Stay Well and Be Safe fellow 'brainers.
I just got a minute to post and it's been nothing short of disastrous. Hope everyone in the tri-state is safe and still with us.

Still no power for us in Newark. Well some places are back up (prudential center, areas around penn station). Kinda weird that around the corner from me is up but not us. Got a generator for the fridge and phone service was pretty non existent until about half hour ago. Friends in jersey city had it much worse with actual damage. Shit sucks

Crazy stuff. Allot of NY'ers probably haven't logged in for a few days due to blackouts. Hope everyone is ok. We are thinking of u guys from down under.

What the hell with these gas lines. I could get gas the day after and on wed, but now we have lines around the block and people fighting at the pump?

I know over here its that there is like only 1 open gas station for every 5 closed. So the lines are nuts. Plus everyone is trying to get gas for generators. I just walked over to the one by my house to see what time they'll start sellin tomorrow and the guy says 8 am. And then some guy pulls up and offers to pay him double so the attendant does it for him. Most places are cash only and have max of $25 allowed. But I know this type of shit is happening everywhere, these people running the gas stations and stores are cash only, charging or accepting more to let people break line and taking in the extra money right to their pocket. So f'd up. I only lost power so it's bearable but I have friends who lost most of what they own. It's depressing to think that some people probably knew this would be a great shot at making profit. Now time for bed so I can wake up at 5 to get gas and then work for 10 hours. Hooray!

THIS SHIT IS FUCKING INSANE OUT HERE... NO GAS ANYWHERE HERE!!!!!!!!
WHAT FUCK ARE THESE ASSHOLES DOIN??
COMPLETE MAYHEM!!!

Wtf 8.00 a gallon at 1278 hemp tpk. Elmont ny .....
ROBBRRY!

Pretty sure that's illegal.

price gouging... money-grubbing fucks.
isn't this how riots start? hopefully it won't go that far because cooler heads will prevail... but to take advantage of people
during such a catastrophe is a sad statement on the state of humanity. hopefully you guys are all well, and shit straightens
out soon...

bear witness to the de-evolution of a species

I need to get gas someplace after work tonight, badly. Going to have to flash the ConEd id, I need to cut the line, emergency responder in effect.

I said the overreaction to Hurricane Irene was ridiculous. But this storm was utterly insane. Where I am in Brooklyn it was nothing really. One day of Internet services being down. A few trees knocked over. Whatever. Deeper in Brooklyn where I grew up—Brighton Beach & surrounding areas—is #@$!ing nuts. Storm surges going out 4-5 city blocks & floating cars. The Rockaways, Staten Island, Sheepshead Bay, Breezy Point, Coney Island, Sea Gate & Gerritsen Beach were really screwed. The whole boardwalk in the Rockways was trashed. In New Jersey pretty much the same nutty crap. Boardwalk gone. Ditto with piers.

Lower Manhattan. Wow. That was weird. Pretty much all of Lower Manhattan—unless your building had it’s own power plant—was powerless from south of 34th Street. Had a week off from work thanks to the storm. BUt now that I am back—and others—around SoHo it’s still weird.

That’s what’s nuts about this storm. It wasn’t like one thing happened to one neighborhood & then we all got sad and that‘s it. It’s like random pockets of fucked up crap all around.

And the subway. Holy shit. They are finally getting trains running again but ALL East River subway tunnels were flooded up to the walkway level. Some worse. Going to work today was nuts because (1) everyone seemed to be going back to work for the first time in a week (2) the trains were sporadic & oddly crowded, like the D train was packed like sardines. The N train? Empty. And (3) everyone still had just enough of a stir crazy edge you could picture a fight breaking out.

Speaking of which, the only place I was guaranteed to see any fights at all were gas lines. Sick stuff. And gougers should be locked up. Look up some of the folks selling gas on Craigslist. Scumbags.

The positive? A lot of cyclists all over. Also that stupid #$@% marathon was cancelled. I hate running, but respect runners but whose bright idea was it to say, “You know, we are still finding bodies on Staten Island… Tell you what we should do? Have a marathon!” Not for nothing even after they said they would go on with the marathon they had 100% no clue how to get 40,000 people to Staten Island to start the race. Unbelievable.

I know some people have it worse & hope all is alright. But my lord, this storm should be a massive wakeup call to NYC & NJ as far as infrastructure goes. And a wake-up call to anyone else about global warming. Anyone telling me this storm—and the other crazy storms we've had—are not connected to global warming & dolts.

After hearing about Sandy from a highly respected meteorologist I knew she'd literally be a home wrecker. A few neighbors opted to foolishly ride out the storm and they almost died. I knew far better than to mess with a full moon combined with a high tide at night so I packed up the important stuff and got out of dodge before she arrived. It was a good thing too, because Sandy absolutely devastated my community. There's nothing so surreal as seeing your home and your neighbors homes annihilated and uninhabitable. This Thanksgiving I'm thankful for having caring family and friends and a warm roof over my head. It was very bad here and I'm talking Mad Max style looting, gas lines, and people breaking down and losing all assemblance of being. It's going to be a very long time before the neighborhood is functional again. Hell, you can't even drive to where my home was because Sandy carried the road away. Now that's a serious display of mother nature's raw power.