About Thursday

I got invited to join a market survey / focus group for cars as a Mini cooper owner. Heck, I like going to the City and I'd get paid anyway. They showed a Scion, an Audi and two of the Mini Brand's concept cars. It was cool to get a first hand look at the concept cars and we were warned to handle them with care as they are "samples" and not up to manufacturing standards yet. Apparently, we're one of the chosen ones to see these concept cars first. We were tasked to evaluate the cars individually by first impressions, interior / exterior styling, price points, overall character and issues specific to the concept cars. I spent a good two hours walking around the show room, getting in and out of the vehicles, getting a feel of them, staring and answering the questionnaires. I finished early so I had to wait for the focus group to start. It was a small group, three guys and four girls including me. It was quite interesting to meet other Mini owners. People from different walks of life bound by a quirky little car. A car that we all adored and thought to be absolutely cute and great. We were asked random questions like "If the Mini concept X was an animal, person what would it be?", "Give three adjectives that would best describe it.", "What would its hobbies be?", "Would you consider replacing your current Minis for it? ", "What would you name it?" etc... etc... That was easy enough. I wonder just how big of an impact our opinions would be on the final design. They paid us a good sum to just play around. I will wait and see just how much change they'll be making in the final release of the car design.

Since I was already in the City, CF met me there for dinner. We took a yellow cab (my first cab ride in the City) to the World Financial Center to eat at SouthWestNY. I wolfed down the mushroom ravioli while he picked on his salmon. He ate like a rabbit. Apparently he was on a diet. I felt like he was the girl, I was the guy because I ate with gusto. Anyway, it was a yummy meal for me. Afterwards, we took a walk at Battery Park along Hudson River where further along you'll get a nice view of Lady Liberty & Jersey City. I didn't know that this was the location for that jet ski scene on the movie Hitch with Will Smith and Eva Mendes. He told me and I thought it was cool. It was nice out. The weather was surprisingly perfect if you consider last weekend's blizzard. We walked back and caught a cab to the Port Authority at Ground Zero's corner. Damn, I still can't believe it's ALL gone. I have fond memories of spending New Year's Eve '98 here. What happened here changed the whole wide world...*sigh* Never ever forget. I caught the bus home and he took the Path train. It was a good dinner, night out thing. Fun. I always enjoy going to the City. I love it! Love it! Love it! I can't wait to be there again next week for this Gap thing. So there, that was my Thursday.

Oh, I'm sending out a G-I-A-N-T and heartfelt prayer to my country. After a bad, bad and senseless stampede. Now a bad, bad disaster. WHY??? WHY??? WHY???? I need to let this out. I need to emote. Well, okay, we can't prevent the torrential rains but come on, the mudslide was clearly caused by illegal logging which could have been prevented if our laws were effing practiced strictly. The laws are there, please put them to good use and exact them. I want to yell at our useless and abusive politicians and businessmen. This is all their fault. I wonder how they ever sleep soundly at night. I want to yell!!!! This has happened before. Don't they ever pay attention and learn from the mistakes that were made???? It's sooo sad. What is happening to the world!!!!???? I want to yell at them all. YELL! Yell! YELL!!! UGH!!! I'm so annoyed right this minute. YELL! yell!!! YELL!!! Sometimes I wish I didn't give a sh*t BUT HELLO?? How can I/YOU not care???!!!

Today I am thankful for:
- Thursday's night out
- my dad's safe flight back
- all the countrys that sent out aid to Leyte because our OWN government is well uhm helpless (useless?) sad to say UGH