WTF NYC? i leave you alone for a few days last week & upon my return, you & your immediate environs start actin a fool & stirring up all sorts of good ol fashioned trouble. it's the summer. you couldn't just chill out & enjoy it, could you? you had to go grabbing for attention & get arrested & scandalized & brought up on charges for a wide range of things all in the same week, didn't you?

on tuesday, you started off light when it was reported that over the past week, mayor bloomberg (who had strengthened the city's anti-idling law earlier this year, prohibiting idling over three minutes) was caught idling his vehicles for up to an hour on multiple occasions. then the next day, it was revealed that a local man who grew up in long island had traveled to the pakistan/afghanistan border & trained with al-qaida, along the way providing them with details about the LIRR & the NYC subway system. that same day, a judge ruled that FDNY exams had discriminated against minorities, despite the fact that the rescue me firehouse totally has a black guy & a hispanic guy.

the very next day, on thursday, 44 new york & new jersey officials, including two state lawmakers, the mayors of hoboken, secaucus & ridgefield and a number of rabbis (including one from brooklyn who sold black-market kidneys), were arrested as part of a wide-sweeping FBI sting. to close out the week, on friday, obama announced his new education stimulus guidelines & guess which state wouldn't qualify under the guidelines? that's right...you, new york. hell in a hand basket much?

NYC...i just don't know what to do with you, but i suppose there is some hope for you, some good coming out of you. the naked cowboy, fresh on the heels of taking on mars, inc, announced this week that he's throwing his hat into the ring for mayor. j lo & her boo-tay celebrated their 40th birthday on friday, the same day that minimum wage in the state went up by a whopping ten cents...& of course, there's the big one. steely dan's coming to the city for a run of eight shows at the beacon theater starting tomorrow night. with all the dirty work that's been going on around here, it's just what the city needs right now.

#113 - only in new york.
snack: glenny's all natural multi grain milk chocolate drizzle crisps
drink: new york homestyle pomegranate blueberry acai iced tea



to go along with the area's recent uppity nature, i'm celebrating with a snack/drink pairing from two long island companies. for my snack, i went with a bag of glenny's all natural multi grain milk chocolate drizzle crisps. they're made by a company out of freeport, long island, a company that's celebrating their 30th anniversary this year. according to their website, their "soy crisps are now the #1 selling soy crisps in drugstore chains across the u.s." way to go, glenny. they've even won a horribly unnecessarily-apostrophied & grammar-deficient award for supporting the soldier's in iraq.

their milk chocolate drizzle crisps are pretty good overall. they're basically like a rice cake, but not as thick & crumbly. healthwise, these bad boys are totally kosher & they're made out of the flours of corn, rice, oat & wheat, with some soy bits tossed in, so you're getting a good amount of fiber. the drizzle of chocolate makes it so that it doesn't taste like you're eating air, which is a nice touch. still, like with rice cakes, even an entire bag of them isn't very filling.

for my drink, i had a bottle of new york home style pomegranate blueberry acai iced tea, made by multi-vitamin energy corp, a company out of bay shore, a hamlet about a half hour west down route 27 from freeport. i don't know what exactly qualifies their iced tea formula as "new york home style," since it's essentially no different than any other iced tea.  in fact, since they use cane sugar in their iced tea, it has a taste akin to a snapple, the one-time official iced tea of new york.

because of the fruit trifecta, it's a little sweet for an iced tea, but i can handle a little sweetness here & there, especially if it's not because of HFCS. not only is it an acceptable iced tea, but it also has manhattan fun facts on the side of the label. my favorite: "manhattan's central park is larger than the principality of monaco." take that, prince albert II! i heard your father's stuck in a can! booyah!