This week, I had a nice surprise, with discovering that an old friend from Eugene is visiting NYC. Sarah came to town to look at grad schools for next year, and generally get a feel for the lay of the land. I think I did a good job of selling her on why Brooklyn is the best of the 5 boroughs. ;)

Last night we all, (Sarah, Marion and John) went out for German food at a place called the Heighleberg up on 86th street, and then caught Spiderman 2. Having never read the spiderman comics, the films are odd for me. Everyone assumes I know more then I do, and I can kind of watch the geekdom from the outside, and see it all how a non geek must. (I never got into comics as a kid, only discovering them in college, during the time of the independents in the mid 90s. So superhero comics have always been a gap on my geek resume.) Anyway, the film is fun, and fills all the requirements of a good summer F/X extravaganza. Sam Raime put his mark on the film, making for some very cool and quirky tangents in the film. The best part of the movie was the variety of glaring gaps of logic in the plot. This is a necessity in this sort of film, so you have something to analyze and ridicule with your friends over pie and coffee afterwards. (or in our case last night Cheesecake and coffee at Mike's Coffeeshop) Good times.

Getting back from the upper East side at 1 am on a Thursday night was definitely not good times however. The MTA is notable and laudable for being a 24 hour transit system- something unheard of in most cities. But as a result, after midnight, especially on week nights it becomes a mirror world version, where none of the trains go where they are supposed to do, and workers are performing strange tasks in the dead of the night. Mysterious Subway trains run the lines, that are designed for unknown purposes. And if one was not hot sticky, and extremely tired this chaos would be fascinating. Instead you plot on from transfer to transfer, waiting for the infrequent trains, hoping you eventually get home before dawn.