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so there is this automated voicemail system that keeps calling me like every 2-3 weeks.
“The warranty on your vehicle is going to expire. please act now. [...]”
and I don’t even have one. but this isn’t the creepy part. When I entered the elevator in my building like 10 minutes ago, the elevator speaker (!!!) started to talk to me: “This is your final notice that the warranty on your vehicle is going to expire”.
this is twilight zone my friends. twilight zone.
soooo I was leaving the flat this morning, heading down st.marks, when I saw this 30ish tall guy, smirking and looking around, behind him another guy recording him with a small camera while he looked around. and behind that guy a group of about 10 women.
ohh fine, a country guy visiting the city with his best friend, I thought. and guess what, when I passed him, he greeted me (”heeey, how are you doing”) and smiled to me like we were meeting in a small town. I didn’t pay much attention, returned the greeting and passed by quickly.
and then one of the women (she had a name tag), stopped me and asked me with big wide open eyes “do you have any idea who that is?” - “no” - “its blake shelton, country singer and voted one of the most sexiest man alive by people magazine.” - “ah, fine”.
I was very unimpressed, leaving a baffled woman. With this info his behaviour made much more sense, he was just used to a lot attention, NYC must quite baffle him. 
the supermodel I saw on the subway 2 minutes later was much more interesting (and she had a nicer voice, too).
probably the niciest guy in the world got married and I was invited! Wonderful Joe and I rented a car for the ride (since it was upstate, 3 hour drive) and set up a meeting point at 12.01pm sharp on saturday.
weeeell, that was the plan.
I partied kinda long the night before and was on my way home on saturday at 11:30am (yes it was one of those nights …) when I saw a text message from Joe, sent at 5am, that he will be late and cant make 12.
In the end we left the city at 1:30ish and made it to the wedding about 20min before it started.
The ceremony was a jewish/catholic one, with quite some funny moments (best moment: the groom and bride had to repeat the sentences the rabbi said, and when it was her turn after a couple of sentences he switched to hebrew and she looked like “WHAT?” :D)
another good one, when they raised the bride and the groom on the chairs. L.O.V.E.D. that. I want that, too, at my wedding ….
anyhow, quite some night, lots of friends there, traded my ring for another one with a girl (ohh such a fabulous bling trade it was) and headed to some after party. next day we stopped at the wafflehouse (highly recommended!) for a very trashy and tasty brunch.
but ‘nough said. here are the pics.
I promised Nunu (yesyes, THE nunu, who works at the super prestigious high profile austrian “Die Presse” newspaper) to take pics from the election evening and sent it her immediately via eMail from my iPhone while I witnessing this historic moment.
And now the pics are online there! And the picture gallery got featured on their start page, too (yeah!).
But check them out HERE for yourself (sorry, text only in german).
I am famous! Faaaaaamous! You are officially allowed now to name your child after me …
I am just coming back from an election party, tired, happy, exhausted, flabbergasted.
Went there at 7pm directly from work to watch the election progress and I was very touched and impressed. There were like about 600 people at the party and everyone was very moved by the speech of Obama (as well as the one of McCain). I truly think he will be a good president, I was impressed by the sentence “we will not be able to solve all the problems in a year. Maybe not even in one term.”
After the party I went to Times Square with a friend and it was CRAZY. Cars honking, drivers high-fiving people on the street, massive amounts of people running everywhere, groups of people shouting “YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN!”. The biggest celebration across all (ethnic&social) groups I have ever seen.
Union square was no different. There was even a newspaper already stating that Obama is the new president.
Now its like 2:28am and people are still shouting and screaming outside. very impressive (and understandable).
so here it was again. Halloween! In.New.York.! Where you can’t really tell what’s a costume and what’s for real (this year I dressed up just for the office with a special costume, “accountant”. scared the shit out of my colleagues … :D). It’s always the best party day of the year and since I had a couple of parties I wanted to go after the parade I waited until the last minute and then things got kinda out of control.
but lets start at the beginning.
first there was of course the parade, 2 hours of fun, watching costumes and dancing to the various beats from the cars. quite amusing. at the end of the parade there was the big question, where to go? so I went to party No. 1, a penthouse in Midtown on the 43rd floor with a SPECTACULAR view over Manhattan. problem was, it was just emptying because many people left for another party. and my friend N wasn’t there either. So I tried to call her but no one answered. ok, lets go to her flat and see what party is going on there at party No. 2. But as it turned out they were all on their way to party 1 (as I found out later) and since they were in the subway I couldn’t reach them.
ooook. so lets go to party No. 3 on Bleecker Street (totally different part of the city). Unfortunately the line was around the block and the crowed mostly bridge and tunnel, so lets go to party No. 4 in Williamsburg!
Absolutely fabulous Ms.H said she is having drinks with friends from 11pm to 3am. When I arrived at her apt. I didn’t know which number to ring so I called her and a surprised and suspicious voice answered the phone. As it turned out, the party was on SUNDAY from 11am to 3pm. And since she had to get up early we didn’t fetch a quick drink either.
Oh well.
So since I am already in Brooklyn, wasn’t there this swanky party factory in the middle of nowhere after a couple of trainstops? sounded like fun, so lets go to party No. 5! Party No.5 was at the Jefferson stop on the L train (which finally came after 20 minutes of waiting). To my surprise we passed the stop because it was an express train, didn’t stop everywhere. Ok, so off the train, waiting again, going back. FINALLY finding the party. And its surrounded by police cars. “You can’t pass here.” - “But I want to go to the party.” - “Don’t worry about the party. We are shutting it down in 10 minutes” - AAAAARGH.
Thats when I got a text from N, saying that they went to 1st and 7th in the East Village. So I called her (and thats when I found out that they arrived about 5 minutes at party No. 1 after I left), we had a little chitchat and I decided to join them. OK. back to Manhattan. (well, at least I saw a group of Latinos in REALLY fancy costumes, e.g. a pink Jesus with diamond teeth or a very classy Marie Antoinette, some eye candy never hurts).
A while later I arrived at 1st and 7th, aka party No. 6. And couldn’t reach N on her cellphone. So what to do? I literally went through all the bars in the area but couldn’t find them. This was the point where I just gave up after walking during the night what feels like 200 gazzilion miles. So I went home.
and guess what. The moment I entered my apt. I got a text from N saying “Am ave a bet houston n 2nd” (would have been party No. 7) but I was just way too tired.
But as it seemed not tired enough since there was still A LOT going on in front of my window, making it impossible to sleep (even with earplugs). So I popped in a DVD until I fell asleep.
But I have to admit, although it was the strangest party hunting night where almost everything got wrong, it wasn’t that bad at all. There was just such a good vibe everywhere, it didn’t really matter when you were just walking around. And seeing that massive amount of people wearing costumes is extremely refreshing in a city that gets more and more cooperate. 
my life has been kinda crazy over the last 6 weeks. and I was just to busy (and tired) to blog about any of the stuff. but today just sent me over the edge.
so here is a list of the major and minor things I can remember …
So I finally has my road test. Super early in the morning (met at 6:45). Then only thing I was afraid of was parallel parking. And oh well,it almost failed me. Got minus 30 points out of possible minus 30 just because of that.
But I have to admit there was a big difference between this one and when I took mine more than 10 years ago.
This time everything was electronic with barcodes and a small computer where the examiner keyed in all my faults. After the tests I immediatly got a small printout with my score and written explanation of all my faults. And now comes the most intriguing part,this small paper slip is also my preliminary driving license after the real one arrives in the mail. Total cost for this whole thing to get a driving license from scratch including office fees, lessons and the test was just $250.
so you need two things before you can go to the road test.
Since I plan to go to burning man this year (and my european driving license only is valid for a year here) I had to go through the struggle to get a learners permit from the DMV (and at some point in the future my drivers license. but first things first.)
The DMV (Department for Motor Vehicles, website is fugly, but excellent info and well structured) is around the corner so I went there during lunch break, not really expecting a long wait. Boy was I wrong. Huge line, probably 500/600 there. Fortunately the prettiest girl in the room was in front of me, wearing the shabby grunge supermodel look. Since I was right behind here in line, I started a little chitchat about this whole thing and we had quite some fun time. Talking about the Lifeball (since I am from Vienna) and this whole process and other stuff.
So the waiting time was (although long, about 1.5 hours) quite pleasant. Finally my pic was taken and I took the (easy) test. You only need to have 14 out of 20 questions right (my score was 20/20), but even so a guy in front of me managed to fail. And finally after another wait of about 30min I got my Learners Permit.
Now I am officially allowed to drive again (as long as there is another passenger with a driving license in the car)! yeah!
btw, later in the office I found out who I had this lovely chitchat with. It was Tiiu Kuik. (and yes, she has a boyfriend. big surprise.)
