frozen bananas

Maddy said her new favorite dessert was frozen bananas. So, thinking that would be a good idea, I pulled off a banana from the bunch that came with today's Fresh Direct shipment and threw it in the freezer a few hours ago. Uhhh. Whoops. Turns out, a WHOLE frozen banana is not a very edible thing. I just took it out of the freezer and realized pretty quick: you can't peel a frozen banana. So I microwaved it for a bit. It just turned mushy but I still ate it. Not bad.

Next time i'm going to peel and slice up the banana first, then put it in the freezer. Genius!

Funny story... first, read the story below about how my friend Joke (pronounced yoka) saw me in a National Geographic documentary about the NYC subway that aired in Amsterdam (where she and Anuj live). I worked on that doc as a production assistant and did not think I was ever filmed, but apparently I thought wrong.

And apparently I am now something an international star...

Two days ago, I get a call from my old housemate from Hopkins, Julian. Let me tell you a bit about Julian -- he is a funny Italian guy from LI who also happens to be an amazing musician/conductor. I hadn't spoken to him in 1.5 years. He calls me out of the blue, from Grand Central, and says he just arrived in NY from Sweden where he was on vacation/doing some musical stuff. He says he took Malaysian Airlines and decided to watch a little TV. He turns on a NatGeo doc about the NYC subway thinking to himself, "what am I going to learn that I don't already know" as most NY-ers approach most subjects. And he sees the same shot that Joke had seen a while ago... me getting into a subway car. He said he had to rewind it and watch it again to be sure but yes, it was me. I am a star. I am in Amsterdam, and Malaysian Airlines... perhaps I'll get to see myself when I fly "Air Pacific" to Australia or "Finnair" to China.

I need a copy of this video...

My computer speakers and my roommate Paula's cell phone have a little love affair going.

Basically, my speakers start humming feedback, like a buzz or white noise interference, and then immediately after they go silent, Paula's cell phone goes off... it is the WEIRDEST thing and just started happening today (or that's what I noticed. )

And it gets more interesting. Seems the buzz that hums in the speakers is different for when it is a TEXT message and when it is an actual phone call. So bizarre.

This is nothing new. When Maddy was here, her cell phone would cause my speakers to do the same thing, except her phone would be right next to teh speakers. Paula's phone is at least 5 feet away and through a wall.

Oh yeah, and it's driving me nuts.

The other night I had a little sushi night of my own. Instead of going out to the typical all-you-can-eat place on the upper east side, I decided to make sushi myself. It turned out well, as you can see from how content the people look in these photos. People were very impressed with how good the fish and rolls were. I even got ginger and fake crab. But I forgot to get wasabi. Oh well.

I had salmon, tuna, fake crab, avacado, cucumber and sesame seeds. can't forget the sesame seeds.

Last night I went over to a student's house and we began our typical session. Within a few minutes I heard music that sounded like it was coming from another room just beyond view. It was Electric 6's new album! I knew the girl has an older brother and thought "cool, this guy has good taste in music!" The album played in full and all I could think was "wow, this is going to make a great blog entry... my student's older brother is listening to E6, that's so awesome!"

The album finishes, but we're only halfway done with our session. The next song comes on. It's still faint, I can't quite place it. Then I realize, oh, this is Evanescence's new album. And I thought wow, this guy has cool taste. His picks are so similar to what I listen to, maybe we ought to swap playlists (though I dont have a lame-ass ipod, so that wouldn't work). But the music is a bit distracting so I glance around trying to find the source and I realize it's not coming from the other room. It sounds like its coming from a cell phone tucked inside the bookcase behind me. Weird.

Then I realize: it's coming from my mp3 player in my coat pocket. HAHA! It has speakers and i guess it accidentally turned on at some point. My bad. And of course just as I am shutting it off, in comes the older brother, from a totally different side of the apartment (so he obviously wasn't in the room I thought he was in). Oh well.

My girlfriend Maddy is a looker. When we first started dating (wow, almost 8 months ago), I would talk about her incessantly to whoever I was with. After all, it was a rare thing for me to have a girlfriend. Early on, I was convinced Maddy looked just like Angelina Jolie, only smaller, and not insane. And jewish. I was emailing my favorite journalism school professor, Julie, and mentioned that comparison. She immediately coined the term: "the Jolie of Judaism." That was the funniest thing I've ever heard.

Fast forward to just a month ago. It's a small world. Several of my students are actually classmates with Julie's son, and the parents are friendly with each other. So Julie ran into the mother of one of my students and they got to talking about me and how awesome I am (as a student in journalism school and as a tutor).

So last night when I went to see that student, her father says to me, "Julie told me to ask you how the Jolie of Judaism is." I cracked up.

This morning, the mother of one of my students said I look exactly like Will Farrell (whom she met in person a few weeks ago). She said "you don't look like you could be his brother... you look exactly like him." Haha. And by extension, Farrell looks like Flay. What a trifecta we'd make!

So cute... Teresa's photos from race day and the weekend.

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.

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.

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.

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. ;-)

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!

Ah, do we remember this gem? I'm going through some of my photos to try to organize everything and I found this.

Me: right after getting two (TWO, not one) completely impacted wisdom teeth pulled out of my jaw on the bottom left hand side of my mouth. It was such a rare occurance (double impacted molars) that the 60 year old oral surgeon couldn't fill up one hand with the number of extractions he'd done like this one.

Zak: just after he got into a motorcycle accident and broke both of his wrists. he couldnt shave for a while.

So we were "the completely useless duo" or "handicapped heroes" or something like that when this photo was taken around May 2005.

oh I'm sorry, did you wanna see a superduper awesomely cute picture of me and Felissa's dog Wrigley? Well, here it is.