Ramble in the Bronx
Recently:
- I went to the Uptown Juice Bar (the original one on 125th Street, not the one on Chambers Street which I used to frequent in high school, and which is now closed) for the first time in years last week, and discovered their homemade ginger beer. It's got some kick to it! It's too bad I never knew about it in high school, although I didn't know about ginger beer at all until Jo-Dan introduced it to me. ("Dan! You should drink ginger beer. It's the most awful beverage ever invented - and I think you'll love it.")
- I needed to use Illustrator, which I don't have installed on my home computer. I was going to grab a copy from work, but forgot, so instead I snuck into revamerika's house and used his computer for a while. (revamerika's computer, incidentally, is #$&%*#$% fast.) The next day, revamerika forwarded me a post that appeared on Missed Connections: Boy on fixed gear - w4m - 26 (Inwood / Washington Heights). The post mentioned a time (23:00) and location (Broadway and Dyckman), and seeing as I passed by that exact intersection at pretty much that exact time, revamerika figured that I was the aforementioned "boy on fixed gear". What he didn't know, however, was that I was riding the São Paolo that night, so it couldn't have been me. :) When I clicked on the link to view the original post, it had been deleted. I wonder: did she find the "boy on fixed gear" (Missed Connections success story?), or did she have a change of heart? I guess we'll never know.
- Went on a bike ride with Kuya Chris. We met up at the Broadway Bridge, and figured we'd take the greenway through Van Cortlandt Park, down the Mosholu, and across the Pelham, a path we roughly managed to follow, getting lost only every fifteen minutes or so. Somewhere near Van Cortlandt Park, I heard a voice yelling "Daniel! Daniel! Daniel! Daniel!" with increasing urgency, and a hint of Doppler effect. I was trying to figure out who in the Bronx would know my name, and as soon as I turned around I saw Mike and Rebecca's car closing in. How random. Chris and I explored the Bronx a bit more, hooking up with the NYC Century / TdBx routes from time to time, and getting lost every chance we got. Eventually we decided to head back to Leyla's place so Chris could shower and get to work on time. We headed west on E Tremont most of the way, then went down 3rd Ave, west on 161st, past Yankee Stadium (there was a game going on), across the 155th Street bridge, up the Harlem River path, and back into the Bronx. Hours of fun for the whole family!
- After the bike ride, I walked down the block (literally) to satyadasa's place, and no sooner did I walk out of the door to head back to my place than Steve shows up, making his way along with his new fancy Ti hip, to visit his folks (who live in satyadasa's building), so I stuck around to catch up with Steve for a while, seeing as I never even knew that he had gotten a new hip.
- One of the locks at work broke, and we couldn't get into the store. Mike bought a pair of 24" bolt cutters, but they were barely able to make a nick in the hardened steel shackle. Went to the hardware store down the block, but he didn't have any power tools. He suggested trying a hacksaw with a carbide rod blade, but he only had 10" blades and 12" hacksaws, so we ended up getting an angle grinder at a different hardware store, which cut through the lock in under 45 seconds. It was fun.
- Now have Skype, per jsoltren's suggestion. User name: govoryu. I was surprised it wasn't already taken.
I close with Brian's reaction to a bad joke earlier today:
Joke on a computer screen: "- What kind of bees make milk? - Boo-bees!"
B-Dizzo: Hehehe... boobies.
Several minutes later, reading the joke again…
B-Dizzo: Wait, I still don't get it. What does "boo" have to do with milk?
Daniel: Are you serious?
B-Dizzo: Yeah, I don't get it.
Daniel: Boo-bees? Boobies?
B-Dizzo: Yeah, and?
Daniel grabs Brian's "boo-bees".
B-Dizzo: Yeah, I know, it sounds like "boobies"…
Silence
B-Dizzo: Oooooohhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Smacks own head on scanner boxes, repeatedly.
Apparently, he realized right away that "boo-bees" sounded like "boobies", but didn't make the biological connection between boobies and milk, so instead he tried to draw some semantic connection between "boo" and "milk". :)
- I went to the Uptown Juice Bar (the original one on 125th Street, not the one on Chambers Street which I used to frequent in high school, and which is now closed) for the first time in years last week, and discovered their homemade ginger beer. It's got some kick to it! It's too bad I never knew about it in high school, although I didn't know about ginger beer at all until Jo-Dan introduced it to me. ("Dan! You should drink ginger beer. It's the most awful beverage ever invented - and I think you'll love it.")
- I needed to use Illustrator, which I don't have installed on my home computer. I was going to grab a copy from work, but forgot, so instead I snuck into revamerika's house and used his computer for a while. (revamerika's computer, incidentally, is #$&%*#$% fast.) The next day, revamerika forwarded me a post that appeared on Missed Connections: Boy on fixed gear - w4m - 26 (Inwood / Washington Heights). The post mentioned a time (23:00) and location (Broadway and Dyckman), and seeing as I passed by that exact intersection at pretty much that exact time, revamerika figured that I was the aforementioned "boy on fixed gear". What he didn't know, however, was that I was riding the São Paolo that night, so it couldn't have been me. :) When I clicked on the link to view the original post, it had been deleted. I wonder: did she find the "boy on fixed gear" (Missed Connections success story?), or did she have a change of heart? I guess we'll never know.
- Went on a bike ride with Kuya Chris. We met up at the Broadway Bridge, and figured we'd take the greenway through Van Cortlandt Park, down the Mosholu, and across the Pelham, a path we roughly managed to follow, getting lost only every fifteen minutes or so. Somewhere near Van Cortlandt Park, I heard a voice yelling "Daniel! Daniel! Daniel! Daniel!" with increasing urgency, and a hint of Doppler effect. I was trying to figure out who in the Bronx would know my name, and as soon as I turned around I saw Mike and Rebecca's car closing in. How random. Chris and I explored the Bronx a bit more, hooking up with the NYC Century / TdBx routes from time to time, and getting lost every chance we got. Eventually we decided to head back to Leyla's place so Chris could shower and get to work on time. We headed west on E Tremont most of the way, then went down 3rd Ave, west on 161st, past Yankee Stadium (there was a game going on), across the 155th Street bridge, up the Harlem River path, and back into the Bronx. Hours of fun for the whole family!
- After the bike ride, I walked down the block (literally) to satyadasa's place, and no sooner did I walk out of the door to head back to my place than Steve shows up, making his way along with his new fancy Ti hip, to visit his folks (who live in satyadasa's building), so I stuck around to catch up with Steve for a while, seeing as I never even knew that he had gotten a new hip.
- One of the locks at work broke, and we couldn't get into the store. Mike bought a pair of 24" bolt cutters, but they were barely able to make a nick in the hardened steel shackle. Went to the hardware store down the block, but he didn't have any power tools. He suggested trying a hacksaw with a carbide rod blade, but he only had 10" blades and 12" hacksaws, so we ended up getting an angle grinder at a different hardware store, which cut through the lock in under 45 seconds. It was fun.
- Now have Skype, per jsoltren's suggestion. User name: govoryu. I was surprised it wasn't already taken.
I close with Brian's reaction to a bad joke earlier today:
Joke on a computer screen: "- What kind of bees make milk? - Boo-bees!"
B-Dizzo: Hehehe... boobies.
Several minutes later, reading the joke again…
B-Dizzo: Wait, I still don't get it. What does "boo" have to do with milk?
Daniel: Are you serious?
B-Dizzo: Yeah, I don't get it.
Daniel: Boo-bees? Boobies?
B-Dizzo: Yeah, and?
Daniel grabs Brian's "boo-bees".
B-Dizzo: Yeah, I know, it sounds like "boobies"…
Silence
B-Dizzo: Oooooohhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Smacks own head on scanner boxes, repeatedly.
Apparently, he realized right away that "boo-bees" sounded like "boobies", but didn't make the biological connection between boobies and milk, so instead he tried to draw some semantic connection between "boo" and "milk". :)