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 don’t like what we covered here, and 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 April 3, 2006, will be hosted by Suitably Flip …

Friends and Family

• opinionistas declares that “instead of examining Boomers and learning from their mistakes, we’re simply taking their soul-crumbling notions to the next level. More than half of them went through miserable, messy divorces and wound up bleeding emotional shells – well it must have been because they didn’t protect their future assets before they got married! That’s the key!” …
• Englishman in New York turned 30 … “The sun is shining. And life keeps getting better.” … Happy Birthday! …
• The Dawn Patrol reprints “An Open Letter to Michael Schiavo” …
  

  Free Speech

• Exit Zero has “Random notes on Sharia” …
• Eye Dream Awake has a video of Dr. Wafa Sultan worth watching and comments worth reading in a post titled “What Is Truly Offensive Is Not Free Speech” … (“Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose” in a NYT story) …
• Kesher Talk has a “Report on the London Anti-Toonophobia Rally” …
  

  Living in NYC

• gothamist reports that “Starting next week one of the biggest shifts in commuter rail in the past two decades will begin. In response to rider demand Metro-North, New Jersey Transit and the LIRR are all in the process of seriously upping their pre-dawn service.”
• NYC Stories says “Accept New York and ride the waves that it takes you on, and all will turn out well. Fight the tides of the city and your are fighting a battle you will not win.” …
• Bagel in Harlem says “Harlem is the first place in the city where I’ve ever known my neighbors’ names, but it’s also the first neighborhood where it’s been a struggle to find fresh produce” …
• Clublife reminisces about a chance meeting on the subway … and how things turned out 5 years later …
• Express Train says “Nothing makes the city seem smaller than when you run into a friend on a subway platform.” …
• dailyheights.com has a story about a livery driver who just doesn’t get it …
• Wonkster takes a quick look at NYC school’s gifted and talented program …
  

  Potpourri

• Asymmetrical Information‘s “most absurd belief? That ‘there are some things which are just plain wrong’” …
• Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars has the blues and writes that “The cruelty and eagerness of the young is less appealing with every passing year.” …
• lowercase L has a pic for “SMAll Coffee in Chelsea” …
• Terry Teachout‘s favorite museum is the Phillips Collection … which “has digitized its entire collection of American paintings” …
• WhatISee has a pic of a large Horseshoe Crab …
• clarified, after getting into a staring contest with a pigeon
  on her window ledge, got a ceramic owl
  to scare it away … but it scared her instead …

• New York Hack says “vindication tastes sweeter than revenge. And it pays better too.” …
• what about the plastic animals? has a pic of peeling paint … in case you have time left over after watching the paint dry …
• Young Manhattanite seems surprised that Baltimore is “The City That Reads…The Economist?” …
  

  blogs, blogging, and the Internet

• spinachdip nyc guest blogger the belligerent intellectual says “writing someone else’s blog is a lot harder than I thought it would be” …
• Yet another weird SF fan is “thinking of changing the name of this blog to ‘The Whiny Ex-Kid.’”
• Living the Scientific Life asks “How Much of You Does Your Blog Own?” …
• this is what we do now declares that “ChompChamp had the potential to be the greatest website of all time” …
  

  Help Wanted

• Alarming News has a recurring dream and wants help figuring out its meaning …
• untitlednamedotcom has a pic of a refrigerated trailer that someone forgot to unload …
  

  Politics and Media

• Ragged Thots says “blaming the ‘liberal attack machine’ for [ Ben Domenech’] sad tale is as ridiculous as, yes, a certain one-time First Lady blaming a ‘vast right-wing conspiracy.’” …
• Amy’s New York Notebook has the Headline of the day …
• People’s Cube says that “the new ‘must work for money’ rule, introduced by the French government, has precipitated huge street demonstrations in Paris, as student and labor leaders rise against the specter of capitalism, worried that its emphasis on hard work and personal responsibility will ruin their most cherished cultural values of government dependency.”
• Matzoh Cojones writes: “Given that an Arab serves on Israel’s highest court, and that Israeli Arabs write for Ha’aretz and the Jerusalem post, it would be very difficult for Washington Post blogger Jefferson Morley to find examples backing his assertion that Israeli Arabs ‘are largely invisible in the country’s media’”
  

  Huh?

• Greasy Guide says for $500 you can own your very own Ghostface Killah doll … who buys this stuff? …
• Tres Chicas says “No Beard Is a Good Beard … Unless you want to look like some hipster doofus, or a Civil War soldier, or Pericles” …
• Miscellaneous Objections has “some pictures of dogs dancing” …
• CityRag writes “Mike Walker of the National Enquirer reported that the Church of Scientology is looking at purchasing Neverland and making it a retreat for Scientologists!” …
• My Urban Kvetch wonders “why middle-aged men on the beaches of Tel Aviv think Speedos are a good idea” …
• Kesher Talk has “News from the Near Future: Yale to Award Honorary Degree to Sirhan Sirhan” …
  

  War, Peace, International Relations

• Daily Lunch writes that between 1980 and 2004 the deadliest year for active duty U.S. military deaths “was 1983, year of the Beirut terrorist bombing which killed 263 marines: 2,486 deaths total. The next deadliest was 1980, with 2,392 deaths. By comparison, 2004 saw 1,887 military deaths.” …
• Atlas Shrugs has an “Official Warning: DO NOT GO TO FRANCE” … with pics …
• Dave Friedman declares “Give me Shakespeare and beer and brie and wine. I don’t care about the rest of either Britain or France” …
  

  Singing, Dancing, and Acting

• Suitably Flip says Spiderman is decamping … “Our friendly neighborhood Spiderman is trading in the city that never sleeps for the city… wait, let me look this one up… for the ‘forest city’.” …
• Ace of Spades says “the actual interest in zombie movies is all about personal interactions and group politics in extreme situations” … and asks, “Is there a big overlap between musical lovers and Tolkein geeks?” …
• Daily Refill says “movable hype 7.0 @ the knitting factory (main space), april 17th, bands start at 8:30pm” …
• Nonsense Verse “went dancing for the first time in about six months, and I felt completely out of my skin, outside the music, and out of my element in general” …
• NewYorkology reports that “Liev Schreiber, F. Murray Abraham, John Turturro and Marcia Gay Harden are among the celebrities signed up to take part in the free Shakespeare Birthday Marathon scheduled for Sunday, April 23” …
• dry2olives reminds us that “When it comes to musically defining the spirit of New York City, few composers can match the contributions of George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein.” …
  

  Food and Drink

• Dead Programmer’s Cafe dipped Ukrainian Sushi (salo) in chocolate: “The flavor is outstanding” …
• Yanksfan vs. Soxfan reports that “Yankee outfielder Gary Sheffield’s endorsement deal with Burger King was terminated yesterday after Sheffield was seen violating the terms of his contract. Sheffield was spotted outside a North Tampa Golden Arches, sitting on the driver side of his SUV with a Big Mac in his left hand, a full ‘Super Value Meal #2’ on the leather seat to his right.”
• 10,000 Birds says “Seed-eaters are easier to identify than meat-eaters” …
• Slice Pizza Club will have its annual Coney Island field trip on Sunday, April 9, 2006 …
• Slashfood reports that “Robert Tomey, a McDonald’s franchisee owner, has put his leftover french fry grease to a good use: fueling his car.” … Grease Car …
• A Guy In New York had his weekly roundup of NYC restaurant reviews …
• WhiteTrashBBQ reports that Purple Turtle Catering won the Grillin’ on the Bay BBQ contest …

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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 …
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