east village idiot

Hi there, everyone. Remember me?

This blog has become but a memory. After nearly five years, it’s time to put this site aside for other projects and, you know, real work.

Luckily, my time in the East Village has outlasted this blog. I still live here, and no longer live in fear of what name this blog would have to take on if I moved to another neighborhood - or another city.

It’s been grand. Many thanks to some of the sites who helped get me off the ground: Gawker, Gothamist, Curbed, and the many bloggers who found my work entertaining - many who became my friends, in fact. I’m certainly not done writing, but I am done bitching mindlessly about the city and all its colorful people. I’ll just sit back and enjoy it… and in the worst cases, I’ll tweet about it.

Meanwhile, I’ve put my effort into two other projects about passion points in my life. On Transport is my transportation policy blog, which I occasionally update with pieces on the MTA, livable streets, and transit systems across the country. Most recently, I went on a tirade against WPIX reporter Greg Mocker for his hit-job on newspaper subscriptions for the MTA’s media relations department. Meanwhile, Brew York, New York is my effort to put my drinking habits to a more productive use. I write mainly about craft beer culture in New York City, and occasionally delve into the topic of homebrewing - a burgeoning hobby of mine. I hope you’ll check out both of these sites and join the conversation.

Thanks for all your support over the years. See you at another time in another place on the Interwebs.

- Chris O’Leary
evidiot [at] gmail.com

Also, I imagine PETA would take offense to serving up vegetarians on pita bread.

This morning, I spotted a maintenance worker watering the garden at the corner of 14th and 1st in Stuy Town.

This would not seem particularly abnormal, except that this guy apparently didn’t see the weather forecast for the next five days.

With waste like this, no wonder their rents are so high.

So, the Transport Workers Union is supposedly going to “give us hell” with a work slowdown today.

Which makes me wonder: how could MTA employees be any slower?

And how effective is a slowdown if subway service feels just as slow as any other day?

I went to a beer festival over the weekend and was inebriated enough to tempt fate by breaking the rules.

I’m usually all about the original content, but it’s hard to pass up an opportunity to show one of the most hilarious examples of MTA employee incompetence, from the folks at The Awl:

There’s some bum information on the MTA’s web site right now.

Price of a slice of cheese pizza on Ray’s Pizza’s 45th anniversary: 45 cents
Regular price of a slice of cheese pizza at Ray’s Pizza: $2.50
Savings per slice on Ray’s Pizza’s 45th anniversary: $2.05
Length of wait in line: roughly 40 minutes
Hourly wage needed in order to make saving $2.05 worth 40 minutes of waiting in line: $3.08 (less than half of New York’s minimum wage)
At minimum wage, number of slices needed in order to justify 40 minutes of waiting in line: 3
Based on New York City median income, number of slices needed in order to justify 40 minutes of waiting in line: 8
Average number of slices each customer carried out (based on one minute of observation): 2
Number of people who were wasting their time in this line: all of them, except that one homeless guy who usually hangs out on the corner

At a friend’s dinner party last week (which included far more wine than dinner), I kept some of the partygoers amused by drawing the outlines of all 50 states and having friends name them. I would then add the two-letter abbreviation and move on to the next outline.

I’m no Al Franken, but I would say I did a pretty good job.

The only state I had trouble drawing was New Jersey. After several fruitless attempts to draw it accurately, I resorted to old stereotypes.

At that point, two players guessed it correctly right away.

Sorry, New Jersey.

The Blimpie on 4th Avenue and 13th Street is looking for a salesgirl. I guess the position of salesboy has already been filled.