Retarded Blocking software

This is a test.

New York, Day 1.5: Blocked!

Do me a favour, chums, and let me know if you can read this. Believe it or not, the "intelligent content recognition" software on the machines provided by the hotel won't let me view my own LJ! It must be the apparent obscenity in the URL, since I can log in okay and, apparently, use this page. The staff is useless--although terribly apologetic--and the company who handles their support reportedly even more so.

New York Day 1.5, cont.

I am such a genius!

I tried viewing my LJ through monshu's Friends page. Blocked! Through mollpeartree's. Blocked! Through rollick's. SUCCESS! Insight: If you have less than a hundred friends, my username is dangerous smut and you must not be allowed to see it. If you have a gazillion, though, it's simply lost in the noise.

Where was I? Well, Battery Park, Wall St., Fulton St. Fish Market, Chinatown, Little Italy, NYU, the Strand, and Union Square.

And that's just this morning.

Rain was predicted and rain we're now getting--spitting and scattered, but cold and nasty. The morning was beautiful, though, so I seized my diem and took a leisurely stroll around the tippy tip of the peninsula. What is freakin' castle doing in lower Manhattan? And why is it named for an ex-president? Maybe if I'd bought a tour guide, I'd know, but I was trying for a change to be a camera rather than an academic. Endless lines of schoolchildren outside the Ellis Island ferry terminal. snap Mediocre new aggregate arches in fantastic landscaping between high-end residential. snap Organic produce stalls and stacks upon stacks of remaindered books. snap

I'd like to organise my reactions a bit, but I may be forced off this machine at any minute (fifteen-minute limit, bleagh!). The Strand was a bit disappointing. The fiction section is off limits until Monday, the linguistics section is ass, and the reference isn't half what I expected it to be. I picked up Wagner's Ring libretti (since I know from hard-won experience that none of the stores in Chicago has them) and a smattering of newer German lit, including Jelinek. As I was casting a jaundiced eye at the Safire and Bryson books that dominate an unscholarly selection, I overheard a woman making introductions in the next aisle:
"This is my good friend Richard Dreyfuss."
"I loved you in Declare."
I waited for the chuckle at the man's little joke. It didn't come. I had to look; sure enough, it wasn't just any Richard Dreyfuss. Flushed with schoolgirlish rubosity, I knew I had to remove myself to the other side of the room before I made a complete ass of myself. After sifting through the French section book by book looking for Greene, I ventured back to see what social science works the gifted actor had been browsing: Sexuality.

I've had two meals so far (not counting stuffing my face with bakery goods from Moishe's before my morning shower), both in the East Village; one with an old friend and another with a brand-new one. Pudgy, as I affectionately called him an age ago when I was hopelessly smitten, is doing well and going back to school. The attraction seems to be gone, but he was warmer to me than ever, which I'm still trying to comprehend. Has he also reached the point of wanting to reconnect with old college buddies for all the right reasons? Oh, and perfectly decent ravioli di porcini alla paesana.

Last night, danbearnyc took us to a stellar Indian place, Banjara, that was as new to him as it was to us. Some interesting twists on the ol' North Indian cuisine, including Goan-style chicken with coconut and a wonderful deep cinnabar lamb dish called lal maas. danbearnyc was an interesting twist on an old stereotype as well; one brief phone call had me expecting a more neurotic New Yorker than the relatively laid back name-dropper I found. You'd never knew how hectic an evening he had ahead from the leisurely way in which he treated us to Beard Papa creme puffs for desert and escorted us all the way to Christopher Street so we could enjoy Will and Grace at Ty's Bear Bar.

The hotel is quite nice; I'm meeting monshu for complimentary cocktails in an hour after his conference when we'll decide what we're up for tonight. It was more than a little bizarre, however, to realise that the huge construction site we can see a slice of out of our window--also the location of our nearest subway station--is Ground Zero. It's not as disturbing as it could be, since I've never been Downtown before, so it's not like I keep expecting to see something that isn't there. But, so far, I haven't been able to round the corner across from Trinity Church without visions of black smoke and falling bodies, as if the psychic trauma of that day were still clinging to the sidewalks and ruined facades.