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Ok, so it’s Johanna’s birthday, so what better way to celebrate than to attend a burlesque show and watch my little sister get slapped around by a naked chick. A good time was had by all.

Let me elaborate. We went down to Corio, a little establishment in SoHo, and watched the show. Not only did the show feature more skin than I expected, but also a lot more humour. The host, a cross-dressing lesbian named “Murray Hill”, had the audience entirely in stitches — even sober me!

We made it known fairly early that it was Johanna’s birthday and that the massive collection of well-dressed, good-looking young folks were her band. Eventually Johanna was asked to the stage to take a few smacks on the ass. Unfortunately I don’t have still photos of that, because I was shooting video (which I probably won’t post because it’s pretty explicit). These shots are mainly of Charles, who won an impromptu dance contest.

I’m good for one or two family posts a year. Here on Christmas eve, we crammed into the family car and made the long drive to Elizabeth, NJ to visit our cousins, who somehow seem to be cloning themselves and ever multiplying! Cute kids.

And yet most of my pictures are of my mother’s little winter village that she erects every year around this season.

Now that I live in Brooklyn, I don’t get the chance to see my old friends as much as I’d like. Luckily, we have a new fixture on the social calendar. Scott Richardson, once again, hosted the annual Cheesy Holiday Sweater Party at his place.

All the old lot was there, so I thought why not bust out the camera. These days I am more reluctant to take pictures of us simply standing around holding cups. Then again, this is what parties become after a certain age, no?

By the way, Chris Pax, major faux paz for wearing the same thing two years in a row.

New York’s newest, and largest Apple store is open for business. The new store, located at West 14th St. and 9th Ave. is a massive three-level behemoth with a giant glass spiral staircase that puts the 5th Ave. location to shame. Like many other buildings in the Meatpacking District, the building was once a warehouse, or some other light industrial nonsense. Sadly though, this new spot won’t be open 24 hours, like the 5th Ave. one.

More importantly for me, the 14th St. location is much more convenient to access via the L train. One of the few perks of living in Williamsburg, you can get to the Meatpacking District pretty quickly. Take that, Upper East Side!

I headed out to the opening tonight, just to take some photos, and like I suspected, there was a massive line of folks clambering to get across the threshold before stocks of free t-shirts and posters ran dry. I didn’t even attempt to wait in the snaking queue. The mob was impressive, but doesn’t compare with the opening of the London store back in 2004.

Drexel University is, once again, the ugliest college campus in America.

Drexel’s campus, an urban wasteland?

According to a new post on CampusSqueeze, Drexel has beat out the nation’s outdated and unloved universities to take home the dubious honour. I cheekily punched the air and proclaimed “yes” when I read this, however I don’t truly believe this to be the case. However, it’s hard to disagree when you put it like this:

1. Drexel University – Won Ugliest Campus in the Country in 2002 and guess what? No one made any changes. They still have prison-like dorms (shocker) and massive orange, yes orange, brick buildings from the ’70’s. It’s small, sporadic, and basically Philadelphia’s urban dumpster called a higher place of learning. That’s embarassing. The people of Drexel (the administrators, not the students) need to wake up and look around their filthy campus and shape it up.

Mmm, there’s more to it than that…

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Remember Kena, our bombastic friend from high school? Well, he has a band now and they were performing downtown. So we descended into some basement venue and watched him play … for hours! Kena, my man, you’re incredibly talented, but you have to learn the concept of ‘a set’. And start on time.

Afterwards, I headed uptown to attend the birthday party for Davin Riley, a friend of Ariel’s (and thereby, of mine) from Penn. Not only was it his birthday, but he just took the CFA exam, so congrats! Man, that place is crowded! PS450, I have to say, had a pretty good-looking crowd. How does that happen? Maybe it’s an east side thing.