First, a correction - it was called "Bamn," like "damn" with a "b," NOT "Blam," like "flan" with a "b."

Here's the rundown from Saturday:

Forbes Gallery

First, the search for breakfast -- we stumbled upon a bagel shop that looked decent. It was about noon, and I ordered a bagel sandwich with egg. The guy behind the counter shook his head disapprovingly and said there are no breakfast bagels at this time. I thought it would have been nice if they had put that on the sign, but like so many things in New York, it seems as if you just have to know.

The gallery itself was pretty sweet. There was this sculpture that involved marbles running down a track and hitting bells and things; more than 10,000 toy soldiers (many of which had politically incorrect depictions of American Indians and various foreign armies); toy boats and an entire gallery of Olympic medals. Turns out that the medals from Torino, with the big hole in the middle, look just as stupid up-close as they did on TV.

5th Avenue

This street is known for having super-expensive stores, and at one time was the shopping capital of the United States. I say "at one time" because, from walking down the street, it seemed that the vast majority of the goods offered were available either in malls across the United States or online.

So really, the only point in going is to say you've been there, and being there is pretty cool. We went to Tiffany's, where very expensive things are sold, and saw various couples negotiating wedding or engagement ring purchases. You could tell it was a big money transaction because the couples had glasses of ice water in front of them and beads of sweat were rolling down foreheads. It was a good time.

Subway Observations

• People like to try to sell things to you on the subway (candy, mostly). They usually do this by stepping into the car and loudly saying, "Pardon the interruption, but..." Fortunately, because no one looks at anyone else on the subway, I didn't feel bad at all for completely ignoring them.
• I ran into my first "I'm a New Yorker, I'm Pissed and I'm Going to Let Everyone Know About It" moment. Some woman with her kids was trying to get off the subway, and the angry New York lady pushed her way through to board:

  WOMAN WITH KIDS: Oh my God!

  NEW YORK WOMAN: Well maybe you should get out of the way so people can board the train!

  WOMAN WITH KIDS: [distressed grunt] New York.

  [Subway doors close.]

  NEW YORK WOMAN: Jesus Christ.



• The subway is kinda hard to figure out, as we discovered yesterday. We were looking for the Columbia University stop on 116th street, so we took the 2 train. We thought we were on the right track until we emerged from the station and saw that the street was "Malcolm X Boulevard" and figured we had ended up in the wrong place.

  Turns out there are two 116th street stops and two different ways that the 2 train can take, and we had taken the wrong one. We asked this very nice girl for directions and she told us that if we kept walking on 116th we would eventually get to Columbia. However, there was this big park in the way and it was kind of dark out and she told us that we should probably walk around the park because it can be dangerous at night.

  So basically we had to walk 20 blocks out of our way to get to this park and finally reach Columbia.

Columbia University

Did you know that Columbia University is where the Pulitzer prizes are handed out? I imagine a big closet chock-full o' Pulitzers just waiting to be engraved. I imagine myself breaking into said closet, stealing said Pulitzers and engraving things such as "YOU IS A STINKY HEAD" onto them. And then I'd write a story about it and the story would win the Pulitzer but they wouldn't have one to give to me because I would have just vandalized them all.

Bar

I forgot the name of the bar we went to, but it was some punk-rock-themed joint. The weird thing about it was that the punk-rock theme seemed to have been carefully applied -- posters were hung on the walls and bathrooms in a calculated haphazard manner and a little too much thought seemed to have been put into the graffiti.

All right folks, more to come tomorrow. Keep it real; enjoy your weekends.