This post’s title is the subtitle from: broken-umbrellas.blogspot.com. In the spirit of that blog, a haiku to help explain this post:

Katie posts pictures,
Of umbrellas now broken.
Now I understand.

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At the site you’ll see lots of pictures of broken umbrellas. Many, many umbrellas from many, many folks. In fact, I even contributed once.

And while I have always enjoyed the collection of discarded and dejected umbrellas, I’ve thought it a little odd how easily people turn on them. I’ve seen some seemingly high-quality umbrellas become causalities on Katie’s blog that I would have expected to warrant at least an attempted patch job, over a public garbage can or muddy gutter.

And then this morning, with my own umbrella, there was an unfamiliar snap as I slid the lock into place to open it. As half of my umbrella collapsed on itself, any admiration, respect or even apathy I held toward it was replaced with utter rage and frustration. In that moment, what had been an otherwise indispensable tool changed to be the sole target of my annoyance and a patronizing constant reminder of why I was, in fact, getting soggier and soggier.

In as much as human feelings can be directed at an inanimate object, I hated it.

And as a result, I now have a whole new appreciation for Better Off Soaked. Each post no longer depicts a sad, lifeless umbrella so much as it infers adamant frustration, matted perms, warped silk blouses and wrung-out neckties.

And I can relate to that. Now.

I imagine the health club failed because:

A) The heavenly aroma of deep-fried happiness is much too alluring for a fat kid on a treadmill.

B) No bench. Where are people supposed to sit while they’re working out?

Thanks for the shot, J&J!

My Stockholm-born father blogged about this video recently and I was immediately captivated in all its prosodic glory (aka “Swedishness”). It’s a collaboration of a few mainstream Swedish musicians – none of whom, by the way, are actually living in the conditions portrayed in the video. But that doesn’t bother me – having wind beneath her wings didn’t mean Bette Midler could actually fly…

Anyway, love the engagement created strictly through the modulation and timbre of the language itself (at least for a non-Swedish speaker). Plus they made rap in Swedish sound good. Even my father was impressed they pulled that off.

(It’s about questioning the typical idea of what makes one’s life happy. Consider that a rough interpretation.)

Getting off the train at Penn Station the other morning, I noticed a cupcake and a drink sitting in the rung of an upside down ladder on the platform (pictured below). Didn’t think much of it – figured it was just an employee’s snack for later, as I see lunch bags and backpacks of NJ Transit employees stashed away on the train all the time.

Turns out this was not the case… I happened to get off at the same platform this morning (my birthday, no less, with all this cupcake excitement), and out of the corner of my eye, just before going up the stairs I noticed, again, that lil’ pipe-swirled Hostess nugget of happiness.

I realized the drink I saw before is merely an empty bottle and as for the cupcake – well, it’s just flat-out lonely. There’s something about a packaged Hostess cupcake just sitting in Penn Station, all day, everyday, being passed and ignored by thousands of people that seems wrong.

So after going back to get pictures of said cupcake, I’ve decided to let everyone know where it is:

Track 12 at Penn Station at the bottom of the stairs of the eastern-most staircase that leads to the main NJTransit area…

And I’ll give you 10 bucks to eat it. Just please send pictures…

Mia sent this to me yesterday because she’s totally awesome…

parkour motion reel from saggyarmpit on Vimeo.

Many New Yorkers suffered a myriad of head, shin and toe injuries on Friday morning as a result of the imprudent acts of one of the city’s most dangerous midtown menaces.

The rollerboard gangs of Manhattan have become an ever-increasing problem to city residents, as well as the daily bridge-and-tunnel crowd that depend on the safety of New York City streets to get to work in the morning. 7th Avenue has proven a focal point of the crisis.

“I’ve seen those confangled rolling bags around the city for a long time, but never to this extreme. You get a couple of those next to each other on the sidewalk, along with a street seller’s table and the awkwardly spaced poles of the ever-present building scaffolding, and you can hardly get through without having to slow down and act patiently, let alone without your Starbuck’s getting knocked and splashed all over yourself.”

Among the most common attacks by the roller gangs is running over the toes of unsuspecting commuters with the small, driving rollerblade-like wheels of their unnecessarily large bags and suitcases.

Also common in reported injuries are cuts, gashes and bruises of the shins, the result of a rollerhead crossing in front of a fast moving line of people, narrowly making it through themselves only to then violently drag their lagging rollerboard abruptly across the shins of anyone not staring directly at the ground in front of them. This action is also generally responsible for the head injuries that result when commuters are walking fast enough that the bag completely trips them, pitching them headfirst into the metal-edged curbs that line much of intersections on 7th avenue.

“I want to shove their hand between the top of the bag and the extended pull handle and cram the handle down until it clicks,” said one employee of a nearby design firm, as she rubbed out the wheel mark in the toe of her tan Ugg boot.

Needless to say, emotions are high.

While not everyone pulling a rollerboard seems to have the audacious intentions of many of the obstinate rabble-rousers, a growing group of residents are asking the city to step in to regulate the use of rollerboards.

“I just want to be able to get to work without talking to anyone, and that includes mumbled obscenities at these rollertwits when they stop suddenly in front of me, bag handle extended, to figure out what direction they’re going,” said an employee of an accounting firm nearby, once we were able to get him to remove his iPod earbuds.

But regulation seems a far distant dream to the majority of commuters. Most are just keeping their gaze focused straight ahead, leaving the ruckus of the rollerboards to their peripheral vision to be dealt with only if actually struck.

“I’ve got more important things to worry about,” said one New Yorker as he unchained his bicycle with a set of large metal cutters and shot through the red light on 40^th.

Thinly-veiled brand promise can be unnerving. Especially next to an oxymoron like “new york spring water.”

People just do anything they feel like these days…

Click here to check out the original billboard post first, if you haven’t already (partial image displayed below for easy-breezy reference).

This Travel Show ad is the the first to go up in that space. This is the exact same billboard, from the far left, avoiding the obstructed views.

It’s surprising what folks can do with duct tape and staple guns, while concurrently reinforcing every Jersey stereotype ever.

They have another one of these signs out on the street pointing into the exit, the arrow indicating, “Hey, that’s an exit!” rather than illustrating traffic flow. But the whole thing with the arrow pointing IN to the EXIT is more than enough ambiguity to create stuttered brake lights and jerky second-guessed steering. Then this on the way out and it all just becomes silly…