Long Island Calling

Of the many google maps mashups I’ve seen, I think this one is the most disturbing I’ve ever seen.

The global incident map, tip courtesy of the good people at CyberJournalist.net. Makes you not want to go outside the house.

In case you didn’t know, The New Yorker just closed the submissions for a cool contest. the 2008 Eustace Tilley Contest. Through this contest, the magazine has been soliciting submission to reinterpret the iconic “mascot” of the publication, Eustace Tilley. As their site explains:

“Eustace Tilley was drawn by Rea Irvin, the magazine’s first art editor, for the cover of the first issue of The New Yorker, in 1925, and has returned for nearly every anniversary issue since. (Louis Menand gives a detailed history of Tilley.) Since 1994, the magazine has invited contributing artists to reinterpret this iconic dandy. “

Now The New Yorker will choose their favorites of the submissions on Feb 4, who will then will be featured on their site and in the anniversary issue this year.

Here is the flickr page featuring the submissions. My favorite was this one:

Kind of like an alien/steampunk interpretation of Eustace. Just as cool as this fine reinterpretation of a sci-fi classic.

Did you hear the news about a new proposition to build a tunnel from Oyster Bay to Rye, NY ?

 No joke.  A developer wants to  build a privately funded project to created these tunnels so that LIers who want to go to Westchester and/or New England would have a direct way to go underneath Long Island Sound.  Over 16 miles long, it would be the longest tunnel in the world.

Besides county approvals and feasibility estimates, my question is: Is this all that necessary?  Is there really that much of demand to justify the costs and potential traffic issues this could cause?  Personally, I don’t see it, but here is more info, in case you want to judge for yourself. 

So after finally taking some years to get over that whole nonsense proclaiming Philadelphia as “the sixth borough,” recently my dad forwarded me this article from his friend Jim, who lives in the Kansas City area.  Essentially it is a list of reasons why this writer moved from Brooklyn to KC, which unfortunately did not include The Royals or BBQ sauce.

That’s nice and all, but when will current and/or former NYC area journalists with some connection to some random city in the US stop trying to proclaim their shingle as “the X borough.”  Thankfully,  this writer did not make that proclamation, but there must be something in the air lately about this KC/NY borough thing for Gawker to have made a stink about it.   I know that everyone wants to hang with the cool kids, but is this the identity you want your city to be associated with?

And don’t worry, you won’t ever hear this blogger proclaim Nassau county as the “7th borough” or some  nonsense like that.   This county will never be that cool.   My evidence?
Exhibit A:

I rest my case…

Okay, so this pick has nothing to do with LI, but I wanted to give it a shout out to my latest TV obsession: Ninja Warrior!

For the initiated, it is Japanese reality show/contest that puts the strongest and most nimble athletes in the land in a gigantic obstacle course. As they clear the levels, they progress to more challenging courses. It’s like watching a live-action platforming video game, but with English subtitles!

Observe:

The show airs on G4 at  6 and 10 p.m. ET weeknights.

In LI it can be found on:

Cablevision- Channel 174      FiOS- Channel 171  (not exactly prime real estate on the cable map for these two)

Pats over the the lightning bolts 21-12. No huge surprise, but big up to the SD defense. They played well.

Now…(sighing) the Giants just beat the Pack with an overtime interception and a 47 yrd field goal. 23-20.

So it’s the Evil Empire vs. the Manning legacy.

This is proof that that there really is a Gehenna.

Now I’m really hoping that I can get some help from the BLOG-O-SPHERE on this one. Since Friday, wifey has had a cravin’ for some Hershey’s chocolate milk. Not that busta ass Nesquik with its anthropomorphic bunny mascot, but some smooth, rich and creamy Hershey’s chocolate milk.

The problem is that this stuff is really hard to find. I couldn’t find it for her on LI, couldn’t find it in Jersey either . In fact the only place I know that sells it is Gristedes in the city, and I’ll be damned If I have to go there every time she needs a fix.

If anyone has any suggestions on where I can find this product, especially in LI, please let me know. For those who don’t know about it, this is what it looks like:

..now you know!
Yo, Slick, blow..

If I write one more post about the LIRR or any NYC area public trans, I just might have to rename this “Scott’s Choo-Choo Blog” and get myself linked to 2nd Avenue Sagas. But I have to blog about this one, only cause I can’t believe I didn’t find out about this earlier.

Seems that Amtrak workers may go on strike which would effect both LIRR and NJ Transit trains coming into Penn Station every day. As this AP article states:

“Just over half of NJ Transit’s 740 weekday trains travel for all or part of their routes on lines owned by Amtrak; if Amtrak employees aren’t at work, trains can’t run on those tracks. Some 218,000 daily trips are taken on the affected lines. East of Manhattan, the vast majority — about 85,000 — of the Long Island Rail Road’s morning rush-hour passengers travel to Penn Station, where Amtrak owns the tracks and handles the dispatching. Without the use of its only Manhattan terminal, the LIRR faces the prospect of thousands of extra customers overwhelming smaller stations in Queens as they get off to transfer to the subway.”

For my LIRR homeys, here is an update on the MTA’s contingency plan in case Amtrak wokers decide to fight the power.

Yeah…um…uh..this move to LI is really working out so far…um…

UPDATE- The strike has been averted, THE STRIKE HAS BEEN AVERTED!

Praise Jebus!

Courtesy of my Aunt Sherrie, who BTW used to live in Huntington many years ago, a comprehensive list of places on Long Island that used to be and what exists in its place today.

Though I’m not familiar with these places of old, it seems that most of these spots were eventually replaced by retail stores and/or chain outfits. In a lot of these cases it seems that many of them were malls that got replaced with newer retail stores, like Orbachs becoming The Source.

So ultimately, I moved from one colossus of suburban consumerism to another.

Joy.

And just when I thought it was safe to watch football today…

If anyone needs me, I’ll be sitting shiva for the Cowboys between now and the Super Bowl.   Also, if anyone sees Tony Romo’s betzim,  please return them.  He’s going to need them to deal with the media for the next couple of weeks.