clocktowertenants.com

Friday, March 18, 2011

tempus fugit

After a lifetime on the UpperEastSide,

I moved to the south Bronx one year ago today.

The move had first rate administration in my daughter and Big John’s were awesome, too. They showed up right on time and packed the truck with the ease of true professionals.

Blue tape on the floor showed where to place things.

Each box was letter-labeled by area and numbered by content against a masterlist...

...so boxes could be placed where they belonged.

Big John was done by early afternoon and had overestimated their time so they actually refunded almost $500! Amazing. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

http://www.bigjohnsmoving.com/

There was a lot to put away but by about midnight,
home sweet home.

A year already.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

My favorite newspaper and arguably one of the finest news gathering organizations of all time committed a kind of public suicide today, announcing they really don’t get it and will insist upon the impossible instead.

Beginning March 28th they will charge again for online access, ignoring the irrefutable truth that digital media, service and intellectual property is free now and will always be free in some form or other going forward. The paid news model is dead. The way we gather and vet news will have to change.

It’s true the WallStreetJournal operates a successful online pay model and the Times apparently hopes to follow suit.

But unlike the WSJ, the NYTimes doesn’t offer state-of-the-minute financial information upon which good money can be made. They offer news, that’s it, and there will always be alternatives offered free online to garner market share.

Back in the days of paper scarcity (when you really had to pay) the NewYorkTimes was our news of record. But today we live in the digital world of “one mouse click” ubiquity and nothing digital is ever scarce. Behind this new paywall ad revenue will plummet as readership tanks, losing circulation money as well.

I loved the old grey lady but the people in charge are too old to understand this and she’s in her final throes. Time marches on, even if the New York Times will not. Alas.

What do YOU think? Are YOU gonna pay to read the TIMES?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Technology/new-york-times-erects-paywall-web/story?id=13157729

your Mother would be proud

On any given day, 5.5 million pints of the famous Irish stout Guinness are consumed around the world. Today that number will more than double to 13 million pints. “"Slainté!"—the Irish word pronounced SLAN-cha, for health, said Beth Davies Ryan, global corporate relations director of Guinness.

That toast may brim with scientific truth.

At a meeting of the American Heart Association, researchers reported that Guinness may be as effective as daily aspirin in reducing the blood clots that cause heart attacks. The benefit derives from antioxidants which reduce cholesterol deposits on arterial walls. The compounds are found in dark Irish stouts but not their paler cousins.

Fun in Ottawa, Canada, 2006

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The More The Stars The Worse The Story ™

Anywhere there’s a large Puerto Rican or Dominican community, you’ll find a cuchifrito shop.

Sometimes skirting a fine line with the Health Department, the Bronx has dozens of these take-out places.

And BarelyLegalRestaurants.com rates them.

The name comes from "cochino" and "frito,"

the words for "pig" and "fried".

And fry pig they do. Fried tongue and pork ear and pork tripe, (the lining of a pig stomach) share the window with fried chicken…

...and the classic papas rellenas

(pork-filled potato balls).

Mofongo is a staple, too, a Caribbean classic made with fried and mashed green plantains mixed with garlic, olive oil and fried pork cracklings (skin).

This place, La Isla, near the Elder Avenue stop on the six, has a constant line of hungry customers. The flow never relented the day I was there and the counter ladies worked their butts off.

La Isla earns a rating of only one star,

very good for a shop like this.

I’m going back! Who's with me?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

from a speeding train

The Tappan Zee Bridge was named for the local native American tribe the "Tappan", and zee , the Dutch word for "sea."

It’s just over 3 miles long, with a center span of 1,212 feet.

The bridge was built at the Hudson River's second-widest point which added to construction costs. Duh. The site was chosen to be as close as possible to New York City while staying out of the 25-mile range of the Port Authority's sphere of influence. Politics uber alles.

Construction began in March 1952 and the bridge opened for traffic on December 15, 1955.

It has seven lanes of traffic, the center lane switching from eastbound in the morning to westbound in the evening.

It costs $5 coming in eastbound, but it’s always free to leave. lol Don’t let the toll gate hit you on the way out.

This deteriorating structure bears far more traffic than it was designed for and was featured on the History Channel “The Crumbling of America." Gee, that’s encouraging.

I love the look of this bridge. Because it’s a favored suicide leap it features four hot-line telephones with signs pleading "Life is Worth Living".

A $16 billion dollar replacement plan to include commuter light rail and high speed bus lanes is under environmental impact review, but at present there is no available financing.