“JUST STEPS FROM Central Park, Copper Hill is the newest addition to Upper East Side living,(East Harlem, ass holes) offering a virtual doorman, fitness center, private rooftop deck, lounge, playroom and courtyard.  With spacious floorplans, floor-to-ceiling windows, and condominium-style finishes, Copper Hill offers an urban oasis at an amazing value.”

I’ve been keeping an eye on the, ahem, Copper Hill building at 101st Street and Lexington Ave for the past year as it’s slowly been built. Judging by the looks of the building, I would be very surprised if  it was originally conceived to be a rental project. It looks like they spent way to much on details like the nice, rust colored cladding and expensive floor-to-ceiling windows for it to be a viable rental project. It’s probably just another story of a developer who got caught with their dick in the wind when the real estate market shit the bed. And the NYC real estate market is just getting started, I think, when it comes to bed shitting. So rather than let their units sit on the market for 700 days, the developers decided they’d service the development debt by renting them out. Sounds easy enough? Wrong. The prices they are looking to rent the Copper Hill units at are astronomical for East Harlem/el Barrio. Seriously, these people are out of their minds if they think their going to get any takers with a price list like this:

I’ve lived in East Harlem/el Barrio for over 4 years and have seen the area slowly change by small bits here and there, but the notion, which many people misguidedly hold, that East Harlem/el Barrio is a neighborhood on the verge of some kind of gentrification explosion are out of their minds. The area is home to a large percentage of what little affordable housing remains in Manhattan and it’s not going anywhere. There are some very definite constraints that will make what ever sweeping yuppification of East Harlem/el Barrio a lot of people are looking for very difficult, which is probably for the best. It’s fine the way it is. Yes, it’s a cool place to live; but do not consider moving there if you’re an amenities/fancy restaurant/bar whore or feel uncomfortable being a minority in a neighborhood.

Needless to say, Jeff Zucker, president of NBC had to step up and defend CNBC after seeing how much attention that the Stewart-Cramer bout got and that Stewart was overwhelmingly viewed as the victor and goodguy.

This was the best Zucker could do, “Just because someone who mocks authority says something doesn’t make it so,” Zucker said, describing the comedian’s comments as “completely out of line.”

Ok, wait a minute. You, Zucker, given the topic of discussion here: very rich, large, esteemed, often old financial entities who weren’t transparent, who weren’t behaving sanely, are going to defend and invoke the infallibility of authority figures? You have got to be kidding me, man; clueless.

A large part of why we are in this fuckmuck is because people trusted (too much) people in positions of authority and their proxies were either lying or too enamored of how good it was to do anything about it. AUTHORITY WAS NOT QUESTIONED AND MOCKED ENOUGH! Albert Einstein or any great thinker would have walked up to Zucker and bitch slapped that mutha f’er.

Kids, challenge authority!

What I’m doing: Listening to doctors talk about allergy medication.

Best response I heard today: This sounds like the company is going out of business.

Funniest thing I read today: Over at my brother’s blog, Eternity With Nerds, a post about the melodrama over Michelle Obama’s irreverant sleeveless dresses.  *He is a much better blogger than me, I won’t be insulted if you start reading his instead of Medium Happiness.

What I’ve eaten: Buffalo chicken fingers from Cheescake Factory, which serves reprehensibly large portions of food that’s awful for you; 3 coffees which must have been decaf; 2 diet Dr Peppers; a mini bagel with cream cheese; a few pieces of pineapple

Interview conducted by Deborah Salomon.

Fortunately, I am not as poor as I was when I first moved to New York 4 years ago so my chronic overdraft problems are pretty much over. But, I know what it’s like when you get one overdraft fee and it sets off a chain reaction of 5 more. What would be more meaningful, in my opinion, would be to promise that after you overdraw your account once it is frozen until you deposit more money. This way, you can’t keep using your debit card and racking up more overdraft fees when your account balance is already below $0.

The bottom line, this campaign of waiving 1 overdraft fee per year is a nonstarter. It is not differentiating them from any other bank because all of the other banks will all do the exact same thing. They, however, do not feel the need to advertise something so trivial. WaMu, your name kind of stinks and so does your bank.

Dear Mr. Cesari:

Judging by the nastiness of your email, I would say that Council Member Weprin and I were on the right side.

Respectfully,

Tony Avella

And my follow-up:

Dear Mr. Avella:

First, thank you for responding to my previous letter, I apologize for its acerbic tone.

Nevertheless, I would like to know why you and Mr. Weprin are so vehemently opposed to the congestion pricing plan?

Did you ever stop and think that you might be doing something unforgivably bad by convincing people that the congestion pricing plan is a rich v. poor issue? I concede, New York City has got to do something about the mis-distribution of wealth, but opposing this plan is not it. My fear is that the congestion pricing plan is now synonymous with “penalize the poor.” This is thanks to you and your brethren’s strange brand of constituent watchdogism, which may keep you in office, but does little else.

In the end, truthfully, I know very little about what you do. You are probably a good person. But, I genuinely think that you have taken a giant misstep off a very high precipice by not supporting or at least helping to salvage the congestion pricing plan. New York City’s citizens and politicians are not infallible; we are all given to self-importance and need to take a step back sometimes and realize that we don’t have it all figured out. The city’s traffic needs to be fixed, and the congestion pricing plan would have been a great start.

I think you owe the public a solid explanation and some proof of why the congestion pricing plan was so bad. To date, we have been given nothing but speculative talk and opining.

As an aside, the MTA is going to need every dime they can get and you guys really shortchanged them by killing this deal. When they raise fares again or go bankrupt we’ll send you guys the thank you note.

Sincerely,

Medium Happiness

Mr. Weprin and Mr. Avella:

As a purportedly educated people the two of you should be ashamed of your parochially mindless and outspoken stance against the congestion pricing plan.

Seriously, what century do you live in? Fewer cars is a good thing. This city has better buses and subways than most of the cities I’ve ever visited. Do you disagree?

You are both blow hards who do not deserve to be within 10 miles of any public office. It’s frightening that people as dumb and ill-informed as you two jab holes wield any influence in this city.

Medium Happiness

Seriously, this is a sad day. Wipe that smile off your face state assembly man Sheldon Silver. This is not a good thing.

Here are some excerpts from the NY Times article, In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till they Drop:

“Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.”

“The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder…”

“He says he sleeps about five hours a night and often does not have time to eat proper meals. But he does stay fueled — by regularly consuming a protein supplement mixed into coffee.”

NFT

No Fucking Thanks

Just look at the story that came out earlier his week about FIA (major international motor sport governing body in Europe that also has their hand in Formula One) president Max Mosley. What is he in to? Having chicks, er hookers, dress up like Nazi soldiers and whip him.

“The video reportedly depicts Mosley engaging the services of five prostitutes in London to stage a perverse reenactment of a Nazi concentration camp in which Mosley plays both victim and oppressor, alternately receiving lashes from a dominatrix and barking orders in German to the prostitutes dressed in pseudo-Auschwitz uniforms.”

That’s some twisted shit. Then again look at his pedigree,

“The son of infamous wartime British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, who married Max’s mother Diana in the presence of Adolf Hitler at a ceremony in the home of Nazi arch-propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Mosley had tried to help resuscitate his father’s fascist political career before leaving politics for the world of motor racing.”

*The Ruling Class is an amazing film, rent it or buy it, you will not be disappointed. Peter O’Toole plays a schizophrenic man who is convinced he is Jesus.

1) If what Jose Canseco is saying is true and he did hook Alex Rodriguez up with the steroid dealer “Max,” and there is evidence that A Rod took steroids, then I will not watch baseball anymore.

2) Heather Mills former McCartney $50 Million is not enough? You really are the tripodded monster we all thought you were. I won’t say it here, but there is a pithy 4 letter word that starts with C…that’s what you are.

3) I’ve seen my fair share of strange and inexplicable advertisements wheat pasted to construction sites in New York but never have I seen anything like the one I saw this morning. It was a picture of a beautiful farm house in the middle of a verdant field and beneath it in italicized letters is said Waterboarding. WTF? For those of you who may not know waterboarding is then you can read more it if you click the more link down there.

The goal of waterboarding, which has been used in interrogations at least since the time of the Spanish Inquisition, is to create the sensation of drowning without causing death. The subject is strapped to an inclined board, immobilized with his head positioned lower than his feet. In some cases, a piece of cloth or cellophane is placed over the subjects face and water is repeatedly poured over it, triggering a gag reflex and choking the subject. In other cases, the subject’s head is submerged under water or his mouth is forced open and water is poured down his throat.