Apparently Michael Jackson's death is the biggest news story since Obama so I'll put in my Jackson story. I had never understood the whole hype surrounding Michael Jackson because all I ever knew of him was t his creepy white man that simply did not look human. And then I read a Bill Simmons article that directed me to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzRCf5OtFBU It's from a 1983 Motown special and is the occasion in which he first busted out the Moonwalk. I didn't know what the Moonwalk was when I watched it but I instantly realized what it was when it came out, it was stunning. That 5 minute youtube clip changed my life a little bit. I realized how great an entertainer Jackson actually was - so great that it kept people mesmerized even after he went to trial over child molestation charges, had 20 plastic surgeries, changed colors, and dangled a baby outside a hotel in Berlin (been there :) ).
In other news, I had a pretty uneventful week of bad weather followed by a pretty solid weekend of questionable but successful ultimate throws, a good Kung Fu movie and a touristy Sunday exploring downtown in the waterfront. I'll try to blog about this tomorrow because I really want to write about tourism in one's home country, and then maybe I'll get around to talking about work too. I gotta sleep again now though cause I never blog in the mornings or afternoons.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
New York notes
Here are some short points, and then some progressively longer ones.
-USA needed to beat Egypt by 3 and for Italy to lose by 3 in order to advance in the Confederations Cup in South Africa. It was a pretty ridiculous task, and somehow they did it. Charlie Davies scored the opening goal, demonstrating the quick footwork that helped him win Graves-Kelsey 4 times.
-I'm so addicted to my iPod it's awful.
-If I ever have kids, I expect that there will be a point where they go to school and learn US history. And they may study the historic 2008 election, and they may read about Sarah Palin. And they may just ask, "what the fuck?" I'm going to spend the next 30 odd years thinking of an adequate answer.
-The weather here has been Dublinesque. I may overreference places that I've been, but basically I mean that it's been raining a lot and kinda ruining the experience actually.
-Went to dinner with Sarah whom I met in Belfast. She ended up going to Zimbabwe the following semester so that was pretty cool. Found great cheap Indian food, then sweet Irish bar with people trying to play Irish music and a bartender from Derry. Good craic. There are tons of Irish pubs in New York City, which shouldn't be news, but there are surprisingly a lot of Irish bartenders behind them.
-The New York subway has some informational signs in 7 languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Arabic and one language in the Roman script that I really just couldn't recognize. Outside of airports, you don't even see signs with that many languages even in Europe.
-Been to Chinatown a lot here. Really I've been going to the New York Chinatown for all my life because I doubt my parents have ever taken me to New York without stopping by this neighborhood. In additon I've taken the Chinatown bus, from both Boston and DC, at least half a dozen times, and I still can't fully navigate that numberless maze. But I really like it and I think I'll find myself there a lot this summer. It gives me a great opportunity to practice Cantonese and Mandarin - it's kinda amazing how much of a different country it feels like when you get there. It's actually an extremely multilingual area, with tons of people from Fujian and Toisan and wherever else and I can't make out a word of what they're saying. So many seem to know Cantonese though and nearly everyone some Mandarin, which really makes me feel terrible about my language capabilities. But I can stick to English.
-Went to a comedy show on Friday. This all evolved very quickly with me texting Lissy's roommate Steph asking what she was doing and her inviting me to this show. at the East Ville Comedy Club, the normal $20 entrance fee was waived if you get some promotional codes from freenyc.com, which Steph's other roommate Holly found out about. So I got into this club with nothing but a two drink minimum and heard a bunch of really good comedians. The only other comedy show I think I had ever been to was in senior year of high school at this sketchy bar near the Arlington T stop to see Matt Grzecki perfrom. That was a good but amateur show where a fight had nearly broken out. This club was small and still sketchy looking, all of which made the incredible show even more surprising. Everyone was a professional comedian and all seemed to have bouts with fame. The first guy appeared on Law & Order, another guy is a regular on 30 Rock, and the last act has lots of gigs on Comedy Central. The host was seemingly the only guy without an imdb page and he might have been the funniest, joking about how much of a guido he was and how he walks into clubs in New York and sees people who look exactly like him.
-The last act was absolutely hilarious although he played the race card a bit too much. But he kept making slightly educated jokes and then thanked the "smartest 2% of the club" for getting them. The most educated one of these was a quip about returning the Louisiana Purchase to the French, which I'm pretty sure I learned in 5th grade. I think this implies that only the top 2% of New York passed 5th grade.
-New York City seems to be one of the most unique places in the world to grow up. I don't say this lightly or with that educated a viewpoint, so feel free to disagree. But I think going through the playful runaround-and-skin-your-knees period of childhood in this crowded hyperactive metropolis permanently puts you on a different path than those of us who grew up in the suburbs or the country. Granted, lots of Americans probably overrate New York and assume it to be the biggest and most important city in the world. By population, New York only ranks anywhere from 3rd to 12th depending on what you define a city, and I'm undecided on whether I think Beijing felt more populous or no (it's certainly close). London is arguably a more international city, and plenty of cities have better subways (Seoul), cuisine (Paris), arts (Vienna) or skyscrapers (Hong Kong). Nonetheless, the mixture of all these qualities in the most powerful country in the world truly makes New York special. It might not be as international as London, or it might be its hard to tell (whatever that means), but its definitely more diverse. And New York has the only 24 hour subway in the world, which I honestly believe says light years about the city's makeup. However, this combines to make New York a very difficult city to leave. I can totally understand how a New Yorker would feel visiting Boston - they'd think there was nothing to do there, and even though every Bostonian knows that's bullshit, they'd be right. You simply can't live the way you live in New York, anywhere else in the world. So many of my office coworkers are New York born and raised and after a year of globetrotting, this just seems really unusual to me. Even more common are people raised just outside the city, whether in the Northern suburbs are in Dirty Jersey, and then find their ways in upon adulthood. I want to talk more about this in another post.
-I haven't really blogged about where I live have I? Well I'm on 37th & 6th, near Herald Square. The subway is about 2 blocks away, and work is a quick 4 blocks, which once again shows how charmed a life I live. The area's expensive though, more streamlined for the office day crowd, and as a result we haven't even once spent a real night out nearby. Mostly I've gotten to know the NYU area downtown very well. It's so expensive, even the corner grocery market rips you off. A sixpack of canned Coors Light is $10, and the same of bottled Heineken is an outrageous $15.50. How do I know? Gotta plead the 5th. Speaking of the 5th, that's a cool avenue too. Anyways, I learned recently that Herald Square is actually named after the New York Herald, a defunct newspaper that didn't need the internet to go out of business. There's a small park where the diagonal Broadway hits 6th avenue, and in the park there's a small monument to this New York Herald. I think it is really weird that they would name an area after a newspaper, but I do hope that Boston copies this trend. Cross your fingers and hope the Globe stays in business, but if it doesn't, I think they should create a cinema in its honor. Then when New Yorkers visit Boston and complain, we can say that they should have gone to the Globe Theater. Thank you the top 2% of my blog readers for getting that joke.
-USA needed to beat Egypt by 3 and for Italy to lose by 3 in order to advance in the Confederations Cup in South Africa. It was a pretty ridiculous task, and somehow they did it. Charlie Davies scored the opening goal, demonstrating the quick footwork that helped him win Graves-Kelsey 4 times.
-I'm so addicted to my iPod it's awful.
-If I ever have kids, I expect that there will be a point where they go to school and learn US history. And they may study the historic 2008 election, and they may read about Sarah Palin. And they may just ask, "what the fuck?" I'm going to spend the next 30 odd years thinking of an adequate answer.
-The weather here has been Dublinesque. I may overreference places that I've been, but basically I mean that it's been raining a lot and kinda ruining the experience actually.
-Went to dinner with Sarah whom I met in Belfast. She ended up going to Zimbabwe the following semester so that was pretty cool. Found great cheap Indian food, then sweet Irish bar with people trying to play Irish music and a bartender from Derry. Good craic. There are tons of Irish pubs in New York City, which shouldn't be news, but there are surprisingly a lot of Irish bartenders behind them.
-The New York subway has some informational signs in 7 languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Arabic and one language in the Roman script that I really just couldn't recognize. Outside of airports, you don't even see signs with that many languages even in Europe.
-Been to Chinatown a lot here. Really I've been going to the New York Chinatown for all my life because I doubt my parents have ever taken me to New York without stopping by this neighborhood. In additon I've taken the Chinatown bus, from both Boston and DC, at least half a dozen times, and I still can't fully navigate that numberless maze. But I really like it and I think I'll find myself there a lot this summer. It gives me a great opportunity to practice Cantonese and Mandarin - it's kinda amazing how much of a different country it feels like when you get there. It's actually an extremely multilingual area, with tons of people from Fujian and Toisan and wherever else and I can't make out a word of what they're saying. So many seem to know Cantonese though and nearly everyone some Mandarin, which really makes me feel terrible about my language capabilities. But I can stick to English.
-Went to a comedy show on Friday. This all evolved very quickly with me texting Lissy's roommate Steph asking what she was doing and her inviting me to this show. at the East Ville Comedy Club, the normal $20 entrance fee was waived if you get some promotional codes from freenyc.com, which Steph's other roommate Holly found out about. So I got into this club with nothing but a two drink minimum and heard a bunch of really good comedians. The only other comedy show I think I had ever been to was in senior year of high school at this sketchy bar near the Arlington T stop to see Matt Grzecki perfrom. That was a good but amateur show where a fight had nearly broken out. This club was small and still sketchy looking, all of which made the incredible show even more surprising. Everyone was a professional comedian and all seemed to have bouts with fame. The first guy appeared on Law & Order, another guy is a regular on 30 Rock, and the last act has lots of gigs on Comedy Central. The host was seemingly the only guy without an imdb page and he might have been the funniest, joking about how much of a guido he was and how he walks into clubs in New York and sees people who look exactly like him.
-The last act was absolutely hilarious although he played the race card a bit too much. But he kept making slightly educated jokes and then thanked the "smartest 2% of the club" for getting them. The most educated one of these was a quip about returning the Louisiana Purchase to the French, which I'm pretty sure I learned in 5th grade. I think this implies that only the top 2% of New York passed 5th grade.
-New York City seems to be one of the most unique places in the world to grow up. I don't say this lightly or with that educated a viewpoint, so feel free to disagree. But I think going through the playful runaround-and-skin-your-knees period of childhood in this crowded hyperactive metropolis permanently puts you on a different path than those of us who grew up in the suburbs or the country. Granted, lots of Americans probably overrate New York and assume it to be the biggest and most important city in the world. By population, New York only ranks anywhere from 3rd to 12th depending on what you define a city, and I'm undecided on whether I think Beijing felt more populous or no (it's certainly close). London is arguably a more international city, and plenty of cities have better subways (Seoul), cuisine (Paris), arts (Vienna) or skyscrapers (Hong Kong). Nonetheless, the mixture of all these qualities in the most powerful country in the world truly makes New York special. It might not be as international as London, or it might be its hard to tell (whatever that means), but its definitely more diverse. And New York has the only 24 hour subway in the world, which I honestly believe says light years about the city's makeup. However, this combines to make New York a very difficult city to leave. I can totally understand how a New Yorker would feel visiting Boston - they'd think there was nothing to do there, and even though every Bostonian knows that's bullshit, they'd be right. You simply can't live the way you live in New York, anywhere else in the world. So many of my office coworkers are New York born and raised and after a year of globetrotting, this just seems really unusual to me. Even more common are people raised just outside the city, whether in the Northern suburbs are in Dirty Jersey, and then find their ways in upon adulthood. I want to talk more about this in another post.
-I haven't really blogged about where I live have I? Well I'm on 37th & 6th, near Herald Square. The subway is about 2 blocks away, and work is a quick 4 blocks, which once again shows how charmed a life I live. The area's expensive though, more streamlined for the office day crowd, and as a result we haven't even once spent a real night out nearby. Mostly I've gotten to know the NYU area downtown very well. It's so expensive, even the corner grocery market rips you off. A sixpack of canned Coors Light is $10, and the same of bottled Heineken is an outrageous $15.50. How do I know? Gotta plead the 5th. Speaking of the 5th, that's a cool avenue too. Anyways, I learned recently that Herald Square is actually named after the New York Herald, a defunct newspaper that didn't need the internet to go out of business. There's a small park where the diagonal Broadway hits 6th avenue, and in the park there's a small monument to this New York Herald. I think it is really weird that they would name an area after a newspaper, but I do hope that Boston copies this trend. Cross your fingers and hope the Globe stays in business, but if it doesn't, I think they should create a cinema in its honor. Then when New Yorkers visit Boston and complain, we can say that they should have gone to the Globe Theater. Thank you the top 2% of my blog readers for getting that joke.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
STO: The Hangover
The title of this post is largely inspired by the movie, which I did see last night, but also by my own weekend experience which somewhat paralleled the film and did actually feature a hangover. To recap:
Whereas weekdays at work consist of lounging around, simple dinner plans, maybe the occasional workout, weekends overcompensate nicely. This friday was our big rooftop bash and really none of us knew what to expect. Basically our 4th roommate Justin moved in last Sunday, about a week after the rest of us. Within an hour of his arrival, he had checked out the rooftops and said, "Yo, we should throw a party this Friday." Within an hour. A finance guy from Cornell working with the company formerly known as Merrill Lynch, Justin came in fast and has only just slowed down a week later. He knows a ton of Cornell guys in the city as well as bunch of fellow interns. So he singlehandedly brought about 75% of the party. We had resolved to stay on the rooftops and not let anyone really enter our place, and put most of the booze up there. This rooftop is an unbelievable surprise to our housing, complete with a closeup view of the Empire State Building, tons of space, even a makeshift bar setup, benches and tons of plants that got plenty of watering during the party. We didn't have music which was quite an oversight, but we still had a sick party with around 30 or 40 people there at its peak. Oh and it was definitely highly illegal - we didn't even clean up after we were done, but amazingly it seems no one minded.
Well the plan to keep people out of our apartment epically failed. I let people in for bathroom breaks several times and then Streeter and his girlfriend bought some friends there because they didn't seem to be too interested in the party. That was all fine and good, but then a few Cornell kids took a sick girl down there and before we knew it, there was puke on the floor. That got cleaned up quickly and this guy took her to the bathroom. However, there, she managed to get puke EVERYWHERE. Its really not too hard to vomit into a toilet, but the person taking care of her was evidently very fucked up himself and she ended up sitting on the toilet and puking into our bathtub. God this is disgusting just to type. Well a bathtub is a large target, and she still missed. None of us were particularly thrilled about this. Then two people also in the nycintern housing arrived at like 11:30 after the party had died, and I had to entertain them. As a result, I didn't leave until 12:15 and everyone was already scattered. However, with my cousin Jessica, we made it into the NYU area where Griff and many other people had relocated the party. They were in McSorleys though and by the time we got there at 1am, they were not letting new people in. Our friends inside wouldn't leave, so we walked around the area looking for cool bars - I don't think we actually entered one u
ntil we walked back across McSorley's and saw Griff and company walking the street. So we had a crazy drunken reunion and then tried to enter this really fratty bar that Jessica wasn't too excited about, but Griff's ID got rejected. We then wandered around for 20 minutes trying to find this Sake bar and ended up at this extremely underground Japanese bar. From the outside it was almost unfindable and looked so sketchy, but inside it was so sick. Its on the left, this picture really could be from Japan. However, they didn't actually let us go Sake Bombing. Their explanation was that some underage bros came in and made a big scene and a mess and ever since they've tried to be more classy. So I had a bottle of Sapporo and a bottle of sake, but only a small shot glass with which to mix them. This actually got me really fucked up and I'm not even quite sure how I ended up at this place called Bako where there was some other Asian rice alcohol thing that I took a shot of. All I know is I sent text messages at 4am and I think I got back around 4:30. Actually, I only just realized that I think I did black out.
Somehow I woke up around 10:30 and developed a hangover over the course of the morning. Our apartment was a mess - bottles and cups were everywhere, but amazingly the rooftop was empty as if the party had never happened. I had a frisbee game, my first in this city, at 1:30 and figured it was in Central Park. It wasn't until 12:30 that I looked up the field and realized it was on 215th street. For those not familiar with Manhattan, this island is huge. I'm on 37th street, right in midtown, and it took 50 minutes plus on the subway to get to this place, which was actually pretty decent. I've taken long subway rides in Beijing, but I think New York physically has by far the most extensive transportation system. It really is incredible that Manhattan is the smallest of the boroughs - this city is humungous and people can still get around.
The game itself was awesome because it was so relaxed but not crappy. I'm currently in the recreation league trying to move into a more competitive one so I was expecting a very easy game. I've played in some pickup games with really terrible talent and out of shape people, but this was not like that. Most of the players had been playing ultimate for a long time, but just never took it to a higher level. So basically there were lot of long time rec league players, so they knew how to play and adapt, and the game wasn't too full of throwaways and drops. DJ's friend Wilfred was there and I connected with him a few times. I threw like 20+ hucks, most of which got caught, and we won both our games. The weather got really crappy towards the end though so we came back in the rain very muddy.
I went straight home to the shower, and then to Chinatown for dinner with my brother and two of his friends. It was great but expensive, so I'm very thankful that DJ covered my $30 dollar share. Spending time with your older brother and his friends can be very fun, but if they're also all successful Harvard graduates, it can be very expensive. We then cabbed to a cinema, found out the show was sold out and proceeded to cab to Times Square, where there were 2 cinemas. We made a show that started at the same time as the show in the previous cinema. Only in New York can you get away with that. And we saw the Hangover, which matched and exceeded expectations. Its legitimately the funniest movie I have seen since never, I mean it's funnier than Wedding Crashers or Dodgeball or Superbad or whatever funny movies I've seen in recent memory. I definitely like the sense of humor more because it mostly derives not from the character's innate comedic genius, which always makes me feel bad, but rather from the ridiculous events surrounding them. A couple notes: this movie was such a guy movie. I wouldn't take a date to it. To indicate just how masculine it was, when we got out of the theater and headed to the bathroom, there was a lengthy line for the men's room and none for the girl's room. I think that's the only time I've ever seen that. The other thing, on a somewhat related note, is that these humor films aimed at college guys like me have an odd trend of putting more and more male nudity. Knocked Up had Seth Rogen's ass, Harold and Kumar Escape Guantanamo has an unnecessary bottomless scene, Forgetting Sarah Marshall two scenes of Jason Segal frontal nudity. Hangover takes this to an even further unprecedented level. That's all I have to say on that matter.
Afterwards, we met up with DJ's girlfriend Cat downtown, then ended up back in Times Square at a Pinkberry where we met up with Wilfred again. A large mostly Asian crowd assembled and spent nearly 2 hours together, much of which were spent making fun of DJ's pale skin and comparing him to me. Then around 1am when the place closed, I headed back to my place and chilled, relieved at such a fun but relaxing night after the previous debauchery.
But it was not to be. Justin bulled in shortly after I got back, and was in bed 15 seconds later. Maybe an hour later, some of Griff's friends showed up at our door, followed later by Griff himself and more friends. They were going on about a rooftop party, a return trip to McSorley's, and an absolutely absurd taxi ride in a limo with a driver. Apparently this driver once drove a model and they proceeded to have a relationship, but it ended when she jumped out of his car to buy crack off the streets. Yeah. We ended up having 5 people crash here for the night and a large spaghetti alfedo from Justin's crazy friend Ben, whose got some culinary schools from Cornell's Hotel school. The place looked like a battlefield in the morning.
Today was Sunday, and it was a day of rest. Seriously, I didn't go more than 30 yards from our place, sore from Frisbee and exhausted from the weekend as well as the cleanup effort. That kinda sucked because there's so much I want to do in the city, but the opportunity will happen. Tomorrow's an event at my office and I'll be ushering people after I finish up the office work.
Btw fuck the Lakers, and fuck the Magic for losing pitifully to them.
Whereas weekdays at work consist of lounging around, simple dinner plans, maybe the occasional workout, weekends overcompensate nicely. This friday was our big rooftop bash and really none of us knew what to expect. Basically our 4th roommate Justin moved in last Sunday, about a week after the rest of us. Within an hour of his arrival, he had checked out the rooftops and said, "Yo, we should throw a party this Friday." Within an hour. A finance guy from Cornell working with the company formerly known as Merrill Lynch, Justin came in fast and has only just slowed down a week later. He knows a ton of Cornell guys in the city as well as bunch of fellow interns. So he singlehandedly brought about 75% of the party. We had resolved to stay on the rooftops and not let anyone really enter our place, and put most of the booze up there. This rooftop is an unbelievable surprise to our housing, complete with a closeup view of the Empire State Building, tons of space, even a makeshift bar setup, benches and tons of plants that got plenty of watering during the party. We didn't have music which was quite an oversight, but we still had a sick party with around 30 or 40 people there at its peak. Oh and it was definitely highly illegal - we didn't even clean up after we were done, but amazingly it seems no one minded.
Well the plan to keep people out of our apartment epically failed. I let people in for bathroom breaks several times and then Streeter and his girlfriend bought some friends there because they didn't seem to be too interested in the party. That was all fine and good, but then a few Cornell kids took a sick girl down there and before we knew it, there was puke on the floor. That got cleaned up quickly and this guy took her to the bathroom. However, there, she managed to get puke EVERYWHERE. Its really not too hard to vomit into a toilet, but the person taking care of her was evidently very fucked up himself and she ended up sitting on the toilet and puking into our bathtub. God this is disgusting just to type. Well a bathtub is a large target, and she still missed. None of us were particularly thrilled about this. Then two people also in the nycintern housing arrived at like 11:30 after the party had died, and I had to entertain them. As a result, I didn't leave until 12:15 and everyone was already scattered. However, with my cousin Jessica, we made it into the NYU area where Griff and many other people had relocated the party. They were in McSorleys though and by the time we got there at 1am, they were not letting new people in. Our friends inside wouldn't leave, so we walked around the area looking for cool bars - I don't think we actually entered one u
ntil we walked back across McSorley's and saw Griff and company walking the street. So we had a crazy drunken reunion and then tried to enter this really fratty bar that Jessica wasn't too excited about, but Griff's ID got rejected. We then wandered around for 20 minutes trying to find this Sake bar and ended up at this extremely underground Japanese bar. From the outside it was almost unfindable and looked so sketchy, but inside it was so sick. Its on the left, this picture really could be from Japan. However, they didn't actually let us go Sake Bombing. Their explanation was that some underage bros came in and made a big scene and a mess and ever since they've tried to be more classy. So I had a bottle of Sapporo and a bottle of sake, but only a small shot glass with which to mix them. This actually got me really fucked up and I'm not even quite sure how I ended up at this place called Bako where there was some other Asian rice alcohol thing that I took a shot of. All I know is I sent text messages at 4am and I think I got back around 4:30. Actually, I only just realized that I think I did black out.Somehow I woke up around 10:30 and developed a hangover over the course of the morning. Our apartment was a mess - bottles and cups were everywhere, but amazingly the rooftop was empty as if the party had never happened. I had a frisbee game, my first in this city, at 1:30 and figured it was in Central Park. It wasn't until 12:30 that I looked up the field and realized it was on 215th street. For those not familiar with Manhattan, this island is huge. I'm on 37th street, right in midtown, and it took 50 minutes plus on the subway to get to this place, which was actually pretty decent. I've taken long subway rides in Beijing, but I think New York physically has by far the most extensive transportation system. It really is incredible that Manhattan is the smallest of the boroughs - this city is humungous and people can still get around.
The game itself was awesome because it was so relaxed but not crappy. I'm currently in the recreation league trying to move into a more competitive one so I was expecting a very easy game. I've played in some pickup games with really terrible talent and out of shape people, but this was not like that. Most of the players had been playing ultimate for a long time, but just never took it to a higher level. So basically there were lot of long time rec league players, so they knew how to play and adapt, and the game wasn't too full of throwaways and drops. DJ's friend Wilfred was there and I connected with him a few times. I threw like 20+ hucks, most of which got caught, and we won both our games. The weather got really crappy towards the end though so we came back in the rain very muddy.
I went straight home to the shower, and then to Chinatown for dinner with my brother and two of his friends. It was great but expensive, so I'm very thankful that DJ covered my $30 dollar share. Spending time with your older brother and his friends can be very fun, but if they're also all successful Harvard graduates, it can be very expensive. We then cabbed to a cinema, found out the show was sold out and proceeded to cab to Times Square, where there were 2 cinemas. We made a show that started at the same time as the show in the previous cinema. Only in New York can you get away with that. And we saw the Hangover, which matched and exceeded expectations. Its legitimately the funniest movie I have seen since never, I mean it's funnier than Wedding Crashers or Dodgeball or Superbad or whatever funny movies I've seen in recent memory. I definitely like the sense of humor more because it mostly derives not from the character's innate comedic genius, which always makes me feel bad, but rather from the ridiculous events surrounding them. A couple notes: this movie was such a guy movie. I wouldn't take a date to it. To indicate just how masculine it was, when we got out of the theater and headed to the bathroom, there was a lengthy line for the men's room and none for the girl's room. I think that's the only time I've ever seen that. The other thing, on a somewhat related note, is that these humor films aimed at college guys like me have an odd trend of putting more and more male nudity. Knocked Up had Seth Rogen's ass, Harold and Kumar Escape Guantanamo has an unnecessary bottomless scene, Forgetting Sarah Marshall two scenes of Jason Segal frontal nudity. Hangover takes this to an even further unprecedented level. That's all I have to say on that matter.
Afterwards, we met up with DJ's girlfriend Cat downtown, then ended up back in Times Square at a Pinkberry where we met up with Wilfred again. A large mostly Asian crowd assembled and spent nearly 2 hours together, much of which were spent making fun of DJ's pale skin and comparing him to me. Then around 1am when the place closed, I headed back to my place and chilled, relieved at such a fun but relaxing night after the previous debauchery.
But it was not to be. Justin bulled in shortly after I got back, and was in bed 15 seconds later. Maybe an hour later, some of Griff's friends showed up at our door, followed later by Griff himself and more friends. They were going on about a rooftop party, a return trip to McSorley's, and an absolutely absurd taxi ride in a limo with a driver. Apparently this driver once drove a model and they proceeded to have a relationship, but it ended when she jumped out of his car to buy crack off the streets. Yeah. We ended up having 5 people crash here for the night and a large spaghetti alfedo from Justin's crazy friend Ben, whose got some culinary schools from Cornell's Hotel school. The place looked like a battlefield in the morning.
Today was Sunday, and it was a day of rest. Seriously, I didn't go more than 30 yards from our place, sore from Frisbee and exhausted from the weekend as well as the cleanup effort. That kinda sucked because there's so much I want to do in the city, but the opportunity will happen. Tomorrow's an event at my office and I'll be ushering people after I finish up the office work.
Btw fuck the Lakers, and fuck the Magic for losing pitifully to them.
Monday, June 8, 2009
STO: New York, New York
Its been 8 days and 9 nights in the city that never sleeps and so far, my experience has been very comparable to my previous summer. The biggest differences are that I'm making money, not taking cabs, actually working hard at work, living with dudes, watching American sports, and people understand my speech. Actually scratch that last one, no one anywhere understands me. But seriously, like I touched on in the last post, coming to New York has reawakened memories of living in a big city that I haven't experienced since Beijing.
There was the initial first couple days of loneliness - here I was staying at my aunt's apartment and was too exhausted after work to really do anything except some minimal exploring. This only lasted about 2 nights until I moved into this apartment I'm at with other interns. Compared to my first few days in Beijing, before any of my friends got in the city and over their jetlag and when I was barely capable of ordering food...well this transition was easier. But there are many aspects of urban life, whether its the loud streets all throughout the night, the crowded subways and hectic early morning commuters, the sixpack in the fridge and even the urge to chill in the apartment and just blog. For some reason, all of that is missing when I'm in Dublin, Georgetown or Newton. It's a completely different world.
The underlying dichotomy that can be very hard to grasp though is that New York is at once both completely foreign and utterly normal to me. It's a place of real street ballers, the most random street performers, the home of the most important companies, filled with a million languages and just full of superlatives. Sometimes it seems like this city is an experiment: what do we get if we throw a ton of people from all over the world in one small island filled with tall buildings? But on the other hand, if I got in a car and drove East for 4 hours, I would end up right where I grew up. If I headed south for the same 4 hours, I'd be at where I go to college. New York is in the AL east, as well as half a dozen summer blockbuster movies. Both my parents went to college here and my brother has been working here since graduating his college. So New York has often been a topic of dinner discussion and that definitely adds to its mystique to me. Its this place that's always been readily familiar to me, but that I never truly understood. I bet a lot of Americans can say that - nearly all of us know about New York, if not from a visit than from Seinfeld or Sex in the City. But only those who have lived there for a long time really know it, and its a steep learning curve for NYC noobs.
I really approach New York from a Bostonian perspective. You kinda have to if you grow up in Boston. We're taught from birth that the Yankees suck and New Yorkers are rough and rude. Manhattan ruined the clam chowder, tried to take credit for the nuke and consistently overrates itself. But you know, you have to take things with an open mind and a level of impartiality, and so in fairness, I say that New York is awesome and beats Boston in many, many ways. In an odd respect, I think that Boston is a city of areas whereas New York is a city of places. I don't know how to explain it, but in Boston, Back Bay gradually shifts into Copley or Fenway. At some point you're in the Boston Commons, then at some point there's Chinatown and suddenly you find yourself in downtown Government Center. In New York, it seems that there's a formula to the whole city. You type in 21st and 3rd and bam, that's Gramercy. Plug in 40th and Madison and you're in Midtown. It's a city of well defined sections and pinpoint destinations, less flowing and sporadic than Boston, more planned. I may be completely wrong about this whole areas vs. places thing, but this is definitely how I see things in my mind.
Well that's me, and I have work early in the morning so I'll try to summarize my week pretty quickly. Works tough but good, I don't want to get into that. My brother's been a total champ and let's just say that even though my 21st birthday isn't for another 6 weeks (and 1 day), I'm not missing out on any of the bar or clubbing experience that I had in Beijing. Friday night I hung out with my friend Lissy from Georgetown, who's living in the same type of apartment with other interns and went to Bar None down by NYU. The $2 bud lights were pretty unbeatable. We stayed there for a while, just shooting the shit and then headed back to Herald Square where we did find a pub near closing time. Pretty lowkey night. The next night though I had lunch with my brother, his ex-girlfriend, and a bunch of Asian Harvard graduates. That was really cool until it came to the bill. Then I played video games with DJ, his ex-girlfriend and randomly Sol from high school, then went out to Korean bbq with his current girlfriend and bunch of NYU Asians. Finally the night ended with 3 hours of karaoke and lots of Sochou, which is a type of Korean rice alcohol that I misspelled. Sunday I hung out with back-to-back Georgetown girls, Hyun and Laura, one after the other. Both are heading out of New York within a week, but under a great sunny sky, I checked out Soho, Washington Square Park, Penn station 3 times, the Met and Central Park. Basically a great weekend.
So I'm looking forward to this summer. Work and funds will severely limit how much I can take this city by storm, but there is definitely fun to be had. I do want to blog later about how tourism in the US is very different than tourism abroad for me. For now, take care.
There was the initial first couple days of loneliness - here I was staying at my aunt's apartment and was too exhausted after work to really do anything except some minimal exploring. This only lasted about 2 nights until I moved into this apartment I'm at with other interns. Compared to my first few days in Beijing, before any of my friends got in the city and over their jetlag and when I was barely capable of ordering food...well this transition was easier. But there are many aspects of urban life, whether its the loud streets all throughout the night, the crowded subways and hectic early morning commuters, the sixpack in the fridge and even the urge to chill in the apartment and just blog. For some reason, all of that is missing when I'm in Dublin, Georgetown or Newton. It's a completely different world.
The underlying dichotomy that can be very hard to grasp though is that New York is at once both completely foreign and utterly normal to me. It's a place of real street ballers, the most random street performers, the home of the most important companies, filled with a million languages and just full of superlatives. Sometimes it seems like this city is an experiment: what do we get if we throw a ton of people from all over the world in one small island filled with tall buildings? But on the other hand, if I got in a car and drove East for 4 hours, I would end up right where I grew up. If I headed south for the same 4 hours, I'd be at where I go to college. New York is in the AL east, as well as half a dozen summer blockbuster movies. Both my parents went to college here and my brother has been working here since graduating his college. So New York has often been a topic of dinner discussion and that definitely adds to its mystique to me. Its this place that's always been readily familiar to me, but that I never truly understood. I bet a lot of Americans can say that - nearly all of us know about New York, if not from a visit than from Seinfeld or Sex in the City. But only those who have lived there for a long time really know it, and its a steep learning curve for NYC noobs.
I really approach New York from a Bostonian perspective. You kinda have to if you grow up in Boston. We're taught from birth that the Yankees suck and New Yorkers are rough and rude. Manhattan ruined the clam chowder, tried to take credit for the nuke and consistently overrates itself. But you know, you have to take things with an open mind and a level of impartiality, and so in fairness, I say that New York is awesome and beats Boston in many, many ways. In an odd respect, I think that Boston is a city of areas whereas New York is a city of places. I don't know how to explain it, but in Boston, Back Bay gradually shifts into Copley or Fenway. At some point you're in the Boston Commons, then at some point there's Chinatown and suddenly you find yourself in downtown Government Center. In New York, it seems that there's a formula to the whole city. You type in 21st and 3rd and bam, that's Gramercy. Plug in 40th and Madison and you're in Midtown. It's a city of well defined sections and pinpoint destinations, less flowing and sporadic than Boston, more planned. I may be completely wrong about this whole areas vs. places thing, but this is definitely how I see things in my mind.
Well that's me, and I have work early in the morning so I'll try to summarize my week pretty quickly. Works tough but good, I don't want to get into that. My brother's been a total champ and let's just say that even though my 21st birthday isn't for another 6 weeks (and 1 day), I'm not missing out on any of the bar or clubbing experience that I had in Beijing. Friday night I hung out with my friend Lissy from Georgetown, who's living in the same type of apartment with other interns and went to Bar None down by NYU. The $2 bud lights were pretty unbeatable. We stayed there for a while, just shooting the shit and then headed back to Herald Square where we did find a pub near closing time. Pretty lowkey night. The next night though I had lunch with my brother, his ex-girlfriend, and a bunch of Asian Harvard graduates. That was really cool until it came to the bill. Then I played video games with DJ, his ex-girlfriend and randomly Sol from high school, then went out to Korean bbq with his current girlfriend and bunch of NYU Asians. Finally the night ended with 3 hours of karaoke and lots of Sochou, which is a type of Korean rice alcohol that I misspelled. Sunday I hung out with back-to-back Georgetown girls, Hyun and Laura, one after the other. Both are heading out of New York within a week, but under a great sunny sky, I checked out Soho, Washington Square Park, Penn station 3 times, the Met and Central Park. Basically a great weekend.
So I'm looking forward to this summer. Work and funds will severely limit how much I can take this city by storm, but there is definitely fun to be had. I do want to blog later about how tourism in the US is very different than tourism abroad for me. For now, take care.
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