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sigh Wednesday June 30
tomorrow (thursday) i'm going to altoona to visit my grandmother. back on saturday.
why is this website turning into a forum of empty promises? it must mean i am busy.
side news: might be able to finish the degree at a different four-year college. cooool.
ipod Monday June 28
the better part of this afternoon was reserved for posting. instead, i was consumed by the internet, trying to find a decent mp3 player that does everything i want. believe it or not, that's actually been quite difficult. there's the ipod, but it doesn't record. not so good for a concert bootlegger. there's a creative one, but it's a flash-based player, so it can't store much. there's a nice one that has everything, but the service is shoddy and the unit costs $350. in general, there's nothing on the market that is what i want.
how frusterating. and now, i don't even have time to post because i have to work.
oh, and aya got her car towed this morning. i had to help her retrieve it, and that took part of my day from me.
burnt
this past weekend has been a departure from the life-as-usual out here...some highlights include:
- girls on prozac who like mark
- the dangers of working at a bar
- why i enjoy walks on long beach, not long walks on the beach
- and more
the rest comes tomorrow. but for tonight, i'm putting my sunburnt self to bed.
mark versus the bank, part ii Wednesday June 23
i applied for a new social security card last thursday so that i could go get my new york state driver's license so that i could go to the bank and get a checking account using a fake address, because, i, like jen, am a terrorist.
however, what i failed to realize is that when my social security card came in the mail this tuesday, it had my address pre-printed on the envelope -- which is theoretically acceptable to the bank. what's more, who is more trustworthy than the federal government? they had to take it.
i had my replacement card sent to the store, not to my home. i don't trust the mail sorting that occurs on the radiator by the front door of my apartment building. especially with a social security card.
so, i successfully opened a checking account using the address of the store as my home address. michael and aya don't have my home address on the record books anywhere, so i could move tomorrow into another place with no written lease and be completely shielded from documentation on my residency. it's kind of sexy. i'm not a privacy nut, but i like screwing with the broken system, because it screwed with me last week.
my message to the authors of the usa patriot act: mail is not a good form of identification. all it takes is one "terrorist" working in a mail room somewhere.
privacy in this country is a sad, sad catch-22. we have been indoctrinated with this free country bull for so long that we actually believe we have some sort of right to hide from the government. there is merit in that, certainly. however, the need for personal identification for tax collection, social welfare, international travel, and so on is pressing, and banks, state agencies, and utility companies have even utilized social security as a means of private identification -- leading to the ridiculously insecure system we currently operate under. this isn't the nineteenth century anymore. people aren't homesteading in north dakota, and let's wake up and realize that the government isn't going anywhere, so let's at least equip it with the information it needs to handle such a daunting task.
the result of our insufficiency? identity theft. the result of that? people are more concerned about their privacy, which means that any politician who attempts to develop a federal identification system that is more secure that social security will commit political suicide. having a social security number also implies that you are a citizen or legal resident, and this other, new number could also be issued to immigrants, regardless of their legitimacy. we clearly cannot deport the millions (literally, millions) of immigrants we take in this country yearly, so we should allow them access to this system such that we can keep better information on just who is in this country.
so, america, because you are afraid to give away anything about yourself for fear of some big evil someone using it against you, you've accepted a system which allows an evil someone to take your information and use it against you.
people are too stupid to realize the underlying issues, and instead they throw about words like "freedom" and "liberty" without ever thinking whether or not they are relevant to the situation. it's like the gun owners. they're all afraid of the federal government takin' them there guns away. i want to live in a society where it's easier for me to get a bank account using my real address than using a fake one. forget revamping social security and federal identification, can i revamp my society?
oh, i also have a library card using the false address. they'll never find me! heh heh heh muwahwah heeeeheee heeeMUWAHAAHWAHAWHW--
mark versus the bank i Wednesday June 16
yesterday was a lot of things: my day off, the day before michael left for japan, and the day that i got my first piece of mail at my new address. these circumstances dovetailed nicely; i want to open a bank account in new york, and that takes time, money (which i had given to michael for safekeeping), and a proof of address and identity. proof of identity is simple; i have a passport and driver's license (from illinois).
supposedly, "america's most convenient bank". i don't think so.
i proudly walked into the commerce bank on 71st road and queens boulevard. commerce is a newcomer in new york city; chase and citibank both have evolved to investment and corporate banking behemoths, and as a result they have come to care very little about consumer banking. fees galore, terrible hours, you know, the standard annoying bank stuff. commerce is trying to build capital so that way they can become a huge behemoth that charges outlandish fees and ignores the little guy, but to get there, they need, well, capital.
they offer cookies when you go inside. they smile and ask you how you're doing. it's walmart banking.
i showed them my driver's license and my piece of mail: my last paycheck that michelle at wpgu so nicely mailed to me. however, michelle had scribbled out my roscoe address and written my new york address instead. i realized that this might be an issue, so i left the envelope sealed. sadly, that's not good enough. and in the way of todd at the dmv, they find every possible way to not help me [this conversation is not verbatim, but it is mostly accurate in content]:
bank assistant michelle: we're going to need some piece of identification of where you live, don't you have any utility bills?
mark: no, i pay a lump-sum to my landlord, and it includes all utilities. i have a cell phone, but that bill hasn't come yet.
michelle: i see. well, don't you have a lease that you signed with that landlord?
mark: no, i pay him on a month-to-month basis, and i'm actually not contractually bound.
michelle: so you don't have anything proving your address?
mark: no. well, what time do you close tonight?
michelle: we close at eight tonight. [ed: their hours make them convenient apparently]
mark: [with frustrated laugh, enjoying ridiculousness of situation] tell you what then, i'll swing by again at 7:59, and i will cook you and your branch manager and whoever else wants to come dinner at my apartment. you can watch me put the key in the lock, and then tomorrow you can say to your computer terminal, 'yes, he does live there'.
michelle: [nervous laugh, trying something new] you said you were working on austin street. do you have a pay stub that has your address on it?
mark: it's my brother's business, so i get paid by business check; they aren't processed by an accountant.
michelle: you could get a new york state driver's license, we will accept that as a valid form of residence.
so i left michelle and went to the store to use the internet and look at the new york state department of motor vehicles web page. the requirements for getting a new york state license with an out-of-state license are a social security card, the former id, and another form of id (i have a passport). nowhere do you have to prove your address. armed with this information, i returned to michelle's desk at commerce bank.
mark: michelle, i don't mean to keep bothering you if you really can't help me, but i found some stuff out.
michelle: [confused, but 'along for the ride'] okay...
mark: the dmv doesn't require proof of address. they only require identification, so what this means is that i can go there and tell them whatever address i want to, and they'll put that on my license. i could tell them that i live at 42nd street and broadway, and they'll believe me. maybe even "1 trump tower". so while i understand that you take a NYS driver's license, that's in effect no better than taking this piece of mail that i have right here. in fact, if you do indeed require that i go get a license, i think i'm going to make up an address just to prove the point to you guys that your address verification system is in serious need of overhaul. you do this to prevent fraudulent accounts, and i've just underscored how one would go about easily creating such an account with the rules you've prescribed. tell you what, i'll null out all my consultant fees if you'll open an account for me.
michelle: i can open an account for you, the problem is the second-day verification. you see, after we submit the account information and open the account, we have an office in new jersey that does what's called 'second-day verification'. they verify all of the details of the account to check for fraud and other things, and if that fails, your account will be closed.
mark: interesting. so these people are going to look at the address i've provided and determine whether or not i actually live there? you know, in japan, they can do that-- the government knows where everyone lives and has lived. when you move, you just fill out a form. sure, here, you can't get away with that; people are privacy nazis. anyway, i bet the federal government would like to get ahold of you guys, the people in that office. the government can't find anyone, really, and now you're telling me your people can verify tomorrow whether or not i actually live at this address [pointing to the mail, mocking the non-existent logic behind the entire process]. i don't even want to know how they're going to do that. maybe they want to come over for dinner.
michelle: [feigning confusion] let me get my manager to see if there isn't anything we can do.
and i could give you that conversation, but it's the same old same old. to get me to go away, they indicated that if i brought a signed letter from my landlord indicating that i lived there, along with a copy of his driver's licesnse, and a signed letter from my brother, indicating that i work for him, and a copy of his driver's license, i might be able to get somewhere. only problem is that my landlord doesn't have a driver's license. the only id he has is his passport visa from mexico, and i wasn't going to ask him to photocopy parts of his passport just so i could get a bank account.
so, no bank account for mark for now.
punchline: i went to the forest hills branch of the queens library to get a card with my new piece of mail. they didn't take it either, and the woman looked up at me through the top of her glasses and said, "don't you have a checking account? i mean, even if you don't get utility bills, everyone's got a checking account..."
crosswords ii
[please reference the previous post if you don't know what this is about]
abstract
arthur wynne developed the first crossword in 1913 for the new york world. his puzzle was shaped as a diamond with a hollowed-out center, and while the concept was the same, the format was a far cry from the standard rectangular style that most puzzle authors use today (1).
crosswords
there was an interesting article in the sunday new york times magazine about iran's nuclear development. i turned the last page of the article to find, though, the crossword. so i began on it, remembering what naomi said about the sunday new york times crossword: it's the hardest of the week. and she wasn't kidding.
michael assisted, and we quickly resorted to certain resources (google) for answers to the lesser-known clues. lesser-known being the "river in france blah blah blah" type. c'mon, if the answer isn't "seine", should the average american care to know it? do i expect a frenchman to be able to name anything other than the mississippi?
michael and i then left for the store, and in the elevator on the way down, i had a thought: why hasn't someone created a crossword solver that in addition to using the standard methods (i.e., "i know the pattern is a--i-n, what words could this be?"), also uses google and a thesaurus to generate answers. michael initially showed excitement, but then suggested that simply crossword puzzle writers would change their style of clue writing to fool the computer program. i suggested that the software could read large datasets of puzzles to learn them...such that if the style were changed, it would only take a finite number of puzzles before the software had yet again mastered it. and so the whole conversation about "artificial intelligence" came into full swing.
i still wish i were an engineering student for this kind of thing -- i would propose this as a research project and study it for the next two or three years. certainly, there is not such a particular need for automated crossword solutions, but the more general concept of interpreting query results (i.e., the search results) in light of the question (i.e., the clue). and i think that that's amazing. since i don't have time to write this software, though, i have instead decided to outline its function, methods, and capability as if i were to write it.
i'm tired at the moment, but i'm going to do this tomorrow or the next day. it will probably be the nerdiest post i've had in awhile, and most people will probably be better off skipping it. but when google hands a $300k/year job to some young theorist for making this idea come to life on his own, i can claim say that i thought of it first. not that that does me any good or guarantees me anything.
quick, to the patent office!
that's right, because in america, it's never about the science -- it's about the money behind the science. this is one reason i left the engineering department.
oi! Tuesday June 15
oi, there's a $139 fare on american for the weekend of june 25th. who wants to come visit?
karaoke Sunday June 13
who would have thought that karaoke would be so popular throughout the world...?
the store is now renting a karaoke system, and michael and i were at mike's apartment tonight at about eleven-thirty when he got a frantic call from aya: "how do you play the songs?" she asked; apparently, there were customers who wanted to sing.
mike and i went right away, and i stayed there for two hours serving customers, playing songs for people, and singing along in the background. amazing, any other night, it would have been dead by two in the morning. get a karaoke system, and they flock. go figure. i'm already working on my repertoire for when no one else wants to sing. so far i've got:
poison - every rose has its thorn
cake - i will survive
the beatles - with a little help from my friends
suggestions on what else i could do? sadly, they don't have the travis version of "baby one more time."
right Friday June 11
i saw bubba ho-tep last night. highly recommended, it is entertaining.
ok, so as soon as i start talking about getting in the healthy habit of posting every day, i take three days off. must..... do........ laundry.
lost in translation Tuesday June 8
i'm reading a japanese website looking for conversation partners in new york city -- and i come across one board titled, "how do you say this in english?" i started reading it to see if i couldn't help at all and i came across a girl trying to indicate to her boyfriend that they had grown apart, their love had faded, whatever. we've got a thousand phrases that'd work -- but apparently japanese has "自然消滅", which translates directly as 'natural extinction'. this is what the girl had suggested, asking if it was correct.
"baby, i just can't do it anymore. we're naturally extinct."
i never trust my dictionary for precisely this reason.
prolification
to make up for an entire year of crap, i've made it a goal to post at least six times a week. once i get in that habit, i'll make a new goal beyond that to make it six well-thought, good posts a week: new york city provides a lot of fodder for discussion. i can't wait for todd to get here. jen's coming down from boston on thursday, even.
weekend in the city Monday June 7
following is a semantics discussion, skip to below for the actual content if you're not up for it.
i don't know why manhattan is called 'the city'. certainly, i'm far within the limits of what is considered 'new york city', so it seems far more appropriate to call manhattan, well, manhattan. however, as part of my initiative to sound more like a new yorker (not just in the lack of a midwestern accent but also in vocabulary choices), i have adopted 'the city'. semantically, it means manhattan, but is more commonly used among new york city inhabitants who do not live in manhattan. manhattan-residing new york city inhabitants have no need to say 'the city', as those who tend to live on the penninsula rarely leave it; they would likely refer to queens as 'where the airports are'.
friday night i didn't have to work, so i went to meet up with my friend selene from high school. she's been out here since the fall of 2001, and when nathan and i came out to new york that november, we had lunch with her. (that was, by the way, still the scariest flight i've ever taken: two months after september 11th. nate and i held hands on takeoff.)
some of selene's friends are involved in theatre, and they were holding a benefit party to help defray the costs of putting on a show. selene had invited me to join this party, and i left from the store to go, uh, 'into the city'. she works at a sports bar on the upper east side, and the second floor of the bar was rented out for the purpose of this benefit. there was live music, pool, a raffle, and overall, it was a great time. selene and i, though, spent most of our time losing at pool and talking. we did some catching up, but i try not to do it.
i've always believed that catching up is what you do when you no longer have any real reason to speak with a person other than some sort of socially-constructed obligation. i don't like catching up. when i met up with nancy in march in london, she said to me after about five minutes of conversation that she felt like it was that i had never left, and that i was just a friend who went on a holiday and had just returned. while she may not have realized it, i took that as a large compliment.
nancy and i didn't need to talk about what i had done in the past four months. certainly, some of it came up out of necessity, but it wasn't the worn-out standard obligatory relationship that i have with some people: you 'catch up' with them merely because it gives you fodder for conversation, and when that runs out, there's nothing left. i'd rather avoid these situations, because i idealistically would like to believe that there is more substance to my interpersonal relationships than a roll-call of life happenings. and if that is what those relationships devolve into, then i don't try to salvage them for the sake of what they used to be, i try to accept the changing tide of people -- with no hard feelings, hopefully -- and keep going. this is what i strive to, but i know that i fail in this frequently.
the odd couples Saturday June 5
we have a lot of odd couples that patronize modus vivendi. this week, a guy named erik with a kind-of mullet sat down at the bar with his girlfriend emily. emily looks like a vespa-driving graphic designer with curly hair. she has the glasses to match the stereotype, and spoke of finishing her 'drawings'. i served these people, and talked to them as any good barkeep should.
tommy, the chinese sushi chef, likes watching television at the store during the day. cartoon network is one favorite, and i can't deny its entertainment value. today, though, was the sci-fi channel. when mullet man erik noticed this, he became engrossed: clearly, i was serving two huge nerds. we talked about star trek (which i never really got into) and the various generations of the show. somehow magic and role-playing games came up. dice games. all in all, it might as well have been a D&D meet-up of two people.
now, i never really got into all that stuff, but i have a place in my heart for it after knowing a few people who were into it (mostly in high school). however, because i wanted to give good service, i played along; a little BS goes a long way.
emily was really getting into the RPG discussion more than i was, even though erik was talking with me. you could tell that these two were perfect for each other, and it was a real happy thing to see. she's quite pretty; she reminded me of a cuter version of "anna moss" from high fidelity. at any rate, it was nice to see a really nerdy pair of people find each other, because you could tell that they really appreciated the other person's interests.
one of the stories the couple told me was that of how they found out how old the other was: they intially met and dated for about three week without asking, and she assumed he was about 28. he thought her to be about the same. he acts young, and she acts old. he's 38 and she's 21. usually i would cry foul; i would say that something doesn't add up. but they'd already been together for two years -- and well, they belonged together. she even loves his mother.
then there's the story of the strange european accented creepy old dude and the hot young indian chick couple (yes, todd, she's like, schnucks-grocery-store attractive). he looks like he was a high-end roadie (maybe even a guitar tech) for a nineties pop act. i say "high-end" roadie: average roadies move equipment and set up drums, but these guys are your sound techs, your riggers, what have you. the guys you couldn't do the show without. but i digress.
he is about forty-five, and he still has prominent ear piercings that don't match his leathery skin. his hair is out of control, but never stylish: always uncouth. he has a french accent that sounds intentionally sophisticated. you can tell that he was The Guy Who Gets All The Chicks, and he's trying to hold on to that for as long as possible. i suppose that it's totally reasonable that a beautiful, young, seemingly intelligent 21-year-old (that's a guess on her age) should be interested in and attracted to a weathered, old 45-year-old who happens to have an oh-so-convenient western european french accent. oh so convenient. and it probably helps that he tips eight dollars on a bill of $30.
who's your [sugar] daddy now?
elmhurst Thursday June 3
in a previous post, i incorrectly stated that my new apartment was in jackson heights. while it is very close, i actually live in elmhurst. certainly, a name means nothing, but this transcript indicates that 11373 is "believed to be the most culturally diverse ZIP code in the nation". a block from my house there are lots of koreans, i live with a mexican and a black guy, the chinese are around, italians, jewish. the list goes on.
i had the day off today, so i took the time to explore. i walked the span of the neighborhood from the roosevelt station (west end) all the way to queens center mall (east end). i stopped in the park off of elmhurst avenue, where i continued my book on japanese reading comprehension, and then i walked to the elmhurst station (more or less the geographical center). there is a large asian supermarket that i've visited with michael and juan -- they have good stuff. there's also a shanghaiese restaurant that tried for lunch today. the tables on either side of me were speaking in japanese, and i had so much food that i had to take some home -- despite that i spent only $6, including tax and tip. next to this restaurant is a vietnamese place and a thai place, which i will have to try.
there's also a man on the street corner who sells from a hot dog vendor cart, but instead of hot dogs and soft pretzels, he vends steamed dumplings and other edibles. oh, and there's a twenty-four hour laundromat three blocks from me.
in short, i don't just like my new apartment, i dig the whole neighborhood.
overworked, underpaid Wednesday June 2
i've been scheduled for six days a week for two weeks in a row now. if aya schedules me for another six next week, there's going to be heads rolling. the point of coming to new york was to take some time off from the girigiri of seventeen hours of school credit on top of two jobs.
yet, the store is at a crux right now, because the remodeling is starting to catch up in terms of our clientbase. the sushi bar customers are starting to increase while the tea customers are dropping out. mike's busy enough as it is, so i've been doing extra work to get everything done that needs to get done. i get that characteristic from my mom, so i think she deserves a shout-out right now. thanks, mom.
i stained some wood last night, i installed the camera system yesterday, streamed it through the internet, and i'm working on a new inventory system for liquor to help better manage bottle counts.
in short, i'm becoming a manager, but i'm not getting paid as one. almost like an internship. management experience is good when you can get it, and luckily, i've been only managing inventory and other things -- not people. that's a whole other ballgame i'm not ready for, particularly when i'm younger than all of the other employees. particularly when two don't even speak english or japanese (our sushi chef is from fujien china, but he's a very good chef).
i also started reading a book on chinese.
new home!
look, pictures of my new apartment!
want to come visit? give me two weeks advance notice and we're good to go.
