Category Archives: News

Someone on the Internets is lookin’ out for me

This is kinda weird. This morning I got a whole bunch of emails telling me that I needed to update my personal credit card information for my ebay account. They seemed to be having problems there, and it was obvious from their tone, and the number of emails sent (3 dozen or so) that this was a real emergency! Someone was attempting to change my passwords and pin numbers and they needed the four digits off the back of all my credit cards, along with the account numbers, expiration dates, mother’s madden name, social security, etc.

So I clicked on the link that took me to their web pages. All I had to do was go to the page they linked me to and enter in all the information there, in just one shot! The link took me to ebay/Visa’s security update URL at “visacc253.net,” where I’m guessing all of their top secret account files are stored. Luckily I had all my credit cards handy, and my Social Security card and pin numbers memorized. This saved me a lot of hassle! It took like 2 minutes! 🙂

You know, I love the internet! It’s so handy now, with the World Wide Web, to take care of all these things all at once. It makes everything so easy. I was relieved that they gave me a “heads-up” before I was taken advantage of.

It looks like I got there just in the nick of time, because as soon as I clicked on the button that said “SECURE ACCOUNT INFO NOW,” it took me to a page that said everything was all right and I didn’t have to contact Visa or ebay (or any of my credit card companies) directly about the matter. Such a relief! Now I’m just going to spend the rest of the day relaxing, knowing that at least someone’s looking out for me!

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Action @ Alt

3pm

Alt Coffee
Alt Coffee

Hahaha… okay, I’m in ALT and this homeless junky girl asked this guy here sitting across from her to use his cell phone. So he lends it to her (something I’d never do, nor would any New Yorker in his/her right mind). And she makes her call. Then she gave it back to him.

Then he starts yelling at her for calling South Carolina or some shit. Now he’s up telling the guy who works here, I don’t know what. I’m not exactly sure what he’s tattling on her for, but the guy who works here is comin’ around to talk with her.

Now it’s a shouting match, she’s gotten up and sat somewhere else. The guy who works here now is shouting and telling them, “I’m gonna ask both of you to leave if you don’t shut up!”

Now they’ve both sat down on opposite ends on the place. The guy is still mumbling to himself, peering over his shoulder at her. She’s looking around and pretending to read something, her own cell phone?

I’m guessing he has one of those prepay phones. I’m not familiar with those, but from how he’s behaving it’s cost him around fifty bucks. It’s so funny. He’s acting as if it’s outrageous for some homeless junky squatter chick to take advantage of someone like that.

During the altercation she yelled at him, “I don’t know why it is that italian guys are always yelling at me!”

Then he retorted, “I’m not Italian! And maybe it’s because you use their cell phones to make calls to South Carolina without permission!”

I don’t know. It struck me as a funny line.

This guy isn’t through with this thing yet. He keep looking over his shoulder at her, I’m guessing this is what one would call “Sending bad vibes in her direction.” Not sure if it’s working.

Wait. Maybe it is! Because now she’s looking over her shoulder at him and mouthing words like “dickhead” and “asshole.”

If anything more develops I’ll be sure to give an update.

3:14

Yay! The guy is getting up, packing his things. (C’mon, start shit with her man! She USED you!) Now he’s walking to her…. and he’s said he’s gonna tell the owner or something? Goddammit! I couldn’t hear all of what he said, but Christ, he gave her a tongue lashing and walked out. Both her and the guy who works here are shaking their heads at him as he leaves. It’s funny how something like that can make you think one person is nuts, then it turns out that both people are actually nuts!

Blackout

Stuck in hot train. Blackout begins!
Stuck in hot train. Blackout begins!

So Thursday was playin’ out just like every other day; art projects in the morning, jerk off, head to Manhattan around noon, write at the coffee shop until 3 then head over to Union Square to meet my friends. At about 4 I remembered an appointment I had in Williamsburg, so I got on the next eastbound L to Brooklyn.


I don’t know, I was probably sittin’ there thinkin’ about cleavage or something when suddenly the train came to a screeching halt, the lights went out and it was silent. Less than a minute later a voice told us that there had been a power outage and that’s all we were waiting for. It started to get hot as hell. This old black guy started sayin’: Can you feel it gettin’ hotter? Feel it? Feel it?” Everyone on the train felt it and his constant updates were the last things we needed so I told him to “eat shit and die”
… in my thoughts.

As we waited in the train car I realized that we could quite possibly be stuck there for hours. I looked around to see who it’d be that I’d choose to repopulate the world with… you know, in case it was the end of mankind out there and only our train car survived.
None of us knew what the hell was going on, and the same went for the conductors. A good 45 minutes passed and people were starting to get anxious. There were babies and old people on board and the rumor was circulating that we might be walkin’ back through the tunnel. We were under the Hudson river, “in the tube” as they call it, and no one had a clue how deep we’d traveled.

The doors between the cars were unlocked so people started to move back and forth between them. It seemed like a bad idea to climb out into the tunnel in case things started up again, but before I knew it bodies could be seen filing past the windows against the tunnel walls.

It was official then. We were walkin’ back to Manhattan. There was no way these cars were movin’ with people on the tracks. Oddly, there weren’t any giant rats, roaches or infected sewer-bums roamin’ around. In fact, firemen were on the tracks directing people on the path.
It turned out to be a fairly easy stroll. That’s when we got the news that New York was blacked out.

No traffic lights means traffic chaos!
No traffic lights means traffic chaos!

When we popped out into Manhattan and people were everywhere, crowding the sidewalks and streets, streaming out of businesses and crammed into buses and cabs. I was so happy to be stuck on the island. I quickly pushed my way towards Union Square where I knew my friends would be.

It was such a fuckin’ scene; New York turned off electrically, turned on emotionally. There at Union I met up with Skater Bob. It was clear that here was where the party would be tonight. All we had to do was chill.

The only light in the city
The only light in the city

When the sun went down, that’s when the reality of the blackout set in. The only lights in New York were from automobiles… and those shiny things in outer space. It was the first time those shiny thingies had shown themselves in decades over New York. And the first time public urination had been legal in centuries.
Peering down broadway from Union Square was wonderfully chilling. The street went south into a cave of buildings, traffic dissipated to almost nothing and people stayed in the parks leaving the sidewalks abandoned. 
”That’s what it’ll look like in the end times.” I told Skater Bob, “When Jesus returns to earth for His Second Coming.” 
Then I laughed historically for a good 6 minutes. It was really incredible.

There was a different feeling in the air. I was pickin’ up on girls, and even conned a kiss out of a blond with a great ass (Eva, if you’re reading this I handed out all of your smoothy coupons to every Union Square junky and told them to tell the staff “Eva sent me!”).

Bob and I hung out all night, strolled over to Tompkins Square to watch the idiots feed a bon fire with trash cans, bicycles, skateboards, bottles and their own flesh. The cops were being really cool, letting the idiots be idiots until they wore out or hurt themselves. Christ, I wanted so badly to find someone to have sex in public with before the sun came up. That dream still remains unfulfilled.

At 4:30 AM I caught a cab home. One of the most memorable sights I saw was over my shoulder on the 59th Street Bridge. Manhattan was black against the starry sky. I had to sing praises to the greatest city ever. Now if only it could get me laid.