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Just caught this gem of an item on Gawker about how 15 feet of sewer water entered the garage for folks at 90 West Street in downtown NYC, destroying all in its path. I’ve gotta say, I’m truly looking forward to whatever ridiculous excuse the garage – or the city – or someone else – comes up with in order to not pay for the damage.

Okay, just needed to note this somewhere. As I’m on a plane to Seattle tonight, I’m listening to my iPod as I churn along through my RSS and emails, and I really needed to tell someone that “trying to play me out as if my name was Sega” has to be one of the better lyrics ever put to music. Okay, maybe not that good, but it’s up there.

That is all.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been seeing an ad in Facebook where my primary feed is like almost every day, or at least whenever I’m actually logging in. Apparently Dave Winer isn’t.

Last Tuesday, I was headed to Sea-Tac airport from downtown Seattle via taxi when the driver struck up a conversation. As much as I’m usually BlackBerrying it up on my rides to and from airports via whatever mode of transportation I’m a passenger in, I’m always game to have a good conversation with someone, and this cabbie had some great things to say. He was asking me where i was from, and after I told him New Jersey, he shared some stories about being on the East Coast, and we talked about airlines a bit, how pricing has changed over the last few years with airfare, and so on. In the middle of the chat, he refers to a song that’s playing on the radio, and asks me if I would go for a trivia question. Being the stathead that I like to be (random knowledge isn’t ever really useless, you know), I’m game. So, the question he asks is this: What nation was the first to recognize the independence of the United States.

“Good question,” I replied. I’m figuring, of course, that this is either a trick question (and it’s like England) or that it’s something else on the easy fare, such as France or Germany. I rattle through five or six countries, and he is definitely getting a kick out of it. After throwing out a clue regarding Casablanca, I finally got it – Morocco. Turns out, Morocco was the first to hop on board. France, I believe he said, was third or fourth to do so.

Now, I know he wasn’t trying to teach me a lesson as a slacker American who should know these things, but it occurred to me that I’d never learned that, anywhere. We all know about the duke whose slaying caused a World War (or was that an archduke?), but who was the first country to recognize our own nation’s independence. Of course, the driver was from Morocco, has family there, and travels there a few times a year. But after having this discussion, and hearing the man’s legitimate happiness for being an American citizen now, and talking about all the great things he has an opportunity for here that he didn’t have back in his home nation brought everything down to brass tacks. We all just don’t get it. Sure, we all can’t stand one political candidate or another. We all hate paying too much in taxes, or getting stuck in traffic, or whatever, but at the end of the day, I guess we’ve all got it pretty good. Kind of sucks that we get to a point where we’re jaded about reality, but it is what it is. That being said, now I can see why whenever a friend or colleague goes on a sabbatical or some sort of missionary-type trip and comes back with a whole new way of looking at things – one that sticks around for a while, too – that this is pretty much exactly the same thing.

How do we fix this? I don’t know. It’s not as much about saying “we don’t teach our kids enough xyz” as it is about the fact that short attention span theatre isn’t just a funny show on cable – it’s a reality. Maybe I’m just getting older and starting to ponder things in a different way, or maybe it’s just that I spend entirely too much time on airplanes. Either way, there’s lots of crap that pisses me off on a daily basis, some of which I can control or have input in, some of which I don’t feel like I have input in. In reality, we’ve all got some sort of input somewhere, sometime. It’s just how we actually apply ourselves rather than going on our own happy, merry ways over and over again.

Thanks for listening!

/rant

I most certainly like this shirt from the Firefox folks, but I’m not sure that everyone will “get” that the pointer means “click,” do you?

Why didn’t we have the dual-sectioned business card holder all along? WANT!

Earlier today, someone forwarded this fantastic IM conversation regarding the silly way in which seating is set up, numbers-wise, in the IZOD Center in the Meadowlands, formerly the Continental Airlines Arena.

D (3:10:01 PM): hey id like to file a complain with the folks at the meadowlands who think its cool to have the front section for a concert be sections 7, 8, and 9

B (3:10:10 PM): huh?

D (3:10:20 PM): the 3 front section on the floor

D (3:10:25 PM): are sections 7, 8, and 9

D (3:11:38 PM): therefore, when i got my DMB seat assignments yesterday, and saw that I had section 1, row C, there was a moment of pure exultation, prior to remembering this assinine seating arrangement

B (3:14:04 PM): that makes no sense

D (3:14:13 PM): its bass ackwards!!!

…

D (3:15:39 PM): we need to rise up against this

D (3:16:03 PM): *disclaimer: i am NOT upset with the warehouse

D (3:16:19 PM): just the dyslexic seating designer for the meadowlands arena

Upon further review, I must completely agree. Sure, there *are* some concerts where 1, 2 and 3 are right up against the stage, but that’s where the stage is dead center (and tiny) in the arena. I’d be pretty pissed off, too. Is it really that hard to “renumber” some sections so there’s actual logic in play, when the “seats” you’re talking about are in no way permanent?

Just wanted to drop a congratulatory blog post to my office pal Tim, who has gotten engaged to his girlfriend just recently. Good stuff, bro!

My mom is up for re-election in Matawan, where she’s been mayor since 2006. Just thought I’d wish her good luck here on my blog – and will be keeping an eye out here at the Asbury Park Press, which will hopefully give us good news later on today.

For more, here is a recent story from Karen Bowes in the Independent, and another one by Sametta Thompson in the APP.

Well, leave it to Thrillist to yet again blow up the spot on Radegast Hall & Biergarten, which now everyone and their brother will be at now. Maybe that means I can get a table at Chumley’s when I want to.

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