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Very Local Seaweed and Fresh Rabbit Blood at Restaurant '13

Can an ingredient be too local? The gelatinous seaweed served at New York's newest pop-up restaurant is scraped each morning from the bottom of the Staten Island Ferry and strewn over sheets of fried kale. It's slippery stuff and it tastes dangerous, like it could kill you. It just might. For the p ... More >>

Want To Be Wikipedia-Worthy? It Costs $300

Here's another idea that would have made you rich if you had thought of it first (but didn't.) Brooklynites Aaron Wertheimer and Erez Safer are now making "citation-heavy" Wikipedia entries for 300 bucks via their new biz, My Wiki Pro. Their clientele mainly includes small businesses and bourgeo ... More >>

A Couple Of Supplemental Reading Suggestions For Those Who Might Still Be Confused By tUnE-yArDs' Pazz & Jop Victory

​This morning Chuck Klosterman took to his perch at the ESPN-gone-McSweeney's site Grantland and tried to figure out why tUnE-yArDs' w h o k i l l, a record that he wasn't familiar with (but, he noted, that was loved by his wife), won this year's Pazz & Jop albums poll. He gave the album a lis ... More >>

For the Love of God, It's Not 'Downtown' Abbey!

Have you seen the extremely popular British period drama called "Downton Abbey"? It's all the rage right now. It won a Golden Globe! People are talking about it, watching it, DVR-ing it, weeping with joy and raising their glasses to it as we speak. And people and news organizations, which are bigger ... More >>

Good Luck Using Wikipedia Today, Kermit La Grenouille

​Good luck using Wikipedia today. The user-generated, free-to-use, ad-free encyclopedia's English language portal will be dark for all of January 18th, as Wikipedia protests SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect IP Act). As Wikipedia says on their site today if you want to ... More >>

What We Talk About When We Talk About SOPA

SOPA, the Stop Internet Piracy Act, is the latest congressional move to put an end to the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material. The basic idea of SOPA -- now considered in the House of Representatives -- and its Senate analog, the Protect Intellectual Property Act, purportedly aims at ... More >>

Pucker Up For a Pickleback

​Bed-Stuy restaurant Do or Dine has more in common with Spain's El Bulli than you may think. It's fairly difficult to get to. Both restaurant's figureheads (Justin Warner and Ferran Adrià, respectively) are keen on whimsically named dishes. And each restaurant is fond of spherification. Wh ... More >>

A Mock Interview With Me!

David Shankbone/Wikipedia​I've been spending my vacation googling myself, which is how I found this "mock interview" done with yours truly on the "HD In Effect" blog.

My Sexual Thoughts About Neil Patrick Harris And Wanda Sykes

Josh Gosfield​They're right here in a blog written to welcome me back to my alma mater, the prestigious Columbia University! For one hour! See, I'm heading up there to talk to some young LGBT journalists, and I'm all set to tell them to be extremely brave since the industry they want to ente ... More >>

The Trouble With Wikipedia!

Howard Huang​Wikipedia is invaluable as a research tool, but while it contains a lot of great stuff, it's basically reporting by committee and suffers as a result. There are things in there that might be just a little true or maybe not true at all, but they become your signature achievements ... More >>

Chris Brown

Eddie Murphy As Oscar Host: Waaa!

David Shankbone/Wikipedia​I'm not thrilled about Eddie Murphy being chosen to host the next Oscars. First the good news: After the last telecast with poor, defeated Anne Hathaway and James Franco totally at sea, they're smart to go back to a comedian, someone with a standup background and so ... More >>

The Six Worst Types Of Theatergoers

David Shankbone/Wikipedia​If there was a Tony category for most annoying patrons, the nominees would be... (6) The ones who ruffle through their Playbills during a quiet moment, suddenly determined to find an actor's name or see how many songs are left. These people would probably tapdance ... More >>

Gage & Tollner Is Now a Discount Jewelry Store

Wikipedia​Preservationists, look away: the space that was home to Gage & Tollner for 112 years is now Ladies & Gents, a discount jewelry store. Although we're not sure that tacky jewelry is really any worse than the TGI Friday's and Arby's that occupied the site following the historic restaura ... More >>

Map Shows NYC's Confusion With Rest of U.S.

WikipediaNope. Not how it looks.​What do New Yorkers believe rests beyond its borders? It's like cornfield, cornfield, D.C., cornfield, Chicago, cornfield, cornfield, cornfield, cornfield, and then L.A. topped by San Francisco, right? Now there's (satirical) proof that we are a little confused ... More >>

Somebody Is Finally Paying Attention to the Rainbow Room

WikipediaParty like it's 1934.​Someone is finally cleaning up the mess the Ciprianis made: After being shut for two years, the Rainbow Room is getting a much-needed renovation.

It's National Kissing Day. So, Kiss Already.

​Not only is today George W. Bush's 65th birthday, and Nancy Reagan's 90th, and the birthday of that girl we went to high school with who dated that one guy before we did (#grudges), it's also National (or International, depending on who you make out with) Kissing Day. This is important, becau ... More >>

Casey Anthony Found Not Guilty Of Murder

Wikipedia​After two days of deliberation, a jury found Casey Anthony not guilty today on charges of first degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter in the death of her 2 year-old daughter, Caylee Anthony. Casey was, however, found guilty on four counts of providing fals ... More >>

Tornado Watch Issued for New York City

Wikipedia​The National Weather Service has put New York City and surrounding areas under a tornado watch until 8 p.m. this evening. The watch is also effective for counties in Connecticut and New Jersey. Along with potential tornadoes and hail, a "thunderstorm wind gust" of up to 70 miles per ... More >>

OMFG Ghostface Killah Has a Namesake Beer!

WikipediaWord.​Donald Trump has his own vodka, but the best celebrity booze hybrid most certainly is the new Ghost Face Killah spicy beer!

The New Amsterdam Market Will Invoke Pagan Revelry When It Returns This Sunday

Eat, drink, and don't trample the daisies.​The New Amsterdam Market's new season doesn't begin until June 4, but this Sunday, it will give us a taste of things to come when it returns with Floralia, a special one-day market.

The Next Food Network Stars? Not Quite.

WikipediaThe one "real" star​Being the Next Food Network Star is kind of like being Top Chef, Minus the chef aspect. But ultimately it can be much more lucrative than winning the $100,000 on the Bravo show, since it's an opportunity to build a brand...or is it?

Wikipedia Is a Sausage Fest; Women Love Sex and the City

​Less than 15 percent of Wikipedia's hundreds of thousands of unpaid contributors -- responsible for over 3.5 million articles in English -- are female, according to an article on the front page of today's New York Times. The exact figure hovers somewhere around 13 percent women and the averag ... More >>

SeamlessWeb's Free Coffee Days Return

Julius Schorzman/WikimediaTastes even better when it's free​There might be no such thing as a free lunch, but there is free coffee. Tomorrow is February 1, which means it's the start of SeamlessWeb's annual promotion, Free Coffee Days, when the company will give away 250,000 cups of joe.

Tell Me Something Useful

via Wikipedia​Anything useful. I'm so tired of being barraged with worthless information. So please give me a bit of wisdom that I can actually apply to my everyday life.

Stars Who Will Never Die

via Wikipedia​I'll start this one: Cher Betty White Liza Minnelli Bindi Irwin Any more?

Mars Volta Frontman Omar Rodriguez Lopez's "Semi-Autobiographical Tale of a Twentysomething Misfit's Loopy Trip Through Manhood" to Screen at Tribeca Film Fest

The film, in fine Mars Volta/At the Drive In fashion, is titled The Sentimental Engine Slayer, and first premiered a few months back at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. It tells the story of two El Paso siblings who ride bikes, collect cars, hook up with prostitutes, and finally descend ... More >>

At What Age Were You Happiest?

Wikipedia​When was everything in your life so aligned that you wished you could freeze the moment and be that age forever? When did work, love, living, and roommates all click for you with such elation that you wanted to bottle the moment and try to experience it for the rest of your life?

What's So Great About St. Patrick's Day?

via Wikipedia​The first thoughts that come to mind whenever anyone reminds me that it's St. Patrick's Day are: (1) The gays are dissed from the parade, which obviously celebrates all Irish people except openly queer ones. (2) There'll surely be green vomit all over the streets tonight.

I Met "Sully" Sullenberger!

Ingrid Taylar via Wikipedia​Yes, I got to corner the pilot who made the only heroic gesture of 2009! And what did I ask him? "Were you really saving your own ass?" CLICK HERE for my column in which he pushes me into the Hudson--I mean gracefully responds to that query. You will also get to r ... More >>

Talking Turkey: This Year, Pick Your Own

r_gnuce/flickr​Six days into November and turkey tips are already clogging the collective consciousness. Here's one from Feather Down Farms: For the ultimate locavore experience, spend an afternoon upstate and pick out your own live bird. The Stony Creek Farm location of Feather Down in Delaw ... More >>

Happy 60th Birthday: Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Acme

According to A View From a Goon (obviously an unimpeachable source -- oh, Wikipedia says so too), today is the 60th anniversary of the first Road Runner cartoon's debut. Hard to believe "Fast and Furry-ous" is from 1949, though the noisy version above makes it seem like a relic from the early soun ... More >>

Strange Snacks of the World: Chakri

​​Chakri is the Gujarati name for an extruded snack made from rice flour, and available widely at South Asian groceries stores. Sometimes it contains urad (dal) flour, as well. The snack was supposedly invented in Tamil Nadu, in the small town of Manapparai, where it's known as muruku or ... More >>

City Says Fat Kids Lag in Learning; We Suggest the Prince Fielder Approach

Mike Bloomberg, whose Administration has made education a priority, has bragged on rising test scores, greater matriculation into CUNY schools, and especially the shrinking achievement gap between minority students and white students. But what about the achievement gap between physically fit and phy ... More >>

Things We Hate--Truffle Oil

Truffle oil has nothing to do with truffles! It's a synthetic chemical with an odor that makes week-old fish smell good. [ref: Wikipedia]

Alexi Murdoch

Quick Hits

Minnesota GOP Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann says Obama's expansion of the AmeriCorps volunteer program establishes "re-education camps." ObamaHitler y'all! Defacements of Wikipedia pages are usually just crudely funny, but the altered Wiki page on Welsh village Gilfach Goch is a work of comic ar ... More >>

Cops Nab 59 in Queensbridge Drug Sweep

Back in 1940, the New York Times celebrated the completion of the first big move-in at the Queensbridge Apartments, which they said were the "last word in modern living quarters and have auxiliary units designed to protect the health and meet the requirements of the 3,161 families living there." Tod ... More >>

Word of the Day: Blandiose

Andrea Peyser Rips a Page Out of My Book!

DOUBLE TROUBLE

Take a stroll with Nick Kroll and John Mulaney

Bonde Do Role Tonight and Tomorrow

Au Revoir, Baudrillard

Letters

Web Love

Stalkerish love taps add soap-operatic spice to the vlog scene

Turf Wars

Wikipedia spars with a splinter site for truth

Mondo Wikipedia

Community and controversy as the online reference giant turns five

Factually Speaking

Think Wikipedia is error-ridden? Britannica's nearly as bad—and isn't nearly as nimble.

Choose Your Own Encyclopedia