It’s horrible, but I’m totally jazzed over the transit strike. Now I’ll be able to say that I lived through a historic NYC event (I was bummed when I realized the Blackout of 2003 had spread over the entire Northeast).

I’m sure I’d be singing a different tune if I didn’t live and work in the same building. I’ve already called Katie, who took over my old dorm down in the Financial District, to commiserate.

Having grown up in the South, unions are mostly a foreign concept to me. I’m no fan of the MTA, but I think the TWU is totally out of line with their demands (retirement at age 50!? Guaranteed 8% raises for 3 years?!).

Two thoughts I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere:

• If a strike needed to happen, why didn’t the Union go ahead and do it last Friday as initially planned? The weather on Friday was gorgeous! And companies across the city (including my own university) lost a ton of money on deposits for charted buses and vans that weren’t needed — only to have to pluck down more money for the threat of a strike 4 days later.
• The mayor and governor have been criticized for not involving themselves in the negotiations. But if they had gotten involved, wouldn’t the MTA and TWU have complained about their interference?

My prediction? The strike will last at least 36 hours. Under threats from the city and state government, some workers will loose their nerve and try to return to work, leading to picket line scuffles. The mayor/governor will try to pull a Ronald Reagan and fire the remaining striking workers. And we’ll have to suffer through inumerable articles in the Times Style section about couples who “meet cute” during shared taxi rides.

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The vision component of my health insurance is changing with the new year (reduced benefits), so I finally got around to scheduling my first eye check up in 3 years.

I hate getting my eyes dialated. And you’re supposed to pick out frames you’ll be wearing for a year or two with your eyes in that condition? When you can’t even see how you look in the mirror anyway because the sample frames don’t have perscription lenses? I arranged for Jeff to help me pick out the new frames.

But I’m not sure the lenses are correct.

The optometrist had told me that my near vision had changed, while my far vision had not. This was apparently the cause of the headaches I’d been getting recently from being in front of a computer screen all day (it’s because my eyes were working too hard to focus near with that perscription).

She told me that she was going to write me a new prescription for “computer glasses” to wear while I worked. I didn’t want to have to constantly change glasses as I got up or sat down, so I asked her to write me a perscription for glasses I could wear all day. She said she didn’t recommend graduated focal lenses (because my eyes would “get lazy” from not focusing properly), so she dialed down the strength of the the far vision (because I don’t drive).

It always takes a day or two to get used to new lenses, but I’m kind of freaked out by my new glasses. My close vision is sharper than my old glasses, but everything further than 15 feet away is blurry. Wearing the new glasses for a couple of hours gives me a headache. Switching to my old glasses immediately relieves my eyes, but then I have trouble reading or watching TV.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to have to be constantly switching from one pair of glasses to another.

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One of the best parts of Jeff’s and my recent trip to Montreal (my first trip outside the US) was watching bizarre Canadian television. Flipping through the channels in the hotel, I came across an awesome show which chronicles the competitions of two immature friends, Kenny and Spencer (like “Who can stay blindfolded the longest?” or “Who can stand up the longest?”). The winner (usually Kenny, because he cheats) gets to make the loser go through a “humilation” (like having to chew on the winner’s toenails). It’s practically a live-action “Beavis and Butthead.”

Jeff said I liked it because I’m still a frat boy deep down inside; I just think Spenny is cute. Imagine my delight when I learned the show is rebroadcast here in the States on GSN

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