Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Jen and Caolan are both at work bringing home the bacon (or preparing to bring it home) and I am here in their luxurious Brooklyn apartment, surfing the web and drinking soda. I decided last night that I wasn't just going to kick around Brooklyn all day. No, sir! I decided that I was going to go straight into Manhattan first thing this morning and take the city by storm!
So I left the house at the crack of 11:00 and made my way to the subway. After about 30 minutes on the subway I realized why everyone else had books, magazines and/or headphones. It is because the subway is really, really boring if you are by yourself. This was a problem I planned to remedy as soon as I arrived in midtown Manhattan by purchasing a wonderful magazine about video games.
On East 57th street I found the most wonderful little store called CompUSA. Inside I found a huge selection of computers and computer peripherals at wonderfully low prices! I purchased the latest issue of PC Gamer magazine and a Twix.
I decided on my walk back to the subway that I could easily navigate through Manhattan without my eyes. Here's how: On every single intersection of city streets there is at least one person on a cell phone giving a detailed description of their exact location and which direction they are traveling. For example: "I'm on the corner of 48th Street and 6th Avenue right now. I'm on 6th, approaching 7th."
It would be so simple. All I would have to do is close my eyes and listen. I could easily determine the directions people were traveling and I'd have constant updates as to my whereabouts. I estimate having sight would only increase the ease of navigation by a measly 10%.
Traveling in New York using only my ears would still be about 700% easier than finding my way through Boston having full use of all of my senses, a complete set of street maps and a someone in the car that has lived there for 20+ years.
Posted by chefelf @ 03:10 PM EST [Link] [No One Loves Me]
Monday, June 9, 2003
I decided to start taking my multivitamins again in an effort to combat this constant fatigue I am feeling from lack of caffeine. This is good because I severely doubt that I get all the minerals and vitamins a growing boy needs from my daily intake of two Pop Tarts and a slice of frozen pizza. I was also shocked to learn that there is no vitamin C in my favorite orange soda!
So I looked in my desk and dug out my multivitamins. It say on the bottle that they contain "Lutein" which I assume is like protein except more fake. I also noticed that the expiration date is February, 2003. Hmmm, I thought. I should probably get a new bottle if these have expired.
Then it hit me. How do they expire? I could see if I purchased then ten years ago, but I got these last year. How do they go bad? Are the vitamins no longer in the capsules? I doubt it. In fact, I don't trust an expiration date on such an item. Maybe they no longer taste as fresh as they once did. That's fine. I can deal with that. I just refuse to believe that it does a worse job of containing the vitamins that it once did. I'm sure some chemical engineer reader will email me to tell me I'm wrong but that's fine. I'd love to have an actual explanation.
In the meantime I will continue to not trust the believability of the vitamins I am ingesting on a daily basis. While I do not trust them I will continue to take them because they make my body strong. Even if they are liars.
Posted by chefelf @ 09:21 AM EST [Link] [14 People Love Me!]
Tuesday, June 3, 2003
My street is small. My street is insignificant. My street has a grand total of seven houses on it and that is including both sides of the street. It starts nowhere and goes nowhere. It is near a middle school but it runs parallel to the school itself. This would lead one to believe that no one would use this street to get to the school. The entire street can't be longer than 200 feet.
So it's a small street, it leads nowhere and no one lives on it so it should be quiet, right? It you said "Yes" to that last statement you are wrong. Dead wrong!!
It is always noisy on my street. Between such recurring favorites as the dog that never stops barking, the jackass that starts his truck (which presumably runs on a jet engine) at 5:30 every morning and the endless stream of chattering and cursing 12 year olds there is little room for more noise.
Last night at 4:00 in the morning a car, blasting a radio, pulled up outside my house. Four kids (who sounded about 10-12 years old) got out and started shouting at the top of their lungs. That was until one of them started vomiting uncontrollably in the middle of the street. This whole scene laid the perfect foundation for the world's most vocal dog to begin one of his legendary barking fits.
About 45 minutes into his barking spree I heard footsteps approach his fence. I crossed my fingers that the next sound I would hear would be a gun shot but I was not so fortunate. Eventually fatigue took over and I drifted off for about ten minutes before the jackass across the street started up his 1924 Ford pickup. The sound of this truck (which is started religiously every morning at 5:30 a.m.) is very similar to the sound that would occur is someone parked a running street sweeper under your bed. And, of course, since it's June everyone is in the habit of warming their vehicles up for 25-30 minutes in the morning. It's better for the engines when the temperature hits the chilly mark of 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
After that I got a 45 minute break until the kids began their morning rush to school. This always sounds like a giant flock of pigeons. These children, much like a flock of pigeons, has no business on this street! What are they doing here?!?! Someone needs to tell these little shits that this street does not lead to their school. What's worse is that when they have a fire drill they bring all the kids to my street! I went to that school. They just told us to go across the street in the event of a fire. Now they actually shepherd the kids a block away! Kids now are apparently more valuable than when I was young.
Of course the school department is required to have x amount of fire drills a year. Rather than space them out evenly they usually do two in September, one in October and then cram the remaining fire drills in the last three weeks of the school. I remember this well from being a student in this pitiful school system. At the end of the school year you would have to get up and leave the building five or six times a day as the school officials remembered that they had a quota to meet.
Tonight I can look forward to 6:00 when the guys next door will be hanging inside their car engines revving them for 20-30 minutes. At 8:00 the guy across the street will start up his motorcycle which is not only loud enough to set off every car alarm on the street but also alerts seismographs on the west coast.
Some day I will enjoy moving from this wretched place. Living on the loudest street in America is beginning to get on my nerves.
Posted by chefelf @ 01:20 PM EST [Link] [14 People Love Me!]
