Drinking Games

I really don't like drinking games. The idea of playing a game in order to drink booze seems to really get in the way of, umm, actually drinking the booze. The worst are card games. First of all, it's never a game I know. Secondly, who can memorize these arcane rules, loaded at 1am? Not me. Drinking games suck.

But there is one exception: quarters.

I love playing quarters and that's probably because I am really good at it. Generally, no one wants to play after the first 5 minutes because I sink about 50 in a row, leaving most partygoers either very drunk, irritated, or both (usually both).

Today, however, I am humbled. I just watched the fucking Tiger Woods of quarters and I think it's time to take my quarters and start using them for other things, like, you know, goods and services.

[Courtesy of iFilm]

Lazy Summer Continues

I shit you not when I say that the summer is really damn slow here at Muk Report headquarters. I am continuing the de facto "limited posting" policy until we vacate the beach house.

What's that? The Hamptons you ask?

Fuck no.

When I think "getaway" the last thing on my mind is a bunch of asswipe New York types complaining that "there's no good Burmese food out here." I'll be with the salt of the earth in South Jersey, eating hoagies, Mack and Manco's pizza, and talking about the past and inevitable future failures of Philadelphia sports teams.

Of course, that gets pretty old after a while too. But just before I hit the boiling point, I'll be back in the car with a big ass Wawa coffee driving up the Garden State back to bootylicious Brooklyn.

Where I can get some good Burmese.

The NYPD Safe List

From NY1 News,

"In New York City, officials announced Thursday afternoon that the NYPD is instituting random searches of subway passengers carrying bags or backpacks, and similar searches may be conducted aboard city buses."

That's right, random searches here in NYC. Now, I am not in favor of racial or ethnic profiling (total lie), but I do think that there are certain groups of people that should be excluded up front. With that, I present to you,

The Muk Report's NYPD Profiling Safe List™

Gender: Male
Age: 22-30
Subway: 33rd St. #6
Bag: Tumi leather flap computer briefcase
Contents: Laptop, Blackberry, cell number (fake) of that bangin' Wisconsin chick from last night, copy of University of Pennsylvania alumni magazine.
Note: Too hung over from 2-for-1 happy hour special at McSwiggan's to do anything other than masturbate and check fantasy baseball scores.

Gender: Female
Age: 22-40
Subway: 7th Ave. B/Q (Brooklyn)
Bag: Tote, WNYC or The Strand
Contents: iPod, New Yorker (opened to Fiction section), dog-eared copy of Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Note: Possibly sensitive and militant, but in a decidedly non-terroristic, vaginal way. Suspicious footwear is Dansko clog, not shoe-bomb.

Gender: Male or Female
Age: 18-35
Subway: Lorimer St. L
Bag: Vintage or messenger
Contents: iPod (no ear buds, too gauche), guitar picks, American Spirits, Olivia Tremor Control tickets.
Note: Listening to The Smiths' Louder Than Bombs not grounds for suspicion.

Gender: Female
Age: 60+
Subway: Canal St. N/R/Q
Bag: Thin plastic, numerous
Contents: Hong Kong style no. 2 fine chow mein noodle, ginger root, oyster sauce, whole live chicken.
Note: Frenetic determination to secure seat should not be confounded for attempt to take innocent lives. Contents of bag, despite olfactory evidence to the contrary, do not contain explosive materials.

You can thank me later, Commissioner Kelly.

[Upper West Side correspondent, Kirin Sapporo, contributed to this report.]

Indian People Rock

You know a blog has degenerated into something bordering on useless when there are two consecutive posts pointing out crap that has been on the Internet for years. But things are slow goddamnit, so slow that I was tempted to write a long post about how my lunch was delivered late today. But I spared you.

So anyways, unless you have been living bound and gagged in a basement for the last 5 years, you have probably seen this most amazing video by Bhangra king, Daler Mehndi. For those in the former category, I assure you that help is on the way (lie).

Watching this for the first time was like watching Tiger Woods drive the ball 400 yards, or hearing about that Japanese dude who ate like a thousand hot dogs in four minutes.

Sometimes you have to say to yourself, "I just can't compete."

[Courtesy of iFilm]

Burninating All the People

Ok, it's a slow week. Not many posts. You know - lazy, hazy, dog days of summer.

And the heat, my god, the heat.

Actually, you know, I love the heat. Really. Getting into a car that has been baking in the sun for 6 hours, virtually deprived of oxygen. Love it. No kidding, I love it. I have no proof, but I think it's the Indian genes. No pussy-ass iced coffee for me, thank you. Hot showers and scalding fucking hot coffee in the dead of July. That's the kind of guy I am.

As a tribute to the summer fire, let's all take a few minutes and watch one of the greatest cartoon shorts ever made.

Sometimes I wish I could just pack it all up and just move to Strongbadia.

ZUG Pranks

ZUG claims to be the oldest comedy site on the web, a fact that I can neither verify nor disclaim. In any case, it really doesn't matter because they get major props for their elaborate and compelling pranks.

I started out with the credit card prank, which is as hilarious as it is insightful. I'm slowly working my way down the rest of the list. So far, every one is proving to be a great read.

[Thanks to my neighborhood blogger, Emily, for this tidbit.]

Scamming the Scammer

A funny exchange between a Craigslist user and one of those Nigerian scam artists.

Pot Pops

The Muk Report's Upper West Side correspondent, Yash Egami, phoned in about this piece regarding dope-flavored lollipops and the predictable controversy surrounding them. Mr. Egami comments,

Whoever the genius is who came up with this idea, I say, fucking brilliant. We're looking at a whole new industry here. Pop Rocks can just be repackaged as "Crack Rocks." Pixie Stix could be "Pixie Blow." The possibilities are endless.

Oh, it turns out they have already co-opted Pixie Stix for use as an intoxicant.

Samantha Bee, How We Love Thee

Samantha Bee certainly merits a position in the pantheon of fake journalists. If you have some time to kill take a look at some of Ms. Bee's video segments from The Daily Show.

Very, very funny stuff. The "Exit Polls" piece is out of this world.

Did She Just Say What I Think She Said?

Ok, I don't have much going on right now, but, checking out Gawker today, I was reminded of Overheard in New York, a site dedicated to reporting on the random things that are overheard here in our lovely little town.

To wit,

Indian woman on cell: You are a terrible, terrible man. You are a horrible shit of piece.

--60th between Lexington & 3rd

--

Guy: Oh look, they have buffalo burgers! I love buffalo burgers.
Girl: It's just chicken.
Guy: No, not Buffalo style. It just says buffalo.
Girl: Didn't you see that episode of Nick & Jessica? She made the same mistake. It's just chicken. There are no more buffalo anymore, they're extinct.

--Evergreen, West 47th Street

And there is tons more where those came from. Enjoy.

Chowhound Bans Muk, Takes Material

One of the first items on The Muk Report dealt with my being banned from noted food website, Chowhound.

Recently, Chowhound released The Chowhound's Guide to the New York Tristate Area through Penguin Books. The book is basically a quasi-organized collection of restaurant information culled directly from the Chowhound website - more precisely, the users of the site.

Paging through the Best of Chinatown section in my copy, I stumbled upon the following, written about my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, Nha Trang. From page 76,

"The pork pieces are tender, charred in the right places, with a very subtle caramelized sweetness. Mmmm, so good, says *Muk*."

God, do I feel violated. And not in the "hurts so good" kind of way.

First I get banned - a punishment which most certainly did not fit the proverbial crime. Then they take my contributions, profit from them, and leave me penniless and insane still trying to play a phonograph record with a peanut.

Huh?

Look, the point here is that... shit, I don't know. Maybe the point is that Chowhound sucks. Well, that's not entirely right. Chowhound is great, but their staff sucks. Or maybe it's just some of their staff that sucks. Something like that.

I think I need to drown my sorrows in spring rolls and chicken curry over rice vermicelli.

Muk Makes Music Too

Shameless plug.

All downloads are free.

Put them on your iPod.

Tell your friends and family.

How to Contact Muk

Send e-mail to mukundrao-at-hotmail-dot-com.

I read all my mail and try to respond to everything.

(Read: please reach out to me because I am very, very lonely.)

Greetings New Readers

Thanks to a recent reference on Gawker, there are a number of new readers to The Muk Report.

Welcome.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for guest columns, IMterviews, and plenty of filler posts.

And, of course, tell your friends.