So there’s this pen I have at work…
Posts Tagged ‘scraggly guy’
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I went to see Superman Returns with friends after Japanese class yesterday, and since there wasn’t much time to get food we picked up stuff at Whole Foods. I got this tandoori chicken wrap thing that ended up giving me a really bad stomach ache that plagued me during the entire two and a half hour film. Even as I write this now my stomach still isn’t feeling that good, but I’m sure it’ll be better by tomorrow morning. When will I ever learn to follow my instincts? This time they were saying “There’s no way this wrap can be anything but something to fill your stomach, it’s really not going to be good.”
After I got out of the movie I went to the bathroom, of course all the stalls were full. When it came my turn this very unkempt man walked out but I didn’t pay any attention, that is, until I actually was in the stall. It’s almost as if the B.O. was lying in wait for me there refusing to leave the stall. Needless to say I didn’t stay long and got out as soon as possible.
If you want to read what I thought of the movie, go to my LJ.
If you live in a big city you know who I’m talking about. I’m talking about the homeless guys who you always see in the exact same spots. Now, I’m not talking about guys who have a section of sidewalk where they ask for money, I’m talking about guys who look like they’re constantly at their home base, like that’s where they spend all their time and maybe where they turn in at night time. But these guys aren’t even asking for spare change, they’re just there seemingly all the time. I thought the idea that these people are only there are the times in the morning and evening when I go to work and go home at the end of the day. How am I supposed to prove otherwise without hanging around the area during work?
Anyway, there’s one guy who sits on the bench at my subway stop in Brooklyn, he’s got a pillow for his butt and his little boom box, and I barely ever see him talk and have never seen him ask for money. Sometimes I see him walking around the street. He’s just a fixture of the subway, I bet all the subway workers know him very well. The other guy is at the subway stop around where I work, this guy is always there sitting on a milk crate, and I’ve never seen him talk at all, he’s just sitting there when I leave the subway station. Sometimes he smells bad, though I notice his eyes look very bloodshot all the time.
I only had a minor encounter with B.O. yesterday on the subway ride home. It was one of those that’s strong enough that you notice it, and notice others’ reaction to it, but not strong enough that you need to switch subway cars at your earliest convenience. If I ever were to make flash games based off of my comics, one of them would be “Find the B.O.”
If I could draw better I would probably also have drawn the mucus membranes thinning out, because holding your breath and breathing through your mouth only does so much, eventually the nose starts to sting because even if you’re not directly breathing it, it’s having an affect. THAT’S when you change subway cars are stick your nose into your shirt. Maybe I could bring back perfumed hankerchiefs. Heh, just kidding.
I did in fact an excessive amount of change in the change pocket of my jeans yesterday. So much that when I wanted to get fifty cents in change I had to reach in, take out some change, then reach in again to get the two quarters. This took far longer than usual, and when I was done giving the cashier her change I didn’t even bother trying to put it all back into the change pocket because I knew that some of it was going to miss the small pouch. I didn’t make any remark aloud about having too much change, but there was a guy right outside of the store asking for change that I just walked by. Like I’ve said before, I don’t give change to people on the street because I know that they’re doing just fine without my donation.
I’ve been sitting on this comic for a while because this is what happened to me and a friend of mine on St. Patrick’s Day. The restaurant in question is Harry’s Burritos on West 3rd Street between La Guardia and Thompson. I don’t remember the food being so amazingly spectacular, but I had wanted to go for a while, because people where I work get lunch there often and it always smells amazing. So basically the primary reason I was going to this place at all was the smell.
Lo and behold I go get a table, and someone at the neighboring table has terrible B.O. The group of people was pretty big too so I wasn’t entirely sure who the perpetrator was. Needless to say the smell effectively negated any good smells coming out of the kitchen. Thankfully they left after maybe ten minutes and I was able to enjoy my dinner, but things weren’t looking so good those first ten minutes.
I was walking down Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg with a friend last night and we were accosted by three separate people in the space of what had to be only five to ten minutes. First person asked my friend if he was Jewish. The second person was holding a cell phone and asking us if we had a cell phone they could borrow for two seconds. I did this once in a Starbucks for a woman who as looking for a shelter to stay at that day, and she ended up overstaying her welcome.
The third person who tried to accost us asked if either of us spoke English. Of course, we said in English something like “Sorry, can’t help you.” That sort of response works for almost everyone, but to do it with this person’s approach just makes you feel sort of dumb. Turns out my friend had been stopped on the street by this person twice before and the second time they were leading into their “Do you speak English” approach, but he just gave her some change at which point she realized she had stopped him before since he already knew the end result of whatever she was going to say was that she wanted money.
We just found it amusing that we were stopped by three people with three completely separate requests. One guy just wanted to discuss Judaism for hours and hours, the other person wanted to use a phone and the last just wanted money.
Bedford Ave. seems to be oddly populated with people of this sort. I was walking down it late one night and was asked for change from two people. Only thing was that these two people looked nothing at all like the usual types you expect to get asked change for on the street. I’m not even talking the completely B.O. ridden people who seem to not move from their one place all day long. Still weird.
Let me just tell the world right now that if my ever mentioning that I’m running out of ideas was interpreted as a cry for more ideas, it wasn’t. I went to see King Kong last night with a friend. As soon as we got in I took a trip to the bathroom and by the time I got back the theater was basically full. If it wasn’t we would’ve moved because of the guy behind us with HORRIBLE B.O!!! Dear god, it was that sort of B.O. that you think you can avoid by breathing through your mouth but then you realize you feel your mucus melting.
My friend was a little more fortunate than me because he’s been sick, but he still bought popcorn so he could keep his nose in it during the movie. He must’ve gained a number of calories just smelling it during the movie. I resorted to keeping my nose under my shirt most of the time, though even if it was only protected by the very top of my shirt I could still smell it. Plus this guy decided that yawns, grunts and moans need be verbalized instead of simply done. Seriously, it’s perfectly easy to yawn or make any fatigued bodily movements without the benefit of sound. Seriously!!!
The movie was really amazing though so the experience wasn’t completely ruined. Truth be told, when I go to the movies I want to be completely absorbed by the movie. Being required to think about what way I should be breathing during the movie qualifies as me not being completely absorbed. I need to see it again for a number of reasons. First being I want a bigger theater, second I want to have a non-B.O. laden experience and third the movie deserves being seen again in the theater in my opinion.
The time taken to develop the characters helped a lot because it made you care what happened to most of them. The real highlight of the film though is obviously the relationship between Kong and Anne which is surprisingly affecting and utterly believable. Kudos goes both to the Kong team and Naomi Watts for developing the relationship in a logical sort of way and conveying it with virtually no dialogue. There’s a surprising amount of subtlety in how they get along in terms of the knowing looks they exchange as they get to know each other and survive various perils.
I didn’t cry like I hear some people have been at the end of the movie but Naomi Watts almost made my cave during a few choice scenes. This attention to detail and characters is what really makes the film successful. I was rather surprised by just how much I cared about them because I thought the emotional connection to such an ill-fated couple could only go so far. I’m glad to say that I was wrong.
There can be nit-picking done about the visual effects because they’re not perfect but they’re well used. The brontosaurus stampede scene has some iffy compositing and the raptors look far more CG than everything else. Throughout there’s some questionable lighting whenever people are interacting with CG characters but the story is involving enough that it’s never truly distracting. Plus sometimes in hair I could see tinges of blue from the bluescreen, but whatever. Though any loose ends or cracks in the VFX will show up that much more on the DVD unless they’re tweaked between now and then.
In the end though it’s a very good movie and I’m really happy for Peter Jackson’s achievement in light of how this has been his dream since he was a little kid.
Funny thing is that it was a lot easier to write the religious crap than to write complete gibberish. Not sure what that says. I remember one time I was listening to this guy spout off complete nonsense (though he was forming actual words) and I was wondering to myself if I should be writing it down because you simply can’t make up some of the stuff these people spout off. I still wonder how often the religious preaching subway types get people to sign up, read their pamphlets or go to church. I’d ask but I’d feel rude.
I had the misfortune of encountering this phenomenon twice in the past four days or so. I switched train cars in both indications. Though really truly this was the first time that I had seen this many empty seats surrounding each respective person. Usually there’s about a two seat buffer from someone with terrible B.O, but in this case there was at least one section of seats empty before there were anyone else close by. I was particularly amused by the small exodus of eight people moving to a separate car when they got the opportunity.
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