How not to hang a blind

So the ladder still hasn't materialised, which means I haven't had any blinds for two weeks now.

So, desperate times call for desperate and foolhardy measures. It occurred to me that if I couldn't get a real ladder I could build one out some of the stuff in my apartment. What could go wrong?

So far all the furniture I have is a chest of drawers, some chairs, an unbuilt bed and a kitchen unit. Clearly the perfect building blocks for a rudimentary ladder.

Which looks a bit like this...

A minor work of genius I think you'll agree. 

Now unfortunately, the chest of drawers is going to be mainly carrying my weight, but it's an Ikea chest of drawers, meaning that it has a 3mm thick piece of plywood for a back, and no bottom at all. In reality it's a horizontal piece of mdf, screwed to two vertical pieces of mdf, with some drawers in it for weight. 

As it was really rather wobbly I placed my mattress next to it incase I fell off sideways. I presumed I wouldn't be dumb enough to fall forwards out of the window or backwards down my ladder.

So, did it work?

Yes.

A new life in boxes

This is the combined waste cardboard and plastic that I've managed to accumulate in the last two weeks. A combination of having things shipped over, multiple trips to Ikea and Bed, Bath and Beyond, Home Depot and Target have left me with a Turner Prize winning quantity of packaging in my apartment.

(Between taking the photo and publishing this entry the pile has all been successfully moved out of my home and recycled. The place feels rather empty now)

Dirty Laundry

Something you see on American TV shows but don't really think much about is when a guy starts chatting a girl up in a launderette. It seems cool and American, but until now it's never really occurred to me that the idea of having to leave your apartment with a heavy bag of dirty laundry and sit around in a launderette for half a day, waiting for a cute girl to comment on your colourful sock collection would be a reality of living in America.

Apartments here don't have their own washing machines. Really. Large blocks have a central machine in the basement somewhere, and some expensive new builds will have them in the apartment, but for the vast majority of New Yorkers doing your laundry means schlepping (see earlier post) across the neighborhood like a dirty Santa Claus.

However, what they don't show you on the US shows is that many places now offer a pickup and deliver service (probably because it cuts down flirting to the delivery person, and Friends has already done that).

This innovation turns the whole thing on its head. Suddenly, the worst part of living in the states turns into one of the best.

So a few days ago I gave this a try. I called my local place (200 Dry), a guy arrived at my door 30 minutes later. I handed him a huge bin bag of dirty laundry (I haven't done it for a few weeks, so there was about 10kg of stuff).

The next day I called, and 45 minutes later the same guy was at my door with this bag...

Now this could well be the greatest service I've used yet here. 24 hour turnaround, everything washed and folded, and far more neatly than I ever could. 

I even loved the way they stacked the clothes.

So neat!

Right down the packaging up all my socks into their pairs and elastic banding them together

I know what you're thinking, yes, I really do have a lot of colourful socks.

20lb (10kg) of laundry cost $20 to get done, which is around $8 more than sitting in a launderette for half a day. Now I know my time is cheap, but I'd happily pay $8 for the privilege of getting 25% of my weekend back and not having to lug a heavy bag of my dirties around my hood.

Thanks! indeed.

And now for something entirely different...

A quick break from my NY blog to draw attention to the campaign my dad has been fighting to save Gloucestershires libraries. In a nut shell, the evil conservative government (booo hisss) is attempting to cull half the libraries in Gloucestershire, and then the world! My dad has joined forces with the justice league of library lovers to stop the evil doers and bring peace happiness to folks everywhere (in Gloucestershire).
After a few debates, newspaper reports, radio interviews and televised appearances (below) they've finally got the lawyers (and not claims-direct, but ya know, like, real lawyers) involved to take it to the man.

Read about it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/24/library-closures-challenge-campaigners?INTCMP=SRCH

Like any proud son I thought I'd lend my support, and my blog, to support the cause.

High cleaning

If you have to do your dry cleaning, please try and do it near home. Please don't do this at rush hour...

Shameless copy #03

                                  VINCENT
                       It's the little differences.  A
                       lotta the same shit we got here,
                       they got there, but there they're a
                       little different.

                                  JULES
                       Examples?

Holland

My super realised his mistake and changed the name on my mailbox. How disappointing.

Coney Island #01

So far the most pleasantly surreal place I've been so far has to be Coney Island in Winter. With all the strange old stalls and rides closed and covered in snow the place has an erie majesty.

 It also has brighton beach next door to it (no, not that one) which has a huge boardwalk full of old russian women in huge fur coats. Special.

Imperial Rule

Damned Fahrenheit. I don't understand it in the slightest. Everything here only gives the temperature in Fahrenheit and I just don't get it.

This is definitely more confusing than pounds vs kilograms (1 pound is about 500g-ish)
And far more devious than inches vs centimetres (1 inch is about 2 cm-ish)

Knowing the equation doesn't help much:

Celcius       = (Fahrenheit - 32) * (5/9)
Fahrenheit  = Celcius * (9/5) + 32

I'll be buggered if I have to do that in my head every time I want to know the temperature.

So the only other option to just to learn some general temperatures to give me a rough estimate.

This is where the Google weather app on my iGoogle homepage comes into its own. I have a Celsius and Fahrenheit version of the same app side by side as a daily temperature reminder/helper.

Yeah, it's damned cold here still. It was -5C this morning.

So from the above I can calculate that

0C = 32F

5C = 41.5F

10C = 50F

Unfortuntely I haven't needed any temporatures above 50 since i got here. Roll on spring!

Meth

So anyway I'm sick. My head is muggy and I my nose won't stop running. Urgh. Worse still I'm at work as I can't afford to use up my holiday by taking a sick day (yeah, that's how it works here. No, really, it is.)

Because American's:

a) Have obscenely expensive healthcare (in addition to the monthly fee's you also have to pay $20 per doctor visit in what's called Co-Pay)

b) Can't take a sick day without taking a day out of their stingy holiday day allocation

Pharmacy's here have all the power. Walgreens, Duane Reade and like are the most common stores you'll see on the highstreet. They also sell everything!

Want drugs? Go to your pharmacy.
Want food? Go to your pharmacy.
Want alcohol?
Want cleaning products?
Want furniture?
Want anything else?
Go to your pharmacy.

However, the drugs part is the real power for them.
People here need to not feel ill so they can work.
This is different from getting better.
No one wants to make drugs that get you better.
Because then you get better.
And stop buying the drugs.

The drug I've been recommended here for general illness is Aleve-D.

This is because it contain it contains the fabled pseudoephedrine. In the UK Sudafed has the same active ingredient.

Here however, you need to show a US drivers licence in order to buy anything with it in, as it's also the active ingredient of Meth.

As I don't have a US drivers license I was not allowed to buy it or anything similar. Nuts.
I had to buy crappier alternatives.