Friday, September 29, 2006

My ears are gulping TV on the Radio right now. Listen to "Dry Drunk Emperor," available for free here. It is a song about George Bush.



Things I've learned this week:
*The coffee at Europa tastes like silt.
*John McPhee will inspire you to write.
*Even Princeton graduates struggle to find their Purpose (and I'd always thought their Purpose lay in WASPish dinner parties and inherited wealth...).

Friday, September 22, 2006

House, MD

If only the name of that show were more literal. I could really use a doctor to help with the housing hunt.



A conversation with my friend Josh:

Josh: So, any dating for you?
Me: No. I lack permanent shelter at the moment.
Josh: So?
Me: So, you know that pyramid of human needs? The one you learn about in high school? Who made it? Pavlov, or something?
Josh: Uh, maybe.
Me: Yeah, well, shelter is at the base, with food and water and stuff. I need to take care of those things first.
Josh: So where is sex?
Me: I don't know. Higher.
Josh: It should be at the same level as food and water.

As with most things in life, I was wrong. First, it's called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and second, sex is indeed at the base, along with food, water, excretion, sleeping, and other physiological needs.

Next comes security, such as:
* Security of employment
* Security of revenues and resouncy, aggressions
* Moral and physiological security
* Familial security
* Security of health

So in other words, we should all be more concerned with sex than with our jobs, income, physical well-being, family, and health.

Sounds about right.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Steve Irwin gets his revenge.
Photos of WTC Lights

They are not, as popularly believed, at Ground Zero, but rather a nearby parking garage rooftop. They are also not a single beam but rather many smaller beams that coalesce in the sky and look like one solid ray from a distance.

These first two are from an amateur photographer I met on the roof.

world trade center lights fifth anniversary

world trade center lights

And a couple from my shoddy point-and-shoot digital, which has twice been dropped in vats of liquid (one time a stream, the other time a bathtub of watery beer, or beer-y water, take your pick)



Monday, September 11, 2006

It's a cold, brilliant sunlight today in New York City, fitting for a five-year anniversary of terrorism.

Sunday, September 10, 2006



Timbaland owns me right now. "My Love" by Timbalake and Timbaland, "Promiscuous" by...well, you should know by now. Just because I'm behind the times doesn't mean you can be too.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Who next will incur the wrath of college students? First there was South African apartheid, then Sinopec and other Chinese oil companies operating in Sudan. Now, the dictatorial Facebook News Feed.

I relish the controversy. First, because the news media thinks the Facebook News Feed is newsworthy. Second, because of this kid's quote:
"I think the thing that was overlooked was how the users themselves would react to the news feeds," says student and blogger Kiyoshi Martinez, a critic of the changes who is organizing protests through SaveFacebook.com, a community action site. "From what I've read, the Facebook community wants to have more control over how they use News Feeds, and there wasn't any discussion about that prior to the changes."
Ah, the Facebook community. Where everybody knows your name. And they're always glad you came. Where our troubles are all the same. I get a warm, new-puppy-on-Christmas-day kind of feeling just thinking about it. Or I would, if I used Facebook for anything more than cell phone numbers and trying to decide whether someone is attractive or not.

Third, I really like Zuckerberg's response to the whole thing:

"We think they are great products," Zuckerberg wrote, "but we know that many of you are not immediate fans, and have found them overwhelming and cluttered. Other people are concerned that non-friends can see too much about them."

"None of your information is visible to anyone who couldn’t see it before the changes," he added. "Nothing you do is being broadcast; rather, it is being shared with people who care about what you do -- your friends."

Let me summarize his reaction: I understand why you're upset. But you're wrong. Stop complaining.

Zuckerberg, you should cash out while you still can.
Jews vs. Asians

A story in NYT about curbside bus operators, including the turf wars between two Hasidic companies and their Chinatown counterparts. The Jews are fighting each other in court, one arguing that the other infringes on its route. The most interesting part:

"Whatever the legal outcome, the dispute pales in scope and ferocity to past battles in the curbside-pickup bus industry. In 2003, a struggle for control of a Chinatown bus line led one employee to fatally stab another, the police said.

"The following year, the authorities were investigating links between the infiltration of Asian organized crime into the growing industry and as many as three murders."

Who knew that when taking the Chinatown bus, I risked not only fiery-auto-accident death but also vicious-Mafia-stabbing death?

Friday, September 01, 2006

The Weather Aboveground

When conversing with co-workers, there really are only two topics of ultimate inoffensiveness: the weather and the weekend. The weather is always safe, and you can even reveal a comfortable amount of roguishness by saying that you "really like" the rain or don't mind a sudden mid-summer temperature drop. This shows that you're a rebel, but a safe one.

Asking and answering questions about weekend plans is also fair game, unless your weekend plans have to do with snorting blow at the Gypsy Tea Lounge or getting a handjob in the backseat of a cab.