Mugged in New York.

I was kinda worried coming here because everyone talk about getting
mugged to be part of the New York experience.

Well, I got mugged, but not by a man with a knife.

Payphones! Fucking payphones!

I wanted to retrive my voice msgs, so I did the sensible thing (I
thought) and bought a long-distance phonecard from this Hispanic store
in Washington Heights.

I went to these Verizon payphones and found out they cost $0.25 / 3 minutes for local calls! Fuck.

I sucked it up and tossed in a quarter. It didn't and ate the quarter. I
call the operator and they "don't know."

I tried another phone. This one works. I dialed the Mahattan phone# and
found out that there is a $0.59 "maintenace fee" on my $2 phone card.
Then I got to my voice prompt, and for some reason, the keypads stop
working.

I got kinda pissed. So I went to this internet cafe with the orange sign
that promises a VOIP connection. They have this wierd self-serve machine
that gives you credit by putting in cash.

Okay. So I put in a George Washington. Machine won't take it. I put it
again. It won't take it. I tried a different bill. It takes the bill and
nothing happens.

Finally, I found a machine that works properly and it gave me 15min. I
went on the terminal and found out that the the chits only apply to use
of the internet. The phone, I'l need to buy a chit from a blue vending
machine.

I can't find a blue vending machine.

I tried another payphone inside the internet cafe. This one worked. I
dialed my phonecard. It works again. I got in!

... then the payphone hung up because the three minutes are up.

I just got pretty digusted. But I had to check my voice mail. So I tried
to dial straight from another payphone. This one worked but costs $1 for
three minutes. At this point, I didn't care...

I got six new msgs; all are from two friends who didn't know I was of
town and just wanted to go hang out.

So ended my payphone adventures in NYC. (I am using my cellphone from
now on. $1/min roaming be damned!)