My favorite part of the office

Who needs whiteboard walls?
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That's Right (You are from Texas)

In news from back home:

…A housewarming shower for the new offices of Texas Agri-Life Extension will be held August 6^th from 4:30-6:30pm at the Nita Lea Building at 903 14^th Street. The event is hosted by Hereford Cattlewomen and Panhandle Dairy Women…

That might be the most country blurb I have ever read.

Things you didn't think you could miss about Austin, Texas

No, seriously. There are probably 50 Brazillion better Chinese joints in my neighborhood. But, I fucking miss PF fucking Changs.

And I didn't know I did (or could) until I was on the phone with Kristal earlier tonight. There had been a little mix-up in the grocery shopping tonight. Between me, shallots and scallions.

Now, let me back this up. I'll just do it this way. About 3 this afternoon, I was e-mailed the following shopping list:

Fresh parsley
Fresh Thyme
1 Shallot (type of onion)
large cucumber
grape tomatoes
small red onion
2 avocados
fresh cilantro
1 jalapeno pepper
2 limes
french baguette
soft goat cheese
chipotle chili powder
cooking spray
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Now, there's a good chance that if you're reading this, you're a Texan that has never lived in New York before. That means, there's a good chance you've never been grocery shopping in New York. Which means you can't fathom that the above list required me to hit THREE different stores FOUR different times. Total.

I found jalapenos at one store. One. Baguettes? Well, I was upstairs, perusing the immense kitchenwares section (read: lowering my urge to kill) when I hear them announce baguettes are now on sale for 75 cents. I sprint downstairs to find empty baskets.

Tonight? While grocery shopping? I threw a pitchfork. I killed a guy.

So, shallots. Tonight, at grocery store number two (which, btw, is my favorite, solely because they stock Sweet Leaf Tea), I grabbed what was labelled as "shallots." Turns out, they were scallions. Now, having never used, needed or eaten either ... well, I was at a severe disadvantage.

Which of course means, I got a horticultural lesson in my apartment and re-dispatched to grocery store number one. Who should get off its ass and stock Sweet Leaf. The fuckers.

ANYWAY, I'm talking to Kristal, asking her to help me identify shallots. And she says, scallions are the things in PF Chang's beef broccoli.

I've never wanted anything more in my life.

I drooled on the 3 year old who was setting the bear trap at my feet and smiled at the lady aiming the RPG at my cart. Hey. I told you grocery shopping in New York was rough.

I heart the subway

When I first moved here (read: A period of time that started when I put the moving truck in park and ended about a day ago) I thought of the subway system as this city's shiv. Everything seems normal. Nothing going on. WHAM! Hidden blade in your gut. Hand covered in blood. Face torqued in agony. WHY!?! OH, WHY ME!??

Then, I started wrapping my mind around it (read: I started looking at maps and - much more importantly - listening to a certain someone.) Now, I kind of dig the subway. Sure, nothing I can think of is more miserable than realizing you've been sweating on your walk when you are greeted with an inferno of still, warm, thick, immobile air 60 feet below the surface of God's earth. Is it too late for that protective sheath of deodorant? I've even started liking the little rats. I root for them in their battle against the football sized ones. I know they're doomed. Like Colt McCoy. But that's what makes sports fun.

But, my favorite thing about the subway? Never in my life have I been so sure I'm on a hidden camera show. Also? I realize representative democracy works. I never have to wonder why we have so many freaks in Congress. We, the voting public, are just doing our jobs.

“In your country club, your church and business, about 15 percent of the people are screwballs, lightweights and boobs and you would not want those people unrepresented in Congress." -- Former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson, who - CLEARLY - never rode the subway enough, based on those numbers.

Greetings from Brooklyn

OK, you can't tell it, but, yes, that is a limo with swing up doors. I guess they were running low on gull wing doors.

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If this means nothing to you ...

Get back to me when it does.

Today's discovery

It's fucking hard to not clap when the Yankees fuck up. Even in a bar full of their shithead fans.
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And now for something completely different

I was one minute late to work this morning. Because of a fucking Miley Cyrus concert.

On the plus side, I did get to walk by the scene with Pink Floyd's Us and Them on the iPod. Well, played, shuffle play music gods. Well played indeed.

On the down side, I watched a woman tell a bunch of 12 year old girls to "get the fuck out of her way. I don't have time for this fucking bullshit." And she didn't call earmuffs, either.

Back to the plus side, two blocks past Bryant Park, I saw another group of preteens (4 girls, 1 guy) wandering around with maps and (what looked like) autograph pads. Though my personal sense of direction was on a northbound train at that moment, I volunteered directions. "The Miley Cyrus show is that way."

From an octave approximating a dog mauling a squeaktoy came, "MILEY CYRUS IS PLAYING A SHOW??!?"

The look on the guy's face was priceless. Get used to being dragged to shit, kid. Maybe, later today, I'll tell you all about me and my personal sense of direction catching The Dark Knight at midnight last night.

The worst spam subject line ever

Elton John dies in rocketship.

It's always the Texans

Now, I know I have been here a grand total of two weeks. And I swear I will never let this town take away my sense of wonderment. I refuse to let everything be routine. All in all? Not going to be a brick in the wall. Sure I haven't been more than a 20 block radius in ... shit. Since going to Jersey two Sundays ago? Holy Hell. Can that be right? Good grief, I think it is.

ANYWAY. I hop on my train last night to go home. We stop at Rock-A-Fella Center. I'm closest to the door. It opens, and there stand two guys in Astros hats and jersies with their All Star Game tickets around their necks. Yeah. Standing in the subway station. In New York. With their tickets to the last All Star Game in the House That Ruth Built. Around their necks.

Before I could get out the classic Matt Belew line "you folks here for the game?" they ask me, (yeah, people in New York asking me for directions ... gooooood idea.) "Will this train take us to the game?"

"Yeah, but it's a local."(My personal sense of navigation later told me this wasn't true on game days. Again, this is why you don't ask me directions. You ask me to call her.)

"Isn't the game in the city?"

Oy. Texans.

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's ....

my first New York celebrity experience.

I got off the subway this morning (Right stop. On time and everything, thank you very much.) and was greeted with an abnormal delay getting up the stairs. I get up them, finally, and see police tape roping off Bryant Park. Lots of police tape.

Uh oh.

I get about a half a block up, and there are about a hundred Chevrolet pickups parked in a row. In case you haven't been in New York the past two weeks, the All Star game is tonight at Yankee Stadium. Why they get rewarded with an All Star Game for being so stupid as to tear down that park is beyond me, but I digress. This afternoon is an All Star Game parade near my office.

And there it was.

Superman's pickup for the parade.


After snapping this picture, I realized the head of my account at work was standing right next to me. "If you're taking a picture of Sizemore's truck, I hope you got a great shot of Willie Mays'."

Oops.

Ma'am

Your son is wearing Crocs with socks.
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The Rolling Stones Song of the Week

It's true. All of it. Every word.

Fine. I'll just get this out of they way.

I am the biggest Batman fan you know and I can barely contain myself.

Yes. Yes, I have tickets for midnight Thursday. Yes. I am kind of fucking thrilled that my first movie living in New York is The Dark Knight.

Yes. Yes, I have a Batman figure that I got out of a box of Cheerios.

Glory be to Tarvold

This morning, I went to the right subway stop. Didn't get on the wrong train. Did wait for the right train. (Big Boy Badasses ride the B train.) Didn't get off at the wrong stops. Did hang around for the right stop. Got off there. Exited the catacombs through the stairs closest to my office. Immediately gathered my bearings. Walked directly to my office. Started to get my ID out when the bouncer at the door said, "I know you. You're cool. Hold on to your ID."

Also? I did this without breaking out into profuse sweating. I can actually feel dry spots of my undershirt and it's not 1pm.

Which desk is yours?

The one with Vince Young holding a Texas flag, of course.
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S-M-R-T

"Hey, your office has a great view of the Empire State Building."
"It does?"
I've spent the past two days staring at the building across the street. Waiting for something cool to happen. But, and, in my defense, you'd have to be short to do this, if you squat down and look up and to the right ...

The pre snap read

I've long thought my time as the editor of The Texan, coupled with my time studying power structures (ie majoring in government) made me really good at reading a room.

My first impressions of my new job? This might be the first place in a long time where people aren't having to overcompensate for a total slapdick. I mean, I guess you'd expect that ... you know, working in the Mecca of advertising. Working on the agency's flagship account. But it's nice to have those assumptions validated.

Wait. What if I am the slapdick?

Time is on my side

Yeah, so forgive me for kind of picking this story up towards the end. It must feel like opening the movie with war veteran Odysseus strolling around Ithaca. Just know a certain someone has already thrown a few things up on her blog about our heroes' epic journey. Go find it. Start with the links to the right.

Anyway, if you've ever started a new job, and if you can afford a computer, I am guessing you have, you know the first couple days are meetings and training and trying to stay awake.

So I'm sitting in timesheet training this morning. And, the attendees were from my agency and our sister agency. The agencies use two totally different timesheet systems. So, 60 percent of the room got instructions first, while the other 40 percent of us were told to not pay attention to any of this because it would only serve to confuse us.

Deal. I can take that 10 minutes to write down things I still can't find.

So, it was during this exercise that it came up that our time sheets must have 35 hours on them.

Wait a second. What? Wha? Really? But?

Yeah. 9 to 5. Hour for lunch. Five days a week. 35 hours.

Now, I routinely logged 50 to 60 hour weeks at every job I ever had in Austin. I had a 20 hour Monday just a couple months ago. In fact, I think that was the week I first came up here to interview. And the standard was always 40 hours. Always. In fact, in order for an employer to not have to give me benefits, once, I was "limited" to 37.5 horus a week so as to not be a full time employee.

Do I expect to only work 35 hours every week? Not at all. Am I glad that's the benchmark? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Kelly, Janice and others keep waiting for this town to kick my ass. It will. But I just found an extra 5 hours a week to drown my sorrows in a bar.

The Rolling Stones Song of the Week

Day 3: That was fast

So, today, while running an impromptu errand/covert operation, some tourists on the subway huddled around me to take a picture with a real New Yorker.

I was wearing a Cleveland Indians hat.

And a (Texas) Longhorns for Kinky (Friedman for Texas Governor) T-shirt.

Maybe that was too subtle?

Awkward turtle, anyone?

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A Day Without a Moving Truck

Yes, I made it. Somehow.

Lots lots lots has happened. It was something. Or something.

Anyway, more to come, but I have to say, it kind of rocks alot.