Sunday, February 24, 2013

NYC Beer Week 2013



This post is definitely time sensitive so pay at attention! This weekend I had a chance to go to the NYC Beer Week opening party. What? There is a Beer Week going on? - you ask. Hell yeah! And it's awesome.

I have probably tasted 20 different brews in less than 24 hours. Can not wait to have more! So here is a brief line up for those of you who love beer:

Friday, February 22 - Opening Night Bash at Galapagos in Dumbo. Lots of beer tastings, live music and good times. You've already missed it but there is still time to catch up.

Wednesday, February 27 - NYC Brewers Choice annual event at City Winery. It ain't cheap but the $70 will get you beers from 20+ breweries, yummy food from 20 different stations and some hard liquor tastings as well.

Sunday, March 3 - NYC Beer Week Closing Ceremony at Eataly. It is a pay as you go event at the famous rooftop Birreria and will be nothing but fun to go to.

There are dozens of other events going on around the city in all borough so make sure to check out the full Schedule. I hope to see you guys there. Cheers!

My Oscar 2013 Predictions





Best film - "Lincoln"

Why:  I hated how commercial and main stream "Argo" felt. "Beasts of the Southern Wild" was the best movie this season but there is no hope of it being acknowledged by Affleck-obsessed Hollywood.

Best director - Steven Spielberg

Why:  I would like to thank the Academy for not nominating Affleck. That's why.

Best actor - Daniel Day-Lewis

Why:  Bradley Cooper needs to take a few more acting classes. Hugh Jackman is in a musical. Joaquin Phoenix is umm... Joaquin Phoenix.

Best actress - Jennifer Lawerence

Why:  Hollywood loves characters like JLaw's Tiffany in "Silverlinings" - dysfunctional, beautiful and desperate for love.

Best supporting actor - Robert De Niro

Why:  "Silverlinings" is the first movie since 1981 to get nominations in all four actor categories. De Niro's unscripted tears and strong performance have contributed to this rare occurrence of nominations.

Best supporting actress - Anne Hatheway

Why:  Any woman who loses this much weight and chops of her gorgeous hair in order to look like a homeless 9-year-old boy deserves a medal. An Oscar will do.



Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Need a decent Wiki service? Not so fast.


What initially started as an attempt to create a wiki page where my New Media class team members could collaborate on the project eventually turned into a day long quest for a decent platform that would provide such services. First, let me clarify the requirements: easy to sign up and simple to use pretty much covers it. Shouldn’t be hard to find, right?

 Wrong. When I “wikipedia-ed” the Wiki services I quickly realized that not all of them are free. Some offered quite comprehensive set of capabilities and required a subscription, some offered a free trial. So I gave a few of them a fair try.


 My first experiment was Wikia.  The platform self-described as “the world’s largest network of collaboratively published content” is free and supports numerous content types (pictures, music, videos, etc.). However, it took me good 5 minutes to figure out the sign up process. For some reason the website wouldn’t accept my Facebook log in, and email sign up was confusing.  Three Facebook and two email sign up attempts later I did figure it out but the momentum was lost. So even though the templates provided by Wikia looked pretty sweet and easy to navigate I decided to move on.


 The next logical step was to try a paid service. So in hopes of a better user experience I signed up for Central Desktop. The price of $99/month seemed steep but the platform offered a 15-day free trial so I couldn't resist. Within seconds I was able to access all the necessary content – discussions board, calendar, project management tools. I have to admit I was blown away. Until the first phone call came in. The company representatives did not wait too long to start bombarding me with sales phone calls and voicemails. Turns out I was too naive to think “free trial” implies harassment free. Wrong again.


 Just for the research purposes I decided to try out the third platform before going back to an already existing account with Wikia. OurProject.org platform is free and its UI definitely reflects that. I did not get through the sign up process because it was way too complicated, asked question that in my opinion were too technical for an average person and Help button was nowhere to be seen. So Our Project never transitioned to “my project”.


 Exhausted and somewhat disappointed I decided to get back to the first item of my research Wikia. The memory of a horrible sign up experience has faded away and the user interface looked better than ever after experiencing Our Project’s home page.  The Wikia platform has many useful features and a friendly interface, is relatively intuitive, and supports HTML and Javascript.  I am not sure whether this is a perfect tool for group collaborations. After all, Google docs and DropBox have proved to be reliable tools in the past. But maybe this time around I will give a chance to a Wiki service.

Monday, February 11, 2013

How I Passed the Citizenship Interview


This week I had a chance to experience first-hand what some may call “the most important interview of your life” – the Naturalization (aka Citizenship) interview. I have been a Green Card holder for many years now and finally this week I had my appointment.

I should probably start with admitting I wasn't that nervous to begin with. The interview consists of several parts – Civil Test, reading and writing, Application questions part – and I was prepared for the most part.

I began studying for the Civil Test part a few weeks prior to the appointment. This part includes 100 relatively easy questions about the US history and political structure. There are very straight forward questions like “Who is the President of the US?” and “What is the capital?” At the same time some questions definitely require looking up some information ahead of time like learning who my Senate and House representatives were.

When it comes to preparing for the questions about my application I tried to be reasonable. Of course, I know what my name and address are and I can probably remember where and when I started my last job. However, trying to memorize the dates of all the trips I've made outside of the US in the past 8 years seemed like a waste of time. So I didn't bother.

On the morning of the interview I woke up early and gathered all of my paperwork in one place. Even so I still managed to show up at the Federal Plaza without the appointment letter. I panicked for a second but the security person at the entrance assured me it was not an issue.  However, the lines at the door were. Since they do airport style security checks for everyone trying to enter the building it took me 35 minutes to just get to the right room.

The area was very crowded and the person who accepted my paperwork warned me that the wait could be up to 2 hours. Nevertheless, as soon as I've made myself comfortable in front of one of the TVs my name was called. I almost didn't expect it – it has been less than 10 minutes!

The USCIS officer who took me to one of the cubicles looked like any other person in the street. At first he did not seem to be friendly but as the interview progress he warmed up quite a bit. He began with making me raise my right hand and promise to tell the truth. We then proceeded to questions about my application. He asked me things like my name, social security number, address, phone number, etc. and put a red check mark next to the corresponding fields on my application. After we were done, the officer asked me to read a sentence “When is Columbus Day?” This was followed by him asking me to write “Columbus Day is in October.” Pretty straight forward, I thought.

The next step was the Civil Test and the officer has written down my answers to the 6 questions. I believe you get 10 questions total and you must answer 6 correctly. Since I gave the right answers to all six he did not bother asking me the remaining 4.

And then 15 minutes in … it was over. The officer made me sign a bunch of paper work, like put my signature next to all of the answers I have given him and things like that. He then stamped a big red “Approved” mark on top of my paperwork and told me we were done.

I couldn't believe how fast and easy the interview was. It felt a bit surreal and didn't even give the feeling of satisfaction I was expecting. Oh well, I guess what really matters is that I have passed and will have my oath ceremony in a few weeks. Hopefully, that event will give me the excitement and feeling of accomplishment I have been looking for. After all, you only become a US citizen once.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

CIS 3810 Post 1



  • So here it goes. The final destination of this journey is pretty    unclear for several reasons:
    1. I have never written a blog before. The diary I kept as a teenage girl turned out to be great and New York Times bestsellers list worthy, in my opinion, but some of you may disagree.
    2. It is not easy to create/write something when you have to and not because you’ve got something original to tell. But if the writers of Lost could milk that cow for years then so could I.
    3. Doing things seems to be more interesting than writing about it. Oh well.

  • After brain storming some ideas I realized that I’ve got some cool stuff to share. The title of the blog “Eat. Brew. Love.” hints a little at the fact that the topics of my posts may and will be a little all over the place. But don’t worry, there will be something in it for everyone – beer reviews for drinkers, career experiences for CIS major folks in my class, favorite restaurant lists for people who eat, and tons of cat pictures for… crazy people. 

  • So please get comfortable, sign up for my blog updates and I promise you plot twists better than those on Lost.