The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission can revoke the license of a cab driver who refuses to pick up a customer even if the driver has no prior violations, an appeals court in Manhattan ruled Tuesday.

The unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, 1st Department, reversed a lower court ruling that said the penalty was too stiff for a first infraction and violated the city's Administrative Code, which sets guidelines for punishing drivers.

I saw this in the paper today and just had to weigh in...

There is a unfair standard being applied here which no one seems interested in addressing. The enforcement of this rule is as it applies to ‘yellow, medallion cab drivers.’ Some of you might ask whatever do you mean?

Well, New York is served by loads and loads of cabs. There are just below 13,000 medallion, yellow taxis. These are the cabs most identified with New York city. They are the cabs which are legally allowed to acknowledge street hails and to service the airports and such.

However, there are fleets upon fleets of taxis serving New York. There are the livery (gypsy) cabs seen in so many neighborhoods of the outer boroughs (sometimes with radios and often accepting street hails), radio car services (which employers use to take workers home after a late night and to the airport prior to business trips) and simple radio taxis (fleets of cabs which are base in the outer boroughs and take radio calls only serving local neighborhoods in which they are based).

Everybody has taxi horror stories (I’ve been on both ends of the coin) but, bear in mind the rules which are being applied are almost exclusively being applied to yellow, medallion taxis only!

Radio cars (black cars as they are known throughout the industry) deal in corporate (read clean) work. The radio groups are self-regulating, don’t deal with cash calls often and get a minimum every time someone sits in the back seat of their car (the drop is around $8 now I believe). Radio drivers don’t need to discriminate between riders because most of their work is paid in advance via credit card. It’s not a cash business, they don’t carry excess amounts of cash and their clientele is for the most part pre-screened. Also, as a driver for a radio group, they get benefits, spend much of their day waiting (parked) for a call and aren’t in a position where they would have to refuse a fare.

Livery cars often work the outer boroughs. The taxi and limousine commission focuses the lion’s share of it’s enforcement efforts in Manhattan and at the airports. While livery cab drivers are still subject to enforcement of TLC equipment violations (whether ticketed by TLC inspectors or NYPD) the enforcement is sporadic at best. Consequently, this is one of the reasons you can see a ‘gypsy’ cab that looks as if it’s being held together by string. It’s also why you hear those horror stories every once and awhile of somebody getting into a ‘gypsy’ cab, going to the airport and paying a ridiculous sum. Gypsy cabs usually don’t have meters and the driver can get away with charging a fee at his discretion (depending on whether or not he thinks he’ll get caught). Maybe he doesn’t have insurance, maybe he doesn’t even have a license. It’s not an easy job and usually the gypsy cab driver is desperate to make money (could be an illegal alien) but, there is after all a gyp in gypsy. If a livery cab driver refuses a fare in the outer boroughs, chances are more than likely nobody will know or complain (no handy dandy medallion number to lodge a formal complaint against).

Radio groups in the outer boroughs also screen their clientele to a certain extent. Drivers are ‘employees’ and they usually don’t accept street hails unless they want to make some extra money without the boss knowing about it.

Now, we get to the yellow cab drivers.

Most yellow cab drivers are independent contractors meaning they rent the car and medallion per shift (it’s actually called leasing). In the old days (right around the time I was starting) there was a union and to be a yellow cab driver you had to join. You paid union dues but, got the benefits of union representation in any dispute with the cab company you worked for. Also, you and the company were partners. The cab company got a percentage of the meter receipts each shift and you got a percentage of the receipts plus your tips. The company paid for gas and upkeep on the cab. If you broke down, driver and company bore the loss of time due to breakdown equally. Also, at this time radios were still in medallion cabs meaning if there wasn’t any street business, you could work the radio and vice a versa (round about ’84 then Mayor Koch outlawed radios in yellow cabs which started the ‘black car’ business). The nice thing about the radios is, help was only a radio call away.

Again, nowadays drivers are on their own. If the car breaks down, they might get a credit on some of their lease monies but, it’s up to the discretion of the owner. When the fare goes up, so too do the lease rates meaning any increase doesn’t benefit the driver as much as it does the cab owner. There are no benefits (health or otherwise), if you don’t work, you don’t make money. You have to make back your lease money and the money you’ll spend on gas before you even begin to earn money for yourself. Lease rates can run anywhere from $85 to $120 per 12 hour shift - if you think the streets are brimming with fares at 3:30 in the morning, you’re sadly mistaken.

And if someone winds up taking you to a remote area to rob you and you wind up shot, too bad. There’s no pension (as there is for a city employee), no medical benefits and if you survive you can be sure there won’t be the kind of manhunt there is when a cop or a city bus driver is shot. There is no hue and cry of outrage from the general populace when a yellow cab driver gets shot as much as a byline buried somewhere in the interior of the paper. Of course, while you’re recovering from your injuries, you’ll be unemployed without any income.

Yellow taxis aren’t a right. They aren’t public transportation in the same sense the subway or bus is. The only thing a driver has to protect himself are his own wits, abilities and street savvy. The old saw goes ‘walk a mile in his shoes’ and anyone who gets their back up about cab drivers with righteous indignation should spend a couple of shifts in the drivers’ seat before opening their big mouth. After a couple of days bouncing your kidneys around for 14 hours and dealing with the public I think you’ll have a higher opinion of taxi drivers.

If you build it, they will come (or is that go in this instance?). A throne fit for a king and something any man could be proud of.

Toto, were certainly not in Kansas anymore, the $5k toilet which got a write up in the paper today.

“He has no idea how $1.5 million ended up in his account,” lawyer Kenneth Richardson told a Brooklyn Federal Court jury.

...for all of you who ever questioned why we have an income tax.

A Brooklyn office temp’s checking account got a $1.5 million boost from the IRS after he doctored his tax forms to reflect $9 million in earnings - but jitters about collecting the money got the best of him, prosecutors told a federal jury yesterday.

Who the f**k do I call to get them to turn up the thermostat on the New York area over the next couple of days!

So much for global warming.

I was listening to This American Life over the weekend and one of the stories was by Nubar Alexanian about his tinnitus. It was a great piece and it struck a chord.

I didn’t know I had tinnitus for a long time.

When it happened, it would be sporadic and I always thought it was some kind of high frequency pitch my ears could pick up. It didn’t even occur to me something could be wrong with my hearing.

I caught some kind of a cold when I was in Europe a bunch of years back, mostly it was just a slight sore throat that manifested itself the day before I was supposed to leave.

The flight back had a connection in London and on the way in to land, I couldn’t pop my ears. The pressure just kept building up not matter what I tried. My head felt like a balloon about to burst. I couldn’t even hear the women sitting right next to me who I had been talking to throughout the flight and I could barely hear the steward when he came over after I hit the call button.

Ultimately, I did get my ears to pop although it was more of a literal thing (I think I wound up puncturing my eardrums). When it happened, I heard a sickly squeal as the pressure from my sinuses was released, it sounded like letting the air out of the aforementioned balloon.

I had to see a nurse at the airport, missed my connection, stayed the overnight (taking the subway and wandering around London on a dazed Saturday night). Wound up having bad infections in both my ears and missing a week’s worth of work.

Last year, I got sick again.

I kept trying to take time off to get better and every day the people at the place I was working at had some kind of emergency or another. I wound up in the hospital and less than a week later when I did come back somehow I was expected to spend 24+ hours at work... even though I could barely hear because of the tinnitus, I was staggering around the office like I was drunk (no equilibrium when the infection in your ears is super bad) and I really shouldn’t have been back at work at all.

You try to be responsible and people just try to take more advantage of you.

Anyway, since the last time I got sick (almost a year ago now), the tinnitus has been a fairly constant companion. I keep the TV or the radio on (sometimes both) just to fill up the empty space and keep from focusing on the constant tone. Some days it’s not so bad, others it can almost drown out everything else.

It was good to hear the story and at the very least know I’m not alone. Take a listen.

Texas Two Step?


The Rocket blasted out of retirement and landed back
home in Houston. Three months after Roger Clemens threw his final pitch for the New York Yankees in the World Series, the six-time Cy Young Award winner signed a one-year contract for $5 million Monday with his hometown Astros.



The Post made no bones about it, calling Clemens a traitor. Guess Yankee fans know how Red Sox fans felt a few years back. And to think, it all would have been prevented if George had just appreciated Andy Petite.

Have you seen this man?

Actor-writer Spalding Gray has been reported missing, police said. Police in New York City and in Southampton, N.Y., where the actor keeps his primary home, were searching for the actor.

Two years back, I attended an event at CUNY midtown on 34th Street where Gray was to discuss his work and his life with his current editor. I was really excited to have the opportunity to see him in such an intimate situation where he would actually be taking questions from the audience.

I’ve been a big fan of Gray since his ‘Monster in a Box’ was shown on HBO years back.

Well, the audience was a strange mix of Gray’s fans and oldsters (the event had been sponsored by AARP). Gray seemed withdrawn and closed of from his interviewer and the audience.

Overall, it was disappointing.

I couldn’t blame Gray though as it came out during the course of the evening he had been in a terrible plane accident a few months earlier and was suffering from continual pain as a result of the accident — to give you an idea of how sever the injuries were, one of Gray’s legs was now shorter than the other causing him to have problems walking (jogging which he apparently did regularly was no longer an option). Physical activity of any kind was laborious and it closed Gray off from a lot of the things he enjoyed.

At one point during the question and answer period, I was tempted to ask Gray if he thought he would have been as successful if he hadn’t been stricken with long-term depression (a malady he struggled greatly against throughout his life). Without the constant yearning, the pangs for happiness, would he have been as proficient? If he had been content and happy, would he have written and performed as much as he had? Or would his happiness, his satisfaction with life taken away the unrelenting motivation he was possessed by.

I had my own reasons for asking the question (having also labored under the burden of depression) but, was something in the way he acted on-stage, his mannerisms, the halting way he spoke, the guarded mien of his body language which made me think it would not be such a good topic to explore.

The very next day, Spalding Gray tried to kill himself out in the Hamptons.

Sometimes you beat the beast but, sometimes the beast beats you. The battle lasts your whole life and you never truly escape its grasp.

All in all, I hope Spalding Gray turns up safe and well somewhere and all he needed was nothing more than some time to be alone to struggle against the beast he’s fought for so long.

One of the things that I really liked when I first go into the whole Mac thing was the kind of rebellious aspect that the whole PC thing had about it. Most of the guys who later become multi-millionaires and billionaires were geeks with hobbies. The personal computer was so different from corporate networks and the Mac in particular was the bane of PC support departments everywhere because of the ways users would tweak their machines.

The last few iterations of software are moving away from that. Especially now that the move to OS X is in full force which enables corporations to set privileges on each users machine. It seems like the antithesis of everything that the Mac was all about.

One of Apple’s partners in their success was Adobe which started making their software send mash notes to the Adobe mother ship surreptitiously so Adobe could discretely put a stop on piracy. So, this announcement is just another step down the road to the Orwellian fantasy:

Adobe Systems Inc. acknowledged Friday it quietly added technology to the world's best-known graphics software at the request of government regulators and international bankers to prevent consumers from making copies of the world's major currencies.

Adobe, the world's leading vendor for graphics software, said the secretive technology "would have minimal impact on honest customers." It generates a warning message when someone tries to make digital copies of some currencies.

I swear to God, life sometimes feels like a game of musical chairs especially when it comes to work. Everyone is desperate to find a place to park their ass (yours truly included). It’s one of those bad things about freelancing and employers take advantage of it. I hate it. It puts me into competition with people I know and like and makes everyone wary and antsy.

Eeeewwwww.

I consider myself very lucky. Although I am quite the recluse most of the time (something that runs in the family I would think), I have the good fortune to have crossed paths with a great many interesting and talented people who suffer my foibles and maintain a connection with me.

The other day, I got the nicest email from a woman I used to work for (and also who I have a great deal of respect for) which made me smile and then this morning I got a very funny email from a friend who took the time out to make a funny movie poster based around a blog entry.

I keep meaning to write but, I either lose my train of thought, move on to other things or the app crashes...

...the days of the PowerCenter Pro as a web surfer are numbered.

Ma’am, please hop up into the stirrups prior to boarding.

Between fingerprinting and taking the photos of people coming into the country, aren’t we getting to the point of ridiculousness? Nature is chaotic (thankfully) the world will never be a totally safe place. Why in heavens name would anyone want it to be? What a boring place.

Anyway, I just wanted to welcome 2004 by making the statement that yes, the terroristS have won! We used to live in a free and open society but ever since September 11th we have taken more and more steps towards becoming a police state (thank you Congress for the Patriot Act).

What! Is everyone out there sleeping?!

Well, well, well... here it is the cusp of 2004.

I didn’t mean to be so remiss in my blogging duties but, a bunch of days goes by before you know it.

Im sitting under the chill of a fan in a high ceilinged room painted in brightly lit colors. Outside, there are palms trees swaying lazily in a cool evening breeze coming in off the ocean under a coal black sky full of stars.

Is this any way to bring in the New Year?

You bet your a**!

Earlier this evening I supped outdoors in the garden of an intimate Italian restaurant. What a treat to be dining Al Fresco at the year’s end.

What do you call a vacation when you haven’t worked in a few weeks? Is it truly a vacation? Anyway, whatever you would call it, I know that nothing beats the glory of being someplace warm to celebrate the New Year, and to think two weeks or so back I was griping about shoveling snow.

So, the other day, blog sensei had this link posted to an article up on Time Out New York: The things you gotta do before you can call yourself a real New Yorker.

So, it’s all in fun and I click on the link and start reading through the article.

About two pages in, I find myself getting really, really mad (yeah, that’s me... the world’s angriest man – hello, Mr. Furious). So, I’m trying to figure out what it is that’s p**sing me off. I don’t read Time Out so, I’m trying to figure out it’s slant.

Then, I realize what it is. What I find upsetting is the whole ‘take a test’ to call yourself a real New Yorker thing. I know it’s tongue in cheek but, I also know that there are more than a few people who will be making the rounds at parties over the next several weeks and bragging about how they scored.

Nevermind, the whole thing has this real, transplanted, lily-white New York experience thing all over it. Like New York is this f**king theme park you come to visit.

These people are the reason getting an apartment is so g***amn expensive in this city. Mommy and daddy pay for the big rent as 3 or 4 junior achiever morons cram themselves in a hole in the wall.

You want to call yourself a true New Yorker? Try these on:

Work at least one holiday feeding the poor.

Remember the ‘city’ is five boroughs, not just Manhattan. There is more to Queens than the two airports, more to Brooklyn than the area between Park Slope and Williamsburg, more to the Bronx than Yankee Stadium and the Zoo, more to Staten Island than the Ferry.

Work for a city agency at some point in your life. Not because you want the experience but, because it’s a decent job with good benefits.

Marvel at how Friends looks like it really could be any other city in the United States excepting New York.

Run down some contemptible piece of crap who’s just ripped off one of the idiots who has moved here and is trying to validate the experience by taking a test in Time Out magazine.

Never, I repeat never set foot in some of the finest museums or monuments the city has to offer because you are way to busy trying to survive.

Have someone put a gun to your head to rob you and have them walk away with nothing because you wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of taking what is yours.

Go by the neighborhood your parents or grandparents lived in when they first arrived in this country and be proud at how far your family has come.

Spend a good portion of your day, trying to help absolute strangers because they are overwhelmed by Manhattan or in trouble.

Drive a cab for a couple of years (and speak English to boot).

Visit some other part of the country and have the people there amazed over the fact that you are a “New Yorker” and consequently bombard you with all types of inane questions about living there as if it were some kind of incredible curiousity.

Have at least one childhood friend who became a cop or fireman.

Anyway, that’s just a few for you... I just had to get that out, you’ll excuse me.

Winning brings out the fair weather fan.

In the early nineties when I was a Yankee fan and the team was losing, I actually used to enjoy going to games quite a bit.

It wasn’t fun watching them lose but, the people who were at the ballpark were the ones who really liked the game of baseball and really were the true Yankee fans.

Then, the team got better and started winning.

Out of the woodwork came the groups of guys, going to the ballpark to get as drunk as possible and have that male bonding type experience, one trying to outdo the other in bad behavior motivated by the “he who can consume the most alcohol” syndrome.

It got so bad I can remember two incidents vividly.

One, I was sitting in the upper deck having taken a woman I worked with to the game. A few seats over was a group of men (about 8 in all) who actually had the ability to embarrass me with their use of language (and I believe I am unfortunately known for my own colorful use of language). I was embarrassed mainly because it was so off putting to the woman I was with.

The second was during a game when I was sitting in the lower deck seats in right field and a man had taken his young daughter to the game. He at one point felt compelled to make a rather long and colorful commentary on Ricky Henderson’s parentage – Ricky an ex-Yankee has heard it all I’m sure but, it amazed me a father would behave in such a way in front of his young daughter.

Anyway, what prompted that little trip down memory lane was this little tidbit in the news that ran today:

After two straight last-place finishes, the New York Mets kept most ticket prices unchanged and lowered some others for the 2004 season.

Yep, losing will do that to you.

A couple of years back I had a Saturday plan (a Mets Saturday plan). It coincided with the team doing well and I got to go to another World Series game because of it (my first being the Yankees/Reds series way back when I was a teenager).

I had the plan for about two years and the first year was a dream. The people around us were really nice, you got to know them and they were really good people. The second year we got a bunch of new people. It was akin to having a house and having really bad neighbors move in.

They got Roberto Alomar that off-season and did a bunch of other things I wasn’t happy about so, I chose not to renew. Last place, two years in a row.

Might be time to get another Saturday plan, I bet all the fair weather fans are gone now.

Hee, hee, hee...

Just in time for Christmas, the ever friendly Buddy Christ. Ready for your dashboard or atop your computer monitor to give you the Divine stamp of approval when you’re having a bad day at work or when some other driver has just cut you off.

Burn baby, burn!

Oh, and I also came across this map, which is... like... the mother of all subway/rail maps for NYC.

Worth having.

I’m a big one for the arcane lore of New York. I have a fascination for all the bridges, tunnels and infrastructure making the city go. Lots of people use these structures every day but, they are amazing and often taken for granted.

I’ve been taking the Times Square shuttle train for years and I always wondered about the hint of a platform you could see from the southern most track (track 1) when you get off at Grand Central. What was it for? Is it something used for track maintenance? Did it ever service passengers?

I found the answer here.

Then, when I would take the train up from 14th Street station, I would always wonder about the strange mirrored windows alongside the local track. Were there rooms back there? Storage perhaps?

I found the answer to that here.

Bah! Humbug! (;>)

More on Christmas.

So, the weeks have really been flying by I’ve been trying to keep up with the crush of things that have to happen at the end of every year. There’s cards, shopping, all these odds and ends.

I’ve been out twice now (shopping that is) and I’ve found myself pretty lucky. I imagine it’s because of when I’ve been going but, I haven’t suffered through the horrid crush I dread in the stores each year.

Yesterday, I made a trek out to the local mega mall.

It was downright easy!

I couldn’t believe it. I even took the plunge and got a Christmas tree (not so much for me as for the 80 year old child). I had to stop off at Home Depot (which was eerily empty) when they made an announcement there was a sale on trees.

So, I went out to the garden center and walked among the specimens.

Like I said, Home Depot was strangely empty - even though it was only 5pm, it seemed as if it were very late at night as there weren’t any clerks around and the store didn’t have too many customers either.

So, I’m out in the chilly air in the garden center and there’s another person or two looking around at the trees also. Everyone has this bewildered look because there aren’t any clerks around to help them.

Were all eyeing the trees trying to figure out which ones are still worthy candidates (of which there seemed to be quite a few). It’s dark and the area is brightly lit but still deserted and fenced in from the parking lot. There’s still evidence of the last couple of snowstorms and you have to watch your footing.

So, it doesn’t look like anyone is going to come out soon.

I find a tree I like. Now, comes the hard part of getting the thing tied up and ready to get it crammed into my car (which really isn’t built for these kinds of things).

My choice has a knobby trunk, far too long to be of use. I can take it home like this but, really it’ll just be work having to get a jigsaw out of the garage and cut the thing down – never mind the mess. I’m lifting the thing over my head and as I bring it towards the shopping cart I’ve laden down with bags of rock salt (in preparation for our next blizzard), I spy a table with tools on it.

Yes, by god! There’s actually a working electric chainsaw, plugged in resting atop this table (there are times I’m happy I don’t have kids or have anyone else’s kids to keep an eye on). So, I lay my tree on the table and make short work of the offending trunk with the convenient saw.

I’ve always been slightly intimidated by these things (chainsaws) but, the saw moves through the tree like a hot knife through warm butter. After I finish the cut, I push the tree through the cylinder with the mesh plastic netting and I’ve got this nice bundled up tree ready for my car trunk.

There’s a customer or two that comes out into the garden center and can’t figure out if I work there or not and is too intimidated to ask (I guess it’s the chainsaw).

The whole thing was a bit odd though. I never expected to find a self serve chainsaw at a Home Depot.

So, Christmas is less than a week away...

Yesterday as I was driving through town, I passed this manger thing they have set up off on the side of a busy intersection (in front of a school). It was the usual plastic (I think) statues of the Baybee Jesus (yes, there’s a musical cadence for that phrase hence the intentional misspelling), various livestock, a wise man or two and the happy couple (I’ll probably burn in hell for describing the thing in such a heretic fashion, one more sin to atone for on the big pile) all happy to be in the stall.

So, as I drove by it the thought occurred to me, how would this affect me if I were Jewish? Muslim? Buddhist? Hindu?

It was on city property... it wasn’t something a church had up.

I’m a little numb to the whole thing — I mean they put up damn Christmas lights right after Halloween now — I find it somewhat innocuous but, there is supposed to be a separation of church and state in this country and there isn’t supposed to be any kind of “state religion.”

So, the thought was how would I feel if I weren’t a member of the group celebrating this festival. Would I feel like an outsider? Would I be alienated? Would I find it offensive to have to confront this everywhere I turned?

I couldn’t answer the question.

It just made me think about all the other holidays other religions celebrate and wonder why they don’t get the same play. There’s a lot of lip service about equality and political correctness in our country but, then you see a manger on city property and you realize not everything is quite the way it’s made out to be.

You move out of your house and then years later you drive by to look at what has become of it after you’ve left and find yourself shocked.

About five years ago, I was living among the future millionaires.

Yep.

Hard to believe but, I hob-knobbed with the Future Ugly Cash-rich Kids of the new millennium. Lots of money, lots of brilliant ideas, the future was happening all around us, time to get in on the ground floor and make tons of cash and be set for the rest of your life.

Well, that’s what they would’ve had you believe.

So, blue-collar me is at this place where the visionaries have looked down the road and they see the future is the internet. Overnight (seemingly) this quiet, kinda nice place that was dedicated to doing things really, really well, grew. Lots of new people, big expansion, new name for the company, all these resources focused into this bold new direction.

Money wasn’t the object, new furniture, stationery, do dads with the company logo, more offices, more people... more, more, more. Everything had to happen fast!

Big contest to name the new beast, lots of resources devoted to branding the new company, lots of buzzwords being thrown around.

I’d been there a fairly long time at this point, always as a freelancer but, predating all but a few people. I also kept a fairly low profile, I knew who was in charge and as long as my bill got paid and the flow of work coming my way was steady, there was no reason to complain.

Sure, there was attitude you had to deal with. The future millionaires were usually under 30, generally they viewed the department I worked in as unnecessary (even archaic) and the contempt they held for “print” was easy to see. Theirs was a bold new world! Interactivity! The online experience! Thousands! Nay, millions, treading the hallways of their electronic domain, a virtual world where they were the kings!

Well, it was in that spirit they decided to walk away from the things they had done so well for so long. The things that made the company successful to begin with. They looked at “the old way” of doing things and figured it was going the way of the dinosaur. They shut down the “print” area of the company and a year later...

...they were out of business (or fairly close to it).

What happened to the electronic castles that they built?

In each instance someone else moved into the ruins, I guess it’s just the final irony of the whole fiasco.

Look here (nuforia)...

and here (bma)

All those millions and no one cared about the retaining the domains.

“The Cubs fans’ sorrow is worth more than the Red Sox fans’ sorrow.”

The saga of the Bartman and the agony of Cubs fans over their team’s loss in the playoffs comes to a close, another one of those stories sure to become part of the mystique that is baseball lore.

Awhile back (around Thanksgiving I think), I was going to write about the holidays. Holidays don’t seem as important anymore as they once were to me.

I don’t mean to sound Grinch-like.

What I’m trying to say is that as an adult, the biggest thing to note about the holidays is time off from work. You are able to enjoy an extended period away from work instead of the all too brief punctuation a weekend usually brings.

Right around the time you’re starting to feel good again, it’s time to go back to work.

Since I’ve been freelancing the last couple of years, the impact of the holidays has lessened considerable, being a freelancer is akin to operating your own business in the sense you never really have a day off — more a day you’re not working and bringing in income.

There are times when you are insanely busy and times when it seems you’ll never work again — everyone who has derived their income from freelancing will know what I’m talking about, the desperation of not knowing how long the next gig will last or when it will come and trying to drum up as much business as you can when it is slow.

It used to be, people who choose to take a staff job would do it because they were opting for more security but, talking to the people I know in staff positions they seem just as desperate, never knowing when the axe will fall and they’ll be downsized out of their current job.

Maybe it’s just me but, it doesn’t seem to be more secure being on staff than it is freelancing anymore and at least being a freelancer you know where you stand.

IBM had informed its managers in mid-October of the plan to replace workers at IBM in Southbury, Connecticut; Poughkeepsie, New York; Raleigh, North Carolina; Dallas, Texas; and Boulder, Colorado...Some workers would be informed by the end of January, after which they would be expected to train a foreign replacement in the United States for several weeks, the Wall Street Journal said.

In conversations with friends lamenting on the current state of the American worker, I have repeatedly observed that two decades ago, a time in which manufacturing was moving out of the Northeast, workers found themselves in competition with cheaper laborers in other parts of the US (mainly the south - Tennessee or Texas).

NAFTA put Americans in competition with cheaper labor in Mexico (this was the underlying story to Michael Moore’s first documentary, Roger and Me).

Today, we (Americans and ironically, Mexicans) are now in competition with cheaper labor in Asia (China and India).

The question is of course, how low can you go?

Also, without good paying jobs, who will buy all these goods and services? The dilemma of capitalism in the new millennium.

I found this interesting treatise on capitalism, it’s downloadable as an e-book in pdf form and worth reading just to see if you don’t agree with a lot of what its author writes.

Back in ’95 I was a Yankee fan, a pretty big one (ask my friends). George had been banned from baseball for a couple of years (thank you Howie Spira) and Gene Michael and Buck Showalter were free to do their jobs to the best of their ability and as a result, the Yankees actually got better, had a bunch of home grown stars and wound up in the playoffs that year (for the first time in a long time).

Well, George came back, Don Mattingly was unceremoniously shown the door, Buck Showalter was let go (pointedly), Randy Velarde left, Mike Stanley left, it was frustrating, a step backwards to the days when George would meddle and make it hard to be a Yankee fan.

Gene Michael had done his work though and with a core of Paul O’Neil, Scott Brosius and Tino Martinez (who I never really liked for replacing Mattingly) the Yankees became winners.

George is one of those grass is always greener guys, the other teams’ players always look better to him (that’s why the Yankees went out and got Tino Martinez after Seattle came from behind to beat them in the playoffs). Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter are Yankees through and through.

So was Andy Petite.

As I said in an earlier post, I had salivated over the Mets possibly getting Petite. He’s been a good pitcher throughout his career and he’s still a young guy (only 31). He keeps his mouth shut, works hard and at the end of the season always puts up some respectable numbers. You really couldn’t ask for more out of a pitcher and if I were a GM I wouldn’t mind having a staff of guys like that - I don’t need crybaby millionaires bemoaning their lot in life.

Well, Dandy Andy is gone now and nobody looks worse than old meddling George. Kevin Brown is 8 years older, right handed and gets $15 million per year for what has proven to be a very fragile body.

Makes me glad to be a Mets fan.

The only thing that could possibly make it worse would be if Andy can convince his pal (the despicable) Roger to pitch for the hometown team. All of a sudden the Astros wind up with a deep rotation.

Thanks George.

Wow, you look up and a whole week has gone by. I guess that’s a good sign.

So, this week I taught again.

What?!?! (you say)

Yes, last week and this week I was the substitute teacher for my friend Paul who has been teaching at a high school over on the West Side. Paul recovering from back surgery (and doing nicely, thank you very much) asked if I would take his place during his convalescence.

Know what?

It was a lot of fun! Although I would never have imagined me being responsible for the development of young minds — kind of a scary thought! (:>)

Well, I set a new personal best.

I got the driveway done in just under 3 hours. Considering how much snow there was, this was no small feat. After dealing with the driveway for over a decade now, I have a system (which will make the people who know me smile to themselves) – I start at the bottom and work my way up.

The house is on a street with a double yellow and we get lots more traffic than we probably should, shoveling down at the bottom is always dangerous because of all the idiots driving SUVs who believe four wheel drive will somehow compensate for slippery driving conditions. It’s amazing to see people whizzing by.

Anyway, since the street is a busy one, we are fortunate in that the plows go by regularly and the street was clean and passable today (if somewhat narrower). The flip side to this is we get plowed a lot. Bad because the driveway is wide and all the repeated plowing becomes a densely packed mixture of snow, slush and ice. It’s the really heavy stuff that you’ve got to work to get through.

I would’ve held off until tomorrow to shovel, it’s supposed to get warmer and hopefully by the end of the week most of the snow will be gone on its own, I just wanted to put a stop to the annoying ringing of the doorbell by the groups of shovelers roaming the streets looking for Xmas cash. It wasn’t even noon and the doorbell had been rung twice, nevermind the snow was still coming down lightly this morning.

I didn’t have to be anywhere and it was a Sunday anyway so, I figured I’d get around to clearing the driveway... eventually. Then, the more I thought about it, I realized people were desperate to get out there.

It just struck me odd everyone would be in a rush to go out - holiday shopping and the like I guess.

Then I got to thinking about how it was a commentary on the pace people live their lives nowadays - in that people always have to be on the go, go, go. When I was a kid, if we had a snowstorm like this, it would’ve shut things down for a few days. Now, with Doppler Radar, Computer Modeling and Satellite Photography they do a much better job of predicting where, when and how much snow we’ll get.

It gives one a great deal of respect for Tiros 1.

I didn’t want to let this slide by without notice...



Oh, how they must have teased Jeffrey. Tall and gangly, with the last name of Hyman, you know he had to get more than his fair share of teasing all through school.

It never stopped him though. He died at a young age and a few weeks back they finally got around to memorializing him by naming a street here in Manhattan after him.

It’s enough to make a mom proud.

So, as a consequence of the blizzard I’m stuck in the house. I could’ve been in the city this weekend but, truthfully if I had it probably wouldn’t have been good for the 80 year old I babysit.

I’m still working very hard on removing the mess around this place - think of it as my own personal urban renewal project.

Yesterday, I finally pulled the bum drive out of the laptop and put the new one in. I also was determined to take the plunge and install Jaguar onto the laptop.

Now, there’s one more thing I hate besides snow.

I got the thing formatted and partitioned, got OS X installed (after only one scary false start) and now I can’t seem to get my external drives to come up (which of course is where I had backed up everything before the previous internal had crashed).

OS X has a nice chess program, a great screen saver and lots of other cool little bells and whistles in the finder but, I’m more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy (more and more of one with each passing year if you get my meaning) and right now I’m just frustrated to hell by it.

It didn’t help that all the original Powerbook discs only had 9.0 on them and OS X won’t run classic before 9.1. I’m downloaded an 82mb updater right now - a charming seven hour download.

At least now I have the time now to shovel the driveway.

Did I say how much I hated the snow?

I’ll say it again... I hate the f**king snow!

"What happens if it's actually grandma or little Timmy's computer sending out the spam?"

You’ve really got to love people who reference “Grandma” or “little Timmy” when they’re talking about something. I figure if “little Timmy” gets caught up in the anti spam dragnet, Lassie will come to the rescue and save him.

I hate the cold.

It’s not like I go out a lot and it’s not like I would go out more in warmer weather (but I would probably). I just hate the cold.

We got the first snow of the season around here yesterday. It wasn’t anything bad, just a bit of a dusting — kind of a portent of things to come. Living in the ’burbs or the country you have a decidedly different view of winter than city folk. City folk live in apartments (or condos or coops) so when it snows, they get their galoshes out and maybe grumble about trudging through the mini lakes that form at every street corner.

But... they don’t shovel.

“Oh, the snow is so pretty!”

“Oh, isn’t winter nice!”

F**k that.

Every year winter comes and I’m faced with the reminder of how out of shape I’ve gotten as I labor getting the driveway clear of the stuff. Our driveway is sunken, meaning there is a 3 foot wall on either side of it so, shoveling becomes one of these things where you aren’t just pushing snow out of the way as much as you’re digging a ditch about 30' wide by 60' long.

If it’s only an inch or two it’s about a half hour. Anything above four inches and you’re talking a serious workout. Last winter there were a couple of times where we got about 8 inches – that’s between four and five hours worth of shoveling. You can’t really have someone come and plow the driveway because of the way it’s set up and having someone come and shovel it is just as much a pain because you’d still have to wait for them to get to you.

The old guy is 80 and when it snows just figures he isn’t going to sit in the house and wait for things to clear up no, let’s get out there and go driving. Anyway, you can’t leave it in case he does need to get out so, it has to be done. Before work, before anything really. Everytime it snows, the driveway just has to be cleared.

Last year I was working most of the winter and a couple of times I just wasn’t really up for shoveling for four hours and then hopping on a train for another two just to get in and sit at a desk when I could just as well telecommute.

You remember telecommuting? It’s that thing that was supposed to cut down on rush hour traffic and make things so much easier for everyone. Never really seemed to take in quite the big way people were predicting, did it?

Nope, nothing kind of beats having the boss be able to stare at you all day just to make sure you’re working, does it now?

I digress.

So, we got snow and there was wind and it was cold and I didn’t go out for the day (except to bring down the garbage and bring in the paper). All day long I kept wishing I could close my eyes and it would be late March or April.

Okay, I’ll admit I’m hooked. I watched the first ten minutes of Celebrity Poker Showdown, that’s all it took (this from the guy who looks forward to the family Poker games on the holidays).

I caught this on MTV while I was flipping channels. I hope it’s a parody because if it isn’t, it’s probably one of the worst videos done in a long time - it could rival Spinal Tap.

Why China is stopping the manufacture of these cars:

"That's just the way it is," said Liu, who wouldn't give his full name. "These cars sell at too low a price to be profitable. There's a lot of cost involved in making them, since they require a lot of hand work."

Another marker of my youth vanishing into the mists of memory.

Yesterday, I was in the city and as Brian and I were on our way to have a quick cup of coffee, I saw this young girl I thought I recognized. She was standing in front of a hair styling place on 23rd Street and I was trying to figure out where I knew her from. As is akways the case in these situations, it took me a minute to realize I knew her from TV and which show I knew her from.

I’ve resisted writing about baseball although I have watched as the beat writers here in New York have tried to stir up all kinds of trouble. First, talking about the Yankees trading Soriano and Johnson for Schilling (what a horrible move that would be) and then with all the talk that the Mets should move Piazza and bring in A-Rod (never mind they have a great young shortstop in Reyes). It never ceases to amaze me what these guys will stir up.

Anyway, what follows is my Christmas list for my beloved Mets, I hope for all the Mets fans out there we get a few of these things in our stockings for next season.

The way I look at it, we need some pitching, an outfielder or two and a second baseman.

1. Don’t resign John Franco.

Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t! It’s a bad baseball and a bad money move that sentiment shouldn’t play any part in. As it is the Mets would only wind up using a roster spot for a guy who can no longer be their closer and they’ll over pay to boot. Don’t even get me started on how I haven’t been a big fan of Franco, Leiter or Alomar getting Wilpon’s ear last season and then watching Bobby Valentine get booted — we can see what a big difference a new manager made this season can’t we?

2. Put together a package with the Cardinals - Tom Glavine for Jim Edmonds.

QuesTec isn’t going away anytime soon. The Cardinals are looking for pitching and Edmonds has a longer contract than Glavine (I believe) which makes this deal very doable even though Glavine makes $3 mil more than Edmonds. The Mets get the center fielder they’ve needed since Lance Johnson got traded to Chicago and the Cards get the pitching they’re looking for this off-season.

3. Put together a deal for Edgardo Alfonzo.

Correct one of the biggest mistakes the Mets have made in the last few years. This one ranks up there on the Steve Phillips blunder list at the same level as letting John Olerud get to free agency, a mistake that saw the Mets play a third baseman at first for a few years and then trade for Mo Vaughn. Fonzie has always been a good clubhouse guy and can spell all the left side of the infield positions in a pinch giving you a player with some versatility. He can be a good teacher for Jose Reyes and can fill in at third when necessary. The Giants are looking to clear salary and it would be nice for once if the Mets could be the team getting the other trading partner to payoff a contract instead of the other way around. A few low level minor leaguers could probably do the trick. Alfonzo plays until one of the prospects is ready to take over and even then he’d be a good guy off the bench and a good clubhouse citizen.

4. Get Mark Redman! Florida has made no secret about Redman being on the market, they’re looking for pitching and the Mets have enough minor leaguers to dangle in front of Florida to make the deal.

5. Sign Raul Mondesi. You could pick up a strong defensive rightfielder and a decent bat for a song. Mondesi’s stock has fallen the last few years and there’s no way he’ll command the $12 mil he made last year. A three year deal for $9 or $10 mil would do the trick.

6. Sign Jose Mesa. Mesa actually has better numbers than Benitez had over the last few years and he could be one answer for a depleted bullpen.

7. Sign veteran a-list free agents for bench players. Guys like this would include Kenny Lofton, Robin Ventura as an example. The Yankees have been very successful during their run in the late 90’s by doing just that, it’s a smart money move, you give the kids some good examples and sign guys who can provide leadership but maybe shouldn’t be playing everyday at this point in their careers.

8. I’d like to see the Mets sign one of the big three. I’m talking about free agent pitchers on the market in this order of preference: Colon, Petite or Vasquez — I don’t think it will happen but it will shore up the rotation.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, we revisit the World’s Smallest Political Quiz.

Take it if you dare!

The Pentagon announced today it would be putting a new initiative before congress. It’s a new weapons system designed to help the United States armed forces in the war against terrorism. Known as the ADCDS, this weapons system will require $45 billion dollars in funding for research, development and deployment over the next six years.



Yes, the ACDCS is an anacronym for the Anti Donkey Cart Defense Shield and will help our troops deal with the threat of terrorist donkey carts throughout the world.

The U.S. has a Donkey Cart deficit and is far behind in the Donkey Cart arms race. This new brand of low tech weaponry will be a large part of the arsenal in the war against terrorism.

Mexico currently is the world leader in development of Donkey Cart technology and the U.S. will be working closely with its neighbor to the south in an attempt strengthen its Donkey Cart Weaponry and defense.

Think I’m kidding, click on the link above.

Today’s scary tidbit is just another step on the way to the Orwellian nightmare:

Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government. Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the men’s lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado.

Don’t take my word for it, go to your local newstand and read a copy (for heaven’s sake don’t buy the damn thing!).

There was nothing in detail up on the website but I can’t imagine this not breaking in a big way soon.

Jesse Jackson explains what he finds so fascinating about Dolly Parton’s new album.



Actually, JJ is defending MJ but, I couldn’t resist.

Speaking of which — MJ that is, explain to me how someone goes from the photo from the other day and winds up looking like below:



Highlights of MJ’s career can be found here.

Last night I got the rare opportunity to see a Broadway show (thanks to the Big S). Anyway, it was a great play - I just can’t say enough good things about it. The play is named “Retreat from Moscow.” Three actors, sparse set but really well written. If you get a chance, it’s well worth seeing - definitely worth standing on TKTS line to get a deal.

Check out this review:

The best word to describe The Retreat from Moscow might well be "succinct." William Nicholson's new play at the Booth is succinctly written, succinctly (but superbly) acted, and succinctly designed. There's almost nothing about it that isn't concisely measured and well thought out, from the impact of a couple of well-placed laugh lines to the dispensing of an expected profundity or two.

The Wizard of Oz...

...was on TV tonight. I watched a bit of it and then I remembered about the whole thing about watching it while having Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this link for full instructions. I have to admit, the thought of doing it appealed to me — it’s a pretty wild movie in any event.

They just flashed this site on the TV and I couldn’t resist:

Looking for that special someone to share your life with? Been looking for love in all the wrong places? Worried that the special someone in your life is up to no good when you’re not around? Look no further.

Of course, you will probably wind up on a future episode of the Jerry Springer Show.

Hey look, it’s a woman in her underwear with wings!



Yeah, Victoria’s Secret makes nice lingerie (spoken as an appreciative observer not a wearer folks) but, can you say pretentious?

A life lived in the public gaze.



Do we really even need to talk about Michael Jackson...

Jackson Urged to Surrender on Warrant

In the press conference, the district attorney also stressed that the issuing of a warrant made the new case different from the 1993 probe. "There is a warrant outstanding and I can assure you that in a very short period of time there will be charges filed against Mr. Jackson, multiple counts," Sneddon said. This time, he added, there has been no civil case filed and none is expected, unlike 1993.

...I guess so since it’s the lead for all major news outlets today (and yesterday).

A friend called and commented on it. It made me remember getting an email from someone a few months back with an attached QuickTime movie that had pictures of Michael Jackson morphing into one and other through the years. It was sad and painful to watch.

Until someone shows a picture of the guy in flagrante delicto with a kid, it’s really all speculation (we are innocent until proven guilty in the court system, just not in the court of public opinion).

I’m not defending Jackson’s behavior and if he is guilty he should be rightfully punished but, at the same time what good is sending this guy to jail going to do?

There was no surprise when I heard the news.

The guy is definitely sick and if he didn’t have money, he probably wouldn’t have the access to children he has (the way things are going for him it sounds like he won’t have money for very much longer).

Also, the question I posed to my friend was this: under the circumstances, what parent in their right mind would even expose their child to Michael Jackson and even chance the possibility of something happening?

It’s interesting to note the family of the boy were seeking out a lawyer to sue Jackson — so, what is it? Expose your child to a potentially dangerous situation in the hopes of securing money? If I had a kid there’s no way I’d let them be around Jackson, much less “sleep over” the guys house. Isn’t it somewhat disingenuous to pretend there wasn’t the chance something like this could happen?

Anyway, he’s a freak (watching his bizarre transformation over the years) but, is all just very sad to watch someone who was so talented just self destruct (and in the process ruin the lives of children).

Watching his strange metamorphosis, I was reminded of
The Talking Heads song Seen and Not Seen:

He would see faces in movies, on T.V., in magazines, and in books... He thought that some of these faces might be right for him... And through the years, by keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in his mind... Or somewhere in the back of his mind... That he might, by force of will, cause his face to approach those of his ideal... The change would be very subtle... It might take ten years or so... Gradually his face would change its' shape... A more hooked nose... Wider, thinner lips... Beady eyes... A larger forehead.

He imagined that this was an ability he shared with most other people... They had also molded their faced according to some ideal... Maybe they imagined that their new face would better suit their personality... Or maybe they imagined that their personality would be forced to change to fit the new appearance... This is why first impressions are often correct... Although some people might have made mistakes... They may have arrived at an appearance that bears no relationship to them... They may have picked an ideal appearance based on some childish whim, or momentary impulse... Some may have gotten half-way there, and then changed their minds.

He wonders if he too might have made a similar mistake.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. opened an exhibition today of eight finalist designs in the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition at the Winter Garden.

Check out the site! All the designs have their good points and some of them are truly ingenuous and beautiful.

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Microsoft fires worker over weblog Many people post work-related entries on personal blogs, but they don't expect to be terminated.

So, Michael Hanson has become a bit of a folk hero (to me and I’m sure many other bloggers). The guy made an innocuous posting which some suit saw and took exception to.

This is akin to killing a fly with an a-bomb.

Of course, in the unforgiving world of corporate politics where ethics are rarely heard of, just sitting down with someone and telling them they’ve transgressed and giving them a warning isn’t a possibility.

No, it’s off with their head!

Now, if you’re VP level or above, they probably do just that (sit you down and ask you to watch yourself in the future) but, worker bees don’t get that kind of consideration (especially not temp worker bees).

Just another thing that let’s you know the American worker is taking it on the chin.

I can’t speak to the whole thing as eloquently as the man himself could so, click on the links, read the article and read the man’s blog.

The day started like any other day; get up, dink around for a bit, bus into work, and start working through the stack of jobs. Just shy of an hour after I got in, my manager came in and asked me to step into his office when I had a chance. Sure, no biggie, and I headed over as soon as I finished the job I was setting up.

"Okay, here's the first question. Is this page," and here he turned his monitor towards me, letting me see my "Even Microsoft wants G5s" post from last Thursday, "hosted on any Microsoft computer? Or is it on your own?"

Do ethics really matter?

FORMER GREY GLOBAL EXEC SENTENCED TO 70 MONTHS Mitchell Mosallem Must Also Pay $247,000 Fine November 13, 2003 By Lisa Sanders NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — A federal court judge today sentenced former Grey Global Group executive Mitchell Mosallem to 70 months in prison...

So, back in the early to mid 90’s I had a few year stint at Grey Advertising.

Round about the middle of ’96, I was downsized out during a shakeup of the department I worked in. The months leading up to my departure were hectic to say the least. Grey was pitching for quite a bit of business as the industry was undergoing dramatic change.

The agency was still structured along the lines of old modes of doing business. The days of Darren Stevens and Larry Tate were long gone and with them the incredible markup that large agencies enjoyed were disappearing with the advent of the desktop publishing revolution. It wasn’t easy to bury costs and pass the markup along to the client anymore.

The few years I was at Grey we had had a particularly good run going something like 14 out of 16 on major pitches (things like Sprint, House of Seagram, Brown and Williamson just to name a few). Every one of those pitches came through my department. While we weren’t the only reason the agency was successful in their endeavors, there’s no question if the people in the studio hadn’t been good at their jobs, Grey wouldn’t have had such a high success rate, particularly when the studio was called upon more often than not to diffuse a disaster in the making.

One of the reasons I was brought in and one of the “unwritten” responsibilities of my job was speccing out equipment for our department, instituting standards and practices for workflow, maintaining the equipment and training the staff (previously board, read that as paste-up people) in the use of the computer.

My direct boss was a guy named Peter Abbey. Peter was a likable guy, he was fair with people and while he wouldn’t take a bullet for any of his underlings, he wouldn’t throw someone under the wheels of the train either.

Peter had been with the agency for a little over 25 years (at that point) having worked his way up in the department from being the guy who mounted ads for people to the manager of the department. His longevity was due in large part to being a company guy and knowing better than to make waves. He had his own corner of the agency and did his best to keep it isolated from a lot of the intrigue going on in other departments.

Try as he might though, the guy who he answered to was a very political beast and was determined to stick his nose into every cranny he could exploit. Consequently, there were lots of “office politics” and even if you wanted to, you couldn’t easily escape them.

Now, I don’t like that crap... never have.

I’m not a political animal and don’t see much good in glad-handing some incompetent in the cause of furthering my own ends. It doesn’t seem right and it’s an affront to my sensibilities. I don’t think it’s something that’s good for a business either. So, it’s no surprise when I one day found myself in the office of my bosses’ boss having a meeting about equipment requisitions and was pointedly told I should bypass Peter and come directly to the convicted felon above it didn’t rub me the right way. It struck me as something that was both smarmy and unethical so, two months later when I got downsized I can’t say I was totally surprised.

Other people I liked working with were forced out too, some people more willing to “play ball” were moved in (the better to keep an eye on Peter) and that was that.

I still had a few friends at Grey and would always marvel at the continued intrigue and be thankful and relieved I was no longer party to it. I can’t say I’ve ever done worse since my days at Grey and I’m thankful for that. Considering what wound up happening in the ensuing years (this investigation has been going on for some time now), I can safely say I’m happy with the decisions I made.

As the friend and former co-worker who emailed the news to me noted, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Friday was my whirlwind social day, after being a hermit for the better part of the week, I had a jam packed day.

First there was lunch with my sensei.

I’ve never been particularly close to sensei M (Madame M to the uninitiated), taking a more voyeuristic approach in getting to know her by reading her blog (the inspiration for my own).

Still, the last two times I’ve seen her, I’ve come away realizing how much I enjoy her company. Lunch was mainly an exercise in conversation while walking among the windy (and chilly) streets before and after waiting on a long soup line at the infamous Soup Nazi’s stand. Even I was surprised by how long the line was but, the soup was good and so was the conversation.

Madame M toils away at one of my previous places of employment and of course it was one of the subjects that our chat touched on. It’s always interesting to get someone else’s take on a situation, if only to find out how their experience differs or is similar to your own.

I got a chance to briefly visit my former haunts.

I was struck at how odd it always is to revisit the places one has worked. It is at once a both familiar and alien experience. Familiar in the surroundings and alien in the changes that have occurred since you’ve been there. There’s also this weird feeling of being something of an outsider (or maybe pariah) now that you’re no longer there.

You’ve left!

You’re no longer part of the drama of the everyday existence of the workplace! Because, of course, work is so, so important.

It’s how we define ourselves today. (typing never accurately conveys the dripping sarcasm of the statement)

I have to laugh at it. I walked into the place and truth be told, wasn’t really affected one way or the other, no sadness, no great joy either. It was just interesting watching the worker ants toil away until the next flood comes and washes everything away - time is good in that it gives you perspective.

I realized also, I’m not fond of the stupidity and desperation of the workplace. The jockeying that goes on or the struggle for power.

Fortunately, I get the sense Sensei M is not so fond of it either and that’s a comforting thing to be sure.

Afterward, I got a chance to finally see Kill Bill.

Another thing I am thankful for in regard to my current situation is that I can indulge myself by taking in an afternoon film with a friend. The movie was pretty good - I wouldn’t say it was overwhelming (it actually was kind of all over the place in terms of story structure) but, there was still a lot of interesting things going on.

I really like the opening in the House of Blue Leaves, the music is almost enough to make me check out the soundtrack album. I also was impressed with some of the choices Quentin Tarantino made shooting the sequence in black and white or blue to downplay the goriness.

The truth is though, Tarantino’s masterpiece was Pulp Fiction and he may never make another movie that matches it. Watching Kill Bill made me think of Spike Lee’s 25th Hour starring Ed Norton which didn’t get the promotion but was one of the most beautifully shot movies I’ve seen this year (and worth checking out).

After the movie and coffee it was out with Irene for a wedding rehearsal dinner with friends of hers. Really nice people and the groom was another mad e-bayer, lots to chat about.

Today the power went out.

We lost electricity for about four hours. There were a couple of “pops” this morning where the power would intermittently blink out (for a few seconds or a few minutes). Finally around 11:30, it just gave up the ghost and everything went blink.

It’s not a big deal in the summer when it happens but, in the winter it means losing heat which is never fun. Living out in the ’burbs, you get used to things like losing power on a semi-regular basis. We have bad weather (rain usually) and a tree or line will go down and that’s it, you lose power.

Today, I was working on the computer when it happened but, since I was working on the laptop, I didn’t experience the sudden catastrophic loss of work that normally accompanies the power outage event. It did manage to put a monkey wrench in my plans for the day though.

I’ve been playing hermit lately, to use the dumbass Godfather analogy - going to the mattresses, so to speak. It’s the combination of not having a lot of cash (since I’m waiting to be paid) and not wanting to spend anything. I can be amazingly frugal by locking myself in the house. The days go by with amazing speed anyway and believe me there’s an abundance of things for me to do around here.

I’ve spent a lot of time avoiding dealing with certain things (cleaning up, sorting out papers, throwing stuff out) and when I lock myself in what a friend once referred to as “PJ’s Fortress of Solitude” the piles slowly get smaller and things get crossed off the big to do list.

Right now, I’m doing my best to make the house less of a haven for dust that it has managed to become — it doesn’t bother me so much but if your susceptible to allergies don’t ever visit. Also, the incredible volume of paper I’ve managed to avoid confronts me daily forcing me to make inroads to diminishing it’s size.

Trips into the city take about 2 hours each way door to door (never mind train fare and parking) so, if you’re one of those many people I’ve put off over the last week or so, please don’t be offended. Poverty makes me into a recluse.

Also today, I got off my lazy ass and finished working on the GIF logo for my ebay auctions. I’m pretty pleased with it although I know I have to make the damn thing smaller (file size wise that is). Part of the whole clearing out the house means making money off the electronic flea market that is ebay. I’ve done it before and done pretty well, I just want it to be a little bit less labor intensive than it’s been in the past.

I like reading tabloids as opposed to broadsheets.

In New York, it means I prefer the Post or Daily News over the Times or the Wall Street Journal. I like the Times on Sunday and the Journal has proved to be a good read any day I’ve picked it up but, I always shied towards the tabloids.

The Post has always seemed to have the better sports section and I found over the years I liked the metro coverage and editorial side of the News (and it has a good slew of comics which I’m basically a sucker for).

Newspapers are great, I’ve worked at a few throughout my life and I have to say that there was always something pleasing about working at a newspaper. You just felt a lot more “plugged in” because of the nature of the job and newspapers also have a great, broad mix of people from the spectrum of economic and ethnic backgrounds.

Lately though, I find there’s little that holds my interest in either the News or the Post. I don’t know if it’s entirely the papers fault though. A lot of popular media today focuses on the “story of the moment.” In many cases this could be a entertainment based non-feature (think Ben and J-Lo, Brittany or the insipid Paris Hilton) which is run to generate readers. It seems though, these features are run at the expense of hard news or investigative reports.

I like to read the paper every day (currently the Post is delivered daily but, it isn’t much of a read - unless of course you’re in kindergarten) — I get the feeling though it may wind up being a habit that falls by the wayside as I seek out better sources of news.

The big news is Planetary and Wildcats came out today! On top of the new that Global Frequency is supposed to have been optioned by Mark Burnett for the WB.

Here’s a little tidbit for you from the current Popular Mechanics on the August Blackout and the possibility of it having been a terrorist attack:

According to Charles E. Noble, head of Information Security for ISO New England, a NERC member that operates transmission lines, some sort of probing attack may have occurred during the appearance of the so-called "SQL Slammer Worm" that disrupted many Internet services. It also affected two unnamed utilities. "Both entities lost their ability to execute bulk electric system control from their primary control centers for several hours," Noble says.

My catalogs are done and I’m waiting on checks so, I can now actually kick back for a little bit and start writing again... you have been warned.

From Yemen to Egypt, ordinary Arabs struggled on Monday to understand how Muslims could perpetrate such an act against fellow Muslims even if some sympathized with bin Laden's war on the United States and its regional allies.

In Yiddish the word they use for people like this is Schmuck.

Talk about the chickens coming home to roost. Excuse me while I suppress a wry smile, all those people jumping up and down in celebration while the Twin Towers were burning are now shocked over this latest development. Think the Saudis are going to be holding anymore of those telethons like they did shortly after September 11th? Get with the program people, hello! Terrorists, root word being terror and implying indiscriminate violence. I’m not turning a blind eye to the f**k ups of our own society but the people of this country are not your enemy.

On another Middle East note, I was reading this article on Iraqi reaction to dropping 500 pound bombs the past few days:

The Jawal family was one of the few in this flashpoint town who liked the Americans — until U.S. F-16 jets dropped 500-pound bombs near their home.

When reading the article, a funny thought occurred to me that had to do with the recent spate of articles on Americans and obesity:

About 40% of Americans, or 68 million people, will be obese by 2010 if people keep gaining at the current rate, government researchers predict.

or:

Ranks of Severely Obese Quadruple

or:

In America, the Very Fat Are Getting Fatter

In conjunction with the article about the F-16s dropping 500 lb bombs, I had an image of planes dropping morbidly obese Americans on Iraqis. That’ll learn ’em.

Other news this week:

Sympathies out to Charlie on his mom’s sudden passing.

Get well wishes for Paul (the Weiner Man) who is struggling with really bad back problems.

Today, I finished up the bluelines on Little Boy, Phew.

There’s good and there’s bad with these things. On the good side, there’s the money. Also, there’s the fact I’m not putting big amounts of face time in the office or getting up and rushing to get out of the house and into an office by a certain time.

On the bad side, these things are for the most part, all-consuming. I get stuff from my client sometime after 7 in the evening and I turn it around by early the next day. I stay up real late working, and then catch a few hours sleep, email a note and materials to the client and then I’m available for most of the day in case there are changes or something is happening with the project.

Sleep is usually an afterthought and most of my personal life suffers. Anyway, I started these things back in late September and now I look up and it’s November?! Where did the month go?

I did a good enough job on these things the client ripped of my design for one of their other books - I wouldn’t mind as much if I had gotten the actual work but, what are you going to do?

Now, it’s time to look around for the next meal. There are a couple of leads so I’ll just have to see what pans out.




On other fronts, I was watching Georgie Jr sign this bill into law about PBA (partial birth abortion). This is a touchy subject for lots of people.

Now, I’m not a woman though and I don’t think it’s the place of a bunch of men to legislate a women’s body (funny how there aren’t any women in that picture, isn’t it?). I have some moral concerns about the whole thing yet, it’s not my place to enforce my moral code on anyone else and truthfully the whole subject falls into one of those gray areas. I can understand both sides of the argument but, I can’t see where outlawing abortion and setting up situations where it’s a “back alley” procedure would do anyone any good.

During the signing of the bill, President Bush made the following remarks (you can see his remarks in their entirety by clicking on the quote):

Our nation owes its children a different and better welcome. (Applause.) The bill I am about to sign protecting innocent new life from this practice reflects the compassion and humanity of America.

I only caught a snippet of his remarks and easily could have taken them out of context.

They got me really angry though...

What bothered me more than anything was the government was so determined to legislate this. What happened to the child after it was born, really isn’t as much of a concern. It bothers me we can send money overseas ($87 billion to Iraq and Afghanistan) but, we have trouble raising the standards of education in our country, protecting the rights of children in foster care, and making college (or any kind of secondary education) affordable for the majority of Americans without burdening them with prohibitive debt.

There just seems to be something very wrong with that equation.

Today, I feel like a man awakening from a hangover.

It’s the seven year hangover but, a hangover nonetheless. The alcoholic, treats a hangover by going out the next morning and getting drunk again. I know that’s not the answer.

If that were the case, I’d be out there getting drunk again.

Of course, I’m not talking about drinking even so please, don’t confuse me with a problem drinker - I’m using the analogy to describe the situation I’m currently in. The woman I shared the last seven years with moved out last week.

It was awhile coming.

Things didn’t work for awhile and were stagnating and both of us could feel it. Nothing nasty, not a whole bunch of bitterness, just a good helping of sadness to go around for two people caught up in a situation they don’t know how to fix together and hope they can fix by being apart.

I don’t think it makes much sense but, hey, what do I know, I’m a guy and all of us men are put together pretty much the same when it comes to the whole relationship thing.

Women are much better about communicating things than men are. Now, I think I’m a good communicator but, I don’t know if I’m such a great listener. Listening means keeping your mouth shut and having an open mind and while I’ve tried to correct the tendency to shift from having an open mouth and a closed mind to having a closed mouth and an open mind the transition hasn’t been easy and like most other men, it’s contrary to my nature.

So, I find myself in a place where I can’t blame anyone but, still I can’t be happy with the result.

I figured something out though - I like being part of a couple. I don’t think I was bad at it either. I worked at it (which is more than what can be said for many of my brethren).

Here it is a Sunday, I feel like letting loose with a big exhale. I finally have finished a first pass at everything on Little Boy and Fat Man bluelines are due back tomorrow.

Phew!

Add to that there’s been some rather dramatic personal upheaval in my life as well - isn’t it funny how stuff like that always happens when you’re really, really busy. I’m not going to elaborate on it now (the upheaval) except to say it doesn’t seem to have elicited what I would have expected (emotionally from me) so, I’m curious to see how everything will pan out. Is it denial (not just the river in Egypt - I couldn’t resist)? Or is it just a better, more healthy way of handling things?

Speaking of which, I’m still coming to grips with myself (which sounds a little odd and implies self abuse) - trying to understand the machinery of my personality and how I operate in the world. I still haven’t figured that out yet and it causes me problems often. To cop to more cheesy song lyrics, “oh please, don’t let me be misunderstood”

Over the last few years, I find I’ve been struggling mightily with the things life has thrown at me. There’s been a bunch of job changes, some deaths in the family, a major illness, injuries, all kinds of things. I never feel absolutely comfortable with the things in my life or how I’m handling them - I always think I should do better. I am doing better than I would’ve years ago but, caught up in the bubble of the present, I lose my perspective.

I’ve been real bad about blogging lately.

I don’t like to let that long a time pass but, I’ve been doing some other writing and also getting the catalogs done has really kept me busy. The big book went out on Tuesday and I shipped drafts of the smaller book yesterday.

Bluelines come in tomorrow for Fat Man and Little Boy should get one more round before shipping early to mid next week.

Phew! Now, shark like, I have to keep moving and look for my next meal.

There’s been a bunch of other things going on both good and bad lately. Surprisingly, some of the stuff (which could be viewed as very, very bad) doesn’t seem to have the same kind of impact on me as it used to. I don’t know why. Maybe, it’s age.

The funny thing is there also seems to be a fair amount of good stuff happening too (people calling, getting referrals for work from friends) it makes a big, big difference. There is some kind of big balance which is going on right now and all in all I am grateful for it.

Your tax dollars at work:

Federal agents raided Wal-Mart's headquarters and 60 of its stores across the country Thursday, arresting more than 300 illegal workers in an immigration crackdown at the world's biggest retailer.

I just want to get this straight, groups of men from Saudi Arabia wander around the country for years on expired student and tourist visas, taking flying lessons (not how to land!), sending thousands in cash back and forth from the Middle East through Western Union, buying one way plane tickets in cash before flying planes into the World Trade Center.

All the machinery of Federal law enforcement (CIA, NSA, Secret Service, FBI, ATF, Customs) doesn’t seem to notice this and no alarms are set off before it happens.

Billions of dollars are commandeered from the National Budget to create a department of Homeland Security. The result, they arrest the poor bastard who smuggled himself over the border to make $3 an hour waxing WalMarts floors.

F**king terrific!

Awhile back I had sent out an email asking people about which superpower they wanted if they could have a superpower. People put waaaayyyyy more thought into it than I would’ve liked but at least they responded (which I was glad for - thank you for those that indulge me).

People generally thought about what the “right” answer would be – more along the lines of the pc answer. “If you were a superhero...”

They missed the point.

When we’re children, it’s easy to make-believe, to fantasize and to indulge yourself in fantasy - tie a towel around your neck and run real fast pretending you’re flying. As we get older, become jaded and more cynical the quality is often lost - the joy, the freedom to explore, to dream, gets stomped out of us as time takes its toll on the imagination.

Instead of being indulgent, we can only think of the responsibility we have, to ourselves, to others, to society. I wanted to see if I could get that knee-jerk response, that first response that comes without much thought, the response that only speaks to the freedom and joy birthed by imagination.

I still have all the responses and the project has metamorphosized (due to the responses) into more of a piece on America today and how the world beyond our borders affects us (about as vague as I can get without letting the cat out of the bag).

Anyway, I thought about it myself - I had opted for the powers of The Flash - why, I can’t say really. I find myself just, for some reason liking the Flash a lot. Always have.

The truth is though I would probably Bob Burden’s be more like Mr. Furious from the Mystery Men.

Another way to idle away the time aimlessly:

So, just how the f**k old are you anyway?!?!?

I think of myself as a cynical patriot (if such a thing is possible). I recognize our system is an imperfect one but, still has much to offer and has a great deal of potential...

One of the foundations of our society, is the framework set up to insure citizen’s personal liberties. A lot of people in our country take these liberties for granted but, in these days of Patriot Acts, global terrorism and a thousand other buzzwords designed to put fear in people’s hearts, now more than ever, we need to be aware of what we would sacrifice in the name of being “safe.”

I find it unfortunate people would buy into the whole concept of being “totally safe,” I don’t think there is such a thing as a perfect world and even if it were possible I think many of us would find the price for it far to high to pay.

It is in such a context, I find myself once again musing over the insidious nature of things like EZ-Pass. Under the guise of saving the average commuter time, people actually find themselves now giving the government a way to monitor their movement. I’ve resisted the urge to get EZ-Pass for a long time now. Yes, I see the cars moving through the toll plaza and am somewhat envious but, I smile wryly when I see the report on the news about people being sent warnings for moving through toll plazas at a high rate of speed and being threatened with summons upon their next infraction.

When the government tries to take away your freedoms, they won’t do it in big sweeping movements but, in little seemingly painless ways akin to the heat of the water being turned up when a lobster is in the pot as opposed to plunging the beasty into a pot that’s already boiling. It’s a slow process - one we have to guard against.

Then I come across things like this:

TIA may be the closest thing to a true "Big Brother" program that has ever been seriously contemplated in the United States.

When reading through it, I can’t help but be fascinated by the way technology which can be put to such wonderful purposes can at the same time be abused.

Think EZ-Pass is inocuous?

The TRANSMIT system uses transponders issued as part of the EZ Pass electronic toll-collection systems. TRANSMIT has installed a number of readers along specified roadways with the capability of identifying the vehicles equipped with transponders at periodic intervals. Current Status: Operational. Due to extreme success of system, it will be expanded.

I’ve been really, really busy lately. As a result, I’ve been very lax about the whole blog thing - I’m caught up in getting catalogs out the door. Everything goes out by next Wednesday - every time I think I’m ahead of the curve something happens to spin everything out of orbit but, I guess that’s how it always is.

I finally got around to doing the whole disc maintenance thing the other day. You know the routine, scan, fix, optimize. I’m never really sure if I’m accomplishing anything other than sitting watching the stupid animation that goes along with the disc optimization program. Anyway, I did it on the “surfing” machine and the laptop.

The laptop keeps making these nasty, nasty noises telling me the drives’ days are numbered. They’ll be times when it’ll just hang up and freeze. I can always hear the drive just clicking away - everyday I take the precaution of backing everything up onto one of the two external drives I have hooked up to it.

I got another drive but, I haven’t been able to find the time to transfer everything over yet. It’s just a matter of time though and believe me I do have my fingers crossed.

Weird News

1. Every once in awhile there’s a story like this on the news. This is just another one for the Darwin Awards. I may appear heartless but, this is the kind of thing that falls under the definition of Dumbass - maybe they’ll be a lawsuit against the Transit Authority - you know after all, no one is responsible for their actions in our society anymore.

2. When the earth farts in the bathtub, you better not be on a boat.

3. “I coulda been a millionaire, instead of a garbage man which is what I am.” Another example of the stupid lawsuit syndrome.

Just for the fun of it.

I know I have 99, 96, 86, 83, 82, 78, 69, 62, 51, 50, 48, 47, 45, 41, 40, 39, 36, 27, 25, 24, 22, 21, 20, 18, 15, 14, 10 and 2 in among the records, cassettes and CDs I have amassed.

Plus, I have an affinity for 85, 71, 57, 34, 33, 31, 30, 16, 3 and 2.

Makes me want to break them out and listen to them all.

Alright, so the Yankees won.

Somehow, someway they did it. Last night I didn’t even bother to watch the game knowing somehow they would win and when I awoke this morning they had.

Good teams find ways to win and bad teams find ways to lose which is something the Cubs and the Red Sox proved this year. Grady Little probably sealed his fate by leaving Pedro Martinez in too long and from what I understand (and have read) the Red Sox could be overhauling their roster between now and next year. I figure Kim is gone (since he was left of the post season roster and greeted the beantown fans with the one finger salute) but, I would be focusing on pitching if I were Theo Epstein. Colon, Maddux and Schilling are all out there for the taking. Arizona wants to get rid of Schilling to free up money and Maddux and Colon are free agents. The Yankees have had great success pitching up older stud pitching and patching together a good rotation.

I found it interesting both the Marlins and the Yankees shot their wads in those two game sevens each team played. It makes me wonder what the pitching will be like in the World Series. Each manager choose to use starting pitching over going to his bullpen. The Marlins of course have younger guys. In last night’s game JT managed to pitch Clemens, Mussina and Wells. Only Andy Petite escaped having pitched 7 innings the day before. Who’s pitching Saturday? It seems like each team should be emotionally exhausted after the League Championships series.

Still, I can’t see the Marlins beating the Yankees, no matter what. Is there anyone who believes they will? If they did, what would it mean to the Yankees? Who’d take the fall?

I’m not even going to comment at this point on the Zimmer/Martinez thing or the actions of the infamous “Bartman” who will soon be calling a moving company I’m sure.

Oh, and as far as the Mets go - I’m glad Gerry Hunsicker didn’t get the job - if I was the Wilpons, I’d be doing everything in my power to pry Omar Minaya back from the Expos.

I’ve been focusing on getting the bigger of my two catalogs out this week. It’s been amazingly painless and we’re in the home stretch now (just a final round before release). I’ve been putting in my hours but, it hasn’t been overwhelming even though I’m putting together a 100 page book.

I like this.

I’ve been extremely remiss lately about my blogging (which is bad). I am currently enmeshed in catalog time and as a result find most of my time occupied with getting the catalogs out the door.

The larger book went from 60 some odd pages up to almost 100! Basically, the larger book is being turned around in a shade over two weeks. It wouldn’t have been that much of a hassle at all if I hadn’t had to redesign the backlist section (think financials). I realize while doing it that I had the benefit of some very good teachers through the years so, I have to tip my hat to all the very good designers and proofreaders I have worked with, some of the whole methodology took.

The smaller book is sitting there waiting for me. I’m in the home stretch on the bigger one and I’ll be relieved when I get everything out the door.

I know I’m not a Yankee fan anymore...

I was a big, big fan of the Yankees through ’95, something like 12 or 13 years. I’d go to a bunch of games each year, take friends. I even had my own little rituals going to games (like getting a box of Popeye’s chicken to bring in with me from the chicken place on the corner of 161st St and River Avenue). The Yankees sucked big time in the early nineties (when Stump Merrill, Dallas Green and Bucky Dent were managers) but, going to the Stadium was actually fun because the only people who would turn out would be the true baseball fans. It was sad that as the team got better, there would be more and more groups of rowdy, loud, expletive mouthing drunks in the stands.

My sister’s boyfriend was a batboy for the Yankees when I was a kid (and didn’t like baseball altogether that much) and I never appreciated getting those autographed programs with Roy White, Bobby Murcer, Thurman Munson and other Yankee greats on it. We would go to the games and it was a bit of an imposition.

Now, I watch the games and I root for the Yankees to lose. I’ve just gotten sick of listening to their fans over the last few years.

Well, we’re one step closer to my dream World Series this year which would be Red Sox versus the Cubs. I looked back at my picks for the first round and I did okay. I picked the Red Sox and the Cubs (I even got the number of games right with the Cubbies). The Yankees just walloped the Twins at home (which surprised me a bit) and the Marlins pulled off some magic (becoming the Cinderella story of the post season). I wasn’t sure the Marlins could do it but, I did think it would make a great story if they did and it has.

So, what are my picks for the next round?

The Cubbies and the Marlins are even at this point but, I’m still figuring the Cubbies will grab it in six games. The Red Sox won tonight (with Wakefield pitching of all things!) but, the Twins won the first game to and that didn’t stop the Yankees. I’m going to go out on a limb here and pick Boston in six as well.

Either way, I know I spent most of the weekend watching the games on TV. There was just some flat out great baseball to watch. The Marlins/Giants series was tough and the A’s/Red Sox series was just packed with excitement. Kerry Wood, Pedro Martinez, Mark Prior, Roger Clemens, Andy Petite, David Wells, Derek Lowe, Mike Timlin, Barry Zito - there’s just been tons of great pitching to watch. It’s turning into a decent post season even though the Mets sucked a big one this year.