Take survey, win something

November 21st, 2008

Take our survey -- don't worry, it's not the SAT, or even the FCAT, just questions about how you found out about Miami.com, what you you like best/least about us, yadda yadda -- and you could win a $100 gift certificate to Circuit City! Just kidding. It's for Best Buy. That's like a third of a Sirius Stiletto 2, two Wii video games or six copies of Beyonce's new CD. Or, you could just re-gift. Really, it's okay, you won't break our feelings.

-- miaeditor

R.I.P. Cup Holder

November 18th, 2008

I'll miss you. My beverages will miss you. And blue bunny will miss you.

In case you were worried, she's not mad that you fell on top of her when you careened to your death (suicide?). She loved sitting in the vacant hole (perhaps it reminded of the one she grew up in?), my floppy-eared co-captain on this road called life. Wherever you are, I hope you're happy, reminiscing about the good times with Side Mirror Adjuster and Driver's Seat Door Handle. You could always hold the biggest Big Gulp, the warmest Starbucks pumpkin spice latte, the sweatiest Damiani water bottle, without spilling a drop (except for that one time I pulled the top off my smoothie and it sprayed everywhere -- but that was totally my fault).

And for that, I raise my cup -- and then put it in my lap because, well, now I don't have an f-ing cup holder.

-- miaeditor

Prose, not hoes

November 14th, 2008

5 reasons why you should go to the book fair this weekend instead of cry about not getting into the Victoria's Secret fashion show at the Fontainebleau.

1. There's no way you're getting a ticket. Not even the gazillion dollar invitation guaranteed that when you actually went to pick up your ticket, thanks to a giant PR clusterf**ck, you would get one. In other words, why go to a party where the host doesn't really want you there in the first place?

2. You can take home what you see. While you don't have enough money for that VS supermodel, or the diamond-encrusted bra she's flaunting, books are affordable and actually tell interesting stories.

3. You won't feel fat and unattractive. Wear running shoes, don't even bother putting on makeup, eat as much as you want. Which leads to the next reason...

4. No falafel.

5. The book fair has been around as long as the average VS model, but unlike the average VS model, it keeps getting better every year.

-- miaeditor

WIN COLDPLAY TIX!

November 5th, 2008

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED

If you're like me, you've got a bone to pick with Ticketmaster. "Convenience" charges (which aren't waived if you physically go to the box office, fyi)? And for each ticket? Is it really so much harder to stuff two into an envelope instead of one? Point is, even before economical hard times, I stopped going to concerts unless a) Ticketmaster wasn't involved, b) I would kick myself really hard for the rest of my life if I didn't see X band/musician or c) I get to go for free.

If you'll kick yourself if you don't go to this Sunday's Coldplay concert at the BankAtlantic Center, but don't want to sell your plasma for tix, Miami.com and BankAtlantic (did you know they're open 7 days a week?) might have a solution. All you have to do is tune into The Link tomorrow (that would be Thursday), during which Toni and J.R. will ask a Coldplay trivia question. Email editor@miami.com with the answer, along with your name, age, email address and phone number -- if you're one of the first six to reply, you've got yourself two tix.

And these aren't vertigo-inducing, I-can-see-bats-in-the-rafters-from-here tix. These are tix for the Miami.com/BankAtlantic SUITE. Cushy seats, line-free booze ordering and no jack-arse in front of you thinking everyone would rather hear his version of "Yellow." Instead, you'll be surrounded by your fellow uber-cool Miami.com users.

I'm pretty sure even Apple would agree these are good seats. Though I guess Gwenyth's lap is pretty nice, too.

-- miaeditor

Vote Today!

November 4th, 2008

So I voted already. Judy Blume made me do it.

Fired up for this election, the children's author decided to speak at various locations around Miami on the importance of voting. I really just went to see her because her books made getting through adolescence a whole lot easier [insert Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? joke here]. I didn't know she was going to scare me into voting early - car accident that puts me in a 24-hour coma, my name mysteriously not on my precinct's list, time warp. So last week I stood in line for an hour and 45 minutes in the freezing cold (ok, it was in the upper '60s, but that's the story I'm telling my grandchildren and you can't stop me) to cast it. On a paper ballot, which totally freaked me out. I'm a fan of computer-style, now more than ever, as I didn't get so much as a receipt at the end telling me who I voted for. Just a "scan successful" screenshot. Flashbacks to grade school scantron tests, arguing with my teacher that the scanner must have made a mistake because there's no way I got a 45 percent.

Anyhoo, if you haven't voted already, get out there today and do it, and because there's a chance you're waiting in line for awhile, I've provided you a humorous essay not written by me. Enjoy.

New Yorker, October 27, 2008
By David Sedaris

I don't know that it was always this way, but, for as long as I can remember, just as we move into the final weeks of the Presidential campaign the focus shifts to the undecided voters. "Who are they?" the news anchors ask. "And how might they determine the outcome of this election?"

Then you'll see this man or woman- someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. "Well, Charlie," they say, "I've gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can't seem to make up my mind!" Some insist that there's very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they're with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.

I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of s**t with bits of broken glass in it?"

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

I mean, really, what's to be confused about?

When doubting that anyone could not know whom they're voting for, I inevitably think back to November, 1968. Hubert Humphrey was running against Richard Nixon, and when my mother couldn't choose between them she had me do it for her. It was crazy. One minute I was eating potato chips in front of the TV, and the next I was at the fire station, waiting with people whose kids I went to school with. When it was our turn, we were led by a woman wearing a sash to one of a half-dozen booths, the curtain of which closed after we entered.

"Go ahead," my mother said. "Flick a switch, any switch."

I looked at the panel in front of me.

"Start on the judges or whatever and we'll be here all day, so just pick a President and make it fast. We've wasted enough time already."

"Which one do you think is best?" I asked.

"I don't have an opinion," she told me. "That's why I'm letting you do it. Come on, now, vote."

I put my finger on Hubert Humphrey and then on Richard Nixon, neither of whom meant anything to me. What I most liked about democracy, at least so far, was the booth-its quiet civility, its atmosphere of importance. "Hmm," I said, wondering how long we could stay before someone came and kicked us out.

Ideally, my mother would have waited outside, but, as she said, there was no way an unescorted eleven-year-old would be allowed to vote, or even hang out, seeing as the lines were long and the polls were open for only one day. "Will you please hurry it up?" she hissed.

"Wouldn't it be nice to have something like this in our living room?" I asked. "Maybe we could use the same curtains we have on the windows."

"All right, that's it." My mother reached for Humphrey but I beat her to it, and cast our vote for Richard Nixon, who had the same last name as a man at our church. I assumed that the two were related, and only discovered afterward that I was wrong. Richard Nixon had always been Nixon, while the man at my church had shortened his name from something funnier but considerably less poster-friendly-Nickapopapopolis, maybe.

"Oh, well," I said.

We drove back home, and when asked by my father whom she had voted for, my mother said that it was none of his business.

"What do you mean, 'none of my business'?" he said. "I told you to vote Republican."

"Well, maybe I did and maybe I didn't."

"You're not telling me you voted for Humphrey." He said this as if she had marched through the streets with a pan on her head.

"No," she said. "I'm not telling you that. I'm not telling you anything. It's private-all right? My political opinions are none of your concern."

"What political opinions?" he said. "I'm the one who took you down to register. You didn't even know there was an election until I told you."

"Well, thanks for telling me."

She turned to open a can of mushroom soup. This would be poured over pork chops and noodles and served as our dinner, casserole style. Once we'd taken our seats at the table, my parents would stop fighting directly, and continue their argument through my sisters and me. Lisa might tell a story about her day at school and, if my father said it was interesting, my mother would laugh.

"What's so funny?" he'd say.

"Nothing. It's just that, well, I suppose everyone has a different standard. That's all."

When told by my father that I was holding my fork wrong, my mother would say that I was holding it right, or right in "certain circles."

"We don't know how people eat the world over," she'd say, not to him but to the buffet or the picture window, as if the statement had nothing to do with any of us.

I wasn't looking forward to that kind of evening, and so I told my father that I had voted.

"She let me," I said. "And I picked Nixon."

"Well, at least someone in the family has some brains." He patted me on the shoulder and as my mother turned away I understood that I had chosen the wrong person.

I didn't vote again until 1976, when I was nineteen and legally registered. Because I was at college out of state, I sent my ballot through the mail. The choice that year was between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Most of my friends were going for Carter, but, as an art major, I identified myself as a maverick. "That means an original," I told my roommate. "Someone who lets the chips fall where they may." Because I made my own rules and didn't give a damn what anyone else thought of them, I decided to write in the name of Jerry Brown, who, it was rumored, liked to smoke pot. This was an issue very close to my heart-too close, obviously, as it amounted to a complete waste. Still, though, it taught me a valuable lesson: calling yourself a maverick is a sure sign that you're not one.

I wonder if, in the end, the undecideds aren't the biggest pessimists of all. Here they could order the airline chicken, but, then again, hmm. "Isn't that adding an extra step?" they ask themselves. "If it's all going to be chewed up and swallowed, why not cut to the chase, and go with the platter of s**t?"

Ah, though, that's where the broken glass comes in.

FREE TICKETS!

October 28th, 2008

I admit - I'm not a big fan of anime. Not that I hate it or anything, it just seems like the kind of thing you either get into 100 percent or don't bother at all. Like WOW (that's World of Warcraft, for all you people with lives) or Star Wars convention groupie, there's no dabbling in Japanese cartoons, which I stopped paying attention to after Speed Racer (the TV show, not the movie).

That said, there are people out there who love them some anime. And for those people, Miami.com is giving away tickets to this weekend's Anime Supercon at the Downtown Miami Hilton. Come in costume (or not) and meet celebs like Oscar nominee Chris Sarandon (star of The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Princess Bride, Kingdom Hearts and Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind), voice actors from Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Naruto, Robotech, the Halo video games and more.

I don't know who any of those people are, but if you do, I bet you're pretty excited right about now and want to know how you can score free tix. All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog entry telling us what your best, worst or cheapest Halloween costume ever was. Whether you shelled out big bucks for an authentic pirate outfit - pegleg and all - or tied a bunch of multi-cultural babies to yourself and went as Angelina Jolie, we want to hear about it.

This event promises to be better than a Dragon Ball Z marathon.

Whatever that is.

-- miaeditor

CONTEST!

October 22nd, 2008

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED, I'M OFF TO START MY WEEKEND. CONGRATS TO OUR WINNERS! YOU'LL BE RECEIVING YOUR EVITE SHORTLY:

reefgoddess
SC5
STONNYRAMM
Joseph Q86
cleolettry
gsabrin22
srliss1

Whenever I hear the term "masquerade ball," I immediately picture that scene in Eyes Wide Shut where Tom Cruise goes to that Gatsby-esque Skull & Bones party and everyone wears a mask and gets their orgy on.

I can't guarantee Miami.com's Halloween Masquerade Ball on Thursday, October 30, at Casa Casuarina is going to turn into a swinger's club, but I can guarantee Tom Cruise won't be there. So that's a plus. I can also guarantee there will be complimentary cocktails, and you don't even have to wear a costume, as we'll provide you with a snazzy mask. And since it's at the mansion formerly known as Versace, you'll feel tres classy.

So, how do you get into such an exclusive partay? Easy: Start reviewing stuff. The users who leave the most reviews from now until Friday get themselves and a guest on the oh-so exclusive list. And I'm not just saying "exclusive" because I want you to feel special (not that you aren't). We can really only invite a certain number of people. So get on Miami.com, leave some reviews - you eat, party, leave your house every few days or so, right? - and in a few days you could get an invitation to our ball. That's right, it's a straight-up BALL.

Sure beats hanging out with Tom Cruise.

-- miaeditor

Holla if you love Halloween

October 17th, 2008

In the, um, spirit, of Halloween, all my blog posts from now until Oct. 30 will, in some way or another, celebrate the holiday that lets me do two of my favorite things -- eat chocolate and wear sequins without scrutiny. But since it's Friday and I don't really feel like thinking all that much (except about the drinking I'll be doing later), I'd like to share with you an exerpt from one of my favorite essays: "The Littlest Hitler" by Ryan Boudinot:

My school had discouraged trick-or-treating since the razor blade and thumbtack incidents of 1982. Instead, they held a Harvest Carnival, not officially called "Halloween" so as not to upset the churchy types. Everyone at school knew the carnival was for wimps. All week before Halloween the kids had been separating themselves into two camps, those who got to go trick-or-treating, and those who didn't. My dad was going to take me to the carnival, since I, like everybody else, secretly wanted to go. Then we'd go trick-or-treating afterward.

There were problems with my costume as soon as I got on the bus that morning. "Heil Hitlah!" a couple of big kids in the back chanted until Mrs. Reese pulled over to reprimand them. We knew it was serious when she pulled over, being that the last pulling-over incident occurred when Carl Worthington cut off one of Ginger Lopez's pigtails with a pair of scissors stolen from the library.

"That isn't polite language appropriate for riding the bus!" Mrs. Reese said. "Do you talk like that around the dinner table? I want you both in the front seats and as soon as we get to school I'm marching you to Mr. Warneke's office."

"But I didn't do anything!"

I felt somewhat vindicated but guilty at the same time for causing this ruckus. Everybody was looking at me with these grim expressions. It's important, I suppose, to note that there wasn't a single Jewish person on the bus. Or in our school, for that matter. In fact, there was only one Jewish family in our town, the Friedlanders, and their kids didn't go to West Century Elementary because they were home-schooled freaks.

When I got to school Mrs. Thompson considered me for a moment in the doorway and seemed torn, both amused and disturbed at the implications of a fourth-grade Hitler. When she called roll I stood up sharply from my desk, did the Sieg Heil salute I'd been practicing in front of the TV, and shouted, "Here!" Some people laughed.

After roll was taken we took out our spelling books, but Mrs. Thompson had other ideas. "Some of you might have noticed we have a historical figure in our class today. While the rest of you dressed up as goblins and fairies and witches, it looks like Davy is the only one who chose to come as a real-life person."

"I'm a real-life person, too, Mrs. Thompson."

"And who would you be, Lisette?"

"I'm Anne Frank."

Mrs. Thompson put a hand to her lips. Clearly she didn't know how to handle this. I'd never paid much attention to Lisette before. She'd always been one of the smart, pretty girls who everyone likes. When I saw her rise from her desk with a lopsided Star of David made of yellow construction paper pinned to her Austrian-looking frock or whatever you call it, I felt the heat of her nine-year-old loathing pounding me in the face.

"This is quite interesting," Mrs. Thompson said, "being that you both came as figures from World War II. Maybe you can educate us about what you did. Davy, if you could tell us what you know about Hitler."

I cleared my throat. "He was a really, really mean guy."

"What made him so mean?"

"Well, he made a war and killed a bunch of people and made everybody think like him. He only ate vegetables and his wife was his niece. He kept his blood in jars. Somebody tried to kill him with a suitcase and then he took some poison and died."

"What people did he kill?"

"Everybody. He didn't like Jesse Owens because he was Afro-American."

"Yes, but mostly what kind of people did he have problems with?"

"He killed all the Jews."

"Not all Jews, fortunately, but millions of them. Including Anne Frank."

The classroom was riveted. I didn't know whether I was in trouble or what. Lisette smirked at me when Mrs. Thompson said her character's name, then walked to the front of the class to tell us about her.

"Anne Frank lived in Holland during World War II. And when the Nazis invaded she lived in someone's attic with her family and some other people. She wrote in her diary every day and liked movie stars. She wanted to grow up to write stories for a newspaper, but the Nazis got her and her family and made them go to a concentration camp and killed them. A concentration camp is a place where they burn people in ovens. Then somebody found her diary and everybody liked it."

When Lisette was done everybody clapped. George Ford, who sat in front of me and was dressed as Mr. T, turned around, lowered his eyes, and shook his fist at me. "I pity the foo who kills all the Jews."

Recess was a nightmare.

I was followed around the playground by Lisette's friends, who were playing horse with a jump rope, berating me for Anne Frank's death.

"How would you like it if you had to live in an attic and pee in a bucket and couldn't walk around or talk all day and didn't have much food to eat?"

It didn't take long for them to make me cry. The rule about recess was you couldn't go back into the building until the bell, so I had to wait before I could get out of my costume. I got knots in my stomach thinking about the parade at the end of the day. Everybody else seemed so happy in their costumes. And then Lisette started passing around a piece of notebook paper that said "We're on Anne Frank's Side" and all these people signed it. When my friend Charlie got the paper he tore it up and said to the girls, "Leave Davy alone! He just wanted to be a scary bad guy for Halloween and he didn't really kill anybody!"

From the book, THE LITTLEST HITLER: Stories, by Ryan Boudinot; Copyright (c) 2006. Reprinted by arrangement with Counterpoint, a member of the Perseus Books Group, New York. All rights reserved.

Play Ball!

October 14th, 2008

Things I've learned about while watching baseball playoffs:

Erectile Dysfunction
It's rampant, apparently, among the baseball-watching demographic. I saw so many Little Blue Pill (apparently the "V" word is banned from this site) commercials I now know all the words to the theme song ("Viva V-word!"), which has been stuck in my head for going on five days. I also now know the difference between the LBP and Cee-alis (the former is taken on an "as needed" basis, the latter every day), that ED doesn't discriminate based on age or race and that sitting in two separate claw-foot bathtubs on a beach is good foreplay. Questions these commercials didn't answer for me, though: are men actually aroused when they take it, or does it just deal with the mechanics? If so, does that mean their lady friends don't ever have to invest in another pair of impractical underwear? Why would anyone want an erection for three hours? How did they get those bathtubs onto the beach?

He's Not Fat, He's Just a Home Run Hitter
Okay, you're a linebacker and therefore a human wall/demolition ball for a living - ergo, you hover somewhere around 300 pounds. Sumo wrestler? Gotcha. But baseball player? When I was in high school and college, all the girls wanted to date the baseball players - they weren't as "jockey" as the football players and not as freakishly disproportionate to you as basketball players. They were in shape, but never couldn't go to dinner because they had to "go lift" for four hours. But forget 'roids, pro baseball players have a bigger - pun intended - problem on their hands: lard. "It doesn't matter how fat they are if they can hit a homerun" isn't a good enough reason to be tubby. If you look like that guy on The King of Queens, you should not be able to be called an "athlete."

Facial Hair Travesties
I admit, the mustache thing the Yankees did was cute. Kitschy. But what's up with the random circular chin patch? It's not a "soul patch," which is tiny and located between the lip and chin, and it's definitely not a goatee. It looks like an unshaven female body part that I can't mention here without being vulgar. My theory is these overpaid athletes' girlfriends aren't telling them their chin looks like an unshaven female body part out of fear they'll be dumped and unable to afford their LV handbags anymore. It's the only possible explanation.

There's No Accessories in Baseball
Or shouldn't be, rather. Just as being a tub-o-lard should strip one of the "athlete" label, so should accessories. Simple gold chain that abulea gave you before you defected, fine. That's classy. Giant woven rope around your neck that looks like a Girl Scout arts and crafts project gone horribly wrong? Not so much. Josh Beckett, Asian Red Sox pitcher(s), I'm talking to you. Only surfers are allowed to wear rope around their necks - and even then there has to be a shark's tooth attached to it. And while we're discussing accessories, dress belts? Really? What kind of sports uniform requires a dress belt? Golfers wear dress belts (no offense, dad). Fishermen wear dress belts. But baseball players? What's wrong with good old elastic? Or at least something sporty made of nylon and plastic?

These are the topics I have brought up every night, much to my beaux's annoyance I'm sure, since the playoffs started, and that I will continue to bring up until this whole thing is over sometime in 2012. Go Sox!

-- miaeditor

TICKET GIVEAWAY!

October 14th, 2008

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED

If you've bought tickets to a concert lately through Ticketmaster, you know that a $20 ticket ends up being the price of a Bentley. Shame on you, Ticketmaster. We thought you were our friend. Know who really IS your friend? Well, us, of course, but also the Rhythm Foundation. They're the organization that brings us obscure (at least to Americans) bands/musicians from some country you've probably never been to and makes you fall in love with them and buy every one of their CDs and then have a party just so you can play all those CDs and then your friends are all, "I love this band, who is it?" And you're all, oh, what, you didn't go to their concert here last week?

We don't want you to be "that guy" this time, which is why we're giving away 4 pairs of tickets to tonight's Bajofondo concert at The Fillmore Jackie Gleason Theater on South Beach. Who's that, might you ask (Bajofondo, not Jackie Gleason)? Well, it's an eclectic group of musicians that are a little bit tango, a little bit club and dub. They're also artists, so expect a visually spectacular show. All you've got to do is leave a comment on this blog entry that says, "Bring on Bajofondo!" and we'll leave two tickets for you at will call. Contest ends at 2 p.m., so stop doing that TPS report for a minute and get you some free tix.

-- miaeditor