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The guys at the Met's
Egyptian exhibit

As I walked the doggies this morning I noticed again the peacefulness of a city asleep. I love walking around Toronto either late at night or early in the morning, while everyone else is dreaming about Ben Affleck or waffles, or that one where you're standing in sort of Sun God robes at the top of pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you.

So I'm leaving the relative peace and quiet for a day in the crazed, car honking, fuck-you-buddy environs of Manhattan. Tim and Mark are meeting me at GCT this morning and taking me to the Guggenheim where I can drool over original Pollocks and Picassos. Hopefully Micheal and Brett will be awake by then and ready to meet us for lunch somewhere. Part of me wants to see another museum this afternoon (maybe MOMA or the Natural History museum), but I'll see what the boys are up for.

At 5pm we'll boogie for JFK and spend several hours sitting around waiting for our flight to Iceland. The flight looks to be a little more than six hours, putting us there around 7am local time (2am Toronto time). I'm considering staying on my regular schedule of going to bed at 10pm Toronto time, which will be 3am Reykjavik time and probably much closer to the schedule the guys will be on. This approach has the added benefit of preventing jet lag upon my return. I see myself taping the windows of the apartment a la Insomnia, and taking the Chris/Kit approach of getting one of those little sleeping masks. Also, earplugs to block out the deafening cacophony of Brett's snorefest.

Iceland will probably be the exact opposite of Peart's chase through the streets of Manhattan. The land of no fucking darkness is an island the size of Kentucky with a population smaller than that of Raleigh, NC. Hopefully it will have a somewhat more relaxed sensibility.

Stay tuned for the report from the city. Over and oot!

First narsty experience of the trip and I haven't even left Toronto. I just went to use the washroom and went into the only available stall. It smelled pretty funky. I realized that the person before me had a gen-u-ine, fo real case of explosive diarrhea: not just in the toilet, but all down the side of the bowl as well as, somewhat bewilderingly, on the wall. Not quite sure how she managed that, but DAMN.

Grand Central

At LaGuardia now. It doesn't smell as bad as I remember.

Waiting for the $10 bus to Grand Central with a bunch of surprisingly well-dressed but impolitely space-occupying Americans.

Stay tuned for updates.

OMG. Rather than beeping, the shuttle van in front of the bus plays a monophonic (?) Rendition of "Moonlight Sonata" while it is backing up.

The guy across the aisle is a Important Old White Guy talking very loudly on his cell phone: so loudly that everybody nearby is staring at him.

"Rob? John from CSEA calling, how ya doin'? Listen, how are things going up there? Aside from the fatality last week. Ha ha ha ha!"

I hate him.

I've been in Manhattan for five minutes and I already love it. There's so much energy here. New York City is ALIVE.

Somebody downstairs has a real non-digital camera! How quaint!

God bless the U.S. of A.

BTW this place is randomly sprinkled with cops and people in military camo, presumably guarding me from evil. It's a little weird.

NYC *fucking rocks*. It's a very very cool city. I met the guys at Grand Central yesterday around 11:30, when we were picked up by Tim's friend Mark, who--incredibly generously--chauffeured us around Manhattan all day.

First up on the agenda was lunch. We drove to 86th and 5th Ave and parked, then got out to try to find a sit-down restaurant at which we could eat. After walking several blocks and attempts foiled repeatedly by the fact that there seem to be no restaurant tables anywhere in fucking NYC, we discovered a little Italian place and lunched there. While walking around I bumped into a woman and said "sorry!" The New Yorkers (Tim and Mark) laughed at me. "That's so cute! You apologized!"

It's the Motherwall! Ha ha.
I kill me.

Mark, bless his heart, drove us to JFK. At rush hour. With five of us crammed into a small SUV. And Brett snoring. NYC traffic is other-worldly, though quieter than I remembered because they now have $200 fines for blowing horns unnecessarily. They even have signs that say something like "no horn blowing except in emergencies."

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