Christmas Came Early

Yesterday, while M and I were fighting through the barbarian hordes at the local Target, I had a strange sense of calmness. This serenity was not brought about any new tea I had been drinking or some meditation course I started, but rather because I had a new toy that I was excited to try out. No, I didn't get that flatscreen TV, PS3, 65 Shelby Cobra or Breitling Superocean Heritage (you listening, Santa?), but rather a snow rake. What is a snow rake, you ask? It's 14 feet of telescoping mayhem, made in New Hampshire and designed to scrape the snow off your roof. We had some ice dams last year that damaged the neighbor's condo and this year I don't want any funny business. M was kind enough to call ahead to the local Home Depot and reserve one for us. I was worried that our roof was too tall to use a snow rake on. The pictures online always showed a lower roof as the example, but when we picked it up, I was not disappointed.

So that's the rake. He's pretty ferocious. I was able to scrape a good 18 inches from the gutter and not kill myself in the process. I am officially an old b*stard now that I get excited about snow removal tools.

Here's the scene that greeted us today before I went out to clean the cars. The wind whipped the snow into some crazy-type drifts on the cars. M's car had the best high top fade I'd seen since the days of Kid N Play and Big Daddy Kane.

M and I also did all the Christmas wrapping yesterday, hence the need to go to Target. We tried to cheap it up and went to a Christmas Tree Shop the night earlier and we scored a ton of wrapping paper, but it turns out what we got was not the kind that's any good for wrapping (some of it was see-through. Seriously?) and not all that useful. So we wandered off to the Target to face the folks who were either stocking up for the coming snowpocalyse or Christmas shopping laggards. We got the paper and largely survived. Damn you Christmas Tree Shops. Well, not completely - you did have one of the more magical wrapping tools ever made. I will not spoil the surprise here though. Now that I am married and have family members expanding their own families through a variety of means, my Christmas list is growing like never before. I guess this is a none-too-subtle way of saying that the days of B going crazy for his peeps are over. Lord Bountiful has too many gifts to buy. Nobody's getting scratch tickets or secondhand rollerblades, but it's good stuff nonetheless.

Everybody's got one

AN An excuse, that is. Here's a meager list of them for why I haven't been posting:

II h I haven’t been home. I now spend a lot of time in Toronto. It’s not quite as cold as I had been led to believe. There are some funny accents, but nothing worse than what I hear on the train every day when I’m home. It’s a big international city with major sports teams, world famous landmarks and a long history. But they lack a food specialty. No one has a single signature restaurant to recommend. I’ve had some over the top burgers and a solid steak or two, but that’s about it. If you’re going there, eat before you go. When I wasn’t in Toronto, I was in Peurto Rico. That was ridiculously nice. Apparently I suggested going there after M and I got back from Spain. We had been rained/snowed on for a few of the previous trips and we wanted a hot sunny place. I was going to recommend Honduras, but then they had a military coup. Mexico’s gangs were killing everyone in sight, we’d already been on a cruise, so why not a pseudo-state that used the dollar and has direct flights from Boston? A week away from work, right before the winter sets in was a great idea. Unlike Toronto, PR has plenty of national dishes. They’re all fried, come with beans, rice and plantains and are delicious. Car rentals are cheap and the cars are exceptionally crappy so you don’t have to worry about denting them. The beaches were empty to the point that if we saw another person – anywhere in eyesight – we considered moving because the beach was too crowded. I wish I didn’t sound like a giant tool there, but it’s true. San Juan has some wild folks, though. Loud, bold, gold encrusted, flag-waving, craziness. M and I boned up on our reggaeton music before we left just so we’d have a hope of fitting in. Yeahhhh right. When I wasn’t up North or down South, I was in Connecticut wooing my bride for her birthday. I remembered M enjoyed tudor-style architecture and came across a B&B in a giant old Tudor mansion. I called to make a reservation and had a little difficulty understanding the innkeeper, but I was distracted and let it slide. Then when I called to confirm I realized there was something wrong with this fella. I had a really hard time understanding him. I kept picturing a chimp attack-style disfigurement that prevented him from speaking, but I kept this fear away from M, lest she start to have doubts. I mean, an innkeeper is the perfect job for a horribly disfigured person – you’re self employed, your work comes to you, you stay inside all day. I’m not being cruel. When a relatively normal man answered the door you could have heard my relief. A speech impediment is no big deal. Missing faces, sad to say, are an impediment to romantic weekends. In addition to all this there were multiple Thanksgivings, a multi course kosher/vegetarian/gluten Halloween dinner for 12 that actually tasted good and some other good stuff that I am sure I am forgetting.

I’m scared. Look at this mask M and I got in PR:

Add this to the masks we got in Venice and you’ve got a lifetime of terror hanging on the walls of only one room.

I' I’m glad we don’t have kids yet because the therapy bills would already be running. No eyes, unchanging expressions, surreal characters. I got spooked by a few weird pictures on the wall of my grandmother’s apartment. Imagine what these will do to a 3 year old! I just might put one on and chase a youngin around if I get the chance. Put another way though, and it seems like a less murderous version of trophy hunting. Back in the day a man such as myself would have spent a vacation shooting rare animals to make ashtrays, umbrella stands, combs and brush handles from their various appendages. Then I’d hang their heads in my study and swirl brandy in a cloud of cigar smoke while the ladies retired to the conservatory to gossip. There I’d regale my male guests with how I stalked and mortally wounded the great beast and twist my moustache with delight afterwards. Ah the good old days.

I I’m too busy reading. After my post about the great book swap, I realized my hypocrisy about attending a book festival and not being in the middle of an actual book. I took the opportunity of our trip to PR to start reading again. So far it’s been ‘Stupid White Men’ by Michael Moore who happens to be one of what he describes. I’m all for making fun of Dick Cheney, but Moore is advocating borderline anarchy. ‘The Cider House Rules’ by John Irving was one I had been putting off for a while. First of all it was huge – almost 700 pages. Second of all, I still had memories of a sappy Tobey Maguire movie trailer in my head, replete with the heavy voice over and inspirational music and old-timey clothes. I couldn’t imagine this was worth 700 pages, but it was and then some. John Irving writes a damn fine book. ‘The Road’ by Cormac Macarthy was an airport purchase. Cider was getting a little low, so I needed something to top off my tank and this looked suitably short. Plus there’s the movie with Viggo Mortensen (hopefully with less of Viggo’s viggo and more apocalypse horror) out that looks interesting. En route to Boston, the boozed up bunch behind me asked what I thought of the book, which I was really enjoying. I could tell this person didn’t do a lot of book-learnin’ and was fishing for someone to commiserate on her lack o’ unnerstannin of this here book. So I hedged and asked her opinion and sure enough, she’d quit halfway though. I give her credit for trying though. In her defense it was utterly lacking in transitions, names, explanations and continuity. And there was lots of cannibalism. Maybe it was all the human-hunting that put her off? ‘The Last Don’ by Mario Puzo was really frickin good. I carried this book around everywhere I went while I was reading it. Every chance I got , I was there in Vegas comping whales or in Hollywood bedding starlets or in the Bronx giving orders to take out people in the way of the Family. It was all old-school with that vaguely inappropriate accent that old guys speak with. You know, the one where you know they’re capable of saying something so outrageous and politically incorrect that you almost goad them into it because they grew up in another era and can’t help it, just so you can hear how the olden days were.

G G.I. Joe ate my brain. My god was this movie horrible. I love bad action movies. Transformers gave me goose bumps. Armageddon makes me cry. Fast and Furious and XXX made Vin Diesel a legitimate actor in my eyes. But G.I. Joe was just an inexcusable steaming pile of crap. I just deleted 15 sentences I wrote about everything I found wrong with it. Let’s just say I was embarrassed to be seen watching it. ‘The Cooler’ on the other hand was pretty slick. Alec Baldwin needs to be in more stuff. I was sad to see he ‘retired’ this week. Let’s hope this is a boxing champ style retirement and not a real retirement. I can’t get enough of Alec Baldwin making threats in his best monologue snarl. Good stuff. Maria Bello on the other hand – yikes. Between ‘A History of Violence’ and ‘The Cooler’ she’s got a solid 5 minutes of screen time of almost hard-core nudey footage going on. These flicks need a warning on them. Wait.. they do. I just ignore them. Maybe I shouldn’t be watching on the train… ‘House of Games’ – David Mamet’s directorial debut. The man can write the crap out of a screenplay, but this directorial effort was a little shaky. I think it was the actresses’ fault because I haven’t seen her in anything before or since. Big props for young Joe Mantegna and JT Walsh as con men. Since his death a while back, I had forgotten J.T. Walsh died in almost every movie he’s been in, but you can check it out. He’s one of those actors who dies in every movie he’s cast in. Gary Busey is another. Unfortunately neither of them makes movies anymore so we are denied this thrill. ‘Blood Simple’ is the scarily enjoyable original Coen Brothers’ film. These two are in my top 3 favorite director list, along with Michael Mann and Martin Scorcese and this film has all their hallmarks.

I’ve been searching for music. No Kanye this time. Have you ever been watching something and heard a cool snippet of something and wished you knew what it was. I know there’s an ‘app for that’, but how often do you have your Iphone open and ready to fire up that app that tracks down music for you? That’s insane. By the time the stupid phone decides it wants to open and launch your app, that song will be long gone. I was watching Bad Boys 2 the other day and there’s a song that gets played every time Johnny Tapia comes on the screen. It’s not quite Crockett’s Theme, but it’s close. It’s a sort of reggaeton/cubano hip-hop jam. But I don’t speak Spanish so I have no idea what they’re saying. It’s not on the soundtrack, because the good music is rarely on the official soundtrack. I had to scour Youtube looking for the scene and fortunately there’s a whole world of people who agree at the swaggertasticness of this bit of music. Of course ITunes doesn’t have it. If I wanted to download the latest Creed crap I’m sure they’d have it, but I think the last 5 times I went to ITunes looking for something they had it twice and flawlessly let me down the other 3. Not to be outdone, I scoured the flearidden underbelly of the series of tubes and found it. No pirate bay or bittorrent though. All legit here.

200

According to the nattily attired center panelist at the ‘Thrillers and Killers’ discussion, somewhere around 200 people make a full time living as writers of novels. 200! In the united States, that’s less than a 1 in a million shot. It’s one of those figures that sounds so incredible that it must be true. He didn’t back it up with anything approaching fact or citation, but it passes my sniff test. I am somewhat acquainted with a man who has published several books. One was even turned into a major motion picture. He does not smoke cigars on his yacht in St Tropez. He works a regular job and this book thing probably gets him a nice check every once in a while. By the way ‘Thrillers and Killers’ was a session at the 1^st Annual Boston Book Festival that M and I attended last weekend. This particular gathering matched spy/thriller novelists with a terrorism expert from Harvard. M and I went to a few other sessions, which were overwhelmingly crowded. Maybe it was rain, maybe Boston is a book-learnin type of place. I know I saw a Ken Burns groupie or two (we missed his talk due to overwhelming crowds). The sessions all had their own themes, but for the most part it seemed like the discussion always went back to what it was like to be a writer and to describe each particular writers’ creative process. It seems that professional writing is not an easy thing, despite what I had secretly, deep down believed. I was a somewhat talented ‘english person’ back in the day. I went to schools where teachers saw I could read harder books and they sent me to the big kids’ section on the library. I read a lot of challenging books and I think I did a decent job of regurgitating what I read. Book reports were never something I dreaded. I was given much praise and encouragement (not from 10^th grade Mr. McCarthy though) and the cycle repeated itself. I got nice standardized test scores, got the awards, etc, and off to college I went. In hindsight choosing majors and classes by what time they were scheduled was probably not the best path, but it worked. I took a lot more English classes, albeit of the analytical, not the creative variety. Lots of poetry and dusty Milton ensued. Graduation approached and various older people started asking me if I was going to be an English teacher when school was over. Hell no, I was going to be an investment banker! (I think I covered this somewhere else). Or at least get something to pay the bills while I wrote by manuscript/novel/manifesto. I knew a movie script was 120 pages long – how hard could that be? I made a few hesitant stabs at it and realized I have no mind for dialogue. There’s something else I have no appetite for – revisions. Mr. McCarthy had a real thing for rewrites. He never graded a paper the first time it was turned in. He’d make some notes, hand it back and give you a second chance. What? No way was I doing that again! My first shot was good enough. So I’d hand that sucker right back at him and take my grade. The twist was that you could do this indefinitely. If you didn’t like your C, you could keep rewriting it until it was an A. I couldn’t be bothered. Apparently rewrites and revisions are quite commonplace in the professional writing world. After I’d write a few scenes down, I’d take a look at them and realize how bad they were, but the idea of re-doing all that work was too much. Maybe movies weren’t for me. Books are where I’ll make my fortune. I’m constantly eavesdropping on people, analyzing their situation, noticing interactions – all . with a running dialogue in my mind, connecting them in a grand plot or saving good interactions for scenes the next day or whenever I feel like it. Writing a book would be easy. Or at least, writing a few good scenes would be easy. Once I got a some killer scenes, the plot would take care of itself. I tried that – there are more than a few aborted novels filled with ultra macho action and violence tucked away on every laptop I’ve ever handed over to the IT guys. I really don’t care if anyone reads them. I usually run out of steam after the first 800 words or so. Then the idea of re-writing it? No freakin way. You may notice how long some of these blog posts are and realize they are way past 800 words – that’s dumb luck. And while I may rewrite a sentence or two or change a word, there is consistently zero rewriting done. So back to the 200. Who are these people? I saw three of them on this panel. One of them was a Yale law Professor – sounded like he had a decent day job. One had been recruited to work at the CIA at a young age but realized it wasn’t all spies and guns. The third guy, spouting statistics, seemed to be the only ‘normal’ guy, i.e. not already endowed with super skills/intelligence/determination that would correspond well to crafting a page-turning novel. Dan Brown? John Grisham? Dean Koontz? I know I make fun of these guys, but if that 200 number is correct, these guys are more obscure talents than professional basketball players. They’re rarer than billionaires (and if you’re JK Rowling, you’re both). Luck seems to have little to do with this. I’ve read business case studies that analyzed thousands of years of man-days worked by all sorts of business executives. These studies then asked the executives why they made certain decisions and what resulted from these. The end result was basically luck. You can’t ask someone who flipped a coin on heads 10 times in a row how they did it, nor, so it seems, can you ask many executives what the secret to their success is, since it’s all conjecture and mostly luck. None of the authors had similar stories. Some outlined their arcs, others waded in with the writing. It seems the secret to writing a bestselling novel is to somehow capture the attention of a good agent and editor and publisher who can then propel your book to the most shelves and hope lots of people buy them. Of course the internet makes this all the more difficult. Anyone can publish a book these days. Anyone can fling opinions around in an article and get noticed. Very few get paid and ever fewer make all their money from it. I wonder if this 200 ever get together like the Spartans from 300 and howl and chant to fire themselves up and revel in their virtuosity. That’s probably what these book fairs are, actually. Get a bunch of authors together, let them measure each other up and decide who’s got the most best sellers, who’s a hack, who’s a genius. Wave around a few glasses of Cabernet and quote philosophers and try to look profound. Sounds like fun. Doesn’t mean I don’t have a novel in me, but it definitely means I can’t quit my day job.

slacker

Wow. What a slacker. This guy needs to update his blog soon or people will forget he's there.. Yes I am aware. I'll get something posted here soon.

How low can you go?

Back in the day there was a time when I was known to pull off some pretty low moves when I had a lot of free time to myself? Eat mac n cheese for breakfast out of the pot, wearing boxers, sitting on the couch? Check. Stay up all night playing Grand Theft Auto and go to work the next day? Check. Spend an entire day in a movie theater, watching back to back to back movies? Check. Last night, however, was a new low. M was out of town for a bachelorette party. I had tried to play golf earlier in the day and got kicked off the course because it was raining too much (I got a rain check). Wet and bored, I went up to visit brother M and his wife M and baby A. The in-laws were visiting and I was more of an intruder, but it was good to see everyone. Mainly I was trying to kill some time before 8:30, which was the kickoff of the USC/Ohio State game. I like the pro game a little more, but it’s a narrow gap. The energy of the college game is better and the better athletes stand out more, so you see more exciting plays. This was supposed to be a big one. On my way home, I listened to the thrilling Michigan/Notre Dame finish. Once home, I burst through the door, made myself a decent dinner (no mac n cheese in a pot) and headed upstairs to settle in. I started flipping through the channels and started to get a little nervous. No pre-game shows, no recaps of the days games. There was plenty of crap though. Simpsons reruns, Jeopardy, Access Hollywood and The Insider. Ok, maybe it’s on at 8, I thought. 8 came and went and the shows changed, but not for the better. Now I had ‘Law and Order: SVU’ (law and order is still on?), COPS (normally this would be fine, but I’d been waiting to see this game all day), Women’s Tennis (this turned out to be pretty exciting, as I just found out) and Nascar. I’m not going to go on a Nascar tirade here. I sort of like Nascar, It’s somewhere between hockey and basketball but below football, MMA and baseball in my decision tree of ‘will I watch this random sporting event?’. However, on this occasion, it filled me more or less with rage. Golf and Nascar have seasons that are WAAAAY too long, stretching from February-November, ending with interminable and mind boggling points/playoff/shootout (i.e. we can’t have a tournament, so we invented this to artificially generate excitement and try to have a champion of sorts). So this time of year is filled with pseudo-important events that everyone knows don’t mean anything, except to the sponsors who got duped into paying huge amounts of money on the premise that if you tell someone this is important, they will believe it (sorry that was sort of a rant). So there was a race on instead. That would only mean that the football game was on ESPN (the race was on ABC, parent of ESPN – if it weren’t on ESPN, then NBC and CBS should be fired for ignoring this game). This posed a problem – I don’t have cable. No worries, I’ll see if it’s online. It was on something called ESPN 360 – all I had to do was plug in some information about my ISP and we’d be good to go. Except my world-loser cable/isp company doesn’t get along ESPN. So no dice there. I tried telling ESPN 360 that I had a different ISP – no luck. It ws almost 8:30, I could see updates from the game as they were happening online. This was definitely not good. Then I remembered that we sort of get VH-1. I knew my TV had some tuning capabilities, so I looked up what channel ESPN was and went there – static. But I started playing with the tuner and I sort of got a signal I could see the score at the bottom, I could see players when the camera went close up, but the screen was really washed out and the sound was unbearable. Brent Musberger’s dulcet tones were scrambled like he’s been smoking Pall Malls for the last 60 years. Then things got really dark. No, literally. I turned off the lights. Maybe if it were darker, the contrast of the scrambled static with the dark room would make things stand out more. Sitting in a dark room, by myself, watching a static filled screen and believing I was seeing things… I think they made a movie about this. The irony and patheticness of the situation was not lost on me. Hey, at least I had clothes on. There was a time when I figured out that if you flipped back and forth fast enough between certain channels on the cable box, you could get the box to freeze for a few minutes and you’d get a salacious, albeit muted and somewhat shaky piece of cinematography that was particularly interesting to the teenage male, but I digress. Sitting watching static was not a noble end to a day that had thus far been relatively disappointing. I hadn’t really explored the online solution to this adequately. I know that you really can get anything you want online, provided you know where to look. It only took me a few minutes but sure enough, by 8:50, I was watching an ESPN HD broadcast from the LA area on my laptop, wirelessly, lounging on my couch. EPIC EPIC EPIC WIN. So much winsauce I was bouncing like a kid on Christmas. There I sat, until midnight, hoping the stream didn’t go down. I saw all the big plays, all the highlights. I love the internet. Last night, in my mind, the full potential of the internet was realized. Thank you DARPA nerds, thank you Al Gore, thank you anarchist hacker/freedom fight , whoever you are. And yes, it’s 10:50 and I’ve been watching ESPN’s Sunday football broadcast for an hour already. Life is good.

The Red Whale

Add this to the list of things I didn't know I wanted until I had it. M and I found this creature down in Hyannis this weekend. That's a Queen-size headboard beneath him, so he's not small. I think he's supposed to hang as a sign or weathervane. For now he's in the bedroom.

Fantasy (and real) football season is here. My teams are drafted. Now all that's left is to wait for the money to flow in. I'll spare you any long winded analysis. All I can say is that I'm excited.

The big thing bothering me today is my alarming proclivity towards fantastically crappy music. It seems that almost every time I hear a song and think "hey, this is different, I kind of like it" and then proceed to look it up, it's by someone I can't stand or admit to liking. Case in point Kanye West and Miley Cyrus. I've fallen so low as to purchase two Kanye songs on itunes, affirming his BS and giving him my hard earned cash. 32 year old men do not buy Miley Cyrus songs though. I will have to stick to Youtube for while until the songs are no longer interesting to me.

Growing older, growing up

Well kiddies, it was Big B’s birthday recently and he took a trip with his little lady up to the green mountain state. Since it’s a little bit of a pain to tote around wrapped gifts, we opened them a few days early and went up sans gifts. The gift for the actual day was a round of golf at the #1 rated course in all of Vermont. I think I did fairly well, despite stumbling out of the gate. I’d like a chance to play it again if only because I’d make sure I practiced a little before the actual tee time. The rest of the trip was excellent, with a fly fishing lesson and some hiking mixed in there. M and I were younger than most of the other people we saw (again) and while we lacked a Range Rover, we did have a Subaru, which lent us some serious Vermont street cred. I think we will definitely be back at some point. After we got back, I received a most excellent gift from M’s family – a Blu-Ray DVD player. Now I know I might have boasted earlier here about not having cable or electricity or something along those lines. The TV we own is 10 years old and was the first big thing I bought with a credit card, which coincidentally was also my first brush with monthly payments that I didn’t enjoy paying and other various scary financial landmines I tiptoes around before the millennium. I am admittedly envious of even luddite family members with high-def and surround sound setups. The thing is, we really needed a DVD player. Since the dvd player we moved to the house with broke, we had been using a Playstation2 as a dvd player. That is, until the controller broke and we were unable to use it. We were really in the dark ages. We even bought a puzzle in Vermont so we’d have something to do when we got back home. (The puzzle is a work in progress). So now we have a Blu-Ray player and an old school TV. Someone pointed out to me that in the past, I might have freaked out about a gift like that. There was a stage in my life where any gift that required me to do something was immediately a crapola gift. Even worse, it would provoke an almost angry response. I liked having no stuff, being able to pack up and go in a moment’s notice. Not that I had any reason to, but anything that required assembly or transport was not likely to make it with me on my next move. So here was a gift that would most likely necessitate a new TV purchase. I say most likely because what’s the point of having this super high def player with a low def TV? And if you get the nice TV, why watch bad programming when there’s HD programming out there, which means… a cable package? I’m not sure about that yet. Until they stop broadcasting NFL games on the old fuzzy pixels, I don’t know if we need to switch. The point is, I got older and I got a gift that might at one time riled me up a bit, but this was a nice surprise. We’ve scoped out a few new TV’s but until the old one has an ‘accident’ I don’t know if there’s a need just yet.

Are you ready?

For some footballllll!!! yeah the Patriots were on last night. Granted, it was only a preseason game, but it's good to see the season starting again. Unfortunately, this means summer is coming to an end. It's taken a solid 11 years since I stopped having a summer vacation period to realize that the school break for summer isn't really that long. I remember lazing about for what seemed like months and then begrudgingly heading back to see friends that had suddently gotten huge and were full of stories of summer adventures. Now? This summer has flown by. I don't see why kids need a whole new 'back to school' wardrobe for 10 weeks off. The more I think about it, summer vacation is ridiculous. I understand the old school famrers needed their hands to help with the crops, but I see a lot of tubby non-farmers wandering around, forgetting what they learned and trying to look tough. I'm sorry in advance, but M and I have some un-fun plans for our summer kids. Tough nuts sonny.

Summer also means a little bit of cooking outdoors and enjoying the longer days. It stopped raining for the last part of July and first part of August, and while I haven't been able to do any super-long smoke cooking, I have done some nice burgers, corn, and even a steak or two. There's still plenty of time.

Golf - Last weekend I got to play at the local course and hit them pretty well. I got to play with a 14 year old who's dad spent $350 for the summer so he could drop this kid off in the morning and pick him up at night. He played at least 18 holes, sometimes 36 holes a day. This is a great idea! This is a pretty cheap way to ditch the kid for the day, and if they get great at golf, college is paid for. If they're really good, you can cash out the 401k and get a boat and start collecting an allowance. Or something like that. Anyway, this kid was good. Not quite pro material, but he has some growing to do. When I got home, M was not interested in dinner, so I fended for myself. I have this bag of chipotle peppers that I try to incorporate into meals without burning M's mouth out. They have a nice smoky flavor and a little bit of heat. They'd have more heat, but I usually cut out the seeds and ribs since that's where all the heat is. Right in the middle of my cooking, I started to feel a slight burning sensation around my groin area. It started like an itch or something, but gradually gained intensity, finally making it hard to move or breathe. I was standing in the kitchen, food on the stove, and I wanted to tear my clothes off and hose myself down. I'm not a sailor. I don't frequent houses of ill repute. What's with the sudden fire down below? Turns out at some point in the middle of my cooking, I had to use the bathroom. Who thinks to wash their hands BEFORE they go in there? If you're cutting hot peppers, maybe that's a good idea? I wasn't going to touch my eyes or nose, I had enough sense for that. The peppers were a good 20 minutes beforethe bathroom. Who knew they carried on for so long?About 30 minutes later things returned to normal. Not the best way to enjoy your dinner, but it was not dull.

Nuts, Flowers and a Crazy Pink Lady

HowdareyouignoremewhodoyouthinkyouareLookatmewhenIamtalkingIcannotbeleiveblahblahblah!!!! This is what I heard coming from a car while I was walking through the commuter rail parking lot this morning. As the car got closer, the ranting got louder. People turned and looked. I saw a green Ford Explorer with an indifferent looking man driving and the screamer in a pink shirt sitting next to him. The sound went quiet as I walked away and then got louder as the truck pulled up and let this individual out. She seemed normal enough, but clearly had some anger issues. I don’t know if the guy deserved it or not, but it made my day? Why? Because I knew, whatever else happened, my day was starting better than his was and would probably end better as well. So thank you, O lady in pink, for making my morning a little brighter with your howl at the moon insanity.

I’ve been sort of busy lately. With all my recent book purchases, I started to go back to olden forms of entertainment. So far my selections merit about a B-minus. I have another monster sitting in my bag that I’ve been a little unwilling to start. I haven’t read this much consecutively in a long time, at least since I was being forced to read for school or something. There have been some big family doings as well. Not so much for M and myself, but the extended family counts, too. I am an uncle to a baby girl now. M and I went to visit her and the happy parents last weekend. Seems at this stage it’s a lot of sleeping, eating, crying and diaper changing. Not a bad existence. M and I also headed out to Martha’s Vineyard for the passing of her Grandmother. This of course stirred up feelings about the beginning / end circle of life thing. I guess this is what happens when you’re 30-plus. In another ten years these events will happen more often until I freak out and buy a morotcycle or 1965 Shelby Cobra to soothe my anxieties.

This picture here is of my new bags of nuts. Sick of paying ridiculous per pound prices, even at Trader Joe’s, I went in on a wholesale bundle with a guy here at work. That’s 10 lbs of almonds you’re looking at. I’ve been happily munching them for a few weeks now.

So far it’s been a pretty bad summer for the grill. An extraordinarily wet June and July made extended cookout sessions impossible. We’ve had some nice weekends here and there, but we’ve also been out and about a little bit. The rain has had some upside, though. The plants we put in are growing like crazy. I don’t do anything more than knock bugs off them and sprinkle some miracle-gro on things occasionally and check out these flowers. The front of the condo smells like a florist shop. The added bonus is that since we don’t get the same sun as other people, our flowers are just blooming now, and everyone else’s are long shed and gone. We received a basil plant as a gift not so long ago and it has to be 30 inches tall at this point. We’ve been trying to eat as much basil as possible and this thing only grows faster. Can’t complain about that.

Pick a car, any car

The Answer is:

Isuzu Truck Needs New Head Gasket.Stick Shift Nice lil truck gets you around from place to plase… 1984 Mazda RX7 - NO TITLE ,CAR IS RUNNING ,IT WAS GIVE IT TO ME AS PART OF DEBT FOR MY MECHANIC ,STANDARD TRANSMISSION NO OIL LEAKS GOOD FOR PARTS … ’87 Lincoln Town Car - Vehicle does have some appearance blemishes such as fading paint, and a few dings here and there. No major cosmectic damage. In good shape for a 87. The final thing that I can think of is that the driver side door does not open from the outside…

The question is: What kind of car can you get in Las Vegas for under a thousand bucks?

These are real life ads from Las Vegas Craigslist. There are many, many more. Shady vans, rusty pickups, leaky convertibles, ‘project cars’ and econoboxes. Come one, come all. Step right up and get them while they’re hot.

Why am I looking at used car ads on Craigslist? We’re considering a driving tour of the American West. Rental car companies no hablas one-way rentals of several thousand miles. Well, they do, but they make it several thousand dollars worth of unpleasant. I considered putting the Subie on a truck and basically mailing it to Las Vegas and then mailing it back from Wyoming. That’s only going to cost a couple thousand, but there aren’t any guarantees about when it will show up, only vague 2 day windows. I’m not too excited about that. In my brainstorm, I remembered some friends from Germany who wanted to do a cross country drive. They bought a beater station wagon and cruised all over the place and ditched it when they got to the west coast. This sounded like a plan to me. Buy a hunk of junk in Vegas (700-1000), register and insure it (~300), drive it for two weeks and then sell it for gas money in Wyoming.. or something like that. Or even drive it to a junkyard and donate it. Who cares what you do with it? These are all possibilities.

Another possibility is breaking down in the middle of the June desert in nowhere Utah and waiting for a part for your 1984 Mazda to appear. While I’m not crazy about that idea, I have to admit it can (and probably would) happen. I’ve been in enough high mileage used car specials to know that the end is always near with these things. Not sure if I’m ready to get back on that horse just yet…

Books

When I was in elementary school, we used to get these flyers. They were cheapo newsprint in bright colors. It was a book catalogue for kids. It was broken up by genre or interest. It was pseudo mail order. You gave your money to the teacher, who placed the order. A few weeks later, the books were distributed. I was never deprived of books. Yard sales were gold mines of ‘choose your own adventure’, ‘encyclopedia brown’, the golden book encyclopedia, super facts, and other classics. I had more books than I could ever read. But the marketing worked on me. I yearned to get the books advertised in the flyer. I wanted a Garfield book. I wanted an action book. Eventually, sometime around 4th grade, I begged and wheedled enough to get a few books’ worth of cash out of mom and dad and I placed my order. A few weeks later I opened up my books and got a huge dose of disappointment. Garfield wasn’t funny. The ‘action’ book was short and particularly devoid of action. I’d been duped by marketing and the burn still shows scars. For the 4th of July, M and I headed down to the Cape for some Sun and RnR, and maybe get a book or two. The local library does an annual book sale where they give away the previous years’ donations. I shouldn’t say give away, because money changes hands, but it’s basically giving the books away. Last time we were there it was held in a small 2 floor building. It was raining, humid and amazingly crowded. Lusty bookworms stacked armloads of pulp mysteries and nebbish old men pored over technical manuals from 30 years ago. It was a madhouse. I dreaded going back. This year, however, it was outdoors, under tents and sun. There was plenty of room and the old book mildew stench passed with each breezy gust. The tables are loosely sorted by genre or paperback/hardcover. As I pored over the titles, it dawned on me. The flyers from 4th grade. They must still exist somewhere, because these tables were covered in all the same questionable books, albeit geared towards adults. I cannot count the number of books that I loved that I have re-read. Why? Because I never do it. I can, however remember how many books I have loved that I tossed away: zero. So what books are tossed away, literary driftwood to wash ashore in a new shelf and get new life? From the looks of it, every John Grisham book ever written. Ditto Tom Clancy, Jonathan Kellerman, Dick Francis, Clive Cussler and Michael Crichton. I can’t say I’m surprised. I admit, The Firm was decent. A new author, a new genre, a great beach read. Then I read his next book, it was also about a well intentioned lawyer in a bind, with no one to trust, escaping by his wits. The next book seemed like ti was headed that way, and I stopped. Tom Clancy –favorite author of my young adulthood. Writing about the big bad Russians, dashing CIA agents and shady covert operatives. 900 page monsters jammed with ‘sensitive’ information on the latest weapons and tactics. He made spycraft seem interesting. The he started writing about the president shooting down missiles and blowing up the superbowl… his grasp of reality gave way to the need to sell books and I can tell people lost interest. The tables were filled with most of his later works. Fans of early Jack Ryan suckered into buying co-authored Op-center novelettes and snoozy China what-if scenarios. Jonathan Kellerman and Clive Cussler, I can’t say much here. Never read anything by you. Dick Francis supposedly writes ‘funny’ detective stories, always centered around horse racing, or so it seems by the cover art. I tried one of these once and couldn’t deal with it. Michael Crichton, R.I.P, was another great author of my youth. I remember getting Rising Sun from the pay section of the library. You actually had to rent the in-demand titles at one time, maybe you still do. Anyway, I read it in one night. Jurassic Park, Disclosure, Andromeda Strain, even Congo. Excellent. Somewhere around 1994 he lost his fastball and I sort of gave up. I did rip through State of Fear in an airport, to see if he still had it, but not really. Now I know this all sounds harsh. I’m not doing hatchet jobs on anyone here. Maybe I should be giving these guys credit for selling such an insane number of books that people are just giving them away. After all, I would much rather have a table full of my books at a used book sale than none of my books. I vent my frustration here because the books I like weren’t there, or at least as much as I had hoped. Carl Hiassen – I love these airport bookshelf staples. There were a total of three Hiassen books for sale under the tents, and I’d read both titles. I managed to find a Tom Wolfe book, a John Irving, maybe some others. I even found an older Gary Larson collection of Far Side comics. I can’t say I loved The Far Side. I will say that I love The Far Side, present tense. Ten or more years after he retired, it’s still laugh out loud funny. I never realized how sick and demented his humor was. One Gary Larson book tossed in with piles of Garfield collections. I told you that cat was never funny.

Links

Since I can't seem to write a post without ranting for ten paragraphs, I'll just throw down some links:

Ever know anyone who looks like they're smelling something bad in every picture they're in?

http://happiestpeopleever.tumblr.com/

Ever have the family member who insists on some bizarro phot setup?

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

Ever woke up and weren't sure what happened the night before? (many off color references here - you were warned)

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

From all the helpful moms out there:

http://www.postcardsfromyomomma.com/

Lastly, there is a friend of mine who has a pepper sauce company. I'm not linking directly to his site, since I don't want him to trace back and read all about my secret life saving the world.

Do a search for Bella Pepper and check it out. It's good, not tooo hot and from a local guy.

alive and kicking

Amid reports of the inevitable downfall of the printed word, I want to take a moment to call out two fine publications. It’s too little too late for these two, but I want my public support on the record. Best Life (by Men’s Health) and Conde Nast Portfolio both appear to be victims of the bad economy and the internets. Best Life was my first adult (not that kind!) magazine. I found it in the airport and it was always filled with articles about the best of everything. There were usually good, better and best options and reasons for why each was selected. It was a much more reasonable and democratic best-of than say, the Robb Report. There were health articles, money advisors and the occasional fashion advice piece. The really interesting pieces to me were about parenting. I know the best laid plans of parents usually fall apart when the tantrums start, but this was the first magazine that I’d read to cover topics like this. I was going to stockpile ideas so that when the day came, I would already be armed and sail across those perilous waters unharmed. I got Best Life for close to two years before they announced, that the issue I was holding would be my last. Bad times. This followed closely on the heels of the announcement of the closing of my newest favorite magazine, Portfolio. I am not a magnate, nor do I aspire to be. I think I would have turned my nose up at Portfolio a few years ago, but I’ve tuned my tastes a little and I started trying to read things that would make me think a little. I read my first issue on the way to Spain. Then I got another issue and heard they were closing. While the body of work I had to examine was small, I liked it very much. There were pages of minutiae and profiles of interesting people. And it covered some of the finer things in life, which I do aspire to sometimes.

It was in my last issue of Portfolio that I read about the founder and CEO of Heartland Express. He’s a self-made billionaire, goes into the office every day and still negotiates the deals. He was diagnosed with cancer too, but that hasn’t seemed to slow him down much. Why am I writing about this? I asked M this weekend if she were a self made billionaire, would she still go to work every day? My take was that if I had worked hard enough and taken the big risks to get myself into the billionaire club, I don’t think I would have a choice but to go to work every day. The sadistic drive it takes to be that successful can’t be turned off suddenly. I don’t see how the rush of sitting on your boat fills that void. I think I understand why these old timey billionaires still burn the midnight oil, long after they need to earn any more.

Which brings me to my point. Prince Harry (Henry Charles Albert David Windsor) recently spent some time in New York City. Instead of tearing up the nightclubs, he did some charity work, paid respects to various memorials and prominent figures and played a little polo. Sponsored by a champagne company and attended by the all the floppy hated people, this polo match even got some national press coverage. During the press coverage, I noticed the winning team was awarded what appeared to be watches as part of the ceremony. At first I thought, why kind of watch do you give a prince? I mean even lesser royalty is usually pretty stacked in the cash department. And even if he weren’t royalty, he’s playing polo. You know, with the horses? There are professional polo players, but I don’t think they make very much. I think it’s one of those sports where you don’t need to pay these guys very much because they don’t need to get paid. You can’t sign up for polo classes down at the local Y. You need stables of animals, caretakers, veterinarians, teachers, safety equipment and lots of open space to run around, not to mention other kids and teams to play against. I don’t recall any pickup polo games starting down at the local park. This is an already wealthy crowd. So for the guys sitting on the horses, what kind of watch DO you wear? Jaeger Le Couture made a watch specifically for polo players, one that could pivot so that the face would face down on your arm, protecting it. A nice feature to be sure, but it was not being handed out at this tournament. After some research, I found my answer… “Adding additional fire to the competitive heat of the Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Classic polo match is the delightful prize that Piaget will bestow upon the victorious team. Winners will leave the podium wearing the Piaget Polo FortyFive.. retailing for.. $11,900” Wow. Just wow. Is that what it takes to add fire to the competitive heat for these guys? I can just picture it now.. “Hey that’s a nice watch”.. “Why thank you. I won it”.. “Oh really, in like a raffle or a poker game or something?”… “Actually it was at the 2009 Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Classic polo match”… “Uhh (searches for guy with champagne tray, hopefully it’s Veuve Clicquot)”.

In other news, I’ve started watching ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ (so far it’s been great). M and I watched ‘Star Trek’ (excellent), and I also just finished ‘Frost/Nixon’ (also highly enjoyable). They have nothing in common and stand in their own spheres. I recommend them all.

Finally, the grilling season has begun. We did a little moo – a couple of fat porterhouses and some self ground steak burgers, a little oink – 6lbs of smokey spicy adobo pork tenderloin, and this weekend we commenced with the cluck – a preposterously good bbq chicken. In past posts, I wrote about sticky ribs that made me feel sorry for all the food that I ever ate afterwards, because it would never live up to those ribs. Every time I think about this chicken, I cry a little inside. I know that no one else (except M) will get to experience this chicken. I know that every chicken I make from here on out will need to be that much juicier, a little smokier, a touch sweeter, a hint spicier and a tad crispier. I made the sauce myself. Not quite the 8 hour cook from fresh tomatoes, but it took an hour or so and a whole lot of dashes and drops to get it right. I think I could get into making different sauces. Too bad they have such a high bar to reach. Even the sweet potatoes I cooked were the best I’d made with a grill. The secret was to double wrap them in foil and put them right in the fire. On Sunday when I went out to the porch to put the cover on the table, I could still smell the chicken from the night before. It made my mouth water then and I’m getting hungry writing this now. Yesterday we ate too much pizza too late in the day to have dinner. Tonight, the fridge will not survive the attempt. I’ll apologize in advance for the pictures I’m about to share. They depict acts that not everyone will be comfortable with. They are definitely NSFW (not safe for work), if only because you will need to leave work immediately and get you some chicken. Only it won’t look like this and you’ll just have to imagine something that tastes good when you eat whatever unfrozen caveman TV dinner you get your hands on to satisfy that delirious craving for smoke, sweet, salt and secret ingredients.

dirty bird...

Junior Criminal Acessory Kit

While it wasn’t the extreme weekend accomplishments of the one before, M and I managed to pack a lot these past few days. Since we’re hosting a Mother’s Day get together, we had to spruce the place up a bit. Ingredient lists needed to be made, schedules worked out. Then we had a night out on the town to King’s with some friends. Wii bowling skills aside, I stunk the place out. I did manage to throw a big nasty hook for a strike, making it easily near the top of my lifetime athletic accomplishments. We restocked the pantry and fridge with wild and exotic food from around the world. But none of this compares to the excitement of the junior criminal accessory kit I picked up Sunday afternoon. 

What is a junior criminal accessory kit? 15 feet of ¾” manila rope, duct tape, 32” of remnant 2x4, 50lbs of sand and several sections of ½” iron pipe. Why did I have this? I had my golf clubs, the chores were done, I was free to hit the range. I barely got outside before I saw the raindrops on the windshield. No golf for me. Instead I headed over to the a big box home store.

I’ve written about the monkey bars routine before. It started with some rope and pipe, then moved to steel cable. The cables spawned a medicine ball. Now we have a climbing rope, sand dummy, balance board and an-as-yet-unnamed horizontal bar thing that I will try not to permanently injure myself with. To her credit, M didn’t protest or laugh or put her foot down and say no. The B home gym is just about complete. There was an obligatory ‘should I be worried?’ and a ‘should I sleep with one eye open?’ comment, but once the plan came together I think I resolved those questions. If something terrible were to happen though, it will look bad for ol’ B here. I can see the security camera footage with my cart full being played and the credit card bill up on a projector for the court to see. This here is my defense. The strangest thing was that the cashier didn’t think twice about ringing me up. Maybe if I had a pickaxe or a wood chipper and a tarp it would have looked more suspicious? 

Back Porch = Done (I think)

Something small, simple. An item that seems too good to pass by. If you think about it, it’s the chance encounters that really get things started. M came up to me in a store one day to show me a big glass bowl and we ended up with a new downstairs bathroom. Not to be outdone, a few months back we were in a home store and we saw a cantilevered patio umbrella for sale. It was early March. Who’s buying patio furniture in March? We had a functioning set. It came with the condo. It was faded and the umbrella was home to several hornet nests, but it was good for a free set. Seating for 4 was alright, but anything more required carting out the living room stuff. Part of me wanted something better, but new gear is pricey. $35 for an umbrella wasn’t a bad start. We’d need to figure out a way to keep it in place. I had a pretty good handle on that one. Then we’d need a new table and some chairs. This umbrella didn’t come up through the middle of the table, so we needed a table with no hole. Last fall M and I were sitting outside in Florence and we noticed that the café used cast iron fencing and basic greenery to separate diners from the road and it was surprising effective. We thought something like this might work for out little space. We had all these ideas, but all we really had was an umbrella.

Over the next few months we acquired more. We’d isolated a few tables from Ikea but they weren’t being delivered to our closest store. Tired of waiting, we drove to Connecticut instead. 3 hours of driving for 10 minutes of shopping. I think we got the support system for the umbrella next. I had it in my mind that I would construct an elaborate wood base and blah blah blah. I’m not great at building things. M heard me out but didn’t jump at the idea. We needed about 100 lbs of weight. Four 37 lb pavers would do the trick. Table, pavers, umbrella – check. Chairs were on deck. Another Ikea run and another and another and we were in business. Turns out I can assemble them fairly quickly when I get into a rhythm.

By now, our living room was holding all of these acquisitions and starting to look like a Building #19 warehouse. Shredded cardboard, packing material, piles of furniture and boxes were everywhere. The railing system was less straightforward. Our first investigations of decorative fencing yielded flimsy plastic pickets and miniature stockades - nothing that would hold a planter box. After an abortive and confusing attempt at mocking up a stone wall in the garden center of a big box home improvement store, we found our fence in the building materials section. A few details about attaching said fence later and it was off to start assembly.

Construction started a week or so ago when I put together the umbrella. Turned out the pavers were a little too thick at the corners and needed a haircut. I don’t own nor did I want to rent a wet saw. I shot a quick text for help to some family members and got the great advice to use a cold chisel and a hammer. I didn’t have a cold chisel either, but I saved the steel punch that came with our granite vanity. I figured, good for breaking granite, good for breaking concrete. Michaelangelo I am not, but I shaped those pavers with a whole lot of aggression and noise. Satisfied, I went on to assemble the railings. We can’t attach the railings to the deck directly, so we decided to use some 2x6’s and make portable railing units. This will help when the condo board has the deck re-stained and when the snow comes. Each railing came with 8 lag bolts that weren’t exactly well fitted to the bases of the newell posts. I had to tighten them ¼ turn at a time with the only tool that would fit. It didn’t get me fired up to turn a wrench for a living.

We decided to do the railings last weekend because it was too cold to oil down our new furniture. That’s right, the table and chairs needs to be oiled every year. We traded indestructible aluminum for high maintenance wood! It does look a lot better and the first year’s oiling wasn’t so bad. We’ll see how I feel 7 years from now. 6 chairs and a (newly assembled) table later, I’d had my fill of oil and mineral spirits. We filled up our planter boxes, added 3 new shrubs and sold off the old furniture. All on a Saturday. Before 6pm. I even hit up the driving range afterwards. The 2x6’s looked a little pale next to the chairs, so I gave them a little George Hamilton style bronzer. It’s a little odd, but the deck stain to match the deck was only sold in gallon buckets and I needed a cup of it. We had so much time left over, we decided to fire up the grill and have some steaks. Didn’t even have to use my AK, gotta say it was a good day…

Drink up

Last night M and I had to make an unscheduled trip to Ikea. It’s not close to where we live. It rained last night. It was dark. Why did we have to go? Something we bought had an epic design fail and needed to be taken back. The trip was less than satisfying and I was frustrated when we left. Ikea didn’t do anything wrong other than be out of stock for something critical. But this misses my point. As we were leaving, I noticed someone was having a little less fun than I was. Or maybe they were having more fun? Either way, this was piled up against a column.


That’s three 16oz PBR tallboy cans, emptied of their contents. One? I can understand that. Maybe they grabbed a road soda on the way out the door? It’s a long drive to Ikea. Maybe they had a rough day. A 16 oz can is a little excessive for a casual brew, but I’ll let it slide. 2 cans? Maybe they had a really long ride there and wanted some refreshment before a long slog through the cavernous Mecca of fine Swedish home furnishings? Maybe they ate a bag of chips on the road and were really thirsty? 3 pounders? I have no idea why anyone would need 48 ounces of cheap beer all at once, at a furniture store. 48 ounces equals 4 regular 12 ounce cans. So he might be sneaky and think he only had 3 beers but he really had 4. I’ve been reluctant to go some places before, but not “I need to drink 4 beers before I go in there” reluctant. Or maybe I’m being too cynical and they fell out of his recycling bin on the way to the redemption center. He bought a carload of goodies and needed the extra space and the $.15 worth of aluminum didn’t make the cut.

Speaking of recycling, I went out to our recycling dumpster this weekend. Before I got there I could tell I was out of luck. The lid was bulging. I decided to try around the side so I could sneak some stuff in the side. As I opened the slider, something fell and hit me on the head. A big empty plastic bottle of Fleischmann’s Gin. Really? If I remember right that stuff costs about ten bucks, maybe twelve if you’re not in a college town. I know the economy is in a rough patch, but that seems a little extreme. Our condo complex isn’t a big party group, so I have to think that this is teenagers hiding evidence from their parents. I don’t care if you’re making omelettes or gallons of manhattans. Life is too short for crappy ingredients. On the other hand I should be glad it wasn’t one of those big mother Beefeater bottles crashing down on my skull. Keep the dream alive everyone - go with the plastic. For safety.

More fun stuff

Since I had so much fun with my musical suggestions from yesterday, I remembered one more that had me boppin to myself all morning. Check out Soulja Boy's 'Tell em - crank that (soulja boy)'. I think this guy was born in 1990? This song was huge right around his 17th birthday. Not bad for a young man. I hope he earned (and kept) some money from it. The song itself isn't so entertaining, but the video (find it on youtube) is a little funny. It comes with it's own little dance and everything.
Another youtube gem is Randy Pausch's last lecture. Who is Randy Pausch? Watch the lecture. It's long (over an hour), but reminded me of some of the impressive and interesting professors I met in college. It makes me grateful that I know quite a few of these types of people in my own life and keeps me motivated to meet and cultivate relationships with more of them.
If you like the 'interesting lecture' genre, check out TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conferences. They have some enthralling 20 minute presentations on everything. Captivating. I feel better just having listened to them every day.

Best Omelette Ever

Behold the deliciousness that M and I created for our Easter brunch #1 this Saturday. Eggs, potato, tomato, red peppers, basil, rosemary, garlic. All fantastic. It took a little longer than a normal omelette, but it tasted much better. Will definitley be making this again.

Unrelated to the omelette. I just watched Lonely Island's "Like a Boss" video. I wasn't familiar with Slim Thug's original version of it. I know only one is meant to be funny, but they both blow it out the box for hilarity. Big plus for extra close-ups of Slim Thug's paltinum and diamond teeth. An honorable mention needs to be made here for Flo Rida's "Low". This is another older song that I only recently became acquainted with. Funny in a different way. I even did a Spanish remix freestyle one day in Madrid that had people staring at me. I had to create a few pandora stations so they could recommend even more of this crunktastic worktime soundtrack.

Last, I had to mention a video I saw this morning of this guy on youtube who does eating challenges. If you've even seen Kobayashi, the hotdog eating champion, you can tell he doesn't eat like this all the time because he's only 140 lbs. A lot of guys think because they're big they can eat a lot and eat it quickly, which tends not to be the case. In some perverse cosmic twist, you have to be a sort of athlete to be able to eat a lot of food quickly. Case in point, this monster who tried to eat 40 Totnino Pizza rolls in 2 minutes. He's out of breath before the first ten are polished off. The rest is a little hard to beleive. He crawls to a halt at around 4 minutes and then, admitting defeat, asks for more challenges and washes it down with some Smirnoff beverage. Stay classy.

Rant and Rave – Spanish Edition

Rave - #1 has got to be Jamon. What is Jamon? It’s ham, really. But not the watery limp pink stuff from the deli, this is dark red, chewy, fatty deliciousness. Aged 12-36 months and served cured (essentially raw and mummified) with little more than some tomato and olive oil rubbed on bread, it equals amazing eats. There were museums to this stuff. Some of it was remarkably expensive (+$70/lb). Those swine eat acorns in oak forests before they become Jamon. Ruffles makes Jamon flavored chips (not as good, but interesting). It’s hard to describe what it tastes like. It was sort of nutty, and buttery with a wonderful mouth feel and an instant craving for more. Too bad it’s not available here so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Close #2 is manchego cheese. Delicious.

Rave – Tapas. It is well known that I love hors d’ourves. I can have nothing but snacks for dinner, which Tapas are, more or less.  Real Spaniards have them for snacks before they go out dancing or drinking, but we had them for dinner. Meatballs, fried cheese pillows, paella, shrimp on a stick, cod ceviche, artichokes, potato quiche, octopi, even a deep fried pigs’ ear were no match for our appetites. Well mine, anyway, M was more adventurous than ever but she abstained from the ear and cod.

Rant – paying for bread and olives. What is this extra 2 Euros on all of our meals? It’s the bread. Turns out the bread basket or olive plate aren’t free in Spain. They must know Americans devour these things without question, so it’s an easy $3 on every meal. I didn’t realize this until very late in the trip and it was still hard to resist. Diner beware. Epically lame.

Rant – hidden taxi charges. The meter reads 10 Euros. Then we stop, the driver mumbles something and mashes the meter’s buttons until it reads 18 Euros. Had I spoke Spanish or Catalan, maybe I would have my answer, instead I’m out big bucks. Even NYC has a sign in the cab explaining what the charges are. Maybe they are legit, maybe not. We got taken for a ride, literally.

Rave – Westin Palace Hotel Madrid. Wow. This had to be the nicest place I’ve stayed in yet. Even though I am not technically platinum level anymore, I still got the platinum level perks and with it came a killer corner suite.  We missed out on the opera brunch and the chocolate dinner, but we did see the Turkish national soccer team and got treated to a nightly horn honking battle and even a view of a church doing rapid-fire weddings. I don’t think the pews had even cooled off from one party before another bride showed up for her trip down the aisle. Excellent free entertainment.

Rant – indecipherable menus. I thought ‘taco’ meant a taco. We ordered the low priced sampler menu and pointed at things we thought we wanted. I got overcooked tuna cubes with ketchup on a bed of French fries. I only like my tuna 2 ways – raw and in the can. This was the extra fishy dark stuff. I thought it was slow cooked beef and I was treated to bony fish cubes. Luckily M shared some of hers with me so I didn’t eat the napkin. After considerable difficulty ordering dessert, they brought us the English menu. Thanks a lot fellas.

Rave – Picasso. I have a lot more respect for Mr. Pablo now. We saw his museum in Barcelona, filled with a lot of his earlier works and you get a chance to see how talented his was, even as a young child. It was much later in life that he developed the cubist style most people know, but he could paint almost any style. In our research for this trip I read 2 anecdotes about Picasso. One was that he used to pay everyone with a check, knowing that because of his signature, many of these checks would never be cashed and would instead be framed. Not a bad way to get by. The other was that he was sitting at a bar doodling on a napkin. When the bill came, the waiter offered to waive the bill if Picasso would sign the napkin. Picasso scoffed and said if he signed his doodle he could buy the whole bar with it, much less his meager bill.

Rant – Dali. Every dorm has the kid who buys a bunch of Dali prints from the bookstore. That kid sees all sorts of meaning in the frailty of time in the melting clocks and loves to gaze at the surrealist images, trying to get inside Dali’s head. Snore. We went out of our way to see his museum, which he had a great hand in designing. I think the fact that he helped design his own museum took something away from it. For one it was intentionally confusing, and secondly, he got to choose what works went in and how they were portrayed. The place was a madhouse of large scale loony art. There are a few interesting exhibits that involve a surprise. I will not reveal them here because knowing ahead of time takes something away.

Rave – Dali’s Jewelry. This section of the museum was much more interesting. I think jewelry was a much better medium for his work in general. But what do I know? This was way better than the regular museum.

Rave – Spanish Pastries. XiouXiou (zhoo-zhoo), churros con chocolate, fairy cakes (muffins),napolitanas. I had no idea Spain was big on pastries. Lots of excellent finds in this area.

Rave – La Boqueria Market. M and I got more fruit than we could eat for less than $2. Strawberries, apples, oranges, plums, and things I can’t even name. This market had it every day. They had stalls for fruit, fish, Jamon, normal meat, bizarre animal parts, dried foods, nuts, candy. It was a free for all. If I lived within walking distance to here I’d be 300 lbs.

Rant – rain. Lots of it. Everyone saying how unusual it was. Not for us. You want rain? Book us for a vacation. We can’t miss.

Rave – Another animal statue. Madrid had a pseudo symbol of the city which is a bear reaching up for a berry bush. The royal family used to keep bears and hunt them. The berry bush is some kind of indigenous plant. I like cities that have animal mascot statues.

Rant – pickpockets and scammers. All of our travel information told us to watch out for thieves and to wear our money belts. I hate the GD money belt. It makes it impossible to tuck a shirt in and makes me look like I’m wearing a diaper. It’s hot and causes belly sweat. Not enjoyable. At night I fantasized about catching a pickpocket and thrashing him publically. We’re from the land of guns and ammo. You going to try and rob me without a weapon? I’m 30% larger than most Spanish men and from the looks of it, in better shape. I suppose targeting younger, larger people is a bad way to become a successful pickpocket, but we didn’t see any of it. The constant vigilance did keep me on edge and unusually aggressive.

Rave – free museums. Much like the Louvre being free if you are unemployed, Madrid’s big art museums were free to unemployed, retired people, students and after a certain time of day, everyone. This is the way it should be.

Rave – Cataluña. I think the crummy weather and crowded area we stayed in caused me to like Madrid a little more than Barcelona. Given another chance I think the circumstances would change. Tucked up into the northeast corner of Spain, the Catalan people pay more taxes and tolls than everyone else, they have the most industry and commerce, they are spiritual but not maniacally religious and they sport a donkey as a symbol to poke fun at the bull-obsessed Madrdilleanois. They gripe about the lazy south and don’t really see eye to eye with the rest of their country. Sounds familiar to me.

Rant – Franco. Bad, bad dude. Not enough is taught about this in American schools.

Rave – Small Spanish Feet. You ever go to the clearance section of the store and see all the giant size clothes that never get sold? Guess whose feet qualify for those sizes in Spain? This guy, that’s who.  Most of the clothes, too. Large does not quite contain me. If I lived there, cheap clothes for me.

Rant – No orange/pineapple juice blend. On the flight from Barcelona to Madrid, Iberia offered 4 beverage choices. Coke, water, orange, and pineapple juice. I asked for half orange /half pineapple and you’d have thought I had proposed mixing some Clorox in there. Everyone around me gave the American a funny look. The attendant said it sounded weird and almost refused to serve me. But she did. Delicious. They don’t know what they are missing.

Rave – Gaudi and modernisma architecture. We got to see a lot of Gaudi’s work in Barcelona. The Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, Casa Mila and a few other places were all designed in a psychedelic, twisting, mosaic style that was a little jarring at first, but turned out to be one of my favorite aspects of the trip. I’m not a big art or architecture guy. I like what I like but we don’t have glossy coffee table books of I.M. Pei or Frank Lloyd Wright. I really liked what Gaudi and the modernists were trying. Turn of the century Barcelona had a lot of money for commissioning private houses and these guys came up with buildings that are more interesting than just about anything I’ve seen anywhere else. Highly recommended.

Rave and Rant – Spanish political protesters. I’d read that Spain was in some economic trouble, possibly worse than the U.S., and I was a little concerned that we might run into some rioters or protesters. Turns out I wasn’t disappointed. There was a very loud anti-capitalism protest and then an enormous anti-abortion protest on consecutive days, right outside our hotel in Madrid. Rant because I don’t gave a great deal of affection for protesters, rave because they were both exciting and delivered the bizarreness I look for in a vacation.

Plungers, odds and samples

Skip the first paragraph if you don’t want to read a detailed bathroom story.

Ok, now that I weeded out those not interested, let’s begin with Sunday morning. We’d just finished off a nice breakfast together. A big storm was coming up and we didn’t have any big plans. It was looking like a pretty uneventful and peaceful day. I finished off my pot of coffee and headed upstairs to take care of some business. I don’t know how else to say it, so there it is. The bathroom off the master bedroom is ‘my’ bathroom. It’s smaller than the main 2nd floor one, so I think that’s how I ended up with it. I have a nice candle and collection of magazines and books. I have the radio tuned to the sports station. It’s even heated, which M’s bathroom is not. It can be a comfortable place sometimes and when I get the chance to, I can linger, especially on weekends. This was one such day. After a little bit, I decided to do a mid-term flush. This serves two purposes. One, it makes everything generally more pleasant. Second it’s a preventative measure against catastrophes, of which there has been one already. Our house is newer, so it is filled with wimpy low flow plumbing and tends to get a little slow when taxed. No worries, I would take an appropriate break and prevent this from happening. Wrong. After the big whoosh and gurgle, I waited to hear the pleasant bubbling noise that means it’s time for round 2. No pleasant bubbling, only a tired and slightly-higher-than-usual level. I decided this could be trouble, so I ceased operations and went into troubleshooting mode. There still needed to be a final flush, so I waited for the water to go down to normal levels and fired away. Big mistake. Not only did the added water not push the rest down, it filled up much faster than I anticipated. I did calculate that the makers of the commode had to plan on the bowl holding enough water for a full tank in addition to whatever the water in the bottom of the bowl is called, so I was reasonably comfortable that it wasn’t going to overflow. Except it was going to. Higher and higher and higher the water rose. My first move was to yank up the bath mat and anything that would absorb copious amounts of overflow. Next was to quickly check if there were any gaps in the baseboards and floor, and it seems like the construction was sound there. Next I had to evaluate what I was going to use as a bailing device. I had 3 options. First was the coffee mug I use to drink out of after I brush my teeth. It’s a souvenir mug from a trip I took to a Buffalo farm back when I first moved to Boston. I really didn’t want to use that. Next was the plastic bowl that I use to mix my shaving cream with. That would have probably worked, except it is shallow and lacked a handle. Last was the trashcan. That looked to be the best, although I needed to dump out the contents of the can first and I was doubtful that the can would even fit in the bowl. Keep in mind I did these mental gymnastics all in 3 seconds while yelling profanities at the bowl, hoping it would stop. To her credit, M did come to check on me and I heard a pleasant “Everything alright in there??” through the door. I assured her I was fine, but only after the water peaked at a level slightly higher than the rim of the bowl. I believe the scientific explanation is that surface tension keeps the meniscus of the water from overflowing, even though it is higher than the lip. If you slowly fill a cup with water you can observe this yourself sometime. So now I have an overfull bowl and no exit strategy. Luckily I could hear the glorious sounds of slow trickling, i.e draining from the bowl. Once I had some room to work with I took out the plunger and suddenly realized it was woefully inadequate to the task. I remember scoffing at the $20 plunger and buying the $6 one instead, thinking that so much money for what you’re using it for was ridiculous. Turns out I was right. Until I needed a $20 plunger. With several failed attempts at resolution, I left the offending plunger in situ and went downstairs to amend our shopping list for the day. Upon our return with the $16 model ($20 is still ridiculous) I was rewarded with several deep glugs as the new soldier stepped into battle brilliantly.

I don’t think anyone has ever told me not to cheap out on a plunger. I already knew you couldn’t cheap out on mayonnaise, toothpaste, T-shirts, shoes, laundry detergent, sushi and plastic surgery. I used to have razor blades in that category, but once I learned the “Gillette uses decommissioned battleships for its razor steel” story was a myth, the extreme price of the Mach XII ultra turbo 6 blade was a little too extreme. I tried some cheapo disposables and I’m happily disposing my way to my 500kg yearly trash allotment. 500kg, that’s right, over 1000 lbs of trash per year, per person in the wealthy west. I read a very interesting article about trash in the next century and that’s what the data show. You know why you see plastic bags blowing everywhere in 3rd world countries? Because that’s the only thing people in those places can’t recycle. There aren’t many municipal trash services, so without mass-scale recycling there would be mountains of rotting trash everywhere. I didn’t see Slumdog Millionaire, but I heard there were some nasty garbage scenes, so I am not claiming that 100% of the trash is actually recycled in these places, only that it could be much much worse. I didn’t believe that I produced half a ton of trash every year, but at the end of the week we have a decent pile to go out to the dumpster. It’s entirely possible. I bet the people with kids bump up this number, so it evens out.

I play the lottery occasionally. But only when it’s over $100 million and only with my own money. I didn’t do so well in math, so the scale of the odds against me actually winning don’t have much of an impact on me. I suppose that’s why lotteries have so much success. I mean 1,000-1 or 1,000,000-1 odds don’t mean a whole lot to most people. A coin toss? That’s 50-50 but I don’t expect to win a coin toss very often. For some reason I always think I’m going to be the one who beats the odds that are way worse than my chances of being hit by lightning or a meteor or crashing in a plane or being eaten by a rabid bobcat. So this past Tuesday a group of 10 workers won a little over $200 million in the Mega Millions drawing. If they take the cash option, after taxes they’ll each take home a little less than $10 million. That’s not quite enough to go out and start buying racing yachts, but if you invest $7m in tax-free municipal bonds, even at an atrocious 3% rate, you get $210,000 a year, tax free. That’s enough to quit your job and live a comfortable existence. Any better rate or more money and you can really do damage. But what happens to that office where these people worked? If my team all quit tomorrow, that would be a catastrophe for my employer. It’s hard enough to find someone new when we have an opening. I’ve been there 4 years and seen about a 50% retention rate on new hires. Granted, I work in a fairly esoteric little niche, but these people worked for Chubb Insurance. Chubb insures works of art, rare cars, athletes’ body parts. This is not your nana’s annuity we’re talking about. There has to be some expertise and on the job experience that goes into underwriting that sort of stuff. I feel bad for their boss, having to replace all those people. Unless they’re halfwit slackers with born to lose tattoos, then good riddance.

Wednesday, I stepped out of the train station and started my daily people-weave to get across the street before traffic plays bowling ball with me. Usually this is an exciting and possibly rewarding event, as there are hawkers out there distributing free samples or political pamphlets. It’s a great spot, with thousands of employed, ostensibly educated people reliably pouring out the station every 15 minutes for several hours. I was more than excited to see a young man standing in the crowd with people eagerly accepting free samples of what he was handing out. It looked like a big sample, too. Sometimes the kids grab handfuls of the gum or mints and stuff them into the awaiting hands. This guy was handing out only single samples, so this had to be good. Even better, it was in a can, so it was possibly fresh or could be eaten with a spoon. I shoved my through and took my sample. What gold did I get?

Science Diet Culinary Creations Roasted Chicken Dinner with Savory Gravy. Seriously? Cat food? Who the &^$%$ wants a can of cat food at 8 in the morning? What are they going to do with it, carry it around all day in case they see a homeless cat? Toss it in the microwave for a quick snack? I was livid. I can only imagine what the guy handing it out felt like when he got that assignment. “Nice. Maybe I get to hand out some candy bars or gum that people will really like. What? Cat Food? This sucks. People are going to hate me. God I wish I’d majored in a science.” I know these people went to college. They’re always bright and clean and eager. They probably all work for a marketing company that gets hired by Science Diet to come up with a way to get buzz about their new Culinary Creations line. They have hopes and dreams of coming up with the next “Just Do It” or “Where’s the Beef”, but instead they get sent out to do street marketing and hand out cans of cat food. Go get ‘em.