It’s a fair statement to say that I was ‘pretty excited’ about this latest rendition of OS X (like every other mac user). As with probably a lot of people, all th hype and excitement about it drove my expectations a bit high.

To my dismay, when i finally installed it on my computer i wasn’t greeted with a drastically new OS that was going to change the way I interacted with my computer. It seemed to be pretty much the same. A transparency here, a shadow there, new icons, but more or less the same. Additionally, I was faced with compatibility issues with some of my most used apps (KeepPassX, Adium, and VMWare). This was definitely not what I had envisioned. Luckily a few Google searches and downloads fixed all my issues. Still, issues resolved, this was not the experience I had signed up for.

Fast forwarding 3 days, and having read more blog posts, played around with the functionality, my opinion has changed a bit. While this release isn’t the most amazing thing ever, it’s pretty solid in very subtle ways.

First and most importantly I think that the file-sharing/browsing interface is 1000 times better than before. Second, spotlight seems to be a lot faster than it used to be. Third, I like cover flow; I’m not sure how useful it really is, but I like it.

Here’s in my opinion the best (and most concise) blog posting talking about the noteworthy features of Leopard. And below the link, are my personal favorites:

Engadget: All about Leopard: gallery, apps, impressions

• Launching apps with Spotlight is tremendously easy, they come up instantly, and separately from the rest of the search results. It’ll still try searching the index for matching files, though.
• Use command + y (or just hit space) to Quick Look things. It’s like command + o (which simply opens files) except way faster.
• iChat: Screen sharing works really well. Fighting for the mouse is always fun, too.
• Network settings are much more simply laid out, especially when it comes to managing multiple connections and their settings. Looks like Apple realized that a lot of people have more than two network connections.
• ZOMG: the keyboard manager differentiates between different keyboards’ modifier keys. No longer do you need to swap the option and command keys every time you use an external PC keyboard. This alone is reason enough for us to switch.

Here’s some stuff that I’ve been listening to lately:

Albums:
Colbie Caillat – Coco
Once Soundtrack (Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova)

Songs:
Falling Slowly – Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
Bubbly – Colbie Caillat
Sideways – Citizen Cope

It’s funny, I always make fun of people who buy more than one of the same item – but right now, man how I wish I was one of them.

Strange… (or maybe not so strange considering what you find these days) but there’s a commercial on YouTube for my sneaks.

Adidas Grand Prix Commercial

…now if I could only find a place that had em.

Check out this Flickr Album featuring Lego art. The remake of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” is my favorite.

…on their recent nuptials. Man, it seems that I’ve been saying this a lot lately. It seems that everyone I know is either getting married or breaking up. I guess it’s a sign of us hitting our… I won’t say it.

Thanks to both of you for inviting me to be a part of your wedding. Also for spending all that time hanging out w/Jojo and me while we were in Taiwan… I’m sure there are a lot of other things you guys could have been doing w/your precious days off. I wish you guys the best.

Here’s the wedding pictures: click here
Here’s some more pictures of the venue where the wedding was held: click here

Please note the temperatures in yellow (yesterday) and red (today)…

I was sitting at an outdoor restaurant in the west village (7th and Bleeker) earlier this evening having dinner with my mom when the woman at the table next to ours said this to her dinner companion. My mom looked at me and said in disgust in Bengali, “Do people get any stupider than her?”. I nodded in agreement.

In the previous ten minutes we had witnessed at least thirty cop cars – both marked and unmarked (not exaggerating), a mobile command center, three news vans, and four paramedics blaze by on Bleeker street behind us. We could see/hear two helicopters flying around above us as well. The lady made her proclamation just as a police van stopped at the intersection and closed off Bleeker street to all non-emergency vehicles.

For the rest of the meal (another forty minutes or so) at least one emergency vehicle of some sort would pass by every two or three minutes. One helicopter would complete it’s rotation about every five minutes while the other stayed hovering in one place.

I’m sure in the back of the minds of all of us sitting there at that restaurant (except perhaps that lady) was… “Was there a terrorist attack or something?”. I’ve never seen anywhere near that many emergency vehicles go by at the same time and direction like that. I kept refreshing the news sites on my phone in hopes to find out what was going on.

I was also text messaging with Son during all this and he too saw a swarm of cop cars going towards the village from where he was hanging out in the lower east side.

We later found out that one civilian and two auxiliary (volunteer/unarmed) police officers had been shot and killed by a guy with a semi-automatic handgun three blocks from where my mom and I were eating.

[...I remember being handed recruitment flyer's by the auxiliary police department when I first moved here. I would joke around with Angela about how "...even I could do it". Now I wonder... The point however is that these two auxiliary officers who died were just ordinary folks with regular day jobs trying to be involved in protecting their communities. (Not that it's any more okay for a real police officer to die either)... But they went into the situation without even having guns to protect themselves with...]

What I still can’t comprehend, and pisses me off to no avail is (I’m gonna rant now): Who the fuck gets pissed off at cops for responding to an emergency?! I mean it’s not even like a police van just pulled up and blocked an intersection for no reason (and they still have the right to do that!). The only thing you could hear and see were the sirens and their flashing red lights… Obviously something was going down. Just cuz her skank ass wasn’t affected by it – she somehow found it her right to be annoyed. Three blocks west and it coulda been her bitch-ass who got shot.

Here’s a link to the full article:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/15/nyc.shootout/index.html
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=67691
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=5123346#

To be quite honest, this has been driving me nuts since my first encounter with the street on my first visit to New York. I couldn’t fathom why an entire city of people would pronounce Houston (“hyuston”) as “howstin”.

My First guess was that this pronunciation debauchery was a result of the extremities of the “New Yorker” Accent. Keep saying “Houston” to yourself with a New York accent… you’ll eventually reach “Howstin”.

However, mere conjecture didn’t make it any easier to accept. So finally (I’m surprised it took me this long) I decided to look it up.

“… Houston Street is named for a congressman from Georgia, William Houstoun, who married Mary Bayard: her father Nicholas owned the land in Greenwich Village through which he cut the street in the early 1800s, naming it for his son-in-law. Houstoun spelled his name with that extra ‘u’ and likely pronounced his name Howstoon or Howston. Over time the extra letter fell out while the pronunciation remained.

Other accounts have the name derived from the Dutch term huystujn (“garden house”) from the Bleecker family gardens, on which the street was laid out.”

sources:
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/houston/houston.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Street_%28Manhattan%29

So I finally saw my first celeb yesterday. It seems that everyone else here has at least seen someone and most people have seen multiple someones. Even visitors will occasionally run into a celeb. Me on the other end… nada. I saw that guy Daniel Vosovic from Project Runway at a bus stop once; but he can’t count as a celebrity.

Yesterday however, as Son and I were walking down Spring St. in Soho for lunch, I see this attractive blonde woman walking towards us. So of course, I check her out.

The first thought through my mind was… “Hmm, she looks familiar, I wonder where I’ve seen her before” (not as in TV show, but as in bar/subway/street)… And then of course it hits me… Ally McBeal/Alfie!! I didn’t know her name but I was sure it was the blonde secretary chick from Ally McBeal… (who also had a minor role in the movie Alfie). So after I get back to my desk, I look her up and sure enough, I walked by Jane Krakowski. I guess she’s now on a TV show called 30 Rock. I must say, she looks pretty good for 37-38.

It’s a weird sensation seeing someone who looks so familiar but that you obviously don’t know. It’s kinda like that cute girl in college who you had a crush on but you never had the nerve to talk to. In your head you kinda do know her, but in reality, she’s just a random stranger. The first time you do talk to her you get this strange awkward/surreal feeling.

I was never a big Ally McBeal fan or anything, so I wonder how I’d feel if I ran into Zach Braff or Courtney Cox or anyone from a show I watch(ed) more regularly. I can so see myself going up to Z.B and saying, “Hey man … Hooch is Crazy.”

As I’ve mentioned before, I tend to put empty beverage containers back in the fridge before disposal. Last night, I followed my bi-monthly (or so) ritual of bagging all the empty bottles for recycling. Since I’m not fond of venturing down to the trash area at night (that’s when the mice come out) I decided to put the bags back into the fridge over night. So after stuffing the bags back into the fridge I slammed the fridge door.

Either the noise or the shaking of the fridge apparently frightened an unknown roommate of mine. Out from under the fridge comes running a little mouse… (A MOUSE… A FUCKING REAL LIVE MOUSE!!!!). In my surprise and fright, I jumped in the air (and I swear I coulda dunked if I were on a basketball court) and let out a yell so loud you’d think I was having an appendage amputated w/out anesthetic. The mouse hearing my commotion (and probably being just as frightened) turned straight around and ran back under the fridge.

After landing (I was airborne for a good 30 seconds), running out into my room, and calming down; I went back into the kitchen and put an empty box against the front of the fridge. I then emailed the pest control company used by the building to schedule an extermination. I also called my super earlier today to ask him to expedite the appointment as well as to come in and find and plug any holes that might exist behind my fridge.

Now, I’ll say it again… I love living here in New York. But honestly, every time I see a mouse/rat (even on the street) or a cockroach, a little bit of that love dies. It’s one thing to have to deal with it in public places, but quite another to see it in my own apartment. I feel like my person has been violated. It’s like having someone break into your house, and not knowing if they’ve left or not.

Strangely, as disturbing as this all is; the thought of killing the mouse does place a twinge of guilt on my conscience. He’s trying to get by and survive in this crazy world just like me… but alas, we’re enemies by circumstance. I sincerely hope that he’s gone and left through the hole in the wall, and that patching it up will be the only outcome of this ordeal.