We bumped into these guys on Spring Street (between Green and Mercer Streets, by the Apple Store) singing a cappella with their rendition of “Do You Love Me (Now That I Can Dance)”. I’ve seen these guys in the area before, and they draw quite the crowd - they sound fabulous together.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have teamed up with Google Earth to bring what has to be one of the coolest ways to help invigorate the world with freshly grown trees. For $5.50 you can have your very own tree planted on the island of Borneo, and once it’s been planted, watered, and logged, they send you confirmation of your purchase and get this - the actual Google Earth coordinates of your tree. I’m not quite sure if the resolution of Google Earth is up to par just yet to see much detail at that close range, but it’s a very nice idea. Visit mybabytree.org to find out more information.

I think I’ll buy me a wee tree of my own.

 

  The term “sweded” comes from a reference made in the movie “Be Kind Rewind”, starring Jack Black and Mos Def.

Quick premise - Jack Black is a nuclear activist, Mos Def a failing VHS rental store clerk. Jack is electrocuted at a power plant during an attempted sabotage, is asked to watch over the store one day, his magnetized body (from the accident) erases all the VHS tapes in the store - ridiculous, but it’s the set up for the rest of the movie - they both decide to remake each movie they lost on their own using their own video camera, and cheap special effects. They call the process “sweding”, touting the movies as having come from Sweden as an excuse for higher rental fees and longer wait times. Hence the term “sweding”, or “sweded” is born.

There have been some pretty good sweded movies around the internet lately, including a great sweded Star Wars, but my favorite is the sweded Tron above. I love how they used the original soundtrack from the movie and implemented it perfectly into their own sweded version. Genius. Here’s a movie clip of the original lightcycle scene from original Tron film.

I’ve taken up photography as some of you will already know, and I’m having a whale of a time with it - very enjoyable. About a month ago I ventured out on my own and spent the day walking from the High Street/Brooklyn Bridge subway stop to midtown Manhattan, leisurely taking shots. I took a couple of hundred photos and whittled them down to about 20 - one of which I really liked; it was one I took early on, right on the Brooklyn Bridge.I decided to use the guys at Shutterfly.com to enlarge the photo, and I chose their largest option, 20″x30″. I got it delivered today, and my god, it looks superb. Very happy indeed… that was until I chose my vendor of choice to frame the print: Lee’s Art Shop.

I’d done some research on Manhattan-based custom photo framing establishments, and this place came up in the top 3 results every time. So without further ado, I finished up at the office at around 6pm and took a stroll over to 57th Street and Broadway to see what they’ve got for me. I arrive - the place is huge inside. I was directed very politely upstairs, all was good. I approached the framing people and explained exactly what I wanted, and was assisted by a lady that asked the right questions, didn’t try to “up sell”, and I felt very positive.

I knew it was going to be expensive (as I’d chosen the best wood, the thickest depth, the best quality UV protected glass), so when it rang up at $400 I wasn’t surprised - and to boot, she gave me 10% off - I’m assuming as I’d told her I was likely to return as I had plans on framing more photographs as I was an amateur photographer. This was a very good experience thus far. She proceeded to tell me that their framing was of top quality and if there was any damage or imperfections when I came to pick it up (around two weeks), then they would fix whatever problem there was. I politely asked where that “fix whatever problem” promise was in writing, and that’s where the fun began.

I’ll make this as brief as possible.

I asked if I could see some kind of store policy that guaranteed their work, any warranty information, any firm guarantee in writing that covered their work in case the framing was botched when I picked it up, or if the frame fell apart when hung - you know, the usual stuff you’d ask if you paid $400 on anything. Basically I was told that they didn’t have this in writing, and they deal with their customers in this capacity based upon… wait for it… faith. FAITH?They expected me to lay out $400, UP FRONT, and base any guarantee on a verbal promise alone. Not bloody likely. I explained to the [very polite] lady that as a customer about to drop $400 on their services, I expected to see something in writing - a notice on the wall of sorts, a return policy (which I know every business MUST have publicly displayed by law if they are to honor legally such a policy - which is why I always ask), anything - and she turned to her coworkers for advice - they concurred with her initial response to me - it was a nay.

Then the manager walked over… for the sake of this story, I’ll call him Dick. Fat, Brooklyn Italian, belligerent, seriously lacking in the customer service department, and full-on arrogant. I asked him (and in the same polite way I’d always asked until this point) the same questions pertaining their guarantee, return policy, etcetera. His response was classic. “We have never had a written guarantee on anything, our customers take our word for the work we do, I do not know what you want.” I asked again, succinctly, “where do you have a copy of your guarantee, a store policy on returns, for example?”. Again, Dick responded with something I didn’t even ask, “why would you want me to sign a guarantee for something that hasn’t even been custom built yet?” Finally, after much back and forth with this Darwin nominee I said, “Dick, I’m about to pay you [up front] $400 for a service you cannot, and evidently refuse to guarantee, so I’ll take my business elsewhere.”  I won’t go into the tirade that I went into in commenting on his unprofessional bias, nor his blatant lack of my “the customer is always right” retort because it’s ugly and unnecessary, but it’s safe to say I wasn’t polite anymore at that point.  I rolled up my photo, placed it back into the cylindrical packaging, and told Dick that he was lucky to have not had this shoved up his fat arse, and how I was amazed that he did any [legit] business.

This shit makes my blood boil.

Dick the wanker lost out on a lot of potential repeat business, and I could have quite likely have been a multi-thousand-dollar client - I’m shocked to have encountered an unprofessional business owner that communicated in such a manner that was clearly less than above board.

I’m taking my photo to a guy in Brooklyn Heights tomorrow.   Already called ahead to establish his business provides a guarantee for their work. I’ll keep you posted.

Sony finally brings the PlayStation fan base some awesome news. In addition to supporting BD-Live online content, PlayStation 3 firmware 2.20 will also carry a Portable Copy function. This allows you to convert Blu-ray movies and transfer them to your PSP (albeit standard format) so you can take your hi-def library on the go.

I love this - I just started to build my Blu-ray library and have 20 titles so far, including the Die Hard 4-disc set, the 5-disc Blade Runner special, and I Am Legend. Can’t wait for the new firmware update.

I was surfing the web today for a carbonara recipe, and came across one of the more interesting sounding ones, when I caught sight of the Adsense banner along the right - and just had to shake my head.

I’m not in the mood to cook any longer.

[click on the image to enlarge]

I thought a quick pint of Irish cider and some corned beef hash would be a lovely way to wile away the St. Patrick’s celebrations on a very warm 55′F Saturday afternoon at Jameson’s Bar, when a series of “BOOMS!” roared through the air. It originally sounded like when heavy trucks go over potholes and make that banging sound, but much, much louder. Seconds later one of the bar’s punters who had been enjoying a smoke outside came running back in shouting, “you guys better come see this!”. The entire bar scurried outside to see absolute chaos. A large plume of yellow/brown smoke was rushing towards me from just south of 52st street, and then someone pointed skyward across the street - what was later understood as half of a couple hundred foot high crane smashed into the side of a large residential apartment building. Chaos ensued. I went back into the bar and picked up my camera, took some video and some stills.

Emergency services were on the scene in seconds and soon sprang into action, cordoning off the surrounding areas. People were gathering in droves - within 20 minutes 2nd avenue was packed to the hilt with people filming, shaking their heads, wiping their eyes (we all knew someone must have been hurt. The crane was massive - utterly huge.

S and I walked around the block via 1st avenue, and were able to see the extent of the damage from the other side of 51st street - devastating. An entire apartment building behind the one the crane was leaning on was completely crushed. A mini was partly mangled and flipped onto its side and flung into the middle of the street. Firemen everywhere. Literally everywhere.

Listening and talking with various other people on the streets it became apparent what had happened. The massive crane had been tethered against a construction site (new apartment building being erected) and had come loose when contractors had been working on it. It then pivoted on it’s base, and the entire thing leaned away from the site towards the apartment building south of it on the corner of 51st street and 2nd avenue, and hit the top of the building about half way down the crane’s body - hitting it so hard that the entire top half snapped off, traveled over the apartment building onto a smaller townhouse sized building behind, flattening it. This is what created the massive plume of smoke. It turned out that the dive bar Fubar was part of that smaller building, and it too was simply obliterated. Thankfully the bar was closed for business, but the bar’s owner said that he thinks their may have been en employee on the premises at the time cleaning the bar ready for business.

The death toll at this point has reached four - I believe those four confirmed deaths were the four construction workers who were situated on the crane during the time of its collapse.

I was pretty shaken up, and I am still shocked how close I was to the collapse - half a block.