Welcome to the Big Apple Blog Festival (BABF), a representative roundup of this week’s posts by NYC bloggers.
The Big Apple Blog Festival likes to go on tour … if you have a NYC blog or you blog about NYC and would like to host an upcoming BABF, let us know … The next BABF, on January 9, 2006, will be hosted by A Guy In New York … Last week’s Big Apple Blog Festival was hosted by NYC Stories …

Food

• My Life With Garlic is putting together a “Best Of list” for hot chocolate … we wonder if she’ll rename the blog “My Life With Hot Chocolate” …
• A Brooklyn Life created a “cilantro-jalapeno pesto worthy of our classic Osterizer blender” … looks pretty good to us …
• A Guy In New York has his weekly roundup of restaurant reviews … “This Week in NYC Reviews” …
  

  Shelter

• Clareified says that if there is a transit strike, “I’ll just stay with the Mayor in his mansion” …
• Lengths of comfy verdure recommends Batherapy … “i take a batherapy bath first thing when i get home every day these days. there was a natural hot spring near rome, in the olden days, in which the “lunatics” bathed, which calmed them. it has been tested in modern times and was discovered to contain lithium. try it. you’ll like it. i gay-run-tee.” …
  

  International

• Forgotten NY added a new page on the “remaining Avenue of the Americas medallions and just a little about the countries whose coats of arms they depict.” …
• The People’s Cube has an email exchange that “started when a student from Communist China currently living in Japan bought an anti-Che T-shirt ‘My American Revolutionary Kicked Your Commie Revolutionary’s Ass’ from Che-Mart” …
  

  Technology

• elvira black says that “bloggers who never answer anyone’s comments turn me off so much that I often never visit them again” … hmmm, THAT shoe fits …
• mister snitch! links to a site where you can build an online snowman ..
• The Tin Man asks “Exactly how long does it take to port a cell phone number from one carrier to another?” … in our experience, which includes porting 6 separate numbers from AT&T to Verizon, about 5 days …
• Eye Dream Awake has an “Update On $100 Laptop” …
• The Politburo Diktat recommends blogrescue.com …
  

  News

• gothamist has an “Obligatory Braunstein Wrap-Up” …
  

  Transportation

• NewYorkology is keeping an eye on the transit talks …
• The Wonkster is “Reading the Tea Leaves of a Transit Strike” …
• New York Hack gave a fare from Chicago a “Welcome to New York” he’ll remember …
• New York’s Sixth is impressed by the new Interactive Transit Map even if you “tell it you want to go from City Hall [New York] to Grove Street [Jersey City] and it sends you up the R/W line to 33rd Street” …
• NYC Metblog “spent most of Thursday evening sitting in a bar with some of my close friends, drinking way too much whiskey and watching NY1 (with the volume turned down of course) to figure out if I could take the train back home or if I had to fighting someone for a taxi.” …
• Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars has pics and a link to the 4 new motorcycle stamps being introduced in August, 2006 … we’re getting those …
• Quixotic Optimism suggests that to make riding trains more pleasant “maybe they could create a ‘child’ car where wayward brats could with chocolate-smeared cheeks ‘gimmiegimmiegimmie’ their corpulent moms and dads for the duration of their ride without thrusting otherwise sane passengers beyond the brink of psychosis and forcing us to fire death-ray glances over the tops of the books and memos we’re trying desperately to concentrate on.” … that is certainly quixotic and optimistic …
  

  Holidays

• CityRag, for “the seventh day of Dog-mas brings to you – Mach 7 Airspeed” …
• The Daily Dump has a tradition: “Regardless of the fact that my apartment is the size of a newsstand, every year I buy a Christmas tree the size of a hatchback” … pics of tree and ornaments taken with his new awesome digital camera …
• Letters from NYC warns: “Beware of Amazon and etoys failure to deliver goods as promised” …
• Brain Terminal has “Christmas Tips for Parents” …
• Joey McKeown is “looking for a Christmas gift for my goddaughter. Maybe I should get her something her father can use. I’m cracking up just thinking about it.” … click the link in the post if you like warm beer …
• greg.org has links to limited artist-edition wrapping paper … definitely not Sally Foster …
  

  Humor

• mister snitch! has a good joke demonstrating “How religion adapts to the world.” … and read the comments …
  

  Op-Ed

• The Daily Gotham opines that “MTA Disrespects Us All, Governor Dodges Accountability” …
• Exit Zero believes “The concept of defending free speech to the death has faded a bit over the years” …
• NYC Right weighs in on immigration, “a topic that looms large over the American psyche these days” …
• Yet Another Weird SF Fan warns that “Avoidance of loopholes can also have unpleasant results” …
• mister snitch! just wants “to be a rebel, like everyone else” … noting that NJ Governor-elect Jon Corzine, “after naming Menendez to assume his Senate seat, vowed to continue the fight against the evildoers in Washington, as if it were the source of Jersey’s high taxes, corporate flight, and political corruption.” …
• BuzzMachine says “we are reentering an age of leadership by the very rich: Bloomberg of New York, Corzine of New Jersey, Bush of the White House, Gates and Bono for charity” …
• Jewschool says that “now that it’s been covered in The New York Times, the whole ‘Cool Jew’ trend/movement/phenomenon is now officially OVER.” …
• Ragged Thots on Stanley Tookie Williams: “Given 26 years of trials and appeals after the murder of four people at two convenience store robberies, this seems like a fair process.” … while Da Greasy Guide links to a video with a different view …
  

  Living in NYC

• New York Brain Terrain says Chicago is “like New York without all the rude and angry people” … check out New York Brain Terrain regularly for lots of interesting things to do in NYC …
• Slant Point says “Don’t ever – ever – let anyone tell you different. New York has some of the most generous people around.” …
• Englishman in New York wants advice on how much to tip delivery guys …
• and Downtown Lad also needs tipping advice: “How much do you tip your doorman?” … easy for us: we don’t have a doorman …
• Blog Chelsea has a “Florist Recommendation” …
• Stay Free links to “Rejection Line, a phone number … that you can give out to people who hit on you, to get them to go away (212-479-7990)” …
• Homeschooling in New York City “finally figured out what I want to say to folks who constantly ask me why we homeschool.” …
  

  Work

• The Assimilated Negro posts “a segment from the instructional ‘How To Be A Psychic’ manual” which he got when he did “a short stint as a psychic for the Miss Cleo network.” …
• opinionistas reminds some folks who used to practice law in big firms why they’re glad they no longer do …
• copyranter says “forehead ads are all the rage. But, let’s look into the not-too-distance future“… and looks to the future: “Busted? 555-CROW (on Cops’ foreheads)” …
• Asymmetrical Information says “The world doesn’t really need more journalists; people already have more writing than they can (or will) read.” …
  

  Photoblogs

• WhatISee has pics of a “Snow Boogie” …
• Express Train captures how some feel about riding the subway … “R Train, 4th ave, 8:14am” …
• untitlednamedotcom has pics of “Clogged Drains [at] Seaview Hospital. Staten Island, New York” …
• The Bronx has a pic of angelic love …
• Late Final notes that Michele Catalano’s “new photo blog, Scriberoptics, is now open” …
• joe’s nyc has an interesting pic of a partially bald guy in a barbershop …
• Theater of My Mind has pic: “The new building in Long Island City is looking great looming over the 7 train to Queens” …
  

  Sports

• Steve Silver writes “Judge Quarterbacks Not By the Color of Their Skin, But By The Content of Their Game” … yeah …
• even though baseball season is over, the baseball blogs are still going strong … Mets Geek … MetsBlog.com … Yanksfan vs. Soxfan … Amazin Avenue: A New York Mets Blog … we thought these were the boys of summer? …
  

  Singing, Dancing, and ACTING!

• Downtown Dancer found a “Chanukah ‘Nutcracker’” …
• Night After Night gives “kudos to tenor Raúl Melo for hanging tough tonight in front of a crowd primed for the Second Coming” in Rigoletto at the Met on December 13 … and says An American Tragedy “a seriously effective piece of music theater, and more surprisingly one in which both operatic neophytes and sophisticates will find much to enjoy” …
• Cafe Aman “walked away from the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s ‘An American Tragedy’ quite disappointed.” …
• An Unamplified Voice saw An American Tragedy at the Met twice and it was “pretty full on both occasions, but I now wonder how much of it was paper” … (as in “papering the house“) …
• Dave Friedman’s Soul of Wit says Madonna is a transvestite … that explains a LOT …
• Kesher Talk, in “Spinning Munich Into Gold“, says, “Not content merely with having former Ambassador Dennis Ross in his pocket to provide diplomatic soothing for his new film, Spielberg has now hired Eyal Arad, one of Ariel Sharon’s spin doctors strategists, to market ‘Munich’ to Israel” …
• The Dooryard liked King Kong … “If you had told me I’d see an incredible love story in the theaters this month, I’d have bet it would have involved two gay cowboys. Instead, last night I was emotionally moved by the love affair of a 25-foot ape and a blonde chick” …
• Cinema Strikes Back gave 4 stars to King Kong in his review “King Kong: PJ does it again” … with pics …
  

  Animals

• Daily Refill has pic and post about Fabien Cousteau’s shark-shaped submarine … very cool …
• 10,000 Birds has “a description of our pilgrimage to the Pelham Bay Park parrots, one of the millions of little known wonders of NYC” … with a pic … 10,000 Birds is new to the BABF and is highly recommended …
• Living the Scientific Life has a nice bird news roundup, with pics … “Birds in the News #39” …
• Cake Or Death? found it difficult to blog last week due to lack of heat at home and lots of work … at work! … so “As a gesture of goodwill, I turn to my staple … penguins” …
  

  Parties

• Da Greasy Guide says “If you missed the Laces NYC party last night, you missed a good time.” …
• Clublife loves working private parties … “private affairs are decidedly my favorite worknights at any of the clubs at which I’ve been employed. You’re paid your usual bouncer shift rate to spend the balance of the evening doing absolutely jack shit. You’re simply a greeter, and that’s the entire extent of your involvement.” … but he wasn’t invited to his own club’s private Christmas party, which he worked … what a screwed up business …
• The Urban Grind has a “Blogger Party Recap” … we’re sorry we missed it … Suitably Flip also has a recap of the blogger party … and Red Guy in a Blue State has a few pics …
  

  Nostalgia

• Third Avenue reminds us that “Golden Ages only ever exist in the past. In 2055 I have absolutely no doubt that people will be bemoaning the Golden Age of the first decade of the century.” …
  

  Money – Swiss

• Towleroad has link and pics … “A new set of Swiss banknotes features one bearing an image of our solar system on one side, and an image of the AIDS virus on the other” …
  

  Dreams

• Dead Programmer’s Cafe had a dream … “The whole thing ended badly – alarms sounded, I left, but did not rat out Xenu’s grave robber. Later, they accused my of stealing Xenu’s toe.” … and has #30 in “100 Views of the Empire State Building” …
• tres chicas had a much stranger dream … “We were in Houston and, miraculously, the city had a full-fledged subway system” …

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The Big Apple Blog Festival is listed on the ÜberCarnival page and in Carnival News.
To nominate your favorite blog post about NYC, or if you have a NYC blog and want to see something in the next BABF … or you have a NYC-related blog and would like to host an upcoming BABF … send us a short write up and a permalink to aguyinnewyork [at] gmail.com … or use the Carnival Submit Form … see you next week …
You are free to repost the Big Apple Blog Festival so long as you leave this URL attached: BigAppleBlogFestival.com.
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