Entries from February 2007 ↓

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 2nd November 2006

Hey all,

Last installment I was sitting in an internet cafe in East Village, his time I’m in a slightly more upmarket place - the Holiday Inn in Mt Kisko, NY. Mt Kisko is up-state New York, about an hour from New York City. I’m up here for work for three days… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

So after waking up exhausted (again), with aching feet and a f**ked knee, I decided I’d do some more wandering around Manhattan. This time it was with a bit of a limp, but I wasn’t going to not go shopping! I couldn’t have picked two more contrasting places though - the Lower East Side and SoHo. The Lower East Side is, well, not quite a slum but not far from it. Everything is filthy and run-down, homeless people lying in parks, and a really dirty industrial feel to the whole place. It does have some cool shops though, which is the whole reason I went there. After finding a unique little gift, and eating pizza from a place that Paulie from The Soprano’s grew up near I headed over to SoHo.

SoHo, for those who don’t know, is the shopping district of Manhattan. SoHo isn’t an acronym either, it’s a shortening of “South of Houston St”. New York loves these shortenings, for example “Tribeca” is short for “Triangle below Canal St”. Anyway, if you’re thinking Fifth Avenue style shiny buildings and people wearing Prada you’d be wrong. It’s actually, again, kinda shitty like the other parts - except this time there’s people _everywhere_, flagship stores and a really cool vibe. They call it the “cast iron district”, and for a reason - I found a building that was made entirely out of riveted steel with windows. No effort put in to hide anything either, just steel and glass.

This shopping adventure tired me out (f**king jet lag) so I went home and napped, just to get ready for the Village Halloween parade. NYC during Halloween is crazy, and there’s a reason some people call it “dress like a slut day” (edit: it’s actually Dress-Like-A-Whore Day in the article. My bad!)… except the girl that was dressed like Rainbow Brite thought I was some kind of freak for asking to get a photo. My intentions were completely noble, but oh well.

The interesting part of Halloween was participating in the parade itself. I got assigned a fake bat on a long stick of bamboo, with rope attached to it so you could make it flap. I had a blast, dancing down 6th Avenue with the other bats and having random “bat parties”, reaching the massive bat pole over the crowd and flapping it in front of kids on shoulders. The bad part was that I didn’t get to see much of the parade, including Gene Simmons on a KISS float at the head of it! I did get to check out the two KISS girls on the float though ;).

I rounded out the night walking around and drinking in the Meatpacking District with a work colleague. Again, the contrasts in NY amazed me. On one side of a cobbled street you have parked delivery trucks and industrial warehouses, and on the other side you have fancy nightclubs with long line ups and big bouncers holding clipboards. Great night out though, there was a lot of people about and lots of interesting sights (”dress like a slut day”, remember).

Today was far less eventful, as it was spent travelling upstate and meeting up with work folks. We did manage to get lost on the way and ended in a random town called Brewster which, as far as I can tell, consisted of a service station, and Honda dealership, and a massive rusted metal bridge over a valley.

I’ll close by describing the IBM site in Somers (that we finally found). Think massive buildings topped with black, glass pyramids on top of a hill with picturesque golden brown leaves and luscious green lawns. Not to mention security that required name and serial number before they’d let us get us close enough to even see the buildings. Very high tech.

The next few days will be fairly quiet from me… lots of work to do and executives to schmooze. Expect an update hopefully on the weekend, or soon after.

Hope all is well back home, and no celebrities have died like last time I was on holidays (RIP Steve Irwin).

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!

Just after I cite Channel 10’s showing of Jericho straight after the US airing as an example of a network doing things right for once, I find out they’ve decided not to pick up the second half of the season. Gee, thanks for showing half a season of another show, 10.

There’s also a bit of discussion about yesterday’s article over at SMH’s “Mashup” blog. Check it out here.

Alex Malick, the researcher previously interviewed on Triple J’s Hack program, has a new study showing the average broadcast delay for new TV shows in Australia has increased from 7.6 to 16.7 months over the past two years.

Malik also studied comments by TV viewers on various internet forums, and concluded: “These delays are one of the major factors driving Australians to use BitTorrent and other internet-based peer-to-peer programs to download programs illegally from overseas, prior to their local broadcast.”

I completely agree. When shows like Heroes debut in the US (25 September 2006) then take over 4 months to air in Australia (31 January 2007), it has to be expected that people are going to download it. Lost isn’t much better either, with the show being up to episode 8 in the US (including a two month hiatus) but only just starting in Australia.

There are exceptions, however. 24 is being aired on Channel 7 with only a few weeks delay, and Jericho was airing within a DAY of the US.

From SMH, source here.

In October and November 2006 I was lucky enough to go to the USA for work, so I took the opportunity to travel around while I was there. My travel emails were well received back home, so I’m posting them here for all to enjoy.

Original Date: 31 October 2006

Hey all,

After about 25 hours travelling, including two sunsets and sunrises in one day, I’m finally in NYC. I even caught a train in from JFK, like a regular local would, except unlike a local I got off at the completely wrong stop and had to take the next “local” train in to Manhattan. It was an experience being the only white guy on the train through Brooklyn, but I did get a look at some pretty sweet bling on a few guys.

I spent the rest of the night (after finding the hotel) wandering around East Village. First impressions - this place is a shithole! Rubbish piled up everywhere, very dirty feeling. I realised the next day that Sunday must be rubbish day or something, cause it was all gone by the time I got up. I ended up drinking Tequila Sunrises in a dive bar with a cute bartender and Johnny Cash on the radio. Great way to end the day.

After waking up aching all over I heading downtown to check out the Financial District and the Brooklyn Bridge. I walked all the way from 17th St to the Bridge (look on a map, it’s a fair way) but it was totally worth it. I went past what was CBGB’s, through Chinatown, and the amazing buildings in Downtown slowly came into view. Seriously, these buildings are amazing - I’ve never seen anything like it. Grandiose archway entrances to Bridges and Gothic architecture everywhere (including a gold statue atop one building).

After walking halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge, and soaking up some amazing views, I wandered into the Financial District. The contrast between here, and about a dozen blocks north, is nothing short of amazing. Lush sandstone, and shiny glass buildings everywhere! This was when it clicked that I was really in the New York that you seen on television.

I also checked out the WTC memorial. There’s an eerie feeling in the air, although construction has started again so it didn’t have the impact I thought it would. I guess you have to be American.

After that I wandered around for a while, went shopping (cheap business shirts!) and then pretty much went back to hotel and had a couple hours snooze (walking is hard)… and here I am. I’ve written a bunch, so I’ll leave it here.

Until next time!

For a lot more photos from the trip, have a look at my Flickr set. I’ve geotagged them, so the map is pretty interesting too!

Once again, Telstra has proved that they just don’t “get it.” Apparently, because Apple has never made a mobile phone before they obviously don’t know what they’re doing. Therefore, they should just let the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson do it and not even try.

I seem to remember they’d never made an MP3 player before either, nor had they ever sold music online. Guess they should’ve stuck to making computers, huh?

From SMH, article here.