The fung wah is a truly scary experience. Once took me 12 hours to get to Boston. Bus broke down on Mass Pike at 2:30 AM. My advice to travelers: Don't go to Boston.

"Blood was all over," said Peffley, a musician who performs under the name Roger Human Being. "At first I thought he was some guy from around, some drunk guy you don't care about. But then I saw he was bleeding."

Peffley said he was unsettled by others in the neighborhood who seemed unfazed, oblivious to the man dying before their eyes. He called 911.

Ah, the perfect mix of blase callousness with good-intentioned citizenship. He was "some drunk guy you don't care about" until he collapses in front of your building bleeding all over the sidewalk. My money is that if the poor insignificant junkie victim had collapsed three doors down, said witness would have hosed down the sidewalk and assumed it was someone else's business. Was he unsettled because everyone else shared his view of the victim as just another worthless drunk, or unsettled after the fact when things were more serious? To be fair, I'm afraid almost everyone in this city suffers from the same schizo sensitivity/callousness.

I love the quote in the Newsday article--"This neighborhood is so pretentious the last thing you would expect is somebody running down the street bleeding." Is there a pretention scale for Manhattan neighborhoods?

Why visit Toronto, except to see Canadians in their natural habitat.

Perhaps feed them some corn as they walk by.