Moving in–Jersey Shore style!

Now that the hurricane’s done with, it’s time to move in to our new apartment… Jersey Shore style!

Remember in season 1 when Angelina moves in with a bunch of trash bags (instead of luggage)?

Whelp, today, Mike moved into the new apartment first. Here’s a shot I took of what he moved in with:

He had one trash bag full of stuff, and he covered his luggage with trash bags, making them non-rolly, which was moreso inconvenient for the guys actually moving them (me and Jeet).

Next up: some thoughts on how much I hate assembling furniture.

Ask Rohan–a new question and answer service

Do you ever have a nagging question that you can’t seem to find the answer to? Is Google letting you down? Well do I have the web service for your! It’s called:

Ask Rohan!

All you have to do is:

1. Ask your question
2. Light the beacon of Minas Tirith

And Rohan will answer!

Use Ask Rohan! for your next query!

Al’s Light Meals

Are you sick of eating greasy food? Are you done with going to restaurants that pollute the environment?

Fact: Global warming’s main causes are cooking smoke from greasy restaurants and human flatulence that result from eating greasy meals from said restaurants.

The picture above is of an ACTUAL RESTAURANT*.

*No it’s not.

Well do I have a solution for you:

AL’S LIGHT MEALS

Rather than conventional cooking techniques that kill puppies, Al’s Light Meal restaurants cook your food in photocopiers:

“But how can this possibly work?” you may ask. The answer is simple: science!

Photons from the photocopier collide with the raw food molecules, cooking them.

The result: a delicious, quick, healthy meal!

• No preservatives!
• No trans fats!

So next time you want a meal, come to Al’s for a LIGHT MEAL!

Terms of Enhurricanement

Whelp, that was quick. I was going to provide more in-depth coverage of what it was like living in New York through a hurricane, but I basically just slept through it instead.

Here’s a photo that Mike took of the aftermath:

Not sure what that has to do with anything though. We didn’t even listen to any Dr Dre this entire weekend. Here’s a photo that Mike took of E90th and 1st:

As you can see, there’s a random umbrella and a bunch of crap on the ground, so it’s pretty business-as-usual in my area of NYC with no signs of a hurricane having passed through.

So did I learn anything from this experience? Probably not. If the hurricane had ben more powerful and actually knocked out the power, it would have really sucked, and we would have all been miserable and unprepared. Ciao!

Me, Mice, Jeet, and Irene pt 2

So how do 3 dudes prepare for the Irene-ocalypse? Well, since one of us was a former Microsoft Program Manager (and technically still is), we made a spec:

Goals:

• Don’t die over the next two days

K, now that we got that out of the way, we created a shopping list:

• Toilet paper
• Water
• Food that doesn’t require refrigeration per se
• Cans of tuna
• Chinese take-out. Lots and lots of it. The msg preserves it like an Egyptian mummy.

And that’s that for the planning phase! We unfortunate ran into a few snags along the way in the execution phase:

• We first hit up a super market casually after our post-workout Chipotle run and before we came up with a plan. Once we got into the super market… well, imagine three guys standing around in workout clothes not knowing what to buy and being like, “hey, what are people supposed to get to survive?” A bunch of (attractive) women laughed with (at) us.
• We didn’t feel like waiting in line, so we went to the super market much later. There was still a long line, and all of the water was sold out. Instead, we bought 3 large containers to hold and refrigerate our own water. Mice and Jeet also bought a bunch of seltzer.

Here are some pictures!

I wasn’t joking about the Chinese food. That’s enough food to feed the Emperor for weeks and it was only $30. It also has all of your essential food groups: meat, broccoli, and rice.

We have large containers with water in it. The lids are not water tight, and they don’t support the weight of the full containers, so you have to lift it by the container. You’ll also notice that there’s more leftover Chinese in there.

And that’s how three dudes plan for survival! Stay tuned for the next segment on actually living through the hurricane!

Me, Mice, Jeet, and Irene pt 1

Many (some?) of you far from the East coast may be wondering, “what’s the deal with this hurricane? Is Al going to be okay? What about his roommates? Will Al be able to protect them with his massive traps?”

First, I apologize for the title of this blog post. Were Jeet’s nickname “Elf,” it would have been perfect, but it was clearly not meant to be.

Second, here are some semi-quick bullet points that describe how we are doing:

• Our current residence falls under “Zone C.” It means that we’re likely not going to need to evacuate unless either Irene gets stronger or one of us commits hubris and challenges nature/God/Poseidon.
• New York in general is bustling! It’s still pretty nice out, and everything is like normal except that grocery stores and super markets are packed with attractive girls buying things that don’t seem to have anything to do with survival.
• As some of you may know, I’m supposed to have an orientation for school on Monday. However, I received 3 emails saying (in this order):
• Orientation is still on but stay tuned for updates in case of bad weather.
• Disregard the last message; orientation is canceled.
• Disregard all messages from the person who sent the first two; she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. More information is forthcoming.

So that’s it for part 1. Part 2 will be all about how 3 dudes prepare for a hurricane!

Motorcycle Diaries–Stupid drivers

Good sirs, I offer you a story about a happening that occurred today as I was driving home. A few blocks from my apartment, there’s an intersection that looks like this:

I’m getting into the left turn lane going north. The drawing isn’t really to scale, so imagine that there’s actually more distance (75m) between me and the intersection:

And I’m slowing down because I’ve got a red light, and there’s traffic to my right turning into the opposing lanes to my left:

However, there’s a car that seems to miss the turn and is now headed straight for me:

And to just to give a real accurate picture of what’s going on, there are cars to my right, which reduces the viability of swerving into the lane over:

So what happens next? Well, here’s a hint: I’m alive, and I’m not “ghostwriting” this blog (lol double meaning???)

Well, fortunately, the red car realized that they were headed straight for me and not in their actual lane and pulled over to their actual lane. After I thought about it, I thought, “wow, that was really messed up.” However, at the moment, it didn’t actually really occur to me that I was in danger, and I just lined myself up with the right edge of the lane to avoid a collision:

And that’s that. It sucks that if we had collided, it would have really, really sucked for me. However, the thing that’s nice about being on a motorcycle is that you’re way quicker, you fit into smaller spaces, and you have a pretty good feel for what’s around you because you’re not in a cage full of blind spots.

Hey look at me I’m cool oh wait never mind I’m not

Whenever I’m on a motorcycle, I never forget how cool I am. However, sometimes, I’m extra-reminded of how cool I am, and then I try to do something cool, and then I end up doing something to make myself look silly. Consider the following mini-stories:

Story #1: Lookin’ cool for the ladies

I was approaching an intersection on my motorcycle, feeling cool as usual, when I saw a girl that I recognized. I then thought to myself, “hey Al, there’s a cute girl. You should play it cool.” So, I relax my back and arms, and I readjust my hand position on the handlebars. However, in doing so, I end up rolling hard on the throttle. The motorcycle then starts going fast into the intersection, preventing me from properly leaning into the turn, and I just kinda look silly and off balance as I’m turning.

Story #2: Lookin’ cool for the other bikers

Unless you’re part of rival motorcycle gangs, motorcyclists are kinda insta-friends. That’s Al-speak for “instant friends.” No matter what type of bike you ride, if you are approaching another rider, you hold out the top secret motorcycle greeting (look it up on the interwebs), and they’ll probably greet you back (unless they’re doing something else like focusing on the road). When I was riding home one day, I saw riders approaching, so I held out my left hand to greet them. However, when I held out my hand, I quickly realized that I was going pretty slowly and needed my greeting hand to be on the clutch, so I quickly brought my hand back to the handle bar and then wobbled a bit (and when you wobble, you feel silly).

Story #3: Lookin’ cool for the kids

Imagine that you’re a kid in a minivan, and a cool guy on a motorcycle pulls up next to you. The guy’s fully armored and is wearing a tinted visor. This guy looks like a superhero! Well, that super hero was me one day. I looked over, and the kid was smiling and waving to me. Initially, I just looked ahead waiting for the cars in front of me to start moving, but then I decided that I needed to keep the kid’s dream alive, so I waved back at him and gave him a thumbs up. I then looked forward again, saw that the cars had all already started moving, and I rolled hard on my throttle to catch up with traffic again. I guess I didn’t look silly per se, but I bet the car behind me thought I was kinda weird.

So those are my thoughts on motorcycles for today. Keep the rubber side down!

Not really cutting to the chase–Cowboys and Aliens

Have you ever woken up in a movie theater, looked up at the screen, and thought to yourself, “really? We’re still on this scene?” That’s what happened to me when I was seeing Cowboys and Aliens today.

I’d love to do a “cut to the chase” summary about this film but I really just don’t know what happened. There were a bunch of people and a bunch of aliens, and things happened, and I don’t know why, and there seemed to be a lot of people firing revolvers at bullet-proof aliens. Oh, but arrows and sticks seemed to hurt them.

What might be more interesting is that I got to test my motorcycle gear in a movie theater during a long, boring movie. The tests I conducted were:

• Sitting in them in an air conditioned theater for about 2 hours
• Sleeping in them for some periods

Results: It was pretty warm. Ventilated boots don’t really keep you cool when you’re not at speed, and any time you fidget, which you’ll do during a boring movie, you make a loud swishing noise.

So there you have it—that’s my review of my motorcycle pants.

Me ripping on an innocent, well-intentioned person cowardly on the Internet

I found this adorable article while I was reading blogs about the season finale of Bachelorette 7. Well, okay, it’s not really an article. It’s just a list, and it’s titled “10 Things to say to a Friend Who Says “I’m So Fat!” In this post, I will be responding to a few highlights from the post.

1. “Would you say that to me? Okay, so don’t say it to yourself.”
2. “I think you’re hurting your feelings.”

So, you’re agreeing that they’re fat and just telling them not to admit it because it’s rude?

“Compared to what? Photoshopped magazine covers?”

Legitimately obese people are also “so fat” compared to Photoshopped magazine covers.

“You feel fat? I feel like it’s BS that we judge our bodies by how they look instead of what they can do.”

Bodies can generally do a lot more if they’re not overweight.

Okay, now that I sufficiently sound like a dick, I’ll try to add more clarity and perhaps even be constructive.

First off, if your friend is not actually fat, don’t come up with a line that may leave open the possibility that you agree with their assessment.

If they are fat… well… I realize that sometimes, people don’t want to hear the truth, and they just want to feel better about themselves. However, realistically, someone that is overweight isn’t being done much of a favor if all of their friends are reinforcing the message that it’s okay to be overweight. Aside from aesthetics, with obesity comes serious health risks, and if they want to reduce their risk of having to spend the rest of their lives measuring their blood glucose on a daily basis, they should probably consider changes in diet and exercise.

So what would I say? Well, if they’re male and have <15% body fat or female and <20%, I’d call them an asshole and tell them to F off. If they’re above that but not obese, sure, I’d probably use something in the article above (that doesn’t actually imply that I agree with their assessment of being “so fat.”) If they are actual risking their health, I’d probably ask them if they’d considered making some changes to reduce their health risks. Easier said than done, but that’s probably the right thing to do, right?