Hostile Traveler

A couple of friends of mine pointed me to a site called PersonalDNA, which is an online test to determine your personality type/characteristics. It’s actually pretty well done, and it generates this little capsule map to give a summary of who you are. The thing is, I think it tends to accentuate the positive rather than the negative, so instead of my personality type coming up as ‘Utter Bastard’, it came up as ‘Advocating Leader’. Go figure. Anyways, without further commentary, here’s what the results look like:

You are a Leader

• Your solid grounding in the practicalities of life, along with your self-assuredness and your willingness to appreciate new things make you a LEADER.
• You’re in touch with what is going on around you and adept at remaining down-to-earth and logical.
• Although you’re detail-oriented, this doesn’t mean that you lose the big picture.
• You tend to find beauty in form and efficiency, as opposed to finding it in broad-based, abstract concepts.
• Never one to pass on an adventure, you’re consistently seeking and finding new things, even in your immediate surroundings.
• Because of this eagerness to pursue new experiences, you’ve learned a lot; your attention to detail means that you gain a great deal from your adventures.
• The intellectual curiosity that drives you leads you to seek out causes of and reasons behind things.
• Your confidence gives you the potential to take your general awareness and channel it into leadership.
• You’re not set on one way of doing things, and you often have the skills and persistence to find innovative ways of facing challenges.
• You are well-attuned to your talents, and can deal with most problems that you face.
• Your independent streak allows you to make decisions efficiently and to trust your instincts
• Generally, you believe that you control your life, and that external forces only play a limited role in determining what happens to you.

If you want to be different:

• There’s more to life than the practical - take some time to daydream and explore the aesthetic sides of things.

You are Advocating

• Being social, empathic, and understanding makes you ADVOCATING.
• Some people find being around others exhausting—but not you! You are energized by spending time with friends, and you are good at meeting new people.
• One of the reasons you enjoy conversation as much as you do is that you often learn about yourself while talking things out with a friend; you realize things about your own beliefs while discussing them with others.
• You have insight into what others are thinking and feeling. This ability allows you to be happy for others, and to commiserate when something has gone wrong for them.
• You are highly compassionate, and being conscious of how things affect those close to you leaves you cautious about trusting others too hastily.
• Despite these reservations, you are open-minded when it comes to your worldview; you don’t look to impose your ways on others.
• Your sensitivity towards others’ plights contributes to an understanding—both intellectual and emotional—of many different perspectives.
• As someone who understands the complexities of the world around you, you are reluctant to pass judgments.

If you want to be different:

• While it’s important to think about others, don’t forget to take some time for yourself, and occassionally to put yourself first.
• Take some time to spend with a few close friends; although it’s difficult to find people to trust, it’s worth the effort.
• When you have great ideas, it can be hard to relinquish control, but it can also feel good to take the pressure off and enjoy someone else leading the way.

I’m a little bit behind in updates at this point, so I’ll be working on catching up over the next few posts. I left NYC last Friday and am currently in Chicago, but I wanted to post a bit about what has happened in between. Right about now is where you should imagine one of those wavy flashback routines they do on TV or something.

My last night in New York City, the weather was great and I had some time to wander around the area. Times Square in the summertime is a magnet for tourist, freaks, and sometimes both. Really, it’s one of those sensory overload places where everything is noise, neon, and LEDs. With that said, there’s a kind of beauty in the chaos that you can enjoy for 2-3 seconds before someone bumps into you and curses you out in a foreign language. Anyways, here’s a few shots during the day:

…and some at night:

Note the mob of people in the last one. Between the restaurants, Broadway shows, and everything else, the whole area was jammed with people. Still, after going to Hong Kong and Tokyo, this kind of action is child’s play. Okay, except that some of the people are taller than my shoulder.

Times Square is a very different place now than it used to be in the 70s and 80s, at least from what I’ve read. It used to be a very gritty area, full of peepshows, adult bookstores, strip clubs, and so on. It’s since been sanitized and Disney-fied, and there are only a few vestiges of what used to be on the fringes of the area. While I’m sure the generic tourist places like the Hard Rock Cafe and such are raking in the bucks, there’s something to be said about seedy places. At the very least, they’re a lot more interesting to blog about.

I had intended on taking some pictures of the last peep shows and such in the area, but decided against the idea. I’m not really big on bringing home souvenirs, and that includes my own teeth in a bag. Really, I just didn’t like the idea of getting my ass beat for taking a photo of the wrong place. I’m not a real journalist by any stretch, and I sorta like being able to chew with my own teeth. So, no photos for you. Sorry. Still, in a strange way I was happy to see that there’s still some grit to the city, even though it’s being slowly whittled away by the moral police.

On Friday, the class I was attending ended early, so I decided to head to Penn station to see if I could get an earlier train out of the city. I’m not terribly experienced with the whole train thing, so I agreed to take a ticket for a much earlier regional train. Now I know better. The Acela has spoiled me. It’s quiet, has beer, comfortable, has beer, fast, and oh yeah - it has beer. The regional line, in comparison, is like something you’d see in Mexico. Think 70s-era upholstery, loud, packed with people, and decidedly slow. I wound up having to walk through 5 cars before I found a seat, and almost came to blows with some hippie shithead over luggage space taken over by his 5 ratty duffel bags full of crap. Incidentally - for you wired hippies that may be reading this - patchouli oil does not cover the smell of stale weed and bong water - it just adds another layer to the funk. Cut the shit and take a shower.

In an attempt to tune out the surroundings, I worked on my notebook praying-mantis style in the cramped seat. Of course, YASA (Yet Another Suited Assclown) next to me spends the entire trip on his cellphone doing cold calls. He’s an insurance salesman, which in itself is enough to make me want to bludgeon him to death, and the cellphone isn’t helping. Okay, count to 10, put on headphones, tune out with music.

Fast forward a couple hours. YASA taps me on the shoulder and is saying some shit while pointing at his phone. I take off my headphones and he says, “My battery died.” Even though I want to say, “About fucking time!” I keep it to myself and gloat internally. Then he has the balls to say, “Do you mind if I plug into your computer?”

Now, murder is frowned upon in civilized cultures, but sometimes there are justifiable reasons for suddenly terminating someones life. I think the guy could tell by the look in my eyes that a little part of me inside snapped when he asked, and he started to recoil a bit before I could even open my mouth. While I don’t recall exactly what I said, I believe I started out by politely asking, “Are you fucking kidding me?” and it sorta went from there.

My new friend got off at the next stop. I don’t know if it was the stop he wanted to get off at, but he probably figured it was a good idea. It’s a pity, really, because I feel like we had a connection there. It may have wound up being a connection of my hand and his throat, but it was a connection nonetheless.

At any rate, the rest of the trip was uneventful, and I was home long enough to get my stuff together to head to Chicago this week for yet another class. But, that’s another story.

This week brings me to the Big Apple - New York City. Why they call it that, I have no idea, but I’m far too lazy to look it up right now. I’ll leave it as a homework exercise.

There are some options to get from Boston to NYC, but I went with the high-speed rail line, the Acela. While it’s not as blisteringly fast as the Japanese bullet trains, for the rails in the US it’s pretty damn fast. The unfortunate thing is it’s not able to sustain any high speeds due to local noise ordinances, decrepit rails, and the occasional fair maiden tied to the tracks. So, the trip takes a little over 3 hours. Still, when compared to dealing with the crackhead airport security or traffic/parking while driving, it’s not a bad way to go. (Again, sorry for the quality of some of the pics, but my camphone sucks.)

You basically get an airline-ish seat, and if you’re lucky like me, you get one with a table. If, however, you’re unlucky like me, you get some droning suited financial asshole on a cellphone sitting across from you the whole trip down. Still, there are power jacks available for your notebook/etc, and I spend most of the time watching movies doing work on my notebook.

One of the main advantages over flying is that you actually have a bit of space, and you can stretch your legs and take a short walk. Mind you, it’s a bit of a wobbly one due to the bumps and such, but it’s a walk nonetheless. The walk may take you to what is perhaps the greatest feature of train travel: the cafe car. Here, you can purchase any number of overpriced snacks and drinks, but the key is - they have beer. Mmm…

The ride itself is actually pretty pleasant, and the scenery isn’t too bad. The line gets close to the coast in Connecticut at a couple of points, so you get to see some boats and such. Read on for more blurry overexposed pictures.

Finally, you get into the city and arrive at Penn station. This is the fun part - the part where you know you’ve arrived. Within minutes of exiting the Amtrak area, you’re likely to experience a fascinating array of humanity. You’re going to get jostled, bumped, glared at, muttered to, and all of those other things that make New York the friendliest city in the world. Add to that the myriad of smells you get on a nice hot and humid summer day, and surely you’ll feel as if you’re in heaven too.

Upon arrival, I met up with a friend of mine and took the subway to meet his wife in Brooklyn. Now, as I may have mentioned, it was a hot, humid day. The subway has this magical way of amplifying that experience by a good 20 degrees, and then adding a slight tang of urine to the air to really bring the experience home. Needless to say, by the time I humped my shit up and down more stairs than I care to remember, I was dripping with sweat. Nice way to go to dinner. Ah well.

Dinner itself was at a very cool Thai restaurant called Sea. Okay, in retrospect, maybe not the most creative name. Still, if you’re going to go monosyllabic for a restaurant name, I guess it’s better to go with that than, say, Ass. The neighborhood around it is pretty unremarkable, but when you step inside, it’s a massive place that seems more suited to club than restaurant. Still, great food, and good company. And I finally dried out.

After dinner, my friends dropped me off at my hotel in Times Square. Okay, near Times Square. I was given a room with a “view” on the 19th floor, but the actual view part is a bit debatable. It’s mostly the back of a billboard. I guess the lights are pretty…

The next day (Wednesday) was spent in class, so I won’t bore anyone with the details. Lunch, however, was interesting. I went to a quasi-famous deli (aren’t they all?) called the Stage Door Deli. They put together what can only vaguely be called a sandwich, but it’s only that because it happens to be between two slices of bread and held together by a toothpick. In between is a pile of whatever meat you ordered. I got some sort of belly bomb that contained pastrami, corned beef, and turkey, so I expect to die at any moment. Still, pretty tasty…

The heat and humidity decided to go out with a bang last night, and torrential thunderstorms came through blowing rain sideways and turning the filth on the streets into a kind of hellish stew. I didn’t really feel like wandering around in that, so I hit a dingy mexican joint across the street where the marginal burrito was made up for by the firewater margaritas.

Today, on the other hand, is beautiful. Sunny skies, warm temps, no humidity - perfect. Well, it’s NYC, so I’ll shift that over into tolerable. So I’m going to head out this eve and snap some photos of Times Square and its surroundings. Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll try to get on Good Morning America with the rest of the sign-toting retards. Yeah…maybe not.