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Ah, victory is sweet. But a long-awaited victory is especially delicious. Peyton Manning and the Colts withstood harsh criticism and envious catcalling, as well as a miserably rainy night in Miami to win the forty-first Superbowl! All the boo-hooing about a supposedly porous defense and overrated quarterback turned out to be for naught, as Indy proved themselves the far superior NFL team of 2007.

Some of you may wonder how it is that I came to be an Indy fan, let alone a football fan. Inexplicably, Nathan was able to educate and turn me onto the brilliance of both brains and brawn of a professional football game. Early on, I fell in (what has turned out to be very close to) love with Peyton Manning, and in the course of last year’s season, the rest of his team. As I am from LA, and LA has proven to be a mostly inhospitable environment for most major league sports teams, I have no emotional ties to any California teams. With both the Rams and Raiders safely out of Southern California, I felt free to join any random football family. (For anyone who thinks that San Diego is the same as LA, and that I should feel a stronger loyalty to the Chargers, they need to talk to a real Southern Californian.)

Even though I am a newcomer to the world of the NFL, I know full well people’s split feelings about Peyton Manning. People pretty much either hate him or love him. I’ve gotta say, one of the most satisfying outcomes of Indy trompling over the Bears last night was watching Peyton and his team come into their own. Peyton Haters were ever ready with the cutting question, “If he’s so good, why hasn’t he been able to win the Superbowl?” As I saw it, he simply wasn’t ready. His time had not come yet, and the same went for the Colts as a whole. This year, they finally stepped into large shoes that had been waiting for them these past four to five years.

Of course, the sloppiness of the Bears’ performance–as ever, Rex Grossman caused many a groan from the Bears’ fans sitting on either side of me–only helped Indy to their victory. But, really, how could anyone expect the NFC titleholders to beat the AFC champions? It’s actually not that fair, given the incredibly disparate levels of talent and competence between the two conferences. But you can read in more analytical detail about such things on espn.com. I’m just a lovin’ fan.

It’s 12:30 am on Sunday morning, aka prime party time in New York. Or at least, that’s the rumor I’ve heard. Seeing as I’m old (at least in my mind) and rather uncool, I don’t get invited to parties and I don’t try to find parties to get invited to. So my Saturday nights are often somewhat “quiet” by the standards of many. Of course, many would say that blogging late on a Saturday night is automatic proof of being lame. But when you find out that I’m blogging to take a break from work (currently marking up a Description of Notes for an i-bank that wants to pitch a refinancing deal to a perspective client next Thursday), well….I have pretty much proven beyond a doubt that I am not the most “fun” person living in New York City.

Anyway (in addition to providing an oblique way to complain about working on a Saturday night), I felt like posting some pics. Today’s selection was actually taken over a month ago, when J9 and I were out in LA over Christmas. We stopped by the Frank Gherey-designed Disney Concert Hall and I spent time taking some pictures. (In my case, some = 53 pictures in about an hour.) Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed by the results. It was getting dusky while we were there, and so hand-shake contributed to a lot of blurry pics. Also, looking through my pics is like a textbook with examples of mediocre composition and poor use of space.

Here are a few of the better results:

I’d like to say that this one has that whole “cool edgy blur effect” going on, but most people would probably recognize that as a lie and write it off as low-quality camera shake. You be the judge.

In such a bad mood this afternoon. This should be a great day, as the partners (as well as some of the midlevels) are gone. Everyone’s wearing jeans and feeling pretty relaxed. I guess the problem is that I just want to go home, but I have work to do. It’s not pressing work, but every hour I spend on it now is an hour that I don’t have to work this weekend.

Anyone have some motivation for me?

In other news, I actually left the office and got a sit-down lunch today. I think it’s the first time I’ve done that since starting work. I got pizza from Adrienne’s Pizza Bar in the Financial District. (The Financial District is now apparently being called the FiDi by some people who are cool. This is a terrible name for the area. First of all, it sounds like something that you connect to with your laptop for internet access. Second, the belief that neighborhoods have to have a “name” that is some sort of retarded abbreviation before they can catch on is so annoying. The area already has a name: “the Financial District”. It does not need an abbreviated one.)

Anyway, I believe I was talking about pizza. The pizza was extremely good. It is (at least in Michigan parlance) Greek pizza, meaning that it’s square and has a nice crisp, yet greasy, crust — otherwise known as square deep-dish pizza, according to the website of Buddy’s, the Detroit-area restaurant where I first discovered this culinary wonder. The prices are perhaps somewhat high (I think you pay more for a single pizza at Adrienne’s than you would at Grimaldi’s, although the pizza at A’s is more substantial and probably larger), but it’s good, unique pizza in New York, where it’s hard to find anything other than traditional Italian-style pizza.

Robert Moses, the master planner of New York, has long been regarded as a racist villan who destroyed local communities in his quest to build larger-than-life projects (among other things, Moses was responsible for Lincoln Center, the Tri-Borough Bridge, the Verazano Narrows Bridge, the Cross-Bronx Expressway, hundreds of public parks and swimming pools, and many other public works projects). His political power and disregard for opposing viewpoints is legendary.

However, his legacy seems to be getting a somewhat positive reevaluation, as three museums are hosting exhibitions dedicated to his work and historians are releasing a new book of essays about his legacy.

Two recent, interesting articles appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Times. Both articles are very interesting, particularly the one from the Times, which is much more indepth. It is instructive to see how development has progressed and how we got to where we are now. However, it seems to me that the Times is spinning the story in perhaps more of a positive light than it deserves.

But read about it, and judge for yourself. I know that Robert Caro’s biography of Moses is on my must-read list.

Hello, Readers! It’s Jannine posting here for the first time. Lest you be swayed by the chosen title into thinking that I am any kind of authority on Jay-Z and/or Eminem, let me explain what I was thinking. You see, I was very amused by Nathan’s comparing his eminent (or is it imminent?) return to the world of blogging to The Real Slim Shady. And, then I thought…well, why not? They’re both white (to put it ever so gently), hail from roughly the same area of that great state, Michigan, and share an uncanny ability to rhyme spontaneously (seriously, Nathan is one talented dude).

Next, my thoughts turned to those pervasive and somewhat irritating Budweiser commercials that played every 5-10 minutes in the first few months of the ‘06-07 NFL season. While I admire Jay-Z much more than your average classically trained musician, it got to be a bit much, seeing him drive a nice speedboat in circles around a beautifically waving Beyonce. But, perhaps one can admire even more the pure ego of a celebrity who is not only respected for his many talents, but admires himself so much that he declares at the end of said commercial, “The King is back. Expect…everything.” I mean, if that’s not a (dangerously) high self-esteem, I don’t know what is.

I then decided that if Nathan could compare himself to a Caucasian rapper whose real name is Marshall, I can certainly compare myself to one of the most successful businessmen in the hip hop industry. I’d say that my return to blogging is somewhat akin to that of Jay-Z’s unsurprising return to the recording studio. Except for the theft of Elvis’s nickname and, of course, a comeback commercial featuring breakdancers and NASCAR stars alike.

Got linked to this site called Phat Phree the other day — it is well worth your time to check out their “Hall of Fame“. It’s basically snarky, sarcastic, pretending-to-be-serious humor similar to The Onion.

I can particularly recommend “Look at my Striped Shirt!” and “Seriously, Get This Sweater Off Me”.

So kill a few minutes in your day. Thank me later.

As everyone knows, ninjas are awesome. And by awesome, I mean totally sweet. So if you like ninjas (and who doesn’t?), you can find all the ninjas you need — and more — in the film “Curse of the Golden Flower.”

Jannine, Angela, Zane and I watched this movie on Saturday night. There are other things to recommend this movie besides the abundance of ninjas, including as powerful acting by Gong Li and Chow Yun-Fat, amazing sets and costumes that explode with vibrant colors and dramatic battle scenes and sword fights that leave you on the edge of your seat.

But the ninjas, oh, the ninjas. There were lots of them, and they spent their time on screen flipping out and killing people. They outran horses, flew down from the sky, killed almost anyone who tangled with them, and then disappeared in a flash. I was highly entertained — so much so that I kept laughing, which I think distracted Jannine from the drama of the scenes. I’m not sure this was an appreciated distraction, either.

Anyway, on balance, it was a good movie. However, the plot was pretty cheesy and the ending was fairly depressing. But what a visual experience!

Last Friday, we finally had the first snow of the winter.  Pretty crazy that it took until January 19 to finally start acting like winter.  This whole weekend has been pretty cold and windy. 

Here’s a snapshot that I took on the way to work.  As you can see, it’s just a light dusting of snow.  Better than nothing, I suppose.

This is my second attempt at blogging.  My first blog, which has not been updated in 10 months or so, is going to be allowed to fade into ignomony and oblivion, which is probably the fate that it deserves.

Starting this site is somewhat more exciting than my last blog, on Blogger, since this is MY SITE. It makes me feel important in some marginal way to have my own website.

Of course, a large part of the point of having this website is to build a wedding website.  That is still a work in process.  And given that I’m spending all my waking hours at work, I’m not sure that is going to change anytime soon.

Maybe for this blog, I will am at posting less volume but greater consistency.  Or I will be diligent about it for awhile and then stop posting.  Something like that.