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

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

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

You know what was free? The Olympics opening ceremony...

I successfully made it one full day without spending a single cent... despite being a moron and forgetting to bring my lunch to work with me.

Luckily, I had some Pop Tarts left in my desk from when I first moved to the city and was in a hotel rocking the continental breakfasts.

That took care of that.

As for the evening, rather than go out drinking, I figured a nice, free way to entertain myself would be to watch the much anticipated opening ceremony for the Olympics. Overall, it was pretty cool, but I got a bigger kick out of some specific things...

First and foremost, the announcer that was there as a China expert. This dude was totally in love with China. I think he was actually aroused by how "amazing" the opening ceremony was and how much it proved China was the greatest thing to ever grace this planet. I really think if he could find a way, he would probably gladly go down on China.

The ceremony did get a little cheesy at certain points...

I just kept thinking of "Hooray for Everything" from the Simpsons, especially when they started making a giant collage of children's faces toward the end.

It reminded me of their halftime "salute to the greatest hemisphere on earth, the Western Hemisphere! The dancingest hemisphere of all!"... though technically the opening ceremony was indeed a salute to the eastern hemisphere, which I assure you is not even close to being the "dancingest hemisphere of all." Heck, they aren't even number two. Take that!

The announcers pretty much had to say something about every country that was shown parading in, and they were kind of all over the place and reaching at some points. Here are just a few of the random things I got a kick out of as they paraded the countries in...

* Malawi is known solely for being where Madonna snatched up a spare kid to take home with her. That was there fifteen minutes of fame.

*Apparently the Cayman Islands actually e-mailed NBC asking them to not cut to commercials and not show their delegation. They did seem to show snippets of multiple countries right after each commercial break, but not early in the procession. So presumably, a select few countries were just not cool enough to be shown.

Don't worry though, powerhouses like Vanuatu and Lesotho got airtime. (They're real, I swear)

* Not surprisingly, there is intrigue surrounding Taiwan... or if you're China and/or the Olympics "Chinese Taipei"

In addition to not being allowed to be called Taiwan, they also have to use special flags...



So it looked like they were waving little souvenirs. Having to use a special fill-in flag to represent your country? That's cold.

* When Paraguay came through, the announcers kept talking about one of their potential gold medal winners, but the cameraman and producers just kept the shot this one cute girl on their team, even after the announcers commented that the wrong person was on the screen. She was pretty cute, but she was no...

* Samantha Paxinos - the flag bearer from Botswana was a cutie... she's competing in the 50m freestyle. It looks like I may have to catch the prelims if I want to see her again before she gets sent back to Africa though.

I like how on her official bio on the Olympics site, her picture looks like something you might see on the side of a milk carton. It definitely does not do her justice.

* Good thing Mauritania's democratically elected government was replaced with a junta via a coup the other day, or else the announcers might not have had anything to kibbitz about when their team came in. It was just in the nick of time too, that was a close one.

* They put the camera on President Bush about two hours in and caught him (trying to be inconspicuous) checking his watch, looking really bored. Little did he know he was only about halfway through the ceremony. Laura happened to look at her watch about two seconds later.

* Laos got a pretty brief mention where they basically just talked about how to say the country's name and mentioned, very matter-of-factly, that they were known as a "hub for eco-terrorism" and then just went on to the next country.

I'm sure Laosians are filled with an indescribable pride now that their country, which was not known for anything before, is now apparently known for being a "hub for eco-terrorism."

So it looks like I'm all set for this year's Olympics, I've got Olympic fever I guess.

Why not, right?... I mean we rule!

Just look at the all-time medal standings.

The rankings aren't set in stone for everybody though. It looks like if Australia has a good year, they may be able to finally surpass East Germany (that is, of course, if East Germany continues making a tremendously weak showing like it has at the past few games).

I'm rooting for the Aussies on that one. Heck, if the Aussies do manage to surpass the East Germans by the end of the games, I'll buy anyone who remembers about this a Foster's.

In honor of the Beijing Games, I'll end with an Overheard in New York from Chinatown:

20-something Chinese guy: You know what? Chinese people discovered America.
20-something Black guy: Bullshit.
20-something Chinese guy: It's true! There's an article on CNN showing we discovered America, there are maps. Chinese were here first before everyone else. Chinese people did everything before everyone else. White people take credit for everything, but now it's coming out that Chinese made all of these discoveries first. Don't you see a pattern? We're the shit.
20-something Black guy: The only pattern I see is that you motherfuckers pirate and resell every DVD, and now you're trying to bootleg history.

--Chinatown

That guy kind of sounds like the NBC announcer who was sexually attracted to China as a whole...

Looking for an alpaca to hook up with on the A train? I've got the site for you.

So I stumbled onto a new fun blog to follow, SUBWAYBlogger.com, which has all kinds of fun subway-specific news and such.

There's all kinds of fun stories to read about, like the possibility of standing-room only cars being used during rush hour or fun new increases in fines for various misdemeanors you can commit in the stations. Fascinating stuff, right?

My favorite post though as I was perusing the archives was about a site called New York Subway Crush

It's basically like missed connections on Craigslist, except just for the subway and organized it's organized by line... there aren't too many posts, but I went to my train, the A train, and went to see who all has been leaving their adorations on the Internet for me.

Shockingly, there was nobody... yet, but I'm going to stay optimistic.

I kid, of course, but I did go to look at the A train and there were some goofy ones, but this one totally cracked me up:

You're head looks like an alpaca

"This is not a crush per-se but I do see you every day on the A train and your head literally looks like an alpaca. It's huge, with a long neck and a just-got-punched mouth. I'm not usually one to point out when people look ugly, but god damn what is up with your face?!?!"

The poster also provided a visual and included this picture, which totally tickled my funnybone when I scrolled down and saw it...

I love how they made sure to find an alpaca picture with that classic "just-got-punched mouth."
As a bonus, someone wrote a reply post:

I think I'm in love

"I've been so self conscious all my life because when I was younger the kids used to call me alpacadome and to make things worst I recently got bitch slapped in my mouth for eating the last hard boiled egg. Then I saw you and realized we were a match made in heaven. I've been wanting to come up to you and say hi, but I sound like sylvester stallone when I talk because my mouth got jacked. Won't you be my man-pie?"

It was complete with it's own competing ridiculous looking alpaca...




In a similar vein, it seems some renegade goats outsmarted some of the city's top security measures and went to the base of the Verrezano Bridge. That's the bridge that connects Staten Island to Brooklyn, there is no bridge to Manhattan, so it essentially connects Staten Island to the rest of NYC. That fills me with confidence like nobody's business.

So it's all about the alpacas and goats today. Mmmm goats and alpacas...

Oh yeah, how about I'll end with a random Overheard in New York from the A train:

Little guy to big guy wearing fur hat: You know, wearing fur is murder.
Big guy wearing fur hat: So is me pushing you off the train.

--A Train

I stumbled on the remnants of Little Italy

So in my daily lunchtime venture to Chinatown, I stumbled upon Little Italy... or what's left of it at least (keyword here being "Little")

As nearby Chinatown has been expanding, it has taken over most of Little Italy... which I guess makes Little Italy kind of like Tibet, right?

What, too soon?

Anywho... after work, I decided to go back to Little Italy and explore some more and sift through the touristy Italian-themed gift shops to look for somewhere to have a nice Italian dinner.

The whole time I was totally imagining what it would have been like 75-100 years ago when it was really an Italian neighborhood and organized crime was taking hold (of course my imagination looked eerily similar to the flashback scenes in the Godfather II... but whatever)

Holy crap... no wonder Little Italy is shrinking... except for a couple pizza places, the average price for a meal was about $20! They're pricing themselves out of existence. I could walk a block over and get some amazing Chinese for a third of that... but I wanted to try some damn Italian.

I did find a little dive bar in Little Italy that was kind of fun. The folks inside were nice and we heckled the evening news together... but the beer I got ended up being six bucks... which is not conducive to hanging out and throwing back several drinks. Plus, they didn't have food.

I eventually found a relatively cheap little place for food and wandered on in. The sign outside advertised a beer special, and the windows were decorated with "wine and beer" written in three-foot tall letters.

When the waiter eventually comes by, I ask what they have on tap.

"We don't serve alcohol," the waiter tells me. That should have been a hint to leave... but I'm not that smart.

I give him a baffled look and point to the aforementioned "beer and wine" window... about five feet away from where I'm sitting.

He looks at it, kind of surprised, and tells me they're having liquor license trouble... Hmmmm...

So I figure whatever, and that not ordering a real drink will end up saving me money anyway. The food was actually pretty good, but overall the service was slapstick slow.

It literally took about 15-20 minutes to get my change back after paying the bill. I think they thought I would give up and just leave the waiter am 80 percent tip... despite the fact he was awful and slow.

What should have been a 30-minute dinner ended up taking a little over an hour.

Oh, and by the way, I was literally the only person in the dining area for all but the first five minutes I was there, so they weren't too busy or anything (another hint I should have picked up on).

As I was waiting (and waiting) for my change, I couldn't help but think "this gets my lowest rating ever... seven thumbs up."

On the way home, I wandered around the Bowery and SoHo and got lost and came across a free Onion box... which I hadn't seen in a while.

The front page story about Obama for some reason just cracked me up. It was about "Time" publishing the most definitive fluff piece on Obama ever.

I actually burst into loud laughter on the train... and got some pretty strange looks to say the least. Most people just sort of keep quiet and to themselves on the train.

I think I also mortified the guy on the other side of my paper (most people on the train will intently read the back of somebody else's newspaper or brochure no matter what it is if it's in their line of sight...)... while I was reading about Obama... his view was of one of the fake columns on why controversial art exhibits are great.

It makes reference to several (I hope) fictional exhibits featuring things like "a guy in the East Village who's going to vomit Cheerios into a piggy bank and smash it open with his penis" and seeing "someone drink glow-stick fluid and vomit onto a canvas covered with pictures of Nelson Mandela."

It was a very strange and hilarious little column... and I might have laughed out loud while reading that one too.

Well in honor of the neighborhood the post is about, I'll close with a random fun Overheard in New York post from Little Italy...

"Fat Italian guy in velvet running suit: Everybody fucks... We all fuck... But did she have to fuck a guy with tits?!

--Little Italy"

More apartment hunting fun...

Well, work was pretty slow today... to say the least. I was able to take care of some things for my upcoming move, make more copies than Rob Schneider could have ever dreamed of and even fiddled around Facebook for a while.

It's probably for the best though. It gave me time to continue my apartment hunt. I'm already starting to weed out some of the apartments that are clearly scams. Sure, I'd love to send about a thousand bucks to you over in West Africa, so that you can then mail me keys to your too good to be true apartment. Sounds brilliant to me.

There's another one that seems vaguely promising... but it's Craigslist posting was flagged and removed when I went back... so I'll keep that in mind as I continue to e-mail back and forth with the potential landlord. The price is almost too good to be true... but it's in the neighborhood lovingly known as Hell's Kitchen, so I figure that might be impacting the price...

It's just a name, right? Like "monster island," which is actually a peninsula... I think the name is out of date and is a throwback to the time of gangsters and the far scarier threat to society, prohibition, but I'll definitely have to do some serious scoping out of the area.

I've actually gotten a lot of vague support for considering the Staten Island apartment, which is surprising since half the island is pretty much a landfill. Maybe you all just have it out for me and would all love to be able to tease me about living on an earthen garbage barge, who knows?

I couldn't tell if one friend was pro-Staten Island or not, he put something on my Facebook wall about the ferries... some sort of ethnic slur against both British and Japanese people I think. I'm pretty sure it was pro-ferries though, but I'm not really sure.

I'm also looking at a couple of apartments in the Journal Square area of Jersey City... some of you may already know that Journal Square and I have a little bit of a history. We're totally BFF. Its PATH station is officially the strangest place I have ever confusedly/unscheduledly (real words are lame) woken up after a night on the town. Sorry friend's bathroom floor in Avalon in college, you've been replaced (but not forgotten), in case you didn't get the memo.

I hopped off at the wrong station and fell asleep on the bench waiting for my friend to get off the train. However, he was not dumb enough to get off the train two stops early... partially because he had fallen asleep.

It seemed like a nice enough area, but I didn't wander too far away from the station and was more focused on getting home rather than casing the joint.

So we'll see if that night was a sign that Journal Square is just where the fates want me to end up... yeah... we'll see...

I figure these are always fun, so I'll leave you all with a fun "Overheard in New York" quote I found from the aforementioned Hell's Kitchen:

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