Tuesday, September 19, 2006

D's Big Adventure

Today was crazy. Last night I noticed that the AC adapter for my beloved PowerBook began sparking. Well, one of the wires was frayed and in the interest of not burning down my apartment (and thereby not getting my deposit back), I decided to get a new one. This meant going to one of 3 places - the Apple store in SoHo, the NYU Computer store, or the Apple Store on 5th Ave. Now, I have been to the first, there was no guarantee that the second would have the part in stock, and I had never been to the third. So, off I went to the 5th Ave location - walking. I started at 30th and 1st Ave and walked to 5th Ave and 59th Street. Now, for those of you not living in NYC, that is a pretty decent walk. After passing Grand Central Terminal and a few other New York landmarks along the way, I finally got to the Apple Store. What a place! I wandered for a bit, and finally found the adapter (last one in stock, lucky me!), and noticed something interesting about the store - there are no cash registers. At least none that I could see. Well, I think that one of the workers noticed my confusion and walked up to me with a little handheld device and offered to check me out. He scanned the item, swiped my card and verified my email so they could send me the reciept. How cool! Right in the middle of the store! I'm gushing!

Well, this is when things got a bit more interesting. Leaving the store, I began to plan my route back to the apartment and I decided to walk past the UN on the way home. Whoops. I guess I should have been more up on current affairs. I completely forgot that the President of Iran was speaking there today (and Pres. Bush, btw), and security was high. In fact I was pretty much the only person I saw that wasn't either with the NYPD, Secret Service, or had a UN ID. I have to admit that the aura of international intrigue surrounding the situation caused visions of 24 to float through my head... OK, so I watch too much TV.

On a more humorous note, as I was walking down 57th I had a major flash from the past, namely one Mr. Juan Valdez and his donkey, who have apparently opened a coffee shop together. Remember that guy? He was always showing up in the most ridiculous places (kitchen windows, bathrooms) in his commercials just to let people know that he picked their coffee beans (not some stupid mermaid). I wonder how many times he got arrested for trespassing (Honey! Get your gun, that Colombian guy and his donkey are back and they trampled my petunias!). Editor's note: The author of this blog does not condone in any way the threatening or harming of Colombians. He likes Colombians. Especially Shakira.

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