As much I’ve been offline, I’m very much part of the online world. I twitter and aggregating most of my updates via jaiku. I find that there is a very thin line that you have to walk in this online world. Like most of my friends, I’m on most of the social networking sites. But I also feel that I have to be more careful when I’m using these sites on both a personal and professional level. As much as I want to keep both parts of my life separate, I find that they are colliding in this online world. It’s enough to feel that big brother is watching. But it’s becoming silly to feel that you have to censor yourself to live your life online. Perhaps, this is just the life cycle of a blogger. Or the changing times of this internet age.

dates: Tue, Mar 18- Thu, Mar 20
time: Tue - Thu: 11:00 am - 7:00 pm
location: 231 W. 29th Street, Suite 201 (near 7th Avenue)

At some point this weekend, I played tour guide to my friend G from Seattle. She asked me to show her New York. I was just completely baffled. I don’t think I really do anything out of the ordinary. So we mosey on over to Papabubble in Nolita. It’s this really caramel candy shop. You can watch them roll, mold, and stretch caramel. It’s pretty wicked cool. And absolutely delicious. I have no idea how many samples I devoured. I literally was a kid in a candy shop.



While in the Lower East Side, I spotted this guy who was very conspicuous. I mean seriously, a sun hat, sunglasses and a mustache to boot. He was busy defacing a movie poster. I really wanted to walk up to him and snap his picture. But then I thought, I don’t think I would be able to out run him. So I went across the street to a safe distance before I zoomed in. Snapped my picture and left. I did have a stranded tourist in the middle of the road gawking.

Eventually, I return to LES the next day to see what he doodled. But there was already another poster put over his masterpiece. Oh wells. Turns out the dude was trying to promote a show at the Bowery Ballroom. That was pretty much my serendipitous weekend.

As of last night, Idiotarod was suppose to start at Ft. Greene Park. Then I got a text from my friend that the starting line was moved to Cherry and Market Street in Chinatown this morning. I never knew a Cherry or Market Street existed in Manhattan. Nonetheless where it was located. I’ve known about Idiotarod for a while, but have never attended. For god sakes, they did a whole epsiode about it on CSI:NY. So I had no idea what to expect. I got there around 11:15 am. And it was pretty quiet. But then more carts started to show up. We know hipsters love being photographed. Everything was pretty civilized until the Golden Girls and the Pesky Cafeteria Ladies broke out in a food fight.

Pesky Cafeteria Lady ducks behind her cart.

While another Pesky Cafeteria Lady slips.

Man, who would have thought the little old lady would get vicious.

Why me? I guess the Golden Girls won.

It was just an insane event. People were tossing food left and right. And this all happened before the race began. As they ran through Chinatown the pedestrians were just in awed of what was going on. When we got to the Manhattan Bridge one team rigged a rope to trip the next running cart. Fortunately, they had a scissor to cut the rope. It felt like there were no rules. The only rule was to make it to the finish line and it was okay to play dirty. It was just plain CRAZY! The funniest thing, was that the whole event started pretty much on time. What has this world come to.

So for New Year’s Eve, I mosey on over to the dinner held by Federico and friends. There was a whole lot of food, company, and generally good cheer. But I made it back to Brooklyn fairly unscathed.

It was off to Coney Island on New Year’s Day. A cup of coffee and Nathan’s hot dog in hand, I headed over to the beach to watch the Coney Island Polar Bear Club take their first swim in the Atlantic Ocean. Most people just ran in and then back to the beach. Everything was over in a matter of 30 minutes.

In fact, I even hid James camera to see how long it would take for him to figure it was gone. And of course, Kevin want to see how long it would take for James to freak out. Must be a twin thing. All in all, it was great to have a good meal laughs with my friends.

Mmmm.. Eggs Benedict.

Holidays have always been strange for me. It’s more like most of my friends leave the city like the plague. And normally, don’t have anything to do but to watch bad TV. So what to do on this rainy Sunday? While waiting in front of the Apple store on Fifth Avenue, I climbed up onto the platform to snap a picture of the holiday decorations only to be immediately escorted off because the security guy though I was going to slip and fall.

So it didn’t take much to be lured to the Central Park Zoo to see lions, tigers and bears. Oh my! Well it was more like polar bears, penugins, monkey, and sea lions. The zoo wasn’t the Galapagos, but it was kind of neat to see animals in the middle of the city. A bird even pooped in front of me. Did I mention that was very rude.

One of the birds was so cute. He puffed up his chest so I snapped a photo of him. Reminded me of the frigate birds in the Galapagos. He was cute little bugger.

Ho.. ho.. HO! It’s that time of year again. The annual Santa stopover in NYC on for a day of spreading holiday cheer and debauchery galore. We started off around 10 am at Pier 45 and that is where the mischief began. After last year, my friends stated specifically if I wander off I would be on my own. So of course, I wander off.

And low and behold, I saw Rudolph in his little photo op. And I had to walk right, up to him, and pull his blinking nose. Unfortunately, it snapped back onto his nose and yelped. I think that was my cue to run. And I did. With two reindeers hot on my tail. Who would expected Rudolph would have friend with him this year. My friends heard a commotion amongst the crowd of santas and was wondering what was going on. Then I suddenly appeared. And they just knew that I was the cause of all this mischief. Both Toolbelt and Dom Santa immediately told me, I was on my own. Poor little santa was being cornered by two reindeers and santas didn’t have her back. Bah Hum Bug, I say! Eventually I made peace with the reindeer. They were surrounded by santas.

Santacon was a reunion of sorts, in that Toolbelt , Dom Santa and I had bumped into the first santa we met on the train last year. It was really sweet, that we were able to run into some old friends. Even though it was pretty brief.

Soon we migrated to Time Square where we ran into some unsuspecting tourist. The pit stop was short. And then we had a long break at Tompkin Square Park.
Everything all ended in DUMBO at a fire spinning show.

And then it was time for me to head over to my cousin’s housewarming party, in which I made my entrance in a santa suit with a bag full of cheese. Can I say, Ho.. Ho.. HO!