Real Worlders Finally Descend on Brooklyn. Everybody Hide!

This picture from Newyorkology shows a bunch of faux-hipsters walking down some abaonded Red Hook street with a camera crew guiding them along the way, and clearly, it appears to be the Real World Brooklyn crew.  Gawker has some lovely cast bios on each of the seven drunk therapy cases housemates and provides insight into what they’ve done so far during their stay.  Predictably, they go clubbing, barhopping, they meet/talk to/fuck the locals (and each other), and it appears that for the most part, the picture above and the ones on the linked site are some of the only times you will be able to see them sober.  Personally, its always gratifying to see how they film those “walking” shots (as these photos explain).

I’m not sure how long they’ll be in town for, but if anyone runs into one these seven strangers picked to live in a house together, contact me!

Real World Will Cement Red Hook as New York’s Scariest Neighborhood

Yes, yes, we all know that MTV’s stupid drunk juggernaut The Real World is going to be in Brooklyn very soon, but like, stuff keeps happening, you know?  At first, the Real Worlders were going to be living in an exclusive Brooklyn Heights penthouse loft, but according to Gawker, renovations were coming along a little too slow for the producers’ tastes, so they decided to move the cast to a giant pier building in an up-and-coming neighborhood that’s getting gentrified by the minute: Red Hook.  So the lovable neighborhood that was once home to stevedores, hookers, and underground drug trafficking is now home to an Ikea, Fairway, and soon, seven drunk twenty somethings who love to bitch and fight.  Sweet.

(Photograph via Klarinetic)

Weekend Wrapup – Successes and Failures

This weekend was pretty relaxed.  Friday night was chill as I saw my friend Nate who I hadn’t seen since last summer and had dinner at this pretty so-so Japanese place on the Upper West Side.  The highlight of the night was a neurotic old woman started asking us to move so we could accommodate her party of ten or whatever.  And when the waitstaff wanted to move us to the back of the restaurant, she goes, “No, you don’t want to sit back there, do you?”  Frankly, I couldn’t give a damn.

On Saturday I ran…a lot.  Started the morning off right by running around the Central Park reservoir, running errands, etc…  Then I met Ari, his girl Shauna, and her lil’ sis (in her sorority) for some shopping along Fifth Avenue.  After that, I came home and ran some more (on a treadmill this time) before meeting them and Ari’s roommate at Johnny Utah’s.  I was pretty impressed by the proper southern/wild west theme.  They had a private dining room that looked like it was inside a bank vault.  And, they have a mechanical bull in the middle of the main dining room!  Too bad the food was mediocre and overpriced, but I guess that’s what happens when you pay for the atmosphere and the gimmicks.  Afterwards we went back downtown to Ari’s place, hung out some more, and then met Kristen and Jeremy on the pier at the seaport for some drinks overlooking Lower Manhattan.  It was nice way to end the evening.

Sunday my Dad came in and we tried to go to Ikea Brooklyn, but it was impossible.  There was traffic (bumper-to-bumper, and barely moving) along all the local side streets leading up to the store.  We couldn’t even make it to the parking lot!  So we turned around and headed to Target instead.  Then I came home, prepared for a long week of work ahead, and went to sleep.

But the best news this weekend is that a lot of you loyal readers must have been telling your friends about the blog, because somehow, our daily hits have gone way up!  We had more visitors to our site on Saturday than in our entire first two weeks, and on Sunday we finally reached over 1,000 daily hits!  We couldn’t have done this without you, the loyal viewers, and we hope you continue to visit the blog.  It’s gonna be a busy week ahead, I can tell, so keep coming back for more pop culture, entertainment, and odd news!

I Got MALMed In My GRUNDTAL: Ikea Opens In Brooklyn

As we reported earlier, Swedish furniture magnate Ikea was set to open in Brooklyn yesterday amidst protesters and scores of fans. Well, it finally happened yesterday. According to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the store opening was no less a huge celebration of fanfare, gleeful employees, and free furniture…wait, FREE FURNITURE?

“Each of the first 35 adults in line, in honor of this being the 35th U.S. IKEA store, was given a voucher for a free couch, and the next 100 behind them received armchairs…other freebies included vouchers for food, big blue and yellow umbrellas and heart pillows for kids.”

So THATS why people were willing to discard their social lives and necessities for a couple days: to score one of these bad boys that will no doubt cause their hair to fall out while trying to set it up, and then break unexpectedly. It’s too bad the voucher doesn’t cover the outrageous shipping charges too.

BUT, the good news is that Ikea is making it super easy to get to its store via public transportation, offering free shuttles from Borough Hall, Smith-9th Sts, and 4th Avenue stations, as well as a water taxi from lower Manhattan. Leave it to Ikea to lure Gen Xers fo’ free to spend their hard earned dough on utterly useless crap.

College-Bound Douchebag Brags on The Today Show

This morning on The Today Show, Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera interviewed seventeen year-old Lukasz Zyblut (right after a heart wrenching piece on Ed McMahon), a “whiz kid” from Brooklyn who, for lack of better words, owned the college admission process. Among the top schools he got into? NYU, Georgetown, Columbia, Penn, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, and Dartmouth. AND HE TURNED THEM ALL DOWN! Why? He got into Hahvahd, why else would he play with the other admissions departments’ heartstrings. When asked by Matt why he decided on the Crimson, he replied:

“It’s Harvard after all, you can’t turn that down, and I feel sorry for all of the other great institutions for not ending up there.”

Spoken like a true Ivy League gentlemen: Intelligent sounding and such a wonderfully backhanded compliment! I wish I got to go on Today for being smart…and a douchebag, but I guess since Lukasz is a first generation Polish immigrant who barely knew English and know speaks it fluently, it sorta helps him land a daytime gig. Plus, he’s going to be owned by a bunch of blueblooded wasps at Harvard anyway, so I guess he’ll really find out what America is all about. And we totes found his MySpace to boot! Sort of comes off a little different there (although we’re not sure its him).

It’s Almost Here…

Hipsters, Yuppies, Urbanites, and Eurotrash unite! The new Ikea Brooklyn is almost here!!! Set in the gritty-yet-getting-more-gentrified neighborhood of Red Hook (Wikipedia even gives the store its own section. How nice!), Brooklynites and New Yorkers alike will no doubt flock to the Swedish emporium en masse come its grand opening on June 18. The store will sell the same inexpensive, trendy Scandinavian inpsired furniture with really funny sounding names, set against the backdrop of New York Harbor (meaning you can eat gravlax and lingonberry jam while inhaling the fresh maritime stench surrounding you). And you can even get there via the free shuttle running to two major subway stops!

New York Magazine is even seeing how the new one will stack up compared to the current NYC-area stronghold in Elizabeth, and some folks are even camping out, forgoing essentials like toilet paper and social lives, so that they can be the first to buy a beddinge, or a grankula, or…whatever.

Häpnadsväckande!

Weekend Wrapup – Hookah, Brooklyn, and Father’s Day

It’s nice not to blog about pop culture media sometimes, and this weekend, I took refuge from furiously scouring the internet for stories (which I’ll resume at the end of this post…I have one lined up already). My cousin came to visit for the weekend and stayed over at the apartment. After some catching up, I headed to midtown to meet Kristen and Jeremy for a nice relaxing evening in the East Village. I found my favorite sketchy hookah bar and the three of us spent an hour there sipping Egyptian Lemonades and smoking banana hookah. Along the way, there was an interesting conversation where Jeremy informed Kristen about the time he first met her (which, according to him, she didn’t remember at all), and needless to say, some awkward conversation and glances followed. Something about a frat party, some drinks, and hookup embarassment strange alcohol-fueled evening between mutual friends at a frat party. Fun times!

Saturday ended up being much more relaxed than I wanted it to. Sanyu was in town visiting some museums and hanging out in Brooklyn, while I told Kristen that I wanted to go to Vampire Weekend. Unfortunately, both parties thought I was gonna hang out with the other, which led to me doing neither, which was good because around 4 it started raining buckets and I stayed in. Later, I ended up hiking out to Williamsburg which involved staring down the Lexington Avenue platform at a 4 train sitting just feet away from the station, which then led to me getting soaked in the rain trying to hail a taxi, which got caught in traffic, so I hopped out at 33rd street and took the subway the rest of the way to Williamsburg. So glad to see Sanyu after a nearly two year hiatus. After wandering around for an hour, we got some pizza, then I said goodbye and hopped the subway home.

Sunday, Father’s Day, was a boring day, save for the family drama that ensued at my Aunt’s house in Scarsdale, but I enjoyed some tasty steak. Mostly a housecleaning day with getting my food prepared for the week, doing laundry, and catching up, but nonetheless, hoping that the week and next weekend will be much more exciting.