A divorced New Yorker currently dating a high-schooler brings himself to look for love in the mistress of his best friend instead. -IMDb

Manhattan is a Comedy Drama set in New York, directed by Woody Allen and released in 1979.

Just by reading the synopsis of this movie you can tell what kind of story we’re talking about here. 42-year old Isaac (played by Allen) is in a relationship with 17-year old Tracy. Dude. Gross. She’s not even legal. The best friends mistress finds Isaac fascinating, so much that her lover, after discarding her, introduces her to Mr. Gross (pawning of your seconds to friends? Dude.) His ex-wife, the only woman in this story not enthralled by Isaac, is so passionately disgusted by him that she writes a book about him. It seems that Allens character stirs up so much emotion in all the women he meets that you’d think he was an incarnation of Adonis.

When looking through other peoples reviews about this movie, I found that many people think that Allen is “brainy” and smart. I haven’t met the man, so I can’t say for sure, but judging by this movie… Not so much. He is however good at namedropping a mile a minute. To keep up with the conversation the characters have, you have a long list of names you need to know about. A list so long it will frighten Santa himself. That’s not “brainy”. It’s arrogant, condescending and self-serving. And quite frankly a yawn-inducer.

Overall Rating: 2/10
The only positive thing I found about this movie was the scene in which it was set. A beautiful New York, the kind of New York you dream of living in, but only exists on screen.

Random Fact:
Not even Woody Allen himself liked this movie. He tried to stop it from coming out and later said he couldn’t believe he “got away with it”. You and me both, Woody, you and me both.

I have something to tell you. You’ll be shocked, but I have to let it out, I have to confess.

I don’t like showering.

Before you go spitting out your coffee on the screen, let me just say that I do shower. Regularly. I just don’t like it. To me it’s in the same category as housework. Wash dishes, wash laundry, wash self. Not necessarily in that order.

photo credit: petur r

The problem is that showering leaves very little room for distraction. I actually have to listen to my brain on over-drive, because there is nothing to steal the focus. I mean, usually I’ll have my nose in a book, blog, magazine, whatever. But all things readable are highly allergic to water. Not cool.

This is one of the many side effect of having GAD. Since I stopped with all meds six months ago, I have to rely on alternative coping methods. Like keeping my brain so busy I wont be able to worry.

But I have nothing to keep busy with in the shower. Aside from washing, obviously, but hello, I always multitask. I can’t not multitask. If I do something and only that something, my brain will go haywire instantly.

And then there’s the fact that you have to get out of a warm shower and touch the cold floor and dry up and it takes ages to get your clothes on and then you have to fix your hair and moisturize and put on deodorant and fuck whatelse. I’m not a fan is all I’m saying.

• Spider Babies
  Spider Breeder: “I grow spider cus they are like totally cute.”
  Me: “Uh, ok?”
  Spider Breeder: “Yeah, I trained them to jump and fetch, too.”
  Me: “Dude, just tell me what you want from me.”
  Spider Breeder: “Well, I breed them babies in eggs on top of sick bears that reek. You have to pluck them of their backs. Ok?”
  Me: “Not. Fucking. Ok.”

  

• Poop Berries
  Poop Lover: “Dude, you can’t live without these awesome berries, I’m telling ya!”
  Me: “Ok, where do I get some?”
  “Poop Lover: “Dig through piles of dung, duh?”
  Me: …
• Unconventional Organ Harvesting
  Miss Sassy: “I just read this magazine article about hidden treasures where you least expect them.”
  Me: “Right, ok. What’s your idea?”
  Miss Sassy: “We should kill a bunch of basilisks…”
  Me: “I can do that.”
  Miss Sassy: “…and harvest their urethra. We’ll call it Sassy’s Secret Ingredient and make tons!
  Me: “Oh for FUCKS sake.”

  

• He’s got guts
  McGutsy: “I need to save this turtle.”
  Me: “Ok?”
  McGutsy: “So I need some guts.”
  Me: “Not sure I can get you courage…”
  McGutsy: “No, no, no. Like, actual guts. From a dog.”
  Me: “How would…?”
  McGutsy: “Yeah I can’t tell you why, but it’ll work, trust me.”
  Me: *gag*
• Trading Eggs for Dru… Thistles.
  Me: “Psst. Can you get me some cra… ehr, thistle?”
  Shady Dealer: “What? How dare you! What are you, a cop?”
  Me: “I’m not a cop, just tell me your price, man.”
  Shady Dealer looks around suspiciously. “Well, I could go for some eggs right about now.”
  Me: “Uh. All I got are these rotten ones.”
  Shady Dealer: “Dude, that’s my favorite kind!”
  Me: “Of course it is. Here”
  Shady Dealer nohms on eggs. “Oh man, awesome stuff.” *stomach grumbles* “Ehr, excuse me while I…”

You know this 1 here? It’s suppose to indicate one minute ’till the dryer is done. This dryer however, is a big fat liar.

For the purpose of this exercise you will need a few things.

• Access to a washer/dryer. (You’ll see, just wait)
• Awesome fabric softener.
• A day off. (Because few bosses allow napping on the job.)
• A bed. (Or a really nice blow-up mattress.)

Say you normally wake up at 7 am or so. On this day you will need to get up a lot earlier. Say 3 am or thereabouts. You want to make sure you’re fully prepared for the awesomeness that is about to happen. And by prepared I mean exhausted. At this time you need to do something that will keep you awake. Clean the bedroom, for example. Maybe masturbate. Or play WoW. Whatever, I don’t judge.

At around lunch, you should go to your bed, pull off all the sheets and put them in the washer with your awesome fabric softener. You should probably eat something too. Make it light, something you can sleep on.

Now, go do something really tiring. Jog around the block, do zumba or whatever floats your boat. Then, put the sheets in the dryer and go take a shower.

When you’re clean and in your favorite sleepwear, go put a glass of water and a pair of ear plugs by the bed. Pull the curtains. Do everything you have to get the bedroom sleepable. Because once the dryer is done, you have to move it.

You have roughly 4 minutes to get the sheets out of the dryer, on to the bed and yourself in to bed before the warm fuzzy feeling from the dryer is gone. And trust me, you want that feeling.
In fact, your nap depends on it.

Don’t set an alarm. Actually, turn off your phone. It’s your day off, after all.

Climb in bed. Enjoy the best nap ever. Mine have been known to last as long as 14 hours.

You’re welcome.

You try to take a pic with 2 year old smart phone and see what happens. Shut up.

It’s relevant to the story that I take online classes. As such I get out maybe once or twice a week. It’s also relevant that I have the immune system from hell. So with 14,000 sweaty metalheads, a couple of vodkas too many and the aforementioned immune system, you can guess what happened.

I got sick. The next day I woke up feeling like someone has smashed my face in with a brick. Horrific fever nightmares. My brain was making a run for it through my nostrils and my voice felt something like I’d imagine it does after 15 bottles of whiskey and 20 packs of smokes. Give or take.

The 2011 version of lighters in the air. No fire hazard here.

So the past 2 weeks I have spent my days and nights in bed. I’ve slept 10-14 hours a day, which makes me think I might be terminally ill. You see, I’m an insomniac and if I get more than 4 hours of consecutive sleep, something is wrong. Chances are I’m coming down with the flu or malaria. At 10-14 hours it only stands to reason that I will soon be dead.

You know what? I draw the line right there. That is not ok. Sweatpants is fine. Pyjama bottoms is not. The line is right there, in between the two. You do not go outside your door with pyjamas on. Unless your house is on fire. Ok? Ok.

Two months ago I was sitting late one night drinking vodka, listening to angry metal and reading random status updates. In a friends status update some asshole had written some sexist dung (I forget what) and I lost my shit. Suddenly I was hammering away at my keyboard, hands shaking in anger and spit flying around me as a I screamed profanities at the screen. I ripped him a new asshole right there, on my friends wall.

A few hours later, when I had calmed down, I thought about what happened. I realized that for the past few months, the only thing Facebook did these days was piss me the fuck off. It’s become the place where people spew shit without thinking. Where they post the most dumbass fucking asinine bullcrap they can think of. And other people like it. I was tearing my hair all to often at things I had seen on other people’s walls. And had been holding my tongue because Facebook is not the place to start arguing.

Pondering this over I decided to kill my Facebook account. I did right then and there and I have not been back since.

The only real side effect of this is when I meet new people. You spend a few hours talking at a bar or whatever and when you’ve decided the other person is funny enough to warrant further contact, the inevitable comes. “Just add me on Facebook.” Then, like I’m some weird cast-out, I have to say “I’m not on Facebook. Just take my number.” They look at me like I’ve just killed a fluffy bunny and was wearing it as a hat. And you know what? They never call.

In my quest I’ve come to realize that I’m a total blog snob. I’m so superficial I’m almost ashamed. (Not really.) These are some of the things that will make me run away from your blog like a clown was chasing me with a butchers-knife. (That shit is scary.)

• Light text on dark background.
  

• Centered text in blog posts.
  This is so fucking annoying and totally breaks up the flow of the text.
  Have you ever seen any books or magazines  that center bodies of text?
  No? Well take a fucking hint, douche canoe.

• Crazy-ugly fonts.
  
  
• Music auto playing.
  No. Just don’t.

• Communicating entirely in text speak.
  U ttly wnt 2 B liek me I knw. I hook u up n e tyme nd it wud b assum.

  I like the occasional abbreviations. I do them myself. All text speak all the time? Fuck that. By the way, omitting vowels does not make an abbreviation. It makes a dumb. If I need a goddamn translator to read your post I will not bother. And that goes for your texts, status-updates and emails too.

What mistakes makes you grind your teeth?