I received a gift sub to Time Out New York when I first moved here and it was a great idea-- helped me acclimate to the ins and outs of local culture. Plus it's like $20. Maps and metrocard are also good ideas. More:
- TONY restaurant guide
- iPod headphones
- GC to Fresh Direct, if they've got them
- Duane Reade discount card
There are a few books about relocating to the city, though I don't recommend any specifically. There's the NYT book on various neighborhoods, based on their "So you want to live in..." feature.
Hot cup of more sleep!
I got one of those! yay me. I think I still have time to go get breakfast too.
I second the TONY subscription rec, and maybe a Not For Tourists guidebook.
ION, I finally got the facial recognition software working, and it told me that this picture looked like Hillary Clinton and Werner Herzog. Um.
There are various Gay New York guides they might find handy.
Okay, this picture gives me Grace Kelly. I can live with that.
No, indeedy. I suspect some of the Holocaust Deniers are an extreme version of putting fingers in the ears, closing the eyes and chanting "la la la". (The rest are just assholes.)
The grandfather of a former co-worker of mine was among the US troops that were sent in to help out after the camps were liberated in '45. Buchenwald, if I recall correctly. He would (rightfully) get apopleptic whenever he heard anyone suggest that the Holocaust was exaggerated or faked.
I just got a thank you note from a manager in an unrelated department whose employees I'm wrangling in a project that has nothing to do with
my
department, and will end up making him look good. It's the little things, and I damned well appreciate it.
On the down side, I think the no-sugar-added latte does have artificial sweetener in it, despite the barista (can you say that for a Coffee Bean employee) assuring me it was unsweetened. Which means extra headache. Damn, it tasted good around that noxious slickness.
Saw an e-mail that voiced a concern about looking like "a bunch of armatures." I wonder if anyone pointed this out to the author...I'm certainly not going to.
tommyrot, if you throw in some giant
mutated
fruit flies to your fruit stand movie, you could probably get the Sci Fi channel to go for it.
Ugh. I just volunteered to get up early on Christmas morning to drive an hour in the cold so our family can have our Christmas gathering on actual Christmas as it should be, rather than the Friday night before as it was looking like. (Trying to schedule around my paternal grandparents wanting to go to church on Christmas morning for the first time in forever, thus having their own gathering much later in the day and my BIL's parents wanting to spend time with their son and grandson on Christmas.) My family rightfully assumed I would not want to get up early in the morning and drive through the cold, but the only other option was the night before Christmas Eve, and that just feels all kinds of wrong, so I asked if we could do it Christmas morning instead.
I guess there's something to be said for tradition.
Random people keep asking me for random help!
At least this time I was able to give it, but what's with someone here I haven't spoken to in almost a year calling me looking for help placing a contractor whose time is about to expire?