I’m always a step behind on the latest phone trend. By the time I got a rotary phone in my bedroom, everyone was already onto their cellphones, and by the time I made the jump to cellphones, everyone was already trading up for a flip phone. So it came as no surprise to me that when I finally got a camera phone, the iPhone had come out and BlackBerrys became more ubiquitous than see-through-white-dresses in the summertime.

But it wasn’t until this past summer living in New York City that I truly felt uncomfortable using my cell phone in public. The phone that I had once bragged about because it fit into my clutch was now making me feel as if I was using Zack Morris’s mega phone. People stared at me when I texted and expressed shock and awe that I still used only 9 keys to construct a sentence.

The look I got when I flipped my phone open the other day was the look I gave to my grandmother when she attempted to use her scanner to send an e-mail.

I can’t deny the jealousy. I admit that having the internet on your phone is insanely useful; whenever I’ve gotten lost somewhere, its a friend’s BlackBerry that got me home (not my phone’s tip calculator). And, sure, I’ve gotten frustrated when my T9 brutalized a word so badly that my text ended a friendship. I’ve eyed those keyboards and mouses and wished that my phone, too, could serve as a hand-held laptop. Read More »

There’s not too much about this bar that is different from any other midtown hangout. The lights are dimmed, the music is eclipsed by the steady drone of polite chatter, there is a distinct smell of polo sport and a single yawn dances contageously around the room. In any other bar, I wouldn’t have even stayed for a first drink…except that in the middle of this southern-style dive there is a mechanical bull.

Yes, a bull… as in, the land-faring version of a shark… so unpredictable and deadly that has generated sensational cinematic classics. When is Speilberg gonna make a “Western” version of “Jaws”? The time is now.

The place? Johnny Utahs.

It appears that until this moment, only a few guys had dared to take on this mechanical snorting monster. Self-induced humiliation can certainly be appreciated, but the crowd starts losing interest after realizing the predictability of how this battle of man versus beast will end.

Until… UNTIL!… the crowd parts. Laughter preceeds her entrace into the ring as a girl in a short skirt giggles sloppily toward the bull. As she makes an attempt to mount this robot-beast, something remarkable happens to the crowd. Read More »

Nothing ruins my morning quite like hearing a leering stranger mutter his commentary on my appearance under this breath. If you’re a woman who’s ever walked a block or two in a city, you can probably relate.

Trading stories of street harassment with friends, I learned that it doesn’t stop at lewd mumbled comments. I have friends who have been flashed on the street, and even treated to a one-man self-pleasure show while riding the subway. Read More »