But a couple of incidents of celebrity or pseudo-celebrity really stick with me:
-- First off, one of my co-workers and I were part of some promotional event with Bengals rookie Leon Hall at a Macy's in Cincinnati last Thursday. Eventually some video of the event will be posted, but in a nutshell, I got to talk fantasy football on stage for about 20-30 minutes (also taking questions), then Hall got to talk about his brief Bengals career (although no Michigan talk, unfortunately) for another 20-30 minutes before he signed autographs. It's still surreal that they wanted me and my co-worker there to be a sort of VIP, but it worked out well. I guess I've got another career opening for Tiffany or even Robin Sparkles.
-- After being a "celebrity," I definitely got my taste of star gazing last night while celebrating my friend's birthday at a small dive-ish Mexican restaurant in Greenwich Village. We went because bingo was the activity of the night (not unlike all the karaoke or trivia nights I'm used to seeing).
At some point during the evening, two large groups of tables behind us finally filled up with a bunch of really good-looking people, including some model-types a bit too dressed up for a place like this. I didn't think much of it, as they were just drinking and goofing off playing bingo like the rest of us. Then I realized a couple of tables over was Jimmie Johnson, the reigning Nextel Cup champ. I guess he was the guest of honor at this party, but couldn't really figure out why his big entourage would be at a place like this.
Eventually, this article would explain a lot.
Q: You sound a little sluggish today, the day after your 32nd birthday. Feeling OK?
JJ: "Man, I am feeling rough. My head hurts, my body hurts. I'm burning all over. Not enough sleep at all."
Q: What did you get into?
JJ: "We went to this dive Mexican restaurant in New York called Tortilla Flats. You'd love the place. It has the cheesiest stuff you could ever imagine hanging from the ceiling, Christmas lights hung all over the place. And there's all kinds of crazy stuff going on. There's a singing Elvis. They had all kinds of contests taking place, a couple rounds of bingo. We just put a couple tables together and had a blast."
I saw a bunch of t-shirts around, not realizing it was a high school yearbook picture of JJ. Had I known, I would've tried to get my hands on one. Unfortunately, despite two members of our party having really nice cameras, we didn't get good shots of Jimmie and company.
We opted not to shadow their entourage the rest of the night -- we really wanted to get dessert and landed at this chocolate place. But before we left for good, we noticed Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo pretty much taking over our seating area. Remember that this is a small quirky Mexican restaurant/bar, but somehow found ourselves among some pretty random celebrities. Welcome to New York, I guess.
