We Heart NY. A lot.

When I moved to New York in 2000, I didn't think it was possible to live in a place with as much pride as my native Texas. Man, was I wrong. New Yorkers loooooove their city. You can live here 5 years or 5 decades and if someone bashes the city a New Yorker will quickly come back with 20 reasons why it's the greatest place in the country, if not the world.
It's often said you have to earn the right to call yourself a New Yorker. And while rewarding, it's a difficult place to live, so once you prove you're not only tough enough to survive, but can follow a set of unwritten rules, you may indeed call yourself a New Yorker.
The following is a hilarious exchange from "How I Met Your Mother" that demonstrates just how much passion we have for our city.

Season 3, episode 2 "We're Not From Here". (Ted and Barney pose as tourists to pick up a couple of NY women. To their dismay, the women have taken them to do tourist things all day, and now they've just survived a mugging. Thankful to be alive, the women suggest they all go back to their place and "celebrate.")

Barney: So, where do you live?
Ted: What, West Village?
Girl #1: Close. West Orange.
Ted: West Orange...New Jersey?
Girl #1: Yeah.
Ted: You guys live in New Jersey, not New York?
Barney: Theodore.
Girl #1: Yup.
Ted: New Jersey?
Barney: Teddy.
Girl #1: Yeah, but don't worry, it's pretty much New York.
Ted: Oh no. Oh no.
Barney: Oh no.
Ted: New Jersey is not 'pretty much New York.' You are not 'pretty much New Yorkers.'
Girl #1: And how would you know?
Ted: Because I live here. That's right! I live here. Yes, we're full of crap. Yes, we pretended to be from out of town so we could sleep with you and leave in the morning. But you know what's even worse than that? Saying you're a New Yorker when you're not. Because this is the GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD and you have to earn the right to call yourself a New Yorker. So why don't you girls crawl into the open sewer pipe you call the Holland Tunnel and flush yourselves back to 'pretty much New York.' Because I will do A LOT to get laid, but I am NOT going to New Jersey!

Yep, that 'pretty much' sums it up. (signing off from Brooklyn - definitely New York)