nyc half marathon

Last Sunday was the NYC Half Marathon where 10,000 people ran 13.1 miles (around central park, then out through 7th avenue and around times square, then down 5 miles of the west side highway to battery park).

After Greg's awesome bachelor party weekend, which was white water rafting up in Saratoga Springs/Lake George area, getting very little sleep and driving a LOT, Jon and I managed to get back to NYC at around midnight Saturday night. WOke up at 5:45am and headed off to the start of the race.

I'd say we did pretty damn well for being exhausted, and having just spent 6 hours rafting the day before (we were pretty sore).

Jon: 1:48
Me: 1:51 (i think about the same time i did last year)

Here's a picture of me kicking ass at the end where I smoked a bunch of people.

a productive thursday

This past Thursday was one of my most productive days in weeks.

First, my sister Laura and I went for a 6 mile walk in the morning around the central Park Loop. Then I met up with a guy from craigslist who wanted to buy my 13" TV/VCR for $15. You see, I am trying to get rid of a lot of the junk that has piled up in this apartment over the last few years. Before I even moved in there was a ton of stuff that was just left over from the previous tenants, but during my stay, all the roommates that have come and gone have also left some belongings. So I'm trying to clean out a lot of the apartment before Maddy gets here so she'll have a clean slate to begin her decorating. Anyway, this guy met me downstairs in his car. He was Asian, but I would actually bet money he was Chinese based solely on how rude and impatient he was. It's not that all Chinese people are rude (and I'm talking about Chinese Chinese people, not Chinese Americans), it's just that if someone is Asian and they are extremely rude, chances are they are Chinese and not Korean or Japanese.

After the transaction, I met up with Greg (who had his bachelor party this past weekend). He just took the bar exam and is looking for a place in the city to move in with his soon-to-be wife, and he just happens to be checking out a place two blocks away from me, at 106 and Broadway. The apartment looked pretty awesome, very spacious, great location, and just really nice. We headed down to the Museum of Natural History to check out the frog exhibit. I used my awesome Citigroup ID to get us in for half price. The frogs were actually pretty damn cool. There were a lot of poison dart frogs that are really small and very colorful.

We walked back up town and met up with Greg's friend Tali, who just happen to be checking out apartments with her boyfriend right around the corner from me. So I figured what the hell, I'll check out what these other apartments look like and what they are going for. There were 20 people waiting at the building for the broker to show up. It was a pretty unbelievable sight to see in a few dozen people shuffle into a tiny studio apartment. The prices seemed pretty reasonable for a studio and a one-bedroom, but they just weren't all that great and the second apartment was in a pretty bad location. You can kind of tell as we all walked over to it, as a bunch of kids were playing with a fire hydrant and spraying people with water as they walked by on the opposite side of the street. Also, the broker was a huge asshole, which I guess can be expected, but that's ridiculous.

I then headed back downtown to 57th street to pick up my race number and information for the half marathon on Sunday. I was waiting for the walk signal while walking west on 57th St and I just happened to turn around and look behind me, and as luck would have it my friend Nina was standing directly behind me! I looked at her incredulously and she looked at me and said "seriously?" So we chatted up for a little while since I haven't seen her in almost a year. I gave the usual spiel about how China sucks and don't ever go and visit. She said she went skydiving. When we were sufficiently caught up, she asked me if my sister was still cleaning apartments, because her apartment desperately needed help.

Then I headed over to the Nike store to pick up my race information, and walked down to 36 and third to meet my mom and sister at Patsy's pizza restaurant. My mom was in the city because she had just made her first digital camera purchase (from B&H). She explain how she spent hours in the store, armed with several issues of consumer reports and went through each and every model of the point-and-shoot digital cameras to find the best value and one that would suit her needs. It will probably take her about a year to figure out how it all works.

Next, I continued walking downtown to meet up with my friend Pete, who I hadn't seen since before I left for China. He is a lawyer and works long hours, so we just never got a chance to meet up. But he said he recently got on a kick of mixing drinks and making up interesting cocktails and that if I came by his apartment (in the LES, which is insanely far from my apartment) he would make me a few. So I picked up some lime and mint for his concoctions and we drank and played Guitar Hero on his Xbox. Guitar hero is such a whack game - you just tap the shit out of the neck of a guitar, just like clicking a mouse at a feverish pace. So obviously it made my hand hurt. But it was kind of cool and there was a lot of good music.

Heading back was a real trip and a half. Because of construction, the uptown A/C trains were not running local past 59th St. So I usually just switched to the 1 train, but that was out of service also. So I had to get out and take the M7 bus. The whole journey was about an hour and a half.

augie march (an australian band, at the mercury lounge)

On Sunday night i cracked open 'time out NY' to see what was going on monday night. I never used to read it, but now i'm a huge fan of the magazine. it's all about NYC so it's cool and everything is mostly relevant to me, which is why it's a more useful magazine than, say, wired. some stuff is a bit too hipster, but whatever.

So Augie march was listed for Mon night at mercury lounge (east houston), and I remembered the name: when i was in australia, they were on the radio a LOT and brandon (friend who i stayed with) played their albums incessantly. I thought 'no, these guys are HUGE in australia, how could they barely be headlining on a mon night at a small club!' But yes, they were. for $12. greg and heather (who are getting married in a few weeks and had spent a year in sydney together) and i went. The show was awesome!

I ended up finding a $20 bill on the floor... and that seemed to be an ethical dilema. What to do? No one was standing near it, and it looked like it had fallen as someone probably walked somewhere, so the real owner was likely gone. Do you give it to the bar? And then how would someone even claim it?? "hey, i uh lost a $20... do you have it?"

Greg, who just took the NY bar exam, said that legally you are obligated to report anything you find that is over $20 to the police. Then you have to wait something like 3 years to see if anyone claims it. The amusing thing here, of course, is: say i was the one who lost the money... how would i claim it? Go to the cops, say i lost $100 did they find it. Seems mighty easy to fudge that.

prison break rocked

I just finished season 2 of prison break... what an awesome show. It's themes and surprises got a bit repetitive but everything about it is SOOOO much better than crappy-4 (24), which I watched 2.5 seasons of and thought was the dumbest show I've ever seen. I can't understand why ppl like it. Anyway, PB has amazing acting, great writing, and is entertaining and watchable but not for complete retards in the way that 24 is (Both are high speed pursuit, thriller shows).

PB ends on a ridiculous twist and there is going to be a season 3 soon. Just when you thought the story was basically over....

frozen bananas, part 2

Maddy's frozen bananas made me think of an awesomely awesome recipe idea. So frozen banana actually has the consistency of ice cream - it is a bit sweet, melts in your mouth and is creamy. I figured why not exploit that and use bananas as the "ice cream" base.

I took a few bananas, mashed them up with a fork (til they unfortunately looked a bit like vomit), then added some peanut butter (because frozen peanut butter kicks ass), some milk, and a bit of sugar. Then i froze it.

It still looked like vomit, but tasted really good. surprisingly delicious! and very similar in texture to ice cream, but it's all banana, which is actually very healthy. Also, they were organic bananas.

craigslist karma

In the 'what are the odds of that??' department:
I posted an ad on craigslist to sell off a lamp I have (as part of my craigslist blitzkrieg to try to sell of about 50 things in in my apartment that have been left over from past roommates or otherwise completely useless). Here is the ad: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/fur/387010073.html

Anyway, the first (only) response I got was from a girl I know who works at the same tutoring company as me (she is a bit higher up on the ladder and actually works at the office). Wow! Talk about odds.

Though this reminds me of 2 years ago when I was moving out of my first apt and into my second (currently I'm at my third), and located a twin size bed on Craigslist. Turned out it was Evan's (a good friend who loves sushi and has a TV show www.weneedgirlfriends.tv).

So the pupil has become the master...