Garden Variety New Yorker

Wow..I don't seem to post here enough. Been working on the other blogs.

Right now, I'm working on starting to write a book, as well as uploading my sports articles to my new domain.

Ceetar.com

As a result, I'm having blogger redirect my blogs to my domain, but I'm working on setting them up as I like, and putting them in a wrapper. I think I need to redirect again, to ceetar.com/gvny/ instead. but I'm still figuring this stuff out.

I bought my first Christmas tree on my own, and my first in New Jersey.  I’ve participated in this process many times on Long Island, and found it soundly different.  In most places I would go to, you’d be faced with piles of trees lumped together against walls and barricades, and you’d slowly sift through them, pulling out trees and holding t

hem up to see if they looked nice. I’d do things like rotate the tree, and lift it up and drop it on it’s trunk to see if the bristles held up, or were dry and fell off. 

 

In all the places in Bergen County that I looked at, except for Home Depot which was a disaster, they had the trees all set up on spokes so that they looked like trees.  This was nice; it was easier to notice things like gaps in the branches, and dead areas. The trees themselves, at least where we got one, were also trimmed to fit the typical Christmas tree shape.  My tree this year is easily one of my favorite trees I’ve had. 

Voting is the same in New York and New Jersey for me.  Basically, both states are strongly democrat, and my vote didn’t really matter.  I’m happy with the outcome of the election, but the process still leaves much to be desired.

 

For one, I don't understand why Election Day wasn't Super Tuesday.  Let us all go in, and pick from at least the 6-7 legitimate candidates running around at the time.  This isn't a tournament bracket where you slowly eliminate people until it's only two. 

 

My biggest issue is with the process.  Why are any states still using scantron style sheets?  New York, at least on Long Island, usually votes with levers.  In New Jersey, there were buttons to push that lit up little green x’s, and then we pressed the vote button and the machine reset.  If I can get through the massive lines at Starbucks in Penn Station and place a complicated drink order while securely transferring information (money in this case, but could be a encrypted vote packet) digitally to a bank after authenticating my account through a swipe of a piece of plastic, why can't I vote that way?

Why I'd make a good Giants Fan.

I'm not a big football fan, although I'm a sports fan in general and I do enjoy watching football occasionally, I just don't have a network of friends nearby to go watch football with on Sundays. It's much more of a social spectator sport than baseball. So I don't 'have' a team yet. I'm a Mets fan first, an Islanders fan second, but that's really where it ends. I dislike the Dolphins, and the Eagles(In fact, I'm beginning to despise all sports related Philadelphia events.). I kind of like Roethisburger and Peyton Manning, but not necessarily a big fan of their teams. I dislike the Cowboys when they try to play as 'America's Team'. I went to school in Buffalo, so I do sorta like the Bills, and prior to moving out of New York, I was one of the fans that used to joke about them being New York's only team.

Now that I live in New Jersey, I can take the same approach. The Jets and the Giants both play here, despite the 'New York' title. I take the train past Giant Stadium on my way to work. I can't see myself rooting for the Jets, despite their Mets ties, them previously playing at Shea, or being named for the planes at Laguardia airport. Could I be a Giants fan? It's possible, I was definitely rooting for them in the Super Bowl, despite half-wishing that the Patriots _would_ go undefeated and the Dolphins who get whiny whenever anyone comes close could be silenced. I don't envision me going to any Giants games this year, and I've been listening to WFAN a little less so I'm not even fully entrenched in the week to week Giants banter and storylines. Still, I do kind of like the team, and I like Eli Manning. It'd be nice to be rooting for a team with a legitimate shot, and defending champs at that. Sure would be different than watching the Mets choke success away, or the Islanders continue to be pathetic. The most exciting thing about the Islanders is that Howie Rose calls the games, and that reminds me of the Mets, and baseball.

I don't follow basketball, so I don't have any delusions about being 'converted' to being a Nets fan. Besides, they're moving to Brooklyn. Maybe anyway.