Desk drives

Now added: zebra van, tree and monkey, safari car, elephant, and more. See previous version here.

I'm going to have to explain this zoo diorama on my work desk. On my birthday, one of my co-workers, GR, bought me a box of plastic Japanese toys. They're part of a set that, when put together, make up a mini zoo. Since three other co-workers have also had birthdays in the last month, GR went out and bought other parts of the same set. We've been putting the whole thing together on my desk.

My desk at work is 6 feet wide and probably three feet deep. Until I put the diorama together, the only things on it were my keyboard, monitor, and Wacom tablet. The funny thing is my desk at home is a junk pile. Since I spend more time at work than I do at home on most days, I guess it's not such a funny thing.

Let me eat cake

Today, Tuesday, February 5th, turned out to be one heck of a day. It's Super Tuesday, which is important for reasons thoroughly detailed on this Wikipedia page (in case you were wondering, no, I did not vote today, but that's because, as a non-citizen permanent resident of the United States, I cannot vote). It was also the day of the New York Giants parade here in the City, which I wrote about in my previous post. And it's Mardi Gras, which, at least in New Orleans, is a day marked by drunken revelry, public nudity, and king cake.
What is king cake, you ask? Until this afternoon, I had no idea, but someone brought in a king cake to the office (sent from New Orleans, even) and educated me. King cake is a ring of bread and icing eaten on or around Mardi Gras, which, I decided, was a good enough reason to have a slice. No one told me about the baby, however.
Every king cake contains a little plastic baby. Guess who found it. Tradition dictates that the finder of the baby gets ten days off from work, $500 in cash, and a puppy. No, that's not true. But I wish it were, except for the puppy part. I want an electric guitar instead. If you really must know about the baby, read about it here.

Giants unseen

This morning, the City hosted a ticker-tape parade for the New York Giants, who rode into town like the conquering kings they are. I and two co-workers left the office for a couple of hours to see if we could get close enough to high-five Eli Manning (yeah, right). There were three things going against us: We didn't leave early enough, we did not know anyone who worked in an office overlooking the parade route, and we were not cops.

So, along with about twenty bajillion other people, we ended up walking around lower Manhattan in circles, prevented from getting close to the parade by the NYPD's best. We had to return to our office and watch the live video feed streaming on CNN.com, but not before I snapped these photos:

About half the people wore Giants apparel. Those who didn't bring their own could buy them from sketchy street vendors peddling t-shirts with slogans like, "Patriots: From Spyin' to Cryin'." Predictably, the most popular jerseys worn were those of Manning, Strahan, Shockey, Burress and Jacobs (I also saw a couple of Gary Reasons jerseys, which looked like they hadn't been washed since 1989).

To give you an idea of how crowded it was, this photo was shot at least five blocks from the parade route.

The Naked Cowboy may rule Times Square, but the rest of Manhattan is fair game for the Naked Author, who showed up in "eye-black" face paint and little else. I'm glad I didn't have to ride next to him in a crowded subway train on the way back.

Finding it before losing it

What's almost as good as finding something you lost? Finding something you didn't know you'd lost. I must have dropped a glove coming home from work, because when I took the trash out a couple of hours later, I found that someone had helpfully wedged it into the bannister of the stairs.

I've lost a couple of things since moving to New York, which is notable because I almost never lose anything. This is in contrast to my brother in his youth, who somehow managed to lose a brand-new soccer ball before he'd even had the chance to play with it, and, on another occasion, a whole shopping bag of Capri-Suns entrusted to his care (the Capri-Suns were very important because our whole thirsty family was looking forward to drinking them for the first time). My brother has since turned into a responsible adult who doesn't lose so much as his temper. But I still think about that soccer ball every now and then...

My most devastating loss happened a couple of years ago. I dropped my Wenger Swiss Army Knife that I'd been using as a keychain for almost 20 years on the street, right outside the apartment. My dad had bought the knife for me in 1988 in a mall in Singapore, on our way to Australia. It was small and discreet, almost a trinket, with a virtually useless pair of scissors built in. But it went with me to six different countries over the next eight years. I used it to open letters in Indiana, to cut leeches in half in the jungles of Borneo, to slice strawberries in Perth, and to remove tags from new clothes in Hong Kong. I only stopped traveling with it after September 11, when it became impossible to carry on an airplane. After I finally lost it in New York, the bitter lesson I learned was this:

For the love of all your favorite keepsakes, stop wearing jeans with holes in their pockets!

The strangest thing has just happened

As I type this, I can hear a whole city of people yelling from their apartment windows. The New York Giants have just won the Super Bowl.

And you don't want to know the words they're using to refer to Tom Brady.

UPDATE: Now women are flashing passers-by on the street. It's like Mardi Gras out there.

Bike l'orange

Spotted today at the corner of Prince and Mulberry Streets:

A few of my favorite things

Thinking of moving here? Wondering what will make your NYC life much more pleasant? Here are three things I'm glad I have:

1. Noise-canceling headphones. I have the Audio Technica ANC7, which I absolutely love, but go ahead and get a pair of overpriced, overrated Bose headphones if you want. Either way, noise-canceling 'phones make a long subway ride or a noisy office much more bearable.

2. An always-loaded Metrocard. Because you never know when you'll need to rush to catch a subway train.

3. A digital video recorder, like TiVo. I have no idea how I lived without a DVR. It completely changes the way you watch TV by giving you virtually complete control over what and when you watch; I've never had to worry about getting home early enough to watch the new episode of House.