Avi vs New York, day 2
Today went far smoother than yesterday. Last time I was here, I had a wedding to go to on Thanksgiving evening, Thursday night, so I’d spent the day wandering around Manhattan, and found that everywhere I wanted to visit was closed. So I decided to do it again this month.
Today there was an actual agenda of something to get. I’m bringing three electronic devices to Israel. One is my iPod, to give me something to do on the flight. I’m thinking of catching up on the Dragnet radio episodes. One is my telephone. It won’t work in Israel (do they have a CDMA infrastructure?) but the Palm half is going to be useful. And the third is my camera (digital, but that almost goes without saying). The chargers for the phone and iPod take 240v, so I’d need a plug adapter. But the NiMH battery charger is 120v-only, so I need a new charger.
There’s track work on the A line to Far Rockaway, so they have a shuttle to Rockaway Blvd where you can pick up the A. First on the list was B&H Photo. It’s a huge camera store. There’s whole sections for digital cameras, film cameras, medium-format cameras, digital video editing, projectors, etc etc. I appreciated it as much as I could, but I wished my father was there, as he would appreciate it far more than I did.
So then I went to J&R. They have a whole block of stores, each actually independent of the others. There’s a camera store at the left end, then music, then refurbished equipment, then home appliances, and then, finally at the end, is the general store, four stories high. I visited a few of the stores, and eventually found myself in their general store, on the fourth floor, which is all-Apple.
I tried to check my email, but they has some fascist web proxy that allowed http access only to the internet. No ssh, no https, nothing. So I brought up the topic with their salesmen, and ended talking about all kinds of things. Like DirecTV DSL’s shutdown. I’m hoping that it’ll stay up for me until I get back from Israel, but for the guy in Brooklyn, they shut it off on the 13th. With no notice. I showed them Chimera, and how it kicks Internet Explorer’s butt. I answered customer questions about the Mac’s capabilities, and a lot of general questions. (“How do you split an MPEG that’s just barely too big for a CD-R?” “I’d first try a 99-minute CD-R to see if it’s big enough so that you don’t have to split the MPEG.” “There are such things? C’mon, you’re kidding.” “Really! [type, type, google…] See?” “Wow.”) Plenty of techno-lust there with the machines they have. I’d like a new Mac; I don’t even come close to being able to afford it.
After spending two hours or so at the Apple section, I went back to the camera store for the battery charger. The weird thing about that store is that nothing has a price sticker on it. I asked the guy behind the counter for a NiMH battery charger that ran on 240v. He grabbed one, and told me that it’s just what I needed. (Apparently you can’t buy a charger without four batteries; it had those too.) How much? “$39.99.” I winced. “Nah, $34.99.” I bought it. So that answers my question.
Mordy had told me about a wedding that he was attending this evening, so I then hopped on the Q and crashed it. Is it crashing a wedding when you don’t eat the food? I slipped out during the times when food was being served since I’d eaten before coming. I met up with Mordy and he took me home after it was over.
There are two big thoughts for today.
One is New York City. Sometimes people ask me if I like New York City. They generally hate it. Too noisy, too hectic, or whatever. And then they ask me and I generally agree. I’ve been thinking about it, though. Do I like New York City? I think I do. I love the subway. I really do. Coming from Detroit and the joke called the People Mover, I seem to appreciate it far more than the natives do. Last night when all the chaos was happening with the Rockaway A line, I was calm. The natives were ready to riot. A fight almost broke out, and some cops were called in to keep an eye on the people. I like the museums and the vast numbers of kosher restaurants.
Would I ever want to live there? I can’t say that I would. It’s just way too impractical. Either you live in the city where you don’t dare have a car and the prices are high, or you live out in Flatbush or Long Island where you have a car but it’s an hour ride by car or subway to get into the city to do stuff. It’s quite a love/hate thing. I still keep a Metrocard in my wallet.
Thought number two involves a preacher in the subway. I’m on the A going somewhere (can’t particularly remember) when this guy comes around, hands out pamphlets, and starts explaining that poor people were going to heaven, since they were G-d’s people, and that rich people were all the Devil’s followers. His spiel went something like: “G-d doesn’t care about race or religion. He cares about class.” He went on and on about prophesies and stuff, and I glimpsed from the pamphlet that someone next to me took that he was from a “revolutionary church”. So now they wrap Socialism in religion to make people accept it? Makes sense, though, especially considering that “camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle” quip. (Although it makes me wonder why, then, the Church accumulated so much wealth.)
He went on and on, and apparently there was someone replying to him, always a bad idea. And I’m wondering if, according to him, if I’m going to hell or not. How rich is too rich? Does the fact that I’m working my butt off to pay a mortgage matter? The guy said, though, that “works do not save.” Looks like he’s in good philosophical company there.