Bikes in NYC

I can't even type the slew of words that come to mind when I watched this video. Makes me really sick and boiled up inside. I moved here about 6 years ago... no one rode a bike except the crazy bike messengers and the delivery dudes. Just this morning I saw 6 go by at 1(!) intersection. They were all people going to work. When I head out to the subway in Brooklyn there are at least 10 commuters on bikes headed to work.

The city has done such a great job putting in new and more bike lanes. Why not embrace Critical Mass? Let night parades be the new thing. Let it be a god-damned tourist attraction if you must. But don't be afraid of getting sued or what not. Cause the way the city is treating this organization has only put fuel to the fire. And guess what... this poor cyclist will sue the pants off the city and NYPD. AND he is gonna win.

Now my question is... this was videoed by a tourist in Times Square. What about the cameras posted all over Times Square... private and public? Anything on those? My only worry about cameras being put in all over the city is that they will be used to cover up these types of incidents. The cop in this video reportedly said that the cyclist rode into him. The truth is seen in the video. I bet there are like 20 other angles on that same strip of road to prove the point more. :)

By the way, I watched Brazil over the weekend. Fairly screwy movie. But it proves the point, the system will fail and more paperwork will clog advancement. As quoted from Empire Records, "Damn the man!"

TNR work is never done

Last night the girls and I went out for a feral cat trapping hunt. We started on Dean Street. When we pulled up, there was one cat just kind of laying out. I think he was trying to cool off by stretching out on the sidewalk. We put out the trap and he went in, like a good boy. But the trigger didn't go off and we had to watch with baited breath. He caught sight of us and actually shifted weight to go back to eating. Then bam, the trap closed. His face was like "What the hell was that? Oh, damn I'm trapped in here!" I've never actually seen them get trapped like that before. We usually have more than one trap out and need to just let them "soak" (as they say on Deadliest Catch). Anyway, we set out like 4 more, but only got 2 out of that.

Then we moved to Pacific and put down 3 traps. There was a tom boy and possibly a female, and then a little kitty came out (maybe like 3 months). Also the neighbors came out to ask what we were doing. I can only imagine what it looks like for 3 girls to be out at like 9 PM riding around in a Volvo (borrowed from a fellow cat lady) with steel traps and cans of tuna. I always love the question, "What are you going to do with the trapped cats?" I want to say "eat them in a stew with carrots", but that might be too sarcastic. At least they care. So one neighbor lady led us to a cat in their front stoop area. That kitty was easy, pick up and put in trap. All skin and bones. She'll be living large for a few days at least.

We were able to trap the 2 cats, but not the little kitty. That will be an early quick trap today. As we drove towards home, heading back on Dean, there was another black/white cat laying out on the sidewalk. We slowed down, made a plan and set the trap. He wasn't thrilled about the steel trap, so we had to do the drop trap. Took a little time, but he went in and started to chow down. In the end we got 7 cats in 1 night. The cat-girl doing this project got a total of 19 cats in like 3-4 days. That is totally insane! And can you believe we still saw cats hanging out on the sidewalk as we finally drove home (it was getting late and there is only so much you can do in one night).

Hope they all do well for surgery on Friday.

spirit from iaido

Where do I find my spirit? How do I grasp it and use it to my advantage? How do I get all the other crap in my head out and let my spirit take over? What really drives me? I've been thinking lately. I certainly had a calm mind last month. This month it's all over the place. I can't even list all of things I'm trying to do at once, or at least so it seems. Cause when it all comes down to it, I'm still just trying to figure it out. You know, understand the why, the what, the when. I've read about people finding their spirit from meditation ("Eat, Pray, Love"). Heard it through songs, some of those songs do invoke my spirit. Maybe even watched a few movies that moved my spirit. But I haven't done it myself. Not yet. It's coming though. Tonight I focused my eyes on a point, and it now blurs up that I don't even see anymore. I just move. I try to keep everything level, but what I see in the mirror is really like seeing out of the corner of my eye. Its not clear, only cause I'm focused so hard on that spot. It worked well at times. My problems still left to solve -- breathing needs to continue and I need to slow down. Not weaken, but slow it down. Make it strong. Make it powerful. And make it mean something when I do move. Tonight I actually got a bit pumped up by the end of class. I know when Hanshi Rico is not there I feel less nervous. Sometimes that helps me, sometimes it makes me a little lazy at points. Still I want to find my spirit. And find out what I am really capable of.

helvetica

Just finished watching the documentary movie about the typeface helvetica. It was actually pretty interesting. They had old dudes explain the history of it. And the new guys who were all for using the typeface on everything. And then the rebels who totally screwed with it. They interviewed the guy who did the Ray Gun magazine from the 90s. I forgot about that mag. It rocked back in the day. So he explained how an article written was really boring and he decided to use the wingdings font. It was too boring for others to have to read it. That's awesome. I will now be finding helvetica signs all over the city.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/

July 5th

Looks like more rain today. Really sucks. Three-day weekends are not to be rainy. Unless it's cold or something, then who cares. I would like some sun please! Oh well... going to the city in a bit for Iaido class. Then going to Coney Island for the baseball game. Of course if it's pouring rain and/or lightning, no point going out that way.

Marley is doing well with this new diet. We have to keep all food tucked away. He attacked a loaf of bread the other day. Looked like a giant rat got it. Silly cat.

Happy 4th of July!