Anyone from New York City can tell you that the best place to satisfy a pickle craving is at Guss’ Pickles (on Orchard at Broome). I went there for the first time last month, and I became an instant fan of their “spicy half-sour” pickles. So today I ventured down there to get a whole quart of them, and now I get to enjoy them all week.

I’m listening to “Visitor” by Onelinedrawing, and I’m proud to say it’s a modern rock/folk/indie/emo album I can highly recommend that has not been played on “The OC” (well… not that I know of). Onelinedrawing is the solo project of Jonah from the now-broken-up Far. It’s a little like Death Cab for Cutie or Iron & Wine, but not completely. It’s definitely worth a listen.

If you’re interested, you should harken to some samples at iTunes or Amazon. Yeah, I said harken. You got a problem? Huh? Huh? That’s what I thought.

Ahem.

For you neo-retro-electronica-lovers, track four (“Smile”) has classic Casio-inspired beats. And for you late-seventies-sci-fi-fans, it has guest “vocals” from R2-D2.

To be honest, I’m pretty sure Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper tastes exactly like normal Dr. Pepper. Actually, I think I taste a hint of the cherry flavor. But really it tastes overwhelmingly similar to Dr. Pepper. I’m not impressed, but also not surprised.

My cousin Danielle went to see The Gates a couple weeks ago, and she later confided, “I’m glad I saw them because they’re such a big deal, but to be honest I really don’t get it!”

I’m glad she said that because she’s my cousin and it’s good for me to get along with her. See, I decided I only get along with people who don’t get them. Those people who say, “Oh, they’re beautiful, this art is so amazing,” are not people I can communicate with very well. They’re like people who’ve never seen Star Wars; we have little common ground.

I think only real New Yorkers think they’re beautiful. And that’s prob’ly because it’s been a long time since they’ve seen, for instance, a bright orange sunset, which–on the scale of beauty of bright orange things–is a lot higher than bright orange fabric on bright orange steel.

Oh, sorry, I meant saffron, not orange.

Amid all the acclaim, someone actually had criticism of Christo and Jean-Claude’s multi-million dollar art installment (via kottke.org):

As I approached the gates from the Upper West Side near the park’s northern edge, I spotted a bluff topped with orange flags. I had seen all the sketches and early installation photos and even pieces of the project being assembled near Central Park South, but still, my first thought was, “Oh, another construction site up here.”

I think the last paragraph of the article, regarding an elderly woman discussing some ducks, sums up how I felt about the experience. I quickly became bored.

Everyone in New York City with a weblog is writing something about The Gates and posting photos of it. I posted a few photos as well, just in case someone missed something while taking the thousands of photos already online.

Last night I saw ‘night, Mother, which is the first non-musical I’ve seen on Broadway. It was amazing. It only has two characters, a mother and her thirty-something daughter, played brilliantly by Brenda Blethyn and Edie Falco. I didn’t know much about the play except the basic information I just listed, and I think that’s best for anyone who is planning to see it. It’s good not to know what it’s about. But I highly recommend it, and it’s been very undersold, so it’s easy to get rush tickets (front row for $26.25) by showing up anytime during normal box office hours.

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room!”

It’s on TCM right now, uninterrupted, and it’s seriously one of the best movies ever made. It’s simple, poignant, funny, well-acted, well-written… and if you’ve never seen it, you should immediately add it to your NetFlix queue.

I waited over an hour (literally sixty-three minutes) on hold to talk to Samsung’s Level Two Tech Support. When I explained the software bug in the web browser on my Samsung a670, they informed me that they don’t have a working a670 in the office, so they can’t test it.

Remind me not to buy Samsung stock.

Anyway, I explained my complaint: The manual says to hold down the “CLR” button to return to the browser home page, but when I hold down the “CLR” button, it does nothing at all. After talking with his supervisor, the tech support guy told me, “it’s a misprint.”

Remind me not to buy Samsung phones.

My Disney Rewards Card didn’t work the last time I was at Disneyland, nor the time before that, so I called Bank One to find out why. The Bank One lady said that my attempt to activate the card (by calling the phone number on the little sticker) had failed (even though it never told me it failed), and that’s why it wasn’t accepted. So she activated it manually (supposedly), and she told me it should (yes, should) work next time. I really hope it does, because I feel like a total jerk when I try to use the Rewards Card, and there’s a line of people behind me, and it doesn’t work.