I"M NOT ALONE!
Apparently lots of people, myself included,(see Marks "fun site") used to believe that chocolate milk came from brown cows. Someone in my family, probably my sister, told me that when I was a child, and I believed up to an embarrassingly late age.

I'm having one of those days where the inspiration to blog just isn't coming to me. I've had about three aborted attempts so far. So instead I'll just point you to a fun site. Enjoy your weekend.

Customer Service?
Bank of America Sucks! I tried to call them today to complain about late charges they've been applying to an account that's closed and they put me on hold for about 20 minutes before a recording stating "your call cannot be processed at this time" came up. Thanks for wasting my time folks!

As usual the Friday five is unfortunately boring so I'm going to skip it and instead use my time to call Bank of America back and bitch at some poor customer service representative (if I can ever get through).

Here's a little post I made a few months back to a mailing list I'm on, describing the experience I had just had that I alluded to a few blogs back... Posted here for posterity.

What a trip. I feel totally put through the wringer.

Today I went to court to contest a $25 parking ticket. I honestly
thought this was going to be like traffic court, where you just
describe what happened, and the judge makes a decision. Instead,
I found myself having to improvise my best Perry Mason.

I found myself scheduled in the BIG courtroom, intimidating
enough in itself. And, pleading not guilty, I was immediately
offered a choice: proceed without a lawyer and have the judge
decide, or schedule a JURY TRIAL. Over a parking ticket. Huhwhat?
I decided to just go for it without the jury, since by the time
they would've scheduled that, I would be out of the country...

They gave me a ticket on a street where there was NO indication
of "no parking" until well past where I parked. So I had taken
a series of pictures showing the layout of the street. But I
had NO idea how to submit them as evidence, and the prosecutor
jumped all over me for trying to do it at a time when I was
supposed to be cross-examining the officer. I still sat there
and questioned the officer for about ten minutes, with a whole
lot of hemming and hawing. I had some notes attached to the
photos, which the prosecutor also objected to, and I had to remove
them. Can you tell I was in over my head? The judge took some
sympathy to my deer-in-the-headlights look and gave me some
nudges in the right direction. There was still at least five
or six times that the prosecutor objected.

Bottom line was, the officer lied through his teeth about where I was
parked, and I couldn't contradict him, so I was eventually found
guilty. They waived my fine, though (I think out of sympathy).

Considering all the time I spent getting the court date, taking
the pictures, and going to the trial today, it was far from worth
it financially. But dammit, what's money without experience?
Today was an EXPERIENCE.

Phew. I need a drink.

Today's question to ponder: Would you be willing to undergo a DNA scan that tells you what you're genetically predisposed to, which might conceivably tell you how you are going to die, and at what age? This is a question we're all going to have to face, possibly even within the next year or two. Frightening stuff.

More on this morning's wreck can be found here, if you're curious...

THE ACCIDENT that Mark referred to earlier on 75-Southbound, was apparently due to a cattle truck tipping over. The poor cows had to be corraled out of a sideways semi onto the highway, with cars passing by.
My last day at work (really, I mean it this time) was yesterday. Seems like that was just in time for me to get sick with a lovely sinus infection. I'm going back to bed now, as that is the only place I don't feel like dying.

My friend Jim and I exchange interesting words we've come across all the time. Yesterday he sent me a great one -- 'Treppenwitz'. This is the term for when you think of a good response too late (from German, "stairway wit" -- wit that comes to you when you're already on the stairs). Use it in good health.

I had Treppenwitz in spades after my court appearance last month over a parking ticket. That was a story I'll have to relate some time...

Surreal driving experience on the way in this morning. There was an accident on 75 North that had all lanes blocked. There's at least six lanes where this happened, so this was a major deal. Everyone else was getting off and going over to Hwy 41, but I worked in that area before, and knew another way around. I ended up getting back on the interstate just above the accident, and for a few miles, I was the ONLY person on the interstate. Six lanes to myself!

There was another accident on southbound 75 around the same place that had most lanes blocked. Southbound is a much busier direction this time of day, so it was an absolute mess. Traffic backed up all the way to my workplace exit, ten miles north of there. Check it out here while it lasts.

This ranks up there with the time the guy passed me going sideways after an ice storm a few years back...

Some other New York observations:

Expensive or cheap? For what is supposedly one of the most expensive cities in the world, I sure did find (and buy) a lot of cheap things. Three pairs of socks for $5, a huge umbrella for $10, two slices of pizza, a salad, and a bottled water for $7.50. If it weren't for the rents, I bet you could get by living there for next to nothing, if you knew where to shop.

I must've seen twenty or thirty broken umbrellas just lying in the street like mangled peacocks. Apparently the thing to do if your umbrella breaks is to just drop it.

I love walking around the town just for all the cultural references that pop up. From movies, we walked by Bloomingdale's (Moscow on the Hudson), FAO Schwartz (Big), and the Empire State Building (Sleepless in Seattle), among dozens of others. And songs pop into your head all the time -- I found myself singing all of these lyrics at some point or other, just from chancing across the relevant landmark:

Well you can stand on the arms of the Williamsburg bridge crying hey man, well this is Babylon... Soul Coughing, "True Dreams of Wichita"

I can't give it away on 7th Avenue The Stones, "Shattered"

53rd and 3rd, standing on the street The Ramones, "53rd and 3rd"

I can slip on the East River and crash into Queens, all skittering Soul Coughing, "The Idiot Kings"

I don't want to go to Chelsea Elvis Costello (okay, he's talking about London, but still...)

The say the neon lights are bright, on Broadway Who does that song?

Won't you please stand clear of the closing doors? Soul Coughing, "The Brooklynites"

When we walked through Little Italy... PJ Harvey, "Good Fortune"

On a rooftop in Brooklyn, one in the morning PJ Harvey, "You Said Something"

I've been walking Central Park Singing after dark People think I'm crazy The Stones, "Miss You"

For posterity, here's the set list from Saturday night's show, courtesy Mike's page...

Sunday
Cactus
Breaking Glass
Fame
Ashes to Ashes
Slip Away
China Girl
5:15
Survive
I've Been Waiting for you
Rebel Rebel
I'm Afraid of Americans
Life on Mars
Heroes
Heathen (the rays)
--------------
Moonage Daydream
Afraid
Stay
Bewlay Bros
Everyone says Hi
Hello Spaceboy
Let's Dance
Ziggy Stardust

Here's the blog entry I composed over this eventful weekend...

[Friday evening] Greetings from 36,000 feet. Marjorie and I are on our way to New York City. We thought it best not to announce to the world via our blog that our house would be unoccupied for the weekend, so this will be posted when we get back.

Marjorie and I both just asked for seltzer water from the flight attendant; they gave her club soda, and me a Perrier. I guess I just exude class.

Quite a weekend ahead of us. Especially tonight -- our friend Mike scored us tickets tonight to see DAVID BOWIE in a 300-seat venue!!!! It should be amazing. Especially since we're likely going to be in the front row. I hope my brother, who's been a huge fan of Bowie's since I can remember, will still speak to me afterwards...

Sunday we're going to meet with Kate and Marc in person, whom we met on-line via BlogSpot. They're the couple that seem to be living parallel lives with us, having gotten married this year and almost moving to Singapore.

Monday we're going to visit Ground Zero. We actually might be able to see it from up here in a half an hour or so. Just the hole in the skyline will be troubling enough to look at.

This is our third time to NYC together, and our sixteenth plane trip overall. Not bad for a little over four years.

[Monday night] It's now Monday night, and we're sitting in Newark airport waiting for the flight home. Quite a weekend.

After arriving and checking in on Saturday, we met up with Mike and cabbed to Brooklyn to have pizza at Grimaldi's, which is a favorite of Marjorie's and is right around the corner from where Bowie was going to play. The pizza was good enough that we ordered a second one halfway through and gorged ourselves.

The venue was a little bigger than I expected -- there were about 1000 people there. We wedged our way up front and ended up right in front of the speakers on stage right. Bowie started with a ponderous piece, from the new album I think, and I was worried that we would experience a repeat of the Beck experience we had last month, where he would play all new, unfamiliar stuff, and we'd be left scratching our heads. But for the second song he launched into an explosive cover of the Pixie's "Cactus", and I was hooked. He mixed old and new all night, and played the old stuff without any of the sighing complacency that some artists take on when forced to trot out popular favorites. From this category we heard "Life on Mars", "Let's Dance", "Rebel Rebel", "Fame", "Ashes to Ashes", and "China Girl". He played for a good two and half hours, and was obviously enjoying himself, as were we all.

Our position in front of the speakers left my ears ringing pretty bad, but luckily that passed within a day. We were even close enough to see his different-colored eyes!

After the show we tried for twenty minutes to hail a cab in the rain. Finally a very nice couple from Boston picked us up and drove us into town.

We were still abuzz from the concert, so we walked around a while and ended up in a Japanese restaurant. We had a few mixed drinks (made with saki -- very strange) and some sushi. Sitting there, I commented to Marjorie: "Will you still love me if I turn 56 and I'm not as sexy as Bowie?" She smirked and responded: "You're not that sexy now."

Sunday we met with Marjorie's good friend Karen and her husband Tom. We lunched at the Waterhouse on the East River (no bodies floated by while we watched) and just walked around the city most of the day. It was good to see them again.

That night we met with fellow bloggers Kate and Marc at Von, a beer-and-wine place on Bleecker Street. We chatted there for a while and moved on to an Indian restaurant on 6th Street. [Now writing from home.] A fine night of food and conversation with a super-nice couple. We went to sleep happy and content.

As Marjorie noted, we went by Ground Zero on Monday... The scale of the tragedy is almost impossible to get your head around. We had been to the lower floor the WTC two years hence trying to buy show tickets. Now it's all just a big hole in the sky that makes you ache to stand near.

"First We Take Manhattan....."

Mark and I went to NYC this weekend. We had a great time, but I won't talk too much about it, as he's planning on posting a text page he's been writing over the weekend about the journey.

Highlights of the trip were seeing David Bowie (which I'll let Mark write about first or he'll hate me) and seeing my best friend Karen and her husband, It sucks having your best friend live several states away, but it's nice to be able to meet someplace like NYC when you get together.

Today we went to Ground Zero, which was a truly sobering experience. Maybe even more so than it might have been due to the recent terrorist attack in Bali.I tried to be a big girl about the experience, but found my eyes welling up as we walked along the borders of where the towers used to stand. Looking up at the void in the sky was especially hard for me. At one point a little girl, around 7 or 8, was bawling behind us and I couldn't help but wonder if she'd lost a family member in the attack. Overall, I'm glad we went, but it was difficult to be there.

I love New York. Everytime we go there I imagine what it would be like to live there. Mark would love it, but I think the constant overstimulation would get to me after awhile. I don't know, maybe if things don't work out for us in S'pore or Australia, we'll see if we can make it in New York.