12 posts tagged “nyc”

Skyline

Is it just me or does this cityscape look really....off?

I'm having a hard time mentally picturing viewing the Brooklyn Bridge from that angle, and seeing Midtown Manhattan right next to it. The bridge looks kinda pasted on awkwardly, without a smooth transition to the buildings.

Also the porportions of the ESB and Chrysler Building seem a little wonky as well. The Chrysler building is shorter than the Empire State Building.

Anil, where are you? Fix it! Fix it!

So far this weekend, I've witnessed THREE incidents of men urinating in front of me. What the fuck, Manhattan?

1. On Bowery, on the way home from the Bowery Ballroom, Saturday night, around 12:45am, nicely, dressed buff black guy, peeing into the gutter. Facing traffic, with his back to pedestrians on a busy block, as the ten or so people around pretended to look away. He was dressed in all black and looked like he was going clubbing.
2. Random Hispanic guy, in his 30s, average built, facing a corner of a building on a deserted side street, around 9pm Saturday night. He was about to unzip but heard me and Beta coming down the block and put his hands in his pockets, and pretended not to be doing anything. At least he was polite about it, I guess.
3. Just now, 4:30pm, walked up behind some middle-aged skinny Asian guy zipping up his fly and redoing his belt. He'd presumably just finished urinating onto the grating outside a shuttered restaurant. In the middle of the afternoon! Broad daylight! There was another woman coming the other way?
   

I thought only hoboes could get away with this type of shit, but all three guys were dressed nicely and seemed like normal human beings.

I went to one such event today!

Bubble Battle

The Bubble Battle NYC, held this June the 16th at 6:16 PM at the Astor Place cube. It was filled with kids, parents, hipsters, and digital cameras. Especially SLRs. I borrowed Dan's to better document the mayhem. What sounded fun on paper was actually kind of crowded and annoying, since there were too many people on this small island in the middle of traffic, and a good third of the crowd was busy documenting the event, rather than participating. I even saw a few pro-sumer level video cameras going.

Plus, we spilled out onto the road, and I almost got hit by the M8 crosstown bus. Yay!

I swear, this sort of thing (much like the Union Square pillow fight that happened a few months ago) must exist solely for the purpose of photoblogging. Maybe it's the dumbed down version of Santacon or the Idiotarod. I guess NYC has always been filled with people who do silly stuff for the sole purpose of doing silly stuff, hence the existence of the Nonsense NYC list.

Oh, to top it all off, one of my Flickr contacts/weblog aquaintances came up to me and introduced himself.

At Grand Sichuan St. Marks last night around 10:30 PM, two Caucasian teenage guys (late teens) walked in, flipped through the menu, and tried to order soup dumplings. This happened just as Dan and I were leaving the restaurant.

Waitress: No more soup dumpling.
Boy 1: No soup dumplings? Fuck this shit!
Boy 2: We're leaving . *slams menu shut*
Waitress: We run out. Sorry!
Boy 1 and Boy 2 get up to leave.
Waitress: Sorry!
Boy 2: If you were really sorry, you'd make us some. Right now.

Guy on his cell phone:

"Hey baby, what's up?"

(beat)

(cheerily) "Oh, you threw up?"

Dan and Beta's first trip to the Shake Shack. Showed up about 4pm, waited in line for an hour, finished eating before 6pm. The line was huge when we got there and even huge-r when we left.

We got a "Poochini" for Beta, which is ice cream, peanut butter, and two dog biscuits in a doggie sized bowl. I consumed a Taxi Dog (a regular hot dog with tomato-soaked onions), a Second City Bird-Wurst (chicken sausage dressed Chicago style), a Shack Burger, and a root beer float. Dan ate two Shack Burgers (which he thought were good but not the best he's ever had) and a Chicago dog, alongside a chocolate shake.

I thought the burger was delicious and the hot dogs were merely good. I like the idea of a Chicago style dog but it's always too messy in the end. And the root beer float was fantastic. Also, the cheese fries were surprisingly fresh and crispy, despite swimming in a lake of cheese. I couldn't stop eating them despite being extremely full. How do they do that? It's magic.

Screw missing SF-style burritos in NYC, I've got ssams.

Ssam

A ssam is a Korean wrap that's essentially an Asian burrito. A ssam contains delicious Berkshire pork, rice, edamame, onions, pickled shiitakes, and kimchi, all crammed into a delicious wrapper.

Momofuku only serves them from noon to 4PM each day and Dan and stuffed ourselves silly at lunch today, bringing home leftovers for later. My God.

And! And! The proprietors of Momofuku are opening up a ssam bar later on this year. I hope they have delivery.

We've been crazy busy with acclimating Beta, our puggle, to the city. Poor thing was trembling and spazzy when she got to LGA, and then had a sensory overload moment out on Astor Place when we got back home. She loves the dog runs, though. We've been to both Union Square and Tompkins Square. And strangers love to say hello and try to pet her on the street. Too bad she's a snob, and ignores them after one sniff.

The good news: Beta isn't as barky as we thought she'd be. We've been disciplined in telling her to be quiet and I think she's getting used to the constant flow of traffic and pedestrians. Plus, she did great meeting Anil and Alaina on Saturday, and Matt, Kay, and Fiona tonight. (And Fiona is absolutely adorable and loved dogs, so much that she pointed and kicked. Unfortunately, said kicking was badly placed towards Mathowie's crotchal region. Whoops.)

But, she only hesitantly does a #2 on the sidewalk, and so far has only peed twice: once on a tree, and once at the dog run. We're still trying to figure out how to let her know to pee on the sidewalk.

And all this does mean that we've been doing nothing but paying attention to her all weekend, worrying about her digestive system (there has been one accident, and one hunger strike already), and trying to train her to be a good city dog. Good God, how do people do this?

Thursday: skipped out on Small Sins (formerly The Ladies and Gentlemen, smooth, warm, sweet electro-pop with synths) and Youth Group (a folksier Aussie Death Cab clone). Friday: sold my Love Is All (Swedes with keyboards and saxophones, very hip, Pitchfork-approved) ticket to Rachael. Saturday: wimped out and didn't go see the Joggers (angular indie rock from Portland) at Rothko.

Just got back from Ted Leo at the Knitting Factory -- bassist Dave's hair is bigger than ever, and he was wearing the most hideous sweater. Ted was losing his voice and rocked harder than I've ever seen him, so much to the point that he gave himself a small head wound during "The Ballad of the Sin Eater" and proceeded not to notice it until the 2nd encore. You know a man's really into the song when he doesn't notice blood dripping out his forehead.