Don’t Throw the Beach out with the Bath Water

I’m was at home tonight having a nice polite conversation in the kitchen with my roommate who just got back from Philadelphia. (without a tan.) She casually turns to me and asks.

“Have you seen what’s in our bath tub?”

“OhMyGod.” I am now standing in the living room. “WHAT. IS. IN. OUR. BATHTUB.” My eyes glued open.

“Just go look,” she says.

“IS IT A TARANTULA?” I scream.

“No, just go look.” She is annoyed.

“IS IT A REPTILE?” I am still in the living room. "IS IT A SHARK??"

I then do that bug in your hair dance where you shake every part of your body while jumping up and down. I become nauseous. I am sweating.

“Stop freaking out. It’s not that bad.” She says pushing me into the dark WC. Yeah but it depends on your definition of bad. A bathtub full of gin. Not so bad. A bathtub full of leeches. Bad.

I flip the light on and find…. a beach. A beach in our bathtub.

“What in the hell.” I cry out the bathroom door.

“I know, what you think it is?” she asks.

Either Philadelphia just got really tropical or she went on a beach vacation without telling me.

“Um, did you go to Mexico sans Sarah? Was shaking out your towels in our bathtub your way of breaking it to me?” I asked annoyed staring at the mess.

But as I looked closer I thought Mexico doesn’t have sheetrock and crown molding.

This is almost an inch thick spraying of debris throughout the bathtub. I scanned the walls and ceiling very closely and there was no signs of a puncture, a drill whole, or even a dent. Where did this come from?

My roommate was now standing back in the bathroom asking where I thought it might have come from.

“The cat dragged it in.” referring to a cat that had broken into our apartment once. She rolled her eyes.

I didn’t know, but now I was pulling on the faucets on the curtain rods climbing up on the tub to look at the water heater. Nothing. I couldn’t believe it. No holes in the ceiling. In the walls. The window wasn't open. It was a mystery.

My roommate asked what we should do about it. She wanted to take a bath.

“I’m sure it will make a nice exfoliant.” I said.

I always wanted to live on the beach.

Hey, You Guys!!

vs.

A US Submarine and US Ship crashed into each other early this morning. They were conducting routine security operations off the coast of Iran. The USS Hartford and the USS New Orleans collided around 1 a.m. in the Strait of Hormuz.

One interesting thing to note about the US Submarine is this isn’t her first dance.

The USS Hartford has had trouble in the past with navigation. Rewind to October 2003 when she crashed herself on an Island in the Mediterranean. The accident cost 9 million dollars to repair.

Here is a partial transcript of what happened please note what the Executive Officer says at 12:36.

October 25, 2003:

11:55 The Hartford eased away from her tender and moved into the channel. within minutes the boat's Voyage Management System, which provides the navigation team with electronic navigation charts and automatic fixes of the boat's position, crashed.
12:09 The navigation team noticed a four knot difference in the speed readouts of the navigator and the electromagnetic log, two other key pieces of navigation equipment.
12:22 The captain ordered the boat to increase speed to 12 knots from the planned speed of 9.5 knots. At approximately the same time, the assistant navigator and an electronics technician left the control room to try to determine what was causing the equipment failures. The captain was never notified that key members of the navigation crew had left their stations.
12:28 The bridge ordered the turn almost 500 yards early. As a result of the equipment failures, a waypoint was entered into the GPS incorrectly, putting the turning point several hundred yards off the correct location.
12:30 The navigation team makes an attempt to fix the boat's position on the charts. The investigation found the boat was about 400 yards closer to Bisce Island than the position the crew plotted.
12:34 The Hartford turns into the fourth leg of her course out of the harbor. It is not clear who ordered this turn.
12:36 The navigation team makes a tentative fix on the boat's position but are unable to confirm it. There is growing concern on the bridge about the lack of a plotted position: the executive officer asks the navigation team,
"Nav, where the **** are we?", the captain asks the XO "do we have anything at all working down there?".
12:37 The sailor watching the fathometer warns the depth under the hull is decreasing, and was now just 100 feet.
12:37:30 The fathometer alerts the depth under the hull is now just 83 feet
12:37:45 Again the fathometer watch warns that the water level is down to just 50 feet
12:40 Hartford strikes the bottom about 1100 yards off Bisce Island. The boat begins to slow. Afraid that the boat would be stranded on the rocks, the squadron commodore, 22 year old Captain Greg Parker said "Speed on."
The first collision is followed by two more impacts, the second of these is the worst, rolling the boat 10 to 12 degrees onto her port side, and lifting her out of the water
13:40 the assistant navigator suffered a panic attack and had to be removed from the control room

Most involved with the grounding were fired. It seems crashing a submarine is not a resume builder.

I’m not saying the two accidents are related but also… not resume builders.

“What did you do today?”
“Oh I crashed into another US vessel.”

The collision this morning is still under investigation. The USS New Orleans suffered significant damage to its fuel tank and dumped around 25,000 gallons of oil into the strait.

In any case, it’s not everyday when a US submarine collides with one of its own.

Woops…didn’t see you there.

Cause for arrest: Lost Her S#*!

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Leftover Walks

Sometimes you just need a walk. I’ve been taking a lot of those lately. I’m not sure if it’s related to the weather or whether I just need to let off some steam. At any rate, I’ve decided to document my walks in a new segment called: Leftover Walks.

I got off the train coming home from work yesterday. I made a right turn and went into my bank to argue overage charges. My bank likes to give themselves “retention bonuses,” when I go over in my account. I give them lots of money.. and they keep my money.. and then the account goes in debt and they give themselves a nice bonus because they offered protection on my account. They call this an "insufficient funds fee." I call it “sort of like AIG”. But I digress, problem fixed. Back to my walk.

I went to Quickly on Grand Street who just happens to have some pretty good bubble tea. They also have a student discount. Quick tip: any card in your wallet will work as a student ID, business cards, library cards, AARP cards.

After bubble tea I took a right on Christie and headed south. I saw a commotion in the park. I walked over and saw a very large group of people watching a women being arrested. She had apparently lost something in the park and went crazy. So she quiet literally lost her &#it. Why this drew a large crowd of over 200 people? I’m not sure, but I stayed for the duration of the arrestation to find out.

There was a park attended shouting something over a bull horn to the masses but I didn’t know what he was saying because… I don’t speak mandarin.

I then took a right on Baxter and landed myself right in front of Bangkok Station…my favorite place to get bubble tea. I didn’t realize they had another location. I was only aware of their store on Elizabeth Street. And seeing as I had just had a bubble tea….I decided to get another one.

Two bubble teas later, a walk down Bowery, a stop in the park to read a magazine, I decided I wanted Chinese food. There is this Buffet place down the street from us that looks interesting. There is a sign in the window that says 3.99. I don’t know what that is advertising. I was hoping it wasn’t the buffet. I have this rule that you should never eat Chinese food if it’s under $4.00.

So I walked in and said to the lady “One” and she said “3.99” and I said “For the buffet?”

“Yes,” she said.

“All you can eat???” I said, like I was at CiCis Pizza. What was I thinking??

She said “Five Item.”

She handed me a Styrofoam box and a tray.

I sheepishly walked down the sides of the buffet to find a wide array of food I had never seen before. I pointed to things I thought were possibly chicken in some kind of sauce with some kind of vegetable. Different dull colors with different stews. I wasn’t sure on any of them. Where was the shiny pink sauce with the fired chicken? There were no signs. I tried to avoid things like raw fish heads and what might have been an animal I wouldn’t want to eat.

The woman shoveling the food into my box was unenthusiastic and a little too generous with her portions. I couldn’t believe that 5 dishes were piling up in my box one on top of the other weighing between 5 and 10 pounds.

For 3.99.

I walked to the end of the counter and this woman bagged it up and then put a carton of soup in my bag. Seriously? More?

The soup might have been a fish stock. The aroma was causing my eyes to cross. I had to get out of there.

I had plenty of leftovers from this walk and needed to lay down.

I exited the buffet restaurant and found myself in front of a Bubble Tea place. Humm? Maybe just...

Who burried the beer?

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Who burried the beer?

This morning I awoke to the enlightening sounds of a trash compactor and beer cans being opened.

I looked out the window to make sense of it all. Blurry eyed and pissed, I saw a large dump truck with two guys in mr. Rubbish. Shirts hauling dirt, fiberglass and beer cases into the compactor.

About 5 feet away was the neighborhood baglady shotgunning beercans.

Except for one minor detail. She was not drinking them. She was emptying then into the street.

Cases and cases of beer surrounded her. She would take one can pierce a hole in it and empty the contents on our sidewalk and throw them in her shopping cart. The cans were covered in dirt and not distinguishable from my distance.

I had to get a closer look. I got dressed and went down there.

The beers were apparently unearthed under our appartment during construction today ...possibly dating back to 1991.

They are TsingChuen , a beer that underwent a hefty legal battle agsinst tsingtao in the early 90s. Due to copyright infringement.

At any rate I don't think they survived.

During brunch my friends coworker asked if they had a born on date?

No. Possibly 1991.

"the year of the rat". He said. "no good."

Killer interview.

One of the greatest things about working at west 57th is the neighboring meth clinic.

Always an opportunity for a good soundbite.

My photog was setting up on the corner for a standup, he had his tripod up with the camera and he was setting up some lights.

This guy walks out of the meth clinic and stands infront of the camera and proceeds to interview himself.

Most people on the street almost always think if they see a camera they assume , without fail , it is on. Most wave ,some laugh ,some run.

One time I took a red rainbow lightup little tikes mic into a bar and interviewed people "on air" and most everyone was really nervous but provided good commentary for my "viewers".

Same thing here. This guy thought he was on air and proceeded as usual with his biopic in front of the camera.

Until he decided to ask my photog. " yo is this thing on" to which my photog said... " only if you've killed somebody."

He said "oh yea s#%+ I've killed lots of people."

Oh yeah, you're good then.

No Data on Tulsa Newspapers. Yep.

This is a map that was in the New York Times today depicting the US and how newspaper circulation has declined. Yes, we all know this, but do we all know that...upon further investigation the Times could provide no information on the Tulsa World.

If you look at the map the Tulsa World is the ONLY circle that is grey providing the fact that they found "no data" as indicated in their key. There is currently no data on the current state of the newspaper industry in the state of Oklahoma according to the Times.

Thank you New York Times for this very helpful information. I was worried. I thought maybe there was some unexplained business model that would revolutionize the way we see print today. But alas, I am relieved, just nothing to report. Business as usual.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/12/business/20090312-papers-graphic.html

One day I was at the new York stock exchange and the Dow was up. I know. Crazy.

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Thanks for the Latte, Tweet ya later.

I'm following Dunkin Donuts on Twitter. I have no idea why except that they have 99cent lattes that are really too good to be true. I see a lot of people following Starbucks, which is stupid.

Why are 80,000 people following Starbucks on Twitter and only 9,000 following Dunkin Donuts. When was the last time Starbucks gave you a 99 cent latte? Yeah, that is what I thought. or what about a 99 cent Cheese Danish? 99 cent Hashbrown? Thank you very much.

SBUX is now offering breakfast pairings for 3.95. Are they kidding me? 4 Bucks...is that the best you can do Starbucks?? 4 dollars for a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich? At Dunkin I can get a whole meal for that and AT LEAST 70-280 more calories.

Txs for the Latte @dunkindonuts, tweet ya l8er.