Eff It-The 2011 CANADA DAY Drunk Thread!6/30/11 4th of what?

It's not. And there are deals to be had, for sure.

Somewhat rough rule of thumb for how much you can expect to pay per person:

Way outer boroughs:

550/mo.

Mid outer boroughs:

650-700/mo.

Close outer boroughs (Williamsburgh)/Cheaper Manhattan (Harlem, Jodie):

750-900/mo.

Murray Hill/Cheap UES/Cheap UWS:

1100-1300/mo.

UES/UWS:

1400-1600/mo.

Central Park West:

2000+

 

I have bikini and beer. I think that's American. But Happy Canadian Day or whatever.

 

Cosign all of this, but the bolded part especially. There was also a bar right off the L train that used to have dollar PBRs and wells. Not the best tasting, but if you absolutely must get wasted on your last 20, you can easily do so.

As for the bolded part, walking is great. It keeps you in better shape than having to drive everywhere would, you can see stuff as you go, random shit will happen to you...it's awesome. I don't overeat usually, but I do eat whatever I want without gaining weight (breakfast milkshake? Why, yes!), and I think it's because I got into the habit of walking everywhere.

 

FiDi to Central Park? Are you fucking crazy?

When I was studying for the NY bar exam, I did an afternoon class at NYU, and walked from my apartment (near the South Street Seaport) to school (Washington Square South), 5 times a week, and there's still no way I'd walk to Central Park. I think it's that level of walking that gets people to start arguments with figments of their imagination. They need something to keep their minds occupied.

True that.

 

Also, the subway might be full of crazies, but on the other hand, THE SUBWAY IS FULL OF CRAZIES. Things that have happened to me on NYC Subways, off the top of my head:

Had a random girl my age ask me to do up her bra for her, after it had been undone by the middle aged guy she had been sucking face with for the past 20 minutes. This was at 4 a.m., and as I was doing up her bra she confessed that she'd thought he was somebody else.

Multiple people brazenly trying to sell/buy drugs from me.

Multiple women pole-dancing.

Once, I knocked a guy out of his wheelchair. I had been trying to help and the situation just got away from me.

A woman projectile vomitting onto the side of a moving train, which sounds and is kind of disgusting. It's also kind of cool, because how many times do you get to see a liquid projectile intersect with a solid projectile at a right angle?

A man demanding his pants and shoes back from his what I can only assume is ex-girlfriend. She happened to be wearing the pants and shoes in question. I believe that she was going to comply with his request, but then my train came and I didn't get to see what happened.


I'm sure if I thought about it, I could think of more stuff, but what other city can give you that just while you're on your way to work?

Aren't you a writer? Walking is a great time to work out material and stuff in your head.

 

On my way to class one Monday morning, I got on the last car of the A train at 200/Dyckman street. There was a homeless man masturbating.

The next week, Monday, I was heading to class, got on the same car of the same train at the same stop at the same time. There was a DIFFERENT homeless man masturbating.

 

[quote="Nom]
Aren't you a writer? Walking is a great time to work out material and stuff in your head.[/quote]

There are multiple studies that prove that walking, while working on something requiring mental gymnastics, can speed up the thought process and help people create new, more complex ideas quicker than sitting them in a room.

 

Wow, way to confusing "walking" and "Johnnie Walker."

 

Yeah, in Ontario, the grocery stores sell milk in plastic bags. They're not entirely unlike the bags inside of boxes of cereal. You put them in things that sort of resemble a Brita filter.

Having spent a month looking for NYC apartments...Nom's guide is roughly accurate, although it strikes me as a bit on the lower side. Those prices would generally be good deals, and would require a roommate. If one is looking for a reasonable nice Manhattan studio in a decent neighborhood....probably $1600-2000 depending on the details.

You have to factor in, however, that you don't need a car. No car payments, no gas, no mechanic bills, no car insurance....Not owning a car is probably worth something like $8K a year. So while you don't reap the full $8K (taxis and subways still cost money...), that balances out some of the rent costs.

Also, being able to act smug to every non-New-Yorker that you meet has its value.



I remember one time I decided to walk home after work when I lived there. 45 blocks in July heat....let's just say I've had better ideas.

 

Price for an unlimited monthly metor card has gone way up, $104 now, compared to I think $72 when I moved to NY in 2005, and maybe $80 something when I left.

But, compare that to gas and you're about breaking even, depending on the length your commute would be. No insurance, never paying for parking, no speeding tickets (good way to build a very clean record), and not paying for the car itself, it really adds up. Plus, you never have to shell out $1000 because the train broke. And, no chance at a DUI. It's amazing how much that changes your social life.

 

You know...I've thought about that a lot the past month.

I've spent the overwhelming majority of the past 4 years in New York, DC, and London. All three of these are walking/public transport kind of places. Then, in between graduation and my new job, I've been home in New Hampshire, where one has to drive places. It made me sad to realize that this severely limits how often one can get drunk as a motherfucker.

 

Possibly TMI, but yesterday I got randomly hard and my balls hurt like a motherfucker.

 

A week ago I watched Inception on HBO with my parents, and [spoiled if you haven't seen it]

Spoiler

So, when Cobb and Mal are in limbo (the first time) and he performs inception, it's to convince her that limbo isn't the real world, so she'll kill herself and wake up. ...Why doesn't he just kill her, the same way he kills the dude from 3rd Rock when they're in Saito's dream at the beginning? She doesn't have to choose to wake up, she just needs to die. She'll be pissed off for a few minutes, but then realize "ohhh, I was dreaming; shit! thanks!"

After the movie, I point this out to my parents. Quite literally, neither one of them has any idea what limbo is, that dying takes you out of it, or that inception is even a thing in the movie.

I don't understand how two people can be so completely checked out from life that you can sit down in front a movie, albeit a pretty complicated movie, and have no idea what the premise of the movie is afterward. It's like this for everything. Two days ago I was going to the grocery store to get stuff for dinner and asked my dad "do you want me to get anything to make slaw?" I understand this as two questions "do you want slaw?" and "if so, what do we need to make it?" His answer was "I don't know."

Basically his answer for everything. What do you want to do for dinner tonight? ...I don't know... Did you go to the grocery store earlier and buy something specifically to cook tonight? ...Yes. THEN YES! YOU DO FUCKING KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO FOR DINNER TONIGHT!

Both of my parents will leave the room in the middle of a conversation, as though this were a normal, socially acceptable thing to do. Just walk out. Makes sense for a heated conversation, but they walk out of the room just because they've remembered there's something to do elsewhere, without attempting to conclude the conversation.

I really think my dad's brain is just turning to mush. He falls asleep during conversations ...in the middle of the day. Either his brain is mush, or he is the biggest, most brazen asshole I've ever encountered. My mom does a lot of the same stuff, but I think she just apes it out of bitchiness.

Anyways, what I was saying about inception... Why didn't Cobb just ask Mal how she got where she was when they were in limbo? Earlier we learn that you can't remember how you got where you were in a dream, so shouldn't that have worked? And if killing yourself gets you out of limbo, as the girl and Scarecrow did right after entering, why is it such a scary place to begin with? Oh no, gotta go base jumping without a chute! ...Whatevs, musn't be afraid to dream a little scarier, darling.

 

The A/C train has, I believe, the largest ratio of crazies of any subway line in the country, nay, world. After the G (which I have no idea why everyone complains about, but maybe thats because I used to live on the B in Boston) Im on those trains the most and Im lucky if I make it a ride without running into a crazy. And while it has its fair share of crazies you can see coming, such as drunk and/or deranged homeless people, the best/worst thing about them is that they blend right in and keep quiet for a while (Im pretty sure intentionally) to lull everyone into a false sense of security. Then out of nowhere theyll just start SHOUTING and going completely nuts. Since Im lucky, Im usually sitting next to them too.

Sigh, I miss New York.

On a related note, today I saw my first homeless crazy guy wandering around Costa Rica wearing a garbage bag, covered in open wounds, and muttering to himself. And that was the first time I got homesick.

 

The volume of crazies isn't that big. It's actually quite surprising how easy it is to start recognizing them. If you rode the A often, I'm sure you've seen the same break dancing kids I've seen.

You've quite likely also seen the same person with the duct taped drums, or the keyboard.

And, in Doc Rob's Crazy he mentions a panhandler who I'd seen maybe a dozen times. While bums and the homeless are very visible, I found it a little comforting that you could recognize many of them. Makes their numbers seem fewer, and you feel safer if you think they view the train as part of their community.

 

Yeah but you can get a house for free if you get in someone's will and wait three months for them to kill themselves.

 

So...the rum and coke I'm chugging is ...not advised?

 

Are we still pretending this weekend is all aboot Canadia?

 

The single best thing about NYC is that the subways run 24 hours. You can get anywhere in the city at any level of intoxication at anytime of the night. No need to ever worry about finding a place to sleep or finding a ride.

The sheer quantity of awesome music shows and amazing restaurants you can go to on any given night is incredible. It is the greatest god damn city in the world and I swear on my mother's life I will live there again one day.

In other news, I came home from my weeklong vacation to Newfoundland to find that my hot water tank had cracked and leaked into my basement for who knows how many days. Basements have this incredible knack for flooding when no one is home.