Somehow in all my years living in this city, I don't think I've ever gotten coffee served to me in one of those "We are happy to serve you," Greek-Styley paper coffee cups. I am of course familiar with them, as an icon of New York City, and have been known to buy coffee on the go from time to time. But somehow I never happen upon a vendor who uses the famous design.

I read up on the cup, it was designed by a Leslie Buck in 1963, who named it "The Anthora." This was an apparent misspelling of the Greek word, "Amphora," which refers to a vessel meant for carrying wine or oil (note such vessel on the cup, nice!). Though a Czech immigrant himself, Buck's inspiration for the design was in the fact that most diners in those days were owned and operated by folks of Greek descent. A research topic for another day: Why did so many Greeks open diners in America and where did they all go?

Anyway, cool cup; I never get one. Until the other day! Or so I thought. On my way to work, I stopped off at a coffee cart, mostly because the coffee in my office sucks and I was hankering for something at least diner-quality. The guy handed me my coffee, I saw a flash of navy blue and beige lettering and got excited. Finally! I got one!

Not so much:
Now, there have been several variations on the original theme, but this is pretty lame. It's just sad, isn't it? Not only is the design a pale pretender to the original, with its pitiful grouped squares, 'sketch-style' coffee cups, and mirthless sans-serif font, but these guys aren't even happy to serve me, merely "pleased." And frankly, I don't think I even buy that.

To their credit, they do give you coffee and a bagel for one dollar, not bad for 2007, I guess.

And now, for Al, the Propaganda Cup:

Labels: Bad Stuff, Coffee, Funny to Me

For some stupid reason they have been keeping the air conditioning on full blast here, even though it's October (albeit, a rather warm October). This has something to do either with our LAN room (sort of makes sense) or the building renovation next door (makes no sense), depending on who you talk to. Whatever it is, it's totally annoying. I'm cold.

So I've been drinking lots of hot beverages, which is not unusual. But for the past week, I swear every single time I go to get coffee from our sub-par coffeemaker, there is barely any left. So not only do I have to drink the burned, sludgy dregs of the carafe, I gotta make another pot.

This wouldn't bother me but I know by the time I get back, it'll be back down to almost nothing again. I have made 3 pots of coffee today, and benefited from none of them. This is why communism doesn't work.

I hope our new parent company has Flavia.

Labels: Bad Stuff, Office, Weather

If you read The New Yorker, you may have seen this full-page ad with a cute kitten, drawing your attention to the hypocrisy of The Humane Society of the United States. It discusses how HSUS puts none of its money into animal shelters, nor does it run any kind of spay/neuter program or pet adoption programs. At first, I admit I was all like, "Son of a bitch, those thievin' bastards! " Then it occurred to me, the Humane Society has NEVER been an animal-shelter level organization. They focus mostly on industrial animal welfare, like cows going to slaughter or chinchillas being raised for fur. They work for broad, sweeping changes to animal cruelty laws in general; other groups handle things like shelters and adoptions. So why would the posters of this no-doubt expensive ad be trying to rile us up over a non-existent issue?

Turns out the people behind the ad, ActivistCash.com, is the "Center for Consumer Freedom," itself a front of the restaurant, tobacco and alcohol industries. Their web site is full of lurid allegations about other "anti-consumer" groups (like the fairly unimpeachable Center for Science in the Public Interest), very little of which is actually damning. ActivistCash divides its time making pointless accusations, such as those against the Humane Society's lack of animal shelters (which is sort of like attacking the American Lung Association for not combating skin cancer). The rest of the time they try to draw connections between these groups and their supposedly 'radical' ties, such as people who at one time were members of PETA who now work at HSUS. Oh, the conspiracy!

But they probably know that very few people will bother reading the fine print on their site. The majority of people will see the ad in a magazine, note it briefly and move on. The only message they will walk away with is "The Humane Society is bad." Maybe the HSUS isn't a perfect organization, but they're decidedly not the evil, two-faced liars they're made out to be by this site. This kind of thing really pisses me off, probably because I'm ready to believe anything that has a fuzzy kitten attached to it.

To be sure, I have nothing against, restaurants, tobacco or alcohol itself. But these lobbyists whose paycheck depends on the profits of these industries are pretty scummy for trying to build up their clients through specious attacks. Whatever the failings of the Humane Society, at least they're doing something to make the world a better place. The Center for Consumer Freedom (what a shitty name) is just hoping to continue this country's long tradition of political obfuscation, since people are too stupid to make up their own minds about pretty much anything. Don't believe the kitten, folks.

Labels: Advertising, Animals, Bad Stuff, Politics

My cat for the past 11 years, Hubcap, died last night at the Animal Clinic in Ridgewood. I don't know how old he was, but estimates put him around 15, so kidney failure is not perhaps that much of a surprise. I guess I'm glad I took him to the vet, but I wish that hadn't been his last stop.

I don't know what time he died exactly, but I woke up abruptly at 2:40 this morning to the sounds of plastic rustling: it was the sound of cat paws touching a bag of cat food. Every time I brought home a new bag, Hubcap would immediately start pawing at it, trying to get at what surely was superior food to what he already had in his bowl. He did it every time.

Of course, the sound was probably just one of the other cats rubbing up on the bag of Tidy Cat I left on the kitchen table (a souvenir from the kittens), but I like believing it was Hubcap, doing what he loved most: eating and annoying the hell out of me.

Maybe we'll be haunted by his ghost.

Labels: Bad Stuff, Cats, Ghosts, Pets

It's after 10AM and none of my coworkers are here! Then again, they often don't show up, choosing rather to work from home while I toil away as the public face of my company. Not that anybody sees me here. In fact, one could argue that more than ever I should be a full-time telecommuter. But one won't, because somebody's gotta be in the office.

Usually, the Admin is here, but even she hasn't made it in yet. Subways were effed up today! I checked the MTA site before leaving and was astounded to see that it said there was no 4-5-6 service between Borough Hall and 149th Street! That is so insane, considering it's the line that regularly runs at 103% capacity. Where did all those people go?

I normally take the 4 & 6 to work, but given the conditions we opted for the F train today. This wasn't great, but it did eventually arrive and we shoved on uptown. I planned to take the V train at 47-50th Streets, but it stopped running so I walked. Which would have been lovely, as it takes me through Rockefeller Center (hey, they have a greenmarket on Wednesdays!) and St. Patrick's. But it was already getting pretty damn sultry out. Still I'm sure my commute wasn't as horrible as a lot of people's; at least I had the Internet to tell me where to go. In Kensington, it appears there may have been a tornado (or possibly Lindsay Lohan) that swept down the streets, uprooting huge trees and upsetting the delicate balance of gentrification south of Prospect Park.

Anyway, it's all downhill from here, now I've got nothing to do but my job. Blah.

Labels: Bad Stuff, Gentrification, Mass Transit, The City, Weather

It's the end of another frustrating week! I guess it wasn't all bad, but I'm building a new web site for my job and I have to use the most irritating content management system software ever created. This CMS replaces the old one, which previously held that title. Before they rolled out the new system, they promised it would alleviate the issues of the old system and generally make life as effortless as sipping a mojito under a palm tree at dusk.

However, the opposite is true.

The system is incredibly convoluted and completely useless, except as a means to drive me insane. It could only have been designed by back-end programmers. No offense, but you how when new products come out, ie Apple Computers, they use words like "elegant," "intuitive," and "robust"? These are the three words that absolutely do NOT describe the system I am working with now. I can't even get into what's wrong with it here, because it would take so long to explain how Rube-Golbergesquely insanely overcomplicated it is. So let's talk about cats!

Three of the four kittens are eating solid food, and I think somebody used the litterbox (something's in it, I dunno what). Walking into the room now is akin to stepping into a racquetball court while somebody shoots ping pong balls at your ankles with a potato gun. Well, it's not that bad, but it probably will be.

Meanwhile, Marbles wasn't seen for a couple of days, then she showed up last night looking slimmer with decidedly mauled udders. We had hoped to get her to have her kittens inside the house, but I think she didn't dig all the other cats around. So her kittens are out there somewhere. After she loaded upon food, she dashed across the street. I followed her a bit to try to figure out where she nested. But instead of darting into the parking lot, she hopped up the stoop across the street, where a man sat smoking. He petted her, and Marbles looked completely at home. Jesus, does she live there? Has she been playing the homeless cat routine in an effort to get two feeding stations in the neighborhood? And is she doing this at more locations around the neighborhood?

Of course my main questions is, if somebody owns her, why the hell isn't she fixed? But I've learned this question falls on largely deaf ears in the neighborhood. I just hope plans are being made for the kittens, and they won't just end up rooting through the garbage in a couple of months. I'll be very interested to see how many people show up at the mobile spay unit on the 30th. Which reminds me, I should put up some flyers for it soon.

Which brings me to another pet-related irritant: pet stores that sell puppies and kittens. the pet store on Broadway off the Kosciusko stop on the J has some of each. They don't really have much space to move around in, and who knows if they ever get taken out of them before getting sold. Besides the less-than-great conditions they live in, the puppies may well be the products of disreputable breeders, aka 'puppy mills,' grinding out as many dogs as possible, health and safety sacrificed for profit (how much money do these places make anyway?)

The Prospect Heights Message Board has a huge thread on a new pet store on Flatbush that reportedly is selling such puppies. Although I feel they may have immediately jumped to worst conclusion (that the owner is trafficking in unhealthy puppy mill dogs, keeping them in unsafe conditions in the store, and indirectly adding to the crisis of the homeless pet population), but so far most of their suspicions seem to be true, although I have not been there myself and am admittedly getting all my info here from a message board. It's the Wikipedia Effect, I guess, but just because anybody can claim anything they want as fact ... doesn't necessarily mean it's NOT true, right? Isn't living in the modern age a blast?

In any case, it's a depressing situation to me even if the puppies are registered or whatever they do to prove a dog isn't the result of a mother and son dog gettin' it on. It just goes back to the irrefutable fact that there are so many animals in shelters, why in the hell would anybody buy a retail dog or cat? Frankly, I didn't need to see Best in Show to suspect that people who are into dog breeding are not operating on the same wavelength as most of us.

Anyway, I guess the simplest way to handle these pet stores is just not to shop there. That's easy enough for the one in Prospect Heights: I don't live anywhere near there, and if I did, I'd go to Acme Pet Supplies. In my neighborhood, there's Pets Ahoy, the aforementioned pet store, and the Pigeon store near my house, which may or may not have cat supplies (their hours seem to be something like 'Noon to Noon-thirty, weekdays'). Given the schedules that most New Yorkers maintain, how possible is it to avoid a pet store if it's convenient? For my part, I don't go by Pets Ahoy on a regular basis, I work near a Petland Discounts (they sell rodents and birds, the latter I'm beginning to think shouldn't be there either), its only real failure is that Science Diet cat food is $20 for an 8.5lb bag!

Labels: Bad Stuff, Cats, Feral, Job, kittens, Pets, Strays, The City

I don't talk about my job much because it's boring. If it's any indication, it's less exciting than both cats and back yard gardens, given how much I post on these latter topics vs. my job. Tomorrow, as per my 'development plan' I must attend a day-long training session in my old office building downtown. The only problem is, I don't know where in the building.

There are any number of floors in this building that belong to my company; the training could be on any one of them, or none at all (some trainings are held in nearby hotel conference rooms). When I confirmed my attendance, I received an email detailing the training. Under 'Location' it read only "3B/C."

What the hell is 3B/C? Somebody tell me, is this some standard nomenclature I don't know about? The building has some 60 floors, and who-knows how many rooms on each. So I emailed them back to clarify.

hi,
I will be in your class on Thursday, but i'm not sure where exactly it will be located (i work in the midtown office). can you let me know the floor and room number?

thanks,
jimmy

I thought this was pretty straightforward, just tell me the floor and room and I'll be there. The response:

We have a midtown office? I did not know that. We are at [123 Office Street], E Train to Chambers/WTC. Use the entrance marked [123], go up the escalator. Do you know if we have to clear you through security?

Um, okay. I now know the building, but they've only got me up to the security desk. I asked simply for floor and room number, the info they've given me only narrows it down to a city block. But, they don't know I used to work there so I'm familiar with its location and already have an ID card. So I reply,

hi,
yes there's a small office in midtown for [our department]. i used to work in the tower so i have access, but what floor and room number will the training be in?

thanks,

Again I try to simply specify I need to know what floor and what room this training will be in. I feel like a dork for having to ask the exact same question again, but I know what I need to know, I'm just at a loss as to why they aren't giving me a straight answer.

Sounds great thanks for clarifying. The training will be held in 3B/C. We look forward to your attendance.

Huh? Wait, did they just give me this 3B/C shit again? Oh no she didn't! I still don't know what that means, despite several emails back and forth. I send a final, pathetic message:

i'm sorry, i don't know what 3b/c means. is it the 3rd floor? i guess there will be signs to direct me when i arrive.

Frankly, I'm hoping there aren't signs. I don't want to go to this training anyway. And if I remember correctly, the 3rd floor is the cafeteria, and there are no conference rooms there. But hey, I tried. We'll see, maybe there will be a marching band waiting in the lobby to take me up to the magical 3B/C room.

Oh, did I mention this is a training in marketing communication. Can't wait!

UPDATE: Just received this mass email to all participants:

Good Day-

Tomorrow's session begins promptly at 9am on the 3rd floor (cafeteria floor) in Rooms B and C. Continental Breakfast will be available at 8:30am. We look forward to your participation. Thank you and have a great day.

Whaddya know, there ARE conference rooms on the cafeteria floor. So am I a moron for not figuring this out? Still shouldn't have taken them so long to clear it up. Stupid babies need the most attention!

That continental breakfast still isn't enough to get me in there before 9.

Labels: Bad Stuff, Office

Ugh, the last few days have been miserable, and not just because of the rain. Sometime on Friday night, Decatur slipped out an open front window. We didn't realize it until the next afternoon. We started searching around the area, trying to apply some form of feline logic to the situation. It seemed to me she would have dashed across the street into the vacant lot/parking lot as it is easy to get into and hide. But the more we looked around, the more we realized how many places there are for a small animal to hide. Not the least of these is the church yard behind our house.

At this point we didn't know what window she went through, so we looked out in the back as well. The church has been out of commission for years and the lot (which contains both church, rectory house and driveway) is totally grown over and full of trash. So it's basically a stray cat's amusement park. I searched through it several times, rousting many other cats, but not the one I was looking for.

The circumstances surrounding Decatur's disappearance may shed some light on all this: see, on Friday night we let some cats into the house. One was that Russian Blue cat I spoke of earlier, the other was the Kool-Aid Kitten, who has an even better 'in' to our home: she's pregnant.

Last time Decatur was around a cat with kittens, she bolted and I didn't see much of her for over a month. I didn't know if this was the same situation or if she was really lost; she had never been out front before, and this weekend had been fraught with stuff to scare both cats and humans. Friday night there was some huge to-do down at the far end of the block; we heard what may have been shotgun blasts and soon the street was full of people, cops, ambulance, fire trucks. Not sure what the story was there but it was a bit unsettling. Saturday night as we were entertaining friends with discussions of how Bushwick is really much nicer than its reputation suggests, some dipshit started shooting a gun right outside our house. I'm still not sure what that one was about, I checked outside afterwards but saw no one in evidence, shooter or shootee (the next day the cops came and placed tiny orange cones next to each bullet casing; the bullets had shot out the rear window of an SUV).

So I thought Decatur might have been so spooked by the commotion that she had gotten herself really lost. Anyway, we kept up the searching and the fretting, I made flyers and posted to lost-pet web sites. But things wrapped up pretty much 20 minutes after I put up the flyers.

I noticed the parking lot gate was open, a guy from Luis Refrigeration was changing the tire of his company van, so I went in and asked if it would be okay to look around for the cat. I went to the back of the lot, which was covered with that bamboo-like stuff I so detested from my old back yard, shook a jar of cat treats and called her name. Like it was nothing, Decatur emerged from the underbrush. Just like that.

She was no worse for the wear, despite having been outdoors for all the huge storms of late. the tire-changing guy said that he had seen her sleeping in the cab of one of the trucks that park there. I brought her back inside and she seemed nonplussed to be home. In short, my sympathy levels dropped at light speed. Damn these cats!

Anyway, she's back home and she's being sweet again, so all is well. We have the house on lockdown so nobody's coming in or out for once. We're not sure what to do about the pregnant cat, I'm hoping to relocate her to the backyard, but she seems to be fine with living in the lot across the street. That may be the most ironic aspect of Decatur's sojourn: if she left because she didn't want to share space with the pregnant cat, why then did she move herself to that lot, where the very same cat spends most of her time? This is the logic you get from an animal with a brain the size of a walnut.

I'll have more stuff on the stray population, we have some real characters around here!

Labels: Bad Stuff, Brooklyn, Bushwick, Cats, Good Stuff, Pets, The Yard