SIDENOTE: it's my party and i'll cry if i want to

• Yea, so I'm going to need the attention of New Yorkers for a moment: Do not even go near Veranda bar and restaurant.  They serve up a side of A-hole when it comes to service at the door.  The dudes outside made the birthday girl (ahemm, me) cry after trying to act like their otherwise empty bar was the cool place to be last Friday. They turned away friends and tried to charge upwards of a $75 drink minimum for people to enter into their shitty establishment. Running home so upset made me forget I wanted to eat pizza from the place next to my apartment at 2:00 a.m. WTF. After I informed the bouncer I hated he is a d-bag, I will follow up on my promise to ruin their lives. A plan to write up horrible reviews on every Yelp, CitySearch, etc. site I can think of ... starting with NY Magazine.  Don't mess with a pissed off birthday girl (yes. still.) who happens to work in PR AND have her own blog.

• To make up for an otherwise stressful Friday evening, a friend and I went for an awesome brunch in Chelsea Market's Friedman's (worth your time) and then strolled to L'Arte de Gelato in the West Village.  The gelato shop has a few locations throughout the city, and lucky for me a family friend is the owner.   Get the pistachio (imported from Sicily) - try the olive oil.  In addition to our ordered gelatos, the hook up led to a sampling of every flavor you could imagine (which led to essentially a second helping).  The place is frequented by the likes of Bobby Flay and Mario Batali, not to mention consulates from the Italian embassy who are searching for a taste of home.  What's great about L'Arte is that they also do special occasions (read: weddings).  This is certainly something sweet you may want to consider for an upcoming New York City soirée - I'm considering it for next year's birthday. Maybe I wouldn't be so frustrated on Friday if they fed me ice cream.

• At a bar over the weekend I noticed a girl beside me with a nasty piece of toilet paper stuck to her shoe. I was warned not to make an awkward situation more awkward (more like begged not to go over to her), but that's not the code of girl.  I'd want to know, and she should too. I kindly walked over to her, told her she had TP on her foot, agreed we were best friends after she shouted she loved me. So nice of me, right?  So she doesn't need to know I stumbled upon her little situation while I was judging her for the over-the-top, little shiny dress that she was busting out of.

-HMOH