- GET OFF MY TRAIN!!!

I heard in the news that when they build the 2nd avenue subway line, the MTA may have the names of it's stops sold to major corporations. So instead of getting off at 86th street like people have been doing for 100 years, you would be getting out at Mountain Dew Square or whatever.. This really REALLY upsets me.. So I had to write them:

FIRST EMAIL SENT:
Customer (Daniel Krieger) - 07/27/2004 05:39 PM
I just want to go on record to say that our city should not be for sale and the idea of selling the naming rights of our subways and stations to corporations is a horrible and obscene one.

Your justification of keeping fares lower is ludicrous, as the fares will eventually go up again regardless of if you sell the name of a station to "The Gap," or "Eddie Bauer". But the history of this city and the independence is lost.

I think anyone who is a part of this should be ashamed and someone needs to speak out before these ideas are implemented. Thank you.

THE RESPONSE:
Response (Doug Sussman) - 07/29/2004 03:52 PM
July 29, 2004


Dear Mr. Krieger:

This is in response to your email comments on the proposal to sell advertising or naming rights on transit property, as a way of generating revenue to help defray the MTA's looming budget deficit.

The corporate sponsorship of properties is a common practice across America to raise revenue, and if adopted at the MTA, it would lessen the burden of raising revenues solely from other traditional sources, such as increasing fares and tolls or reducing services.

A Request for Proposals has been issued, and responses are not expected before September. No decision has yet been made on implementing this possible revenue-raising strategy, and it will be thoroughly and openly discussed at a future MTA Board meeting before a final decision is reached.

Your comments on this proposal are appreciated and your opinion will be reviewed along with all other comments received.

Thank you for expressing your feelings on this matter.

Sincerely,

Douglas R. Sussman
Director
Community Affairs

MY REPLY TO HIS RESPONSE:

Mr. Sussman,

First off, I appreciate your response but I have a few more comments.

"The corporate sponsorship of properties is a common practice across America to raise revenue," you said.

Does that make it right? I think "Corporate sponsorship," is also a reason why people are losing their feeling of community today. Do you think that it creates a feeling of detachment in our society? Do you really want to hear, "Next stop Pepsi Cola Square." ????

Your proposal and others like it cheapens great cities and towns in this country and there is no justification for it. Our subway system just raised prices and I'm quite certain there are ways around your budget deficit. You have already sold every subway car as a paid advertisement. Will you only be happy when every square inch of our subway system is plastered with bright ads and blinking signs?

And although we as a nation are becoming numb to the constant bombardment of advertisements, I just think that what you are proposing goes beyond what is reasonable and I really hope you reconsider.

I have never organized a campaign before in my entire life but I love this city enough that I will once I hear the final word that the renaming of our subway stations are up for grabs. I highly encourage you to be brave and dispense this to your supervisors or coworkers or anyone you know, as I am planning to do the same thing. Get some other opinions and see what people think.

Daniel Krieger

- So you should write them too if you have a minute and if you care about this issue.

Try emailing: mta_nyc@custhelp.com
And make the email out to: Douglas R. Sussman, Director, Community Affairs

- MY PONCHO

I don't care how smooth you think you are. However cool you think your new pants or shnazzy shoes are or if your hair looks like a million bucks (like mine), there's just no way in hell that you can look cool wearing a Poncho.

Well that is no one cept for me. I had to buy one earlier this week when it was raining out. I had forgotten my umbrella and when lunchtime rolled around I realized it was pouring outside. I noticed my coworker had worn a poncho that morning so I asked her where she got it. Odd Lot. I didn't think those stores existed anymore but apparently they are alive and well and dispensing shitty merchandise at a hefty discount. 99 cents for this bright orange piece of miss-shaped garbage bag plastic. How could I say no?

To refresh your memory here is a nice picture of a PONCHO. Just look how happy those people are. They are all celebrating their love of the Poncho.

I actually borrowed the one she had bought and walked to Odd Lot to buy my own. It was like a test run. I figured if I hated the thing I would walk into Odd-Lot and announce, "This thing freaking sucks and I'm not buying it!" and walk out. The joke there is that the manager and cashiers would be thinking to themselves, "Wait a minute he already bought that one and wore it into our store." Shows you what they know.

But I made it to the store reasonably dry and after acting like a little old lady contemplating her purchase I decided to open my coin purse... errr I mean wallet and drop 99 cents into the open palm of the cashier and walk out with my brand new shiny orange Poncho. YEEEEEEEHAW!

Man what a moron I felt like by the end of the day when I realized the only schmucks who wear Ponchos are the Fitzpatrick family visiting from Omaha. Oh well. The worst part is this wasn't my first experience with humiliation involving a poncho. My friends bachelor party took place outdoors last summer when we went to see a Yankees/Mets game and it rained the whole time. I felt bad bringing an umbrella so I bought a $3 Poncho at Rite-Aid (another store I don't like) but I went with a purple colored one for some reason and got ragged on the entire game by my friends who said I looked like that freakish Purple McDonalds cartoon character. What food do they sell that is the color purple anyway? I mean the red and yellow ok.. Ketchup and mustard or fries are even yellowish.. But purple?

Oh and Ponchos get hot too. Definately too hot for me cause my glasses start to fog up.

I just finished about a 1/4 pound of a 1lb bag of strawberry Twizzlers. I don't feel so good.

- THREE DAYS

DAY 1: Hey can I borrow 50 cents? Thanks, yeah sorry I just have a little change and I really need a can of soda so bad. No No 50 cents is all I need I have the rest.. Thanks again

DAY 2: Yeah I know I still owe you the 50 cents from yesterday. What? Oh No NO I insist I'm going to pay you back but will you listen to this. I left my wallet at my Doctors office yesterday. I hate having to take all my clothes and put on one of those white robes and try to tie those flimsy strings tight together in the back so my ass doesn't stick out. It was really awkward especially considering it was a dentist's office. SO after the appointment I was putting my clothes back on and I guess I forgot to put my wallet back in my pants. Can I borrow like 7-8 bucks for lunch? $10? Yeah $10 is good, fine, thanks, promise I will pay you back. Plus the 50 cents.

DAY 3: Wow this is weird but my car broke down and I need 100 bucks to tow it to a gas station and the doctors office from yesterday said they are keeping the wallet because I guess they have a sign that says any items left in the doctors office become property of staff. I know weird right. Well can I borrow 100? Plllllease?

- TWO EXTREMELY IMPORTANT OBSERVATIONS

1) I noticed letter T is not given enough credit for being so close to the end of the alphabet. When I think of high up letters I think about the R and the S and of course obvious ones like X and Y, but the T doesn't seem to me that it's as far up as it is. But then sometimes ask myself, "What is better, being at the end or being at the front like the ABC and even the D?" I realized I need to stop asking myself this outloud when I'm eating lunch by myself. I've come to the conclusion that the H and G are in no mans land. They are pretty much worthless.

2) I constantly observe police officers taking leisurely strolls around the city. Is there any other job which allows its employees to just casually walk about for hours on end without actually doing anything? I mean they aren't really working at these times are they? Is that part of the job? I guess it's like when I take time off to check email though.. or write in this blog....uh not that I ever do that at work.

- POLITICAL POST II

Although I am a very liberal person and get annoyed with the fact that I have friends and sometimes family members who are Republican, I do try to occasionally look at things from both sides. Last night during a discussion with a Republican friend I remarked how I do in fact read Foxnews.com which is considered in most circles to be a very right leaning news program.

Of course those who get their news from Fox News usually happen to be Republicans and often tell me the same thing. That Fox News is in fact a fair news source and that most of the other networks including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and the New York Times are very far left leaning.

I do realize some of these networks can lean towards the left but I think overall they are more fair and accurate than I have found Fox News to be in my experience.

So I did an experiment today but before I get into it I should preface the reason for doing the experiment. To begin with, a large number of my arguments/discussions with right wing people have to do with business in general and it's ethics or lack thereof, and topics such as globalization. In my opinion a lot of problems in this world stem from economics, business, and greed overall.

Also In my opinion, Republicans I know don't think there is nothing wrong with greed. They believe it is what our country is founded on. I've gathered through conversations that they believe there should be limited control over corporations (despite the fact no one has much control over them to begin with). Unions are bad because it allows people to stand up for their rights which may in turn hurt profits and the overall bottom line which comes back to the same thing, making money.

Issues such as the Enron and Tyco scandals are blown out of proportion. I never hear Republicans mentioning these cases or wondering what is being done to punish the wrongdoers or what can be done to stop it from happening again. I would think when millions of people's financials are effected it would upset everyone. But I have actually heard Republican friends say, "It's too bad but that's what happens in business sometimes." And it ends at that. When I raise these points in a discussion it just doesn't seem to interest them. They complain a lot just like democrats or left wing people, but it's always about other issues, never these.

It amazes me because I feel we should all be concerned, no matter what your political leaning is. Why, I wonder is the reason for that? I think I may have answered a bit of this puzzle today when doing some independent research. I used Foxnews.com again because as a friend told me yesterday, it now has a larger audience than CNN. Without going out on much of a limb I think I can safely say again that most of the recipients of news from Fox are Republicans. For the record I read it online and rarely watch it because I don't have cable. Even if I did I just can't watch them deliver their newscasts..some of them are just really scary and evil looking :)

So what I did was visit foxnews.com today on July 22, 2004. I went to the business section and read each headline. There were 24 headlines in all.

Out of the 24 headlines, 12 of them contained the word, "Profit" in them. The other headlines used words like "Jump" and "Rise" and "Boost." I found 1 negative article about the economy and that was towards the bottom which I had to scroll all the way down to see.

This got me thinking that there may not be anything bad going on in the news today concerning the economy. Maybe there are no big legal cases happening. Possibly everything is going well and that the market is going up and all these companies are indeed showing, "Profits" like the article says.

Is this "Fair and Balanced?" or is it trying to show a specific idealism as one Republican friend said to me in an argument, "Is the world really so bad right now? I have some extra money in my pocket and I can walk down the street with a smile" Of course that friend has money in their pockets being a wealthy white republican. Is it trying to showcase how strong the economy and the state of our nation is or is it to help keep Bush in the White House with the election coming up?

I realized that if I only got my news from Fox, I would never really know anything bad that could be happening with our economy. I would probably be happy and loving this country and thinking nothing much was wrong. I mean I know every media outlet has their spin but I had to go look at other news websites to find out what else could be happening today.

So I decided to check out a few other news sources online. To begin with, every sight had two specific headlines (including Fox News) which were the "Coors/Molson merger" as a headline and that "Jobless Claims Dropped by 11,000."

Otherwise to show another side, we have:

New York Times- Out of 30 articles the word "Profit" was used 4-5 times. A few phrases also found in their headlines were: "Job Creation" "Helping the economy" "Higher sales" So there were many positives. BUT there were also headlines about job cuts, legal battles, and profit losses.
Washington Post- I found more headlines about profits than the New York Times per average but also more headlines than Foxnews (which would have only had to be more than one) about legal issues and layoffs. So far it feels like The Washington Post is somewhere more in the middle.
ABC news online- was difficult site to navigate and gave me a headache..I gave up before counting them on either side.
MSNBC- less headlines overall but more equal in news. 13 headlines. 4-5 positives using the "Profit," word or similar phrases, but then 4-5 articles containing words like "concern" and layoffs/cutbacks and the stocks being "sluggish."

I realize this was a quick and limited observation and might even out more over time. Also in defense of Fox News, I have been able to find (usually with much digging) articles about almost every topic even if it doesn't paint Bush or conservatives in a positive light. The problem is the times when every major paper runs a story on the front pages and Fox has a small little article somewhere out of reach. And YES I realize that the reverse is true that sometimes Fox News runs something as being very important while most other outlets consider it a minor story. I think both sides could benefit from more objectivity. That being said I still don't think Fox deserves the title, "Fair and Balanced."

any comments? (Besides telling me to go back to talking about toothpaste, chopsticks, Jesus, rubber bands and bathroom humor....cause trust me I WILL!)

- NO AUTOGRAPHS, PLEASE

Ok that may be taking it a bit far but you would think now that I'm famous I wouldn't have to take the subway anymore. Wrong!

After getting off at my stop on the subway this morning I realized I was running late so I started to quicken my pace..going from the speedwalk to the half jog to the jog conceive speed walk every 10 paces or so.

I felt a surge of energy. Maybe it was the jogging or the morning caffeine but I felt like just running and running and not stopping like Forrest Gump did (God what a stupid part of the movie that was).

Right then as the invincible feeling was hitting its peak, I tripped over a sleeping homeless man. Stumbling down I must have smacked my head pretty good against the pavement. Head spinning, body aching, I tried to bring myself to my feet. All I could see was a bright streaming glow which poured into my eyes as I held my hand up to block the blinding light.

I saw a man standing there in a white suit with a halo around his head..or was it a hat? I couldn't tell but I did see his outstretched hand offering me something. The object was blurred as I reached out for it..Was he an angel? What was he giving me? Was I dreaming?

No. It was a jelly donut.

He was my corner donut man and boy was he happy to see I wasn't dead. I helped that guy pay for the addition onto his house last year.

Last thing. I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night finally, and I was really blown away. I encourage anyone to see it who hasn't yet.

- MY FIFTEEN MINUTES ?

Well not really but here is the deal. First, if you received this already via email just ignore because it's basically the same thing I sent to you, with some editing and a bit of extra dialogue. 
 
If you didn't receive this as an email it means either A) I don't have your email or B) I don't really like you (I would be inclined to go with B if I were you).

If this is your first time on the site I hope you enjoy.. Either scroll through this page or click on the archived dates for previous posts.. And for god sakes put some pants on.

Some kinda cool news on my front:

The Republican National Convention is coming to NYC at the end of this month and I heard that some New Yorkers are trying to rent their apartments out for the week to people who will be visiting the city. I put my apartment up on Craigslist.com and didn't get any responses except for one. You can see my ad by clicking here

A woman who is a New York Times reporter emailed me after scanning through craigslist ads and asked if she could do a telephone interview with me because she is running an article in the Times this Sunday. Normally you all know I don't do interviews but I made an exception this time. She is writing an article about this specific thing, people trying to rent their apartments out to republicans coming in..or possibly to protestors who need a place to stay as well. Most apartments are being offered for thousands of dollars and I'm sure they are much nicer and in better areas than mine, but that is why I offered mine up for $600. My thinking was that someone out there might be looking to spend less money. Still no one has emailed me and apparently the few people she spoke with didn't have any luck either.

For some reason she found me, "Quirky" and "Interesting" well I think she said "Interesting," but maybe I just threw that in there. I prefer interesting over quirky. Quirky to me is the guy on the subway this morning who reached into his lunchbag and removed a television remote control which he must have accidentally packed alongside his turkey sandwich while putting together his lunch this morning. He then proceeded to laugh to himself about it for the next 10 minutes while people around him slowly inched away. Oh shit wait, that was me.
 
Anyway she said the article was going to be based more on me and my apartment, and wanted to meet me and check out my place. We met for the second interview on Wednesday very early in the morning, much earlier than I'm used to waking up. She asked me a bunch of questions, took a lot of notes, and called me later to say that I would be in the article. I demanded a huge picture of my face splashed on the very front page of the Times but she said no. I think I'll let her run it anyway.

I did ask her to mention my website in there and she said she would but who knows. I also don't know if she is going to make fun of me because I mentioned my propensity towards being domestic and she got a kick out of that. So I'm kinda nervous. Anyway it is late and I've written enough now so if you want, try to check it out.

The article should be in the Sunday New York Times but the paper copy is only available if you live in New York City because it's like the local section which is different for each part of the country.

It will be in The City section. It's on the front page and the column is called, "Coping."
 
Or for those outside NYC try http://www.nytimes.com/thecity  then find the article under "Coping."

Or, www.nytimes.com, go to left links, click New York Region then click The City.

The journalists name is Anemona Hartocollis (that's like 155 points in Scrabble)

If you can't find it online or it requires you to setup an account (which I think is still free) I'm sure I will be posting it here on the website  assuming it isn't totally embarrassing.

- I'M TIRED SO YOU GET THIS

- I'M TIRED SO YOU GET THIS:

There's a point in a conversation with a complete stranger where unless the both of you are willing to continue talking for several minutes, the speaking just stops. This happens on lines for movie tickets or on the subway occasionally. It just ends as you both become completely silent like you never had started talking to one another in the first place. I never can understand that but it's a documented phenomenon like everyone having a drunk or gay uncle.

IN OTHER NEWS:
When a guy on your corner keeps claiming to quote, "Willy Shakespeare," you know he probably doesn't have those quotes down exactly.
Also I don't think Shakespeare ended most of his quotes with, "Take that Motherfucker!"

Also if he claims to have invented the Lollipop I would be inclined not to believe him. I figure whoever came up with the lollipop is probably rich beyond my wildest dreams. Lollipop

- BIRD'S NEST SOUP:

There are such interesting shops in Chinatown. Some stores actually sell ginseng exclusively and this isn't the little crappy stuff you buy up at the counter of a health food store. This is the real deal ginseng root which can cost upwards of a few hundred dollars per pound. Other specialty shops have dead dried sea creatures and shark fins stuffed into large glass jars. Most of these items are quite expensive. The shark fin is a delicacy from what I understand and is generally prepared as a soup.

The strangest thing I've seen yet is the selling of birds nests. I asked a woman about it one time while she was inspecting an entire box of them. She asked the clerk how much the box was. $2000 bucks! I was like WHAT?! The woman wasn't as shocked as me but she handed it back to the store owner. I was told you can use the nests to make soup and it's supposed to offer some great health benefits. There were maybe 20-30 nests in the box and I suppose you can make a lot of soup out of that many nests but I mean come on. Campells should really drop their whole tomato soup crusade and sell some creamed dead sea animals instead, or a nice broth of twigs stuck together with bird spit.

While writing this in my notebook I just dropped a huge shrimp off my chopsticks and it landed SPLAT right in the middle of my table. So much for the 2004 Mr. Chopstick championship tournament next week. God I'm totally going to embarrass myself. I did just save face by snatching up a few single peanuts one by one and tossing them in the air and catching them in my mouth. I received a few applause as I was escorted out by 3 busboys.
 
UPDATE:
 
After reading the comment on this post I did some internet research and found this article on the shark fin soup thing which is quite disturbing. Click HERE to read it.

- YOU'RE FIREHIRED:

Man you could really get someone with that at work or on an interview right? yell, "YOU'RE HIREEEFIRED!!" and keep mixing it up so their emotions go up, down, back up, to the side and then they just vomit over the edge of their chair into your little metal mesh trash bin which luckily had a plastic bag in it.

I'm not the type of person who will ever be in a situation where I am hiring or firing someone and its probably a good thing I won't be. Because I know how badly I would mess with someone during an interview. Doing things like interrupting them and saying, "shhh shhh do you hear that?....hear that???" and then just hold my hand up as if to say "Don't say anything!" and stare wide eyed at the floor or straight up at the ceiling for a full minute or so. Then just pretend it was nothing and ask them to please continue. I would then do it again a few minutes later. Oh and I would be like, "So what's your favorite cartoon character and what life lessons have you learned from them?"

At the end of the interview I would the say "Listen buddy (or "Girlie" if its a girl) let me give you some good advice for your next interview...don't start talking about cartoon characters, it's very unprofessional." After that I will kiss their hand and run down the hall from them as fast as possible.

I think I could have that job. I would have to wear a suit though, right? Well I think I could wear a suit but I would probably only want to work 2 days a week.

From now on I am going to say during the weekend, "God I can't wait until the week!" and, "I LOVE the week!" meanwhile during the week I am going make myself dread the weekend and say "OH god why can't this 5 days be a little bit longer"

yes!

yes!

- DIRTY:

I'm on the subway today twirling my pen as I so often do, always wishing and hoping in the back of my mind that I will get noticed by some undercover Olympic recruiter who will realize it should be a sanctioned event just like Diving, Long Jump, Pinnacle, or Canasta.

I dropped my pen which rarely happens but let's face it, even Barry Bonds strikes out on occasion. As the pen slipped through my fingers I let out a little gasp as I looked down at it. Decision time was upon me. Do I pick up the pen or leave it because it has touched the filthy floor. WEll I didn't really hesitate and just quickly bent down and scooped up the black ink filled writing utensil. This wasn't any old pen. It happened to be a Pilot Precise Rolling Ball pen so that coupled with the fact I was on a new cleaner 6 train helped seal the deal.

First thing I do after picking up the pen is reach into my bag for my small bottle of Purell hand sanitizer as any neurotic New Yorker would do. Wouldn't you? Seeing that I'm standing and not seated, this isn't an easy task to accomplish while avoiding falling into someone at the same time.

Trying to balance my bag with one hand and hold the pen in the other I start to drop my bag. Instinctively to free up my hand holding the pen and avoid dropping the bag, I quickly put the pen in my mouth and bite down on it.

EWWWWWWWWWWWW

When I realize what I've done I quickly spit out the pen and started licking my hand (like my hand is much cleaner right?). Then I punched an old man standing next to me who was laughing while watching this entire production. Turns out he wasn't laughing at me but was choking. Choking on prunes probably. Old people.

Actually that was all true except for that last part about the old man. What really happened was this:

I looked up and saw an old man laughing while watching this whole ordeal. He was laughing at me as he said, "Good one kid, maybe you should try gargling with that Purell hand goop!" To which I responded with, "Do people your age buy monthly Metro Card passes or do they just get the day by day ones?" Then I decked him and stole his prunes.

You know, every time I write something on here I'm always afraid that it won't be funny or amusing. Constantly fearful I'll dry out and not be able to consistently post something of worth for you the reader to view. Now after a few months I finally realize that I'm right to think that.

- PRETZEL TIME:

Auntie Anne can kiss my big white ass. Here is an email I received after sending in a complaint to the Auntie Anne's pretzel stand in Macys which I visited a few weeks back.. Hey I'm not mad because of the sign which read, "Ask for a free sample anytime." Which turned out to be a big lie. What twists my titties is the woman who worked there actually got pissed cause I wanted to try some funky flavor I never had before. I commented that the sign specifically says "Free samples anytime" and they shouldn't have a sign like that unless they are going to back it up. I guess legally that sign doesn't guarantee that your request will be met with a tasty free sample. Now that I'm re-reading it I realize it just gives you permission to ask, but doesn't mention whether or not you'll get anything.

Maybe the sign should have read, "Free samples on occasion, but don't push your luck wise ass cause we know you've eaten pretzels before so who really needs a sample anyway. Are you from Mars? Jerk."

Well that may be a bit long for a sign.

Here was Auntie Anne's response to me:

From: Lewisfoodsinc@aol.com
To: kreigerdaniel@hotmail.com
Subject: Auntie Anne's - Macy's
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 1:30 PM
Dear Daniel:

We operate the Auntie Anne's located on the 4th Floor at Macy's, Herald Square. We received your comments forwarded to us from Auntie Anne's home office. We are sorry that we disappointed you in not having samples available. We do sampling from time to time but not on a daily basis.

If you would like to take this email to our location the next time you visit Macy's, please bring it to the counter for a free pretzel. You can ask for Eva, our manager, however, anyone will be glad to accept this letter for your free pretzel.

Sincerely,


Marge Joyce
Vice President of Administration
Lewis Foods, Inc.