Sars,

My boyfriend and I stayed at The Cosmopolitan Hotel (http://www.cosmohotel.com/)last September and it was fine — the rooms were perfectly clean, if a bit on the small side, the hotel was quiet, and there was a subway station right outside the front door, so it was easy to get around even though we were all the way down in Tribeca. The rates on the website are reasonable, but we got an even better deal booking through www.lastminute.com. It’s a UK-based website but you don’t have to be British to use it. I suggest Two Star looks there to see what hotel deals are available.

LP

Dear LP,

Thanks for the rec.I’ve broken down the responses into hotel suggestions and “other” — if I got a suggestion more than once, it’s asterisked.

HOTELS
The Waldorf
Best Western Convention Center Hotel, W. 38th
The Gershwin
The Hyatt Regency Jersey City
The Belvedere Hotel, W. 48th
The Library
The Carlton Arms
The Hotel Pennsylvania, across from Penn Station* [NB: Either people love this place or think it’s a hole.]
The Washington Jefferson, 51st and 8th
Radio City Apartments, W. 49th*
The YMCA at 63rd and 5th
Larchmont Hotel, 11th near 6th Ave.
East Village Bed and Coffee
Herald Square Hotel
Hotel Newton, 2528 Broadway
The Murray Hill East
Sohotel
Akwaaba Mansion

OTHER
Wait for a last-minute deal on hotels.com
Priceline.com*
quikbook.com
Check Craigslist NYC for sublets/vacation rentals
Orbitz

Hi Sars!

A recent Vine question about wedding celebrations got me thinking.A couple
years ago, my hubby and I eloped.Am I too late to have a “wedding
celebration”?I’m not fishing for gifts, it’s just that sometimes I get a
little sad that we never got to have a party, surrounded by our friends and
family in support of our marriage.

Should I have it near our anniversary and call it an anniversary party?Or
should I just give up and be done with it?

Thanks!

Missed out on the fun

Dear Miss,

“A couple years ago”?Yeah…you’ve missed the boat on calling it a “wedding” celebration, I think, but if it’s just a big party you want, surrounded by family and friends, throw an anniversary shindig.

You have two issues here, though: 1) you’re worried that it might come off like a gift grab, and 2) the sad fact is that people will make an effort to go to a wedding in a way they won’t always with a different kind of party.So, I would do it up right with fancy invitations, heavy card stock so people know it’s An Important Occasion, and then put a little insert in there that basically explains what you just told me — you don’t want fondue sets.You want your peeps.

Since it’s not an actual wedding, I think you can get away with explicitly stating “NO GIFTS” on the invitation.I could be wrong about that, but since you’re trying to get all the fun of a traditional wedding reception but with untraditional timing, maybe you could chuck a few of these rules this time so that it’s clear what kind of celebration it is, and what it means to you.

Hey Sars,

I have a dad who cares very little about sports.This pains me somewhat as
an avid baseball fan, but I live with it.While I’m watching games, he
often comes up behind me and jokingly asks me questions and ribs me about
the game.Recently he asked me who decides what pitch is thrown.Realizing
this was a genuine question, I told him about catchers, signs, and how they
help the pitcher decide what pitches to throw, all that good stuff.

Well,
that wasn’t what he was talking about.He wanted to know who decides what
kind of pitch has been thrown when it is displayed in the ballpark (ex:
Slider 87).I have no clue.I can think of a number of ways of doing it,
including looking at the catcher’s signs, looking at video footage, or just
“assuming” what pitch was thrown based on its speed and the particular
pitcher’s arsenal.I’ve checked Wikipedia and browsed MLB.com and so far,
so soap. I was wondering if you or any other Vine readers could settle this
matter definitively.I’d love to give him an answer, just because dragging
him to the Astrodome and Minute Maid Park all these years seems to have
finally garnered some interest in him.

Thanks,
An Astros Fan

Dear You Love Roger Clemens, You Want To Maaaaarry Him,

I’ve always wondered that myself, how anyone can identify those pitches.It’s one thing if the guy in the booth is someone like Al Leiter, or any other commentator who used to play major-league ball, but the only thing I can tell for sure, usually, is a curve ball — or Mo’s cutter, but like you mentioned, I only can guess that he’s throwing that because it’s his signature pitch.How does the dude way out in left center with the pair of opera glasses know it’s a change-up?

I think it’s probably a combination of the things you said.The way the game is seen and presented has gotten more hi-tech in recent years, and I suppose it’s possible that certain stadiums ask whoever’s doing the pitch log in the dugout (usually the starter from the day or two days before, or the pitching coach) to transmit that information to the scoreboard, but that doesn’t sound quite right, not to mention it would be too slow.It’s also possible that whoever’s got that job on the scoreboard has decoded the catcher’s signs, but that seems wrong too — too lo-fi.Maybe they just have a guy up there with great eyesight who has learned which pitch is what from doing it every day; maybe he’s just guessing, same as we are.

Short answer: dunno.Any of the readers who want to weigh in on this may feel free.

[9/6/06]

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