New Job, New Hood

Hey Dad and those other 2 people that still read my blog. Sorry for the slow pace around here these days. I've had a lot less free time on my hands since I've recently been hired by the Huffington Post as their new video guy. My job is awesome. I watch TV all day looking for the most newsworthy clips and then post them on the site. My first week on the job was a busy one. We had Sherri Shepherd proving she's not smarter than a fifth grader, then giving an explanation that didn't really help her case. There was that wonderful press conference from our favorite president where he bumped his college grades up a letter (recognize those sloppy photoshop skills on the transcript image?). Bill O'Reilly expressed his love for Sally Field. Do you think he watches "Brothers and Sisters" too? A cell phone salesman sang opera on "Today" and nailed it! Dan Rather socked it to CBS and explained his case to Larry King. And America was taken back to simpler times with a court appearance from the Juice, where he seemed shocked by the 11 charges filed against him.

Katie and I also moved to Brooklyn this month and have been logging several hours working on the new apartment, like transforming this ordinary wall...
into a Hawaiian paradise!
So far we're really enjoying our new hood. Some people call it Ditmas Park, I'm just gonna call it Flatbush. We have Veggie Castle, one of the best vegan restaurants in New York City, just a quick walk away. We've got 2 natural markets competing against each other, and when we miss home we have a supermarket that we can get lost in just a couple blocks away. The supermarket has a Redbox in it, which is probably the most exciting thing ever, but I'll have to devote a separate post to this another day. The neighborhood is made up of mostly Carribean people, who have proven to be a lot nicer than the crowds in Manhattan. Unlike in Hell's Kitchen, where the people in our own building wouldn't even make eye contact with us, our neighbors here actually exhibit human-like emotions. People introduce themselves to us, welcome us to the building and the neighborhood, nod and smile when we pass each other on the street, and say awesome things like "Ya Mon" when we say hi. We were carrying stuff home one day when one of our bags ripped open and everything fell out. A lady in a car drove up and offered us some spare plastic bags. Wow! We even had an old lady at the supermarket offer to trade her cart for our handbaskets after watching us load them up. This would never happen in Manhattan. Manhattanites go out of their way to avoid human contact. The only contact I had in a Manhattan grocery store was when an old man in an electric wheelchair rolled over my big toe. I was wearing sandals at the time. It was not the kind of contact I prefer.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, we have a dishwasher. Nuff said.