Big and Glassy
Before Joe gets around to posting photos of each and every building in Manhattan, I wanted to share this building I saw walking home from the Daily Show Studios last week. It sits on the north side of 57th street, across from CBS Broadcast Center. I kinda dig it despite it being a giant glass box. It redeems itself with a pleasing regular pattern of squares, interrupted interestingly by circles. Hrm... Circles inside Squares.... I think I know someone like that.
The map above is from Wikimapia, a site which Tom stumbled onto a few months ago. It pretty much integrates the "add note" functionality of Flickr onto Google Maps. Yes, the maps are a bit out of date. They're still building the Time Warner Center according to the map - when in fact it's very much complete. Hey, it's free.
I went through and tagged a few buildings in various places around the country, it's a functional way to waste time. I also tend to clean up those annoying tags like "Kevin's house" or "Don't buy weed here". But that's just me.
The most interesting spectacle in the park this week was Roller Granny. Let's take a look at why she's hot stuff:
Last Saturday I should have been reading papers and studying. Hell, I should be doing that right now. Perfect summer weather has put a bit of a damper on the studying, and I was lured into Central Park with promises of some sort of rollerskating and music. With limited details, I meandered across town, meeting up with previously mentioned compatriots. We perched ourselves on a shady hill overlooking the makeshift roller-rink in the middle of a street in Central Park. A DJ booth was set up with wireless speakers and the joint was bumpin'. 
There were some extremely colorful characters skating about. Several people in spandex who clearly shouldn't have been. One guy skated around doing balancing tricks with a bottle of water on his head, hence his nickname: "Bottle Head". 
This guy rolled in on his gold-plated souped-up bicycle, took a lap, parked his bike, strapped on some skates, and boogied down. Not that I noticed much of that, after all the wine and wrestling and frisbee. It was one of the best days I've spent in New York so far.
Baseball. It's our nation's official pastime, but hardly mine. After being forced to watch endless hours of Braves games as a kid, I'm kind of put off by baseball on TV. I do find it tolerable and sometimes even enjoyable if I'm at a game, and I have beer and hot dogs, and I'm with people I enjoy. And if there's eye candy. This year I've been to TWO MLB games. I went to a National's game with 
Grad School has begun, and the first week has completely lulled me into a false sense of security. I've been wined and dined and caffeinated and given lavish gifts. It's kinda fantastic. Last night we were treated to a wondeful dinner at a place downtown called Public. You can check out the menu online, it's quite tantalizing. It's not every day that I have an opportunity to eat kangaroo or Tazmanian sea trout, and I feasted heavily. The 'roo was yummy - more flavor than beef, slightly different from lamb, and not nearly as gamey as venison. I'd have it again. The sea trout looked, felt, and tasted a lot like salmon, and I was fairly tipsy when they brought it out. A few too many Mango Pineapple Mojitos, perhaps.