I'm not sure how you kicked off your 2008, but we kicked off our 2008 with a whole shit-ton of delicious Thai food for breakfast! Awwww, yeah! After get our spread set up... ˆ meredith ˆ food ˆ

...it was MOVIE TIME! Check out the two movies Mer picked out from Blockbuster! Hahah. ˆ dvd ˆ movie ˆ

This is a photo of a new year getting off to a pretty good start. ˆ food ˆ stuytown apt ˆ tv ˆ

On January 2nd, a couple more gifts I'd gotten for Meredith showed up in the mail! (Because it's rare that I ever order any gifts early enough to have them actually show up on time!) The first gift was a... ˆ meredith ˆ gift ˆ

...DREMEL! And the second gift was... ˆ meredith ˆ dremel ˆ gift ˆ

...a 20lb bag of raw soap to make scented hand soaps out of! ˆ meredith ˆ gift ˆ soap ˆ

Yes, believe it or not, these were both gifts that Meredith actually wanted! ˆ meredith ˆ dremel ˆ preggo ˆ

On Friday night we went out with Lisa and Pauly and had drinks at Odessa. (By the way, Pauly was leaning on his hand in this picture and trying to look "leisurely." He's most definitely NOT mocking Asians - I swear!) ˆ lisa ˆ pauly ˆ odessa ˆ

On Sunday night a bunch of people came over for Family Night! We tried out a DVD-based movie trivia game called Scene It. ˆ jenny penny ˆ josh adcock ˆ

Verdict = Eh. ˆ sarah ˆ

And then we played some CatchPhrase. And then... ˆ matt ˆ meredith ˆ sarah ˆ catchphrase ˆ

...we ordered Thai food (yes!) and watched Season 1 of the original, British version of The Office for the thousandth time. ˆ jeet ˆ food ˆ

On Monday evening, I left my camera in the apartment and Meredith borrowed it to document the gingerbread house party she had with her friends Mandy and Rosie. ˆ mandy o ˆ rosie ˆ gingerbread ˆ

Working on the roof. ˆ mandy o ˆ gingerbread ˆ

Rosie has a big tongue. Oh, and icing on her forehead. Nice! ˆ rosie ˆ gingerbread ˆ tongue ˆ

NOM NOM NOM. ˆ meredith ˆ gingerbread ˆ

Mandy and Rosie showing off the finished product. ˆ mandy o ˆ rosie ˆ gingerbread ˆ

Rosie and Meredith. ˆ meredith ˆ rosie ˆ gingerbread ˆ number one ˆ

Mandy tested a the Butterscotch sauce (!!!) out on a piece of iced gingerbread... ˆ mandy o ˆ

...before deciding to drink it STRAIGHT FROM THE BOTTLE! ˆ mandy o ˆ drink from the bottle ˆ

FRONDZ! ˆ mandy o ˆ meredith ˆ hug ˆ

Even Ratso got in on the action and got to enjoy a GUMDROP. ˆ meredith ˆ ratso ˆ

Hahaha. Awwww. Look how happy she is. ˆ ratso ˆ best ˆ

Later that night, I went upstairs at Pianos for some...

...karaoke! ˆ karaoke ˆ

Shandi was there hosting the night. ˆ shandi ˆ bubble ˆ

I sat down next to her and took this picture and when we looked at it we realized that Shandi is basically the girl-version of me. ˆ me ˆ shandi ˆ

We even have nose-bumps in the same place! ˆ me ˆ shandi ˆ

The first two pics we took were entirely too normal looking so we decided to go the ugly face route. Here's our first team effort. ˆ me ˆ shandi ˆ ugly face ˆ

Take two. Getting better. ˆ me ˆ shandi ˆ ugly face ˆ

Yahtzee! Third time's clearly the charm. ˆ me ˆ shandi ˆ ugly face ˆ

I'm totally drawing a blank on this guy's name (Patrick? Daniel? Shit, I'm terrible), but he's super funny and he usually picks booty-shaking hip hop songs that are En Espanol. ˆ karaoke ˆ

And every time without fail, his jam brings ladies to the stage. ˆ karaoke ˆ

Sometimes two of them! Epic. ˆ karaoke ˆ

Shandi showing off the fat, twenty-dollar tip she got! (Wait, I just realized that makes this a photo of Shandi licking the tip! Ha!) ˆ shandi ˆ lick ˆ money ˆ tongue ˆ

Late Friday night I walked down to Hanger Bar to catch the exciting tail end of the Stolen Transmission party! Karen was on the decks tearing it up! ˆ karen ˆ dj ˆ hanger bar ˆ metal ˆ

Solid crowd. ˆ crowd ˆ hanger bar ˆ

Catrinel was there and I immediately shared with her the bag of vapor I'd brought from home! ˆ catrinel ˆ vapor ˆ

Hahahah. ˆ karen ˆ vapor ˆ

Vaaaaaaaaa-poooooooooor! ˆ karen ˆ me ˆ hanger bar ˆ yell ˆ

Look at this little one we caught peeking around into the DJ booth! We set out to hit the dance floor and make friends! ˆ jeet ˆ cute ˆ

I fired off at the hip and caught Joe making this awesome face. ˆ joe ˆ

I forget her name, but TitSqueezer here is one of Gurj's friends who was in town visiting. ˆ jeet ˆ tit squeeze ˆ

We made friends. ˆ me ˆ drunk ˆ

Same goes for this girl. I no longer have any recollection of who she is, but apparently, we bonded enough that night that I apparently felt comfortable sniffing her hair for this photo (while double-fisting a PBR and Johnny combo, no less). ˆ me ˆ double fist ˆ hanger bar ˆ point ˆ

Rob Stevenson was there! I hadn't seen him out on town late-night style in years. Here's me showing my excitement. ˆ me ˆ rob stevenson ˆ best ˆ

I SMOOSH YOUR EYE WITH A KISS! (PS - Look how jealous that Creeper in the background is!) ˆ me ˆ rob stevenson ˆ best ˆ kiss ˆ smoosh ˆ

Around 3am, things started getting rowdy with public makeout on the dancefloor! Hahah. ˆ jeet ˆ best ˆ drunk ˆ get a load of this guy ˆ makeout ˆ strangers ˆ

Here's Gurj and I being really subtle about getting a photo of us in front of the couple. Smoooooth. ˆ jeet ˆ me ˆ finger ˆ strangers ˆ

"Play your cards right, yeah, and in a couple years time, you'll find yourself here...in the HOT SEAT." Here's me giving Gurj our very favoritest moment from The Office EVAAAAR! ˆ me ˆ best ˆ david brent ˆ hanger bar ˆ

Closing time. Gather up your jackets, and move it to the exits - I hope you have found a friend.

Closing time. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. ˆ karen ˆ sweater ˆ

This is my friend, Sylvie! We met on the national interweb while she was living in Paris. Sylvie moved to New York and we graduated from cyber-friends to real friends!

After only being in NYC for a couple months, Sylvie decided to move back to Paris but wanted to make sure she got to see all the places in NYC that she hadn't gotten a chance to see before she left! So on Sunday, I met up with Sylvie and two of her friends to check out Coney Island! ˆ sylvie ˆ nathans ˆ

First stop: The original Nathan's! ˆ coney island ˆ nathans ˆ

This is what vegetarians eat at Nathan's. ˆ food ˆ nathans ˆ

Sylvie and Tim (the Captain!) both working really hard to pull off "sexy" faces while chowing down. ˆ sylvie ˆ coney island ˆ nathans ˆ

Speaking of chowing down, check out the huge scoreboard on the side of the Nathan's building that simultaneously counts down the days to the next Hot Dog Eating Contest as well as shows the current male and female records. (66 and 39, respectively!) ˆ billboard ˆ coney island ˆ nathans ˆ

Check out the past records - not sure what happened that made competitive eating get so much more intense after the late nineties! It's crazy that the new male eating record more than TRIPLES all the records in the 90s!

After Nathan's we hit the boardwalk so that I could show off some of the other famous Coney Island institutions... ˆ nathans ˆ

...like SHOOT THE FREAK! Hahaha. When the weather is nicer, this charming little alley is manned by a guy in a mask and other protective gear and he runs around this alley hiding behind garbage and other debris while the good citizens of the boardwalk pay money for the privilege of shooting him with a paint ball gun at close range! ˆ best ˆ coney island ˆ shoot the freak ˆ

Sylvie fell in love. ˆ sylvie ˆ fence ˆ

In loooooooooooooooove! ˆ sylvie ˆ best ˆ coney island ˆ fence ˆ

Around 4:30, we made our way down onto the beach to watch the amazing winter sunset. Here's Shane, Sylvie and Tim. I love these pics so much! ˆ shane ˆ sylvie ˆ tim ˆ beach ˆ best ˆ coney island ˆ sunset ˆ

Skipping down to the jetty. ˆ beach ˆ best ˆ coney island ˆ sunset ˆ

The sunset was awesome. ˆ beach ˆ best ˆ coney island ˆ sunset ˆ

Climbing up on top of the (very slippery!) jetty. ˆ beach ˆ best ˆ coney island ˆ sunset ˆ

The Cap't salutes. ˆ tim ˆ salute ˆ

After we'd finished climbing around on the rocks, I suggested a jumping photo! Right after I'd taken this one, a guy walking by on the beach saw what we were doing and offered to man the camera so that I could be in the shot to! ˆ shane ˆ sylvie ˆ tim ˆ best ˆ coney island ˆ jump ˆ sunset ˆ

I showed him my camera and explained how you have to time it to compensate for the slight shutter delay, and this is what he shot on his very first attempt! Well done, sir! ˆ best ˆ coney island ˆ jump ˆ sunset ˆ

The pier. ˆ coney island ˆ sunset ˆ

Here's the end of the pier and the Coney Island Parachute Jump. ˆ coney island ˆ sunset ˆ

These girls were cute tourists from, er, somewhere in Asia and Tim The Cap'n sauntered over and offered to take a picture of them in the sunset with their camera. After he did that, he suggested that I take a photo of the three of them with my camera. If it had been a scene in Swingers, it most definitely would have been described as "Money." (He even managed a disco point and a Blue Steel.) ˆ tim ˆ coney island ˆ point ˆ strangers ˆ sunset ˆ

Hahaha. ˆ me ˆ tim ˆ coney island ˆ strangers ˆ sunset ˆ

Farewell, O' Lovely Coney Island! I hope she was everything you'd dreamt she was, Sylvie! ˆ coney island ˆ sunset ˆ