Why.
Why, why, why! Why did somebody decide to put the United Nations right smack in the middle of midtown Manhattan!?
This had to have been the worst idea since the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. New York is one of the most heavily populated, most densely trafficked cities on earth. And it’s certainly the busiest modern city around. Whose brilliant idea was it to put the world’s headquarters for all international matters, from climate change, to human rights, to nuclear proliferation, right here?
How do we support all the foreign dignitaries and their staffs? How do we handle the traffic from all those limos with the flags on them? Do we have enough hotel rooms? And, for that matter, how does the delegation from Gabon even afford a hotel room here in New York? ($100 to the person who knows where the hell that is without cheating!)
You mean to tell me there wasn’t a nice tract of farmland out in the boonies of New Jersey to put a massive complex? Where security could have been handled more easily. There are more hiding spots New York than there are in Sesame Place. There are more weirdos running around here then there are in Creedmore. What about considering where much of the evil has happened in the 20th century? I’m sure the Allies could have found a nice spot in Germany for the UN. Not like they could have argued against it anyway! Even so, somewhere in Europe would have made more sense geographically because it would have been about equidistant between the North American continent and Asia.
But no, us New Yorkers are stuck with it right here, fucking all our commutes up! The subways, which are usually a goddamn catastrophe on a normal day, have been as crowded as downtown La Paz. The East Side is entirely shut down for traffic, making most streets a wall of cars. (At least the traffic cops can actually, you know, DIRECT traffic, instead of just writing asinine tickets!) Throw in the fact that President Obama is coming to town and I might as well hire my first rickshaw to take me to work.
*Followup: See, I told you!*
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Mr. Sinister is ‘friend’-ly
Friend
–noun
1. a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
2. a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: friends of the Boston Symphony.
3. a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile: Who goes there? Friend or foe?
4. a member of the same nation, party, etc.
I joke that I met my wife on the Internet. I call her my very own Polish mail-order bride. Oh, she hates it, but when anyone asks us how we meet, I say, "Over the Internet," and that usually creates a whole funny conversation and even funnier looks.
Truth is, I literally married the girl down the block. We rode the school bus together as kids. I am two years older than her, and we were always at the very least acquaintances, but once I left for college I did not see her for eight years … until Friendster came along.
I graduated college in 2001 and recently after a friend persuaded me to join Friendster, which was kind of like the grandfather of social media sites. Right idea, maybe the wrong time, hence it’s relative death. I reluctantly joined, and although it didn’t have much value for me, it paid dividends in its ability to link me up with old friends and those that lived far away. Turns out, my neighbor across the street from me was then and still is my now wife’s best friend. So I bumped into my neighbor and we got to talking, and my wife’s name came up. So after a neighbor’s re-introduction, I used Friendster to open lines of communication with the woman who would become my wife.
So given that this was now around Christmastime 2004, I used Friendster communication, to quickly graduate to IM communication, and then the old standard: phone communication (crazy, I know, a dude calling a girl nowadays). Which obviously led to dating, and then one drunken night a few years later she ruffied me and got me to propose (just kidding). So we are a social media success story!
Now, I also happen to be an early adopter of technology; MP3 player, LCD television, Blu-ray player—all bought when they were still fucking expensive. So it may come as a shock to you all that I just joined Facebook yesterday*. That’s right, yesterday! (BTW, Hook, Line & Sinister Fan Page coming soon. Facebook is fighting me on the title.)
I did not want to join Facebook for a number of reasons: 1) I was out of full-time work for over a year and did not want any prospective employers Googling me and finding my page which would inevitably include some ‘tagged’ picture of me from college with a 412-lb. bucktoothed stripper and my famous sidecar bubbler 2) it’s an enormous distraction; and 3) I really don’t need to know that Steve, who I went to middle school with and haven’t seen since I was 12, had twins. I mean good for him, but that is more useless information to me than what US Weekly charges $3.99 for each week.
But honestly, it’s gotten just too big not to be a part of. Five hundred million users worldwide is nothing to scoff at. It’s not just a fad. It’s here to stay. I needed to join.
Fast forward to my first Facebook experience—boy is that a clusterfuck of a site! I’m amazed that something so poorly laid out is so damn popular. I know there’s a learning curve, but what the fuck am I looking at? A News feed? Please. Wow, the Yankees won … Look, there’s a cat up for adoption; aren’t there a bajillion of those? … A new Tosh.O episode is airing … Move over Edward R. Murrow!
This whole ‘wall’ thing took some getting used to. You’re posting on my wall, I’m posting on your wall. If it’s so popular to write on walls, then why the hell was my dry erase board ripped down within a day in college? I want my $2.49 back!
‘Liking’ something has gotten out of hand. I like watches; I like meatball heroes. Now you know. But I didn’t know that my friend can ‘like’ the fact that I like meatball heroes. I mean that’s crazy. We should call this thing Wastebook from now on.
I am now aware that Evites went out the door; everyone just uses Facebook invites; Calendars and datebooks are gone, because everyone’s on Facebook all damn day that they don’t need or have the time to click on any other application. And when you’re bored you can play Scrabble or Bejeweled. (Note: Remind me never to employ anybody ever again.) I see the value in posting pictures there for everyone to view. Granted there are dozens of other sites you can do this on, but fine. If anyone posts—or ‘tags’—that picture of 22-year-old Joe Schmuckler with hookers and coke from back in college, he can be damn sure he won’t be president in his lifetime.
Then there’s chat, a ubiquitous function. But I was talking to my friend Randi—literally 20 seconds after I joined—and asked her why it’s so important we talk in this way. I pointed out that I have AIM, GChat, e-mail, text messaging, and a phone—none of which she uses to communicate with me—yet she ignored all those portals and is chatting with me now—on Facebook. Curious.
It took me some time to realize that Facebook suggests people I may want to be friends with. This is different from an actual friend request. I realized that when I’m checking the several dozen or so of those I’d get at a time, that I have to scroll down to the bottom of the list to actually see the people that requested that I make them a friend, and not the other way around. Tricky, tricky. This can sucker me into a conversation with the goth girl that had a crush on me in high school. Who the hell wants that?!
I was thrown for a loop by a girl who sent me a friend request who I went to school with from probably middle school on, who I went to Hebrew school with, who has a twin brother who I hated (they were both dorks), who my friend used for a bit when we were 15, and who I was really never ever friends with, only cordial to in certain situations. It took me a good few minutes to figure out who the hell she was. First off, her profile picture was her baby. Did that help me out? Shoot, her REAL FACE didn’t help me at all. (Why the HELL do people put a picture up of their little rugrats instead of themselves; it’s THEIR profile!) Secondly, she was obviously listed under her married name. Lastly, even the pictures she posted of herself didn’t help. I stared at one closeup and looked at her profile for several minutes before I realized who it was. My god, I’ll never get that time back. This nigga owes me four minutes of my life! I shouldn’t have accepted her, but I clicked the wrong damn button and now I am ‘friends’ with some chick I do not know now, and rarely knew before.
People say Facebook is great for communication. Yea, with who? The nerd on your 4th grade soccer team? I'm sold. But see, first my phone stopped ringing, then chatting got old, then my inbox just wasn't filling up anymore and now texting is few and far between. And now I’m sucked in to Facebook like Kyle Broflovski.
And yet I still don’t know what a 'poke' is.
What it boils down to is Facebook is a high school hallway. It’s a way for the nerdy kids, parents, etc. (don’t kid yourself, I’d say the average user is either a 15-year-old boy or a 38-year-old woman) to stay up with the gossip they never could before of the cool people. To this day everything’s a popularity contest, except it moved from parking lots, and diners, and football fields to a virtual world of clicks and pics. It’s the anonymous girl in the orchestra talking about the relationship between the cute guy and his pretty cheerleader girlfriend. It’s the loser trying to figure out how to make fun at the jock who embarrassed him in gym class. Facebook is a dumping ground for gossip and information and so that you feel informed. Informed about crap you really shouldn’t even be informed of anyway. And it is an enormous waste of time. It basically allows us to know an inordinate amount of information about someone on a personal level that you never ever talk to or see, and generally don’t really care much about. And you have to be a virtual stalker to do it. If I were in the mall, would I shout out, “Hey, look everybody! I’m trying on a pair of shorts at the Gap!” No, of course not. You’d all look at me as the crazy dude in the mall. So why the hell would I go out of my way to discuss every minute detail of my daily life with friends and strangers alike online? Think of what the real-world interpretation of a ‘wall’ would be? What if I walked around with a sign on my neck saying, “I just ate meatloaf for dinner. Boy am I stuffed!” Insane. It’s just making us all mind-numbingly boring—yet unbelievably uninhibited—at the very same time. And nothing else.
Being a friend is an investment. It takes effort. And it’s worth it. I believe we have all lost sight of that.
So for now, update that profile and stay clear of cows!
*Yesterday was actually Sunday; I’ve been writing this post all week.
–noun
1. a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
2. a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: friends of the Boston Symphony.
3. a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile: Who goes there? Friend or foe?
4. a member of the same nation, party, etc.
I joke that I met my wife on the Internet. I call her my very own Polish mail-order bride. Oh, she hates it, but when anyone asks us how we meet, I say, "Over the Internet," and that usually creates a whole funny conversation and even funnier looks.
Truth is, I literally married the girl down the block. We rode the school bus together as kids. I am two years older than her, and we were always at the very least acquaintances, but once I left for college I did not see her for eight years … until Friendster came along.
I graduated college in 2001 and recently after a friend persuaded me to join Friendster, which was kind of like the grandfather of social media sites. Right idea, maybe the wrong time, hence it’s relative death. I reluctantly joined, and although it didn’t have much value for me, it paid dividends in its ability to link me up with old friends and those that lived far away. Turns out, my neighbor across the street from me was then and still is my now wife’s best friend. So I bumped into my neighbor and we got to talking, and my wife’s name came up. So after a neighbor’s re-introduction, I used Friendster to open lines of communication with the woman who would become my wife.
So given that this was now around Christmastime 2004, I used Friendster communication, to quickly graduate to IM communication, and then the old standard: phone communication (crazy, I know, a dude calling a girl nowadays). Which obviously led to dating, and then one drunken night a few years later she ruffied me and got me to propose (just kidding). So we are a social media success story!
Now, I also happen to be an early adopter of technology; MP3 player, LCD television, Blu-ray player—all bought when they were still fucking expensive. So it may come as a shock to you all that I just joined Facebook yesterday*. That’s right, yesterday! (BTW, Hook, Line & Sinister Fan Page coming soon. Facebook is fighting me on the title.)
I did not want to join Facebook for a number of reasons: 1) I was out of full-time work for over a year and did not want any prospective employers Googling me and finding my page which would inevitably include some ‘tagged’ picture of me from college with a 412-lb. bucktoothed stripper and my famous sidecar bubbler 2) it’s an enormous distraction; and 3) I really don’t need to know that Steve, who I went to middle school with and haven’t seen since I was 12, had twins. I mean good for him, but that is more useless information to me than what US Weekly charges $3.99 for each week.
But honestly, it’s gotten just too big not to be a part of. Five hundred million users worldwide is nothing to scoff at. It’s not just a fad. It’s here to stay. I needed to join.
Fast forward to my first Facebook experience—boy is that a clusterfuck of a site! I’m amazed that something so poorly laid out is so damn popular. I know there’s a learning curve, but what the fuck am I looking at? A News feed? Please. Wow, the Yankees won … Look, there’s a cat up for adoption; aren’t there a bajillion of those? … A new Tosh.O episode is airing … Move over Edward R. Murrow!
This whole ‘wall’ thing took some getting used to. You’re posting on my wall, I’m posting on your wall. If it’s so popular to write on walls, then why the hell was my dry erase board ripped down within a day in college? I want my $2.49 back!
‘Liking’ something has gotten out of hand. I like watches; I like meatball heroes. Now you know. But I didn’t know that my friend can ‘like’ the fact that I like meatball heroes. I mean that’s crazy. We should call this thing Wastebook from now on.
I am now aware that Evites went out the door; everyone just uses Facebook invites; Calendars and datebooks are gone, because everyone’s on Facebook all damn day that they don’t need or have the time to click on any other application. And when you’re bored you can play Scrabble or Bejeweled. (Note: Remind me never to employ anybody ever again.) I see the value in posting pictures there for everyone to view. Granted there are dozens of other sites you can do this on, but fine. If anyone posts—or ‘tags’—that picture of 22-year-old Joe Schmuckler with hookers and coke from back in college, he can be damn sure he won’t be president in his lifetime.
Then there’s chat, a ubiquitous function. But I was talking to my friend Randi—literally 20 seconds after I joined—and asked her why it’s so important we talk in this way. I pointed out that I have AIM, GChat, e-mail, text messaging, and a phone—none of which she uses to communicate with me—yet she ignored all those portals and is chatting with me now—on Facebook. Curious.
It took me some time to realize that Facebook suggests people I may want to be friends with. This is different from an actual friend request. I realized that when I’m checking the several dozen or so of those I’d get at a time, that I have to scroll down to the bottom of the list to actually see the people that requested that I make them a friend, and not the other way around. Tricky, tricky. This can sucker me into a conversation with the goth girl that had a crush on me in high school. Who the hell wants that?!
I was thrown for a loop by a girl who sent me a friend request who I went to school with from probably middle school on, who I went to Hebrew school with, who has a twin brother who I hated (they were both dorks), who my friend used for a bit when we were 15, and who I was really never ever friends with, only cordial to in certain situations. It took me a good few minutes to figure out who the hell she was. First off, her profile picture was her baby. Did that help me out? Shoot, her REAL FACE didn’t help me at all. (Why the HELL do people put a picture up of their little rugrats instead of themselves; it’s THEIR profile!) Secondly, she was obviously listed under her married name. Lastly, even the pictures she posted of herself didn’t help. I stared at one closeup and looked at her profile for several minutes before I realized who it was. My god, I’ll never get that time back. This nigga owes me four minutes of my life! I shouldn’t have accepted her, but I clicked the wrong damn button and now I am ‘friends’ with some chick I do not know now, and rarely knew before.
People say Facebook is great for communication. Yea, with who? The nerd on your 4th grade soccer team? I'm sold. But see, first my phone stopped ringing, then chatting got old, then my inbox just wasn't filling up anymore and now texting is few and far between. And now I’m sucked in to Facebook like Kyle Broflovski.
And yet I still don’t know what a 'poke' is.
What it boils down to is Facebook is a high school hallway. It’s a way for the nerdy kids, parents, etc. (don’t kid yourself, I’d say the average user is either a 15-year-old boy or a 38-year-old woman) to stay up with the gossip they never could before of the cool people. To this day everything’s a popularity contest, except it moved from parking lots, and diners, and football fields to a virtual world of clicks and pics. It’s the anonymous girl in the orchestra talking about the relationship between the cute guy and his pretty cheerleader girlfriend. It’s the loser trying to figure out how to make fun at the jock who embarrassed him in gym class. Facebook is a dumping ground for gossip and information and so that you feel informed. Informed about crap you really shouldn’t even be informed of anyway. And it is an enormous waste of time. It basically allows us to know an inordinate amount of information about someone on a personal level that you never ever talk to or see, and generally don’t really care much about. And you have to be a virtual stalker to do it. If I were in the mall, would I shout out, “Hey, look everybody! I’m trying on a pair of shorts at the Gap!” No, of course not. You’d all look at me as the crazy dude in the mall. So why the hell would I go out of my way to discuss every minute detail of my daily life with friends and strangers alike online? Think of what the real-world interpretation of a ‘wall’ would be? What if I walked around with a sign on my neck saying, “I just ate meatloaf for dinner. Boy am I stuffed!” Insane. It’s just making us all mind-numbingly boring—yet unbelievably uninhibited—at the very same time. And nothing else.
Being a friend is an investment. It takes effort. And it’s worth it. I believe we have all lost sight of that.
So for now, update that profile and stay clear of cows!
*Yesterday was actually Sunday; I’ve been writing this post all week.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
To Live and Die in N.Y.
I love Queens. It's the most ethnically diverse county in the entire world. I hate Queens. It's the most ethnically fucking diverse county in the whole damn world.
Here is the scene as I literally just witnessed it 10 minutes ago ...
I'm at a new grocery store down the block from my apartment. It's really nice, wide aisles, clerks that actually speak English. So I get on line and there is an older Asian woman who has just paid and is trying to give her address to the nice, mid-20s Indian cashier for delivery. The Asian woman is getting belligerent because she doesn't understand that the checkout lady just needs her name and address. She's increasingly raising her voice: Accou Numbah Heah!!! Address One-Oh-Faow Faow-eey Queen Boo-re-vahhhd! The checkout lady is like, Yes I know, I got that part; but what is your name?
ONE-OH-FAOW FAOW-EEY QUEEN BOOOO-RE-VAHHHHHDDDDD!!!
I mean seriously woman. It's a fucking delivery. Name, address, you're friggin done. How hard is that?! Aren't your people usually the ones DOING the delivery? I bet your son is the one on the damn bike with my dumplings. Come on now!
So at this point I try to give up and go to the other cashier (Taylor Swift's shorter, prettier twin, I swear), but here's where it gets interesting ...
An old lady in a wheelchair (probably Jewish) is being pushed by a nice, probably mid-40s Caribbean woman. Since I happen to be in the widest aisle, the Caribbean woman says, Excuse me, so she can get the lady in the wheelchair through and out the door.
Unfortunately Lil Miss Pearl Harbor wouldn't move. The old lady was tapping her and asking her gently to move. (I mean what's the alternative? It was nice of the old lady to ask as it was. Usually old ladies have less patience than Paula Abdul on meth and will just run your feet right over.) But then the Dragon Roll refused to move! She was yelling at the old lady: I not mooo-veen! I busy! You go roun!!! I mean, she was being ruder and bitchier than I thought possible. At this point I finally opened my mouth and was like, Listen lady, can't you friggin move over? Let the lady through already. What's wrong with you? She said, Wai Wai (wait wait, I figured), and still wasn't moving. So the old lady just tried her best to push General Tso out of the way and the Caribbean woman wheeled her by.
Man, I hope she got a piece of Po Flied Lice's damn toe on the way out the door.
Well, the Indian woman was still trying to get the information she needed from PF Chang after that, so I then headed over to Prettier Taylor Swift and we laughed about it. I said I hate people, but she was sweet; she was like, For every mean person there's always a nice person.
Ah, the young. So oblivious!
Here is the scene as I literally just witnessed it 10 minutes ago ...
I'm at a new grocery store down the block from my apartment. It's really nice, wide aisles, clerks that actually speak English. So I get on line and there is an older Asian woman who has just paid and is trying to give her address to the nice, mid-20s Indian cashier for delivery. The Asian woman is getting belligerent because she doesn't understand that the checkout lady just needs her name and address. She's increasingly raising her voice: Accou Numbah Heah!!! Address One-Oh-Faow Faow-eey Queen Boo-re-vahhhd! The checkout lady is like, Yes I know, I got that part; but what is your name?
ONE-OH-FAOW FAOW-EEY QUEEN BOOOO-RE-VAHHHHHDDDDD!!!
I mean seriously woman. It's a fucking delivery. Name, address, you're friggin done. How hard is that?! Aren't your people usually the ones DOING the delivery? I bet your son is the one on the damn bike with my dumplings. Come on now!
So at this point I try to give up and go to the other cashier (Taylor Swift's shorter, prettier twin, I swear), but here's where it gets interesting ...
An old lady in a wheelchair (probably Jewish) is being pushed by a nice, probably mid-40s Caribbean woman. Since I happen to be in the widest aisle, the Caribbean woman says, Excuse me, so she can get the lady in the wheelchair through and out the door.
Unfortunately Lil Miss Pearl Harbor wouldn't move. The old lady was tapping her and asking her gently to move. (I mean what's the alternative? It was nice of the old lady to ask as it was. Usually old ladies have less patience than Paula Abdul on meth and will just run your feet right over.) But then the Dragon Roll refused to move! She was yelling at the old lady: I not mooo-veen! I busy! You go roun!!! I mean, she was being ruder and bitchier than I thought possible. At this point I finally opened my mouth and was like, Listen lady, can't you friggin move over? Let the lady through already. What's wrong with you? She said, Wai Wai (wait wait, I figured), and still wasn't moving. So the old lady just tried her best to push General Tso out of the way and the Caribbean woman wheeled her by.
Man, I hope she got a piece of Po Flied Lice's damn toe on the way out the door.
Well, the Indian woman was still trying to get the information she needed from PF Chang after that, so I then headed over to Prettier Taylor Swift and we laughed about it. I said I hate people, but she was sweet; she was like, For every mean person there's always a nice person.
Ah, the young. So oblivious!
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