The Central Artery (or, as us massholes like to call it, Ahtery) is finally coming down in the last step of the Big Dig. Now tourists will easily be able to wander from their Abercrombie and Fitch shopping trips in Quincy Market over to the North End to see Paul Revere's house. For Bostonians, this is like the Berlin Wall coming down. Except without the communism. And the upheaval of world politics. Okay, maybe its nothing like the Berlin Wall coming down, but at least now I can get a cannoli without breathing in truck exhaust.

Beantown Back Together Again

Every year, New Years Eve is terrible. Absolutely awful. I know this is a phenomenon experienced by most people, but I have it particularly bad since New Years day is my birthday. Every year New Years Eve is supposed to be this monumental occasion when both my birthday and the turning of the year coincide, the world is supposed to make sense and I am supposed to have the night of my life. What happens is I have some shitty sushi, throw a hissy when I can't get into the bar I want, and then get ridiculously drunk and fall asleep, again missing the singing of "Auld Lang Syne". So this year I am taking a different attack - I am going to reschedule. It makes sense - why spend $150 on a night in a bar when in two weeks you can do the same thing for $50? And plus, I will be upset on the 1st when everyone I know is too hungover to wish me a Happy Birthday. So I am working both on the 31st and the 2nd, and I plan on raising hell sometime around the 14th (when everyone has recovered).

But if you are feeling that your New Years Eve bites, read this for some perspective:

Guardian's worst New Year's Eve

It seems these days that every time something happens that the government doesn't like, they blame Canada. The Blackout - the Canadians supposedly did that. And now with the Mad Cow, it must be a Canadian cow. Forget North Korea, I think we may be getting an angry visit from the Canucks if we keep blaming them for everything bad that happens north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Blackout
Mad Cow (or as they call it in Germany, Cow Madness)

You thought you had all the alerts straight: Amber Alert, Orange Alert, Nerd Alert. But now, those crafty fellas at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have come up with another one: Almanac Alert!!

The FBI has informed police departments all over the nation to watch out for individuals carrying Almanacs, especially ones "annotated in suspicious ways", says Newsday. Well, it looks like my cousin Douglas is in a world of trouble. My mother, or Aunt Al-Qaida as we like to call her, gave the 14 year-old an Almanac for Christmas. With Douglas equipped with information such as how much a llama weighs, no one is safe. And I am fairly sure I saw him write his name in it. Suspicious annotation!!

Newsday

Sitting down at my desk this morning, I noticed that it was covered in large mounds of paper. Post it notes, blue print-outs, pink print-outs, you get the idea. I thought, I'll get to it later, after the holidays (and my oh-so-important blogging). And then I read this:
"A Bronx man trapped for two days under an avalanche of newspapers, magazines and books was rescued by firefighters and neighbors yesterday ...The victim, Patrice Moore, 43, of 1991 Morris Avenue, near Tremont Avenue, was found shortly after 1 p.m. in a 10-by-10-foot room crammed with paper and other detritus that completely filled it, except for a small corner where he slept, neighbors and city officials said."
I am now recycling like a banshee.

New York Times

Why am I writing this blog? Good question - I'm not entirely sure. I am confident that no one will read this, that it will be of no consequence, and that my time is most likely better spent doing other things, like sleeping. However, I feel that at my current job (think TPS reports and stapler-hoarding) the part of my brain that is connected to reading and writing is decaying at an exponential rate. I am hoping that by writing and commenting on the world around me (which by the way is New York) I will grow as a person. Or at least my typing will get better.

So, here we go.