At Chez Zmayhem we're watching Justice League Unlimited (Batman just sang "Am I Blue"), while Matilda also explores an exciting Dinosaur game on the Sesame Street site. (She's really getting into it and it's got real scientific background. It goes on for quite a bit with many different fossils as she digs up the bones and they are assembled and she learns about them.)

Just made smoothies and now cornbread. Cheap food for the win!

It's gorgeous outside but I'm having a hard time getting Emmett into direct sunlight.

(Batman just sang "Am I Blue")

Is that the episode where Circe sings "Lulu's Back in Town"?

When I visited New York, I loved the fact that it was so non-tourist friendly. Sure, there were tourist maps and tourist buses, but if you were out on your own, you were on your own. I was walking up 5th Avenue and quietly gloating "It's real! It's all real!" and I looked over my shoulder and saw Rockefeller Center. No signs, you found it or you didn't. I did see some glares of "This is my lunchtime deli, noob, get your butt out of my way," but I didn't personally witness any active displeasure. I was assumed to be a local on the subway, though, because I pointed some lost tourists in the right direction. When I said, "No, this is my first time in the city, I just read the signs," they looked both pleased and disappointed. Possibly because that was one less lost tourist to gloat over.

I've never found NY to be not friendly to tourists. But then, I'm not sure what the baseline is. Is DC tourist friendly? London? LA?

Aside from Nassau, which was going out and grabbing tourists and forcing them to be happy, or Mombasa where they were apparently shooting them, I haven't really assessed many places as markedly cold or friendly.

I'm out of the office for a day and a half next week, and I'm predicting here and now that nothing will get done on any of my projects in my absence. I've sent out the emails, I've had the conversations and it's the same "please stop talking to me" blank looks and assurances before I've finished saying what I'm asking for.

This is so frustrating, and I can't work out how to shake it all loose.

I think New York is more impatient with tourists when they block the sidewalk and take too long to order in the delis. New York knows there are wonderful things to see there and is glad to show off.

I think New York is more impatient with tourists when they block the sidewalk and take too long to order in the delis. New York knows there are wonderful things to see there and is glad to show off.

Thinko? Or multiple personality disorder?

New York is full of tourists year-round. New Yorkers are pretty immune to them, in my experience, and generally helpful when asked a direct question.

Of the cities I have been to in the U.S., I was incredibly displeased with Orlando. It was the fakest damn city I have ever been to. It probably was where my conference was, but I could not find any locals or "real" non-tourist people. I think I would jump off a bridge if I had to live there.

No other city I have been to has felt that manufactured and non-local centered as that one. Including NYC, SF, LA, Chicago.

New York is one of the few places someone's approached me and offered directions. Which was a great call on their part. I'd imagine there are tons of opportunities to learn that flavour of perplexed.

In Jamaica, when we were little, sometimes we "played" by sitting at the gate and waving and smiling at anyone who passed by slowly enough. We'd do that for, like, an hour at a time.

Wow. Nobody plays that game in London. Not in our bits, anyway.

Oh and not for nothing, the most unfriendly city I have been to in Canada was Montreal. Damn, the people up there were the opposite of NICE. I'm assuming they were just tired of tourists, but their rudeness made an impression on me the few times I have been.