on Wednesday, (e:Paul), (e:terry), (e:xandra), the infamous (e:lilho) (who I met that night), went out to dbgb's for the "we're taking plowed" Halloween party. The music was kind of lame but the night was pretty fun.

I went as a slutty farmer to go along with the slutty nerd, and the gay nerd.

This is being posted from the Arduinooo, (e:Paul) is awesome!

It hits you hard after a long day.

So Delaware North and Uniland want to knock down the serviceable and occupied Delaware Court building at Delaware and Chippewa to build a new headquarters/hotel. I could almost understand this being done with completely private money, even though I sympathize with the preservation argument. There are plenty of vacant lots even a block or two away that I'm sure Uniland could leverage a good deal out of.

(Although I still don't understand why the collapsed Erie Fright House was rejected by the preservation board to be relocated for condos - it's now being left to rot with no further use. Did developer Savarino not grease the right palms on the preservation board?)

But now Delaware North is demanding tax breaks to fill a $10 million dollar gap in the project budget, plus Uniland is looking for $5 million more from the Empire State Development Corporation. Allegedly, they need a new HQ here otherwise they'll head to their Boston or California offices - because I'm sure they'll save so much in operating costs by moving there. So they need $10 million for a *potential* of 65 new jobs? Oh, and we'll have a half vacant Key Center to go along with an empty HSBC Tower (also being emptied by subsidies - . Why should we pay to shuffle the deck between offices? What does anyone gain out of this, besides the developers that get picked as winners?

This is corporate extortion, and I'm absolutely sick of it. Every company seems to play this game now, because no politician wants to even think of having a company HQ leave on their watch.

I call any claims of job growth and relocation a bluff. If you need to look to nearby examples, this happened in Ohio with American Greetings getting $93.5 million for a new headquarters, before laying off 300 workers. Same thing with Diebold and their $55 million Ohio tax break.

While we were at craving on Friday, (e:Paul) got a text from a number he didn't know inviting him to a Halloween party that night. he managed to get more details about the party and we invited (e:Mike) and (e:libertad) along in case we were about to get murdered.

We got home and quickly threw together costumes from whatever we could find in the closet. Terry was a farmer, Paul was a costume box slash Indian bling bear, and apparently I was the green lantern in an skanky-tight costume.

Next we met up at Mike and Dave's since they lived right around the block from the party. It was sort of awkward at first because we still had no idea who Paul allegedly knew there, until he came to the party after us. It turned out to be someone we met months ago at sky bar for Mike's bday. A

Actually it still was awkward after that but there was tons of booze and delicious pudding shots, which is all you need, right?.


First attempt at a costume before Paul decided it was too cold


Peacock Mike and the bling bear



Hegla and the farmer

Helga, the farmer and our connection to this party

Helga Pataki and me, uh uh