Tuesday, 10th May, 2011
12:30pm
New York City

I am writing this... on my shiny new iPad 2!

I am also writing this in a picturesque spot by a pond in Central Park on what is a truly stunning sunny day.

But back to my new iPad.

Getting one of these shiny and expensive toys is a rather arduous task, it turns out. One cannot simply walk into a shop, hand over one's money and expect to walk away with one, because they sell out on a daily basis.

Instead, one must get up at 4am, catch an empty and terrifying subway across town and then wait in line for 3 hours in the freezing cold outside the shop.

And so I spent my morning, talking with some Germans, a Russian and a Columbian in the line with me about how stupid we all were for doing this and then, three hours later, how excited we all were to be getting one.

But anyway, enough about that. Back to the evening of Friday the 29th April, when I had decided to head out into the night.

I had settled on trying to find something small and casual for the evening - a pub with a live band or some such - rather than spending lots of money on a club or event or some other thing that I probably would have hated anyway. Some preliminary research suggested that the suburb of Williamsburg in Brooklyn would be a good bet, seeing as it is largely populated by college students and caters to the "young and poor" crowd.

The problem, of course, was that I had no idea where Williamsburg was or how to get there.

Consulting my Lonely Planet map, I picked a subway stop that looked like it was in the right general area and set off on my way, figuring that if I was off by a few blocks I'd just walk and use the opportunity to see the area.

Well, I was off by a few blocks. Actually, I was off by about 2 miles.

I have no idea what the area I ended up in is called, but I'm sure its name is something Yiddish.

You see, I ended up in Jewtown. An entire suburb populated by hassidic Jews, all wearing their black robes and funny furry hats, the men with their side-curls and the women in head-scarves. And, being that it was Friday night, every single one of them was out on the street, all presumably walking to or from Temple.

And I was the only other person around.

It was like being a lonely, heathen salmon, swimming upstream against a river of bearded, judgmental eyes.

Despite this, it truly was a sight to behold. Every block was full of people. Yes, they were all dressed the same and none of them were speaking English (I caught both Hebrew and Polish at various times), but it was an amazing glimpse of a community at home. I passed by shops with entirely Hebrew signage that I still have no idea what they sold. I saw little kids playing on the street like any other kids, only dressed in black and wearing yarmulkes.

It was interesting, but it was also possibly the longest couple of kilometres I've ever walked.

Finally escaping Jewtown, I slowly found my original target. Williamsburg is, apparently, the centre of all that is "hipster cool". Hundreds of bars and pubs and cafes, each patronised by plaid-shirted, thick-rimmed spectacle wearing "youths".

I found a place I could hear music coming out of and ventured inside. To my relief, it was a little less "hipster" than the rest, and had it's own little bit of edge.

The music on offer was a couple of funk-rock-fusion style bands, which resulted in me being overjoyed when one of them did a brass-band cover of the Gilligan's Island theme-song and a medley of early-90s cartoon themes. The venue itself was decent and full of people, with reasonably-priced drinks and only a $7 cover for the music. They also had some sort of free coconut macaroons on offer, which is always a good thing.

On my way back at the end of the night, I had my first New York pseudo-celebrity sighting. I was joined on the subway by the guy who plays the boss on The IT Crowd. I say pseudo-celebrity because I don't know his name and have to call him "the guy who plays the boss on The IT Crowd", so he's really not that famous. Also, no one but me seemed to recognise him. But still.

And now, lunch.

More later.

Friday, 6th April, 2011
2:42pm
New York City

I am writing this in... well, I'm actually not sure exactly. A bench overlooking some small, unnamed, picturesque park near Columbia University. I had hoped to find a nice spot on the university campus itself, but after a stroll through and a trip around the block, I had no such luck.

One possible reason for my not finding what should be obvious - namely, an open space in an enormous Ivy League University campus - could be the approximately four hours sleep I am currently running on.

Last night was Cinco de Mayo, an annual Mexican festival day that is widely celebrated here in New York. I asked a couple of people what Cinco de Mayo was in honour of, and the general response was along the lines of "I don't know... but they do cheap Margaritas!". In fact, the most revealing explanation I got was "it's like a Mexican St. Patrick's day", and whilst that makes the historical part of my brain hurt, it did end up being fairly accurate.

The new hostel I'm now staying in (more on that later) decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo by throwing a local-area pub crawl. As one of my stated objectives with switching hostels was to put myself in a more social environment, I of course went along.

Long story short: the margaritas were indeed cheap, the pubs were full and friendly, and I didn't get back to bed until 6am. Viva Mexico... or whatever.

Anyway, enough about that. I have a lot to catch up on.

Looking back, I've only really mentioned my first day's activities here (Times Square, The Empire State Building, the New York Public Library, Grand Central Terminal), and those only briefly.

It is now day nine.

Day two, or Friday 29th April as it is better known, was an equally eventful day.

I started off with the previously mentioned breakfast in Central Park. This was a very different experience to the prior day's breakfast. On Thursday, at the suggestion of a hostel staffer, I bought an egg and bacon bagel from a cart on the street.

New York seems to thrive on food that comes from vehicles. I have had hot dogs from trolleys, a curry from a cart and pizza from a truck. And all of it fast, delicious and cheap.

This first breakfast experience was no exception. It was fresh and fast and tasty, but not exactly healthy and... well to describe a fried egg, fried bacon and cheese on a thick bagel as "heavy" feels too obvious.

And so I found myself enjoying a far more breakfasty breakfast on Friday, sipping "juice" (all fruit juice here seems to come from concentrate and all of it is too sweet) and watching people pass by.

It was a rather astonishingly beautiful day, and as such a lot of these people were hiring bicycles from a nearby stand and riding through the park.

And now comes a confession that still startles even me.

While watching these happy people on their happy bicycles, the unexpected and unbidden thought entered my head that that might be a fun activity for *me* to do also.

So I did.

Central Park is massive. Truly, awe-inspiringly huge. And very pleasant.

It is also much faster to circumnavigate on a bicycle than on foot, and I can tell you that my feet are very grateful for that.

Returning the bicycle and in doing so regaining some of my sanity, I decided to eschew any further physical activity and caught the subway over to Rockefeller Center.

I emerged from the station inside one of the massive buildings that makes up the complex, a situation not helped by my notorious lack of direction-sense. After many minutes walking through hallways and doors, I emerged... somewhere... on the street. I bought a hotdog for a dollar from yet another contraption on wheels, and asked a rather fancily-uniformed man with "Rockefeller Center" emblazoned on his shoulder where I should go. He rather politely instructed me to turn around and walk around the corner.

On said corner was the famous Radio City Music Hall and, passing it, I found what I was looking for.

Rockefeller Center is an enormous and beautiful construction that houses, amongst other things, the NBC studios that shows like Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock are produced in. Also, apparently, a LEGO shop.

It also has a public viewing balcony, much like the Empire State Building, that offers panoramic views of the city. I had been told and read that the views were very different from Empire State, and arguably better. This is true. While I don't really know how to rank two similar views of a city, the shorter Rockefeller building balcony looks over Central Park and offers a view of the Empire State Building itself, neither of which you can see from the more famous site.

I must also say that, as a tourist attraction, Rockefeller is a far better run and organized event than Empire State.

As it approached evening, I made my way back to the hostel.

The thought occurred to me that it was Friday night in one of the biggest, most culturally-rich cities in the world, and that I should probably head out and check out some of the nightlife.

Well, that went interestingly.

But that will have to wait because it's getting cold, I'm being covered with some kind of annoying yellow pollen from this park, and I want lunch.

More later.

Saturday, 30th April, 2011
9:58am
New York City

I am writing this while eating breakfast in Central Park. Breakfast consists of a fresh ham and provolone roll. This is the second time I have done this and this is the second time I have decided it was a good decision.

What was not a good decision was the "tea" purchased from Starbucks. A tea bag the size of my fist and yet the flavour of a mildly damp shrub. Yech.

I am getting to know Starbucks quite well. There is quite literally one within walking distance of any given point in the city. There are three on the block near my hostel. While they are indisputably horrible places with barely recognisable beverages, the promise of warmth, seating and Internet they offer is often too good to pass up.

Anyway...

When I last left off I was in the New York Public Library on a rainy Thursday. Today is a chilly Saturday.

From the library I walked over to Grand Central Terminal, a place that puts Sydney's Central Station to shame in both size and grandiosity.

From there I took the subway (subwayed?) back to the hostel, a process I have more or less sussed out, except for a few minor hiccoughs - more on that later.

And it would seem my pen is refusing to work. Good excuse as any to get going.

More later.

Thursday, 28th April, 2011
2:36pm
New York City

I am writing this in the "quiet room" of the New York Public Library, a building seemingly made entirely of gleaming white marble and glowing golden wood. The room itself is big enough to fit our entire house inside. Probably twice. Unfortunately, photographs are forbidden.

I just noticed the ceiling. Whoa.

I am in here because it is raining outside, and because my feet hurt.

My feet hurt because I have just walked here from Times Square, with a stop at the Empire State Building.

I do not know why it is raining.

This is my first day in New York City.

I arrived last night, after nearly 24 hours flying.

This is the first thing I have learned while traveling: A 24 hour flight is not fun. At all. Even a little bit.

After the first 14 hours or so I landed in Los Angeles (I say "I" but in fact I had very little to do with it. If you believe the Qantas video, all credit should be given to John Travolta), where I waited a very long time indeed to have my photograph taken, my fingerprints scanned and my motives questioned.

I'm also fairly sure I walked through the wrong bit while the TSA agent was distracted and managed to avoid both the infamous full-body scan and the dreaded pat-down, which kind of calls the whole process into question really, doesn't it?

After picking up my bag, taking it upstairs and placing it onto a conveyor-belt - a task I was under the impression was the sole responsibility of the legion of "baggage handlers" - it was back onto another plane to continue the oh-so-pleasant business of hurtling through the air strapped to what is very generously called a chair.

This leg of the flight was fairly uneventful (at least for me, because I slept. The lady next to me may have had a wonderful time listening to my symphony of snoring, but alas we shall never know), until the very end of the flight when the captain made the announcement that we wouldn't be landing just yet due to a "VIP movement" on the ground.

Now if, like me, you guessed that "VIP movement" is fairly obvious code for something, you'd be right.

It turns out that Air Force One had to land in front of us and the whole airport had been shut down.

When the announcement was made that this would take 15 or 20 minutes, I was actually quite pleased. "Oh, that will make a cute little story", I thought.

When we landed a full hour later, my mood had somewhat changed.

Nevertheless, we landed safely and an hour or so on the mind-bendingly confusing subway later, I found myself checked in to the wonderfully located but boringly-named Columbus Circle Hostel at, surprisingly, Columbus Circle.

And I think it has stopped raining outside, so that's where I'll leave it for now.

More soon.

[Things I Like] - ALT/1977

Sometimes I don't wanna write a long-winded wanky article. Sometimes I just wanna share something cool from the Internet, okay?

ALT/1977 is a collection of designs by Alex Varanese that plays with the idea of putting 2010 technology into a 1977 context. It's awesome. That is all. 

[via One Cool Thing a Day]

Voices in my Head - My Thoughts on Audiobooks

I have a strange relationship with books. On the one hand, I love what they can do and say. I love stories of all kinds. I love being transported to another time or place and going on adventures with wonderful characters. I love clever writing and interesting wordplay.

On the other hand, I hate reading.

That's right. I hate it. Can't stand it. I don't know why. I hate the clumsy awkwardness of holding the bizarre lump of a thing called a book in my hands. I hate scanning my eyes across a page full of tiny black scrawls.

I realise this is a stupid and strange opinion to have. I read all sorts of things all the time - websites, newspapers, comic books, scripts, magazines and all the rest - and I don't mind any of that one bit. And yet I can never really "get into" reading a novel.

Now don't get me wrong. I have and do read novels. Some of my favourite stories can be found in books. I don't have any problems with books themselves. It's the reading them I have a problem with.

Click to read more ...

So... that didn't go quite as planned

So, okay, I didn't complete Script Frenzy. Nor did I live up to my "blog more often" promise.

But I will post more! I promise! In fact, I am! Right now! Look!

Omar writes stuff, too

This site is a place for and about the stuff I write, but I'm not completely narcissistic. Talkin' Bout Fantasy is a blog written by a friend of mine, discussing the ins and outs of fantasy novels. So, you know, if you're into that sort of thing.

Anyway, enough about him, back to me...

Scripting, frenziedly

Since I'm supposedly a "writer", I thought it best that I do some actual writing, both on this site and more generally. To that end, I've decided to try my hand at this year's Script Frenzy.

Script Frenzy is an annual challenge in which participants attempt to write 100 pages of scripted material during the 30 days of April. It's a spinoff, of sorts, of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month - an event I failed miserably last year).

Doing this should help tick the "write more" box, but will also hopefully tick the "blog more" box as well. My intention is to chronicle at least some points of the crazy-silly-fast-writing process.

That is, if my fingers will still let me anywhere near a keyboard by then...

Howdy

Welcome to davidhpurcell.com, the website of, unsurprisingly, David H. Purcell.  There's not much here yet, but there will be soon (if all goes to plan).

So... there you go.  Hi.  Howdy.  Welcome.  Willkommen.  And all that.