A few years back, my brother and I went to a 'Stag Party' held in honor of a friend of his. He was getting married and a social club his father belonged to held this party, sold tickets to it, gave us as much beer as we could handle, roasted him and then gave him the money they raised. I was a little skeptical, but it was actually one of the more fun nights out I'd had. As we pulled up to the hall where the party was, a helper of some sort walked up to us and said (in an extreme form of new england accent) 'Pahkin's at a wicked premium fellas, make sure you keep it tight', so we moved in close to the car next to us. It's one of those quotes that I'll get mileage out of it forever.
Today, at my parking lot, I watched a guy pull up in a smallish silver pickup truck. Most drivers back in or pull all the way through to the other side of the grid so they can make a screeching exit and not be that clown backing up into a surly crowd of rush hour commuters. This guy didn't, then he diecided he wanted to pull all the way through. Except he only got about 3/4 of the way. I saw this and started barking at him in my mind, but I was certain he'd notice and pull forward so the next person could have a spot. He got out of the truck to make sure he was straight, and he definitley noticed his tail was hanging way out into the next spot. He even made a face like he just stepped into something, but inexplicably, he looked around, thought about it and then walked away. I'll be interested in seeing if anyone tries to use the spot he jammed up with his laziness. Where I go, pahkin is indeed at a wicked premium and a wasted spot is unlikely, but I don't see how anything other than a smart car or mini is going to fit in there. Just in case I see it again, I have printed out some labels to remind the driver that I do not approve of how they choose their parking ...
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
All Caught Up
We spent some time this weekend getting caught up with the rest of the world. We saw the big blockbuster movie of the moment, but before that we scooped up a hot gotta have it new technogadget. It was interesting getting acquainted with what all the other cool people are doing. If we didn’t already live in Massachusetts, we could be out there campaigning for Obama and plunking down cash for a Prius. But we do, and no matter whom we vote for in November, the state is going for BHO. I’ve already detailed why we opted for the Subaru (it snows a lot here and the Prius looks pretty wimpy for bad weather driving).
So with the politics and automobile statements out of the way, we’re on to the two more hot items on which you can put people into a neat little box, their choice of mobile phone and movies. I’ll start with the movies. M and I watch our fair share of flicks. When we merged our collections, we were concerned that our DVD’s would get confused. Have no fear, all off mine came in black DVD jackets and hers came in white. If you don’t believe me, look at an action movie box or a romantic comedy box. It’s true. So you can tell from 30 feet which movies are mine and which are hers. We nixed cable so we could do nextflix where we started with the black and white classics and have since moved on to the mundane (Fool’s Gold), bizarre (Be Kind Rewind) and mindless (Smokin’ Aces). This weekend, we were supposed to do a black/white double dip of Mamma Mia and The Dark Knight, but time and circumstances prevented MM form remaining on the docket. We opted for a matinee of the 3+ hour (including early arrival for good seat and commercials/previews) Batman movie. M was somewhat less than excited to see it, but she liked the first edition and acquiesced, despite promises of darkness and gloom. It definitely delivered. It lived up to expectations, which is always a tiny bit more disappointing then being surprised (Iron Man). Good thing we saw it too, because half of my team saw it also and we’ve already had a fierce discussion about everything from the previews to the third installment. Everyone else had to sit around and wish they saw it instead of doing whatever else they did last weekend. Suckers.
So what does going to a big blockbuster movie say about you? You could have just been bored that weekend. A lot of moviegoers are these types. A hot summer day, kids home from school, what else are you going to do? A movie is a nice thing to do with the family. Maybe you were on a date? I wouldn’t classify hand to hand combat as a good opportunity to make your move, but a lot of people go on dates at the movies. But would that justify waiting in a line and dealing with the unwashed masses for a half a day? I know people who never, ever go to the movies. The last movie they saw in the theater was probably 10 years ago or more. I also know people who only see ‘event’ movies. I’d say there’s a certain mentality to go with these two types. It’s a combination of frugality ($22 for two people vs. $2 rental fee), convenience (you have to go to the theater when both your schedules fit vs. waiting at home until you have the time) and patience (some of us have to seeitrightnow vs. those who don’t). If we had a big time home theater, I’d have a hard time justifying a movie theater ticket. Part of the movie theater experience is for the big sound and great picture, but if you’ve spent a decent vacation equivalent on a home theater, then you need to see approximately 900 home movies to recoup your investment. I can just imagine the guys sitting at home still using laserdiscs or SuperVHS repeatedly in an attempt to balance out the extreme layout they did 15 years ago. There are the people who go to the movies every weekend, either because they are film junkies or that’s just what they do on the weekend. (These people go to see dreck like National Treasure or anything starring Jason Biggs) There are the fanboys who religiously stalk a certain director or film series. You see these types camping out before opening night (see Peter Jackson/Hobbit movies or Wachovsky siblings/Matrix/Speed Racer). I used to be a Quentin Tarentino stalker, but I think that’s something you grow out of by the time you want to start meeting serious women. Right now I can say that I’ve got a bit of a bias towards Michael Mann movies, but I didn’t take a day off to see Miami Vice (I did enjoy it thoroughly though). M and I are somewhere in between. We enjoy going to the movies a lot. We like the bad popcorn and watery sprite. We like getting our seats in just the right place so we can sneak out as fast as possible. We like spotting upcoming film trailers and waiting for the opening weekend. We like trading points so we can drag the other to something they don’t want to see. Depending on the awfulness, there are many points to be won or lost. Superbad KILLED me, but I almost won it all back with Enchanted. I suspect the Dark Knight will cost me quite a bit. I was hoping to offset the damage with Mamma Mia, and there’s still time.
In a different way, your cell phone also says a lot about you. Do you not have a cell phone? It must have been traumatic for you watching the Hindenberg go down. Do you own a phone that’s 5 or more years old? You tell everyone that you just want to use it for calls, but you don’t even use it for that. If you did, you’d be frustrated that you can’t hear anything and your battery is always dead and get a newer one. That phone is as useful as a stapler in your bag/pocket. Are you a serious business-type? You probably have something with a million buttons on it and maybe a stylus for jotting your ideas down. A lot of these people carry Blackberries (their company ‘forced’ one on them) or some variation of a giant but anonymous smartphone class of device. These usually have way too much software and their users have no idea how 99% of it works. If you do a lot of text messaging, there are a series of phones that are basically keyboards with a cell antenna on them. I happen to have a blackberry pearl. My old Motorola (at least 3 years old at the time) couldn’t hold a charge for more than 4 hours and the voice quality on it was sketchy. But I was cheap and my company wasn’t handing out phones, so I stuck with it. I passed on the first few generations of bible sized blackberries and tiny-slim Razrs. I didn’t want to be forced to carry my phone on my belt or pay $400 just to have a skinny phone with a crappy battery. My el cheapo had a crappy battery all on its own. The ol’ Moto had a camera and a few games that kept me entertained, but when my nightly calls home from the road kept breaking up every 10 minutes, M had enough and made me get a new one, which is how I came to acquire the pearl. I was skeptical of always being attached to email, but in a way it was liberating. I didn’t have to dread being out of the office for a few days and coming in to a pile of messages waiting for me. I could type out text messages a lot faster, I could even cruise the internet in a somewhat limited manner, and the phone fit in my pocket and even looked like a phone. So I became a fan of the pearl and blackberries in general. The software is basic and to the point, the camera is a lot better than the old one and the battery is durable. So this is a long winded way of saying I am not an early adopter or technophile when it comes to the mobile phone. The IPhone was interesting for a bit, but $500 for a phone seems ridiculous to me. Which brings me to where were ended up on Sunday, an AT&T store buying an IPhone 3G. In preparation for our upcoming vacation, M read that you can download MP3 tours of sites we’re visiting, which seemed like a good idea for countries where we no-speeeka-the-language. We don’t own an Ipod between us, so either a Nano or Touch seemed like contenders. If we wanted to play games or watch movies while we’re traveling, the Touch starts to look more appealing, if pricey. Coincidentally M needs a new phone and switch to AT&T. She really is one of those people who only uses a phone for calls so we were going to have to get a bargain basement phone and endure the sarcastic looks from the phone store workers. That’s when it dawned on us, almost simultaneously, that we can get an IPhone and use that for the MP3, movie, game thing. Then I can take the IPhone for my work and M can have my Pearl. So we plunked down our cash and in 10-21 days we will have a shiny toy. I feel a little bit like I’m drinking the kool-aid on this one, but it really makes sense and we get to have a slick little device until the next great thing comes along.
So with the politics and automobile statements out of the way, we’re on to the two more hot items on which you can put people into a neat little box, their choice of mobile phone and movies. I’ll start with the movies. M and I watch our fair share of flicks. When we merged our collections, we were concerned that our DVD’s would get confused. Have no fear, all off mine came in black DVD jackets and hers came in white. If you don’t believe me, look at an action movie box or a romantic comedy box. It’s true. So you can tell from 30 feet which movies are mine and which are hers. We nixed cable so we could do nextflix where we started with the black and white classics and have since moved on to the mundane (Fool’s Gold), bizarre (Be Kind Rewind) and mindless (Smokin’ Aces). This weekend, we were supposed to do a black/white double dip of Mamma Mia and The Dark Knight, but time and circumstances prevented MM form remaining on the docket. We opted for a matinee of the 3+ hour (including early arrival for good seat and commercials/previews) Batman movie. M was somewhat less than excited to see it, but she liked the first edition and acquiesced, despite promises of darkness and gloom. It definitely delivered. It lived up to expectations, which is always a tiny bit more disappointing then being surprised (Iron Man). Good thing we saw it too, because half of my team saw it also and we’ve already had a fierce discussion about everything from the previews to the third installment. Everyone else had to sit around and wish they saw it instead of doing whatever else they did last weekend. Suckers.
So what does going to a big blockbuster movie say about you? You could have just been bored that weekend. A lot of moviegoers are these types. A hot summer day, kids home from school, what else are you going to do? A movie is a nice thing to do with the family. Maybe you were on a date? I wouldn’t classify hand to hand combat as a good opportunity to make your move, but a lot of people go on dates at the movies. But would that justify waiting in a line and dealing with the unwashed masses for a half a day? I know people who never, ever go to the movies. The last movie they saw in the theater was probably 10 years ago or more. I also know people who only see ‘event’ movies. I’d say there’s a certain mentality to go with these two types. It’s a combination of frugality ($22 for two people vs. $2 rental fee), convenience (you have to go to the theater when both your schedules fit vs. waiting at home until you have the time) and patience (some of us have to seeitrightnow vs. those who don’t). If we had a big time home theater, I’d have a hard time justifying a movie theater ticket. Part of the movie theater experience is for the big sound and great picture, but if you’ve spent a decent vacation equivalent on a home theater, then you need to see approximately 900 home movies to recoup your investment. I can just imagine the guys sitting at home still using laserdiscs or SuperVHS repeatedly in an attempt to balance out the extreme layout they did 15 years ago. There are the people who go to the movies every weekend, either because they are film junkies or that’s just what they do on the weekend. (These people go to see dreck like National Treasure or anything starring Jason Biggs) There are the fanboys who religiously stalk a certain director or film series. You see these types camping out before opening night (see Peter Jackson/Hobbit movies or Wachovsky siblings/Matrix/Speed Racer). I used to be a Quentin Tarentino stalker, but I think that’s something you grow out of by the time you want to start meeting serious women. Right now I can say that I’ve got a bit of a bias towards Michael Mann movies, but I didn’t take a day off to see Miami Vice (I did enjoy it thoroughly though). M and I are somewhere in between. We enjoy going to the movies a lot. We like the bad popcorn and watery sprite. We like getting our seats in just the right place so we can sneak out as fast as possible. We like spotting upcoming film trailers and waiting for the opening weekend. We like trading points so we can drag the other to something they don’t want to see. Depending on the awfulness, there are many points to be won or lost. Superbad KILLED me, but I almost won it all back with Enchanted. I suspect the Dark Knight will cost me quite a bit. I was hoping to offset the damage with Mamma Mia, and there’s still time.
In a different way, your cell phone also says a lot about you. Do you not have a cell phone? It must have been traumatic for you watching the Hindenberg go down. Do you own a phone that’s 5 or more years old? You tell everyone that you just want to use it for calls, but you don’t even use it for that. If you did, you’d be frustrated that you can’t hear anything and your battery is always dead and get a newer one. That phone is as useful as a stapler in your bag/pocket. Are you a serious business-type? You probably have something with a million buttons on it and maybe a stylus for jotting your ideas down. A lot of these people carry Blackberries (their company ‘forced’ one on them) or some variation of a giant but anonymous smartphone class of device. These usually have way too much software and their users have no idea how 99% of it works. If you do a lot of text messaging, there are a series of phones that are basically keyboards with a cell antenna on them. I happen to have a blackberry pearl. My old Motorola (at least 3 years old at the time) couldn’t hold a charge for more than 4 hours and the voice quality on it was sketchy. But I was cheap and my company wasn’t handing out phones, so I stuck with it. I passed on the first few generations of bible sized blackberries and tiny-slim Razrs. I didn’t want to be forced to carry my phone on my belt or pay $400 just to have a skinny phone with a crappy battery. My el cheapo had a crappy battery all on its own. The ol’ Moto had a camera and a few games that kept me entertained, but when my nightly calls home from the road kept breaking up every 10 minutes, M had enough and made me get a new one, which is how I came to acquire the pearl. I was skeptical of always being attached to email, but in a way it was liberating. I didn’t have to dread being out of the office for a few days and coming in to a pile of messages waiting for me. I could type out text messages a lot faster, I could even cruise the internet in a somewhat limited manner, and the phone fit in my pocket and even looked like a phone. So I became a fan of the pearl and blackberries in general. The software is basic and to the point, the camera is a lot better than the old one and the battery is durable. So this is a long winded way of saying I am not an early adopter or technophile when it comes to the mobile phone. The IPhone was interesting for a bit, but $500 for a phone seems ridiculous to me. Which brings me to where were ended up on Sunday, an AT&T store buying an IPhone 3G. In preparation for our upcoming vacation, M read that you can download MP3 tours of sites we’re visiting, which seemed like a good idea for countries where we no-speeeka-the-language. We don’t own an Ipod between us, so either a Nano or Touch seemed like contenders. If we wanted to play games or watch movies while we’re traveling, the Touch starts to look more appealing, if pricey. Coincidentally M needs a new phone and switch to AT&T. She really is one of those people who only uses a phone for calls so we were going to have to get a bargain basement phone and endure the sarcastic looks from the phone store workers. That’s when it dawned on us, almost simultaneously, that we can get an IPhone and use that for the MP3, movie, game thing. Then I can take the IPhone for my work and M can have my Pearl. So we plunked down our cash and in 10-21 days we will have a shiny toy. I feel a little bit like I’m drinking the kool-aid on this one, but it really makes sense and we get to have a slick little device until the next great thing comes along.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Downtime
It's tough to get a good firm grip on the week when the first 4 hours of your day are spent staring at a screen that doesn't do anything. IT migrated our domain over the weekend and in the process broke everything. I even left my laptop at the desk so they could get work done for me ahead of time and I would come in and be efficient right away. This prevented me from watching I Am Legend or coming up with a new post on Friday. Instead, I read up on one of the scores from the Falmouth library book raid M and I conducted over the 4th. We got a huge stash of new reading material, which now includes a few of the Patrick O'Brien series about Jack Aubrey, 3 of which were turned into a file titled Master and Commander: The far side of the world. It turns out Master and Commander and Far Side of the World are two separate books and there are elements of the third in the movie as well. I liked the movie a lot and figured the books would good entertainment. They're mostly written in a 18th century voice with a lot of nautical terminology and period slang, which takes some time to get used to. I'm about ½ way through the first, Master and Commander and so far, so good. Fiction is somewhat of a stretch for me, as most of my favorite books have been true stories, but a few of the all time greats were fictional so there is room for them in the reading repertoire. I'm not expecting the Killer Angels, but it's better than scanning websites on my phone during the commute.
In addition to relieving the public library system of books they don't want, we also joined a community supported agriculture (CSA) meat share program. Without the CSA, the local farmer, if they want to sell all their produce to a distributor, get locked into a certain price. The distributor then sells this to a grocery store at a markup and then you get it from the store at their markup. The farmer doesn't get a great price, you the buyer pay a higher price and the produce you get has been sitting around for a while. With a CSA model, you buy directly from the farmer for a subscription price. There is a tradeoff, namely you only get what the farm happens to produce at any given time and there is a potential for a crop failure. The benefit is you get extremely fresh goods, locally grown and the farmer knows how much income they will have for the year so they can plan accordingly. All in all it seems like a pretty good deal for everyone but the middleman. I don't feel too bad for these guys, I mean we're still going to get bananas and oranges from warm places. But it seems ridiculous to have to get produce from South America or California that can be grown just as well locally. With this list of benefits, of course the lines to join a produce CSA are extremely long and for some reason only for people who live in Boston. M tried to get some delivered to her work, but it's too far away from the source. Out in the hinterlands where we live there are some, but they are all sold out already. Maybe next year. Instead, we joined a meat share, which works sort of the same way, except with meat. All the animals are processed (killed) in an FDA-inspected facility and are packed and frozen so that once a month M picks up a big cooler full of whatever they happen to have around. This time it was some burgers, sausage, chicken breast, ham, steaks and maybe something else? It was about 10lbs and the price per lb total was about what you'd pay for boneless chicken breasts. So far we've eaten the burgers and chicken breasts and they were excellent. The burgers were pre-formed and there weren't any surprises, which is about what you want from ground beef. The chicken was on the bone and not split, so I did some minor trimming and made some curry skewers for the grill. One last note about dinner – never, ever eat a pound of chard, no matter how good it tastes, you will regret it. The meat is raised free range/pasture and grass fed. This is somewhat different from mass-produced meats which can be grassfed but are usually grain-finished in massive feedlots throughout the Midwest. In a feedlot, cows get to eat as much corn as they can handle. Now if a person eats nothing but grain for a few weeks, they're going to swell right up and that's what the cattle do, giving that rich marbled texture we all love. As unhealthy that is for people, it's also not great for cattle. Big deal, they're destined for the grill anyway, right? That's probably right, but I'll give the grass fed stuff a chance just because I would think that suddenly stuffing the cow full of grain isn't how it was meant to be. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not railing against sad living conditions or big agriculture. Rather I'm arguing for better flavor and a healthier meal.
Speaking of steaks, I read an article recently about aging your own beef in your refrigerator. This has got me really excited. These days not many butchers dry age their beef. For one, as it ages, it dries out somewhat and the weight goes down, raising the price. For another, traditional dry aging takes up more space than wet-aging, another reason not to do it. I'd rather have the dry-aged stuff myself and I was always curious about how to do this. Now that I've got a technique, I'd like to try it. Here are some locals hanging out in the parks around town.
In addition to relieving the public library system of books they don't want, we also joined a community supported agriculture (CSA) meat share program. Without the CSA, the local farmer, if they want to sell all their produce to a distributor, get locked into a certain price. The distributor then sells this to a grocery store at a markup and then you get it from the store at their markup. The farmer doesn't get a great price, you the buyer pay a higher price and the produce you get has been sitting around for a while. With a CSA model, you buy directly from the farmer for a subscription price. There is a tradeoff, namely you only get what the farm happens to produce at any given time and there is a potential for a crop failure. The benefit is you get extremely fresh goods, locally grown and the farmer knows how much income they will have for the year so they can plan accordingly. All in all it seems like a pretty good deal for everyone but the middleman. I don't feel too bad for these guys, I mean we're still going to get bananas and oranges from warm places. But it seems ridiculous to have to get produce from South America or California that can be grown just as well locally. With this list of benefits, of course the lines to join a produce CSA are extremely long and for some reason only for people who live in Boston. M tried to get some delivered to her work, but it's too far away from the source. Out in the hinterlands where we live there are some, but they are all sold out already. Maybe next year. Instead, we joined a meat share, which works sort of the same way, except with meat. All the animals are processed (killed) in an FDA-inspected facility and are packed and frozen so that once a month M picks up a big cooler full of whatever they happen to have around. This time it was some burgers, sausage, chicken breast, ham, steaks and maybe something else? It was about 10lbs and the price per lb total was about what you'd pay for boneless chicken breasts. So far we've eaten the burgers and chicken breasts and they were excellent. The burgers were pre-formed and there weren't any surprises, which is about what you want from ground beef. The chicken was on the bone and not split, so I did some minor trimming and made some curry skewers for the grill. One last note about dinner – never, ever eat a pound of chard, no matter how good it tastes, you will regret it. The meat is raised free range/pasture and grass fed. This is somewhat different from mass-produced meats which can be grassfed but are usually grain-finished in massive feedlots throughout the Midwest. In a feedlot, cows get to eat as much corn as they can handle. Now if a person eats nothing but grain for a few weeks, they're going to swell right up and that's what the cattle do, giving that rich marbled texture we all love. As unhealthy that is for people, it's also not great for cattle. Big deal, they're destined for the grill anyway, right? That's probably right, but I'll give the grass fed stuff a chance just because I would think that suddenly stuffing the cow full of grain isn't how it was meant to be. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not railing against sad living conditions or big agriculture. Rather I'm arguing for better flavor and a healthier meal.
Speaking of steaks, I read an article recently about aging your own beef in your refrigerator. This has got me really excited. These days not many butchers dry age their beef. For one, as it ages, it dries out somewhat and the weight goes down, raising the price. For another, traditional dry aging takes up more space than wet-aging, another reason not to do it. I'd rather have the dry-aged stuff myself and I was always curious about how to do this. Now that I've got a technique, I'd like to try it. Here are some locals hanging out in the parks around town.
wish I had more exciting stuff to write about. It's been a lazy few weekends. I'm looking forward to the new Batman movie. Saw Fool's Gold last night – skip it. That's all for now. Once again I am pledging to make good on more than one post every 10 days. We'll see what happens….
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