NY Fun!

We went to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart!

It was awesome. I arrived at the studio (well, the pavement in front of the studio) at ten to three. The doors were supposed to open at 4.45.

As reinforcements-slash-time-killers, I brought a blanket to sit on, snacks (food and beverage), and several books. People were jealous of me and my blanket, I tell you. It's good to think ahead!

The time went quickly. I listened to my iPod (did I tell you about that? The Special Someone got a shiny new video iPod a few months ago, and once he got it set up, he gave me his mini. Awesome! I love it muchly!) and read a few chapters of a great YA novel, Born Confused.

Boyfriend got there around 4.15. We played some travel Boggle and read a bit, because we didn't get inside til after 5.

Inside the studio, it was SO COLD! I put on my cardigan (I bring it every time I go somewhere, because some places go a little crazy with the AC. It wasn't enough, though. I was happy I'd brought the blanket; I wrapped it around my legs and felt more comfortable.

The warm-up dude, Paul Mercurio, was pretty funny, though he made us cheer over and over again, and it got annoying.

Soon enough, it was time for Jon Stewart! He chatted with the audience for a couple minutes, cracked some jokes, and then the show started.

The set was smaller than it looks on tv, as it always goes. The correspondent bits are done before the show, not on a side spot like I'd thought. Samantha Bee popped out to wave hello after her hilarious bit on nanobots aired.

Ooh, and Lewis Black was there to do his thing! That was a great surprise. He was talking about advertising. It actually tied in to the guest, a guy with a book called The Decency Wars. You know, I couldn't tell which side the guy was on. Should he have a side? He seemed to be talking about "their" thoughts on the excessive-censor-y right. But it wasn't clear if he actually agreed with them. Whatever. Jon's funny. He's totally one of my tv boyfriends. (Along with Wentworth Miller, although for vastly different reasons.)

So the show was great. It was a thrill to see famous funny people in person, and get a little extra face time than on tv. It was neat to be on the set, where things were happening and you could imagine yourself working there. How cool would it be just to be the guy that brings out the extra mug for the guest, and then takes it away again? Or the girl who sets out Jon's notes on the desk? Awesome.

Everything was done and over by 6.45. We went down to the Village, to return to a place we happened upon a couple weeks ago.

Gosh, I didn't mention this either. Argh! The weekend after I got back, there was a teacher blogger event on Friday, and TWO of my teammates made it there, to the Astoria Beer Garden! One moved here a few months ago for grad school, and another had just flown out to visit him.
Then, on Saturday night, our other teammate came down from New England with his girlfriend.

And so, for the first time ever, there were FOUR Fire 4 members together at once! That is a new record. It was so great! They are all wonderful people, they are my family, and I don't get to see them much. I miss them some more again. We are going to set up a real reunion for sometime next year. We hope. Wish us luck. Anyway.

We started with pizza, at Joe's favorite spot, near Washington Square. Then we ambled up the too-quiet West 4th until we hit Eighth Avenue. Right around the corner was a place called the Art Bar. It had old-fashioned round booths, and a jukebox that wasn't too loud. They served drinks and food (though none of us were hungry). There's a back room with couches and a modern version of the Last Supper.

Spe.So. and I really liked the bar. It was homey and not loud, with just the right amount of dive. We agreed to return soon. And we did so tonight, for dinner and drinks. We sat on a small sofa in the back room, snuggling and chatting. We had some tasty drinks and tastier nachos (just cheese, of course).

Next door was a place Nancy had mentioned at the Beer Garden, the Chocolate Bar. Ooh, chocolate! Can. Not. Resist! After dinner at the bar, we went there to look for dessert. They had some interesting, expensive chocolate bars, and a few shelves of assorted flavored 'truffles.' I didn't want much, and nothing expensive. I finally saw that they had gelato on their menu board, so I got a scoop of chocolate, and we got a peach truffle and a mojito truffle.

The truffles were pretty good. What wasn't good was one of the postcards advertising a new branch or something. It had an extraneous apostrophe. Something about "being grown up's". Uh-oh. Their esteem went a bit down right then.

Unfortunately, it didn't get any better. The 'chocolate gelato' was plain old chocolate ice cream!

For shame, Chocolate Bar on Eighth Avenue. For shame. Bad punctuation AND a deliberately misleading menu!

Altogether though, it was a wonderfully New York evening, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Hurrah for living in the Big Apple!

Now we're trying to decide if and when we should go see Usher perform in the show Chicago. Cool!