Hey Man, Can I Piss in Your Ear?

Rod and I are having a blast in Manhattan. We landed in JFK Airport around lunchtime Wednesday and jumped on the subway from the airport, which took us staight into Manhattan. Once we reached our stop (the 42nd St. A-Train), it was only about a 3-block walk with our luggage to our hotel. The hotel QT is right off of Broadway and within walking distance to just about anything you'd want to do. It is an extremely modern hotel and the room basically is about the size of the queen bed that's in it. The first floor has a pool with a unique design, complete with movie theater seating around it and clear acrylic form-over-function chairs.

We had to head over to the Late Show theater to pick up our tickets for the Wednesday show between 3-4 PM, then back again at 4:45 to file into the theater for the actual taping. "The Rock" and Norm MacDonald were the guests. It was really, really neat to see that live. Rod and I have been Letterman fans for awhile. The theater is MUCH smaller than you would think from watching the show. It is also incredibly structured (the process of taping the show and bringing on guests, etc.) He didn't do any audience participation stunts, so there was no opportunity for 5 minutes of fame. Directly after the taping, we walked 3 blocks to Caroline's Comedy Club, where we met Kristin and Brian (my cousins) and Kristin's husband Chris. It was the first time we had met Chris, so that was great! I would say that the comics that performed at the 7 PM show were about half and half (half pretty funny, half not so funny). Regardless, we had a great time talking with Kristin, Brian, and Chris. One more note about Caroline's: we saw one of the finalists from Last Comic Standing sitting at the bar on our way out of the show! Too cool. While we were talking outside after Caroline's, believe it or not, I saw someone I know from Dell! One of my mentors is here on business with some other Dell VIPs and we happened to be on 45th and Broadway at the same time! Truly amazing how small the world is.

This morning Rod and I spent some time shopping. It is truly a fabulous place to shop. I spent a good hour and a half in H&M. If you are a female you have probably heard of H&M. Great prices on trendy stuff... The quality is clearly not the best, but most of it is not bad and you can really get some amazing deals. After that we went to one of the New York Public Libraries, which may sound boring, but this particular one was apparently a very old one and the building was architecturally amazing. It looked like a combination of a castle and a historic church, including an area on one part of the ceiling that was painted intricately with figures and other images. We made our way down toward Rockefeller Center and the Musuem of Modern Art as well. After that we rested in the room for about 30 minutes and got ready for our Thursday night Broadway show, Rent. Can I say that Rent was INCREDIBLE. We had amazing seats, about 15 rows back from the stage and centrallly located. The cast was fabulous and it reminded me again why I like that show so much. After the show we stopped by Connolly's, an Irish pub and restaurant. Rod had Irish beer and we both opted for traditional Irish food. Rod had Shephard's Pie, and I had Irish Beef Stew. YUM.

When we got back to the hotel, Rod decided he wanted to go swimming, so he went out to buy a pair of swim trunks at 11:30 at night. Of course, so many stores stay open late, so that is not as odd as it sounds. He came back with a pair of trunks with I-Heart-NY printed about 800 times on them. haha. On his way back from buying trunks, he said a guy stopped him on the street and said "Hey man, can I piss in your ear?" ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I still am laughing at that. What in the world would possess someone to say that?

Tomorrow is another busy day!