THE LIFE VICARIOUS

Bed and breakfast still a bargain at the Standard Hotel.

(Pictures, taken in January, used with said punk rock girl's permission!)

We learned yesterday, via Serious Eats, there's a campaign by the Standard Hotel to get their guests to post their sexual escapades online. Well since January we've committed ourself to a good deal more hotel sex. In the last few months we've enjoyed The Jane, Thompson LES, Smyth, 6 Columbus, Westin Newport, Hoboken W, the Chelsea (in AC,) just off the top of our head, and we've had no better sex than at the Standard. It's unfortunate their room rates have substantially increased - rooms are $350 more now than just weeks ago - but the ambiance is unparalleled and if you supply the well-read punk rock girl, they supply the Nutella. Where else do they promise that?

Zoe Feigenbaum named chef at National Cafe & Bistro.

Zoe Feigenbaum, last seen here dressed like a shark at a chowder cook-off inside Jimmy's #43, has just been named chef (like, chef chef?!?!) at National, the new cafe / bistro at 6 Rivington according to her twin's Twitter. (Sister Emma is the co-host of Everyday Food on PBS.) It's hard to remember why we stopped talking to Zoe - no, no, oh wait, no, now we remember - but congratulations on her future success.

A Hamburger Today, a pork belly eighteen months ago.

Reading on A Hamburger Today about Josh Ozerksy's exchange with Kenny Shopsin has us inspired today. The post recalls Shopsin informing Ozersky he should incorporate more of himself into his blog, something that worked out well, depending how you look at it, when Josh not only revealed but reveled in his gout. Alas, we have no chronic or spontaneous inflammations to share with you, but as a sort of bridge post to our review of The Standard, we thought we'd share the unsparing flashbacks of these last forty eight hours brought about by the herpetic grimace we encountered at Cochon555.

Corwin Kave, bellwether of Fatty greatness, takes trophy at Cochon.

 (Team Fatty Crab - Zak, Corwin - making sure the judges are fed first, best.)

Last night the music was lowered long enough for Fatty Crab's Corwin Kave to take the spotlight and the prize on stage at Hiro Ballroom. He gracefully accepted it standing among his competition and before a crowd drunk on pink meat and red wine, hovering tipsy in the hundreds. After the carcasses of five heritage breed pigs had long been hauled away, all that remained on the floor below were a few passed platters being eaten bare of his mother's signature Roni-Sue's Chocolates, and his sister's raw nerves no unwieldy portion of whipped lardo or warm smiles could salve.

KAWS reworks Kanye West's 808s and Heartbreak.

After Takashi Murakami we knew it had to be only a matter of time. Our favorite artist and Jersey City native, KAWS, is responsible for the iTunes version cover art for Kanye West's latest, 808s and Heartbreak. The album drops next Tuesday, November 24th. Personally we love the album which sounds like it could have been the soundtrack to Michael Mann's 2006 Miami Vice and thus reminds us of the girl we were dating the year before its release, a Barnard freshman whose dad owned the hotel around which some of the film was shot, a detail still overshadowed by the fact she was nearly devirginized by Justin Timberlake during her quinceanera there five years prior. So basically this album makes us think of making out in a taxi headed uptown from Double Happiness with a blissed out 20 year old Latin girl who braved below zero temperatures in bare legs, a box of Hungarian pastries in hand. And really, tis the season now for that sort of thing.

An uplifting and wholly inappropriate personal anecdote.

Probably not right to put up top. Or here at all. This is why people have Twitter right? Anyway, after the jump.

Prada, drama and singing in the shower.

Apparently, when we're still trying, in those early courting days in a relationship, we sing opera to the women with whom we're showering, usually "La donna e Mobile," probably because - if you know the words - women really are fickle; one minute they're soaking and the next they have soap in their eyes. Also fittingly in our repertoire is "Libiamo Ne Lieti Calici" from La Traviata. Well, it turns out La Traviata is at the Met this month, so we decided to indulge. However, we've been feeling and looking a bit sloppy of late, so to look a little more grand we're taking advantage of this weekend's private sale at Neiman Marcus online. We've been arguing about shoes so much lately with the blogger from Those Extra 4 Inches, about the etiquette of whether or not it's appropriate to give a girl shoes as a gift, we decided just to gift ourself with the crocodile applique cordovan Prada shoes pictured above, on sale for $623 from $890. No, we know they don't give us an extra four inches themselves, but if you've ever been in the shower with us, you'd know that's not necessary.

La Traviata is being performed at the Metropolitan Opera through November 20th. (And no we're not really this obnoxious, or those showers would be lonesome, but we're wide awake right now wired on sugar from the Chocolate Show.)

The women in our life at the Chocolate Show and Tastings NYC: Part I.

Our former roommate, who kept the cognac but finally sent us back our security deposit. Thanks, and stay classy!

Everything we could want in a relationship: Meta, anarchy, cookies, rock & roll.

The movie's on, we're working on a long post for Monday about Tastings NYC and this song's stuck in our head. The movie and its theme recently came up in a few drunken discussions, anarchist girls love us, we love girls that bake cookies, and we love the way this puts a soundtrack to the foreground of a love life, so...

Match.ko

Wired has an article about the internet obsession with Momofuku Ko's online reservation system. And while Ko reservations have also been auctioned, sold, and prostituted, they've also become a means of foodie flirtation. From an online personal of a girl not on Craigslist: "Bonus points if you know what I mean (and think it's awesome) when I say that I wrote a greasemonkey script to get a ko resy and it worked!"