In New Jersey, the NJ Dept of Transportation has already started working on the widening of the NJ Turnpike.  The Turnpike itself has separate bus/truck and car lanes, but southbound at exit 8a, they all merge.  The merge causes huge traffic problems as everyone who can’t can’t drive slows down to a crawl.  Many times on the weekend, the backup will stretch all the way to exit 9 and northwards. It basically sucks. Many times on the way home on a Friday evening, the traffic is bad, and I’ll jump off at an earlier exit, but so has everyone else.  This results in me being mired in traffic on the local roads.

So, some time ago, the DOT and NJ finally approved a plan to widen the Turnpike all the way to exit 6.  This gets the southbound drivers a better shot as they make their way to 7a (Jackson and Great Adventure), 7, and exit 6 (the PA Turnpike.) Sounds like a win-win, eh?

Progress isn’t good for everybody.  On our exit, they are also moving the toll plaza.  As a result of the plan, and the need for space for this long-term construction plan, they’ve flattened and paved a large area of green pastures.  They’ve also bought out nearby homes to make room.  I can tell, because their decks/porches are ripped away, and the lawns are gone. 

This past Wednesday, I needed to get oil changes for both of our cars, as we were way past due. In the past, I’ve taken it to the local Exxon gas station and mechanic shop.  In 2006-2008, I used to get all my car work done there, which included oil changes and all that engine work and windshield replacement on the old Honda Accord.  I spent many times walking in and out of Exxon station, spending gobs of money there on the Honda.  The station manager was an Indian man named Nathan — an older Indian man in this sixties who has done various jobs in the past, but now working here.

After a lot of engine work done on the Honda in 2007 and 2008, but without any real improvement, I got annoyed and stopped going to the Exxon station.  Nathan would call me every so often, sounding a little lonely, wonderingf if I would be coming in for any work.  I guess he was hurting for some business, but I was still too annoyed. Too many mechanics in and out, and none could solve my problems.

Back to this week — I needed a fast oil change, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to try the Exxon, and throw them some business.  It’s close, and I didn’t want to be away from work too long in the afternoon. I saw Nathan, who was looking very haggard and slow. He got the mechanic to stay a little longer past quiting time to do my oil change.  Nathan then told me that the station would be closing in two days, on Oct 1st.  The NJ DOT had purchased the land on the station, as they needed the additional space next to their staging area.  Wow.

Nathan mentioned that he and the rest of the mechanics were out of jobs in two days, and had nothing lined up. Now I knew why this guy was depressed.  I felt bad, as Nathan (and the mechanics) couldn’t afford to be out of work.  Heck, none of us can these days.  Nothing lined either. Tough break. Progress is great, but you don’t always think about all the repercussions, and how not everyone may benefit. Much like the robots added to assembly lines, or the Internet affecting brick-and-mortar stores.

Our Exxon gas station will be no more

I don’t have an iPhone, but I know AT&T’s service can be pretty wonky. Gizmodo reported that one of their readers was getting around 22% of his calls dropped in the NYC area, and took it to Apple. The Geniuses said this was pretty good.  Apparently, a 30 percent dropped call rate is the average in NYC for AT&T.

What?

I missed this (whenever it happened — last week, this week?), but I watched this follow-up between Andy and Conan where they played a replay of the clip.  Man, that was a bad fall.  I genuinely felt bad for Conan.  I’m glad he’s okay now.  Pretty scary though.

I’m officially tired of watching movie trailers in the movie theater.  I want the world to understand that is a big statement for me.  Traditionally, I’ve always enjoyed the trailers. Years have passed, and now, if I have to sit through one more trailer, I’m gonna cram popcorn in my ears until the sweet bliss of deafness protects me from these trailers.

So what happened, you may ask?

1. I have paid $10 to watch a movie. I’m not a loser, so I’ve probably brought my wife or friend, so this could be over $20 for two. I want to see the movie, but have limited time.  I know I’ll have to get seats early, so I’ll get stuck watching 20-30 minutes of the same 8 commercials and anagrams repeating over and over. I then have to watch the trailers. Meanwhile, I’m on a tight schedule, and can’t waste my time on movies I don’t care about.
2. There are good trailers and bad trailers, but the trailers are always the same theme.  See MSNBC’s 5Top of awful movie trailer clichés.  I’ve heard them all, and I’m absolutely sick of them. “Everything you know is about to change.” Oh really?  Is it now?
3. Finally, the most important point of why I don’t want to watch movie trailers at the theater anymore. I’ve already seen it. Look, back before the Internet made everything you know change (ha ha), watching a trailer at the theaters was the only way you’d know about upcoming movies. It was new, it was fun, it was exciting. Flash forward to today. There are entertainment news websites that tell you what movies are being produced. At any point up to the movie’s release, there is a multitude of information out there for the fans.  Teaser trailers. More teaser trailers.  Trailer #1.  Trailer #2. Red band trailers. Production stills.  And even a movie synopsis or two.  You name it, it’s been out there for a while over the course of a year or two. 

And that’s the key point.  If you are a fan, you’re already aware of the movie, and have seen the trailers to the movies you want to see on opening night. Why should you want then sit and see that trailer again, and all the crappy trailers to the crappy movies that you don’t want to see, before you ever get to see the movie you wanted to see in the first place?

Indian actress Lisa Ray

Now this is a strange blast from the past. Try to follow the chronology:

1. Sunday night, I’m browsing through Hulu for the Sept 26th episode of SNL, which I forgot to record before we went away this weekend. While I’m browsing, I notice an image from a recent episode of that show Psych on the USA Network, which I don’t watch.  Appeared to be a Bollywood / Indian-themed episode. Unable to resist, I check out the episode.  It is an Indian-themed episode titled Bollywood Homicide, aired recently on Sept 18th 2009.

2. After I watch the episode (major skimming), I was curious about the supporting Indian actors and actresses, I check out the IMDB entry for the episode, and ne names sounds familiar — Lisa Ray.  I click the link, and lo and behold, she was the main actress in a nice little movie called Bollywood Hollywood. We went to see this movie back in Nov 2002 at the movie theater within the NYC Virgin Megastore. This was the same actress, whose performance was interesting to watch back in 2002, but I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of her since 2002, and thus forgot about her.

3. So what has she been doing since 2002?  Besides acting in Canadian productions, she was recently diagnosed with an incurable disease called Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the blood. When she’s not acting, she’s undergoing chemo.

Sad, I tell you.  Seven years ago, she was a new actress on the scene.  Seven years later, diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer, and just 37.  What the hell, man? Life can really throw you a curveball.

The original Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003)

[I want to talk about the new Star Wars animated series. If you don't wish to read about this, please cover your eyes, or move on to the next posting. This is your first and only warning. Star Wars geekiness to follow.]

Okay, the Star Wars prequels (Eps 1-3) did not live up the greatness of the original Star Wars trilogy (Eps 4-6.) The acting was eh. The dialogue was a bit boring. The kiddie jokes were almost bad enough to make you sick to your stomach (I’m looking squarely at you, Phantom Menace.) Once the dialogue stopped, and the action started, that was pretty good.

A few years ago in 2003, Cartoon Network broadcasted a series of animated shorts called Star Wars: Clone Wars. I completely missed out on them, but I heard they were pretty decent.  I stopped reading the Star Wars books many years ago, because there were so many, and you couldn’t keep up. To satisfy my SW lust, I’ve resorted in the past to playing my Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic games, and checking out the latest progress on the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG, which is scheduled to be released…. who knows when.

What is a Star Wars fan to do?  If you haven’t already, you need to check out Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network, because it is good. I believe it’s covering some of the same stories as the 2003 series, but I believe there are additional stories.  In any case, same idea — Lucasarts is filling in the timeline between Episodes 2 and 3.  It’s in the same animated style as the 2008 Clone Wars movie [same title, it seems] that came out last summer.  Now, is this series the greatest thing since….. Jamaican beef patties were invented?  No, certainly not.  Are these episodes as great as the original Star Wars trilogy? Not at all. 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

So why watch?  Well, they’re “good enough”, you could say.  The episodes are shorter than the long movies, so they’re bite-sized.  The stories are decent and interesting. The action is fun to watch. In a nutshell, you get your fix, and it is actually likeable. I’ve almost caught up on Season 1. Season 2 begins Oct 2nd, and I’m looking forward to it.

This year, we Ipes were celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary.  What to do, what to do? After much soul-searching, researching in dusty European libraries, and verifying our hypotheses through frightening lab experiments that no man should do, we decided on spending the weekend in Atlantic City.  How did we come to this conclusion? My sister got me a gift card to the restaurants at the Tropicana casino’s The Quarter. It’s basically a large indoor mall that features shops and restaurants, and is connected to the Tropicana hotel.

Selecting a destination was one thing, but getting a room was another.  Even in this economy, with a downtrodden hospitality industry, and the general seediness of AC, the basic rooms were still expensive. I’m talking over $300-$400 a night on a Saturday.  I’ve never visited Atlantic City (and I’ve come close), but I couldn’t believe it.  We considered hotels just outside AC, but some room rates eventually dropped as we got closer to our big weekend.  The Tropicana itself was sold out, so we settled on the Atlantic City Hilton Casino Resort.

Uncle Robbie reads "Green Eggs & Ham" to the kids at bedtime

The plan was to drop the kids off to my sister and BIL at their place on Friday around 7pm, then drive off to AC. Murphy’s Law struck again, and neither of us could get the time to pack and stuff early enough in the week (and day), and still leave by 7pm.  We ended up leaving around 10pm, and hit major traffic down the Turnpike.  By the time we situated the kids, gave parting childcare instructions, and arrived in AC, it was around 2am.

The hotel was nice, but they gave us double beds.  Ah, the romance began already.  Luckily, we were able to switch the next day to a better room.   We had dinner Fri night a la room service around 3am, and fell asleep watching infomercials. 

Saturday entailed a late breakfast/lunch, spa treatment for my wife, and we rested some more, like God wanted us to.  Saturday evening, we had dinner at Cuba Libre over at The Quarter.  Excellent cuban food and 13 types of mojitos, btw, so I would highly recommend them. After dinner, we walked around the Tropicana, and my wife even won some money at the slots. She’s hot, the mother of my children, and she brings in the dough.

Our anniversary dinner at Cuba Libre

On Sunday, we slept in (what a glorious weekend!), checked out, and had lunch over at Il Mulino over at the Trump Taj Mahal.  Geez, what a gawdy hotel. No wonder all the Indian events are held at the Taj Mahal — it’s like coming home to India, including the elephant statues.  Il Mulino was a decent italian restaurant, but it was so busy/disorganized, we alternatively waited and ate our lunch over the course of 1 hour and 45 minutes. I noticed that all of the Trump descriptions plastered in brochures lauded how each Trump establishment (the restaurants, the clubs, etc.) were the best, or the finest, or the greatest.  I could actually hear it in Donald Trump’s voice. Although Trump is lauding his italian restaurant as “legendary”, it was anything but.

We eventually picked up the kids, and got home tonight around 6pm. The great anniversary weekend is over, and it was extremely restful. I generally feel pretty guilty and doubtful that sleeping that much, but you know, we really needed to recharge. It was also great husband-wife-and-no-kids bonding time.  Awesome and fun. Sometimes, you just want to eat your nice dinner, and not have to worry about cutting up someone else’s plate of food.

Josh & I visit the American Museum of Natural History

I finally scheduled a day off, and take Joshua to the city.  I had been promising to take him to the city for the entire spring and summer, but the schedules finally worked.  At the moment, I’m leading an audit, but am between the planning and fieldwork phases.  Now seemed like a good time to take a day off, recharge, and have a nice day out with my boy.

After running through various itineraries that became incrementally more complex (and likely less enjoyable for a 4-year old), I chanted the mantra “Less is more.” Why try to fit in observation decks, ferry rides, numerous subway rides all within one trip?  Too much for him. 

I decided on a train ride into the city (his first time on a train), subway uptown (first time on the subway) to the American Museum of Natural History and the Rose Center For Earth and Space for a planetarium show. Lots of new experiences there. My wife would drop us off and pick us up.

I’ll skip the additional bad decisions, delays, and other logistical problems that occurred that morning, and hurry to the important details.  We had 14 mins to make it to the train station and purchase tickets before the 9:04am train arrived. If we missed it, we would have to 30 mins more for a local train — doable, but not the best option when we were so close to making it! With some mad dashing, and bagels and water in hand, we arrived at the train station at 9:03am. I grabbed the bag with our breakfast in my left hand, Josh in my right arm, and ran to the platform.  As we were in line at 9:03am, the train arrived. As I paid for the ticket with a credit card at 9:04am, the last passengers and conductors boarded the train. I carried Josh and breakfast, ran out the door, and made a flying LEAP onto the train as the buzzer buzzed. I landed in the train vestibule, the doors closed, passengers looked at me, and I smiled and sighed with relief.

“Sweet.”

I don’t think my life would be as interesting if it wasn’t for all the bad decisions and melodrama. We ate our breakfast on the train, and I pointed out the various stops and towns we passed.  We arrived at NY Penn a little after 10am, took the #1 train to 79th St, and hoofed it to the museum.

I won’t give a blow-by-blow account of our trip through the museum.  There’s certainly too much to visit in one day. However:

• We did visit the entire lower level
• We explored the entire 1st floor, including the Northwest Native American exhibit, the Hall of Biodiversity, the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, Gems and Minerals, The Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites, The Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, etc.
• We visited the Mammals of North America, and yeah, the entire 1st floor
• We watched the Journey to the Stars planetarium show, a 30-min show on stars narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.
• Joshua wasn’t hungry yet by 1:30pm, so visited the Discovery Room for kids so he could play and learn.

At a little after 2pm, we had lunch at the museum cafeteria.  Worst lunch I’ve had in a long while.  $7 chicken nuggets that tasted like cardboard. $7 chicken wings as dry as can be. $2.80 for a bottle of soda.  Over $20 for a meal that should not have cost me more than $8. Total ripoff.

At the dinosaur exhibits

In the late afternoon, we hit the 4th floor for all the dinosaur exhibits. We had made some progress into the extinct mammal halls, but Josh was too tired to walk anymore.  We wrapped up our tour of the museum around 4:30pm, hit the museum shop, and then went downstairs to catch the C train back down to Penn Station. 

Funny enough, on the ride home, we coincidentally sat in front of one of my coworkers from my previous job. Weird coincidence? You betcha. We chatted on the train ride, and caught up on old times and news until we reached our stop, and departed the train.

Good trip overall, and Josh had a great time. I’m glad I decided not to overload the trip with too much extra. I forget that he’s only 4-years old. Photos are already posted in the September 2009 gallery.

IGN.com just posted their review (this early?) of the long-awaited Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, the sequel to the 2007 PS3 exclusive (and blockbuster) Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune game. IGN’s review was blisteringly good. To quote them:

Naughty Dog delivers a stellar sequel that impresses from start to finish, and that doesn’t even include the multiplayer.

Oh man. Watch the video review below. See how amazing the gameplay looks. If there is one game that I would stand on line for, at midnight, to purchase from a store in my entire life, this is it.

So, I stumbled upon this 2006 clip from a radio show somewhere in the U.S. It’s similar to those prank calls done by some radio stations like New York City’s 103.5 KTU’s War of the Roses program. If someone has suspicions that the significant other is cheating on them, the radio station offers some sort of incentive to the possible cheater, to find out what they would do.  Who would they send flowers to, who would they take somewhere, etc.

Check out the clip.  I considered if this bit could have been a fake, but the woman’s reaction sounds too authentic.

http://onedimensional.wordpress.com/2006/11/11/dont-use-the-mouth/

In this segment, the suspected cheater name is Raj (and yeah, he’s Indian), and without giving any surprises away, he should really have just stopped talking.  Or maybe not even opened his mouth at all.  Damn.