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Sunday, May 02, 2010
My Saturday quest for the @BigGayIceCream Truck, being trapped underground for 2 hrs, OH & a car bomb. Ah, NYC
2:35 AM
Police Diffuse Car Bomb In Times Square
Police are on the scene in Times Square this morning where authorities say they discovered and are in the process of dismantling a bomb inside an SUV.
The device, made of three propane tanks, fireworks, and two five-gallon full gasoline containers, had two clocks with batteries attached to it. There is no word how much time, if any, was left on the timer.
Police also recovered a black metal box resembling a gun locker
“We’re very lucky," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who rushed to the scene from the White House Correspondent's Dinner in Washington, D.C. "Thanks to alert New Yorkers and professional police officers, we avoided what could have been a very deadly event."
The car bomb was discovered in an idling Nissan Pathfinder with its hazard lights on by a street vendor, who then alerted a mounted New York City Police Department patrolman.
It was found at around 6:30 Saturday evening.
It was 15 minutes later when we boarded the downtown A train, with the thought to switch to the D to end up down at 35th and Broadway, where the @BigGayIceCream Truck (biggayicecreamtruck.com) had tweeted they would be. We hadn't thought to check the news or anything before leaving the apartment--I just wanted to get out of the apartment and down to the BGICT (BigGayIceCream Truck) before they moved to a different location.
Now, I'm a Newbie Yorker. I don't think about the subway much--I get on, I get off, better than any car I've ever owned. The NYC subway is that reliable. Sure, it's late sometimes, but I usually leave enough time so that it can be late and I won't be. But once I get to the platform I stop worrying about the time because I know there's nothing I can do about it. I just chill out and read a book, or work on one (I always have my netbook with me). In this case, @Siskita and I started talking over our future plans for Jay and Kay ThePal.
But when we got to the 145th street station, the A train didn't leave. It just sat there for a *while*. I don't know how long since I never pay attention, but finally I noticed people getting antsy and some actually raunning across to the other downtown A train that had rolled to a stop on the other side of the platform. Then I realized that we were going to swap over to the D, anyway, so I suggested we do it there rather than doing it at 125th st where we usually switch--it would be the same D, which we could catch downstairs from where we were. We decided we were waiting, why not wait on the train we'd be stuck on the longest? (If we only knew!)
Of course, the D, when it arrived, also sat there for a while. It was around then that the conductor told us there was excessive train traffic north of 59th. Was it because of the car bomb?
We had no way of knowing of the car bomb since we were underground and I don't think we'll ever know, but it's possible that was the reason we were being held at 145th. After a while we started rolling, only to stop several times before making it even as far as 125th.
All of this time the police were swarming Time Square--but we had no idea.
The next point I looked at the time, it was *8:09*--a full twenty-five minutes after we should have gotten to 34th and Broadway. We'd been underground for almost 90 minutes--hell, we could have gotten to Coney Island in 90 minutes.
We were so bored, I suggested we resurrect an old audio podcast Siskita and I used to do back in LA called "TheUsCast" where it's just she and I talking about stuff going on in our lives (inspired by the podcast from Hucklebug.com). As we recorded the first new episode in several years, the train started rolling...
...only to and stop and start again many more times. At some point, we were told by the subway conductor (when we could understand him) that there was an emergency on the tracks north of 59th. They might have been lying to keep us from panicking. 59th is the last train before 42nd for the downtown A. Thanks to the car bomb they found in Times Square (42nd and Broadway) I imagine they'd have to reroute the downtown A onto the D train tracks, which is where we were. The D hits 59th and then heads east, bypassing 42nd. So, if they were, in fact, rerouting the A to the D tracks, that would have held us up. This is just my best guess--I've read nothing in the news about this just yet.
When we finally did get above ground at around 8:45ish (!!) we came up at 34th and Broadway (as planned), only to discover that the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck had left the area!
A quick check of their Twitter feed told us: "I'm about to close up this spot and head towards the theaters. I'll let you know where when *I* know where!"
The theaters are off of Times Square--we were within eyeshot of Times Square and were about to head up there, but then Siskita checked Twitter one more time to read from @BigGayIceCream: "All of Times Square is chaos!! Trying something else...."
Yeah, that was the car bomb. The BGICT ended up settling waaaay the hell up at 83rd and Broadway--about fifty blocks from where we were and we had other errands to run before everything started closing.
Damn it! I wanted to get a choinkwich!! Thanks to the traffic madness in Times Square, I didn't get one!! GOD DAMN TERRORISTS!!
BUT check it out: we found out later that they didn't even have choinkwiches today but they will tomorrow, when they will be in Hell's Kitchen.
EAT IT TERRORISTS! I'M GETTING MY FRICKEN CHOINKWICH ANYWAY!! SUCK ON MY FREEDOM!!
Terrorism doesn't scare me--it just makes me want ice cream.
More progress on my #custom #diy #blank #Trexi
Just have the arms left, then some serious detailing and then I need to do the miniTrexi! Closer and closer!
I may possibly be done tomorrow night, but I don't want to get my hopes up.Saturday, May 01, 2010
This is what we looked like after an hour+ of being trapped on the D train between 96th & 81st
This is the longest we've ever been stuck in a subway train. So much for catching the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck before it leaves 35th and Broadway.
Still, it's cheaper than owning a car!From http://jay.thepal.us RetroJay! It’s Jay TheVlog for April 8, 2009! Jay's favorite movie lines, 3D glasses
Retro Jay ThePal! It’s Jay TheVlog for April 8, 2009!!
In this special mid-week edition of Jay TheVlog, I’m showin off my best clips from my 12stream over at 12seconds.tv, for the week up to April 8, 2009, man!! They include my 1st place entry into the 12seconds.tv Challenge!!! YEAH!! I finally won 1st place in the daily challenge!! I also have fun with some of my favorite movie lines and I try on some cool 3-D glasses ThePete gave me! Please watch, man!! I’ll feel special if you do!
YEAH!!
I really loved the movie lines in this one. They made me LOL for realz, yo.
MY BAD ALERT: Gulf Spill now 3x as big as the Jamaica estimate in my last post based on data 48 hours old.
VENICE, La. (AP) — The surface area of a catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill quickly tripled in size amid growing fears among experts that the slick could become vastly more devastating than it seemed just two days ago.Frustrated fishermen eager to help contain the spill from a ruptured underwater well had to keep their boats idle Saturday as another day of rough seas kept crews away from the slick.
President Obama planned a Sunday trip to the Gulf Coast to see the damage himself.
Documents also emerged showing BP PLC downplayed the possibility of a catastrophic accident at the offshore rig that exploded. BP operated the rig, which was owned by Transocean Ltd.
How far the spill will reach is unknown, but the sheen already has reached into precious shoreline habitat and remains unstopped, raising fears that the ruptured well could be pouring more oil into the gulf than estimated.
The Coast Guard has estimated that about 200,000 gallons of oil are spewing out each day which would mean 1.6 million gallons of oil have spilled since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers. The environmental mess could eclipse the Exxon Valdez disaster, when an oil tanker spilled 11 million gallons off Alaska's shores in 1989.
Meanwhile, NPR.org is reporting in a headline:
Containment Booms No Help; Slick Oozes To Shore
Meanwhile pt2, news.bbc.co.uk has a great article up, featuring commentary from people local to the GoM spill and how it is already changing their lives and livelihoods as they wait to see what damage it causes.
I've also read that conservatives are calling this "Obama's Katrina." Well, I beg to differ--Obama was not celebrating his birthday with John McCain when the story broke. Also, this could not have been foreseen--unlike Katrina which National Geographic had predicted a year before it happened.
Then again, Obama *did* just call for more offshore drilling about a month ago.
sigh...
But see what happens when you do 30 seconds of additional research? You learn all kinds of crap! So, sorry about that! I saw the sexy chart and wanted to post it ASAP. So, I did and... oh well...
Spill reported to be 5x worse than originally estimated--210k gallons a day still spewing into Gulf of Mexico
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now 80 miles across and the size of Jamaica, and according to new reports is five times worse than first thought, leaking around 5000 barrels into the sea, as opposed to the 1000 barrels first estimated.The new estimates were released after the discovery of another leak from the pipeline crippled after fire ravaged the Deepwater Horizon rig, and early attempts by robotic submarines to seal the well have failed. Despite the new leak, BP officials have claimed the original estimate of 1000 barrels a day is closer to the truth. However US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry disagreed with the statement at a news conference and said she was relying on the new estimate of 5000 barrels from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.
Click the image above for a bigger version of the chart, click the link above for more info and head over to TheOilDrum.com for an AMAZING (and HUGE) piece on what this spill means.
I really hope defenders of oil drilling are rethinking their position after all of this. Sure, it's a freak mishap, but the damage and the cost is extreme. Like I wrote the other day, it's not like you see this kind of disaster when solar panels, uh, leak, and it's not just about the wildlife and the ecosystem, either--this spill damages the local economies of the gulf AND it costs a LOT to clean up--don't tell me BP is NOT going to pass the cost onto the consumer...
Huh, BP is responsible for all this? So much for "Beyond Petroleum."
Though I do think it's time for them to take a cue from their own slogan!
Something just occurred to me while proofreading this post--won't this disaster hike up the price of oil? So, this is good news for the oil companies, isn't it?
More on Apple Vs. The Little Guy, how the kid deserves a break and Jon Stewart shares my opinion...
If you missed my main opinion post on Apple's expression of corporatist power by not shutting down a criminal investigation into how one of it's iPhone prototypes ended up profiled on Gizmodo and you also missed my post on tech.thepete.com about how Newsweek thinks Apple's got a big-bully PR mess on its hands AND you missed the EFFYOU I gave Apple through my new site EFFYOU.org, here's the deal in a nutshell:
Apple needs to chill--no money was lost, people will still buy Apple products, the sky is not falling! Don't go after this poor kid who made a lousy 5 grand off of finding the iPhone and don't punish Gizmodo for trying to get a scoop--you have your prototype back, time to move the hell on.
That said, here is another reason to back off the kid who "sold" the iPhone proto to Gizmodo--apparently the kid is a damn good person:
His attorney says he recently transferred schools and will resume his college education in the fall. He has been working part time at a church-run community center giving swimming lessons to children and volunteered at a Chinese orphanage last year while he was enrolled in a study-abroad program.“He also volunteers to assist his aunt and sister with fundraising for their work to provide medical care to orphans in Kenya,” his attorney says. “Brian is the kind of young man that any parent would be proud to have as their son.”
That was via wired.com.
Also from wired.com in the same piece:
“He regrets his mistake in not doing more to return the phone,” says Bornstein’s statement. “Even though he did obtain some compensation from Gizmodo, Brian thought that it was so that they could review the phone.”Shortly after Gizmodo published its story, people identifying themselves as representatives of Apple appeared at Hogan’s home seeking permission to search the premises, according to a source involved with the iPhone find. A roommate turned them away.
Nice attempted corporate power there, huh? Yeah, Apple, just because you guys are huge doesn't give you the power to march into people's homes. Even knocking on the kid's door is wrong. What do you think the cops are for?
Now, did the kid fail to do due diligence and just turn the phone into the bartender? No. Should he have? Yes. He definitely broke the law. But we need to ask ourselves if the law was designed to prevent this kind of incident and we need to ask ourselves if there is even a victim here. If there isn't a real victim, if no real harm was done, what's the big deal?
This kid is a 21 year-old SAINT for crying out loud--he made a mistake, LET IT GO.
OH yeah and it seems like I'm not the only person to feel this way. Here's a clip from Daily Show that aired April 28, 2010:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Appholes | ||||
| ||||
Christ, we let Bush get away with MUCH worse than "stealing" a phone--what a waste to get so hyper about this when there are several probable war criminals walking the streets of America. Well, riding in the limousines of America, I guess.
THANK GOD APPLE'S RIGHTS ARE PROTECTED THOUGH!!
sigh...
From http://jay.thepal.us! Retro Jay ThePal! It’s my Jay TheVlog for April 5, 2009, man!! YEAH!
Here’s all my 12s from 12seconds.tv for the week ending April 5, 2009!! That week was a little light, but you get to see me beat-boxing and you can see how I helped ThePete win first place in a 12seconds.tv challenge!! Also check out @siskita helping me with my bad knock-knock joke!! And like way more stuff!! Ya gotta watch it, man!!
OH YEAH! And my exclusive mini movie review of “Harvey” starring Jimmy Stewart! Check it out!!
YEAH!!
The reason the week was light was because I got super-busy with "real life" stuff.
It's sad when you get busy and your puppet suffers... :(
Best reinterpretation of a classic cartoon show EVER. I would be so excited to see this for real!
Scooby and Velma Vs. The Vampire Holocaust!
I wouldn't be surprised if they already did this on Robot Chicken or something. If they haven't they should!
Correction--I did a quick bit of googling and found a post on notwiththatface.com that explains the Velma and Scooby Vs. the Vampire Holocaust picture at the core of the above image as a design for a T-shirt on Threadless.com. Yes, that's right, you can pick up your very own Velma and Scooby Vs. the Vampire Apocalypse T-shirt! Only for copyright-purposes, they don't call it that--over at Threadless they call it a "We've Got Some Work To Do Now" T-shirt and you can buy one for just $15!
Last but not least, this awesome design was created by a dude called Travis Pitts. While his name makes him sound like Robert De Niro's character from Taxi Driver, his picture makes him look like John Hodgman's little brother. Regardless, of all that, Travis Pitts is a hella-good illustrator! Check out his website: zom-bot.com