I’m not a scam artist, shit just happens for me

I promise, I don’t make up anything I blog. It all actually happens, and I can’t actually explain why. This weekend included a few moments that I don’t understand, but can be simply explained by the manner in which I live my life, or at least how I have since I moved to New York:

Don’t ask “Why?”
Ask “Why Not?”

Nothing happened Friday night because of that whole Swine Flu biznass, but I survived on Slingbox’ing the Avalanche game and Matza ball soup…great combo. Saturday afternoon the fun began, as I told all of our friends that we should go as a group to the NEW YORK CITY DUMPLING Festival.

Yes, it is as absurd as it sounds, a festival devoted to Dumplings from across the world. But I thought, why not? We arrived in the pouring rain, to find the tail end of the festivities. As the Julie, Amy, and Modz waited for tickets, I noticed a crowd in front of the stage. I approached it, and heard “We only have One Dumpling Cookbook left, who wants it?? Ok, I’m going to think of a number between 1 and 50. Yell out what you think it is!”

100 people yelling numbers at once? Come on woman, think with your head. She gave up after a few yells, and thought “fine, whoever’s birthday is closest to today wins it!”

Fuck yah November 4th, way to take me to the Promised Land. I claimed my fat ass cookbook and walked away with pride. I then bought a ticket for some dumplings, but after only getting 3 for 5 dollars, I felt a bit cheated. So, wearing my StreetEasy T-Shirt, I approached the VIP Tent. The woman greeted me, and I said “Wow, so the event went well? I can’t believe I missed my interview set.” She looked down at my t-shirt, and said “Yah, don’t worry, the rain put a bit of a damper on everything. Do you want to come in and have some food anyway even though you weren’t able to cover it?”

Sure. I will eat your free dumplings and Chinese food, because you looked down at my Real Estate Website shirt and thought it must’ve been a fucking food blog. Again, this event isn’t being run by the Oprahs and Hillary Rodhams of the world.

(me with the cookbook and the world's largest whole wheat dumpling, supposedly)

As we leave, I get a call from Ray: come to Orchard and Rivington to get free tickets for a Girl Talk concert. Uh, yes I will do that. We go down there, to find out that in order to get the tickets, we must test-drive a Kia, as it is a secret concert with the only tickets being distributed to Kia test-drivers. We all test drove Kias, got our wristband tickets, and peaced.

Today I woke up and went to Sleepy’s to try to get a better bed, because I bought a cheap one and it’s shit. It was too pricey to exchange, so I went to buy a mattress featherbed pad at Macy’s, found one, and took it to the register. It was too expensive, so I asked about a sale. The Register Woman replied “Naw, Aint no sale less you can find one on da website with the blackberry” (not trying to be racist, just trying to quote her). There was no sale on the site, but when I googled “item blah blah….sale” I found the page where the sale used to be. That page didn’t exist, but I found the cached page, and showed it to her. She bought it, and I saved $70. Booyah. Oh, but I'm returning it cuz it's lumpy.

Girl Talk time comes around 7:00, but is preceded by opening act OJ Juiceman. It was the single worst live concert performance I’ve ever seen. The DJ behind him played rap music, and he would just chime in little “ooh ooh”s like a feminine Lil Jon. Terrible. Didn’t understand a word he said (again, not racist, just didn’t understand him).

All of the sudden I saw some kids running to the front corner. I summoned the group, and we got to the front of the line….TO BE DANCING ON THE STAGE WITH GIRL TALK FOR THE WHOLE CONCERT. It was pretty frickin sick, though he ended up sweating and smelling a bit and we were dancing right next to him.

Summing up the weekend: Free Cookbook, free dumplings and food, free test drive, free concert tickets, $70 from Macy’s, free soda at the concert, free $5 duane reade gift certificate on the street, and Free time spent with friends family and Girl Talk.

And they say New York is expensive...