Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Real Housewives of New York's Ramona Singer's interior design fight

Ramona Singer
The Real Housewives of New York's' Ramona Singer's got a problem with her interior design contractor.

The NY Daily News, reports that Interior Designer Rona Landman says she reportedly "redecorated some of "The Real Housewives of New York's" Ramona Singer's upper East Side pad — is sick and tired of not getting credit (or enough dough, for that matter)" to quote the publication.

But what some is, is at issue. Moreover, Ramona Singer says she paid Rona Landman around $20,000 and has the invoices to prove it. Frankly that much for the Upper East Side is not a lot of money, especially when contracts can be as much as a million dollars.

Ramona Singer said she wanted to help Rona Landman because her work's terrific. Frankly, Singer should have called Christine Smith Associates (CSA), the premier female interior designer and contractor in New York in this blogger's biased view. CSA is sponsoring the Zennie62 coverage of Tech Crunch Disrupt.

But Ramona Singer can take care of that when she returns to New York; according to The Blackbook, Singer's in Africa with the nonprofit Africa Foundation. Both are seeing the new homes built in an undisclosed part of Africa.

Stay tuned.

Los Angeles Events: Academy (AMPAS) has Monday and Wednesday events

The AMPAS Building
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) isn't known for just the Academy Awards, AMPAS has a number of events on a weekly basis and this week is no exception.

On Monday, May 24th at 7:30 PM at The Samuel Goldwyn Theater at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, AMPAS continues the series "Oscar Noir: 1940s Writing Nominees from Hollywood's Dark Side," with the 1944 feature Laura.

Laura, a film starring Gene Tierney, was about a police detective who falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating. It will be introduced by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Scott Frank (Out of Sight, Minority Report).

Laura earned five Academy Award nominations, including Actor in a Supporting Role (Clifton Webb), Black - and - White Art Direction (Lyle Wheeler, Leland Fuller; Interior Decoration: Thomas Little) and Directing (Otto Preminger), and took home the Oscar for Black - and - White Cinematography (Joseph LaShelle).

Here's the trailer from Laura:



Tickets for Laura are $5, $3 for Academy Members and students with an ID. The Samuel Goldwyn Theater is at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, CA.

On Wednesday, May 26, at 7 p.m, AMPAS has Oscar nominees The Conscience of Nhem En and Standard Operating Procedure showing as part of its' 28th annual "Contemporary Documentaries" series at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.

Admission to all screenings in the series is free.

For more information, call (310) 247-3600 or visit www.oscars.org.

Celtics and Lakers? get ready because Orlando Magic look bad

As I'm writing this blog post, The Boston Celtics are hammering the Orlando Magic 66 to 43 in the 3rd quarter, which means the Celtics are up 23 points.

The Boston Celtics are already ahead two games to none, and part of the reason is that the Orlando Magic just don't look like they want the game.

The Boston Celtics probably feel that they were counted out this year; no one gave them a chance. They're correct about that. Indeed, it even looked like the Cleveland Cavaliers were going to end the Celtics playoff run until someone told the Cavs they could actually beat the Celtics, then they collapsed.

On this, the day of the 30th Anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, it looks like The Force is with the Boston Celtics. But can they sustain it against the Los Angeles Lakers? Personally, while the Lakers should be the favorite, The Boston Celtics will give them a run for their playoff money.

Google celebrates Pac Man 30th anniversary with icon game: follow-up

Atlanta, GA - Yesterday, Google altered its icon that graces the front of its search page with an online "Google" version of the famous Pac-Man game to celebrate Pac-Man's 30th Anniversary. This blogger made a video-blog of an attempt (well, OK, several attempts) to play the game in the most obvious way: by using the cursor on the screen that's connected to the Apple Mac Book's track pad. This video below:



For reasons that are not logical to this one, it did not work well. In the YouTube video, many video viewers were commenting again and again "use the arrow keys." That was less obvious given my Internet-based orientation, which says that because the game's online and in my face, I should be able to use my cursor. Right?

Well, most commenters were ready with a correction, but a handful were downright psychotic about it, calling me racist names. I banned them - well, OK, not all of them because as a YouTube Partner those comments actually wind up adding to my income from Google. So someone's mental illness can actually work in my favor! Still, the comments were hot and heavy, but I maintain the logical approach is to be able to use the cursor.

The ribbing about my cursor logic went to a higher level this morning during breakfast with my friend Hanna at Atlanta's Flying Biscuit Restaurant at 1655 McClelland. To take an aside for a plug, It was my first time there and in the Candler Park Area of Atlanta, and I loved both. I highly recommend ordering the Smoked Salmon Scramble and the pancakes! (I like putting steak sauce on the grits!)

But I digress.

When I told Hanna about the video and the Pac-Man game, and my approach, she immediately said "Use the arrow keys!" OK, I got the message but then she added some butter to it. "Come on. You're an idiot if you can't figure that out." So the argument was on like Donkey Kong; I restated my point that on an Internet game, one expects to be able to use the cursor to control it, if it's well designed.

And to hammer home my point, I asked our waiter if he saw the game and what controls he used. "The cursor," was his response.

Well, a high-five was given for that answer. But Hanna was having none of our joy: "You're both idiots!," she fired back.

That was one time being an idiot was a cool thing.

I'm not sure if Google intended to cause exchanges like that, but really they should have made the cursor easier to use.

Rock the Casbah!

Anna Chlumsky gets PR for My Girl; don't forget In The Loop

Hollywood's PR Machine is cranked at full force to promote Actress Anna Chlumsky for the DVD release of 1991's My Girl, hailed as Chlumsky's breakout child star roll. In the movie she plays "Vada Sultenfuss" who's what has been described as the "most adorable hypochondriac ever."

My Girl's about the coming of age of a little girl and stars Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Macaulay Culkin, in addition to an 11-year-old Anna Chlumsky. Here's a scene from My Girl where Culkin is kissed by Clumsky in a way that can only be called adorable:



Now, Anna Chlumsky's 30 years old and while she's getting massive publicity over the 2010 re-release of My Girl, what's lost is her great role in the British political satire and 2009 Seattle Film Festival Opening Gala Movie In The Loop.

Here Anna Chlumsky, now back into acting after working as a fact checker for Zagat and other jobs because she thought her calling was elsewhere, plays an assistant Liza Weld, for which Anna got a lot of critical acclaim.

Below, Anna talks with Warren Etheredge (who has the camera on himself way too much of the time) about In The Loop at SIFF in 2009:



While My Girl is good, you should see In The Loop, too.

New York interior designer, contractor Christine Smith Associates and Zennie62

Christine Smith Associates
This week promises to be a great one in the history of this blog space as Zennie62 travels to New York City for TechCrunch Disrupt.

The trip is sponsored by New York interior designer and contractor Christine Smith Associates, the premier female contractor and designer in New York City.

Christine Smith Associates is well known among New York's most successful movers and shakers and corporations for excellent interior work on finished spaces, kitchens, bedrooms and closets, and bathrooms.

In 2008, The New York Post Page six took note of Christine Smith Associates' work, when Cindy Adams wrote:



GUYS are around hauling demolition, filling dump trucks, wearing black T-shirts that read "Christine Smith." So who's Christine Smith? A stunning, skinny, befurred, 6-foot blonde with silver buckles on her jeans and waist-length hair. And why's anyone hauling fixtures wearing her shirts? She's this season's contractor du jour. Looking like a model, this lady is demolishing johns, pulling out sinks, building walls and redoing kitchens all over the Upper East Side.


Zennie62 is proud to be associated with and have the prestigious Christine Smith Associates firm as TechCrunch Disrupt trip sponsor, and looks forward to bringing an exciting week to the readers of this space.

Andrew Cuomo running, NYC round-up -- Suzannah B. Troy

I have good and bad news.  Let us start with the good news.  In the smallest and humblest ways, sharing a impromptu birthday celebration with Giuseppi Logan in Tompkins today was wonderful.  That is NYC at it's best.  People thought this jazz great was dead but he is alive and composing and playing.  I rocked the jazz world when I posted a stirring rendition of Begin the Beguine on YouTube.


Today I filmed him celebrating his 74th birthday.


Good news, Andrew Cuomo has finally declared his candidacy for governor and I believe it is a shoe-in but the down side is he is inheriting a mega-mess and corrupted "gov" from Albany to City Hall and New York may be heading towards a depression if we aren't officially in one yet.


Good luck Andrew.


Now for the really bad news.  If you want to stab someone or a couple of people to death than NYC is the place to be and simply say it was self defense.


Do you remember the Jack the Ripper type stabbings of two people in the subway in the West Village and there were no working subway cameras around?  Well the grand jury let the murderer walk because uh, huh, it was self defense!
The reporter from The New York Times does not interview the two victims families so we never hear their side.  The people that were murdered were rude and offensive and thew a bag with bottles but I believe they were murdered and the murderer and  knew what he did and that was why he fled.




 Maybe New York needs to do better recruiting for the District Attorney's office?


 Also remember Keyanna Jones?  If you don't let me introduce her memory.  She was a stunningly beautiful teenage girl.  Please click on the link to see her beautiful smile face.  This beautiful African American girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time,  murdered by a man being teased and harassed by teenagers that exited the bus with him.  Keyanna had nothing what so ever to do with these teenagers. Maybe the news reporters got it wrong but as I understood it, she had no weapon.  Her last words were words of peace and she was murdered because this guy was being harassed by a group of teens  and she happen to walk up to the bus stop with her friend and witnessed the madness pouring out on the street and called for calm and was stabbed to death in the heart!!!! The murderer of a girl more than half of his age walked.


 The mayor talks about guns but look how people are being stabbed to death and walking free. Take a moment and look at Keyanna Jones's beautiful young sweet face...read the story and explain how her murderer walked away clear and free.


My letter in The New York Daily News
Words to the wise

Manhattan: Keyanna Jones, age 15, died speaking pearls of wisdom and peace ("'God takes good ones,'" June 27). Fragile egos and false pride are driving up the murder rate.

Suzannah B. Troy



Yesterday Emonee Williams became another teenage girl to be stabbed to death and in her own home in the Bronx by her Mother's boyfriend who was asked to leave the apartment.

I do not believe he will walk free since he has a record and sometimes grand juries, juries and judges get it right but apparently not soon enough because another beautiful teenage girl died in New York City.  Apparently even staying home doesn't mean your safe.


Andrew Cuomo and anyone currently in office  who is not a lame duck, or too busy stealing tax payer money really needs to step up to the plate calling for "peace on the streets" as well as for Albany to balance their budget which was supposed to be done April 1st.  


Welcome to New York.