wild parrots in brooklyn

Who knew that there were wild parrots in Brooklyn? Yes, you read that correctly. Wild parrots. Apparently they've been flying around parts of B'lyn since the 1960's. Somehow they have managed to co-exist with all the power lines, people and cold weather for decades.

There's a website dedicated to them here. There are even Parrot Sighting Safaris for those who want to actually catch a glimpse of these colorful birds. (The next one is coming up on December 1.)The guy who runs the website, and gives the safaris (which are free) seems to be a huge parrot advocate, which is nice. I'm not sure about trudging around in the cold to see the parrots, but perhaps I'll luck out and see one on my own.

The Washington Post ran a story on the subject back in 2006. The link to it is here. Highlights from the article include where to spot them, that they live in herds (or flocks? whatever) of 50 to 60 birds, and that they've adapted quite well to Brooklyn's climes.

Further research has yielded intriguing tidbits about parrot poaching and suspicious activity by ConEdison, the local power company. Sketchy, sketchy! However, if you want to find out the scoop on these details, I suggest you do a little detective work yourself and type in 'Brooklyn parrots' at a search engine online.

Oh, and don't forget to Google image search them ... they're cute! And green!

sonic BOOM!!

The lighting of the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center is tonight for anyone interested. I think it goes on between 7 - 9 pm Eastern Time. I won't be there (boo for getting an education instead!), but a lot of other people will be ... If you want a live look at the tree from here on out until Christmas, there's a webcam pointed directly at the tree here. Just click on 'Exclusive: A Live Look At The Christmas Tree.' The tree is up until around January 6, and is lit from 5:30am-11:30pm. That's a whole lot of electricity.

In other news (and totally unrelated), does anyone else find the following video clip incredibly cool? It's of a military jet breaking the sound barrier. You can hear the sonic BOOM! and see the actual displacement of the sound wave or whatever. I remember when I used to live near a military base, and jets would always be zooming over head, breaking the sound barrier ... the dishes and windows would rattle like crazy in my house, and it was very loud. I know some people who had their china and glass break during the 'boom times'. (Ha ha, pun intended ... sadly.) Honestly, I know this is unrelated to Xmas, but youtube is so much fun, I can't resist finding the most random stuff possible. I'll try to get back to blurbs about life in NYC in the next post. I'm so ADD!

Here's the youtube clip:

some arvo part and an update

Friends, it's been awhile. Life has been zipping along like a flash, a great burst of energy, colors, people and sounds. In the past few weeks I've:

* retrieved my purse and wallet from the evidence locker at an out of state police station
* eaten two Thanksgiving dinners
* written more papers than I'd like to count
* been gifted with the second season of He-Man ... and, naturally, reliving my very early youth while watching it (YEAH, Battle Cat!)
* virtually memorized Joni Mitchell's album 'Song to a Seagull' while the song 'Marcie' has become one of my favorite of all time
* been on a bus at least 4 times in the past 2 weeks.

And that, folks, has been my life. I haven't been around NYC much lately, so I don't have anything that is related to city life to report. However, I am including a clip of Arvo Part's brilliant 'Spiegel Im Spiegel' which is one of my favorite pieces by one of my favorite living composers. The video quality is bad, but the point is the music anyway ...

too funny!

Ahhh, this is too funny! Clips from the film 'Amadeus' and a Family Guy episode spoofing the movie.

nyc marathon

For those of you who are in NYC or going to watch this on television:

The NYC Marathon is Sunday! World's largest marathon with over 38,000 runners! Also, fun fact: the world's largest urinal is set up at the Staten Island starting point. 200+ feet long. That's a whole lot of pee!

Official Website
Best Places to Watch The Race From
Marathon Information, Route Map & More Tips On Observation Points

My first year living in NYC I walked out my front door one day and right in to the middle of the marathon. It was going on and I had no idea! Needless to say, big surprise.

I'm not sure if I'll watch it this year. I guess I'll update you on if I go or not in the next post. If anyone catches it, let me know!

i like ... aya kato

I really like the work of Aya Kato.  A female Japanese artist born in 1982, Aya plays with color and form in inventive ways. 

In a funny way, her work reminds me a little bit of Henry Darger, at least in terms of the Technicolor palette and fanciful subject matter.  

What do you think?

 

my landlord might possibly be the biggest jerk on the planet

Now, can I take just a moment to complain about cheap landlords? If you have never dealt with one, then lucky you. However, if you've had the misfortune of dealing with a scum-of-the-earth property owner, then you will probably feel my pain more acutely than those who haven't had to deal.

My landlord is notoriously bad. When I say notorious I mean really just among my roommate and the lady next door (who is a freak show herself and a totally different story), but I'm assuming if I spoke with anyone else in the building they'd all agree -- our landlord is the pits.

To start with, he never repairs anything. I only got a mailbox fixed after I threatened to file a police report about mail theft from my box. If anything does magically get 'fixed', the work is so shoddily done that whatever has just been repaired will be sure to break again within a few days. We didn't have running water for 4 days our first summer here -- it took him that long to fix it, and that was after we got the Health Department on his case.

This landlord has verbally abused me over the phone (and my dad!), hires a drunk for a super who lives in New Jersey and is therefore never around when you need him, and is trying to up our rent by $25 ... just because we called about him painting the place.

The latest fiasco is our heating situation. Well folks, it's getting cold out. It's November. Heat would be nice. But we didn't have a working thermostat for over a week, and when it did get fixed the landlord's wife made sure that the heat is timed to shut off at 10pm. Yes, that's right, we get NO heat after 10pm.

I'm working on rectifying this situation, but getting anyone to respond to me is like pulling teeth. I literally have to rip a response out of someone around here to get anything (shoddily/poorly/horribly) done.

I suspect this is illegal, as well. Shutting the heat off after 10pm? Hmm.