I’ll admit it, I think I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve passed from one subway car to the next while it was in motion. Earlier this week I walked between subway cars to get away from some horrible B.O. I didn’t get a ticket though unlike a friend of mine got a ticket probably around the time they needed to fulfill monthly quotas. Since I’m a paranoid law-abiding person I doubt I’ll give anyone much opportunity to ticket me for this.
Not that I don’t appreciate the extra security of the NYPD, but I wish I knew why they were always gathered in one enormous group on one section of the subway platform instead of spread out more into smaller groups covering more ground.
This happened to my kung-fu instructor. He was on the 7 train in Queens (the train was mostly empty, no more than 10 people). He was feeling stiff so he put his leg on the empty seat next to him and was stretching. His foot wasn’t even on the seat and this cop gives him a ticket for having his leg on the empty seat. The same cop went around to four other people on the nearly empty train and gave them tickets for similarly harmless things like having a bag on the empty seat next to them.
Sounds like the city is desperate for money and policemen are doing their best to fill their quotas of tickets per day. Lesson is, all rules that were never ever enforced before are being enforced now.
EDIT: Originally this comic I had it as $25, but then I realized that it was actually $50!!!
This is basically a public service announcement sort of comic. I know I talked about this before on my Livejournal, but for some reason I didn’t make a comic for it. This is a common street scam in New York (and in urban areas in general) where someone will purposefully bump into you and drop something either a pair of glasses or a bottle of something in a bag. Then they’ll ask that you compensate them. There’s a very good post on Gothamist where people left comments about all the sorts of scams they’ve run into in New York. Worth the read if you’re curious.
The first time this happened to me a while ago there was a plainclothes cop nearby and ended up taking us both to a subway station where they asked me if he explicitly asked for money in which case they could get him for trying to scam me. He didn’t so they let him go. Before this I hadn’t heard of this particular scam before so I got lucky.
The second time was just recently as I was walking away from work. A guy heading towards me deliberate brushed me, I looked back and he was looking down at some glasses. I was walking so fast it didn’t even register on me that it was happening again until I had already turned around in the other direction. I checked my bag pocket, nothing was taken so I kept going. He didn’t try to follow me.
The response someone posted on that Gothamist page was “Oh I have insurance for my glasses, all we have to do is file a police report.” The other sort of response that gets rid of them is usually saying something in the order of “Haven’t you already tried this on me?” or finishing their sob story for them before they get the chance to. The funniest was for the person trying to get money for their mother’s burial “They must be awfuly ripe if you haven’t buried them yet.”
This was last Monday when I was in midtown and I saw all these police cars. I have no idea why there were so many, but literally the police cars stretched several blocks when they were bumper to bumper. I wish the photo could give you a better idea of just how many there were because I’ve never seen that many on the street at once.
You may or may not have heard yesterday that this New York State Senator Carl Kruger has proposed $100 fines for people using electronic devices such as Blackberrys and iPods while crossing the street. This is in response to pedestrian deaths recently where the person hit by car was using some sort of electronic device while crossing the street. “Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry,” he says. He says this is turning into a major public safety crisis.
By the time this comic is up, this idea will probably already be shut down based off of sheer stupidity. If by some miracle this were to pass, the police would care as much as they care about people jaywalking.
Believe it or not this place is 100% real. I briefly considered using it for a weekend photo comic, but then I realized I don’t want to advertise a gun store. Supposedly they only sell equipment to police, but the “Tourist welcome” sign is what really got me.
Weird thing about Halloween this year is that it seems like no one has any sort of plans for it. Maybe it’s because it’s on a Monday or just some general vibe going through the air. Oh well. In 2008 it’ll be on a Friday night like it’s supposed to be.
I have never nor do I ever intend to buy the wares of the guys in Washington Square Park. It’s my understanding that some of them are undercover cops and even the ones who aren’t probably aren’t the people you’d want to be buying from anyway. I did this comic because usually the guys you pass say something like “Smoke? Smoke? Smoke?” quickly and under their breath. But I was walking through last Friday and they actually did say “Weed? Weed? Weed?” I thought that it was kind of funny, but I guess everyone has their approach.
I saw a random bag inspection desk for the first time today at my subway station. I didn’t get stopped though, thin Asian guys with glasses don’t exactly look like primary terrorist suspects these days. It’d be interesting to hear the briefing these guys get, because we all know it must be something like “Okay, so you’ll be checking mostly the bags of Arab guys obviously, but try to get a black or white person every now and then so it can look like we’re still being somewhat random. But try not to stop a white person if you can help it. Also, stopping old people gets us on the news so don’t stop them either.”
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