Bite me, said the Big Apple, and so we did - pt. III

When travelling around NYC, it is very helpful to have a subway card at your disposal. Imagine my astonishment as I walk down the stairs and up to the vending machine, all ready to exchange my hard earned money for a subway card, only to find…

THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. What the hell, New York? The whole program is simple enough to have been written in Flash or something similar, and yet they have outsourced this project to someone so incapable he has managed to write errors into the code that are severe enough to prompt a full-blown memory dump. Next time, they should grab a random toddler off the street, give him “Flash for Dummies”, a lollipop and a shiny marble and I guarantee you he will produce very nifty alternative. Sure, it’ll probably be a little rough around the edges, but at least it will lack the capacity to crash the entire machine, unlike this shiny example of failure their go-to braindead ICT hobbit came up with for an amount of money almost infinitely larger than what aforementioned marble and lollipop would have set them back. Trust me, the toddler is the way to go here.

Despite the stories I had heard about the US and their eating habits, never in my wildest dreams had I expected to run into what apparently passes for Mickey D’s loitering policy. I honestly don’t know what to make of this.

First of all, they saw fit to tack a “no outside food” sticker onto an already ridiculous sign, which simply perplexes me. If you have the choice between eating, for example, your homemade tuna sandwich outside or inside McDonalds, why the hell would volunteer to sit in their copyrighted atmosphere of greasy hamburgers, depressed staff and screaming children? It just doesn’t make any sense

Second, does the 30 minute time limit aply only while consuming food, or after it as well?

Manager: “Sorry sir, you’ve been here for thirty minutes, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave”

Customer: “Yeah? Well, I just finished my last fries 6 minutes ago, which means I can stay here as long as I want, so FUCK YOU!” *breaks out his sleeping bag, pillow and night light*

Also, what does the “enforcement” entail? Do they simply throw you out if you haven’t finished your triple Big Mac supersize menu within the time limit, or do they break out the funnel and ramrod? At least they thank you for your cooperation in advance, which is actually kind of weird in itself. “Thank you for foregoing a nice family meal in favor of filling your stomachs with shit that just barely passes for food within a prescribed amount of time”. No wonder people sue McDonalds.

Of course, you’re not necessarily guaranteed a nice, wholesome meal if you eat somewhere else, either. Apparently, someone thought serving this to his customers would be a great idea. This nightmare of a dish consists of fried shrimps, steak and ribs smothered in barbeque sauce, with a side of cornbread, fries and, yes, fried onions. I could feel my cholesterol rising by simple looking at my plate. In a way, eating shit like this is like upsetting Uma Thurman: it’s all fun and games until your heart explodes in your chest.

While my body was trying to decide whether to deal with the poisonous material I had just introduced it to through either explosive vomiting or explosive diarrhea, the staff decided to add insult to injury by customizing our check. Did they really think we were that thick they had to both circle the text stating the suggested tip AND include a red sticker to remind us that the tip is NOT included? We’re foreigners, not lobotimized, inbred and/or retarded, goddamnit!

Needless to say, we acted our part and left about 3 dollars tip, then limped out of there doing the best damn impersonations of Corky anyone has ever seen. Assholes…

Shortly after we would be flying back to Holland, Eddie Murphy’s new movie Meet Dave was scheduled to come out, thereby continuing his streak of movies in which he stars as himself playing himself, distributed over about a dozen different and equally annoying characters. Instead of revoking his actor’s license, they actually erected a huge statue of his head on Times Square in his honor. I didn’t dare go anywhere near it in fear of any occult rituals a giant simulacrum such as this might inspire, but I’m pretty sure it involved climbing into his head and out of his ear. If anyone can tell me what this means in terms of tribal Eddie Murphy-ism, please let me know.

That’s it for New York, for my next post I’ll be right back at my usual jumping, screaming and verbal poop-flinging.

AngryPoodle out.

Bite me, said the Big Apple, and so we did - pt. dos

Continuing the tales of my New Yorkian adventures, this part is dedicated to the Metropolitan Museum. The student price was 10 dollars, half the full entrance fee, but it was “appreciated” if you paid the full fee so as to ensure that the Met stay open for visitors. This threw me for a loop, as just the number of visitors walking around the entrance hall would probably be able to keep it open for quite some time even if all of them paid the reduced price, not to mention the fact that due to renovation large parts of the museum were actually closed. I don’t know what kind of student would enter the Met thinking “well sure, I guess I could pay 20 bucks to see half of the stuff you would usually get to see for just 10, what the hell”. Students who are bad at math, probably.

Long story short: we paid 10 bucks, got a neat little pin that marked us “paying visitors” and went in.

In a moment of selfprofessed genius, most likely generated by copious amounts of booze and severe delusions of logistic grandeur, some asshat thought it would be a good idea to dig up an entire Egyptian temple, slap a little sticker on it that reads “MINE”, and transport the whole fucking thing to the States. I have to say, I couldn’t agree more. If I had the money, I would claim all kinds of ancient cultural shit from all over the world and transport it to my backyard, starting with the Eiffel Tower. That oughta teach those damn Frenchies…

Anyway, what’s more important is that while I sympathise with the concept of transporting other people’s shit into your own museum, I do NOT get why that would make you want to throw your pocket change into the pond surrounding it, as illustrated below:

How does this work exactly? “Oh look kids! It’s an ancient Egyptian temple! Here’s 5 cents, make a wish and maybe Horus’ll give you that fire truck you wanted for Christmas”. What the fuck is Horus going to do with some tens of dollars in small change?! Or maybe I’m missing the point entirely, and some people just enjoy throwing money into shallow water, at the same time showing the world they have absolutely NO clue as to the workings of luck in general and imaginary deities’ influence on it in specific.

Also, if people keep throwing their petty cash into the water, at some point the museum is going to want to collect at least some of it, in order to keep the general atmosphere from turning from Egyptian to “cursed pirate booty”. I’d hate to be the guy in charge of this, but I guess this is were cheap immigrant labour comes in: “Jorge! JORGE!! Where the fuck’s… Ah! Jorge, since you’re the one responsible for yesterday’s little fuck up, I’m putting you in charge of collecting the money from the temple po—NO ‘BUTS’, Jorge!! Here’s your little net, I’ll be back to check up on you in an hour or so. Now get going or your ass will be shipped back to Mexico faster than you can say ‘illegal alien’. VAMOS!!”

Poor Jorge…

Among various marble titty statues and expressionless faces we found this guy. Isn’t he awesome? Fuck Michelangelo’s David, this guy just took number 1 in the “best marble statues EVAH” listing. I mean, he looks like a guy—let’s call him Hank—who just found out that his wife Johanna is actually a convicted murderer called John, who escaped from prison years ago and had a rudimentary sex-change to escape the law, but who then in an unforeseen personal emotional breakthrough found himself in love with previously mentioned young Hank, and who had hoped that their newfound love for each other would help Hank overcome the initial shock and disgust he would undoubtedly feel when he would reach between the legs of his new-found love—who admittedly sports a few uncanny male-like features—only to find the grossly disfigured remnants of the penis the failed surgery had left John/Johanna with… ON HIS HONEYMOON. Or he could be trying to wrap his mind around string theory, but I’m pretty sure it’s either one or the other.

The third and final part of this little triptych will be up later this week, so come back then if you somehow find yourself craving pointless banter.

Wikipedia’s typing monkeys

UPDATE: Another paper! This one’s about Keen’s flawed arguments on collective intelligence and Wikipedia. Not my best work, but I’ll make it up some day by delving deeper into the veritable armada of weirdly ridiculous arguments that bitter sack of shit we all know as Andrew Keen has come up with in order to deal with his own failure as an Internet entrepreneur. Get over it, bro.

Direct link

Bite me, said the Big Apple, and so we did - pt. 1

They say time flies when you’re having fun, and by that logic I must have been having some real goddamn fun lately because it’s been a shocking 3 weeks since my last post. Oopsie.

In my defence, I had to write a lot of papers and teamed up with my good friend Alexander to visit—you’ll never guess this one—New York City. Now, I really do want to share some of my experiences from the Big Apple, but I am also very much aware of the fact that since you’re already on the Interwebz, beautiful pictures of the Statue of Liberty, Empire State building and Lindsay Lohan’s dog are only a click away, which would probably far outrank my amateurish attempts at capturing NYC in digital imagery. Accordingly, I have decided to skip the touristy stuff in favour of my much more exciting personal experiences.

This was our room in the Big Apple Hostel. It pretty much consisted only of two bunk beds, an airconditioner and the occasional sleeping French guy, but it did the trick. Next slide.

Walking through Central Park, we came across this beauty of an enigma. Whatever is under there, it is apparently so dangerous it had to be covered by a garbage bin, which is blocked from public examination by three iron fences forming a triangle (just like every road sign signalling “danger”, coincidence? I THINK NOT), which were then wound with tape bearing the texts “CAUTION” and “CAUTION DO NOT ENTER”.

My initial thought that there might be a small carcass of, say, a rabbit or a squirrel under there which they wanted to screen off from unsuspecting passers-by quickly dissipated when I realized that a black container combined with the temperatures and sun exposure characteristic for midsummer New York might in fact be THE worst solution imaginable to this particular problem, and would pretty much guarantee biochemical disaster in a matter of days, if not hours. This left me with two possible alternative answers:

Underneath this heap of discouraging signifiers could be either a) a beehive, hornet’s nest or a reasonable facsimile, or b) the entrance to someone’s secret lair. Although Occam’s Razor would dictate that my first option be the most credible, there are a number of reasons why I think it doesn’t quite fit the situation. First of all, I have it on authority *cough* WIKIPEDIA *cough* that Western honey bees build hives somewhere between 1 and 5 feet above ground, not ON it. Second, wouldn’t a beehive so close to the walkway be noticed way, WAY before it would even become necessary to cover it with a garbage bin? No, all things considered, I have come to accept that my third and last hypothesis has to be the right one: there is a secret lair under Central Park, the entrance to which is cleverly concealed with common roadside objects. Unfortunately, I never found out just who’s lair this is, as I then passed a nearby pretzel vendor and my at times childlike mind moved on to the more current issue of what to stuff my mouth with.

And what better to stuff your mouth with than a fresh, up-until-just-now-alive steamed Maine lobster, in none other than the Grand Central station Oyster Bar. I can’t quite figure out if it was the promise of soft, sweet lobster meat that will melt on your tongue like butter, the fact that they were going to kill one of God’s little creatures by boiling it alive just for moi, or the idea of finally getting to wear a big-boy bib that made me choose this classic dish, but boy was it great. And don’t we look handsome in our little bibs, holding our little claw crackers?

I have a lot more interesting pictures that come with even more interesting stories, but in favour of those of you with short attention spans I have decided to cut all this up into a few parts, the rest of which you will find here over the next two weeks or so. Good enough for ya? Great. Now go outside and walk your dog or something.