Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 29, 2007
Gave Up Sleep, but at Least I Have an iPhone
Apple wanted a spectacle when the iPhone went on sale, and it got just that.
Dozens of photographers hovered outside Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue near East 59th Street, waiting to snap pictures of the elated, often sunburned faces of the first iPhone owners. Some Apple faithful had waited in line for days.
At 6 p.m., their patience paid off.
“I guess I didn’t need to get in line because they have thousands of them in there,” said Norbert Pauli, 52, who had waited since Wednesday morning outside the Fifth Avenue store. The sweaty tangle of people who lined up there included a customer service representative for a trucking company who took a vacation day to make her first Apple purchase; a jazz musician who declared, “I don’t stand in line for anything”; and a tourist from Argentina who said he wasn’t even sure the phone would work once he got it home.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Manhattan iPhone Watch: T minus 1.5 days and counting
On Wednesday, as predicted, the rain came. I must say I don't think I've sported this much Gore-Tex outside of hiking trips. Thunderstorms had been on the horizon for New York, and despite rampant rumors that Steve Jobs can control the weather, they still came. Around the 5th Avenue Apple Store, drainage isn't too good, so parts of the stone courtyard outside the Early Show studios were half an inch deep in water. (Note to self: don't wear flip-flops next time!)
But that didn't do anything to break up the line of enthusiasts waiting for the iPhone launch at 6 PM on Friday.
I hadn't dropped by the Apple Store this afternoon because I was busy talking into a box (there's my shameless self-promotion for the day). So when I showed up again after dark in the rain, the line that had been six people long 24 hours ago had now lengthened to 14. The male-female ratio is about 4:1, and just about everyone is somewhere in their 20s. Everyone was huddled under umbrellas, and thankfully, it looks as though there was plenty of rain gear around.
I'm also hearing that one guy in line knows how to get access to a shower in an apartment nearby, so things haven't been quite as, uh, pungent as they could be
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Apple Announces IPHONE Service Plans...
Apple has released details of the service plans that will be available for the iPhone. Three special monthly plans are available:
59.99 for 450 voice minutes
- $79.99 for 900 voice minutes
- $99.99 for 1,350 voice minutes
All three plans include unlimited data (email & web), Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll over minutes and unlimited mobile to mobile calling. Plans have a $36 one-time activation fee and are two year contracts. Family plans will also be available, but were not disclosed at this time. In addition, any standard AT&T service plan may be chosen.
Apple also clarified that activation of the iPhone and account setup will be done completely through iTunes.
59.99 for 450 voice minutes
- $79.99 for 900 voice minutes
- $99.99 for 1,350 voice minutes
All three plans include unlimited data (email & web), Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll over minutes and unlimited mobile to mobile calling. Plans have a $36 one-time activation fee and are two year contracts. Family plans will also be available, but were not disclosed at this time. In addition, any standard AT&T service plan may be chosen.
Apple also clarified that activation of the iPhone and account setup will be done completely through iTunes.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
iphone coming soon
sign at the Soho Apple store in NYC, taken today on June 24...there getting ready.
..photo by tonylimo
Gay Parade in NY TODAY....
What a scene today in NY on 5 th ave. The annual parade , they where all out in Drag, for more pics of event log on to Tonylimo on flickr
Gay Marriage Bill is New Reason to Celebrate Gay Pride
Religious groups led the city's gay pride parade on Sunday, lending gravity to an often outrageous event that also featured a jumble of drag queens in feather boas, marching bands, motorcycle-riding lesbians, rugby players and samba dancers.
"We stand for a progressive religious voice," said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of New York City's Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. "Those who use religion to advocate an anti-gay agenda, I believe, are blaspheming God's name."
The annual parade, one of dozens around the world, commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots in which patrons at a Greenwich Village gay bar fought back against a police raid.
At San Francisco's festival, the wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards marked the occasion by splitting with her husband over support for legalized gay marriage.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
JOE IMPS DAY IN NYC June 9
JOE Imps day in Long Isalnd City, Queens happened on June 9 on a bright beautiful day. A street was named after him at the intersection of 47 ave and Vernon Blvd. All gathered here , community leaders, city councilman leaders and local residents all joined his wife Marie Imparado as they dedicated the block that he was born on and grew up in to be named after him.
Joe a life long resident had a restaurant named " JOE IMPS" that was on Jackson Ave a few blocks away. Joe served the community for all of his life, helping residents and the local church ( St. Mary) when in need.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
'GOTTA-SELL' GOTTI UNLOADING PAD
June 17, 2007 -- Make "Junior" Gotti an offer he can't refuse - he could use the cash.
John Gotti, the scion of the Gambino crime family, is so strapped, he's looking to unload his lavish Gold Coast property and head south for the simpler - and cheaper - life.
After burning through more than $1 million in legal fees and another $150,000 in tax-lien payments, the one-time wiseguy told The Post in an interview last week that his leafy, 1.96-acre estate in Oyster Bay Cove, L.I., will be on the market in two weeks.
"We're finishing fixing it up," Gotti said, as he peered around his manicured, lush yard while his wife and kids gathered inside for family dinner.
The gangster who cried poverty during a series of racketeering trials said he hopes to save a few bucks by downsizing.
"I can't afford the upkeep," he confessed about his suburban spread, which costs $16,233 just in annual school and town taxes.
HOW 'SOPRANOS' LOST RAO'S
June 17, 2007 -- PRIVATE eye Bo Dietl badgered the producers of "The Sopranos" so incessantly for a part that they not only stopped taking his calls, but also wrote his friend, Frank Pellegrino, out of the HBO show, a source says. Pellegrino - owner of Rao's, the clubby East Harlem restaurant where Dietl is a regular - played a high-ranking FBI agent on the series. But he disappeared from the show a couple of years ago, and wasn't on stage at Radio City with the rest of the cast for the launch of the final season. Dietl, the former police detective lionized in the book/movie "One Tough Cop," admitted to us, "Anybody would have liked to be in it. I told ['Sopranos' creator David] Chase I'd play anything." But Dietl denied he was responsible for Pellegrino being dropped: "Frankie was sick and he was opening Rao's in Vegas." We tried reaching Pellegrino at Rao's, but the recording says the eatery is fully booked for 2007 and no one would be responding to messages.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
James Gandolfini looks beyond Tony Soprano
There was no decisive moment, no seismic shift, no ceremony when James Gandolfini put “The Sopranos” behind him. But he has. Comfortably.
“I was told that it would be a transition,” he says and shakes his head. “Not much. It’s very calming to move on.”
Gandolfini, of course, had played gangster-in-therapy Tony Soprano — earning raves, clout and unsought celebrity — since the HBO drama premiered in January 1999.
“The character has been with me for so long,” he says, “it’s a relief to let him go.”
No wonder. For 86 episodes, Gandolfini submerged himself in that fiendish, tormented character. He channeled the dark world of “Sopranos” creator David Chase. He was regularly summoned to his own psychic danger zone. All in all, the experience was “wearing,” he says.
There also was a physical toll. “The Sopranos” revolves around Tony, which meant Gandolfini had an exhausting workload.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
WHAT A GREAT END FOR TONY SOPRANO !!
I HAVE TO ADMIT I WANTED MORE MUCH MORE OF TONY SOPRANO, I THOUGHT I HIT THE REMOTE BY ACCIDENT,MY MOUTH WAS WIDE OPEN, " THATS IT " I SAID. NO MUSIC TO THE ENDING, JUST A BLANK SCREEN.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Car Crashes Through Sunrise Mall on L.I.
A car reportedly plowed into a large shopping mall in Massapequa on purpose.
Cops say around 7 p.m. Thursday night, a man in his 30s rushed his car through an entrance to Sunrise Mall near a JC Penney store and exited the mall near a McDonalds.
One person suffered minor injuries due to glass shattering everywhere.
Nassau County police have the driver in custody and they are investigating the incident as intentional. No word yet on the driver's motive.
Therapists scratch heads over latest 'Sopranos' move
NEW YORK -- Therapists, we've long known, are among the biggest fans of "The Sopranos."
So pleased were they with the credible therapy scenes between Tony Soprano, pop culture's most famous mobster/patient, and the appealing Dr. Jennifer Melfi, played by Lorraine Bracco, that the American Psychoanalytical Association once gave the show and Bracco an award.
But professionally speaking, they could only scratch their heads at the latest developments on HBO's hit drama, which aired its penultimate episode last weekend.
Just as Tony Soprano's life seemed to be imploding with dangerous speed -- in short, just when he needed some really good therapy -- Melfi and her own therapist made some highly questionable moves.
Not only therapists were distressed. Some patients were actually furious when they showed up for appointments this week, said one New York psychoanalyst.
"You wouldn't believe the outrage I am hearing," said Dr. Arnold Richards, who'd missed the episode, but was filled in by his patients. He was talking Mind-boggling," pronounced Richards. "I do not recall ever being told the name of a patient in treatment."
Colleagues agreed. "That dinner party was just very upsetting to me," said Dr. Joseph Annibali, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in McLean, Va. "What he did was outrageous. He's never had control of himself, and this just fits in with that."
Why did Kupferberg commit such a sin? He didn't think Melfi should be treating Tony, whom he considered a manipulative psychopath. Be that as it may, his disclosure was "a very egregious ethical violation," said Dr. Jan Van Schaik, chair of the Ethics Committee at the Wisconsin Psychoanalytic Institute.
"A patient needs to know that what gets said in the doctor's office stays there," said Van Schaik, who's never witnessed such a violation. "I've been at gatherings where people talk about patients in a more disguised form. Even that can be inappropriate. A good therapist should do the best they can to protect the anonymity of patients."
It's a shame, Van Schaik added, because "prior to Sunday's episode, 'The Sopranos' was the best portrayal in the popular media of a therapist-patient relationship." Annibali agreed: "We're so used to seeing therapists presented as incompetent hacks. Or as people who are more disturbed than their patients!"
What's been nice about Melfi, the Virginia therapist explained, is that she's a complex and caring figure -- she's not ideal, but she tries to help Tony even as she struggles with the idea of treating him.about a serious ethical lapse by Elliot Kupferberg, played by Peter Bogdanovich, at a dinner party full of therapists. Across the crowded table, the character callously revealed -- over Melfi's protests -- the identity of her star patient.
So pleased were they with the credible therapy scenes between Tony Soprano, pop culture's most famous mobster/patient, and the appealing Dr. Jennifer Melfi, played by Lorraine Bracco, that the American Psychoanalytical Association once gave the show and Bracco an award.
But professionally speaking, they could only scratch their heads at the latest developments on HBO's hit drama, which aired its penultimate episode last weekend.
Just as Tony Soprano's life seemed to be imploding with dangerous speed -- in short, just when he needed some really good therapy -- Melfi and her own therapist made some highly questionable moves.
Not only therapists were distressed. Some patients were actually furious when they showed up for appointments this week, said one New York psychoanalyst.
"You wouldn't believe the outrage I am hearing," said Dr. Arnold Richards, who'd missed the episode, but was filled in by his patients. He was talking Mind-boggling," pronounced Richards. "I do not recall ever being told the name of a patient in treatment."
Colleagues agreed. "That dinner party was just very upsetting to me," said Dr. Joseph Annibali, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in McLean, Va. "What he did was outrageous. He's never had control of himself, and this just fits in with that."
Why did Kupferberg commit such a sin? He didn't think Melfi should be treating Tony, whom he considered a manipulative psychopath. Be that as it may, his disclosure was "a very egregious ethical violation," said Dr. Jan Van Schaik, chair of the Ethics Committee at the Wisconsin Psychoanalytic Institute.
"A patient needs to know that what gets said in the doctor's office stays there," said Van Schaik, who's never witnessed such a violation. "I've been at gatherings where people talk about patients in a more disguised form. Even that can be inappropriate. A good therapist should do the best they can to protect the anonymity of patients."
It's a shame, Van Schaik added, because "prior to Sunday's episode, 'The Sopranos' was the best portrayal in the popular media of a therapist-patient relationship." Annibali agreed: "We're so used to seeing therapists presented as incompetent hacks. Or as people who are more disturbed than their patients!"
What's been nice about Melfi, the Virginia therapist explained, is that she's a complex and caring figure -- she's not ideal, but she tries to help Tony even as she struggles with the idea of treating him.about a serious ethical lapse by Elliot Kupferberg, played by Peter Bogdanovich, at a dinner party full of therapists. Across the crowded table, the character callously revealed -- over Melfi's protests -- the identity of her star patient.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
The Pen-Freaking-Ultimate Episode
Before I make a few little points about last night's tense, mind-blowing, excellent episode of "The Sopranos," I have to warn readers that there are SPOILERS in this entry, and they are SPOILERS you will definitely want to avoid until after you've watched.
My whole body was on edge during the show, which built quickly to full-on gang warfare after years of moving in that direction. "Ready for the rapture?" was the FBI agent's comment to Tony, and to us. As soon as I realized it was Phil and his evil-looking goons against the likes of Tony, Sil, Bobby, and Paulie, I knew the New Jersey guys were doomed. I loved the little bit of "Raging Bull" between Tony and Sil while they strategized in the restaurant; another nice passing homage to Martin Scorsese.
Tony is now without his best ally, the comatose Silvio, who'd earlier in the episode made a malapropism about his wife being "terminally" ill. There was a brief moment during the shooting when Silvio was crawling in the car that reminded me of the way Adriana crawled before he shot her (an important reminder, since I tend to romanticize Sil's loyalty). And Bobby was nixed in a great shooting scene that built slowly and eerily at the train store, the center of Bobby's innocence. I loved it that kids were screaming; they were delivering the sounds Bobby, the eternal child, couldn't.
TV REVIEW: The end is near for 'The Sopranos'
Not Sil.
That's all I could think during the white-knuckled final minutes of last Sunday's episode of "The Sopranos."
For a long time, I've thought it would make sense for Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) to die as the series closed (and that's just a guess, I have no inside information).
But I never really pondered the thought that there could be a lot of carnage around Tony as the series' end approached.
Are you, like me, wondering if this episode might be better than next Sunday's series finale? Ever notice that many programs (and so many prior seasons of "The Sopranos") have a second-to-last episode that is much better than the actual finale? I wonder if that'll be the case here.
Regardless, Sunday's second-to-last episode was a classic. As long as you ignore most of the A.J. (Robert Iler) stuff. (Yeah, yeah, the sins of the father are visited on the son. I get it. Enough already.)
But back to Silvio Dante. The dapper, understated linchpin of Tony's crew. Always the one with the perfectly timed shrug. The brow wrinkled just enough for Tony to sigh, "What's wrong?" Silvio wasn't a shouter or a tough guy or a bundle of rage (in other words, he's not Paulie Walnuts).
He was everything Tony needed in a confidante. Wise, trustworthy and loyal. And, as played by the talented Steven Van Zandt, dryly witty when circumstances allowed.
I don't want Sil to be dead. As Sunday's episode closed, doctors didn't think he'd regain consciousness. His near-death is bringing it home to me, finally - "The Sopranos" is ending. For real. Who allowed this to happen?
OK, truth be told, I have long thought that the sixth season (which includes the most recent batch of episodes and the group of episodes before that) has had too many sluggish moments, but hey, it's still "The Sopranos." I can't not watch. And the last few episodes have been really good.
Since the shocking death of Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli), a lot of momentum has built up in Tony's world. A world in which all due respect must be paid, but also a world in which no sins are forgotten. The Russian in the forest from so many episodes ago? He's forgotten. But all of Tony's sins have come home to roost now.
Hence Tony finishing out last night's episode sleeping with his gun, just as John Wayne might have in some heroic Western.
On the chalkboard in A.J.'s classroom in a recent episode, a quote from Wordsworth: "Getting and spending, we lay waste to our powers."
Somehow that doesn't strike me as a harbinger of good things to come for anyone in the "Sopranos" family.
And I'll certainly miss the absorbing give and take between Tony and his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), which, as of Sunday's episode, also appears to be over.
How many silent reaction shots has Bracco filmed over the last eight years? It has to be more than a hundred. But she never made them less than fascinating. But that's nothing compared with scenes in which her character sparred with Gandolfini's - that's some serious, world-class acting there.
Some other things I'll miss:
-The way Paulie Walnuts says, "Eow!," the all-purpose interjection on "The Sopranos," which can be used in any number of sentences: "Eow! There he is!" to "Eow! Did you just disrespect the Bing?"
-The show's opening credit sequence, one of the all-time greats.
-Gandolfini as Tony and Edie Falco as Carmela. Honestly, have two actors playing a married couple ever done more absorbing work or been more perfectly cast?
That's all I could think during the white-knuckled final minutes of last Sunday's episode of "The Sopranos."
For a long time, I've thought it would make sense for Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) to die as the series closed (and that's just a guess, I have no inside information).
But I never really pondered the thought that there could be a lot of carnage around Tony as the series' end approached.
Are you, like me, wondering if this episode might be better than next Sunday's series finale? Ever notice that many programs (and so many prior seasons of "The Sopranos") have a second-to-last episode that is much better than the actual finale? I wonder if that'll be the case here.
Regardless, Sunday's second-to-last episode was a classic. As long as you ignore most of the A.J. (Robert Iler) stuff. (Yeah, yeah, the sins of the father are visited on the son. I get it. Enough already.)
But back to Silvio Dante. The dapper, understated linchpin of Tony's crew. Always the one with the perfectly timed shrug. The brow wrinkled just enough for Tony to sigh, "What's wrong?" Silvio wasn't a shouter or a tough guy or a bundle of rage (in other words, he's not Paulie Walnuts).
He was everything Tony needed in a confidante. Wise, trustworthy and loyal. And, as played by the talented Steven Van Zandt, dryly witty when circumstances allowed.
I don't want Sil to be dead. As Sunday's episode closed, doctors didn't think he'd regain consciousness. His near-death is bringing it home to me, finally - "The Sopranos" is ending. For real. Who allowed this to happen?
OK, truth be told, I have long thought that the sixth season (which includes the most recent batch of episodes and the group of episodes before that) has had too many sluggish moments, but hey, it's still "The Sopranos." I can't not watch. And the last few episodes have been really good.
Since the shocking death of Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli), a lot of momentum has built up in Tony's world. A world in which all due respect must be paid, but also a world in which no sins are forgotten. The Russian in the forest from so many episodes ago? He's forgotten. But all of Tony's sins have come home to roost now.
Hence Tony finishing out last night's episode sleeping with his gun, just as John Wayne might have in some heroic Western.
On the chalkboard in A.J.'s classroom in a recent episode, a quote from Wordsworth: "Getting and spending, we lay waste to our powers."
Somehow that doesn't strike me as a harbinger of good things to come for anyone in the "Sopranos" family.
And I'll certainly miss the absorbing give and take between Tony and his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), which, as of Sunday's episode, also appears to be over.
How many silent reaction shots has Bracco filmed over the last eight years? It has to be more than a hundred. But she never made them less than fascinating. But that's nothing compared with scenes in which her character sparred with Gandolfini's - that's some serious, world-class acting there.
Some other things I'll miss:
-The way Paulie Walnuts says, "Eow!," the all-purpose interjection on "The Sopranos," which can be used in any number of sentences: "Eow! There he is!" to "Eow! Did you just disrespect the Bing?"
-The show's opening credit sequence, one of the all-time greats.
-Gandolfini as Tony and Edie Falco as Carmela. Honestly, have two actors playing a married couple ever done more absorbing work or been more perfectly cast?
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Sunday, June 03, 2007
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