I know this is old but I stumbled upon it again recently, and it just warms my heart - so I thought I’d share it.
S and me went horseback riding this weekend - what an awesome time. We decided to go horseback riding after weeks of talking about it, and so we jumped on a couple of mares yesterday at 4pm - beautiful night, our great guide (Don - thank you), and some gorgeous woodland made it a pretty spectacular hour-long ride.
I’m a huge fan of the reality show, Cops, and rather than walk the streets of New York in the 95′F heat taking photos, I decided to stay indoors and watch some mindless television.
I’m sat here watching the 3:30pm episode on G4, and there’s an incident involving the Mexican/American border, a bridge, and an altercation between two rivals gangs. Anyway, some fighting and pistol whipping ensues, and some Mexican kids are arrested and placed in the back of various squad cars. One of the arresting officers approaches a witness and the conversation goes as follows:
Cop: “did you see what happened here?”
Witness: “yeah man, these guys over on the bridge came bustin’ through a line of girls that was with us, one pulled out a gun.”
Cop: “can you describe the individual with the gun?”
Witness: “yeah man, this guy was tall, real tall.”
Cop: “how tall would you say this individual was.”
Witness: “man he was like five eight, five nine.”
You couldn’t make this shit up if you tried.
Kicking It is a documentary narrated by actor Colin Farrell, which showcases the lives of six remarkable homeless men from the far reaches of the world that all possess one unique talent - they’re incredible soccer players.
It’s heartwarming to see six homeless people achieving their dream of playing in a World Cup soccer event - six homeless people off the street is six less, which makes me feel all good inside.
Back in March I wrote about my debacle with Lee’s Art Shop - and I promised an update after trying out the guy in Brooklyn Heights I’d found on Google.
Well, I’ve had three pictures framed by the guy that runs Daphne Art & Custom Framing, and I plan to use him for every framing project in the future. He’s been extremely helpful and professional, and even waived the extra fee for expediting my most recent order as I came back to him a second time - very generous.
As it turned out, he fitted exactly the same frame, backing, and glass as Lee’s - for half the cost.
154 Montague St
Brooklyn, NY 11201-3535
Phone: (718) 643-0229
One of the most shit-filled days I’ve had since moving to New York was the day I left my video camera in a cab. That doesn’t even come close to being fucking burglarized and having my laptop, PS3, and Tag Heuer watch stolen in one fell swoop. Our apartment was broken into yesterday some time between 6pm and 6:30pm.
I came home around 9pm to find the front door smashed through the frame - the frame housing shattered, like someone had put their foot through it with such force that almost took it of its hinges. I knew something wasn’t quite right. I ran through the apartment shouting for Sarah or Rob - nobody in. My bedroom door was open (which it never is, I close it behind me when I leave), and my stomach sank… I saw that my television was still there, alas the space where my PS3 once sat was now empty. I looked over to my left to my dresser and my laptop had gone too.
[much freaking out - cops called - they arrive in minutes]
I could go on with how the night went, but it was pretty uneventful except for plenty of police activity in the apartment, and me finally getting to bed at around 1am. I didn’t sleep much, and woke at about 5am - wiped out.
Luckily I had taken out renter’s insurance a few months ago through GEICO, and called them first thing this morning to report my claim. I should get the full value of my stolen property, which is around $4,000. I was even luckier due to the fact that they didn’t take my camera equipment - I’d stashed it out of plain sight for no particular reason a few days ago - so glad I did. I’m pissed about my watch though - I bought that for myself about 8 years ago with my first ever commission check at my old company in England - that watch held a lot of sentimental value for me. A detective from last night gave me some interesting advice… wait a coupe of days and frequent the local pawn shops - it’s likely that our laptops, the PS3, and my watch, was sold off quickly for some fast cash. I’ll post back here with any developments.
What a fucked up day.
I managed to secure a seat on the C train this morning - one of the two-seaters by the end of the train car, right by the sliding door at the very end. I’m minding my own business, well into The Bourne Identity, when my peripheral vision is shadowed by what I can only assume to be a large person. This “large person” (who shall be known from here on as fatty) proceeded to come over to the seat by me (bearing in mind these two-seaters are built for two “average sized” persons) and pulls a 180′, obviously gearing up for an ass plant on the seat. I’m not a large guy by any stretch of the imagination - I mean, I take up only half of the seat - and when I’m watching a movie on my iPod Touch I normally lean forward with my elbows resting on my knees for support, and maximum viewing.
Fatty sits down and managed to get just the edge of her large behind on the lip of the seat. Fatty looks over to me and looks away (I’m thinking, yeah - look all you fucking want bitch, I’m not closing my legs and squashing my balls for anyone). Fatty then opens up her newspaper, and tries to shuffle her huge buttocks back, like a dog wiping its ass on grass, but in reverse. I don’t budge.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not sat there with a twelve inch gap between my knees, but my legs are in line with my shoulders - a comfortable seating position.
Her vain effort to squeeze her at mounds firmly in the seat next to me warrants another look at me - this time I take out my right ear bud and look at her - fatty didn’t expect me to respond evidently, as she “hmph’d” and stood up, and took her fat arse to another empty seat.
Now I’m as liberal as the next guy, but seriously, if your arse isn’t of “average size”, have some fucking respect for those asses that are - ‘cos those are what the seats are designed for.
This is one of the cutest “bad dog” movies I’ve seen in a long time - I love Otto’s little face, he knows he’s been a bad little boy. Classic.
In the spring of 2007, a conference was held on the outskirts of Washington, DC. Entitled Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, it harkened back to the Winter Soldier testimonies held three decades ago during the Vietnam War. Of the testimonies we filmed, this one, by Iraq War vet Jon Michael Turner, was the most compelling and intense.
I couldn’t help but post this - can’t wait to see their next performance. The crowd had such a great time!
We bumped into these guys on Spring Street (between Green and Mercer Streets, by the Apple Store) singing a cappella with their rendition of “Do You Love Me (Now That I Can Dance)”. I’ve seen these guys in the area before, and they draw quite the crowd - they sound fabulous together.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have teamed up with Google Earth to bring what has to be one of the coolest ways to help invigorate the world with freshly grown trees. For $5.50 you can have your very own tree planted on the island of Borneo, and once it’s been planted, watered, and logged, they send you confirmation of your purchase and get this - the actual Google Earth coordinates of your tree. I’m not quite sure if the resolution of Google Earth is up to par just yet to see much detail at that close range, but it’s a very nice idea. Visit mybabytree.org to find out more information.
I think I’ll buy me a wee tree of my own.
Quick premise - Jack Black is a nuclear activist, Mos Def a failing VHS rental store clerk. Jack is electrocuted at a power plant during an attempted sabotage, is asked to watch over the store one day, his magnetized body (from the accident) erases all the VHS tapes in the store - ridiculous, but it’s the set up for the rest of the movie - they both decide to remake each movie they lost on their own using their own video camera, and cheap special effects. They call the process “sweding”, touting the movies as having come from Sweden as an excuse for higher rental fees and longer wait times. Hence the term “sweding”, or “sweded” is born.
There have been some pretty good sweded movies around the internet lately, including a great sweded Star Wars, but my favorite is the sweded Tron above. I love how they used the original soundtrack from the movie and implemented it perfectly into their own sweded version. Genius. Here’s a movie clip of the original lightcycle scene from original Tron film.
I’ve taken up photography as some of you will already know, and I’m having a whale of a time with it - very enjoyable. About a month ago I ventured out on my own and spent the day walking from the High Street/Brooklyn Bridge subway stop to midtown Manhattan, leisurely taking shots. I took a couple of hundred photos and whittled them down to about 20 - one of which I really liked; it was one I took early on, right on the Brooklyn Bridge.I decided to use the guys at Shutterfly.com to enlarge the photo, and I chose their largest option, 20″x30″. I got it delivered today, and my god, it looks superb. Very happy indeed… that was until I chose my vendor of choice to frame the print: Lee’s Art Shop.
I’d done some research on Manhattan-based custom photo framing establishments, and this place came up in the top 3 results every time. So without further ado, I finished up at the office at around 6pm and took a stroll over to 57th Street and Broadway to see what they’ve got for me. I arrive - the place is huge inside. I was directed very politely upstairs, all was good. I approached the framing people and explained exactly what I wanted, and was assisted by a lady that asked the right questions, didn’t try to “up sell”, and I felt very positive.
I knew it was going to be expensive (as I’d chosen the best wood, the thickest depth, the best quality UV protected glass), so when it rang up at $400 I wasn’t surprised - and to boot, she gave me 10% off - I’m assuming as I’d told her I was likely to return as I had plans on framing more photographs as I was an amateur photographer. This was a very good experience thus far. She proceeded to tell me that their framing was of top quality and if there was any damage or imperfections when I came to pick it up (around two weeks), then they would fix whatever problem there was. I politely asked where that “fix whatever problem” promise was in writing, and that’s where the fun began.
I’ll make this as brief as possible.
I asked if I could see some kind of store policy that guaranteed their work, any warranty information, any firm guarantee in writing that covered their work in case the framing was botched when I picked it up, or if the frame fell apart when hung - you know, the usual stuff you’d ask if you paid $400 on anything. Basically I was told that they didn’t have this in writing, and they deal with their customers in this capacity based upon… wait for it… faith. FAITH?They expected me to lay out $400, UP FRONT, and base any guarantee on a verbal promise alone. Not bloody likely. I explained to the [very polite] lady that as a customer about to drop $400 on their services, I expected to see something in writing - a notice on the wall of sorts, a return policy (which I know every business MUST have publicly displayed by law if they are to honor legally such a policy - which is why I always ask), anything - and she turned to her coworkers for advice - they concurred with her initial response to me - it was a nay.
Then the manager walked over… for the sake of this story, I’ll call him Dick. Fat, Brooklyn Italian, belligerent, seriously lacking in the customer service department, and full-on arrogant. I asked him (and in the same polite way I’d always asked until this point) the same questions pertaining their guarantee, return policy, etcetera. His response was classic. “We have never had a written guarantee on anything, our customers take our word for the work we do, I do not know what you want.” I asked again, succinctly, “where do you have a copy of your guarantee, a store policy on returns, for example?”. Again, Dick responded with something I didn’t even ask, “why would you want me to sign a guarantee for something that hasn’t even been custom built yet?” Finally, after much back and forth with this Darwin nominee I said, “Dick, I’m about to pay you [up front] $400 for a service you cannot, and evidently refuse to guarantee, so I’ll take my business elsewhere.” I won’t go into the tirade that I went into in commenting on his unprofessional bias, nor his blatant lack of my “the customer is always right” retort because it’s ugly and unnecessary, but it’s safe to say I wasn’t polite anymore at that point. I rolled up my photo, placed it back into the cylindrical packaging, and told Dick that he was lucky to have not had this shoved up his fat arse, and how I was amazed that he did any [legit] business.
This shit makes my blood boil.
Dick the wanker lost out on a lot of potential repeat business, and I could have quite likely have been a multi-thousand-dollar client - I’m shocked to have encountered an unprofessional business owner that communicated in such a manner that was clearly less than above board.
I’m taking my photo to a guy in Brooklyn Heights tomorrow. Already called ahead to establish his business provides a guarantee for their work. I’ll keep you posted.
Sony finally brings the PlayStation fan base some awesome news. In addition to supporting BD-Live online content, PlayStation 3 firmware 2.20 will also carry a Portable Copy function. This allows you to convert Blu-ray movies and transfer them to your PSP (albeit standard format) so you can take your hi-def library on the go.
I love this - I just started to build my Blu-ray library and have 20 titles so far, including the Die Hard 4-disc set, the 5-disc Blade Runner special, and I Am Legend. Can’t wait for the new firmware update.
I was surfing the web today for a carbonara recipe, and came across one of the more interesting sounding ones, when I caught sight of the Adsense banner along the right - and just had to shake my head.
I’m not in the mood to cook any longer.
[click on the image to enlarge]
I thought a quick pint of Irish cider and some corned beef hash would be a lovely way to wile away the St. Patrick’s celebrations on a very warm 55′F Saturday afternoon at Jameson’s Bar, when a series of “BOOMS!” roared through the air. It originally sounded like when heavy trucks go over potholes and make that banging sound, but much, much louder. Seconds later one of the bar’s punters who had been enjoying a smoke outside came running back in shouting, “you guys better come see this!”. The entire bar scurried outside to see absolute chaos. A large plume of yellow/brown smoke was rushing towards me from just south of 52st street, and then someone pointed skyward across the street - what was later understood as half of a couple hundred foot high crane smashed into the side of a large residential apartment building. Chaos ensued. I went back into the bar and picked up my camera, took some video and some stills.
Emergency services were on the scene in seconds and soon sprang into action, cordoning off the surrounding areas. People were gathering in droves - within 20 minutes 2nd avenue was packed to the hilt with people filming, shaking their heads, wiping their eyes (we all knew someone must have been hurt. The crane was massive - utterly huge.
S and I walked around the block via 1st avenue, and were able to see the extent of the damage from the other side of 51st street - devastating. An entire apartment building behind the one the crane was leaning on was completely crushed. A mini was partly mangled and flipped onto its side and flung into the middle of the street. Firemen everywhere. Literally everywhere.
Listening and talking with various other people on the streets it became apparent what had happened. The massive crane had been tethered against a construction site (new apartment building being erected) and had come loose when contractors had been working on it. It then pivoted on it’s base, and the entire thing leaned away from the site towards the apartment building south of it on the corner of 51st street and 2nd avenue, and hit the top of the building about half way down the crane’s body - hitting it so hard that the entire top half snapped off, traveled over the apartment building onto a smaller townhouse sized building behind, flattening it. This is what created the massive plume of smoke. It turned out that the dive bar Fubar was part of that smaller building, and it too was simply obliterated. Thankfully the bar was closed for business, but the bar’s owner said that he thinks their may have been en employee on the premises at the time cleaning the bar ready for business.
The death toll at this point has reached four - I believe those four confirmed deaths were the four construction workers who were situated on the crane during the time of its collapse.
I was pretty shaken up, and I am still shocked how close I was to the collapse - half a block.
One of the best things to come out of the 90’s was when Margaret Thatcher resigned as the leader of the Conservative Party (1990). The other thing was the television show Bottom. The show was centered around 2 hapless and lovingly retarded characters: Richard “Richie” Rich, and Edward “Eddie” Elizabeth Hitler - two flat mates played by friends Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson - creators of the 1980’s hit The Young Ones.
Why am I writing about Bottom? Well, I just picked up the entire three-series box set on DVD. My favorite episode has to be Culture - the one where they play chess with the Spiderman figure - hilarious.
If finding a suspicious looking package in my zipcar a couple of weeks ago wasn’t enough, what happened to me and S yesterday took the biscuit - to the point of me cancelling my membership entirely.
I decided to book a zipcar for the entire day yesterday just to run some errands in the city, and to get S back to Westchester for her Optimum Online engineer visit - they were schedule to arrive at her place between 2pm and 5pm. I picked up the car from by my place at around 10:15am, and drove into the city to make a couple of stops - Nike Town, and potentially Barnes & Noble. After trying to find a parking spot for 10 minutes to pay a visit to B&N, we decided to just cut our losses and drive to to her place via the FDR Highway - a major three-laned highway that stretches up the entire east side of Manhattan, running north and south.
To cut a long story short, I hit a major pothole at around 63rd and 1st Avenue, and must have hit it with such force because I felt the brake pedal shudder with a BANG! under my foot. I felt the steering shake immediately, and it grew to such a degree that it became problematic - but by this time I was already on the FDR… then I started to smell burning rubber, and the car started veering to the right. Luckily we were approaching a lay-by, which I took to survey the damage.
S got out and I shouted, “is it flat?!” - she nodded, with a look of horror. I got out of the car and walked around the back to see the front passenger side tire had completely blown out sideways. Now bear in mind, there are cars flying northbound on the FDR doing 70 are 2 feet from our zipcar, so I’m a tad nervous about our safety too. I call Zipcar immediately, and open the trunk to locate the spare tire, jack, and tire iron. With my cellphone in between my shoulder and left ear, I rummage through the Mazda 3’s trunk and little hidden compartments looking for the tire changing tools… nothing. There’s a spare tire, but no jack or tire iron. Just as I let out my dismayed “FUCKING HELL!”, a customer service rep (the first of 3, Jonathan) came on the call. I explain what happened, the situation involving the lack of proper tools to change the damn tire, and I’m told that they would get right onto calling their local towing company to come get us - “they should be calling you directly to give you an ETA within the next 45 minutes to an hour… is your cell number blah blah…?” - I confirmed all necessary details, and we climbed back in the car… and we waited.
Forty five minutes went by, and still no call. In typical [impatient] fashion I called Zipcar back for an update. I got a different CSR (Don) who apologized and said he would find out - and put me on hold.
Now I don’t mind being placed on hold, just as long as THEY’RE FUCKING DOING SOMETHING TO HELP ME.
Don came back after 5 minutes and said… wait for this, you’re going to love it:
“I have just spoken with our dispatch people in New York, and they’ve told me that the people we normally use for breakdown services said it’s actually illegal for them to stop and service any vehicle on the FDR, considering it’s classed as a major ‘highway’. You need to report this to the police to get them to create a roadblock and notify the appropriate breakdown service company that monitor the FDR Highway.”
Bear in mind I have been sat in the car for almost an hour now and not received a call from anyone, including Zipcar - I had to call THEM for this new piece of information.
[strike one]
I tell Don that I need to speak with his supervisor - quelle surprise, nobody’s around to take my call. He assured me that they were doing everything in their power to help me, and I respond with some colorful expletive announcing my deep regret in having to deal with such incompetence. Again I’m assured that someone is coming to help, and I’m put on hold for TWENTY minutes!
[strike two]
I hung up, and began to consider my options.
Calling back, I had a plan… and as it turned out, a bloody good one.
[by this time it's about 2pm - S's cable guy was due any second at her place, over 20 minutes away... luckily she'd already spoken with their dispatch people to give them the heads up that she was running late, and they were going to try and make it as close to the end of the appointment range as possible... 5pm. I know it's only cable internet, but still]
I called Zipcar a third time, this time getting Chad - I remembered him from the only pleasant experience I’ve ever had with their company, and it was a refund from some other fucking mess they’d gotten me into a few weeks ago.
Thankfully, my record at their customer service office had been frequently updated with what was going on, so I didn’t have to go through every minor detail with Chad again. This time however I had decided that I was going to kick up the pace a notch. I told them S was pregnant.
[she's not, but it worked]
This guy Chad seemed to kick into high gear - I could hear it in his voice. I explained to Chad that not only were we alone on the side of a major highway, cold and feeling the onset of the need for a pee, but S was pregnant. He told me to stay on the line, he was going to call his New York fleet supervisor right away… he came back and said that Moses, their fleet manager in NY was trying to get hold of his guy in the field - Damian Richardson. Chad guaranteed that Damian was on his way from servicing another of their cars at a Brooklyn location, and he was coming with a tire iron and a jack. This was 2:45pm.
3:00pm and Damian pulls up behind us. I greet him, as does S, and Damian jumps into high gear - changing the tire like a world athlete. He explains to us that only today he serviced 3 other vehicles at one location and their jacks and tire irons were all missing too… you could just tell how pissed he was with how they run their fleet.
In 10 minutes we were back on the road with our temporary wheel (donut), following behind Damian to a nearby tire garage just of exit 14 so we could get the donut off and a proper one fitted.
Forty dollars and some dirty hands later, we were back on the FDR (avoiding potholes with the concentration befitting a chess grandmaster) to S’s place… it was about 3:45pm.
Then the snow comes. When I say snow, I mean lots of it. A snow storm so strong and thick that we couldn’t see Manhattan from the bridge that crosses into Queens. What should have taken us 15 minutes took us half an hour.
We finally get to S’s place at about 4:20pm and guess who’s parked up… the engineer… waiting. Superb.
Anyway, we go through a blown tire, stranded on the FDR for 3 hours, deal with brainless twats that have the ordacity to call themselves “customer service” reps (not you Chad, you were awesome), drive through one of the worst snow storms I’ve seen since moving to New York, and back to S’s in time for her cable internet hook up.
Ahh, what a weekend.
Finally, I called Zipcar this morning, calmly advising them what they are going to do for me (that’s right, I didn’t ask, I told them what they were going to do), and escalated it all the way to the Director of Member Services, Julie Ronneburger - who made the fateful error of referring to me as “honey” [strike three] when I engaged in further demand requests - a “calling me Mr. Hannan would be the proper course of action for you at this time, Julie” retort soon changed her tune, to the effect of the entire cost of my rental yesterday being refunded. Every cent.
Zipcar… bloody great idea, but poorly managed. Customers are not treated with distinction as they should, nor do they train their CSRs consistently.
I cancelled my membership today. I may as well give a complete stranger $100 to kick me in the bollocks, because that’s how I feel I’m treated every time I rent a fucking zipcar.
Good riddance.
For something a tad more original on Valentine’s Day, you could impress your beau with one of these cross stitch kits from SubversiveCrossStitch.com. Amongst the 5 different designs included are “I Can’t Stand Your Bullshit”, and “Thank God You Got A Big Dick”.
Superb.
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