Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Barmymoo]

The High Line is gorgeous! I loved the High Line zoo. There's a nice little Italian restaurant a few streets away from the end of it (in the ... Meatpacking district? I don't remember) with painted walls.

[Papersatan]

Re: the grumpy cat.

She is not grumpy; that's just how her face is shaped.

http://vimeo.com/54953791

[Black Sword]

So, since I can't be arsed to meet new people, I signed up for a matchmaking service. Call it the result of years of peer pressure. Anyway, signed up, paid up, got a little phone interview thing where they asked me all sorts of questions which I answered honestly, and they set up my first blind date here in this godforsaken city New York City. Incidentally, date's tonight, and the matchmakers assure me the girl will be cute and interesting. (funny fact, they admit that most everyone asks that their date be attractive, and they do their best to accommodate).

Back on topic, I'm not looking forward to it. I only work in NYC and live in NJ. I hate the city, I don't like fancy places because they're typically overpriced garbage, and I prefer to stick close to places that allow me to make my train back home relatively painlessly. So of course the date is in the Upper West Side instead of near Penn Station and some fancy joint. All of this has me in a cranky mood, since I'd rather go home and play video games.

Oh, well. Gonna whip out the PR smile and make a good impression, at least. -_-

[de_la_Nae]

BSword: I hope you have fun! I find dating kind of alien sometimes (then again I find people kind of alien sometimes), but generally pleasant.

Though with this weather I can sort of feel you on just wanting to stay in instead of having to deal with miserable transportation issues. Brrr!

[Barmymoo]

Who chooses the date location? If it's the website, rather than the other person, then it might well be that both of you would prefer to relocate to somewhere else!

[lepetitfromage]

Black Sword- you'll still be on the west side though, so travel back shouldn't be too terrible. At least you won't have to go cross town! And- if they actually paired you up based on your answers, there's a chance that you'll have good company? If not......then you should request a refund. 

The High Line is gorgeous! I loved the High Line zoo. There's a nice little Italian restaurant a few streets away from the end of it (in the ... Meatpacking district? I don't remember) with painted walls.

It really is! I want to go back and see it in the summer because they open everything up and you can picnic on the grass. (They had everything roped off when I was there)

Sounds like the meatpacking district to me- that's on one end of the High Line, chelsea is on the other.





Also.....I love grumpy cat.

[Black Sword]

Yeah, but my workplace is on the East Side, so I still have an annoying journey just to get there!

Oh, well. I'll report on it when it's done. I mean, over half the reason I did it was to have interesting stories to tell.

[Patrick]

Some guy I haven't seen in 2 years decided to start being an indiscriminate asshole to a bunch of mutual friends last night via Facebook, so I got involved and told him to stop being a dick to the people who are trying to help him with his problems. He turned his assholery onto me, started talking shit about my best friend and our mutual ex (we're all still really close) and then challenged me to a fight.

You don't do that on the week where I have to give up another of my closest friends to a country on the other side of the planet.

I can't wait til he throws one at me, I'm going to knock that little prick out.

[Pilchard123]

I can't help but think that would be a really bad idea...

[Asterus]

Hah...I am now known as Señor Wingman...awesome. 


In other news...I'm kicking into a binge of anime soundtracks while I drive during work. It seems to be improving my mood; instead of trying to run people off the road when they cut me off, I just wave and smile. Seriously.

^ This is the reason I always have the Clannad Soundtrack on every music device I own. The BGMs are there for an entirely different reason though (For when you just want to visualize yourself punching a bear.)

One thing that I've found to be extremely annoying is the fact that I'm unorganized. And easily distracted. I spent about 20 minutes during class today just flipping through my 9 notebooks just to find the one that had the poems/song lyrics that I was sure I had written at some point. It was getting to the point where I was worried about my sanity.

[Patrick]

I can't help but think that would be a really bad idea...

He bitched out and went back home. Right back to the gutter he belongs in. Little suburban Juggalo turd thinks he's hard because he lives in Oakland now. Well, I've got news for him. Tirana is a far sight tougher than anything he's ever seen. He's threatening to teach me a lesson if he comes back and sees me. Okay buddy, sure you are.

[Welu]

A while back I ID'd a girl trying to get cigarettes and she said, "Don't you fucking start with me!!" and proceeded to yell abuse for a few minutes while I just ignored her and continued serving other people. She was in tonight and I debated ID'ing her to prove a point but I have learned she actually is eighteen also I was in a good mood and didn't want to fight.
I kind of want to lose the rep for "enjoying ID'ing people" I've earned among customers and coworkers. Coworkers actually have called me over because they knew I'd ID someone when they didn't want to do it. I don't enjoy it. I get yelled at when I do it. I just know getting yelled at is better than potentially getting fired and fined thousands of pounds.

Gonna apply for a one day a week office job. So is the partner. Being hopeful for both of us.

Also I might be getting a rabbit.

[Bluesummers]

I just know getting yelled at is better than potentially getting fired and fined thousands of pounds.

In Connecticut, the cops send in underage kids to try and buy cigs at gas stations, just to test the people working there. My wife worked one said shift, denied the kid any cigs, and a couple weeks later the cop came in and gave her a $100 check for following the law. It was pretty cool.

[Jimor]

In California, they take the pressure off the clerks by making it something like "if you look under forty" as the standard for asking under law.

[Bluesummers]

Same here in CT, but a lot of people just don't bother. When I'm clean-shaven I have a babyface, yet I normally don't get carded at gas stations, liquor stores, etc.

In fact, the only place where you'll ALWAYS get carded in CT, no matter how old you look, is at the casinos. They don't give a shit if you're 87 years old, they card EVERYBODY.

[Zingoleb]

If I'm presenting male I'm usually carded. If I'm presenting female I'm never carded. I'm not sure why.

[Bluesummers]

Show a little leg to the bouncer at the club they'll let you cruise right in?

Or am I stuck in 50's terminology again?

[Barmymoo]

I always IDed anyone who looked under 35, even if I knew they were over 18 - even if they were my best friend and I had been at their 18th birthday party. If someone in the queue behind them thought they didn't look old enough and complained to trading standards I'd have been in a lot of trouble. Also my town was full of schoolkids trying to buy cheap cider. In fact one girl was discovered to be using her older sister's ID and there was a big fuss.

[bainidhe_dub]

I still get ID'd and I just turned 27, but our liquor stores are run by the county so they are clean and bright and organized but also strict about IDs, so it's fine with me.

The older brother of a guy I went to high school with got a fake ID and tried to use it at the beer store. The owner recognized him - his sons were in my class and the guy's class - so the kid freaked out and ran away, leaving the ID behind. Which had his real name and home address on it. 

[Welu]

We get the secret shoppers sent in to buy cigarettes and scratchcards as well but no reward. Just a, "Keep it up." Although they send in young looking of-age people since it would be illegal for underage ones to have those things.

If I know a person is of age I don't care if they look young. I'll sell to them. I've sold to friends the week after they turned 18 and if someone says, "They look young." I just say I know how old they are. It might come across as discriminatory but it's all legal. I don't think it would be fair to get in trouble for doing as I'm told to do.
The issue is I actually do what we're meant to do, all we're told is if we're not sure, then ask. There's no official rule like, "If they look under 25." I take a personal rule of 21 but I'm a crap judge of age so I ID comparatively a lot. Even though it's maybe once a month at most.
I hate that people get so offended, regardless of being of age or not. Just be calm and say, "I don't have ID." I will apologise, say there's nothing I can do and then either get your ID or just go away. It also really annoys me that I've actually been called over to ID someone just because the other person didn't want to deal with the backlash.

I wish we just ID'd everyone, including friends and regulars, although as a person who doesn't shit bricks when carded because I almost always have some form of ID on me and if I don't I just accept them's the rules, I guess that's easy for me to say. That said, I almost never get asked for ID because of the tits.

Another mini-angry thing: The pubs are all filled with fifteen year old girls with padded bras. Get some bouncers that don't let people in based on cupsize despite the cup-holders being tiny and baby-faced.

[VonKleist]

Last week a selling lady mumbled something like "We´re over 16, are we?" at me with my two cans of cheap beer. I rumbled in my most gravelly voice that I was born in the beautiful year of 1986. She didn't want to see my ID

The fines on selling to minors are pretty hefty (in Germany up to 10000€, or so I hear) so people should just deal with it.

[lepetitfromage]

I worked at a Eckerd in Brooklyn a few years back and we were told to ID absolutely everyone. You're 80 years old? ID-ed. You've come here every week for the last 6 months to buy a pack of smokes? Sorry, need to have your ID. Didn't matter at all, which was kinda nice but I did feel like a jerk for turning away someone who was obviously old enough and just left thier ID at home. On the flipside......I don't know anyone personally that goes anywhere without an ID. Yeah, it sucks to lose it, some people can't afford one, etc., etc.....but if you can afford something you need to be IDed to buy, that whole "I can't afford one" thing doesn't fly with me. (Especially considering that a pack of cigarettes is the same price as NYS Non-driver IDs).

This was also around the time they passed a law stating that everyone had to be IDed for Sudafed (thanks to the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act). We actually had to keep a log book as well to make sure that people weren't buying excessive quantities. I can't tell you how many people got pissy about me writing down their name and the product they bought that contained pseudoephedrine. It really sucked, especially when the person was obviously miserable in the first place and just wanted to go home and recuperate.

[nekowafer]

I know that law is in place here, but I also know people that have no problems whatsoever getting medicine with dextromethorphan, which apparently really fucks you up. And I really wish stores were more strict about that.

But anyway when I worked at Wal-Mart, we had to key in the customer's ID number, I believe... I rarely got anyone too upset when I carded them. And then at Hot Topic I only had to check IDs for certain movies, and I was very strict about that.

[Barmymoo]

I think I've told you guys before about having to ID someone for vanilla extract - we were both in stitches at the idea of anyone drinking enough vanilla extract to get drunk, but it is 90% proof and I guess the computer which produces the little "Check Customer ID" box doesn't know how daft an idea that is.

I also once refused to sell a computer game certificated 18 to a man who was quite clearly buying it for his primary-school aged son. The kid came up to his dad in the queue and said "I want to get this" and handed over his pocket money. I felt really uncomfortable because it felt like I was making a personal judgement on that man's parenting (and let's be honest here: I was. No seven year old should be playing Grand Theft Auto or whatever it was), but it really was just that I knew it was illegal for me to sell it in the knowledge that it was being purchased on the behalf of a minor. That's the disadvantage of being a law student, I guess.

On the subject of being a law student, I've just written and am about to read over and submit an essay essentially informing my supervisor that I think his area of study is kind of pointless. It doesn't just say that, it's 1,400 words on the moral value of the rule of law, but that is the underlying theme.

Edit: make that 1,600. Just added some (probably now over the word limit, I can never remember what it is) to make it a bit more jurisprudency. I am unlikely to get a particularly great grade in this subject because the more I study it, the more I think philosophy is stupid, but I'm really enjoying grappling with and ultimately dismissing all the ideas! Quite proud of the essay, if only as an exercise is making an argument.

[Bluesummers]

$8 for a non-driver ID? wow...not bad. In CT it's about $25 or so, last I remembered.

Yah, sudafed laws are a little ridiculous...especially seeing as a pharmacy employee can make off with the entire stash...or a determined meth maker with enough financial backing can just go hijack the delivery truck. Or pull an Enfield Heist.
...It took federal authorities over two years to find the guys who did it.

[Papersatan]

Re: vanilla extract

I made my own once with rum and vanilla beans.  I left it on the counter and bit by bit it started to go missing.  I think the contractor working on the bathroom was an alcoholic and was drinking it.  No one did any baking but me and everyone in the house knew it was vanilla, and knew where the real booze was.  I finally drew a line on the bottle with a sharpie and it stopped disappearing. 

[Welu]

I also once refused to sell a computer game certificated 18 to a man who was quite clearly buying it for his primary-school aged son.

I would do the same but really, if that was strictly adhered as it should be, game sales would drop like mad.

[Barmymoo]

The thing is that if you don't know that the person is buying it for a child, you aren't breaking the law (unless you should have known - that was what I was concerned about in this instance: if trading standards were in the queue, they'd have seen that it was very obvious that I should have realised it was for the kid, even if I hadn't). So if the man had been there on his own, I'd have had no idea it was for his son and sold it to him without problem. It's the same with alcohol. Parents are perfectly free to buy alcohol and give it to their children if they're over five, as long as it's in their own home. But if a child came up with a bottle of gin and said "mummy I want this" I wouldn't be allowed to sell it.

Actually written out like that, it makes no sense at all. We have weird laws.

[bainidhe_dub]

re: people stealing alcohol

I did a play where we had a bottle of cheap-o vodka on hand for spraying all the trench coats and suit jackets that couldn't be washed after every performance. It started disappearing and we eventually found out that it was the arts center's janitor.

[pwhodges]

Oh look, a concert today.

Oh look, a review as well.   

[Barmymoo]

That's an excellent review! When you first posted about the concert I looked at the website hoping it might be in London and entertaining unrealistic ideas about going to it (I wouldn't be able to afford it even if I had time). Does he play in the UK often?

[Redball]

That's a great review! And I need to hear some of that music.

[LTK]

Funny story about selling tobacco to minors: When I was around eight years old - I think, I can't remember my actual age - my dad would send me to the cigar store to buy him a pack of tobacco, the lazy bum, every once in a while. From the beginning, I saw the sticker on the counter that said "Whatever your excuse is, no tobacco or alcohol under 16!" The clerk gave it to me without batting an eyelash. That went on for a few years, until one day the clerk told me I was too young to buy them. I don't know if it was a different clerk, or that he suddenly decided I looked old enough to be smoking it myself, or that he experienced a sudden moral epiphany, but my dad couldn't ask me to buy tobacco again.

I still have never smoked, by the way.

[Patrick]

The dude who wants to get his ass beat said that instead of a fair fight, he's just going to jump me the next time he sees me.

Fucking coward is gonna get it.

[Akima]

I always IDed anyone who looked under 35, even if I knew they were over 18 - even if they were my best friend and I had been at their 18th birthday party.

I don't know if it is the law, or just a booze-industry standard, but bottle-shops here have signs up saying in effect "ID required if you look under 25; take it as a compliment". I'm not sure why people get bent out of shape about this. If you don't have a driver's licence, you buy a Photo Card*, and keep it in your wallet alongside the money or credit-card you use to pay for the grog.

I am usually carded if I'm casually dressed. It's no big deal.

* Issued by the driver licensing authority and essentially an "undriver's licence". Yes, it costs A$48 for five years, but if you can't afford that, maybe you should think twice before buying non-essential items like alcohol and cigarettes? The card is free if you are on unemployment, disability, aged pension etc. anyway.

[pwhodges]

That's an excellent review! When you first posted about the concert I looked at the website hoping it might be in London and entertaining unrealistic ideas about going to it (I wouldn't be able to afford it even if I had time). Does he play in the UK often?

He played at King's Place, London a couple of weeks ago (I went); an all-Birtwistle concert that he largely arranged, to go with the opening of an exhibition of art by Adam Birtwistle, the composer's son. [BTW, yes it is Birtwistle with no "h" in.]

He's playing in Birmingham next month, I think - (Googles) yes, here we go.  That's an interesting one; I may try to go.

He usually plays in the BBC Proms, and often at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.  I guess he gets over to the UK 6-9 times a year, and to the USA 4-6 times a year (he has an O-1B visa).  He goes to Japan most years, and was in Australia last year.  His agent once got a bit overenthusiastic, so that he had a rehearsal in Norway the same day as a concert in Spain - that involved getting a private jet...

He's allowed to reschedule his teaching in Stuttgart as much as he likes, but he is required to fit it all in somehow.

[pwhodges]

That's a great review! And I need to hear some of that music.

I don't have a recording of the Birtwistle yet (he's recorded all of Birtwistle's previous piano music, though); I've got him playing some Busoni in his mid-20s, and also several recordings of the Debussy from that time; I may slip you one or two that are good enough.  There is also a recording of the concerto that Carter wrote him five years or so ago.

Some of you may not know that I recorded and engineered his first few CDs for him - the most popular of those is probably this.

[Jace]

I've never had trouble with having my ID when I bought cigarettes (I don't smoke, but I've bought for friends when on the way to their house) or alcohol. I am never upset about being carded either because I know that I have to present ID to purchase it. I also keep my ID in my wallet and I couldn't fathom that people wouldn't have their ID until I remembered that a lot of people that go clubbing or out to bars don't carry a wallet, instead just having their ID and cash or cards in their pocket, and they probably leave them at home frequently.

[de_la_Nae]

Indiana theoretically charges about twelve dollars for a state-backed photo ID, but they have a lot of exceptions they'll make to just give you one. I think for example in preparation for last November's elections as long as you had some other pieces of paperwork in order they were handing them out to just about anyone who could prove majority residence (we've had voter ID laws for a while now).

[Bluesummers]

Oh look, a concert today.

Oh look, a review as well.   

Wow...impressive. You're related, I assume?

[pwhodges]

I'm his dad.

[henri bemis]

I don't mind when people ask for ID, even if I'm a regular and they know me, because the only time I've been hassled was from another customer who flipped the fuck out on a very nice cashier at a local liquor store because he didn't ID me - I'd just been traveling a lot, so I whipped out my license, passport, and birth certificate, and told her to go choke on an egg.  Being ID'd is hardly an inconvenience, and 10 seconds of my time is definitely not worth someone risking their job.

___________________

I really need to clean out my closet, and I think much of it would do well at one of those thrifty shops that buy used clothing, but I'm so scared to get rid of anything.  There's a store nearby that I think would take a lot of it, especially my shoes, but part of me is still convinced I can learn to walk in heels.  The other part is saying 'Cash, you dummy!  new wardrobe!'

[Barmymoo]

Oh boo, Paul I would really like to go to that concert - I actually could afford it and get to it, but the last train back leaves at 9.10pm. Why is transport in this country so silly?!

[VonKleist]

Haha, I had looked him up and guessed it was your son!

Maybe if he can be seen again in Cologne I´ll go and gush about how I know his dad from the internets have a listen. Been wanting to go to the Philharmonie for ages.

[pwhodges]

Well, as he lives in Germany he performs there quite a lot.  He played in Köln last November; his next German performance is in Munich on 22 Feb, also to be broadcast live on the radio station BR-Klassik.

Oh, and he's playing the same program he just did in New York in Berkeley, CA on Sunday

[VonKleist]

Thanks! I´ll be abled to listen to it then.

[ackblom12]

Yesssss, got my first dental exam in 12 years today by one of the dental students and it wasn't terrible news! I only have one very minor surface cavity which, while getting the filling done sooner rather than later is suggested, was barely worth mentioning. Otherwise, I need a deep gum line cleaning to keep the gum erosion on my two front lower teeth in check and my teeth are in good condition otherwise considering my lack of professional dental care.

[Spriteling]

Yesssss, got my first dental exam in 12 years today by one of the dental students and it wasn't terrible news! I only have one very minor surface cavity which, while getting the filling done sooner rather than later is suggested, was barely worth mentioning. Otherwise, I need a deep gum line cleaning to keep the gum erosion on my two front lower teeth in check and my teeth are in good condition otherwise considering my lack of professional dental care.

Huzzah!  Dentists are rubbish, so it's good you'll be able to avoid much more of them.

[bainidhe_dub]

My teeth still hurt on and off from all the fillings, and this afternoon my husband cracked a tooth so now we need to find a dentist who takes Kaiser. Stupid teeth.

[snalin]

About ID's, isn't debit cards valid ID in the states? Or does everybody just have credit cards? It's never an issue here as I pay with the same visa card that I use for ID.

Also I'm just home after the first 8 out of 48 hours of participating in the GLOBAL GAME JAM! Which means that over the weekend I'm cooperating with some friends and some new people making a game from scratch! It's super fun! And I am super tired!