Sunday, October 16, 2005
On America - Part I
While I'm on my trip here to the US of A, I'll be posting a series of commentaries on our friendly neighbours to the south.
Today we'll be looking at 2 unique aspect of life in the Big Apple.
The first - television.
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I've been terribly fortunate to be staying at some really top-notch places while I've been down in new york. As many of you remember, my last stay was in Brooklyn, at a place with a 62" flat screen tv. This time I'm staying in palatial digs right in the core of Manhattan.
Both places have been gifted with 1000 channel super mega ultimate cable. ONE THOUSAND CHANNELS.
I'm sure you're saying to yourselves "I have THREE channels at home, I just can't imagine how much terrific television there must be with one thou' channels!!"
Well. It depends.
Are you looking for quality programming? Real news broadcasts? Action packed hockey games? Slammin' music videos? Do you salivate over creative culinary content?
Do you like football? Do you like hearing all about terrorism, crime, murder? Do you like cheezy low budget "reality" programming about backyard landscaping? Do you like hispanic language programming?
I kid you not, the vast selection of football related programming is mind numbing. Now, I'm not just talking about NFL Sunday games, because I'd *EXPECT* to see a lot of those. It's all the hours of NFL related COMMENTARY that really astounds me. It's the fact that "Sports Shows" are just rehashes of football games...well, and from time to time baseball. It's the fact that every day of the week you can choose from a broad array of high school football games to watch...and college football is a whole other story!
Want to see hockey? Think again. Even with 1000 channels, you'd be hard pressed to find 10 or tv during a week.
Comment #2: Parking...In the sky?
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Now, I can understand than in a place like Manhattan, space comes at a premium. Which is why I'd expect to see lots of multi-floored parking garages, like we have in ottawa and toronto.
Thing is, parking here is so crazy expensive($25/hr++) that I guess there isn't that much demand. I'm not entirely sure on that, but point is, I haven't really seen any serious parking garages.
What you DO see though is a lot of smaller parking lots, like on the corners of smaller streets etc. In toronto, we've got lots like these...some of them even like double park the cars so that there's really no wasted space at all. What's different about these is that they stack the cars. Yah, they STACK the cars.
You know at car repair garages they have those car jack/lifts that lift the car off the ground? Well here the parking lots all have those...and not just to stack the cars two high, but as much as *FIVE* high.
What I want to know is, what kind of system do they use to figure out which car goes where? Cause wouldn't you think that the first car in would probably be the first car out? How do they do this in such a way that they avoid having to move all 4 other cars when the 5th guy wants his car back?
Today we'll be looking at 2 unique aspect of life in the Big Apple.
The first - television.
-----------------------
I've been terribly fortunate to be staying at some really top-notch places while I've been down in new york. As many of you remember, my last stay was in Brooklyn, at a place with a 62" flat screen tv. This time I'm staying in palatial digs right in the core of Manhattan.
Both places have been gifted with 1000 channel super mega ultimate cable. ONE THOUSAND CHANNELS.
I'm sure you're saying to yourselves "I have THREE channels at home, I just can't imagine how much terrific television there must be with one thou' channels!!"
Well. It depends.
Are you looking for quality programming? Real news broadcasts? Action packed hockey games? Slammin' music videos? Do you salivate over creative culinary content?
Do you like football? Do you like hearing all about terrorism, crime, murder? Do you like cheezy low budget "reality" programming about backyard landscaping? Do you like hispanic language programming?
I kid you not, the vast selection of football related programming is mind numbing. Now, I'm not just talking about NFL Sunday games, because I'd *EXPECT* to see a lot of those. It's all the hours of NFL related COMMENTARY that really astounds me. It's the fact that "Sports Shows" are just rehashes of football games...well, and from time to time baseball. It's the fact that every day of the week you can choose from a broad array of high school football games to watch...and college football is a whole other story!
Want to see hockey? Think again. Even with 1000 channels, you'd be hard pressed to find 10 or tv during a week.
Comment #2: Parking...In the sky?
----------------------
Now, I can understand than in a place like Manhattan, space comes at a premium. Which is why I'd expect to see lots of multi-floored parking garages, like we have in ottawa and toronto.
Thing is, parking here is so crazy expensive($25/hr++) that I guess there isn't that much demand. I'm not entirely sure on that, but point is, I haven't really seen any serious parking garages.
What you DO see though is a lot of smaller parking lots, like on the corners of smaller streets etc. In toronto, we've got lots like these...some of them even like double park the cars so that there's really no wasted space at all. What's different about these is that they stack the cars. Yah, they STACK the cars.
You know at car repair garages they have those car jack/lifts that lift the car off the ground? Well here the parking lots all have those...and not just to stack the cars two high, but as much as *FIVE* high.
What I want to know is, what kind of system do they use to figure out which car goes where? Cause wouldn't you think that the first car in would probably be the first car out? How do they do this in such a way that they avoid having to move all 4 other cars when the 5th guy wants his car back?
# posted by Greg @ 2:51 PM 
