Who Are You Weird People?

Here's a sampling of the latest Google searches that brought people to this here blog, the greatest blog with Velvet in the title in all the internetland. Now with bonus snark action commentary and extensive use of italics, I will evaluate you the reader and try to help you find your way:

halal chicken taquitos producers
this is proof right here that the terrorists are trying to get in via the Mexican border.

survivorman is not filming himself
false! he is absolutely filming himself, he uses a "tripod", don't you watch the show?

dog the bounty hunter pumkin pattern
first off, you spelled pumpkin wrong. secondly, that is the worst idea for pumpkin carving, it's neither cool nor scary. well maybe a little scary. his wife on the other hand- you'd need two to do her justice.

wanda sykes upskirt
you sick pervert. wanda sykes is a great talent and should be recognized for comedy and not the booty level. she's no elaine boosler.

tv anchor upskirt
you sick perv. with poor search skills. you have to be more specific. which tv anchor? clearly you don't care who and have some sort of TV anchor upskirt fetish and should seek help

largescale ride on trains in back yard
alright calm down Ricky Schroeder wanna be, is this for you or for the kids? cause they kids would be happy with a large empty box.

who sings i'm all out of love the new
Air Supply. they also sing "Two Less Lonely People in the World" and "Every woman in the world". With this new info, "Even the Nights Are Better" and I practically made love to this answer..out of nothing at all...making love..out of nothing at all..making love.

rachel ray fat ankles
see cankles. i always suspected but could never verify. she does have manhands, wonder if there's a correlation

for one second i felt like a fish cruising around in the sea string cheese lyrics
lay off the acid brah. that's what we call a bad trip. you'll never get out of this maze.

hippie velvet backpack
definitely sooo last years boho look thing..you might as well wear Ugg boots for mittens, this is a fashion disaster waiting to happen.

model in skimpy yankees uniform
you query doesn't specify female or male, nor home or away jersey. might i suggest the more sexual basketball pants with breakaway buttons down the side for instead removal.

madonna s&m outfit
overrated! way too theatrical to be erotic. NBC will show this but they're NOT going to show the part in her show where she is wheeled in on a crucifix. So S&M Madonna ok, Jesus Madonna, no.

grapefruit jared leto
what the hell could you possibly find linking Jaret Leto to grapefruits? Yeah, he's a little fruity but that's only partial linkage. unless he's packing some major pants fruit.

chris farley figure skating mp3
i don't want to spoil your fun with this but you'll probably find video of chris farley figure skating to be way more amusing than the audio, although I'm sure he had sone zingers as he slipped on the ice. adjust your search or you'll end up with no computer skills living in a van down by the river.

Tragic True Story of Mr. Zip

Here's Mr. Zip, mailman extraordinaire. Unfortunately when the post office downsized in the mid '80's, Mr. Zip was replaced with a managed service point barcode scanner device (made in Korea). Mr. Zip's friendly reminders and inability to separate local Manhattan mail from out-of-town Brooklyn and Queens mail rendered him obsolete before his time.
The Daily News reports that Mr. Zip's "mail slot" was sealed shut in 1992 in a botched plastic surgery procedure to "increase delivery efficiency through the front receptacle" rendering him "unable to drop off bundles" early in the day. A bloated Zip was found dead due to internal organ explosion several weeks later, his cracked expanded skin held together by 2 cent stamps, his tongue cut in many places and completely dry. A true tragedy. 10016 will never be the same.

Hang in There

Over in Chelsea at the O'Neill Building aka "The One Ill Building" is undergoing a conversion to condos. Recently the long missing dome was restored at the top. Had I known this earlier I would have paid more attention to the dome but instead I looked a little lower and caught the rappelling window washers doing their thing spiderman style.

Driving That Train...

So the other day I was on an uptown 4 train and at 59th Street a few MTA and DEP workers go on the train and the conductor opened the door to his cab to let them in. The train proceeds to crawl along until we stop somewhere in the dark tunnel. The conductor gets out of his cab and turns a key to open door to the train; in walk two MTA workers from the tracks, he closes the door and starts the train up again.

I'm thinking to myself, hey that's pretty cool, those dudes just got picked up in the middle of the tunnel. The train continues to crawl...jerking forward quickly for about 10 feet and then rolling slowly for 30 feet...all at around walking pace...sloooow- really watching it's speed.

Through the window I can hear running water. Uh oh, trouble ahead! Looking out, I can see a river of flowing water on the opposite tracks, the water's height nearly reaching that of the metal tracks themselves. The notion crossed my mind that we might get stuck! The thought of spending a night on a train-argh, take my advice, you'd be better off dead.

As we move on, the door to the conductor's cab opens and I hear a man barking directions at the conductor. "What street are we at?" "Move forward" "Stop". The conductor stops the train, the guy in the DEP uniform walks out of the cab and the conductor opens the side door to let him off the train. DEP man looks around outside the train for a few minutes to the consternation of both passengers and conductor- "Come on, I gotta get these people moving". DEP guy gets back on the train. It's around a quarter to ten now, and we're traveling again.

This time they leave the door to the conductor's cab open slightly as they move the train. I hear rushing water getting louder and louder. Finally we see lots of track workers around and the DEP guy makes the conductor stop the train and he gets out. Train moves on past a waterfall of water coming in from the right side of the tunnel, visible through the headlight on this northbound train, shining it's light through it as if it were nothing but cool Colorado rain. This was all caused by a broken steam pipe by the way.

So in summary, DEP has more power than the MTA, a box of rain will ease the pain and love will see you through, and while annoying and slightly inconveniencing me and an entire trainful of passengers, a guy from the DEP did one of the coolest things ever- he controlled an NYC subway train as if it was his own personal vehicle, complete with driver.

Fall Leaves in the Slope

Fall is upon us and the leaves are falling all over the brownstones of Park Slope. Nowhere else, just in the Slope on bluestone sidewalks and well maintained brownstone stoops along beautiful treelined streets in Brooklyn. Elsewhere the world is barren and dark and free of leaves.

More on the Marathon

Sorry so slow on these, was busy running for Senate. Ok. Here's more on Sunday's New York Marathon. These two were just a bit behind the leader pack. Still moving real fast though:

The view on 1st Avenue at 86th Street about an hour after the fast dudes passed. When it was more interesting to go back out there in the chilly weather.
Check out this guy, running it on one leg- and fast.The crowd is much thicker on the west side of the street, as the east side is pinned between the marathon and the river for about 35 blocks, with difficult transportation options. I'm sure the runners really appreciate the humor after 17 miles lady. update: Apparently the sign lady is a semi-famous blogger!
Marathon Sunday is the one day that's it's good to live on a low floor right on the busy avenue.. perfect for watching the race from your fire escape.
And the NYC Marathon foreign spirit award goes to...French flag guy
Or maybe to Italian crazy hair guy?
Nope... it's going to the French for the brie hat...for combining spirit with a good source of protein and a slightly rancid odor wake. Congrats France.

New York Marathon

Today is the New York marathon. The lead pack zoooms by much earlier than the rest of the crowd. Here are the leaders as they run past the crowds on 1st Avenue close to mile number 18.


We'll have more from the marathon at a later time. Exciting stuff.

FDNY Responds

I happened upon some FDNY activity today on my way back from lunch. There was a large ladder truck with it's ladder extending to the top of an East 81st Street townhouse.Firemen were gathered around outside but nobody was entering the building. More fire department trucks kept arriving at the scene.
Hooked in to the pump for water but no hoses were out.
Above, some random dude on a segway finds out the what's going on while the Spanish Harlem 43 truck pulls up behind him. The fireman was saying something about someone's throat closing up when they went inside the building.
Throat closing up= hazmat situation. SpaHa's bravest from the 43 firetruck head towards the building in hazmat gear. More trucks kept showing up- there was at least 15 big ones and a bunch of SUV ones.
Cool skeleton thing on the front of the 74 truck. Is that a dinosaur? Not sure what happened with the townhouse since I had to get back, but I didn't see anything on the news, so I assume everything's alright. Thanks FDNY.