A group of New Yorkers recently pulled off a stunt in Grand Central Station whereby they essentially “stopped time.” A pretty unique stunt and definitely entertaining to see the reaction of other people. Check it out:

Next week the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is expected to vote in favor of allowing Transit Wireless to build an underground cellphone network. The plan, which would place a cellphone network in 277 subway stations, involves Transit Wireless paying New York City Transit $46.8 million over 10 years, in addition to the $150-$200 million in network installation fees.

If the MTA approves the plan next week, six downtown Manhattan stations will be built in the first two years, and the remaining during a subsequent four-year period.

Don’t get too excited yet, however, because even though it appears Transit Wireless will be building an underground network, the major cellphone companies (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon) have yet to sign on. Carriers will have to pay Transit Wireless to use their underground service, in which case whoever belonged to participating carriers would be able to use their cellphone in the subway system.

At the time of this writing carriers are awaiting the MTA decision next week, and at that point will consider negotiating options and rates with Transit Wireless. I’m sure if the carriers declined there could still be some sort of service options directly from Transit Wireless to consumers. They’re not going to spend $200 million and let it sit there. Perhaps a monthly/annual service fee for unlimited use in the subway network. It could be valuable for daily commuters.

I came across this little display on the street the other day in New York City. Love the cartoon Cheney figure holding a shotgun. Never did like that monkey…

Ever been out on the town and had to go to the bathroom badly? How about being out on the town and having to go very badly? And what about being out on the town and having to go very badly. If you answered yes to one or more of these questions then smile, because going to the bathroom in public just got a whole lot easier.

MizPee is a new service from Yojo Mobile that will find the closest and cleanest toilet for you. And not only that, but it will also provide you with reading material once you get there, for those number 2s that should really be 3s.

There are two ways to use MizPee. The first way is to navigate to www.mizpee.com from your mobile browser. Once there, click on “Find Toilet,” then input your location and click find to browse the results. A second way is via text message. Simply send your city and state (ex: “New York, NY”) to 415-350-2290.

Outside of the humor department I really don’t see much of a use for this, but it will certainly be fun to play with. I am going to have to try it some time to see what kind of reading material I am provided. If it’s something like the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, I just might actually use this thing.

It has been reported that there are over one million registered users at Digg.com. Granted, the actual number of active users is probably much less, but still likely to be in the hundreds of thousands. When we think of a Digger what usually comes to mind is the teenage boy who never leaves his parents’ basement except to visit Game Stop for the latest Wii game, or the atheistic Ron Paul supporter. However, I’m here to report that Diggers are actually real, everyday people that you pass by on the street.

A few weeks ago some co-workers and I decided to adopt a ritual called “Geek T-shirt Wednesday.” I was immediately overcome with excitement, as long have I desired a Digg t-shirt to sport, and the perfect opportunity had finally presented itself. I went to the Digg Store and purchased a plain black t-shirt with gray lettering on the front that says “Digg.”

Before last Friday, I had worn the t-shirt twice without any recognition. Not to be discouraged, a week ago exactly I decided to wear it again. The day passed, and nothing. I figured it was going to be a normal day just like any other, when all of a sudden a man walked up to me while I was standing at the train station in Hoboken, NJ on my way home from New York City.

He approached and said “nice t-shirt, Digg.com.” I said “oh you know it?” He said yes and asked me if I had purchased it from the Digg Store. I said yes and then he mentioned that he was a big fan of the API. Then he proceeded to talk about how he wrote some Java code that uses the API to make it easier to Digg a story. I mentioned that I had seen stuff like that before. Then he mentioned Digg Swarm, and talked about how great he thought that was. I told him I liked the home page visualization site, which shows the top Digg stories as thumbnail images. Shortly after that the conversation ended with him saying “keep Digging,” and me replying with “you too.”

It was really cool to randomly run into a Digger in the real world. Sure, some of my friends use Digg. But most of them aren’t as big of a geek as I am, and they don’t truly understand the excitement that is Digg. I think this serves as a good example to illustrate just how mainstream the Internet has become. Five years ago how likely would it have been to run into a Slashdot user on the street? Probably not very likely. But in today’s society, where life and the Web are increasingly integrated, such an anomaly is no longer all that improbable.

To any other Diggers in the NYC area I welcome the opportunity to meet randomly in the street. Until then, keep Digging!

The NYC skyline has been forever changed after the tragic events of 9/11. Currently, the Freedom Tower is being re-built in place of the old World Trade Center. When looked at closely, the Freedom Tower will send a very powerful message to Al-Qaeda and other potential terrorists around the world: the middle finger.

We knew the positive praise of New Jersey Transit from a few days ago couldn’t last. FOX 5 NY News announced this morning on their newscast that New Jersey Transit will be raising ticket prices on buses and trains by 9.6% starting June 2007.

For a company that can hardly seem to get anything right I don’t think charging more for horrible service is the answer. The newscast noted that the reasoning behind the fare hike is to make up for a $60 million budget deficit.

Ummm, hello, why do they think the $60 million budget deficit came about in the first place? It’s time to revamp the operating policies and procedures. Raising the fare may be a short-term solution, but this time next year they’ll find themselves needing to raise the fare yet again to make up for the deficits that will come from mismanagement in 2007.

Free Willy has gone astray! OK, so it’s not an Orca, but marine biologists have been keeping watch on a young whale that has wandered it’s way in New York Harbor and nearly ventured into a highly polluted water passage.

The whale is a 15-foot long minke whale that was wandering around Gowanus Bay, the outlet from the mile-long Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The whale was behaving normally and did not appear to suffer from any diseases or injuries.

The last known incident of a whale in New York Harbor was in 2000, when a dead whale was discovered floating between Brooklyn and Staten Island, and had apparently been struck by a ship. Before that, however, a sick whale was discovered in 1993 and over the course of 8 months was nursed back to health at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island.

Some of you might have been as baffled reading the title of this entry as I was when I wrote it, but yes, New Jersey Transit has actually done something positive. Generally my posts about New Jersey Transit have to do with them “biting the dust,” however for once I am actually going to commend them.

Yesterday a Nor Easter came into town and dumped absolutely torrential rain everywhere. I don’t have an exact figure, but last night on the news they were reporting 6.74 inches at Central Park, so I’m guessing by this morning that total was easily over 7 inches. Yes, 7 inches of rain in a little over 24 hours. It goes without saying that this amount of rain can certainly wreak havoc on any public transportation system.

To my surprise, however, the amount of delays on New Jersey Transit this morning were pretty minimal. The trains were operating only slightly behind schedule (save one line that was shut down due to massive flooding). I didn’t truly appreciate the train service this morning until I arrived in Hoboken and saw that all of the tracks throughout the entire station were flooded. None of the trains were able to pull completely into the station because all of the tracks were underwater.

So even though the rail system was one you’d expect to see at Atlantis, New Jersey Transit held their own and managed to get people to work today with very little delay. Here is a picture of the flooding at Hoboken (pardon the blurriness, I was on the move while snapping this shot):

Day in and day out I come across thousands of people. New York City truly is an urban jungle with all sorts of people who will walk all over you if you let them. Everyday I encounter people doing things that are beyond rude and impolite, and here are some of the worst ones:

5) People who hog the express checkout aisle at the grocery store
The sign that reads “10 items or less” really means that, even if Homeland Security isn’t there to enforce it. People like myself frequent the grocery store often but only for a few items at a time, and it’s beyond annoying to wait in line behind Aunt Mildred as she not only pushes an overloaded cart up to the express checkout register, but also uses 57 coupons in the process.

4) People who don’t hold elevators
I don’t care how much of a hurry you’re in, you can always wait an extra 3 seconds to hold an elevator door for someone, be it a man or woman. People jump into these elevators and don’t want to share them with anybody, if they see anyone approaching they hit the “close doors” button as quickly as possible. In fact, the only time they ever actually hit the “close doors” button is if they see someone coming.

3) Men that don’t hold doors for women
Is chivalry completely dead? Everyday I see men not only cutting off women to exit out of the building door first, but also not holding the door after they walk through it. Sure it’s one thing if you don’t see a lady behind you, but these guys know there is a woman behind them and deliberately let the door slam in her face.

2) Men who make women stand on trains
These men know who they are, they’re the ones who hop into any empty train seat as soon as they see it and will not give it up for anything. Never mind the 80-year-old woman with a cane standing next to you, enjoy your seat buddy.

1) Men that make women pay on dates
This is such an old one but sadly continues to be so relevant. Guys who take dates out and expect them to pull out their wallets are the scum of all men, the ones who end up being the a$$holes that women fall in love with but cry about soon after. Do yourselves a favor ladies, stay away from men like this.

This is a just a quick list I threw together, if you have anymore to add please leave them below in a comment.