My Journey to 767 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10153

Lately, I have been looking for a new laptop to buy. My current laptop is kind of outdated, even though it still works. Another reason why I am looking for a new laptop is because I plan on letting FrecklesFly use my current one when she moves to Los Angeles, CA for the summer.

I am looking for a laptop that runs at least two times faster than my current laptop (900 something mhz) therefore what I am looking for should run at approximately 1.8 GHz. Another requirement is it must have DVD RW ability so I can burn my pictures on DVD.

I have been trying to find laptops with AMD processors, but I am wiling to accept Intel processors as long as they are not Intel's Celron models (the processor my current laptop runs on). I got in touch with several friends, they recommended several brands, however as predicted, Neable recommended an Apple computer - the macbook.

I admit the price for what the macbook offers is very good, so I decided to go to the Apple store on 5th Ave. with Connie to try out the macbook and ask questions about it.

So here my journey begins. I decided to take the subway to Columbus Circle then walk towards 5th Ave. I ended up missing the stop so I did not get off at Columbus Circle as planned, but decided to walk the extra length for fun. It turns out it was worth missing the stop because I walked into an intersection where they were filming a scene for a movie (don't know what movie). In this photo, it was some scene where many people were rushing out of the building - assuming it was something like a bomb or terror threat, while there were emergency people rushing into the building (difficult to see behind all those cranes and tarps).


As they were filming the scene, I noticed all these cabbies drive past, so I quickly took several pictures to try and create a panoramic photo of them, like that picture even though they do not exactly line up and the movie scene is part of the photo too.


Just an interesting glass building towering the city, tried to make a wider panoramic picture, but could not get exactly what I wanted.


I finally got to the Apple store and met Connie there, went in and tried out the macbook. Gotta admit that I do not notice any difference between the ibook and macbook - am sure hard core mac users will be able to tell the difference. We asked about pricing, payment plan, and programs that were included and how we could get student discounts.

We also inquired about ordering a macbook without the iTunes software, speakers and sound card so we could save more money. The person answering our questions said that would not be possible. WTF - how can that not be possible, when assembling the macbook, all they have to do is not add the speaker! (Neable, that was funny when I told you that they offered Deaf people discounts for speakers and iTune! :-D)

It is time for us, Deaf people to wake up and demand discounts for components we do not even need! We have to stop hearing people from profiting from us by selling products that include things we do not need!

Anyways, after the store, we headed back... If I do not find another laptop that matches the macbook, I think I might buy the macbook (but of course, I will try calling to see if I can demand and receive some kind of discount for those speakers I will not use at all). If I end up not liking it, frecklesfly can always use it since she really wants an apple computer.

Arrogant Bastard:

Hope I did not scare you! Yesterday on my way back from the movie theatre (which was supposed to show the Da Vinci Code with closed caption, but apparently the oralists who run the AMC movie theatre do not understand the difference between OC, CC, and RWC that is a different story) I decided to stop at another food market to check out the beers - again for the prices. Did not find any Keystone Ice, but found two good looking bottles of brew.

The first one which I drank last night was the Stone Brewing Company's Smoked Porter. It was very delicous, but I saved the second bottle, the one that was called the Arrogant Bastard for the last. Before you proceed and try Arrogant Bastard, watch this introdutionary clip to determine if you are qualified to drink Arrogant Bastard.

The quest for the spiciest pepper continues:

Along with my eGroceries, my order of serrano peppers came in. I cut up half and discarded the seeds and mixed it with my left over chinese dinner. The results? Pretty spicy and some burning skin (from juice being rubbed onto my face), but the heat was not enough.


Today I thawed and cooked some vegetarian pot stickers and wanted some dip to dip them into so I decided to use up the soy sauce, but remembered that the dip for pot stickers usually had scallion onions, but I did not have any so I decided to subsitute the onions with the remaining half of my serrano pepper from last night along with one packet of plum sauce.

Whoohoo - the most spicy dip I ever made! My tongue burned instantly at first contact with the sauce. My next order of peppers shall be habanero peppers.

eGrocery

Yesterday, I did my first on-line grocery shopping! I guess I am bringing new shopping traits to New York. There are food markets located on every block, however the prices can be ridiculously expensive at one place, normal at another or cheap elsewhere. If I had a blackberry, I might have already created a database with prices of items I usually purchase. However, thanks to Connie, she told (and showed) me about www.freshdirect.com. On my first visit, I immediately saw that the majority of foods were a lot cheaper than what I have seen in the food markets lately.

Anyways, at hours ago, our grocery arrived and so far I am satisfied with what I got. The serrano peppers were spicy enough, the rest... I will have to wait until I use them.

Now you know where you can get some good deals on groceries in New York - that is if you ever move to New York City (or already live there).

Finally a good thing about New York City - in case you were starting to think I moved to New York to point out only the bad things.

The King of Sidewalks:

Bottle of Remy Cognac: $42.00
Strutting on the side walk as if you own it: FREE
Refusing to allow other people space on the side walk, bumping into them, dropping your bottle of Remy Cognac and having it shatter all over the sidewalk: PRICELESS

Everyone probably strutted along the sidewalk at least once in their life; however I believe the majority of my friends (and readers) strutted for fun.

In New York City, this is a very common sight, where certain people strut along the sidewalk as if the sidewalk is their own territory.

Now to the point that brings up the issue of strutting... This morning, Connie and I were walking down 109th St. towards the Centre Park to jog. On the way, we were chatting to each other and as we approached an intersection,

I noticed a dude strutting towards us so we moved approximately one feet to the right to give that strutter space (there was approximately two-thirds of the sidewalk left for him to take over).

As we passed, that strutter did not even move one feet towards my left so he could freely pass me, resulting in my arm lightly hitting his arm/shoulder. I turned around to apologize and noticed that his shopping bag fell onto the sidewalk, the dude looked down and started speaking gibberish.

I explained that I was Deaf and by that time I realized that it was a glass bottle in the bag that broke so I assumed he was asking me to pay for the damaged stuff. The liquid reeked of hard liquor, unfortunately I do not jog with money in my shorts so I had nothing to offer for payment. Connie had ten bucks that she offered to him, but he kept on speaking gibberish.

Then he finally used his hands to imply how much that booze cost, he said it cost USD$42, that expensive? I thought he was just bullshitting and doing some kind of scam by bumping into people and dropping his bag to make them give money to him. He took a piece of the bottle out and it was a type of Remy Cognac.

Oh well, 42 bucks worth of booze wasted for someone who thought he was the king of the sidewalk and refused to move a mere foot away.

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

Got this from Lore's blog:

65% Seattle

60% Denver

60% Las Vegas

55% Philadelphia

55% San Francisco

*Gasps* New York City is not even on the list! Wish there was something like this for Canadian cities, well I should not wish yet since I have not checked for one. :)

Home

Thought I would post a picture of the place where I am living at in New York. This is the living room, there is a bedroom (in the back) and downstairs, the bedrooms were too small to take photos in (and there was nothing much to see in them anyways).

Now you have an idea of the place in New York I call home (at least for now).

Friday

We slept in and headed to Absolutely Bagels as recommended by Connie. Their bagels were delicous, I had the lox cream cheese one while FrecklesFly had one with olives and cream cheese.

After that, we went west to check out the riverside park. The park was nice and there were several sport fields with artifical turf. Nice place for people to play sports within the city.

We headed back home and on the way back, the hot weather made me want to get some cold beer so I decided to get some on the way home. Back at home, we mixed the beer with lemonade to make Radler (a good summer drink we had in Munich last summer, which is a mixture of 1 part lager or pilnser beer and one part lemonade or limeade). It is a good drink for those who get goosebumps when drinking beer.

I also trimmed my hair and we made dinner before we headed to the bus station so FrecklesFly could catch her bus back to Rochester.

After that I went home and waited for Connie to get back so we could go to Blockbuster to rent a movie for the night. We made arrangements to meet there so I went out and Friday night was the first day I had to walk through the rain in New York City. All the streets were literally flooded in a few minutes so my shoes were soaked within a minutes.

Brooklyn Bridge

On Wednesday, FrecklesFly and I went to downtown to try and apply for our reduced fare tickets (for the MTA system) and worked our way up from Clinton Castle towards the Brooklyn Bridge and then up through China Town before heading back home.


This was not the picture of the bridge I wanted to post - I created several panranomic pictures on the bridge, but the file was too large so I was unable to upload them. Hopefully I will be able to find a way to reduce the size of the pictures so they can be posted soon.

Re: New York City Bound

As promised a while ago - would post my very first video on my blog. This video is from the dying moments of the cat fight FrecklesFly, Mr. Run and I saw in Grand Bend during the long weekend (the Canadian, not American long weekend).

However, there is nothing important in this video - if I had thought of the camera earlier, I would have captured more action. Oh well - this is my first lesson, hopefully next time there is action, I'll think of my camera first thing.

If you still want to view the clip, feel free to view it. The black pick-up truck behind the red car (on left side) is the truck being assulted by the shitty black truck in front of the red truck (on right side).

Let's just hope my video shows up (at least posting this pointless video gives me practice for my next video.

Where are the price tags?!

My first three days in New York City have been great! Am finally walking a lot more than I used to before moving here. Today walked through Centre Park and to the place where I will be working at during the summer. The total walk was approximately four and half hours, but according to www.hopstop.com it would take approximately two hours and thirty-seven minutes to walk to 338 Greenwich St. from where I am living at now.

Now to mention my first pet peeve of New York City - ya probably know that the cost of living in New York City is probably helluva a lot higher than Rochester or somewhere else... With higher cost of living, we need to pay attention to the prices of what we need to purchase. The prices for basic amenities , such as food, toilet paper, and beer (yes, beer is considered as basic amenities for me) are helluva expensive here.

On my way back home, I had to get more toilet paper for the apartment so I stopped in Rite-Aid on Broadway and 110th St. and they did not sell toilet paper rolls in packages, but separately. There were no price tags, but I assumed each roll cost no more than USD$0.50, I was obviously wrong, they were USD$1.19 ea. I bought three so the total came to approximately USD$3.50! For only three goddamn toilet rolls! If there were price tags there I would have never bought them!

For god's sake, why do they not put the price tags on everything in New York City?! But that does not mean I hate New York City yet.

My next assignment... Annoy these Yonkers by repeatedly asking "How much does this cost?" until they are fed up and add digital price tags like the ones I saw in Belgium (only if the Yonkers love to keep on changing the prices).

New York City Bound:

Sorry readers if I have not been involved with my blog for the last one point five weeks, I had my fraternity's 20th Feast on May 13th and just before the feast, my life has completely been disconnected from the cyber world. I am backlogged with so many emails, it has been taking me a while to slowly get back to my regular cyber life.

After the weekend of the Feast, I ended up going out a lot and spent my last weekend in Port Franks. The weather was very gloomy and rainy all weekend except for most of Saturday. FrecklesFly, Mr. Run and I went to the Pinery for a hike around the park towards the beach, headed to Grand Bend and had a late lunch while looking at all the rides going along main street. After lunch, we walked up and down the street and when we arrived at the Colonial Hotel at the intersection, we had fun watching two groups of women fight each other from their trucks.

One group was shooting water into the other truck with their water guns making the women in that truck really pissed off so they threw bottles of stuff at them and finally the pissed off women threw a full two-litre bottle of coke, missing the other truck and those women with water guns picked it up and threw it back at the truck and the bottle blew up spraying pop all over the bed of the truck. Traffic was jammed for a good five or six minutes till the pissed off women decided to drive away. I was able to think of my camera just as the fight was dying up, once I upload the pictures to my laptop I'll try to post the last few minutes I caught on video.

Hopefully I have summed up what kept me away from the computer, the reason why I am making this post is because today is the end of a new chapter, but the beginning of another chapter in my life. At 0h20 Tuesday May 23rd, 2006 FrecklesFly and I will be on a Greyhound bus headed towards New York City, where the new chapter of my life will begin. I might not be on the internet a lot for the rest of this week, but maybe next week I will be.

Have a great week everyone, and for those who celebrated Victoria Weekend, hope you had a blast, for those who celebrate a long weekend in the states this weekend, have a blast too!

Highway Service Centres:

This is a post that I have always forgotten to post up. This random thought of mine popped up one day when I was driving on the I-90 interstate of New York State, but I am sure this thought can apply to any American interstate or Canadian highway.

How many of you ever wished the service centre you stopped at for gas or a quick meal does not have the food service you want, but the one located across the highway has the food service you want?

This happened to me several times, especially when I prefer Mr. Sub over Wendy's and it has made me wonder why the most logical solution has not ever been proposed. I remember a while ago, there was a pedestrian bridge from the east bound service center crossing the I-90 to the west bound service center, but that idea is not what I had in mind.

I think service centres should be built between the east bound and west bound section of the highway. Now this would actually make a service centre centred. I like this idea, why? Use up less land for commercial development, greater profit margin due to potential for double revenue than having two service centres located on the opposite sides serving the same purpose.

Hope this post was not too pointless for you...

Cronmiller's new kid!

On Monday last week, Slaplore and I decided to visit Cronmiller and her new child. It was a nice visit, turns out we were the first Deaf friends to drop in for a visit for a long time. His name is Hans Mason Cronmiller-Bopp and he was born on March 25 at 01h56, weighting 7 lbs and 7 oz.


One good thing about Hans is he failed his hearing test twice and is scheduled for his final hearing test in June. So far no one from Robarts School that I know of has given birth to a deaf child so if he is declared deaf, She would be the first person from Robarts that I know of who gave brith to a deaf child.

Canadian Teams: What is wrong?

Lately I have started feeling disappointed with the Canadian teams that are in the Stanley Cup playoffs. My disappointment began when the Calgary Flames started slacking after they had a good start playing against Anaheim. In the last two games, Calgary kept on getting stupid penalties, giving Anaheim the opportunity to take advantage and proceed to the semifinals.

Today (and literally yesterday) it was disappointing watching the Senators lose to the Sabres and seeing the same game be repeated with the Oilers playing against the Sharks. Both Canadian teams kept on getting stupid penalties.

The Sharks had only three penalties, and at one time Edmonton had a two-man advantage and got a goal, but immediately after they tied the game they had to get a penalty and give the Sharks another chance to lead the game. When will they learn not to get penalties?

I guess I just needed to vent my anger and fustration - thanks for reading my anger. Let's hope some of the players read this and finally realize they need to stop taking silly penalties and start controlling the game.

02h30

$1,200 beer!

If you plan to go to Italy sometime soon, this article may make you think twice about the prices in Italy! It normally costs ten euros for beer instead of 990€.