supposed to come today, but no come til tomorrow" I'm like "Benny... I'm freezing my balls off over here. Help me out a little. Get me some heat. " He couldnt do much. He's a good super though.

But it looks like the hot water works now. Way to go benny!

Wow, I didn't realize how much SUVs suck... I ended up driving 478 miles, and filled the tank twice, so a total of about 27.7 gallons. With the interstate speed limit at 70 and pretty much everyone going 80, mileage is not so good. My average MPG was 13.5. That is pitiful. I spent $60 or so on gas. WTF? And that's with gas at $2.20/gal.

When I arrived to drop my car off in Orlando, I realized I hadn't filled the tank. So I left and looked for the first gas station. Within a few miles I saw a Chevron and pulled in. I swiped my card and got ready to pump when I realized the price for regular unleaded was $3.60/gal. I rang the "call for help" button and asked if the prices were correct. They were. OMG? So I left and went to the next one where gas was $2.11. So bizarre. Also, there was a little official sticker on the gas pump that said "Charles Bronson, Commissioner". I just thought that's funny that a city official shares his name with a badass movie star.

Florida is over... it was a great trip. I got to see eagles, all kinds of birds, ride on a boat, ride on an airboat through Lake Okeechobee, see aligators, wild turkey, a shitload of cows, orange groves, and interview a bunch of really nice and interesting people. I'd say it was a successful shoot/vacation.

Unfortunately I have no photos, but I shot nearly 7 hrs of video, so that should cover the "what did I see" part of the trip. I will be going through the video shortly and writing up a script for my editor. Hopefully these 3 pieces will be online in the next 2 months or so.

I'm staying at a Best Western...when you turn the TV on there is only a thin horizontal line of ligh. One of the two beds feels like it is literally made of springs and nothing else. Outlets were tough to find. But other than that i'm sure i will sleep fine. Also, internet is free, so can't complain there.

I did my first story for Yahoo News today. It's about how the Tampa Port does construction in collaboration with Audubon to avoid disrupting migrating birds that nest on nearby islands. It's a pretty neat story, mainly because most environmental stories typically involve an industry or company that violates environmental regulations, but in this case the Port is actively collaborating and keeping these birds' nesting season productive. I saw dolphins, a bunch of different birds, and went on a boat. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon!

I love GPS. I hate driving, but god it's so much more fun with GPS. I didnt have to look at directions at all. The device I have is basically a Nextel Cell phone that speaks directions and shows them on a large black/white display. To input your destination address, you have to actually call a person and tell them the address. You'd think it'd be cheaper to have a good input device or some voice recognition, but apparently it's cheaper to have someone answer the phone and type in the address and then upload the address back to the GPS cell phone. Anyway, it works, and it's nice to not get lost.

Airplane security is the most backwards thing I've ever experienced. They still don't allow liquids on the plane.

I had a bottle of water – actually, a fiji bottle (see my previous post about bottled water), but it was filled with tap so i'm ok. The guy says no liquids. I said, but sir, I'm DRINKING it, clearly it is not a) volatile b) poisonous or c) explosive. It also is not a snake. And it isn't a knife. It's a fucking bottle of water. No, they don't let me enjoy my NYC tap water on the plane. I get it... they're just following orders. But I don't feel safer on a plane where the security is instructed to simply follow a silly set of rules enacted AFTER the fact. What pisses me off is not that they don't allow liquids. Fine, certain liquids should not be allowed on board. But water?? There are obvious exceptions, one being that if you drink your liquid in front of security, it's probably safe to allow on board. Two, “no liquids” doesn't make us any safer on board. It simply inconveniences the fuck out of everyone for no good reason. El Al is the prime example of good security practices. You hire skilled people (not imbeciles), pay them real money (not 8.50/hr), and train them (real training, not “press this button, then press that button”). El Al has never had a hijacking. They deal with quite a bit more terrorist threat than America ever has but their security works. They never made you take your shoes off or confiscate beverages before boarding, but their security works. Why? Because have a little more common sense than we do. You do psychological assessments of people, profile (not racial profiling, terrorist profiling... looking for signs in facial gestures, motions, things like that). The American way completely fucked up the notion of security in an airplane by following terrorist tricks rather than catching them – ah, someone used a bomb in his shoe, now we don't allow shoes. Ah, someone used liquids to make a bomb... now we don't allow any liquids. I watched as the guy behind me had to open his bag. The woman took out his ziplock with small bottles of toiletries and eyed one that was a slightly larger bottle and unmarked.

“you can only have up to 3 oz of liquid. This doesn't say how many ounces it is, and i can't measure it, you can't take it.”

“but its less than 3 ounces, look at it, its not filling up that container, its only partially full” the guy protested.

“no, sorry”

she's following rules, its not her fault. But the rules don't serve anyone and don't make us any safer, just more pissed off.

Alas, today is the final day of Iron Chef America season 4... my stint as Bobby Flay's stand-in is just about over. It was a fun time and I enjoy doing this each time. I think the next time (assuming this show is not cancelled) will be around May-ish. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I snagged a cool shot of "Mr. Chairman" (Mark Dacascos) and me. Mark was in a bunch of movies, usually as a villain. His notables are the bad guy in Cradle 2 the Grave and one of me and Maddy's favorites, The Brotherhood of the Wolf, a french film where he plays the Indian sidekick to the main protagonist and kicks serious ass in a few martial arts scenes that were inspired by video game cinematography.

Another funny story is that when Iron Chef aired last season, someone called in to complain that the american flag on the uniforms were on the wrong arm. That the flag's stars should be facing front because it is tradition to have the stars forward when going into battle. But the stripes were facing front, which means you are in retreat. So they re-sewed the patches on the opposite arm. Kinda funny that people complain about stuff like that rather than, oh, maybe how the secret ingredients aren't particularly exciting ingredients (the Japanese version of iron chef had live electric eels... the craziest ingredient we get is pork or onions).

Also, the girl and guy are in charge of wardrobe. They were the funniest people on set. they might let me snag the iron chef shirt later today... we'll see.

And here's a shot of Mario Battali's stand-in, John, a great guy who's done a lot of voice-over work and tons of theater. There's supposed to be a wrap party tonight but I can't go because I have to catch my flight to Florida early tomorrow morning.

Today was another super productive day:
1- did iron chef america at 8am
2- tutored for 2 hours
3- went home and took a nap
4- got up and called one of my contacts in florida to figure out what story i'm going to do when i get there.
5- ran 3 miles
6- tutored another 3 hours
7- watched the adam sandler movie "Click" that came out a few months ago -- on my iAudio on the bus/subway rides. it's a depressing movie about how you dont want work to come before your family. i took some good lessons away from the film. thanks adam.

i am totally exhausted now. florida is in 1 day... gotta get prepared!

On Sunday, I ran in the Mysic County Marathon in Mystic, Connecticut with my two sisters and my father. The four of us managed to finish in 4:17... not bad. I did the last 2 legs of the 5 leg relay, about 10 miles, in just under 8 minute pace, so I kicked ass. It was a fun family outing with the whole family including our dog, who posed in a few photos as well. Our team was "The Novich Attack" and my little sister made our shirts. We each had our "names" on the back of the shirts: Dr. Funk (dad), J. Funk (older sis), Ms. Funk (younger sis) and Funk, Jr (me). It was amusing to run past people as they would invariable say "go Funk, jr.." or "go team funk", believing that "Funk" was our family name. In fact, my little sister was approached by another runner who said "oh, is Funk your last name? My last name is Funk too!" haha.

The run itself was quite scenic, passing through quiet little roads and for a short stretch along a beach. The weather was perfect for running - calm, clear skies, low 50s. The problem was with the relay part. My leg was at mile 16 which means I had to wait about 3 hours for my older sister to finally arrive. Waiting around really sucked: I hadn't eaten or drank anything, expecting there would be at least some water at the waiting spot. No dice. There wasn't a single race person directing people or helping out (ie, telling you where the bus was picking you up), and there was ONE lone port-a-potty. There were a few tents and a small stage set up, but we came to the conclusion that this was part of last night's festivities with the church and had nothing to do with the race. So there I sat, on my PDA, chatting with maddy in china on skype while picking up some friendly neighborhood wifi from, perhaps, the church or bed-and-breakfast across the street. Finally around 1pm, still having not eaten or drank any water, I start my leg. I must have passed over 100 people -- sadly because they were all in the final 10 miles and I had just started. Those poor runners were saying things like "wow, you go!" or "boy you have some real energy, nice job!" not realizing i had just started.

All in all it was a beautiful day, a great run, and a wonderful weekend spent with family (and dog). We didnt' even come close to winning the "family relay" award. That went to a team of skinny people who did it in around 3 hours or so. A 75 year old ran it in just over 3 hours. But we came away satisfied with having accomplished something few families can do. Go team Funk.

I saw a funny accident waiting to happen -- I was waiting for the 1 train at 23rd street and noticed a dollar bill sitting in the middle of the track. I think everyone considered the pros and cons of diving into the track to recover that bill and jump back up on the platform and what risks would be involved with that decision, and what benefits would be reaped. But a dollar for liklihood of death doesnt seem like a good payoff. Funny, yes. Smart, not so much.

Such a productive day today:

1- did my stint as Bobby Flay's double. In and out of the food network in about an hour.
2- went home, called people, emailed people, bought my TICKET to australia
3- watched 2 episodes of "weeds" on my non-ipod X5
4- went to the UN to visit a friend of a friend. She is a lawyer and Israeli and working as an intern at the UN for 2 months. Apparently the UN hires 200 interns and doesnt pay them dick. that sucks!
5- back to apartment, submitted an article I wrote about Skype to PC Magazine, RES Magazine, CNET. Heard back immediately from PC Magazine -- may begin doing some freelance tech writing for them.
6- Tutored 2 students.
7- Went to a Hopkins happy hour down at Aspen (22nd/6th) and chatted with some Hopkins friends. go blue jays.
8- back to apartment to argue for several hours with zak about global warming and statistical significance of data.

Whew, i'm pooped.

Walking home, I walked into a woman I worked with on a National Geographic TV piece a few years ago. I asked her if she ever got a copy of that piece -- a documentary about the NYC subway system. I've never seen it, even though it's been almost 2 years. She said she still hasn't seen it and that it never aired in the US. Goddamn Nat'l Geographic.

Ran into Maddy's cousin on the cross-town bus last night. I saw her and had no idea who she was since I had only met her once when she came to my apt with Maddy's other cousin. But she looked at me, looked some more, then said "arent you Jeff, Maddy's boyfriend?" Then I knew who she was. Cool, NYC is small.

Here's another example of how ridiculous MS Word is. It puts a squiggly red line underneath "lambast." I click it and it seems to be mispelled. They suggest "lambaste" and other variations. I know lambast is a word, and a good SAT word at that, so I do a Shift+F7 to look up synonyms in Word. Lo and behold, those idiots give me plenty of synonyms for a word they think is spelled wrong. That's booty.

I'd like to discuss a problem I think is plaguing a lot of people, including my roommate who is smart but ill-informed and stubborn. That problem is bottled water.

People who drink bottled water in Manhattan piece me off for a variety of reasons. Let's go through some typical reasons why people drink bottled water and spend upwards of three dollars per bottle when they could get cool, clean, tasty water from our apartment tap.

1. It tastes better: this is the biggest crock of absolute Bullshit I've ever heard. It is also one of the main reasons my roommate spends his stock options and life savings on bottles and bottles and more bottles of Fiji water. He claims it simply tastes better than what comes out of our tap. I told him he's completely full of shit and decided to have a little taste test to prove it. I brought out two identical cops, one with water from our tap and one with water from the Fiji bottle he was drinking from. Indeed, he was able to tell very quickly which was which, but this doesn't address a fundamental question -- which one actually tastes better (and what I mean better I don't mean noticeably different, I mean noticeably better). The other thing my spontaneous taste test did not incorporate was multiple types of water and multiple double-blind tastings. I decided that proving my roommate is an idiot did not require this much effort. Nevertheless, he claims that Fiji water doesn't have the metallic taste that New York City water has. The whole concept that one water could taste so much better than another water is absolute nonsense to me. We are not talking about the difference between Pepsi and Coke or two bottles of wine or two bottles of beer. We are talking about two substances that are identical in their chemical makeup. They don't contain any sweetener, no differences in flavor, nothing. It's just water. The only thing that gives it a different flavor is perhaps a cocktail of minerals and other natural contaminants in the water, most of which I'm assuming you can't even taste -- like arsenic. I tasted the two glasses of water in my blind taste test and as soon as I walked out of the kitchen I pretty much forgot which was which.
2. Cost: the other thing that really pisses me off about bottled water is that once an imbecile like my roommate Zach becomes convinced that bottled water is somehow better for him, or taste year than our tap water, he feels it is a good investment to be spending two dollars per 1 L bottle. After one week of drinking water, my costs of drinking gallons of tap water is zero while his gets up to $15-$20. After a month, mine is still zero while his is $60-$80. And after a year of this nonsense, the grand total of my water drinking comes to a whopping zero while his approaches $750. Thank you Zak for contributing to this multibillion-dollar bullshit industry.
3. It's cleaner: Zacks other brilliant argument for why he wastes tons of money on bottled Bullshit is that the pipes that bottle the water in Fiji are somehow cleaner than the pipes that deliver our water in New York City. I won't argue that our pipes are older, but I would argue against this notion of assuming that because they are older they must somehow also be dirtier. In fact, New York City water is among the cleanest in the world and tastiest according to some study that I'm not going to quote but that I remember reading somewhere in amNY or perhaps on the Internet. And we all know the Internet is full of hard data and bulletproof facts. In any event, we decided to look up just how clean Fiji water is. Apparently Fiji ran an ad recently comparing their water to Cleveland's water and implying in a snide way that Cleveland's water was inferior. Of course the people who oversee Cleveland's water supply took this as an insult and decided to do a little water testing themselves, comparing the two waters for contaminants and quality. What they found was that on the score of arsenic, Cleveland's water came up with 0 µg while Fiji came up with 6 µg of arsenic. Granted, the EPA allows up to 10 µg of arsenic in drinking water, but the point remains, Fiji is a bunch of crap. Now I'm not going to argue that some bottled waters are better for you than some tap water -- just go and watch "a civil action" and you may think twice about drinking what comes out of your faucet. But we are just discussing New York City tap water, which is among the best tasting and healthiest water in the world. And what pisses me off the most is this blind assumption that water coming through old pipes is somehow less safe than water Artesia and water in Fiji that is going through some water filtration system and bottling process. Our water has to be safe enough for 8 million people to drink, unfiltered, straight from the tap. Bottled water just has to be safe enough to pass an FDA test. I may be making this up, but who gives a shit, but I believe New York City water has to meet more standards than bottled water does.
4. Energy and resource consumption in distribution: even if all of the above arguments are Bullshit, one major argument still stands up to the challenge of bottled water. The distribution system. Not only is water either free or extremely cheap in most homes in the United States, but remember there is a fantastic delivery system that has been built to give us the water in the most convenient way possible. I wish there were distribution systems like that for Pepsi or for bacon. That would be really cool. Just go to my faucet and choose a type of food and out it comes on to my plate. Unfortunately, this technology doesn't exist just yet. but bottled water is a commodity just like bacon or Pepsi, and therefore needs to be distributed as such -- through a complex system of trucks, ships, airplanes, and of course packaging.

Let's take a look at the trip a single 1 L bottle of Fiji water needs to take in order to get to my stupid roommate's lips. And while we're looking at this trip, let's consider all of the energy (in the form of petroleum) and resources necessary to make that trip.

It starts in the cool, clear Artesia in waters of Fiji. I don't know if it's a mountain, a river, or a glacier, but who the fuck cares. It's crystal clear and really clean and it tastes great, so it's worth the trip.

The water gets bottled into a 1 L plastic bottle. That plastic bottle was manufactured in a large factory that has to use some amount of energy and oil to create that plastic and mold it into that bottle. But let's just assume that is a negligible amount of energy. Assuming the actual bottling of the water is also a negligible amount of energy, which it obviously is not because the Fiji water bottling plant is not a perpetual motion machine. But let's just assume that it is.

Okay, so now we have a nice, smooth bottle of refreshing Fiji water. Now we need to somehow get it to my roommate here in New York City. It gets loaded up on a huge vessel that takes a journey across the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean. I'm not sure which. Fiji is a bunch of islands right next to Australia, so it's really fucking far away, and I'm guessing you can take either the Pacific or the Atlantic oceans to get to America. In either route you are literally going halfway across the globe. This requires an insanely large amount of diesel fuel to power one of those huge ships with large cargo areas that hold several hundred thousand bottles of this Fiji goodness. I am making a blind assumption here, but it's probably pretty close, that this trip accounts for perhaps half of the base cost of that bottle of water. The bottle of water costs about two dollars in a store in New York. I'm assuming that most of that base cost can be attributed to fuel, so let's make this interesting and fill our water bottle up not with water, but with good old-fashioned diesel fuel.

After our huge trip across the world, we've filled up our water bottle about half way with fuel, approximately one dollar in associated costs. Now the Fiji boat has arrived, but we can't praise the Fiji gods just yet and bathe in their watery goodness. No, that vessel is still stuck in a port somewhere on the East Coast. Its cargo must be unloaded (labor) and packed into a truck to be shipped across the country. Keep in mind, trucks have the worst mileage of any vehicle on the road. Far worse than any SUV or Hummer, trucks achieve a whopping two or 3 miles per gallon. In fact, heavy trucks like the 18 wheelers you typically see on the highway account for a third of all of the carbon dioxide emissions from all vehicles in the US.

So now our bottle of Fiji water, still untouched by men, has in its journey to get to our mouths helped to contaminate the oceans it traveled on, and the air it drove through. Our Fiji truck finally makes it to New York City, probably burning several hundred gallons of fuel in the process. For every 1 gallon of fuel burned there is an associated 6 pounds of carbon dioxide that is emitted -- for diesel fuel. But even if there was no global warming (which would be devastating to the Fiji Islands), trucks are emitting enormous amounts of pollutants into the air we breathe, causing all kinds of medical problems like asthma.

The Fiji truck pulls up in front of our apartment to drop off a shipment of bottles. It sits, idling for 30 minutes while the diligent Fiji workers unload. During this entire process of driving a truck, we've accounted for another $.50 or so that we had to pay for fuel. Fill that bottle up another quarter of the way.

Certainly what New York City needs more of is a bunch of fucking trucks driving through our already cramped streets, clogging our already dirty lungs with even more of their Bullshit pollution. New York City already has an air quality problem, the last thing we need is a bunch of idling trucks near my fucking apartment.

In the meantime, my stupid roommate believes that it is healthier and safer for him to drink this water. Of course, by drinking this water he is encouraging the Fiji jackasses to bottle more water, and ship more bottles, and idle more of their fucking trucks directly in front of my god damn apartment so that I can come downstairs and breathe in their dirty air and fumes.

In the long-run, the little harm that some of the contaminants in the New York City water supply might do to an unsuspecting regular drinker of water, is infinitely less harmful than the impact that a single bottle of Fiji water had on the environment and people it came in contact with.

So the final cost of the bottle of water is $1.50, for 1 L. My final bill may not be free exactly, but it certainly doesn't require any of the energy necessary to transport that 1 L of water to my glass. And on top of that, I'm not filling up the landfill with non-biodegradable plastics that will be there for a thousand years.

Oh and one last thing. My roommate smokes half a pack a day. Maybe if he focused more on not inhaling carcinogens and less on drinking cleaner water, he’d be healthier.

Recently, I've been watching a ton of episodes of Penn and Teller's "Bullshit", a great television show on Showtime. But I've been watching them on my iAudio MP3/video player during my subway and bus commutes. My iAudio is an MP3 player that can also play video and is not an iPod -- no offense to you iPod sheep, but iPod blows. The X5, made by Cowon, came on the market with the ability to play video a full seven months before the video iPod came out. Of course, when Apple does something everyone seems to think its original and amazing when in fact it was merely derivative. Anyway, the video iPod admittedly has a larger and clearer screen for videos that is superior compared with my iAudio. But you really have to ask yourself, what difference does it make when you're watching a video on a 2 inch screen or a 2.5 inch screen? It's not as if The Matrix looks amazing on the iPod but looks horrible on my MP3 player. They are both really small. You're not talking about the difference between a 14” crappy television and a 70 inch plasma HDTV. You're talking about two tiny handheld devices, and when you're watching anything on a screen that small, no matter how amazing the screen might be, the resolution and quality is simply too eroded to make much of a difference. On the scale of MP3 players also playing videos, the only component that really matters is the audio -- most of the video someone would watch on their iPod would probably not have all that much action and detail going on. Videos like "Bullshit," or shows like "the West Wing" have far less action on screen and require more attention to what the people are saying, as this is where the real experience is found.

Point is, even though everyone thought video iPods were so amazing… I don’t see ANYONE using them for video. And I ride the subway all the time. Only a handful of people watch video on the go, and they’re using devices like portable DVD players, or devices that are dedicated video players like the iriver PMP or Creative Zen. Lame. So lame.

My SAT Experience:

I took the SAT this morning. As an SAT tutor, my company requires me to take the actual SAT once a year to not only see how well I score, but also make sure I have a sense of what my students are actually going through. It's been over 10 years since I last took the SAT, but it seems like not a whole lot has changed.

I took the test on Columbia University's campus in the business school. My ticket said to arrive at 7:45 a.m. I walked into the building and the first thing I am greeted by is perhaps the most obnoxious woman I have ever met. It's her job to explain to the arriving students that they have to locate the number of the room in which they will be taking their exam, which is specified by the first letter of their last name. This information is displayed on an easel, but could easily be missed by rushing students. So this woman's job was to basically say hello, point to the easel, explain what the student needs to do, and then give directions to the stairwell around the corner. This woman could not have done this in a more obnoxious way. She immediately yelled at a student in front of me, and told him he needs to find his name on the easel. He must not have heard and, because he was already holding his admission ticket, showed it to her. She looked at it and yelled "what is this? What are you showing me? Why you showing me this? You need to find your name over here. There, there!" She was the bitchiest woman I've ever met. Then she yells "go down the hall and through the X." Of course this doesn't really mean a whole lot, and I start walking down the hall looking for an elevator to get to the third-floor. What she meant to say, but was too much of a bitch to explain it properly, was that the stairs were marked "staircase X” and were down the hall and to the left.

Then I get up to the third-floor. I am inundated with maybe 150 high school students all waiting around in a narrow hallway. You could cut the nervous energy with a butter knife, but that would be cliché. I start to wait, thinking, this shouldn't take too long since it's already 7:45 a.m.. Then I bumped into a student of mine from last year for whom I taught the physics SAT II. He is a really nice guy and we chatted for a little bit about how he did and how everything was going. I kind of expected to run into a student.

About an hour later, after standing around waiting, they finally decide to start letting people into the classrooms. I have no idea why these idiots told us to show up at a quarter to eight when nothing happened for at least 45 minutes after then.

What really pisses me off about this whole process is that these students are incredibly stressed to begin with. They're walking into this exam a bundle of nervous energy. They have been working intensively for the last few months, maybe even six to eight months, on preparing for this one exam. They have been thoroughly tutored, have attended classes, have spent countless hours doing review problems and questions as well as taking several mock tests. A lot of them, especially the ones from top private schools, earnestly believe that the outcome of this test will determine their future course in life. But the sense I got from the way this test is administered is that the proctors and people running the show could not have cared any less about this. I'm certainly not saying these students should be coddled or anything like that, but it really seemed as though this experience was meant to ADD a ton of unnecessary stress to an already stressful situation. Proctors should do their job and not try to add their shit to the already stressful atmosphere. I don't believe this is helpful in any way because I think student performance suffers at a certain point. It is perfectly healthy to come to a test like this a little bit nervous, but once you're there, other things should simply fall into place and not compound that nervousness.

For example, why exactly were we waiting around for an hour before the exam even came close to starting? What was the point of this? What was the urgency?

The proctors are really the face of the College Board, and judging from my brief run-in with several of them today, they tend to be pretty obnoxious and not very bright, and not all that experienced.

So we finally were allowed into the classroom, our tickets were checked, and we were all seated. Next, the Proctor, an austere middle-aged woman, read us our rights -- I meant read us the SAT instructions. One line really stood out. As she introduced the test, she read "the SAT is designed to test how well you are prepared for college," or something similar like that. I will speak a little bit more on that in a minute.

The Proctor explained that nothing can be on our desks, no water, no food, nothing. A girl raised her hand. Could she keep some water on her desk because she has a really bad cough and her throat gets dry. No. Another girl raises her hand. Could she keep a box of tissues on her desk because she has a cold and has to blow her nose. Yes, that would be okay. I was amazed that these kinds of exceptions were made out to be such a big deal. Why the hell would a box of tissues on a sick kid's desk be an issue?

Also, unbeknownst to me, you are not allowed to use mechanical pencils on the SAT. What the fuck? I actually stopped in Duane Reade to pick up a package of mechanical pencils, (which was all they had), because I don't have any real pencils at home since I always use a pen. I could not believe mechanical pencils aren't allowed. Of course, consistent with the way the entire test was being administered, the Proctor gave no hint as to why mechanical pencils would not be adequate for the test. Instead, her assistant came around with a box of regular pencils. The really inane part of this is that in writing the essay, a 25 minute section of the test, using a pencil with a dull point is a huge pain in the ass and it slows you down.

And the test begins. The first section is the writing section, and the question -- yes, I'm going to spoil it even though after the test the Proctor said we were not allowed to discuss the question until after we got our score reports back, but I don't give a fuck -- was the following:

Do people achieve more success through cooperation or through competition?

I wrote a pretty solid essay that I couldn't have disagreed more with. my first example was the medical industry, where in order to become a doctor you must get through a rigorous series of highly competitive phases, beginning with achieving high grades in college, competing with your classmates to get into cutthroat medical schools, and ultimately getting into a good internship. I argued that this competition yields the best minds in medicine, although in reality I disagree and believe that because medicine is chock-full of the most competitive types of people, all struggling to outdo the next doctor on a given patient's case, patient care and the health-care industry in general both suffer as a result of the lack of cooperation.

The next example I used was Wal-Mart and how the market economy is a highly competitive environment that yields benefits for the consumer when businesses have to compete to offer the best product at the best prices. Of course Wal-Mart does this at the expense of paying their workers a fair wage and giving them health care, but it was a wonderful example for my crappy little essay.

Finally, my last example was the space race -- when John F. Kennedy said we'd put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. This, of course, was a competition between the United States and the USSR, but in reality the success of our space program owes almost everything to the cooperation and collaboration of all of the scientists who worked together in NASA.

I’m so good at writing bullshit!!

The rest of the test was by no means a breeze, but I think I did all right. Curiously, there was one short reading passage about wind turbines and their associated impact on carbon emissions, and another short passage about sea turtles and habitat destruction. I am a big fan of the College Board sneaking in environmental issues into their test.

I'd like to discuss a few of my ideas on how the SAT isn't exactly the best way to evaluate how well a student will do in college -- which is their claim. Ostensibly, you would assume that because I went to a top college and majored in physics and computer science, and then went to Columbia for a masters in journalism, I represent exactly the type of student who should have aced my SAT. I performed well in college and pursued a masters. But I only got a 1360 out of 1600 when I took my SAT almost 10 years ago. I would argue that the College Board probably does virtually no back testing to see truly how well its test evaluates how well a student will do in their four years in college. My father’s example is even more egregious – he barely broke 1,000 but he is one of the best doctors in Westchester and is by any standard a success.

My biggest problem is the essay that students have to write by hand using a pencil. At no time in their college career, I can safely say, will students ever -- and I mean ever -- have to hand write and essay using any writing instrument. Obviously all writing is done on a computer, and because most students these days are understandably and fortunately in the habit of typing papers rather than hand writing them, a good test would offer the same environment students would be used to. For instance, with e-mail, instant messaging, and Microsoft Word, pretty much every student these days can type 40 to 70 wpm. Most cannot hand write that fast legibly. Additionally, when writing an essay on the computer, students are used to deleting and rewriting sentences, phrases and words until they get it right and say exactly what they want how they want to. Unfortunately with the essay on the SAT, you have a limited space to write.

What they don't explain to you at the beginning of the test is that your essay will be photocopied numerous times and distributed to teachers across the country who will be responsible for grading that essay. In photo copying these essays, you will be at a disadvantage if you try to erase words and write over them because when you erase pencil it leaves a gray marketing that will make it very difficult to read those words on a photocopy. Therefore, my tutoring company strongly encourages students to cross out rather than erase. Well, you run out of a lot of space very quickly if you aren't writing exactly what you mean to say. Anyway, a 25 minute hand written essay in a limited space, written in pencil is going to be far different from one written on the computer. When I took the GRE several years ago, which was administered on the computer, I wrote several essays that were pretty good and comprehensive thanks to my typing skills. If I had to handwrite those essays, they would have been an illegible mess.

The other major problem I have with SAT questions is that the math and reading passages don't have anything to do with the real world (with the notable sea turtle and global warming exceptions). I'd like to see real math problems that deal with real issues one would encounter in the real world. For instance, a good question I thought of on my way out watching all of these students put on their iPods was the following:

Apple outsources their production of iPods to a Chinese manufacturing company. Ping works for this company and gets paid $0.07 for each iPod he produces. If Ping can produce 8 iPods per hour and works 16 hours a day at the factory, how much does Ping make per month?

Now there is a question that is more appropriate.

And who the fuck is EVER going to be docked points in college for not having a number 2 pencil or not bubbling in their answers properly. What the fuck kind of progress has the college board made that they haven’t been able to figure out a more advanced system that can handle other writing utensils. Its been 10 fucking years. Fuck you college board!

I think I should probably finish up this rant about the SAT so I can move on to more interesting rants.

This from my friend Jessica:

listen to this: I met this guy on the train last week, we were sitting across from each other on metro north. There was this coffee cup that kept rolling between our feet, thus began the conversation about how rude and gross people are, and how the MTA is trying to put an end to rolling food and beverage parts on the train. MTA conversations are usually long and fluid, I've taken part in many, but here's the clincher...the point: He all of the sudden says, "what's with the MTA advertisements, like the one with the cobra?" I told him about your blog, which is so fucking hilarious by the way, and he said that he was glad to know that someone else notices these things!

I filmed Whitney's band Socially Irresponsible at Sin-E in the lower east side . It was a rocking show! but dont take my word for it. check out this youtube video i uploaded:

This morning at Iron Chef, I saw good ol' Marc Summers walking around. If you don't remember, or are too young to remember, Marc was the host of Nickelodeon's Double Dare game show. Here is a youtube link: 20 years of double dare



and this is funny too... sad, but funny.

by the way, look at how hot my girlfriend is.

My computer just up and restarted out of the blue about 5 minutes ago. No warning, no errors, nothing, it just rebooted. WTF? when it came back this was the error that windows gave me. It was like "you recovered from a serious error... details", so here are the details. Mmmmm. Ahhhhh. (rubbing chin) Now I understand exactly what happened. WTF??

I hit up my friend Dana's birthday party at Ship of Fools on the UES. Good times. she made this huge batch of tasty cupcakes.

I went to the Hope and Dreams Film Festival with my mom, dad and mom's friend. My mom and I had made a 15 minute documentary about the life of puppies that are raised to become seeing eye dogs, called "Blue Collar Pups." This was the only fest that accepted it. But we eagerly went to Hope, NJ to check it out.

Pulling up to the stone church/community center, I noticed the parking space would be limited (there were only a handful of spots on the tiny street), but that there were still plenty of spaces! Apparently, not a lot of people had arrived. yet. Seriously, only about 20 ppl showed up for our screening -- but that brings our grand total of ppl who've seen "blue collar pups" to about 25.

This little town was so cute. We had lunch at this house/diner down the road from the church. The festival director was so hospitable and called me to ask if I would be on time to our screening because she didnt want to start it until we showed up. We came and I got a tote-bag filled with small-town goodies like a t-shirt, coffee, tourist magazines and festival info. The director really wanted us to stick around for the filmmaker discussion and for the award ceremony -- she insisted she didn't know the winners, that this was not her decision. It was so cute!

We came for the 2pm viewing of our film along with a short animation before ours and a 1 hr made-for-tv documentary about 3 Canadian high school kids going to Tanzania to learn about AIDS in Africa. That was a pretty lengthy piece that could have been cut to maybe 10 minutes. It was a bit boring and the content was basically following kids around on their trip -- not much of a narrative, one minute they're in a village with orphans, the next they're on a safari. THe animation was absolutely hilarious.

The director asked my mom and I to come to the front after our film played and answer audience questions. One woman in the audience said she had come to the festival just to see our piece because she had a keen interest in guide dogs. People really enjoyed the film!

Then my dad was a pain and said we had to leave because he was bored. so we packed back into the car and left. I felt guilty for leaving the festival, even though I had only planned to stick around for a few hours, I feel like we should have stayed a lot longer. At 4pm when we were heading out, a crowd had gathered to watch the next batch of films.

I think we're going to submit the video to the animal planet and PBS and see if it can get some airtime. We'll see.

Here are my photos from the half marathon this week. I look awesome!

I ran into Dana around 1pm at 59th/8th ave(or whatever the street there is). Random!

Then, later that night, down in the Lower East Side w Zak and Chung we ran into Meghan, a girl who came to check out the apartment when we were lookign for a new roommate last month. The funny thing is she doesnt know anyone b/c she's new (from canada), so the fact that she ran into someone she actually did know is pretty cool -- very low odds of that happening.

Nectar (Nathalie's band, top) and Socially Irresponsible (Whitney's band, bottom) played at Parkside Lounge in the Lower East Side. Nathalie was awesome (even with a sore throat!), as usual, along with her brother on guitar and her bassist. But unlike Nathalie, who is used to the dingy stages of bars, Whitney had never performed her songs in front of a live audience. She rocked out with her guitarist and gave a really amazing show. Very impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing her at Sine-E on wednesday when she'll rock out with her socks out along with her entire band. F-yeah!

Today marks the first day of my being Bobby Flay on iron Chef America, season four. This is the third time I am working on the show. It's pretty cool because a lot of the production people have been hired back each season, so it tends to be the same group that I get to hang out with. One notable exception is my good friend Maureen who was the body double for Kat Cora, the female iron chef, for the last two seasons. She is super busy with real freelance work, editing a feature documentary, so she couldn't commit the time. I on the other hand, along with the other body doubles for Mario Batalli and Morimoto, are back. It's pretty fun because we get to catch up after six or seven months. Anyway, the day was pretty uneventful except for the fact that I woke up at 6 a.m. for a seven o'clock call time. We weren't actually needed until about 930, so I'm going to make a note of that for the next time they tell us to arrive at 7 a.m.

One of the great things about this gig is that I don't have to stay on the set the entire day. All I do, all my job entails, is stand on the stage for about five minutes until they are done shooting the introduction of the challenging chef. When this is over and the director says "moving on," I change back into my clothes and leave. I was out the door by about 10 a.m. on Friday and on the upper west side to tutor a student at 1030. I went home afterwards, did a 4 mile run, showered, wrote a few e-mails, and then came back to iron chef for my afternoon call time (which I showed up an hour late for), and ate lunch for an hour with the crew because they were all running late. When that was over, I went back up to the upper west side and did in other two hours of tutoring. This job is so ridiculous.

Here is the back story of how I got to be “Faux Flay” or “Chef Jeff,” for those of you who have not heard:

About a year and a half ago, I was working at a private high school as a part-time math tutor. Every morning I arrived to school, the receptionist in the lobby told me I looked just like Bobby Flay. I said I didn't know who Bobby Flay was in that I never watched the food network nor did I watch the American version of iron Chef America. (Although the Japanese version of iron chef is awesome and I've watched that several times.) She insisted I looked just like him and kept telling me to go and cook her something. A few weeks later I was checking out the production job web site Mandy.com to see if there was any work as an extra on a film. Low and behold, there was a listing from the food network looking for a stand in for Bobby Flay. I sent the following e-mail in response along with a photo of a candid photo of myself:

“I have been told I am a spitting image of Bobby Flay. I didn't even know who he was until someone said I should go cook something for them. That said, I have no experience acting, but I have been behind the camera for several years. I thought I might have a random shot at this. I am 6 ft, 170 lbs. I am in shape (ran a marathon a month ago). I realize this is a long shot, but I am very professional and if it's worth anything, a fun guy to have on the set. I, of course, happen to think I'm better looking than Mr. Flay, but I hope that doesn't compromise my chances of being picked. I am not afraid of getting up close and personal with knives or raging flames and the like.”

And within five minutes, I was chosen.

Chung (Zak's gf) has recently outfitted our kitchen with about 1,000 mousetraps to catch all the mice that have been feasting in our apartment. we've caught two mice in the last week. You might call it a mouse problem. I call it a mouse "relationship." Problem implies that after catching a few of them, we will no longer have a problem. But let's face it, this is more of a long-term relationship.

this morning at about 6:30 a.m., I found our third caught mouse in the kitchen. Of course, I didn't bother to clean it up -- that's Chung's Department. Instead, I took this nifty photo of it. Mice are so much cuter when their neck is snapped. ;-)

I was hanging out today with my friend Dave, a sound guy I met back when I worked on a National Geographic shoot. He's a really cool guy and very experienced and I was telling him about Maddy -- how we met, how things are going, the fact that she's in China, and possibilities for the future. He gave me some advice that I think was dead on.

He said when you're trying to figure out which girl is the right one, (he's been married for almost a decade), you have to recognize if you have the best hand possible and bet on it accordingly. I love the fact that he used a poker metaphor, since I'm a big fan of poker and two years ago when I was playing a lot of poker I started making that comparison between decisions in life and decisions at a poker table.

Anyway, he said you don't bet too much on a pair, but the trick is to figure out if it's the best hand you're going to be dealt. I believe Maddy is my royal flush -- the best girl, the most perfect fit for me. All the girls that came before her were perhaps a high pair or two pair, but certainly nothing I should have gone all-in for. Maddy may be that ‘all-in’ hand.

I love poker metaphors. They make life so much simpler to understand. ;-)

I encoded a whole bunch of movies and TV shows to work on my iAudio -- my MP3 player that is not an iPod and could play video about seven months before the video iPod ever came out. I have rediscovered this puppy now that I took the time to convert some of my videos to work on it. Now I end up taking the bus sometimes just so I can have a longer, uninterrupted trip and watch more of a particular movie.

Yesterday I watched "Who Killed the Electric Car." It was quite good, although a little bit heavy-handed at times and felt a lot like a promotion for GM's EV 1 electric car, which was basically the hero in the film. I liked Martin Sheen’s narration.

Today marks the first time I've sold something on eBay. It is my old trackball mouse, and it actually sold for $51 plus shipping. I am pretty impressed, but I think I probably could have simply listed it on Craig's list for $60 and had someone pick it up. I'm not so sure that eBay is the best way to sell stuff when Craig's list is a free alternative that tons of people use

For instance, my mom wants me to clean out all of the computer parts from my room at home. I think I'm going to list them all on Craig's list and say "make me an offer." I will probably get a whole lot of decent prices for my junk.

A great photo of me and Maddy when we were in Europe.

This is me just about to go to Yom Kippur services in Westchester. Probably an inappropriate time to be taking a photo but whatever, I was looking good. I went with my cousin to services - the social gathering that is shul - that reminded me of a cocktail party. Mingling, everyone catching up with everyone. It just lacks the drinking and has a sadder theme.


This is my dog Coral. She's a great dog!

Ask me what it's like to run 17 miles in pouring rain. No, let me save you the trouble. It blows.

This morning I ran a half marathon, Grete’s Great Gallop, with the New York Road runners. It was the Norwegian Festival half marathon and was two laps around Central Park starting at 8:45 a.m. I woke up a bit early and jogged about 2 1/2 miles to the starting line at 70th St and Fifth Avenue. It was misting and raining a little bit, but nothing too terrible. I got to the starting line with about 10 minutes to spare, and that's when the heavens opened up. For the 10 minutes before the race started we all stood there under a torrential downpour. Any part of my body that might have been dry when I arrived was now soaking wet, through my shoes, my socks, my favorite Syracuse mesh shorts and my favorite running T-shirt. All soaked. I probably added about 2 pounds of water weight.

As soon as the race began, the rain ended. What luck. But throughout the run there were periods of heavy rain to keep us drenched.

Early on I decided this would probably not be one of my better races, and that I was really just looking to do a 16 mile training run for the marathon. I figured between the heavy rain, my being exhausted from the one-mile run the day before, and having jogged a few miles before even starting, my time would probably not be very good. But I kept on trucking, kept up with the pack, zoned out between miles 6 through 11 and started thinking about some chapters for a book I'd like to write. But at each mile marker, my time was actually pretty good. When we neared the end, I realized I might actually be able to break 1:50, which is about 8min 20 sec pace per mile.

Almost. I came in at 1:50:25, which is 8:25 per mile. I really kicked ass! I finished up, had some Gatorade, peed, and continued jogging home for another 2.5 miles.

On my way back, I noticed my nipple was bleeding. Yes, this is probably the grossest injury anyone can have during a race. There was blood running down my white shirt, but luckily it didn't hurt at all. I felt pretty happy about this, as I was a nipple bleeding virgin up until this point. What an exciting time. But I realized that the photo of me finishing the race would probably show my bloody shirt in full view. I can't wait to see it.