In the NY Daily News:

an article on the question of why NYC Chinatown still doesn’t have its own arch.   I posit that inertia, money, and lack of actual analysis (of where to put it and how to drive the tourists to it) are factors. Disclaimer: it’s not like I actually know why this hasn’t happened already, but I kind of wonder if having an arch is like admitting your Chinatown is a tourist thing and no longer a living community. That’s just based on my familiarity of the Montreal Chinatown arches and seeing the one in San Francisco.

a slideshow of where to eat (a couple of 8th Avenue Brooklyn places – like Pacificana – are included in the photos).

Daily News also profiles a couple of Chinese/Taiwanese foodie bloggers and their recipes for the Lunar New Year.

Check these items out in the city:

In case you’re looking for Lunar New Year events/highlights from Brooklyn, here are some items from the Brooklyn Public Library.

In case you’re looking for Lunar New Year events/highlights from Queens, here are some items from the Queens Library.

Over at World Financial Center, New York Chinese Cultural Center is bringing some arts and crafts for the kids and performances next weekend.

And, of course, last but never least, a whole bunch of stuff in Chinatown in Manhattan.

In case you want a whole list, check out Time Out NY. Time Out NY is good that way, even talking to the cast of “Chinglish” about Chinese food for the  Chinese New Year (“Chinglish” is ending Jan. 29, 2012 – check it out while you can).

Thankfully not so bad; we fared okay.

New Yorkers insist on grumbling, of course.

Look, I’m not going to second-guess the order to evacuate the coastal areas of the city or whether MTA didn’t need to shut down service. Hurricane Irene could have been a disaster and we got lucky. And, I’m glad to not have to hear about people trapped in Battery Park City or Coney Island or the Rockaways, or stuck in flooded subways or blown away on the elevated lines. Better to be safe than sorry – I’ll agree with the mayor on that.

Check MTA for subway service updates for Monday. Looks like service is expected to be up by 6am.

Pretty amazed – fascinating footage from AP, via NPR’s news blog. So the island of Manhattan was pretty unscathed; downtown was gushing with water during the height of Irene, but Times Square still glittered w/ lights, even if a people-less. Ah well.

The following embedded video was from a friend of mine, MW. I share it as a mild form of hokey entertainment for us Triscribers. Better that than to freak out.

Hope for the best, after all!

In case you (still) need to check what zone you’re in: check the interactive map.

As I note over at my other blog, all the libraries in the city are closed this weekend.

Also, no subways after 12pm on Saturday (check the MTA on that). Of course, this means that, on the bright side, the mayor’s not going to tell us to take on a Broadway show. Stay safe! (and dry?)

Oh, and don’t forget – have a manual can opener, if you’re going to have all that canned food this weekend. Just sayin’.

Emil Guillermo posts on the AALDEF blog about the retirement of Shaquille O’Neal (recalling the anti-Asian problems of Shaq) and the possible side effects of Goodwin Liu’s withdrawal; Guillermo notes:

I’m concerned for the young legal minds out there who may take D’Affaire Liu as the way not to act. Speaking out on behalf of the generally silent community? Against the nomination of Samuel Alito? Against the nomination of John Roberts?  What? And jeopardize my career?

But I’m also concerned for Asian Americans in general, who have trouble enough being what I call “Public Asians.” Voting? You mean taking a stand in a private booth?

It’s too easy for Asian Americans to lay back and do nothing. So when a Goodwin Liu stands up and loses, you’ll inevitably hear someone mention that age old quote about the nail that sticks out. The virtue of docility. You never get hammered.

But you never get to nail anyone either.

Dare to be the nail.

Hat tip to Angry Asian Man: the passing of Matt Fong, the first Asian American Republican elected to state-wide office in California; see also the obit in the L.A. Times.

Korean grocers are slowly decreasing in the demographics of NYC, as they decide (or their kids decide) not to continue the family businesses; as the article by Sam Dolnick notes, this is similar to the dilemma faced by other demographics of NYC-immigrant communities, such as the Italians and the Jews.

Last but not least: New York’s night court drama (particularly in small claims court) shall continue, despite cutbacks.

NY1.com has its APA Heritage coverage – for a week… – still, interesting things:

A profile of Corky Lee, the photographer of the NYC APA community.

And, coverage about APA’s in films – and how much progress/lack thereof there has been.

At least, I think the fine folk of City Hall and the MTA (so NOT going your way) are realizing that now.

On 12/26/10, I honestly thought I’d go to work on 12/27.   Hey, it wasn’t like the mayor was calling for a snow day/state of emergency.  Yeah, we had snow-mageddon/snowpocalypse back in February 2010 and it didn’t stop us (seriously: I was at work all day and I was so hoping to leave early, since I was frightened that I wouldn’t be able to get to south Brooklyn, due to my living in an subway line with an open-trench exposure to the weather; it ended up being more than fine.  Sigh.).

Meanwhile, on Sunday, as I watched “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” on tv, the news became worse about the state of the snow.  At some point, after the movie, I watched the non-stop snow coverage on the local tv.  There’s something addictively entertaining watching the local reporters drag themselves in sometimes dangerous or amusing situations.  NBC/Channel 4′s Brian Thompson brought out his (old-school wooden) ruler!  ABC/Channel 7′s Phil Lipoff stuck in Red Hook, NJ, chatting to people leaving the bars after the Jets game.   People were still shopping at Macy’s at Herald Square for Day After Christmas shopping.  Greg Cergol on Channel 4 wore a nifty hat. Some reporters didn’t have hats!  LIRR was in nasty conditions!  Stay inside!  The mayor had his one press conference that afternoon and everything seemed fine.  Or so he said, anyway.

Then, the amusing part didn’t seem so amusing.  I lost the cable/Internet/landline phone service, since Cablevision got knocked down for unknown reasons (weather-related?  Who knows; no service for three days; had to enjoy my cell phone and regular HDTV).  I hunkered on, watching “Sound of Music.”

Monday had no subway lines going out of Coney Island, so south Brooklyn was essentially stranded.  I had a snow day, but the mayor (the “boss,” if you will) didn’t call it for me; Mother Nature did.  It wasn’t like I would have gotten to the subway and if I did, no buses or subways were available.  No plowed streets; I don’t think I had ever seen so much impassable streets in Bensonhurst.

Staying cooped up at home, actually feeling guilty to have to Monday off unintentionally (yeah, I felt guilty; how sick was that?), I continued to watch the non-stop coverage on the local news on my regular HDTV (no NY1 without cable, after all).  Anger arose: how do you have no subways?  Where were the plows?  Yes, it’s lovely to see NBC Channel 4′s Katy Tur at Columbus Circle, where people were playing in the snow or seeing ABC Channel 7′s Kemberly Richardson at 23rd Street/Madison Ave., where it was hard to walk but did not look as ridiculous as it did in my neck of the woods.

But, then the afternoon wore on and seeing Channel 4′s John Noel in a very impassable looking Park Slope in Brooklyn, and you’ve got to start wondering how people in Manhattan seemed to be a little less inconvenienced than the rest of us outside Manhattan.  Brooklyn Boro President Marty Markowitz finally got to ask: while he was not going to knock on the mayor and Dept. of Sanitation, what was going on here?

The mayor’s press conference on that Monday afternoon seemed to strike the note of: the city’s operating as expected.  Yes, it’s inconvenient, but take mass transit, enjoy a Broadway show.  It’s a near-normal Monday.

Seriously?  Not really.  When the subways aren’t running (except for the R, which is completely underground), don’t expect me to believe that it’s normal.  When only two people of a city agency unit managed to get to work, don’t tell me that the city’s operating as usual.  Don’t tell me to take mass transit when there is no mass transit!  I walked around my neighborhood just to see how bad was bad; it was bad when the snow was past my knees.

By 5pm, I checked out Eyewitness News on ABC Channel 7.  David Navarro (who I haven’t seen in awhile; not that I’ve been that dedicated a viewer of Channel 7) was at Ovington Avenue – Bay Ridge-ish/Dyker Heights-ish.  Stranded cars.  No plows.  Navarro began the specter of asking: hmm, this is starting to look like 1969 and the Lindsay thing, right? (paraphrasing Navarro).

Mayor John Lindsay and the snow-bound Queens – the thing that haunted his administration, no matter its ideals.  Lindsay’s handling of that snow set the bar for NYC mayors since.  Did Bloomberg met the challenge?

Well, the analyses and investigations are still unfolding.  This NY Times article was pretty illuminating for how short-sighted NYC and MTA were.  Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News questions the workings of Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith.

Honestly, as much as we could blame the workers (and there have been plenty of complaints about the Sanitation and MTA workers), it’s the management and their ideas and actions that bother me.  Morale is as bad as it is because of something other than any worker’s own bad attitudes or sour personality.

Plus, was it wise for the mayor to promise streets plowed at least once by Thursday, 7am?  Clearly: not really.  My own block didn’t get plowed until after 2pm on Thursday and there are streets that are still horrific, even after one plow attempt, needing one of those frontloader trucks and much more work before blacktop could be seen.

Honestly, message to the mayor: some promises shouldn’t be made without some actual – I don’t know, let’s call it “certainty” – which ain’t gonna happen in a blizzard that was either as bad as expected (by the meteorologists) or as unexpected (by the very government that’s supposed to serve us).

Are New Yorkers whining too much?  Does the Internet make that too easy to do?  Yes, on both counts.  But, then again: we’re New Yorkers.  Complaining is what we do.  And, so is trying to get around and expecting the government to do something.  The city handled past storms well; maybe we got spoiled?  Even so – what made this one so bad?  The combination of bad storm, low morale of workers, poor management, and the stupidity of drivers who thought that they could chance and got stranded with their cars, blocking the plows?  I doubt it was one factor.

I wasn’t surprised by the mayor’s tactlessness; I’m surprised by how surprised some voters are about it (saying that you’re a supporter of him and then “shocked” by this: please!  This is exactly what you get, voters!  Maybe I am setting my bar of expectations too low, but I’d like to think I’m being pragmatic or even a tad realistic).

Do More With Less is a mantra that can’t work and when lives were at stake, it gets disheartening.  Let’s hope that we’ll learn our lessons before the next snowpocalypse (and it’ll happen – we’re in a state of climate change).

At least: Dogs had fun in the snow; soooo cute!  And, if you are able to get around the city (and with this nice weekend, yes!) – from us at triscribe to you: NY Times’ Frugal Traveler Seth Kugel spends a $100 weekend in…NYC!  Yep, it is possible to not go overboard in town.  Kugel described a really good time, I must say.  And, the NY Giants – can we still have hope for them as the new year arrives?  Can we have hope for anything?

Let’s hope for the best for the new year.  Maybe.

I got to see The A-Team movie; nothing perfect, but if you liked the old tv series, this was a fun.   Plot made no sense; but what was there was an origins story of how my generation’s favorite tv soldiers of fortune got together to be the gang that we know and love.

Oh, and putting aside the excessive CGI and explosions (yeah, I know – explosions in anything related to A-Team) – but the cast was pretty good – Liam Neeson! Bradley Cooper! And, the guys playing the B.A. and Murdoch roles!

See also: Steven James Snyder’s review on Time Magazine’s Techland; and even Richard Corliss’ review (Corliss being the official Time movie critic); review by EW’s Owen Glieberman; and Dana Stevens on Slate.  Roger Ebert really didn’t care for it – which I understand and empathize, but I seriously don’t go into watching the movie on the A-Team to hope that I’d get “Hurt Locker” (seriously – no.).

The Smurfs movie is in progress.   Actor Hank Azaria as Gargamel – there was a picture floating in one of the entertainment magazines catching him in the city in his Gargamel costume.  But, Neil Patrick Harris as Johan?  Oh My God!

Speaking of the 1980′s, the man behind “Voltron,” Peter Keefe, passed away.  The 1980′s as a decade keeps coming back.

World Cup time; Slate has a good explanation for why North Americans call the sport “soccer” while the rest of the world calls it “football.”

Pretty entertained by the US v. England World Cup game: ending on a 1-1 tie.  It seemed festive in South Africa, and even stateside (in the city, anyway).  Not sure how they took it in England, but oh well.

I do thank the Angry Asian Man blog for posting a very hot photo of the Japanese team – these fit men in suits – so hot.

Oh, a funny yet hot look at David Beckham’s reactions to the US v. England tie – the pictures were funny indeed (including a photoshopped look at the Obama White House laughing at Beckham.  Oops!).

What’s with soccer athletes looking so good?

Finished reading Bonnie Tsui‘s book “American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods,” where she examines the contexts for the Chinatowns of San Francisco; NYC; Honolulu; Los Angeles; and Las Vegas.   Smooth read; especially fascinated about the Chinatowns I knew least (Honolulu and Las Vegas).  The rest could have been more original – but then again, the book might be more for an audience who need to be more aware about Chinatowns.

Goodbye to Geocities; an observation by Slate’s Farhad Manjoo on Geocities’ impact on fads in the Internet.

Interesting Angry Asian Man posts:

on the lack of diversity in Hollywood – that is, there is something of an increase on APA’s on tv, but there’s still some lacking on the big screen.

A photo opp of President Obama with the APA’s in his staff, in the Oval Office.

US Senator Daniel Inouye is now the third longest serving in the Senate; Angry Asian Man has some interesting links and observations.

The Mets fans’ dilemma, with the impending Yankees v. Phillies World Series: who to root for?

Hat tip to my brother about this: C. Montgomery Burns for (NYC) Mayor. Eeeexcellent… Actually: Hilarious!!! So, don’t forget to vote next week…

The radio transition in NYC on Thursday night, 8pm – WQXR signing off to a new channel, with farewell from the NY Times, as it’s about to be no longer the NY Times station. Stay tuned.

Fascinating excerpt in Daily News of Soledad O’Brien and her Long Island childhood – and how it was hard to fit in as someone who did not fit in the white majority (but tried to be as Long Island as she could anyway), until she discovered the wider world.

Fascinating story on the family tree of Michelle Obama, highlighting how rich and complex that is American history and the American identity.

Food stuff:

Fried chicken’s now the trend, regardless of regional or national origins. Mmm. Fried chicken.

NY Times’ Joan Nathan on a Jewish Canadian, David Sax, whose book “Save the Deli” – based on his blog – covers the subject of the delis and Jewish cuisine. Fascinating stuff on what transitions and assimilation – and food – work together.

Behind on tv viewing. Argh.

Time writer Ling Woo Liu on China’s acceptance of the work of her great-grandfather as a doctor fighting an epidemic in 1910.

Good stuff on the official re-opening (and exhibit(s)) at the Museum of Chinese in America.