thecenterofeverything.com

Thought this would be helpful for any NYC drivers out there. This is a holiday (.hol) file I created which will import all 2008 Alternate Side Parking suspension days into your Outlook calendar. I created this for myself but hopefully others can benefit from it. Instructions are included. Enjoy…

Download here

NOTE: I take no responsibility for any errors or mistakes in this file. This has only been tested in MS Outlook 2003 and I take no responsibility for anything that may happen on your computer in this or other versions of Outlook.

A few months ago my college buddies and I took a trip down to New Orleans for my friend’s bacelor party. My friend Wyatt took some videos and put together a documentary from the trip. Enjoy…

Today my friend Dave and I went to a really cool thing that someone in the neigborhood organized. About 18 people got together for a 3 hour bluegrass harmony singing workshop in the hood. It was tremendously fun and surprisingly, most people picked it up fairly quickly. There was a huge age range, from about 10 year old to somewhere in the mid to late fifties. First we sang "Row Row Your Boat" men, then women, in progressively higher and higher keys to find the limits of our vocal ranges. Then we started learning the 3 part harmony to "Will The Circle Be Be Unbroken". After a few practice rounds we broke up into groups of 6 around the house and practiced together. It was an amazing feeling when on the first try, our group burst out into near perfect harmony. There were some areas we had trouble with but we worked through it. Below are 3 clips of what we sounded like.

"Will The Circle Be Unbroken" (Small Group, 6 People)
"I'll Fly Away" (Entire Group, 20 People)
"Nine Pound Hammer" (Entire Group, 20 People)

Actually, the real loser to me is the guy who did this to my car a few weeks ago. I come home from work one day to find my car smashed up and an gaping hole in the tire. As I’m standing there trying to figure out what possibly could’ve happened, a woman came outside and told me she saw the whole thing happen earlier in the day. Apparently a guy was double parked on the other side of the street from me. A huge US Postal Service truck came down the street and tried to squeeze through the space. He seemed to have made it through except for some kind of metal part protruding from the underbelly of the truck. This piece puncture my tire (which the woman said made an exploding sound) and continued to rip off part of my bumper.

I called the police who of course were useless. Actually, the funny thing is while I was waiting for the 5-0 to come, an SUV drove past me and stopped in front of me. A guy got out and told me I should wait further down the road so the cops could see me. I was shocked and asked him how he knew that what I was doing. He just handed me his business card which was for the local auto body shop! Apparently he heard my call to the police over the police scanner and got to the scene before them! The auto-mechanic equivalent of an ambulance chaser.

The police wouldn’t even put in the report that this witness said it was a mail truck because she didn’t get a plate number. That Monday I went to the post office which was on the same block and the guy there was helpful but useless too. This is the epitomy of government beauracracy here. Everything is someone elses responsbility and nobody is accountable for anything. (and people want THEM to run our health care?! Ooops, sorry, no politics here!)

I tried researching to see if I could maybe take them to small claims court but it seems that government agencies can’t be sued there. You have to go through a whole other expensive process with a lawyer and is basically not worth it. Bastards.

The driver of this postal truck is “loser of the year” for not even having the courtesy to leave a note.

I’ve been slacking on my “loser of the week” posts but I guess there’s more important stuff to do right? Well I couldn’t resist this one because this really pisses me off. This week I present “guy-who-leans-up-against-the-entire-subway-pole-so-nobody-else-can-hold-it guy”. But its even worse, because this guy is not only preventing anyone else from holding the pole or walking past, but he’s wearing a pair of those ridiculous enormous noise canceling headphones. So people are saying “excuse me” to him and he’s oblivious. Dumbass.