very simple

In addition to yesterday’s photo of the men’s winner, I took about a gazillion shots over the 4+ hours that I watch the marathon. After whittling them down, I’ve ended up with about 60. No individual captions, since that’s just too much work :), but if you look at them in order, at the beginning you’ll see the womens’ winners, then the men, and then the pack. silly outfits and flags start about a third of the way down. I edited out most of the blurry shots except for one, because that was Peter Sagal, host of my favorite NPR radio show, Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me. I sent him the pic over twitter last night, and he was very appreciative, so I kept it in the mix, even though the photo itself is kind of terrible (he was way to close to me and my camera didn’t have time to focus before he was gone).

Anyway, here are the pics. click to get the full photo.

Meb Keflezighi, the first American man to win the New York Marathon in 27 years, seen here approximately 250 yards from the finish. I will post more marathon photos soon (within the week), but I took a ton and I have to go through and selectively edit (to say the least).

So general motors went bankrupt today. It’s probably past time for them to reorganize and shed so much of the bloat that has distended the company over the years, but it’s kind of sad that some of the classic brands are on the chopping block (or have already been discontinued).

my first and only car was a GM car. It was a cherry red 1990 pontiac sunbird, that my parents surprised me with after I got my drivers license. Of course, living in the public-transportation-less suburbs at the time, the car was as much a gift from my working full-time parents to themselves, seeing that it was a fucking pain in the ass to get me home from school on most days given my participation in multiple after-school activities. That car took me through high school in rockland county, college in buffalo and law school in philadelphia before I moved to NYC and didn’t need (nor want) the responsibility of a car anymore. Then it passed to my brother for some period of time (his “spirited” driving churned through a few cars in his time), and then a few years ago, my dad traded it to a guy in exchange for a paint job on our barn up in the berkshires. As far as we’re aware, that guy is still driving it around. other than the color, it wasn’t a particularly exciting car, but I loved it all the same. It broke down incredibly infrequently, and (mysteriously) only when I was home from school so that my dad was available to deal with the problem. And said breakdowns usually involved something as simple as the battery dying YEARS after it’s expected life had run out. It was the last year that GM made cars out of steel instead of fiberglass, so driving through the snow in buffalo was a snap. That thing was heavy. Of course, my heavy doors (it was a 2-door) would be frozen shut every morning, so I have some not so fond memories of hurling my entire body against the door in the morning in order to unstick them and get to school. I never did learn that it might be a good idea to keep the defrosting solution somewhere other than inside the car.

Of course, I know why they killed pontiac. in reality, they were the same cars as chevrolets, but with a little less brand cache (except for the classic firebirds and GTOs). In fact, in college, my friend Vic had a chevy cavalier, in the exact same color as my pontiac, and we used to park them next to each other as a joke. because they were identical.

Still. it made me a little sad. Here’s hoping that GM can pull out of this bankruptcy leaner and more efficient. and, of course, that they start making cars that people want to buy again.

I know that Jon Stewart constantly repeats the refrain that he’s a fake newsperson, and that he shouldn’t be taken seriously, but I think that he’s the only one working in journalism today that’s willing to ask these questions. Going all the way back to Thomas Nast’s cartoons (or, quite frankly, the fool in King Lear), it’s often the “clown”, the comedian, the joker who is the only one who is willing to speak truth to power. It’s couched in humor, but one has to wonder why Stewart is the only one who is willing to dig deep on these issues, while the “real” journalists do nothing more than serve as mouthpieces for the industries/administrations that they cover. Oh, and I’d be surprised if the SEC didn’t begin to investigate Cramer for market manipulation based on those clips that were dug up where Cramer admits that he’s pumping stocks.

Full, uncensored interview clips of Part 1 (and please enjoy the schadenfreude of these clips being sponsored by Bank of America). Part 2 and Part 3 can be viewed at the Daily Show’s website (had problems with embedding).

well, Circuit City is officially dead. I think I’d be more upset about losing one of the major computer outlets in my neighborhood if they weren’t complete jerks every time I walked into one of their stores. And lest you think those two links contradict each other, please note that, in both cases, the salespeople were not interested in actually serving me, the customer, be it by answering my questions or by leaving me alone when I specifically point out that I’m just browsing.

The only thing that actually bothers me is that they literally just opened up a store in the old tower records location near lincoln center less than one year ago. Here’s hoping the space can find another (decent) tenant soon.

You might think that I’m all up on what’s going on with the economy. I mean, I work in corporate finance and everything. But the massiveness of what’s been going on has utterly confounded just about everyone I know. And no one knows what the hell a credit-default swap is. All in all, I’ve found that the guys over at NPR have really gone out of their way to make the entire thing understandable. Last week, they put together the third in their ongoing series of This American Life episodes on this crisis, bad bank. This is a follow up from the first episode, giant pool of money, and their first follow up, another frightening show about the economy. You can download the current episode for free, and the archived shows cost 95 cents to download, which is totally worth it.

In addition, the guys who put together these shows have a podcast that airs three days a week and a companion blog, planet money.

If you want a clearer understanding of what’s going on, I highly recommend all of these. Heck, the podcast guys got an interview with Geithner last week that’s been cited all over the interweb.

I’ve got one hour and 35 minutes until, well, I turn 35. It doesn’t bother me very much, but at the moment I’m feeling a bit of a twinge. I had to fill out a survey a couple of weeks ago, and the age group category cutoff for my group was 34. The next age group up was something like 35-50. And that made me feel a little bit old.

On the flip side, it’s a holiday weekend, I have plans every night, and a bunch of people have said they’re actually going to show up to my get together on Sunday night (it’s not a party per se – I basically told a bunch of friends to show up at a bar at 9pm). I have smaller plans for my actual birthday tomorrow with my best friend and possibly my brother, but if I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s to try to studiously ignore my birthday when it falls on friday the 13th. The last time this happened, which was my 30th birthday? I ended up working until midnight.

It’s almost turkey day, and, more importantly, it’s time for a 4-day weekend, which will be very much appreciated, particularly after this latest cold/flu season. I look forward to passing out on the couch on numerous occasions, to the point where my family thinks I have narcolepsy.

But first, the adventure is all about getting to Thanksgiving. I think I’ve mentioned before that I live 1/2 a block from the Macy’s parade route. Normally, I do everything in my power to get the hell out of NYC before the parade starts. This year, due to some logistical issues, we’re not leaving until mid-day on Thursday. I, my parents, and my parents’ car all live along the parade route. So that should be…interesting. On the flip side, if I leave my apartment at any time tomorrow morning, I will actually get to see the parade for the first time in my life. I give it even odds that I sleep through the entire thing.

I voted. It was really easy. And you should vote too!!!!

OK people.  One day left.

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE