transitional phase.

i’m not done here, but in the meantime, you should check out a work in progress.

ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-

-changes.

that’s right, folks. i’ll be making some changes around here. that sort of just occurred to me. normally when i get this type of thought in my head, i cut my hair really short or move to arizona, but my hair’s already short and i’m not seventeen, so this time is a little different. i was sitting in front of the blog command center, pondering whether or not to upload various cute-baby pictures (one of my african friend nene, others of the brooklyn wonder-twins), and decided that i don’t really feel like talking about my life anymore. at least not in a “dear diary” sense.

and no, it’s not just to entice people to read the blog, but also to push myself a little to absorb the city some more. i pass things every day that are so amazing (for example, a guy standing outside pommes frites with 20 ten-pound bags of raw potatoes), but i just smile and walk past them because i don’t want to look touristy or something awwwwful like that. i want to document things as i see them, because new york city is – if nothing else – an extremely interesting place to live. and i’d like to share that.

stay tuned.

ELECTION LIVE

wow, guys. like, for realz. first of all, if you don’t feel like reading about my adventures, you can click here to go straight through to the LIVE BLOG. but if you WOULD like to hear my awesome story, then get ready.

so as some of you may know, this was my first voting experience. yeah yeah, i totally pussed out in 2004, but come on, a democrat in massachusetts? there wasn’t a ton i could do. not that being a democrat in new york is that big of a change, but this election feels just a liiiiittle bit more relevant/important/life-changing to me. okay, so needless to say, i was pretty excited to vote. so excited, in fact, that i ended up waking up twenty minutes before my alarm went off this morning. it was 545 am.

luckily, the polls in ny open at 6 am, so i decided to deal with missing the last few minutes of slumber, and just head over to the polls (one block away). there was already a line out the door, but i had come prepared with my crossword, and it was surprisingly not totally crappy weather, so i was okay. anyway, i’ll skip to the important stuff.

i didn’t have my handy little registration direct-mail thing with me, so i went over to the district book guys, who told me that i’m in district 50, and to head to the line all to the way to the right, which i do. 7 minutes later, the guy comes up to me and says he accidentally put me in the wrong line, and that i should be all the way over to the left. luckily there wasn’t too much of a line inside (just out, i guess), so that was just fine. i get to the table, and they can’t find my name in the booklet thing. this bums me out because it means i have to fill out a provisional ballot, but hey, i’m still doing my part, right? i just assumed this happened because i sent in my registration form about 8 minutes before it was due on the 10th.

so i’m outta there in 45 minutes, which is sort of bittersweet because it gives me just enough time to NOT go back to sleep before work. oh well. so i tell este what district we’re in so he doesn’t have to wait, too, and i’m on my way out. two hours later (and four hours after i vote), i get a phone call from este. turns out, we’re not in district 50. we’re in district 49. apparently este had gone through the same shenanigans with the no-name-in-the-book deal, and was really disappointed at casting a prov ballot, so when he got home, he double-checked his registration guy, and right there, printed on the card, was the 49. SO LAME.

because he had some extra time before going to work and the fact that he was still around the corner, he went back to the polling place and settled everything, ripping up the paper ballot and doing that shit right. unfortunately, i was at work, and planned to be until later in the day. FORtunately, however, i decided to stroll by on my way home from work, just to see what was up with the wait, and there was none! the place was practically empty. so i popped in, explained my story to about 4 different people (who understood in varying degrees), got an (unprompted) apology from the guy who f’ed up my s in the morning, ripped up my paper ballot, and pulled the crap out of that lever!

so all in all, it worked out. :) here’s the link again if you want it: ELECTION LIVE. come check it out! last time, there were TWO WHOLE PEOPLE i’m not related to! it was awesome.

announcement! (etc)

okay so first the announcement: yesterday, friday 23 oct, maura moved to and then seconded a motion to add joeblog to the list of friends’ art and blogs, located conveniently to the left of this post. the motion passed. enjoy.

okay, now for the etc: este and i did awesome halloween things! check it:

BEFORE

AFTER

and lastly, our apartment’s falling apart! no, not really, but it’s kind of scary. okay long story short: they started doing renovations on the apartment above ours a couple of weeks ago. the landlord called este to tell him this, and to say that should we find any cracks in the ceiling or anything during this process, to call them immediately. well, no cracks yet, but this happened yesterday:

yes, normally that is attached to the ceiling a little better. there are also a couple of spots (in the bathroom, este’s desk…) where there are heavy sprinklings of, well, ceiling.

nothing really terrible’s happened yet, though. we called the maintenance people yesterday but because of shabbat the only thing available to us was the emergency line. i tried calling that – and i know this isn’t technically an emergency, but i KNOW that if part of the ceiling falls over the weekend and we hadn’t called to tell them what was going on, they’d flip out and not pay for damages or fix anything or whatever – and they said that this technically isn’t an emergency and that they’d call me back. still waiting on that.

so i’m not really worried because we survived the night and i’d say that’s a good sign, but i am kind of annoyed, since i was being very polite and calm in explaining that i know this isn’t like the apartment’s on fire or anything, but i wanted to get something on record as saying that we had, in fact, notice some slight changes to the apartment since the construction upstairs started, but the three different people i talked to (always fun) kept interrupting and not really listening to what i was saying. it’s times like that that provide me with absolutely no faith whatsoever that anything will get resolved, since you can’t really solve a problem if you don’t understand what’s happening, right?

okay and while we’re on the complaining track… sorry i’ve been a bad little poster recently. este is downloading eight (8) seasons of the simpsons right now and it’s making our internet wicked slow and me pretty damn cranky when i use the computer. so. there’s that. read joeblog!

suck it, comcast: part two

THAT’S RIGHT.

covering it live, part deux

Click Here

covering it live

finally figured it out! made a rookie mistake last week by not reading all of the directions. nice.

link it up!

not quite scathing, but close enough.

i know i’m not the first person to say that sarah palin kind of sucks. or to say that she REALLY sucks. (both of which i agree with.) but what really grinds my gears is her smug demeanor. republicans have made it a point to call barack and michelle obama “elitists” as often as humanly possible, but the only one of the four nominees (presidential and vice presidential, respectively) who acts like she’s better than everyone is sarah palin.

too many people have taken her tone for spunk, but i have to say, to me she’s nothing more than a sniveling, third-grade-style know-it-all. the problem is, though, that she knows practically nothing, as is usually the case. but honestly, it’s not surprising. anyone who’s served so little time in any sort of government position simply cannot be expected to learn, memorize, and recite everything that a 25+-year senator knows over the course of five weeks. but to stand there and act like you can, and you did, is just rude. to have the audacity to put on airs and pretend that you have even the slightest bit of knowledge about such an enormous range of information… it’s disrespectful.

almost as disrespectful as mccain’s campaign’s assumption that women (and i’m sure a lot of men) are so shallow, that we would be willing to overlook the fact that hillary and sarah are different on pretty much every single fundamental level… and vote for her anyway because she’s a woman, and for some reason, mccain’s camp thinks that the reason hillary clinton came so close to office was not because she’s qualified or deserving, but because women in general just really want a woman in office.

and what makes it worse – in BOTH cases – is that there are so many people out there who are feeding into these stereotypes and misogynistic opinions. IN BOTH CASES. there are men and women all over this country who are supporting sarah palin for all the wrong reasons. and i know that i’m implying, by saying that, that there are “right” reasons to vote for her and mccain… i happen to wholeheartedly believe that no such “right” reason exists, but i’m trying to be tolerant. as tolerant as palin just said she is of her gay friend’s choice. to be gay. choice. gay. okay…

but seriously, it’s disappointing to me that there are people out there who are succumbing to all of the grandstanding, and all of the low low low expectations that are being formed – by the minute – for and by the american people. people like that should embarrassed and, quite frankly, ashamed of themselves. it is people like you who turn historic events like presidential races and even things like the post-9/11 era – things that should otherwise be fully respected – and make them into mockeries.

and now for the cool part:

politifact
amazing fact checkers with hilarious moving graphics denoting the level of fact and/or fiction of politician’s statements

superdork.

so i’m SO bored at work, i opened a twitter account. also, i like blogging, but sometimes i feel like sharing small things (like the guy playing the harmonica that i followed on my way to work yesterday) that don’t really call for an entire blog post. so in the interest of indulging myself – quite frankly – i set this silly thing up.

if you have it already, publicly or weirdly secretly (i’m looking at YOU, lucille! ask me how i found out.), let me know so i can follow you around on the interwebs, and vice versa.

ps: noah, i know you’re curious about the site in general, so i’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

conspiracy fail.

it’s incredibly slow at work today (and probably will be all this week, too), so i thought i’d post a gem from my hours of web surfing. i mentioned FAIL in a previous post; this youtube video was posted by them this afternoon:

enjoy.