We're still here!
Spent New Year’s at home with P- watching NY1’s coverage of Times Square, keeping my dad’s tradition of German hors d’oeuvres – cocktail sausages, cubes of cheese and cold cuts, including my favorite, head cheese (aka souse) — yes I actually like the stuff. Working off a hangover right now.
The annual message will be posted sometime tomorrow after I wake up. Yes, I’m working on it, not to worry.
Had dinner with my NYU circle of writer friends. One of them has a new book out, Your Career Is an Extreme Sport . She also writes for the WSJ – check it out.
I wanted to get the book SSW mentioned, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder, because that would be me. It wasn’t in Barnes & Noble yet, so for my winter reading I got What Every American Should Know About Europe. I really don’t know a whole lot about Europe, mostly because I took European History in high school with immersion Spanish. I was pretty good with American History, so I’m sort of OK past 1750 taking it from our point of view, but between the Dark Ages and the middle of the 18th century (or Siglio XVIII as it was called in Spanish), I never really had a good grasp of what was going on. Remedial history for me.
After that dinner, we went out to the nearby Irish pub for a pint, and like a numnut, I left my camera and bag at the Indian restaurant. Today I spent a lot of time on the phone with one guy from the restaurant whose English is pretty much limited to food, and who after 3 phone calls tells me to call at 9:30 pm, I guess when his son shows up. Turns out that they had the bag the whole time, just he couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I make a mad dash back into the city to claim it back. It’s all in one piece, thankfully (P- won’t have to kill me too much).
I was walking back through Times Square to get to the subway and I recall the Daily News mentioning that 1.25 million out-of-towners are here right now. It sure looks like it – check it out yourself:
Invariably I needed to make a pit stop, and thankfully Charmin toilet tissue has rented out a place on Times Square to use the facilities for the holidays. They managed to make relief into a amusement ride. This is actually deluxe – 20 WC closets, a dozen attendants that sanitize the rooms between every use, and of course four rolls of tissue in each room. Over 390,000 people have used the facilities, including 2,000 people from Puerto Rico (that’s a village right there) and apparently 2 North Koreans. This is what the inner sanctum looks like:
If you gotta go, you outta go here – they have to be the cleanest restrooms I’ve ever seen.
New Years’ is in swing – they’re moving in the barricades, the lights and the concrete blocks. If it doesn’t rain it will probably be pretty warm. Not a bad day to stay out for 6 hours.
Haven’t gotten into the Christmas mood yet. It’s hard when the temps have been averaging in the 50’s, the news has been generally depressing, and its been real busy at work. At least the shopping is done – P and I have been giving our Amazon Prime membership a workout, and little brown boxes with the arrow smile have been trickling in over the past week.
Of all of the holiday songs, the Carol of the Bells is my favorite. It’s relatively short, high energy, and one of the few that are in a minor key.
Saks Fifth Avenue
If you’re in New York, you have to check out this display, which is opposite the tree at Rockefeller Plaza.
Joseph Dang & Texas A&M Percussion
Starts out as a piano recital, and then just goes crazy from there.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The original rock orchestra version – in video form.
