Crime Doesn't Pay, Except Maybe When It's Counterfeiting Money

Have you guys noticed an influx of counterfeit money in the city?

I don't know if this is a legit thing happening, or if there's always been a lot of fake money around and it's only new to my radar. All I know is I have seen a lot more counterfeit money over the past few months in the Bushwick/Bed-Stuy/Crown Heights area than seems normal.

My initial reaction is Sweet! I hope I'm witnessing some awesome plot that can make my life slightly more reminiscent of movies like Blow or... Blank Check? Classic.

But wait! It turns out having a bunch of counterfeit money around is exceedingly annoying. Last time I got a fake $10, it took me a while to notice. (This, despite the fact that it was perfectly crisp and clean, marked 1950, and had a lopsided outer border by a margin of about 1/8". I am clearly not a big-time money handler.)

I ended up fumbling with it in an MTA ticket machine for 15 minutes before coming to the conclusion the machine was broken, then almost got accosted by a cab driver for trying to give him the fake bill. "I didn't know! But thanks for the tip. I'm an idiot. This is clearly a fake ten. Good night, sir."

But now what am I supposed to do?! I ain't got no monies, yo. I was just an innocent victim given a worthless ten. Starbucks can handle this issue much better than I, I thought, so I slipped it over to a hapless cashier and went on my way.

But wait! It turns out that sometimes you are not so lucky pawning off those bills. In fact, sometimes when you don't even know you're pawning off one of those bills, you can get handcuffed on the spot and sent down to the precinct.

Case in point: my superintendent went to buy a new lock at the hardware store with a fake twenty, and the store owner called the cops. Now he's sitting in some hole of a cell with a bunch of other dudes, fighting over who gets to use the toilet, and I'm sitting here in my apartment with no lock on my front door. (Attention all robbers and thieves: please don't come to my apartment building today.)

Did my super know it was a fake twenty? According to him, no. I guess in a purely technical sense the truth is 50/50--but it doesn't even matter.

I didn't notice my ten at first, and was flinging that thing around all careless and whimsy free. What if I had gone into that hardware store? Would I be jet setting to a weekend in the slammer?

And how about when I did know? I still needed that money! At that point, I had just been officially robbed, but in a much worse way than actually being robbed. What am I going to do, tell the cops? Best case scenario, they take the money. Worst case scenario, they arrest me for having counterfeit money.

This is a lose-lose situation, folks, and I find it upsetting.

What's more upsetting is a question that must be brought up:
Is it more likely that my 30-something West Caribbean superintendent would immediately get sent to jail for using a fake bill than me? Methinks the answer is yes. And methinks this is a great misfortune. And methinks that maybe that is a bit of a counterfeit money pun.

I open the floor to you. But meanwhile... dun dun dunnn.... I think I may have found the culprits:

Looks like this problem just got a whole lot cuter.

I bet it's these sneaky kittens who own this sketchy safety deposit box in Long Island filled with counterfeit money. It's always those god damn cats. And it's always god damn Long Island, amirite?

For more, a list of 10 famous counterfeiting schemes in the 1900s. Spoiler alert: it ends with a woman who was burned at the stake for counterfeiting, after being hung. I repeat: they hung her, and then they burned her dead body. That is a harsh one. You kittens better watch out.

Moral of the story: check your bills, son.

Christmas List 2010 Part Two

December 9th, and the Christmas march keeps rolling on. James and I just celebrated Christmas #1 on St. Nicholas Day Eve, the most obscure of holidays. (Coincidentally it was also Krampus Day, and if you don't know what that is then you better get on it. I have too much to say about Krampus to let it take over this, the Christmas List Part Two.)

Surprisingly, my family up in Connecticut didn't get me a waterfall for my apartment OR a bedazzled pony. We have three more celebrations to go, so I'm holding out and keeping faith in the rest of the fam(s).

To the list!

16. New York City Plates. These plates are where I want to represent, yo. Despite a large portion of the city getting gypped here, the old WB managed to sneak in. And who cares about what's above 65th anyway? Also, I like to imagine Bloomberg eats off these plates going "Moo-oo-ah-hah-hah-hahhhh."

17. Custom rings from Littlefly. Jeremy May takes hundreds of pages out of books, laminates them together and turns them into the most kick ass rings on the planet. I think I'd want one made out of Nine Stories. Or maybe a big chunk of Nabokov's collection of shorts... as long as it could include Sounds and La Veneziana. It would be the best. ring. ever.

Ugh, how boring that this is ring number two on the list, by the way. Moving on...

18. A fancy shmancy apartment. Emphasis on the shmancy, please. I suppose this place will do.


19. iPod DJ station. My favorite new gadget, taking party DJ-ing to a whole new level. You know when you have people over and they all want to plug in their iPod and take over the music? That sucks--especially when you put together a playlist perfectly curated for the party scene of your dreams, where everyone gets down like it's a Bud Light Lime commercial, except they're way cooler and the drinks are better. But alas, music raiders are an inevitable consequence of drunk people gathered in groups. This DJ station makes it all a little more bearable. (And by bearable, I mean awesome.)


(Merkury Innovations also makes these really cool speakers out of recycled candy boxes. Hear the rainbow, or whatever.)

20. A weekend getaway in Dildo, Newfoundland. Seriously, guys. Who's up for spring break? Dildo Newfoundland is a magical place, filled with amazing sights to see. There's The Dildo Dory Grill, Inn By the Bay (where you can get it in... by the bay), and don't forget to take a short journey down to South Dildo, where you can drive down Spread Eagle Road. I repeat, Spread Eagle Road.

Even if we don't go, it's really fun to look up information about Dildo on the internets. Check out these search results:

Dildo photos? Oh boy!

Also added to the Christmas list are whatever sort of "dildo treasures" they're selling at the old inn. I repeat, dildo treasures.

21. Babushkups When's the last time you wanted to give a cup a hug?

22. Baby ducklings that never get old and just swim around in a cup in my kitchen forever. Plus they never ever poop, or eat. And Gary never tries to eat them, but just licks them on their little duck beaks, and they quack and quack and swim and swim and all is right in the world and there is no more sadness or pain. There is only duckling cup.


23.Glow in the dark sunglasses. And I'll just tell Kanye to suck it.

24. A Roomba. This is clearly for Gary, but I guess it serves the dual purpose of slightly cleaning our house. Unfortunately, these things are insanely over priced. Maybe that's just the cost of watching a cat attack a dog while riding a Roomba.

If we're talking about robots, we should really be focusing on this guy, the R2D2 Robot. Yeah, my bad. That's the one I really want. (He does EVERYTHING!)


25. A gym membership. This is really lame, I know, but I haven't hit one of these bad boys since college, for realz. It's kind of depressing, but not as depressing as the women from Bridalplasty. Gym membership or not, I still win!
(the results of searching "gym thumbs up")

26. The Pi Mobility Bike.

Just kidding. That thing is so douchey I can't even handle it. (Get it? Handle it? That's a bike part.)

27. A trip to the bottom of the ocean. Do you know what kind of awesome stuff goes down at the bottom of the sea? I've only seen about 600 hours of deep sea footage in my life, so I'm not really sure. But I have a hunch it's mind-blowing. Basically, to give me this gift your plan should be this: kidnap a marine biologist's wife (or husband, you sexist) and force him to give me a ride in his submersible, or else.

27 1/2. I also need to see this guy, or the lady gets it.

28. An iPad. Ok? I said it. I just really, really want one. And so do you. You do. Stop denying it.

Have you guys ever gotten your hands on one of these? I have.

First of all, iPads make it so much fun to Netflix-binge in bed. They also make it so much fun to snag the window seat at the coffee shop and watch the hipster parade go by while typing away about meaningless drivel and clicking through apps and games and useless programs, and generally accomplishing nothing aside from embracing new technology at its pinnacle of impracticality.

It is so great!


29. A lifetime supply of Oslo mocha lattes. Speaking of coffee shop hipster parades... Oslo is my coffee shop Mecca. I make the sacred journey as often as weekend hangovers will allow. Then I spend $4 on a delightfully delicious cup of coffee, and drink it as slow as I can, to make it last through more than 5 pages of a book, and also to make it seem worth $4. With a lifetime supply, I could just chug away until I was shaking too much to hold another cup! And then I'd probably just sip it off the table. Mmm...

30. A 1,000% raise. I'm gonna need mad loot to maintain my new apartment, the indoor waterfall and that pony everyone gets me. Plus, I'll want a lot of spending money in Dildo. Hopefully my boss is deeply entrenched in the Christmas spirit.

We made it! Greed is kind of exhausting, you know? I'm worn out from all this want. Except for peace and joy and happiness for all men and all that. I still have room to want that.

Oh, and um, here's a picture of Krampus. For good measure.


He is dripping with holiday cheer.

Look What Sarah Can Do!

As some of you may know, September 26 to October 9 was a whirlwind of birthday celebrations. Most importantly, it was Gary Busey's very first birthday!  And he hated his cake so, so much. 

Thankfully, Sarah Tosh is a master of scissors and glue, and is the craftiest craft queen I have ever seen.  Someone should probably hire her over at Kate's Paperie (because then I could get a bunch of cool free stuff and be the craftiest craft queen in training). 

Look at this card she made for a cat!

It even folded from the top like a real card, and was filled with giant neon bubble letters -- Gary's favorite.

Now, as you also may know, Gary is much, much more popular than me, and had a lot more guests at his birthday than I did. But don't worry! Sarah and her paper skillz came to the rescue and made sure I was not to be outdone. First she brought me 70 glowsticks and a tiara. And THEN, she brought me this:

It's a real live card rendition of me, wearing the tiara she brought! It even has green glitter eyeshadow on, just like me!

This is nothing less than incredible. And that's that.

I Haz 24 Yearz

Whoa guys, I've been mad MIA for the past two weeks. My clammiest apologies. I went on the most epic east-coast tour of all time during which I did tons of shopping with my mom and tons of drinking with my clams. After that it was my birthday, and I make a habit of not doing anything three days on either side of that glorious event.

After spending about a week doing nothing around my parents' house and playing with cats, I made the trek southward to play with Erika's cat, Gary Busey. He haz one years now, and a pretty epic birthday celebration to go with it. To be fair, I think we all had way more fun than he did. We invited about 20 people into his house, gave him his first dose of catnip, made him wear silly hats, and sang "Happy Birthday" loudly and off-key into his sensitive cat ears.

Gary haz nip

Oh, and then we left him all alone while we continued on to the fun part of the evening. It was my long-awaited foray in to Bulgarian Bar , "New York City's ultimate multi-national drunken-Balkan disco dive barextravaganza." Check out the live video feed, you won't regret it.

Ladies: you look fly as fuck. Boys: Open your eyes.

All good things must come to end, though, and soon I was on a plane back west where I accidentally watched the end of the most recent episode of Teen Mom. I really spoiled things for myself, since I still have a good six hours of Teen Mom to watch before that. Somehow, I think I'll make it. More importantly, though, I realized that five days is simply not enough time to properly express my love to all my clams in the city. So next time, I hope you're all prepared because I may never leave.

When I finally made it home, though, it was the day before my birthday and so celebration times could begin. I share a birthday with our dear friend and roommate, Thomas Daniel Spencer XII so it's usually a pretty good time. We left to go to the grocery store, and when we came back there was a birthday party for us! It wasn't even a surprise, just excellent timing. We were rewarded for making it to age 24 with gifts of funfetti cake and excessive amounts of tequila.

Birthday Dans!

I received many wonderful gifts from my nearest and dearest, including a kick-ass surprise kindle case that came in the mail! The gift to end all gifts, however, came from boyfriend.

Seriously, boyfriend doesn't fuck around. Do you see that basket?? the cloth part comes out and turns into a bag that I can take around town. Also, he painted the whole thing so now it matches my helmet.

Thank you all for reading this boring post about mine and Erika's cats birthday. Starting tomorrow, I will get interesting again. Scouts honor.

Don't Call it a Come Back

The brilliant people over at Longshot! Magazine just completed their first issue, based on the theme "Come Back."  This concept can go a lot of ways, and obviously all the awesome contributors stretched the idea far and wide.  We didn't get our act together to submit something by the deadline, what with Friday night calling and all, so we're doing it here. 

We haven't had a chance to read the whole issue, so hopefully we aren't stepping on any toes with our compendium of come backs in 2010:

Cats.  The ancient Egyptians loved them; now fashion does too.

Call them what you will -- cuddly lumps of fluff or screeching balls of claws and allergies -- the Spring 2010 runway was filled with felines.  Just check out what The Style File had to say. Or if you're ready to take it to crazy cat lady level right away, check out United Bamboo's kitty couture. (For those keeping track, this calendar is now on our Christmas wish list.)

Not convinced?  Katy Perry also named her cat, Kitty Purry, CEO of the pop singer's company. Watch the video here. Now that's cat power. Oh, no wait -- that's Cat Power.  

Clam alert:  Speaking of Katy Perry, looks like this girl is after our own hearts:

Mustaches.  A time machine for your face. Yeah!

Mustaches have had a long history of ebbs and flows in popularity, and each era seems to have it's own style of choice.

They neared extinction in the 1990's, but now they're back full force, and slaying the ladies left and right.  Mustaches, as has been pointed out by upcoming movie Going the Distance, are really like a time machine back to when "they were king" in the late 70s and early 80s.  Agreed, but we also think it's time for the 'stache to reign supreme again.

Mustaches have been on a steady post-millennial climb, with tons of new events created in their honor, including the "Tache-Off"(2006), the "Mustache March" (2003), and "Movember" (2000).

There is so much photographic gold out there covering mustaches, but we had to give our final nod to Zappa on this one, founder of the controversial Zappa 'Stache -- that is, mustache plus soul patch.  Also, his picture links to a great site breaking down all the official 'stache options out there, so check it out!  And keep this time machine alive.



(Oh hey, and shoutz to Goldenstash in Boston. Woo!)




Vampires. I vant to stick a fork in my eye.

Do we really need to talk about this?  These guys are about to eclipse zombies, and that's just not right.  True Blood has basically destroyed board game night.  Somehow Twilight has tranced more post-tween minds than seems healthy or natural.  At least it's appropriate; those fans are to Edward Cullen what nubile, blonde chicks have been to vampires in general since they first hit the big screen in 1922.

Um, though things have gotten a little sexier since Nosferatu.

Racism.  We can't all just get along.

Whether it's Glenn Beck's fault or not, there's been a surge of racist acts in the U.S.

 A New York taxi driver just got stabbed for being Muslim.
A mosque went up in flames in Tennessee. 
There was this little bill passed in Arizona that you may have heard of.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger lost her job because she couldn't help but bust out the N-word about 8 times more than we expected. 

Hold yourselves back, people!  This is the great melting pot!  Not the great I-punch-you-in-the-face-because-you're-different pot.  (Although, that might not be a bad pot to check out for, like, a second.)


Lesbians.  We're just taking Snooki for her word here.