I like Philadelphia. The people are pretty friendly. A lot of things that remind me of Ithaca.
I enjoy the presence of seasons. I can feel summer turning, and I'm excited to know that fall is coming. It seems like a cheap excuse to me, but I thought that the consistency of Los Angeles' weather at times lulled me into a sort of stasis. I connect seasons changing with time passing, and with my own mortality, and there's something fulfilling about having that reminder. I liked Los Angeles a lot, but I'm very glad that I left.
The smells here are strange. There are unexplainable clouds of stench that dot the city - you can be driving or walking around, and without notice stumble into the smell of a subway bathroom that hasn't been cleaned in a year. It's more prevalent in the crap areas of town, but you'll catch it downtown, too. There are good odors too - you can smell the major cheesesteak places from a block away.
I think I'll be up in Branford before the end of the month.
The drivers here are insane. A lot of drivers here accelerate away from red lights before they turn green. Quite often someone ahead of me is halfway through the intersection before a light turns red. I've seen a lot of people simply run through red lights late at night, if it looks like no one is around. Very few people actually stop at stop signs.
This is a Mercedes S65. It's a regular top-end Mercedes S-Class with, get this, a twin-turbocharged V12 that makes 604hp and 737 ft-lbs of torque. It costs something like $200k. Maybe $125k of that is the engine. Remember when I talked about getting a car that I could run over poor people in? This is it. I need to get one.
Stone
Stone