The tax rate may be evil, but I love the opportunities living in New York offers! Tuesday morning, before work officially started, Chris was randomly watching an anime music video set to Jonathan Coulton’s “Code Monkey.” As a result, I spent much of the morning listening to Jonathan Coulton music on my iPod. I randomly got the urge to check a certain lyric, so I went to his website. Then I randomly got the urge to check whether he was planning any shows in the near future, and… HOLY COW YES! He was playing THAT NIGHT! And VIENNA TENG will be playing at the same venue next week! WIN!

Coulton’s concert was a treat. He was preceded by the unimpressive Graham Smith and the uproariously funny The Petersons (who Coulton joined briefly to sing the high note in their cover of “Take On Me,” masquerading himself as one of the last remaining Italian castrati). I’ve had a really hoarse voice all week, so I could only whisper along when he played “Re: Your Brains,” but I nevertheless had a fantastic time!

Unfortunately, I still haven’t gotten over said sore throat. It’s been getting progressively worse since Saturday–in fact, my supervisors sent me home from work this morning so I could rest, as I can barely talk above a whisper. Fortunately, our family has a lot of friends in the medical profession in New York, and one was able to check me out this afternoon to make sure I didn’t have anything serious. He said I probably just have a virus, and it should run its course by the weekend. I’ve been taking good care of myself! I slept from 10AM to 6 PM, waking up briefly at 2 for the aforementioned appointment. BEAUTIFUL.

Uh, here, have some reasons to watch Psych! Season two premieres tomorrow at 10.

Holy cow! The Harry Potter release party in Union Square just got about fifty trillion times cooler! I knew Jim Dale (performed the US edition audio books) would be in attendance, but we’re also getting:

  • Dave Barry (via video) and Ridley Pearson, co-authors of The New York Times bestselling prequels to Peter Pan, Peter and the Starcatchers and Peter and the Shadow Thieves, as well as the upcoming final book in the trilogy, Peter and the Secret of Rundoon.
  • Eoin Colfer (via video), author of the multi-million selling global phenomenon Artemis Fowl series as well as the upcoming Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel.
  • Rick Riordan, author of the number one New York Times bestselling series Percy Jackson & The Olympians.
  • Jonathan Stroud, author of the bestselling Bartimaeus Trilogy.
  • Cinda Williams Chima, author of The Warrior Heir and The Wizard Heir.
  • Rob Kidd, author of The New York Times bestselling series Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow.

The event will also be webcast live at bn.com/midnightmagic.

HECK. YES.

Dear Various Taxes Associated With Living and Working In New York City,

You suck.

No love,
Priscilla

Today I wore a size zero dress.

SIZE ZERO.

Oh Ann Taylor’s policy of “vanity sizing,” I think I love you. Usually I wear 6/8!

Holy cow. I just saw Ratatouille, which is FREAKING GENIUS AND PROOF GOD EXISTS AND LOVES US. And God’s name is Brad Bird.

Good grief, people, I was flipping out over a PIECE OF BREAD. A PIECE OF BREAD. The modeling, texturing, and rendering of the food was absolutely exquisite and miles beyond any CG movie I’ve ever seen. The stylization of the characters was delightful, their animation was EXTRAORDINARY (especially Linguini’s), and they all had such depth and personality! I genuinely cared for every one of them. Then the cinematography and lighting were out of this world, and the story was energizing and positive and will be appreciated by people of all ages.

GO SEE IT ALREADY!