Author: Logan Lo

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personal

Nightlife in NY

Who’s got oysters?!

nightlife, nyc, new york city, hudson terrace, rooftop

 

Him: Free rum?
Me: I don’t think I can make it.
Him: Free rum at 6:30 and you can’t make it? Who are you?

Met up with some friends at the Hudson Terrace last week. Think that’s why I love NYC – you can be sitting down in front of a court pleading one second and then drinking a nice aged rum with a slice of orange at an open air, open bar the next.

Him: I dunno, not my thing.
Me: Please, you’re single in the big city, on a roof deck, drinking some free rum. The world’s your oyster. (turning to friends) Who’s got oysters?! (we all raise our hands and he laughs and does the same)

This one fella kept shoving people aside to get to the bar, me included. Wanted to get in his face but since I’m not a child, decided against it. But this’s not to say I didn’t entertain myself.

He leaned in to ask the girl sitting next to me to dance and she did. Sitting back down, he went to get them drinks.

Me: He’ll ask you to marry you tonight, you know.
Her: (laughing) What makes you say that?
Me: He seems the type. Kinda pushy. Brave when he’s drunk; dull otherwise. So what’s your deal?
Her: I’m here from Toronto.
Me: Wow, your American is excellent.

We chatted for a bit and when the guy came back, he scowled at me but handed her her drink.

Me: I just saved you from a night of boring.
Her: (nodding) You did, you did.
Me: (turning to her redheaded friend standing in front of us) Hey Red, I’m going home to see my lovely fiancee, why don’t you take my seat before Mr. Dull takes my seat and annoys your friend all night.
Her: (laughing) You got it, mister.

Never a dull moment if you don’t want it here.

Location: the office
Mood: insanely busy
Music: my God, just confess, you want it, you want it, you’re just like the rest
YASYCTAI: Take up the invitations. (180 mins/1 pt)
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Categories
dating personal

Dodging the Bullet in NYC – Part 1

Night outside Lincoln Center with an advertisement

Him: Do you believe in karma?

Me: Nope – not at all. It goes against everything Christians believe in AND history has shown us that rarely do people get what we deserve.

Him: My mom does, and she’s more Catholic than me.

Me: Then (with all due respect) she doesn’t read the Bible enough. Ecclesiastes 9:11. God is not an insurance agency.

There was a time that I thought I’d be marrying this one girl. Didn’t happen, obviously. Realize now that it was such a good thing it didn’t happen – we’dve made each other just miserable. Miserable.

Thought about Caligirl recently. Heard through the grapevine a while ago that she’s having a kid.

Thought about all of this because my buddy with the map problem just found out his ex is marrying someone else.

Me: You always dwell on what you don’t have. It must be tiring for you. You should stop, don’t you think?

Him: She gets a guy who loves her I guess. He knows about indiscretions

Me: (laughing) You want to be him? With a scumbag wife? We laugh at him. I laugh at him. She was banging you while engaged to him. That’s who you wanna emulate?
As an old dude, lemme tell you this: there’re countless times in your life y’gonna think that you’re dying. And one day, you’re gonna be right.

For the most part, though, you’re turning into something better.

For the most part, you’re dodging a bullet.

Silhouettes outside Lincoln Center with an advertisement

Cars’re honking outside my apartment like crazy. Found out Madonna’s shooting something in the hood.

It’s cool the first time; annoying the 20th.

Just want some peace and quiet to write. Earplugs it is. Stupid Madonna…

Location: home
Mood: annoyed
Music: wait in driving rain For the bus that never came
YASYCTAI: Ride it out, it’ll get better. It always does. Except once. (time/2 pts)

Categories
business

Comfortable shoes

Time Square Subway nyc

 

Me: When I can’t sleep, I look at the clock and hope it’s close to the time I gotta wake up. This means I got some sleep.
Her: Not me, I hope that it’s early yet, this means I can sleep some more.
Me: That’s a major difference between the two of us; you know you’ll probably fall back asleep. I know I won’t.

Been running around the city like crazy these days. In court again, but not for myself. Clients. It’s interesting because most lawyers never go to court. Figure it’s about time I did. Like most things you find as an adult, it’s a lotta Hurry up and wait.

The grandeur of being a lawyer’s a lot less when you see 100 of them crammed into a small courtroom yelling at each other.

One of the main things I’ve learned is to invest in more comfortable shoes.

That’s probably true for most occupations, actually.

Location: my new brown (p)leather chair
Mood: busy
Music: We get ever so hot (Whether we like it or not)
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Categories
personal

Taking the punches

Location: waiting for meetings
Mood: accomplished
Music: I’m all choked up and you’re ok.

Lennon downtown, nyc

Me: (gripping seat) Watch that car, watch that car! (later) It’s a red light, it’s a red light! Slow down! (still later, exiting car) You’ve really gotta be more careful.

Him: (relaxed) You worry too much.

It’s been 23 years since my father taught me how to drive. It appears we’ve changed roles.

HG and I have been seeing a buncha relatives these days. Here’s another conversation between HG and one about her finger.

Her: It hurts.

Him: Yeah, I know what you mean. When I was 10, my cousin slammed a door into my toe. It was all black and blue and then my nail fell off. Believe me, that hurt like hell – I mean, that is some pain. I can still remember it to this day. (thinking) Oh, and when I was 20, I got hit with a grenade.

That guy’s one tough fella. Which is pretty much the opposite of me.

But at the very least, know how to throw a punch. It amazes me how many people – guys in particular, simply don’t. The chance of me getting into a fight now at 37’s pretty slim. But still, surprised it’s not something people pick up. Then again taking a punch’s probably more important.

Check that, taking a punch’s definitely more important.

YASYCTAI: Learn to take the punches. (time/2 pts)

Categories
business personal

What’s for sale?

It the cynical side of me wondering what’s for sale

PBR for far less than $40 in NYC

Here in NYC, wealthy hipsters drink PBR as an ironic statement of aspiring to the working class. Sensing a marketing windfall, the makers of the drink have decided to package the decidedly inexpensive brew as a luxury beer in China. How high end? $40 a bottle high end.

Silly Chinese – sophisticated Americans would never fall for such bald marketing.

Unless, of course, you consider that the exact same thing takes place here with Stella Artois.

It’s far closer to Miller beer than craft Belgiam lager in Europe, where it’s anecdotally considered cheap brew. In fact, it’s considered discount beer in France, called wife beater in the UK, and barely breaks 10% of beer consumption in its native Belgium.

Here, however, their marketing team went with the slogan Perfection has its price for much of the 2000s and we lapped it up. Quite literally.

Which is not to say that I’m not a sucker for slick marketing myself.

Just a month ago, said that the developers of the NYC mosque were wrong to build so close to ground zero but that it’s their right. Found that there’s already a mosque in the area and it’s been there for some 40 years with no outrage for the past nine.

This reminded me of that Stone Temple Pilots lyric that goes, What’s real and what’s for sale?

Consider what’s real with outspoken critic of the proposed mosque, Rick Lazio, who’s hoping to be our next governor. Perhaps that it’s an election year and he’s trailing the Democratic front runner in the race for governor by some 60%. It’s his outrage that seems to be for sale.

Since changed my mind about the mosque. After all, changing one’s mind in light of new information is never a bad thing. What is a bad thing is using a national tragedy for personal gain, at the expense of the national discourse. For that, despite being one of maybe two moderate conservatives in NYC, he’ll never get my vote. Ever.

Cheap beer in fancy packaging is also probably a bad thing. Then again, Stella Artois is doing quite well around the world. Regardless of geography, it seems it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s for sale – whether that be $40 beer in China or a mosque downtown.

Location: a wrestling mat
Mood: sore
Music: One time a thing occurred to me
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Categories
personal

TCO

Location: home
Mood: ambitious
Music: loaded god complex, cock it and pull it

Cookies in NYC

For those of you reading at the new digs, what do you think? Thanks to Mildred Fierce for moving me over from Blogger to WordPress; if you need something similarly done, she’s the one to call.

There’ll be glitches here and there for the next week or so as I clean things up and (re)tag and organize all 588 entries I’ve written.

Need to get a life.

———-

In college, needed some spare dough so I delivered cookies. Huge 12″ to 24″ cookies.

You’re delivering cookies to co-eds, think about it, my buddy Scott said.

So I signed up. Lemme tell you a few things:

  • Yes, only women order 12″ to 24″ cookies.
  • No, it turns out that these are not the type of women I, or most people, dream of meeting.
  • I made $600 that summer.
  • Cornell has lots of hills.
  • A new transmission cost me $1,500.
  • My total cost of ownership earnings that summer: 5 pounds of fat and -$900.

Point’s that there’s a total cost to doing any activity. Using that Zipcar service so that means that while I’m spending about $150 a month, that also means that I’m not spending $350 a month in car payments, $150 a month in insurance, $50 a month on gas, $400 a month on parking.

My total cost of ownership of a non-car is now -$800 a month.

On an unrelated matter, the book-burning pastor in Florida gets to vent. But what’s the total cost of ownershipa that action?

YASYCTAI: Before you do anything, what’s the TCO? (60 mins/1 pts)
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Categories
personal

Hospitals

Fear is forward. No one is afraid of yesterday

Logan Lo at the hospital - again
Her: Thanks for staying.
Me: (laughing) Where else was I going to go?

 

Not sure one could say I’ve bad luck – got a roof over my head, running water and all my family and body parts. Can’t really say I’ve good luck either.

Suppose you might call what I’ve got peculiar luck.

The kind where you spend a dollar to win a dollar.

Bout two weeks ago, found out that there was about a week’s gap between my old heath insurance and my new one. Joked to my boss that I’d try to stay outta the emergency room.

Next morning, bright and early, hear a slam and “Oh no.” Turns out HG smashed her fingers in the metal door. Blood everywhere. Everywhere. Next thing you know, in the emergency room. For hours.

Been to the emergency room four times in the past five years. But was fine each time.

Kinda the story of my life, yeah?

This chick named Renata Adler said that, Fear is forward. No one is afraid of yesterday.

Try to tell myself to hold on until storms pass, wait for the joy. In the meanwhile, insurance’s back.

Off to fencing. People swinging sharp metal objects around.

What could go wrong?

———-

Met up with the fellas last night for beer and $0.10 wings. 60 wings for $6. Gotta love NYC.

On the way back, helped this pretty German tourist get to Columbus Circle.

NYC’s quite the town.

Location: not the hospital
Mood: still fulla wings
Music: Schön ist es auf der Welt zu sein

Categories
personal

Integrity

Location: in fronta screens
Mood: determined
Music: found myself there, in a bit of hot spot

Gated Apartment downtown NYC

Said once that integrity means that you’re the same person in public as y’are in private.

Suppose that’s why I’m a little disappointed in the ADL, a group that’s for religious freedom – except for Muslims.

The pointa my story about the racist judge that ruled against an anti-Chinese law was that, to his credit, he’d enough integrity to see that ruling otherwise based upon his own personal feelings was wrong.

Currently, there is a woman running for a position in my organization whom I dislike because of her constant ad hominem attacks.

Voting against her. This’s a big deal cause we’re a small organization and my vote really counts.

She’ll surely gonna think that it’s causesa my personal feelings, but the fact’s that she cannot do the job – it involves attention to detail and that trait she doesn’t possess.

My weariness of dealing with her makes me wanna just let her win but my integrity won’t.

Gonna be quite the fight. Luckily, got a strong belief I’m right and a fairly large bottle of antacid.

One or the other should carry me through.

YASYCTAI: If you’re all talk, you’re just an empty box like a radio or TV. Don’t be all talk. (5 mins/1 pt)

Categories
personal

Tragedies fulla joy

The Empire State Building

 

There really isn’t a happily ever after, you know? Children believe that. Adults believe what this fella Bernard Malamud said – that Life is a tragedy full of joy.

You hold on past the tragedy for the next wave of joy. And be grateful for the joy.

———-

Speaking of children, do you remember the old Aesop’s fable about the mouse and the lion?

Today’s Mother Teresa’s bday. A few months back here in NYC, there was a controversy cause the owners of the Empire State Building refused to light their building blue and white for her birthday, which made some of the local government – the city council – upset.

After all, they did change the colours for the Simpsons and Popeye, why not a woman who gave her life helping the less lucky, yeah?

Fast forward to this week when the owners needed help from – you guessed it – the city council to block a new rival building from competing with it two blocks away. The vote was 47-to-1 allowing the building to go up.

See what happens when you don’t pay attention in grade school?

Location: yesterday, the hospital (long story)
Mood: creative
Music: i’ll wear your colors til you come back home to me

Categories
personal

Yes? Yes.

(no, there’s no sound)

Me: Hi there.
Her: (looking through camera) I got you.
Me: (laughing) Alright. Point it down.
Her: I have your entire head in the frame.
Me: OK
Her: (four seconds later) OH! (laughs)
Me: Yes?
Her: Yes.

Location: 15 mins ago, having drinks@28th and Park
Mood: content
Music: Don’t you understand? I already have a plan
YASYCTAI: Consider stopping this blog. We’re home, after all. (60 mins/2 pts)