Tasty Tasty Food

I've been enjoying reading Midtown Lunch lately, so I thought I'd write every now and then about what I'm eating for lunch downtown, and maybe wind up convincing myself to eat some more interesting food rather than so be repetitive at lunchtime while I'm at it. At some point, if it gets any momentum, maybe I'll spin this off into its own blog, but for now this is where my lunch commentary will reside.

Yesterday's lunch probably isn't the best starting point, because, well, I don't actually know the NAME of the lunch truck we went to. On the other hand, since my coworker John and I enjoy it so much that we actually had to set a limit of one trip per week, maybe it's a pretty decent starting point after all.

Lower Manhattan is, of course, replete with various trucks and carts that complement all of our other brick-and-mortar options. (Sam's Falafel is one of the best-known but the long lines have always been a turn-off for me.) The fact that we started (and continue) to go to this particular one is, I suppose, as much out of convenience as anything; more specifically, parked on Cedar Street just east of Broadway, it was close enough to my office to try one afternoon last winter when it was too cold to walk anywhere further.

The menu of Nameless Lunch Truck is typical of the genre. Basic options are lamb gyro, chicken, or falafel, all available in a sandwich on pita or (my preference and that of all my coworkers) in a platter (well, ok, a styrofoam container) over rice with various veggies on the side. (They also make a cheesesteak, but if you're in lower Manhattan and that's what you want for lunch, you're SO MUCH better off going to Carl's Steaks on Chambers between Broadway and Church, not far from the northwest corner of City Hall Park. Best I've had in New York.)

I haven't had the falafel myself, because I'm not a huge fan of falafel in general, so I don't have much to say about that. The lamb is excellent - I'm not sure if they have the skewer which I'm such a fan of, but at any rate it always is finished on a flat grill with some onions and peppers. It's nicely seasoned as well. Chicken is cooked in the same way; you can tell that they really just took a chicken and hacked it apart because there's occasionally some bits of connective tissue in there, and it's a bit more fatty than I'd prefer.

The rice is great too - it's actually the reason I prefer this truck to others. It's orangish, nicely seasoned (though I couldn't tell you with what). It's a little bit greasy, but not overly so. The platters also come with lettuce, tomato, and (depending what they have on hand), pickles, jalapeño slices, and/or banana peppers. The white sauce is standard and the hot sauce is genuinely hot. They also offer BBQ sauce but I have no idea why you'd put that on. (Nonetheless, I've seen people do so.) Platters are $5 for more than enough food; sandwiches are $4; cans of soda are $1. I think falafel platters and sandwiches are $1 less than their meaty counterparts; I'll look at the menu today to be certain. Perhaps if I get a chance I'll bring in my camera and take some photos as well.

Pros:
Tasty
Cheap

Cons:
Probably not all that healthy
Your stomach will occasionally not be happy with you
The line can be long when the weather is nice

NYC Gym Memberships = Pain in the Ass

You know... do gyms have to make it so hard to get even the slightest amount of information? I called NYSC's central membership line to try to make a change to my membership. I'd signed up while I lived in Manhattan, so my "home club" is the on East 34th near where I lived a few years ago. The rate play that I currently have costs me $82.45/month and I can use any club at any time. It was an appealing feature to have at that point because I wanted to be able to use both the club near my apartment and the one near school and I kept pretty odd hours during the first year of law school, so that's what I signed up for.

Now, at this point, I'm basically only using the club near my place in Brooklyn, and occasionally the one near my parents' house in NJ. So what I wanted to do is change my "home club" to the one near me, and then change to a rate plan that allows me to use the home club at any time, and other clubs only during off-peak hours (weekdays during the day except during lunch hour, weekday evenings after 8:30, and weekends). First thing I did was look at the website, but you can't make that kind of change online. So I got the phone numbers off the website for their central membership line (because it says "Sports Clubs Member Services Department administers customer accounts from a centralized call center") and my local club. I called the 800 line for the centralized call center, waited on hold for about 25 minutes, and was told that I couldn't make those changes with the call center; I had to speak to my local club. You know, if you're going to make people wait on hold for that long, you should at least be able to handle their inquiries. And not, you know, misleadingly tell them to use that call line on your website.

So then I called my local club, and was able to speak to someone in the membership department with a minimum of delay. When I told the nice woman that I wanted to change my home club, though, she told me that there was a $40 fee to do so.

*pause*

"What?" I asked. So, to make a change to my membership that would basically be a minor change to my computer entry, and would result in no change to my usage habits or my billing plan, and you want to charge me half of my monthly fee? That just makes no sense.

So after that I explained that I was on their "passport" plan (as described above) and that I wanted to change to their "gold" plan. She told me that A) I would also be charged a $40 fee for that change, and B) the difference would only be about $3 per month. I didn't really have the patience to attempt to negotiate a lower fee, so I thanked for her time and then hung up.

Afterwards I went online to look into other gyms in my area. They almost never have their rates on their websites. I think that's because they want to get you to come in to their locations so they can give you the hard sell. And, as it turns out, from info courtesy of Gothamist, what I'm paying basically is the going rate for a multiple-location gym (NYSC, Crunch, Equinox, etc.) in New York. It's just a lot of money and that's the way it is, like everything else here.

Says a lot that my customer service experience with Time Warner Cable was far, far more pleasant.

This was all brought on by some stuff earlier in the day that I'll maybe write more about later, if I'm feeling up to it.

Oh for fuck's sake

Today on my way to work I got splashed/sprayed by a bunch of dirty, muddy gunk from the construction site near my office on lower Broadway. If you're going to have a guy there holding a chain whose job is presumably to keep people from walking where this might happen, how about if you actually have him fucking DO IT? Instead of just standing there and then offering me a paper towel once I've got gunk all over my pants and shoes, as if that's going to accomplish anything.

Just a wonderful fucking start to my day.

So Let's See...

I've really been slacking on this lately. What do I have to say..?

I heard from Airport Girl Wednesday night. She mentioned that she was moving to NY a few weeks ago but rather than try to get in touch with her I decided to be patient, and that part worked out OK. Turns out she's a bit overwhelmed by things thus far: her new job is a bit outside her field, so that takes some adjustment; she's staying with a friend on Long Island for the time being, so her commute is pretty long; and she's studying to take the Missouri bar exam next month, so she's not got a lot of free time at the moment. I suggested that we should get together sometime (not this weekend because she's headed back to Ontario for her father's birthday), and if she has time before she takes the MO bar then great, but if not then after is cool too.

The job thing I mentioned in this post is basically a dead end.

I guess that's about it. What do you think?

Still Alive.

Yadda yadda yadda. I don't have much to say at the moment. I'm kinda down about a few things but I don't have the motivation to elaborate right now.

Frustration

One of the things I know now in my old age (ooh, an excuse to use that tag!) that I wish I could impart to a younger version of myself is that it's not really a good thing to get fixated on one woman that I'm interested in (assuming you're not actually in a relationship, that is). You can wind up coming on too strong or looking desperate or both, plus if/when that one woman decides she's not interested, it's more of a psychological blow to you if she's the only woman you've been pursuing. (Sorry about the mixed first and second person, but I'm too lazy to clean it up.)

This is all to explain that while I do still dig Airport Girl, in the meantime I decided take another crack at something I've pursued before: Craigslist personals. (While I have no problem with the concept of meeting people online - it certainly worked out well for my sister - I'm not really willing to spend money on Match or JDate or what have you. Thus, Craigslist.) Despite my conceptual problem with the Craigslist dynamic - more on this in a moment - every few months I'll jump on there and see what happens. Nothing major has come of it, but I've gone on a few dates with women I've met there... no harm done, at any rate.

Now, here's the thing about "the Craigslist dynamic," though. There seem to be a whole shitload of guys on there compared to the number of women. (Sounds like most of the bars I like, but let me continue.) Therefore, as I understand it, when women post a personal ad they get inundated with responses. Like, hundreds, even. (I'm not a woman, nor have I ever posed as one to test this out, but that's the impression I have.) They then filter out responses without pictures attached, and presumably also responses where guys have sent pictures of their wangs, although I suppose some women like that. Then they look at what's left and they pick the most attractive guys out of the bunch. Maybe they meet some of the guys, maybe not, but here's the thing. These hot guys that they decide to respond to are all assholes. Why? Because they can afford to be. So maybe the women talk to the guys and realize that they're assholes right away, or maybe they meet up with the guys and realize that the guys just want to hump their leg. (Figuratively speaking.) Eventually, though, they're left with the impression, "What's wrong with these guys. They're a bunch of dickheads." Then they go back online and post again and complain about all the assholes they met, but they don't change their course of action and so they meet MORE assholes, and the cycle repeats itself. Don't you love vicious cycles?

So, to get around this, I'd rather post my own ad. When I write something, it tends toward verbosity (as I'm sure you may already have guessed). Also, in the interest of full disclosure I try to be up front about the fact that I'm not winning any beauty contests. I may as well save myself the time it'd take to interact with a "tall, hot guy in great shape" (to paraphrase a lot of women's ads) - they're not going to be interested in me, and I'm probably not going to be interested in them either. As a result, maybe I won't get any responses, maybe I'll get a couple.
Well, last week I wrote an ad, and received one response. Pretty typical, as I said - I've come to accept that I'm not really what most women are looking for. The response was from an age-appropriate and reasonably intelligent woman - let's call her Craigslist Girl 1, or CG1 for short - who seemed friendly enough. CG1 and I exchanged emails for a few days, pretty standard getting-to-know-you, hey-what'd-you-do-this-weekend-that-sounds-fun kind of stuff. Eventually we decided to exchange pictures and then maybe meet up for a drink. She sends me hers, I write back with mine, and... nothing.

Now, this raises two separate issues for me. The first, and more theoretical, is: Where's the courtesy? Is it too much effort to say, "Sorry, you seem like a nice guy but you're not my type."?

The second, and more personal, is: What the hell? I mean, I'm a friendly enough guy. Some of the jokes and comments I make are amusing. I didn't say anything that would creep her out or piss her off. So... what, am I so unattractive that I just drive women away? And not just "women" generally, but women who've responded to a personal ad that's up-front about the fact that I'm fairly unremarkable-looking? I'd prefer not to have to make that inference, but I'm not really sure what else to conclude. And it's rather frustrating.

So if you're one of the people to whom I sent an IM complaining about women recently, this is probably why.

What a Concept!

Courtesy of... well, I don't know, someone on the Internet... I present to you:

The Secret to Super Productivity