Category: Lifestyles

The new rude

Jae-Ha Kim

Imagine finding strangers sitting on your lawn chairs, drinking beer and scarfing down sandwiches on your deck. You’d ask them to leave, right? Now imagine them telling you where to go. “Rude goes way beyond slamming a door in someone’s face or flipping them off on the highway,” says 48-year-old Wrigleyville resident Mike Porcaro, whose property has often been besieged by rowdy Cubs fans. “I had to chain my barbecue pit on the deck because people felt compelled to open the lid to look inside, as if they were going to find the Holy Grail or a mini-Sammy Sosa.”

It’s a small world after all at Disney

Jae-Ha Kim

Disney is suffering a bad spell of congestion. The crush of holiday visitors forced Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., to suspend ticket sales Thursday for the third time this week. The park took the action in the morning, planning to resume sales. But sales still were halted at dusk.The amusement park also stopped selling tickets Wednesday and on Christmas Day, spokesman Tom Brocato said.This is the first time it has done this in four years.

Fashion Anthropologie

Jae-Ha Kim

“My mother came over to the United States from China in 1947,” said art dealer Elaine Kwan. “She brought a big steamer trunk full of dresses. But when she went to college in Minnesota, she didn’t have any use for them and just kind of forgot about them. I never really had the opportunity to get real, tailored Chinese dresses made, so when I came across this trunk, I couldn’t believe my luck. I fit perfectly into them.

We customers get no respect

Jae-Ha Kim

Just when did the shift take place from the customer always being right to just being a plain pain in the butt? In recent months, I have been cut by a manicurist, pierced by a tack while trying on clothes at a department store, handed mixed-up food orders and messed-up film negatives and subjected to cab trips in which the drivers’ seats were so far back that I had to kiss my knees. Fact is, I can deal with inconveniences. But they’d be a lot easier to stomach if people would just show some common courtesy.

The new men of food: Tyler Florence, Bob Blumer

Jae-Ha Kim

Back in the day, celebrity chefs started and ended with Julia Child and her messy but amusing style. But thanks to the advent of cable television in general and the Food Network in particular, the faces of a new breed of hot-shot chefs are becoming familiar. Joining the ranks of Emeril Lagasse, Ming Tsai and those poker-faced Iron Chefs are a couple of young guns–Tyler Florence and Bob Blumer.

State of being single not a sickness

Jae-Ha Kim

I realize that no one’s going to mistake me for Tyra Banks and that Keanu Reeves probably won’t be knocking on my door any time soon with an engagement ring (although a girl can always dream). But I’ve got a good career going, my mental health is stable and I’m debt-free. In some countries, I would be considered a good catch.