Baseball

“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.

Culture and Criticism

From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.

Donors Choose and Contests

Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.

Stories, True and Otherwise

Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.

The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

Brain freeze
July 22, 2008 · 108 Comments
Brain freeze

As the champion-foodstuffs bracket prepares to make its triumphant midsummer return with an ice-cream face-off, Keckler and I find ourselves with a few unanswered questions — starting with whether Rocky Road is the same thing …

The Vine: July 18, 2008
July 18, 2008 · 37 Comments

Hi Sars,
I have a question for you and your readers: How does one make their fingernails grow hard and strong?
I am a guitar player, primarily a fingerstyle-steel-string acoustic kinda guy. Due to a disastrous experiment …

Both hands on the wheel, young man!
July 17, 2008 · No Comment
Both hands on the wheel, young man!

Happy birthday, Dad.

The Vine: July 16, 2008
July 16, 2008 · 55 Comments

Hi Sarah,
This past year I started a graduate program in social work, and I’m learning that there are certain social service-y buzzwords that get thrown around, like, a lot. Two of the most commonly heard …

Support Local Business: July 16, 2008
July 16, 2008 · 32 Comments
Support Local Business: July 16, 2008

Simon Tofield is back, with his cat, in “TV Dinner.” Do not drink hot coffee while watching.You may, however, make fun of me for having the premiere date of Tofield’s latest entered into my Outlook …

All-Star
July 14, 2008 · 10 Comments
All-Star

I didn’t care for Bobby Murcer in the booth at first — the gee-willikers accent, combined with his almost naïve enthusiasm for everything that happened on the field, got on my nerves.But as time went …

Support Local Business: July 11, 2008
July 11, 2008 · 2 Comments
Support Local Business: July 11, 2008

Brooklyn retail fun times: 50-90 percent off previous seasons’ merch at Flirt (the sale is not at their Fifth Ave. storefront; it’s at Home Ec, 303 Third Ave. at Carroll Street).Also, Olive’s Very Vintage is …

The Vine: July 11, 2008
July 11, 2008 · 18 Comments

Sars,
My friends and I are throwing a birthday slumber party for a friend of ours. We want to make gift bags like we got when we were kids and we want to put slap bracelets …

The Vine: July 10, 2008
July 10, 2008 · 39 Comments

Sorry for the delay; my parents’ internet absolutely refused to work on my computer yesterday.(“Is it plugged in?””YES, DAD.IT IS.GOD.”)Anyway: Vine!
My stepmother organised my dad’s funeral. She and my father were de facto partners for …

The Ikea Visual Pronunciation Guide
July 8, 2008 · 62 Comments
The Ikea Visual Pronunciation Guide

If you’ve ever visited an Ikea, you know that one of the rituals of the trip — along with the sweet reward of meatballs after a deflating hour of comparing countertops, and the despair with …