Observations On The Neighborhood

A few weeks ago a guy got killed in this restaurant called Tacos 2004 Viva Mexico about a block away from my apartment on 5th Ave. The news was calling it a restaurant, but really, the place is a bar where guys go to watch soccer (and apparently shoot each other) -- I went there once as part of a project I was doing to try as many of the different places in the neighborhood as possible, and it became very clear very quickly that a) Food wasn't their strong point; and b) I wasn't wanted. I got a thing of really awful flautas and high-tailed it out of there. That was also sort of the end of the project.

Here's some other stuff in the neighborhood:

The Burger King at the western end of my block has this weird pipe coming out of its otherwise unbroken northern wall. The pipe, and this padlock that's sort of inexplicably attached to it, are caked in the thickest, tarriest, and yet most picturesque grease I've ever seen. Nina says they hook a hose up to it to suck out the grease from cooking burgers.

There's a Mexican restaurant on 39th St. and 4th that opened fairly recently called Los Tres Potrillos ("The Three Stallions," I think). The food's very good (they make very delicious and well-plated steaks and seafood platters), although it's a bit expensive. The place looks like a Greek diner inside, but it's got valet parking. Next door is a old-fashioned-looking wood frame house that used to be a day care center until it half-way burned down last fall. Next door to that is a Chinese bakery where I get pork buns and egg custards sometimes on the way to work.

The best pork buns in the neighborhood come from a place called Savoy Bakery up on 45th St. But that place is a hike and they often run out of buns. The place on 39th is good, but it's a little dirty, and the pork buns are heavy on the onions. There are also pork buns at the deli on 4th Ave. between 39th and 40th; these pork buns are very bad: soggy and foul-tasting.

On 42nd St., there's a bodega called My Kids Candy Store. I went in there on a whim a few days ago to pick up some Red Bulls for Nina -- I figured, it's a candy store, Red Bull tastes like poisonous candy, maybe I'll get lucky and they'll have some. Turns out, it's not really a candy store (I didn't see much candy), it's more of a grocery -- practically a carniceria, really -- and it's run by some scary-ass dudes. Kind of like in a movie where somebody walks into a convenience store while it's being robbed and the thieves have to pretend like they work there. I quickly and wordlessly established the price of the Red Bulls, paid for them, and left.

After the brunt of the election analysis last Tuesday was over, Tom and I sat around and came up with alternate, funny captions for the cartoons in the latest New Yorker. I realize that this activity has become something of a snarkster sport as of late (possibly on account of Gawker's picking up this delightful link), but I've been working with the medium for years now, starting in high school when Razor and I used to draw what we called "comics": A three-by-three panel page of little drawings with funny, subversive captions attached to them, which we'd pass back and forth in math class. Sometimes we'd do a thing where one of us would draw all nine panels but no captions and the other would have to interpret the first's artistic intent as best (or worst) as possible. So I know what I'm doing with captions, even if two out of three 680 roommates polled declared Tom's ones superior.

An early present for Razor -- whose wedding invitation I just got in the mail, for fuck's sake! -- in the form of a revelation (have I come clean about this one? I don't recall): I once knowingly ripped off a joke from Seinfeld in a comic. It wasn't even a particularly funny bit, it just happened to be on my mind while I was thinking of something to write: George is haggling with a fruit vendor over the price of something, and the guy bans him, broken-Englishedly, from the store for a year. At the time, I guess I was sort of banking on the idea that Billy hadn't seen that episode or had forgotten it or something, but no such luck when I showed it to him. "Wait, didn't that happen on Seinfeld?" he asked.

It was a total Ricky Gervais moment. "Oh... did it?" I said. "Which one?"

He explained, outlining the plot points. I lied and said that I didn't remember seeing it, but conceded I could've subconsciously picked it up. Not true; totally conscious plagiarism.

Last Saturday I went into work to help my boss Nick build a rack for our servers. For some reason, I thought it would be a two or three hour job, but it ended up taking more than ten hours, what with dismantling the existing rack, building the new one, and getting everything hooked back up again. When I got home, thoroughly exhausted and sort of physically dazed from exertion, my key got stuck in the door. Nina let me in, and I quickly forgot what'd happened -- until repeated ringing of the doorbell in the morning (by a Mexican dude with a passive-aggressive look on his face) woke me up. Still unable to extract the thing, I started dismantling the lock. That didn't do much good. Finally, Nina came over and pulled the key out with her agile fingers.