Sunday, December 14, 2008

R-E-A-D-A-B-O-OK?

So I've been getting my read on a lot more since moving to the city, thanks to the whole subway commute thing. I even just finished reading a book on the history of cannibalism, Flesh and Blood: A History of the Cannibal Complex, that I got as a sort of oddball/gag gift in college... though I did go through that cannibalism phase for a bit there, hmm...

The first chapter conveniently reminds the reader that, according to the snooty and judgmental author, eating people is wrong. I think she's British.

I've read most all the books I had brought from home. I even bought a book (it was a really cool financial history of the world). Hell... I've even been reading from the library! The next book I'll read is call "Black and Tans." I bought it a long time ago for real cheap... I'm not sure why I bought it, it's not actually about booze.

Oh wait, it's about the British Special police in Ireland, so it's presumably about abusing Irish folk - Micks and Paddies and such. Now it all makes sense.

Now that I'm starting to get the reading thing down I think I'm going to try to incorporate all the life lessons in this video my buddy Emacy Gay, we just shorten it to Emacy, in Florida told me to check out. (NSFW... and apparently some people found this video made by BET to be shown on BET offensive :( some people are just no fun)




Oh man, some guy on the train last night obviously missed the part about deodorant. I think he was Eastern European or something. Holy crap, he smelled so bad my roommate and I actually got up and moved to the end of the train. We could only go one direction though because on the other side of the train was a ranting crazy hobo yelling gibberish and I think yelling that someone needed to be arrested, I'm not sure, but he pretty much cleared out his half of the train. As a fun bonus, he would yell out the doors to all people waiting on the platforms.

As for the whole reading thing... I even read a whole biography of Jack Daniel, which was pretty interesting - and leads nicely into my next point... apparently I can do shots again, which is probably not a good thing. The other night I went to Revival and learned that I could indeed down Jack Daniel's shots if the cute girls next me at the bar challenged me to do one with them. All down hill from there... then I took my roommate the wrong way on the subway and we ended up in Brooklyn.

Fast forward to Friday night where the shots were flowing all night (my roommate reminded me Saturday that it had been one of the bartenders' birthdays...)

I ended up staying longer than the roomie and ended up going the wrong way on the L train again... basically all night. I woke up in Canarsie at least twice. I kept falling asleep on the train and ending up in kind of the far east side of Brooklyn. Then I would say to myself I need to stay awake this time, then I'd wake up again at Canarsie (the last stop). It's a bad sign on the subway to wake up and see open space and trees out the window instead of subway walls (which tends to be indicative of being far from Manhattan) and an even worse sign to wake up and see sunlight out the train window...



I eventually got home around 9:30 Saturday morning. I found out later, that it was my luck that the train was under construction that night and wasn't even going my direction from Revival at all, so the whole thing was a measure in futility. Luckily, by the morning when I did stay awake enough to get all the way home, the late night construction messing up the L train was done for the night and they were back on the day schedule. So it was just all part of my plan.

I told Emacy about it and he was kind of enough to wonder aloud the next day that he bets hobos and other folks teabagged my sleeping self. :( I hadn't thought of that...

Also, I've been watching a lot of Hulu lately. It's pretty much like my new favorite site. I can watch all the Simpsons, Galactica 1980 (the awesome but short-lived sequel to Battlestar Galactica after they've found Earth, word), Charlie's Angels, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and whatever else I want!

They also have random clips, and I came across this random old Simpsons clip which is one of my all-time favorites...



And of course (especially for Crazy Carl), some Overheard, L train style...

Homey #1: Yo, hold up...Jesus was a virgin?! He went from 12 to 33 with nothing?
Homey #2: Fuck that shit. He definitely got his dick sucked or buttfucked some bitches.

--L Train, 8th Avenue


Black guy opening engineer's door after 15 minutes of standstill: Yo, move this shit, or I'll drive it myself!

--Canarsie-bound L train
Who knows, maybe a few weeks from now they'll be one looking like this:

Drunk guy wakes up: Canarsie, again!? Shit!

-- L Train

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

A Kennedyless Senate in the near future? Not if my state has anything to say about it.

I hadn't imagined that moving to New York might put me on the cusp of being indirectly part of the Kennedy dynasty. Exciting stuff.

With all the talk of war and the economy, sometimes the most dire situation facing our nation gets overlooked. As Sen. Ted Kennedy gets older and his health wanes, the U.S. faces the grim spectre of a Kennedyless Senate.

You heard right, a Kennedyless Senate. It's been 56 years since America suffered such grim, grim days (except a brief period when JFK was pres and Teddy was too young to claim his hand-me-down spot, yet).

Luckily, it looks like New York's favorite celebrity carpetbagger legislator, Hillary Clinton, is heading back to Washington. Maybe her and Bill can now save a little money by not paying for their fake residence here in the Empire State that kept her eligible for the position.

With that free spot, Gov. David Paterson has the unique opportunity to rescue the country from the impending Senatorial quandary. All signs seem to be pointing to Caroline Kennedy. (At least she's a New Yorker, so she's got Hillary beaten on that front.)

Unfortunately, there are some troublemakers out there who feel that Senate seats should be given based on qualifications rather than famous last names... thankfully though, those naysayers will likely be overruled.

Oddly enough, Caroline Kennedy hasn't really shown much interest in holding any public office until now. Maybe she accidentally killed someone like her Uncle Teddy (and chose not to seek out aid) and needs to have that Senate immunity that helped him out back then...

On the bright side, at least our Senate replacement process here is just plain stupid (but not surprising), whereas Illinois' process is stupid, corrupt, dirty and just plain illegal (but alas, also not surprising).

I do love American politics.

Side note on the Illinois Senator issues... recent news of Gov. Blagojevich's wife and her potential involvement spawned one of my new favorite Post headlines... "She's One Nasty Blagoje-Bitch" Stay classy Post, stay classy.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Watch a football game at the Meadowlands... check.


In a random turn of events, I ended up scoring a ticket to Sunday's Sheagles vs. Giants game at the Meadowlands.

All I had to do was be the designated driver, which suited me fine since a bottle of beer went for $7.75 in the stadium, which is insane. I just drank during the tailgate and not during the game and the post-game tailgate. The first tailgate was lunch, and the second one was dinner.

The folks I was with take their tailgating seriously.


We weren't the only ones who brought supplies, and pictured above is the full backyard grill, a case or two of beer, 15 bottles of wine and a veritable smorgasboard of all kinds of food that we brought.

And yes, that's snow on the truck (In Pennsylvania near Trenton, N.J.). There wasn't too much snow at the Meadowlands though... but I assure you it was freezing (literally) and there were some snow flurries. I'm still waiting for some real snow to hit the city, though some are forecasting for some real snow here later this week.

Being outside from about 10 a.m. until the evening, I got my fair share of freezing cold, and stinging winds.

Some folks were wandering the parking lot selling gloves and Giants stocking caps (and probably making a mint). Though the Giants (and Sheagles) gear they were selling was totally unlicensed, so one of the nearby salesfolk actually got taken away and cuffed by security. Don't mess with NFL infringement rights... apparently they take that shit seriously, word.

Despite the freezing and the game technically being in New Jersey and the Giants playing some fugly looking football (we lost 20-14), it was a lot of fun.

On a fun side note, each week the tickets to the games feature a picture of a different Giants star, and in a wonderful coincidence the tickets for this week's game all had last week's proud titleholder NFL's "Thug of the Week" - Plaxico Burress! Unfortunately, it can be a fairly competitive title to earn...

So while his recent trouble with the law and his accidentally shooting himself in the leg kept him from joining the Giants in their ugly on-field performance, at least he was there in spirit.

Here's a fun (and sad) team-by-team look at the widespread criminal issues that have been ongoing in the NFL since 2000. That might make for a fun blog to keep up... Hmmm...

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Apparently, the MTA wants my opinion...


Earlier this week on the way to work, a Metropolitan Transit Authority worker handed me an official MTA report card to fill out regarding the A train.

They asked all kinds of fun questions about things like delays, cleanliness and security and you rate them from unsatisfactory to excellent.


Apparently you can fill it out online like pictured above, but I filled out my paper one and mailed it (pre-paid postage) to the MTA folks... though the actual mailing address was some contractor/consultant in Maryland, since apparently New York City and state have nobody who can analyze surveys.

I'm sure some school, and we have plenty around here, would love to analyze the info for the MTA at a rock bottom price. I wonder how much they're paying for the surveys to be analyzed in Maryland, especially since the MTA is apparently beyond broke (facing a 2009 budget deficit of around $1.2 billion). It looks like they're going to be raising fares, making a lot of service cuts and adding some new tolls and such in the near future. Awesome...

As for the survey, it conveniently avoided any of the topics that are the biggest issues with the A train, like constant service changes and disruptions on the weekend and unreliability late at night.

Seriously, nearly every weekend the line is always whacked out, especially seemingly always having to take a shuttle bus instead of the train for part of the route (and the buses rarely show up). One time, we had been waiting a good while (and some angry other people had already been waiting a while when we got there) at the stop near my apartment, and the shuttle bus stopped a little before us and the driver got a hot dog from a vendor and just chilled there... 15 minutes later another shuttle bus came and stopped at the same hot dog vendor and had a little pow-wow with the other driver. The second bus eventually came and picked us up. It was a special kind of ridiculous.

The paper version of the survey was obviously not going through a scantron or anything, so I made sure to write my thoughts, in depth, on those issues in any white space I could find on the form... who knows, maybe I'll go ahead and write a letter about them to the MTA folks. Customer letters are always fun.

Also, one of the recent news stories around here is like a little taste of home - a teacher allegedly slept with her student somewhere in Jersey.

I know that teacher-student sex scandals happen everywhere (heck, I covered part of the trial for one that happened in a town of like 2,000), but the Tampa Bay area does seem to have more than its fair share. The Tampa Tribune has a fun little special section on the issue... though sadly I'm sure there are many, many incidents not listed...


We're just proud as punch...

And for the heck of it... some Overheard in New York from the A train:

Chick #1: What is your middle name?
Chick #2: I don't want to tell you.
Chick #1: Why won't you tell me what your middle name is? I showed you a picture of me naked!
Chick #2: That is so not the same. Your naked picture is on the Internet. Anyone can see it!
Mid-30s guy two seats away: I'm sorry, but what's the address of that website?

--A train

Conductor: This is West Fourth Street. Transfer is available to the A, C, E, F, and V trains.
Four-year-old girl: Mommy, he doesn't sing his ABCs right.
Mom: That's because he didn't go to college.

--A train

Friday, December 5, 2008

A little bit of art, Bronx-style

I heard that the Bronx Museum of Art was free to get into tonight... so I swung by there after work since "if it's free, it's for me," plus, I do try to see the boroughs other than Manhattan sometimes.

Except for a couple trips to Yankee Stadium, I really haven't been to the Bronx at all.

So they had one main exhibit, "Street Art Street Life from the 1950s to Now." It had some of the generic stuff often associated with "street art," like random shots of city buildings and folks and some petty vandalism passed off as art ("the artist placed wine bottles in trees in the park and left them there" - whatever, that's just littering...), but this exhibit also had some pretty interesting "pieces" too.

Some were what I guess you'd call "performance pieces."

For instance, this French woman had her mother hire a private detective to tail her for a day. She knew what was going on, but the PI presumably thought it was a normal job.

So the woman went about a normal day and at the end of the day wrote a sort of a journal entry about her activities. That was later juxtaposed with the candid snapshots the PI took and his notes/version of events.

Sadly, the PI seemed either lazy or just not good at his job though. She got picked up by her friends in a car at eight and went out drinking until about four in the morning, and the PI's last notation was something like "8 o'clock: Subject drives home for the evening." Oops.

I wonder if the mom got a discount for the guy messing up?

My favorite had to be on "One Year Performance 1981-1982," where this dude spent the entire year outside in New York City. They had pictures, artifacts and video documenting the "adventure." I was fascinated.

The New York Times described it pretty succinctly in their review of the whole exhibit...
And it’s great to be reminded of extraordinary endurance pieces performed by the artist Tehching Hsieh.

For one, done in 1981 and 1982, he lived outdoors in the city for a solid year, never going inside, equipped with only what he could carry on his back. The show includes relics of the project, an extreme street version of Outward Bound: a video, some photographs and one of the photocopied maps of Manhattan on which he made notations of precisely where he had slept, dined and defecated on a given day.



Unfortunately, he did end up spending one night indoors during the year though... in jail. "The Man" is always messing things up, right?

Though I wasn't there too long, I saw the guy peeing at least three times and going number two by the harbor once on the video documenting the year. I guess he had a really boring existence for that year. A lot of the other clips consisted of him sitting at a fountain at this one park, looking very bored.

The guy's name is Tehching Hsieh and he was originally from Taiwan. He apparently did a performance piece like that once a year for a little while in the early 80's, ranging from living in a cage for a year to punching a time card every hour on the hour for a year.

Click on "artwork" on his page, aptly named www.one-year-performance.com, and it has info on each of his endeavors, which is kind of cool.

I still can't decide if the guy is a total nut job or brilliant, a little of both I guess. I know I would lose my mind trying to do some of the things he did. It also had to be a little weird for whoever was documenting/assisting with some of these "pieces," like the guy feeding him in a cage for a year... oh well.

Anywho, another video was of this woman somewhere in Europe in the 1960's (allegedly) protesting the gender roles portrayed on television (not a Donna Reed fan I guess?). So she went to a public square, wearing only a TV-looking box fastened to her torso as a top. The front of the "TV" was like a curtain. She let men reach into the "TV" and fondle her breasts (only for like 5 or 10 seconds at a time though, she counted). The idea was to see who would be willing to act that way in public with tons of random other people there to see.

How this protested unfair gender roles on TV? I'm not really sure, but she looked to be enjoying herself, and the men were too.

Maybe through her awareness campaign she helped usher in the age of shows featuring accomplished career-women - like "Charlie's Angels." A definite move in the right direction for society as a whole in my humble opinion. An even bigger leap for mankind was when they replaced Farrah Fawcett with Cheryl Ladd. Cheryl Ladd > Farrah Fawcett. Sorry, it's just a matter of fact.

Hmm... I wonder if they have any episodes on Hulu...

(P.S. They apparently do! Awesome.)

There was also a slideshow made by this British guy of pictures of random municipal objects from all over the world, broken into sections like garbage bins, benches, barricades and bollards.

That one was otherwise fairly uninteresting, except for where the building I work in made a cameo... word! During the part on bollards. The dude totally had a picture of the bollards separating the building I work in from the streets. I was pleased.

While there were definitely plenty of pictures and things in the exhibit that were wastes of time and space, overall I'd say it was definitely more interesting than I had expected.

Chalk one up for the Bronx.

Well, I figure I'll throw in a couple Bronx-related Overheard in New York quotes for good measure:

Old black lady: Bus driver, you a dumb motherfucker! You just turned down the wrong street!
Man: Don't worry, Mr. Bus Driver, I still have faith in you.
Old black lady, to man: Get your faggot-ass off the bus!

--8 bus, Bronx

Mother: See, it says these are endangered deer from China.
Tween daughter: I guess they are from China. Look at their slanty eyes!

--Bronx Zoo

Male lawyer #1: It's sad -- all I can think of is sex, and I hate that stereotype about male lawyers, that we're all some sort of horn dogs. [Pauses and sees female lawyer] God, I wanna fuck her.
Male lawyer #2: Dude, everyone does. All the guys wish her pussy was the bar exam.

--Bronx Small Claims Court (I can only hope the court my brother works at is like this one...)

Chick: He's either retarded... or from the Bronx.

--Hell's Kitchen

Thursday, December 4, 2008

A roommate?... craziness, plus finally the night in Brooklyn I mentioned before

I'm doing terrible at keeping up... but here's an update.

So I'm going to have a roommate, which is very cool. We worked together on the campus newspaper back in college. She just got hired working for a family of fashion/hair magazines, which is what she loves, which is probably why she refers to herself as the "Fierce Fashionista" on her blog. I'll just shorten it to "Fashionista" here, since I imagine she'll be appearing here in the future a bit, hehe.

So it should be pretty fun having partner in crime here... plus she said she might even be able to help me not dress like such a mook (I've never had much fashion luck so I'll believe that one when I see it...)

I had mentioned in the last post an adventure in Brooklyn, but then I got real lazy in posting department, so here goes.

I finally made it back to Brooklyn to catch a Sunday night show at the classily named joint, Trash Bar. It was a cool little dive with a front bar and a back bar behind a curtain with a stage for concerts. Plus, they had free PBR for an hour before the show, which is always good (or bad if you actually think about the inevitable trouble it causes down the road, but that's no fun...)

Some of the bartenders at the Union Square bar, Revival, are in a band, Furmurther, so I went to go see them play.

It looks like they threw a clip of that night's show on YouTube, so here goes.



Also, one of the other Revival regulars was there with his band which was also cool. They were a jam band, so no words, just jamming... and they incorporated a lot of theremin/electro-theremin. That's the instrument used to make weird noises in old school horror movies or the strange noises/music in the background of "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys. So that was interesting.

I at least had an idea of what to expect from the first two bands, especially since I had seen Furmurthur a couple times before, but the third band was like a big steaming bowl of WTF. Seriously. I was totally baffled, but a little intrigued at the same time.

They were an orthodox Jewish hardcore punk band. I'm not making this up, I swear. The lead singer was rocking a yarmulke and saying Hebrew prayers (I'm guessing) between songs while covering his face with his hand and looking up and down.

The cooking oil on this curveball was the girl in the band. She was in the audience half the time, but some songs needed her pipes for "background." She would literally scream into the mic as loud and as shrill as possible. We're talking like bloody murder, and I don't think there was an attempt to make it rhythmic, I think the idea was to let out as intense a shriek as she possibly could. It was... interesting, and way scarier than anything that came out of the theremin.

I later found out their name is Moshiach Oi!, and I was right when I figured that night that I didn't understand a lot of the lyrics because they were Hebrew. Either way, they were fun... but totally came out of nowhere and threw me for a loop. I probably wouldn't be crushed if I saw them again though. They weren't necessarily bad, just weird as shit.

Also of note about the Trash Bar... while essentially a normal little dive bar, it did have one thing that made it stick out - Tater-tots! Unlimited, free, golden, fresh, delicious tater-tots! They just had a fryer built into the wall behind the bar and would pop out delicious batches on request.

I don't even want to think about how many tater-tots I tore through that night. So far that's the best free bar food I've come across by far. Usually free bar food is something like Chex-mix or what not... which isn't bite-sized morsels of golden fried goodness. Mmmm... I'm getting hungry.

So, also something to file into the random column. At work, we have to do an annual ethics training where they remind us of things like not taking bribes and not campaigning at work. I think our trainer got a little lazy this year. We literally watched an entire episode of "Ozzie and Harriet," which killed about half the allotted time for the training. It was actually a pretty funny episode about the family giving each other Valentines gifts. It had a surprising amount of subtle, but definitely planned, gay jokes. The trainer tied it in to ethics (very, very loosely) by saying the episode included "gifts" and then noted we shouldn't be accepting gifts/bribes from contractors or something to that affect.

Anywho, the reason I mention that is because I made a mental note to download "After the Rain" and "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection" by Nelson... since the Nelson twins are the "sons" of Ricky Nelson, who was the kid on "Ozzie and Harriet."

Enjoy the deliciously generic (and awesome) sound that is Nelson!





I know I'm going to end up getting caught singing one of those on the subway platform... it may have happened a few times already with "We Built this City," but seriously, who can resist singing along when such a catchy tune comes on, right?

P.S. So the iTunes store is now suggesting I buy some Winger (oddly enough their second album, In the Heart of the Young, which is sadly actually pretty obscure) since I downloaded the Nelson songs... psht, like I don't already proudly own every Winger song recorded and then some. Fools.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Some notes from a Saturday stroll through the city

So I went for a nice, about five mile-long, Saturday afternoon stroll through the city.


It was an even 30 degrees out, so I got bundled up and hit the pavement.

One of the things I found fascinating were the fancy warm strollers that everybody seemed to have. They are like a cocoon for the kids and a lot of them let the parents adjust the angle that their kids are at. Surprisingly, a lot of people had their kids almost upright, bundled tight in these cocoons, and every time I saw another one I would think of Hannibal Lecter, seriously.

...















I wonder if Lecter's folks paraded him around in a stroller like that when he was little?

Anywho, another interesting sight was at the Southeast corner of Central Park there were dozens of parked cop cars with there lights flashing, cop vans, command and control centers and several dozen cop cars were driving in and out of the traffic circle there with their sirens and lights flashing... It was a little odd to say the least. I asked a cop standing at a crosswalk and he said it was a counter-terrorism drill. I guess that's a good thing, right?

I felt bad when I was walking through Times Square... there was an Elmo that had all these people swarming for photos and such and as I walked past, I saw a lonely looking Cookie Monster like 30 feet away. Even with the big costume on he/she just looked genuinely lonely and ignored... and kept looking at Elmo.



Maybe Cookie Monster gets ignored nowadays because of his new healthier lifestyle... which is crap.

I also wandered by the Forbes Gallery near the Forbes magazine headquarters, which was not what I was expecting at all.


(In case you're wondering, yes, the water from the pressure washing in the right of the photo did freeze in places)

In the museum there was a distinct lack of anything having to do with Forbes. Except for the entrance (which had a rack with current issues of various Forbes publications from around the world), the museum was kind of all over the place. They had exhibits of toy soldiers, toy/model boats, a ballroom dancing exhibit and some other random things.

It was neat... but definitely not what I was expecting at all.

They had a little Monopoly exhibit, which was pretty cool. It had a copy of the The Landlord's Game, which was the precursor to Monopoly. They also had various other editions of Monopoly... including a round one from 1933.


Down at Union Square they had a Christmas market, which was kind of neat. It had a stand selling Gluewhein (a German wine served hot in the winter) by the cup... but it was non-alcoholic. What kind of crap is that, word? A nice hot cup of Gluewhein would have been great, seeing as it was freezing out.

Oh well.

I ended up at the bar I frequent by Union Square and finished the evening there causing varying degrees of trouble.

So those are a few interesting notes from my exploring Saturday. When I get time, maybe eventually I'll write some notes on my Sunday night in Brooklyn... which was interesting to say the least...

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Well, it's actually starting to get pretty darn cold...

So... it was pretty freaking cold today, like out of nowhere. I'm talking the 30's, with a wind chill bringing it to the 20's.

It really does seem to have come out of nowhere too, which is crazy. It's been a little chilly for a while, but as recently as this weekend I flirted with the idea of not wearing a jacket Saturday night... but this morning was like freezing, literally. We actually had a little bit of a snow flurry.

Plus, as a bonus, downtown where I work is pretty close to the water so it is crazy windy. I actually finally have to find my gloves, wherever they're stuffed. I may even have to purchase a scarf, especially since presumably it's only getting colder. I mean, it's only November, right?

This should definitely be an interesting winter. At some point, I will make a fugly looking snowman in Central Park and I will post sad, sad pictures of it here and make the world a worse place in the process.

At least the heaters in my apartment are relatively entertaining. I think they were probably installed before the Carter administration and they sometimes randomly make some of the weirdest sounds. I'm talking hissing, popping, purring, the occasional clunking noises, etc... It's like I have Michael Winslow from Police Academy with me in my bedroom, keeping me warm at night - except not nearly as creepy. And that's Michael Winslow the cop, not Carl Winslow the cop... which would be at least equally creepy, if not way more creepy. P.S. On that, fuck Urkel.

Oh yeah, and I took my first ride on a normal city bus route the other day (I don't count the free shuttle buses that fill in for gaps in subway service or ones to the airport). I always stick to the subways, but I needed to cross Central Park and a crosstown bus happened to stop near where I was walking so I let it drive me across the park. Oddly enough, they didn't dig any subway routes under the park... but they do have lots of roads where buses pass through.

It was a crosstown M96 bus and I learned after I rode it that I had the distinct honor of getting a ride on the Pokey Express, as it was recently named the slowest bus in the city. No wonder I was able to hop on as I was walking west on 96th Street.

It wasn't anything exciting or terribly different than any other city's bus, but it does provide a good segue to a fun Overheard in New York quote I read today...

(cabbie cuts bus off, both cab and bus are stopped at traffic light. Bus driver opens his window)
Bus driver: I'm gonna hit one of you! You know, it's my goal to hit one of you people before I retire, it really is--you almost just made it happen! You people gotta learn someday! (turns to passenger) We're allowed one accident per year. I'm saving all of mine for that.

--M15 Bus to South Ferry

If his normal route is to the South Ferry Terminal (where the Staten Island Ferry is), that means he gets to deal with Staten Islanders all day every day... so the anger issues aren't too terribly surprising.

So I've finally submitted to Overheard... they say that even if they do take submitted quotes, it usually takes several weeks before it shows up on the site, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Black Woman on Cell Phone: Excuse me! Obama's the President now and I don't have to call you "massa'" anymore, you understand!?!

My "overheard by" name for that particular submission was something to the effect of "Sounds like someone should have been job hunting a while ago..."

P.S. Just for fun, here's a song I've grown to love that they play at my bar by Union Square.

Turn it up and enjoy the brilliant lyrics! (unless you're at work... that might end poorly, seriously...)



Personally, my favorite two "comparison" verses come at 2:05.

Monday, November 17, 2008

'That rug really tied the room together'

So I went to New York's Big Lebowski Fest 2008 this weekend.

(NSFW I guess...)


I was surprised to see how many people actually dress up as different characters, and even different props from the movie. It was pretty neat. It was kind of like Rocky Horror except with less of focus on cross dressing and more of a focus on White Russians (which I can totally get behind)... and pot too, there were a lot of pot heads, which is kind of to be expected at a "Big Lebowski Fest" I suppose, right?

The night consisted of Creedence Clearwater Revival Revival and Tragedy (an all metal Bee Gees cover band that was pretty awesome) followed by The Big Lebowski on a big movie screen... oh yeah, and it also consisted of many, many White Russians (of course). By the time CCRR was done, I was ordering them two at a time.

The bar was packed, and they were mixing giant pitchers of vodka and Kahlua and using them to make White Russians en masse, it was a beautiful thing. They made good, strong ones too.

As for the bands, CCRR was alright, but Tragedy was pretty awesome. I'll probably actually try to see them again sometime.

"Stayin' Alive"



"How deep is your love"



"You should be dancing"



I don't have any Tragedy on my iPod, but I did get a couple Bee Gees tunes before the show to refresh my Bee Gees memory and now I've been adding a little hop and a bounce in my step to the original "Tragedy" as I wander the city. Tony Manero's got nothing on my fancy feet. As Walter would say, he's a "fuckin' amateur." Word.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

It's been a while, but that while was filled with plenty of random fun...

Word... it's been a while now, so you know what that means? That means this is probably going to be pretty long, so here goes...

It's definitely been a pretty interesting past couple of weeks, and here are some of the ways I've been keeping busy.

Today: The Chocolate Show! Seriously.


Think like the Simpsons episode, with the gummi Venus de Milo at the candy show, except just chocolate.


All you can eat free samples of fancy pants chocolate of all varieties and nationalities. Plenty of truffles, chocolate bars, barks, various flavored chocolate samples and even chocolate flavored peanut butter. There was also a lot of "spicy" chocolate, with things like cayenne pepper incorporated... which wasn't too delicious.

Of course, no New York City event is complete without some sort of crazy fashion thing, so the Chocolate Show opened with a super hero themed fashion show with clothes made of chocolate, like this Bat Girl...


I basically stayed until I started feeling a bit ill and then wandered to a pub in Midtown for dinner.

I wandered through Times Square on the way to the subway to get home and there's always something fun in Times Square. Tonight? Election-themed condoms for sale.


I thought about picking some up as a goofy souvenir/piece of history... but they wanted five dollars per rubber... jiggawha?

Apparently that's still a dollar off the price on their Web site.

The guy seemed perturbed that I took his photo without buying any of his "wears"... despite the fact he was in Times Square surrounded by camera wielding tourists. Whatever.

He probably would have made a mint if he was there on election night. Times Square was pretty packed that night and full of energy.


... and there were plenty of big screens to watch the returns.

Eventually though, I had to eat dinner so I wandered to my favorite bar in the area, Smith's in Hell's Kitchen. I got myself a free campaign button while I was there that I wore quite proudly throughout the rest of the evening:


The Dewar's girls offered a free glass of Dewar's and ginger ale... but I counter-offered and ended up with a free Dewars on the rocks instead. Mmmm...

I eventually ended up at the Rockefeller Center where the NBC studios are and watched the end of the returns with the throngs there in Midtown. I couldn't get a good picture, but they project a giant electoral map on the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink and color states red and blue as the returns come in through the night, which is pretty neat.


They also lit up a skyscraper blue and red and had balconies for each candidate rise up the side of the building as they received electoral votes and there was a big "270" marking victory.

The crowd reaction was pretty interesting as the Obama symbol rose above 270 mark (when they counted California's mass of electoral votes). Some people were cheering, a lot people were very confused and I think there were people saying "What the hell is going on?" in at least four different languages right near me.


Side note on the Election Day subject - most polling places here are in schools, which I originally thought was kind of odd since I was thinking that I would be walking into a place filled with kids. However, here in NYC, Election Day is a day off from school for kids, which I thought was kind of interesting.

The next morning, newspapers were in crazy short supply. I figured I would pick up a New York Times, since it was pretty historic to elect a black President and all, but that plan didn't work out because I was not alone. Newspapers were sold out all over the city. Some people apparently bought like 15 copies at a time, I guess to try to turn a profit. Some that day sold for hundreds of dollars online, but the New York Times is selling them online for $15 making those buyers hopefully feel very, very dumb. I'll stick with my Post and Daily News thank you very much.

Wednesday though, the New York Times building was swarmed with folks trying to get papers, but they didn't have any either. The Post and Daily News made extra runs to restock throughout the day. The Times did a few small extra runs late in the afternoon, but only sent papers to a few Midtown transit hubs - but even then it was in small numbers.


Some other quick random things...

* So now that Dyson has finished making the perfect vacuum cleaner, anybody know what his latest mission is? It's the perfect hand dryer! I had read about his new life's mission a while ago but had never seen one until the other day at the Shake Shack in the Upper West Side (you know, where like Madonna and A-Rod live).


It worked, but it was kind of creepy... you stick your hands in the top and it automatically shoots a "blade" of air from both sides to dry your hands. It works, but the air is actually pretty strong, to the point where I was hesitant to put them back in. But it worked and was pretty neat.

Oh yeah, the Shake Shack shake was pretty good too, but that was kind of secondary to finally getting to see an Air Blade.

* There is a little open area with benches behind the building I work in and the other day they were filming some Law and Order there. Unlike last time I stumbled upon some Law and Order, this time there were people I recognized there: Goren and Eames, which means it must have been Criminal Intent.


It's blurr-tastic! They were really ancy about flash photography, and I figured since my coworker and I already ruined one of their shots as we wandered into it on the way out the building I would behave.

* Halloween was fun. I lamed out and didn't wear any costume because I fell asleep after work and rolled out of bed and headed straight to the Village to join an estimated two million of my closest friends celebrate late into the night. They had a parade, but I don't think most people noticed. It was basically just an extremely crowded mess of drunken folk in crazy costumes wandering the streets. So it was a lot if fun.

I think I saw my favorite costume on the train ride home. I was chatting with a Sarah Palin look-a-like and out of nowhere she squealed in horror. I realized she was looking at a guy who was dressed as an escaped mental patient in a hospital gown... and nothing else. He had been riding the train bare-ass the whole way and you could see all the goods as he walked off the train into the station. All I can say is that dude had to have been pretty cold all night and where did he keep his wallet and Metro Card?

* Oh yeah, and in a fit of awesomeness, Maker's Mark has taken over the entire underground walkway from Grand Central Station to the S shuttle to Times Square.

This is just one of the ads they have there.

They have dozens of different clever ads of all kinds in the walkway on pillars, walls and even an ongoing projection of some sort of Maker's Mark commercial.


Maybe they are trying to make sure they are on everybody's mind as "Repeal Day" approaches (even though it seems Dewar's is doing the marketing for the actual day...). Either way, I know I'm excited.

Well, if you got this far, thanks. Hopefully I'll try to post a little more regularly so my posts don't end up being Homeric epics like this one, but we'll see. I've actually been keeping myself pretty busy.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Stranger in a Strange Land...

Welcome to the "City of Brotherly Love," right? ...


This gem was in the Center City neighborhood in Philadelphia this weekend. The clever, but apparently very angry, parkist jammed the kitchen knife into the coin slot to tie this masterpiece together.

I decided to visit Thanatos in Philly and enjoy the World Series atmosphere with the Rays in town to take on the Philthies. I sported my D-Rays t-shirt Saturday... and of course got some strange looks and comments.

We watched the game at this downtown sports bar where I'm fairly certain I was the only person there rocking any Rays gear.

The place was packed to beyond capacity with rabid Phillies fans, who gradually noticed my shirt throughout the night. I think a lot of people saw it and were just confused... especially since it had the old logo.

For the most part, the people were just sort of fascinated. I think I heard the term, "You got balls man," about 50 times.

Since I was greatly outnumbered in a drunken Philly bar, I was well-behaved and didn't talk trash (not that there were many opportunities in Saturday night's loss...) So it ended up being an interesting experience to say the least. I definitely didn't mention too often that I was also rooting for Ohio State over Penn State in the game that was also going on. That just would have been reckless.

For the most part, people were just sort of baffled and intrigued at my presence... though one very drunk girl noticed me on my way back from the bar and started punching me on the shoulder... I just kept walking and never saw her again.

Now, if the Rays had won, it probably would have been different and a lot more hostile. Philadelphia fans don't exactly have the best reputation... but we all know how that game turned out so it didn't matter too much.

Of note, the bar blasted the Rocky theme at the beginning of the game as well as at the beginning of the bottom of the ninth, which was pretty cool. The crowd, of course, went wild both times.

The rest of the weekend was drunkenness and eating, as per the usual in Philly.

I wonder if Philly has something like Overheard in New York? If it does, something kind of like this might show up after this weekend...
Obvious transsexual Philadelphian: Where's the Liberty Bell? The Liberty Bell is everywhere, it's even in your soul.
Dashing young man in town from New York City: Yeah, the Liberty Bell is in your heart, your soul... and your colon.
Obvious transsexual Philadelphian: Yeah, that's why your butt has a crack.

-- Center City

Overheard by: I thought they cancelled Beavis and Butthead?

It went something like that, but as you might have guessed from the conversation, my memory of it might not be, shall we say... crisp?

One thing I noticed in Philly, it looks like the current economic crisis has made an impact on Philadelphia's undertaking industry, which has apparently had a serious trickle-down to the hearse industry.

Either that or perhaps the little Smart Car is for environmentally friendly midget funerals.

Also kind of neat this morning, I had to swing by the Time-Life Building in the Rockefeller Center in Midtown. That was kind of neat and the place where I spent the morning was like a little museum to Time and Life magazines with covers, pictures and little exhibits featuring things dating back decades. So that definitely counts as a neat little New York experience.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Phillies star out for series with feminine illness

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Philadelphia Phillies star closer Brad Lidge will miss the rest of the World Series after recent test results showed a minor yeast infection in the area of his Lidgina, team officials revealed this afternoon.

“I’m a little surprised and bummed that I won't be playing anymore this season, but this has actually happened a few times before,” Lidge said. “But I trust the club’s OB/GYN.”

The announcement came on the heels of the Phillies 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays here in game one of the World Series, in which Lidge recorded the save. The Phillies now lead the series 1-0 with game two being played tonight at 8 p.m. at Tropicana Field here.

The diagnosis was a result of the Phillies routine annual team-wide fall pap smears, which the public was previously not made aware of.

It's unclear how many Phillies in the past have needed treatment after the fall round of tests because the results don’t tend to come in until mid to late October – not a time when the Phillies are usually still playing ball and in the spotlight.

"I guess if I had known we were going to be in the playoffs I could have postponed the tests, but I honestly didn’t expect the Mets to have such a spectacular collapse to end the season – especially for a second straight year in a row,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “Heck, some of my players were in elementary school the last time we made it this deep into October, you know?”

Philadelphia’s young ace pitcher Cole Hamels balked at the idea that Lidge’s infection might cause him any trouble, but wasn’t too certain about the rest of the team.

“I think I’m good shape since back in spring training the guys gave me a free cootie shot, though I was the only one on the team that got one,” Hamels said. “Plus, I don’t go over to any of the sleepover parties Lidge has.”

Phillies spokesman Larry Shenk wouldn’t comment on the possibility of other team members being in any danger from being around Lidge, or Lidge’s “sleepover parties,” but did say Hamels would be no safer than the rest of the team since his “free cooties shot” was actually a twisted joke planned by Lidge and the team’s resident practical joker Brett Myers.

“It was great,” Myers said. “Hamels actually let us inject him with a syringe filled with nasty water from the bottom of the SEPTA station near the ballpark. He kept asking if we might know why he got real sick.”

When the joke was mentioned, Hamels later claimed he knew of the fakeness of his "cootie shot" all along at a mid-day World Series press junket that seemed to continue to get stranger and stranger by the minute.

“Uh, yeah, of course I knew it wasn’t a real vaccine,” Hamels said defiantly. “Don’t worry I’ll get back at them. I’m not saying I had anything to do with Lidge’s current situation since I wouldn’t want to hurt our World Series hopes, but I’ll definitely get them back. I know where there families are. It’s all good. Judgment day comes for all,” he said trailing off.

More pressing to the Phillies clubhouse than practical jokes, vengeance and alleged sleepover parties at the moment is their bullpen, and Manuel knows it.

As for who Manuel says will be in the closer spot for the rest of the series?

“In a perfect world? David Price. Did you see him in game seven of the ALCS?” Manuel said of the Rays rookie pitching phenom. “Unfortunately he’s on the other team, so I put a lot of thought into it and I’m going to give the ball to the one true Phillie when it’s all on the line.”

Phillie Phanatic has only one mound appearance, which came in 1999, and his stats from that game don’t seem to support Manuel’s decision. He has spent most of his 30-year career with the Phillies performing his mascot duties.

Phanatic brings with him an infinite ERA, as he has allowed 74 runs and has never actually gotten a batter out.

“The last time I remember seein’ him take the mound was like a decade ago,” said longtime Philadelphian Paulie Pennino, 68. “He couldn’t get anyone out and the little kids at the camp just kept getting hit after hit. He got killed out there. He was a crumb bum.”

Rays batters sounded caught off guard when asked how they felt about possibly batting against Phanatic for the rest of the World Series.

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Rays third baseman Evan Longoria. "How did you get in my house?"

--------------------

I basically wrote that up on the train ride into work this morning. I'm sure if anyone was reading over my shoulder as I scribbled the draft they probably would have thought I was crazy... and of course been right.

Maybe I should submit this to CNN's iReport, since apparently they'll throw their name behind anything...

Also... Ironically, the St. Petersburg Times posted a thing today about The Onion stories involving the Rays, many of which are of course hilarious.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

I can vote here now... hooray?


I got another sign that I'm officially becoming a part of the city... I got word in the mail today that the New York City Board of Elections has processed my voter registration.

It tells me the districts I'm in for different elections, city council, state assembly , etc... all that fun stuff, but it doesn't tell me any candidates or anything.

I guess I'm not too surprised that they didn't send like a sample ballot, but it sure would have been nice. They don't even really have anything online telling me who is running for any positions I'll be voting on.

I've been looking around, and I've barely been able to find out even who is filling the positions right now... craziness. From what I can tell, it looks like most of my reps have been parked in there seats for a pretty long time and/or show no signs of going anywhere...

Here's a quick look at the motley crew that allegedly represents me and my interests, or something like that...

My Congressman - Charlie Rangel - A lot of you may have actually heard of and/or recognize Rangel. He was first elected to "represent" Harlem and my nearby neighborhood in 1970 and is a pretty, shall we say, outgoing politician and his name gets out a lot. Also, he finds himself pretty regularly caught up in scandal after scandal...

My State Assemblyman - Herman D. Farrell, Jr. - Like with Rangel, it always provides a special comfort knowing that someone has been parked in the same political positions since long before I was born. I'm not a big proponent of term limits, but wow, 34 years in Albany? That's probably long enough to spoil someone who even started with the best of intentions. It probably doesn't matter since it's not too likely anyone else is running for the seat anyway...

My City Councilman - Robert Jackson - Seems normal enough I guess. I'll have to see who, if anyone else, is in this race.

My State Senator - Eric T. Schneiderman - I like how if you go to the bottom of the biography you can see how he just barely kept his seat in the 2006 election by beating the Republican challenger 51,202 votes to 4,270. Talk about a nailbiter.

Neither of my U.S. Senate seats are up for election this time around... though as I understand it neither Chuck Schumer nor queen carpetbagger Hillary Clinton are in too much danger of losing their seats anytime soon.

I'm already pretty jaded on politics in general, since it really tends to be about the slimiest thing there is, but realizing that my votes are likely pointless even in the more local races is just icing on the cake. Thinking about the overall sliminess reminds me of one of my favorite Reagan quotes:
"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

Don't worry, I'll of course still end up voting anyway though...

Heck there are still other citywide races that I understand are pretty heated that I need to look into. They may actually prove interesting to research, things like comptroller and such.

Hopefully as I look more into the local races I'll find some of the more obscure races to look into. Like when I was in Kentucky I got to vote on the county coroner (and even covered the public debate between the two coroner candidates, which was definitely interesting to say the least... the newcomer accused the longtime coroner of directing more than a fair share of the indigent bodies to the funeral home he owned... weird, scandalous stuff)

Unfortunately though it's getting late, so that kind of in-depth research will have to come some other time...

Monday, October 20, 2008

AL Champs, WORD!



I just got home from a neighborhood pub after watching the thrilling Rays game 7 win in the ALCS. How awesome is that!

World Series, here we come!!!!

P.S. I have a new superstition... When a friend of mine came up to the city and we went to see the D-Rays at Yankee Stadium, she brought me a Rays shot glass and mug, so I decided to bring the shot glass to the bar with me and do a shot every time the Rays scored (or did something that was just awesome, like end that eighth inning without giving up a run) in the Rays shot glass.

The bartenders look was priceless when I first explained my plan, but once he figured it out, he was cool with it... and as we all know, the Rays totally won the game!

The bar wasn't too well stocked, so eventually the shot ended up being one part vodka, one part peach schnapps and one part cranberry juice... pretty delicious if I do say so myself.

The important thing is that we won, and now I'll have to bring that shot glass to the bars with me as I watch the World Series... and see the bartenders' reactions, hehe.

But the real most important thing of course is Go Rays! Word dizzle!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Back from Texas, but not without my hotel spoils...


Ahh... the spoils of any long hotel stay. I know, I'm a weirdo, but I love to horde hotel toiletries. There are worse habits, right?

As for a last interesting Texas thing... I originally rented a car in Fort Worth, Texas, and then drove it down to the Houston area where I spent the rest of my time. So I wasn't sure exactly where I was supposed to drop it off in Houston since there are all kinds of rules and potential fees associated with "one-way" rentals. So as I'm combing my rental agreement, I notice some fine print on the very bottom...
"For rentals originating in the City of Arlington: The City of Arlington
requires that an additional tax of 5% be imposed on each motor vehicle rental for the purpose of financing a portion of the Dallas Cowboys complex development project approved by the voters of the city on November 2, 2004."

While different, creative public funding methods are not uncommon for stadiums and such, it still made me laugh a little bit. I'll have to ask my friend from Arlington if she remembers voting on the issue.

Of note, I went to a Rangers game while I was briefly in Fort Worth and it's right by the new Cowboys stadium under construction and that thing is looking pretty schnazzy (and expensive looking).

At least in Tampa when they got the voters to approve sales tax increase to support the new stadium (Raymond James), they included money for schools and etc., too... since when they previously put just the school tax to a vote without the attached stadium tax, the vote failed... which is kind of sad, right?

So they practically had to trick the citizens into supporting education by sneaking it into a vote on a new football stadium. That way the folks who wanted a new stadium, but hated children voted yes and the people who didn't want a stadium but knew it was the only way to get the education money also voted yes.

And folks wonder why other countries may be giving us a run for our money in the global economy in a lot of ways, hmmm...

Anywho... so my cable was out when I got home... an I'm still not sure why. It has just solidified my decision to just stop paying for cable, since I don't watch enough TV to warrant it.

I had read on the Houston Chronicle's site while in Texas that CBS was going to start putting full episodes of classic shows on YouTube, and for some reason I was thinking I had read that included Knight Rider. I was mistaken. It was in fact MacGyver I was thinking of... so when I looked for some full Knight Rider episodes, this is what I found instead...



I remember people saying something about a burlesque dancer being on the "America's Got Talent" show, but I didn't remember the Knight Rider strip. Classy.

Heck, in all honesty, the clip was probably better than watching a whole episode anyway... it had the awesome music, KITT, the Hoff and a stripper all packed into under two minutes.

So while there were no full Knight Rider episodes... I eventually found the MacGyver episodes but they didn't have the one where he ends up in medieval times and hangs with Merlin (which I swear was always the one on TV when I was home sick from school), so I decided to skip on watching one of MacGyver's ingenious escapes and looked to see what other shows they had... and they totally have original Star Trek episodes, which is kind of neat.

I watched the one where they end up in the 1930's. A classic of course.

I think on of my favorite parts has to be where Kirk explains Spock's appearance to a cop by saying he is Chinese and his ears are pointy because they got caught in a mechanical ricepicker when he was a child. The political correctness was overwhelming.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Back in the city...

So my Texas-sized adventure has officially come to an end.

I've left the endless miles of industrial refineries as far as the eye can see to come back to endless hives of apartments as far as the eye can see.

So I just got home from the airport... and I'm pretty exhausted, so I'm just gonna follow the Rays game and hit the hay. (A win tonight means we go to the World Series! Word?!?!)

Well, g'night!

Plus, what the heck... here's a few seemingly appropriate Overheard in New York quotes just for fun since I flew into LaGuardia...

Pilot flying into LaGuardia: If you look out the right side of the plane, you can see the beautiful, famous downtown skyline of Manhattan. [Pause.] And if you look out the left side... [pause, sighing] New Jersey.

--LaGuardia

----------
Flight Attendant: Thank you for flying US Airways, and have a happy... happy... what the hell holiday is this? Columbus? Psssh, that ain't no holiday. Have a good week!

--LaGuardia Airport

----------
AirTran flight attendant over intercom: We hope you ladies and gentlemen had a nice flight, and we ask that you all press your faces against the windows so Delta can see what a full flight looks like.

--LaGuardia

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Radio Ga Ga - Texas style...

So I rarely ever listen to the radio in New York... my iPod is pretty much attached to me at all times and I only ever listen to the radio if I have to drive out to a site in upstate New York or over in Jersey (Jersey I have so far been able to avoid...)

So here in Texas, I'm back to a normal commute by car, 30 minutes each way, and today I drove out to Bridge City (basically where Texas meets Louisiana), which was hit pretty hard.

The trip was about two hours each way... which of course gave me the chance to surf through the radio stations in search of music to listen to on the road. (Commercials aren't acceptable, as my brother probably remembers, whoever was in the passenger seat of the car would get yelled at if commercials were on the radio for more than two seconds... so it's like a pavlovian reaction to turn the dial when commercials come on the radio now...)

With the seemingly limitless selection of songs put out over the years for all the stations to choose from, you'd think I wouldn't hear too many repeats right?

Well, of course, you would be very, very wrong.

Before I get into some specs on the songs from today, I'd like to make an overall observation on the radio so far in my Texas adventure...

Apparently Def Leppard's Hysteria is still treated like a new release, which is pretty awesome.



I mean, the album only has 12 tracks... and I've heard at least seven of them on the radio here (most of the several times) since I got here.

Pour Some Sugar on Me, Love Bites, Armageddon It, Women, Rocket, Animal (Most of Def Leppard's videos are admittedly pretty dumb and or overly simple, but I almost didn't link to the Animal video because it is just so damn stupid, seriously.) and, of course, Hysteria.

What? No love for Run Riot? That's cold.

Actually the seven I've heard repeatedly for the past week or two were all seven of the hit singles released from the album. Yeah, seven hit singles, which is no wonder it sold 12 million copies...

Anywho, back to the today, which I spent a large chunk of in the car flipping through radio stations.

Here are just a few songs that come to mind that came on enough times today that I started keep a count (and no, I'm not including current top 40 songs, because they of course were looped continuously)...

* 3 times - Here I Go Again - Whitesnake... though it's always the pop-radio edited version here without the guitar solo :(
* 3 times - Oh Sherry - Steve Perry
* 3 times - Ironic - Alanis Morissette
* 4 times - Don't You Want Me - Human League
* 4 times - That Nickelback song... though I may have heard two or three songs of theirs and just not known the "difference"...

Other notably random ones include Poison's Unskinny Bop (yes, women are still kind of sort of fighting over him, season after season) and someone sending out a request for Nelly Furtado's Say It Right to an injured high school football player. ...? I'm sure there is some fascinating explanation to that one...

However, overall, the big winner of the day though? I'm sure much the chagrin of my buddy in Philly who says he will forever be beyond tired of this song...

Drum roll...

With a whopping total of seven times! ...

Living on a Prayer!



I feel closer to Tommy and Gina now today than I ever have before. I hope things worked out for them...

And yes, that count was just for today (it's been on plenty of other days too). Don't worry though... the rest of Bon Jovi's library was
well represented throughout today including I'll Be There For You on the way back to my hotel.

I bet if Jon Bon Jovi donated his Texas-related ASCAP earnings to the Ike recovery effort, he could actually make a pretty at least a little bit of an impact. He really is somewhere on the radio here like all day.

Oh yeah... it really only seems appropriate to put a Radio Ga Ga link somwhere in the post, right?