I haven't seen much unusual today. I noticed that parts of 8th Ave were blocked off, but everything seems calm.
I should have gone to the protest on Sunday. Supposedly, about half a million people showed up, in the biggest protest New York has seen in decades. My friend Eric came from San Francisco to take pictures of it, and they are already up on his site. Check it out, it is truly awe inspiring!
Everyone is getting a bit edgy about the upcoming Republican Convention. Many people at work are choosing that week for their vacation, and those of us that are staying don't know what to expect. I see signs for the convention already that have some transit info. The stop by my office has one. At the top it has the heading "Republican Convention", under which someone wrote "not welcome". Indeed, almost everyone except for the mayor seems to bristle at how the Republicans are coming here, to shamelessly invoke the memory of 9/11 for partisan purposes, even though most here hate them.
There are going to be huge protests, but still I'm not sure if people know where yet. Things are already getting a bit crazy. At lunch I shared a table in Chinatown with some Republican types evidently from the courthouse nearby. They were talking about how 8 people streaked across one of the avenues today, and had to be taken in. They clearly despised the protesters. Which I guess is fair, since the I'm sure the protesters despised people like them.
So everyone is nervous about what could happen. Even politically nervous, since if there is chaos on the streets, it could give the left a bad enough image to cost Kerry the election. What happened in Chicago '68 seems to be discussed a lot these days.
I'm not nervous enough to avoid Manhattan, but I do hope everything goes smoothly, and the protests are peaceful. What I think needs to happen is to get across to America at large how New York does not like Bush, how Bush has screwed New York, and how the city hardest hit by terrorism wants Bush out. I actually plan to go to a weekday protest, if I can see one. I probably can, I'm fairly close to Madison Square Garden. The big protest will be on Sunday, but it's hard for me to get out.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I go work out at the Gold's Gym on 54th St (right around the corner from Letterman's theater). After that, I like to eat something for breakfast, so I get a bagel at the furniture shop (previously mentioned here). The last few times I've gone, they haven't had a bagel yet, which has infuriated me and made me walk a whole avenue length (a good distance) to go to the only other bagel place I know. There has got to be a better way.
I have started walking over to 8th Ave for lunch, which is more into the proper Chelsea district. I happened to notice that a very well-known bagel place, Murray's Bagels was there. Bagels as good as these were supposed to be are worth altering my whole transit plan. So now, instead of coming to work from the gym on the R Train, and walking from Broadway to 6th Ave, I now go on the E Train, and take it to 8th Ave, almost straight to Murray's Bagels. The bagels there cost, with cream cheese, $1.75, as opposed to the other places which cost $1.25. Murray's also offers many other topics, and at least 7 types of smoked fish slices. Unfortunately, the various lox bagels cost from $7 to $10. But the bagels are great. They are quite obviously superior to the ordinary New York bagel. They rank up there with the best bagel's I've ever had, along with H&H Bagels on 46th St, and a few of the bagels from Bagelman's in Champaign, IL.
I'm very excited to be able to eat a bagel of this quality three times a week. For someone who used to eat 2 to 3 bagels a day in High School (me, in other words), this is heaven.
Reading the Village Voice a few days ago, it mentioned a blog on New York pizza called Slice. Not only does it look like it has good content, but it has a downloadable file with pizza reviews you can stick on your iPod!
Speaking of pizza, I went to John's Pizzeria today. It's always mentioned in the same breath as the great pizzerias of New York. This may be because they have a coal-fired oven, which is fairly rare in New York. I went there, and it really was good. The crust wasn't as thin as some, but it had a great crunch and chew, and the sauce was terrific. I could tell they put the sauce on after the cheese, since the sauce wasn't on every bite, but rather scattered around. By the way, check out the website, the page of celebrity visitors they have is hilariously bad. Not only that, but the celebrities aren't exactly A-list celebrities. In fact, Vanilla Ice is there! Nothing says "These celebrities aren't exactly A-list celebrities" like a prominent Vanilla Ice inclusion.
Before my New York move, I always thought I understood what New York pizza was all about - namely a thin crust (but not as thin as St. Louis style), and big, greasy slices. Greasy in a good way, mind you. I wasn't wrong, but I had a very limited understanding.
The big, thin, greasy slice does exist, and is quite good if you can get it fresh. Reheated slices are not so great.
Beyond that, there is a better pizza, which is very thin (thinner than normal for New York), a very crisp crust, and uses fresh mozzarella. Fresh mozzarella is whiter than the normal kind, and has a higher moisture content. Because of the higher moisture content, the cheese is used sparingly. Still, the center of the pizza tends to be a bit soggy. For this type, fresh basic is usually used to top it off. Even with the sogginess, the pizza tastes wonderful, and the sogginess actually adds a bit of textural contrast. Nick's, by my apartment , has this kind of pizza.
Another type of pizza they have in many places here is the "Grandma Slice", previously known to me as a Sicilian pizza. There may be a difference, the corner pizzeria by my office has both Sicilian and Grandma slices, but I'm not sure what the difference is. At any rate, these pieces are square, the tomato sauce is on top of the cheese, and the crust is thick but light. In most places, this is not so great, but some places top this with a very nice sauce and use the fresh mozzarella, and this makes for a really good pizza.
I'm eating way too much pizza these days. I'm almost back up to my college consumption of 3 pizzas a week.
I'm not too happy about the offerings of my favorite drink, Pearl Milk Tea, here in New York. I've tried about half a dozen places so far, prices ranging from $2 (in Flushing, which I previously wrote about), to $4. The last one was in Chinatown, at a place called "Tea & Tea". I figured, a place like that has to have something good. Nope. First of all, it was nearly $3.50 for a small little tea (about half the size of regular), and the usual New York tea problems soon emerged. The drink was far too sweet and milkly, and tapioca was tough and chalky. As usual, I threw it out before I even finished all the tapioca balls.
By far the worst tea I had here was the one they sell at the festivals they have on the Avenue's on the weekends. There is one particular seller with $4 teas. The tapioca was rock hard, and they all stuck together, so that you had to practically chip them away. Probably the best tea I've had here was the one in Flushing, which was only $2, and not too horrible.
What the hell do I have to do to get a decent Pearl Milk Tea out here?
An amendment to ban gay marriage has overwhelmingly passed in Missouri. I'm comfortable with Missouri not being a very liberal state, but does it have to lead the way in bigotry? They say Missouri is a nice place to be from, but sometimes I'm not sure.
It's been a long time since the last post. Not much interesting has happened to blog about, but I have been playing a wonderful online game called The Kingdom of Loathing. It's free, it's funny, it's hip. Try it out!