2.2.2015
I was coming across the bridge
the other morning and the casual carpool driver's car had some bad
shocks so while Jughead was super funny I had to put down my Archie's
Pals and Gals Feb '06 issue because I just couldn't concentrate. (I've
been known to boot from reading in the back seat of a bouncy car and I
didn't want to out myself as being a total puss in front of strangers.)
So I stared out the window instead and listened to the driver's
preference radio station: An all-day salute to German Waltzes.
I
always play "What's for breakfast" while coming across the bridge in
the morning. That's where you look out the window and you try to guess
what the next driver is scarfing down. Most often it's coffee or a
bagel but sometimes it's fruit. Occasionally it's a breakfast burrito
or yogurt. One time I saw a guy eating chicken legs and throwing the
bones out the window. Fun.
I also like to try to
memorize license plates. Geez I have a great time. I tend to get
thrown off by vanity plates because instead of memorizing them I try to
figure them out. Some are easy and lame: "DEBZGTI" or "RAYDRZ."
Others are
easy and annoying: "PETAGAL." Then there are the
curious ones. I started figuring on what the white Accord was thinking
when he got the vanity plate "NOSHRTZ." I had a couple guesses. He was
a Team USA women's soccer fan or an avid titty-bar patron. I was
distracted when another car then went by with a "CUBSWN" plate. I
couldn't figure what it meant. I'm sure it wasn't grounded in reality.
It's
not often when I get a second chance to think of a plate but with
"NOSHRTZ" I did. I was walking from the drop-off to the office that
morning when I passed "NOSHIRTS" guy getting out of the Accord, having
just parked it. "NOSHRTZ?" I asked. "I play a lot of pick-up
basketball," he said. Figured. STUPID.
Tonight - Lucky 13 - Beer Fest - featuring Sierra Nevada
(cash only)
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Thursday, February 05, 2015
Black Ice
2.1.2015
A year and three days ago, our local ice rink shuttered. It had a slow but inevitable descent, and when its last day was announced, we lamented its demise and our loss. We still feel it; our "backup" rink is four times as far away, it caters to skaters paying big bucks to learn figure skating and who play in their in-house youth hockey league, it subjugates the public skaters and those of us who want only to exercise and to get our kids private lessons on large sheets of ice (the public skate is on a converted rollerskating rink - much smaller than the 200-foot NHL rink reserved for the big payers).
I miss our old rink a lot. We had many months of great lessons, sessions and other hijinks there. The crowd was much more pedestrian than that of our "backup" rink. There, the parents drive in in big fuckin' SUVs, deploy their asshole kids and lapse immediately into smart phone or tablet trances - without paying one iota of attention to their asshole kids' practice. At our old rink, sure, there were folks enraptured with their devices, but many more huddled together, shared snacks, camaraderie and interest in what was going on on the ice.
So when we knew that it was our last public skate at the old place, my pal who I met there decided to make custom CDs with the music WE wanted to hear while we skated, just like the show tunes and Disney theme songs the figure skaters practiced to. I compiled a playlist and burned it. I asked the awesome staff dude to play a track and he said he'd play the whole thing. And he did. It was the first time we heard good music there, even though all the other bad music didn't matter, since it was bad music at OUR rink.
Here's my partial route when I switched on the "Map My Ride" app while on the ice:
I don't remember leaving the ice so severely that one lap.
And here, of course is our playlist from that last day.
Tonight - The Residence. (by several requests)
Warm up & dry off by the faux-erplace.
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
A year and three days ago, our local ice rink shuttered. It had a slow but inevitable descent, and when its last day was announced, we lamented its demise and our loss. We still feel it; our "backup" rink is four times as far away, it caters to skaters paying big bucks to learn figure skating and who play in their in-house youth hockey league, it subjugates the public skaters and those of us who want only to exercise and to get our kids private lessons on large sheets of ice (the public skate is on a converted rollerskating rink - much smaller than the 200-foot NHL rink reserved for the big payers).
I miss our old rink a lot. We had many months of great lessons, sessions and other hijinks there. The crowd was much more pedestrian than that of our "backup" rink. There, the parents drive in in big fuckin' SUVs, deploy their asshole kids and lapse immediately into smart phone or tablet trances - without paying one iota of attention to their asshole kids' practice. At our old rink, sure, there were folks enraptured with their devices, but many more huddled together, shared snacks, camaraderie and interest in what was going on on the ice.
So when we knew that it was our last public skate at the old place, my pal who I met there decided to make custom CDs with the music WE wanted to hear while we skated, just like the show tunes and Disney theme songs the figure skaters practiced to. I compiled a playlist and burned it. I asked the awesome staff dude to play a track and he said he'd play the whole thing. And he did. It was the first time we heard good music there, even though all the other bad music didn't matter, since it was bad music at OUR rink.
Here's my partial route when I switched on the "Map My Ride" app while on the ice:
I don't remember leaving the ice so severely that one lap.
And here, of course is our playlist from that last day.
We sure miss the place.
Tonight - The Residence. (by several requests)
Warm up & dry off by the faux-erplace.
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Shamalama Ding Dong (REDUX)
1.3.2015
(below is a reprint of an all-time great venue announcement from 9 years ago this month)
There was a show on in the 70's hosted by Spock Nimoy called "In Search of..." and on the show he explored strange things in the universe, like the Shroud of Turin, haunted houses and if plants could communicate with each other, to name a few. I sure wish the show was still on the air, because I'd call up one of the producers and have 'em bring a crew over to my place as there is some seriously unexplained shit goin' on.
Or so my landlady would like me to believe.
Here's the story: Kitchen sink faucet has a drip. I notice it only because there's a coffee cup under the tap and the drip begins to fill the cup and thus begins to to make the classic drip-drip-drip noise. Additionally, it's the hot faucet that won't tighten and hot water is leaking. I'm thinking about wasted $$. I'm not totally useless so I get out my toolbox, turn off the water, unscrew the faucet, replace the washer and reassemble. The drip stops.
For a week or so.
Yes, the dang drip comes back and this time the drops of hot water are bigger and the frequency of drips is faster. I did what I could so I called my landlady. She said, "I'll come over with a plumber. Is the dog tied up?" I told her we didn't have a dog. Cats. We had cats. "Is the cats tied up?" I said no, but please don't let them out when you come over, because we will be at work and you will have to let yourself in. Then I said, "While yr at it, please call me and tell me when you are coming over." We had a problem with a workman coming over when we weren't home and landlady didn't tell us. Workman stomped flat some plants in the back yard, left tools, hardware and trash around and left the fucking gate open when he left. I didn't care for that. I wanted to know when people were coming around.
She called and said she'll be over in about an hour and asked if the dog was tied up. I reminded her we had cats and told her I wished she would have given us more heads-up than "an hour" so we could get prepared for work to be done. As it was, I remembered there were a couple dishes in the sink, but oh well. Turns out: Not "oh well."
I got home and found the cats to be okay. I looked at the sink and the drip was gone and the dishes were in the sink. Funny. I figured that I'd wash the dishes and so I turned on the water, soaped up a sponge and picked up a glass. The glass was broken. Cracked. It was on its side in the sink and it must have broken when tipped over. And as I don't lay glasses on their sides when depositing into the sink, I guessed that the idiot "plumber" didn't empty the sink when doing his "work" and knocked the glass over, breaking it. Shit, I thought, but oh well: It's just a glass. Then i picked up a bowl to wash it and in it was a jagged shard of broken wine glass. Motherfucker, I thought, he broke two glasses. I looked for other broken pieces and they were nowhere. Not in the recycling bin, not in the garbage can and definitely not in the sink. Holy shit! He broke them, then hid the evidence. But he didn't know he broke the other glass and therefore didn't hide it. I had to call landlady and ask her about it.
I called and asked. She said she standing by guy whole time. He did not break. I said they were not broken when I left and broken when I got home and most of one broken glass was hidden. She said not hidden, did not break. I asked her to ask the "plumber." She called back and said he no break no hide. I said I didn't break them and she said maybe the break themselves. I said, okay, then one cleaned itself up and threw itself away in a place I couldn't find and she said yes. Maybe it break itself.
True fucking story. True. Actually happened.
Tonight - The Homestead
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
(below is a reprint of an all-time great venue announcement from 9 years ago this month)
There was a show on in the 70's hosted by Spock Nimoy called "In Search of..." and on the show he explored strange things in the universe, like the Shroud of Turin, haunted houses and if plants could communicate with each other, to name a few. I sure wish the show was still on the air, because I'd call up one of the producers and have 'em bring a crew over to my place as there is some seriously unexplained shit goin' on.
Or so my landlady would like me to believe.
Here's the story: Kitchen sink faucet has a drip. I notice it only because there's a coffee cup under the tap and the drip begins to fill the cup and thus begins to to make the classic drip-drip-drip noise. Additionally, it's the hot faucet that won't tighten and hot water is leaking. I'm thinking about wasted $$. I'm not totally useless so I get out my toolbox, turn off the water, unscrew the faucet, replace the washer and reassemble. The drip stops.
For a week or so.
Yes, the dang drip comes back and this time the drops of hot water are bigger and the frequency of drips is faster. I did what I could so I called my landlady. She said, "I'll come over with a plumber. Is the dog tied up?" I told her we didn't have a dog. Cats. We had cats. "Is the cats tied up?" I said no, but please don't let them out when you come over, because we will be at work and you will have to let yourself in. Then I said, "While yr at it, please call me and tell me when you are coming over." We had a problem with a workman coming over when we weren't home and landlady didn't tell us. Workman stomped flat some plants in the back yard, left tools, hardware and trash around and left the fucking gate open when he left. I didn't care for that. I wanted to know when people were coming around.
She called and said she'll be over in about an hour and asked if the dog was tied up. I reminded her we had cats and told her I wished she would have given us more heads-up than "an hour" so we could get prepared for work to be done. As it was, I remembered there were a couple dishes in the sink, but oh well. Turns out: Not "oh well."
I got home and found the cats to be okay. I looked at the sink and the drip was gone and the dishes were in the sink. Funny. I figured that I'd wash the dishes and so I turned on the water, soaped up a sponge and picked up a glass. The glass was broken. Cracked. It was on its side in the sink and it must have broken when tipped over. And as I don't lay glasses on their sides when depositing into the sink, I guessed that the idiot "plumber" didn't empty the sink when doing his "work" and knocked the glass over, breaking it. Shit, I thought, but oh well: It's just a glass. Then i picked up a bowl to wash it and in it was a jagged shard of broken wine glass. Motherfucker, I thought, he broke two glasses. I looked for other broken pieces and they were nowhere. Not in the recycling bin, not in the garbage can and definitely not in the sink. Holy shit! He broke them, then hid the evidence. But he didn't know he broke the other glass and therefore didn't hide it. I had to call landlady and ask her about it.
I called and asked. She said she standing by guy whole time. He did not break. I said they were not broken when I left and broken when I got home and most of one broken glass was hidden. She said not hidden, did not break. I asked her to ask the "plumber." She called back and said he no break no hide. I said I didn't break them and she said maybe the break themselves. I said, okay, then one cleaned itself up and threw itself away in a place I couldn't find and she said yes. Maybe it break itself.
True fucking story. True. Actually happened.
Tonight - The Homestead
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
Thursday, January 22, 2015
River Thames (REDUX)
1.3.2015
I've been in a war with my college roommate for some time now. I don't know for sure when or how it started, but I know I just won.
Early in our relationship, when we were, in fact, college roommates in a dorm, we would spent every weekday evening in front of the tele watching reruns of "Hill Street Blues" on WGN. A great show, to be sure, but commercial television always had something going against it: Commercials. I've hated them forever, despite the irony of working in commercial post-production for many, many years. I made the most of the commercial breaks by calling every toll-free number , stating my name as my roommate's name - Phil - and ordering the money-back-guaranteed, free 90-day-trial of whatever product was advertised, all the while Phil sat listening to everything I said. He only shook his head and waited for Hill, Renko, Belcher and Capt. Furino to come back to us.
Days or weeks later the goods would arrive: Hair Club for Men™ demo videos, applications to Space Camp™, DiDiSeven™ stain-remover samples. A Clapper™. A Salad Spinner™. A Bowflex™ (Phil got kinda riled at that one.)
That we haven't lived together for some time has certainly slowed the frequency of me shipping him random things, but the dog still hunts: I sent him a package last week that contained an item costing $7.50 and requiring $6.50 in shipping, but it was worth it: I didn't know or care if Phil had a ball-pein hammer because he was gonna get one.
He got it a week later and called. "You've outdone yourself," he said, "never in a million years would I guessed that the box addressed to 'Assistant Herb Strewer Phil' contained what it did. I can think of a thousand uses for it and what's more, I know how to spell 'pein' now."
Missio Accomplishio.
Tonight - WISH (by request)
Hey! That used to be the Radium "after work" bar.
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
I've been in a war with my college roommate for some time now. I don't know for sure when or how it started, but I know I just won.
Early in our relationship, when we were, in fact, college roommates in a dorm, we would spent every weekday evening in front of the tele watching reruns of "Hill Street Blues" on WGN. A great show, to be sure, but commercial television always had something going against it: Commercials. I've hated them forever, despite the irony of working in commercial post-production for many, many years. I made the most of the commercial breaks by calling every toll-free number , stating my name as my roommate's name - Phil - and ordering the money-back-guaranteed, free 90-day-trial of whatever product was advertised, all the while Phil sat listening to everything I said. He only shook his head and waited for Hill, Renko, Belcher and Capt. Furino to come back to us.
Days or weeks later the goods would arrive: Hair Club for Men™ demo videos, applications to Space Camp™, DiDiSeven™ stain-remover samples. A Clapper™. A Salad Spinner™. A Bowflex™ (Phil got kinda riled at that one.)
That we haven't lived together for some time has certainly slowed the frequency of me shipping him random things, but the dog still hunts: I sent him a package last week that contained an item costing $7.50 and requiring $6.50 in shipping, but it was worth it: I didn't know or care if Phil had a ball-pein hammer because he was gonna get one.
He got it a week later and called. "You've outdone yourself," he said, "never in a million years would I guessed that the box addressed to 'Assistant Herb Strewer Phil' contained what it did. I can think of a thousand uses for it and what's more, I know how to spell 'pein' now."
Missio Accomplishio.
Tonight - WISH (by request)
Hey! That used to be the Radium "after work" bar.
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
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