Isn’t all the UN stuff over? So why has there been a helicopter – or helicopters, for all I know – thumping over my building for the past 20 minutes? Who knew the noise could be so annoying.

On another note, I have been a very lazy blogger, blogging far less than I should be.

Bad blogger. Bad.

San Diego is where I have been for the past few days for a convention. It was an OK convention as far as the excitement of things go, but one thing was clear – New Yorkers have a bad rep everywhere.

The first thing anyone said when we said we were from NYC was that “ooo – I hate NYC – everyone there is so rude” This was common for several people we spoke with including one guy who moved from Long Island to Dallas and has no regrets about it. Obviously he had issues.

But, all I know is what everyone on this board already knows – New Yorkers are some of the most helpful & friendly people around. Because they choose not to greet every joe-schmoe down the street, it does not make them rude. I mean putting trust in complete strangers on the street would be a bit ridiculous and probably a little dangerous.

Anyway, we need to start a campaign of some sort to promote NYC as the friendliest mofoing place on the planet. And we need to convince everyone that real New Yorkers DO NOT say “fuhhgeddaboudit”

No matter what your first grade teacher told you, UN General Assembly week is proof that some people are just more important than others.

This is primarily evident in traffic; as the Assembly convened and recessed, or just everytime a big wig wanted to go back to their hotel or to a restaurant, traffic was cleared and haulted. The East Side was a nightmare. Monday evening, I was out when Bush returned to his hotel, stopping both vehicular and foot traffic up and across Park Ave. I was stuck on the west side of Park Ave, ironically trying to get to the east side to see Afghan President Karzai give a lecture. The next day, Pakistani President Musharraf drove by me gazing out the window of his limo.

But the strangest encounter was along 23rd St at around 8PM. I was driving east and traffic was flowing normally until some black SUVs approached with their sirens blaring. Everyone pulled over, but after they passed I turned my wheel to re-enter the street. Suddenly, another SUV came roaring, with a Secret Service guy literally hanging out the window, screaming over the sirens to everyone “STOP!! Stay where you are! Don’t Move!!” Finally a black limo roared down, and through the back window I could see a woman with long blond hair shielding her profile. Whoever this woman was, I knew she had to be important. But what world leader has long blond hair?

Next week I’m returning home to Bangkok. As you may know, Thailand has just gone through a coup d’etat and is now under a strict military dictatorship. Check out bangkok.metblogs.com for an insiders’ view!

I’m back in Miami now and reflecting back on last week. First of all, apologies for not posting as much as promised. Whenever I visit NY I take care of a month’s worth of obligations in a week.

The luncheon for Vicente Fox at the Waldorf Astoria was an historic event. Despite the problems of Sr.Fox’s Presidency, ending December 1 of this year, he will be remembered as the founder of Democracy in Mexico. He was the first democratically elected President in 2000 and oversaw the recent tumultuous election, which despite the interference of outsiders such as Hugo Chavez, successfully returned Fox’s party to power. During his speech he expressed disappointment in the anti-immigration hysteria sweeping the nation (it will dissipate after our own elections) but pointed out our great commercial relationships that have developed due to NAFTA, creating millions of jobs on both sides of the border.

I have enjoyed posting in New York and will do so every time I visit (monthly). You can check out the Miami scene (where many of you will visit in a couple of months) at Miami Metblogs.

Last night, a group of friends and I embarked on an East-Village culinary tour of St. Mark’s Place. Starting at Tompkins Square and working our way west, we wandered from storefront to storefront sampling bites of the many different cuisines offered in a span of just a few short blocks, making a genuine effort to keep our bites small and stretch our appetites as far as possible. I was determined to make it to Astor Place without needing to stick my finger down my throat.

Granted, the east village is chock-full of delicious, dirt-cheap food options, and limiting ourselves to St. Mark’s probably didn’t afford us a well-rounded sampling of the area’s best offerings. But it was fun to stick to a single street and see just how far that could take us, while barely stretching our wallets at all. Plus, I have to admit, St. Mark’s is a street I’ve generally avoided like the plague since college (don’t really like the annoying crowds), so this was a great excuse to force myself back into the hustle and bustle of what is, at this point, simultaneously one of the most egregiously fake and yet stubbornly real streets in the city.

But on to the food.
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I am normally a metblogger on the Bangkok page, but I’ve been on vacation in New York.

General Assembly week provides New Yorkers with opportunities to attend luncehons, lectures and discussions with world leaders. Last week I attended a luncheon with Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra on what was his last day as Prime Minister; it was that evening the Thai military overthrew his government in a coup.

The speech was ironically titled “The Future of Democracy in Asia” .

A questioner asked Thaksin if he could return political stability to the Kingdom. Thaksin confidently answered yes, but he must have known what was on the verge of happening. In retrospect, he seemed very calm. He sat at an adjacent table eating a chicken vinaigrette salad. During his speech, he joked with the audience. Afterwards though he was whisked away in a motorcade past protesters. The next day, those same protesters were cheering outside the UN on 1st, holding signs that read “Thaksin RIP: 1949-2006″

Dear Douchebags (this means you drunken dillweeds across the hall, the even drunker ones down the hall, AND the stoners who just moved in above me),

I get that you don’t want to let college go. Who does? Endless partying, paying that guy with the glasses in your Intro to Physics class that stares at your boobs when he thinks you’re not looking $20 and a quick flash to do your final paper, puking on some frat boy’s lap as he forces you to give him a blow job after that third roofie-laden PBR. I get it! You want to party forever! That’s great.

My only objection, however, is when you do it in such a way that it affects me, my property, and my friends and family. To wit: when I came home this evening, I found two half-finished beers in front of the front door, a trail of broken beer bottles leading to the elevator, and the grand masterpiece(!) in the elevator, which consisted of several cans of beer that had been thrown at the closed elevator door, leaving lovely drip marks on the interior door as well as a gigantic, putrid puddle of cheap beer that I wouldn’t even have choked down in my most desperate days as a late-80s punk asshole. Of course, I assume that was all done by your douchey friends that you invited over with the expectation that one of them would be desperate enough to bone you.

And how about the neighbors down the hall, who take their sofa out of the living room during parties and lean it against the wall in the hallway so they can fit more douchebags into their living room? Or the neighbors across the hall who have parties on the roof that have people running up and down and slamming the roof access door that’s right outside my apartment until 5 a.m.? Or the new guys upstairs who walked out onto their 6th floor balcony and poured bong water over the edge of their balcony, drenching my roommate who had thankfully just moved his laptop seconds before? My fucking god, people, did you grow up on Planet Asshole?

I would like to urge you to cease your hideously inconsiderate behavior and act like actual adults, which you are clearly just masquerading as while your parents pay your rent. Show some consideration for your neighbors, which means you can’t just throw a lit cigarette butt off the roof onto the balcony below and expect nobody to care when said balcony catches fire.

Love and kisses,
The woman who hopes your future neighbors actually pee off their balconies onto your heads

If your childhood was anything like mine, the Atari 2600 game system featured prominently in it. It’s impossible to say how many hours of my life (and my brother’s life, and even my father’s life) were spent in front of the television, joystick in hand (um yeah, shut up), thumb pounding feverishly on that single red button.

Sigh.

Early on, one of my favorite games was definitely Space Invaders. So how cool is it that, tonight, I have the chance to actually jump in and play this game for real, in person, on the side of a building? Seriously. I’ll be running back and forth, shooting lines of aliens as they descend down the wall, getting more and more frenzied as their descent becomes faster and faster and faster…

The game is part of the Come Out and Play Festival that’s taking place all weekend, and it’s just one of many high-tech and high-concept free activities going on all around town. Can’t wait to check it out.

And just when a friend and I were lamenting the fact that with the end of summer comes the end of all things free and fun in the city!

On Wednesday my colleagues and I went to have lunch with the outgoing President of Mexico – Vicente Fox. The luncheon was a fundraiser for the US Mexico Chamber of Commerce .

Gotham Gazette has an interview with Katherine Newman, the author of “No Shame in My Game,” which tracked the lives and fortunes of several fast food workers in Harlem for about eight years. Y’all should check it out.