No Money, No Cry

Outside of my car problems, financial issues stemming from a lack post-college income, and the occasional booty call miscommunication (Read: I need to meet new people), generally, I've been having a good summer so far. I've been enjoying my free time about as much as possible, despite my aforementioned lack of funds. (Perhaps another "Poetic Appeal for Money" is needed?)

So, what have I been doing with my time?

Well, for one, I've been writing. A LOT. Between my two blogs, my personal journal, and a script I'm working on, I've been rather productive. I'm having quite a lot of fun putting my thoughts to paper, and it's been incredibly therapeutic. A lot of my friends keep on trying to get me to spill the beans on what my script is about, but the truth is, I'm not quite ready to let the cat out the bag just yet. Everyone keeps asking me what I'm going to do when I'm done with it, but they need to understand that until I get everything down on paper, I'm not gonna bother thinking that far ahead. The hardest part is the actual writing. Everything else is secondary. At least that's what I tell myself.

As far as work is concerned, I am applying to jobs, but I'm still not working on it 100%, because I'm trying to finish my writing before moving onto the next stage of my post-college career. Every once in awhile, I get phone calls and things like that, but either the offers have been complete garbage, or the jobs their offering are completely boring. As in, "grass never looked so entertaining," boring. At this point, I'm tempted to go back to working for the evil Green Coffee Empire again at a location that's about a 20-minute drive north of the Bronx. Why? Well, it requires little effort, will pay enough money for me to get my immediate bills in order, and will allow me to keep on writing. I wouldn't stay there longer than 2-3 months, however. Knowing me, I'll probably take my job search up about 55,000 notches the second I have to make another freaking Crappuccino, but hey, at least I'll have money. And of course, it helps that this particular location has some of the hottest female Baristas I've ever seen. I mean, hey, I DO need to meet new people, eh? ;-)

(Side note: My personal, "Don't fuck co-workers rule," only applies if I intend on being at the workplace in question for longer than 90 days. Just figured I'd explain it right here before I get e-mails, comments, IMs, and phone-calls from people about my being a hypocrite or whatever.)

If my writing wasn't enough, I'm also working on starting a weekly radio show that would eventually be available to download for free on iTunes. Initially, I'm going to set up another Blogger account that's more or less dedicated to the show itself, and would have links that would lead directly to an MP3 file of my show. I don't intend on making money off the show; it's all in good fun. The show itself is going to be a carbon-copy of the show that I used to host back up in Syracuse during my freshman year, which basically was a show where I could say and play anything I wanted. Every night, I walked into the studio with a pre-established musical theme, and rocked out with it for three hours, interjecting every once in awhile with a random 5-7 minute dialogue about whatever came to mind. I'm probably going to tone it down a couple of notches for the new show and just make it the kind of show that you'd want to listen to on your way back home from a stressful day of work. So, if you interested in listening in, be on the look out for it here on the Coffee Break. My first show should be up and running in the next few days...

So, yes, I've been quite the busy little bee with all the writing and other side projects I've been getting myself into. When I'm not doing all that stuff, I hop onto one of the many gaming systems I have and get down on some video games. Yes, not particularly exciting, but fuck it, I enjoy it, and if you don't like them and think less of me for playing them, well, then, TOO F'ING BAD.

Sorry, just had to get that out the way up there. :-) I actually find myself playing more games now that I have the other blog, Press Start to Play up and running. What's sad is that I spend more time writing about video games than actually playing them.

Ain't that a bitch?

Goooo Yankees!

Mariano Rivera closes the gates on the White Sox

For the first time in a couple of years, I had the chance to go to a Yankee game a couple of weeks ago when they took on the Chicago White Sox. I went to the first game of the three-game set (which the Yankees swept through), and had a great time while I was there.

For those that have yet to travel to the Stadium, I suggest you go before they tear it down to build the new one in 2008. The new ballpark simply isn't going to have the same kind of charm that the current Yankee Stadium has.

Word of Advice: Don't Drive in NYC

I hate driving in New York.

No, I really don't think you understand. I HATE driving in New York.

Between the lack of parking, the boatloads of traffic, the stupid drivers, potholes, exorbitant tolls, and arrogant "yeah, just try and hit me, bitch" pedestrians, city driving sure ain't Sunday driving. Every time you get on the road, it's like "survival mode" in a video game or something, where each time you get to your destination safe and sound and without a major dent in your car is a blessing. (If only I could get the Konami Code to work in real life...)

Now, I love driving. As many mishaps I've gotten into over the years, I still enjoy hopping into my car and driving through an empty stretch of road. (Who doesn't?) It's exhilarating and is great for the soul. But driving in New York is a different type of animal altogether. Unless it's after 10 PM, driving in the city can be a test of courage. You can't relax and drive in New York; you always have to be on the defensive. And unless you want to fall victim to an accident or a bout of road rage, you better damn well be aggressive while you're at it. It's like New York drivers smell blood, and the second they see the fear in your eyes when trying to hop onto a high-speed, high-volume, two-lane highway, they'll make sure to pull some stupid ass stunt trick just to get around you. My motto for driving in New York is, "It's all about ME," because, seriously, that's how New Yorkers drive. They drive as if they are the only f'ing car on the road, despite the fact there's about 3 million other people right next to them that feel the same way.

So, I avoid driving whenever I can. Most of the time, I just take advantage of mass transit to get from place to place. Occasionally, I'll drive during the weekends and on weeknights when there aren't that many cars on the road, but outside of that, you'll never catch me driving around during rush hour in the city. Not unless I'm particularly dying to get a headache that day. Still, even without the traffic, you still have to watch out for peanuthead drivers who seem to forget that there are other vehicles on the road.

Case in point: this past Sunday, I was driving around in the Bronx, dropping off a friend on a block not too far from my house, when, as I'm going down a street, some guy in a Hummer (an H3) decided to pull out of his parking spot without looking over his shoulder, and slammed right into me. Now, thankfully, he was going less than 10 MPH, so it wasn't a serious accident, but he caused enough damage on my left rear door to keep it from opening properly. The collision created a dent deep and wide enough to affect the locking mechanism of the door. Now, I got out the car to see the damage, and the first thing out of the dude's mouth was, "I didn't do THAT!"

I couldn't believe the audacity this dude had. He hits me with his big ass SUV, and then has the nerve to say that his collision didn't cause a dent that was in the perfect shape of the Hummer grill on my rear door. Naturally, I let him have it. After about 10 minutes of going back and forth, arguing over whether or not he was responsible (get this: he actually said that the dent was there BEFORE the collision. As in, he saw the car before he crashed into me. Which left him open to, "well, if you saw my car that well, why the fuck did you decide to crash into me!?"), people from around the neighborhood started weighing in on the event. Some people came out of nowhere to say that "he didn't do that damage to the car," while others said that they saw the whole thing. Eventually, the guy caved in after he saw that I knew my shit and was able to explain, point for point, just how his Hummer damaged my car, and admitted fault. Naturally, he didn't want to involve the cops or the insurance companies, so he offered to pay for the damage out of pocket. I have to meet him this coming weekend to get the car's dents repaired. I have all of his vital information, however, so, if he wants to play hardball, I can do that, too.

Now, this whole situation could've been averted if he had just looked over his shoulder as he was coming out of his parking spot. Instead however, he decided to play the "it's all about ME" card and well, I got hit. Of course, the mofo's Hummer didn't suffer any noticeable damage from the collision. If it had been a smaller car, my car would not have suffered the same kind of damage, especially considering it was a sub-10 MPH collision. But, naturally, there are people in this world that just gotta have the big trucks, and people like me get screwed over.

Until the dents are repaired, I don't even want to drive my car. I'll just keep it chillin' on the street in its parking spot, waiting till the weekend comes when I can get everything good as new again. But no matter what, once again, New York has claimed yet another stupid accident created by yet another of its ignorant drivers.

Grrrrrrrrr...

(By the way... the driver? A bus driver for the MTA. Wonderful thought that the lives of mass transit customers are in his hands.)

Blogger Holdin' Me Back, But I'm Back

For the first time in a couple of weeks, Blogger has finally allowed me to log in and make updates to my blog! YESSSSSSSSSSSS! For those of ya'll that thought I just lost the will to blog, it was really more of a technical problem than anything else. Long story short, Blogger kept on saying that my user name wasn't recognized or something. I had to send an e-mail to Blogger customer service for them to fix the whole thing. I'm just happy to be able to post again.

So, look out for new updates starting today and going into tomorrow and until the next time Blogger decides that they want to keep me from bloggin'!