BREAKING NEWS! it's on!

so remember what i thought might happen at the Fox News building this week? well, it's happening right now...(see previous post for what this corner usually looks like)

since about 4 o'clock this afternoon, people have been streaming in....

there's even a marching band to rally the crowd.

i am watching out from my window, and it's pretty great...i am terrible at estimating crowd numbers, but there are hundreds to be sure. i have seen a handful of arrests as well. this was one of the first to go:

here's some co-workers watching the action:


ok, i gotta go watch more now...i'll update more in the morning. stay tuned!

my day-home in the sky


i am always interested in seeing the places where people work. it's good to see where all of those hours are spent. so, without further ado, i present you with my luxurious 12th floor digs...

this is where it all goes down. or not. well at least where a lot of internet browsing occurs i guess. as you can see, i am highly organized. wanna see out my windows? ok then.

this is out one of them looking east. down at street level are the rows of all of the craptastic restaurants that i eat at everyday for lunch. i have eaten at those places so many times that sometimes i don't even get hungry when lunchtime rolls around.

this is looking out the west window down at 6th avenue and 48th street. see that building there? well, that is the one and only Fox News building. it is pretty creepy to be so close to that place, especially this week with all of the protesters milling about. today is supposed to be a big day of civil disobediance throughout the city and i won't be surprised if stuff happens there at some point. rest assured, that if it does i'll be here with johnny on the spot coverage. one time i was walking back to the office carrying my soup or whatever and all of these big black suburbans came racing up to the Fox building. out popped all of these giant, intense men in suits followed by Donald Rumsfeld. it was so crazy to see that man in real life. easily one of the creepiest sightings that i have had so far.

anyways, i hear that schwarzenegger is in town today.

and how about that rudy giuliani speech last night? it's really too bad that he's a republican, he is a great speaker. also, mccain is just such a dick for supporting w. o well...

my newest afternoon soundtrack has arrived.

i just got a package in the mail today from larry c. this was inside:

it is sort of creepy since those Polish girls from the last post were ALL about Slayer and Iron Maiden. there must be some black magic in the works this day...

oh, and it was accompanied by this gem:

GOD BLESS YOU L.C.!!

long weekend.

not one, but two protest activities. the first was the truly fun critical mass bike ride on friday night. usually somewhere between 1000 and 2000 people show up for a bike ride through the streets of manhattan on the last friday of every month. this time, since the ride was also functioning as a protest against the RNC coming to town, there were 5000. now that's a lot of bikes.

and with a lot of bikes and a lot of republican convention go-ers, there tends to be a lot of police. this was the official NYPD observation blimp (brought to you by Fujifilm apparently...it was actually a Fujifilm blimb that had NYPD written really small along the bottom) that followed the ride all night long.

every once in a while, the ride stops and everyone cheers and lifts their bicycles over their heads. the main reason is to let the whole group catch up to the leaders in order to create a more effective traffic-blocking ride. it's also just sort of fun.

there was supposed to be a big party at St. Marks Church in the east village after the ride. i was intrigued about how this was going to work seeing as how only about 200 people can fit into that space. apparently the police were intrigued by this as well because they decided to show up wearing their riot gear and plastic handcuffs. they even brought paddy wagons and a helicopter.

you know when you go to a concert and sometimes there's so many people in the crowd that it's hard to move around and get anywhere? well that's what it was like that night except that everyone also had a bike, making it totally impossible to move at all. you could pretty much tell that something was going to happen, and before too long (maybe 5 minutes) it did. people started yelling and throwning things at the police and the police started arresting them. then they started arresting pretty much anyone who looked at them funny, including the poor soul who was standing right next to me. at this point i had a sneaking suspicion that there was most likely not going to be any party after all and hightailed it back to the relative safety of brooklyn.



the second thing that i attended (besides seeing vincent gallo's Brown Bunny...more on that later) was the big United For Peace And Justice march that happened on sunday. it was the first time i have actively participated in something like this and even though it was blazingly hot, it was really great.

it was kind of spooky at first entering into such a giant crowd...mostly because if anything really terrible were to happen, you'd be pretty much screwed. luckily the only incident that i saw was when some folks lit this big paper mache dragon on fire right outside of madison square garden. it was pretty insane for a couple of moments, but the fire quickly burned itself out. (see the photos that the people at the Black Table got of it here).

this is my friend kelly. she was the mvp of dance on this day. whenever i would get separated from our little group, all i had to do was look for a head bouncing up and down in the crowd and it was most likely hers. kelly rules the school.

also, this guy was really funny throughout the day (though the thought of wearing that rubber mask in the 90 degree heat made me want to gag).

all in all, a pretty good weekend. PLUS, i got to hang out with these crazy (and i mean that lovingly) Polish heavy metal goth girls at this bar right by my house. my friend was desparately trying to hook up with one of them, so i was there for moral support. every time a Slayer or Iron Maiden song would come on the jukebox, these girls would get the most incredibly evil looks on their faces and yell out "SLLLLAAAAAAAAYYYERRRR!!!!" or "I-RONNN MAAAYYYDENN!". i so wish that i had photos of that...it was awesome.

well ok....i didn't want to get into the ring until i figured out how to get photos up here as well. as you can see from the elapsed time since my first post, it took a while. well the game is on now.

when i was home in the magic city last (june), we had one of the coolest storms i have ever seen. there was even giant hail balls falling from the sky. living in nyc, i have grown to miss this great feature of nature...the thunderstorm. i took this photo right before it got to town.

of course, there is thunder here too. but it's just not the same. it does sound pretty badass rumbling and echoing through the canyons of the buildings though.

anyways, tonight is the big critical mass bike ride in honor of the visiting republican convention. it is either going to be totally insane and a lot of fun, or totally shut down and stupid. i am going to try to bring my camera with this time to try and get some evidence, but more than likely it will smash against the ground after i drop it while trying to ride and take a picture. wish me luck.