If you lived in NY you come across people asking for money all the time. The majority of the time they are slumped by the wayside of the dirty subway systems with a cardboard sign. Other times they resort to sympathy by holding a small child and the card board sign or setting up a wheelchair. Once I even saw a guy in a hospital gurney. How the heck did he get it down in the subway?

They also get creative and try to perform for their money, by singing something unintelligible all the way to wearing the Mexican outfit with the sombrero and cowboy outfit playing the guitar singing their romantic ballads.

Some notable characters include this Jewish guy who reminds me of Dan, that just keeps asking repeatedly every passerby, "do you have some change? can you spare some change?" sitting on the stairs of the Flushing subway exit. I even saw him doing the same thing in Brooklyn. The same goes for this very annoying old lady who repeatedly screeches "One dolllaaa! One dollaaaaa!!!!" at the top of her lungs as if she was selling something for that price, until you realize that she is asking you for it.

Even near Wall St area I see this very slick guy who is dressed in a suit also on the entrance to the subway and he is pretending to be missing just enough change to buy a fare to go home. Who wouldn't want to donate for a just cause? Except that I see him pulling this stunt quite a few times that I doubt he is always missing the fare.

And finally there is this sweet looking girl who stands in the corner of the 4/5/7 train underpass near the garbage can playing her fiddle-like thingiemajig (or is that a violin?) - almost every morning. She is dressed so nicely in colorful different dresses that I don't think she is doing it for the money but for some other reason. Perhaps so that lone flower in a bed of of darkly dressed commuters could cheer up the unending sea of people which engulfs her as they flow past her. Bonus: she knows how to play the original Zelda overworld theme song!