Happy New Year from the RPR

Hello everyone and I'm back after a short vacation from the RPR. First off, Happy New Year to all. Secondly, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes last week. 24 doesn't seem any different than 23.

Since we last spoke, I was at home for a handful of days while the rest of the world celebrated Christmas. I came back up here last Wednesday, and then went into NYC for a few days through New Years.

My sister, Jamie, came up here with a friend on Thursday to see Rent. I made the mistake of going to meet her in Times Square after the show was over. I can't tell you how many people were roaming around at 5pm on a Thursday during the week when it seems like Times Square is the busiest. The tourists drive me nuts. Anyway, went down to SoHo/Little Italy and roamed around. Quasi-celebrity sighting as I passed right by Phillies outfielder Bobby Abreu. Wonder what he's doing in New York? Probably getting wooed by the Mets for all we know.

Friday was a fun day and I'll tell you why. The Jessica had to go to work for a few hours, which gave me the opportunity to be a bum and just wander around like all of the other crazies. I'm convinced that all of the people I'd see walking around in the middle of the day are unemployed. Maybe some of them had off of work, but there was just too many people out and about for everyone to have off. Some of them should standing in the unemployment line rather than roaming around spending money in the Barnes & Noble store in Union Square. So I end up wasting an hour roaming around the Virgin Music Megastore, then grabbed something to eat, and then sat in the middle of Union Square for a little bit. It was great just people watching and obseving all the crazies. You should all try this sometime.

Friday night was a good time as the Jessica took me to Peter Luger's Steakhouse in Brooklyn, which has been rated the Most Popular Steakhouse in New York City for 20+ years in a row. And man was it good. This place is old school: the waiters are all older gentlemen wearing bowties and suspenders. Some of the decor in the restaurant looks like it's been around since it opened in 1887. The food was fantastic. The menu is limited and everyone pretty much orders the same thing -- the steak, a potato side dish, and a vegetable side dish. The steak is a porterhouse and it comes out so hot that the plate itself finishes cooking the meat when it arrives at your table. The apple strudel for dessert was delicious as well. Peter Luger's most definitely gets the RPR's highest recommendation.

It worked out well that we were in Brooklyn because it gave me the opportunity to meet up with good friend, Aaron, who lives not too far from the restaurant. We went to some crazy bar called the Spuytin Duyvil, but you wouldn't have known that this is what the bar was called because they didn't actually have a sign outside. Props to them for having a very large imported beer selection, and for having He'Brew on tap. (I tried the Jewbelation Ale!)

The next activity on the schedule was zipping back to Manhattan's Lower East Side to see my buddy Frank's band, Downtown Harvest, play at a small venue called Arlene's Grocery. I'm always saying how I'd need to see more live music but never get around to it anymore. At the same time, I was able to support the band, whom I had seen on December 23rd at a bar near home, but was too busy shooting the shit with others to pay much attention to the music. This time around, I was there to hear the band and was very impressed with the music.

Saturday was the New Year's Eve and after putzing around most of the day, a bunch of us had a nice dinner and then hung out at the Jessica's apartment. I'll tell you... we used to do these package deals at a bar, but were always disappointed with the outcome. These places were always way too crowded and never lived up to the hype. As a result, my friends and I have found that just going over to someone's place to hang out ends up being more fun than you'd have elsewhere. This may be a case of pointing out the obvious, but warrants mentioning.

Let's see what else has been going on. The miserable season for the Eagles is now over with a finishing record of 6-10 (4-3 with TO, 2-7 from the time TO was suspended, for what it's worth). I'm going to look forward to the offseason and hope they can snag a few key free agents and put the ship in the right direction in 2006.

Great article written by Larry David regarding his thoughts on Brokeback Mountain.

Also can't forget to mention that Tuesday evening is Orange Bowl between Penn State and Florida State. Looking forward to that matchup which is way more than a battle of two senior citizen head coaches, which is all the media thinks it's about. Jared thinks I should get a tankup like this one that Michael Robinson is wearing.

I think this person took the term "hot dog" a little too seriously...

(Courtesy of Gothamist.com)









That's all for now. I'll be back with regularly scheduled blogging this week. Hope everyone's holidays and New Year's treated them well.