Columbus Day Parade

Pasta, Maseratis, and Pinocchio... I love Italy - Monday is Columbus Day, in case you weren't sure why you don't have to go to work, and here in New York, Columbus Day is more than just remembering the day old Christopher came to America the Bahamas. No, it's a day for Italian-Americans to celebrate how awesome we are. It starts with a parade, full of Italian dancing, Italian songs, and pretty much every Italian thing you can think of. This year, they've brought over Maseratis from the 1930's (and new ones too). And performances by actors in Pinocchio the Italian Musical (performing here in New York for one week only, next week at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College). But after the parade, the Italians take over Grand Central Terminal. For the past few years, Mario Andretti and five of his race-winning cars were there (they may show up again). And then my favorite part: we eat. Antipasto, pasta, chicken parmigiana, sausage and peppers, pastries, and lots of it. And then cap it off with a little Sinatra and Dino. Now THAT is a Columbus Day. Go Italy!

Parade: 5th Ave from 47th up to 72nd St, 11:30am to 3pm.
Grand Central: 42nd St and Park Ave, in the main Vanderbilt Hall.
Food: My Nana's house in the Bronx, but you can't come.

Meet Dylan from Dylan's Candy Bar

Dylan is not only real, but she's a girl - If you eat candy, you know about Dylan's Candy Bar. And if you don't, shame on you. It's 100 times better than FAO Schweetz (inside FAO Schwartz) and I think, maybe even possibly just a tad bit better than IT'SUGAR in Atlantic City. But this isn't an ad for Dylan's (although I fully expect you to go there), it's to tell you that Dylan (who I always assumed was a boy because, well, no real reason, it just made more sense in my head) is actually a girl. And she's awesome. Her name is Dylan Lauren, daughter of Ralph Lauren. And she just wrote a book. About candy and how to use it in decorations and how candy could (and should) be a central part of every home. And if you buy it at Macy's today or at her store tomorrow, she'll sign it for free. Yay!

Book Signings:

Today: Macy's Herald Square, 2-4pm in the Cellar (it's just like it sounds, go down to the basement)
Tomorrow: Dylan's Candy Bar, 1011 3rd Ave at 60th St, 1-3pm.

Then she starts a two month national book tour. She'll be in Hawaii next week if you want to go. She'll return to New York for a few other appearances, so if you can't make it today or tomorrow, hit up one of these:

Saturday, October 30: Neiman Marcus in Westchester, 5000 Northbrook Court, 1-3pm.
Monday, November 15: Lord & Taylor, 424 5th Ave at 38th St, 6-8pm.
Tuesday, November 16: BookSmart Chaplin Book Fair, 100 East End Avenue at 84th St, 6-8pm.
Tuesday, November 30: Lester's, 1534 2nd Ave at 80th St, 4-6pm.
Saturday, December 11: Dylan's Candy Bar, 1011 3rd Ave at 60th St, 1-3pm.

MTA is More Expensive than Buying a Car

This just isn't good news for anybody - Back in March, we heard the MTA had an $800 million budget gap they need to fill in, so in July they slashed service across the City and laid off/eliminated 3500 employees. Somehow, after all that, they STILL have an $800 million gap. How is that possible? What did they use all that money for? TV's in subways? Whatever the reason, they decided to pass the buck to us, approving another fare increase (that's three straight years now) with another increase scheduled for 2013. Mass transit has always been the cheapest way to go (I've been buying 30-day unlimited passes for years). But now that it's up in triple digits (it's $104 now if you hadn't heard), I started doing some math.

My wife and I both work and both buy the month-long pass. $104 x 2 = $208/mo x 12 months = $2496. And since they're charging $1 per new card, and you can't re-use an unlimited card, that's an extra $24/yr. So we're looking at more than $2500 per year for transportation now, for service that is sometimes painfully (and always annoyingly) slower than before.

I just checked Craigslist and we could buy a decent used car for under $1000. And assuming I use my dad's Westchester address to save on insurance (because hey, who doesn't?), after about two years, even with gas and parking, it's less expensive for us to drive ourselves around City than take mass transit. Seriously MTA, how did you manage to make that possible?

Now I'm not going to buy a car because I'm too lazy to search for one and shopping for car insurance doesn't take 15 minutes, no matter what Geico says. But if 2013's fare hike hits the monthly pass, I may have to reconsider. And maybe I won't be the only one.

According to the US Census, more than 54% of NYC's workforce commutes to work (and we all buy the monthly pass), AND we already have the longest average commute of any city in America (39 minutes, and that was before the cuts in July). If it becomes less expensive AND faster for us to just drive to work, don't expect us to have any loyalty to the MTA just because we've used you for years. Seriously MTA, don't mess with the monthly MetroCards any more. Screw with the tourists. Make the fare $5 per ride for all we care. I think your main concern should be the 54% of riders who come back month after month and make up the bulk of your revenue. Don't push us too far or you'll lose us all together.

Naked Cowboy for President

Not even Clinton got Naked - If you've ever been to Times Square in the summer, you've seen the Naked Cowboy. His real name is Robert Burck, and on Wednesday, October 6, he's officially announcing his bid to enter the race for the 2012 election for President of The United States of America. I always wondered what he did when the weather got too cold to walk around in his underwear. Apparently, according to his website, he spends his spare time reading ("no less than 50 books a year") and writing (you can download several of his books for free). I guess after reading Decision Points by George W. Bush, Mr. Cowboy thought to himself, 'Well if he can do it, I can do it.' What party do you think he's affiliated with, anyway? I never pegged him as a Republican and I don't think he can beat out Obama as the Democratic Party's candidate. Maybe there's a Keg Party or a newly formed Bachelorette Party I don't know about.

His announcement is for "Members of the Press Only" and is supposedly closed to the public, but it's in the middle of Times Square on Wednesday at noon. So yeah, it's not really closed to the public.

ps: If you think this will amount to anything more than a publicity stunt, just remember that he also tried to run for NYC mayor but dropped out a few months into the race because there was "too much red tape." That's right, Cowboy, running for President is probably easier. Good luck.

$27.6 Million for Street Signs?

I thought this was a joke - Remember that time you were trying to read a street sign but you couldn't do it in time so you coasted into the middle of the intersection and got into an accident that cost you thousands of dollars in repairs and hospital bills? If only the sign had said "Stop" instead of "STOP." What? That never happened to you? You must have at least a 1st-grade reading level! Wow. You're so smart. I'm jealous of your mad reading skills.

The government is making NYC (and everyone else too) change its uppercase street signs into upper and lowercase. At $110/sign, with a quarter of a million signs in the City, NYC tax payers get to shell out over $27M for the change. I first read this on FOX News, so I assumed it was factually incorrect, but it turned out to be true. Apparently, a recent study has confirmed that people can read Upper and Lower case faster than JUST UPPERCASE. See how you slowed down there at the end of the sentence? Crazy, huh? One tmie I got an eaiml taht siad as lnog as the frsit and lsat lrettes are crorcet, you culod siltl raed ecah wrod fnie. But somehow, it's harder to read BROADWAY than Broadway. Really? Anybody driving in the City that needs extra time to read street signs SHOULDN'T BE DRIVING IN THE CITY!! Take a cab. They can drive with their eyes closed. And I think some of them do.

How did this idea pass anyway? Aren't there better things to spend our money on? Wouldn't changing the font of street signs be somewhere near the bottom of the priorities list? Our national debt is at $13 Trillion, and I don't know what New York City's debt is but I know the MTA would love a check for $27.6M. Maybe that would stave off another fare hike for a while.

NYC School Grades are Slipping

Last year, 84% got A's. This year, 25% got A's - Even the kids in "F" schools know that 25% is lower than 84%. A lot lower. NYC's Department of Education just released this year's progress report which grades each school (how smart their kids are, how is the learning environment, etc) and compares them to other similar schools elsewhere in the City (like is the average 4th-grader in Queens smarter than a 4th-grader in Staten Island? The answer is yes, even though I could have told you that without knowing the results). They claim that the schools are not performing worse than last year, just that the grading criteria used by the Department of Education changed this year and that is why they received lower grades. Apparently, last year they asked each school what grade they felt they deserved, and they all said A. This year, the schools were actually graded. And just to prove to each school how dumb they actually are, they put the progress report results on a completely unintelligible Excel sheet, with the instructions, "If you can't read this, just assume you failed."

ps: If your school failed, don't worry. I failed too. I couldn't make sense of the progress report either. I got my info from the Wall Street Journal. They're smart enough to understand it. :)

March on Washington with Jon Stewart for Free!

All the Cool People are Doing It - If you haven't heard of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, then stop reading this post. But if you're as excited about Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" or Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive" as I am, or the other 175,000 people that have already committed to attending are, then read on. Arianna Huffington (as in Huffington Post, who knew Huffington was an actual person?) promised on the Daily Show that she would provide free bus transportation for anybody who wants to go (from NYC to DC). The bus will pick you up at the HuffPost's Soho headquarters (560 Broadway at Prince Street). More details will come, follow the HuffPostBus on Twitter for the latest info or click this link to reserve your spot. The event takes place October 30, from noon to 3pm. I'm assuming Huffington will also bring us back from DC, but they haven't said anything about that yet.