Issue 8 - Supermarket

28 May 2005

The NYSE on Wall St - specials on cauliflowers in Aisle 10?

OK - it's time for a big prediction. I think the famous New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street will be shortly be a Supermarket. It's a long and potentially dull road to this conclusion, but if you can handle reading a few words without any gratuitous photos, then you are welcome to bear with me.

The history bit:

The NYSE has been on Wall Street since 1792, when it was a scruffy meeting place for dodgy merchants, trading goods under the buttonwood tree next to the wall built to keep the English and Indians out. In more recent times, it has became the symbol of modern capitalism, as the place where trillions of dollars of available capital (i.e. cash) move around every day in exchange for slivers of ownership of the world's largest companies.

The Michaelnomics bit:

The point of capitalism is that it allows those with spare cash (i.e. free capital) to give it to those with good ideas but no cash. In this way, the best ideas get the most funding so they can happen, and the worst ideas get all their cash taken away from them so that they fail. I like to think of it as Darwinian natural selection with money (and who doesn't find money sexy - or is that just me?).

Michaelnomics as an example:

Many people think Google is a good idea - sole ownership of the best internet search algorhythm, innovative thought leaders in the industry, potentially substantial source of income from internet advertising, and a reasonable approach to spending money by management. Google's shares were offered for the first time last year, and everyone wanted to buy in to a good idea, generating an instant market valuation for Google of 23.1 billlion dollars. That's a lot of searches for that Paris Hilton video if you ask me (and shame on you if you know what I am talking about there - unless you've seen it, in which case, is it true she has less talent than that dog-rat thing she lost?),

At about the same time, Enron's business model appeared to consist of taking all of their spare cash and gifting it to their Management by way of secret and complex trust arrangements hidden on Carribean islands. This is most people's idea of a bad idea (apart from the Enron managers who thought this was a fantaaaaaaaastic idea), so Enron not surprisingly had trouble raising more spare cash from anyone, and they went broke.

See, it's like natural selection - bad ideas, like gazelle who are can't run (and Wimbledon football clubs), get killed off, and the strong ideas are left to survive and breed other little ideas.

Actually that was an aside - did you enjoy it?

Now what's missing from that very idealistic approach is the Michaelnomics concept of "economic friction". Economic friction slows the free flow of capital and diverts a share of the economic energy in the direction of those who place themselves in the path of the transaction. In the world of physics, a television gets hot because of the friction involved in turning electricity in to a picture capable of turning a man-puppy-thing into a statue at more than 30 paces - the less heat involved, the more efficient the process, and the less electricity required to generate the stationary-man-puppy-thing-effect.

The most obvious form of economic friction is the concept of commissions (if you are government-employed, this is called corruption). For every transaction (e.g. the purchase of a TV, buying or selling shares on the NYSE, or giving money to the Pandas through the WWF), there is a fee to pay to everyone who handles the goods and the cash. This fee is really a tax on the system - hence it hinders the free flow of capital like a handbrake hinders the abilty to take off at speed from the traffic lights. In short, one dollar given to an idea should result in the idea receiving as much of the dollar as possible (in a perfect world, the Panda would be able to sue for its full dollar). The more that dollar is lost through friction, the less chance little ideas have of surviving.

The point - economic friction at the NYSE:

The NYSE operates an open outcry system, similar to the way cattle is sold at market. The problem with the open outcry system is that there are a lot of people dressed as brightly as peacocks, all shouting, and therefore a lot of peacocks shouting but not listening. With any such system, there is an excellent chance of the buyer and seller thinking they agreed to different things. When a trade takes place, minions who work for the peacocks pick up all the "buy" and "sell" tickets and try to match them. Where they don't agree, there is an "out trade", which takes all sorts of reseach to sort out. The costs of peacocks, minions and out trades (and the ridculous bonuses for the CEO of the NYSE) need to be recovered from the commissions charged on each trade. One thing is for certain - no matter how much you make or lose in share trading, the peacocks never lose a penny.

Now, the peacock system works for tourists and TV video bytes, but it's a not that efficient. Actually, as it turns out all the other major exchanges around the world have already cottoned on to this fact, and have moved to screen trading, where buy and sell orders are matched automatically. This means you don't need a great big hall, peacocks, minions or out-trades. Trades are matched in split-seconds, with the details 100% matched - which of course means transaction costs (and therefore, commissions) are lower. So as it stands, the NYSE, the home of Western Capitalism, is actually one of the least efficient capital markets in the world.

Archipeligo - the NYSE dragged kicking and screaming in to the 21st century:

Last month, the NYSE (against the wishes of the peacocks - these peacocks are pretty well-connected parrots) agreed to merge with Archipeligo Exchange - an electronic trading platform. This has to be the first step in the phasing out of the open outcry system, and minimising the economic friction within the NYSE.

So, let's follow the logical progession here:

1. NYSE merges with an electronic trading platform

2. No-one needs the peacocks who used to strut around being annoying, charging huge commissions for something a computer can now do with e-mails. The peacocks go back to selling furniture in Jersey and stationery in Brooklyn.

3. The NYSE trading hall goes quiet - all trading is now done electronically

4. The banks and brokers work out that rent downtown is pretty expensive given electronic trading can be done anywhere. They move their offices to lower cost and higher security locations in Cincinnatti and Bangladesh.

5. With the banks gone, more and more offices downtown are converted to lower-cost residential apartments.

6. With a higher residential population, product and services will follow, such as hairdressers, plant shops, and (of course) supermarkets.

7. Supermarkets need "big bang" retail space and the largest space around is already empty - the NYSE trading hall.

8. Some time in 2009, Whole Foods moves in to the NYSE space. Cauliflower specials follow shortly after....

You read it here first.

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Just a PS to this (dated 31 May)

Newsweek will run an article in their June 6 edition saying exactly the same thing: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8017002/site/newsweek/. I'm going to need to set up tracking software and start posting copyright notices to stop the big guys from stealing my material a day after I post it!

Issue 6 - Sidewalk Rage

Blogs are fun. It's amazing who reads the triffle I think up, and how many people get upset when they are left off the mailing list. It's a strange sense of the modern age that the further away we are from you, the more likely you are to read my propaganda. Of course, if I was just standing next to you in the pub talking this sort of stuff, you'd either find another pub, or at least politely disagree. When I blog, I'm always right - the complaints office is the box with the plastic liner and recycling logo under my desk.

With success comes responsibility though. See, this all started off as a rant from a vaguely frustrated Kiwi (with material occasionally plaguarised from a very disgruntled Australian) about, not to put too fine a point on it, life in America. The problem is that now I have to apologise to all of the Americans who are reading this, because you've all muscled in on my project (although I do refuse to apologise with a "zed", and absolutely not with a "zee"). The final straw was when I started forwarding this to my colleagues at work - a rich source of material scythed down in one swift stroke.

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So, what are some interesting topics from this week?

How about my cousin Dave, living the high life in Boston (Baaah-sten), a 30-minute flight and a psychlogical world away from New York. Dave is a bass player in a band in his spare time, but his day job used to be as a graphic designer for an accounting firm - not one of the defunct ones, but if you wince at the gentle moo of Italian cows making milk for a certain diary company, you'll know who you are. Now, being a bass player is way cool, compared to working for an accounting firm, so it was not the end of anyone's dreamtime in the gloaming when the time came for heads to roll and Dave was one of them.

The cool thing here is that he can say that he used to work for the "creative department".

Of an accounting firm.

See, if he had worked for Arthur Anderson, some would have said it was the auditors who were working for the creative department....

I'll bet they didn't sack the guy who thought of that name. In fact, he probably helped sponsor the Sarbanes-Oxley Act through Congress.

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In Baah-sten, they are very friendly, relaxed and reasonable people - so long as you think the Red Sox are the only thing there is to believe in on a baseball field. So - a quick history lesson: baseball was invented, the Red Sox were pretty good around the turn of the century, but didn't win a thing after that. Not a sausage. Not a skerrick. Nothing. Like, really nothing. Hang on, wait - no, still nothing. You get the picture - that's a lot of waiting.

The NY Yankees on the other hand won everything, year after year. The Yankees are so successful that they have that sort of collective arrogance which goes with being a legend in your own lunchbox. They are all megastars, hired on rock-star salaries, with a fanatical following of fans all with matching lunchboxes.

Then last year, the planets aligned, the gods smiled, and the Red Sox came back four times from certain death in the playoffs against the Yankees to set up a World Series appearance (don't get me started on the "World" thing) which they subsequently won. So wonderful, so great, so well done, so unbelievable.

It's all so.... so last year.

The new season has started, there are 162 games to play, and it's all history. All that emotion, all that hot air, all those books, photographs, anecdotes and column inches, all last year. The stories about the champions are today all kitty litter and chip wrapping. People struggle to grow rice and live in a house again in Sri Lanka, and in the US billions of dollars flutter around in the sports industry. All of that economic activity on pastimes - no wonder George Bush got tired of owning a sports team and started a war over oil. It must have seemed so much more productive to him.

So, Baah-sten is a beatiful place, with very friendly people. Just tell them you hate the Yankees (even if it's true), and you'll get along fine.

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Walking around midtown NewYork has given rise to a new condition in the flightless kiwi - sidewalk rage. The problem with having our head office at Times Square is that the whole world visits New York, just to get in my way. I've written before about Times Square as a collection of flashing lights and mobile billboards, but at ground level not a lot moves. Seriously, wildebeest migrate across the Serengeti faster than the average tourist can determine whether the lights have changed to "walk" from "don't walk". And just like the Serengeti, you can't look in any direction without seeing a wildebeest with a fresh new "I [heart] NY" t-shirt, chewing the cud of this morning's pizza.

When I'm struggling to get to a meeting and trying to step lightly down Broadway, I feel like a cheetah with an elephant sitting on its tail. I can jump from side to side and yelp in frustration, but in the end I'm only going to go anywhere when the elephant does. Kim seems to have the technique well established - she can flit like an angelfish through coral. Perhaps I'm the elephant here after all.

I now take a massive black 400-page diary as my notebook to meetings. It's too big and heavy to be practical, but when I carry it on Broadway, I'm never mistaken for a tourist, and the red sea seems to part in front of me. It makes sense really, because I'm what they all came to NY to see - a harassed NY banker. All I need now is a syndicated lunchbox.

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Some footnotes:

1. For those who didn't get the accountant's inside joke about the cows' moo - Deloitte & Touche took over the audit firm Grant Thornton a few years ago, who cheerfully ticked off every year on a non-existent asset of not less than one BILLION euro on the balance sheet of Parmalat, an Italian diary company. Ouch.

2. Sidewalk rage isn't actually my phrase, although it is a good one. Thanks to Debbie in the MSCI Barra FCG power-team for coining this one.

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And a thought to finish:

Slaves to fashion take note - combat fatigues now come in pink. Excellent for camouflage if you are conducting guerilla warfare in a Barbie shop....

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(Thanks to Kim for that joke. I can't think of them all myself!)

Have a good week!

PS - if you haven't already, please sign up for a passport and register on the website. This way you stand less chance of being forgotten if I even lose my mailing list! The link is at the bottom of the link below

http://groups.msn.com/TheNYdiariesofflightlessApteryxhaastii/_whatsnew.msnw

Issue 5 - The Roof

Sorry - it's still month-end. Here are a few photos of the sunset from the almost finished roof terrace of our building in the meantime (http://2goldstreet.com/)

I couldn't help myself though, I've appended some (i.e. too many hours of) subjective commentary (and my sleep suffers for it).

But first I have to ask, "do you know any accountants?" I still have one position open in my team, and I would have so much more time to actually write my blog if I filled this position so I had someone to do all my work for me. Any Muppet considered, Animal on the drums included. Knowledge of spreadsheets essential, ability to count to ten useful, but not essential. Advantages - ummmmmm, apply for details. Disadvantages - can't be many. You have to work for me for one. And I'm softer than a tiger with a Vegas animal trainer in my mouth. Purrrr.

For Burgerian family members your patience will be rewarded, a certified photo of a Daverix Rilerius (previously feared extinct, or at least impossible to find) lurks below....

Looking uptown.

The ESB (known as the Big B*stard to itinerant Kiwis - The Big B to you) lurks to the left of this shot. The Supreme and Circuit courts are in the foreground.

Fans of the TV show, "Law & Order" will be pleased to know the homicide detectives are in the "Police Plaza" complex one block away. It must have seemed so easy to make show out of it. Mothers of sons and daughters residing in New York should however always remember that "Law and Order" is fiction - homicide detectives probably do wear cheap suits and have at least one wise-crack an hour - but it actually feels more dangerous walking around Cathedral Square in Christchurch after closing time than it does walking around Harlem after dark.

I managed (deliberately of course?) to focus this shot on the previously down, but now up-and-coming district of the East Village - where one can see the Daverix Rilerius in action on bass with his band (blatant plug, but get over it - I'll bet you wish you had a cool cousin in a band that plays regularly in New York). A link to the online shop where you can purchase the album will be uploaded once the Daverix gives it to me....

The Manhattan bridge shines behind the architecturally unacclaimed Human Resources department of the City of New York on the right. If you enjoy spotting landmarks in web photos, you will of course have already seen the pillars of the Brooklyn Bridge in front of the Manhattan Bridge anyway....

Ha! Made you look for it, even if you didn't see it! When the wind direct from Greenland subsides enough to make a safe attempt (i.e. in late August), we will bring you some photos from the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge. Until then, the BB (not The Big B) remains the sole preserve of those who can afford the Taxi ride to La Guardia airport and genetically modified seagulls.

Arty stuff - reflection in 80 Wall St. Fans of alcoholic beverages will recognise with uncanny clarity the blurred image of the Big B to the right....

A tale of two rivers (or, to those living in Auckland - the perfectly normal conclusion which follows from living on a very skinny piece of land):

On the left - (not funny this one) a Hudson River view courtesy of Al Qaeda. The WTC site is the other side of the (black) Brown Brothers Harriman building in the centre of the shot. No-one has any sense of humour about this, least of all me. Not funny, not cool. Big hole in the ground, big hole in the heart of New Yorkers. I'll write a page on this once I've been here long enough to get anyone to talk about it.

On the right - my office is the white one, nestling up to the raw sewage of the East River. I have a beautiful internal cubicle on the third floor, offering me an outstanding view of........ other cubicles (but fortunately not the foreshore of the East River). I'd take photos of the office, but as we all know, web blogs are a great way of finding an excuse to fire mouthy middle managers.

It takes 90 seconds to walk the street distance from 2 Gold to 88 Pine, and 120 seconds including lift journeys from the Nespresso machine in our kitchen to the Nespresso machine at work. A wait at the traffic lights at Maiden Lane and Water St can suck up a vital additional 60 seconds.....

And for those who wait - the only photo from Boston last weekend which did not involve hurricane force winds and horizontal sleet:

A Daverix Rilerius in its natural habitat - Foley's Bar in Downtown Boston. Don't underestimate it though..... it still knows how to execute a Fool's Mate if ever you drop your guard! AND, it still rails against the improper use, of, commas, in, place, of (parentheses).

Now, us Kiwi's know nothing about sounding like we care about the language, but we sure know how to get upset about it!

(yes I know, improper use of an apostrophe in Kiwi's - just making a point. I wouldn't mention it, but there are too many teachers (especially Mr Pipe and Mr Loretz, formerly from Avondale College, and Ms Barwick, not allowed to work in the US, but still bloody qualified to teach bloody English) who read these pages!)

Issue 3 - Shark

Overheard last Thursday at a Cingular Wireless store:
Michael & Kim: "So, how much does it cost per month?"
The Shark: "$39.99 a month."
"But it's another $4.99 for 200 SMS's a month."
"Yeah, right."
"So..... that's about $45 a month?"
"Yep, that's all."
[Michael, being a lawyer from way back, starts to read through the 10-page contract. The Shark drums his fingers in irritation while pulling faces of boredom at Kim.]
M: "So what's this $36 activation fee?"
The Shark: "That's standard. Everyone charges it."
"You didn't think to mention it?"
"I supposed I should have mentioned it, yes."
"Is there anything else we should know?"
"Like what?"
" Just want to know how much it will cost. Are there any other charges we should know about?"
"Nope, that's it."
[Michael continues reading, and now he is the one drumming his fingers in irritation.]
"What about this $1.25 regulation charge?"
"That's standard. Everyone charges it."
"It doesn't say how often this is. Is it monthly?"
"Yeah. It's a tax."
"That's funny, it expressly says here, "This is not a tax." So this is fee you charge me for answering questions about me as required by the government?"
"Yep, that's it."
(Very slowly) "Is there anything else we should know?"
"Like what?"
(Getting grumpy now) "Look, I just want to know how much it will cost each month. For the third time, how much will it cost?"
"I can't tell you because of the tax. I always tell people to add more because of the tax. The tax is different depending on where you live."
"But we live around the corner."
"So, you'll pay the tax from where you live."
"OK, how much is that."
"I can't tell you really. It's about 22%."
"22%! But sales tax in New York is only 8.625%"
"The tax on mobile phones is different."
"So how much is it?"
"I can't tell you, I don't know, because it depends on where you live. Look, I would have told you all this, but I didn't know you knew nothing about the industry.
"Does anyone?"
"Yeah, everyone. I believe in saying all this up front, right? It's more honest to say everything up front."
[Michael & Kim decide to cut The Shark off before he coughs up a conscience.]
"Yeah. Whatever."

So - Elliot Spitzer - good job hammering the banks, and getting a ton of money for New York state (even if no-one from the financial community will fund your 2008 Presidential Campaign). Could you please go after a decent target now? In the land of the free, the home of the "consumer is king", and the birthplace of anti-trust law, why are all the mobile phone companies offering exactly the same ripoff deals? Get out there and make them pay for anti-competitive practises!
Just make sure they don't add the cost of the fines on to my monthly bill.

Issue 2 - Learner Driver

Issue 2 - April 2005
Learner driver
I am now the proud owner of a full New York state driver's license. Now, for those of you who know that I passed my license in 1987, that might seem to be an obvious statement, but nothing could be further from the truth.
When I moved New Zealand to Pongolia, I simply handed in a flimsy paper Kiwi license, and was posted (for free) an even flimsier UK license (which was large enough to use as a bedspread on my tiny bed at Dancer Road). When I moved from Pongolia to Choco-Cheeseland, I handed in my very tatty bedspread-license, and after the payment of a mere 114 francs, was the proud owner of a Swiss license, credit card size, summarising in tiny print (and in four languages, none of them English) the fact that I was allowed to drive anything up to a bus which held less than 30 people.
In New York, I turned up at the Department of Motor Vehicles (the DMV, or Disturbed, Malicious and Vicious, for short), handed over the license, and was confidently told, "you can change your license if it is issued by a state in the US or Canada."
Me: "Really? But I have a license issued by Switzerland."
DMV lady: "No problem. Is Switzerland in the US?"
(HONEST, I did NOT make that up - and she was NOT being sarcastic. Kim was standing beside me as a witness. Life really is stranger than fiction sometimes).
Me (after long moment of total surprise): "Yes, actually. It was issued in Switzerland, Texas."
DMV: "That's alright then. [Stamp, stamp] Here you are:"
Sadly, I was not thinking quickly enough to make sure the last two sentences happened, so there I was, back to the status of Learner Driver. After a short two-hour wait, one mindnumbingly simple 10-minute multi-choice test, and a mere $46, I now had a torn and badly printed receipt - a piece of paper more worthless than the flimsy piece of paper I obtained in New Zealand more than 17 years ago.
No matter, I thought, how bad can it be? I just turn up, do the practical test, and I'm fully legal again. Apart from the compulsory five-hour course I had to take. So, I manage to find a driving school in Brooklyn (obviously - who learns to drive in Manhattan?), and so I got to sit in a smelly, crowded room fully of very sweaty, bored teenagers for a whole Saturday. What did I learn in this time? All I learned is that there are no good reasons to go to Brooklyn on a Saturday morning. People from Brooklyn will probably disagree with me (and I expect them to). They may suggest that the Fulton Mall, far from looking like the gangster's version of Acton High Street, is in fact the home to many a good deal from reputable merchants. They may suggest that the cuisine on the Mall is nutritious and very affordable, rather than a collection of grubby fast food restaurants, where Burger King really does look like the most healthy option. They may even argue it is the home of fine art and culture, so long as graffitti meets the definition of fine art, and rap music the meaning of culture. What they will not say however, is that Brooklyn is an ideal place to sit and watch five hours of videos on the dangers of not wearing a seatbelt.
So, I have a flimsy piece of paper to say I can guess multiple-choice correctly, and another to say I can watch TV for five hours on a rainy Saturday without noticeably falling asleep. These things are of course of no value, until I have passed (cue meanacing music), THE TEST.
THE TEST, held on Friday of last week, after a three-week wait for an appointment, was to last no more than 10 minutes (why the 3 week wait?), on the totally deserted streets (save for other aspiring drivers) of Redhook, Brooklyn. I would now give a long and withering critique of the beauty (or otherwise) of Redhook, except that I didn't see any of it. What I did see, was a single grassy green park, with deserted roads on all four sides. Now, remember that I had nothing to gain from this test - either I pass as expected, or I surprise and fail, like 40% of those who take it first time. In order to minimise the embarrassment of tripping myself up immediately after the starter's gun, I took the very sensible step of a 45-minute lesson with the driving school, who would then lend me their car with which to sit THE TEST.
My lesson was easy enough - stop at stop signs, don't go the wrong way up one-way streets, and always, always turn my head like a giraffe looking for sunspots on its back to check my blind spot when changing lanes. Having learned the simple rules about all-way stop intersections (give way to anyone who arrived before you, and anyone bigger than you who looks like they might not have insurance), I was ready. We parked at the end of a queue of at least 30 cars, and waited the compulsory two hours before an assessor was ready to have his power fix.
Cue the music - we're off. Pull out easy enough, then at the first intersection (an all-way stop - no worries there now), a huge articulated truck comes from the left and begins to pull in to my street. I indicate, giraffe, and move to the side of road to give him room to turn. While I am doing this, DMV-hitler-person shouts, "anticipate the truck!"
Having well and truly anticipated the truck, I politely reply, "Yes, I have it, thanks."
The truck pulls past, I indicate, giraffe, turn left as instructed and move to the next test. More on the truck later.
Left again at the next all-way stop, parallel park behind an SUV (parked at the end of a line of cars - I could have just driven up behind it), left into a narrow two-way street (avoiding the devious trap of simply driving down the middle of it), then politely tooting the horn at pedestrains walking along between the parked cars (I learned that one in one of the five videos - it's actually written in to the law - you are SUPPOSED to use your horn when you are just cruising along deserted streets).
Right again at the stop sign at the top, three point turn to turn around and pass the point of origin again (on a road large enough to do a U-turn on), avoiding the devious trap of reversing all the way back across the street (and illegally facing the wrong way on a two-way street - instant fail).
I'm instructed to turn left, back in to the narrow two-way street. I pause to let a careening SUV sort itself out before it reaches the stop sign. I have right of way, but I don't want to finish up as a hood ornament on a Dodge, so I wait until he stops before I pull past him.
The world ends.
"TAKE YOUR RIGHT OF WAY SIR!" says the SS-officer in my passenger seat. "YOU HAD YOUR RIGHT OF WAY, YOU DO NOT HAVE ALL DAY! THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS ERROR!
"TAKE....
"YOUR....
"RIGHT....
"OF....
"WAY...."
I'm going deaf in my right ear, and trying to figure out how annoyed he would have been if I had taken my right of way, and we had been punted backwards across the road in a mashed-up Chevrolet Cavalier, to land finally in the park. Whatever. So defensive driving is actively frowned upon. That explains a lot.
The rest is straightforward, right at the stop, right at the stop, right again in to the original road (DOH! Forgot to do the giraffe there! Bloody deserted streets. I might not have seen a falling telephone pole because I didn't look). And we stop.
So, I think. I know I forgot to giraffe once, so that's five points. I'm allowed 30 points, so this should be easy.
"You did not observe [giraffe] when turning right [five points]. You used excessive manoeuvring when parallel parking [probably right - it turns out you're only allowed to turn the front wheels six times - five points, we're up to 10, out of 30].
"You did not take your right of way, that's ten points [TEN POINTS! You are f**king kidding me].
"You displayed poor judgement with the truck. You should have anticipated him before I told you to do so. Ten points."
WHAT!!!!??? The blood is roaring in my ears now. Should I argue that I was just taking my right of way? Hang on now - that's still only 30 points. I really will blow it if he gets me for having a bad accent, or not taking my right of holding my patience.
"You have only just passed this test. Take these notes and work on them in your everyday driving."
Yeah, right mate. Whatever. You get your 15 minutes of fame with me writing about you. A pass is a pass...... and you will always be an idiot.
For what it is worth - I was there for two hours, and he only passed one other person the whole time I was there. And he looked unhappy about it then as well. AND, I'll bet he "just" passed him with exactly 30 points. I hope he sleeps well at night.
So - I'm qualified. Qualified at multiple-choice, TV-watching, and driving around deserted parks in the middle of a weekday. But only just.
But get this - for all that I've been through, spare a thought for Kim. She waited three hours at the DMV to be told she is not ELIGIBLE for a license (having no social security number). Why are the skills required to drive the same as the skills required to pay in to social security? Is the state government now responsible for (federal) immigration policy?
My parting question on this: Is the word "logic" deleted from government dictionaries, or is it just in a collective blind spot so big that it cannot even be seen when turning one's head around like a giraffe?

Events this week:
April 19 2005 - Container arrived from Switzerland. Oh the joys of boxes and damaged furniture!
April 20 2005 - Drinks and dinner with Susanne Frailick near Union Square.
April 21 2005 - Watched an ice hockey game at Chelsea Piers, Morgan Stanley FID vs Equity. Well done Rob Grudzinski (from my team at work) for one goal and and an assist for FID! Watch the older eagles fly!

Issue 1 - Loud

Another engine quietly exits onto 8th Avenue. Note the complete absence of threatening oncoming traffic....

The New York diaries of a flightless Apteryx haastii
Issue 1 – April 2005
Loud
Well here we are. Suffice it to say that via Christchurch, London and Zurich, this particular Apteryx haastii (Great Spotted Kiwi) has crash landed in Downtown New York.
Crash landed at 2 Gold Street, to be precise. Of course there is no way that you could know where this is, because it isn’t a helpfully numbered avenue or have informative numbered cross streets. We’re all the way down where only those with dark suits or fully fuelled hijacked aircraft ever go – Downtown. I’ll put you out of your misery – we live two short streets from the NYSE, and three minutes’ walk from the WTC site (now a Belgium-sized hole in the ground with the world’s most visited wire fence).
So here we are - Kim and I – like baby rabbits emerging timidly into the sunshine for the first time. There are hawks circling unseen in the sky, loud unfamiliar sounds, and there is not much to eat anywhere near the warren. What are our first impressions?
Loud. There you have it.
For our first month here, we were lucky enough to be put up in temporary accommodation in midtown at 48th and 8th. 30 seconds from the place that tourists call heaven – Times Square. So here I’ll make the same statement that everyone makes – it’s just not square. Now, I’ve been to a lot of famous squares in my short life: Trafalgar Square in London, the Palazzo San Marco in Venice, Paradeplatz in Zurich, Cathedral Square in Christchurch, etc, etc; but none of them are the intersection of two six-lane highways. And none of them have TV screens - a lot of TV screens (like a LOT, a lot). I’m a bloke like any other – show me a TV and I’m instantly paralysed - I just have to stop and look. Test my theory – look around a TV shop near the plasma screens. I’ll just bet most of the men standing like statues with their mouths open are just responding to the instinctive reflex to follow moving bright lights like puppies (or moths). TV shops only have sales people to break the spell and clear room for other men-puppy-moths to come in and see the pretty colours. The way I see it, New York taxi drivers must have compulsory anti-paralysis training just for Times Square, otherwise there would be all sorts of TV-screen induced road-kill at each intersection and crosswalk.
So back to loud – sorry, LOUD! You see, the problem with living on the 32nd floor of a building above the intersection of 48th and 8th in New York is that we had an excellent view of the fire station on the other side of the road at 48th and 8th. Now fire fighters are a good idea, and fire stations for them are also a good idea, and having one near where you live is an excellent idea. Putting sirens on NY fire engines is a very bad idea.
Don’t get me wrong – sometimes a siren is necessary, just like sometimes the use of force when arresting violent criminals is necessary. It’s just that the use of force can be excessive, and then it’s a whole new crime. In my opinion, pulling out at 3am on to a deserted 8th avenue in a great big red truck with flashing lights is not exactly dangerous. Unless you’re a fire fighter, who grew up as a kid with the sole purpose in life of driving a truck with a siren (which is turned on). Or perhaps they just feel that it really is dangerous to pull out on a deserted 8th avenue, so it’s important to have the entire neighbourhood as lookouts for oncoming traffic – hence the need to wake them all up so they can check the street from their windows. Just to make sure everyone is awake, fire trucks have a horn which is loud enough to shatter the tiles of passing space shuttles, which is used to terrify oncoming traffic in to submission, notwithstanding the absence of traffic at 3am. I’ve been to the Belgian Grand Prix where we discovered the bang of a formula one car changing down feels like a blow to the inside of your chest – the sound of these horns feels like the F1 car hitting the inside of your ribs. From 32 stories away. Through double-glazed windows. I think that’s loud – you tell me.
Kim has been under extreme pressure trying to meet assignment deadlines in between the instability of a move to a different continent, and was justifiably complaining about the noise in the apartment. I thought I had the solution when I bought her some noise-cancelling headphones, which were designed originally to allow you to still hear the movies on airplanes. They did an excellent job of cancelling the low hum of all the air conditioning units in the city, so that we could hear the higher-frequency sound of the sirens much better. It turns out that the dull roar at low frequencies in NY is just useful for covering all of the other noise.
I think this is the cause of the perception that Americans abroad are loud – they’re just hearing-impaired.


Events so far:
21 March 2005 - last decent night's sleep, induced by many, many, many beers and G&T's at Lady Hamilton's in Zurich. Can't member much except being serenaded out by everyone singing "New York, New York" to Kim and I.
22 March 2005 - arrived in NY, no Ellis Island experience, no feeling of momentous step, just a deserted immigation hall at Newark Airport
22 March 2005 - first night in temporary accommodation - beginning of the month of sleep deprivation.
25-27 March 2005 - Easter with the McKamey's at Lake Seneca, upstate NY.
12 April 2005 - Michael - drinks at Social Lounge on 8th Ave with Andrew Beattie and Simon Fisher.
1-15th April 2005 - first month-end for Michael with the new team from NY. The good thing about deadlines is that once they have passed there is no need to feel bad about the things not done yet. The numbers go from potentially misstated to just plain wrong. Not much else changes: the sun still comes up and goes down as before, and people still watch TV and get their hair cut.
14 April 2005 - out of temp accommodation to 2 Gold St. No excuses any more - we just have to like it!
15 April 2005 - dinner with Amit Shah at Pipa on 19th St, then party at Orchid on 6th Ave.