Aunts & cousins in Long Island

Mum and I met my cousin Jasmine at Penn Station and went to visit her family in Long Island. We had dinner with little Eden and Bryce, (whom Jasmine was pregnant with last time we visited) Devon and aunty Joyce. Was a serene change of scene to get out to the suburbs and out of the city.

Mum hadn't seen Jasmine for 30+ years! Eden was giving Jus 'respec' handshakes last time we visited, and this time she was all singing and all dancing. Fabulous!

Looking forward to hanging out with the JA side of the family more while I'm in this hemisphere.

Saturday night doo do doo do doo do doo

Mum left this afternoon: got in the blue shuttle van and disappeared into the honking, steaming street. So tonight is my first night alone for a month and I'm doing a Delicious Night In. This is also the first time I've been in the new apartment awake for more than 10 minutes since i moved in on Wednesday, so I'm jujing. A scented candle is burning (Jodie, this is me applying your baby calming move), flowers are in the hoky vase, I've hidden all the corporate housing tchochkes in a cupboard, I've bought a bottle of wine, I Tivo'd a whole bunch of Scrubs and Will & Grace, I've ordered Chinese takeout, and I've got the ugg boots on. Oh my god its my ultimate night in New York city! You can take the homebody out of the ugg/cable/takeway/sauv blanc vortex, but you can't take the ugg/cable/takeway/sauv blanc vortex out of the homebody.

Overheard in New York

I'm glad there is a website dedicated to cataloguing all the intriguing, amazingly banal and hilarious things you overhear people saying in this big city, cos I certainly can't keep up. If you need a laugh, this site is it.
From "In a perfect world everyone should smell like pizza." to "I'm just gonna go home and play checkers and hopefully win. If not, I'm gonna play Scrabble and cheat! I just bought a new thesaurus." and " Kid: Mom, where you at? Mom: I'm right here, baby, and it's not where you at, it's where you is."
Ah yowsers. I actually heard someone say "I'm walking here!" while crossing the road and waving a finger at a car. (But I think it was a tourist showing off to their friends.)

Celebrity Sighting #9

On the subway at 72nd street (that's the Upper West Side, homies) was John Glover, an actor who is probably best known as playing Lex Luthor's dad on Smallville. He's been around for ever. Nothing to give away his celebrity status except the big Roley on his wrist. Fershizzle.

iMy goodness

Apparently people have already started queuing up in front of Apple stores for the iPhone release tomorrow. They go on sale 6pm Friday night - what a way to spend your Friday! - and people are taking time off work to line up so they can get the handsets hot off the press. Sheesh. And here I was thinking I could just sally on down and get a new mobile. Not gonna happen.

My inner geek is well and truly out

I met with one of our Experience Directors today to take a tour of our Living Lab, a space in the office that is decked out like an apartment replete with Wii, Xbox, PC, Mac, mobile phones, PDAs, iPOds, media centres...all the digital toys that people have these days.

I mentioned that I'm interested in gaming and thought there was a lot to learn from the interaction design and immersive experiences that games create: web sites could be so much cooler if they took a leaf out of the game design book. Plus the 'digital native' generation that has grown up with constant exposure to these environments could cope with, and expect, richer internet experiences.
So the Experience Director suggested we embark on a research project looking at game design and what we can apply to other digital design. We'll be presenting it internally and might submit it to a conference!
All those hours of Socom US Navy Seals, Singstar, The Sims, Buzz, Age of Empires, SimCity, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, Leisure Suit Larry, 1942, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Frogger and Pong are gonna pay off!

Welcome to agency life

Well, hello deadlines and late nighters. I knew it would be like this and I kinda figured it would start happening soon. Nothing like the adrenaline rush of client presentations to get the imagination firing.
There are certainly growing pains adjusting to this different way of working. Part of me is deliciously detached from the work: I go home and forget about it. There's nothing personal about the feedback on the designs, there's no baggage from previous experiences, its all business.
There's still that desire to do quality work and do the best I can do, and I do care about the client's objectives and the agency's need to make money, but in 2 months I'll be working on something else entirely and will never have to look at it again. I won't have to live with the compromises every day and wonder when we're going to get around to fixing something. There's major solace in that.

And now for something completely unrelated: i park like an idiot.com . So nice not to have to drive anymore either...

Kansas flash dance ass pants

My hip hop dance teacher has a dance show on MTV. Check out this site: its full of moves submitted by the audience. The 'walk it out', for instance.
When I was a teenager all I had was my mirror to bop around in front of. Now the whole internet can see your moves. Hilarity never had so much attitude.
And if anyone can get the reference in this post's title, then I'll send you a prize.

Brooklyn

Perfect weather this weekend. Saturday arvo I went to the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island, which was like a cross between the Moomba Parade and Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in terms of pageantry and costumes. For some it was a community affair, for others it was just an opportunity to get their kit off. For example, I saw a man wandering around waving like the Queen, wearing nothing but a disposable nappy.

The highlight for me was a teenage drumming marching band with so much 'tude and funky beats they put the posers to shame. Saw the Shepard Fairey exhibition too. The Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival was booming down by the East River. Ended up walking back to Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge, by accident. I went up some stairs that I thought would take me to the subway and popped up on top of the bridge. So I did the walk. Excellent views! Took lots of photos. One of a guy who was the spitting image of Prince William.

And made a few clips.

The corner where I live.



The view from the Brooklyn Bridge.

Missing her cool remoteness desperately :(

It's been 4 weeks already, Posca. Are you missing me? Will you remember who I am?

Jobs jobs jobs

Went to the NYC chapter of the Usability Professionals Assoc the other night and during the scintillating evening of industry info people did a bit of recruiting. UX professionals from Time Inc, Pfizer, Hearst Corporation, Wonderman, Avenue A Razorfish and an executive search firm stood up and gave spiels about jobs they have available. There is so much work here it's nuts.

More Australians started at work this week. There are 6 of us now, all new. And we've all been chatting with the other 3 Australians who were already there. Its comforting how we look after our own. Quite unexpected. So damn friendly. Tis a big city after all.

DC a/c

I took the train to DC on Wednesday to visit XM satellite radio HQ. Alarm at 5am, on the train at Penn Station at 6am. Asleep again by 6.20am. Roused myself for breakfast at 8am. Arrived at the most glorious classical Union Station in the nation's capital at 8.50am. (Froze from serious a/c (no 'air con' here, its a/c) and had a chill all day. It must have been all of 23c and the a/c was on full bore. Anyways...)

The train journey was great! To get to DC you travel through Philadelphia, Baltimore, Newark and Wilmington - 4 states DE, PA, MD and NJ, in 3 and a bit hours. I saw deer grazing at dusk, cranes getting worms at dawn, rowers on the Hudson, 4 prisons, a twinkly skyscraper in Philly. It was great to get out of the city and see some small towns and forests and sleepy suburbs, and prisoners playing basketball in uniform in their low security facility as the sun was setting.

Mum's contemplating coming with me next week and seeing the sights for the day. I've joined the Amtrak rewards/points program so Jus and I can get a trip to who know's where in a couple of months. Nantucket sounds curious.

I'm glad I have these once-a-week escapes to look forward to: a bit of quiet and hypnotic shooga shooga while I stare out the window, and Californian red and cheese & crackers on the return journey (with emergency woollen socks and pashmina to brave the a/c) before a bit more napping. Deposited back in NYC's sultry subway and in bed 15 mins later. Much more civilised than having to take your belt and shoes off to catch a plane.

Celebrity Sighting # 8

Well my definition of celebrity is getting thin. Perhaps I should amend this to 'someone I've seen on a screen'. This is not going to cause the kind of stir that Jocelyn Wildenstein created: I had no idea her legion of fans spread from solicitors to developers. Who knew her appeal?

So this week I crossed paths with the actress who played Ross's wife's girlfriend on Friends. Susan, I think the character's name was. Hmm, scraping bottle of barrel or legit celebrity? You be the judge. Personally I thought she was memorable.

Artsy fartsy

So excited! Going to the Shepard Fairey exhibition tomorrow in DUMBO. He's the guy who created all those Obey posters and stickers that you see all over the world. Am heading there with a couple of people from work, but we're checking out the Coney Island Mermaid Parade first. Its the Gay & Lesbian Pride March on Sunday ('Happy Gay Pride' overheard tonight in Hell's Kitchen, sorry 'Hellsea'). This town is parade mad. I can't wait for ticker tape and those Macy Day inflatables.

Everyone I've met so far here is either gay, or 26, or both. It's refreshing. Where did all the married 30 somethings go? Is that what Connecticut is for?

Forget melatonin...

The melatonin certainly helped me fall asleep but it didn't relaly keep me asleep. I keep waking up at 6am, which, as anyone who knows me well can attest, is not the usual time I like to stir. But the best dreams are the ones you have after waking up and drifting off again, so I'm not complaining.

Nifty Uni of Penn students have come up with Insomnia Cookies, which are delivered warm to your door (free delivery if you spend $5+, and who wouldn't?) in the middle of the night. This is one of those ideas that someone, YOU!!!, should steal and do in Melbourne: picture one of these joints opening up near the Melb Uni colleges, or in QVB....goldmine.

This time next year you could be rich.

So tempting

I'm working with someone called Jose on my current project. Every day I have to hold back from responding "No way Jose" just for the hell of it. I'm so immature.

From NZ to NY

what next? NX?

Nice to see those wacky Kiwi guys Flight of the Conchords with their own show on HBO. They were the guys who tickled Melbourne comedy fans with their guitar-accompanied song about the Lord of the Rings. You know who I mean? One of them looks just like Pat.

Cute Overload

This goes out to Fifi. Widdle puppies and kittens and chipmonks and hamsters...and Jus there's even an otter in there for you with hands in the 'we're done' position.

Introducing Chocolate Brownie Batter icecream

Yep, that's the flavour of the week. Needless to say it's divine.

I stumbled across this slideshow of families around the world posing with the food they eat in a given week and how much it cost. I think it was first published in Colors, Benetton's magazine.

If there was one for mum and me at the moment it would show a tub of icecream, a few bottles of white wine, some bananas, a punnet of blueberries, a packet of herbal tea, a tub of yoghurt, a box of muesli, about 5 chicken salad and tuna salad wraps, an avocado and a pile of takeaway containers. Oh and a bottle of multivitamins.

Brunch with Jesus

Mum headlined a song with the Harlem Gospel Choir this morning, at a brunch performance. She was really getting into it and she got yanked on stage to sing 'Oh Happy Day'. The audience oohed and aahed when the Big Boss asked where she was from and she replied 'Australia'. She got a free CD for her efforts. Luckily she knew the words!

Celebrity Sighting # 7

I nearly forgot! On the way home from work the other day I saw the Cat Woman plastic surgery freak Jocelyn Wildenstein! She was wandering down 8th Ave being followed by a young guy holding a bunch of shopping bags. They walked right past me and it was all I could do not to gawk. Her face was a shiny tight mask but, I know this will sound weird, she didn't look as bad as I thought she would up close. Maybe I'm getting used to that aesthetic.
The iPod was playing Lou Reed's 'Walk on the Wild Side' at the time - I really think those things have context sensors.
BTW - haven't got a mobile phone yet as I am holding out for the Apple iPhone, which comes out at the end of the month. Why not, huh?
And on the Ben & Jerry's icecream front (I walk past the shop on my way home from work, so the situation is hopeless), we've just worked our way through a tub of Chocolate Ecstasy, which was dark chocolate icecream with chocolate fudge sauce and had actual chocolate cake in it. Gooey CHOCOLATE CAKE bits like happy explosions! Genius. It was worth every mouthful of bad cholesterol.

Witty title here

This morning maman and I took a ferry cruise around the island, which was a gentle way to start the day. Saw people kayaking, fishing (and catching perch and eels) and roaring around in massive speed boats. Apparently they have speed boat races: I just can't imagine it. Manhattan doesn't feel like a maritime place even though we're surrounded water. Its city first, island second.

Hung out with Annie and Mike and Bella tonight. We consulted the 'recipe book' (read: take out menus) and watched a DVD, which was a wonderful change of pace and scene. After hanging out with couples & babies a lot in the last couple of years I was beginning to go cold turkey. Mike's first Father's Day tomorrow and he's hoping to get a new flatscreen television from his 5 month baby girl. Good luck with that! No more apartment hunting for a couple of months as I pulled the pin on our real estate broker & his chihuahua Ramone, and extended the corporate housing until Jus gets here. Starting a new job and searching for somewhere to live do not mix well.

Oi oi oi

Well the blogging has slowed down since work has ramped up. The week has sped by: time evaporates here. This week the 'other new Aussie' started at work and I caught up with 2 other Australians who work there. All lovely and chatty and wanting to vent a bit about the US and gloat in our bloody awesome Aussieness.

Friday night I went out with Andrew (who worked at Sensis with old colleagues of mine) and his girlfriend, Natalie (who worked with Ange at ASIC), and we had a ball! Meant to go to the Lower East Side for dinner but we took a wrong turn coming out of the subway (its not just me, phew) and ended up in SoHo and found a great tapas place where the racion were more like the usual heaped plates. Nothing tapas-y about it, and no patatas bravas on the menu, which was devastating. But plenty of goats cheese, so I was happy. We ended up walking to the LES for a bit of bar hopping and it was going bananas: people everywhere, music pouring out of places, lights blaring. We danced and mixed drinks and today was a bit hard. Had to have a nap this afternoon.
Jus hurry up and get here so I can vegetate on the couch like most Fridays. Just joking, I might actually be able to throw off my nanna Friday night performances here. Miracles miracles.

Celebrity Sighting # 4,5 and 6

The Puerto Rican Day Parade brought NY to a standstill today. Mum and I walked down to 5th Ave with a million other people, though we were without the whistles, flags, flag earrings, tight clothes, corn rows, tatts, flag caps and flag t-shirts. Ricky Martin was king of the parade, and Geraldo Rivera marched with it, and Judd Hirsch just happened to be crossing the street among all the chaos. (He's very tall in real life.) I'm going to Google everything about Puerto Rico after this as we realised we know nothing about it. If we're going to celebrate it we should know what Ponce and Boruica mean, for starters.

After Ricky's float went by we decided it was all downhill from there and wandered off to MoMA for a different type of cultural experience. I fell in love with Takashi Murakami and Ellen Gallagher paintings in the Comic Abstraction exhibition. Murakami brings crisp graphic intensity to abstract pieces, and on first sight Gallagher's work looks strongly influenced by Aboriginal art, until you realise all those dots are mouths and eyes. A nourishing afternoon.

And the Tony's tonight! If I can rustle up the energy I might skip down to Radio City Music Hall and see who's on the red carpet.

Plan B, C and D

The West Village apartment didn't happen. Poo!
It seems the 'just stepped off the boat' factor is a large, negative one when competing with US residents with credit histories as long as their arms, landlords reference letters and social security numbers. I know the Melbourne rental market is nutty, but here providing a personal guarantor, offering to pay $100 more a month, or prepaying 6 - 12 months of rent up-front is par for the course.
I've pulled the pin on apartment hunting today because it chews up too much precious weekend time and I need to do some fun touristy stuff before the work week begins again. Yesterday we wandered around Downtown again, with the chihuahua, Ramone, and looked at 3 places, only 1 of which I actually fit my criteria and before we'd left the building another interested party had already offered $1200 more on the annual rent. I'm now going to start looking myself on Craigslist and contacting real estate agents directly, and will put the word out at work.

If you're one of those people who was going to put me in contact with all the people you knew in New York, now is the time! I need to follow every path to find somewhere to park my 'dangerous Aussies' stubby holder collection.

1-800-REALITY

Jus notes that The Age recently posted a clip of The Poo's kittens v cougars dating show. Just remember where you heard about it first, people!


















And for all of those too shy to leave comments because you can't think of anything pithy enough and don't want to expose your mediocre wit, grow some balls!

Four things to keep in mind:

1. I am likely to be the only person who reads it


2. If you're concerned about the off chance that someone else does read it, then post an anonymous comment and leave a reference or nickname that only I will understand. Secret signal style. Mysterious, ooh.


3. The internet is full of crap content. Don't be left out.


4. I live for the comments. They are the first thing I check when I come home from work. (Well after I check what time Will & Grace is on. I have become an addict.)

Random photos of views from the office and miscellany. Mum and I went to the Waverly "I hungry" Diner for breakfast today, my fave diner in all of NYC. Pancakes and Canadian bacon and cranberry juice and bottomless peppermint tea later, we're back on the couch rustling up energy for some museum action.

Don't you feel better now that Paris 'Cry Baby' Hilton (aka known as the 'Wailbird' at the NY Post) is back in the slammer?

How heavy, how big, how far?

I ventured into my favourite part of any office today, the stationery store, and fossicked around for a ruler. They have great old school wooden ones....but there's no centimetres on it. Just inches. I joked to the guy that sits next to me, Bob from Florida, that this would be a museum piece in Australia. He looked at me funny. I asked if there was a movement to get the US onto the metric system and he suggested someone might have more luck trying to get the world to move to the Mayan calendar. Pow!

The land of the free

Everyone's talking about Paris's early release from prison and how she's getting preferential treatment. Rather disgusting really. Especially when its sharing the same newspaper pages with an appeal by a former 17 year old black honours student star athlete who was sentenced to 10 years jail because a 15 year old girl performed oral sex on him at a party. He's spent 4 years in jail already for 'molestation'. (If he had have had sex with her he would have been pardoned under the 'Romeo & Juliet' clause, whatever that is. They're weird down south.) And then there's talk that Bush will pardon Libby. Sad sad sad sad sad.

Celebrity Sighting #3

On the way home from work on Tuesday I saw stage and screen actor Frank Langella walking down 8th Ave. He's in a play Frost/Nixon at the moment. I recognised him and had no idea what his name was and the only clues I could give mum was "Old guy, 60 plus, in lots of stuff. A European name." Needle in a haystack. And the next day she got it.

Had an interview with a potential landlord today for a 1.25 bedroom place in the West Village. I put our application in a few days ago and I think she just wanted a look at me. I hope I managed to charm her and convince her that Justin and I are responsible, pleasant tenants. Who knows. They do real estate crazily in this town: our real estate broker, a card carrying member of the Texas Gay Mafia (his words) led us around Downtown last Sunday with his long haired chihuahua, Ramone, in tow and must have mentioned something about margaritas every 30 mins.

Thought I would slip in a dance class this week as work has been not too draining, and went to an Advanced Beginners class at the Alvin Ailey dance school. Beginner schminner. Talk about embarrassing. I couldn't get the instructor's style, I couldn't do the moves and I couldn't remember the choreography. Ana, Lisa, Jodine - I grabbed my bag during a lull and ran. I'm gonna suss out Broadway Dance Centre like Trish suggested. Oh the humiliation!

Mum spent the entire day at Bloomingdales today. Needless to say she's one very happy lady.

And a correction from a previous post: Diana works for Amnesty, not the Audre Lorde Project, and LGBTSTGNC POC stands for Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Two Spirit, Transgender, Nonconfirming People of Color. (Two Spirit is a Native American variation of sexuality). Want to see it used in a sentence?

Will try and take some photos at work tomorrow. There were 5.30pm drinks this arvo cos AARF one a Yahoo award. Beer, cocktails, full spirits...I always end up working somewhere with a drinking problem.

Up the deep end

Well I just got my first assignment: I'm going to be working on the XMR satellite radio website. This project is based in Washington DC so I'll be spending part of every week up there (down there?), apparently. Oh my god. I've got butterflies. This is really happening!

Na zdorovia

It's taken me 3 days to blog about Friday night because its taken me that long to recover. Graham "Like the cracker" Jonas came through like a trouper and asked if I wanted to tag along to a friend's birthday bash at the National, a Russian cabaret and supper club in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn (aka Little Odessa.) Well, I was keen to catch up with Graham and his girlfriend, Janine, and after years of wondering what those Russian function centres in Glen Eira Rd and Carlise St were like, I now know.

We took a 45 min subway ride on the B train to the end of the line (just down the road from Coney Island) and came down the stairs from the elevated railway to a world of Russian signage, Russian newspapers, and people who really did look Russian. Boris, it was amazing. Graham greeted the doormen at the club with something that translated to 'Good evening, comrade' and it was completely surreal from there. The vodka was the only familiar thing. All too familiar. I have to remember to pace myself when I'm on the other side of the world in a room full of strangers, far far from where I live.

Russian lends itself to salsa music, who knew? It was helped along by tight dresses and blue eyeshadow and karaoke-esque, we-couldn't afford-the-original-video background footage on the stage. It also lends itself to Aguillera and Beyonce and Elton John. Hmmm. There was also audience interaction ("You dance-a nice" from the male singer (look for him in American Idol didn't make it outtakes)) and about 12 courses of delicious food.

Best parts of the night: I convinced Janine to come to dance class with me (i found a walk-in hip hop class round the corner at the Alvin Ailey dance studios) and met Diana who is a movie a week kind of gal (who got kicked out of the Peace Corps, cool!) to go and see non-summer blockbusters (like the Hip Hop Film Festival) with. Diana works for a non-profit organisation with the longest non-word acronym I have ever come across: it is a LGBTSTGNC POC centre. If you can guess what that stands for you're a very switched on cat. I'll reveal its meaning in a future instalment.

The train ride home seemed to be only about 10 mins, not sure what happened there. Do they run express at 2.30am? The next day I looked at 8 apartments and I only liked the last two. Perhaps this was when the fog lifted.

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours...

I've put in an application form for an apartment around the corner from the very photogenic Mike, Annie and Annabelle, who are ensconced in the West Village. Yesterday evening I slipped downtown to visit the Greenjens and catch up on their news and meet their beautiful baby Bella.

It was a brief visit as the sweat had barely dried from the apartment search hike and I was so tired I think I was hysterically chirpy, but its the first of many! Mike showed me photos of the place they're in the process of buying and I tried desperately not to think about the dog box hovel that Jus and I will be living in....thank god the Flemington house is at the end of the rainbow.

I had to take a shot of the commercial kitchen-sized oven in their kitchen: like New Yorkers ever cook! That thing is bigger than the stove in The Deanery but Mike suggested that the fastest way to eat in this town is to pick up the phone. I believe him. Mum and I ordered Mexican the other night and before I'd managed to pull my sneakers on and get out of the elevator so I could go and find a bottle of Californian chardy, the food had arrived. And it was $11. And it came with free 'soda'. Did I mention already that I'm gonna get fat here? Luckily I will be walking to work for the next 3 weeks.

The catch is that work is full of food: there are bowls and bowls of lollies, sorry 'candy', that I've never heard of at reception, at the concierge, at the printers, in the kitchens, bagels and muffins and fruit and more lollies in the lunchroom. There is a Starbucks coffee machine so you need not leave the building, there are boxes of Advil and Tylenol everywhere. I'm thinking they may play hard but its all about sugar, caffeine and headache pills when the deadlines loom. The expectation has been set.

The Office

Well, last night I was tired and grumpy after a a day of apartment hunting (more on that later) and the last thing I felt like was hauling myself into an office to begin work at a new job. But the adrenaline kicked in this morning and I got here and its AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME.



The people are smart and friendly, the office itself is schmick and organised, and the ideas, projects and knowledge flying around here are inspiring and progressive (and a bit intimidating).



Most people are quite positive about the Microsoft acquisition, and some made a pretty penny as the share price nearly doubled or something when the annoucement was made.



Anyway, here's a Google Street View of the office (1440, where the empty flag banners are). I shall discreetly take some photos myself and post them later in the week.

Ooof, I'm so relieved this is going to work out.

Celebrity Sighting #2

I think I saw the actress Mary-Louise Parker today in Tribeca. I always thought it was heinous how Billy Crudup split with her when she was 7 months pregnant with his child...What a nightmare. But she looked fine though, if you were worried for a moment there.

I'm gonna be working for Bill Gates

Microsoft is acquiring aQuantive, the parent company of the the firm I will be working for. I'm joining Avenue A Razorfish at an interesting time to say the least. The water cooler talk will be rabid on Monday.