Kitchen Nightmares V: Doing the Limbo for No Good Reason…

Let There (Not) Be LightBelieve it or not, my kitchen STILL isn’t done and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Well, other than the management here in Parkchester being incredibly insensitive and frankly, virtually shiftless in responding to the basic needs of renters. Being put on hold or hung up on after a time, then being put back in line for repairs that should have been done right the first time around is bad enough. But having to reschedule appointments because the workers didn’t even do the job they were contracted to to correctly is just insanity. What’s the definition of insanity, folks?

Yeah, you know the rest…

Based on the slapdash work done in the kitchen and other rooms here, it almost seems as if they’re telling the maintenance folks to do as little as possible and pass this off as actual quality work because it’s become a common thing over time and a few management transitions. Do they really want this nice three-bedroom top floor corner apartment that’s been in the family since oh, about 1976 or ’77 SO badly that they’re willing to make it look worse to the point the current tenants flee in frustration? It sure as hell seems like it. Hmmm, I guess Yelp can be trusted for fair reviews after all? If this is even the tiniest bit true about what’s taking place in this apartment, it’s wrong, inhumane and needs to stop before someone gets sued and loses somewhat badly in court.

Or at least the court of public opinion. With all the stories I have to tell about this apartment alone, I’d hate to be doing PR for a place that claims “comfort and convenience are the hallmarks of every 1, 2 and 3 bedroom Parkchester home”. Given that no one could drop by for Thanksgiving this year and this Christmas may be a bust for company as well thanks to this nonsense, my own “comfort and convenience” levels are fully drained to the point of glaring laser eyes at every maintenance guy or gal I see walking around this place smiling and laughing away… Continue reading

Random Art: Monday’s Not as Manic, But a Bit Chuggy…

Hey Lady 

Hmmm. Things are moving NOW with the internet up here, but for about an hour or two it was slow and annoying. I had to reset my computer to make sure things weren’t mucking up on this end (they weren’t), but now things are mostly okay. The crazy news of the day is NYC is supposed to be transforming 10,000 former pay phone locations into public wi-fi hubs, which is stupendous news. Well, if you live in the wealthier areas of the city and its outer boroughs, that is. According to the New York Daily News, some poor neighborhoods (which have MORE people in them, by the way) getting these extremely helpful solutions are getting kneecapped slower service on their kiosks, a bad thing if you consider access to information comes in handy for less educated people who need to be up on things. Granted, it’s up to those communities to put a foot down and demand the same service the hipsters get, but we’ll see what happens when these stations start rolling out.

Anyway, the lady, er, tree sketch above came from my head while I was waiting for the service here to kick back in. “Ar my seams straight?” Yeah, they’re fine, ma’am. Okay, now that things are back to “normal”, I need to get back to work!

Humor: Get Lost (Or, You COULD Be In New Jersey)…

(thanks, sjmobb!) 

Pine BarrensI live in an area that’s not too hard to figure out if you live here and spend time walking around on a semi-regular basis. However, on occasions where people who drive here to visit friends or relatives, they often run into trouble with one particular spot where an oval splits into four different directions and streets that need to be followed to their destinations or else you end up driving in some rather oddball directions only to find yourself maybe back where you started or worse. This evening as I’m walking home, a car pulls up beside me and as the passenger side window rolls down, I know exactly what’s coming. Sure enough, a woman pops her head out the window and asks which way a certain street is because she and her husband had been driving around for a good fifteen minutes looking for the building.

Nice guy that I am, I point them in the correct direction and of course, the missus is all “See, I told you it was THAT way” while the hubby is getting a case of the “Yeah, yeahs”. As they both turn to thank me, the husband asks “I suppose people get lost around here a lot?”, to which I respond “Well, it’s not so bad here – you could be in the Pine Barrens”. I do believe the husband happened to get what I was referencing, because he burst out laughing so loudly that his wife jumped in her seat and did a double take before asking what the heck was so funny. As she closed the window back up (I’m assuming no one “rolls” a window up any longer) I waved goodbye, turned and left them alone and walked away with a smile knowing the mister would have to do some fast talking to stay out of the perceived doghouse he just cracked himself up into. Thankfully, that episode of The Sopranos is a pretty darn funny one and I’m glad someone actually got a joke I’d made without having to explain it. Victory!

Holy Christmas, Batman! I Know Where You Live! Maybe.

Bats Man

So, yeah… you (yes, YOU) thought he left the country for good after The Dark Knight Rises, huh? Well, apparently Batman is alive and well and… living in the Bronx? OK, then… Woo-hoo! Or I at least HOPE that’s Batman in that apartment simply because I’m seeing Xmas lights in the shape of a bat, that holiday is about two months away and I have my fingers AND toes crossed that the person behind that window is re-purposing last year’s lights into assorted shapes for every holiday. This is the first time I’ve seen these lights around here, so I could be wrong and someone is actually selling Bat-Lights out there. I could just hang around outside that apartment building one day and ask people coming out if they know who lives in that apartment, but that’s kind of stalky and awkward, last time I checked. That and if there IS a Caped Crusader up there, he’d probably think I was some arch-nemesis asking for his apartment number and I’d be the one being stalked… eek.

The Ugly American: Getting Back Into Shape (Part the First)…

Dark American

For the past week plus or so, the last movie theater in my area has been shut, but it’s at least not as terrible as I’d initially thought. When I first strolled past on my usual route a block away, I noticed the blank marquee and side panels and immediately thought the place was out of business and gone forever. That would have been COMPLETELY lousy, as it would mean Parkchester going from having five or six movie theaters in the 1970’s when we moved here to having ZERO for a pretty large community of people. Granted, the last few theaters before the American shut down in the late 80’s and 90’s and all have been turned into stupidly useless shops, a church and at least one gym that aren’t needed at all because we have PLENTY of those already in the area. So no one of a certain (younger) age knows that there were plenty of options every night of the week for seeing movies in this area other than The American.

And yes, it’s too bad for them that those older theaters are dead and gone…

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