Disney, perhaps belatedly realizing that it needs to get a little edgier to appeal to today's kids, announced last week that they will be launching a new Nintendo game, "Epic Mickey," in Fall 2010, starring a meaner Mickey who will fight off evil doers threatening his forever home, Disneyland.

That almost sounds like a headline from The Onion.

We hear more about the new paradigm in human communication that social media has spawned than about the real driver in the phenomenal growth of these sites: basic human narcissism. You know what the sites are: Facebook (FB), Twitter, YouTube,...

At least this New Yorker did. Like red, white and blue ivy, creeping insidiously and inexorably into the fabric of the city, Duane Reade outposts have become as commonplace as banks and Starbucks. They are never more than a few blocks away and can be spotted from great distances, maybe...

Just kidding. But I can promise you'll feel a lot better. However, I felt dreadful on the first day of a recent detox. This had nothing to do with the detox itself and everything to do with what I had eaten the day before. I was following, as usual, my...

The signposts of my life are not graduations, weddings and deaths, but memories born of music -- a life-changing concert, a crush on a rock star, a song in heavy rotation on AM radio all summer.

By 1969 I had already accumulated a few of these musical milestones: The...

NBC's Today show has lately taken on the air of Ripley's Believe It or Not. The last few weeks have seen a disappointing parade of features on assorted accidents: a couple of shark attacks, a nail through the head, divers lost at sea and other assorted personal mini-disasters. This all...

A recent article in USA Today spoke of a sharp rise in business among clairvoyants. It's no wonder - people are desperate to know when they will find work again and no one on this earth can tell them. Those with a strong faith may trust that it's all in...

I recently "de-friended" someone on Facebook after seeing this status update: "I just got back from Costco and I'm having a Diet Coke." She was not banished because she shops at Costco. In fact, that's somewhat of a status symbol here in Manhattan because it means you have a car....

Presumably they've done scads of consumer research preceding the development of Starbuck's instant coffee. But I'm a little concerned, from a professional point of view. What's this going to do to their brand?

Starbucks built its enviable and omnipresent brand on two things: the quality of their coffees (which I've...

If you're not a fan of Sex and the City, you probably won't want to read this.

I thoroughly enjoyed the SATC movie, though it had its faults. It was a little long. I thought Jennifer Hudson was miscast. And I found it totally implausible that Big did not find...

Finally, the media are paying some attention to the lowly renter. But more on that later. First, I am bursting to share with you an alarming ad from Craigslist:

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I have a huge bathroom
Date: 2008-11-06, 4:01AM EST
I am a female in my mid 60's...

The ranks of the unemployed are having a difficult time maintaining hope in a dauntingly bad job market. It's hard to be positive, hard to imagine you'll be one of the lucky ones even if you are talented and have a lot of experience. And you have to be relentless...

Mice. Most urban dwellers have to deal with them at some point. And I dare say most react to a mouse spotting with some degree of horror, fearful that the tiny creature will run up their pant leg or steal their baby from its crib. But I've always taken them...

Won't anybody let me volunteer?! The primo volunteer opportunities are thin on the ground this holiday season. While I'd like to think it's due to the holiday spirit of giving I fear it may be from the growing ranks of the unemployed looking for something, anything, to do.

After twelve years on and off in London, I had finally decided I would remain there forever. So when work unexpectedly brought me back to New York two years ago, I left reluctantly. English quirkiness had grown on me. (Really, they aren't quirky, just different than me.) And my unavoidable...

Whoever coined the phrase "The Art of Letting Go" either never had anything they really valued, or never really let go of it. Because for me, there is no "art" in letting go. It is unrelenting, graceless drudgery. It is not the releasing of someone, it is the process of...

I am having a slip.

I'm serving myself up a big slice of sun for the first time this summer. Lying as prone as one can while typing, laptop balanced precariously on thighs, I'm slathered in SPF 15, a risky move given that I had malignant melanoma...

Practicing kindness at the macro level has never been difficult. I give to charity, support the more compassionate political party, help the elderly cross the street. Hell, I even volunteer, though giving of my time can sometimes be a stretch. I can be selfish that way.
But most...

It is purely coincidental that I am writing a blog about dating while waiting for the start of Sex and the City, the movie (reviews be damned). I suppose I am a bit like Carrie Bradshaw: unruly hair (fewer roots), too many clothes, questionable choices in men. We'll see if...

I'd had a hard day at the office, sending telexes in bad French for the trendy Eurotrash nightclub where I was working. For those of you unfamiliar with this "ancient" form of communication, the telex was only marginally more advanced than smoke signals, and required the typing of a brail-like...