Hahahahahahahahaha

This is the funniest thing I've read to today:

From NYTimes

Vice President Cheney said in a statement that he had accepted the resignation [of Lewis Libby Jr.] with "deep regret."

"In our system of government an accused person is presumed innocent until a contrary finding is made by a jury after an opportunity to answer the charges and a full airing of the facts," the statement said. "Mr. Libby is entitled to that opportunity."

Um, so what about all those people in Guantanamo Bay?

Choo choo trains

So I have this gripe with the subways. Well, not the subways particularly but a phrase that I heard someone say. I can’t remember when this happened or who said it, but a person once told me that subways are a true form of socialism because everyone rides the subway and it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or not, everyone is equal.

Well, I would like to offer my counter argument.

First of all, not everyone rides the subway. The truly filthy rich people have a car with a driver. After all, parking spots on the streets and garages are not that easy to find nor are they cheap. Also, it’s a pain in the ass to drive around the city, especially during rush hours. It’s not the slowness as much as having to watch out for annoying cabbies, messengers on bikes who tend to squeeze in everywhere and those pesky pedestrians.

Actually, let me back up, the truly truly filthy rich have helicopters.

So back to those suckers who have drivers. Well, the layer below those with drivers are those who driver their own cars. But chances are they pay for a spot in a garage which are expensive. Then there are those who drive cars to work but park them on the streets. These are mainly people who live and work in Brooklyn and Columbia students who drive late afternoon for evening classes (I don’t think I’ve seen so many luxury cars on one street before).

Then the following layer is those who can hire a car or cabs. Ok, maybe these people don’t cab every time but during those times when having a cab is crucial, like say late at night or during a fire that shuts down all major subway lines, they can afford a cab.

Then we have walkers. These people are just as irritating. Mostly because their jobs, grocery stores, bars, favorite restaurants etc etc are within walking distance of their apartments. Being able to walk to a place that requires you to be there daily is a luxury in New York. Of course, these people also take a subway but maybe once or twice a week.

I am not sure where to put bus riders but I am sure they would fit above regular subway riders.

And then you have regular subway riders. These are the people who don’t have a car or cannot afford gas/parking spot in the city in order to drive their cars. These are the people who cannot afford to take a taxi when something is happening that disrupts their morning commute. They are the ones who are stuck waiting on a platform for 30 minutes at 11:30pm on a weekend (a fairly reasonable time for somewhat regular subway service!).

Now, even among subway riders, there are social layers. On top, you have the ones who have to take only one subway to get somewhere and it takes them less than 30 minutes. Then you have those who live on shitty subway lines and they often require 2-3 transfers but can still make it to central spots within 45 minutes. Although if you live on the G** train, which runs never from nowhere to nowhere, I’ve created a special category just for you. Then you got suckers who live in bumble-fuck Brooklyn and Queens and it takes them an hour to get into Manhattan alone. Of course, then you have people who are even worse off, they have to take a bus to a subway stop. And then there are suckers who live in Staten Island and gotta take a boat. And, last, although I suspect not the least, you have people who can barely take a subway and limit their trips on the subway for essentials only.

Oh, I almost forgot. Train conductors. Those people must think they are czars of the world or something. I am not talking about the people who drive the train, I mean the ones who press a button to open/close doors and they make station announcements. How many times have they shut the door right in your face? For those who live on the G, how many times have you seen them snicker as you dash down the platform at world breaking speeds and they still shut the door in your face? I would comment about their announcements but I don’t understand them half the time so when they make one, I pray to God that the train won’t run express out of the blue. Or worse, just stops running.

**The G train is really not a subway train, it’s only four cars long instead of the regular eight cars. It’s some sort of little choo choo train that thinks it can. That is if it ever comes. They train conductors on that thing. So it takes them extra long to figure out what button to press to open the door. Argh!

Meningitis? Nope. Flu? Nope. Hmm, I guess a cold.

Yea, yea, I know I haven’t written in a while. I blame it on never ending midterm papers, feeling sick and plain ol’ laziness.

Believe it or not, I really was sick for a few days. This happened a couple of weeks ago. I was heading to Brighton Beach with a friend to a Georgian food restaurant and during the trip, these mysterious lumps developed on the back of my neck. They weren’t huge or anything but noticeable enough that I started to freak out. My friend inspected both and refreshingly assured me that they weren’t tumors. The following day, a Saturday, I woke up, sweating profusely. It was weird, I sat by my desk in a long sleeved cotton shirt and shorts and my face was covered in sweat and my shirt was soaked. Being a trooper, I went out that night and I am sure drinking didn’t help because the following day, a Sunday, I woke up shaking. And I continued to shake for several hours. On Monday, I woke up feeling really dizzy and nauseous but since the communists engraved forever their work ethic in my brain (which actually doesn’t make much sense - despite all the communist or socialist messages about how work does a person good didn’t penetrate most of the population in the Soviet Union as the majority lingered from day to day in their factory jobs while drinking home-made moonshine – no wonder communist planned economy failed miserably), I headed straight for work. I am not sure how I managed the hour long subway trip, several times, I really wanted to jump out of the subway and sit on the platform so that I would feel less dizzy. I also contemplated passing out on the floor of the subway but then I realized that I would probably mess up the morning commute for hundreds of other miserable subway riders. So the combination of being a nice fellow subway rider and communist work ethic lead to my arrival to work. Which lead to me sitting in on a two-hour conference call to Kazakhstan during which I fidgeted non-stop and drank insane amount of water so that I wouldn’t pass out. Then I went to the student health center where the doctor’s diagnosis changed from meningitis to flu to a cold with flu like symptoms. Yea, I have no idea what a cold with flu like symptoms really means, but heck, he told me to stay in bed, and I happily followed the doctor’s orders.

But that’s all a side note. Because the true story is that Georgian food really wasn’t so good. We ordered salad Olivier which had egg in it! I’ve never seen salad Olivier with egg in it! The khachapuri (bread with cheese baked into it) tasted like a grilled cheese sandwich and the khinkali (meat-filled boiled dumplings) must have sat out for a while because the part that rested on the plate was really mushy. Needless to say, don’t go to the Georgian food restaurant in Brighton Beach. There is another one on Kings Highway, called Tbilisi, one of these days, I’ll make my way there.

Um, him. Wait, no, never mind. Ok, well, him, I guess

Last night, my friend and I played my recently most favorite game called “You have ten seconds, quick, pick a person you would sleep with.” The rules of the game are as follows: (ideally to be played on the L train as it is packed with hipsters, some who tend to be somewhat cute and most are fugly) your partner counts off to 10 during which you look around and pick a person with whom you would sleep. The trick is that you need to spend all 10 seconds looking for a person even if you spot someone attractive right away. You keep that person in reserve in case you find someone hotter and if by the end of 10 seconds you are unable to find anyone hotter, you can go back to your first choice. But in order to keep your first choice, you need to look at that person again. So if that person walked away and you cannot see him/her, you start freaking out, scrambling around to find him/her. The fun of the game increases proportionally to the amount of alcohol you had ingested previously.

We were returning from a rather overpriced bar in midtown therefore our route back to Williamsburg was to take the E or C to the L. Since the E and C pass through Chelsea, I was syched as I thought the train would be packed with hot gay boys. Unfortunately, it turns out that around 10pm, the E was marginally full of the ugliest men I’ve seen in my life. I am not sure if it was direction that we took or time of our travel but my choices consisted of either short Italian types or fat balding Queens types. It was horrible. I think I settled with some Euro looking dude who kept running his hand through his shoulder-length hair while he kept flashing his smile at the girl sitting next to him. My friend settled for a woman who, judging by the amount and color of the make-up that she was wearing, clearly was legally blind.

The L train platform brought me a little more luck, although it seemed that most of the riders from the E transferred to the L as well; fortunately, there was a somewhat good looking guy. He needed a little of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” action but overall, cute as a dickens. I spotted him right away but since I had another 8 seconds, I walked around the platform a bit. Unfortunately, Friday night at 10pm seems to be a bad time for spotting hotties so I went back to my original choice and looked at him again. The worst part was that every time I looked at him, he was looking at me so I must have looked like a psycho, running around a platform while saying: “ew, no. Oh, maybe him, oh wait, no. Definitely no.” My friend picked a girl who, at a closer look, turned out to be like 40. That really confused me because all of the sudden, I started to wonder what kind of girls he liked. I guess old ones. Anyways, we got tired of playing the game and proceeded to have a debate whether it is possible for a guy to get crabs in his beard if he goes down on a girl who has crabs. Any thoughts?