Here's another collection of photos, this time preceded by restaurant reviews.
Over the weekend I visited New York City for the first time. (Yes, I'm too old to have never been to New York. Call me provincial.) I did what is probably the usual walking-eating-seeing tour ... hit the Empire State Building and the Met; wandered through Central Park at night and didn't get mugged; rode the #6 subway line; stumbled on a taping of a "Law & Order: SVU" episode. (Look for Robin Williams to guest-star later this spring.)
Quick reviews:
We stayed at the Club Quarters at Rockefeller Center. Small, but really quite nice, and well located.
Sarge's Deli in Murray Hill is fantastic. I never knew what New York deli food was about -- I figured big sandwiches and soups, ho-hum. Sarge's has all that, but also this crazy beef brisket on a potato pancake with gravy thing that probably upped my cholesterol 30 points. "Sarge's favorite," it's called. Sarge probably did not live a long life.
Hatsuhana (warning: annoying Web site) in midtown served me the best raw fish I've ever had, and I understand it's not even the best sushi joint in New York.
Swift in East Village is a cool little Irish bar. Apparently regulars are starting to turn on it because the bartenders don't give away enough free drinks, or something. All I know is after the bartender messed up my food order, he gave me and my buddy a free round without us asking. Nice.
Josie's on the Upper West Side is to be avoided. Their schtick is organic ingredients. Whatever. They made a decent steak for me, but the "smashed" potatoes sucked, and everybody else at my table left food on their plates. Here's a tip, Josie's: salt and butter are good things, even crucial things.
The Algonquin hotel is a fine place for a $16 cocktail. Some famous writers used to drink there. Comfy and quiet and damn near empty. Couldn't be the prices, I'm sure.
Ray's Pizza is probably not representative of NYC pizza, but we were on our way out of town and hungry. It served. (We went to the location at 8th and 51st; unclear whether it was "Original" or "Famous," but didn't taste like it.)
Some pictures ...
Central Park, just north of the zoo looking south
Seward Square, with the most famous building on Earth in the background
Central Park, at the duck pond on 5th south of the Met looking north
I've decided that I love skiing. (To clarify: In snow, for my Floridian/southern fans out there.) I'm not very good at it, mind you. But it's a blast nonetheless.
This year, I made two trips to a place called Whitetail, in southern Pennsylvania, and one to a joint called Timberline, in nowhere West Virginia. Here are some pics:
Whitetail is really more of a hill than a mountain. Surprisingly steep, though.
From the top of the biggest "green" slope (=easy) at Whitetail, clearish.
Same slope, in fog.
Base of Timberline. It's almost a genuine mountain.
Top of Timberline, looking over the Canaan Valley.
Top of Whitetail, on the second trip.
I'm about to ski my first-ever Whitetail "blue" slope (=intermediate), behind me.
I did not fall.
This post is going to brush right up against -- but, I think, not quite violate -- the rules I've set for this blog.
(See to the right, about how I won't opine on Congress or the president, etc.)
So here goes:
Since when did presidential candidates have to bear responsibility for every last word that ever sprang from the mouth of anyone even tangentially connected to their campaigns?
For the last couple weeks, it seems like the only campaign "news" -- I use the word lightly -- drawing attention from us media is when some campaign flunky or another says something stupid. The result is predictable: a two-day story, followed by the person's "departure" from the campaign.
To recap:
First we had what's-her-name, some Barack Obama "advisor," telling a Scottish newspaper (aside: hell, I don't even know where to begin -- why is she talking to a Scottish newspaper, for starters) that Hillary Clinton is a "monster." Two-day story, and she quits the campaign.
Then we had Geraldine Friggin' Ferraro, making "news" for the first time since 1984, speaking some kind of gibberish that some people took as racist. Two-day story, and she quits the campaign.
Back to Obama, where we've got his former pastor, who apparently said some mean things about white people and Clinton on tape, quitting Obama's campaign. It's not even really clear to me that he was a substantial part of the campaign. But whatever, now he's off, and Obama is turning cartwheels "distancing" himself from the guy, as they say.
Who gives a shit about any of this?
There is some serious shit that we media could be discussing in our campaign coverage. Like I don't know, how exactly are Clinton and Obama going to make good on promises to withdraw from Iraq? Or how are any of the candidates, McCain included, going to get the economy righted? Or literally a hundred other serious policy issues, with health care and education and crime probably leading the list.
Instead, we're focusing on dumb statements by people who don't fucking matter, and forcing the candidates to waste time "denouncing" or "distancing themselves from so-and-so" or whatever. Seriously: Geraldine Ferraro is completely fucking unimportant in the scheme of things. And she's probably the most important of any of these people who have said dumb shit.
So I'd like all of this to stop, please. Unless it's the candidate him or herself saying dumb shit, I simply don't care. And I don't think anybody else does either. (Probably not even the reporters covering it.)
Central Park, just north of the zoo looking south
Seward Square, with the most famous building on Earth in the background
Central Park, at the duck pond on 5th south of the Met looking north
