On the Acela

Ok. I love the Acela service service on the Eastern seaboard. I generally think train travel could do with a major upgrade in the US. For example, between Chicago and Detroit, there is one track. In both directions. So if two trains need to pass each other while going in different directions, they need to do so at the stations only. Really. This means the train takes 6+ hrs and is not worth the cost ($30)

The Acela on the other hand, is somewhat faster than the regional train (NY-BOS is 3:30 vs 4:15hrs), miles more comfortable with a cafe car, foot room, electrical outlets, and very few delays. You pay a little ove $100 but you eliminate delay risk completely.

If I'm traveling between NY and Boston and there is even a hint of weather issues, I take the train despite it probably adding a half hour onto the door-to-door trip length.

It's the best. Please build more speedy trains.

July 4th, 2007

Okay so first off, I've been around a lot over the last two months, and I haven't faithfully conveyed in picture or word what's been up. The short version is that I've been on a project in Geneva and flying back/forth a bunch and somewhere in there spending a day in Zurich and Sofia, Bulgaria. The reason for so little communication is that most of these places are pretty boring and Bulgaria is not the type of place that is exactly fun to visit. Somewhere in there I went to Lake Tahoe for the weekend, so I'll post that afterwards.

Today is July 4th, 2007 - actually the anniversary of my landing here in New York (plus a day or two) so it ends up being kind of a reflection on my time here in the big city (when I was in town, at least). I'm in the process of leaving town to somewhere undecided and I've finally gotten to the point where I really appreciate all of the great things about New York without being irritated by the many annoying parts.

So in celebration of the great parts of NYC, I went with friends to Coney Island for the day. We started off trying to catch the famous Nathan's Hot-Dog Eating Contest, famously dominated by a Japanese teenager for some years. This year, of course, the rumors circulated of an eating-related jaw injury and possible title-loss to some other guy who looks like Peyton Manning. The crowd was abuzz.

I popped out of the subway and found a ginormous crowd of people who all were thinking it would also be cool to watch people cram inhuman amounts of pseudo-meat into their moo. I have to admit - I should have shown up earlier. You know when stuff is on ESPN, you need to show up a lot earlier. Turns out the other guy won by downing 66 dogs and buns. Not clear how long before he barfed everything up.

Anyhow, I tried even going to the other side but all I could get was this enormous Ketchup bottle in my face so I decided to go for some non-competitive eating of Mexican food followed by the Cyclone (surprisingly great for being a million years old), the Tilt-a-Whirl, Pirate Ship, and bumper cars - all classics.

All of the rides for some reason had airbrushed backgrounds from the early 80's, and my favorite dated ride was straight called the Break Dance. Much nausea and junk food was observed

Then we stopped by the Sideshow by the Seashore, aka the Freak Show. The first thing I noticed was the reference to the Luna song "Sideshow by the Seashore" and the references to mermaids made a lot more sense. Man I wish they didn't suck so much now.

Anyhow, the Freakshow was great because it hammered home the great American circus tradition of promising a bunch of crap and then taking your money. It felt right. The highlights of the show included sword-swallowing, fire-eating, a contortionist, and Chuy the Wolfman (Interview), who I saw on PBS once.

All in all, it felt good to get back to America's roots of cheap entertainment and delicious junkfood. I did the most American thing I could and promptly went to sleep in the middle of the day. I woke up to catch the NYC fireworks off of my roof. Here in New York, they do two big displays - one off of lower Manhattan and the other over the East River, and from my meager NoLita 5-story apt roof, I could see both okay. The East river one seemed more elaborate.

Nonetheless, a solid day appreciating all of the great things in America which I miss when I go to stupid Switzerland like restaurants open all day and everyone speaking English. I'm glad to be here in the US and I'll definitely miss NYC.

Lake Tahoe

Two friends agreed to combine their bachelor parties and a group of 20 or so of us rented an amazing house near Lake Tahoe for the weekend.
The highlight was cruising around the clear deep blue lake in a speedboat amidst the mountains and enjoying the sun.

NOT hanging out with OJ

I'm at the wedding of a good friend whose bachelor party took place in Miami a month ago. I was all set to attend until I realized I had the worst sinus infection known to man and a weekend of drinking and fishing would probably make me die. I had a bad feeling about it - I canceling on a bachelor party just seems to invite bad luck somehow.

I was right. Apparently everyone showed up on Friday, went to a bar to have a few drinks and spent the evening hanging out with acquitted alleged double homocidist OJ Simpson. I can't believe I missed this. I want to kick myself in the nards. Questions I would have asked him:

1) No seriously, you did it, right?
2) Who wears gloves when they're not committing double homicide? In LA? In June?
3) Do you not think it's creepy to still date women who look like Nicole? How do you still manage to date anyone without them thinking you're going to kill them?
4) What could have possibly been going through your mind when you wrote the book?
5) Are there any plans to sell an OJ "The Juice" Simpson Juicer with Jack LaLane? For that matter do you even feel comfortable ordering juice at restaurants?

EDIT: After further investigation, I learned hanging out with The Juice means listening to him drone on for an hour about Iraq ("Eh-rabs") and how he was once Don Imus' boss among other topics while five strippers follow him around. Five. Also, none of my friends broached any of the above questions with OJ. I suppose when you've publicly decapitated your wife and some other dude while managing to get acquitted of the crime, people learn not to fucks with you.

On stage with the Arcade Fire

Last night at the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights, New York I saw The Arcade Fire in concert. In short, it was amazing - they put on a great show and are very pro-fans. During the encore, they played "Wake Up" after inviting all of the fans in the front onstage (including me and my pals). To quote my friend Matt, "It's always a good day when you end it up on stage dancing with a band."

The venue is amazing and the restoration job is incredible. If you get the chance to see a show there or just visit, definitely do so.

Actually seeing famous people

Okay, so after much bitching I finally have seen some celebrities in NY, although oddly, only on the subway. I kind of assumed they took cabs everywhere but apparently the subway is even convenient for them.

First I saw Carson Kressley, aka The Queer Eye guy. This one was a weird sighting since it was all people trying to get to work by 9am and the train was packed. Dude was wearing so much pink he looked like a lawn flamingo with enormous sunglasses. Just a wild guess, but I don't think he was trying to blend in.



Second, I saw Little Carmine Lupertazzi from the Sopranos, AKA Ray Abruzzo. I live near Little Italy so it spooked me to see faux Mafia types running around in the neighborhood. Then of course he got on the subway with me. I'm a big fan of the show (although its final episodes are really tanking quickly for some reason) so I wanted to grill him for spoilers but I didn't. IMDB tells me he has been in shows like Trapper John, Riptide, Falcon Crest, and 21 Jump Street.

Finally (today) I saw Ajay Naidu, AKA Samir from "Office Space". (Coincidentally, appeared in one episode of "The Sopranos") This one was hilarious since I was on the subway and staring at him like I knew him from school or something and he noticed. We exchanged hellos and then I felt bad - I figure he'd probably want to be left alone. Of the three, he's really the only one I would have wanted to talk to, largely about Office Space, but it seems like people largely leave famous folks alone in NY and that's probably why they live here.



I'll stop complaining now.

Eating Cookie Soup

A certain someone I know likes to make this gourmet dessert I like to call "Cookie Soup". It's like having Oreo cookies with milk, only you just say fuck it and go the whole way. Be warned: this is only for serious sugarheads. The recipe is:

- Several Oreo cookies
- Bowl
- Spoon
- Milk (whole is best)

Combine ingredients and let sit for 5 mins. Cookies will get soggy and you will get mushy Oreos and chocolate flake-infused milk solution.

According to it's creator, it's more efficient and less messy than the traditional dunking method. I have to say, it's pretty good, and I don't usually like sweets. Give it a whirl and post your reviews below.

At MIT recruiting

I went to Boston to give a recruiting presentation to the MIT kids (who are WAY dorkier than U-C types, by the way) and on the way I saw this bananas looking Frank Gehry-type of thing. Apparently its the Stata Center which houses all sorts of artificial intelligence, computer science, and philosophy folks.

I'm not sure if this is the coming style of modern architecture, but it looks like a Tim Burton movie set and I like it. I can't imagine what it looks like from the inside...

In cabs

As a business traveler (sigh) I am constantly in cabs, largely to/from the following four places: My house, the office, the client, the airport. You tend to notice many things about cabs and their conductors after a while.

• For example, the cabs in Boston have much less footspace than the NY ones do. I think they put the big divider thing into normal cars instead of semi-modified ones as you see elsewhere.
  
• In DC, there are no dividers, and the drivers are almost entirely of African origin, especially Ethiopia. The fares are also entirely calculated by the number of zones you travel through, not the time or distance traveled according to the odometer. The idea here is to disincentivize out of the way trips to pad the fare but a flat fee just for picking someone up (as in NY) encourages them to turn fares as fast as possible already.
  
• Additionally, DC cabs will think nothing of picking up other riders if they seem to be going in the same direction as you ("seem" being key here). This is wholly unacceptable in New York and will earn you a serious yelling/fistshaking by your existing passenger.
• When you throw your luggage into the trunk of a cab, you'll notice two things: 1) It's way bigger than it needs to be. I mean you could really make the cabin larger if you decided not to have a swimming pool sized slot in the caboose. 2) Junk. Lots of it. Most cabbies have some crap of theirs left in the trunk which they clearly don't care if people make off with. I've seen boxes, jackets, backpacks, DVDs, bungee cords, fuel cans, and babies. Okay, no babies.
  
• Also in DC, for no apparent reason, the (mostly African) cabbies drive around with the passenger and driver windows down. IN THE WINTER. You have to ask for them to put them up and even then they often leave a crack open. I have no idea what this is accomplishing
• One cab in DC I got into this past week had tons of little plastic animals in it (see photo) on the back platform thing behind the back seat under the rear window and all over the dash and ceiling. The contents were largely bobble-head turtles which were surprisingly freaky.
  

Rico Fonseca

I got a slice of pizza yesterday at Ben's Pizza. It was severely average. What was not severely average was the sequence of framed, hand-drawn murals hanging on the wall. My favorite was this one, titled "Awesome 80's" and if you click for the zoom, you'll see in the center bottom the artist's signature (and self-portrait) reading "With love from me to you, Rico Fonseca. May 3, 1985".

It's pretty amazing if you have a close look. Something about an 80's mural made in the middle of the decade makes me happy.

[Edit: Looks like he is pretty famous: Rico on Flickr and PBase.]

Evolution

There's a great place in Soho called Evolution which is essentially an art gallery filled with natural items including shells, butterflies, rocks, and skeletons. It's a pretty fascinating place and taps into the beautiful part of nature. I bought an interesting sucker which I've photographed here. I'm especially fond of the ingredients list.

Brick Testament

If you are the type who checks up on Wikipedia to learn more about random stuff (like me) I would suggest a visit to the Brick Testament. This is essentially Lego renditions of scenes from the Bible and is one of my main sources of religious information. I highly recommend it.

My favorite section is "The Law", from which this photo was taken.

Trivia

Bank of Kaukauna wins again. God bless ye.

Fog

This is a view of the Met Life building, which strangely sits smack in the middle of Park Avenue, perhaps indicating its real or percieved importance in the financial world. The road literally goes around the building, which has to be an urban planning nightmare.

Often times in NYC, fog will roll in and obscure the tops of skyscrapers. It makes them seem infinitely tall and makes you realize how tiny you are in comparison.

Computer Music Radio

My buddy is running a podcast with some pretty amazing one-ish hour sets of older soul and random/eclectic tunes along with some one-off great songs. I highly recommend it and I'll keep a sidebar of the tunes on the right for your convenience, you lazy bastard.

Reunion recap

So I went to the nerd reunion and it was pretty great. Everybody seems to be doing well and has good lives - careers, marriages, kids, etc. The one thing I wouldn't have predicted is the crash that it took for many people to get there. For this group, much more so than other people I know from school, it seems like many people seemed to have some sort of breakdown or very drastic reevaluation of their lives before they settled in on their current lives.

I think it makes sense in a way - when you raise kids under the guise of being the "smart" ones, an undue amount of pressure to succeed is going to come along with that, and when people realize they're not going to make Supreme Court Justice, or really even *want* to, it can be a little rough. I know I definitely had several periods of reevaluation and I'm better for all of them.

All around, I feel happy to have seen so many of my old friends and they're all doing so well.

Watching Hipster Love

You know when girls are best friends in NYC because they dress the same way when they go out and are super excited because they realize its ridiculous but don't care, which of course makes them superhot. When guys dress the same, it just instantly transports you to the moment when the item was purchased:

"Dude, I love this hat with the feather in it. It's fucking sweet"
"Yeah, I've been thinking about getting a hat for a while, but I'm not sure if I'm a 'hat guy'"
"I'll get one if you get one"
(silence)
"Okay"

Nervously awaiting a reunion

I am, to be frank, a nerd. That's okay, and I'm good with it. I actually have been for a long time. As a young man, I was for years in the Talented and Gifted program (TAG)in our local school system as a result of some test I took, from which I really only remember the freeform drawing section. As a result, from 4th-9th grades, I took classes with the sameish group of about 50 people so we all were pretty close by the end. In fact, I still keep in touch with a handful, and a few of them were roommates in college or married other friends of mine.

The experience was, I imagine, a lot like school for other kids, except we had teachers that were much much wackier. Mr. Z was the ex-hippie English teacher who had us reading Salinger at 12 and was the first to teach us about recycling, meditation, and Barbie Doll mutilation. Ms. S was the science teacher who thought the symbol for hydrochloric acid was "HCI" (its not) and had a huge mole on her face which distracted from learning in a way that really doesn't matter when you are in public school. Mrs. F was the authoritarian social studies guru who taught us about reading and making graphs as well as mini-society. And so on.

To say that this educational experience had a profound impact on my life would be an understatement. It was a strange time where we were given a lot of very adult material to think about and lots of room for creativity. We had very deep and complex relationships with our teachers, some of whom we saw in their weakest moments, another passed away suddenly. It was a pretty intense educational experience, I'd imagine comparable to going to boarding school but less structured.

When I sporadically have seen people from this group we often crack jokes about classmates or recall the strange goings on of our youth, as I'm sure most do. However the whole time, I questioned our designation of being the "smart" kids and constantly wondered what people would turn out like in the future.

Well, tomorrow I find out.

Three of us who kept in touch usually meet up over the holiday for beers as of the last few years, the most recent of which we decided to try to remember who we went to school with and see if we couldn't google/friendster/e-stalk them and get them together sometime. It was one of those "man it would be hilarious if" ideas, which I wouldn't have expected to work out, if it weren't for Spencer.

He decided to make this work and has been putting together a TAG reunion for about a month with some minor help from me. The planning group found people in far-off locales: Working for NPR in MN, small town lawyer in KY, pet store owner in the same city, etc. Almost instantly, people began to make plans to travel to my hometown for the reunion. It became a big deal.

So I'm curious to know tomorrow what everyone is up to, if in fact we were the smart kids, and what we got out of that strange educational experience. I'm very nervous for some reason and I'll post the report after the fact, along with pictures of how fat/bald everyone got.

Hope you all are having a good holiday and taking 'er easy.

at the Triple Crown

I joined friends over at Triple Crown, a place that usually features Ali Shaheed Muhammed of a Tribe Called Quest Thursdays on the tables. He is apparently elsewhere now, and it was evident from the complete deadness on this particular Thursday.

That being said, the place is supercool and the music is solidly in the Native Tongues vibe. The bartender is a guy named John who offered us shots quickly after entering made of chocolate soymilk and various vodkas. Skeptically, we popped them and they ended up actually being enjoyable.

"I've been working on this for a while, but I don't have a name for it yet."

In a flash, something jumped into my head and I blurted it out

"How about a 'vegan slut'?"

John was immediately satisfied and told me the shot would be on the menu next time I came through. I suggest you stop by and check.

At the Lamest Tailgate Ever

 
So I went to the Harvard-Yale game tailgate at my special lady-friend's behest. I was told it was supposed to be a wild, fun time filled with smartypants getting wasted and being clever. Instead I found a truck with posterboard and marker denoting the *combined* tailgate of two whole Harvard College classes. That means of the, oh, I don't know, 2000 graduates of the most prestigious college in the US, about 14 sheepish goofballs gathered around a hot grill and icy cooler for free beers and discussion of graduate school on what is advertised as the biggest alumni social event of the year.

Let me be the first to say GO BLUE.

ADVICE: If you are not in some sort of grad school when you get to the 4th or 5th year out of college (even art or music school), don't show up to the H-Y game. People will mock you and your earning potential.