Two months ago, I received a rude awakening when I discovered my Cornell meal plan card no longer delivers an all-I-care-to-eat playground of delicious delicacies. In cafés, restaurants, bodegas, bistros, and nosheries across the world, the Cornell card nourishes me with nothing but spoiled stares. Outside of the culinary orb of campus, the card is then rendered useless and inedible (even marinated, spiced, and flambéed, the plastic card provides a poor meal replacement).
Cut off from …

Steve Martin, comedian, art collector, and novelist, was interviewed at the 92nd Street Y the other week. The onstage conversation was interrupted when Martin’s interviewer was handed a note.
It read: “Discuss Steve’s career.”
The message was delivered by Y staff members who were trying to breath life into Mr. Martin’s musings that were focused squarely on his new book and the modern art world.
The paying guests got a full refund and Mr. Martin got his feelings …

The New York Times reported today that embattled NBC Chief Jeffery Zucker has stepped down.  Zucker was instrumental in Jay Leno’s questionable move to primetime last season as well as several other high profile calamities (Ben Silverman anyone?) in the network’s core programming. In a scathing opinion piece by Maureen Dowd earlier this winter, she summarizes the structural problems plaguing NBC. Zucker, an able manager of numbers, main critical failing was that he lacked a …

It’s easy to blame Google and PowerPoint for distracting us and making us employ bullet points. But, as Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at Harvard, argues in last week’s New York Times, we shouldn’t get worried about technologies’ power of distraction. Perhaps, he says, we should be thankful since “technologies are the only things that will keep us smart.”
Pinker states that new forms of media usually meet initial skepticism. The printing press, radio, television, comic …

Americans spend an amazing 32.7 hours a week on the internet. You can only throw away so much of the day checking Facebook or actually doing work, but there are a few spare hours that need to be filled. That’s where websites like icanhascheezburger.com step in.
Jenna Worthham of the New York Times writes about how this silly time waster has blossomed into an empire that includes 40 employees and 50 other popular websites.
If you don’t …

American’s love their slang. I’m not talking about the four-letter words that get bleeped if they are mistakenly uttered on TV (though we do love that as well). I’m talking about things like “Beemer” (BMW), “Mickey D’s” (McDonalds) and, of course, “Chevy” (Chevrolet). In some ways this kind of slang is a badge of honor. It says: “I love this product so much; I feel comfortable enough to be causal and informal with it.”
We don’t …