Tag: New York City

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Bus to NYC


I’m dorking out cross-country today.

Cornell has this killer bus that goes between the Ithaca campus and the NYC campus. It has wireless internet, free snacks, and comfy seats. I’m in geek commuter heaven. Life is good. See you in Brooklyn!

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NYPL Web Resources Rock my Mundo

I got my New York Public Library card in the mail today.
rosettaspan.jpgAnyone who lives in New York state is eligible for a card, so I now have access to the library’s impressive collection of online resources.

I spent the morning refreshing my Spanish at the NYPL’s Online Language Learning Center. It uses the Rosetta Stone software, which now has a place on my desert island list of media resources, along with the White Album and the entire first season of The Dog Whisperer.

If you haven’t used or seen Rosetta Stone, it is Language learning software with the remarkable ability to hack your brain and force it to actually understand and remember all of those verb conjugations you had to memorize back in college. rosettaspan3.jpgThe lessons are reinforced with audio, video, writing and images, so it imitates an immersion experience more than a typical grammar-based language course. There’s even a module that has you speak into a microphone and shows you a waveform comparing your speech with someone who doesn’t suck.

I haven’t explored the other web resources, but I’m tickled at getting access to this one. The software is in the $300 range, and Cornell doesn’t have a license, so I feel like I’ve gotten my taxes worth this year. Thanks NYPL!

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Things seen in New York…

  • Man with a gun wrapped in a newspaper
  • Diner called “The Usual”
  • Brooklyn brownstones waiting to be demolished and replaced by a mall
  • City dogs, patient and tolerant
  • Fashion victims, many and hideous
  • Deli salad bars with better food than most Ithaca restaurants
  • Rat-like dog
  • Dog-like rat
  • Four drunken librarians
  • One Contemptuous waitress
  • Parents lugging strollers down the subway steps
  • Ice skating in the NYPL backyard
  • Park Slope, “where New York goes to breed”
  • Excellent hats, knitted by Alexandra
  • Anorexic woman doing extreme yoga in a store window
  • Giant whale

Tonight, we fly to Paris on Air India. Stay tuned!

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Packing for Big Cities in which I do not live…

Tomorrow morning I’m getting on a luxury Cornell bus to New York City (the place I don’t live, despite everyone’s impression when I say I’m from New York State) for a week long vacation. Yes, I said vacation.

For possibly the first time in years, I’m traveling for non-work reasons. I’m meeting my librarian buddy Kara at the Newark airport and we’re going to spend four days hanging out with friends and being tourists, damned tourists.

We’re gonna shop, ice skate, lunch, and work on our French. Because midweek we’re jumping on a plane to Paris.

See, I found these $350 tickets on Air India, and my French friend and Cow-orker Gui knows this guy who runs a hotel, and he’s having a big birthday bash, and well, the stars just aligned.

So, moo ha ha, everyone. I’ll write some more on the bus tomorrow. I love everyone’s comic suggestions, by the way. That’s why you are the librarians and I am just the librarian-poseur who works on websites.

Off to pack my toothbrush and slinky red dress.

Did I mention Moo Ha Ha?