hey

Believe me, I'd love to, but there's no way in hell I can afford it. I'm a college student who basically lives paycheck to paycheck. This trip is extremely exceptional and I wouldn't be making it if it weren't for for the fact that I want to see a specific band that may never play in the US again. Manhattan hotels seem prohibitively expensive, as they're all $150 a night and upwards.

Edit: I was sorting wrong on all these travel websites. Didn't realize they were sorting by "pics" and not "price." Some Manhattan hotels seem to be about $88 a night which might be feasible.

Edit2: Hostels also seem like a super cheap option.

http://www.broadwayhotelnyc.com/index.asp

That place basically offers 4 days (in a dorm, granted) for like $80. Anyone have any hostel recommendations? They seem super sketchy...

So I may very well be traveling to NYC in mid-late March, and while I'm perfectly capable of lining up air fare, I'm a little baffled as to what to do for lodging. I usually don't travel alone, but since I am this time, I don't have the usual family members who plan all the hotel accomodations and whatnot.

What I'm asking is this: where is the best place to stay for the cheapest amount of money?

I don't care much about quality. I'll sleep in a dirty basement if it's $15 a night. However, I'd like some sort of middle area if possible. I've heard staying outside the city and taking a train in is the best option, but I have no idea what constitutes "outside the city" or how to look for hotels there.

Additionally, what's good to do in the city, given that I know absolutely no one who lives there?

"and when I was five my favorite movie was the gremlins

ain't got shit to do with this but I just thought that I should mention"

weezy cracks me up

Update on last night's inebriated confession:

The girl I took out to dinner came back to watch Atonement (which was really good), and afterwards another girl I work with came over and we all relaxed on my bed and got pretty stoned. Girl I'm into nearly passed out, and when the other girl asked her to leave, responded with "I'm sleeping here."

Well, she did not sleep here, unfortunately, but the night did go well. All the advice you guys gave me is good stuff, and thankfully it's what I've been doing the whole time, besides taking her to dinner last night.

Superconfession: Tonight my bed smells like two beautiful girls. I'll explain in the morning.

She's easily the coolest person I've met in Gainesville, which is a town filled to the brim with people I can't stand. We both have a ton of mutual interests, from fashion to literature. We share the same major. We converse effortlessly, whereas I generally feel like I'm prying conversation out of most people I meet.

I guess I consider her good enough to keep as a friend if I can't date her, and that's why I do it to myself. I also legitimately owe her a dinner, as she has bought me drinks before, and I came over nearly unannounced a few days ago and told her to make me food, which she did.

It definitely goes to your desktop. I just tested and confirmed this. (I didn't even know how to take a screenshot with my mac before)

getting wisdom teeth removed. the pain isnt really that bad thanks to a variety of pills, but not being able to eat most foods is killing me.

God, I'm supposed to have mine removed Friday, but I'm going to reschedule because I just got a new job, and they asked me to work. I guess it'll be 1-2 weeks from now. I was really terrified for awhile, because I've never had any sort of surgery. All of mine are very impacted (one is sideways), so I'm expecting an unpleasant recovery. I took about four days off from work, so I'm hoping that's enough.

They also prescribed me my pain killers already and I already took probably half of them. I'm hoping this doesn't come back to bite me.

at work we have received phonecalls allllll day asking about our wiis (which sold out already)... but we didnt tell anyone that we had wiis

SOMEONE SNITCHED

I work at Toys R Us and this shit happens to us all the time. We got a shipment at four PM abou ta month ago, and word spread so fast that they were gone in an hour.

My confession is that I'm a sucker. I'm taking a girl out to dinner tomorrow, but I'm positive she's not into me. I'm positive because she's told me so, twice. She plays me like a goddamn fiddle though.

I'm justifying it all by paying with a gift card. Or at least, that's how I was going to justify it, but then we changed restaurants. So now I'm just paying out of pocket. Fuck.

Yeah, it's funnel cake batter with pepsi syrup mixed into it and fried, and then it has pepsi syrup drizzled over it, and is sprinkled with powdered sugar and skewered with a toothpick. Fried coke exists too, but we couldn't find any despite our most concerted efforts.

Went to the Florida State Fair last night and ate some absurd stuff. Left my camera in the car, unfortunately, but I had fried Pepsi and key lime pie coated in chocolate. Fried Pepsi is sort of weird, but the key lime pie was great. Also on offer was fried cookie dough, fried oreos, varous fried candy bears, fried fruit, fried cheesecake, etc.

I also had a really awful BBQ pork sandwich (had a bone in it) accompanied by really awful french fries and sweet tea that maybe, possibly had some sugar in it.

Went to the Florida State Fair in Tampa. Cheated death on about ten absurd carnival rides. Ate fried pepsi and chocolate-dipped key lime pie. Experienced the largest concentration of tramp stamps on the eastern seaboard. It was wonderful.

On the subject of orlando speeding violations. I think the worst is the 3 roads connecting curry ford to east/west (bumby, primrose and i forget). It's a really trafficked road and the speed limit is only 25. There's no fucking way those roads should be 25. I remember when it used to be 30 and i thought it was really annoying. Plus they ALWAYS have speed traps there.

I haven't driven around there in awhile, but the only road I ever took from the East/West to Curry Ford was Semoran. In fact, I used to go to school on Semoran. Never had any police-related trouble though. It was always in stupid places like Oviedo, on goddamn Lockwood heading towards UCF or something.

i (accidentally) hit a tow truck and it fucked up the complete left side of the vw i was driving (side mirror fell off, only supported by the wire) and the tow truck didn't even have one scratch on it.

I used to drive an F150, and after my junior prom I got rear-ended by a Civic, which then got rear-ended by a smaller truck. Both trucks were fine, but the Civic was accordianed. Everyone was okay, but it's amazing what a larger vehicle can withstand, comparitively.

orlando and winter park/maitland especially is fucking CRAWLING with piggies. it seems like a fairly recent thing too, but i dont feel like i can go 5 minutes on the roads around here without seeing another patrol car and half the time they have their blues on fucking over another bastard whos luck ran out. i need to move asap.

Maybe it's some bizarre state-wide initiative, because Gainesville's been like that recently too, probably for the last month or so. I got pulled over on my way home from Tampa for doing 92 in a 70 on I-75 ($215 ). When I got pulled over I was one exit away from home, and on my way home I saw seven more cop cars. Ever since (and this could be my paranoia) it seems like they've been everywhere.

shit dino, worst i've done is $100 for doing 80 in a 55. are they that harsh down in FL?

I can't say much about anywhere else, but Orlando cops fucking blow. I got pulled over on the 408 expressway once and the cop gave me two speeding tickets, citing the fact that I was speeding, and then I guess I sped again before he pulled me over. One of my speedings was in a construction zone, one of the "fines doubled when workers present" types, and he doubled my fine despite there being no workers present. Combining my doubled ticket with my regular ticket, I think the total was over $600. I took it to court after I found out that what he did is apparently of questionable legality, but by the time my court date came around he'd been deployed to Iraq so both tickets got tossed out.

My confession: I moved my room around today, and intentionally put the TV in a place where it could be clearly seen from the bathroom.

I'm sure she'd like that. Especially since you might not have done the touristy things before, eventually you should do those with her. The freedom trail is pretty damn long but there is a ton to see when you walk it. Lucky for you, boston has a ton of stuff to do date wise. Fucking gainesville is a wasteland save for a few decent restaurants, bakeries and a coffee shop. Now that i'm single, i realize how little there is to do here. Only 1 year of grad school to go.

Best date idea in Gainesville: Butterfly Rainforest by the Harn/Natural History museums. Girls love that shit. Also the bats are good if she's brave or your goal is to scare the living shit out of her.

Other than that yeah there's nothing to do here.

Finished Smith's Spidey/Cat. It wasn't THAT bad (I'm a sucker for Spidey/DD team-ups) but that last issue?

*RAPE IS BAD*

Did Smith have to hammer that point in so hard? It got pretty annoying. That ruined it for me. I recall a similar stunt that Smith pulled that pissed me off in another of his books...was it Dardevil (Guardian Devil)? I forget.

Oh...and Ultimates 3's Hawkeye = Grifter. WTH

Please don't read Ultimates 3. Or if you do, don't pay for it. It's people who indescriminately buy whatever is put on stands that are really bringing down the industry. Loeb's writing was okay once upon a time, but Ultimates 3 reads like shitty fanfiction. The industry won't know this is unacceptable unless it sells very few copies.

I read the first issue and basically laughed until I turned blue, then felt dirty inside because my roommate actually bought a copy.

Quicktime is only ever useful (on a Mac) with Perian installed. With that, it basically does everything I've ever needed it to, and I'm fairly demanding of it.

Also never pay for software.

So I read the final Issue of Y - The Last Man today and all I have to say is :(:(

What a fucking finale.

CityHunter - I haven't read Fight For Tomorrow, or Pounded, or Couscous Express or a ton of his other work, to be honest. My main exposore to Brian Wood is through DMZ, Local, and Supermarket. He has a new project coming out that's basically aimed at 10-year-old girls called New York Four that he insisted was actually good and worth reading even if you're, you know, a 20-year-old dude. I'll have to check out Fight For Tomorrow though.

Edit: Beast-

Morrison's Magneto/Xorn stuff was fine, it was Claremont who fucked it up afterwards with numerous confusing retcons. I fucking hate comics sometimes.

Also, Parker's TV revelation WAS erased. He also is back to mechanical web shooters. And Harry Osborne is alive. And he's a photographer. It's fucked up.

Stracynzki had a hand in it, but got so pissed off at the direction Quesada took that he almost wouldn't let them put his name on the thing. Quesada eventually convinced him otherwise, but I'm sure he was still none too pleased at the outcome.

In other news, Quesada spoiled tomorrow's Captain America on the Colbert Report, although I think everyone was sort of expecting it.

Watched a bunch of stuff over the weekend:

Sweeney Todd, actually I watched this twice. I thought it was fucking fantastic and now all the songs are bouncing around in my head at basically all times. TRY PIRELLI'S MIRACLE ELIXIR.

Bring it On IV - In it To Win It: I watched this with some buddies and made fun of it the whole time. We were bored. Admittedly, the "goth" girl in this movie is so hot it makes me angry.

Sexual Parasite: Killer Pussy - Some ridiculous Japanese pornohorror (horrorporno?) about a parasite that transmits itself via the vagina. Includes fishing lures on strings as "larva." Watched this without subtitles, but I don't think it really mattered. It was hilarious though.

Rambo: What the fuck. Written, Directed by, Starring Sylvester Stallone. The writing was pretty laughable, and it made me sad to see the girlfriend from Dexter act so incredibly poorly. Obviously it delivered in terms of giant explosions and gratuitous violence, so I really have no complaints other than it being, well, Rambo.

I also caught Beetlejuice on TV when I woke up hungover Saturday morning, which was pretty stellar.

Oh, and Nip/Tuck continues to deliver in the crazy shit department. The end of the episode blew me away.

This is really my kinda thread.

While I agree with you about the maturity of comics now vs. comics back in the 90's, we're really not living in a heyday or anything. Everything DC is doing (mainstream) is basically garbage tied into repeated continuity reboots. It's terrible.

Marvel's doing alright, but some of the stuff they've done recently (Loeb's Ultimates 2, One More Day) is pretty awful.

Indie comics are fucking fantastic right now though: Walking Dead, Local, DMZ, American Virgin, Scott Pilgrim...I could go on.

I think it's also only fair to mention that going back through the 90s (and 80s, which were generally better) you can still find some good stuff written by the big names, like Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, etc.

Also, I met Brian Wood (DMZ, Local, Pounded, Couriers, Supermarket, gooooood shit) this weekend. He was totally down to earth and really cool. Got some good stuff from him too, like a sketchbook from Italy that are limited to 12 in the USA.

Talking point: How do people feel about Quesada's choice (don't really wanna spoil) in One More Day? I'm personally pretty pissed and a lot of the "resets" seem arbitrary.

Firefox

Adium (for AIM)

Transmission (for bittorrent)

Quicksilver (for generally making computing easier)

Perian (because I probably couldn't watch anything on my Mac without it)

Kiya, are you going to be selling the Flat Head denim shirts on the website?

yep... my house. there is a boutiquie in my neighborhood that sells nudies tho... and cheap monday.

That makes sense.

Also, if we're thinking of the same boutique, said boutique opened a location down here too, and I'm probably going to start working there soon, even though I don't like 99% of their mens stuff. They'll get in a cool corpus piece every now and again, but not a whole lot I'd wear.