There’s one thing they say about lotteries: If you never enter, you’ll definitely never win.

I’m sure there are actually many more things that they say about lotteries, now that I reread that first sentence. Still, it sounds better that way, so I’m leaving it alone.

I need to start walking down to Avenue Q (er… 45th Street) every evening after work to enter the student rush ticket lottery. I want to see it again, and Ashleigh wants to see it for the first time. However, I keep putting it off because it’s annoying to walk down there, enter the lottery, stand around for half an hour waiting, and then lose. But really, if I never enter, I’ll never win.

This month might be a good time to try anyway, since April and May will bring spring break crowds to the city. I think it’ll be best to go on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and preferably when it’s raining, snowing, or at least really cold. Of course, if I have to walk down there against the wind, enter the lottery, stand in the freezing rain for half an hour, and then lose… it’ll really suck to be me.

I’ve got eight winning Diet Pepsi bottle caps so far, but the cafeteria downstairs has run out of Diet Pepsi. Now I’m stuck drinking Diet Mountain Dew because a) I won’t drink regular Pepsi, and 2) Mountain Dew also has the iTunes promotion. I’m not a big fan of the Dew, though. If you’re going to have a caffeinated soda, it needs to taste like cola, and it needs to not look like extra-terrestrial urine.

This past weekend I was back in California for my grandpa’s eightieth birthday party, and I managed to visit many of the restaurants I miss. I ate at Del Taco, In-N-Out, El Torito Grill, Cafe Pascal, Claim Jumper, BJ’s, and Harbor House. If you’re in California, I highly recommend that you enjoy these places while you have access to them. I haven’t found better tacos, grilled cheese sandwiches, tortillas, quiche or crepes, potato cheddar soup, dessert, or milkshakes since I moved to New York.

For those of us without a car, the “Driving Directions” feature on MapQuest or Yahoo is ineffective. Thank goodness someone came up with HopStop, which lets you find subway/bus/walking directions.

I redesigned papertowel.org to stop using frames (I liked them, but Google didn’t), and I made some cute little rounded pods, for the navigation on the left, using style sheets (and no graphics). They seem to work in every 5.0+ browser except Internet Explorer on Mac OSX, in which the round corners appear backwards. And nothing I do seems to fix them. Arrgh!

Well, 24in48 is over. I think it’ll be a while before I take any more photos with my cameraphone, considering that my Verizon bill will most likely be outrageous this month and my life is clearly not all that interesting anyway. Actually, today we’re planning to go to the Chelsea Flea Markets, the Natural History Museum, and the Park, so this might have been a better day for sweet hot cameraphone action.

UPDATE: We ended up going to lunch with my Uncle and cousins instead, and then going to the Clelsea Flea Markets. We bought a weird (extremely heavy) mirror, and then it was very difficult to catch a cab back home. That night I went to watch Desperate Housewives at Chelsey’s, and it snowed, and Chelsey, Sharie, and I played in the snow at the park and threw snowballs at The Gates.

If you haven’t looked yet, be sure to check out 24in48.org. I’m participating in it this time, and we’re about halfway done with the project right now.

“Everyone understands this language,” I said, opening my wallet and holding it up to my face, “the language of the smell of the color of money!”

Based on the following Gothamist article, I think it’s safe to say that New York City is creepy at times. Please, no one forward this link to my mother. However, what I love about Gothamist is the graphic they made to go with it.

Body Parts Found in Subway

Last week Improv Everywhere pulled their most interesting prank ever. They put a fancy bathroom attendant in the men’s restroom at McDonald’s Times Square (via kottke).

Even the manager convinced himself that this wasn’t a prank, but a simple misunderstanding. Surely we were just at the wrong McDonald’s.

What I love about it is the huge variety of people who came in during a single hour on a Sunday, the way the attendant represented the company with their catch phrases and cheerful attitude, and the fact that everyone just accepted both the bathroom attendant and the guy snapping photos.

It’s only in a camera-crazy tourist haven like New York that you can go into a public bathroom, snap photos of men standing at urinals, and not only will they NOT be angry, they’ll often take out their own camera and snap a pic of that same urinal, thinking, “Huh, this toilet must be famous.”

I suspect that, as a result of this, McDonald’s Times Square will hire a bathroom attendant.