Last night Leah and I went to go see a movie at the Siskel called Zorro's Bar Mitzvah. I assumed it was going to be a fun-loving romp about a young Zorro having his bar mitzvah. Man, oh man, was I wrong.

It turned out to be a documentary, following three young men and a young woman, as they prepared for their bar (and bat) mitzvahs. One of the young men wanted to have a Zorro themed celebration, and that's how the movie earned it's title.

At one point in the movie a man who filmed parties (weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs) commented how he'd never had a bar mitzvah of his own and now he was stuck filming them forever, and how it seemed like destiny. "That's so sad," Leah whispered to me. "I never had a bar mitzvah," I whisper back to her. "I hope that's not how I end up. Filming bar mitzvahs."

"You never had one?" Leah asks in a whisper. "Do you ever feel like less of a man?"

"On a regular basis," I confess.

The other day my old friend Nik drove to Chicago to visit me. We stopped at several stores, buying books, clothes, cheese and cupcakes. Afterwards, we swung by her car so she could drop off the things that she'd bought.

She opened up her trunk and began shifting stuff around. Without even thinking about what she way saying, Nik told me, "Sorry. Don't mind all this junk inside my trunk."

I made a look of mock surprise. "Why Nik, what are you gonna do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk?"

Nik slowly realized what she had said and began to laugh. "Oh Josh, I'ma get, get, get, get you drunk. Get you love drunk off my hump."

Oh Black Eyed Peas. See what you've done?

Top 4 Jokes That Have Gone Over My Dates Heads (names have been changed):

1. After Andrea announced that she was punk because of her fingergloves I said, "Well gabba gabba hey!"

2. When Rachael couldn't make a decision about what kind of tea she wanted, going back and forth between hot and cold tea, hot then cold, hot then cold, I started saying, "My daughter! My sister! My daughter! My sister!"

3. Lena tells me that in order to make going to a party more interesting, I need to dress like a "fun guy". I ask her, "What, you mean dress like molds and spores?"
(note: in her defense, she DID get the joke 10.3 seconds later)

4. While making out on Julie's sofa one night, I'm leaning on my arm in an odd position. "Are you comfortable?" she asks. I respond, "I make a living."

My new favorite song lyrics, which kinda make me wish that I was a nerdy astronomer in love:

"You make me wanna measure stars in the backyard with a calculator and a ruler, baby."

-From the song Stars by Au Revoir Simone.

The other night while walking down the street I bump into my old friend Sonia.

She introduces me to her friend and tells him, "Josh and I actually met at camp."

"Band camp?" the guys asks, and chuckles to himself.

"Just regular camp," Sonia tells him. "Surprisingly not Jewish camp," she says, and we both eye up each other's noses and dark hair.

"Not that surprising," I say. "Though it might sound bad to say that we met a Jewish camp." Pause. "And if we had to take a train there, and-"

"Oooh," Sonia interjects. "No."

Too much? Too much.

The following is a list of blog names that were rejected before Berg with Fries was decided on (Note: This list is actually not written by me. Rather, it was written by my co-workers on a day that I didn't work, and found by me the next day).

I Have a Berger in My Nose.com
Cheese Berger.com
I Heart Cheese.com
Harold Ramis Look Alike.com
I'm Not in a Relationship.com
What??!?.com
Don't Cross the Streams.com
My Life With a Fake Mustache.com
Who You Gonna Blog.com
You've Never Slept with a Jewish Man?.com
Is That Kosher?.com
OMG It's 3 O'Clock and I Have to Work and I've Been Doing Shots.com

Over the weekend, Katie and I went to a dinner party some friends of hers were throwing. The couple hosting the dinner were indie hip (she's an anthropologist, he's a chef), and their apartment was decked out in the style you'd imagine. Above the dinning room table were READ posters from the early 90s featuring the likes of Michael Keaton and Michael J. Fox (jog your memory here). Their prominent bookshelves held titles like Ayn Rand and Hunter S. Thompson, with a copy of Fast Food Nation thrown in for good measure.

While eating, Jenny tells us how she'd gotten lost the day before and ended up at 16th and Kedzie. "I meant to go to 16th and Michigan. Very different." She furrows her brow, a bit embarrassed. "I actually put the locks down on my car doors. I felt a little guilty about that."

"That's the definition of liberal," Logan says, taking a sip of his wine. "Feeling a little guilty about locking your doors when driving through a bad neighborhood."

Katie clarifies the statement. "It's like, I'm not saying I'm better than you by locking my doors, I'm just saying I'm scared of you."

Everyone at the table seconds that and nods in agreement.

Watch out old school left wingers, here we come!

I received a lovely email from Tree today, thanking me for the bag of M&Ms she's got from me in the mail. In the letter she...well, I'll just let you read it.

Dear Josh,

P.S. I can only hope that the box actually had some sort of exotic ethnic food in at some time, as I always see those on TV and we just don't have them here (in my part of Canada at least). In fact, the box, is as exciting as the m&m's!

Those kids don't realize how much they owe me.

Yesterday, while grocery shopping, I noticed cartons of eggnog next to the milk.

Eggnog? In March?

Who is this grocery store catering to?

...Or maybe their problem was just ordering too much back in December.

The other day I met up with Kellie for lunch. As we walked towards each other on the sidewalk I thought to myself, "Hmm, she looks cuter than usual today."

As soon as we were in earshot of each other Kel announced, "So the theme of today is, 'What would Josh dress like if he were a girl'." I looked her up and down. That would explain why she looks cuter than usual - she's trying to look like me.

"Wow, that's really good," I said, checking out the outfit, looking for a way to stump her. "Is that shirt under your polo have long sleeves or-" "Yup," she replied. I hit my knee and cursed silently. She had done it.

Of course picture taking was mandatory. Below, I present to you a side-by-side comparison of Boy-Josh and Girl-Josh (and yes, I am aware of how creepy that sounds).

As part of the whole "Josh as a girl" thing Kel also reinacts scenes from the Josh Catalog:

Yesterday begat yet another rousing list of band names from Massimo and I. His list included such gems as "The Fiesty Dykes" "The Jailed Lawyers" and "The Paralyzed Breakdancers".

My list includes (though I've left a few of the bad ones out):

Seth and Taxes (can only really be used by a guy named Seth)
Kicking Rick
Mas and the Mo's*
The No No No's*
The Toy Collectors
Rambo's Bandana
Sticks and Stones
The Egg Beaters
The Sleeping Watchmen
The Side Dishes
The 2 for $2's*
To Helsinki in a Handbasket
The Don't Boo's*
Gems Bond
The Tick Tocks
Mmm, Chai
The Which Way Did They Go?s
George Foreman and the Grills
Clambake Jones and the Cocktail Sauces
The Sheriff Shooters
This is Your Captain Speaking
Give Fleece a Chance
The Hiccups
The Sneaking Suspicions
The Fellators
The Necrophiliacs Next Door
The Peeping Moms

*(Yes, I realize that an apostrophe is not proper grammer in some of the band names, but the names looked funny - as they ended in an O - and could be misread if an apostrophe was not placed before the S.)

The other day Kellie and I are sitting at Starbucks. "I can't do this, Josh," she says. She's in the middle of writing a 10 page paper and she's only on page 6.

"You know what might help," she says, getting a dazed look in her eyes. "Remember that one time in college when I was writing a paper and I got blocked with, like, two pages left? And I started drinking and blazed through it in 15 minutes."

"You're not seriously considering drinking," I say to her. "I am," she replies. Sigh.

"Well then why don't you go to the store and buy one of those tiny bottles of vodka so you can pour it in your coffee," I suggest. "You know, make it Russian coffee."

"That'd be creepy," she says, scrunching her nose up. I roll my eyes at her. "It's three in the afternoon and you're talking about drinking to help you write a paper. How can you be concerned about something being 'creepy'?" Kel nods, aknowledging the truth in my statement.

"Ooh!" she says, "We can put Starbucks coffee liquor in it too." I admit to her that I have have some sample bottles back at my apartment. She looks at me deviously. My look mirrors hers. "You can even put it in a travel mug, so it's easier to sneak back in," she says.

I think for a moment. "I'll only go back to my house and make this drink under one condition," I tell her. "That you'll let me blog about this."

You can probably guess her answer.

Ironically, when I got home I realized that the only travel coffee mug I had was one I had received as a promotional gift bartending, and it had the words "Rain Vodka" written on it. Fitting, no?

p.s. Kel finished the paper.

p.p.s. The recipe for the drink in question is actually 2 parts vodka, 2 parts Starbucks coffee liquor, half a can of Starbucks doubleshot and a dash of half & half, shaken with ice and strained into a travel coffee mug.

The other night Kellie invited me to a reading by Sophia Kinsella, the author of the Shopaholic book series.

"A chic-lit book reading on a Tuesay night..." my doorman commented as I left my building. "I know, I know," I said. "It's an exciting life I lead."

Once at the reading we saw other books by Kinsella, including some she'd written under the name Madeleine Wickham.

"I wonder what my name would be if I was a female British author?" I wondered aloud. Kellie rolled her eyes.

*Sylvia Copperbottom
*Angela Smithwick
*Belinda Gobbledegook
*Charlotte Furthermore
*Elizabeth Sausagestone
*Margaret Hickupery
*Regina Honksalot

My new piece for Jargon came out today.

It's all about how the new Boyfriend Trouser from Gap is a big fraud. If you really want boyfriend pants then you should just go and steal your boyfriend's pants.

...Of course you'd have to find a boyfriend first. Snap!

No, but seriously. Read the whole article here.

You see it all the time. "Visit Us 24/7 at Our Online Store" The idea is that it's online so it never closes, right?

"Shop Gap.com. Always Open." I've read it a million times in their stores. Today though (in the middle of the afternoon, let the record show), researching an article I'm writing for Jargon, I went to Gap.com and read this:

"Gap.com is temporarily closed. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please check back later to shop our latest looks."

If online stores start closing what could be next? 5-day email? Google going on a coffee break? I shudder to think.

Today my life has reached its pinnacle.

Someone had posted a missed connection for me on Craigslist.

I have nowhere to go but sideways.

New reality shows from the creators of So You Think You Can Dance?

*So You Think You Can Cook?
*So You Think You Can Use a Nail Gun?
*So You Think You're Better Than Me? Huh, Punk?
*So You Think I Look Fat in These Pants?
*So You Think, Therefore You Are?

Byron, Katie and I are sitting around, talking about a new collection for fivefoldink. It's origami paper with strawberries on it.

"Those strawberries are cute," Katie says to Byron. "It reminds me of that cartoon, Strawberry Shortcake," I add.

"She was so cute," Katie says. "And her friends, the blueberry girl and that chocolate girl."

"Um," I interject, "I think she would be called African American."

Often times people will ask me, "Josh, how do you spend your time since you have your days free?" And usually I can't come up with an interesting answer so I just mumble about something or other and quickly change the topic. But today...well, today I finally have something to show for how I spent my day.

It's a little video I put together that begs the question, What if 80's teen director John Hughes had directed the 1968 Steve McQueen movie Bullitt ?. I call it Frank Bullitt's Day Off. Enjoy.

The other night Katie and I are watching TV.

Katie: Have you ever seen that commercial where TiVo has to sleep on the couch?
Me: (completely confused) Huh?
Katie: That commercial for TiVo where the kids are like, "Can we keep it? Please?" and the mom says, "Only if it sleeps on the couch."
Me: Oh. (pause) Um, no. I haven't seen that commercial. (pause) Probably because I have TiVo. So, y'know, I just fast-forward through commercials.