Unfortunately for people who want to keep moving while on crowded sidewalks it’s been ruled that even if you and your friends are blocking peoples paths through bustling Times Square it’s not a crime.

Matthew Jones had been charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in June of 2004, but the New York Court of Appeals decided on Tuesday to overturn his conviction. At the time police has said that people had to walk around him and that he wouldn’t moved when asked and he flailed his arms.

Jones pleaded guilty in 2004 after spending a night in jail, but he later appealed.

To be convicted of disorderly conduct in New York, a person must be acting “with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof” and obstructing vehicular or pedestrian traffic, according to the unanimous opinion.

The court found that Jones’ behavior - standing in the middle of the sidewalk at 2:01 a.m. with friends - did not meet the definition.

“Otherwise, any person who happens to stop on a sidewalk - whether to greet another, to seek directions or simply to regain one’s bearings - would be subject to prosecution under this statute,” the opinion said.

Maybe this isn’t illegal, but it sure is rude when I encounter it on the streets of Toronto. Move to the side people!

Summers virtually over and you’re either back to school or back to work now, but I bet you can’t help thinking of what you might do or where you might go for your next holiday. Am I right?

If you are starting to plan your next vacation you might be interested in visit the easytobook.com website. I think this site is great. You can find hotels to book your stay in, in most of the major cities of the world.

For example if you are planning a trip to Spain you might be interested in visiting the Barcelona Hotels page. Perhaps you are going to London to research your family history? Check out the London Hotels listings on Easytobook.com. All of the listings allow you to compare prices, have descriptions of the hotels rooms and services as well as listings for nearby attractions! Oh and you can also see how others who’ve stayed in the hotels on their vacations have rated each hotel as well.

We’re actually thinking of going to New York in the spring so I’m going to bookmark the New York Hotels page. As we get closer to the time of our vacation I’ll visit the site and see if I can find us a nice room at a decent price. I’m pretty sure we’ll find a good deal.

Check out Easytobook.com!

There was an auction at Sotheby’s Auction House in New York recently for a miniature Faberge chair. The chair sold at auction for nearly 2.3 million dollars.

The chair is just over two inches tall. This works out to just over a million dollars per inch!

Officials at Sotheby’s figured that the chair would sell for only one million dollars. Experts state that this chair is extremely rare, and that it was created by the Russian jeweler Carl Faberge who made the jewel encrusted eggs for the Czars in the late 1800’s.

Have you ever read or listened to news that sounded like it just must be a joke?

Students from rival campus organizations at the Dawood Engineering College in Karachi, Pakistan, had fistfights and threw furniture at each other in a January confrontation over which group should get credit for putting up posters urging students not to fight on campus. Duh …

Nauseating smell?

A condominium on New York City’s Upper East Side filed a $500,000 lawsuit in February against a Subway sandwich shop on the building’s first floor, complaining about “nauseating” food odors, but according to a New York Sun reporter, the dominant “smell” involved is a scent highly valued by many clear-nosed, non-New Yorkers: fresh-baked bread.