While conversing with Jackie about what sort of costume one wears to a movie like Wolverine (ie, the movie I’ve been talking about for almost a year), I noted that Morgan should really be appreciative of the sacrifice I’m making by waiting until next Friday to see it, so that I can attend her birthday. The sacrifice, people. And just as I was about to blog about this (since no one but the Internet cares about my irrelevent rant), I had an epiphany—my blog’s tagline should really be, “Pop Effect: A blog about Wolverine, a baby named Morgan, and the ways in which they affect my life—and each others’.” I think I can safely say that I’ve effectively cornered the market in mutant hero/baby relations. And, apparently, there’s more to say about the subject than anyone might logically assume.

Last night I went to Picholine, a swanky French restaurant up by the Metropolitan Opera. It’s one of those old-timey, Central Park West deals where the clientele are either on their way to the opera or they’re just out for a Tuesday dinner because it’s a “neighborhood” place. Which makes me laugh. Picholine is very close to Tavern on the Green.

Anyway, my friend Fiona had a gift card she got for filling out a survey, and though it was for a substantial amount, we knew we’d only be able to sit at the tables near the bar and get cheese and wine. And even then, we’d have to each put in an extra $20. Which was fine; it was an ideal way to be extravagant without actually spending much.

What made it truly awesome though was that, upon our arrival, Fiona realized she knew the fromager. He worked at Picholine’s sister restaurant, Artisanal, when she took her book club out for a meal. Fiona and the fromager (an ideal movie title) had bonded over cheese and wine—so much so that Fiona wrote him a thank you note later. And he remembered! So he personally selected 6 cheeses for us and suggested two wines each. We were in heaven.

But when we were getting ready to leave, out came a tasting sample of this weird (but delicious) sorbet/foam, then a chocolate molten torte with dulce de leche ice cream and earl grey marshmallow cream, and two glasses of port (which I’ve discovered, since France, I quite like). So after all this very personal attention at a fancy restaurant, you can imagine how excited we were to pay with a gift card. I half expected them to say it was a fake. But it worked, and we left a good tip. Especially when we realized the fromager was there for one night only. It was a special night.

Wait, this was a genuine blog post. Do such things exist? Weird.

Not that long ago, New York magazine did a story that posed the question of whether twitter personalities are edging out moderately successful bloggers. How can this be true? How is it that twittering is already making blogging obsolete? I’m still getting used to the fact that my time working at a magazine (as we currently know it) has an eventual expiration date, but I cannot handle the notion that my new blog could be better served as a twitter because of all the stupid people who are obsessed with Twitter updates. How are blogs being so quickly overrun? Isn’t Twitter, like, three months old? When will Twitter be overrun? Tomorrow? Maybe by a service that lets you just publish an emoticon that represents how you feel. Until another site let’s you choose half an emoticon because one is too tiring to select. And then a third site will just have one-stroke punctuation posts. I should prepare for the future and patent that last idea. The punctuation lexicon:  ! = excited, ? = confused,  ; = “there’s shit in my eye”,  ~ = “I’m feeling saucy”.

Where does this end?

In all seriousness though, Twittering won’t completely replace blogs. Of course it won’t. Without Perez Hilton’s celebrity penis drawings, a story about Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears just won’t make sense to the average reader. People need a visual reminder of things like that. “Oh right, she’s a ho. Now I can put this story about jean shorts into context.”

Awhile back, I went to visit Ryan at the Conde Nast offices. I was required to have my picture taken for the guest pass—you know, for safety purposes. If I actually did something wrong, I like to imagine the conversation between two security guards would go down like this:

Guard One: OK, the culprit is a female, mid 20s.
Guard Two: What does she look like?
Guard One: Difficult to say… I think she’s white.
Guard Two: OK.
Guard One: But honestly, let’s not rule out the possibility that she’s Hispanic. Or an albino who darkens her hair somehow. Now, she does appear to have hair, so that rules out a few people.
Guard Two: Eyes? Nose? Lips?
Guard One: It’s likely she has those, yes.

Dan is known for taking the worst possible pictures of people. Mainly because he’s too preoccupied with being quirky and different. But these turned out OK maybe! I’m not saying I’d hire him to photograph my wedding, but if I were going to post used clothes on eBay, I’d totally let him take the pictures.

Dan gave me coaching for the bottom two. The first was me looking at something that went by me very quickly, and the second was me reacting to a chocolate bar that fell from my hands. This is good stuff. Note the discarded Chuck on the bottom left, as I took my new boat shoes for a spin.

Someone in the Popular Photography photo lab was kind enough to let me use a Nikon SLR camera this weekend (maybe a D90?), and since I didn’t come across nearly as many weirdos in costume at Comic Con as I had hoped, I convinced Dan to ham it up in Washington Square Park so I could mess around with it. As you can tell, it was really hard to get him to loosen up.

I think the pictures turned out pretty nice, considering I didn’t really know what I was doing. The triptych below is a thumbnail by the way; you can click on it to make it bigger.

Amazing news! The Saucier’s blog has linked to POP Effect! This is a coup and a great honor, considering The Saucier’s is one of the most popular blogs among the Sakraida media network. Congrats to the staff (Jenny, occassionally; Ali, once; me, all the time).

Morgan has a nemesis! And she’s French, naturally. Capucine is an adorable little francaise (nicknamed Amelie Jr.) who spins magical stories about animals who lose their way (view her famed video here). Naturally Morgan is getting jealous, which means: It’s baby’s first rival!

So far the feud is thus: Capucine has been quoted as saying, “There was something going amiss because there was a crocodile who was sleeping in the grass and when you stepped on him, he would eat the babies.”

To which Morgan retorted: “Mamamamamamamamama.”

The fight may not progress very far until Morgan learns how to do more than wave at her toys and say Mama or Dada in a circuituous string.