Being a New Yorker for last 14 years, I know how to tell a New Yorker from a tourist on a New Year’s Eve - if someone is rushing out of the city - he’s local, if one tries to get in - he’s a (stupid) tourist. Being a New Yorker (or, flaunting aside, a child of a big city) I know to stay away from the crowds. Just once I’ve been in the crowd large and dense enough that when my ex-wife’s shoe got stuck in pavement the crowd almost stepped on us because we couldn’t move with the crowd. It was a bit scary moment, honestly. We managed to get out, safe and sound, but ever since that time if I am not alone - I am not going into the crowd. No way.

Although I do understand and support the desire to cheer with peers, to celebrate and to be in the middle of it all, I am probably too old (or too smart, he he) to go into all that. Besides, my common sense told me that.

My wife, who’s close to being legally blind herself, said that there’s nothing wrong with the skit. In fact, she found it very funny and amusing. Especially the blind parts.

And the best part of our discussion was - if they’re blind, what the heck did they see to get so offended?

Recalling my own high school days - was a different country and different times, of course - I remember waking up at 7 am to be at school by 8:30 am. For whole 10 years in school I vividly remember only second parts of the day, as I was sleepy until about 2 o’clock. But again - this was different culture. Radio started playing national anthem at 6am, so everybody would wake up at the same time, go to work at the same time and so on. Schools were sort of barracks or a training camp, where you were supposed to acquire the habit of waking up just like everybody else.

Personally I feel more productive if I sleep late. If I have to wake up anytime before 8:30 am - half a day would be spent on fighting sleepiness. After 8:30 - I’m all energetic and ready to go. Been like that since school, so if 10 years of school plus 3 years of college (that started even earlier - 8 am sharp) could change my habits into waking up earlier - there must be something larger than that. Something like biological predisposition.

What I think would be a good idea is the following scenario. I’ll talk about GM, but any american car manufacturer can listen in. Here’s the six-step business recovery path.

Step 1: File for Chapter 11 protection. This will allow restructuring at a lowel cash levels.

Step 2: Fire everybody.

Step 3: Hire back every single factory worker immediately, loose car designers and unions.

Step 4: Hire sane designers who are aware of contemporary trends and technologies. Let them kick ass.

Step 5: Emerge to the markets with fewer product lines, better models and better prices.

Step 6: Watch sales rise, competition get angry.

So far every foreign car manufacturer, including Toyota, Nissan, Honda and even Hyunday have been thanking the big three for their ugly cars, high fuel consumption and inability to design modern hip cars. Look at any Lincoln or Chrysler - they look very nineties… It’s end of 2008, people. Wake up!

Honda could afford selling (the uglies car ever) Element, because they sell Accord. Nissan doesn’t even have an ugly car, their lines look pretty decent. Even Hyunday took couple of photos of Jaguar and thought them through. What’s holding GM or Chrysler from doing same things is beyond me.

P.S. Here’s a better, but more cruel idea - branch out couple of product lines (one sedan with three models, one truck with three models and one line with small SUV, big SUV and van models). Something like Pontiac or Saturn for sedan, Saturn or Buick for big and small SUV, buy Town and Country from Chrysler for van model. Throw in a best selling pickup truck line. Loose everything else (okay, keep that Hummer beast for guys with small penises and Escalade for rappers) and make it into a single brand. Hire designers who don’t drink Budweiser or Heineken, lock them into a dungeon for as long as it takes them to design a modern looking car. Something that would look and sell better then Hyunday or Toyota, but priced just as low. Watch this brand beat the rest of big three in sales.

Don’t get me wrong, CC isn’t a best store around, but I’ll miss that big landmark from the Union Square. At least the big red and while sign is more fun than yellow on black counter of national debt.

By the way, don’t expect any huge sell-offs, discounts and so on. If CompUSA’s going out of business process is any indication, then the so-called “huge markdowns” would be jacking up price 20% and then discounting it by 10%. So if you might think they have a good deal of 10 or even 15 per cent off - be sure to check other stores. You might be in for a surprise.

Gorgeous Renee from WannaGlow.com

Last Sunday my girlfriend and I went to downtown Manhattan to take some pictures for her blog WannaGlow.com. Pictures there are “before” the stuff, so we needed something “one week later”. Aside from plain old having fun a lot of pictures turned out gorgeous.

While at it I have reinventorized albums, pictures and sets. So now my beautiful girlfriend has a whole gallery dedicated to her and her only. Being as photogenic as she is, she also has a very creative mind set. Having worked in fashion industry for 12 years as make-up artist, she comes up with very interesting ideas about photo shoots.

Gorgeous Renee (2) from WannaGlow.com

In fact, as we were roving around and shooting, we spotted another group of people who, apparently, were doing just the same. They were, however, a group of professionals, at least judging by medium-format digital camera, lights and Mac notebook hooked up directly into camera. They were shooting exactly at the same spots that we tried before, and almost in the same poses and positions. The only difference, of course, was the hardware.

Gorgeous Renee (3) from WannaGlow.com

Nonetheless, the pictures we’ve got are simply amazing. Not only because of all the stuff my girlfriend did, but mostly because she’s the most beautiful creature on this planet. Amen.

Faith Hill Bikini, image courtesy of FOXNews

Has anyone noticed how ugly this Faith Hill bikini shot looks? What’s there to look at in that bikini? The magazine called “SHAPE” should’ve known better what is shape and how to show it.

Just to rant some more - what had happen to the common taste? Everywhere I look I see shameless promotion of “boys in dresses” - child or boyish looking girls, that probably starved to near death by some designer who also prefers boys.

Why my girlfriend has real big problems finding a decent bra for her 36 DDD size, just as well as anyone with boobs size larger than size C? Given how much everyone screams about America being fat, overweight and enlarged, someone must have thought about that nationwide market of women with breasts larger than size C. Someone other than tasteless Lane Bryant brand must have came up with lingerie and other stuff for women who look like women. Or so I thought.

Somehow, all this escapes me. Stay tuned - I am so annoyed by images of all these boys in a dress it makes me want to do some propaganda of real world curvy women. I’ll see what I can do.

Picture from WannaGlow.com

Last night we were sitting in my office and talking, and she insisted that we actually started something more useful than looking through WordPress designs (we’ve been doing this for past couple of weeks). She said she promised something to the doctor who treated her and that she needs to describe her own impressions of the procedure. Botox injections, Restilane, Juvederm - whatever, I said and started writing.

It didn’t come out as a sales pitch, or at least I hope it didn’t. See for yourself and then let me know.

By the way, in two weeks there will be a follow-up article (doctor asked). So I guess I’ll post yet another link iin two weeks again, if I could come out with another masterpiece. Stay tuned.