Rohit's Realm - New York City
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April 02, 2008
Spring Break. The phrase conjures up images of warm, tropical beaches, scantily-clad women, and tequila—lots and lots of tequila—in your mind, does it not? Unfortunately for me, I sort of hate the beach (despite having spent a little less than half my life in (the) O.C.), have already been to such destinations as Cancún and Miami, and in any case, stand no chance with scantily-clad women of any sort, no matter how much tequila they may have consumed. Instead, I chose to spend my break on a bicoastal whirlwind tour that left me perhaps more tired than before. And considering that today was probably the first day where it was both sunny and above 45° F here in Chicago, one might say that my so-called Spring Break was neither spring nor a break. [...]
June 17, 2008
Earlier this week, Heavy-D insinuated that the vast improvement in weather in Chicago immediately following my hasty departure on Sunday was not readily explained as mere coincidence. Normally, I would not be apt to disagree. Given my dour outlook and surly disposition, it is not unfathomable that bad weather follows me around as though my life was a (seriously depressing) cartoon. Unfortunately, as much as I aspire to be like Eeyore (see nearby drawing), the rather pleasant weather here in New York City squarely contradicts this notion.
The sentiment may not be entirely misplaced, however. While bad weather might not follow me around as much as I would like, another thing invariably does. That's right. Bums. Oh, how I've missed them so.
June 29, 2008
Seeing as how this is my first time living on the Right Coast since the mid 1980s (B-more represent!), one of my goals for the summer when I moved out here was to check out the bigger cities on the eastern seaboard that I have either never been to or not been to in decades. In that vein, on Saturday I tossed a change of clothes and a copy of Guns and Ammo into my briefcase, and hopped on the (Chinatown) bus to our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. It promised to be a wet, hot, American summer—if you know what I mean.
July 02, 2008
As anyone who has ever suffered the gross misfortune of being forced to use the disgraceful San Francisco MUNI knows altogether too well, the number of trains that go by in the opposite direction while you wait impatiently, alternating between swatting away bums and staring at one's watch with an ever-increasing homicidal rage, is a decent proxy for one's frustration with that woeful system at any given time. Cody the Freak crystallized this concept as the MUNI Suck Factor,
which BChalk later modified to the MUNI Suck Ass Factor,
as I discussed earlier. While this conceptualization served me well in SF, it requires modification to properly reflect the state of affairs in New York City, as there are several more variables to consider in gaging anger and frustration.
July 12, 2008
Since arriving in New York some four weeks ago, I have often heard the lament that Manhattan has lost its soul in the past ten years, becoming in the process some sort of amusement park
for tourists and the nouveau riche (those woe-begotten hedgefund-managing speculators
). Indeed, it seems to be the gripe du jour amongst New Yorkers new and old alike. The veracity of such sentiments I cannot confirm, for this is the first time I have spent any time in the Big Apple, but if the soul
of which they speak has migrated to Williamsburg, I fret that it all might be a farce—and a fedora-laden ironic one at that. What I can attest to, however, is that at least in some parts of New York City, the amusement park complaint is by no means misplaced, as my first—and hopefully, last—foray into the Jungle last night made all too clear.
July 28, 2008
Back in the joyous days of '06 (relatively speaking, anyway), I documented my top five most underutilized purchases, or in other words (if you strip the God-awful consulting jargon), the five most worthless purchases of my adult life, at least from a materialistic perspective. (Holistically, the most worthless purchase of my adult life has been health insurance, as purchasing anything that serves to extend my wretched existence is merely throwing good money after bad, but that's quite besides the point.) A couple objects that did not make the list in 2006, but easily could have would have been my not one, but two SLR cameras (one digital, one film—obviously!).
August 19, 2008
For those following along, my awesome (and awesomely dysfunctional!) bum-filled, bridge-and-tunnel supported summer in New York, N.Y., has finally wound to a close. As I fought unusually strong suicidal impulses upon arriving in much-loathed Hyde Park and prepared for another year of dodging bullets and avoiding vagabonds, marauders, and socially inept undergrads, I could not help but miss New York, despite having spent only a few short months there.
But enough of that sentimental shit. This ain't a site about gushing about the past; it is a blog about inadequacy, failure, self-loathing, and suicide. Why talk about love when one can speak of hate? Why engage in nostalgia when one can revel in anger? Without further adieu, I present some of the things I will not miss about New York, and round out the post with some things I still hate about Chicago/Hyde Park.
October 31, 2010
In my last entry describing a trip to the Bay Area, I promised you, dear readers, to very soon update you on my whereabouts that notably involved both a new time zone and a new apartment. That was almost three weeks ago, a tidy sum of time that almost no one would consider to mean soon,
let alone very soon.
But this is the sort of inconsistency and distressing failure for which I (and this site) have long been known. Better late than never.
December 30, 2010
Snowpocalypse,
snowmaggedon,
blizzaggedon,
the Bloomberg Blizzard
(really, clowns, did the Mayor cause the blizzard?)—whatever it is the internets finally decide to call it, the Boxing Day Blizzard (my preferred term) on the East Coast this past weekend completely ruined an otherwise peaceful Christmas holiday for me. What should have been a six hour flight from LAX to JFK on Monday afternoon turned into a two day, four airport, two train station, five subway station, one hotel room affair; I finally made it home to New York late Tuesday night, and that was three whole days earlier than what should have occurred had I taken the airline's (ludicrous) offer to rebook my flight to a red eye on New Year's Eve. (Thanks, but no thanks, assholes.) While this colossal mess was definitely one of the more unpleasant in recent memory, there were a couple surprises, and those, along with the awful story prompt me to write tonight. More (worthless verbosity) after the jump.
July 23, 2011
The clock struck four. I looked up from the book in which I was buried and considered my options. If it was going to happen today, it would have to happen now. Silently, after a moment more of indecision for which we Libras are known, I set down the book, and surveyed my apartment for what I would need as I traversed the depths of hell. Having found my wallet, keys, and sunglasses, I was out the door and on my way.
