Thursday night with the B Street Band at Trump Marina followed by Borgata Gypsy Bar.

Arielle became a bat mitzvah on August 4, 2007. She did such an awesome job she completely blew us all way! And she looked GORGEOUS! Mazel Tov Arielle! We love you!

Happy Birthday to all the Cancers out there. I celebrated at McGillan's for karaoke with some fellow Cancerian coworkers (Renee and Sean). Click on the links for footage of
Sean (Snoop Dog) and Bill's (Hall and Oates) karaoke performances. Then I celebrated again at the Pier at Caesar's in Atlantic City with my good buddies Jodi and Ellen and some new friends we made at Game On ;)

Arielle, Heather, and Cyndi cooling off at the beach in Margate.

So we decided to hit the new pier mall at Caesar's in Atantic City. Marci arranged a van service so none of us had to worry about driving. Thanks Marci! Rick, the driver, showed up at Melbourne and Atlantic at about 9:15pm, and about nine of us piled into his white van. There was a little confusion with these other guys headed to AC trying to snag our van, but we set them straight and kicked them out! Equipped with our road sodas supplied by Brad (thanks Brad!), we headed to AC. Upon arrival, we checked out the sports bar, Game On, but ultimately settled on the bar at the Continental. It is a pretty cool layout - kind of reminded me of the Continental in Old City. The cocktails started flowing, and it was good times. I took a few photos which are posted here (click on the picture to the left of the three hot chicks ;), but some did not come out all that well, and some of the group is missing. I'll do better next time - must have been those two purple hooters followed by the two espresso martinis hampering my keen photography skills. I will say the espresso martini is my new favorite drink (thanks Ellen for turning me on to it!). At the Continental, we ran into the infamous D.Waxman and his cute little intern sidekick. Then we hit the casino for a bit which was all gross and smokey so we left and went to an Irish Bar for some food and a beer. I ever so gracefully dumped a dollop of marinara sauce that accompanied the calamari we ordered on my chest -- sure that will come out, yeah right. Somewhere in between I turned into the Tasmanian Devil repeatedly belting out "Welcome to Bamberger's" in a deep manly voice in memory of Phil Hartman. It was frightening to some while quite entertaining to Ellen, me, and some others. In fact, Ellen and I were laughing so hard we may have tinkled in our panties just a little. Driver Rick retrieved us close to 3am I guess at which time the McRick Muffin was born to Ellen and Marci who were evidently jonesing for a breakfast sandwich. The McRick reached new heights back at Melbourne and Atlantic where it morphed into the Shrimp McRick, Crab McRick, and possible other varieties that included a special sauce with pinky toe blister juice as the secret ingredient, available with or without cheese. Yummy!

Cyndi's birthday celebration at my parent's house with the whole mishpucha, even the little Cohen Jr. My dad is not in any of the pictures though - was there a Phillies game on or something?

Here are some pics from a short weekend visit to NYC on 4/21/2007. Jodi was nice enough to let us stay with her at her apartment on the Upper West Side, though she did not want to pose for any photos. She let us sleep in her bed and made us coconut green tea and oatmeal which was very nice of her. Thank you Jodi. I got to see Sima and Marc while they were in from California which was great. Marc was asked to do a seminar at Columbia University about his upcoming HBO show - how exciting! We met Sima and Marc at Artie's Deli for a little nosh - liver knishes and cold beet borscht.

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah so don't forget to spin your dreidel and eat some potoato latkes!

(Click on photo for full slideshow) I visited Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic from Dec 1-8. Cyndi, Alan, Jay, and I stayed at the six star Secrets Excellence Resort. The resort was beautiful, and the staff was very friendly and accomodating. The food was a bit less than I had hoped for - not enough variety, kind of bland. However, the goat was to die for! Baaaahhhh! That is, if you dig on goat. The drinks were decent. There was the Dominican Republic signature drink Mamajuana which is touted by natives as an aphrodisiac. Another popular drink is the Coco Loco which is coconut water, milk, cream of coconut, sugar, ice, and gasolina!(aka Rum) all blended together and poured into a coconut shell with a little umbrella stuck in the side.

So what did we do in the DR? We took an excursion from our resort which was on the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea to snorkel. This involved an hour drive each way and a boat ride on a catamaran. First we snorkeled with the sharks and the rays, then we had a little party on the boat with the open bar. We also did some more snorkeling at a reef in the Atlantic a short walk down the beach from the resort. In addition, we lounged at the pool A LOT, did some boogieboarding in the ocean, played a little tennis, took a Merengue lesson, played volleyball. We also got massages by two very large, strong Dominican women who if they were German would be named Frau Brunhild - let's just say, I no longer have any knots in my shoulders or back. Cyndi, Alan, and I did our best to relax by the pool (I was battling a cold for a few days) while Jay ran on the beach probably from the Atlantic to the Caribbean, played volleyball, and snorkelled simultaneously. Oh we also played Connect Four and Jenga at the Sports Bar which may I note, I beat Jay in all four games :) The only thing we didn't do was sexy time with horseback romantico! Oh well. You can't do it all.

Bunnies gone wild Halloween 2006

This is a somewhat delayed post, about a week and a half to be exact, but I was reminded to tend to it tonight at the gym when
Colin Hay's "Waiting for my Real Life to Begin" started playing on my iPod -- such an f-ing great song - please excuse my French. On 4/27, I did in fact see Colin Hay (of former 80's band Men At Work fame) perform an acoustic solo show at the Tin Angel in Old City. Come on, you remember:

"Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said,

I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover."

Well Colin has since evolved into a very noteworthy lyricist and acoustic performer. He has had several solo albums with one very popular song on the Garden State soundtrack, "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You". A few of his other songs have appeared on the NBC hit, Scrubs. Aahhh, Zach Braff... ahem. His Tin Angel performance was part stand up comic (he was hilarious and a really cool guy)/part singer-songwriter. He segued into each song with a funny story that was related without you knowing that was what he was doing. He did a few Men at Work songs acoustic-style and lots of his own stuff from various albums. At the end Colin received a standing ovation from the audience, played three more songs, and all departed with smiles on their faces.