The Nintendo DS, my current favourite game console (and much to Jay’s chagrin, time-suck) has a great online service called NintendoWiFi. It’s free, and there are some great games you can play online, like Mario Kart DS, and a wierd but oddly addictive game called Animal Crossing: Wild World.

Unfortunately for me, though, their WiFi service isn’t completely compatible with the wireless router we have at home. a D-Link DI-524 (type A). Although Nintendo’s support site says the router isn’t supported, I got it to work by downgrading the transmit rate of the router to 2Mbps using the online configuration tool (on the Advanced / Performance screen). But that slows down our regular web browsing, so I had to reconfigure the router every time I wanted to play a game, which was a pain.

But something I discovered recently is that Apple’s Airport Express solves this problem for me. We have an Airport Express, and on my recent trip to New York I took it along. I figured I could plug it into the fixed ethernet in the hotel room, and then have wifi available so I could comfortably work on my laptop anywhere in the room. It worked like a dream. As a great side effect, I also noticed that I can use it to play NintendoWiFi games with my DS (which of course I bring on every business trip). I just had to configure the DS to connect to the access point created by the Airport Express.

This solves my router problem at home, too. Now, when I’m at home, I just connect the Airport Express to one of the cable outputs from the DLink router using a short ethernet cable. That means we have two access points: I just configure the DS connect to the Airport Express instead of the DLink router, and continue to use the DLink router at full speed for regular web activity. If you’re having trouble getting online with the DS this might work for you too. The Airport Express is kinda pricey though — especially compared to Nintendo’s USB-based access point — but if you don’t want to have a desktop PC running every time you play your DS online, or if you just want an Airport Express for travelling, it might be a good solution.

While I was walking around New York last week I saw several posters for Bodies: The Exhibition, showing at the South Street Seaport. The poster shows a man in The Thinker’s pose … but it’s actually a cadaver with the skin removed and the brain exposed. Some colleagues I was walking with had heard of, but not seen the show. Apparently, a technique called “plastinization” is applied to real human cadavers, replacing all the water in the body with silicone, which preserves bone, flesh, and even nerves in a life-like state. It sounded intriguing to me, so I went to check it out. Despite reports of long lines and the cold weather, I headed down on Saturday morning. Luckily at that time I could walk right up and buy my ticket ($29.50 including audio tour) and enter the exhibition. When I exited a couple of hours later there were long lines waiting to get in, so I’m glad I went early.

Despite a slight but continuous sense of nausea brought on by the sight of all the dead bodies, this was a fascinating exhibit. For some reason, I had the idea that this was an art exhibition, but it’s really more a science exhibit on the topic of human anatomy. The show is divided into several sections: muscles and skeleton, circulatory system, digestive system, etc. and the dissections in each section serve to illustrate a certain system in the human body. Many of the dissections inventive in the way that they show the behaviour of certain muscle groups or organs, and the information shown with the exhibits gives clear and informative explanations.

The audio tour was a bit of a waste though, as it doesn’t really give any information that isn’t shown on the printed posters by the exhibits. There are “kids versions” of the audio explanations though. I only listened to the kid version of the “reproductive organs” exhibit description which basically boiled down to: “don’t giggle, we all have reproductive organs; this is a penis and it makes sperm; sex is a serious subject — ask your parents about it”. If that’s anything to go by (and it’s not a representative sample I’m sure), the kid’s audio tour isn’t worthwhile either.

Two of the sections were particularly fascinating. One section is all about the circulatory system. A process is used to fill all the veins and arteries of a body (or section of a body) with a bright red plastic, and then the flesh and bone is dissolved away. What’s left is a perfect 3-D representation of the circulatory system, suspended in liquid and displayed in a glass case. It’s amazingly creepy to see this ghostly image of an entire body in red filaments. The legs and arms and head are all there, but only in outline created by the underlying blood vessels. Some parts of the body like the legs and brain are densely represented due to the greater blood supply, while the stomach and is just a faint image. Very cool and unusual.

The other interesting section — behind a large warning sign asking visitors to ask themselves if they really want to see it before entering — is on embryology. A sequence of embyos and fetuses (all preserved using the same plastination technique) vividly demonstrated the miracle of nature that is human development. The warning sign also mentions that all of the embryos and fetuses died of natural causes, and in fact some of the deaths were due to disease or deformity, like spina bifida or conjoined twins.

All in all, a very intersting exhibit if you want to know more about how the human body is put together and how it all works. It’s an amazing machine. But skip the audio tour.

Robert Bowman, a West Virginia police chief, stops at the roadside scene where Billy Snead is performing CPR on his gay friend Claude Green. The Chief tells Billy to stop, or else he’ll catch AIDS. (Green did not have HIV.) Billy continues, and according to the New York Times (reg req’d) the Chief “grabbed Mr. Snead’s shoulder, pulling him away from his friend”. Green died in the hospital less than an hour later, and if the report is accurate, it seems to me that’s exactly the way the chief wanted things. Unbelievable. Kudos to the ACLU for taking on this case.

Possible reasons for this business with India:

1. If we don’t hurry, China will take all the best seats.
2. Indian troops needed for Afghanistan Iraq Iran.
3. Job is moving there anyway, going early to open a bank account and find an apartment.
4. Forming an alliance so we don’t get voted off the island.
5. Danish cartoons not divisive enough, need to send Bush to regions with large Islamic populations.
6. Told Musharraf we want to “see other nations.”
7. American consumers no longer buying our offshore produced goods (See #3).
8. Visiting those temples with the sexually explicit scuptures is culture, not porn.
9. Mad cow Bird flu means we’d better learn how to be vegitarian from experts.
10. Bollywood actresses are way hot.

Okay, seriously, I don’t get it. Bush said on the news the other night that he hoped India would “open their markets to US agricultural products.” India? They need to import agricultural products? What? Huh? The more I read, the less I understand. Admittedly, I’ve been in a Eurocentric stupor, but now that I’m waking up, a little help, anyone?

I spent the afternoon today visiting the Empire State Building. I’m sure any sane New Yorker would recommend against visiting it, but like climbing the Eiffel Tour in Paris or the Space Needle in Seattle, it seems to me like it’s one of those things a tourist has to do once, if only to say he’s done it.

The visit starts off well, with the amazing art deco lobby inside the entrance on 5th avenue. But then begins the queuing. It took me at least an hour to get from ground level to the top, and judging from the unfilled expanses of crowd control mazes on the second floor, I don’t think this was a particularly busy day.

If the lines of tourists don’t put you off, the prices might: it’s US$16 just to get to the observation deck on the 86th floor. If you want to go to the very top — the 102nd floor — that’s an extra $14. And if you want the audio guide, that’s another $6. I figured I was only going to do this once, so I went for all three, for a total cost of $36. They were also hawking the “NY Skyride” attraction — some kind of multimedia moving-seats-and-video thing on the 2nd floor for an additional $18 including the combo discount, but I’m not that much of a sucker.

After you take the elevator to the 80th floor, walk past a large poster of New York where they annoyingly try and take your photo to sell you on the way out (I told them they couldn’t take my photo for religious reasons — those cameras steal your soul y’know), and pick up your audio tour device, you finally get on another elevator to the observation deck on the 86th, and the experience finally moves out of the aggravating phase. I flashed my upgrade ticket and hopped on yet another elevator — apparenly the highest manual elevator in the world — to the 102nd floor. The elevator attendant who ran the elevator was a nice old man who got a nervous laugh from the crowded tourists by starting off the elevator going down. Responding to the gasps, he chortled “Oh, you wanted to go up did you?” and send us on the way to the enclosed observation room at the top of the dirigible tower.

The observation room on the 102nd floor is a tiny, circular room with a narrow path on the circumference behind large curved windows. Visiting there was well worth the extra $14, because you got a significantly better view, out of the cold wind, and with fewer people to contend with. I spent about an hour up there, listening to the commentary on the audio tour. This was also well worth the $6, with an interesting and humorous “New York Cabbie” explaining the sights and history while taking you from landmark to landmark with careful and clear spoken directions. The only complaint was that the audio tour was clearly designed for the 86th floor, not the 102nd, where the numeric markers to select the audio track were absent. But there were only 7 tracks, and they all started by announcing the direction to look, so provided you can find your way around a compass it wasn’t much of a problem. The audio had obviously been recorded (or at least re-recorded) since 2001, since it was sensitively aware of the absence of the Twin Towers downtown, leaving the Empire State Building the tallest in New York.

I finished my visit by dropping back down to the 86th floor and heading outside to the main observation deck. It was cold, and I was very glad for the hat and scarf my colleague Joe had loaned me the night before as I was waiting for a cab in the financial district. It was about 5:15 by this time, so I wandered around for a while checking out the buildings in the failing sunlight. Bracing myself against the wind on the west side, I watched the sun finally set below Jersey, and then headed back down to ground level just as the lights of New York were coming alive.

All in all, I’d say it was worth the visit, although I mightn’t do it again. If you’re willing to pay the base cost to visit, the marginal costs of the upgrade to 102nd floor and the audio tour are well worth it. Just make sure you go on a clear day like I did, so you can appreciate the unobstructed views to every horizon. And if it’s cold out, bring a heavy coat, hat and scarf for the outside deck!

I’ve been here in New York all this week on business. As usual on such trips, I haven’t had much of a time to look around. But unlike most times I visit NY, I’m actually staying over for the weekend. I’m heading to Boston tomorrow, and it didn’t make much sense to head back home just for a day. Sadly though, Jay couldn’t make it out, so I’m here on my lonesome.

Anyway, this is the first chance I’ve really had to be a tourist in New York, despite visiting here many times before. I’ll blog about my visits in subsequent posts. Sorry, no photos: I didn’t think to bring my camera on a business trip!

We were in town for not 10 minutes when a tall man in a dirdnl and a blonde wig walked right up to me and kissed me on the cheek. No introduction, nothing, his arms spread out, his hands facing upwards as though he was greeting an old friend. His companion, a similarly attired person of less height wrapped an arm around my shoulder and leaned it to tell me something unintelligable.

On the stage in the center of town, two bewigged women lip sycnched to painfully bad German pop songs while the MC, in a used car salesman jacket, riffed on the song titles. From up the street came the sound of drumming and handclapping. The Trommelweiber – men dressed in white bonnets and skirts practiced their marching routine, swilled beer, and smoked, their masks tipped up on top of their heads.

Tina and I squeezed through the main square to find the Fetzen and the Fishchermen. (I give random ukulele lessons to Tina’s son, Alex.) The Fetzen-Frau joked with Tina about trading for her orange scarf. The Fisherman waved their baited hooks around – some of them had candy on the line and were able to catch a few small children, others had actual bits of fish and you had to be careful to avoid not getting whacked in the face with a bit of sardine. They were followed, finally, by the Flinserln – this is what we’d come to to see. The musicians, up front, played a string tune. They were followed by a large troup in elaboroate sequined and appliqued costumes. The sun hit the little sequins, sending bits of light out in to the street. Flinserl roughly translates to “tinsel” – the sparkly stuff with which the costumes are covered.

In the center of town, the Flinserln gathered little groups of children and taught them the Fasching rhyme, at the end of which they’d all shout “Nuss!” (Nuts!). The Flinserl would then toss walnuts or tangerines in to the air, and the kids would scramble for the treats.

“Heut ist da Faschingtag,
heut sauf i was i mag,
heut mach i ’s Testament
’s Geld geht zan End.”

We went hunting for a cup of coffee and ended up in the private party of the Trommelweiber and the Flinserln, unmasked now, drinking champagne and eating Faschingskrapfen. “Look, it’s the governor!” said Tina, making her way between the packed humans to snap a photo. We snaked through the tight crowd at the Levandovsky, usually a staid, civilized coffee house, now full of clowns and jesters, but were unable to find a table. “No matter,” said Tina, “Let’s go to the bar, we’ll find something there.”

Inside a blurry trio of Mozarts drank beer. We sat on a bench with a handful of costume punk teenagers. Tina (she teaches kids just this age) asked them to repeat the Flinserln rhyme and baited the boys. “Ask that woman where she’s from,” she said. My neighbor, a 15 year old in a torn white t-shirt, turned to me and I told him. “George Bush is an asshole,” he said. “Nice to meet you,” I responded, and shook his hand. Another boy, across the table from me, proceded to list all the places in America he wanted to go. His sidekick, a quiet kid with a spectacular mohawk, leaned forward to let me touch his hair when I reached out my hand towards his head. One of the Mozarts stumbled over and slapped a piece of paper on the table in front of me. “My autograph!” he said. I turned the paper over to read “Wolfi” scrawled in ball point pen.

The Mozarts bid us good day and we headed back to the car, winding through a crowd of fur coated ladies, wasted pirates, stray Flinserln, witches, little princesses, old men in traditional hats, television camera men, and tourists.

You want pictures, right? They’re here.