Vox’s posts tagged neighborhood

Inspired by ChicagoProud [Tagged Neighbor #3]

nobody@vox.com(MexicanRobot) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:18:50 +0000

He's always posting pictures of the places he has been to.

If you don't know what this is about click here. Basically, all of my neighbors will be featured in this blog. Incuding the ones I've recently added [Robot Cupcakes and Usagi].

I took these pictures during my 30 minute break from my japanese class [yes, I take it at the same school]

This is basically the view from the 4th floor of the building.

That's a banner... I thought the people who painted were going to fall...

Believe it or not, it gets creepy when the building's empty...

This last picture looks better in a bigger view, so click here to see it on my Flickr account =]

Panorama View...

Thnk you all who actually read this... I really had no idea someone cared.... =]

Oh by the way, I also made posts inpired by DearBarbz and Witch Hazel before. So I guess this is my third.

Song of the day: Our Time Now by Plain White T's

I hate Plain White T's, but I like that song

Karina

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neighborhood

nobody@vox.com(anne) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:46:38 +0000

(camera is broken, so only a few, sad)

blogs about my neighborhood include ditmas park blog and flatbush vegan. someday i will have more pics of cortelyou rd., the big houses, greenmarket and flatbush ave.

i wish i could have more time to hang out around here and really feel like i live here.

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Getting High ♥ Spendin' G's ♥ Lame Comments

nobody@vox.com(MexicanRobot) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:43:50 +0000

My life has been stressful but good lately. I think it is because [as a good mexican] I always leave important things for

Karina happens to be my middle name, if you ask...

later, and I'm always struggling with my time. However, I think I like to suffer, that's why I don't change my habits and I

don't get organized with my stuff... I guess I'm a walking disaster, but hey... I'm lovin' it.

Today I'm happy =]

I finally got my TOEFL scores, and I have to say I did good [pretty good compared to the rest of my mates I think...] I needed a 590 score to apply to some student exchange program. I got higher scores than I thought I would get. I got a 630. I couldn't help to feel sorry for some of my friends who applied and coulnd't get the 590 they needed. That truly sucks.

Anyways... I even took a picture of my test results that I'll show you in this blog.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Sanrio goodies =]

Yesterday I bought some of my favorite Ice Breakers mints at Target. I don't know why I love them. I just do. I like living in the border because I don't have to buy all of my stuff here, I can always get out of the country and do my shopping somewhere else.

I have a problem with the Free Trade Agreement. They products are

Cute it's expenssive

supposed to be tax-free when they get into this country, so the prices won't get too high, and Canada, the U.S., and Mexico can get affordable items.

Well, that has never happened, because american stuff is WAAAAAAY more expenssive than mexican stuff. But mexican products are already expenssive [some people say it's because we live at the border]. The good thing about living here is that people can go across the border just to do theit shopping [jyst like I do], the bad thing about living here, is that there's a LOT if people

More pink shit...

from the south [including people from other mexican states, and other countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador]

I'm M.I.A.'s Boss...

who want to emmigrate to the United States, but since they can't they stay here and it becomes whole racial issue that I don;t want to discuss because I would get political, just as much as I get when I talk about things like abortion, death penalty that sorta shit.

So yeah, I wait 30 minutes at the border just to go to Target and get my Ice

Breakers, because it's totally worth it. Last weekend I went to the Sanrio store [the mexican one] and spent $200 pesos [$20 dollars] on a pen, stickers and three pencils. Yesterday I went to the [american] Sanrio and I spend $20 dollars on a pocket mirror, a mechanical pencil, a pencil shapener [for the three pencils I bought here, not for a mechanical pencil because that would be retarded] and a big ass plush toy. See the difference?.

I also went to Vans, and Hot Topic. Geez.... I need to grow up a little [not really].

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Lately I've noticed that my posts are lame. I don't even know how you people keep reading this. I mean, if I was you, I would've deleted my ass from my neighborhood long ago. I guess you people are too nice to me. Who knows...

My comments are also lame, because my lack of creativity makes me type non-creative replies. That's frustrating.

Ok you people, the song of the day is... uhmm... this song I just heard from Gym Class Heroes' The Quilt, I think the name of the song is DRNK TXT RMEO.

OK you sexy people. Have fun. Happy Wednesday [I can't spell that day]

Kari =]

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Tinggal 2 Shaf

nobody@vox.com(kaffahshots) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:41:10 +0000

JATIKRAMAT - 10 hari terakhir Ramadhan 1429 H, shaf di Musholla Baiturrahim semakin mengalami 'kemajuan'. Suatu kenyataan yang terus berulang tiap tahunnya.. :(

Tinggal 2 Shaf

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Visitors = links to some funny, cool, sad, harmonious posts i've recently read

nobody@vox.com(spICY) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:18:32 +0000

I had to share

http://oda173.vox.com/library/post/mark-antony-jennifer-lopez---no-me-ames.html

http://edgewater.vox.com/library/post/girlfriends.html

http://mcclure.vox.com/library/post/barrel-racing-jesse-2002.html

http://weheartmusic.vox.com/library/post/marc-broussard.html

enjoy

p.s. Unbound you don't have a link here because you're a writer who doesn't write.
:D

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Frozen

nobody@vox.com(Pearl in Paris) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:52:02 +0000

Normal... from the street

Grocery shopping in Paris is always fun (but then I enjoy it in the States, too). One of my favorite things about Paris however is the separation of regular and frozen foods. Unlike American stores with aisles and aisles of frozen food cases, here such foods have their own stores, like Picard.

Mostly, French refrigerators are much smaller than their American counterparts; mine is currently about 1/5 of my home fridge. Parisians eat primarily fresh and refrigerated fresh food and, again unlike Americans, buy for two to three days at most. My freezer here is about 6x10x12, which limits what I buy.

Which is actually a good thing, given my fascination for Picard.

Picard intrigues me, in part because it doesn't look like a grocery store. I think it looks something like a morgue, filled with freezer cases.

Front windows: yummy!

This grotesque thought does not stop me from buying goodies here, but the ambiance of the store is, well, a little morbid. And minimal. The front window display says it all. There are no flashy posters, no signage, no nothing but the package of frozen stuffs one can find inside... waiting for you.

Inside, there is nothing BUT freezer cases, where the food is organized by type. Above each case are the prices and titles of the material inside: it is meticulously accurate. The salespeople all wear white lab coats (as I think of them), adding to the surreal ambiance. They are very friendly and helpful; the cart in the photo above was deserted by one such Picard employee who deserted his restocking efforts to help another shopper.

Silent aisles of frozen...things

It is quiet, too: there is none of the piped-in pop-Musak one has come to expect in grocery stores and that occurs here in Paris, too.

Instead... it is silent.

Once you get inside, however, it becomes more welcoming, sort of. The cases are stocked with all sort of delights. mostly presented in Paris-sized servings. I was tempted by the salmon...

Salmon in French-sized servings

the macaroons...

Nora's cheat treats

the pizza...

Pizza... to go

and the Asian variety...

Asian frozen delights

On this trip I didn't buy anything, but that goat-cheese pizza is calling my name. A weirdly fascinating place, Picard.

Pearl

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New York City

nobody@vox.com(Andrea) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 06:30:31 +0000

Subway

It was great going to New York this weekend. I really like that city, even though I wouldn't want to live there. Jeff was saying he loves the different people you find - all races, all ages, all viewpoints, all mixed together in a very every day, expected and normal kind of way. In that way, at least, it's heavenly. I didn't take a ton of photos this time, only a few that stuck out to me - things that were a little more unusual than we'd seen before or things we hadn't done yet really. On the airplane over, my body finally gave in to the cold that had been stalking it up until I crashed into the airplane seat, too tired to fight it. And having a head cold, of course, meant that the first day or so there was spent in a bit of a fog, which really was mostly fine with me anyway. Maybe it was because of the cold or maybe it wasn't, but I found myself just wanting to roam the streets, taking in the city, watching the people and thinking/feeling it all out. (There really should be a word for "think/feel.") I didn't really want to accomplish much while we were there anyway, though I guess we really did in the end - the World Trade Center on the 9/11 anniversary, Young Frankenstein on Broadway, the "Festa da San Gennarro" in Little Italy, a UN tour, and one of the last Yankees games in the old stadium before it's torn down. (Pack it in, true Baker fashion, even when we're not trying to.) I'll tell ya this, on a side note: New Yorkers sure have a way with the f-word. It amazes me every time. I've pretty much stopped blushing to hear it used... moms with their kids, shop workers with customers, construction workers, ballerinas, Armani-clad business men, and Chihuahua-toting little rich gals on Park Avenue. Amazing. It really pretty much is just another part of speech in that town, alongside the likes of "verb," "noun," and "adjective." It's a category all its own.

Cities around the world smell the same... I love that smell. I've thought that so many times before and was trying to

Chrysler Building #2

think again this weekend what I mean by that, thinking back to some great cities that I've visited: Sydney, Shanghai, Copenhagen, Rome, Chicago, Moscow, Tokyo, Bangkok, Los Angeles, Lisbon, among others. Oh, and Hong Kong, of course! That's one of my favorites... Unfortunately, I was so young in visiting many of them that I only retain a hazy overall impression, but their general form and effect still holds in me. Certain snapshots fly to the forefront of my memory, precious keepsakes that hopefully will endure. I realize, too, that I've been blessed to travel, and the experience rushes back every time I smell that same metropolitan fragrance. They all smell the same to me. Or at least similar. I think about it every time I go down into Seattle. There are definitely certain things that are unique to different cities worldwide; I mean, in an Asian city, you experience much more foreign and strangely non-western scents than say somewhere like L.A. (Or even Rome, for that matter.) And a port city obviously smells different than one that's landlocked. But there's a certain essence that's unique to Metropolis, no matter what country that metropolis is located in. It's the smell of tar... And steam. Sweaty concrete. And exhaust, a touch of cigarette smoke... All mixed together somehow, I guess. Maybe it's the smell of exhaled human air without the trees to recycle it back into oxygen, I don't know. But as weird as it sounds, I love the smell of it. Almost as much as I love the smell of water and green plants and earth. I guess I'm lucky I live near both.

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Ike strikes the Lou

nobody@vox.com(Sarah and Mitchell) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:47:44 +0000

Who would have guessed that Hurricane Ike could travel this far up the Mississippi River and terrorize the city of Louisville, Kentucky? Apparently not our weather forecasters! What a wind storm yesterday! Ike's gusts were up to 74 mph, took out hundreds of trees, over 1100 power lines and left right around 300,000 in our city without power. We still don't have power, but luckily my parents do so we are currently hanging out over here. In fact we've brought all the food from our refrigerator and freezer here too so as not to let it waste.

Mitchell and I had JUST returned from the grocery when the storm hit. We had JUST finished putting all the goods away in the fridge and freezer and I had JUST started a pot roast in the crockpot when the electricity blew. Thank goodness we have a gas range so I transferred dinner to the burner to simmer for a few hours. I can't believe our boys both SLEPT through the whole thing! Mitchell and I watched the storm from our porch in amazement. (I know, probably not the smartest idea...)

The city is estimating 10-14 days for all the power to return! And schools, both public and private, were cancelled today because of the power and clean-up necessary. I'm not sure how many fatalities are as a result, but I'm praying that it was a really low number if any. In our neighborhood several garages were taken out from the felled trees, some cars too, lots of roof damage, but not one was seriously hurt.

A strange thing happened yesterday afternoon and evening. After the wind storm everyone in our neighborhood was out and about, talking to each other, and helping one another clean up downed trees. Don't get me wrong, our neighbors are really friendly anyways, but it was like without TV and Internet people just didn't know what else to do. We all sat on our porches and chatted it up. Marianne, Paul, Ann, Bert, and Ava, and my parents came over to hang out and visit. It turned out to be a really fun night!

Mitchell, the boys, and I took a walk around our neighborhood after the storm and I snapped some pictures.

And here are some pictures from us hanging out on our porch:

I hope all our friends around town are safe and sound--and that power returns quickly! Here's an article from CNN about Ike's path of destruction: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/09/15/hurricane.ike/index.html

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WTF Jacksonville?

nobody@vox.com(RedITGuy) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:57:24 +0000

Wow - I've just been notified in the mail by the City of Jacksonville Neighborhoods Depertment that 'My Case' has been referred for a hearing before the Municiple Code Enforcement Board. My case? As I said in the title of this blogpost - WTF Jacksonville?

I''ll update this bologpost as I get my amunition in order, but I think this case of "accessive accumulation of weeds, grass ,etc., grabage/trash/rubbish in the entire property and on the front porch" is beacuse I have an Obama sign in my front yard. My grass gets cut every week by me. The only trash in my yard is the tree waste from when TS Fay rolled through, which the city has declined to pick up every Thursday (my yard-waste pickup day) since August.

Watch-out, Officer Vincent Tarver, this is one urbna-livin' MF who ain't puttin' up with this sh!*

By the end of the day today, I should have the entire contents of the letter, photos of the letter, my yard, and all of my neighbor's yards. I've already spoken with two of my neighbors (on either side) who's yards look the same if not worse than mine does. They received no notice of any problems. But they also have no Obama sign.

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Neighborhood Watch

nobody@vox.com(Matt Macfarlane) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:27:57 +0000

Neighborhood_watch

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GT: Get Tickled

nobody@vox.com(mad-tante) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:11:10 +0000

MAY be?

Since I've nothing to say for myself, I'll say gt has cracked me into little pieces again. Be sure to see her link to a previous post.

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Kav Has Krabs...

nobody@vox.com(laurelsstitchery) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:05:44 +0000

August 30 was the annual Crab Pickin' Party at Kavanaugh's house here in our wonderful little neighborhood. They invite practically the entire neighborhood plus other assorted friends, family, etc. Gary, our neighbor across the street, showed me how to crack open and eat a crab! They're full of all kinds of nasty stuff before you get to the good parts. The good parts are very good once you get to them though! Kurt decided to bring Maggie over too and she was a big hit with everyone. She really enjoys visiting her public. It was hotter than heck, but it was a fun day and I can't wait until next year! We'll have Alison with us then! :)

Kavanaugh's Crab Pickin Party

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The 'Hood

nobody@vox.com(Pearl in Paris) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:33:48 +0000

My building

Yesterday I went out to see what was happening since most people have returned. As you can see, my pictures are relatively quiet--few people, no outrageous events--but that is typical of midday. I live on a very quiet little street, one-way, which I think most people use to avoid the red lights of the main street of the 'Burb. I walked over to the Bois as well, and except for workmen (there is a lot of street work going on) it was very quiet there, too. Some kids were kicking a soccer ball and a few people were walking their dogs. The nice thing about the Bois, I assume, is that dogs can get a bit of relief from the very strict leash laws of Paris. I am only about a block from the Bois, so very nice walking during the day, and more joggers than I thought (this is Paris, after all!).

I had forgotten how completely everything closes during midday: grocery stores, shops, services, everything except restaurants and Monoprix. And, in the main city, anything tourist.

But out here there is little of that tourist stuff (none, in fact), so the long luncheon siesta is in effect. It lasts anywhere from 90 minutes to 3 hours. And since each business or service chooses its own closing hours, you have to get to know your own neighborhood well in order to deal with any kind of midday "emergencies." Like milk or bread or landry detergent.

View north

This is looking north from the front of my building. Wow, looks like a ghost town.

View south

And, this is looking south. The training program in the building just south of me is back in swing, as you can see from the group of people standing around on a break. Now that smoking is banned inside buildings in France, just as in America, smokers have to come outside to smoke--which is usually accompanied by cell conversations. Across the street, in the short building with the mansard roof is some kind of clinic: people arrive all the time on foot and in taxis. Ambulances come, too, blaring their horns for entry so that the gates (far left) can open.

The Bois

This is the Bois. You can see the difference between this and the carefully maintained and manicured look of the Jardin des Tuileries. It is truly maintained as a "woods," a wilder place just on the edge of the city itself. If you look on any map, you can see the playgrounds and other facilities built into the woods, but they are not very apparent moment-to-moment as you walk through. In fact, just at the end of this path is a building where one can play bridge, boules, or sit outdoors at a little cafe window. Across from it is a playground that was full of kids with and without mommy. But here, that all seems impossible.

Side street

The buildings in the 'Burb are mostly twentieth-century apartment buildings. And everyone has a car. There are fewer parkings so, most people park on the street. The streets are end to end with these small cars. Once in a while, I see something like a Jeep Cherokee or a Lexus SUV, and they seem simply HUGE! Ridiculously so, in this land of the compact car and gas-by-the-liter.

I'm keeping my eye out for quirks in the 'Burb, and when I find them, I'll pass them along. I did note that a lovely little cafe has re-opened, so I'll try that out this week for a break. Also a tabac just down the street from that, which is a shop selling cigarettes, lottery tickets, coffee, alcoholic drinks, and magazines, so I'll be able to get the daily newspaper close to home. The tabac has no seating or tables, just a counter and shelves full of goods--in contrast to the cafe. Both make this feel more like a neighborhood, so I'm glad they're back from vacation.

Tomorrow, back to the archives.

Pearl

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Happy Labor Day!

nobody@vox.com(Pearl in Paris) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:38:53 +0000

Un cadeau

And I intend to "labor," albeit at the apartment in the 'burbs. I plan to put the finishing touches on my book review (due today!), edit the conference paper I just gave into its final version, and do a bit of rewriting on a ten-minute play I want to submit in two weeks' time to a competition.

I also want to walk around the neighborhood, since almost everyone is back from the long August vacation. As part of their labor agreement, all French workers get five paid weeks of vacation, and most take three or four of those during August. The city effectively shuts down--which is why one should not come to Paris during that month!--but everyone has more or less returned. Kids will start school this week--called the rentrée, it is one of the huge annual events--and so, little by little, while I was away shops, services, and the entire neighborhood became more lively.

I want to get out into the 'hood and the Bois to see how lively. Until later, bon journée!

Pearl

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Marhaban Ya Ramadhan 1429H

nobody@vox.com(kaffahshots) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:57:39 +0000

JATIKRAMAT - Musholla kami sedang mempercantik diri untuk menyambut datangnya bulan suci Ramadhan 1429 H. Selamat shaum, semoga kita dapat memanfaatkan momentum ini untuk menjadikan kita muslimin yang bertaqwa, amin.

Marhaban Ya Ramadhan 1429H

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