If I won the lottery...
(Yes I frequently torture myself by looking at high-end real-estate listings; what of it?)
12/08/2009
12/02/2009
The Following Is A List Of People Who Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves
Not every representative agrees with all the same principles. Not voting for a representative because of one issue is downright silly. I’d be much more willing to sacrifice one position of mine for 10 others.
——————
Just a follow-up on this thought, which I saw attached to a reblog of the earlier post. That might be true in competitive districts. But New York’s Senate districts have been gerrymandered within an inch of their lives. My own Senator, George Onorato, won the 2004 election with 81% of the vote and rarely faces a primary challenger. In an environment this polarized, one issue IS worth voting for, because if you’re voting for a Democrat, you’re going to get agreement on a baseline 80% of the platform. There’s no risk in supporting another Democrat against these people in most of these districts. Your local race may vary, but I know I for one will be doing everything I can to unseat Onorato in 2010.
12/02/2009
The Following Is A List Of People Who Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves
Please re-blog it far and wide. Don’t just click “like”: REBLOG IT. People need to see the names and neighborhoods.
These are the Democratic state senators who voted against marriage equality today. If you live in their district, don’t vote for them again; and if your district has a Democratic primary, you need to find out which candidate supports marriage equality and fund them, advocate for them, and vote for them. If your district does NOT typically have Democratic primary challengers, then start rattling the cages of your local government and advocacy organizations and get the ball rolling on the hunt to find one. Write your State Senator and tell them you will not rest until you’ve voted them out of office for this.
If your State Senator voted Yes for marriage equality today, write them a thank-you letter. They’re on the right side of history, they stuck their necks out, and they deserve praise. And if they didn’t: again, it’s time to let them know you’re coming for them.
Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. Represents Howard Beach, Ozone Park, Woodhaven, Maspeth, Middle Village, and parts of Ridgewood.
Darrell Aubertine. Represents parts of Oswego, St. Lawrence, and Jefferson Counties.
Ruben Diaz. Represents parts of the Bronx.
Shirley Huntley. Represents Kew Gardens, South Jamaica, and other parts of southeastern Queens.
Carl Kruger. Represents a comically over-gerrymandered district in southern Brooklyn that includes Brighton Beach.
Hiram Monserrate. Represents Corona, Jackson Heights, and East Elmhurst. Should probably be thrown out of office for ethics violations anyway.
George Onorato. Represents Astoria, Long Island City, Sunnyside, and parts of Woodside.
William Stachowski. Represents the southern suburbs of Buffalo.
12/02/2009
Jesus Christ, NY!
Who do I have to blow around here to get gay married?
In all seriousness - this totally sucks. I’m torn between wanting to fight and protest and act with all my energy on the one hand, and to just say “Fuck you Hetero World, I don’t need your legal recognition to express my love in a way I’m already doing” on the other.
Fuck…I’ve been with my boyfriend longer than most marriages even last.
——————
FIGHT. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.
I’m fucking done with this shit. If you live in a district with a Democratic primary, throw all your money to the candidate who supports marriage equality. If your senator — like mine, the “honorable” George Onorato — hasn’t had a primary challenger in years, then join a local advocacy group and start rattling cages until you find someone who will run. I want that man out on his ass.
11/12/2009
“ Did you know that if you call New York City’s 311 line because your pet is dead, they will tell you that you can “place the animal in a trash bag clearly marked ‘dead dog’ or ‘dead cat’ out with your garbage on your normal trash pickup day”? Good to know! „
How To Dispose of Dead Pets in New York City | The Awl
WOW
11/10/2009
“
In many ways, Mr. Díaz seems conflicted. He relishes the role of the lonely dissident, sometimes practically taunting Democratic leaders to throw him out of the party. Still, the senator resents those who brand him a bigot for his views, and seems to plead for understanding.
“My religion doesn’t allow me to dance,” he said. “But that does not mean I don’t go to the party. My religion doesn’t allow me to drink. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hang around with my friends. My religion is against gay marriage. It means, I don’t agree with what you do. But let’s go out. Let’s go to the movies. Let’s be friends.”
„Rubén Díaz Sr. Is Familiar Voice Against Gay Marriage - NYTimes.com
It seems utterly perfunctory to even bother with this, but: UMMM NO. This is a false equivalence. If your religion doesn’t allow you to dance, but you’re happy to let other people dance, that’s cool. If your religion doesn’t allow you to drink, but you’re happy to allow other people to drink, that’s cool. If your religion doesn’t permit homosexuality, but you stand in the way of allowing others to live their lives at every turn, THEN YOU ARE A BIGOT. Are you sponsoring a new Prohibition amendment? Are you sponsoring the fucking Footloose amendment? No? Then sorry, this doesn’t work.
11/06/2009
» Marriage Equality New York
Start calling, writing, or e-mailing your representatives now: the State Senate goes into special session next Tuesday, and marriage equality is one of the possible issues at stake. All the info you need is at that link.
The text of the e-mail I just sent to Majority Leader Sampson, and Senator Onorato, follows.
Honorable Senators —
As a young gay man and a proud citizen of Astoria, Queens, I urge you to please do the right thing and schedule a vote on marriage equality for gay & lesbian men & women during the upcoming special session.
Senator Onorato, I know your position on the issue, but on behalf of your thousands of gay & lesbian constituents, their families, and the children growing up in your district who will one day be your constituents, I strongly encourage you to reconsider your stance. I hope to someday raise a family in this beautiful district, but I cannot do so in good conscience if my children will grow up in a place where their family’s right to exist on equal terms is publicly denigrated by our own representative. I honestly beg you: when this issue comes up for a vote, please do not stand in the way of my chance to be treated as an equal citizen in the eyes of the law.
Across the country, with every hateful, discriminatory ballot measure that strips away the rights that the Constitution should assure, millions of young gay men and women — myself included — are giving up hope that America will ever respect them as human beings, and are becoming sadly accustomed to a life of grinding bigotry. Please, do not let a chance go by to give us a fresh shot of hope.
Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful weekend!
-Chris Conroy
Astoria, Queens
10/29/2009
this used to be my playground
Greenpoint, Brooklyn… if you look to the sky.
——————
Used to live less than a block from here. Miss it sometimes. Tiny bedroom, great neighborhood.
10/14/2009
» Restaurants - Daniel Boulud Doesn’t Miss a Beat With DBGB - Review - NYTimes.com
Mark your calendars. Every year for my birthday (March 23), I celebrate with Meat and Singing (i.e. karaoke). This year, the meat will be served here. I am literally going to have a sausage party.
07/19/2009
06/30/2009
» 3G Speed And Reliability Results By City - PC World
Holy crap, look how awful those AT&T numbers are for New York City. As much as I want a new iPhone, performance like that gives me pause about whether or not shelling out all that service-plan cash is in any way worth it, especially since the single most disappointing thing about my EDGE iPhone has been its incredibly poor network reception, even for simple voice calls. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, AT&T.
06/16/2009
Clubs and Rockets in QueensThis is believed to be the world’s first mini-golf course designed to teach astrophysics. Possibly even to tweens. Better science through mini-golf may not immediately sound like an educational breakthrough, but there are a couple of reasons for optimism. First, there’s the native genius for this sport. While American students keep getting outscored in international science tests, American mini-golf designers have long led the world in technologies like windmill obstacles, loop-de-loops, moving drawbridges, laughing pirates and steaming volcanoes.I have to say, this course looks a lot cooler than the various hipster mini-golf courses that seem to be popping up this summer. Although maybe a Grand Slam would be in order…
——————
WHEN ARE WE GOING. Seriously you guys I HEART mini-golf.
05/11/2009
» Uncovering the Secrets Beneath the Surface of the New York Harbor
How can you resist this tagline? What lies beneath the surface of New York Harbor? For starters, a 350-foot steamship, 1,600 bars of silver, a freight train, and four-foot-long cement-eating worms.
——————
This is by far the most educational and entertaining article I’ve read today. Good work, NYMag.
04/27/2009
04/21/2009
Sobering thought.
dyfl:
There are two new albums out today that I’d like to go buy, but so many record stores have closed in the last few months that I don’t honestly know if there’s one that I can comfortably get to and get back from on my lunch break. AND I WORK IN MIDTOWN MANHATTAN.
It wasn’t supposed to come to this, was it?
———
I went through this very thing when the Neko Case album came out, and I know I was not the only one. Then I got the Borders Shortlist and there was so much Neko splashed in it that I knew I’d be okay if I hoofed it up to the Time Warner Center. So I did that. And it felt stupid, like going to Record Town, knowing that somewhere else there was infinitely more for me but this was the place where my mom dropped me off and in twenty minutes I had to meet some friends over at Hoyts anyway.
I mean do I have to be thinking ahead and pre-ordering everything online so’s I can get it near to release? But my stores have been picked off, even the ones I barely admitted to shopping at: Tower Records (4th St. and Lincoln Square), Virgin Megastore Times Square. Plus Kim’s Uptown. The last time I was in Union Square I bought like six albums in the Virgin Megastore there, stupid purchases just because I could. While in Los Angeles two weeks ago I went to Amoeba Records Hollywood and just about got vertigo. I know New York still has its boutiques, its 99-cent bins. But where can I go to be overwhelmed with choice & up on my new releases? And seriously, where am I supposed to shop for new theater cast recordings, which goddamn it for some reason I still buy?
I guess I’m saying if anyone wants to put up money to open an Empire Records, I’m in. I’ve heard great things about this economic climate.
——————
The way this story ends: I walked up to the nice (and consistently ghost-town-esque) Best Buy on 62nd & Broadway, which Maura reminded me existed. I walked out with four albums — the two I intended to buy (Pet Shop Boys’ YES, ETC. and Depeche Mode’s SOUNDS OF THE UNIVERSE) and two I had been intending to buy (Yeah Yeah Yeah’s IT’S BLITZ! and Ne-Yo’s YEAR OF THE GENTLEMAN, finally). Altogether I paid a little over fifteen bucks per disc, on average (The PSB was $20, the DM was $10, and the other two were $14). I would have saved a lot of money if I’d bought them on Amazon — especially if I’d just bought the DM record, which I admit is only OK, for $4 on Amazon MP3 today — but you know what god damn it I like just walking into stores and buying records and I don’t care who knows it.
I never felt any real shame in shopping at Virgin or Tower — if your business model allows you to stock everything I could possibly want, then it’s a good business model and I don’t mind rewarding you for it. Unless, of course, it turns out to not be such a good business model. Whenever possible I used to buy new releases at Future Legend on 9th Ave & 53rd St in Hell’s Kitchen, but, well, they closed last year. Of course.
I just can’t believe that such a fundamental part of my New York experience is disappearing so completely and so quickly. And yes, I’ll start an Empire Records with anyone who wants to, as long as we stock comic books too.
