NYC

Some pictures: click on this one, and it'll take you to where all the others are. I will be uploading new ones for the next day or two, as and when I find the time to resize them etc.

From NYC

Harlem Globetrotters

This short note is brought to you by my sense of inadequacy: I am accompanied on this trip by semi-pro bloggers whose output I could never hope to equal even on my home turf. I'm basically typing this to stay in the game, as it were.

So: I'm in NYC, which to my city fetish is like a red rag to a bull, if the bull really likes red rags, and wants to get lost in them, and get to know their less obvious sides, and find nice things about them in spots that would normally be overlooked. A very discerning bull, in point of fact; a bull of taste.

Also, performed in the Nuyorican. The sheer awesomeness of this fact is not tempered by the cringe-inducing open-mic that followed the slam. But if anyone else rhymes sorrow and tomorrow in my presence, they better stay on their toes, I'm a mean shot with an empty glass.

Taking lots of pictures, but this computer and my camera memory card don't speak to each other, so a proper, illustrated travelogue will surface when I am reunited with my own laptop. Or, I may just upload a bunch of images.

You Will Travel and Come Into a Great Fortune

That's what my fortune cookie said.

From Slide Show

The last few days have been really weird - the borgs have arrived to pay me a visit, and being subjected to their constant stream of mockery (one likes to think it's friendly banter) here in the US has just raised the level of surrealism to a new high. We have learned many things together, such as:

• there is no time of day when CSI is not playing on one tv channel or another
• peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are good, mac&cheese - not so much
• the posh part of DC stinks to high heavens of rotting leaves, which is cool, in a schadenfreude kind of way
• taking beautiful pictures of trees in autumn will have you mercilessly derided by people you thought were friends
• etc., etc.
  

We're off to New York later today, armed with a post-it note with the address of NYC's best pizza and cheesecake spots, obtained from an insider at great peril to all parties involved.

Means & Ends

Though it's clean and crisp
I sweep all the snow away
Don't want accidents

Punchline

The London Metro paper on the day after the election:

I'm Not Sure You Know...

...but there was an election over here some days ago. By now you've read everything about it, so I figured you'd be interested in reading some more. 10 day old news. That's how relevant I am.

Everyone was expecting a massive turnout, so lots of people voted ahead of time; many others got up at four in the morning to avoid queues, and ended up queueing with the rest of those qho tried to be smarter than the others. By the time I got off work, the rush was over, and there were camera crews around town...

...reporting on crowds that weren't there:

So where were all the people, you ask? Well, loads of places - cafes, restaurant, fast food joints, etc. - offered freebies on that day to whoever asked for them. Initially, they were going to reward people with "I voted" stickers, but it turned out it would be bribing people to vote, and thus a felony. So the network reporters would have been better off checking the local Ben & Jerry's, for example:

The election itself was over quickly - by 23:00, everyone knew the results, and I got to watch university professors and their friends (yup, I was at one wild election night par-tay) get all misty eyed during Obama's acceptance speech. Then people hit the streets, and everyone rambled around with slightly confused expressions, shooting fireworks and looking like they could not quite believe what had happened.

DC Story

Things That Go Bump In The Dark

It's late. I get on the metro in Columbia Heights, having just visited a haunted house (staged yearly, I'm told, by the friends and neighbours of our local Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of Scholarly Programs, whose job this year was to grab peoples ankles as they clambered up the stairs, running from the chainsaw wielding maniac in the yard).

Back to the metro: the car is almost empty, apart from a dapper musketeer, a slutty bee (I think), some guy who clearly just was in a motorcycle crash (and still holds a piece of the bike in his hands), two Kiss members, and a zombie. Discussing, I shit you not, string theory. In pretty serious and competent tones, too; the conversation got quite intense, at one point especially when they started debating branes, which is when my smile got so broad it became apparent to everyone I was not really reading my book. Zombies arguing about different types of branes? You can't blame me for bad puns if life just throws them at me.

Here's another Halloweeny pic for all of you (snapped on my way to the laundromat):

Also: propaganda pumpkins FTW.