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Wow! I just got a letter in the mail from my bank, Chase. Not a bank statement or anything, but a check for $9.25!! Sweet! My bank loves me! No way! This is awesome, I'm totally going to order take-out tonight to celebrate! Yeah, General Tao's chicken tonight!!! Call up the Sunny Garden and get that dude on his bike now! Don't forget the chicken fried rice! Yeee-haw!!

Oh...wait. Let me just read the fine print for a minute, just to be sure!

Hmm, it states that all I have to do is sign the check and deposit it...but, hold on a minute, what's this?

When you cash the check, you will automatically be billed the first semi-annual fee of $119.99 to my credit card account.

So, I cash a check for $9.25 and I get charged $119.99 twice? Awesome deal!! I'm still too stupid to fall for this, so let me go to the bank and cash it anyway.

Hold on, what is this? The $119.99 will enroll you in a membership in Elite Excursions and give me privileges such as discounts at thousands of participating hotels and give me V.I.P. (very important person!!! How can I not fall for this!) treatment at over 500 private airport lounges worldwide. Worldwide! I can use it four whole times a year and then (fine print) pay only $27 per visit after that!

Honestly, I don't know about you, but this still sounds almost too good to pass up. If you've been reading closely, I get $9.25 for free and all I have to do is pay $240 and get some awesome V.I.P. privileges.

My favorite part about this is that the letter says Elite Excursions is not affiliated with my bank, Chase, even though I got the letter in a Chase envelope. On top of that it says "Chase is mailing you this offer. Trilegiant (Owner of Elite Excursions or something) is the sponsor of this offer but Chase has not shared any information about you with Trilegiant. "

Hmmm....no, all they shared with them is my name, address and bank account number. No worries there! WOW!!!

Well, color me humored. Thanks for this special offer, I am going to the bank right now.

I think this sort of thing is illegal in Canada, I wish it was illegal here. There are way too many people out there that fall for this sort of thing, and I feel very bad for them and for their bank accounts. You just know these people put this stuff together to screw with those who aren't the fine print reading types.

Although, in the long run those suckers do get some pretty awesome V.I.P. privileges!! Pass the peanuts, buddy, and hand me a Canada Dry! My flight doesn't leave for another 2357873487348734 hours!!!

Granola in Brooklyn

There's nothing like making your own granola. We eat it as cereal, as a topping with yogurt, and make granola bars with it. I use a recipe that my aunt gave me which she found in the Sudbury Star.

A batch of granola this large would be highway robbery should you buy it in the "natural food" stores that are so popular around here, but being the sensible students we are, we make it ourselves.

Pedestrians Beware!

New York is a crazy place to drive a car and because of that, it makes it an even crazier place to walk or ride a bike.

If I was going to prepare a list for guests as to how to be extra careful in this city it would start like this:

• Watch where you step. There is dog poop everywhere.
• Keep your wallets in your front pocket, especially in crowded areas.
• Drivers have the right-of-way. All the time. Even when they don't. You can never be too careful.

The last point is one I wish to elaborate on today. Coming from a friendly, pedestrian-friendly city like Ottawa it is hard to adjust to the tendencies of drivers in this city. Drivers are aggressive, fast and don't care about you measly pedestrians. They're in a hurry, so get out of their way!

The majority of people here drive ridiculous sized SUVs to bring their dirty clothes to the laundromat. Sure, they could have saved a few bucks, bought a cheaper car and gotten a washer and dryer but this is Brooklyn, where bigger is better.

A lot of people jay-walk in this city and if you don't you are probably a tourist or have a replacement hip. It is not just necessary to look both ways (left and right), it is absolutely necessary to look behind you (down the road from which you just came) in case some wacko decides to turn into you as you cross the street. If you are crossing the street, even with a walk signal, you must look in every direction again. It is not infrequent that bike messengers or Chinese food delivery men ride their bikes the wrong way down the road. They have things to deliver, so get out of their way or suffer General Tao's wrath.

I have put together a couple graphics of the most frequent driving no-no that I have witnessed here. It happens every time I go outside and walk anywhere and I can't believe these stupid people actually pull off this move.

Examine this first figure below:

You will notice that there is a car highlighted in green that is in the Northbound lane. He has a green light. You will also notice the very strikingly handsome gentleman walking on the opposite side of the street across the intersection. He is walking Southwards across the intersection.

Since the pedestrian has the walk signal it is his right of way. The car heading North decides to head West and does so until the pedestrian crossing the road gets in his way. While waiting for the pedestrian to cross, he blocks traffic heading South, so the car outlined in red has to slam on its breaks to avoid hitting the car outlined in green that pulled off this boneheaded move.

Occasionally this bonehead is in a much larger automobile (like a school bus!!!) that blocks traffic in both directions while pulling off this move.

So, if you ever visit New York, be forewarned that although you have pedestrian rights, no driver will honor them and will plow you down at any opportunity.

Next time, read all about the different types of dog poop to avoid and how to clean it off your shoe if you're so unfortunate to step in any.

Fallout Shelters

If you wander the streets of New York you will routinely pass by buildings with fallout shelter signs on their exterior walls. I didn't notice this until a visit here last year, and some people I've talked to have never noticed them. Sometimes they're hidden by signage or aged and rusted until they're nothing more than just a faded yellow piece of metal. Some are covered in ivy or tucked away inside doorways.

I have always been curious as to whether these shelters still exist and if they do, what is kept inside them. If not, why are the signs still visible throughout the city?

I've seen them on schools and houses, banks, hotels and apartments, so they're really all over the place, and all over America.

I did a bit of research for myself and for my loyal readers (all 4 of you):

The signs were frequently found outside any building that was approved with what the Army Corps of Engineers had determined to be a sufficient amount of ''radiation shielding.'' I believe the rooms that were declared as shelters still required additional modifications for them to be deemed fallout shelters.

By the early 70's 230,000 buildings had been designated as fallout shelters in New York City and the greater area.

When the imminent threat was over, the shelters were no longer needed for their intended purpose.

Since these fallout shelters were stockpiled with so much food and supplies, the city began giving away the food but wasn't very successful. Not too many people were interested in the specially prepared wheat biscuits and jelly so the city started paying contractors to cart the food away or selling it to animal feed manufacturers.

As much as they were meant for security, fallout shelters were also a good marketing tool. In the early 60's a newspaper ad for a housing development here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn offered amenities such as ''Kiddie Pools, Roof-Top Gardens, and a Fallout Shelter." The Dime Savings Bank in Brooklyn (coincidentally, just a block away from the fallout shelter sign I noticed today that inspired me to write this post) offered ''instant money for fallout shelter construction.''

Today most of the shelters have been converted to workshops, storage rooms and probably basement apartments. With the demand for space in this city a fallout shelter is too much space to leave unused even if it is needed in the future.

Some people have kept the shelters stocked and loaded with supplies in case they are ever needed. They would never protect the people of city from a direct attack, but in the case of a nuclear attack somewhere else in the country the shelters could protect their inhabitants from the fallout. To be even safer, however, there could be huge costs involved in renovating the shelters to update them from modern day weapon attacks.

As for why they're still around I am not entirely sure. I came across a snippet of an old article explaining that at one time the city discussed removing all the signs but never did. The signs are an interesting relic from some frightening times in this country and it's always interesting to see where they are located around the city.

If you ever visit New York and walk around with me, I usually point them out whenever I see one.

Streetball in January

I played basketball yesterday at Rodney Park North. It is an outdoor court that sits above the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that cuts through the neighborhoods of the city. There is a chain-link fence preventing any balls or people from falling down the steep incline onto the roads below.

At home I got ready to go out to the court and I put in my contact lenses and put on some tearaway pants over my shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt over my yellow Flash shirt. When I got outside, I realized I didn't need the long sleeve shirt or the pants. What I did need was a pair of sunglasses. It is early January and there I was dribbling a basketball to a nearby court to shoot some hoops on a beautiful day. I couldn't believe it, but I took full advantage of it.

After shooting around by myself for a few minutes, I couldn't believe there wasn't anyone else playing there. I've visited and played at other courts in the neighborhood and this one is the best.

There are probably 6 basketball courts closer to where I live, but I choose this one for a few reasons. It's clean, it has a great surface, it has break-away rims and best of all, the hoops have mesh. It is the rare court I've seen in Brooklyn to have mesh on the rims. And I'm not even talking about just some ripped, frayed mesh. This is crisp and clean and helps to create that happy swishing sound when the ball drops through.

Along with that sweet, inner-city soundtrack of cars honking, sirens blaring, people shouting and trucks honking on the BQE, you get good-as-new mesh. Why go anywhere else?

I shot around for about an hour and a half, and on some long, high arching jump-shots the ball seemed to brush the bottoms of the wings of the pigeons flying overhead.