jealous?

the company i work for just moved offices from park slope to DUMBO. this is the view from my desk now. that's the manhattan bridge front and center. a lot better than the ivy covered wall of a brownstone i had before, no?

harrison and the doppelgang

last saturday we celebrated harrison's birthday down at enid's. sara* had the genius idea to take it up a notch by getting everyone to dress in our man's signature style. this style involves, from head to toe: bandana, white tee-shirt, jeans, ass-pocket of whiskey and boots. harrison, who generally prefers modest celebrations of his birthday, was surprised and delighted by the turn out of look-a-likes.

ps we're gangsters, yo.

news! ...from greenpoint, USA

there is good news for the residents of greenpoint, brooklyn: the new york attorney general, andrew cuomo, is finally filing suit against exxonmobile and other companies who operated along newtown creek decades ago. during the course of their business on the creek they leaked approximately 17 million gallons into the ground and adjacent creek, creating one of the world's largest oil spills, bigger than the widely known exxon valdez tanker spill.

the spill has contaminated ground water and soil in the northern part of my neighborhood so much that there are now toxic vapors emanating from the ground. while the suit will do nothing to stop this immediately, it should quicken the pace of the clean-up and extract large sums of money from exxonmobile.

there was a weak agreement made between the state and the oil companies in 1990 but there were no penalties leveed against the companies and no deadline for clean-up. cynically, it would seem now that greenpoint is the focus of major development and there's the possibility that rich people will be living in the neighborhood, the state has finally come around to forcing the oil companies' hand.

further reading:
cuomo sues exxonmobile: Crain's NY Business
history of the spill: Riverkeeper
image source: Greenpoint v. Exxon

here's my card

it's my first business card. shoot me an email. we'll do lunch.

things i hate...

living in new york, you inevitably have to touch things many other people have touched, anything on the subway being the big one. since moving here i have become accustomed to this and have developed a hand washing routine that borders on obsessive-compulsive, so i don't really mind it anymore. i just try not to touch my face with my "subway hand", the hand i use to hold onto polls on the train. so i've gotten used to touching all these things. but one thing still creeps me out and i'm afraid always will: a warm toilet seat. i don't care if it's a private or public toilet just the fact that it's warm. just knowing that someone was shitting in the exact same spot minutes or seconds ago always makes me wince. and there's no way to wash my buns the same way i can wash my hands.

yeah, everybody poops. i just don't want to share their butt heat.