That’s just a screencap of mahjong and pasted the Science Daily image atop it. Anyone else see it? Turns out Men in Black was right: We really are just small parts in a giant game of marbles.

Afterward, a friend from MH, told me that, a few minutes after the screening was supposed to start, the following exchange took place:

MH Friend, to the woman running the screening: “Jason will be here in a few minutes. He got lost.”

Woman: “Oh, no problem. We can wait.”

John Waters: “Let’s start the screening now.”

Woman: “Ok, we’ll start the screening now.”

And that was that. John Waters will not wait for Jason Feifer! Fair enough.

But I had the sandwich anyway.

Ok, I’m not buff at all. But I have news: I now work for Men’s Health, and I moved to New York two weeks ago. Hence the non-buffness: I’m totally new to the city and have spent the majority of my time orienting myself to the job, and so I’ve abandoned attempts at nutrition and have had pizza for about 50 percent of my dinners, mostly from a place called Ultimate Pizza. I’m not convinced it’s the ultimate, but I’m lazy and it’s close by.

I’ve spent my free time these last two weeks setting up my apartment (which is still mostly a disaster), and my Internet was just hooked up yesterday. My first week here was air conditioning-free, which made living and sleeping a mostly indecent proposal. So then, with all these life changes, do you forgive me for the very long absence from this blog?

Yes? Is it because, uh, you stopped reading this blog about a year ago, when I stopped updating it regularly, and just don’t think it’s worth putting forth the energy to not forgive me?

That’s what I thought. Thanks!

So here I am, living in Manhattan, running MH’s Malegrams section. My last feature for my former employer, Boston magazine, ran in its September issue: It’s about an outsourced singing telegram service, and it made me reconsider everything I’ve thought about outsourcing.

I’m still mostly unfamiliar with NYC, so if you happen to be reading this blog and hail from our great city, and care to tell me a good place to eat, see, walk or avoid at all costs, please do drop me a line. I’d welcome anything at this point. Just don’t send me back to Ultimate Pizza. I’ve done it.

Otherwise, stay tuned. I’m about to make your abs rock-solid.

If you suffered through that and actually want more, well, you’re beyond help. Here are links to Round Two and Round Three. Be sure to listen in for my very forced Bill O’Reilly reference during the final question.

Genius! I’m telling you: Interactive, innovative genius. That’s some out-of-the-box shit right there. We won third place, which means we got free Common Ground t-shirts. Because we’re innovative geniuses.

We sat in the back, and moved two tables together to accomidate us all. We were there for two and a half hours, from 4 p.m. to 6:30, and ordered four pitchers of beer. We chatted. We laughed. We filled the jukebox. We were, at times, perhaps the only people giving that place business. And when we were done, we got up to leave and ran smack into a 60-something man with his arms crossed, who was short and stocky and bald and very upset.

“What, you’re going to leave the place like that?” he said, clearly pissed and somewhat yelling. “You don’t put things back where they belong?”

We looked behind us. There were the two tables, still next to each other, with some empty glasses and pitchers on them. Pretty standard sight for any bar. I’ve walked away from many such scenes. Tables get moved around in bars. That’s what they’re there for. So, uh: What’s the problem?

We asked: “What?”

“You put things back where you found them,” he ordered.

“Are you kidding?” one of my co-workers said.

“No,” he said. And he wasn’t.

Two of my co-workers went to move the tables apart. “Thank you,” the bald man said in the most condescending way those two words can be spoken, as if he were teaching us a lesson. And then again: “Thank you.”

I was standing next to the bald man at this point, and I thought he needed a lesson of his own. Something about running a smart business. Or not driving away customers. Or not being a dick. I settled on this: ”And you’re welcome for all the money we just spent on beer.”

“Don’t pull that shit on me!” he snapped. “Don’t you pull that shit on me! This is a family business.”

How I weep for his family.

He kept yelling at us, so we all just turned around and left. “We’ll be taking our business elsewhere,” one of my colleagues said as we walked out the door.

And we will. TC’s, don’t pull that shit on me.

I got waxed. I got plucked. I got lots of expensive haircuts. And then I did amazingly silly photo shoot (see above, one of the shots that didn’t make the final cut), all for a story I did about local men’s salons in this month’s Boston mag.

Update: Matty in the Morning brought me in to talk about men’s pampering. The audio is here.

(Spotted by my parents, who were just in Italy.)

This sign spotted at the theater I went to see The Incredible Hulk at tonight. (It beat the purple pants off the last one.)