clothes

If you think you have it bad.

a quick post..just saw this video (click line above). it's breathtaking...and not in a good way. after watching it, i had a pit in my stomach. the little girl just wanted her clothes and they were burned. i'm no expert and probably can't speak very eloquently about the issues surrounding the palestine/israel problem. but i do know that to see the suffering that these kids have to go through is just plain sad. i don't know the source of the video so I can't speak to its credibility. but i don't think you can question the faces of these kids.

it's just haunting.

web 2.0

cliche, i know. web 2.0 communication technologies utilized in a social networking context through the contributions of user generated content via wikis, video, audio and photo blogs.

HA!

anyhow, i've come across a few interesting web 2.0 sites that i'm posting here...more for my own reference (since i'm pretty sure that no one else is reading this):

www.last.fm (i.e. wiki audio)

www.yelp.com (i.e. local guide to nyc)

www.vimeo.com (i.e. video)

more later (i just happen to be looking at these today)

colonialism is common

[this is a very delayed post...but]

rented a house in the catskills over the fall with a bunch of good friends. Note to self: bad time to rent a house in the catskills. the leaves had already fallen, it was cold and not in a pretty "wintry" way, and the lake behind the house was "drained." Anyhow, sitting around the campfire at night, this is what came of our conversation:



Fireside Chats on Vimeo

here is the transcript if you can't understand the voices:

voice #1: [the Scottish] survived 800 years of horrific rape and domination

voice #2: waddaya gonna do. it's gotta happen to everyone.

$30 box of tic-tacs

girl #8
Originally uploaded by saritabhatt.

If you look closely at this picture. you'll see a box of tic-tacs on the table. that box of tics costed me $30...and i had to share them with 17 other guys. now that is crap. my lady friends and i went to a DESI speed dating event in the west village. brilliant. i attempted to purchase a wearable camera to document the event, but my last minute attempt was just too costly--about $600 for the camera that looks like a button on my shirt and the recording device.

there were 30 women and 17 guys. every 3 minutes the guys moved lockwise to the next awaiting damsel (myself especially) and initiated the routine "hi, my name is," "i work here," "i work hard and play hard." we women couldnt possibly afford to get up and do the actual moving from seat to seat because our hair would get tossled and lipstick smudged. it kind of reminded me of what i would imagine a 1920's brothel is a smokey second-rate city is like.

more than 50% of the guys lived and worked in Jersey with a questionable visa status. some were very nice and mildly pleasant to converse with. and some of the conversations were just plain painful. but that's to be expected, regardless of the demographic.

after each comment you circle a yes or no next to the name of the guy on your sheet (you can see the sheet and pen in the picture above). here what i did with my card:

----- Original Message ----
From: Flirteve NYC < flirteve@gmail.com>
To: saritabhatt@yahoo.com
Sent: Sunday, February 4, 2007 11:40:46 PM
Subject: speeddating matches...

hey sarita...

unfortunetely, we don't have your speeddating score card, and we wanted to send out the matches... did you turn it in to one of us? or are you not interested in anyone? please let me know as soon as possible so i can send out the matches...i hope you a had a good time at the event and we would love to hear your feedback...

~The Flirteve Team

best intro lines:
guy #1
him: go ahead, answer three questions for me
me: what 3 quetions..you haven't asked me anything

guy #2
him: what is the most imporant thing to you in a relationship?
me: what relationship?
him: this relationship?
me: but we're not in a relationship?
him: but if we were?
me: but we're not.

guy#3
him: what do you like to do outdoors?
me: [sexy wink]
him: very nice. have you been to the smokey bear mountain?
me: what?????

guy #4
him: where do you work?
me: the new york times
him: well that's a pretty decent place to work for a girl
me: i have to go to the bathroom

guy #5
him: i work at deutch bank
me: yeah, i thinki've heard of it. small little company right?
him: actually, its a very large bank [insert statistics here]
me: i know, i'm kidding.

also: my COWORKER was one of the girls and we are the only 2 brown girls in the ad dept and with thousands of brown girls in nyc what are the chances that we are both 2 of 20 girls there. a true highlight.

best part of the night: saw rhea pearlman (waitress from cheers) and
dr. mark greene from ER at the pizza place across the street that we
went to after the bar.

this was response to the actual flirteve company and then their response to me.:

On 2/5/07, Sarita Bhatt wrote:
Thanks for this follow up. I didn't hand in my card because I didn't circle yes for any of the people I met. While it was an interesting experience, I think that the demographic of people was not what I was expecting. Being an event in NY City, I think that there should be some cap on who is allowed to attend ( i.e. more than 50% of the people I met both live AND work in New Jersey. If I want to meet people who live in NJ, then I could easily attend an event there).

Sarita

-----
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 15:32:40 -0500
From: "Flirteve NYC" Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by gmail.com. Learn more
To: "Sarita Bhatt"
Subject: Re: speeddating matches...
hey sarita...

that stinks that it was not what you expected... it's so hard to judge, it varies from time to time... sometimes we have a bunch that live in nyc... sometimes a bunch from long island and jersey... it's random people all the time so you should check it out again... no this not a shameless way for me to get you to another one of our events but being a single chick in nyc myself i can tell you each speeddating is different and a different mix of people... and like i tell all my other single friends you never know who will be there...

in any case... i hate to have an unhappy customer so if you would like to give it another try, it will be on flirteve... so just email me and let me know if you are interested and what event you are interested in and i will put you in the database...

have a great day
:)Anamika

madhu's scar face

Madhu's threading salon is located on 6th Ave and Christopher Street in the West Village. I've been there before to get my eyebrows threaded. While they aren't the best, they aren't the worst and if you're in the West Village it's convenient. But now I want to sue them. Although, that is fairly useless answer to my current problems because I doubt they would even be worth suing.....so the story.

Went to Madhu's this week to get some threading done. I don't go often enough to keep my gorilla-like hairy self neatly trimmed, which is a problem in itself but that is neither here nor there. Anyhow, my skin was tingly and felt a little rubber-like when i walked out of there...and my bare/hairless face hit that cold cold cold cold cold air...but i assumed that I was just being extra sensitive since I had gone for the hair removal treatment in a long time.

Well I woke up the next AM to this:











A horror show on my face. scarred and scraped. painful and scabby...and aside from some calamine and/or neosporin, there isn't much I can do about it. I am furious, feel like an ass and am just generally wondering why on earth I go through this painful hair removal ritual at all...especially when something like this happens. I'd rather have my hair and not these scars. I'd rather just own my gorilla self. I feel battered (and look it to). I am scarface. And it ain't cute.