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.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
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.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
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.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
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?
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.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Brutal
bru⋅tal
[broot-l]
–adjective
1. | savage; cruel; inhuman: a brutal attack on the village. |
2. | crude; coarse: brutal language. |
3. | harsh; ferocious: brutal criticism; brutal weather. |
4. | taxing, demanding, or exhausting: They're having a brutal time making ends meet. |
5. | irrational; unreasoning. |
6. | of or pertaining to lower animals. |
At a project a few years ago, I apparently indicated some aspect of the work to be done was ‘brutal’ and someone asked if I watched the Adult Swim show Metalocalypse.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalocalypse The writeup here is pretty accurate, it’s a cartoon show about a fictional scandanavian heavy/death metal band filled with references to everything bad (and good) out there. The band decides to do things more or less based on how brutal they are. Therefore, everytime I come across this show I have to wait for someone to say something is BRUTAL before I can move on to other activities. There is a particular character who says it with a low growl that really sets it aside as a different word altogether. I would have included just a clip, but without context the clips are found are unusual and possibly disturbing. I’ll leave you to your own devices to research this further.
So why brutal?
I was called into a meeting at 8am yesterday. I don’t have a train that gets in anywhere close to 8am. I have one that arrives at 7 though. I get on this train at 5:54. I woke up at 5. It was freezing cold, I skipped the shower. The request and execution were BRUTAL.
M has already documented our taxman situation. I will not belabor this. Now we have to pay a not insignificant excise tax. What gives, O tax man? What did we do to you? We voted for Obama, we’re willing to pay our share to raise all the boats. Hell, I’m even willing to pay for the nimrod sitting at home with his 52 inch TV in his foreclosed house, because I’m in the right. You jumped on us pretty fast and hard though. BRUTAL.
I watched a truly excellent movie recently, Gone Baby Gone. Ben Affleck directed, so this had the potential to be truly brutal. It had a decent cast and was set in the grittier areas of Boston, near and dear to my heart. The plot revolves around a kidnapped child. All the happy bits are in place. This movie was incredible. Language, violence, characters. All around BRUUUUTAL. Excellent. Watch it.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
7 disconnected and rambling paragraphs
Last night, trying to sleep, M and I heard a faint beeping noise. It was pretty steady and high pitched. We have very thick walls between our home and the neighbors. We never hear babies crying or dogs barking or anything else exciting. This was different. I went outside to see if this was coming from next door or maybe outside. Sure enough it was coming from the empty unit to our left and it sounded like a smoke alarm. I don’t know what these people do, and they seem nice enough. They keep some odd hours. They’re home during the day sometimes and gone at night, taking separate cars. Anyway, last night, while alarms were going off in their house, no one was home. The owner is on the condo board, so I went to ask some board members if they knew how to get in touch with them – no luck there. You’d have thought I was soliciting money for the kegs n legz fund based on their reactions though. So the house next door might be burning up and they’re not home, what should be done? We called the fire department, who arrived promptly and decided to look around and when no visible smoke was available, declined to break down the door to find the cause of the alarm. They asked that we keep an eye open for smoke and go back to whatever we were doing. Ok, I’ll go to sleep with a fire next to my head. Sweet. Turns out it was most likely a dead battery or something similarly lame. Another unnecessary awkward interaction with our fellow homeowners. I guess it’ll be a big laugh at the next block party that we skip. Good to know the town has a decent (sub 5 minute) response time. Sorry we rousted you, fellas.
I ate an ‘Angry Whopper’ recently. I don’t eat a lot of fast food anymore. I eat a lot of what people would consider healthy/hippie/yuppie foods, vegetables, whole grains, low or no sugar, minimally processed stuff. I’m not a zealot. I don’t preach to others. I ate whatever I wanted for years and I was fine. It just happens that I tend to feel better overall when I stick to these kinds of foods. I was excited to eat the Angry Whopper. I love the Whopper Jr. In general, I prefer Burger King to other fast food places. The flamey taste and creative sandwiches keep them in my good graces. The Angry Whopper commercials promised pissed off onions raised on fear and animus. The man on TV ate one and then poured ice in his mouth afterwards. There were jalapenos on the Angry Whopper. I asked for recommendations from the counter staff and a helpful teenager vowed for its feistiness. Another wouldn’t eat it because of his bleeding ulcers. Why a teenager has bleeding ulcers, I have no idea, but no Angry Whoppers for him. I was hungry and wanted to dance with six bucks worth of snorting, Roger Clemens with liniment everywhere, roid raging Angry Whopper. It was fine. The onions were sleep deprived instead of angry. I saw jalapenos, but couldn’t feel their sting. The brown sauce had some snap, but I wasn’t rushing for the ice machine. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. A truly enraged whopper would probably give Daisy Mae a heart attack and the King would be out on the street. It wasn’t as disappointing as the spicier but less biologically friendly spicy baconator, which I didn’t want to finish, but I had high hopes here. I have plans for a truly malevolent burger to be released this summer. To be continued…
I had an existential crisis at work recently. I’ve written about the Wii that they bought for us and the ‘team building’ and camaraderie it’s brought. I have to say that it really does bring people together that normally wouldn’t interact and for that it has served its purpose. The most popular game for it has become the bowling. The guitar heroes were a little too heroic and scared off the less intense players, so most people gravitate to the less intense, but more competitive bowling. It allows for a bit of one up-mans-ship and you can bang out a frame in 20 minutes or less. I’d played at Thanksgiving and then Again at Christmastime at an off-site location and got the hang of the bowling a little earlier than the others and soon I was dominating. I had the coveted ‘pro’ status and the blinged-out ball that comes with it. I rolled through the first few rounds of the company tournament, crushing my opponents and talking tons of trash. Then I lost. My game stopped working. I have no idea what happened. I lost in the finals to a chump, a part time player who can’t break 200. My fans were shocked. Now it’s like I got off the juice and showed up at camp 30 lbs lighter and a step slower. I can’t get the big snap on my break. I’m averaging 140 and my pro status and ball are long gone. Whatever I had, it’s gone. I’m trying to rebuild myself, Steve Austin style, to be bigger, faster, better, but it’s not working. I’m looking like the early 90’s Greg Norman, minus the vineyards and mega yacht and sleek blonde locks. Maybe I can scrape together a few strong sets and catch a break or two along the way, but I fear my Wii bowling championship days are behind me. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ‘lost’ something I had. I don’t know what’s next, but the slow inevitable decline has begun. Get me my lounger, sweatpants and comb-over.
If you have a chance, and didn’t see it, try to check out Lil Wayne on the 2/10 edition of ‘Around the Horn’. ATH is a sports oriented talk show where topics of the day are argued about in a round robin format. The host scores the argument and gradually the 4 sportswriter participants are eliminated and the last man (or woman) standing gets 30 seconds to speak their mind. If you don’t know, Lil Wayne is a New Orleans based rapper with a few Grammys to his name. Born in 1982, he’s been a paid performer since he was 15 and had been arrested multiple times for possessing large quantities of drugs. I mention his youth and criminal record not to disparage the man, but to point out he was going up against several middle aged men who write professionally for major newspapers and have won awards for their reporting. Lil Wayne also recently received an Aston Martin from his father for either being nominated for 8 Grammys or being clean of Lean for 30 days. What’s lean? Lean is a drink consisting of Codeine-laced cough syrup/sizzurp (this is important!), Sprite (or other fruit flavored soda), and a jolly rancher or two, you know, for extra flavor. It’s not a performance enhancer in the A-Rod sense, probably more in the Michael Phelps neighborhood. Anyway, while I was listening to ATH on a podcast, I was curious about Mr. Wayne’s sports commenting abilities. I know he wrote a few blogs for ESPN, so he had to have some credibility, but how would years of touring and lean affect Weezy? I guess they didn’t. Lil Wayne was well thought out and made some excellent points and even though the event was rigged, I enjoyed listening to him more than some of the resident experts on that show. So if you’re reading this and saw a guy in a bright yellow jacket laughing hysterically to himself on the train this morning, it was probably me. As an aside, I read that the owner of the Phelps bong tried to sell it on EBay for $100,000.00! Amazing. The police did end up confiscating it. I guess South Carolina is a little different from Northern California when it comes to this sort of thing…
I’ve seen a few movies recently, although none were really worth commenting about at length. I’ll try for a sentence or two… ‘Appaloosa’ - Entertaining Wild West shoot ‘em up. Renee Zelwegger without the scrunchy face. Vigo Mortensen without any embarrassing steam room fight scenes. Good stuff. ‘Barcelona’ – Two guys in 1980s Barcelona want to get some Spanish girlfriends. Kind of weird. ‘Volver’ – Penelope Cruz and a bunch of other people in Madrid have some family issues and deal with them in their own special way. Entertaining, with subtitles. I do appreciate how foreign movies sometimes deal with subjects that would get an American movie a NC-17 rating, but since there are subtitles, the censors probably fall asleep or assume most Americans can’t read and let all sorts of wildness slide. ‘He’s just not that into you’ – Once again my corollary about girl movies having no men’s room lines came true. This was better than most romantic comedy fare and had a few legitimate laughs in it. There’s a lot of truth in here too, which I appreciated. ‘Half Nelson’ - The guy from ‘The notebook’ decides to teach high school history and smoke some crack along the way. Not uplifting, but thought provoking.
I made a new toy for the monkey bars routine. I had an old deflated basketball that I filled with sand and covered with tape and now serves as a medicine ball of sorts. I was surprised at how much sand went in there, considering that I bought a 50lb bag (which wasn’t very big, but was suitably heavy). Most of the sand ended up in the ball, which was 3-5 times heavier than most regulation medicine balls. Coming in at a hefty 36lbs, this is not appropriate for most medicine ball exercises which consist of throwing the ball to someone else (have you even thrown something weighing close to 40lbs at someone?) or doing athletic movements with the ball. The weight isn’t really a setback though, since the unconventional shape and surface require strength and movements that I hadn’t used previously. I’m very happy with it so far. I say so far because I know I’m going to drop it on my face one of these days and seriously regret the ‘if a little is good, a lot must be better’ approach I took to making it. I know it’s a little old school, but I’m not going to be growing any handlebar mustaches or sporting any single shoulder unitards like a circus strongman anytime soon. Eugene Sandow can rest peacefully. I am considering using another 50lb sack of sand as a heavy bag to pick up and carry around, but I need to construct something that will hold together if and when I drop it. I suspect the paper bag it comes in isn’t up to the task.
Last but not least, I’m going to be an uncle. The younger male sibling has announced his intentions to populate the world with his progeny. I’m happy for him and the rest of the world. We need more stable, intelligent children to compete with the California octobabies. This will mark the 20th!! child whose parents are friends/relatives/coworkers I am on friendly terms with. You want a kid, become my friend by March 1st and chances are you’ll be claiming another dependent for your 2009 taxes. I should start a facebook group and charge admission.
I ate an ‘Angry Whopper’ recently. I don’t eat a lot of fast food anymore. I eat a lot of what people would consider healthy/hippie/yuppie foods, vegetables, whole grains, low or no sugar, minimally processed stuff. I’m not a zealot. I don’t preach to others. I ate whatever I wanted for years and I was fine. It just happens that I tend to feel better overall when I stick to these kinds of foods. I was excited to eat the Angry Whopper. I love the Whopper Jr. In general, I prefer Burger King to other fast food places. The flamey taste and creative sandwiches keep them in my good graces. The Angry Whopper commercials promised pissed off onions raised on fear and animus. The man on TV ate one and then poured ice in his mouth afterwards. There were jalapenos on the Angry Whopper. I asked for recommendations from the counter staff and a helpful teenager vowed for its feistiness. Another wouldn’t eat it because of his bleeding ulcers. Why a teenager has bleeding ulcers, I have no idea, but no Angry Whoppers for him. I was hungry and wanted to dance with six bucks worth of snorting, Roger Clemens with liniment everywhere, roid raging Angry Whopper. It was fine. The onions were sleep deprived instead of angry. I saw jalapenos, but couldn’t feel their sting. The brown sauce had some snap, but I wasn’t rushing for the ice machine. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. A truly enraged whopper would probably give Daisy Mae a heart attack and the King would be out on the street. It wasn’t as disappointing as the spicier but less biologically friendly spicy baconator, which I didn’t want to finish, but I had high hopes here. I have plans for a truly malevolent burger to be released this summer. To be continued…
I had an existential crisis at work recently. I’ve written about the Wii that they bought for us and the ‘team building’ and camaraderie it’s brought. I have to say that it really does bring people together that normally wouldn’t interact and for that it has served its purpose. The most popular game for it has become the bowling. The guitar heroes were a little too heroic and scared off the less intense players, so most people gravitate to the less intense, but more competitive bowling. It allows for a bit of one up-mans-ship and you can bang out a frame in 20 minutes or less. I’d played at Thanksgiving and then Again at Christmastime at an off-site location and got the hang of the bowling a little earlier than the others and soon I was dominating. I had the coveted ‘pro’ status and the blinged-out ball that comes with it. I rolled through the first few rounds of the company tournament, crushing my opponents and talking tons of trash. Then I lost. My game stopped working. I have no idea what happened. I lost in the finals to a chump, a part time player who can’t break 200. My fans were shocked. Now it’s like I got off the juice and showed up at camp 30 lbs lighter and a step slower. I can’t get the big snap on my break. I’m averaging 140 and my pro status and ball are long gone. Whatever I had, it’s gone. I’m trying to rebuild myself, Steve Austin style, to be bigger, faster, better, but it’s not working. I’m looking like the early 90’s Greg Norman, minus the vineyards and mega yacht and sleek blonde locks. Maybe I can scrape together a few strong sets and catch a break or two along the way, but I fear my Wii bowling championship days are behind me. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ‘lost’ something I had. I don’t know what’s next, but the slow inevitable decline has begun. Get me my lounger, sweatpants and comb-over.
If you have a chance, and didn’t see it, try to check out Lil Wayne on the 2/10 edition of ‘Around the Horn’. ATH is a sports oriented talk show where topics of the day are argued about in a round robin format. The host scores the argument and gradually the 4 sportswriter participants are eliminated and the last man (or woman) standing gets 30 seconds to speak their mind. If you don’t know, Lil Wayne is a New Orleans based rapper with a few Grammys to his name. Born in 1982, he’s been a paid performer since he was 15 and had been arrested multiple times for possessing large quantities of drugs. I mention his youth and criminal record not to disparage the man, but to point out he was going up against several middle aged men who write professionally for major newspapers and have won awards for their reporting. Lil Wayne also recently received an Aston Martin from his father for either being nominated for 8 Grammys or being clean of Lean for 30 days. What’s lean? Lean is a drink consisting of Codeine-laced cough syrup/sizzurp (this is important!), Sprite (or other fruit flavored soda), and a jolly rancher or two, you know, for extra flavor. It’s not a performance enhancer in the A-Rod sense, probably more in the Michael Phelps neighborhood. Anyway, while I was listening to ATH on a podcast, I was curious about Mr. Wayne’s sports commenting abilities. I know he wrote a few blogs for ESPN, so he had to have some credibility, but how would years of touring and lean affect Weezy? I guess they didn’t. Lil Wayne was well thought out and made some excellent points and even though the event was rigged, I enjoyed listening to him more than some of the resident experts on that show. So if you’re reading this and saw a guy in a bright yellow jacket laughing hysterically to himself on the train this morning, it was probably me. As an aside, I read that the owner of the Phelps bong tried to sell it on EBay for $100,000.00! Amazing. The police did end up confiscating it. I guess South Carolina is a little different from Northern California when it comes to this sort of thing…
I’ve seen a few movies recently, although none were really worth commenting about at length. I’ll try for a sentence or two… ‘Appaloosa’ - Entertaining Wild West shoot ‘em up. Renee Zelwegger without the scrunchy face. Vigo Mortensen without any embarrassing steam room fight scenes. Good stuff. ‘Barcelona’ – Two guys in 1980s Barcelona want to get some Spanish girlfriends. Kind of weird. ‘Volver’ – Penelope Cruz and a bunch of other people in Madrid have some family issues and deal with them in their own special way. Entertaining, with subtitles. I do appreciate how foreign movies sometimes deal with subjects that would get an American movie a NC-17 rating, but since there are subtitles, the censors probably fall asleep or assume most Americans can’t read and let all sorts of wildness slide. ‘He’s just not that into you’ – Once again my corollary about girl movies having no men’s room lines came true. This was better than most romantic comedy fare and had a few legitimate laughs in it. There’s a lot of truth in here too, which I appreciated. ‘Half Nelson’ - The guy from ‘The notebook’ decides to teach high school history and smoke some crack along the way. Not uplifting, but thought provoking.
I made a new toy for the monkey bars routine. I had an old deflated basketball that I filled with sand and covered with tape and now serves as a medicine ball of sorts. I was surprised at how much sand went in there, considering that I bought a 50lb bag (which wasn’t very big, but was suitably heavy). Most of the sand ended up in the ball, which was 3-5 times heavier than most regulation medicine balls. Coming in at a hefty 36lbs, this is not appropriate for most medicine ball exercises which consist of throwing the ball to someone else (have you even thrown something weighing close to 40lbs at someone?) or doing athletic movements with the ball. The weight isn’t really a setback though, since the unconventional shape and surface require strength and movements that I hadn’t used previously. I’m very happy with it so far. I say so far because I know I’m going to drop it on my face one of these days and seriously regret the ‘if a little is good, a lot must be better’ approach I took to making it. I know it’s a little old school, but I’m not going to be growing any handlebar mustaches or sporting any single shoulder unitards like a circus strongman anytime soon. Eugene Sandow can rest peacefully. I am considering using another 50lb sack of sand as a heavy bag to pick up and carry around, but I need to construct something that will hold together if and when I drop it. I suspect the paper bag it comes in isn’t up to the task.
Last but not least, I’m going to be an uncle. The younger male sibling has announced his intentions to populate the world with his progeny. I’m happy for him and the rest of the world. We need more stable, intelligent children to compete with the California octobabies. This will mark the 20th!! child whose parents are friends/relatives/coworkers I am on friendly terms with. You want a kid, become my friend by March 1st and chances are you’ll be claiming another dependent for your 2009 taxes. I should start a facebook group and charge admission.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
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http://www.postcardsfromyomomma.com
I have some interesting things to say, I just can't get them organized. Read this site instead. It's funny.
I have some interesting things to say, I just can't get them organized. Read this site instead. It's funny.
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