New Year’s - Almost

Back to reality, boys and girls. Well sort of. New Year's isn't here yet, but the big holidays are over. I never had much respect for New Year's Day. It just doesn't have the same cache that the other big days have. There aren't any real traditions that I know of. Other than finding an excuse to booze it up too much and stay up late, I'm not sure what makes New Year's much different from a Friday night. But I didn't come here to beat up New Year's eve or day. I used to like New Year's day, back when the family would gather around and watch college football bowl games and devour nachos, chips and dip and other assorted appetizer snacks. This was the one day a year we children were encouraged to eat this stuff and I went at it full force. Now the big bowl games are spread out over a week or so and are all played at 9pm eastern time, so as to not compete with one another. This doesn't do much to keep the kiddies interested. So there Tostitos Fiesta Bowl sponsors. I won't be watching your ads this year because the game isn't on the day I have off to watch such things.

New Year's is also supposed to be about resolutions or things you want to have great effect for the next 365 days and hopefully beyond. Last year M and I put more effort into this, with much better results than normal. I'm not sure if I'll do the same for this year. I probably will, just not with so many unrealistic goals. I like to improve my odds when I can. One of the resolutions I sort of have is to turn this into a forum for more regular types of posts. Originally I envisioned writing this as a series of dispatches from the country, a sort of modern day folk wisdom. Turns out I only had one or two folky posts in me and ran out of steam quickly. I actively try to avoid writing about work. I find work blogs to be just as tedious and full of hot air as the people I come across while working. I shouldn't be surprised at this and I am not. Occasionally I throw in a rant-type post, which is cathartic and hopefully amusing. I try to keep the tone somewhat upbeat. And then there are the mini-recaps of various meals or projects. I'm going to keep up with those as they come along. In addition to this stable of stud post options, I am going to try out a few new prospects in the next few months. If I like them, then that's what you'll get.

Today I'm going to talk about I movie I saw recently, called 'Burn After Reading'. This is a Coen brothers' joint, their first after the Oscar winning 'No Country For Old Men', which I really enjoyed. I've been a fan of Joel and Ethan since I saw 'Miller's Crossing' way back in the day. In subsequent re-views, I realize I had no idea what I was watching as a kid, but the characters in the movie hypnotized me. They made 'Raising Arizona', which I also enjoyed but in later viewing realized it was not a kids movie at all. Raising Arizona was also filled with memorable characters and this turns out to be the hallmark of a Coen brothers' movie. Unusual deaths play a big role too. They've killed people with a wood chipper, cattle gun, fireplace shovel, hatchet and a whole lot of guns. Based on this list, if you hadn't seen anything they'd made, you might think these are action or horror movies, but for the most part there are filled with long scenes of unusual dialogue and nuanced human interaction peppered with flashes of realistic violence. This, to me, seems so much more realistic and interesting than someone getting pumped full or bullets and crashing through windows to save the planet. When you click through the CNN crime section you rarely come across the successful brazen daylight bank heist and much more reliably read about the heat of the moment murder or the poorly conceived criminal plot and amateur cover-up attempt. The Coen brothers write some of their screenplays, and the dialogue is, at first, very strange. It's conversational rather than dramatic. Less hyperbole and more revelatory of the character speaking. Even if you are a spy or world leader, most conversations you have with people are about mundane things. You're not yelling or crying. You're trying to convey a point or win an argument or make a joke. Maybe you're just filling the silence. I understand movies are for escape and entertainment. Hearing about the plot to save the world or win the girl is more interesting than the fool who cut you off in traffic or hearing about your latest toothache. Maybe that's why the Coen brother movies are so unusual and why they stand out for me. Anyway, I learned in the bonus features of the DVD that 'Burn After Reading' was written specifically for the actors and actresses playing the roles. The movie wasn't going to be made unless George Clooney and John Malkovich were available. There was no casting call, no search for someone to play the tough guy or the leading lady. In this regard, I think the movie was successful. I couldn't' picture anyone else playing these roles. The plot was somewhat less successful, but I think that was secondary to the opportunity to show the audience who these people are for 90 minutes. The plot never resolves itself on screen, and I'm fine with that. Some people didn't like 'Burn After Reading' very much, but I did, if only for the scene of a drunken Malkovich slurring his way through a Princeton song with his college cronies. If it sounds bizarre, that's because it is and that's what makes it so wonderful.

Holiday Post

So I made it back from the final vacation of ’09 in one piece. Germany, it turns out, is an incredible place. Deutschelanders get a bad rap. As time as proven, Mike Meyers is a talentless fool and his Deiter/Sprockets routine isn’t even remotely close to any Germans I met. Indiana Jones has also tainted my image of Germans somewhat, but I wasn’t stealing any antiquities so those guys left me alone. Sure there were some severe mullets being sported, but for the most part the people we met could have been on any civilized street in the US. Notice I said civilized. I’m sure there are some German or Austrian rednecks out there and I’m sure they’re just as embarrassing, but I didn’t see any. It was a really angry salty cold out when we landed and it stayed that way for all but a couple of the days we were there, but we adopted some of the local adaptations. Namely eating as much street sausage and street wine as possible. Turns out Christmas markets are a sort of tailgate for the locals, except substitute ribs for 18 inch sausages and substitute chicken for cheese filled sausage and then swap burgers for curry sausages. Pickles get traded for sauerkraut, and cold beers get trades for steaming hot mugs of wine or kinderpunch. We stayed on the punch since I couldn’t read the signs stone sober and having a fuzzy head filled with steaming wine wasn’t going to help. I even discovered a stall that sold deep fried potato pancakes smothered in applesauce – why why why haven’t these made the trip over the pond yet? These were miles ahead of some dried out waffle fries or chalky steak fires you get at the carnival. Maybe it’s my fault for eating carnival food, but when I do, it needs to be shiny, salty and crispy. And best of all, since all of these things were served standing in a light drizzle or snow, you could eat them as fast as possible without fear of scalding your mouth beyond recognition. I may start wolfing down all my meals sans utensils and ankle deep in snow. (There’s about 2 feet of it right now, maybe I will….)

There were some other things we did on the trip. We saw a few castles, went to Salzburg and walked around Mozart’s old hood. We went on a tour about a movie? Something called ‘The Sound of Music’? I’ve never heard of this, but it’s quite popular. Except Austrians haven’t seen it and don’t know why so many people come to Salzburg to take a tour about the movie. I think there’s a lot of singing and dancing involved too – I’m way too manly to have seen this and even if I had seen it, my extreme manliness and interest in explosions would have blocked it out of my mind forever. Some call it cognitive dissonance. I say it’s physically impossible for someone to have seen something about a singing nun and some dancing singing children and be able to grow a prodigious beard at the same time. But I digress. Austria was excellent. M got us set up in a ridiculously nice hotel that had enormous racks of antlers everywhere. The room key weighed 5 lbs. The bathroom faucet was even heated so there was on-demand hot water. The Munich hotel was good too, but in a modern and minimalist way. I hadn’t been in an elevator with jungle noises before. I can now check that off the bucket list. We saw the Deutsches Muesum, which was by far one of the best museums I have ever visited. This was a museum of all things engineering. What would a true German museum be, anyway? There was mining, shipping, engines, electricity, timekeeping, weaving, manufacturing, metallurgy, bridge building, and a little astronomy. The WWII years were conspicuous in their absence, especially in the Planes/Ships section. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to see the whole separate wing dedicated to transportation (cars, trains) that I’m sure would have taken another day to visit. Even though 80% of the museum was in German, there were enough demonstration pieces to make it relevant. Just about anything big, like a bucket excavator or oil tanker, had a corresponding scale model with moving parts that came to life with the push of a button. There was even an entire room dedicated to an enormous model train complete with video feeds from the trains themselves, all orchestrated by a grinning trainmaster. Ordinarily I wouldn’t peg M as one for enjoying a machine museum, but this was an exception. There was one period of fatigue in the airplane engine exhibit, but overall we both had a great time there.

I was also pleased to see that the US does not have the monopoly on tacky crap. There was another market, away from the city center that M and I discovered. This was held in some of the gigantic tents where Oktoberfest takes place. When we investigated, we found an endless procession of incense booths, dreamcatchers, painted stones, magic pillows, wolf art, and super absorbent towels. It wasn’t quite a flea market, but it was definitely similarly bogus stuff. If you’re wondering if you’re getting any of this as a gift soon, you are not.

Shortly after we returned (7 hours to be exact) I got back on a plane to go to NYC for work. This particular project was a short one, so I promptly got on a plane on Monday and went right back home. Normally this would have been fine, but the combination of jet lag and clients calling me at home and denying me recovery time conspired to severely sleep deprive me. I may not look like a celebrity, but I sometimes travel like one. Somewhere in this swirl of re-circulated air, Guantanamo no-sleep torture and public doorknobs I picked up a nasty cold that refuses to leave. Despite my childhood of eating rusty nails and caterpillars, my immune system seems to have failed me here. Or maybe I am getting soft in my new world? Domesticated life took me out of the very grimy places that kept me ferocious and hardy. Or maybe the previous regime of all things bad brought my body into a sort of détente with itself keeping the illnesses balancing each other out in a House-like stasis?

Now for some lists:

Best Movies I have seen this year (in no particular order):
Charlie Wilson’s War
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
The Insider
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Meals:
The Father’s Day Smokeout
‘John Travolta’ Pasta at Ristorante El Profeta (technically M’s meal, but I had a bite)
The Birthday Prime Rib

Great Successes:
Cheap Life Insurance
Kitchen Painted
Car Acquired
Bathroom Reno’d

Abject Failures:
Clockmaking
Herb garden
CFA

Projects to be added in the future:
Post and Beam house with wood fired pizza oven
Putting a large engine in a small car and going way too fast
Greenhouse

I’ve also made good progress on reading more. I always have a book that I’m working on and I limited the number of magazines that I receive so as to be able to dedicate the proper time to them. I feel I am getting more out of them now. M may not dance with joy when I start quoting chapter and verse from whatever I am currently reading, but I am the second most entertaining person I know, so how bad can it be?
I’m cutting this a little short now. I’d like to write more but this work thing keeps stealing my free time. Merry Christmas everyone.

Turkey Day, Cars and Trips

What’s the deal? Why do you post so infrequently?
My acolytes (ok there are none, let’s face it), rather I, have been wondering why I don’t post more often. My defense is that this is a blog of substance. I choose to write about things after they happen and I have had a chance to distill and contemplate, rather than blabber about whatever I happen to have done 10 minutes ago (picked up Joe Flacco as a fantasy keeper next year! sweet!). I’m not trying to make any money with this thing, so I have no incentive to write about the latest and greatest xyz or pontificate about the implications of Henry Waxman (D-CA) getting the chair of the energy and commerce subcommittee from John Dingell (D-MI) . In case you were wondering, it means that Detroit (and the rust belt Midwest) no longer has a big say in energy policy and environmentally friendly California/west does. Bring on the Hemp-powered scooters!! Now everything will smell like a Phish show. But I digress. So what has been interesting to me lately?
Thanksgiving was pretty cool. M and I got our pastured broad-breasted white from the farm and delivered it to my parents’ house in time for a Thanksgiving feast. To my disappointment, there were no 40lb monsters that had been advertised. Turns out that is a good thing, since 40lbs of bird does not fit in most ovens, and that would be quite a disappointment to the gathered masses. So we got the fresh bird, gave it a bath and kept it for a night in nature’s refrigerator – our back porch. I was more worried about dogs, foxes and bears, but the extreme cold was the bigger problem. The next day our fresh turkey was slightly stiff. We were lucky, turns out coolers can keep things warm as well as cold. We dropped off the bird with storage and brining instructions. The brining idea required more explanation, but I think with now 2 successful turkey dunks, it will become more accepted. On the big day M and I got up early so we could make it to a Thanksgiving ‘lunch’ with her family. We gathered the men folk in the TV room for football and the women folk in the kitchen to play with a baby. I played some Wii sports and got a little too competitive. M even got involved and acquitted herself well in the bowling game. After food and desert we headed down to my parents place for Thanksgiving #2. It was good that the meals were 5 hours apart, giving us a chance to digest the first round before jumping in again. It was surprising that even with a relatively standard menu of Thanksgiving day options, that the two sets of food were so different. The staples were the same (turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce), but then were some that made each meal distinct (green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, corn, turnip, acorn squash, brussel sprouts, cauliflower). I think I ate more vegetables than turkey this year. Then on Friday it was off to M’s parents house for another Turkey dinner. Overall I think it was 5 turkeys cooked and 8 plates of food (including leftovers) , probably the greatest eating performance in years. I think Thanksgiving is evolving into my favorite holiday. There’s much less pressure than Christmas, where gifts are involved. Who isn’t happy with a giant pile of delicious food in front of them? Even if you don’t like it, there is pie and cookies to be had afterwards.
M and I have seen a few movies lately. Most recently we watched Body of Lies which was about espionage and terrorists in the Middle East, once again confirming my desires to stay far far away from all things from that area. Russell Crowe plays an excellent bad good guy, although I sometimes can’t tell if he’s acting. I think arrogance is how he rolls. Earlier in November M and I caught the news James Bond movie. The Quantum of Solace turned out to be a very entertaining movie. Not quite a ‘film’, but consistent with the new sociopathic James Bond. The opening chase scene destroyed a quite wonderful Aston Martin. I once read an article that described aspiring owners of Aston Martins to be royalty or close to it. I know Tom Brady owns one and Michael Jordan drives one in a Hanes commercial. They seem to be nice enough cars, but realistically I shouldn’t hold out any hopes for driving one someday. This got me to thinking about why I would spend any time worrying about aspiring to own something so ridiculous. Even in the ‘good’ times, driving around in a car, any car, that costs more than a well appointed house in middle America seems a bit rude. I’m not so sure most owners of cars like that are in touch with reality. It certainly makes it hard to argue your street credentials with one of these as your chariot. Which brings me to my one and only #1 jerk car of all time, the Porsche Cayenne. Normally I ‘like’ Porsches, as in, I do not automatically despise owners of these cars and the cars themselves can be driven daily. There can be an argument made for ownership of a Porsche. SUV’s can be similarly defended. They both have their purposes. But some mad Germans decided to combine the two into a singular offensive automobile. Not only do you get the distinction of driving an incredibly expensive and impractical automobile, but it’s enormous, devours fuel and isn’t particularly good looking. These traits in and of themselves are not enough to make me hate the Cayenne, but it is the sort of people who seek to own a vehicle like this that do. I know several BMW drivers – not at all bad people. I even know a few Mercedes owners – again, nice and wonderful people. But I have had the personal opportunity to become familiar with a proud Cayenne papa and I was not at all surprised to learn what he chose for his personal automobile. The ‘reasons’ for buying the car were probably more absurd than the owner himself. This started me down the road of disliking this car. As I drove, I started to notice more of them on the road, and I stared intently, wondering - is it him?? So far it hasn’t been, but the particular attention I paid caused me to notice how badly these people behave on the road. Racing ahead, tailgating, cutting people off, honking in traffic, parking illegally. Every single one I see has a dweeb behind the wheel. Last night, walking to the train station, a car ran a red light and screeched to a halt in the middle of a crosswalk, not 5 feet from where a group of us were walking. What kind of car was it? A Porsche Cayenne GTS. The driver flailed his hands menacingly at the rush hour traffic. Really? Downtown Boston at 4:55PM? You’re going to part the cars like Moses, just by waving your hands? Maybe you can rev the engine to scare the peons blocking the way. You’re the Jerk Store’s #1 all time best seller there, Mr. Cayenne owner.
Body of Lies marked something of a landmark for M and me. True it was not normally the kind of movie that I could get M to go see, but more than that it was a sort of double date. I’m 31, can I use terms like double date? We watched the movie and went to dinner afterwards with another couple, which turned out to be quite nice. Living where we do has a certain disadvantage of not really being anywhere close to anyone we know. Sure we are friendly with some of the neighbors, but for the most part we leave everyone alone and vice versa. Although we’re proximally close, it’s not a dorm, we don’t have anyone knocking on the door to ask for a blender or band-aids. Our social options have been limited to parties other people throw or convincing people to come out and visit, which is harder than you would imagine. Maybe I smell bad? Recently one of M’s friends moved somewhat closer to our corner of the world and it became much easier to meet up with people because we didn’t have to drive all the way into Boston every time. They have some similar interests and so far we’ve had two outings, the movie and a karaoke-less karaoke night. Maybe down the road we’ll be those friends that the kids make fun of? Parental friends were always kind of strange to me – why did parents need friends when they had these wonderful kids to entertain them? Why did the kids get sent to bed when the friends were over? Why was there always so much laughing ? There wasn’t so much laughing with the kids around… Well now I have friends with kids and hear the stories. Parents need friends, even if it’s to come over for the BBQ or to lose in waffle ball to your 8 year old prodigy. Maybe someday…
But not anytime soon! M and I are going on another trip. This time we’re going to Germany and Austria. I have been told that Christmas to Germans is like Mardi Gras to college students, so I am looking forward to seeing drunken Santa’s helpers and reindeer everywhere. Maybe it’s not quite that way, but it makes the plane rides easier. I did take a year of college German, but most of that was diluted by Jagermeister and Rumple Minze at the time, so any language skills will be shaky at best. So that now will be: Paris, Italy, Greece and Germany (with Spain coming in spring ’09) – I know what you’re thinking. Who is this guy ranting about Porsches when he and the missus are traveling around the world? I hear it from people at work, the ‘what recession?’ jokes, the ‘must be nice with no kids’ remarks. Someone insinuated we have shoeboxes boxes of gold next to our money bin. That’s not the case. M spends exactly 82% of her spare time searching for travel deals. (The other 17% is spent on Anthropologie.com and 1% is spent on scratching my back, in case you were curious) I get a travel proposal sent my way every 4 days and 99% of the time I’m that math-hating moron on ‘Deal or No Deal’, dancing shouting NO DEAL while the crowd erupts and holding out for something cheaper or more exotic, forcing M deeper and darker into the world of airfare searches and hotel availability. Only when I know that either I am going to face physical harm or the deal is too good to pass up do I push that button and hand over the Amex. I have been fortunate (depending on how you look at it) to have traveled quite a bit for work and this goosed up my airline and hotel points (FREE STUFF). The Spain trip will devour the last of those points. Subsequent trips will most likely consist of sleeping in our car or taking the Fung-Wah or Casino buses to the beautiful suburbs of Newark or Parsippany. I bring my lunch to work every day, binge on free coffee from work, keep the house at a snuggly 55 degrees, and I am currently a running joke with my family for refusing the calypso call of HD cable (or cable at all). I even give myself my own haircuts. So easy there, Monks need vacations too.