Jump to page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 >>

Friday, 27 September 2013 - Value

 
 
Given the concentration of apartments in the Upper East Side (my neighbourhood), double-parked moving trucks of all shapes and sizes are a common sight. I particularly liked this one parked on my street tonight: "Value Movers". I guess the "value" is in the dirt-cheap price, but your stuff arrives at the other end as-is :)

Saturday, 28 September 2013 - Taste of France

 
This was going on just a block over from our street today - a little market selling random goodies along with some stuff for the kiddies. When I first walked past (before I had the camera on me) there was a fire truck parked here letting kids sit the front. I was going to ask for a turn, but when I came back it was gone. Oh well, next time ;)

 
 
Meanwhile in Bryant Park here in Midtown Manhattan, a two-day French festival is going on known as Taste of France. This is apparently organised by the so-called New York French Community. I never realised the French had such a presence in the city! For those who don't know, Kristina and I lived in Paris for eight months back in 2010 and 2011 while I was working there, so I was curious to see what this was all about.
 
About 100,000 people are expected to turn up over the course of the weekend, and it was pretty packed today. That dude in the white there is definitely French. Don't ask me how I know - I can just tell :)

 
 
The park was split into various areas such as cuisine, lifestyle, tourism, culture, and wine and spirits. This was the line just to get into the wine tasting tent hahaha! I gave it a miss.
 
I did get a free wooden spoon from the cuisine section however. Score!
 
I'm not sure whether she was part of the festivities or just turned up dressed like this.

 
 
The beauty section was showing some French fragrances...
 
The technology section was showing off their jet engines and other such goodies...
 
And the main stage had a French group belting out come French beats to a dancing crowd below. All in all it was just a good old French time!

 
Directly across the road yet another market was going on, this one blocking Sixth Avenue just down from my office and creating traffic mayhem! In the ten minutes I was standing here enjoying this, a cab cut up another car and sideswiped its front pretty good, another cab drove up another car's ass, and two random drivers got in a yelling match with each other hahaha! I love the traffic in this city (as long as I'm not stuck in it that is).

Sunday, 29 September 2013 - TV is the devil

 
What did you do today? I spent it watching TV. Yes, that classic American pass time - staring at the plastic box with the flashing lights. Specifically I was watching this. Tonight is a finale of Breaking Bad, at least it is here in the US. AMC (its broadcast channel here) has been playing a Breaking Bad "marathon" since Wednesday showing every episode of all five seasons, culminating in tonight's final episode. I only give a few shows the time of day to stick with them right through (Prison Break, Lost, Weeds etc), so this had better live up to the hype!

Monday, 30 September 2013 - Sorry, we're closed

 
If you live in America and you find politics boring and pointless, you're probably watching anything other than the news right now. I on the other hand have never found politics to be as intriguing as I do since moving here! So let me see if I can sum up this latest furore...

Congress basically has one key duty laid out in the US Constitution: pass spending bills (proposed laws) that fund the government. If it doesn't, most of the functions of the government slowly grind to a halt. Today is the final day of the US government's fiscal year, and congress has been unable to agree on a federal budget to take us into the next fiscal year. The result: a so-called government shutdown at midnight tonight in which non-essential government agencies are shut down, such as national parks, federal courts, welfare agencies and so forth. Even the Statue of Liberty here in New York, the emblem of freedom and democracy around the world, will be closed to the public (that'll piss a lot of tourists off). Hundreds of thousands of federal employees deemed non-essential will be placed on furlough until further notice. More essential government agencies will continue to operate however such as the military, air traffic control, federal prisons etc. A shutdown could last only a few hours, or it could last several days.

So what's the holdup? In a nutshell, the right-wing conservative Republican Party (one of the two major contemporary US political parties, the other being the left-wing liberal Democratic Party, currently in power after Obama won a second term as President last year) want the current spending bill to be stripped of funding for an overhaul of the US health care system that was put forward by the Obama administration, officially called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act but colloquially known as "Obamacare". Obamacare is a signature achievement of the Obama administration (and the first such overhaul of the US health system in decades), and they're refusing to budge on its implementation. The United States Congress consists of two houses, or departments: the House of Representatives whose 435 members represent each US state in proportion to its population (e.g. California currently has 53 representatives in the House), and the Senate with two representatives per state regardless of population. The House and the Senate each have distinct roles and responsibilities but each must pass federal legislation bills, first the House and then the Senate, before they can be signed into law by the President (or alternatively, rejected by the President and passed back to the Senate for reconsideration). All members of congress are directly elected through public voting, and currently the House has a Republican majority, i.e. the majority of its members are Republicans. On the other hand, the Senate currently has a Democratic majority. The current spending bill has been going back and forth between the House and the Senate, with the Democratic-led Senate rejecting each of the Republican-led House's alternative versions of the bill because of the House's persistent proposal to strip Obamacare from the bill, at least partially. There is a means to resolve such disagreements by way of the congressional conference committee - a temporary, ad-hoc panel composed of House and Senate conferees for the purpose of resolving disagreements on a particular bill. House Republican members have blocked this spending bill from "going to committee" however by not appointing conferees to talk it out with conferees from the Senate, due to fears it could further hamper their party's interests. Regardless, until they all get their act together and come to an agreement, the government will remain shut down. Elsewhere in the world, such shutdowns are practically impossible. In the United States however, government shutdowns - or the threat thereof - have become an accepted negotiating tactic thanks to the quirks of the American federal system which allows different branches of government to be controlled by different parties. It was a structure devised by the nation's founders way back when to encourage compromise and deliberation, but lately has had just the opposite effect.

Obamacare was signed into law more than three years ago now, was given the green light by the US Supreme Court in terms of its constitutionality, and was a central issue during the presidential election last year which Obama comfortably won. On the face of it all, it really does seem like sour grapes on the part of Republicans and a pathetic attempt to address it by holding the country hostage. Such is the nature of a democracy. However, despite Obama's victory last year, public opinion of Obamacare is generally negative, but the majority of people admit to having a minimal understanding its full impact. Even I had to thoroughly research to understand it. Ultimately, the goal of the health care reform is to give more Americans access to affordable, quality health insurance and to reduce the growth in health care spending in the US. While I don't want to go into detail about it all here, Obamacare does have some very beneficial changes but also has a lot of shortcomings (which the Obama administration has pledged to address).

So does a government shutdown affect the average Joe Blogs? Probably not directly, unless you're a federal employee deemed non-essential, a beneficiary of a government-funded welfare program, in need of a federal loan to buy a house, want a gun permit, etc. Indirectly though, we may all be impacted to a certain degree depending on the length of a shutdown. The fragile US economy for example will likely take a hit, and the stock markets already are despite recent record highs. As for me, well I'm not exactly sure yet whether this could delay my pending application for permanent residency in the US. With just a few hours left before midnight, it's highly unlikely this is going to be resolved in time. Believe it or not though, the United States Federal Government has shut down on 17 occasions since 1976, but not since the end of 1995 (18 years ago). On that occasion it lasted 21 days.

On a different but related subject, another huge congressional showdown is right around the corner over the country's so-called debt ceiling or debt limit. Remember that time when you maxed out your credit card? That's what the debt limit is all about. The US is on the verge of maxing out its $16.699 trillion credit card, and the president must ask Congress to raise the country's credit limit. But that's a whole other story for later in the month, and my guess is the Republicans will attempt a similar ploy of holding the country to ransom to get its way. Having said that, the seemingly out-of-control government spending and therefore government debt is exactly what the Republicans are all hot under the collar about, and is part of the reason they want to strip Obamacare as part of a larger objective to rein in government spending. Like I said, intriguing, if not a little pathetic at times. In fact the American people are pretty sick of this sort of shit from their government; they've seen a lot of it lately.

Wednesday, 2 October 2013 - Chinese food, Manhattan style

 
The US government may be shut down, but my business expenses are not ;) Some of my work colleagues are in town from London for meetings with Microsoft this week regarding the project I'm currently working on, and all of us went out to Chinatown tonight in Lower Manhattan for dinner. Incidentally, the New York City Metropolitan Area contains the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia. One of the Microsoft crew with us recommended this joint, of all places. This is down in a basement and the photo on the left pretty much shows as much space as there is (not much). At first glance we all thought what the hell, but the food soon changed our mind! 'Twas good, and plentiful :)

Saturday, 5 October 2013 - Missing delicates

 
 
When we lived in a shared three-bedroom apartment in Queens, we had a washer and dryer (fairly rare in this city). Since moving into our wee studio apartment in Manhattan, we've had to forego that luxury and instead take our laundry down the street to this place (fairly normal in this city). They wash it, dry it, fold it - the works. When we took our load down today, we were asked by the owner if we had found a University of Michigan hoody and some other thing in our last load of laundry we'd collected a week or so ago, which we hadn't. Evidently this is a common problem - people's laundry going missing and ending up in someone else's load. Like this blouse for example - it's not Kristina's and I'm pretty sure it's not mine, but it somehow found its way into our load this afternoon. Kristina has since realised she's missing a pair of sweatpants, and I'm sure I used to have more socks.
 
In other news, Kristina's twin brother and his lady-friend are paying us a visit next week. We went out to buy an air mattress for them today, and as you can see it's a tight fit hahaha! Life in a Manhattan studio :)

Sunday, 6 October 2013 - "Aaron, open this email for 24 people you should meet"

 
I don't know what the hell this is, I don't know how it turned up in my email, and I definitely don't know why I'd want to meet any of these people. The guy second-from-bottom on the left is apparently a paedophile hahaha! They're actually all in London, but regardless, no I am definitely not interested.
 

Tuesday, 8 October 2013 - Tight downtown spaces

 
 
A couple weeks back I mentioned double-parked moving trucks are a common sight around my residential neighbourhood. Well this here is another common sight in the city - big trucks towing massive loads trying manoeuvre in the narrow Manhattan cross streets (as opposed to the much wider north-south avenues).
 
And this is always the result - a long line of traffic going nowhere hehe.

 
 
This guy was right outside my office in Midtown Manhattan when I turned up on the bike this morning, and was trying in vain to reverse whatever the hell this is into the building across the street (going in straight wasn't an option). To make things more entertaining, every attempt he made came to an abrupt halt due to this pole in his way with the bike locked to it hahaha!

 
 
After a crowd of us had been watching all of this for ten minutes or more (clearly none of us were in any hurry to get to our desks), and in the midst of a cacophony of car horns coming from down the street, the driver eventually managed to get her in there.
 
But only just.
 
Good luck trying to get that trailer back out again.

Sunday, 13 October 2013 - Tour guiding, tight spaces, and celebrity spotting

 
 
Kristina's twin brother Zach and his ladyfriend Alex(andra) came to pay us a visit for a long weekend, so it was yet another exhausting one of playing tour guide.
 
Alex lived in New York for a year in 2009, and wanted to pay a visit to the 9/11 Memorial which didn't open until 2011. Kristina and I first came here about this time last year, and it was just as crowded with visitors then too. Even 12 years after the event it still seems to be very fresh in peoples' minds.

 
 
Always a sombre experience, overlooked by the new One World Trade Center, and surrounded by on-going construction of the new World Trade Center complex.

 
 
From there we headed to the Fulton Stall Market down the bottom of Manhattan, specifically to find some food at its awesome little outdoor food stalls. With Halloween just weeks away, 'tis the season to be carving your pumpkins!
 
On Saturday night we set out on the hunt for a good rooftop bar, only to be told we didn't meet the dress code or the bar was closed for a private event. Instead we found ourselves in the East Village - New York's answer to London's Camden Town.

 
 
Instead of a rooftop view we had to settle for second-floor views.
 
After leaving the bars we wandered into a nearby McDonald's to take care of the munchies where we found this guy: the restroom Nazi. As per the sign on the door, this one toilet was for Macca's customers only and it was his job to enforce that, which he did so proudly. Kristina took a seat while I went up to order some grub, and was asked several times by this guy whether someone was ordering her food. Anyway, several people leaving an adjacent club kept coming in to use the facilities, only to be sent on their way again hehe. It was very entertaining to watch. It beggars belief there is 7% unemployment in the US when there are jobs like this out there.

 
 
I mentioned last week the air mattress we bought for Zach and Alex to sleep on takes up most of the width of our wee studio apartment. In the process of stepping over them and all their crap while getting ready to head out today, I stood up on the end of the bed to get around Kristina which sent it flying up, with Kristina still on it hahaha! I don't think we'll be having too many more people staying with us.
 
Today was more of the same stuff Kristina and I have done before, including a wander through Greenwich Village where we spotted CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper walking down the street. As one of their key anchors, he's often sent to the middle of whatever drama or catastrophe is making headlines. Kristina and I are both news junkies, and she is this "Andy's" number-one fan; I don't think I've ever seen her so excited hahaha! "Oh my God, should we ask him for a photo?!" "No, leave the poor man alone!" was my response. Cooper is openly gay and in a long-term relationship with the owner of a local gay bar. For some reason this makes him something of a target for the tabloids, so I imagine he'd rather be left in peace than hassled by my wife ;) Anyway, Zach and Alex are outta here tomorrow, and we'll have some semblance of living space again.

Monday, 14 October 2013 - Banksy, in New York

 
 
Anyone who has spent any time in Britain should know the name Banksy. He is a (world) famous graffiti artist and political activist. His stencilling technique is easily recognisable, and his artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. But here's the thing - no one knows who he is. He has never revealed himself.
 
For the month of October he's in New York City, spreading his mystery throughout the five boroughs! Every day this month he's doing something or other. This was his first piece of the month on October 1st in the Lower East Side.
 
And this was October 9th, also in the Lower East Side. How he (or he plus some friends) manage to get this up in a night without being spotted and revealed is anyone's guess. However, his latest work (somewhere in Queens) was spotted by a passer-by in the wee hours of this morning just as he was packing up and leaving. He was disguised as a construction worker and loading his crap into the back of a rental van. She recognised the work, saw the paint was still wet, and looked right at him, to which she got a smile and a nod as he drove off.

 
 
Mystery and intrigue aside, the local street artists of the city don't appear to be at all impressed. Most of Banksy's work has been covered over or vandalised, sometimes within hours of being spotted (oh the irony). This here is the site of the two boys above by the time I got to it tonight.
 
October 3rd in Midtown Manhattan, and also vandalised. The speech bubble there did say "You complete me". If you're interested, you can keep track of his antics day-by-day while he's here on his blog.

Wednesday, 16 October 2013 - Back to business, for now

 
At the end of last month I talked about the mess that is US politics right now. Actually I think it's a constant mess, but this was especially messy. The government was partially shut down because an agreement couldn't be reached between the two main political parties on the nation's budget for this fiscal year. And, at midnight tonight, The US would hit its credit limit, the so-called "debt ceiling", if an agreement had still not been reached. If that were to happen, the country risked defaulting on its debt for the first time in modern history, which has the potential send the world into another 2008-era financial storm. The reality is slightly different however; the US has cash reserves to meet its immediate obligations and money is still coming in daily from tax receipts. Regardless, with just hours to spare and after much pathetic bickering back and forth, a reluctant agreement has been reached and tomorrow it will be back to business as usual. However, a lot of damage has been done in the interim, it's a huge embarrassment on the world stage, and it's only a short-term agreement. The potential for yet another government shutdown now looms in January, and another debt ceiling showdown in February. Dear me. And I'm trying to get citizenship here!
 

Friday, 18 October 2013 - Cycling fun

 
I found this while out to get lunch today. At first glance it all looked rather serious with the bike sprawled on the ground and the cop cars screaming up. It turns out however that the cyclist - the chicky standing next to the bike on the right - threw it there herself hahaha! Apparently somebody cut somebody off, the cab driver claimed she spat at him, she claimed he smacked her in the back of the head, and so on. While I was here she suddenly got pissed off with the whole situation and just took off, after hurling some choice words at the police. Great entertainment!

 
 
Meanwhile, my odometer just hit 5,200km since arriving in New York which matches my final tally upon leaving Brisbane. It took me 19 months to clock that up whereas it's only taken 16 months this time - testament to all the hooning around I like to do after work during the week (gotta love Manhattan during rush-hour!). Since buying the bike back in July 2009 (after my last bike was stolen in central London) it's now done close to 13,000kms or about 8,000 miles. Not bad.
 
Apart from a creaking noise coming from the rear wheel hub which has had three different bike shops all scratching their heads, the beast is holding up pretty damn well. However, while checking out the Banksy stuff on Monday the whole drive train somehow got itself in a jam and then wouldn't stay in gear. When I eventually made it home I realised a chain link had buckled in the process. That's a first, but nothing a pair of pliers couldn't fix. Must be these powerful legs of mine ;)

Saturday, 19 October 2013 - Annie and Jamie

 
 
Ahh Lego - part of every good childhood ;) The Art of the Brick is a Lego exhibition at Discovery Times Square. It consists of sculptures made solely from Lego bricks, all constructed by just one guy - very cool! Here are some examples.
 
Slight problem though: no photography allowed. If I'm going to pay to see something, I'd like something to take away to remember it. Namely, photographs. So in the end we decided not to venture in. We were however allowed to snap a shot of this guy, and Kristina just happened to be wearing blue today hehe. Amazing stuff. I'd love to know how long a piece such as this takes to construct.

 
 
Elsewhere outside Grand Central Station we found this film set - a pretty common sight in New York City.
 
What is uncommon though is for nosey people such as myself to get a good close look at the action. However, I have a bike, and the Park Avenue bridge in front of Grand Central there allows bicycle traffic. It doesn't exactly allow bikes to stop half way along the bridge and obstruct vehicular traffic, but that's another story ;)

 
 
After asking around I found out this is a scene from Annie, a remake of the original movie from 1982 (itself based on the 1977 musical which is still running), and due for release next year.
 
I've never seen Annie and know very little about it. I do know that's Annie on the left there holding the dog, which kept looking up at me on the bridge. If anyone happens to see the movie next year and notices the dog keeps looking up into the sky during this scene, he's looking at me ;)
 
And check out who's standing behind Annie - Jamie Foxx! I had no idea it was him until I got home and sorted through my photos. Cameron Diaz is also starring in this film but I don't see her anywhere (and no that's not her standing to the right of Foxx, unfortunately). Just another day in the Big Apple :)

Wednesday, 23 October 2013 - Banksy, caught?

 
Last Monday I mentioned the elusive British street artist / graffiti artist Banksy is doing his clandestine thing in New York City for the month of October. Though Banksy hasn't created a new piece of graffiti each day, he has debuted a new work every day through one medium or another including statues, installations, and even videos, all viewable on his website here. Over the last week or so I (along with much of the city) have been following his antics closely. Although his website doesn't specify exactly where each piece of work is, it doesn't take long for word to spread once he's posted photos and the neighbourhood on his website. Here in Tribeca we have the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center with a chrysanthemum, supposedly representing the first plane hitting the north tower.
 
 
In the Brooklyn neighbourhood of East Williamsburg these geisha ladies and a bonsai plant appeared on the wall of a corner store. A regular occurrence throughout the month has been local scumbags defacing Banksy's work (irony!) within hours of their locations being revealed. This piece was no exception. However, this part of town took immense pride in Banksy choosing their hood, and the scumbag in this case was quickly taken down by onlookers (including the store owner) and beaten to a pulp before managing to escape. Locals then cleaned his scrawl and the store owner had the whole thing covered in Plexiglas. More info here.

 
 
Other pieces include this impromptu outdoor gallery beneath the High Line. A security guard was hired for this one...
 
This pile of cinder blocks out in Queens in the shape of the Great Sphinx of Giza...
 
And this cool little piece on the other side of Central Park from us on the Upper West Side.

 
This appeared in South Bronx on Monday. Needless to say the locals here took immense pride in it too. I liked this chick who didn't want her photo taken hahaha!
 
 
Throughout the city this large fibreglass statue of Ronald McDonald has been setting up camp outside of Maccas, with a live actor shining a very expectant Ronald's shoes. However, the cops were not amused. They questioned this guy in the Lower East Side yesterday and threatened to fine him.
 
And then today, this happened. Local websites were immediately buzzing with speculation that the cops may have finally busted Banksy, despite the NYPD's claims they are not specifically targeting him since they've received no complaints from property owners regarding his work hehe. If he and/or his crew has been busted, he/they will probably be charged with vandalism, fined, released, and be back on the streets in time for tomorrow's piece. Alternatively, this may simply be a nod to the police incident yesterday.

Jump to page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 >>


Page Comments