So our favorite douche bag restuaurantuer Nello Balan is such a publicity whore that he now is suing a model for returning his $1,000 limited edition Jean Paul Gaultier leather umbrella with a broken shaft, the Post reported yesterday.  The media outlets obviously had some fun with this story, but what they all failed to bring up was what was the most bizarre thing about this whole story: WHO THE FUCK BUYS A LEATHER UMBRELLA?!  We are serious here guys....doesn't anyone in their right mind KNOW that leather is the worst material to come into contact with water!?  Wouldn't it smell like a rotten cow hide after 2 minutes in the rain?!  We already knew Nello is off his rocker, not to mention a cheap bastard, but this makes us start to question the sanity of Jean Paul Gaultier who actually designed such an atrocity.  For a recap of the email exchanges between Nello and the model known as Le Call go here. 

Here is what we picked up:

-Nat Rothschild's driver needs a bonus

-Nello is anything but a gentleman.

-Le Call is as ungroomed and lazy as she claimed in NY Mag's look book this summer....we still think she is the least crazy of this bunch and should stick to free bikes...at least those make sense to us.

-Even top earning models aren't making enough money to dine at Nello's...which reconfirms to us that we aren't the only ones that think his pricing rationale is completely retarded.

-The actual lawsuit in Nello's lawyer's words will be for "an act of disinterested malevolence, intentional infliction of mental distress, willful destruction of property, and whatever else I can think of."

-Le Call's response is to simply state the obvious, that "Nello is desperate for attention", which leads us to believe models aren't as dumb as they look.

"At the tender age of 23, she tries not to let her family's great wealth and illustrious history cloud her judgement." 

We were NOT going to do a post on Lydia Hearst Shaw today.  We promised ourselves.  We just couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't do it.  She's all over the media of course, after the interview she did with The Observer titled "Lydia Unleashed".  Gawker poked their fun twice, followed by NY Mag's Daily Intel, and then we're sure a host of other bloggers out there.  But then we actually read what she said about her gang "2.0" and saw the accompanying photo (shown above) and we just couldn't help ourselves.  Click on any of the above links to read the full reports on the interview, as we are just going to highlight the "2.0-ers",(including photographer Nadav Benjamin and musician long balled Cisco Adler, who she has recently been linked to romantically), shown above with their matching "key" tattoos.....bear in mind, we are not saying one word about this, we are just reporting it to you straight from the horses mouth... leaving you to make whatever judgements you should like on your own.  And now, Lydia Hearst as quoted in The Observer:

“I would say my closest friends are probably the 2.0, It’s not about a clique, it’s just about a group of people coming together and it’s a lifestyle—it’s a bond. … So many young people are wrapped up in the party scene. The great thing about everyone in this group is, we all have real jobs, we get up in the morning. We work and that’s what brought us together…We are hardly ever apart. It’s all artists—everyone in that group is successful in their own right, whether it is music, fashion, art, photography, business. We don’t want to compare ourselves to the Factory, because you can’t have the Factory without Andy Warhol, but essentially it is like a new wave and it’s a new style of living, and we are all just riding the wave, we are all being inspirational to each other and we are helping each other out and we are always there for each other, and we are hardly ever separated for more than a day—each one of us has the same mentality, which is breaking free of the mold that is the stereotype of society and the way that we are expected to be.”

Last month, the 2.0 gang went out and all got tattoos of a skeleton key; Lydia’s is on her inner right forearm. “The symbolism behind the skeleton key is that it opens every door and it’s bonded us together,” she said.

Maybe what I’m about to disclose to you makes me a huge dork in your eyes, or maybe you can relate…I don’t really care what side you take, here are the facts: A CONSIDERABLE amount of my time in high school was spent playing Drug Wars on my TI-86 calculator. By considerable, I’m talking substantial. It all started when I somehow got (mistakenly) placed in the AP Calculus class as a sophomore. There were only a couple other sophomores in this mostly senior class and, well, I didn't have any friends at all. Now I don't want you to feel sorry for me. Once I found my beloved Drug Wars 2.0 I wouldn't have wanted to chit chat with anyone after that anyway. You see, that semester, what started out as me being a timid, shy sophomore dork, morphed into what ended as me being one of the slickest drug lords around. Drug Wars, the highly addictive calculator game made for various Texas Instrument Calcs (ours were mostly TI-86’s), helped me get through those long afternoons in calc class more than Rob, the hot senior quarterback that sat in front of me.

First of all you have to understand that although I’m not ANCIENT or anything, we still didn’t have blackberries or iPhones bouncing around in our uniformed pockets. Even if you did have a cell phone, or the more popular pager, you couldn’t use it in school unless you wanted to risk a demerit. That left us with little else to occupy our brain powers while we should have been using them to figure out derivative functions in calculus. So we turned to the games, and drug wars was my specialty.

Ah Drug Wars….where do I start? If you have ever played the game you know it’s absolutely one of the best things created out of a calculator. Here’s the deal:

OBJECTIVE: To make the most amount of money selling drugs in NYC in 30 days.

PREMISE: The player is a drug dealer living in NYC traveling around the various areas such as the Bronx, the Ghetto, Manhattan, Coney Island, and Brooklyn. Along the way, you buy and sell various drugs including Cocaine, Heroin, Acid, Weed, Speed, and Ludes. You start with $2k and 100 “spaces” in your pocket and no weapons. You have to deal with loan sharks (for your initial capital investments), weapons dealers, and my favorite, “Officer Hardass”. Hardass randomly confronts you during the game and you can either run or fight him (if you have weapons). Also random events like muggings, drug sales, increased drug prices, and the finding of drugs occur.

END: The game ends after 30 days of wheeling and dealing. Final score is calculated by taking the players current amount of cash and multiplying it by two.

STRATEGIES: The basic strategy is to buy a drug in one location at one price and travel to another location to sell it for a higher price (arbitrage). A skilled player must know the standard price of all drugs to realize when it is cheap, and take advantage of fluctuations in the market

You may have come across the game under one of it's other names: Druglord or Dope Wars. All you needed was a TI calculator and one of those cords to get started. What was also great about this game is that you could save it and come back to it later...something that the TI-83 version had previously lacked.

The funny thing about my experience with Drug Wars is that I probably learned more relevant entrepreneurial skills playing that game than any class taught me. Once I found out the "cool kids" were all playing as well, I earned their respect with my high score, reflected after taking advantage of the increased price of Heroin in Coney Island. Who knew that a calculator game could single handedly educate me in all things regarding drug trades in NYC, a place I unknowingly would reside in down the road, as well as win me a date to the prom?

Seriously, have you seen a cuter Look Book profile??  This week, NY mag debuts Numa, the soccer shirt wearing, baseball playing, Ferarri lover.  His grandfather was the one doing the interview for Numa, probably because he was too busy looking cool.  Grandpa tells the mag that he is "very often the point of attraction in Switzerland, where he lives, but in New York, he really is the charm of almost everyone."  Named after Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, we expect to see this kid in fashion in as little as 5 years.  While they don't mention his current age, his curls are sure to send girls RUNNING to him for many years to come.  If we have kids, we would want them to be derivatives of little Numa.

It was a pretty eventful weekend. The annual New York Marathon drew thousands of visitors to our city, Hollywood writers really did go on that strike they were promising, and we all gained an extra hour of partying time on Saturday (though now we can start lamenting the annual recession of daylight and subsequent Seasonal Affective Disorder aka Winter Depression). However, the story that has us more concerned this Monday is the contract signed between Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen and Procter-Gamble Co. In it, Gisele demanded to be paid in Euros following billionaire investors like Warren Buffett and Bill Gross at the growing list of rich people who have concluded that the dollar is cheap and can only depreciate further because "Americans led by President George W. Bush are living beyond their means." (As written in Forbes).

The U.S. Dollar plummeted to its lowest ever last week against the Euro, Canadian dollar, Chinese yuan and its currently the cheapest in 26 years against the British pound! Though analysts seem confident that the dollar will strengthen in coming months, investors seem to be looking at moving their investments to non-dollar currency companies. On Bloomberg, Jim Rogers, a former partner of investor George Soros, said last month he's selling his house and all his possessions in the U.S. currency to buy China's yuan.

"The dollar is collapsing,'' Rogers said last week in an interview. "I'm moving to Asia because moving to Asia now is like moving to New York in 1907 or London in 1807. It's the wave of the future.''

While we are a little concerned about the depreciating dollar bill, (you can't even get a decent glass of wine for under $12 these days), we are not sure packing up and moving to Asia is the answer. On second thought, it could be quite fun to tower over everyone...get a taste of what those models here feel like for once.

Like so many young Hollywood starlets, it seems the boys over at Cipriani's just can't learn their lesson. Having just finished up with their massive federal tax evasion lawsuit from August, they will now head back to court again, this time for a sexual harassment suit filed by an employee at Harry Cipriani's, the chain's Sherry Netherland location on 5th Avenue. After a two year hiatus, the restaurant was just recently reopened and is designed as almost an exact replica of the famed Harry's bar in Venice.

The lawsuit, filed by Columbian native Lastenia Amparo Torres cites several instances of discrimination including "humiliating, dehumanizing, unwelcome, sexually charged and offensive, gender specific name calling" as well as other instances of sexual harassment including comments such as "women are only good for bed" and several other threatening remarks. There are also claims of repeated reports to managers and the owners (including father and son duo Arrigo and Giuseppe Cipriani) of the harassment to which the management turned a blind eye. The whole thing reeks of scandal. NY Mag obtained an entire copy of the legal documents here. We will be very curious to see what happens. As for the Cipriani's, well they are certainly providing us with quite a lot of material to discuss lately...

Luckily for Don Imus, the public outrage surrounding his comments have been short-lived. The radio show host will be back on the air on 77 WABC.

"We are ecstatic to bring Don Imus back to morning radio," said 77 WABC President and General Manager Steve Borneman.  "Don's unique brand of humor, knowledge of the issues...is unparalleled."

Ummm... yes he does have a "unique brand of humor" for sure.  Gotta love that spin.

[NYP]

[At the Halloween Parade '07]

New York is notorious for it's nightlife. It has started trends such as bottle service and suited doormen across the world. It is everchanging, sometimes shocking, most of the time entertaining, and usually best experienced with a little bit of substance in your system. Well, on Halloween, the city gets especially wacky and last night was no exception. Unfortunately, the multiple shootings in Union Square took away some of the fun, but we managed to at least catch part of the parade and some party partaking downtown. Here was our favorite costume taken on the subway station at Prince St. (From 7:00-11:00 there was no chance in hell you were getting a cab or moving anywhere fast)...

He's white trash hahaha. Also, thought this was pretty cool. Gawker created a chart of the top 220 Halloween costumes for Women as taken by the searches from google and yahoo. Click on the thumbnail below to see what the top ones were for this year: