Insufficient Postage

Forgive me Internet for I have sinned, it's been one week since my last confession blog post. And now it's been about three seconds since I last blasphemed.

This time I have a legitimate excuse (no really). Thursday morning my parents and sister came into town, and so most of my non-work time was filled showing them the sights and being a filthy tourist. And even though they left Sunday, I still have an excuse, since apparently my neighbors have finally figured out how to password protect their wireless routers, leaving me utterly without broadband. Those bastards.

So I suppose a "Week In Review" is in order. And even if it isn't, here it is. Watch out, it's pretty lengthy.

As previously mentioned, my parents and sister came into town Thursday morning. They didn't want to get a hotel, so I told them they could just stay at my place. Sure, it's a studio apartment, but it's a big studio apartment, large enough for four grown humans to sleep (sometimes on the floor!), so here they stayed. And while I was at work, here they stayed.

For weeks beforehand I'd asked them what they wanted to do while they were here, and their only answer was, "oh, we just want to see you," which while that's sweet and all, doesn't give me any clues as to things they, you know, want to do while they're here. Thursday and Friday night were pretty low-key, dinner and sitting around, mostly. But they got to see me, so I hope they were happy.

Saturday morning we took a bus down to my office, so I could show them around. They were impressed with all the free food, the scooters, and the incredible view beside which we get to eat lunch. As they should be, it's awesome.

After that was Battery Park and a ferry to Ellis Island. My mom's grandfather came through there on a boat from Wales early last century (boy, that feels weird to say), and we were hoping to find a record of his voyage. And find it we did, much to my mom's enjoyment. Apparently they've completely digitized all seven million hand-written immigration records for Ellis Island, and have them in a searchable database with scans of the original ships manifests and everything. It was pretty sweet to see in actual handwriting the first record of my great-grandfather's passage into America, complete with his age, height, work plans, relatives, etc. all carefully catalogued almost a hundred years ago.

So that was Saturday, and they left Sunday afternoon. Most of the rest of Sunday was spent lazying around, because that's what Sundays were made for. Also I had no internets.

Monday night I went to go see Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman, the preview for which was mentioned previously in passing. It turned out to be a very good movie. Or at least I liked it a lot. At first it was very difficult to see Timothy Spall as anything besides Peter Pettigrew, but by the end he had completely sold me. I won't ruin any of the plot, but suffice it to say it takes a special kind of person to be able to kill people for a living. If you get a chance to see the movie, I recommend it.

Tuesday and Wednesday were both pretty slow, but last night was quite the opposite. I went back to the UCB Theater (the scene of the crime) to see witness the Dave Hill Explosion. It was a very special evening for the Explosion, because none other than resident expert John Hodgman and internet superstar Jonathan Coulton were in attendance. The show was pretty hilarious, though Coulton only got to sing two songs before they had to call it a show. Hopefully I get to see more of him while I'm here.

And today was, well, Friday. And Thank God it Is. Tomorrow's Saturday, and you know what that means -- taking a bus down to Baltimore, Maryland, America's coldsore. For what you ask? Why, you'll just have to wait and see!

Congratulations on making it to the end of this lengthy post. Or at least for having the foresight to skip to the last sentence before you closed the window.

A Nice Little Weekend

This weekend, Lindsey's boyfriend Corey and his friend Scott came up to visit. They're on their way from Atlanta up to Maine, and since their trip took them through New York, and since I live in New York and have ample floor space for visitors, they crashed at my place for the weekend.

Because they were only here for a couple days, they naturally wanted to do touristy things, and since I haven't done any touristy things since I've been here, I tagged along. It made for a pretty awesome weekend, and I got to see a lot of New York that I hadn't seen yet. I also did a hell of a lot of walking.

Friday

The guys got in Friday evening, and were pretty tired from the trip, so we did a little bar-hopping. I've only been in town for a couple weeks, and all of that's been by myself, so I haven't had a lot of opportunity or desire to explore the bars in the area. And let me tell you, there are plenty of bars in the area. We only went to four of them, but all four were pretty nice.

Saturday

We woke up pretty early Saturday morning and set out for Central Park. We took kind of a winding path through the park, saw Belvedere Castle, the John Lennon memorial in Strawberry Fields, and finally came out at 5th St. near 70th. We walked for what seemed like forever down 5th, past Apple Mecca, into F.A.O. Schwartz (which was awesome) and finally down to Times Square.

Times Square was ridiculous. Seriously just as crazy as it looks on TV, billboards everywhere. We ate lunch at Bubba Gump's, then walked around some more, ending up at the subway station at Rockerfeller Plaza, which took us back to my place.

All told, more than five miles of walking in the 80+-degree heat. Needless to say, we were in need of a few beers and a good night's rest after that.

Sunday

We decided to look around the south of Manhattan on Sunday, and started off in Wall Street. Corey wanted to see the Stock Exchange and I wanted to see The Bull. From there, our trip took us in a really roundabout path through Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty, up through Chinatown, Soho and Little Italy.

Little Italy was by far my favorite. We got lunch at a place called Paesano, which was delicious, and we got some great cigars at a place next door. We just walked up and down Mulberry St. smoking our cigars like we owned the place. Scott bought a spinner belt buckle which oozed class. There was a street fair going on and we stood around and watched the people running the fair games harass people as they walked by. It was pretty fun.

We went back to my place and sat around for a while, then eventually we took another subway back down to Times Square where Scott's second cousin lived. This was another highlight. We spent most of the rest of the night at her apartment literally a block and a half away from Times Square. We ate crackers, watched TV, talked, had a little Scotch, went out on the observation deck and watched the cars go by. It was really awesome. That's definitely the kind of place I want to live if I ever get successful and live in New York.

Eventually we left, went back to my studio apartment and fell asleep to the sound of my window air conditioner and the cars on the street.

Monday

Corey and Scott left this morning at the ungodly hour of 8am. I saw them off then immediately fell back asleep for the next three hours. When I woke up, I showered, sat around, and took a trip to the coffee shop. I spent about two good hours just sipping pumpkin spice coffee (way out of season, by the way, but amazing nonetheless) and reading. Between the subway and the coffee shop I'm reading a lot lately. A habit I'll have to continue even when I'm not in the city.

I got back, did some laundry, and wrote about my weekend. That pretty much sums up my Monday. Boring compared to the rest of the weekend, but a welcome respite from all the walking -- more than ten miles, for those of you counting.

It was a great weekend, and it was awesome having Corey and Scott around to hang out with. I'll take this opportunity to mention that anyone reading this is invited and encouraged to stop by and share in the fun.

I didn't take any pictures all weekend because I'm a jerk like that, but if Corey or Scott post some I'll link/copy them. That's all for now, time for some late night pizza and then some much-needed sleep.