Am I the only one that finds it hilarious that the leader of the communism in the western hemisphere is a label whore??

So I leave work yesterday like any other day- half-asleep; my thoughts clouded in a dense fog from a normal day at work. I was heading from Times Square towards Grand Central Terminal, a 10-minute walk on 43rd Street. At some point between 6th Ave and Madison I notice a woman walking swiftly towards me, having a conversation on her cell phone while crying. I thought to myself, "Oh that sucks, something horrible must have happened to her." It's not the first time I've seen something like that in the city and that's my usual reaction. But as soon as I finished that thought, a crowd of about 20-50 people frantically ran towards me- some of them crying, most of them on their cell phones. I was beginning to think that something horrible did happen.

After I passed that crowd another, much larger, group of people were quickly making their way in my direction. I noticed that more and more of them were crying, some of them hysterical. I overheard someone say, "We gotta get out of the city, NOW!" When I asked someone what was going on, one of the women responded through her tears, "A bomb just went off on the 4-5-6 line!"

OH SHIT.

I recently accompanied my mother and stepfather to tour various condo complexes in the New York Metro Area. As they near retirement, they are considering selling their house and moving into one of these communities.

This little excursion confirmed for me a phenomena I had been perceiving since 9/11, of unprecedented sprawl around this area. As you probably know, the housing market exploded overall in the last few years, but it especially did so in New York City suburbs. I theorize it was due in part to the fear-factor as people fled the city proper. I had already been seeing signs of this sprawl when I would go downstate to visit my family: intense traffic in the town square area of (what was once) my tiny hometown.. witnessing inordinate human density in shopping districts of the county (leading me to nickname Westchester the new sixth borrough).. and finding it commonplace to see childhood friends buying houses as far north as Putnam and Dutchess counties while still commuting to work in New York City..

I remember the moment I realized organized religion was sketchy. I was 8 or 9.

My mother had just confessed that Santa Claus wasn't real, and the dominos started to fall in my mind:

"So, is the Easter Bunny real?"

"Oh yeah. He's real."

Then I proceeded to give my mom this look that said 'F*ck me once, your fault. F*ck me twice.."

It was then that I realized that religion is just like Santa Claus, except where noone ever lets the adults in on the gag.

Here are some gems from some of those adults:

www.fstdt.com

I am a gadget freak. There, I've said it. I love gadgets, but oddly enough, I like there to be a certain simplicity, or if not simplicity, then maybe clarity or standardisation to how they work. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, such as some of the others here who have been involved in a radio show called Little Brother a few years back.

That said, there is one thing I have learned to despise greatly, and that is all of the extraneous software that comes bundled with every gadget.

Now, I'm not talking about drivers and such. These are an absolute necessity. I'm talking about the stuff that "customises" the look and feel of your computer to "complement" the gadget you have purchased. Most of the time, you don't actually need this crap, because your computer has enough software on it as part of the operating system to take care of things all by itself. That's what the drivers are for, after all.

Scooter Libby/MSNBC Drinking Game:

Everytime Chris Matthews says 'HULLABALOO', take a shot.

My initial conclusion on glutamine is that if I can't tell if it worked, then it's not amazing. Yesterday I had a moderate level of energy until about 7 o'clock. Then I started yawning really hard. I took a glutamine capsule at that point, but I also had dinner soon after, and then seemed to regain virility. Maybe I was just hungry.

I have my energy back.. and have been getting stuff done.

Don't know that I can attribute any of this to the Glutamine at this point, because nothing's really deviated from my normal ebb and flow.

But another thing.. I seem to be waking up naturally at 8:15 or so.. Is this from the pills? Or has someone put a curse on me?