Facing the Facts of the Weather

Earlier this year, when I told people I was moving to New York for grad school, the response I received most was, "Man, good luck dealing with a real winter. It gets cold out there," or something to that effect. ("Wow, Jon, that's a great opportunity for you. Good luck" was distant second). They immediately gave me all sorts of advice: get some Long Johns, wear a hat, just stay in California where it's warm, that sort of thing. It sounded like good advice, but I suspected that I would ignore it anyway and walk around in a t-shirt, jeans, and a jacket that would seem a little light by New York standards. Sure enough, that's how it's gone so far. Some mornings (like today, for example) it's been really cold, but when I think about it, I suspect that none of the advice I've received would have helped much anyway. You see, out here the problem is, as my dear friend Kevin Markley would put it, your face.

I suppose I should be used to my face being the problem at this point, but what can you do? Long underwear may be great, but I'm not going to wear underwear on my head-- this isn't summer camp. Yes, a hat would go on my head as well, but that still leaves my face out there, exposed to the elements, and really, really cold.

So what are my options? I thought about going the ski mask route, but aside from the problem of not being able to go into the corner store without the owner introducing me to the business end of his shotgun (for obvious reasons), it turns out it's illegal anyway. The city takes the approach of trying to make it look like no crimes happen here to deter criminal from committing more crimes (not even criminals want to be the first person to drop something in the tip jar. Ooooh, psychology), so it's against the law to even look like you're going to knock over a liquor store. I could also go the invisible man route, but I never did figure out how he sees out of that thing. So then I'd have to get a seeing eye dog too. Too many complications. I've also considered just exchanging my face with a guy who still lives in California, but it turns out you can't actually do that. Who would have guessed that a John Woo flick would not have a realistic premise?

So what, as Regis would ask, is my final answer? Nothing. I've learned that really all I can do is sit there, take it, and hope it stops. Kind of like with "your face" jokes.

White as Snow?

Well, I've once again gone far too long without posting, and once again I have no better excuses to offer than multiple jobs, grad school, and a dependence on sleep that hasn't gone away despite my best efforts. Now, however, I'm in what I like to call "the calm after the storm." It's like the calm before the storm, only without the sense of impending doom, which ultimately undermines any comfort the calm provides. No, even though the calm before the storm is the one everyone talks about, the one after is clearly the better of the two.

This semester ended with a storm that was both figurative and literal, which was an interesting change. In California, I hadn't had a storm since I was in middle school. My reactions to the two different storms were vastly different. The literal storm had me giggling like a school girl after the teen heartthrob of the week caught her eye and gave her a wink. It was bad. I also immediately (and by immediately, I of course mean the next time I went outside, which was several hours later due to the figurative storm) made snowballs and hurled them at trees. I missed. It was also bad. But as much as the literal storm made me love life, the figurative storm made me hate it even more. There's something about locking yourself in a lab for hours and hours working on a "group" project that brings out the worst in me. I turn the rest of my group into scapegoats (surely I could never be the problem, right?), so it makes me a little anti-social. This leads to passive aggressive behavior, often in the form of deteriorating hygiene (it's not my fault I didn't shower, guys, I didn't have time because I was doing all this work). It spirals downhill until I start resembling something I swore to myself a hundred times I would never be. No offense, by the way, to any of you who choose to partake in that, but balance it with a normal life as well.

But that's really neither here nor there. What did I learn in all this? If you're guessing something about the value of working on a team, silver linings on every cloud, or the ridiculousness of passive aggressive behavior, then you have clearly never read an entry on this blog before. No, the lesson I learned was just how deceiving the phrase "white as snow" really is.

Now, the first night, the snow really was white. It was beautiful. A blanket of pure white draped over the city, as we all scurried inside to be warm next to our fireplaces (and by fireplaces, I mean heaters for everyone except the super rich). The next morning, however, it was a horse (or, I suppose, a blanket) of a different color. In the streets, there was chameleon snow that decided to turn itself the same gray color as the asphalt. On the sidewalks, it stayed relatively white, but with speckles of whatever people had dropped throughout. And then there was the blue snow. I honestly have no idea what in the world turned that snow blue, but there it was.

A couple of things came to mind when I looked out at this now fairly disgusting blanket: Snow (Hey Oh) by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Now, the Chili Peppers I'll forgive, because most of the time it seems like they're getting the lyrics by opening accounts on various websites and writing down the test words they enter to prove they're human; I don't expect them to make sense. With Snow White, on the other hand, I am beginning to wonder if it was intentional. Is there a dark side to Snow White that nobody knew about? Was she really the evil one, and we should have been rooting for the queen the whole time?

That's certainly something to think about, which is why I'm going to stop. It's the calm after the storm, after all, I don't want to spend it using my brain. That would be a waste.

NY ♥ Christmas

I suppose it's something of a love triangle. Walking around midtown, two things are very clear: tourists are like sheep (though generally less intelligent), and they love New York. Unfortunately, most tourists discover that New York doesn't feel the same; New York's heart belongs to another.

That other, it would seem, is Christmas. Obviously there's the giant tree in Rockafeller Center and the Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes, but there's more to it than that. There are snowflake lights on light posts throughout the city. In some places, there are even stars and angels and the like suspended over and across the streets. It's very Christmasy. Then there's the trees. They're everywhere. It's great. I can't go anywhere without smelling doug fir and remembering my childhood. I'd love to get more specific and make witty comments about the various displays around town, but to be honest, the season has me so giddy I can't think about it much more without creating a disturbance in the library.

But what really gets me about Christmas in New York is that people here aren't afraid to actually call it Christmas. It amuses me that all the places I've lived before have been little white suburban towns chock full of WASPS, but for some reason everyone was afraid to wish each other a good old fashioned "Merry Christmas" instead of the bland and useless "Happy Holidays." But take a look at New York. It's second largest Jewish population center in the world (the largest outside Israel). It's got enough people with African heritag to make Kwanzaa more than an afterthought. It's the birthplace of Festivus. Yet here, people aren't afraid to say "Christmas." It boggles the mind.

If I continue writing at this point, my usually light hearted nonsense will turn into a rant about people assuming others are over-sensitive, political correctness, and whatever other topics get in the way. So instead I'll just say "Merry Christmas" before I spoil the Christmas spirit.

Merry Christmas to all

Polyticks

When I was nineteen years old, my Political Science professor told me that the best way to understand politics was to look at the two words that make up politics: poli (or poly, meaning "many") and tics (or ticks, meaning "blood sucking leeches"). Over the last few weeks, I've found out that there's substantially more to it than that.

Apparently our system of government is not as simple as I thought it was. Take something simple, like electing a mayor. I thought that the process was that everyone votes, and whoever gets the most votes wins. Apparently this is not the case, at least in New York City. Now, I don't know what the exact process is, but surely it can't be the simple voting that I thought it was, because according to popular news programs (and even more popular fake news programs that people don't seem to understand are full of jokes), everybody in New York City was irate at the mere notion of Mayor Bloomberg running for another term. Yet somehow he was chosen to be our Mayor yet again. I don't understand the intricacies of how, but if the entire city was against him, as the news would have me believe, then surely he couldn't have been elected democratically. Come on, what's more likely: the media being wrong or misleading about popular opinion, or secret plots that subvert democracy? Clearly something shady is going on here.

Presidential elections are more complicated thanks to the electoral college (which is a lot like the Queen of England: if it tried to exercise it's true political power people would revolt, and it's mostly around for sentimental reasons at this point), but I thought I had a handle on those too. Apparently not. See, the other day I tried to get onto a crowded subway, but people just stood there by the doors and didn't move back toward the middle (if only Phil, the former SLO transit bus driver were there), until a guy finally said something and people started to move. At that point he informed me, "You gotta say something sometimes. People don't say anything anymore--that's how Bush got elected." Really? That's how Bush got elected? I always thought it was the 271 electoral votes (or 286 if we're talking about 2004). You mean all people have to do is say something and it negates 50 million votes?

People don't seem to know about this option. What we need to do is have one big, publicized day where everyone "says something" in an orderly fashion. People should go to a specific place and say (or maybe just write down, to save time) who they think should be President. Or if they can't make it on that particular day, they can mail it in. Then we can have people whose job it is to look at all of that and see who should be President. Hm... this sounds vaguely familiar.

While I'm on the subject of politics, let me share with you another wonderful nugget I heard this week: "The thing about politics is that it's very, very political." I'll be honest, when I read that, it sounds like a pretty dumb thing to say, but that wasn't the case when I heard it. No, when I heard it, it sounded like an incredibly dumb thing to say, because the guy who said it had that obnoxious "I'm better than everyone and I know everything, so come and listen attentively to my wisdom" tone that scene kids get when they talk about music or my old boss Nelson gets when he talks about anything. And the best part was, the context of it was him explaining to his disciples what people on my side of the political spectrum believe. Yes, please tell me what I think about healthcare, taxes, and guns. Had I not been working at the time I would have set him straight. Okay, I probably wouldn't have, but I at least could have gotten out of earshot.

So what's the moral of the story? Vote. Or don't. Tell me what and whom you are going to vote for, then I'll tell you whether or not you should.

Just kidding. Vote.

Observations from the P Train

Today, I write about one of the differences between men and women. Now, if you are among those who believe that men and women are psychologically the same, let me defend myself before getting your undergarments of choice in a twist. I firmly believe that this difference is a result of men having years of training in a related area that women have not. If women grew up with this same training, I am confident this difference would not exist. But it does (or at least it appears to based on my scientific process of noticing it from time to time), so I'm going to write about it.

The difference that has come to my attention is that men are significantly better at choosing seats on the subway than women.

First, let's look at an example of where men sit on a subway car. For the sake of simplicity, let's say there is only one group of seats (even though there are really more). The same principles apply to actual seating arrangements, but it's easier to discuss this way. When the first man walks in, he sits at one end of the seats. The next man will then sit at the opposite end. If a third man comes in, he sits in the exact middle. If more come in, they sit in the middle of the longest section of open seats, until there is only a single seat separating each man. If another man comes in at this point, he stands and waits until there is a 3-seat opening for him to sit in the middle of.

There are a couple of exceptions to this rule. First, there's the close friend exception. If a man is with a close friend, they can use the seats directly next to each other (but only if that is the only way they can both sit, and only if doing so still allows for a buffer between the friends and anyone else). The second exception is the crowded exception. If a train starts to get crowded, men can fill in the buffer seats, but if they do under no circumstances do they look directly at the person next to them. This exception is used only when it starts to get noticeably crowded; if there's just a few extra guys, they stand.

Women sit... I don't know. I haven't noticed any real pattern. Some will follow the same pattern as the males. I assume that these are long time New Yorkers who have learned the right place to go. But sometimes they'll sit one seat away from the edge, making the edge seat completely useless. It's quite aggravating.

So let this be a friendly reminder: space is precious, so spread out and make it easy for everyone else to do the same.

Who Monitors the Monitors?

Because of this pesky thing I like to call "rent," I had to get a job when I came to New York. (Other pesky things include food, bills, and school supplies). I hit the proverbial pavement, and since then I've collected a few jobs, actually, since none of them individually would be able to support me. Of the two or three that I have, however, the only one that I've actually started (besides one hour of training for one of my programming jobs) is my lab monitor job.

Let me say this: if you are in school, a lab monitor job is the best gig you can get. In the 12 hours I've worked so far this week, I've had to clear one paper jam and tell a student that the air conditioning is broken. Other than that, I've done homework. And Sudoku. And crossword puzzles. Now, don't get me wrong. By no means do I think that having lab monitors is a waste of money. Lab monitors are like security guards: most of the time we just sit around, but that's the price you have to pay to make sure we're there when the problems do arise. Really, the main difference between lab monitors and security guards is that there are fewer derogatory nicknames for lab monitors.

But the fact of the matter is that most of the time we're not solving problems. Most of the time, I just sit here. And I say "here" rather than "there" because at this very moment I am monitoring a lab. I just looked around the room again, and everything is under control.

The problem is, however, that some students are not content with how easy the job is already. Apparently some people just don't bother to show up at all, and the omerta that is drilled into us all from our days on the playground lets them get away with it. I can't really complain, though, since I probably wouldn't say anything if someone didn't show up either. It's also possible to show up, but not do anything even if someone does have a problem. You know, there are times when I don't want to do anything, but even on a bad day I think I could handle doing ten minutes of work in the three hour shift I'm being paid for.

What's the solution? There are a couple of ways to go. One would be to get rid of lab monitors completely. I'm not too Keane on that idea though (if you got that joke, by the way, you are not only incredibly nerdy, you are also way too in tune with my strangely connected thoughts). While it would get rid of lazy lab monitors that waste university dollars, it would also make it harder on the students who are shelling out those dollars. Another solution would be to hire lab monitor monitors, who would watch us to make sure we're doing our jobs. The problem with this, is that they might not do that job well either. If there's one thing I've learned, it's not to underestimate the laziness of people. I think Jack Donaghy said it best when he said, "When you think about it, there is no answer." Of course, he said that because he didn't listen to what the other person was saying, but I think his point is strong nonetheless.

The bottom line is this: if you are already being paid to not do anything 90 percent of the time, don't mess it up for the rest of us by trying to be lazy 100 percent of the time.

Embracism

It's been entirely too long since I've posted. All of my deadlines decided to be early this week, and of course this weekend was also when my jobs decided to start. So really, I had to choose between spending time at my job (which pays my rent and feeds me), on my classes (which I'm investing a lot of both time and money into), or writing my blog (which I write basically for the attention). When I couldn't think of anything good to write here, I went back to the other two. Sorry.

Well this Tuesday night, like every Tuesday night for the past month or so, I took the train home from 125th Street. For those of you who are unfamiliar with New York City, 125th is the main drag through Harlem. Its extra wide sidewalks are famous for the street vendors that crowd it selling nothing but perfume and t-shirts with Michael Jackson or President Obama on them. Also on 125th Street is the Apollo Theater. The train station I use is actually an elevated station rather than a subway, which provides an excellent view of Harlem and constantly smells of fried chicken.

Now, I consider myself an educated person. And like most educated people, I like to think that I know that while stereotypes may provide some great stand-up bits, they do not accurately reflect an entire group of people. Which is why it irritated me beyond words that I always smell fried chicken up there.

My English nerd readers (if my writing hasn't scared them all away by now) may have noticed a problem with that last sentence. I said "irritated" and "smell" rather than "irritates" and "smell" or "irritated" and "smelled." There is, however, a reason for this: I still smell the fried chicken, but it no longer irritates me.

Why? I did what an old pal of mine, Toucan Sam, said I should do. I tell you, that bird is smarter than we give him credit for. The source of the scent was, I kid you not, Lincoln Fried Chicken on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard. If, as "Avenue Q" would have you believe, everyone is a little bit racist, it felt like this place was trying to make that little bit take over. I was left with two choices: pretend I didn't see it and find somewhere else to eat, or dive in head first. And since I was too hungry to keep looking, I went inside and ordered some fried chicken and some orange soda.

Wow. It never ceases to amaze me how many places sell delicious food for dirt cheap. It's hard enough to get motivated to cook (and by cook, I mean either microwaving something frozen, Mac and Cheese, or Pasta-Roni) as it is, but when food this good that I don't have to make is almost as cheap as eating in, it's darn near impossible. For just a few dollars I got some of the best fried chicken I have ever had.

As I polished off the last of it and wiped the grease off my fingers it dawned on me that I almost missed out on that place. Had I ignored it as part of an effort to convince myself that I'm too good to pay attention to stereotypes, I would have seriously missed out. My point is this: different cultures are known for different things and have different strengths. Don't judge people based on that, but don't run away from it either.

Now, if I can only find out why the engineering building smells like Chinese food so often.

Getting A Discount When Buying Happiness

I'm not going to sit here and act like I've ever thought it would not be cool to be rich. Money would certainly help me in my efforts to become James Bond. I could afford an Aston Martin, a pristine tuxedo, and a steady flow of Vodka Martinis, shaken, not stirred (although with all the martinis I've ever ordered, not once have I seen a bartender stir it anyway). I bet with enough money I could even buy a British accent. And, of course, I could have a killer place in Manhattan where I could entertain guests at my pleasure instead of a single room in the Bronx where three really is a crowd.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that being rich is probably overrated. Take transportation, for example. Rich people get to ride around in limousines. What is a limo, anyway? It's a long vehicle that has a driver in his own compartment in the front and a bunch of drunk people not wearing seatbelts in the back. If that sounds familiar to some of my non-rich brethren, that's because it also perfectly describes the subway.

Yes, that's just one example. "What about Broadway?" you may be asking. "Surely the rich get to enjoy a better class of theater than the non-rich." Wrong again. Even if you ignore things like rush tickets and lotteries that can get you cheap tickets to Broadway shows, there's Off-Off-Broadway. Now before you say that Off-Off-Broadway is not the same caliber as Broadway, let me point something out. When I got here and I was looking for cheap things to do, I looked at Off-Off-Broadway. A lot of the shows look quite similar to those that are on Broadway, but with more zombies. Now ask yourself who's getting the better entertainment.

It seems to me that for every high class thing rich people can get, there is an equivalent thing for the non-rich. The main difference is usually that the non-rich version involves more crazy people. Instead of going to the fancy art gallery with an open wine bar, visit that neighbor one floor down who's been trying to get you to come over and have a beer while he shows you the painting he made on his wall when he was sleepwalking. If you can't afford tickets to the great concert coming up at Radio City Music Hall, head into the subway station and hear the woman singing Whitney Houston songs for donations (a few years ago, there was a chance it would have actually been Whitney Houston). When the living members of Monty Python perform live at Ziegfeld and tickets are hundreds of dollars, see them a couple nights earlier on Jimmy Fallon for free.

My point is this: life is cheaper when you can put up with crazies. And if you know me, chances are you can.

Observing Columbus Day

Growing up, Columbus Day was a lot like Flag Day. It's there, but beyond a little thought when you change the calendar, it basically gets ignored. It's ignored so much, you may not have even realized that it was yesterday. The only time I remember Columbus Day affecting me at all is once in elementary school. On Columbus Day one year, my history teacher told me a bunch of stuff about Christopher Columbus, much of which turned out to be lies.

Let me pause here for a second. Apparently my elementary school history teachers were liars. I've since found out that people knew the earth was round in Columbus' day, the Americans didn't win the revolutionary war by being the only ones smart enough to use cover (but that's a discussion for a potential spin-off blog: "Things I've Learned in Boston"), and that Donald isn't really a stupid-head. Okay, that last one may have been written in the book, not said by a teacher. And it may have been handwritten, not a part of the actual published work. And I may have had to follow instructions leading to pages 71, 236, 59, 28, 90, and 101 before I read it. And I may have been the one who wrote it.

Okay, back on track. Where was I? Oh yes, Columbus Day. Growing up in California, it was ranked behind numerous other random holidays, including Valentie's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Cinco De Mayo, and Cesar Chavez Day.

But in New York, Columbus Day is an actual thing. My housemate was surprised when I left for class. Then I got to campus and things got really strange. There were large signs around campus related to the holiday. There were people complaining that "every other workplace in America gets the day off." Right. Every other workplace. I didn't even get Veteran's Day or President's Day off at my last job, and those are real things. Still, I imagine that even a claim as ridiculous as that one has some basis in truth. It would seem that out here, Columbus Day is actually celebrated like an actual holiday.

And why not? He did, after all, discover America... y'know... after all the other people who were already living here. But you do have to admire him for setting an audacious goal and achieving it. Or at least you would, if his goal was to discover a continent and not to get to India. And the icing on the cake: Columbus cemented in history that white people cannot tell non-white people apart. Our punishment? Having to be confused because "Indian" can refer to either of two completely separate people groups.

There are benefits too, I suppose. What would we call Cleveland's baseball team? I suppose we could go the way of Washington's football team and name them after a racial slur. Or since Cleveland already has one team named after a color, maybe just the Cleveland Reds? Hm. On second thought, that may not work.

Anyway, the closest thing I have to a point is this: I like California's way better on this one. There are better holidays to make important. My vote goes to National S'Mores Day, because s'mores are delicious and August is the only month without a real holiday. Except April when Easter happens to fall in March. But my birthday's in April, so that's close enough.

October Blues

We're now well into October, and for sports fans that means three things: baseball playoffs are starting, the hockey season is underway, and the Raiders are no longer in the running for a playoff spot. Living in the Bronx, home of the most successful professional sports team in the history of North America, has made one of those three things matter more to the community than the other two. Let me give you a hint: the Montreal Canadiens have three times as many titles as all three of the state of New York's hockey teams combined.

The important one around here is, of course, the MLB playoffs, and once again the Bronx Bombers are looking strong. But that's not why I'm writing today. You see, I moved from the beautiful Golden State to the Big Apple for three main reasons: to try city life, to avoid the real world, and to get away from Dodgers fans. I've been more or less successful when it comes to the first two, but the third has been an utter failure.

I've been through all the logical reasons for it. First of all, yes, the Los Angeles Dodgers used to be the Brooklyn Dodgers. I know. But most of the Dodgers fans I've seen have been about my age, so the Dodgers were long gone before they were born. You might be thinking to yourself, "Yes, but a lot of times team loyalties are passed down from generation to generation. Maybe the parents are Dodger fans." I get that argument. The whole "sins of the father to the third and fourth generation" thing. But it still doesn't add up, because I'm hardly ever in Brooklyn. I spend all my time in Manhattan and the Bronx, where it would still make way more sense to be a Yankees fan even if the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. The other logical reason that I thought of, that they, like me, moved from California to New York after already developing their sports loyalties, can explain some of them, but certainly not all of them.

The worst part is that because of this new thing called "fashion," they're harder to spot. I used to be able to just look out for that cursed shade of blue with the white writing (let's be honest, there aren't any Royals fans to make me wrong). But now you can get any team's hat in any color with any color writing. It makes the enemy so much harder to spot.

That's life I guess. There are some things you just can't run away from. And, truth be told, I'm kind of glad. As much as I hate to admit it, I have some friends who are Dodgers fans. I've even got a friend who's a Giants fan but wears a Dodgers jersey regularly. I love them anyway. Although think how much cooler they'd be if they were Giants fans.

We Didn't Start the Fire

I've never been afraid of fire. As one of my friends (whose name will not be mentioned, although those I'm protecting him from will probably figure it out anyway) can tell you, and as my mother may just now be finding out (though it wouldn't surprise me if she already knew), I've spent a few minutes before many a day of junior high experimenting with lighters, matches, Raid, silly string, hairspray, and just about anything else that could take off my eyebrows. I wasn't afraid because a) penciled on eyebrows instead of the real thing were trendy, and b) I know how to stop drop and roll.

Recently, however, I've become more wary of the potential dangers that a fire can pose. Mostly because I think Columbia University (or at least the Fu Foundation) doesn't care if its students burn to death. I'm basing this entire theory on two things, which as it turns out, are not enough to take the school to court, even with the sleaziest of attorneys (1-800-GOT-HURT). It is, on the other hand, enough to rant about on the internet.

The first clue that the school may be an accomplice to arson related homicide is the way the desks are situated in the classroom. I knew enough people who had an impossible time getting classes at Cal Poly to appreciate a few extra spaces in the class, but this is out of control. A normal classroom has the desks situated into rows and columns (or little groups of four if your teacher is super cool and you all agree to behave... and you're in the fourth grade). I guess that's also true of these classrooms, but without the space in between the rows or columns. Getting in or out of the class (unless you want to sit in the front row with the people who want to learn), is like doing one of those puzzles where you have to move one block out of the room by pushing other blocks out of the way. If the building caught fire during class, the networks class would turn into a cooking class before you could say "Man, I wish I had some fun-fetti." Is this one of those things where I'm really just irritated about a minor inconvenience, so I try to make a serious issue out of it? Absolutely. Does that mean that I'm wrong? Not necessarily.

The other problem is with the fire alarms. I don't think the school quite gets the concept of an alarm. An alarm should create... alarm. I realize that nowadays they generally just create annoyance, but even so, a fire alarm in most places will at least disrupt the learning environment. Not true in my classrooms. When the alarm went off last week, people didn't even notice, not even the instructor. There was just one student who raised his hand and said, "Dr. Aho, that distant, quiet sound is actually the fire alarm. And it's going to stop in a minute, but that doesn't mean it's all clear, just that the alarm system sucks." And the worst part is, he was right. A minute or so later the alarm stopped, but officers came through the building to evacuate everyone and check the building for a fire. Had I been in, say, a "conference room," I might have been missed and may have not noticed anything was wrong until it was too late. A bit of a stretch, but in a 12 floor building odds are it's going to happen to somebody if an actual fire starts.

So what's the take away? What did I learn from all this? Why did I choose this from all the pending topics to share with you today? The moral of the story is this: when you don't get a class, or when you are annoyed by an alarm of any kind, you shouldn't be angry; you should be happy you're not dying in a fire.

The Best Things About New Jersey

I've now made the trek over to Jersey four times, so I think that I'm as qualified as anybody to tell you what the best parts are. So today I bring you the first installment of what may or may not be a recurring feature of "Things I've Learned in New York City" called "The Best Things About New Jersey." My idea is that each time I go across the river I'll discover one of the best things there is to discover in the good ol' Garden State.

So, without further ado, I bring you part one of "The Best Things About New Jersey."

The best thing that I've discovered about New Jersey thus far is the Manhattan skyline. Yes, I realize that the Manhattan skyline is not actually in Jersey, but the view is pretty incredible. Better, I'd say, than a lot of places in the city itself. See, the difference is like the difference between being at an NFL game and watching it on TV. Sure, everyone will tell you they actually want to be there, but the truth is it's a whole lot easier to see what's going on when you're not. And the traffic's a lot worse when you're there.

For example, when you're within a few blocks of the Empire State Building, you look up to see it and say to yourself, "Wow, that's an incredibly tall building." Then you look at any of the six buildings closest to it and you say, "Wow, that's an incredibly tall building." From Jersey, on the other hand, once you see past all the New Jersey air, you can really get a sense of how it towers over the other buildings. Even all the way into Newark the view is great.

Then again, you can say the same thing about Brooklyn. And probably Queens. Oh well, it's still a pretty good view.

EU and Me

Before moving to New York, my experience with Europeans was limited. Sure, the was Martin in junior high, who would mispronounce curse words at me and a few who shall remain nameless that I've had to clean up after from time to time, but in general I haven't dealt with them much.

Enter The Spot Hostel in Harlem, where I spent my first week in New York. There were folks from Down Under all over (not European, but foreign, white, and with accents that sound almost British. Gimme a break), a brigade from Britain, more Germans than at a David Hasselhoff concert (I realize two Hasselhoff references in a month is probably excessive, but I had to do it), and a general assortment of other Europeans.

It was awesome.

Now you may be wondering why I'm so excited about all the Europeans. After all, New York is full of people from countless cultures, why not be excited about people who are even more different, like that guy from South Africa, or the one from Alabama? The answer actually has nothing to do with expanding my horizons, or anything remotely noble. Basically, I've learned that European women like me a lot more than American ones do.

First, there was the cute Welsh girl (who, admittedly got a lot less cute once I realized she looked a lot like my friend's younger sister). She was probably the first person in New York that I had a legitimate conversation with. Then she flew home. Then there were the four German girls I mentioned earlier (see my note about the Hoff references). That wasn't a case of me inviting myself mind you, they wanted me to go with them to the Empire State Building. Let me shorten that. They wanted me to go with them. Let me shorten that again. They wanted me. But it didn't stop there! Then there was the Frenchwoman. We met when we both went to a Broadway musical during Columbia's orientation. It turned out to not be the same musical, but by the time we figured that out we were already fast friends. I'd describe to you what happened when we ran into each other at another event later in the week, but I don't want to make you blush. Okay, It's not so much that as I don't want to make you say "Dude, you were just there. That doesn't even come close to meaning anything."

Let's compare this to the interactions I've had with American women. To make this quicker and less painful, I'll limit it to those I've me in the same time period. This part's tough to write about, because I don't know which of the women I've met and then been ignored by to bring up. Really the best example is one I met this weekend. After finding out that we went to college an hour and a half away from each other, both grew up in the Bay Area, and were even born in the same hospital, she had to run. Something about washing her hair. Even I know what that means.

While I'm on the subject of Europeans, I have to share something else that happened over the weekend. I was waiting in an hour and a half long line for some overrated pizza, when part of the group I was with asked if I was from England. Because I didn't immediately know how to turn it into a joke, I said no. Then they asked where I was from, and out of that same lack of humor, I said California. Their response? "No, like, originally." Apparently I have a European accent.

I guess that explains the allure.

Universital Truths

One of the reasons I chose Columbia for graduate school is because it's so different from Cal Poly. One is on the West Coast, the other's on the East. One is public, the other is private. One is incredibly diverse, the other has a higher concentration of white people than a Dave Matthews Band concert. But in spite of these differences and countless others I decided not to bore you with, I find more and more things that are exactly the same at both schools every day. Since the schools are about as different as two universities in the United States can be, I've decided that these things must be true at every university, everywhere, ever. "Universital Truths," if you will.

The first of these truths is that every university has to have sleazy salesmen peddling posters and credit cards. To me, this made far more sense at a school like Cal Poly, where the student population is almost all undergrads and therefore the freshman are plentiful. There's clearly a buck to be made off of the newbies who want to make their dorm rooms their own by buying any four of the same eleven posters that all of their peers are buying. But Columbia is primarily graduate students, and surely by the time a guy finishes his undergrad degree he already has a poster of Bob Marley, an Andy Warhol painting, "The Kiss," and either Fight Club or The Boondock Saints. And surely every graduating woman already has her hands on posters of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Starry Night, and at least one shirtless firefighter. So where's the demand? And as far as the credit cards go, the same problem exists. Sure, there's a few freshies whose parents are footing the bill (no shame in that, I was fortunate enough to have my 'rents pay for my undergrad... thanks again!) and wouldn't mind running up some debt for kicks and giggles, but is the "you need to build your credit" sales pitch really going to work on grad students? I somehow think that most of us realize that with the tens of thousands in debt we're going to graduate with, lunches and some occasional Yankees tickets on plastic aren't going to be the difference between getting approved and denied for a mortgage.

The next truth I noticed was about elevators. The ones for lazy people, not the ones for short people. As you may have noticed that last time you were in one, they have inspection reports indicating that they have passed some sort of test and have been deemed safe until a certain expiration date shown. At Cal Poly the expiration dates were generally a year or two before the current date. At Columbia I've yet to see one that expired more recently than 2002. Enough said.

Finally, and most unfortunately, there is "that guy." Now, "that guy" could mean a number of people, but I'm referring to a specific one: question guy. You know the type, that guy who shows up in class and thinks he's smarter than everyone else (probably because nobody else bothers to speak up in class), so he decides to let everyone else know how smart he is. But he doesn't want to look like he's showing off, so puts it in the form of the question. In physics, it sounds like "But Dr. Vandelay, that doesn't account for the curvature of the earth." I'm getting irritated just thinking about it, so I'm going to stop.

There's more of course. Other ways students act, facilities things, and the like, but I've covered the most interesting. If you can't make it to a real college, buy a poster, get into debt, risk your life, and hang out with an egotistical jerk (send me an email if you can't find one), and you'll get most of the experience.

World Peace & Violence

I believe that the way to peace is going to be through violence. No, I'm not talking about the absence of conflict caused by mutually assured destruction. I'm talking about violence on a much lower level. I'm talking about groups of people unified by violence, wearing their colors on there sleeves and fighting with all their might to beat another group because those people are wearing a different color. That's right, I'm talking about the National Football League. I've been a fan of football for many years now, but only last night did I truly begin to understand the power that it has to bring people together, even people who are fans of different teams.

It began last night at about midnight. I was waiting in a dingy train station in New Jersey, trying to get back to The Bronx. Not knowing the train schedule, I had no idea whether I'd be waiting for seconds or hours. Then I saw three men of varying levels of intoxication wearing Steelers jerseys, so I decided to see if they were interested in a chat to pass the time. "What a sloppy game," I said. "Bet you're happy to get out with the 'W' though." Over the next 40 minutes I bonded with those men. Though the conversation started with football, we discussed everything from general sports to our personal histories to the economy and the effect it's having on those we care about, to politics. They were genuinely happy and congratulatory when I told them I was getting my master's degree at Columbia. I felt their pain as they recalled the days of Kordell Stewart. And though they accused me of being a "liberal who's in love with the President and best buds with Nancy Pelosi," because I'm from California, they took me at my word when I said it wasn't true.

We started the night as complete strangers, but as I disembarked the train, I was genuinely sad that odds were I'd never see them again. Truth be told, the time I spent with them was about as good as any other I've had out here.

But what really showed me the uniting potential football has was the way they treated the Titans fan that meandered by. Sure, they hassled him a bit, and who can blame them? An hour before their respective teams had been fighting tooth and nail over every inch of turf at Heinz Field. But what they said after he'd gone by was inspiring. They said that they had to give him credit, that they respected him for being willing to paint his face, put on a jersey, and watch the game in a bar full of Steelers fans. Despite the teasing, which was all in good fun, they really respected that man, not just in spite of but because of, his willingness to stand up proudly for views that they despised.

If only we could all be as respectful to one another as a handful of drunk Steelers fans.

I'm Missing My Shortz

Today was my first day of class at Columbia University in the City of New York, so I suppose it's fitting that I write about something I learned today. Don't worry, this isn't going to be about computer networks or programming languages or anything like that. In fact, it's about something that computers have been killing off recently: newspapers.

Columbia University actually has several publications distributed around its campus. But one of them is written in some sort of Asian characters that I can't even identify, much less read, so that one's out. Actually most of them are out, since I only picked up one while I was on campus.

Before I got to campus, however, I did take a paper from a guy on the street. I was ready to walk straight past him avoiding eye contact, and thereby avoiding being the vehicle that moves whatever he's offering from his hands to the garbage, when I heard what it was he was offering me: a fresh Onion. For those of you unfamiliar with The Onion, it's a satirical newspaper that features fake news. It's popularity has resulted in a number of fake books and even a fake movie. Truth be told, I didn't even know they actually printed it, I thought it was an online only kind of thing. I excitedly took the newest fake news and tucked it away for the four hour gap in between my classes, and when the time came it did not disappoint. Articles about a "totally hot chick who's, like, really crazy" and a student at Penn State who will be wearing the same clothes all year were particularly interesting. The only problem is that I peeled through the pages too fast and was left with over an hour to kill before class started again. I was so upset about it I even teared up a little bit.

And so, having already digested The Onion, I went for what looked like Columbia's version of Cal Poly's Mustang Daily. I wasn't terribly interested in reading any articles, even though I was quite certain they would be better than those in the "Mistake Daily." No, all I was really looking for was a New York Times crossword puzzle and maybe a Sudoku. I quickly flipped through looking for it, and found the crossword within a couple pages (come on, they're not idiots. They know why people get the paper). I looked at the top to see whether it was today's or if it was several months old, like the Daily's used to be. And that's when I noticed something was missing. I didn't see the words "New York Times" or "edited by Will Shortz" anywhere on the puzzle. That's because it wasn't from the New York Times or edited by Will Shortz. No, I sat there in the middle of New York City looking at a crossword puzzle from the L.A. Times. Ladies and gentlemen, I could not make this up if I wanted to.

I doubt I'll ever know why that paper uses an inferior crossword from 3,000 miles away. I've got a better chance of finishing a Friday crossword than I do of finding out the truth, and I won't even be on campus on Fridays. If I ever do find out, I'll be sure to inform you. Till then, I hope you've at least learned something about news, fake news, and crosswords.

Cash - Not Just for Slang

Before I arrived in New York, I thought the only reason cash still existed was because if it didn't, we'd all lose a lot of great nicknames for money. I mean, come on, "it's all about the plastic cards with 16-digit numbers" just doesn't quite have the same ring to it as "it's all about the Hamiltons." But it turns out that people here actually use it, and not just old people who are afraid of new technology or the "too cool" kids who don't want to do anything that more than 5 people do or the crooks who want to stay off the grid. It's regular people like you and me too!

In fact some places insist on you using cash (which thanks to one of my larger responsibilities at my last job, I keep accidentally spelling "cache" and then going back and fixing. Thanks a lot, Dave). I found this out the hard way at Tom's Restaurant, which is famous for being the exterior of the fake coffee shop that our dear friends Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer spent so much time in. Well, now should I ever become more famous than Seinfeld (hey, it could happen), it will be famous for being the place where Jon Avery had to scurry out to a nearby ATM and come back to because he ate a meal he didn't have the money on him to pay for. You know, I understand the little holes in the wall not taking credit, but come on! That place has to be a giant tourist trap, given it's famous for no reason at all. Come on, it's the Paris Hilton of New York restaurants, it shouldn't have a problem with plastic.

Though I really can't say it's a bad thing that cash is more common here. See, in California, a credit card is almost as fast as paying with cash, but here that's not the case. New Yorkers seem to be a little slower than California at processing credit cards (Yeah! Take that Empire State!), but New Yorkers scream when it comes to dealing with cash. I've seen the guys at the corner deli's (which are called that not because, as you might think, they're on the corner of two streets, but because there are so many of them that it makes people feel cornered) ringing up and taking cash from two or three customers at once, and getting everything right. I've got to say, it's impressive.

My theory is that the skill with which people handle cash in New York is actually the result of training provided by muggers, who realized that by investing in cash handling training early on, they could turn much bigger profits in the long run, as people carry more cash. This added cash then gives the next generation incentive to learn to deal with cash faster (or at least the experience to to it), thus creating a cycle. And they say there are no criminal masterminds in New York.

Okay, I don't really think that, but I am becoming rather fond of this whole "cash" thing. It's fast and convenient. You'd think somebody would have thought of it a long time ago. Oh, wait...

Hooray for Subways, and I'm Not Talking About Eating Fresh (Sorry, Dan)

Simply put, the New York Subway system is the best thing to happen to transportation since the invention of... not the wheel. It's better than the wheel. It's the best thing to happen since the invention of legs.

I've been dependent on public transit for a while now, assuming that your definition of "public transit" includes bumming so many rides off your friends that you know you'll never be able to pay them back for it ever. (No, really, I've bummed so many rides off a couple guys in particular that I almost went into medicine or law, figuring if I saved their lives or kept them out of jail at some point down the line, we would finally be square). But even if you don't include the abuse of those who have their own automobiles, I've still got a fair amount of public transit experience from using the bus to get to and from school for a couple years.

Here's what I've noticed with other forms of public transit: they're lame. Mainly this is because none of the ones I'm familiar with besides the subway run 24/7. In San Francisco and miss the last BART train back? Tough. Find a motel. Went downtown for an adult beverage or four? Tough. Call a cab or a friend who owes you (possibly because you've given him countless rides). Just bit into a brownie only to realize you have no milk? Tough... although that really has nothing to do with public transit. Let's move on.

Buses, the public transit that I'm most familiar with and is probably the most common, also have some more problems. First, they make me hate everyone I see. Every passenger is someone who may pull on that cord and make us stop. Every man or woman on the street is someone who might stand at a stop and make us stop. Every driver of a car is contributing to the traffic that's slowing us down. And the physically challenged? That's the worst part of all. Anything that can make people despise the disabled is a problem. Yet who among us can claim they don't get frustrated whenever they have to wait for that stupid ramp and lift? Also, buses are known to have things on them that nobody likes, like your classmate's vomit, bombs that make explosions when the bus goes less than 50 miles an hour, and Keanu Reeves.

The subway, on the other hand, is glorious. It's cheap. It runs all the time. It makes the city more "green" (as in energy efficient, save the world, save the cheerleader, all that good stuff) and it makes every other city green (as in envy, jealousy, "I want to go to there"). It's convenient. But what I think I like best about the subway is that everyone (with the exception of the physically disabled, who are better than the rest) is equal on the subway. All kinds of people take the subway. Supposedly Mayor Bloomberg himself rides the subway into work. It's him, it's wall street executives, it's tourists, it's students, it's the homeless, it's Joe the Plumber (not the actual guy, like what John McCain meant when he told a crowd "You're all Joe the Plumber!"). And standing there, holding onto the germ infested support bars, all are equal. It's like Denny's at 3 am; nobody is better than anyone else.

Okay, I lied. That's not what I like most about it. It's the whole being a cheap, fast, and convenient way to get around town thing. Seriously, there's a train like 3 blocks from my place and from there I can get anywhere in the city. It's great.

The Miseducation of Jonathan Avery

Martin Scorsese. Woody Allen. Jerry Seinfeld. A guy named "Ham." My mom. These are just a few of the people who tried to give me some insight into what I could expect when I got to the Big Apple. If you tried to help and I've left you off this list (and I've certainly left some people off) I apologize, but once you read what I have to say you may be glad that you weren't named. Also, let the record show that my mother was only passing along information she heard from someone else, so I'm declaring her innocent. I'm also declaring her innocent because she's my mom, and I owe her.

The reason you don't want to be on this list is that a lot of what I've been told is absolute bunk. Hogwash. Bologna. So now I'm here as your own personal Master Yoda to help you unlearn what you have learned.

The first piece of misinformation I was taught was that people will think you're crazy if you go around wearing sandals. As a native Californian and someone who has lived on the coast for six years, this deeply troubled me. I feared my poor sandals would be doomed to a life of being used only in public showers and on trips to the kitchen. But I kept my eyes open, and almost immediately I noticed people wearing sandals. But they were mostly women. Okay, I said to myself, women can wear sandals, but maybe not men. Then I noticed some guys wearing Birkenstocks. Okay, I said to myself, women and hippies can wear sandals, but maybe not men who shower. Then I noticed regular guys wearing sandals. Oh, happy day! That means that during the 4 months of the year when it's uncomfortably hot and I don't want to be outside, I can go outside in my Reefs. Nice.

Another bit of education gone awry is about New Jersey. I was taught that Jersey was... let's say it's Danny DeVito to New York's Schwarzenegger. I actually rather enjoyed my little excursion into Hoboken. Granted, in my mind the bar had been set so low that Jersey would have had to be an Olympic gold medalist in the limbo (do they have that yet? they should) in order to not exceed my expectations. Still, it should be noted for the record that based on my admittedly limited experience, I like New Jersey. Although Princeton can still eat my shorts (Tigers? Psh! Go Lions!)

But the biggest one of all, the thing that makes me want to cry "Shenanigans!" at the top of my lungs is this little myth: New Yorkers are rude. Okay, to be fair nobody ever said that New Yorkers were rude. They would just say things like "People in New York aren't like the people in California, they're, uh, well they..." and then go on to give examples of behavior that everyone would agree is rude. Aside from a woman who was a little crabby about a guy sitting in the "Priority Seating for Disability" section, people here have been rather friendly. And she actually turned into a real sweetheart too, once there was nobody violating federal law and making her stand despite her obvious physical handicap. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say people here have so far been nicer than those in California. Maybe that's because the part of California I lived in is actually the battleground for a civil war between those who think freeway names need "the" in front of them and those who don't. Come on people, what's next? A battle between those who think you should crack eggs on the big end versus those who think you should crack it on the little end? (Too soon?) In any case, years of unnecessary war are bound to make anyone a little cranky, (Too soon again?) even those as historically laid back and cool as Californians.

That covers the basics. Sure, there's still little mistakes about things like pizza and the like, but I've gone on long enough. Some things you're going to have to see to believe (hint hint).

Lessons Learned About the White Man in Harlem

I was raised to believe that the white man was important, and that you should wait for the white man before making your move. One of the first things I learned on the streets of Harlem is that people in New York don't always pay attention to the white man. They cross the street whenever the cars aren't coming, whether the sign has a white man or a red hand.

Wait, what did you think I was talking about?

New Yorkers really have something here I think. Society slowed down a bit the day that "stop, look, and listen" became "Stop, wait for the light to change so that any cars that may or may not be there will not run you down, and wait some more because the stupid light won't change." What's the concern if cars aren't coming? Invisible cars? Come on, even the James Bond franchise realized it went to far when it went down that road.

And what's the downside here? As someone with two legs and zero cars, it seems like the only downside is having to listen to cars honk their horns more often. But the fine city of New York has an answer for that too: honking the horn is illegal. That's right, in the city of New York (or maybe only certain parts of it) it is a crime punishable by a $350 fine to honk your horn except in emergencies. I sense another Law & Order spin off coming already.

So here's the deal: look for cars, and cross. Something tells me if you can't figure it out, well... let's just say there may be something to this whole "survival of the fittest" thing.

I Suck At Blogging

I've been in New York for a couple weeks now, and I've already learned a lot. But you haven't heard about any of it because of one of the first things I've learned: I am absolutely terrible at blogging.

You may have figured this out, since I told everyone before I left I'd blog about my adventures, and it's now been two weeks without so much as a tweet. Yet I don't think you fully grasp how bad I am at it. You see, my first couple weeks here have been rather uneventful. I did make it up to the top of the Empire State Building with a handful of beautiful German girls (they invited me, apparently I'm like the new David Hasselhoff), I met a friend at the Met, and I got kind of lost in Central Park. Still, most of my time has been spent in a room on my laptop, first looking for a place to live, then shopping for furniture for the room, then searching for jobs to apply for. And since you can only do those things for so long without going completely batty, I've logged quite a bit of time on facebook and the websites that come up when you Google "things to do in New York when you're broke and haven't made any friends yet because orientation doesn't start for another two weeks."

But at the same time, it hasn't been so uneventful that there's nothing to write home about. Since I got here, I've met dozens of Europeans, heard Tupac on the radio (in New York, that seems like a big deal to me), been to a block party in Harlem, discovered soul food, and plenty of other things that are interesting enough to write about, or at least interesting enough to be faked into something interesting enough to write about.

So let's see... hours upon hours in front of a computer, plenty of new, interesting experiences, oodles of spare time, but no blog entries even though I promised the folks back home I'd do it. Yep, I suck at this.

Well, better late than never, I suppose. I've already got a fistful of ideas for some more entries, but no promises.