Saturday, August 9, 2008

Libraries, jogging and the Olympics are all free

Another day, zero cents spent. Heck, I'm making money. I found a dime on the ground on the way home from the library.

It was an interesting little library. About a quarter of the books were in Spanish, which makes sense I suppose. There was also a little section of Russian-language books... there was an old lady checking it out, so I guess it sees use.

Come to think of it, we must have some Ruskies around here. There is a little Russian grocery store a few blocks down the street... as a bonus, they have a rack with their potatoes for sale out on the sidewalk... 49 cents a pound, word?

If only Ivan Drago could read, maybe I'd bump into him in my library. He was too busy getting served to learn how to read though I guess.

The selection at the library was pretty random... they actually didn't have Pride and Prejudice, but it may have been checked out and I couldn't use their electronic card catalogue so I couldn't check.

I did see Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book, which is actually a good read. I thought about picking it up and reading it again.

One of the interesting parts in that one is when they tell about Lee's failed attempt to pitch his sex-themed comic strip to Playboy... it was deemed to weird and creepy. Believe me, it was. And no, that's not something I randomly made up either... and yes, it was weird.

I ended up getting The Gangs of New York, as in the book that inspired the movie. Apparently it was written in the 1920's... who knew?

I haven't seen the movie, so it will all be new to me.

So far it is just giving a history of the area where the book is set, which is really cool... since it is giving a history of basically where my office building is. My work subway stop is like a block from what it describes as "Negroes' burying ground....on the outskirts of town."

That probably made for a gross time when putting in the subway routes...

He also makes reference to the when "the present Times Square theatrical district was a howling wilderness where the savage Indian prowled." I'll have to picture next time I'm there and surrounded by the sea of neon commercialism.

After the library, I went jogging... to New Jersey.

I walked to the George Washington Bridge and jogged across the Hudson River (to where it becomes the the Jersey Turnpike) and back... about a two-mile trip total.

They have a little walking/biking trail set up, and if you look to the south, you can see the city's skyline... which is a pretty cool sight as your jogging along. It kind of reminded me of the jogging scene in Punch-Out!!...



Technically though, I guess Little Mac is actually jogging in either
Brooklyn or New Jersey in order to have that awesome view.

Side note:Some of the best video game music, ever.

Not surprisingly, once I got on solid ground in Jersey, there was actually a noticeable, not too pleasant, smell. Go figure.

I spent most of the rest of the day watching the Olympics and cooking with my gas stove... and gas oven. I was quite surprised to look under the oven where I stored my baking trays to see a ginormous blue flame right on top of them... I think I'll move those to somewhere less like a fireplace.

As for the Olympics, we totally dominated fencing.

That's right, gold, silver and bronze. Word.

I also watched, like, the most ridiculous pommel horse routine ever. All the other Americans basically took it easy on the horse and just tried not to mess up, but not Alexander Artemev. I couldn't get a clip of him in Beijing, but here's what looks like the same routine at a different recent competition.

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