Happy 4th of July!

This year we decided to go to the Red Bank Fireworks show, the largest in New Jersey and the 3rd largest fireworks display in the country (following Macy's July Fourth fireworks and Thunder Over Louisville, part of the Kentucky Derby's opening ceremonies.)

With two barges and launching over 100,000 synchronized shells, the annual show draws more than 150,000 people (10 times the normal borough population). Roads leading to the town were shut down for most of the day, so public transportation was the only viable option for most. I wish I had taken a photo of the train-- you would NOT believe what we looked like!

No joke, this is what we looked liked (photo from Japan).


Literally, Brian stood in the train vestibule area by the door, with his face against the wall, palms placed flat against it, and there was a man standing right behind him, with his crotch pressed up *right* against Brian's ass. The poor man was then sandwiched from behind by another man, again crotch-to-ass style.

"Lucky" for me, I was the second-to-last person to climb onto the train, so me and an older woman stood facing each other, backs against the vestibule wall, breasts pointing at each other (I clutched my purse in front of my chest, so we could politely stand without nipple fencing). It was six minutes of sheer hell. And apparently the train before the one we caught was so full, there were 200 people who didn't make it onto that train. *sigh*

This is us before the train arrived. You don't see the three hundred something people waiting on the station platform with us, but they are there.


Knowing that there were going to be 150,000 people crammed into a waterfront viewing area of approximately 1 mile, I chose not to bring my SLR camera. So I relied on my pocket camera with no tripod. Sorry for the shakiness!!





Happy Fourth of July, everybody!!

Hot Dogs: Preferences

I'm wondering if I should've put a thing in the poll about where you're from. I bet a lot can be explained by regional differences.

[Poll #1425153]

I call them "hot dogs", I like them grilled or fried (crispy skin is key!), and I only put ketchup on mine. I'm a "dog-bun-ketchup" type of gal, so I can savor all the yummy, juicy, crunchy, flavor of the dog.

I should've taken a photo of mine for a side-by-side comparison with Brian's. This is what Brian's dogs look like, which made me laugh and whip out my camera in the restaurant. Brian piles all this crap on there! It's a miracle he can taste the dog at all!



I spent an hour watching a program on PBS today about hot dogs too. It was interesting to see the regional differences; like cole slaw in Georgia, lettuce and tomato in California, chili in the southern states, relish in the northeast. They also talked about how New Yorkers tend to eat it with mustard, ketchup, or relish; but then they showed Chicago, and my God-- they pile EVERYTHING on this hot dogs! It was like a Subway sandwich or something!