Sadness

Looks like I too must resign from the blog, not that I've been posting all that much =(

I am going to accept the job offer I got from the large blue company

Be good =)

National Holidays

Just a quick observation as today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in the US.

National holidays seem to be a lot less fun when you no longer get to celebrate with a three-day weekend.

Go to a Jets Game

I managed to get to 2 Jets games this season. Nixta and I did the sub zero game against the Buffalo Bills. A see sawing thriller which the Jets managed to win. The tailgate starter was “cool”. Bloody Marys being essential, cheese burgers and ‘dogs. Avoided the NDE on the return trip, but did give Nixta the opportunity to dig his fingernails into the dash once or twice.

My friend from Maine was in town for the Miami Dolphins game. Another tailgating opportunity, this time with chairs and a table, which gave us the look of old hands at this. 63 degrees and a season defining game made for a packed house. This one didn’t turn out so well for the Jets though. A couple of observations as a result:

• Not sure why it was necessary for the crowd to boo the cheer leaders at half time. I thought they were still cute despite their teams’ performance.
  
• It became amusing as the crowd cheered for Chad Pennington as the game slipped away. One suspenseful moment as a “mature aged” woman removed her 4 Favre jersey to reveal a 10 Pennington underneath (thank goodness – there were already some bare chested guys that shouldn’t have been).
  

• One needs to be careful banging one’s hand on the seat in front of you when the Jets make a bad play. Otherwise you can end up with smashed fingers and blood on your fatigues.
  

Left Coast Bloke Report : SF Edition

There's not been much to report from San Francisco largely due to a vicious case of intestinal flu that had this bloke contributor bed ridden for three days over the holidays. Which is not to say I haven't learnt anything.

- The left coast knows how to do Mexican food. Don't visit SF without trying a burrito in the Mission. I'm still baffled you can't get this in New York. Burrito rolling is an art - these guys must be trained like Cuban cigar rollers and the guys on the East coast just don't get it.

- Puking Mexican food is, surprisingly, much less traumatic than puking booze.

- Few decision are harder than deciding what to do when faced with impending digestive explosions on two fronts.

Next stop - Portland Oregon.

Get out of Town

On the weekend I went to Connecticut for a Christmas party. I think Connecticut is somewhere north of Manhattan – I just took a Metro North train (the north) being the giveaway. Things are different out there. This is Merritt 7 station; at least they called it a station. Trains run every 3 hours on this line. The train conductor warned me to watch my step as I had to negotiate icy steps down to the ground. You couldn’t call it a platform as such.  My friend visited from Maine to go to the party with me. We had a good time, but then because of inclement weather she wasn’t able to make it back home in the north. We stayed in Norwalk overnight (great hotel rates out there – not surprisingly) and looked for breakfast at a diner in the morning. Not a lot open in Norwalk Sunday morning. So we headed back to NYC and have bunkered down since. Who needs more than a Chinese takeout restaurant, high speed cable and internet and a phone? It’s a jungle out there, up north.

Nixta is heading west for Christmas. That involves catching planes today :) Lucky Nixta.....

We have our first spin-off...

Jess has created http://thewifeofablokeonthedole.blogspot.com/

...and no, I'm not going to go watch any romantic comedies

Going to the Movies

Going to the movies, while being on the dole and with the luxury of time, is an obvious pastime time that one can enjoy. Of course while we might have the luxury of time, we don’t always have the luxury of cash to go with it (yes, unemployed). NYC has a veritable plethora of movie theaters; however they seem to charge $12.50 a show nowadays. My motto is that there has to be a more cost effective way. Some of my previous wives have chastised me for being cheap – I prefer to think of it as frugal. And it turned out now that was good training.

So with that in mind what angles can we bring to going to the movies? Frequent movie watcher cards are one way to go. Yep, they exist. While Nixta and James had to fork out their readies when we saw the earth nearly creamed yesterday I used one of my reward movie passes. FOC, gratis, nothing better. It makes the popcorn taste so good when you don’t pay for the movie. I like AMC theaters and use AMC Movie Watcher but Regal have their Regal Crown Club and even the more boutique Clearview Cinemas has Clear Advantage.

But yes, you need to pay for tickets to have them give you free ones. There is a way for the well prepared to do that too without having to pay the full price. Many of the cinema chains will sell movie passes in advance at significant discounts. My personal favorite is the AMC Silver Experience, which costs $6.50. What a deal. Sure you can’t use it for a movie in the first 2 weeks of its release, but I can be patient for a 46% saving! Ironically I ordered my Silver Experience tickets through Working Advantage, a corporate sponsored discount program for employees…….