• “If ever there was a musical waiting to be written, it's Karyn Bosnak's tale...”
    — Los Angeles Times
  • “That endearing Holly Golightly of the digital age...”
    — Gawker
  • “An annoying twenty-something who needs to be sent to her room. Without supper. And pronto.”
    — Austin American-Statesman
  • “Sweet and sincere...”
    — Toronto Sun
  • “Almost pathological...”
    — The Times of London
  • “Smartly coiffed.”
    — Chicago Tribune
  • “The best reason yet to euthanize the Internet...”
    — The Orange County Register
  • “Utterly shameless...”
    — Detroit Free Press
  • “An undeniable success..."
    — The Associated Press
  • “Admits to owning such luxurious but questionable items as the 'Darrin's Dance Grooves' video.”
    — Rachel Sklar for The New York Times
  • “Sad but true...”
    — Daily Mirror
  • “A smashing success...”
    — BusinessWeek
  • “The everywoman... who you would want to hang out with, who you would want to be your friend.”
    — Janelle Brown for Salon.com
  • “Witty and amusing...”
    — Sunday Mirror
  • “Intriguing, in a scratch-your-head kind of way...”
    — The Charleston Gazette
  • “Jobless, broke and stuck with a queasy cat."
    — The Seattle Times
  • “Entrepreneurial...”
    — South China Morning Post
  • “Laugh-out loud funny...”
    — A Socialite's Life
  • “Chatty and chirpy... with an apartment on East 57th, a cat with a sensitive stomach, and a guilty little secret...”
    — The Independent on Sunday
  • “Professionally perky, easygoing, slightly gushy and, in a disarming way, winsome.”
    — Janelle Brown for Salon.com
  • “A small-town bubbly girl, a winsome lass...”
    — Los Angeles Times
  • “If there's one thing the broke former TV producer has, it's style.”
    — New York Daily News

Watch

My favorite videos:



Chicago Love

  • "No matter where you stand right now - on a hilltop, in a gutter, at a crossroads, in a rut - you need to give yourself the best you have to offer in this moment." — Oprah
  • "If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress." — Obama
  • In lieu of a quote...
    Let your game speak.
    Failure.
    Tell me. — Jordan
  • "If you have the opportunity to play this game of life, you need to appreciate every moment. A lot of people don't appreciate the moment until it's passed." — Kanye
  • "You know my old saying: live it up, the meter's running... If you don't have fun while you're here, then it's your fault. You only get to do this once." — Harry
  • "You're gonna be doin' alotta doobie rollin' when you're livin' in a van down by the river." — Matt Foley

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What I'm Reading Now

Michael lives in my neighborhood. I do not know him but I see him around all the time. This book (his first) was named one of the top 10 best books of 2007 by the NY Times Book Review. He also just won the Impac Dublin Literary Award.

What I Just Read

My rating:

(I need to cry for 5 stars.)

Janelle interviewed me eons ago for Salon.com. She's a sassy lady who's super nice. This is her first novel. It received rave reviews and I loved every minute of it.

Aug 19, 2009

United Breaks Guitars

How did I miss this? United Airlines broke this man's guitar and wouldn't pay for it, so he told them he was going to write three songs about them.

Here's the first. It's so funny.




HuffPo said it could be "the single most famous act of customer frustration in YouTube history."

After the song began racking up YouTube views -- it's been seen more than 5 million times by now - United caved and offered to pay up. Carroll declined and suggested that United give the money to charity.


And now here's the second song:




He hasn't made the third yet.

I'm going to make one of these about United Airline's pet policy. They charge $175 EACH WAY to fly with Beverly. That's $350 and she doesn't even get a seat. It's ridiculous and I will never fly their airline because of it. I'm going to call it "What do you have against the animals?" And it's going to be a montage of Beverly and Elvis giving them the finger and sh*tting on pictures of their airplanes.

United sucks.

Aug 18, 2009

Daily Tweet Roundup

Me, today:

  • Finally watching the season premiere of Mad Men from last night! (Was forced to wait 24+ hours! A travesty!) Don't tell me what happens! #
  • Sharing my Pirate's Booty with Elvis. He always begs for it, so I share it with him. He eats it and then barfs it up. #
  • 4 x 3 = 12 Wynonna Judd is so dumb. #millionaire #
  • This man doesn't look healthy; perhaps he should've kept his kidney. tinyurl.com/qpfjyd #
  • Watching the season premiere of Flipping Out! Yay! #
Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter.

Daily Tweet Roundup

Me, today:

  • Margarita ice cream recipe from Nigella Lawson. tinyurl.com/qcrp63 I want to have a dinner party. #
  • RT @RandyHaddock CNBC reports Twitter is 40% 'Pointless Babble.' And here I thought my tweet about ginormous dog balls was meaningful. #
  • Finally watching the season premiere of Mad Men from last night! (Was forced to wait 24+ hours! A travesty!) Don't tell me what happens! #
  • Sharing my Pirate's Booty with Elvis. He always begs for it, so I share it with him. Then he eats it and barfs it up. #
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Aug 17, 2009

What I'm Reading Now

I added two new sidebar boxes... "What I'm Reading Now" and "What I Just Read."



Check them out!

Born To Love Gap - Part 2

Yay! Free jeans! Yay!

Okay, so a few weeks after having coffee with Justine my sugarmama, a UPS man brought me a big box from Gap.

Born To Fit Welcome Box


I was super-excited to receive it because I knew that I had either been chosen to become a Gap Brand Enthusiast or I was about to read the longest "We regret to inform you..." letter ever written. After quickly tearing it open, I opened it up and found a lovely orange bag, a bottle of Gap's new perfume Close, a bunch of lip gloss, and a cute tee that says "Born to Blog" on it.

Here's everything minus the tee (which you'll see later!):

Gap bag, lip gloss, "Close" perfume


There was also a letter from Justine inside that said, "It didn't take long after meeting you for the team to decide that you would make a perfect Brand Enthusiast for Gap..."

Welcome Letter


The letter went on to explain that Justine was going to send me a big box of Gap goodies—including a bunch of new 1969 jeans in different styles and a run of sizes—so I should invite all my friends over to try them on. Everyone would then get to go home with a free pair. Free stuff is great, but when you get to share it with your friends, it's even better!

The next step was planning my party. For that, you are going to have to wait for Part 3!

PS - Part 5 is where I tell you about the FREE Gap jeans & gift card giveaway!

Aug 15, 2009

Gross Lady On The Train

So I'm on the train going to Connecticut. It's crowded and I'm looking for a seat. A totally disgusting woman is taking up 4 seats--there are two seats facing two seats and she's sitting in the middle on one side and has one of her feet up on the other side. She's not wearing any shoes and her dirty-ass socks are out for everyone to see.

Now, even though I'm not sure if I can muster up the courage to sit next to THE FOOT, I start looking around for a place to put my bags anyway because, again, the train is crowded. As I do, she starts chiming in, giving her opinion on everything I'm doing because she's one of those people who needs to TALK TALK TALK and make sure everyone can hear... "That bag ain't gonna fit there," she says, and "You gonna need to put that one on it's side..." Did I mention she has horrendous grammar? She does.

So anyway, I ignore what she's saying and quickly realize that there's no way I can sit near her because I now know THE FOOT SMELLS, so I put my bags near the door of the car and plop down on top of one of them. My head disappears when I do, so naturally she starts asking everyone, "Where'd she go?" because up until now she thought I was going to sit next to her. I don't answer because I don't need to explain myself to a complete stranger. When it suddenly dawns on her that I'm not actually sitting in a seat, she yells, "Oh, tell me she ain't sitting on the floor!" I wasn't, but she didn't know that. Then she goes, "That just ain't sanitary...."

This, coming from a woman with no shoes, dirty socks and smelly feet on the train.

I hate her.


Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Aug 14, 2009

Born To Love Gap - Part 1

Yay! Free jeans! Yay!

Okay, so here's how it all began...

So a couple of months ago a nice girl named Justine sent me an email asking if I'd be interested in becoming a Gap Brand Enthusiast. Gap has just redesigned their denim line for the first time in 25 years or something and they were going to chose about 150 bloggers from around the country to help launch it. The line is called 1969 Jeans.




Of course I said yes because I love Gap. I mean, who doesn't love Gap? I've been wearing Gap for years, back when all they had were jeans and sweatpants in every color folded nice and neatly in the wall. (Remember that?) I also worked at Gap during college and was even once employee of the month. (I was really good in the fitting rooms, and, if I had enough caffeine in me, folding the denim wall. I was also a good greeter, but sometimes my abundance of energy frightened the customers so they didn't let me do that too often.)

Anywho, a few days later I met Justine for coffee and had a little interview. After chatting about the new denim line and the "Born To Fit" campaign, she took me shopping and bought me a whole new outfit. For reals. I got a cute white tee, a pair of lovely gray linen pants, and a purple scarf. I now like to refer to Justine as my sugar mama.

My Gap Ad

She was really such a nice person. And how fun does her job sound? She got to travel around and meet bloggers from all over the country.

Anywho, after thanking Justine I went home and waited on pins and needles to find out if I was going to be chosen to be a Gap Brand Enthusiast.

To be continued...

PS - We don't get to Part 2 and, more importantly, to the FREE JEANS GIVEAWAY unless 20 people comment on this post. (Gap gave me free jeans, people! I need to show them I have readers...) (Oops! Did I just spoil the story?)

Free Giveaways from Gap!

I have so much to tell you—SO MUCH TO TELL YOU!

And I have tons of FREE JEANS from Gap's new denim line, 1969, to give away! And a couple of gift cards, too!



My posts about it are going to come in parts... Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, etc.

In order to get Part 1, which explains why I have so many free pairs of jeans in the first place, I need 10 people to comment on this post!

Aug 13, 2009

Oh, Anne Is So Good...

Anne Good from the blog A.G. Out Loud (Anne Good's Daily Dog Blog, for all you puppy lovers!) was interviewed for Silicon Prairie News and she mentions me in her video answer. Thank you, Anne!

Here's the video:



And here's a picture of Anne and her three adorable puppers, Zoey, Leroy and Stella.




Visit Anne at A.G. Out Loud here.
Follow her on Twitter here.
And friend her on Facebook here.

She's swell people!

Aug 9, 2009

Yorkie Gym

I'm going to get one of these and set it up in the apartment for Beverly.





Aug 8, 2009

Ed Helms and The Jonas Brothers

This is so funny... Ed Helms skats to a Jonas Brothers song. It's toward the end of the clip, during the last minute.

Aug 6, 2009

Favorite Line from a John Hughes Film

Oh, this is so sad... writer/director/producer John Hughes died today. I could probably recite half his movies by heart. Without a doubt, they influenced my life and helped shape the kind of person I've become. ("Pear-shaped?" someone would ask, if this were one of his films.)

Anyway, when I was younger—before I ever even thought about becoming a writer—I would watch his movies and write down my favorite lines and dialog passages from them in a notebook; I think it was blue. (Dork, I know.)

So this will be fun... What are some your favorite lines from his movies? Leave them in the comments section of this post.

Here's a list of my favorite movies that he's written, directed, and/or produced:

Mr. Mom

Vacation

Sixteen Candles

The Breakfast Club

Weird Science

Pretty in Pink

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Some Kind of Wonderful

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

She's Having a Baby

Uncle Buck

Christmas Vacation

Home Alone

Career Opportunities

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York


And now, to start things, here's one of my favorite lines from Vacation:

"I don't know why they call this stuff Hamburger Helper. It does just fine by itself."

Eat, Pray, Love in Brooklyn!

They're filming "Eat, Pray, Love" on my street today. Like, right in front of my apartment. Right now they're filming at the laundry mat on Smith between Dean and Bergen—my laundry mat—which means that Julia Roberts is now once removed from my underwear.

Later they're moving down the street to Robin Des Bois. I chatted with the owner and some crew dudes and they said she's filming a scene there with James Franco, Javier Bardem, and Billy Crudup.

So exciting!

UPDATE: Pictures of Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem!

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Javier Bardem

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PS - Pics are copyrighted and gossip blogs may not use them. (I'm not a paparazzo, just a chick who was excited to have two Academy Award winners in her 'hood.) My blogging friends and Brooklyn neighborhood blogs may use them, but please email me first at mail (at) prettyinthecity.com.

PPS - I know it's "laundromat" but I've been saying "laundry mat" since I was a little girl and I'm not stopping now.

Aug 4, 2009

Corn

Nora

Corn

I probably shouldn't encourage her to show me the food in her mouth.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee

So is it weird that I have to leave Starbucks because I'm so happy that Bill Clinton was able to negotiate a release for Laura Ling and Euna Lee that I'm, um, about to cry?

Geesh... I'm not even PMS-ing.

The story just struck a chord with me from the moment I heard about it. I really admire Lisa Ling and identify with her in regards to the bond she shares with her sister. I don't know what I'd do if my sissy was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in a North Korean prison camp. And Euna Lee has a daughter who's the same age as Nora.

Sisters need their sisters:

Me and Lisa


And babies need their mommies:

Memorial Day

Anyway, I have to leave Starbucks now because there's a bubble in my throat and I think it's best that I go home and cry to relieve it.

© 2004-2009 Karyn Bosnak