Looks like keeping up is getting harder.

GET OUT THAT WALLET: “$40 is the new $30” when it comes to entree prices. Oh, and that’s not including sides, you cheap, cheap bastard. Why now? At least from one measurement, it seems restaurant prices remained pretty stable for the past decade, and only in the past two years have they shot up.

~~~~~AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE A WASP: You weren’t the only one that loved the Smirnoff/WASPs vid.

~~~~~P.E. IS WHE’ IT’S AT: BusinessWeek has a cover on private equity (Gluttons at the Gate), predicting gloom and doom. Not much of interest there, except for this factoid: “The average pay of a managing general partner at a big private-equity firm rocketed to $6.1 million in 2005, up 93% from 2004, according to compensation research outfit Holt Private Equity Consultants.” ~~~~~ WORKING HARD, AND WORKING HARDER: 50-hour weeks may seem easy but I was a bit surprised to see more than 31 percent of college-educated males are working 50 hours per week or more. The reason? Says Lowell Bryan from McKinsey: “Professionals are still being managed as if they were in factories, in organizations designed to keep everybody siloed. At less well-run companies, you’re struck by how frustrated people are. They work like dogs and are wasting time.” Sounds about right… ~~~~~RENT!: It’s not just high in NYC.