OCD in NYC

Jessuus!
I can't walk around this city without constantly wanting to wash my hands!
It feels so dirty, there are so many people on the subway, the air is so thick on that thing you could slice it with a knife.
I wanted to buy one of those hand sanitiser things, but in true media fashion, it fell into my lap as a present in a media kit. Score!

I still feel OCD. Just as much as I got here. I wash my hands every time I enter a building from the outside...even when I'm in a taxi I think it's gross. How many people have been in that stinking thing before me?! Not to mention the stinky cab driver...

Then there are those people who when using a public toilet need to get toilet paper to shut the door. But they cant use the first exposed pieces of toilet paper, because, well, someone else has touched it. So they discard that (which they somehow touch), then use the next pieces to shut the door latch. Then they get more to actually flush the toilet and then again to open the door.
I thought that was the end of the line when some woman came out of the cubicle, took more paper from the towel dispenser to turn the tap on and THEN wash her hands. Ingenious! Then she took from the wad of paper, a sheet to open the door.
This woman could then perform an appendectomy she was that hygienic!

The first time I didn't feel like I had to wash my hands immediately, was in the suburbs of Jersey. There's a place that's true America- dens, basements (now I know where that guy went to get Homer the 1000 uses for wax lips), pantries and storage full of jumbo sized everything.
A little bit scary, a very consumption driven nation. There is no way in hell this country is going to cut down the amount they consume any time soon. I'm sure every family lives in that way and Al Gore has a shitload to do.
In the meantime, I'll continue to wash my hands!

What the fuck is wrong with this country?

So this thing is massive right now. I hear it's massive everywhere.
Bigger than big.



Kind of reminds me of the Chasers. Even though the got arrested for something similar, it wasn't like the Police and security weren't at fault as well!
This Today Tonight story is a bit of a beat up, but it still tells of the brilliance



I actually felt like crying after watching this taser thing. Who knew 'tase' was even a verb! Certainly gets picked up by spellcheck!

Although it kind of reminds me of the whole Chaser thing. Same deal. Not really doing anything, just causing a stir and a bit of awareness. The only people who get affected are the ones with the power and they are the ones reacting to protect the pedestals they stand on.


This isn't bad either. Just a sum up of the ridiculousness of APEC


Still a freak out. The Taser guy was harassed and assaulted for free speech. Chaser guys got through checkpoints they shouldn't have.

So what's wrong with America?

I don't know what's been wrong with me for the past few months. I'm still funny in person, but on my Blog, it just isn't shaking. Lame.

I'm going to try my hardest to pick it up. I've been doing some observing, watching how people interact and I'm getting on board to go to some crazy things like the World Series etc etc.

So I've been here a week now, I'm pretty settled. I've had some run ins with some major Jewish princesses, I'll blog those another day...

My first main observation
So what's wrong with this country?
Everyone is obsessed with celebrity. And even if people were to shake it, like Jude Law wants, there is no way it will happen. It's like a drug. The common public feeds off the 'real' lives of these glamourous celebrities.
Celebrities' lives are a fantasy- so much money, attractive people, good food, parties fun- yet at the same time it's all reality.
Their lives are almost as entertaining as the movies they appear in. But it's real!

The whole thing is like a dog eating it's tail. I'm wise enough to know most of the realities these celebrities generate are fakes, but it's just too hard to keep up with all my friends' shit, let alone the celebs. Thinking about the whole reverse cycle fantasy-reality wheel just makes me dizzy.

To add further insult, movies ads are everywhere and they completely saturate every feasible ad space. I can't walk out of the house or be in my house without seeing some ad for a movie, tv show or some other generic, mind numbing form of entertainment.

People's lives just revolve around the basic need to forget everything about it!

It only happens to Wisey...

With things falling so nicely into place, it's no wonder a whole heap of shit had to happen once I got into New York.

Jews who go over the line
Instance 1: Recently I encountered a taxi driver who decided to take a shot and ask me if I was Jewish. I took a moment to ponder whether to be honest or not. I was. He responded how he thought so. Good work bub.
My curly brown hair, brown eyes and my necklace in hebrew isn't a total giveaway.
He was about to ask me "do you want to..." something, but he saw the fuck off look in my face and stopped.

Instance 2: At the airport, I check in and because of all the stamps in my passport from Israel, the customs officer decides to wish me a shana tova.
Somehow I felt like it was an invasion of my identity. In both instances. I think it was the smug look on their faces once they had deduced something that isn't even a secret.
Using the jew-bond is useful, but sometimes inappropriate use just makes me feel dirty and violated. There has to be particular cases where it just doesn't work and certainly a finesse to bring it into a conversation, and I don't think either of these two did that.

A tear and a half
My 2 suitcases were ripped beyond use in transit.
Watch this space for ensuing insurance claims.

Strike
Taxi strike in New York. Had to wait 40 minutes for a taxi

and then...
I finally get a cab, with my 3 suitcases, and the fucker decides to rear end another car.
I waited another half an hour for another taxi and I was on my home straight.

Other than that It's been all good.
Today I had fun in a social security office. You can't even eat in there. I was eating a dried apricot and got told to stop!
It's just full of people. I only had to wait an hour, but other people were there for hours.
Let's hope I get a cool number.

Back to basics- some random thinkings

So I was in a meeting the other day. One of the early morning kind. One of the stingy kind where they don't even supply breakfast.
We were talking in the meeting about the usual buzz words, playing WIP bingo and then someone comes out with the doozie "As we all know: Content is King"


Content is king??!
I just don't get it. Where did this nonsensical phrase came from?
It kind of reminds me of the time I heard "It will be seamless integration with heavy branding"...

wtf...???!

Why isn't it "Content is the bomb" : or "content gets my rocks off", the king reference just doesn't do anything for me.
I think I'm going to start collecting dollars for every time I hear the phrase "Content is King" for the advertising/media year of 2007.
I have a little pig money collection jar. I should fill it easy.



Next
I've encountered this for a while, but never blogged it.
When I go out for breakfast, and order toast, what right does the cook/chef/bitch have to butter my toast??
Personally I don't like the butter to melt into the toast. I hate that. I like the butter to just rest on the top. That requires that the toast must cool down a little before application.
It actually pisses me off.
A lot.
It is such a personal activity, I don't know why cafes continue to be so ballsy with this. However, next time I will remember and will not allow them to butter my toast... OR...dump the eggs on top of the toast so that the toast resembles a mooshy lump completely removed from the whole idea of toast. Who comes up with this shit?

BED
(Blog Erat Demonstrandum)

(great name for a blog, if anyone takes this, I shoot them!)

Bureaucracy is hypocrisy

Yay - I went and got my Harry Potter. I can finally end this spell that the book has put on me. It's not too sophisticated, but they are pretty exciting stories.

None of my goy friends could go and pick up my pre paid copy, and I'm kind of glad I didn't make them, because the service post-sabbath was atrocious.

I raced up to Borders at 6pm. It was still a little busy. I went up to the special Harry potter pre ordered desk. They crossed off my name and then pointed me to a register.

I waited and waited.

I even waited a bit more.

I was expecting it just to be a pick up, walk out type thing.

When I finally get to the counter, the guy is dicking around. He asks me for my name, I'm a little confused, I just gave me name.
I ask him why he wants it- he says he needs to cross check.
It still isn't making sense to me, so I wrote down "Bugs Bunny" and walked out with my book and token Hedwig doll.


now for the spoiler..... (warning)

I got this damn Hedwig doll. And Hedwig freaking dies on page 30!!
How ironic.
All those poor kids out there. I feel for them.
But there is no way Borders would have known. Poor chaps.

NY Part II and sorry for the lack of posting lately

Well, I've been busy. Very busy.
Work has been a bit of a whirlwind, but I'm into it. It's good. The dog, Millie, she is good. She sleeps next to my desk.

So what's been happening....?

The watching of the Zodiac
I'm a bit of a Jake fan. I love Jakey. He is so cute. So I wanted to see that movie "The Zodiac".
So in NY I got one pirate DVD and that was it.
So a few weeks after I got home from NY I watched it with some friends. We're watching and who is in it? Dr Karev! from Grey's. I was all surprised- if I knew he was in it I thought they would have advertised that a bit more. But whatever...
I keep watching, thinking where is Jakey? Maybe he is the kid that grows up to solve the mysteries. I'm still thinking this an hour and a half into the film, which feels like it's going an awful long time for Jake to be the main character and still have a good showing. And then the movie ends!

Turns out that those crafty buggers but the film The Zodiac in my Zodiac! Same story, same idea, just one's a made for TV and the other is a massif blockbuster.
It looks like the Zodiac took another victim, and it was me...

A free bottle of wine
I went to trivia the other night. Instead of naming our team some random name, they had a contest for who can make the best name for the product or tagline from this:
A product is launching whereby in your lunch break you can go and get a complete boob job and then go back to work.
I don't know what the real name is, but apparently it will be ready to lift by next year.
There were lots of different names- The D Cups, Ladies who lunch, Lunch cancelled: Tits Up and many others.
But mine, the winner was:
"Forget those sangers, Fix those saggers"

Great piece of work. Everyone laughed when they heard it which made us win.
Free wine. And we bombed out at trivia.

Facebook phenom
Oh, this thing called Facebook is getting a bit crazy. I have a few people in facebook purgatory that I don't know what to do with. Do I reject them, accept them or limit profile them?? I just have too many friends on that thing now, I don't know how I can reasonably stay in touch with all of them. And there are just tonnes of people who I don't want to know my shizz.
Even Malcolm Turnbull requested friendship. I turned him down. I spoke to him on the ferry once, he wasn't very friendly back. I wrote him a message on facebook saying that was why I didn't want to be his friend. Now he cares and he is asking me what happened.
A friend of mine on Facebook- The Cozy Warm Doona tried tagging itself in Malc's photos. Malc didn't let it.
Then the cozy warm doona decided to use its free gift and give him a Jock strap with the message "Hey malc, you left this under the doona. You can come back any time"
Malcolm rejected it! Now the doona has no free gifts left.
That Turnbull isn't getting my vote anymore!


That's about all I can remember for now. I'll try post better. There have been a few stories, I just can't remember them all!

NY Part I

Well,

I didn't really blog while I was away...did I? I can't remember. I think I'm still hungover.

I did have fun though. The flights were an absolute bitch. I once said I like flying, not the case anymore.

I pretty much just walked around the entire time. As a result of my wanderings, various things happened:

Josh from heeb.
Josh was cool. I'm glad I met him. After failing at the Jewish geography game of "who do you know" we managed to stumble across a random connection which was gratifying in some kind of way. I wanted to take a picture of me and heeb together, but he doesn't like his pic being taken.

So I took a photo of his T-Sauce and glass instead




Celebs
I did see a lot of celebs, well a lot if you think about the amount of people in Manhattan and how many days I was there. Ed Begley Jr, that wierd guy from Mad About you, Morgan Spurlock and Billy from Melrose place. He was actually at my conference! He is launching some crazy social network called CafeMom. I wish him well.

I was very hungover in that pic.

Apparently I had a spack attack when I saw Morgan Spurlock. I turned all celeb crazy. I happen to think my accent allows me to get away with it. You see, cops, I hear, never do this:

My roomies

Fuck. We had fun. i don't think I have watched as much TV in one week as I did there. So much reality TV. Dori, Neeley and Olga- thanks for the apple martinis, the memories and the marijuana pasta.



The Crazy JDate billboard in times square




Conference

Was a parade of nerds. End of story.

The guy on the left, Erick Schonfeld, he is the KING of all nerds.

WTC
I did happen to walk past Ground Zero. It wasn't really somewhere I aimed to get to, but when you're downtown, you can't really miss it. I noticed there was a visitor centre across the road from the site. People could donate money I guess, or buy souvenirs as a mark of their respect etc. Only what, 3,000 or 5,000 people died? Not as many as other catastrophes in the world. But I realised that the reason Western society is so mortified by 9/11 is because the potential for so much monetary wealth was also destroyed that day. That's what people relate to and that's why it was such a tragedy.



Other cool shit

I saw a car on fire.



And loads of coloured Wellingtons



I guess that shall be all for now. Part II when I remember it.

Uptown, downtown and all about town

I'm having fun in NY. Me likee.

My flight wasn't fun though. Probably worst fight ever. United is shit. Worse than Alitalia and that's a big call. I hope their Blog scourers find this.
Everything was delayed, I missed my connecting flight from LA to NY. So my 21 hours of transport became 23/24 hours. Not fun.
I still got the train from the airport which had its benefits - weirdos. I now know always wear iPod headphones, prevents people from talking to you.
One dude, during conversation, kept on telling me "you only live once", he probably said it 15 times. I told him to write it on a Tshirt. He wanted to pick up some hot chick on the train, so I told him to go for it, you know, you only live once! He was a pussy. Clearly doesn't practice what he preaches.

The mystery shopping escapade
Yesterday I was sitting in Dori's apartment (thanks Dori for having me, 2 days in and it's been awesome, flatmates are fun too) and there is a knock at the door. The supermarket had all this shopping for us. I didn't know if any of her flatmates ordered it, so I took it. Turns out none of them ordered anything, we won free shopping. I didn't know why one of them ordered a whole roast chicken, but shit happens. Some retard also put the watermelon right next to the hot chicken. Who does that??
When we looked at the delivery card, 4D looked more like 4J so we took it down. They didn't order it, but she said that in spanish a G is a J, so we took it there. No dice either. It was really ours.
But then I realised the address was 110, not 101! The poor delivery guy was a tad dyslexic. There was no way we were getting off our asses to take it back to the supermarket. I was worried the guy would get fired for stealing it. You know how prejudice americans are...
In the end, whilst I was having a nap they came back and picked it up. But, we still took the milk. Thanks guys.

Other than that, I'm just walking around, going to a couple of shows, museums, the park.
I'm managing to work it here too. It seems like New Yorkers don't know my tricks either...

My random unknown friend, Josh, from Heeb magazine, I shall be meeting this week. Once it happens we'll put the whole story up here. But until then, Josh, we will see how you perform!