7 Years Later

I'm staring out my window right now, just staring at the blue sky that's mixed in with white full clouds, clouds that can resemble plumes of smoke if you want them to. No plane is flying right at me as I stare out across Houston St eight floors above the ground. I'm not going to have to run out of this building as it burns, praying that I make it out before it collapses. Just like last year, I notice that no one is really acknowledging the solemness of today in my office. I am listening to co-workers laugh as they eat lunch and conduct business as usual.

Today is not normal. Today is September 11. Seven years ago I ran frightened up 5th Avenue as a plane roared overhead, thought about diving under a car to protect myself from the immenant crash because I was next to the Empire State Building and the Towers had fallen already but then someone screamed "Its one of ours!" and I saw that it was an F-16 and knew that I was okay for now. "One of ours." The four American and United planes were ours too, that is before they weren't.

A comment to a City Room post about the ceremony at ground zero reads, "To this day, when a plane passes overhead, I look at it with trepidation and feel my blood chill just a little." and I feel the same exact way. Time marches on but we should never forget. I was working in NYC that day and so was my wife. One day our daughter will ask us what it was like and I will not know where to start. Before I left for work today I asked my wife, "What is our family disaster plan?" Just in case.

While walking my dog, I placed my annual bouquet of flowers - lilies this year - in front of my local firehouse and reviewed the plaque of the nine fighters who lost their lives that day which reads,

"There was a time when the world asked ordinary men to do extraordinary things"

Engine Company 22 and Ladder Company 13 lost 9 men on September 11th, 2001 and I felt like an intruder as I dropped off my flowers. The first moment of silence had passed and a large crowd was out front. I wanted to say "thanks" - thanks for making it your job to risk your life to save a stranger's because my job is to manage web projects and that job feels so trivial on a day like today - but I didn't know who to thank. I hope my presence said it all.

Where's the Beer?

I was recently at Ryan's Irish Pub in the East Village enjoying a nice cold post-work Guinness when my friend Steve pointed out that the pint I was drinking was not truly a pint. Over the past decade since I returned from living in London, I've gotten used to the size of an American pint, which is 16 ounces, while a real pint in my opinion is 19.2 ounces - the way they serve it in Britain. In the UK it's technically called an an Imperial Pint and has been a government-regulated standard for several centuries. I've never seen that size of a pint in the States unless it was at a "real deal" Irish pub, like Kinsale Tavern in the UES (which is where I watched a lot of both the 2002 and 2006 World Cups - if you are a footie fan, this is the place for you, that is if you do not want to go to Nevada Smiths).

So, I was shocked when Steve showed me that the my pint, which I thought was 16 ounces was actually less - it was only 14 ounces!

Through a cute use of glass blowing, the outside of the glass is the same size as the 16 ounce glass except the inside contains less liquid. This allows a bar to sell less beer while still charging the same amount of money, thereby making more per keg while screwing the customer in the process. And here I thought that Ryan's was a "real deal" pub....

While I've seen ketchup bottles and other commodities engage in this type of consumer trickery, this is the first time that I've seen bars display this type of method to squeeze more money from its patrons. Its one thing that a 750 ml bottle of Belvedere vodka is much larger than the 750 ml bottle of Reyka vodka - they are still both 750 ml. Its quite another thing to order a "pint" and not get one. I hopefully will not be going back to Ryan's in the future - if I need a great pint of Guinness, Molly's Shebeen is just up the block.

Via Steve

Something I Will Not Be Doing

ManBabies is one of the most ridiculous web sites I've seen in a long, long time. The concept is simple: using Photoshop you manipulate a picture that has a father and child in it by swapping their heads. The result is often not only funny but sort of disturbing - like the one below:

As some know, I became a father for the first time last week. I solemnly promise that you will not be seeing any pictures of me and my girl on that site any time soon.

Via Bonnie

Subway Love

I would like to start off by stating that I have been waiting to post until I have had enough time to write a super well thought out piece about something very relevant to the issues we face today. This has been a bad idea though because this amount of time either never comes or when it does, writing about the issues we face today often makes me either angry or sad, or sometimes both at once, which then discourages me from putting my thoughts down in a binary way. I mean, what kind of a world am I bringing a kid into anyway, right?

Well, to brighten things up on this rainy Monday (which as an aside is the name of a "Shiny Toy Guns" song that I love), it is a world that has subways! As a kid, I loved the subway - the machine's motion mixed with all of the revolving human commotion that occurs on the platform and within - and I still do as an adult. I have loved living in both NYC and London - two cities with iconic underground systems - for this very reason as I flat out love not owning a car.

Regarding my home city's system, in 1972, Massimo Vignelli developed a now famous map of the NYC Subway system. I was happy to learn that you can now buy an updated versions of this map but watch out, its a tad more expensive than the free ones the MTA distributes.

I was recently made aware of Eddie Jabbour's attempt at building a better mousetrap so to speak called Kick Map which is pretty cool as well. Here is one critics take on it:

"The Metropolitan Transportation Authority might learn from Eddie Jabbour. After studying more than a century of New York train and subway maps, Jabbour concluded that the current map, which originated in 1979, has become obsolete. Jabbour started buying old subway maps on eBay and researched their histories. More than two years work culminated with his own, a smaller and easier to read map influenced by all its predecessors.

Indeed, his map is easier to read. It is clean, uncluttered and efficient. There is a folding, pocket-sized version, smaller than a calling card. Every train line is depicted with its own corresponding line on paper. It's easier to tell what train stops where on his map."

In summation, I promise to try and post more, even if they aren't 5,000 word screeds about the idiocy of our war in Iraq, the looming recession, the mortgage crisis or other fun topics.

Pet Names

I've listed below the 10 most common dog and cat names based on a recent analysis of VPI's 450,000 insured pets:

Dogs: Max, Molly, Buddy, Bella, Lucy, Maggie, Daisy, Jake, Bailey & Rocky.

Cats: Max, Chloe, Lucy, Tigger, Tigger, Smokey, Oliver, Bella, Sophie & Princess.

Two things of note: 1) Max wins for both and 2) human names are more popular for dogs than cats which I find a little odd.

Being Everywhere At Once

I'm smack dab in the middle of The Painted Bird, a novel that many people read while in junior or senior high school (for me however it was never included on any class's reading list).

One passage in particular jumped out at me and I thought I'd share it. It's about one of my favorite subject - religion:

"The church always overwhelmed me. And yet it was one of the many houses of God scattered all over the world. God did not live in any of them, but it was assumed for some reason that He was present in all of them at once. He was like the unexpected guest for whom the wealthier farmers always kept an additional place at their table." ~ Jerzy Kosinkski

The book is unique and a well done. I wish I read it years ago....

Since I've Been Gone

Any time I stop posting, it's usually because I've been pretty busy - this time is no different except that I've been rolling along at an overall even pace. Since my last post:

• I rented with friends an apartment house near the Leidseplein in Amsterdam and then the following weekend a swank hotel room with my wife in New Amsterdam because why not.
• I was bumped up to 1st class randomly on my transatlantic voyage back home from Europa and loved every second of it - truly ka is a wheel.
• I truly learned the value of the adage "You catch more flies with honey."
• I've been busy trying to launch a web site - which will happen sometime next week.
• I started a new footie season and in our 20-12 game one victory, my stat line was just the way I like it: 1 goal & 3 - 4 assists.
• I remembered to buy Serj Tankian tickets for his show in May at Terminal 5 and was able to score a few.

Things keep happening and most of them are good. We'll see what the next few weeks bring. I'm looking forward to them.

April showers bring May flowers. Mayflowers bring pilgrims. Pilgrims bring promise. Etcetera etcetera etcetera

Battle Company's Battle

There is a forgotten war being fought in Afghanistan that has been ongoing for six and a half years - I remember watching BBC World footage of B-52's dropping bombs while on vacation in Mexico in October, 2001 - but the Iraq Debacle (FYI - it is now 1732 days since "Mission Accomplished") has almost completed pushed it into the background. It is almost never mentioned and for the troops that are fighting and dying over there, that is a outright shame.

Therefore, I thank the heavens that reporter Elizabeth Rubin went to the rugged and scary Korengal Valley to spend time with Battle Company and then wrote about her experiences. For me this war was once again pushed to the forefront of my thoughts.

Her report was shocking - we have fellow citizens there who are literally losing their minds trying to win the "hearts and minds" of people who flat out do not care and do not want us there. Villagers who are friends in the morning are enemies shooting at them at night and lying about it the next day. Militants multiply and watch Battle Company's every move. This list just goes on and on.

The passage below is lifted directly from the article. It is regarding a conversation Rubin had with Capt. Dan Kearney, the leader of Battle Company:

Just before I left, Kearney told me his biggest struggle would be holding his guys in check. “I’ve got too many geeking out, wanting to go off the deep end and kill people,” he said. One of his lieutenants wanted to shoot every Afghan in the face. Kearney shook his head. He wished he could buy 20 goats and let the boys beat and burn them and let loose their rage. He tried to tell them the restraints were a product of their success — that there was an Afghan government with its own rules. “I’m balancing plates on my goddamn nose is what I’m doing,” he said. “All it’s gonna take is for one of these guys to snap.”

I was so moved by the article that I am trying to donate money directly to these guys - not to the USO itself, not to the Afghan war effort, but to Battle Company. These guys have it rougher than almost any American in the world right now - if you don't believe me, read the article. Some of them are stop-lossed - their contract is up but they are not allowed to go home (because we have 160k troops in, you guessed it, Iraq and are super short on resources). It's utter and total bullshit and I'm embarrassed that it is happening, that I am a citizen and that I pay taxes that finance this whole shenanigan.

The NYT also has a good Korengal Valley slide show which shows the terrain and the brave men and women who are halfway around the world, doing the unthinkable each and every day.

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

The other night, certain disaster was only narrowly avoided. Check out the two Duane Reade generic pill bottles below:

Why the hell do these two bottles have matching yellow fonts and typefaces along with the same sort of blue / teal background?! I went for some medicine because my back was sore. If I happened to take the wrong pill, not only would my back still have been sore but my ass would have joined it on the list. Luckily for me, my wife's keen eye sight, along with her utter disbelief that I needed help in the turd procurement department, saved me from some unhappy times. Then again, maybe I would have caught up on some reading.

Note to DR - change your look!

Hudson River Trifecta

On Wednesday this past week, I hit the Hudson River Road Crossing Trifeca, travelling across the GWB, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel all within 6 hours. I'm not sure if this is cool or not but I thought I'd share in case. While this is not exactly like the guy who is living in IKEA right now it is sort of like it, a useless but interesting tidbit.

4:13 of Happiness While In Retail Hell

When I worked in retail clothing during high school in Roosevelt Field, the brightest star in the LI mall constellation, I had to listen to the store's musical soundtrack four times during a shift. The tapes were exactly two hours long, were controlled and sent by Corporate and changed on a monthly basis.

Music became an obsession of mine while I was there. I actually did not mind getting in an hour or two before the store opened so I could blast Black Sabbath while folding clothes. When the store opened though, we went with the Corp tape and man did it suck.

One summer, each and every minute of one month, I cannot remember if it was July or August, was spent listening to utter shite, the dreck of drecks and I was completely and utterly miserable almost all day long. Only one song was good and it was my saving grace: "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits.

When I think of the song I immediately think of the video, unlike almost any other song. First off, it is one of the first videos I can remember (like Thriller) but even more importantly, I just loved it. I mean loved it. I think the infatuation was completely because of its sports bloopers. The song and video was a stepping stone - I went from simply liking sports to enjoying, caring about, following, etc both sports and music. Years later, when music started to overtake sports in my life in terms of what made my motor run, here was this magical song, pregnant with memory, bringing me four minutes and 13 seconds of happiness every two hours.

When I heard the tune at that time I remembered my childhood and drifted away from everything else for that short time. Now, when I hear that song, I have a compound of memories. I remember my high school years, the days when I worked only in the summer, the transition from being dependent to independent on top of those suburban childhood thoughts.

So, happy Friday - enjoy it with good tunes as you do the walk, the walk of life...

From the "You Cannot Make This Up" Dept

I wish this was a joke but it is not: this Pakistan Airlines ad appeared in the March 19th, 1979 issue of Le Point (and surely countless other publications).

As 2spare.com points out, the shadow is in pretty much in the same place as where the planes hit on September 11th, and there's no way the shadow should be that big unless it's seconds away from hitting the towers.

Cue the conspiracy theories.

Via Phyl.

My Holiday Haul

Delightedly this past Saturday, the 4th day of Channukah, 5768, I was given gifts, which, upon further reflection after many minutes of glee, seem to be items one would attribute to a geeky 15 year old. I don't even care - they are so friggen cool.

Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy is flat out ridiculous in its intricacies - please find a store and find this book. If you have to buy it to see inside, do it. You will not be disappointed. Another book I was given, The Sandman: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman, is a great collection by one of the best authors out there and Super Mario Galaxy has been named "The greatest Nintendo platformer ever made." Oh yeah, I also got an outdoor fleece perfect for running, skiing or dog walking and a really nice dinner out at a seafood place on Long Island (cue "The Downeaster Alexa").

Yup, I'm a geek (among other things) but the people around me seem also to know me best. Thanks all. 'Nuff said.

Helpful Travel Info

Maybe its because I have to go to Atlanta for the day (!) on Thursday but I am finally posting this helpful travel info that I found while on the island of Lanai in Hawaii. I don't think enough people to read this blog (yet) to blow these "secrets" - I'm sure more people read the magazine where I found this info anyway...

If you want to know which airline offers the best itinerary for the lowest price, you can use either ItaSoftware, Which Budget or WeGoLo.

Seat Guru tells you which seats are the best per aircraft.

Last, if you use Priceline in conjunction with Bidding For Travel, you can know how much to bid because you know what bids PL has accepted recently for properties matching your criteria.

Eat Some Candy You Pagan

Halloween originated from the Pagan festival Samhain, celebrated among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. That is why the pic below (which I carved last night) is called a Jack-O'-Lantern.

It can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard drinking old farmer who tricked the devil into climbing a tree, and trapped him by carving a cross into the trunk of the tree. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack which dooms him to forever wander the earth at night. While this bedtime parable was told by Irish parents to their children for centuries, the American tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Great Famine period of Irish immigration. The carved pumpkin was associated generally with harvest time in America, and did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid to late 19th century.

The Wikipedia entry that I quoted above really made me laugh when it talked about the whole "trick or treat" phenomenon in these terms (emphasis mine): "Although the practice resembles the older traditions of guising in Ireland and Scotland, ritual begging on Halloween does not appear in English-speaking North America until the 20th century, and may have developed independently." Hysterical!

Cute Guns

When a frequent reader sent me a link to a Hello Kitty Assault Rifle yesterday, I knew immediately I had to post it. Its just so damn cute:

The gun comes from a site called GlamGuns which is full of ridiculous guns, like the gun above and one called "My Little Carbine." Lovely.

Before you start to get too freaked out about the next school shooting happening in a pre-K class, if you read the fine print, you'll see "NOTE: This site is a parody for humor purposes only. No actual weapons may be bought on this site." Furthermore, if you try to buy a gun, you'll get sent to Amazon where you can buy a book called A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Form whose premise is that "parody is a genre fundamental to 20th century art forms." The author's intro states, "Parody is not a new phenomenon by any means, but its ubiquity in all the arts of this century has seemed to me to necessitate a reconsideration of both its nature and its function."

Via Dave

Longer Lives Equal More Life Stages

NYT Op-Ed Columnist David Brooks just wrote a piece called the Odyssey Years whose premise is that there used to be four common life phases but now there are at least six.

Old phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.
New phases: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age.

He says that the Odyssey stage," the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood," is the least understood and I would tend to agree with him. I have seen this stage first hand in the lives of both friends and family and admit it baffles even me, a simple friend and/or cousin who is only 30 years old, not a parent who is, in many cases, bankrolling this voyage into adulthood.

A Hoboken resident named Leigh Higgins wrote in response to the piece that:

"Parents should focus more on guiding and supporting their children in a discovery of their own values and life purpose and less on micromanaging an outcome we hope to see as parents."

This seems a bit trite and a no-brainer but I guess there are plenty of parents that say, "Be an accountant or else..."

I found another response much more interesting because it speaks directly to one of my favorite issues: class. Philadelphia resident Laurence Steinberg noted that:

"Recent empirical analyses indicate that about 40% of American young people follow this pattern. Poor inner-city and rural youth, as well as young people who live in the so-called red states, are far less likely than their advantaged, suburban and blue-state counterparts to delay the transition into conventional work and family roles, both because they choose not to and because they simply can’t afford to.

Perhaps over time, the odyssey stage will come to characterize the life course of the majority of young Americans, just as adolescence began as a middle-class institution and spread to less affluent groups, but it hasn’t happened yet."

After the jump, feel free to read Mr. Brooks' article and see if you agree with either of the readers above.

The Odyssey Years by David Brooks - 10-9-07

There used to be four common life phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Now, there are at least six: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age. Of the new ones, the least understood is odyssey, the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood.

During this decade, 20-somethings go to school and take breaks from school. They live with friends and they live at home. They fall in and out of love. They try one career and then try another.

Their parents grow increasingly anxious. These parents understand that there’s bound to be a transition phase between student life and adult life. But when they look at their own grown children, they see the transition stretching five years, seven and beyond. The parents don’t even detect a clear sense of direction in their children’s lives. They look at them and see the things that are being delayed.

They see that people in this age bracket are delaying marriage. They’re delaying having children. They’re delaying permanent employment. People who were born before 1964 tend to define adulthood by certain accomplishments — moving away from home, becoming financially independent, getting married and starting a family.

In 1960, roughly 70 percent of 30-year-olds had achieved these things. By 2000, fewer than 40 percent of 30-year-olds had done the same.

Yet with a little imagination it’s possible even for baby boomers to understand what it’s like to be in the middle of the odyssey years. It’s possible to see that this period of improvisation is a sensible response to modern conditions.

Two of the country’s best social scientists have been trying to understand this new life phase. William Galston of the Brookings Institution has recently completed a research project for the Hewlett Foundation. Robert Wuthnow of Princeton has just published a tremendously valuable book, “After the Baby Boomers” that looks at young adulthood through the prism of religious practice.

Through their work, you can see the spirit of fluidity that now characterizes this stage. Young people grow up in tightly structured childhoods, Wuthnow observes, but then graduate into a world characterized by uncertainty, diversity, searching and tinkering. Old success recipes don’t apply, new norms have not been established and everything seems to give way to a less permanent version of itself.

Dating gives way to Facebook and hooking up. Marriage gives way to cohabitation. Church attendance gives way to spiritual longing. Newspaper reading gives way to blogging. (In 1970, 49 percent of adults in their 20s read a daily paper; now it’s at 21 percent.)

The job market is fluid. Graduating seniors don’t find corporations offering them jobs that will guide them all the way to retirement. Instead they find a vast menu of information economy options, few of which they have heard of or prepared for.

Social life is fluid. There’s been a shift in the balance of power between the genders. Thirty-six percent of female workers in their 20s now have a college degree, compared with 23 percent of male workers. Male wages have stagnated over the past decades, while female wages have risen.

This has fundamentally scrambled the courtship rituals and decreased the pressure to get married. Educated women can get many of the things they want (income, status, identity) without marriage, while they find it harder (or, if they’re working-class, next to impossible) to find a suitably accomplished mate.

The odyssey years are not about slacking off. There are intense competitive pressures as a result of the vast numbers of people chasing relatively few opportunities. Moreover, surveys show that people living through these years have highly traditional aspirations (they rate parenthood more highly than their own parents did) even as they lead improvising lives.

Rather, what we’re seeing is the creation of a new life phase, just as adolescence came into being a century ago. It’s a phase in which some social institutions flourish — knitting circles, Teach for America — while others — churches, political parties — have trouble establishing ties.

But there is every reason to think this phase will grow more pronounced in the coming years. European nations are traveling this route ahead of us, Galston notes. Europeans delay marriage even longer than we do and spend even more years shifting between the job market and higher education.

And as the new generational structure solidifies, social and economic entrepreneurs will create new rites and institutions. Someday people will look back and wonder at the vast social changes wrought by the emerging social group that saw their situations first captured by “Friends” and later by “Knocked Up.”

La la Land At Its Finest

I saw this in Brentwood, CA by a Peet's Coffee Shop (which is actually where Mezzaluna, where Nicole Brown Simpson dined before OJ, I mean someone, killed her, used to reside) this past weekend:

If you've got over $100K for a Lamborghini, one would think you also have enough money to get another car on which to affix your bike rack. Ridiculous.

Paper Waste

I read about AT&T's titanically large iPhone bills on Slashdot two weeks ago and now this story has made its way to the NYT. Long story short, they are ginormous (now an official word according to Merriam-Webster) because AT&T's billing system is totally dumb. I probably wouldn't have even written about this except for the fact that the image below is too damn cute not to post:

For instance, a video blogger, also known as the worst person in the world to get something like this, received instead of an envelope a box which contained a 300-page, double-sided, excruciatingly well itemized bill. To quote the man whose dog is shown above, “It’s nonsense,” said Mike Brophy, 34, who owns a software company near Seattle and posted an item about his 64-page bill on his blog. “Ninety-five percent of the bill is just page after page of 1K data transfers, all with a charge of zero.”

Save the environment. Don't get an iPhone, or don't get one before AT&T figures out how to send a smaller bill.

Timely Mail

I'm working from home today due to the storm related transit problems. I finally tried to head into the office and found that the 4/5 line stopped at 86th St and that while the 6 was running sporadically, there were hundreds of people waiting. So, in order to make a 2 pm call, I went home and on the way to my virtual office, I got my mail and saw that I received from the New York City Office of Emergency Management the piece below:

You can't make this stuff up.

Swamped!

I'm singing Neil Young's "Helpless" to myself right now - the entire NYC transit system is currently shut down due to flooding and most of my office is working from home - good thing we have a slick VPN set up where nothing is really affected. MTA officials are instructing people to "stay home for now if you can - we cannot support you at this time." At least they are honest: it's all about managing expectations in this world, right?

This situation creates a good chicken and the egg type debate: is the horrible weather the cause or is the system not prepared for horrible weather? With the way the world is going (i.e. global warming), more instances of horrible weather are on the horizon so the MTA better do something.

Let's review the past year: Big Dig tunnel failure in MA. A bridge fell down in MN. The mass transit system is down (for now) in NYC. Is this a USA infrastructure apocalypse or have I just not had my morning cup of coffee yet?

Where am I?

It seems that I have not posted a damn thing for the past almost 3 weeks. It's the summer: TV shows should be in repeats, your shrink should be away (oh wait, that is just August) and everything moves a bit, well, slower. That being said constant reader, look forward to a post barrage coming your way!

Right Rides

I learned yesterday of a very interesting option for women in New York City who need a safe way of getting home after a long night out. A non-profit called Right Rides runs two programs about which I will spreading the word, through this site and through my own word-of-mouth, because they might save someone I know from a potentially horrid situation.

These programs are RightRides, where they offer women, transpeople and gender queer individuals a free, late-night ride home to ensure their safe commute to or through high-risk areas, and Safe Walk, where they offer walking escorts for any one who doesn't want to walk alone. The cars are donated by ZipCar and the organization even won NY1's New Yorker of the Week award last month.

If you wind up using either of these services, drop me a comment and let me know what they experience was like, how long it took to get picked up, etc.

Via Kirsten

Nine Words Women Use

I received the list below in an email from my Uncle and I have to say, it was the first forward in a long time that I not only read but found humorous. Those in a relationship with a woman will find the list below especially useful. So, without futher ado, the nine words that women use and what they mean:

1. Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

2. Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

3. Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing usually end in fine. (Refer back to #1 for the meaning of fine.)

4. Go Ahead: This is a dare, not permission. Don't do it!

5. Loud Sigh: This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to #3 for the meaning of nothing.)

6. That's Okay: This is one of the most dangerous statements a women can make to a man. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

7. Thanks: A woman is thanking you, do not question, or faint. Just say you're welcome.

8. Whatever: Is a women's way of saying F@!K YOU!

9. Don't worry about it, I got it: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking "What's wrong?" (For the woman's response refer to #3)

Via the Mayor

My Brothers

Tidbit of the day: President Dwight D. Einsenhower, Dr. Jonas Salk and Larry David are my brothers.

If you know me, you may (or may not) be surprised to learn that I was in a fraternity when I was in college. Before I headed north I never thought that I would be a "frat guy." However, when everyone I was friends with started to go to all these rush events, I quickly realized that I would have to make new friends (because they all would be away for the semester pledging) or I could be a follower and join them.

So, to see if it made sense to cave on my convictions, I made the rounds to a bunch of frats and at one of them I found myself sitting on a table in a corner, tired of the inane bullshit and wondering why I ever decided to even think about joining a fraternity. I wound up talking to a guy in a Dead shirt sitting next to me who was smoking a cigarette (which was illegal since we were inside the University Union) and flicking the ashes onto the carpet. "This is so dumb, I hate this shit," he said. "Me too. Why are you here?" I asked. "Because I have to be - I'm in this frat," he responded. Then we began to talk...

That simple exchange opened my eyes and made me realize not every frat guy was a loutish rah-rah frat guy - some could be considered "cool" in my book. As rush went on, Tau Epsilon Phi (TEP) became the only one I was interested in. Luckily for me, out of the 5 guys that I was most friendly with, 3 of them liked it as much as I did and we all decided to pledge TEP. They saw the same stuff I did - it existed as a duality - a traditional frat and a non-frat frat at the same time. Years later, I count joining TEP as one of the better decisions I've made in my life. I won't get into the reasons now but one thing that it's given me is a list of some pretty interesting people to call brothers.

Here is a brief rundown of people should be able to respond to a secret handshake I know (if alive that is):

• Dwight Eisenhower: Former U.S. President and Famous WWII General
• Larry David: co-creater of Seinfeld and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Dr. Jonas Salk: scientist who discoverer of the polio vaccine.
• General Omar Bradley: 5 star general. Former chairman joint chief of staff, WWII hero
• William O. Douglas: United States Supreme Court Justice 1939-1975. One of the longest serving US Supreme Court Justices. Champion of First Amendment Rights and Civil Liberties.
• Benny Goodman: Musician
• Red Auerbach: 4th winningest coach in NBA history
• Adam Sandler: Comedian/Actor
• Samuel Lefrak: Internationally renown architect and builder of sky scrappers in New York.
• Mike Nichols: Director of the "Graduate" and many other well known movies
• George Stephanopoulos: Former advisor to Pres. Clinton
• Judge Wapner: Former Judge on People's Court
• Jerry Springer: Talk Show Host, former mayor of Cincinnati
• David Duchovny: Actor

Okay, Skull and Bones isn't not but still, not a bad list...

Malaria Awareness Can Be Fun!

If you don't think that this post's headline can be true, check out the video below. President George Bush gets seriously down tackling this serious issue at the White House lawn yesterday. Give the man some credit - he's got to know people like me are just going to post a video of his routine to their blogs and he still got down and boogied. All of you wallflowers take note. Laura doesn't want to be involved but sees George dancing so she has to get into the groove. I love how she gives him the universal "I'm so embarrassed/amused by this man at the same time" look that all women display from time to time.

New Meaning To "Bad Day At The Office "

It's definitely not elegant but all I have to say is "holy fuck":

This copy is a direct lift: A crocodile at a zoo in the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung holds the forearm of a zoo veterinarian in between its teeth, April 11, 2007. The crocodile bit off the arm of the zoo veterinarian treating it, an official reported. Picture taken April 11, 2007. REUTERS/Frank Lin (TAIWAN)

Via Phyl

Somebody's Gonna Get Pregnant While I'm In Town!

Tracy Morgan is freaking hysterical. If you don't believe me, watch the clip below. An entire studio laughing can't be wrong...

Via Chris

Real World "Weeds"

It's the classic case of art imitating life imitating art: more and more marijuana is being grown in the suburbs a la the Showtime show "Weeds." It seems that this trend will only continue as the years go on which means that soon you might get a contact high just taking your dog for a walk.

I Want To Pinch

I'm going out to eat at Pinch in NYC tomorrow and the name got me laughing as I remembered a humorous series of Honda Element ads. They starred Gil the Crab who wanted to pinch everything in sight - who doesn't - and if you know what I'm talking about you are probably laughing already. Of course I went to YouTube and collected and posted them for you. Watch and enjoy.

Video #1:




Video #2:



Video #3: (never aired)

News of the Day

Note to self: when driving around with tons of illegal drugs in the car - drive carefully! Check out the news article below from the good people at the AP (the reporters group, not the supermarket chain which utilizes an ampersand). In one word, it's ridiculous!

Car with pot in trunk hits state trooper: 54-year-old caught with 43 pounds of marijuana after South Carolina crash

The Associated Press (Updated: 12:21 p.m. ET March 6, 2007)

ORANGEBURG, S.C. - It might have been one of the easiest drug busts in the history of the South Carolina Highway Patrol: A car with 43 pounds of marijuana crashed into a trooper’s cruiser, authorities said.

The easy bust happened after two patrolmen parked their cars in each lane of northbound Interstate 95 near Santee early Sunday morning following a series of wrecks that had tied up traffic, Highway Patrol Capt. Chris Williamson said. A Chevrolet Malibu going about 70 mph hit one of the cruisers, causing minor injuries to the trooper behind the wheel, Williamson said.

Officers found two large duffel bags in the trunk with 43 pounds of marijuana in plastic bags, worth more than $150,000, Orangeburg County deputy Warren Pendry said. They also found a few marijuana cigarettes and cocaine, Pendry said. The 54-year-old driver from Daytona Beach Shores, Fla., was charged with driving under the influence, possession of cocaine and trafficking marijuana, authorities said.

Bean Town Needs To Feel Relevant

This humor clip perfectly illustrates what I feel about the recent Adult Swin Bean Town debacle. Long story short: it has a major inferiority complex and needs to feel relevant when it really isn't. Enjoy!

Via Neu

When You Need a Hotel Room In NYC...

When you travel, its helpful to read reviews so that you "know before you go." As an FYI, the Days Hotel in the UWS has some of the worse reviews I've ever seen. If you need a place to stay, don't stay here!

Anti-semitic CMS at the AP?

A friend sent me a link to an AP article about how "desperate" letters written by the father of Anne Frank have surfaced in the United States and will be released next month.

What I found extremely odd was that the URL to this article was http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070125/en_afp/usnaziannefrank.

Please draw your attention to the very last part of that string: usnaziannefrank. Yes, the article involves the Nazis (who murdered Ms. Frank and her family) and the United States (as the letters surfaced here) but it seems pretty odd that the Associated Press's content management system (CMS) automatically truncated the path to this article to something that can read as "US Nazi Anne Frank."

Anyone want to cook up a conspiracy theory?

Via Phyl

Corporate Branding Nonsense

Stephen Colbert has a great bit on how nonsensical corporate branding can be. He uses the history of AT&T to illustrate how silly things can get. Please watch and enjoy.

Via Neu

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Is On Fire!

I normally do not do this but it's short and sweet so I'm lifting a paragraph verbatim from amNY:

A blaze caused an estimated $50,000 of damage at an unlikely location yesterday morning - the headquarters of the East Meadow Fire Department. The fire started around 4:30 a.m., Fire Chief Christopher Sala said. It took about 100 firefighters half an hour to get it under control.

You can't make this stuff up...

Via amNY

It Came Fron New Jersey

A horrible smell best described as "gassy" invaded NYC yesterday. It concerned many, closed buildings and forced a PATH station to evacuate. It was actually so bad and people were so freaked out that Mayor Bloomberg held a press conference to say basically, "everything is fine - its not terrorism - go about your business."

After much investigation, a marsh around Bayonne is being blamed and the news outlets are having a field day with their headlines. NY1's "Who Dealt it?" is one of my favorites. In case you were wondering, Bayonne is in the "Garden State," aka New Jersey. It seems that NJ smells so bad these days that it can't even contain itself anymore, - sort of how I felt in while on vacation after eating Israeli salad, cabbage and choumous at every meal of the day...

Quote Series: #1

I have a black and white old skool marble notebook with a Led Zeppelin "Houses of the Holy" sticker on it that houses a lot of good quotes and poems I've amassed over the past fifteen odd years. I think I'm going to start posting them because a number of them are really great. To start this project off, as I'm embarking on a trip to the Holy Land very soon, one passage about the how ridiculous some people are in the way they worship their chosen deity gave me pause and made me smile. It might do the same to you:

If God existerd (a question concerning which he maintained a meticulous intellectual neutrality) and if He desired to be worshipped ( a proposition which he found inherently improbable but conceivably possible in the dim light of his own ignorance), then (stipulating affirmatively both the above) it nevertheless seemed wildly unlikely to him to the point of redictio and adsurdum that a God potent to shape galaxies would be titillated and swayed bye the whoop-te-do nonsense the Fosterites offered Him as "worship."

- Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein

Tradition is one thing but some people truly go overboard in "worship." Everyone should keep in mind the quote above and the simple adage that its not what you do inside a house of worship that matters, its how you conduct your life outside of it that matters.

The Nietzsche Family Circus

The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote. It's equally funny and disturbing - a terrific find! Happy Friday!

Via Neu

Year in Review

I got a Wii about a week and a half ago and have been working on a grand post about it but as I'm not done writing it yet, I haven't posted anything. In the mean time, enjoy this video from JibJab to tide yourselves over....

Working on the Night Moves...

I was chatting with a friend tonight and somehow the video below came up. When he mentioned that he hadn't seen/heard about it, I knew I needed to post it to my blog. So, without futher ado, enjoy the worst robbery ever!

Yiddish Quiz

Following up on my previous post title, I bring to you straight from my in-box and courtsey of my Aunt a pop Yiddish quiz. Phyl, I know you are going to love this one!

1) Which one of these people might best be described as "zoftig?"

A) Callista Flockhart
B) Lara Flynn Boyle
C) Kirstie Alley
D) Woody Allen

2) You're driving around in eckveldt (the boondocks) and have no idea where
you are. You are:

A) farblunget
B) farklempt
C) fartoost
D) farshvitzed

3) You found it! The Holy Grail! A $2000 designer dress for just $39.95!
You've found a:

A) mechaiyeh
B) mishpucheh
C) machashafer
D) metziah

4) Which one of these people has a "ferbisseneh punim?"
A) Michael Jackson
B) Leona Helmsley
C) Barbara Walters
D) Julia Roberts

5) He eats like a pig and wipes his face with the back of his hand. He farts
and picks his nose at the dinner table. He curses like a drunken sailor.
He's a real:

A) shnorror
B) gonif
C) grubber yung
D) mensch

6) Which of these is NOT a body part?
A) poulkie
B) potchki
C) pupik
D) punim

7) Which of these is NOT an insult:
A) shana maydel
B) shmegeggie
C) shmendrik
D) shlub

8) You've gone to a wild party where you've been downing vodka jello shots
like candy. You can barely stand up anymore, and you've made a fool of
yourself in front of everyone you know. You are totally, completely:

A) fershtayst
B) farblunget
C) ferchadded
D) fershikert

9) Which of these things would you never find at a kosher restaurant?
A) shmaltz
B) luckshen kugel
C) treyf
D) kasha varnishkes

10) Of these various uses of "kishka", which one is incorrect?
A) "Yes, waiter. I'll have the roast chicken with a side order of kishka."
B) "That Yetta, she's such a piece of kishka!"
C) "After twenty years of keeping secrets, he finally went to a shrink and
spilled my kishkas."
D) "If anyone ever tried to mug me, boy, I'd give him such a chamalyiah in
the kishkas!"

Answers are after the jump

Answers to Quiz:

Question 1 =C~ Kirstie Alley

Question 2 =A~ farblunget

Question 3 =D~ metziah

Question 4 = B~ Leona Helmsley

Question 5 =C~ grubber yung

Question 6 = B~ potchki

Question 7 =A~ shana maydel

Question 8 =D~ fershikert

Question 9 =C~ treyf

Question 10 = B~ "That Yetta, she's such a piece of kishka!"

When Religion Meets Reality

One thing about organized religion as a whole that always annoys me is the "my god is better than your god" debate, the certainty that each observant has in the fact that his or her religion is unique and special because it came "directly from God's mouth" or something like that. Many times this line of reasoning does not hold up to evidence and one piece of evidence that always punches a huge hole in this train of thought is that there are over 175 different flood myths that exist in the world.

For Christian and Jews, we are talking about Noah's Ark but every other religion has a starkling similar myth. The story goes that there was a time when the world was completely flooded (most often due to God's wrath) and life was miraculously saved by either one or a few enterprising souls, possibly guided by the said deity that flooded the world in the first place.

The defining fact about these myths iis that most of them grew up independently from each other. For instance, the Incas have a flood myth and so do the Jews. The myths are very similar to each other yet no Jew ever interacted with an Incan (or vice versa) when these myths were developed and recorded thousands of years ago. Long story short: it happened. A very real and cataclismic flood encompassed the world within the last 10,000 years and this disaster became the story of legend and myth, eventually entering in all the major religions and belief systems in the world.

In reading the NYT today, I found an article about how scientists are studying chevrons (in this case enormous wedge-shaped sediment deposits, not a badge or insignia consisting of stripes meeting at an angle, worn on the sleeve of a military or police uniform to indicate rank, merit, or length of service or a multinational energy company) to see if/when super tsunamis occurred in the past. It turns out that there may be evidence of one around 5000 BC, which happens to be the point where our history breaks down. We have knowledge of the Egyptians, Jews, Chinese up to around that year. Before that point, who knows what happend and maybe, just maybe, that date is significant because a cataclysmic flood wiped everything out. I love this stuff.

Ancient Crash, Epic Wave
by Sandra Blakeslee

At the southern end of Madagascar lie four enormous wedge-shaped sediment deposits, called chevrons, that are composed of material from the ocean floor. Each covers twice the area of Manhattan with sediment as deep as the Chrysler Building is high.

On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. And all of them point in the same direction — toward the middle of the Indian Ocean where a newly discovered crater, 18 miles in diameter, lies 12,500 feet below the surface.

The explanation is obvious to some scientists. A large asteroid or comet, the kind that could kill a quarter of the world’s population, smashed into the Indian Ocean 4,800 years ago, producing a tsunami at least 600 feet high, about 13 times as big as the one that inundated Indonesia nearly two years ago. The wave carried the huge deposits of sediment to land.

Most astronomers doubt that any large comets or asteroids have crashed into the Earth in the last 10,000 years. But the self-described “band of misfits” that make up the two-year-old Holocene Impact Working Group say that astronomers simply have not known how or where to look for evidence of such impacts along the world’s shorelines and in the deep ocean.

Scientists in the working group say the evidence for such impacts during the last 10,000 years, known as the Holocene epoch, is strong enough to overturn current estimates of how often the Earth suffers a violent impact on the order of a 10-megaton explosion. Instead of once in 500,000 to one million years, as astronomers now calculate, catastrophic impacts could happen every few thousand years.

The researchers, who formed the working group after finding one another through an international conference, are based in the United States, Australia, Russia, France and Ireland. They are established experts in geology, geophysics, geomorphology, tsunamis, tree rings, soil science and archaeology, including the structural analysis of myth. Their efforts are just getting under way, but they will present some of their work at the American Geophysical Union meeting in December in San Francisco.

This year the group started using Google Earth, a free source of satellite images, to search around the globe for chevrons, which they interpret as evidence of past giant tsunamis. Scores of such sites have turned up in Australia, Africa, Europe and the United States, including the Hudson River Valley and Long Island.

When the chevrons all point in the same direction to open water, Dallas Abbott, an adjunct research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., uses a different satellite technology to look for oceanic craters. With increasing frequency, she finds them, including an especially large one dating back 4,800 years.

So far, astronomers are skeptical but are willing to look at the evidence, said David Morrison, a leading authority on asteroids and comets at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. Surveys show that as many as 185 large asteroids or comets hit the Earth in the far distant past, although most of the craters are on land. No one has spent much time looking for craters in the deep ocean, Dr. Morrison said, assuming young ones don’t exist and that old ones would be filled with sediment.

Astronomers monitor every small space object with an orbit close to the Earth. “We know what’s out there, when they return, how close they come,” Dr. Morrison said. Given their observations, “there is no reason to think we have had major hits in the last 10,000 years,” he continued, adding, “But if Dallas is right and they find 10 such events, we’ll have a real contradiction on our hands.”

Peter Bobrowski, a senior research scientist in natural hazards at the Geological Survey of Canada, said “chevrons are fantastic features” but do not prove that megatsunamis are real. There are other interpretations for how chevrons are formed, including erosion and glaciation. Dr. Bobrowski said. It is up to the working group to prove its claims, he said.

William Ryan, a marine geologist at the Lamont Observatory, compared Dr. Abbott’s work to that of other pioneering scientists who had to change the way their colleagues thought about a subject.

“Many of us think Dallas is really onto something,” Dr. Ryan said. “She is building a story just like Walter Alvarez did.” Dr. Alvarez, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, spent a decade convincing skeptics that a giant asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Ted Bryant, a geomorphologist at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia, was the first person to recognize the palm prints of mega-tsunamis. Large tsunamis of 30 feet or more are caused by volcanoes, earthquakes and submarine landslides, he said, and their deposits have different features.

Deposits from mega-tsunamis contain unusual rocks with marine oyster shells, which cannot be explained by wind erosion, storm waves, volcanoes or other natural processes, Dr. Bryant said.

“We’re not talking about any tsunami you’re ever seen,” Dr. Bryant said. “Aceh was a dimple. No tsunami in the modern world could have made these features. End-of-the-world movies do not capture the size of these waves. Submarine landslides can cause major tsunamis, but they are localized. These are deposited along whole coastlines.”

For example, Dr. Bryant identified two chevrons found over four miles inland near Carpentaria in north central Australia. Both point north. When Dr. Abbott visited a year ago, he asked her to find the craters.

To locate craters, Dr. Abbott uses sea surface altimetry data. Satellites scan the ocean surface and log the exact height of it. Underwater mountain ranges, trenches and holes in the ground disturb the Earth’s gravitational field, causing sea surface heights to vary by fractions of an inch. Within 24 hours of searching the shallow water north of the two chevrons, Dr. Abbott found two craters.

Not all depressions in the ocean are impact craters, Dr. Abbott said. They can be sink holes, faults or remnant volcanoes. A check is needed. So she obtained samples from deep sea sediment cores taken in the area by the Australian Geological Survey.

The cores contain melted rocks and magnetic spheres with fractures and textures characteristic of a cosmic impact. “The rock was pulverized, like it was hit with a hammer,” Dr. Abbott said. “We found diatoms fused to tektites,” a glassy substance formed by meteors. The molten glass and shattered rocks could not be produced by anything other than an impact, she said.

“We think these two craters are 1,200 years old,” Dr. Abbott said. The chevrons are well preserved and date to about the same time.

Dr. Abbott and her colleagues have located chevrons in the Caribbean, Scotland, Vietnam and North Korea, and several in the North Sea.

Heather Hill State Park on Long Island has a chevron whose front edge points to a crater in Long Island Sound, Dr. Abbott said. There is another, very faint chevron in Connecticut, and it points in a different direction.

Marie-Agnès Courty, a soil scientist at the European Center for Prehistoric Research in Tautavel, France, is studying the worldwide distribution of cosmogenic particles from what she suspects was a major impact 4,800 years ago.

But Madagascar provides the smoking gun for geologically recent impacts. In August, Dr. Abbott, Dr. Bryant and Slava Gusiakov, from the Novosibirsk Tsunami Laboratory in Russia, visited the four huge chevrons to scoop up samples.

Last month, Dee Breger, director of microscopy at Drexel University in Philadelphia, looked at the samples under a scanning electron microscope and found benthic foraminifera, tiny fossils from the ocean floor, sprinkled throughout. Her close-ups revealed splashes of iron, nickel and chrome fused to the fossils.

When a chondritic meteor, the most common kind, vaporizes upon impact in the ocean, those three metals are formed in the same relative proportions as seen in the microfossils, Dr. Abbott said.

Ms. Breger said the microfossils appear to have melded with the condensing metals as both were lofted up out of the sea and carried long distances.

About 900 miles southeast from the Madagascar chevrons, in deep ocean, is Burckle crater, which Dr. Abbott discovered last year. Although its sediments have not been directly sampled, cores from the area contain high levels of nickel and magnetic components associated with impact ejecta.

Burckle crater has not been dated, but Dr. Abbott estimates that it is 4,500 to 5,000 years old.

It would be a great help to the cause if the National Science Foundation sent a ship equipped with modern acoustic equipment to take a closer look at Burckle, Dr. Ryan said. “If it had clear impact features, the nonbelievers would believe,” he said.

But they might have more trouble believing one of the scientists, Bruce Masse, an environmental archaeologist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He thinks he can say precisely when the comet fell: on the morning of May 10, 2807 B.C.

Dr. Masse analyzed 175 flood myths from around the world, and tried to relate them to known and accurately dated natural events like solar eclipses and volcanic eruptions. Among other evidence, he said, 14 flood myths specifically mention a full solar eclipse, which could have been the one that occurred in May 2807 B.C.

Half the myths talk of a torrential downpour, Dr. Masse said. A third talk of a tsunami. Worldwide they describe hurricane force winds and darkness during the storm. All of these could come from a mega-tsunami.

Of course, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, Dr. Masse said, “and we’re not there yet.”

Email of the Day

I logged into my school email this morning and saw a note with "Work-life balance workshop - Canceled" as the subject line so I just had to open it. It read:

Hi everyone,

Unfortunately, I am going to cancel the work-life balance workshop for next weekend. Given the end of semester work load, it was too difficult for enough people to make a Saturday session. Thanks again to everyone who expressed interest!

All the best,
Ellen (name has been changed)

Everyone is too busy for the work-life balance workshop. I wish I was making this up...

Via Zicklin School of Business Webmail

Go Crazy Pagen Style: It's All Hallows Eve!

In honor of today's spookiness, check out Google's logo today:

Via Phyl

Warped Perceptions

'Nuff said.

Wikiality: Where Truthiness Reigns

Stephen Corbert has his own version of Wikipedia up now called Wikiality, a site dedicated to upholding and documenting truthiness. It does a great job mimicing Wikipedia, almost as good of a job as I did mimicing the NY Times with The Poser.

One entry that is particularly funny is about Steagle Colbeagle the Eagle, the mascot of the Saginaw Spirit, a minor league hockey team in Michigan. It seems that they were having a contest to rename the mascot and enough people suggested that they name it after Colbert that the Stephen inspired name won. Now, the team has fully embraced the new name and I'm thoroughly amused to say the least.

Read through the rest of the site to truly understand why our country is screwed.

Via Janelle

Dearth of October Posts

I've been very busy with work, school and life and some peoplehave noted that I haven't been posted at all lately. That usually happens for a few weeks after something I'm rooting for loses, whether it be the Yankees or John Kerry. I'm out of my funk and back. Look for much more in the next few minutes and days.

In Rememberance

"There was a time when the world asked ordinary men
to do extraordinary things"

The photo above is of Engine Company 22, Ladder Company 13 10th Battalion at 9:17 AM today. The words are from a plaque that is found under the photos of nine men who gave their lives trying to save ordinary people like you and me that fateful day. May G-d rest their souls.

While 343 FDNY firefighters, a truly staggering amount, lost their lives 5 years ago today, others have lost their lives in lesser known fires before and after. The circumstances are in the end the same - selfless men and women run straight into danger to get you and me out of it.

One way to help and show you care is by making a donation to the Uniformed Firefighters Association College Fund which provides the families of active and deceased firefighters the opportunity to go on to higher education.

NYC: Before and After

For many people who live in NYC, there is a clear line between those that were here on 9/11/01 and those that were not. In prepping for the 5 year anniversay next Monday, the Times has an article today about this very topic.

“I’m amazed because it was such a big event, and people never mention it,” said Deenah Vollmer, 20, who moved to the city last year. “When you do mention it, everyone has these crazy intense stories.”

I myself have a crazy intense story and unless you were here on that day, and by here I mean in NYC close enough to smell the odor of burnt everything in the air, to see the fighter jets circling Manhattan like slot car racers and to hear the deafening wail of sirens then you have a much different understanding and experience of that day than I do. Unfortunately, I got to experience it live with all five senses.

I do not know if I've touched on my personal experiences from that day on my blog yet. I'm not sure I want to frankly but in my hopes that "100 years from now a researcher, in his attempts to learn more about the late 20th and early 21st centuries, will discover these words on a server somewhere" I feel that I should. Stay tuned.

Old New Yorkers, Newer Ones, and a Line Etched by a Day of Disaster by Micahel Brick

Five years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center. Downtown smelled like Coke cans and hair on fire. It was televised live.

In New York City, 2,749 people were killed. About eight million remained. Since that day, the numbers have changed.

The population grew by more than 134,000 from 2000 to 2005, the city’s latest Planning Department calculations show. In that time, 645,416 babies were born and 304,773 people died. A half-million more people came from other countries than departed for them, and 800,000 more people left for the 50 states than came wide-eyed from them.

The meaning in the math is that today a great many New Yorkers lack firsthand knowledge of the city’s critical modern moment.

Five years on, New York is a city of newcomers and survivors. And between them runs a line. The line makes for no conflict, no discernible tension; it works a quieter breach.

Borne of the routine comings and goings of urban life, of births and deaths, the line divides views of a singular moment. Across the line, consummately familiar events can appear contorted.

On one side, the newcomer side, a man seeks accounts of that day; on the other side a man withholds his account. On the newcomer side, a woman visits the absent towers to feel some connection; on the other side a woman feels connected, and then some.

On the side of those who lived in New York, you can share a sense of trauma both layered and ill-defined.

“It’s like someone who has been in a war zone,” said William Stockbridge, 50, a finance executive who was working downtown during the attack. “It’s different.”

On the other side, you can feel like the new boyfriend at your girlfriend’s family reunion the year somebody died — somebody young, somebody you never met.

“You feel like you’re on the outside,” said Matthew Molnar, 26, a waiter in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who lived in Middlesex County, N.J., in 2001. “You feel like you missed out on a little bit of history.”

Newcomers and survivors: those terms ring harsh and blunt only because the line is so often unspoken. It runs soundless and invisible down Broadway from Harlem over the Williamsburg Bridge out to Coney Island and to Fresh Kills, up past the airports across the Grand Concourse into Yankee Stadium, through the bleachers where you can’t drink beer anymore and up out of the park into the nighttime sky.

The line flashes into view on the city streets for moments at a time. When jet fighters buzz the skyscrapers for Fleet Week, some of the people below — the ones who were here on Sept. 11 — flinch. More frequently, though, the line operates beneath the surface of conversations, of interactions, of transactions, of life. The line controls small things, controls the way people react to the phrase “and then Sept. 11 happened,” as though a date on the calendar could “happen.”

The line’s contours emerge in conversations. Ask about the attack, and people will describe a sense of ownership.

“You either experienced it firsthand,” said Amanda Spielman, 30, a graphic designer from Jackson Heights, Queens, who was in the city, “or you didn’t.”

Others describe that sense differently, but draw the line in the same place.

“I think for the people that seen it on TV, it is more painful than for the people who saw it here,” said Paolo Gonzalez, 29, who manages a parking lot under the Brooklyn Bridge and who saw the attack. “For the other people it was real. If you was here, when the buildings came down the only thing you were thinking was, ‘Run.’ ”

Across the line, the new arrivals recognize that sense of ownership.

“I’ve been told that I just don’t get it and that I could never understand what it was like to be there in New York on Sept. 11,” said Laura Bassett, 27, who moved to the city from North Carolina after 2001. “I hate that five years later, people still debate which bystander is allowed to be more upset, the New Yorker or the American.”

The line emerges perhaps most powerfully around the fallen towers, 2.06 acres of concrete known as ground zero. Because of the line, the site is a paradox, an emotional contradiction, a mass grave and a tourist attraction.

Some people feel so strongly about the place they cannot agree on an arrangement for listing the names of the dead; others feel so strongly about the place that they make sure to visit between Radio City Music Hall and the Statue of Liberty. Between those emotional poles is a middle ground, and the line runs through its center.

“People who moved to New York, everyone wanted to go down and see it,” said Dede Minor, 51, a real estate broker who was in her office in Midtown on the day of the attack. “For New Yorkers, it was too real.”

Jose Martias, 57, a construction worker who was drinking coffee near the East River when the attack began, said he knew why the newcomers visit the site.

“They don’t understand it so they go down there to see the hole,” Mr. Martias said. “It’s an attraction to them, like going to the circus.”

But across the line there is genuine emotional curiosity, a feeling that people in less cynical times used to call empathy.

“I’d didn’t think I’d be that affected,” said Leah Hamilton, 24, a logistics consultant who moved to Manhattan from Washington State last year. “But when I went to ground zero, it was the first time I’ve felt an emotional reaction like that to something I wasn’t a part of. You feel the energy and you could feel the sadness.”

The line can reach into the future, forging perceptions of New York and its destiny. Some new arrivals speak of the attack as a reason to come to the city.

“We felt like there was a lot of energy here,” said Meg Glasser, 26, a student who moved to the East Village from Boston this year. “We wanted to be a part of it in some way.”

But across the line, that sense of energy is tempered by standards for comparison.

“I know people who have been here a year or two, and they find New York fantastic,” said Father Bernard, 67, a Roman Catholic monk who was born in Brooklyn and who goes by only that name. “They’re right, but they didn’t know the New York before.”

The line reaches into the past as well, dividing memories. Each generation tells the next where they were when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, when the Kennedys and Martin Luther King were killed or when a space shuttle exploded, but a major act of destruction in a major American city creates more firsthand accounts.

Psychological studies suggest those accounts have played a role in drawing the line. After the attack, a group of academic researchers interviewed 1,500 people, including 550 in New York City, to gauge memories of detail, said Elizabeth Phelps, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University. Proximity to Lower Manhattan during the attack, Dr. Phelps said, “increases your confidence in your memories, and your accuracy as well.”

In a separate study, the researchers measured activity in parts of the brain connected to memory. With verbal cues, subjects were asked to conjure visions of the terror attack and of personal events from the summer of 2001. Only half registered a difference in neural activity.

“Those who did show a difference were, on average, in Washington Square Park,” Dr. Phelps said. “Those who didn’t were, on average, in Midtown.”

Among those who have come to the city since 2001, the line dividing memories is undisputed.

“I had been there as a tourist to the World Trade Center, so I have memories,” said Marielle Solan, 22, a photographer who moved to the city from Delaware this year. “But obviously I can’t have any sense of what it was like. Every Sept, 11, you get a sense of fear and depression, but in terms of actual visceral reactions, I don’t really have that.”

The new arrivals have found a conspicuous void of shared memory.

“I’m amazed because it was such a big event, and people never mention it,” said Deenah Vollmer, 20, who moved to the city last year. “When you do mention it, everyone has these crazy intense stories.”

Across the line, many of those who lived in the city hold their memories close.

“The people I already knew know my stories from that day, so there’s no need to repeat them,” said Ms. Spielman, the graphic designer. “The new people I’ve met don’t ask me. It’s not something I bring up.”

But each year the calendar brings it up. Alexandria Lambert, 28, who works as an administrative assistant, sees the line run through the center of her office. Each year, a co-worker who witnessed the attack asks for the day off, and each year a boss who did not declines the request.

“His point of view is, ‘Don’t let it get you down,’ ” Ms. Lambert said, “but she just doesn’t want to be here.”

Afternoon Humor Via The Onion

The Onion's Caltech Physicists Successfully Split The Bill article is ridiculously funny if you are a science nerd. Anytime someone references the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle in a humor piece, I smile big-big thankee-sai.

Summer Camp: 2006 Edition

This past weekend I headed up to the Berkshires in the lovely state of Connecticut (highest per capita income in the Union baby!) to see what it was like to go to camp as an adult. My wife and I, along with another couple that we are really good friends with, grabbed a 4 bed cabin and the biggest take away is that going to camp as an adult leaves you sore as all bloody hell but smiling none the less.

Over 2 days, I enjoyed:

• getting stuck on the side of an Upstate NY road for 2.5 hrs when the bus to camp broke down
  
• almost getting an open container ticket by the NYS Highway Patrol who came to see why a big bus was in a no-standing zone and found about 50 people drinking heavily (there was a huge supermarket right where we were stuck thankfully)
  
• seeing lots of stars (the night kind)
  
• okay-to-bad food with plenty of bug juice
  
• rock climbing
  
• hiking and rock scrambling
  
• archery
  
• lake swimming (technically a pond according to Google Maps)
  
• very loud people from Staten Island
  
• softball along with a keg
  
• drunken Uno
  
• not writing any letters home
  
• riding a mechanical bull
  
• mountain biking
  
• more swimming
  
• an all-out dodgeball war where I happened to win one match by nailing a dead ringer for Jean Gerrard (character in Talladega Nights) in the leg right as he was going to peg me
  
• winning the Bonnie and Clyde award for best married couple at the awards lunch (okay, there weren't that many married people there but still...).
  

Now, just about two days later, my body keeps getting more and more sore. It hurts to walk, hurts to bend and I love it! I'm inspired to take up climbing again too, and since there is a sweet vert wall in NYC in the UWS called the Atrium and because my sis goes to New Paltz, which is smack dab in the heart of great climbing country, I am really psyched! Overall, the weekend was a bit dorky and a bit cheesy but a ton of fun and I would do it again, as long as I brought a posse back with me the next time. I mean, where else but camp are you going to jam all of those activities above into 2 days!

Siskel Versus Ebert

Today, I was sent a link to a blog post that had a sort-of funny clip of Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert bickering with each other while taping a promo for their show a few years back. On that post however, which again was only sort-of funny, MC left a comment which pointed me to the longer and much better clip to which I have linked.

Hang in there until the 2 min mark because that is when things get Gibsony good and yes, I mean Mel Gibson because WASPs and Protestants get absolutely trashed, like when someone says, "G-d damn Protestants, biggest thing to happen for them on Sunday is a bake sale." Ebert even mentions the "Fucking Jews" just like Mel, though he doesn't blame the Jews for all the wars in the world.

In keeping with my established theme:

A) Siskel = bald

B) Ebert = fat

Via Neu

Who Versus Whom

I start many letters with "To Whom It May Concern" and usually this is the only time I used the word "whom" in a sentence. When writing an email today, I was stuck as to whether to use who or whom. So, I did some digging and got my answer.

A) Who: when the pronoun acts as the subject of the clause, use who. For example: The prize goes to the runner who collects the most points. [Who does the action of collecting.]

B) Whom: When the pronoun acts as the object of the clause, use whom. For example: The tutor to whom I was assigned was very supportive. [Whom is the object of the preposition to.]

If you can't tell a subject from an object, you can replace who/whom with he/him. If he sounds right, use who; if him is right, use whom. For example: since he did it and not him did it, use who did it; since we give something to him and not to he, use to whom.

Seltzer Versus Soda Water

When I go to the bodega or supermarket to buy some seltzer, which I absolutely love and easily drink a case of each week, I also notice that club soda is sold. What pray tell is the difference between the two?

A) Seltzer, aka soda or sparkling water, is merely plain water into which carbon dioxide gas has been dissolved.

B) Club soda can be identical to plain carbonated water or it may contain a small amount of table salt, sodium citrate, sodium bicarbonate, potassium bicarbonate, potassium sulfate, or disodium phosphate, depending on the bottler. These additives are included to emulate the slightly salty taste of homemade soda water.

So, all club soda is seltzer but not all seltzer is club soda, like how all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.

Answers courtsey of Wikipedia

A Versus B Posts: Many To Come

For a long time now, I have wondered when one should refer to A versus B about many different things. I have decided to help out humanity by not only answering each question which, like how Churchill refered to Russia, can be seen as a "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" but by posting the answer to my site as well. In the immortal words of Bill Cosby, I hope you have some fun and learn a bit before you're done.

High Pitched Laughter

If you are in need of a laugh, watch how this TV talk show host responds to one of his guests (Note: based on the other guest and the audience, it seems to be a pretty serious topic):

Via Ro

Sunday Cleanup

It is so hot outside that I'm trapped in my apartment, sipping Pina Coladas and going through old stuff, trying to clean tha place up. Here is a sample of what I found:

* A Letter from the City of New York's Finance Department which read (bold my emphasis): The respondent has been charged with violating Traffic Rule 4-08(k)(2) by standing or parking a vehicle where a posted sign reads "No Standing Except Trucks Loading and Unloading." The time first observed is stated as 12 AM. Respondent persuasively states that this is an error. Defective summons dsmissed not on the merits.

Sweet! I love re-reading traffic tickets that I've been able to get thrown out, especially when I got the ticket Thanksgiving 2004 and it was eventually dismissed in January, 2006. Who says you can't fight City Hall?

* An axe on my wall:

I bought this axe online for my friend Tree's Medieval wedding a few years back. Yes, I was able to buy a weapon and have it shipped to me. Yes, it was after 9/11. I've been trying to find the right hook in order to hang it because even my wife, joy of joys, thinks its cool and I finally found what I was looking for in a store called The Container Store (I know, The Hook Store would have made more sense) which really actually kind of rocks. As my friend Mr. Neu stated, my day yesterday was sort of summed up by Will Ferrel in Old School: "Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time." That being said, I was also able to buy 5x7 plastic sleeves there for the next item I'm listing....

* A book for my postcards. I have been collecting postcards from museums I've visited, places I've been and people who've sent them to me (regardless of where they are from) for a long time now. In fact, the only tangible items I have from my Bubbe (she was my great grandmother even though "bubbe" means grandmother in Yiddish) are postcards. They've all been in a bundle in my bookcase for years - at best a few were displayed on my wall in college to try and show a bit of my personality to the world - but now I've finally put them in sleeves, courtesy of the aforementioned Le Magasin de Container, and then in a book so they are more accessible. I've been buying representations of these fantastic works of art to use as inspiration and to jog my memory that such art exists in the world and instead of being inspired by them, they been hidden away from view. Now, I hope that maybe by looking at Van Gogh's "Skull with a Cigarette", the intensely huge sky of Ullapool, Scotland, the words that two Icelandic girls who I knew for all of 24 hours wrote me after they left London, "Le Baiser (the kiss)" by Rodin and many, many, many other 'cards on a more regular basis, my creative fire will spark from its smoldering state more often.

* A phat new rap mix, titled "Rap Mix #2." I bought 2 tickets to sunny Florida online the other day and in doing so, I got 20 free iTunes songs to which I said, "Sweet!" I've used 3 of them on tracks from Ghostface Killah's new album "Fishscale" which is just flat out ridiculously good. After reading a really positive review of Ghostface's new album in the NY Times of all places, I was on iTunes and wound up buying these songs after to reading reviews and listening to snipits. I just love the Wu-Tang clan. Out of all the rap groups that are out there, I seriously think that the Wu are the best. I just love the imagry, the mythos, da mystery of chess-boxing and everything that is associated with them. So, "Rap Mix #2" is devouted to them and their disciples. My head is grooving back and forth listening to "9 Milli Bros."

National "Seven Squared" Day Was Yesterday - How Did You Spend It?

Yesterday's date was 7/27 or 7-2-7, which looks to me a lot like 7-x-7, or seven squared, so I have decided to name July 27th "Seven Squared" Day. Legislation is currently pending. The only problem with my day was that I was behind a Client firewall all day, then at school with a dead laptop in the evening and then out and about for dinner and drinks with friends at night so I didn't have a chance to post on my very own day. Yes, "boo" to me. However, I can say that my site hit an all-time high in terms of traffic yesterday though so "yay" to me as well. In honor of this new annual day which honor's my blog, I have decided to try and get healthy again, as I fell off the wagon from the regimen I laid out for myself in my "Return to 19" post, so that I'm around in the future to keep posting. We'll see how long I stay with it this time.

Switching gears, I recently read up on Balzac and found two great quotes of his that seem to be very relevant today:

1. "Behind every great fortune there is a crime"
2. "There is nothing left for literature but mockery in a world that has collapsed," from the preface to La Peau de Chagrin.

For those, like me until a day ago, who do not know the facts about the famous French author with the naughty name, I can tell you that he was an " observer of society, morals and human psychology who continues to appeal to readers today. His novels have always remained in print. His vivid realism and his encyclopedic gifts as a recorder of his age outweigh the sketchiness and inconsistent quality of some of his works. Enough of them are recognized as masterpieces, to rank him as the Charles Dickens of France."

Now, think about the world today and the news you read on a daily basis and re-read the quotes, especially the last one. Maybe that is why the magic has disappeared for me, because the magic has turned into a mockery. What do you think?

30 Facts About Chuck Norris

When I was out in Cali at the beginning of July, my friends and I were sitting around the Q grilling, chatting and laughing. I said, "You know what's funny, those Chuck Norris facts" which fell totally flat - no one knew what the hell I was talking about which was shocking - I know this list is "old" in Net years and figured one out of the five at least would be familiar with them. So, I mentioned the one Chuck Norris fact I know by heart - "Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried." - and my friends just lost it. I then went inside, jumped on a computer and found the full list of 30 facts about Chuck Norris, a list that will blow your friggin mind. I tried to read them all but couldn't get past the first 10 because I was laughing so hard. We then decided that these facts are way too powerful to be read at once and we would read them only in increments of five. I waited a day for 10 - 15 and it took forever to get through those five facts. Then, at a later date when my friend Steve took over at 15, he could only get through three of them because he was laughing so hard. At one point, he was holding onto a railing in order to stand. You have been warned. So now, without further ado, here are 30 Facts About Chuck Norris (with number one still my favorite):

1. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

2. Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

3. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

4. Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

5. Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

6. Chuck Norris once ate three 72 oz. steaks in one hour. He spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress.

7. Chuck Norris's girlfriend once asked him how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. He then shouted, "HOW DARE YOU RHYME IN THE PRESENCE OF CHUCK NORRIS!" and ripped out her throat. Holding his girlfriend's bloody throat in his hand he bellowed, "Don't f*ck with Chuck!" Two years and five months later he realized the irony of this statement and laughed so hard that anyone within a hundred mile radius of the blast went deaf.

8. The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.

9. Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of "beard". Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus' obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of roundhouse kick-related deaths.

10. To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer. Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and aquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.

After the jump, read the next 20 if you dare.

Via Everyone

11. There are no disabled people. Only people who have met Chuck Norris.

12. If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.

13. Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.

14. Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse... horses are hung like Chuck Norris

15. Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

16. Chuck Norris won 'Jumanji' without ever saying the word. He simply beat the living sh*t out of everything that was thrown at him, and the game forfeited.

17. Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "booya".

18. Chuck Norris doesnt shave; he kicks himself in the face. The only thing that can cut Chuck Norris is Chuck Norris.

19. Chuck Norris died ten years ago, but the Grim Reaper can't get up the courage to tell him.

20. Chuck Norris appeared in the "Street Fighter II" video game, but was removed by Beta Testers because every button caused him to do a roundhouse kick. When asked bout this "glitch," Norris replied, "That's no glitch."

21. When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back. He also always makes it to Oregon before you.

22. When Chuck Norris's wife burned the turkey one Thanksgiving, Chuck said, "Don't worry about it honey," and went into his backyard. He came back five minutes later with a live turkey, ate it whole, and when he threw it up a few seconds later it was fully cooked and came with cranberry sauce. When his wife asked him how he had done it, he gave her a roundhouse kick to the face and said, "Never question Chuck Norris."

23. Before each filming of Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris is injected with five times the lethal dose of elephant tranquilzer. This is, of course, to limit his strength and mobility, in an attempt to lower the fatality rate of the actors he fights.

24. Chuck Norris once tried to sue Burger King after they refused to put razor wire in his Whopper Jr., insisting that that actually is "his" way.

25. Chuck Norris frequently signs up for beginner karate classes, just so he can "accidentally" beat the shit out of little kids.

26. Chuck Norris once went to a frat party, and proceeded to roundhouse every popped collar in sight. He then drank three kegs and shit on their floor, just because he's Chuck Norris.

27. Those aren't credits that roll after Walker Texas Ranger, it is actually a list of people that Chuck Norris round house kicked in the face that day.

28. One of the greatest cover-ups of the last century was the fact that Hitler did not commit suicide in his bunker, but was in fact tea-bagged to death by Chuck Norris.

29. After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima rather than the alternative of sending Chuck Norris. His reasoning? It was more "humane".

30. Filming on location for Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris brought a stillborn baby lamb back to life by giving it a prolonged beard rub. Shortly after the farm animal sprang back to life and a crowd had gathered, Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked the animal, breaking its neck, to remind the crew once more that Chuck giveth, and the good Chuck, he taketh away.

The Ultimate Thing Costume

A few weeks back, I received an email with the subject line "awesome costume." This email simply contained a link to a site which detailed in steps how someone went about creating a fantastic Thing costume For those that don't know, he is one member of the Fantastic Four. I've been meaning to post it and now, sitting in a boring BUS 9100 class, I found the time. Enjoy!

Via Neu

Mr. T Has Given Up The Gold

Yes, you read that headline correctly fool. Mr. T has given up his gold for good after witnessing the destruction from Hurricane Katrina. In his own words, ''As a spiritual man, I felt it would be a sin against my God for me to wear all that gold again because I spent a lot of time with the less fortunate." Amen to that brother. I pity the "sorry celebrities" that don't follow his lead.

After the jump, feel free to read the full story.

Via Jessie

Mr. T Sheds Gold After Katrina Destruction

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 4:08 p.m. ET on July 14, 2006

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- Mr. T has given himself a makeover. The former television action star shed the piles of gold chains that were his signature look after witnessing the destruction from Hurricane Katrina.

''As a spiritual man, I felt it would be a sin against my God for me to wear all that gold again because I spent a lot of time with the less fortunate,'' the actor said Thursday at the Television Critics Association's summer meeting.

''I saw some, I call it `sorry celebrities.' They'll go down there and hook up with the people to take a photo-op. I said, `How disgusting.' If you're not going to go down there with a check and a hammer and a nail to help the people, don't go down there.''

Mr. T, whose real name is Lawrence Tero, stars in ''I Pity the Fool'' debuting in October on TV Land. He dispenses advice to viewers who are struggling with life's problems.

The former star of ''The A-Team'' said he's about more than his rough-and-tough image.

''Yes, I am qualified to beat people up. But I am pretty intelligent,'' he said. ''That's what throws people off. If you've been through something, that gives you an authority that you can speak on certain things. That's why people relate to me. I pull no punches.''

LIRR Goes New School and I Hate It

Recently, I took a LIRR train out to visit my mom and was appauled to see that the "big board" train schedule sign has changed from the "old school" rotating sign to a new electronic model. I for one absolutely hate this change. Something major has been lost in the update and its not just the "tick-tick-tick" sound of the sign changing to denote a new train/track update. This modification constitutes a major break from the past and I don't like it one bit. Not everything needs to be updated because it can be. I cannot believe that after weeks of research, I cannot find a single article about when this "big board" sign changed. For shame MTA and NY for not noticing, or if you noticed, for not deeming it worthy enough to write about.

Sing Baby Sing!

Okay, this clip of Shane karaoking almost broke my ears but it also really made me smile, in a painfully funny way. Be prepared.

Via Jessie