Work, in general, is a sucker’s bet.

Once again I’ve had to cancel my evening plans — dinner at The Palm and floor seats to see “In the Heights” — to stick around the office and work on something three things that doesn’t don’t need to be done until tomorrow?

How stoked am I? Super.

Bummer

Ouch.

As a general rule, I think it’s pretty safe to say that very few good stories start with one waking up on the floor of a friend’s bedroom wearing the clothes one went swimming in the day before. Predictably, going to the Hamptons this weekend proved one nonstop shenanigan. Pink Elephant, kickoff of the polo season Saturday, dinner at Sen… I’m wrecked.

More soon.

Tavern is the new Thursday?

Last night I ended up at Tavern on the Green, of all places, and though I left on the early-ish side to get some sleep since it appears I’ve been talked into heading out to the Hamptons again this weekend, it was actually a fun time. As first I was a bit skeptical, given that Tavern on the Green is, like, where you take your grandma for her birthday, or where you have dinner when you graduate or something. It’s not that the food’s totally awesome or it’s crazy nice or anything (though KM said the food last night was good), but that it seems to have sorta cultivated that sort of vibe rather than the vibe a good Thursday night party gives off. Plus, I mean, it’s on the Upper West Side, which isn’t exactly party central. Anyway, I definitely asked KO to make sure I was understanding correctly…

KO: “Tavern tomorrow night, though - around 7:30/8!”

Me: “BTW, where’s this ‘Tavern‘ place you keep talking about tomorrow? The one in the Village? The one in the Park?”

KO: “Tavern on the green in central park… This year, they’re actually throwing parties there…”

This turned out to be the case.

I was suspicious, but I’ll try basically anything once (prison rape excepted, please) and agreed to caravan up there. As it turned out there was a fashion show there last night, so it was hard to gauge how much of the (quite attractive) crowd was the regular set versus a one-off set, but in the future I’m going to consider it a new Thursday possibility…

I mean, isn’t this really what all of us expected?

I recall that the self-cleaning public toilets in Seattle were installed shortly after I left; somewhere I have a picture of myself looking like a jackass in the one on the south side of Broadway near SCCC, but I can’t seem to find it right now. I remember first noticing that particular one on one of my first visits back after I moved, after DB pointed it out and noted that private restrooms for shooting up your gear were being put in a few places around town. (Me: “What’s that?” DB: “It’s a bathroom to shoot up in!”)

Later on that same trip — actually, it might have been just then, as we were passing by — we see someone stumbling down the street near the toilet looking super fucked up. Like, listing to one side, then sorta staggering forward two steps before losing balance and falling one step back. You know the look. Anyway, I kid you not… We sat there and watched this kid sorta wobble for a second, pass out, fall over straight backwards, and smack the back of his head on the concrete. Hard. Thankfully, it being early in the evening, there were a ton of people out and a bunch of them dutifully called 911 for the guy.

Not unlike taking the unreasonable position that you can have fully enclosed bathrooms with flat, mirrored toilet paper covers in your club or restaurant and people won’t use them to do blow in, I don’t think anyone (at least no one I knew) expected these self-cleaning, inside-locking junkie boxes to do a lot of good in the “man on the street simply has to pee” department.

Unsurprising, then, that apparently this little experiment aimed (ostensibly) at improving public hygiene has now come to an end, and, in typical Seattle fashion, they’ve managed to spend $5 million on the whole debacle. And as an aside, I love how, in many of the Google results I’m getting, they’re described as “Seattle’s troubled toilets.” The one pictured here, near Peter Steinbrueck park about three blocks from my old apartment on Western Avenue, is in the most crackhead park in all of Seattle. I mean … Duh, guys.

Anyone used one of these things here in New York yet? I thought not. I’ll bet the one in Madison Square Park smells great, though, given its proximity to Shake Shack. MM…

Kudos to Alan Richman.

Seriously. Big Nick’s is blowing up the spot lately. It’s not just that I’ve had it on the brain lately for some reason. Clearly.

Alan Richman just slotted it just behind Shake Shack in his top five list of New York burger places. Strong play.

John Corbett? Is that you?

Last night I got roped into going to the Plumm for an open bar pre-release screening of the pilot for the new, high-courtroom-drama TV show, “Raising the Bar“, being produced by Steven Bochco for TNT (”open bar” being the operative words here). As some of you may know, I watch hardly any television, but, given that I watched “Saved By The Bell” as a kid like everyone else in the universe (everyone!), I was mildly amused to find that said new courtroom drama stars Zack Morris, apparently better known to some as Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

All jokes aside, SBTB alumni haven’t done all that badly for themselves, I suppose. No, really. Mario Lopez, I hear, has enjoyed renewed TV celebrity after his “Dancing With The Stars” stint, in addition to looking not bad for 34 and recently getting picked up to work on “A Chorus Line”. Dustin Diamond, in addition to getting to remain Mike D’s brother, inexplicably got to make some porn. Lark Voorhies even got a shout out from Ludacris. (Ludacris is so badassed.)

Anyway, the show itself is, well, only about as good as you’d expect. But what really struck me was Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s hair. It is truly awesome. When I first saw him on screen I asked my friend whether he was John Corbett. She thought he was.

Riddle me this.

So if your company’s been quietly conducting stealth layoffs for several months in the face of a depressed economy and concomitant decrease in business, and you have even a vague idea that employees are concerned about the possible continuance of these layoffs, and you are (or should be) aware that a number of your employees are looking to jump ship, why would you invite summer interns to staff meetings?

I wonder what happens if you use both of them together…

Probably something horrible. Like if the Ghostbusters had crossed the streams or something.

Remember when about six months back I was speculating as to whether there were really enough people out there with — ahem — “penis odor” to justify a product like this one? Apparently I hadn’t realized the male genital hygiene market — where the MGO product market (that’s “male genital odor”, FYI), into which I believe Nodoro falls, is but a subset — has become so well-developed.

Check this out. [via Ephemerist]

What I’m noticing is that the Balla Powder is, well, presumably just that — a powder — whereas Nodoro appears to be more of a lotion. Thankfully, I can’t speak to whether penis odor and an overly damp scrotum are mutually exclusive problems, but I’m willing to imagine that they’re not, thus leading one to wonder whether — under a physician’s care, of course — one could use both together…

An evening off…

I skated out of work at 6:00 last night to take a much-needed evening off and deal with errands and personal life administration-type stuff (picking up and dropping off laundry; opening mail; cleaning up the apartment; buying groceries) and finally had a chance to pop by this place both before and after meeting up with some friends in the ‘burg. Recommended.