Kat has already covered this, but I just got home so I need to throw in my two cents worth.

Here’s my picture:

I was forced to walk home because the subway was completely shut down and the roads complete gridlock due to all the road closures. I generally wouldn’t mind walking home, but I pulled my groin last night and it hurts like hell.

I saw a bunch of funny stuff, unfortunately I was too slow on the camera to actually get pictures of it. There was definitely some crazy over-reacting going on. I saw a number of civilians walking around with the small doctor’s mask things on. One was a terrified yuppie couple in a Land Rover, who were only outdone by a guy I saw (10 blocks from the scene mind you) with the same mask on around his neck. He had to pull it down so he could smoke his cigarette. Yeah, you want to wear the mask because you have no idea what kind of toxic chemicals are coming out of the ground but you don’t want to let that get in the way of your cigarette smoking.

Excuse me while I puke and die.

Update: 6 hours late, my mom called to make sure I was alive. Unfortunately it was the first time I had gotten to sleep before midnight all week. Awesome, thanks. Also, Gothamist has a post on this story which points out that Chopper4 was first on the scene. Coincidence, or Chopper 4?

My phone tells me that I have three old posts that I’ve lost interest in completing, including one about watching “The Omen” which reminded me why I will never have kids, one about the short road to black label status at the Borgata last weekend (The only sentence I completed was “As if we didn’t get kicked in the teeth bad enough in Las Vegas…”) and a third about the homeless in New York.

Of those three, it only makes sense that I would complete the one about homeless people.

I find homeless people funny. Not in that zany slapstick sort of way, but more in the way that I find Intervention (on A&E – anyone?) hilarious. Watching the levels of crazy you can reach when you just completely lose all control is the kind of entertainment I need in my life.

The homeless in New York have being homeless down to a science. I’ve seen some of the most elaborate cardboard box homes here which take into account aspects of buildings to the point where some homeless people are camouflaged well enough to make a Navy Seal proud. They also work harder than I’ve ever seen to come up with unique begging methods.

Busking is common, but really annoying; I’d almost rather give you a quarter to stop banging on those fucking buckets than continue listening to it. Recently I saw a fairly inventive method. There are pay phones in every subway (in case you didn’t know), once I saw a homeless man holding the one of these phones asking people for a quarter so he could use the phone.

But the other night I saw a woman take it to the next level. She found an old, beat-up cell phone that obviously didn’t work. She then proceeded to cuss at it for not working to give the illusion that she could actually be trying to make a call. And then she hit me up for money. I’m not one to be fooled though. If you have your own shopping cart in New York, I’m fairly sure you don’t have a cell plan.

I really did want to either put a quarter in a pay phone and dial the number for her or offer to let her use my cell. More than anything I’d just want to see her reaction. Would she pretend to call someone? Or does she actually know someone’s phone number? Who is friends with a homeless person? What would the talk about? I need the Discovery Channel to do a documentary on this.

How does New York celebrate Joey Chestnut’s amazing victory?

From the roof. Bitches.