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A little background: I own a big blue cargo van. It costs about a million dollars a day to park in a garage in Manhattan, so I usually end up fighting for a spot on some side street where it’s free. The catch is that twice a week the street sweepers come by, and if you don’t move your vehicle, they ticket you $65.

So on Thursday I parked the big blue van on 71st St and Central Park West and waited with the other New Yorkers for the sweeper to come. It came, we moved, we moved back. And then we waited until 9:30 (because that’s what you have to do in case they come back and ticket you). As long as a person is in the vehicle and ready/willing to move if the sweeper comes again, you’re allowed to sit there.

While I was waiting, some guy pulled up in his own van and asked us if we could squeeze in so he could fit. I happily did so. But some guy in a BMW was talking on his bluetooth and refused. The van guy got angry and started yelling at him. Bluetooth guy got angry back and got out of his car, taking off his jacket and ready to fight. After about 10 minutes of yelling insults in each others’ faces, they got back in their cars and parked.

Since I was nice to the van guy and moved for him, he came and thanked me. We made friends. His name was Abraham. All of this is important because it means I have several witnesses that I was there all the way up until 9:30.

9:30 rolled around, and people started getting out of their cars. I waited until 9:35 for good measure, waved goodbye to Abraham, and walked home.

When I went back to the van today (2 days later), I found this parking ticket:

The violation was for not being there during the street sweeper time frame. Notice the time? 9:18 AM.

9:18 AM? The only way this could be possible is if the officer ticketed me the SECOND I left the van, and if his watch was a full 17 MINUTES slow. Which is absolutely absurd.

In other words, the traffic cop lied. He or she is named A. Robertson (according to the ticket), and straight up falsified a government document in order to get me to pay money.

That, my friends, is what you call fraud.

Needless to say, I’m going to dispute this ticket in court. I don’t care if it’s not worth the time for just $65. This is about corruption.

A. Robertson and New York City cannot get away with screwing the law-abiding, tax-paying, hard-working citizens of Manhattan.

Please pass this on if it infuriates you too. And if you know someone in NYC city government, pass it on to them!

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It turns out I lost the title for the smurfvan, so I had to send away for a duplicate in order to be able to sell it here. The van is registered in Idaho still, so I mailed the proper form to the Idaho State DMV, and even paid $26 extra for “Rush” processing.

Upon calling said DMV, it turns out that “Rush” processing means they decide to hit 3 keystrokes on their computer and print out your new title in 5-6 business days, and then snail mail it back to you. I can’t fathom how long non rush processing ends up taking.

Sadly, long distance DMV interactions are apparently just as painful as the in-person ones. I’ve been waiting for 18 days.

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Guest comic by Jason Grover

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“Your butt looks great in those pants.”

Is this a compliment? Or is this cynicism? Who knows? If this sentence were spoken and the tone turned down on word “great,” it could instantly convey the opposite of its literal, printed meaning.

Instant messaging and other digital communication formats have adopted what are called emoticons to express attitude in writing, in the form of sideways smileys and frownies and even confuseys :S. However, even with the help of the standard emoticons, some feelings, like sarcasm, are notoriously difficult to convey.

And this brings me to vampires.

Sometimes you just feel vampirey, you know? Come on, you know you do. If you live in America, you’ve seen enough episodes of Angel/Vampire Diaries/True Blood or read enough (ridiculous) books about vampire teens wanting to make out with other vampire teens to relate to the whole tortured lonely romance/biting people thing. But there’s no emoticon to indicate your sulking, brooding, or cold frustration to your friends on the other end of Gchat! On an increasingly digital planet Earth, how’s a person to express vampirish emotions in a clear and efficient way? For exactly this reason, I am officially coining and unveiling a new emoticon: the Vampiremoticon!

:F

As you can see, it’s clearly a sideways vampire, full of fangs and raw emotion. Oh, and sexiness. Take a moment to admire.

Contrary to what you may believe, the Vampiremoticon can be used in a variety of ways other than just to indicate darkness and depression. It can also at various times be used to indicate frustration, silliness, sarcasm, and a desire to bite someone. Here are a few usage examples:

Man this weather sucks. :F

That mall clerk was such a jerk! :F

Your butt looks great in those pants. :F

Your mom! :F

You get the idea. Try the Vampiremoticon in your own life, and see how naturally it becomes part of your communication. I think you’ll love it!

What’s YOUR favorite usage of the Vampiremoticon?

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People have tried riots, but buses cost a lot of money; and like cows, they’re hard to upright once they’ve been flipped over. Similarly, most “peaceful” demonstrations are way overrated. Remember that health care rally the other week where people got together in big crowds and whined all day? Totally lame. Ask a random protester what they’re doing and tell me what they say is actually interesting: “I’m going to Walmart to buy a posterboard, write snarky word plays on the president’s name, and carry it around Washington DC.” Snore.

So should you do if  you decide you need to fight for an important cause? Here are four nonviolent solutions to getting your way with just about anything:

Solution 1: Hunger Strike

In a hunger strike, you basically just starve yourselves until you get your way. This works well if you’re trying to get the British to feel bad for you so you can have your country back. It also is effective on people like your mom, or anyone who is 1) easily guilt-tripped, and 2) caves quickly under pressure. En masse, it’s even more effective. Just be careful, because if they call your bluff, you’re likely to be pissed off and too weak to do anything about it.

Solution 2: Mustache Filibuster

Reserve this one for the more meaningful issues. Basically you get a large number of people to grow mustaches, refusing to shave them until negotiations are reached. Imagine if the Democrats in congress all grew Hulk Hogan handlebars? If you’re really serious about this one, get the women to take male hormones so they can grow their own, too!

Solution 3: Mass Music Marathon

You want to bring the government to its knees? How about blasting a barrage of High School Musical show tunes from every open car and building window in the city? That’ll get them negotiating.

Solution 4: Log and Leave

One time I had a roommate who was dating this horrible girl. She was manipulative and mean, with laser beam eyes and dreadful music tastes. We roommates decided something must be done, so we banded together and held a poop strike, also known as a log-and-leave. This is where you don’t ever flush the toilet until your adversary buckles to your petition. It’s hard to do after a while, because you suffer the effects as well, but it certainly gets the message across.

Go ahead, do Gandhi proud!

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What’s worse: Being trapped in the Port Authority Bus Terminal or being a pigeon? The question could spark a lengthy debate. Does Port Authority smell like urine today? Is it a decrepit, fat pigeon or an attractive, athletic pigeon? How long will this last?

Whatever conclusion the debate yields, one thing is certain: Being a pigeon trapped inside Port Authority Terminal is worst of all.

So you can imagine my empathy for the gray-and-white speckled bird I spotted on the third floor of Manhattan’s best-known (and perhaps most loathed) bus station. Not unlike the grouchy throngs of humans congregated near the large orange “301”s and “312”s, this little guy did not want to be there. Based on the lack of a ticket clutched in his talons or tucked under his wing, however, it seemed that unlike everyone else, Mr. Pigeon wasn’t going anywhere.

Port Authority reminds me of a medieval castle. At the bottom is the dungeon, where prisoners while away tortuous hours with only broken, muddy tiles and darkened departure screens for company. It’s truly miserable. Thirty-two stairs up, visitors are greeted by the glass encased Hudson News, ATMs, and pay phones no one uses – the sitting room, if you will. Another 26 stairs brings one to the magnificent inner court, featuring metal sculptures made from tractor parts, possibly commissioned by Rube Goldberg or Dr. Seuss. Once one tires of the high ceilings, ice cream shops, and fractal pattern art, he or she may proceed up two more flights to the parapets.

In a real castle, this is where owls and dragons are released, and fair maidens await their journeying lovers. In Port Authority’s case, this is where people are released (and wait for their journeying lovers), and where pigeons try desperately to escape.

My pigeon friend shivered, rippling his feathers from head to tail like a perfectly executed crowd wave at a Yankees game. He strutted, bobbing his head rhythmically, over to door 300. The gate agent ignored him. Mr. Pigeon continued, unabashed, to the next gate; his unspoken plea for an exit went unheeded, and he skittered past a bus-sized line of passengers, none of which gave him so much as a hello. Determined, he took a quick flight to gate 304, where he received the same lack of response.

The cosmopolitan crowd waiting for the bus to Livingston, New Jersey, didn’t seem to notice the bird, but they did notice me, watching the bird. Perhaps they were as fascinated by me as I was by the pigeon. Before I could coax a gate agent to let the little guy outside, a very frustrated Mr. Pigeon flew off down the hall. It seems that even the most uninteresting of people was worth more attention than a lonely bird in the Port Authority station.

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When to trust a toilet
By Jason Grover

We’ve all been in this situation at one time or another. Urgently needing to use the bathroom; Staring down at a toilet and wondering “who’s naked butt am I sharing this toilet seat with?”

When deciding to use public restrooms one can usually construct a “seal of safety,” by this I mean a barrier between your butt and the seat comprised out of strips of toilet paper. Whereas this is good and well for most public restroom situations there are certain times when the distinction between public and personal restroom becomes blurred. This is when the “seal of safety” technique is questionable.

Two major examples are a friend’s bathroom and your bathroom at work. You can’t personally vouch for the cleanliness of either seat. What about Edward, that greasy co-worker who sweats profusely? Do you want to be sharing butt-space with him? However I argue that in spite of your reservations, you must trust the seat of your workplace and friend’s house.

My first consideration is time. Let’s say you poop at work once every other day. If the construction of a barrier takes a minute and a half, then in ten years time you’ve spent over one work week laying down toilet paper. That’s a lot of lost productivity. But this is minor compared to the consideration of trust.

In the end it comes down to trust and comfort. At either your workplace or your friends’ home, you need to be comfortable. You need to be able to feel at home. As long as you are constructing barriers in the place where you should be able to relax the most, you will never truly feel at home. If you are guarding yourself when you are at your most vulnerable, ie pushing out a turd, you can’t truly open up to collaboration with that person or employer. There is an old Bedouin saying that goes something like this, “if your skin touches mine in a friendly embrace, let your cheeks touch the seat when you stay at my place;” the gist being that if you are intimately acquainted enough with someone to give them a friendly hug you should let your guard down and trust their john. There is a sense of calm and surrender when you take a sit on the seat at your work. A zen in the can if you will.

Though it takes courage I hope, my friends, that you will take the proverbial plunge if you will and come skin-to-skin with your toilet trust issues.

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So yeah, of course driving in a city of 8 million people is a nightmare. Some would say hellish. Nice people might call it “an adventure.” But the reason why driving here sucks is not what you might think. For as many cars as there are here, traffic actually flows really well. It’s just a different style of (cutthroat) driving. But since everyone here knows how to drive that way, things actually move at a good pace (except at rush hour heading north on the West Highway, as I found out a week ago). Traffic in L.A. is way worse methinks, and Newark at times was pretty bad as well. So it’s not the throngs of cars and the deafening honking of horns… then what is it?

The answer is a 1992 Ford Econoline van. A smurf-blue Ford Econoline van. Yes, the smurf-van is here, and driving in New York now officially sucks. You see, in New York City you cut people off and you get cut off. You merge and you get merged upon. It’s how it goes. But then you encounter the smurf-van.

Take a look at the smurf-van. You’ll notice a couple of things that make it operate a little differently than most cars: 4,000 lbs of wrought iron, and no windows. That said, the smurf-van pretty much only merges, and it only cuts off. Which means you only get cut off. Or you die.

Driving in New York is like a game of chicken, and in chicken the giant blue van beats the shiny orange SAAB 100 out of 100 times. Same goes for the tricked out Civic and the midlife crisis red BMW. You see, nobody wants their ride to get torn in half by some windowless monstrosity, so all Smurfy has to do is pretend not to see them, and it’s like merge heaven. Seriously, the van goes where it wants, and it feels good about it.

Do I miss driving in Hawaii where people slow down to see if you might want to change lanes? Yes. Do I hate driving in New York? Also yes. Do me and the smurf-van own the road anyway? Triple yes.

So when people come back from their vacation to The City and tell you driving was awful, now you know why. It’s because I went out for pizza while they were sightseeing in their rental car that they declined insurance on because it was just for the day. Tell them I’m sorry.

And what about The Smell? You’ll just have to come here to find out about that one!

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