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

Karma's a bitch... you win this round New Jersey...

I do, on occasion, make a joke or two at New Jersey's expense. It's true.

Like, you all may not have noticed, but when I make seemingly innocuous words into links, like New Jersey and France, they're actually links to goofy (more often than not, not-too-nice) things.

Like the last time I did it for Jersey? It was a link to a picture of Oscar the Grouch in is garbage can. France? A YouTube clip of Cheap Trick's classic, "Surrender."

I guess I've made fun of New Jersey so much, it decided to get back at me.

When I first started working here, I applied for a free subway pass for the commute to and from work. The government offers this as a way to help keep more cars off the road, limit traffic, be more environmentally friendly, etc... and it would help my finances out in an amazing way. I spent approximately $80 a month right now to get to and from work.

So it takes a while for all the paperwork and stuff to go through and I finally got notified I can pick up my subway passes for the next couple months. Great!

I go and they're not subway passes, they basically look like traveler's cheques, but that say they're for mass transit. They were definitely not what I was supposed to be getting. So the lady explains that yeah it was a mess up, but I can just take those to the subway station and basically use them to buy what I was supposed to get in the first place... which isn't so bad.

So I go to the train station, and they tell me my normal station can't help me and I have to go basically over to the station by Ground Zero. Weak... so I wander over to that station and wait in line...

I get to the teller, and he says it's been years since my "cheques" could be used for the NYC subway system.

He said what I got was only good for the PATH Train. Jiggawha?

That's New Jersey's "subway" system that takes Jersey folk into the Manhattan for those who are confused. It has stops at prime destinations like Journal Square... me and JS go way back.

I was so pissed. I'm going to have a "conversation" with the person who messed up my paperwork tomorrow... it will probably be another month or two, which is a very weak, very expensive screw up. Oh well, worse things can happen, right?

As for the frugality experiment? I failed, miserably... but it was for a good cause. A friend from D.C. was in town so I went drinking with him and another from in the city. It was a lot of fun. I didn't spend too much though, so it wasn't so bad.

My undoing was when a buddy of mine kindly ordered me a triple bourbon... which the bartender opted to make more like a quadruple. We'll just say I got served in more ways than one. Again... lots of fun.

Also neat, despite the city having millions of people in it, I happened to bump into a friend of Lisa's girlfriend who I met in June. I was transferring to a different train and bumped into her at the platform... so that was random. We exchanged out contact info and hopefully we can hang out sometime. She was a lot of fun (and no, she's not single as I'm sure I'll get asked by plenty of folk).

Well, I didn't get too much sleep at all last night, so I gotta hit the hay...

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

Bullets from a fun weekend...

So some friends were in town this weekend and we relaxed, had a few drinks, behaved ourselves and philosophized about the current state of the civilized world and whatnot.

Well, sort of.

Another way of looking at it might be that we drank all weekend and went all over town from bar to bar causing varying degrees of trouble. We really did go all over the place, so I'll just mention some of the more random things (that I can remember)...

* So bar hopping was a little interesting when we were near NYU... because they tend to card more. Normally presenting ID isn't an issue, but when I recently applied for my New York state driver's license they made me surrender my old license... leaving me without a picture ID.

What I did have, as far as something government-issued that had my birthday on it, was my draft card.

In case you were wondering, about half of the bars on Bleecker Street near NYU checking ID at the entrance let me in using my draft card (draft cards don't have pictures on them in case you didn't know). The other half hate America.

It definitely made for some interesting conversations with the bouncers, most of whom had not registered with the Selective Service System (despite the fact that the law says, with a few exceptions, all males 18-25 must register). Then again, we were right by NYU, so I shouldn't be terribly surprised I guess.

Overall though, it didn't come up too much, since there wasn't too much carding throughout the weekend.

* We went to one bar that had a family of mice living behind the bar... but don't worry, I'm pretty sure they were friendly mice. The bartenders were friendly too, even though I could tell they were a little miffed when they came back from the bathroom to find me heading behind the bar trying to catch the mice. I figure they would make good pets, right?

They were also none too pleased (but still nice) when I pretended to try to get a drink from the Corona lava lamp... come to think of it, they had the patience of saints. Hmmm, if any of us remembers the name of the place, we'll have to go back.

* We went to the home of the best General Tso's chicken in Chinatown for lunch Saturday. Next time I go there, I'll have to get a side order of something we noticed that kind of stuck out on the menu... "duck's blood with yellow chives."

Part of me says it will probably be inedible, like the jellyfish we got there last time, but the other part of me is just fascinated, so we'll see what happens with that...

Sidenote - our fortune cookies were served to us on a bed of sliced oranges... which I had never seen before, there or anywhere else.

* I was exposed for the first time to Concrete TV, which is glorious. Oversimplified, it is this public access show in New York where all kinds of totally random scenes are mashed together into these crazy montages and set to music.

The clips are all over the place, they range from scenes from Barney to people getting run over by cars to porn scenes to newscast snippets to absolutely anything you can imagine under the sun. Hell, I think they had a snippet from JEM and the Holograms.



This is just one random sample... DO NOT WATCH THIS AT THE OFFICE! (along with the random stuff, there's naked folks interspersed...)

An old roommate from USF who lives in the Upper East Side had the DVDs of the show. it was great. He even had one episode that was entirely comprised of essentially just people getting hit by cars and set to a cover of the Jimi Hendrix classic "Crosstown Traffic" and Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping" (I get knocked down..., that one).

For some reason, (though admittedly we weren't even close to sober at that point) I couldn't get enough of clips of people being hit by cars. I couldn't stop laughing and was in tears watching it... the other guys might have been a little worried at how much I was laughing at those clips.

I was kind of like when Homer had to watch the Troy McClure video of car crashes at traffic school ("Here's an appealing fellow... in fact, they're a peeling him off the sidewalk.") Everybody else is mortified and Homer is cracking up ... "It's funny cuz I don't know him." Truer words were never spoken.

* I'd be sad if I forgot to mention that Lisa and I resumed our epic Blades of Steel rivalry. My Toronto Maple Leafs, of course, dominated his feeble Montreal Canadiens.

* We did go to the nipple-burger bar near where I work, but nothing crazy happened. The bartender from before wasn't there then. We just had some uber-cheap PBR's and hung out, it was relatively early and thus quite.

* We also had some beers at the microbrewery under the Empire State Building... that was kind of cool. FYI -they have really good cheese fries. We also learned there's a KFC right near the Empire State Building too, which is comforting to know.

* We went to the site of the old CBGB's punk club, which is now an ultra-trendy designer clothes boutique catering to the (with those prices, apparently well-to-do) hipster crowd. The situation is really kind of sad.

Along with the stunningly overpriced shirts, they sold mint condition used records selling for around a $100 a piece. Some looked pretty familiar, since I have copies at my apartment (though admittedly many are not in good enough condition to be considered sold as "collectibles" like theirs). They also sell antique (read: used, and old as crap) stereo receivers, like the 1975 hand-me-down receiver I use. They ranged from $500 to $1,000. The same ones probably sell at Goodwill for $10... but the world is filled with very, very stupid people with too much money... so why not try to get some of it, right? I'm going to try to sell the store my receiver and maybe some records too and see what happens with that.

* I really need to remember to bring my camera everywhere with me. Today's subway ride home was interesting, to say the least. Toward the end of the ride, a high school drumline and group of dancerettes got on the train... which isn't too strange... unless they're all dressed in hospital-themed costumes. The musicians were all wearing scrubs, and the dancers were all wearing matching naughty-nurse outfits (maybe it was good I didn't bring my camera then... since they were all teens...). The teacher/band director was wearing a white lab coat and stethoscope.

One stop away from them getting off, they just randomly decided to all start drumming and salsa dancing on the train... it was incredibly strange - and loud.

There was also a homeless guy on my train for a while begging for money... which is also not too unusual... but he decided to keep things interesting. He basically approached guys individually and would half whisper "Hey, you look like you've got a big dick," and then he would present his change cup. (I assume it was an attempt to flatter some money out of riders. I know I was flattered... but not flattered enough.

I assume either he had some serious issues in the head or that he was totally faking it... sad either way I suppose.

Besides, I had already exhausted my money-for-strangers-on-the-train budget for the day by giving a dollar to an a cappella group that did a really fun version of "Stand by Me" on the 6 train earlier.

The 6 train is on the East side... so the East side apparently gets performances of golden oldies while my train on the West side gets homeless people commenting on my girth... I guess that's the difference between the East and West sides.

Well, I guess that's all I can think of off the top of my head... it's bedtime anyway... we didn't go to bed terribly early these past couple of nights to say the least.