I hate you too, bike thief

http://www.flickr.com/photos/deryid/3835365190/

I'm all for green

but this might be a tad too crunchy for me.

http://nymag.com/guides/summer/2009/57478/

The girls have a room, used mostly for playing (they don’t have homework), but everyone sleeps in the family bed, a king mattress plus a twin pushed together. “The girls love it,” Chew says, “and I’ve gotten used to sleeping with a foot in my face. If Blake and I need privacy, there are plenty of other places in the house.”

I do love this concept though: http://nymag.com/guides/summer/2009/57477/

“There are 1,000 worms in here,” Annie Novak says, cracking the lid on a box filled with scraps of newspaper and small squirmy things. The earthworms are about to be relocated to the soil spread across this warehouse roof 50 feet above the Greenpoint sidewalk, where, Novak hopes, they’ll get to work aerating the soil. Urban gardens are nothing new, but the scale, location, and imagination of Rooftop Farms—the name of this project—is stunning.

Right in my own back yard...

The biggest mistake one can make upon exiting the B at the last stop, inhaling undertow-flavored air and narrowly passing a man in a fake Gucci shirt and a rabbit hat hawking caviar from a foldable outdoor table, is to assume that you’re seeing a passable facsimile of Russia. Brighton Beach is far more interesting. What you’re actually getting is a kind of double-blind guess— a Jewish immigrant’s idea of what an American’s idea of Russia may be. And that’s what makes it arguably the most fascinating ethnic enclave in New York: It looks just as exotic to the ethnicity it enclaves.

Like its freak cousin Coney Island, the neighborhood known as Little Odessa is as much a state of mind as a location: stuck between two worlds, with its own culture, slang, radio, TV, magazines, and illicit pharmaceutical industry (think less meth and more FDA-unapproved heart drops). It’s too singular and ornery to be a true tourist trap. Unlike Little Italy, with its defanged Mafia lore, Brighton Beach frowns at suggestions the “Russian mob” has ever even existed; its secrets are still secrets, and its past is never far away.

http://nymag.com/guides/everything/brighton-beach/

New Yorkers are Resilient (aka self centered and annoying)

Recently, New York Magazine did it's annual Reasons to Love New York issue. I was amused by Reason #59. Because We’re Resilient:

... In other words, New Yorkers are preternaturally resilient. And that’s not just romantic, self-flattering I [Heart] NY bullshit. Psychologists define a resilient person as one who after experiencing a trauma has one or no symptoms of post-traumatic-stress disorder. A Columbia study of New Yorkers a few years ago found that 65 percent of us were certifiably resilient following 9/11—as were more than half the people who’d actually been in the Trade Center buildings during the attacks. But the study’s finding I love best describes what kinds of 9/11 survivors were least affected, the quickest to bounce back, the most resilient: the so-called self-enhancers. They, according to the psychology professor who ran the study, “are somewhat grandiose. They are preoccupied with themselves, they score high on measures of narcissism, and the research shows pretty clearly that they are annoying to be around.”

Seven Laid-Off New Yorkers Share Their Stories

Since August, 33,000 New Yorkers have lost their jobs.

I’m a workaholic, so it’s a little hard to step back and enjoy this free time. I’m going back to things that I enjoyed when I was younger. I’ve been cooking up a storm. I’ve been really diligent with Pilates and have taken up knitting again. I’m almost done with a little blanket for my cat.

You have to maintain a positive attitude. It does pass, but it takes time. Many people who were laid off from the big banks may never go back to the financial industry; they just don’t realize that yet. You have to ask yourself, “What is the talent that I offer, and where can I put that to use?” I’m reinventing myself. I want to go into the not-for-profit sector and do something more meaningful with my life. In my mind, as of that day, I retired from the investment services. It just wasn’t satisfying as far as giving back to people, and the current system is not the industry I remember. I’m looking for more now.

read more digg story

Benjamin Shih sounds like KG's dream guy

On paper, at least.

By Matthew Cavnar
Photo: Matthew Nauser

Benjamin Shih, who owns the retro-cool Williamsburg bars Sweet Up’s and the Royal Oak, joined the National Guard in 2005. [Using the] Patriot Express business-loan program for military personnel, Benjamin "got a loan for $150,000.” The money helped Shih, 36, secure the lease on a space at Ludlow and Delancey, where next month he plans to open Hotel Chantelle, a two-floor restaurant he says will look like “what a tasteful Chinese businessman living in Paris would have built in the 1910s, but then aged to 1940.” Underneath, there’s a basement bar called, appropriately enough, SGT’S.

“People are always asking me, how can someone with graduate degrees and who is a liberal go into the service?” Shih says. “This is a question I never get in the Midwest or the South. My response is, you and I are on a social-contract credit card. So why in other parts of the country do we try to pay down that debt? For you, it’s something incomprehensible. For me, it’s something I was raised with.” Shih’s family arrived from Taipei in 1968. “It was the American Dream,” he says. Shih went on to get both a law degree and tattoos, and then worked for Lexis-Nexis. He wanted to be his own boss, and in 2002, he used his savings to open Sweet Up’s. But he always wanted to be in the military, too; he identifies with his fellow soldiers. “They’re often poor, they value education, obligation—the social contract,” he says. “I have a foot in both worlds.”

According to his platoon sergeant, Shih will likely be shipping out, probably to Afghanistan, next year.

Like what you read? digg story

Cool and creepy

all at once...

And, kind of romantic too.

http://gawker.com/396294/blogger-boy-needs-you-for-girlfriends-brooklyn-birthday

Ryan is a friend of a friend. Both he and his gf are pretty cool people. I'm glad Gawker picked it up. Some of the comments were pretty funny, but some seemed meanspirited, which is pretty New York for ya.

He said what?

Panhandler on the F train: Hello. Many of you recognize me or my sister since one of us comes through this train at least once a day. I am collecting donations of food, clothing or money to help the homeless. If you have food or clothing, please put your money back in your wallet. I would rather have the food and clothing. I guarantee that by the end of today, we will have given away all the food and clothes we received.

I was at the other end of the car. I raised my hand so he could see that I had a few bills to contribute.

Panhandler, once he reached the other end of the subway car: If you happen to be attractive, please put your money away and stand up and give me a hug instead.

I laughed and put my money in his bucket.