You know...I just ain't feelin' it right now.

You know what adds a little excitement to an otherwise staid Christmas party? When about a half-dozen guest's cars get towed from a nearby parking lot.

Who says that blogs don't run first-hand reporting? Well, whoever did is gonna be right for at least one more day, since I ain't running any. I do have a fine second-hand report, however, from a longtime Friend of the Donk about her rare and envied experience riding the super-swanky new Segway Human Transporter (only $4950 plus shipping at Amazon!). I hope you enjoy it.

It was exhilarating! The trainer guides you in your first shaky steps onto the Segway. Shaky in that you find yourself needing to trust something other than yourself for balance. I began by creeping forward in my first seconds on the machine. I was not quite fully centered so couldn’t come to a complete stop.

Then the trainer simply tells you "think forward." Ha. Sounds silly, right? But sure enough, you move forward. "Think backward" the trainer calls. Yep, back you move. Leaning (rather than thinking) is the key. But they don't tell you to lean because exaggerated motions aren't needed. A simple thought of forward is enough to slightly shift your center of balance & off the Segway zooms.

The hardest lesson was to "think stop." There are no brakes!!! I have only a basic understanding of the mechanics, but the Segway will stop when you are fully upright / evenly balanced. That's a tough concept to embrace, first as I was slowly moving towards a Segway sales representative who was standing directly in my path & calmly telling me "just think 'stop', just think 'stop'." But it worked! And while my worry for the sales representative was sincere, my first real fear happened when I found myself zooming near 6mph, needing a stop before crashing into an approaching wall. Trust issues. Instinct had me stick out my butt and pull my arms back — as if I could reign in the wild beast. Nope. You gotta have faith that standing tall and proud will really stop the Segway (and thankfully I accepted that premise before hitting the wall).

Dean Kamen was in attendance, of course on a Segway, entertaining us with facts and stories while we were waiting in line. He mentioned how most first time riders flash the "Segway smile" — the brain's delight at experiencing basic balance and movement differently for the first time since you learned to walk.

My favorite moment was gracefully spinning around 360 degrees.... guided by a simple turning out motion of my right hand. From completely still to a pirouette! Sure enough, I couldn't help but break out into a huge Segway grin.

The Illuminated Donkey: bringing you the future right damn now!

You know, now that The Ken Goldstein Project is pretty much as passe as a two-liter bottle of Crystal Tab, all the hipsters are heading over to The Letter Project to check out the excitement, type in amusing words and phrases, and then send in a picture of themselves holding the first letter of their last name. It's good, clean fun.

You know, I'm getting too old for this Monday night rocking.

Not much time for anything exciting this afternoon, as I'm rushing off to Brooklyn to once again experience the pure rock of Mr. Jason Loewenstein. I don't want to leave you all with nothing, so how about a bizarre piece of trivia, perhaps that a young, rotund Richard Simmons appeared in an orgy scene in Federico Fellini's "Satyricon"? Or maybe you'd like to hear about the exciting return, after an almost-four-month hiatus, of Patchouli, the bestest darn daily web strip in all the land. You can go check out the brand-new 2003 Despair Demotivators Calendar and maybe even buy one, unless you're Mike Whybark, in which case I've already gotten you one for Christmas, or another random friend, since they had a special discount if I bought three). Okay, if you insist...cute pictures of bunnies!!!

So...enjoy yet another exciting Friday night home alone watching the Thomas Kinkade hour on QVC? Perhaps you should check out The Black Hearts Party. It inspires the heart and provides peace to the soul.

You know, the snow no longer excites me like it did only a few hours ago. Thankfully there won't be any more of it.

Exaggerating your subject's precociousness, the New Yorker way! (from Joan Acocella's review of Terry Teachout's "The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken")

Henry Louis Mencken was born in 1880, in Baltimore, of German stock. As he told it, he had a serene childhood, digging in the back yard and reading great stacks of nineteenth-century literature.

Wow, I wonder where Mencken could have possibly acquired a taste for nineteenth-century literature...in the nineteenth freaking century?!

Snow Day!!!!!

Snow!!!!!

Why do I love Meryl Yourish? Because she's lighting the Chanukah candles for those of us who can't get home by sundown. That's a public service, my friend.

Funniest Darn Show on Television. Dave Attell's Insomniac begins its third season tomorrow night at 10:30 p.m, following a special "Best of" at 9:30. I'll actually be playing tennis then, so can somebody tape it for me?

Do you believe in love? Do you believe it's true? I am pleased to announce the launching of the all-new Black Hearts Party site, to which I was fortunate enough to be allowed to contribute. It's a site dedicated to true love, soulmates, happily-ever-afters, and a whole lot more crap that ain't ever gonna happen to you.

the black hearts party manifesto

We the Black Hearts Party are waging a war of sanity. No longer shall we suffer to be the hapless prey of Cupid or the pawns of St. Valentine. Firmly we stand, against the army of fluffy white teddy bears that advance marching lock step from every convenience store and gas station. They pelt us with plastic-wrapped roses and shrill their shat-out love songs in our ears but to no avail. "Fax me" their candy hearts exclaim before they are crushed beneath our heels. Our eyes have been opened and no amount of Meg Ryan showing us her gums can close them again. We are the fed-up, the awoken, the free -- The Black Hearts Party.

My humble contributions are in the Restaurants Reviews section, specifically the "Places to Dump Someone" area, but you're gonna want to read the whole sordid site, and you'd better have a stiff drink waiting for you on the other side.

Oasis Cancels Shows After Bar Brawl. I'm shocked — shocked!! — to find that Oasis is actually still around.

WTO Memories Light the Corners of My Mind. Yesterday was the third anniversary of my only experience with tear gas thus far, a date which Mr. Whybark commemorates with an old missive. (It should be noted that I held back and Mike pressed on after things started to get a little messy, so that I managed to avoid getting shot in the ass.)

This means that it's a few days after the third anniversary of my walking past my company's warehouse on the way to work only to discover that the building had been taken over by squatters in advance of the World Trade Organization hullaballoo. Ah yes, shipping out Christmas orders by flashlight (the police, whose HQ was frigging next door by the way, had shut off the building's power), getting eyed by angry squatters, having the building constantly referred to by the media as "abandoned"...what a time it was.

Um...I just wanted to make it clear that despite what the nice folks at NYC Bloggers are implying, I am not the Pretty Girl, though I wish to the heavens above that it were true. I am merely a sponsor and an early admirer, and am not even a little pretty.

Speaking of getting credit for a blog I have nothing to do with, Rick Bruner repeatedly jumps up and down with glee regarding his accurate prediction that a certain all-American icon and her friends would have their own blogs. (Though Chelsea really needs to update her blog more often; I'm on edge wondering what happened to her after she tried the new color for her toenail polish!)

Postcards from Connecticut. As I mentioned earlier, I spent the weekend roaming around the casinos and seaports of eastern Connecticut, playing cards and breaking hearts. Though I did enjoy a fine lobster bisque in mystic, the majority of my time was spent in the casinos, and the majority of that time was spent playing poker. Though it was a big holiday weekend, most of the players at my tables seemed to be regulars. And what kind of folks were these regulars? Well, as a representative snippet, let me present my Favorite Overhead Conversation of the Weekend (between two 60ish Foxwoods poker players who looked like they had been sitting in those seats every day since the place opened):

Player #1: Ah, Joey, I can't buy a hand. I'm gonna go get some dinner.
Player #2 (apparently Joey): Okay, what are you getting?
Player #1: (incredulously) Steak.
Player #2: No, no...I mean what kind of steak?

Yes, I had entered a world where steak was implied, and that's a world that's okay in my book. My trip began with a tour around the insanely massive Foxwoods, then it was off to the poker room for the 10:00 a.m. Limit Hold `Em tournament. I did fairly well in the tournament, finishing 20th out of 88 entrants. I was far out of the money but did get to play almost three hours for a few bucks, after which I enjoyed a long lunch in the brain-numbingly excessive buffet.

That was actually the highlight of Saturday for me, as I became a reverse Midas, with everything I touched turning to crap. My double-down blackjack bets drew deuces, the ball avoided my numbers in roulette like it owed them money, and if a player needed a card to beat me, then by God, that card was gonna come. I fought back late into the night to avoid a total disaster, but headed to my overpriced hotel room a nearly broken man.

Well, tomorrow is another day. I woke up late, grabbed a cup of coffee in a rundown luncheonette (where the proprietor spent ten minutes of my life extolling the virtues of soy milk and stevia, only to then ask if I wanted an apple fritter roughly the size of a puppy. I headed to the Mystic Seaport, which ain't exactly hopping in the bitter cold of early December. I picked up a pressed penny for my sister, grabbed a fine lunch of lobster bisque and a crab melt, then went for Round Two, this time at Mohegan Sun.

Now, if Foxwoods makes the Atlantic City casinos look like some low-rent stripmall out on the edge of town, then Mohegan Sun makes it look like the alley behind the stripmall, perhaps with a pack of mangy dogs rooting through the dumpster. The place is truly incredible: gigantic, stunning, and as I was soon to find out, the luckiest place on Earth. I had planned to just play for an hour or two, but events soon conspired to keep me in Connecticut until nightfall. I spent an hour walking around before I finally decided to try some more roulette. I figured I'd put a $20 down and see what happened. Well, on the first spin I hit a little something, enough to keep me going. Well, I hit something on the next spin and the few after that, and after about 15 minutes I had taken that $20 up to around $250. I figured that it was a good time to leave the table and check out the poker room.

With my $250 in hand I sat down at a $5-$10 Hold `Em table with a kill (meaning that if a pot is over $90, the winner of that pot has to put up $10 and the next hand is played at $10-$20. As I said, I had only planned to stay for a couple of hours, but the player to my right, an annoying know-it-all who had apparently accumulated so many comp points at craps so that he'd never have to pay for another meal as long as he lived, told me that I'd be an idiot to leave before 9:00, since I'd just end up sitting in traffic on I-95.

Well, I have to admit that I was in a mood to be convinced, so I stayed at that table for another five hours and proceeded to kick everybody's ass. It helped that three of players were casino poker rookies with deep pockets, but I was just getting the cards and/or getting lucky. One big pot came when my King-Jack in a kill pot was greeted with a 9-10-Queen flop, giving me a straight with callers all the way down. I also eked out some lucky ones when a Queen hit the flop as I was taking my King-Queen up against pocket Jacks and Ace-King, and when my pocket 9's backed into a straight on the river. Basically, there was an hour when I could do no wrong, and when the table finally broke I found myself with almost $700 in front of me. That original $20 had gotten me all the way back from the previous day's hole, paid for all the trip expenses, and put me well into the black for the trip.

On my way to dinner I played a little craps (not really my game, but I wanted to throw the dice and ended up making five points before sevening out), then had my first ever filet mignon. It tasted like victory.

Connecticut: Our Friendly Neighbor to the North. Those of you who had been following my increasingly whiny attempts to get the hell out of town for the holiday weekend will be happy to know that I did, in fact, get the hell out of town, to the abovementioned Connecticut. I spent the last few days in the Mystic/Casinoville area, enjoying bisque at the Seaport and hours of gaming excitement at the superfabulous Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun ("Making Atlantic City look like the sewers where they had that crap game in 'Guys and Dolls' since 1992!"), and while I need to get to sleep and can't get into too many details until later, suffice it to say that the tale involves a desperate search for lodging, various games of chance and skill, tragedy followed by triumph, and filet mignon. God, I love being me.

Mmmm...turkey sandwiches.

I just wanted to publicly announce that despite any grandiose claims I may have made at various gatherings and whatnot, and despite whatever a certain ruler of Blogistan may insinuate, I have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this. (If nothing else, I'd certainly update the blog more often.)

St. George I & II. Via everybody's favorite little vixen, Heather, a rather illuminating photo of our esteemed Commander-in-Chief, which bears a rather frightening similarity to this image of an early namesake.

Return to the Island of Misfit Jews. Well, I'm off to scenic Old Bridge for the extremely non-traditional Thanksgiving lunch (my brother works in a movie theater and needs to be in a 4, so we're eating early to accomodate). Thanksgiving has always been a bit of a quiet time around the Goldstein household; our main big family gatherings have always been centered around Rosh Hashanah and Passover, and neither us nor our Queens-based relatives are ever too psyched about battling TG traffic, so for the last few years it's been just the immediate family, when it's even been that. Nice, but not exactly Rockwell's "Freedom from Want."

Adding to the simplicity of the celebration is the fact that if we have an actual Thanksgiving tradition, it's a rather odd one. Every year for about ten years, up until I entered junion high, we would take a two-week holiday down to my grandparents' place in Florida, usually with a Disney trip as well. We would leave on Thanksgiving morning, so that our Thanksgiving feast was held in a Roy Rogers off of I-95, in Virginia or something. So while other families can think back on feasts of sumptuous turkeys and succulent pumpkin pies, my Thanksgiving memories usually involve my Mom maiking a salad from the Fixins' Bar, with a dressing of ketchup, mayo, and a dash of horseradish sauce.

Still, a tradition is a tradition, so I'll be picking up a three-piece w/biscuit from the Turnpike rest stop Roy Rogers on my way home. I have to admit to being a bit jealous of Mr. Fat Guy's massive spread, or even better, a feast served by a cute little monkey.

Happy freaking Thanksgiving. Well, I had this lovely Thanksgiving post all planned out for you folks, a touching, humorous, heartwarming little piece about what Thanksgiving means to me, some of my family's TG traditions, and a sincere wish for health and happiness for all of you and yours. Yep, I had sketched it all out on my ride home, and all I needed to do was travel the last few miles, go inside, type it all up, and sleep the sleep of the just.

Of course, turns out that there was this little accident on the Pulaski Skyway a few cars ahead of me. I wasn't involved, but it blocked up two lanes of traffic, two lanes on a two-lane highway with no shoulders and almost no way for emergency vehicles to get to the accident.

So how long was I trapped up there on the Skyway? How about TWO FREAKING HOURS! And now I ain't particularly thankful for anything, thank you very much! I'm going to sleep! Ppppfffthththt!!

Lame excuses? Yeah, we's got lame excuses! Um...I'm pretty much done relocating, but still need to set up a whole router/wireless doohickey system (jeez, I sound like Whybark here, albeit a Whybark who learned everything he knows about computers from the back of a Transformers-themed box of cereal) before Donk HQ is up and running again. In the meantime, I'm hanging out in a little shop on JFK Blvd., conveniently located near the White Castle, so it's all good. Hopefully, everything will be back to normal before I sit down to enjoy the traditional Goldstein Thanksgiving turducken. Until then, let's all try to love eachother, hmmm?

Please pardon our appearance while we relocate.

November 19, 1863

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

*sniff*

stupidjerseystupidjerseystupid Well, I couldn't find any air/hotel deals that wouldn't leave me broke before I even got to Vegas, so it looks like I'm going to be staying in stupid New Jersey and having stupid Thanksgiving dinner with my stupid family. What was once my sanctuary has become my prison; what was once my home has become my hell.

The world just got a little less tough: James Coburn, star of such classic flicks as The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape (and, okay, a whole bunch of stuff like Snow Dogs and Hudson Hawk) has just passed away at age 74.

Well, so far JetBlue hasn't gotten me any closer to Vegas, but they do have the best "On Hold" message I've ever heard.

"Everybody seems to think being on hold is a bad thing. Let's reexamine this, shall we? Don't look at it as being on hold; look at it as being held. Because we all like to be held, don't we? For example: when you're sitting in front of a fireplace with someone special, being held can be very comforting. Or when you're upset about something, being held makes you feel a whole lot better."

Now, don't you think that in exchange for this plug JetBlue should find room for me on their Sunday-after-Thanksgiving Vegas-to-JFK flight?

Bookworm? That's yesterday's news, Bucko: too many words, too much thinking, not enough bizarre Japanese narration. No, the hot new time-waster is DoubleYou's Sonar Challenge, packed with soccery goodness!

Latest interesting fact I've learned during my move: televisions rarely bounce.

Oyyyyyyyyyyy, yeah! Looking to add a little funk to your next Seder, or just want a shirt that'll look good even if you spill a little Manischevitz on it? Jewcy.com has got it all goin' on, Kosher style!

Paul Frankenstein: wit, bon vivant, entrepeneur, and guy who should be working on his novel rather than cavorting around all hipster-like talking about lady-things. I mean, sheesh, get back to work, Frankie.

In response to Jim's transparent attempts to gain fame as blogdom's least ominous, I drank a shot of J-Dub Black, retook the quiz and present my results below.

you have an ominosity quotient of negative two. birds suddenly appear every time you are near. find out your ominosity quotient.