A twitching eyelid has to be one of the most annoying things in the world. It started when I was on the train this morning and has been driving me nuts, since then. I went to this website to try to figure out what I could do about it. Here is what it said:

Treating Eye Twitching
At this time, there is no successful cure for eye twitching, although several treatment options may reduce its severity. Some patients may request drug therapy for chronic eye twitching problems, though drug therapy is often considered an unpredictable form of treatment. If you are game however, researchers are consistently working on new ways to treat old problems like eye twitching. In the US and Canada for example, the injection of Botox into the muscles of the eyelids is an approved treatment. Botox, produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, paralyzes the muscles of the eyelids.

So, unless I can schedule an emergency Botox injection. Looks like I’m just going to have to tough it out.

BTW: That pic is from when I first started learning to use photoshop, and was trying to be all artsy. Like the eyebrow regrowth?

[Liberty Street footbridge that crosses over the West Side Highway. I kind of like it.]

One thing about living at the top of a walk-up building, is that I that I always have my daily dose of stairs. As if that weren’t enough, Reagan always coerces me into taking the stairs with her, even when we are in a (residential) building with an elevator. I don’t really mind it.

Today, more than ever, I could use a good stair workout. I have been having some weird stomach issues lately. I’m not really sure what they are all about. But, I read (and someone told me recently) that yogurt can sometimes help, if it is an ulcer or something. So I dropped by Gristedes today and picked up some yogurt and granola. I didn’t realize until I got back to my office that the type of yogurt I purchased was whole milk with cream on top. Whoa! I didn’t even know that stuff was legal. Anyway, it was really good. Needless to say, I’m feeling a bit sloppy after eating it.

On a loosely related note, Earth Hour is only a month away, so buy some Birkenstocks and incense.

(throwback from 2005)

Question:

What are the Names of Neil Armstrong’s parents?

-Maria Gilbert

Answer–

I’m glad someone finally asked that. The cool part is that most people are probably thinking, “oh, Neil Armstrong, the one giant step guy,” but in reality, you are asking about Neil Armstrong, the famous electric fork inventor/maker. Neil was actually an icon of modern culinary evolution. The reason that the question is relevant, of course is because as a young boy in the 1800’s, Neil drew his inspiration from his parents, who were European immigrants who bought and ran a restaurant in Brooklyn. Both of his parents were excellent chefs and the restaurant was famous for it’s Mandioca Fries. It was this era that Young Neil, son of Electra and Forker Armstrong realized that unlike his parents, he had no skills in the kitchen. So he spent years at the drawing board and came up this this beauty.

One of the blogs that I keep tabs on is called Public Ad Campaign. Before I started reading it, I had no idea how heavily regulated sign placement was. Jordan, the author, is very opinionated about advertising being visual pollution, etc. I don’t necessarily subscribe to his views in every instance. One thing that has come of it, however, is that I have become more acutely aware of signage. It is amazing how much of it can be found, while looking in any direction, on the streets of Manhattan. I have decided to start sharing some of the stuff that I see, as I have time to shoot it and post it. The shot above is on the corner of Liberty Street and Greenwich, on the south end of the WTC construction site.  It is also right on the corner of the embattled Deutsche Bank Building, which has become a huge blight on the FiDi. I think that it’s great that I could get 6 or 7 signs framed into one shot without even really trying. There are even signs, about not putting up signs, like the one below. These are just a few that I took this afternoon, when I was on my way to fight some parking tickets. More to come.

This was on my pillow:

I like it about 1000 times better than the one that I did.

On my very first blog, I had this thing that I did called Jake Knows Everything. It was kind of fun, and useful in keeping my creative juices flowing. The page pictured above is actually the 3rd generation. Here is the 2nd. For some reason, I can’t find the original. Anyway, I haven’t really kept it up, for about the last year. They are now full of cobwebs and broken links. I used to also publish a top 10 (and the older version).  I have had a few people ask me recently what ever happened JKE and Top 10, and so I thought, “why not bring them back?” In the coming weeks, I plan on building a new page that incorporates both JKE and Top 10, that will be syndicated onto this blog. I’ll start by posting some of the older JKE questions, working my way toward any new ones that I might receive. At worst, it will help me fill the hours. At best, someone will derive some entertainment from it.

The other night, Reagan and I were having a tough time falling asleep. When this happens, Reagan generally starts saying stuff to make me laugh. Reagan is a pretty funny girl, and when you couple that with already being a little punch drunk with the “tired sillys,” it can get pretty entertaining. The particular night I’m referring to, we were talking about super hero powers. Reagan commenced to tell me about how earlier that day, when she was flying around, looking through walls, shooting lasers out of her fingers, and shooting ice out of her feet… blah blah. I was like “yeah, yeah, good one. Wait. Shooting ice out of your feet!?!” I then commenced to laugh until I was feeling kind of sick. I told her that we were both going to have to draw pictures of what a super hero looks like, shooting ice out of his/her feet. This is what I came up with. Your turn, Reag.

I’m really seeing the fruits of that hard fought stimulus package, right about now. Or maybe this is just a reaction to Oscars, Hahahah. Wouldn’t it be awesome if bankers had a Wall Street equivalent of Hollywood’s Oscars? All of the Wall Street players could have a big televised party  where they get together,  blow smoke up each other’s arses  and give each other awards on TV. Don’t forget to mix in some extremely biased political views during the award speeches. Why not? I feel like Bernie Madoff and John Thain are probably as notorious as Sean Penn, these days. Forgive my cynicism. Sometimes, I just can’t help but let it fly.

I’m sure that I’m not the only one who suffers from extra dry skin in the winter. It seriously makes me crazy. Especially on days like today, when it is so cold and windy. It seems to sap my skin of all moisture. This condition, left unchecked, will leave my knuckles all dried out and cracked. So, I do the sensible thing and use hand cream, like its nobody’s business. The only problem with this, is that it leaves my hands all greasy, which in turn greases up my keyboard and anything else that I touch before the hand cream has had ample time to absorb. If this was only once a day, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But there is this thing called hand washing, which pretty much necessitates the application of more hand cream, multiple times per day. I have tried using only the pinky of each hand to apply the cream to my knuckles, then using a napkin to wipe down my pinkys, which helps. But I still end up with the greasy keys, to a degree that is more than desirable. Does anyone have any suggestions for a way around this conundrum? The greasy keys are kind of making me nuts.

[photo by Sephora]