You are wonderful and amazing and special and I thought the best way to show you how much I appreciate that was to try to capture all that you are in a work of art.

I proudly present the one and only birthday girl, umm, you:

Love you, darling! <# <# <#

I’ve switched job locations involuntarily and been dumped into an entirely different set of challenges and circumstance within the same company. Even though I know what to do it feels like working for an entirely different company.

Its all rather unsettling.

Throw in  a couple of missteps and mess-ups, the majority of which were directly caused by massive amount of time I’ve had to put into work lately, and you have me not frequently writing a lot and updating my blog lately.

And being put into a not-so-comfortable place overall.

It’s strange to have some parts of my life working better than I could have ever expected while simultaneously having a terrible situation of work stresses and problems to get through on the other hand.

It will get better.

Oh, I’m sure it will get better, but its going to have to be through a great amount of change. That may be just what I need in fact, but I don’t think getting to that transition’s going to be particularly easy.

The worst part about the whole situation is that it has been infringing on me getting to do all of the things that I so enjoy: writing here at CityCynic.com, covering my Metsies at MetsTalk.com and BicoastalBaseball.com, and just going out and photographing things and places and people like I had been doing every time that I got a break.

I mean the obvious solution is to get into a career of writing and/or photographing for a living. That would solve a bunch of problems at once. I just have to figure out how to make that happen, I guess…

As for you, my readers, at least I can promise to make a greater effort into updating my blog with interesting and strange news and opinions and entertainment as I work on getting everything back in order around here.

Sorry I got distracted, sometimes life is hard.

Late night talk show host Conan O’Brien, who certainly could have become cynical after the way he was treated by NBC, mentioned cynicism during his final show:

“All I ask of you, especially young people…is one thing. Please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen.”

Now, being a self-proclaimed CityCynic, I feel I have to explain that being cynical doesn’t always just mean becoming jaded. O’Brien was right on with his statement. In life, you don’t always get what you want and reacting to that by thinking that nothing will ever go right is absolutely the wrong way to live.

But being cynical doesn’t necessarily mean you think nothing will ever go right. Cynicism is actually about having a healthy skepticism of certain institutions that society leads you to believe can be trust unconditionally.

“Trust No One.” That was what the poster said on Fox Mulder’s office wall on The X-Files. Now, David Duchovny’s character certainly had valid reasons not to trust anyone and perhaps what he demonstrated was the jaded brand of cynicism Conan O’Brien called out on his final show.

Luckily, most people don’t live a life that would provoke such a severely negative reaction. And even with the entire federal government after him, Mulder still was able to find that “The Truth is Out There” and to say “I Want to Believe.”

And that’s the flipside to cynicism, the idea that while you can’t always believe everything that is presented to you and that doing so might actually endanger your life MUST be balanced by the struggle to discern the truth and the goodness in life from all the distractions that are in the way.

Separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff enables the value of cynicism to emerge. Cynicism can be used as a tool to navigate life. It’s all about how you use it, of course.

American playright Lillian Hellman put it this way:

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

Cynicism is just a way to get at the truth. Many people would rather avoid the truth in certain situations because sometimes it might be easier to just pretend everything is okay even when’s it not. But being oblivious to the truth or ignorant of a situation because you want to avoid it can’t be a healthy way to get through each day.

And lastly, I just want to say that cynicism is not the opposite of optimism. I can see that it may be easy to draw that comparison because a lot of being cynical can often be construed as being negative or pessimistic. That couldn’t be further from the truth in my experience.

I suppose cynicism used improperly can be no better than being pessimistic, however when it is used properly as a tool to navigate through your life, it can help you to hold on to optimism because once you see how things really are, you are able to adapt and thrive.

And isn’t that really what Conan was really getting at? Members of Team Conan would certainly hope their favorite talk show host will see through the nonsense Conan was presented with by NBC so that he can adapt and thrive on another network.

So don’t be negative and jaded, but don’t be ignorant or ignore the truth either. Take the time to investigate life so that you can live a better one.

President Barack Obama gets pointed at by a woman in the crowd as he shakes hands at a campaign stop for Democratic senate candidate, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley at Northeastern University in Boston, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Today’s Strange News Photo of the Day is of Pres. Obama being pointed at by a woman in the crowd at a campaign stop for MA attorney general Martha Coakley.

WHY SO STRANGE? While the news photo is a unique angle of a politician interacting with the masses at a political event, it strangely raises more questions than it answers. Why is this unidentified lady pointing at the President? She doesn’t seem to be blaming him for anything because she is smiling while pointing, so maybe she’s just giving Obama props? (“You’re the man, Mr. President!”)

Or maybe she’s just not too sharp and this photo captured her realizing, “I know you! You’re that president guy!”

And no, this lady is not comedienne Wanda Sykes, although that would probably answer all of our questions about what’s going on here.

Every so often, CityCynic.com presents the Strange News Photo of the Day. Do you have a strange news photo you’ve come across that is baffling in it’s meaning or just plain strange? Send us a link to the questionable photo in our comments section on any post and we may feature it next!

Team Conan takes over the Internet

Then I remembered a certain new Threadless t-shirt I had seen recently called Solitary Dream Pt2 by Budi Satria Kwan, which also features skyscrapers and sharks. And while I usually prefer t-shirts with dinosaurs on them, I did plan on purchasing one for myself.

Note any resemblance between the two?

Shark t-shirt vs. Shark Tank

Not only do both designs consist of skyscrapers and sharks as seen from underneath looking up, but they both similarly feature a sun or light source in the upper righthand corner.

I mean, it all could be a gigantic coincidence, especially considering not that many people actually watch (or have even heard of) ABC’s Shark Tank.

But what if Budi Kwan saw the Shark Tank logo and decided to make a t-shirt design based off of it?

Then why stop there? I would like to suggest his next shirt design come from I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here!:

I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here!

NBC is moving Jay Leno back to 11:30. What about Conan? (Photo credit TMZ.)

NBC experimented with a late night comedy show before the local news in order to save money and because they really didn’t have anything besides Southland to put on at 10pm. (And we all remember how that turned out.)

The move to 10pm proved to be a poor lead-in to the local newscasts, prompting stations to complain about The Jay Leno Show experiment being a ratings disaster.

NBC hasn’t yet announced exactly how they’re going to be able to put Jay back at 11:30 since Conan O’Brien has been in that time zone since he took over The Tonight Show from Leno. It would likely go the way of one of these possible scenarios:

1. NBC moves The Jay Leno Show to 11:30, but shortens it to a half hour and then runs The Tonight Show at 12:00 and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at 1am.
2. NBC moves The Jay Leno Show to 11:30-12:00 and also shortens The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien to a half hour from 12:00-12:30. Jimmy’s show stays the same, cause everyone’s already sleeping anyway.
3. NBC moves The Jay Leno Show to the 11:30-12:30 slot and Conan’s Tonight Show moves to 12:30-1:30. (This is probably the least likely scenario, since Conan fought for years to get the 11:30 slot and would almost definitely not go back to 12:30 on NBC.)
4. NBC gives The Tonight Show back to Jay Leno and Conan gets the $50 million buyout in his contract and is free to entertain offers for the 11:30pm slot on ABC or FOX.

You’d have to figure that if scenario #4 happens ABC would jump at grabbing Conan for 11:30 and push Jimmy Kimmel back to 12:30 to compete with NBC and CBS. Conan – Kimmel? I would so watch that!

And FOX would love to have Conan at 11:30 to have a late night comedy show that would actually COMPETE. (Remember The Magic Johnson Show? Enough said.)

While it remains unclear as to which path the network will take, one thing is crystal clear: NBC doesn’t know what the hell they are doing.

Now while I could go into the next moves the team needs to make to get back to World Series shape, I’d much rather share something I found in the comments section of MLB.com… a poem from a Mets fan (different, right?):

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE METS’ NEXT SEASON

Twas the night before new years / and all through the town / a slight smile was forming / from an uncomfortable frown /

The Mets and J Bay have come come up with a deal / hopefully jumpstarting the teams offseason wheel /

But there is still “quite” an opening / on the teams starting rotation / With an emphasis on quite / which i have in quotation /

There is plenty of room / for the arm of Piniero / But his agent and him / want too much dinero /

We don’t need an ace / we need an arm with no cuts /  a starter with heart / some brains and some guts /

How about Brett Myers from Philly / his teams lookin full / maybe Bedard, Smoltz or Pedro / one or two would be cool /

So on David, on Carlos, on Jose, and John Maine / On Luis, and on Frenchy / I’m not tryin to complain /

You guys need some help / and some Vitamin C / To contend in the East / with the team from Philly /

So rest up this winter / and get ready for Spring /

And keep your fingers crossed / for a World Series Ring

[Originally written and posted on MLB.com by user hudge36. I added the title and formatting for better readability.]

While I definitely don’t agree that John Smoltz or Pedro Martinez are viable options for the Mets future, I do like the effort put into that Mets poetry.

Hopefully the Mets will make the necessary moves and the 2010 season will flow just as smoothly as the above prose, getting our Metsies to the playoffs.

Actress Alaina Reed-Amini, best known for her long-running roles as Olivia Robinson on the children’s program “Sesame Street” and Rose Lee Holloway on the comedy “227,” has died.

Reed-Amini lost a two-year battle with breast cancer at St. John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, on Thursday, according to reports.

Reed-Amini, who changed her named from Alaina Reed Hall after she married Tamim Amini in 2008, turned 63 last month. In 1976 she joined the cast of “Sesame Street” as Olivia, a professional photographer and the kid sister of Gordon the teacher. She left the program in 1988 for a role on the NBC sitcom “227.”

When I heard the news, I didn’t even recognize the name, but then I searched on YouTube and found this video from Sesame Street in the 80’s. All the childhood memories of watching Sesame Street flooded back and I realized that it was Olivia from Sesame Street who had died.

So thanks Alaina, for playing a part in my development during my formative years. You will always have your place on Sesame Street: