Should old acquaintance be forgot...

Right, so the deal is that New Year's eve is in a few short days and guessing from the regular round of blogs that we read on a semi-daily basis, it seems as though it is our duty to do the following:
a) a biggest and best of 2003
b) a recap of all of our madcap adventures from 2003
c) a general overview of how fabulous it is to be us and all of the wonderful things that have happened that we should be thankful for
d) our new year's resolutions

So, here is VTB's overly self-absorbed and egotistical take on the year. Feel free to disagree with us, but know that you will be wrong.

ALBUM(S) OF THE YEAR:
ok so shoot us, but its a tie between the following albums.
The Libertines - Up the Bracket
The Thrills - So Much for the City
My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves
Ryan Adams - Rock N Roll
The Postal Service - Give Up

go ahead, be picky, get angry, throw something, ask us how dare we leave off such genius as _________. Then sit back and make your own damned list.

MOVIE(S) OF THE YEAR:
oh there was so much shit to wade through this year, but some notables amidst the muck.
Return of the King (Peter Jackson's a genius)
Big Fish (Tim Burton is even more of a genius and there were some top of the line performances)
Bend it Like Beckham (We forgive the producers for changing the original ending of this movie... we think)
Better Luck Tomorrow (refreshing to see some Asian characters with depth, also, we here at VTB are in full support of gratuitous and vicious violence)
Finding Nemo (we swear, it was REALLY good)

BEST NEW DAWSON'S CREEK REPLACEMENT:
ok so nothing replaces an hour of Katie Holmes a week, but we must say that the OC has everything we could wish for and Rachel Bilson is hot hot hot.

BEST LIVE SHOW WE ATTENDED:
this was a toughie, as we saw a lot of shows again this year (including but not exclusive to, dropkick murphys on st. paddys day in boston, sum 41 (please don't ask), les savy fav, juliana theory (again, don't ask), melissa ferrick, the indigo girls in central park (thanks to the senor and muppet), REM, radiohead, cat power (dreadfully painful and suicide inducing), toad the wet sprocket (VTB still loves you glenn phillips), white stripes, the yeah yeah yeahs, jet, brmc....) BUT the best and most surprising live show of the year goes to INTERPOL.... those guys BLEW us AWAY.

BEST MONTH TO BE ANDREA:
well actually there were a lot of good months to be me this year, march was about as out-of-control as I have been since freshman year of college (drama can be fun too), may brought high distinction on my comps, my leave of boston and my return to new york, august rang in a new jobby job, september reunited ms. mo and i, october came and with my move to brooklyn gave me the yankees taking out the red sox .... [careful, here comes the obligatory sentimental part of this post]. really, I have loved and learned and grown so much in the past year that I have to say its hard for me to pick a best month, I can only hope that things should be so good in '04.... (was that appropriately schlocky enough for all of you???)

WORST MONTH TO BE ANDREA:
oooh easy one, February. Thanks to a drunken spill on Valentine's day, I spent the rest of the month on crutches (for the 2nd time in 4 months) while slowly beginning to prepare for my comprehensive oral examinations and reading more Aquinas than any Jew should ever be allowed.

TOP 5 NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS THAT ANDREA MAY ACTUALLY KEEP THIS YEAR:
1. Accomplish things on my to-do lists instead of just writing them so I appear on top of things.
2. Finish the novel that should have been done on November 30.
3. Learn to play the bass guitar.
4. Go to the gym at least twice a week.
5. Fine. Alright. I'll do it. Quit smoking at some point this year as promised.

OK. We have now fulfilled our duties to the blogging community by totally covering all things end-of-the-year related. One more thing. Voices from the Balcony would like to thank its readers (all five of you) for your patronage, we hope that this holiday season is a safe and happy one for you and yours and that we will hear from you again in '04.

best*,
the Voices from the Balcony team




*as graduate degree holders with further advanced degree studies on the way, we here at VTB consider ourselves academics and therefore find it perfectly ok to sign any editorial with the phrase best. And by "best" we mean we are the best. And by "we are the best" we mean better than you.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse:

Someone please take a look at this and tell me what kind of crack Jim Dolan is smoking.

Seriously, Isiah Thomas? Seriously???? Does anyone remember the CBA? It was around 55 years and ran just fine, it took Isiah Thomas 12 months to run it into the ground.

I hope the new level he takes the knicks to isn't rock bottom. I might even put money on the fact that he'll fire Don Cheney and coach the team himself.

woe is the day.

what do you mean its the offseason?

As our devoted readers know, we here at VTB are avid new york sports fans. In commemoration of next season's yankee tickets going on sale today I would just like to say, that offseason baseball has been way more exciting this year than any sport currently in the midst of battling out its season.

THE NBA:
ok as a whole, really who gives a damned about a league where the notion of parity has all but completely disappeared. The Knicks, known for their inability to underachieve and do just well enough to not get a good draft pick, are doing just that and are 9-17. What's funny here is that they're only four and a half games out of first place in the Atlantic Division. Seriously, the entire eastern conference is a bunch of losers. Why even bother having eastern conference playoffs to see who's going to get their asses handed to them by a western conference team. I mean really, what kind of sporting world are we coming to when the ENTIRE western conference has a better record than the knicks? so sad, and really so uninteresting. on a side note does any one else find it weird that the denver nuggets, the golden state warriors and the memphis grizzlies are all over .500? aren't these teams known for perennially sucking? yes, i know all about carmello and mike dunleavy and hubie brown, i'm just saying teams that have always sucked are now decent and that's strange. but i guess someone has to be winning these games and it sure as shit isn't anyone who plays in the eastern conference - save the pacers and that damned reggie miller and the pistons who have always been a scrappy little team.

THE NHL:
ok. first of all. maybe its just because no team at the garden knows how to do anything but underachieve, but being a rangers fan makes watching the NHL really hard year in and year out. We get good players, they just start to suck when they put on the red, white, and blue. Alex Kovalev is just another in a long string of doomed players, sad really. as for the rest of the league, well again there's something unnatural about the Atlanta Thrashers being in first place, Mike Modano sucking it up like he plays for the rangers, and the st. louis blues playing like they might actually win their first ever stanley cup. its all so unholy.

THE NFL:
ok. the jets suck. the giants suck harder. oh and the bengals might make the playoffs. i don't think anymore needs to be said.

in the meantime there's been drama, there's been bitter rivalries and there's been a little smug boy up in boston who went to the george steinbrenner school of how to put together a baseball team, we've seen blood (charges in the garcia, fenway employee melee), we've seen tears (petitte gone to houston), we've seen sweat (a-rod's going to boston, now he's not, now he is, now he's not), we've seen sheer lack of heart (getting rid of Nick Johnson? those bsox ready to give up nomar?) and of course we've heard the stupidity of one larry lucchino. it's a better drama than Tru Calling. stick to baseball, i'm telling you it has all the makings of falcon crest in sports.

hey now

some things on the agenda. first of all i want to thank anyone who helped make my brother's surprise party a success last night. He had a fabulous time and you all made that happen. and once again a happy happy to the senor who turned a ripe 27 yesterday.

now, we need to talk about something that i've been avoiding since sunday. i know that its news and i should have brought it up earlier to avoid this blog becoming nothing more than mere self-absorbed drivel. truthfully i am aware of the world outside of me, but i had to take a few days. i needed to process. i needed to come up with a position on the whole thing, and i needed to educate myself a little more to make a well thought out response. now that I have taken the time to do that, I have something to say. call me unamerican if you will, but i proceed. So here it is, my thoughts on the matter:

Joe Horn - you're an idiot. Not because your little cellphone celebration was over the top or selfish (I mean what's 15 yards on the ensuing kickoff when you win 45-7), but more because it wasn't that funny. I mean if you're gonna use props in an endzone celebration, it should be REALLY good. The ickey shuffle was low-tech so we didn't expect much from it, but in the new millennium things have to be bigger and better. TO knows what I'm talking about. He's got it covered. The sharpie thing. That was funny. Using cheerleader's pompons, hysterical! So until you can actually top TO, don't bother. Cell phone. I mean really, what's so funny about that? give me the good ole lambeau leap over that any day.



oh, i should also mention that we caught saddam. looks like that's the end of the possibility of a real presidential race. four more years of w. now that's frightening.

Andrea and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day (And its only 1:30)...

ok. so last night for the bi-weekly PPokerPosse game, I made a huge amount of eggplant parm. really, i cooked way too much food for the sole purpose of having leftovers for lunch. About a half an hour I broke out my lunch, all excited to eat the yummy hearty goodness of my leftovers. I pop it into the microwave and go to dig in. That's when I notice a blue film surrounding my eggplant. My tupperware was covered in a layer of dishwashing liquid. As was my no longer yummy eggplant parm.

So, I go out to our trusty sandwich/salad joint hoping to get a bowl of soup to cheer me up. Eureka! They have the eggplant parm soup! I can be redeemed. I wait dutifully on line, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I order only to be told that they were out of the eggplant parm soup. It was not on the cards for me to eat eggplant parm today.

also, i need a haircut. badly. so i called to make an appt for tonight as my week is booked pretty solid and the woman who cuts my hair doesn't work mondays.

also, NYU lost my BC transcripts so I had to have BC send me more. Hopefully they'll get here in time so I can get accepted.

also, a leak sprung yesterday from my bathroom ceiling. we live on the top floor. this is bad news.

and now, I'm sad and eating mediocre butternut squash soup. anyone feel like cheering me up?

FROM THE FILES OF THE ALL TOO REAL WORLD:

did y'all see this? you have to wonder in a house where everything is taped. What the hell is going on here. Glad to see that MTV is doing everything it can to make sure that a)these houses are safe and b) that women are as highly respected in their reality shows as they are in the music videos they play.

ASK ME THE DATE, GO AHEAD I DARE YOU

What's that you say? Is it really December 11th? Could it be true? Well yes my good friends its true. And the totally amazing part. My holiday shopping is DONE. Yep, you read it here first, I'm done. Gifts for the Mom, the Brothers, the dad, and all of Ms. Mo's family FINITO. And they've each gotten gifts that screams them, no impersonal body shop compilations, no boring electronics, and no gift certificates. Let's all pause a moment while I pat myself on the back and make you feel a little bit more stressed about the fact that there's only 8 days until hanukkah and 14 days until christmas.

oh wait, what's that splash you feel as i pat myself on the back, oh that's just rain water, because its a damned monsoon outside. or at least it was on my walk to work this morning. its always nice to have rain blowing at you sideways, rendering your umbrella totally useless. Now I have to sit in wet pants all day long. This is how one gets pneumonia - and i should know, I'm not a doctor but I work with one on TV. ok, well maybe not on TV. but you get the idea.

now, i know you're probably thinking to yourself, "well good, i'm glad she's soaking wet, that's what she gets for bragging about her unbelievable foresight in getting her christmukkah shopping done," but remember people that ill wishing is not nice. bad karma's a bitch. being thankful that i'm all wet will mean that inevitably while you are on your way to lunch or home later today, you will be waiting for a light to change so you can cross. A cab will come dangerously close to you and the curb and you will get splashed from a puddle about 3 feet deep full of dirty rain water. Or, you'll be walking along, your cell phone will ring, its your mother so you answer, and boom you step into a puddle that because you weren't paying attention looked like it was part of the street. now you're wet up to your knee and your perfect new shoe will never recover. this will be your fate for laughing in the face of my misery. mark my words.

and have a fabulous rainy afternoon. shall we go to the movies later? maybe play a round of scrabble while drinking some red wine? whaddya think?

READING IS FUN-DAMENTAL:

on tuesday mornings i wake up with the sun so i can tutor elementary school kids in reading before i go to work. I've been paired with a young lady in the 2nd grade who apparently is on a steady diet of liquid crack and cocoa puffs. At 7:30 in the morning she is bouncing off the walls. She's a bright little thing, but craves the spotlight like nobody's business.

This morning when I came in, in a most zombie-like fashion might I add, my normal little hyper one wasn't in. I was told by my coordinator to work with a different girl instead. "Andrea, we need you to work with Keila," she said to me in a semi-pleading, semi-tentative tone. "She's had candy for breakfast."

Apparently I'm the DHKT for the Early Bird Reading program. DHKT, you ask? The Designated Hyper Kid Tutor of course. That's my role. If there's a kid who's running around like a lunatic, has a green tongue from a lollipop at the crack of dawn, like to throw things or run out of the room - I'm your woman. I'm also totally exhausted.

Then I get to work and have to deal with Med Students who are less mature than my 8 year olds. And If I have to read Dora the Explorer one more time. I might scream.

Surprisingly Unsnarky:

I was just discussing with the Muppet the buckets of snow mother nature has decided to whimsically put at our feet this fine Friday. She seems to believe that snow makes her not want to do anything. The poor Californian! So here's a list of my favorite things snow makes me want to do (in no particular order):

1. Watch movies
2. Cuddle
3. Drink hot cocoa
4. Go sledding
5. Go skiing
6. Go snowboarding
7. Build a snowman (and pretend that he is Parson Brown)
8. Have a snowball fight
9. Play manhunt
10. Eat grilled cheese and tomato soup
11. Play scrabble
12. Light a fire
13. Read a book
14. Go traying (of course one needs a college campus for this one)
15. Figure out where I can get me some sleighbells
16. Harass the good people at starbucks by ordering a Half-Caf Sugar free Skim Gingerbread Latte
17. Roast marshmallows (and you thought it was a summer thing only - for shame!)
18. Put on my red union suit (complete with buttflap)
19. Go snowshoeing
20. Have Kate teach me how to knit, knitting seems so appropriate while its snowing, no?
21. Trod wet snow through the house as I strip off the layers of protective gear that kept me semi-dry during the everyman for himself massive snowball fight in the park.

there you go. 21 things worth doing in the snow. Go forth, I'll join you right after I leave the office.

it's been a while...

hectic, hectic, hectic. haven't been at my desk in days due to crazy med students and the doctors that teach them.

but i had to drop a note to let y'all know that i'm still breathing, although barely in this oh so cold weather.

also, you may want to check this out. the good senor and i spent many a summer at this place. ahhh the memories - and the freaks from great neck, what more could a 10 year old child want, except having the fastest time on the go-kart track three years in a row. i could be nostalgic, but i'll spare you all.

although i have been in the general vicinity of my old stomping grounds and have been tempted to trespass.