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august nineteenth, twenty oh eight my one wish for syracuse over the next 5-10 years is for this city to develop some sort of original identity for itself. i don't think that a bunch of posh, high-end condo development stuff, nor a mega pipe-dream of a retail mall will help defy this city. instead, i would much rather see the culture of downtown syracuse aim to have a grittier and/or hipper vibe, much like that of brooklyn or allston (my old stomping grounds). when you think about it, places like dinosaur bbq work so well for syracuse because they are home-grown and present a sort of local flavor to those who don't live here. i suppose it's a shame there aren't 20 more places like dinosaur here. there is certainly enough room for them. 3 more days until my 10 day vacation, fuckos. august fifteenth, twenty oh eightforgive me for my excessive posting on trains, city development, and downtown. as you can tell, i've been on a big kick with these things lately. aside from all of that i've been keeping busy. i am pretty much happy at all corners of my life right now. which is really the first time that this has ever happened. it's almost like i don't know how to handle it because i usually have to find something that i'm really unhappy about and stress over and over about it. but there's really nothing to be stressed out about (aside from having no money, but that shit comes and goes). i have a great girlfriend, my job is going good, i'm taking a week off from work soon, i'm taking a long trip to boston at the end of the month, my brother and sister-in-law are in for a week, my dad is turning 70 this weekend, and it's state fair time. sure, the fair always signals that the summer is drawing to a close, but i'm ready for it. i won't argue that this summer has had a few bumps in the road, but overall it's been freaking awesome. i'm hoping to do a few more things before the summer is over. like a camping and canoeing trip with my brother in the adirondacks, maybe hit the links and get a round of golf in, and play some basketball or softball before it starts getting too cold. as far as music goes, since i keep procrastinating about my creativity drought, my next musical project is underway: i'm essentially covering songs and doing them in my own terms. i know that's not the most original thing, but it has really been helping out in at least doing something with music. i have one song about 80% finished and i plan on doing at least 5 more and adding them to the website before this fall. i'm hoping to get a beatles song, a beach boys song, and maybe some other random artists covered. we'll see. anyway, my goal is just to enjoy the rest of summer and be totally thankful for everything that i have. august thirteenth, twenty oh eightso i guess i can finally sell my piece of shit car and be car-free. cusecar will be starting this fall. by the way, goodyear can suck my bawls. not only did they not take responsibility for fucking up my windshield wiper motor when they were installing my alternator, they scratched-up my door trying to get the driver's side door to open, and my car shakes right before i turn it off now. i can't go back because every time i bring it there, my car problems multiply by two. anybody know how to install a wiper motor on a ford focus? i can pay you with ample supplies of beer (NOT the $250 that goodyear wants for it...). but seriously, after i get this wiper motor thing addressed, whoever buys my car off of me will luck out: four new tires, new alternator, new transmission, new brakes, new antenea, a recent oil change, and a brand-spanking new windshield wiper motor all courtesy of ford motor company's shitty quality control division and goodyear tire and rubber company's irresponsible customer service and technicians. i don't know much about computers other than... other than...
 can i just say that syracuse needs to have more developments LIKE THIS on its surface parking lots? awesome, awesome news. next, how about they focus on parking and the atrium garage which, by the looks of it, is falling apart. with a legit hotel capitalizing on on city's most successful neighborhood, o'brien and gere going right next to it, and the jefferson clinton commons going up on the southern end (and all three projects built without demolishing anything), things are looking up for 'cuse. for a change... here's the jefferson clinton commons progress from late june to early august...
two good pieces of writing... first, at syracuse b-4, which takes a look at past local stories and puts them into a present-day perspective, the galleries are discussed. for those who don't know what the galleries are, it is/was(?) essentially downtown syracuse's retail answer to the construction of carousel mall (and the other still financially strong malls at the time like pencan mall and camillus mall, to name a few). the galleries is honestly just a totally failed project. with the onondaga library as their main tenant, i was in there last fall for a visit and it was just the most depressing place. almost every store was empty and they've resorted to keeping law firms instead of retail stores (that were promised). there's absolutely no way that a "mall" like this will ever survive or house any major tenants with carousel mall, and the future destiny usa, a mere 3 miles away. not mentioned in the blog post is how the roof of the galleries is leaking and could very well destroy historic books and documents from my favorite part of the library, the local history floor. they should just move the library back to its former location on montgomery street. the building is still there and is still beautiful. i especially liked the last paragraph of this post.... so, yeah, picking on the galleries makes me kind of pathetic. but no more pathetic than this: on july 31, 1985, a crane took a wrecking ball to the old mccrory's building at 435 south salina street to begin construction of the galleries of syracuse. even after several swings, the wall would not break. it had been built to last. the second piece of writing comes from greg munno of the cnyspeaks section of syracuse.com about crime and downtown syracuse. some great information in this article and even a few surprising things, like how there is more crime on the northside than southside and how syracuse's crime rate is lower than its sister cities: rochester, albany, and buffalo. i get a little defensive when people say syracuse is unsafe. sure there are bad parts and parts that could be easily improved by the local government, but what city doesn't have bad areas? you need to know what blocks are safe to walk and when to walk them. this generalization that syracuse is an unsafe city tends to always come from suburbanites who don't even live in the city or people of an older generation such as my parents, their friends, and my friends' parents. i'll stand by this statement: you have a much greater chance of getting hurt in a car crash in the suburbs than you do walking down a street downtown... for what it's worth, i launched my restaurant blog, pulled into syracuse, on august 1st.
on one hand, it's not surprising that exxon mobil just had the biggest quarterly profit ever by any u.s. corporation, but on the other hand, um, what the hell is going on? i think we (and i mean we as a country, not just you and i) need to seriously analyze why we still insist on paying more and more for gas every month and have been doing so since the summer of 2003. and we continue to fork over more and more money without coming up with any other reliable option for an alternative to transportation. (for the record, i don't think corn oil is going to save us). at the risk of repeating myself, our rail system needs a major upgrade to connect cities making it easier for people (and food?) to get from place to place without relying only on gas. my crazy theory on this whole thing? exxon mobil is merely trying to cash in as much money as quickly as possible before shit starts to really hit the fan - causing the death of the suburbs, food prices to soar, rapid unemployment, mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together...
i suppose part of my reasoning for writing a book about dining destinations in the city of syracuse is not because i fancy myself as a writer or as a bonafide food reviewer, but mainly because downtown syracuse does not have anybody speaking for it. i mean, some cities can promote a specific neighborhood with a sense of ease and make it seem so welcoming, while syracuse really doesn't have anybody living in the city, being proud of it, and marketing the hell out of it to people who are unfamiliar. granted, syracuse may not be the most marketable city, but i've learned enough here in the last 12 months to know that there are way more places to eat and enjoy a meal than i previously knew about. and it's not just burgers, wings, and pizza (though, you can't go wrong with any of those). the city has a wide range of legitimate food choices and cuisines: indian, thai, korean, middle eastern, bbq (not just dinosaur), tapas, and vegitarian just to name a few. i suppose the basis of my completely hypothetical book would be to get a first hand look at these places and promote them to people like myself who had no idea that they were right there. it should be noted that i'm still brainstorming ideas for my yet-to-be-named book and have come up with a huge list of restaurants that i would like to try. and i'm limiting my range to the city of syracuse and not including chain restaurants just to make things a tad easier. (...um, how about i just pick an idea and roll with it...) july twenty third, twenty oh eightso i've been thinking about selling my car. i've had these thoughts for about a year now and i've been thinking more and more about it over the last week or so. it can be done. since january when i began keeping in-depth track of my finances, i've managed to spend about $550 per month on my car (gas, car payments, car insurance, repairs, general maintenance, etc...). personally, i don't think a minimum of $550 a month on something that i don't even use everyday is what i should be wasting my money on. wouldn't that money that gets spent every month be much better suited for paying off loans? or buying musical equipment? or just savings in general? let's weigh a few pos and negs... reasons for selling a car...
here's two very cool pictures that were posted on the onondaga citizens league blog. it's of new york state's construction of the elevated highway system (i-81) through downtown syracuse in the 1950's. the first one facing south near university hospital and the second facing north (i think?) of the to-be-elevated 81 crossing genesee street.
i've been meaning to get over to the library to make some copies of pictures like these. i'm just curious to see what the immediate areas of the city were like before and during the massive construction of i-81. looking back, i find it so odd that the state was given the go-ahead (basically through redlining) to demolish primarily african-american neighborhoods in the city. it was really just blatant racism. and to a further extent blatant classism. it's just so strange that people actually thought that demolishing lower-income housing and african-american neighborhoods would somehow make the city safer. when all it did was divide syracuse university from downtown, move african-americans into project and apartment-style housing through government programs, and make it that much easier for middle-class people to move out of the city and live in the suburbs. even more odd is the fact that many city politicians, including syracuse's own mayor, opposed the "el" yet were essentially ignored by the state.
on wednesday evening, i attended a meeting hosted by 40-below at olm lounge in armory square entitled "running for office 101". (i'm sitting there in the front row trying to look interested in the tail end of this clip). speakers included senator david valesky, assemblyman will barclay, onondaga county legislator marty masterpole, syracuse common councilors stephanie minor and ryan mcmahon, and an appearence by county executive joanie mahoney. i'm not sure if it was worth attending this meeing or not. i suppose it didn't hurt to hear what people have to say on the inside and hear stories about how they started out, but it was a fairly blase` experience. about halfway through, one of the audience members asked a question about revitalizing downtown and the speakers went on a huge tangent for about 30 minutes. don't get me wrong, i love talking about downtown syracuse, but this wasn't the reason why i attended this meeting. and the discussion just went on a lot longer than it really should have. in the end, executive mahoney tried to tie everything together explaining that there are obvious differenes in how things need to get done in the city, but these are essentially the types of issues you would need to deal with if you decide to get involved with politics. i don't want to bash 40-below, but there were a lot of preppy douches in attendence. being that the meeting started around 5pm, i'm sure that most of these people were just getting off of work, but they all just looked like future political assholes. guys in suits and girls in nice dresses. luckily, i had decided to "dress up" and wore a black t-shirt with jeans... i didn't really know what to do with myself when i first got in there so i bellied up to the bar and orderd a brooklyn summer ale on tap. holy crap this was probably the best beer that i've had in a really long time. but back to the point - 40-below has been a really cool group to be a part of thus far. although i wish i was a member when they decided to clean out the wilson building on salina street, i've met some relatively cool people in my age group since joining, which is kind of a hard thing to do in this city. i've also done some positive things that i probably would not have done under normal circumstances (a kickball tournament, cleaning onondaga creek, the westside neighborhood plan, etc...)
there's 2 things that sports broadcasters say that i absolutely cannot stand...
really? there is more than one frank catalanotto in the league? i had no idea. stop pluralizing player names. if someone said "your joe lorenzs" i would be so pissed. mainly because i don't need my personality and abilties watered down at the behest of someone else. while we're at is (espn, i'm looking in your direction) why don't you just admit that you masterbate over brett farve, home run derby's, and the entire yankee organization. here's what i'm going to miss...
i've been to shea maybe 12 times now. i think the mets record is somewhere around 2-10 when i attend games and i'm currently riding a 6 game losing streak. you know when they play "taking care of business" by bto after every mets home win? yeah, i've only heard that like twice ever. so it would be nice to hear it just one more time before shea is imploded. july fourteenth, twenty oh eightso all weekend i thought about attempting to do something with my life. who's to say that i can't do something until i actually try it? who cares if i didn't go to college for it or risk going further into debt. at least i would know that i can or can't do it. granted, my brain jumps around like crazy pretty much every day. i tend to get really involved with an idea for a decent period of time and then loose interest a few days later. two weeks ago it was buying a old building and being a landlord. last week it was opening up a legit sports bar downtown. this week (and almost all of yesterday) it's writing a book about restaurants in the city. i even thought long enough about it to come up with a title: "126 dining destinations in syracuse: a reviewers guide to restaurants in the central new york area". since this would not be just a bla-bla book about every restaurant in the area, here's the catch... the book would be a guide to defining where to get the best food topic in the area. 5 best places to get a hamburger, 5 best places to get a burrito, 5 best date spots in the city, 5 best places with the cheapest eats, 5 best places for ice cream, etc.. etc... and have an index area in the back for restaurant locations by neighborhood and city, another index on price range, and another index by cuisine. it would be tough because if i am going to review 126 places in the area (and i use that number arbitrarily), i am going to need to be able to afford eating out every other day if i want to finish it within a year's time. it would be cool if it worked because there really are no other books about this and there are no references online (aside from maybe yelp.com) that deal with this topic. not only that, but being that i am not an official reviewer, restaurants would give me no priority over any other normal customer (because they would have absolutely no idea who i am), so the reviews would be from a more standard view point. though, this idea could become a train wreck because i could run into debt, i would need to fit it into my budget and schedule and other things like my lack of proper english and writing abilities, legal fees, copyrighting process, publishing process, etc... maybe i should just go for it and see what happens. i always seem to have these good ideas and never do anything about them. and then whine about it once someone else does it before me.
july twelfth, twenty oh eight apple really needs to get their shit together. on friday, they released the new iphone and also released a software update for the first generation of iphones (mine). great idea right? WRONG. their servers overloaded and they had issues with everything. not only did people have problems activating their iphones, but the software update had to be put on hold because people's first generation iphones were getting totally wiped out. freaking apple. did they not even test this shit before releasing it? i reluctantly added the software update to my phone yesterday evening and thank god, nothing went wrong. and it should be noted that i love the update. especially the new feature where you can download applications to your phone. i have some cool ones already. like an aim application, a facebok application, a myspace application, a yelp application, a movie theater times application, a baseball stats and scores application, and a how to speak german application....
july ninth, twenty oh eight
july fourth, twenty oh eight i've always liked mr. o'hara when he was mayor. he was instrumental in cleaning up paper mill island in b'ville and i think helped give the village a better small-town charm after 1998. before then, b'ville was kind of a sketchy town. there were streets even a few blocks away from my house that you really wouldn't want to walk down by yourself at night. my favorite story about him is when some neighbors were getting upset at the foul language from teenagers playing basketball at mcharrie park, and to counteract this, instead of bulldozing the basketball court, mr. o'hara's solution was to go and actually play basketball with them and meet with them face to face and let them know that they need to be a little more respectful to nearby residents. i liked how he handled this because he chose to actually come face to face with the problem rather than make some irrational decision that would penalize everybody at the expense of a few. but in hindsight, it didn't matter. the town board eventually decided to tear down the basketball rims after he left office. i knew those kids. they were assholes. thanks for ruining a cool basketball court a block away from where i lived... finally. continuous discussion about i-81 through syracuse.
june thirtieth, twenty oh eight i know this drunk asshole does not represent the entire yankee fanbase by any means, but this is probably reason number 1 of why i hate the yankees: their fans. most of them are so fucking high on themselvs and think the entire universe revolves around jeter blowing a-rod. case and point, what happend to me on saturday night. you will never see a mets fan walk up (with homemade signs) and get in the face of yankee fan and start talking down to the person like they're some kind of second class citizens for liking a team other than their own. some other reasons of note for my disliking...
i think craig, bear, and the clerk at the party source on erie blvd are the only yankee fans that have not pissed me off in some way. it should also be said that my girlfriend has to put up with a lot of things from me. especially when i come home drunk and go on loud, drunken tangents about nights like this...
june twenty seventh, twenty oh eight in the bag...
paypal money is like monopoly money. i bought this for about $50 on ebay, but it really only ran me about $30. score. i'm usually not the sweet tooth type, but wonka bars effing kick ass. this is great news for central new york, especially about the express service from syracuse to baldwinsville, but i feel like this represents exactly how america is mearly treading water about our energy problems. i mean, what happens not only when it becomes too costly to commute by car, but when it eventually becomes too costly to commute by bus? and airlines? you can essentially forget those. we'll be lucky if commercial airlines haven't completely died off in 3 years at the rate that they're currently disintegrating. so, what does that leave as our last resort for getting around? a mode of transportation that would have the greatest effect on reducing our oil use: trains. it's totally unlikely being that he hates amtrak, but let's hypothetically say that president bush announces a project to rebuild america's rail system. and for the sake of discussion, let's say that this new grand project has the same magnitude of construction as the interstate highway system back in 1956. not only would this save people gross amounts of money on commuting costs, it would put tons and tons of people to work with high-paying and meaningful jobs at all levels, it would equaly help poor, middle-class, and upper class people across the entire country, and it would be a safe investement as it does not require any new, fancy technology that people are unfamiliar with. the fact that both political parties and the entire public have not even had a meaningful discussion about this is totally beond me.
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