Following the last post, logging Underground in my living room kept going, and going, and going. We’re still not quite done, but as Colin is off to Michigan through New Year’s, I at least have a two week reprieve.

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Just in time, too, as my parents are now in town, availing themselves of the Joshua Newman Hotel. Replete with mints on the pillow.

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And replete with soothing lounge music.

Or, with not-so-soothing-half-assed-attempts at lounge music. Keeping alive my great-grandmother’s tradition of buying herself a Chanukah present (so she’d be sure to receive at least one gift she really wanted), I headed out to Sam Ash Music, picked up an inexpensive Yamaha CG-111S classical guitar, and set back upon my earlier mission to become the next AndrÈs Segovia. As I haven’t played since moving out from my prior, guitar-owning roommates a year back, I may hold off a bit before booking my Carnegie Hall debut.

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Also, I think there was a transit strike here or something.

As Cyan / Long Tail is moving in to the Actor’s Equity Building, on the corner of 46th and Broadway and a scant five blocks from my apartment, I wouldn’t know.

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Lest I gloat too much, I should point out the new commute, while just five blocks, passes directly up Times Square, and therefore consists of perhaps the five crappiest blocks in all of New York City.

Seriously, I should start taking horse tranquilizers before setting out in either direction.

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I was happy to head just a few blocks up from there, however, to pick up a quart of pickles at the Carnegie Deli. A guy in Boston had posted on Ask Metafilter to say how much his wife loved those pickles, and to see if there was a New Yorker who’d be willing to purchase some on his behalf, then overnight them up to Boston in time to make a truly excellent surprise Christmas gift.

As a pickle-lover myself, and having, while still living in California, once similarly been on the receiving end of a pickle package sent from Gus’s by my grandmother, I had no choice but to play good briny Samaritan.

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And, finally, the New York Times name-checked me at the end of an article about fitness ‘cult’ CrossFit, whose New York branch I help run.

It’s not the best researched or most accurate article, and kind of makes us all sound like a bunch of masochistic wack-jobs, but it could have been worse. At least, as a result of the article, I’ve been getting emails all day from New Yorkers interested in joining the CrossFit fray.

If your New Year’s resolutions include kicking your lard ass into shape, you should be to.