are you kidding me?

so the only difference between this subway and the real one is that this one is moving. 8:00 am tuesday morning. i just woke up to the refresh my nyc.gov page (that i had checked at 2:00am last night when it hadn't begun yet) to check the status of the strike oh, and it has. and now i gotta figure out how in the world to get to jfk to fly home for jill's birthday. good hustle mta. good hustle.

-connected-

so it's early on a thursday morning. i sit here at butler library on campus looking out the frosty window at symbols of academia, grand halls, large steps, stautes, you know, everything you love when you walk on the columbia campus at eight in the morning. not so surprisingly, the library is already starting to fill up this last week of the semester heading into finals... and i sit here with my free daily medium hot chocolate and donut from dunkin donuts, thinking.




it's the eve of my two last finals on my first semester here in dental school. and i cannot wait for this to all be a memory instead the current place it sits in my mind. more importantly, it is the eve of the long awaited MTA strike. so at 12:01 tonight, if a contract has not been drawn, there will be no subway, bus, ferry workers running the show tomorrow. yes, strategically placed right before the christmas/holiday/whatever else anybody wants to call it season, putting huge strain on the massive commerial activity asssociated therein. the city sits to lose 1.6 billion dollars everyday the strike continues. so hopefully i won't last too long if it does get up and running. c'mon, i have some money spending to do. luckily, i have my trusted yellow steed, so i should be alright getting to school to write off this semester tomorrow morning.


nonetheless, i got a taste of the enormous residual dependency developed into society yesterday morning as i went to school. for whatever reason, still unbeknownst to me, the 1 train subway trains were super crowded in the morning. so tight, that i didn't even have to hold on to any poles because there was nowhere for me to budge. elevator to street level, same story. so packed. realizing that this is days before the forecasted MTA strike, i was struck with the distinct connectedness we share as humanity. long past are the days where we can take our little brother lenny, get a piece of property and live off the fat of the land, you know, with bunnies and stuff. here in manhattan the connectedness bears an even heavier tone.

so stay connected. it's the definitive mark of modernism.

let it snow baby!

ok. let's get a few things straight. its cold in nyc. its cold in chicago. its cold in iowa. and we know is prolly cold in utah and everywhere else that is cold. this is not a competition. the winter is cold period and so is snow, but it's mornings like these that make the cold bearable. so let it freaking snow. friday morning brought on this anticipated, blessed event. cause if it's gonna be murderously cold, there at least better be some pretty snow to compensate the emotions that swirl in your mind like the whipping of winds through the icy streets. its freezing. its pretty. its the artic death out here. its snowing, that means christmas (and everything else that people celebrate during the holiday season) is around the corner, making my feel cozy inside. so like i said, who knows what i was feeling? emotions being whipped around. bliss. misery. all from the same event. the same conditions. maybe i was being conditioned some how. maybe my conditioning was being conditioned.

friday morning was one of those morning. i woke up around 5:30 to get some last minute cramming in before my dental anatomy final that was going down hours later. and when i pulled open my curtains, the picture above is what i saw. to my complete surprise, it had snowed. plus, it was still early enough that the snow was still white and had not yet turned to that nasty city brown yet. then to top it off, i threw on the new beck album, guero. man, my day started so good. mood-wise, i was drifting like the new fallen christmas (holiday season) snow, that was thick and heavy. good scenes. good music. "my beat is correct" -- beck. and so was the mood. what could be better? such a moment. such a superb moment.

shout out to korea!!

so here's to korea. korea, the brave penisula. so as y'all know, i'm here in dental school at columbia. and well, columbia loves its diversity. so by that i mean we have x amount of states and y amount of countries represented. but the truth is, there is a predominant korean population. korea is so hot right now. for real, being korean is soo in. korea is the new black. if you wanna be hip this season, be korean. i don't get it. i mean the japanese had their day. prolly back in the eighties, with everybody kung fu fighting (yes, i know, that's chinese, but the eighties didn't know any better), bands like shonen knife, songs like "i think i'm turning japanese" and "domo arigato mr. roboto" (shout out to alien robots.) were getting serious play. i guess we had our day in the sun, the ever "rising sun," but now, its time to pass the wand to our neighbors to the west across the JAPAN sea. so here's to you korea. you're so hot right now.

so, pardon my sporadic spasms of thought. onto the topic at hand. korea. 60% christian. i wonder how that compares to the states' statistics. interesting things going on in the penisula these days. and i'm not talking about the vertically challenged nuclear weapons procurer. i'm talking about a much smaller item with potentially grand implications. stem cells. now, being a faith-guided individual, i find the current situation in korea intriguing. some time ago, a world-leading korean stem cell researcher had to confess to the public that he had used questionable means in the acquisition of eggs necessary to continue his stem cell research. however, subsequent to this tragic announcement, women from all over the country volunteered in great numbers to donate their eggs to the cause. and he was and will quickly be restored to his quasi-national hero status hereafter. i find this situation very interesting. where on one side of the pacific, bush found support from the christian right to impede the very exploration that scores of women from a predominantly christian country anxiously support. could it be that in the grand advancemnet of knowledge in this information age god would support greater scientific discovery towards the alleviation of sufferers? could this research be quicken as it will by the light from above? do faith-based initiatives fall on both sides of this dispute? if america were to change its direction, how much quicker could we spring open the door of discovery? or should we maintain status quo? while i don't pretend to have the answers, it remains a demanding dichotomy nonetheless.

get behind me satan

the sound of music. yes, the singing and dancing classic flim set on the picturesque hills in who knows where. now, if i were jill, i would know all the lyrics of all the songs, including the one i'm alluding to. yes the inclusion of the allusion. something about butterflies, paper packages with bows, rainbows on sunny day or something else with something else. sorry if i'm slaughtering this song. the point is that the sound of music makes me happy. no, and now, i'm not talking about that cheesy film. i'm talking about the sound of music. the sound of good music.

sometimes, you find a good album. and i mean a really good album. some bands will drop a hot beat or a tight song every now and again. but its extremely rare that a band will lay down an album that you cannot get enough of. you wanna listen to it all the time. and its not just one song stuck in your head, but you want the whole thing. so get behind me satan. its also easy to get behind an album with such a good name. but then again, i guess if you're getting behind the album, maybe that puts you where satan is. nonetheless, this albums is solid. little jack white and his sister really did something right when they put this album together. i saw these guys this summer with my cousins paul and stephen at coney island, and trust me, the white stripes know how'ta rock. solid set. good rock. you wouldn't believe that that kind of noise production would result from just two people, but it does. and it does good.

so i don't know what makes everyone else in this world happy. my little 8 yr cousin lafe just loves to have a certain number of comments on his blog, some conditioned girls just like flowers, some moms just like their children around, others just like others to get off the bandwagon. and while all of these things are good, i love good music. and good albums. and people that know how to do things right... jack white right.

cold as h-e-double-hockey-sticks

so you gotta love new york. but let's be freakin honest for a second. how do people really live like this? it is uncomprehensibly freezing cold in this place. now, for the title to this post. i don't throw it out there in any irreverence. but more as a location. like cold as snow. or cold as utah. cause, i really believe that hell is cold. and if y'all could walk down the nyc streets when the wind whips through the building tunnels, you would agree. hell is cold. i think i could take the burning. but the freezing is just silly. which is odd, because, i'm the type of person that would rather be a little colder than a little warmer. so on the moderates i prefer chill/cool than warm/damp/sweaty. but on the extremes, i could sit in an osen or a sauna for hours on end. but i feel like i wanna give my life and step in front of the m3 bus rather than walk all the way to the subway entrance.



and maybe i'm just a wuss. but still. i wonder though, now, that i've opened up some ideas. are there other preferences that get switched by degrees? i mean, in moderation one side of the aisle is better, but in excess, you attitudes switch. for example, take dinner with women. going to dinner with a girl, or even two girls could be really pleasant. but, come on, you know no dude in his right mind wants to go to dinner with a whole table full of girls. (especially your girl friend and all her girls friends...) i'd rather take on the new york wind chill factor in a t-shirt. so yeah. not really sure about the reverse-factor on the moderate-extreme spectrum. interesting nonetheless.

if you've got a few moments

unless you wanna be one of those america haters and if you have a few minutes to love america, you got to see this short film set with perfect timing to moving symphonic sound to appreciate what america is all about. just do it. and let me know if you want more america after seeing it.