Emmys Post-Mortem: Awards Healthy, Show DOA

Last night was the 60th Emmy awards show, broadcast on ABC. I generally don't watch award shows, though the Golden Globes tends to be a bit more lively and interesting because it's a dinner and everyone's drinking. But since I spent the time writing up my Emmy nomination observations a couple of months ago, I felt somewhat obligated to watch the show. Yeesh, what a waste of three hours that was.

It was mind-numbingly bad, due mostly to the conceit of having the five nominees for best reality show host serve as the host of the awards show itself. Wait, they give out an Emmy for reality show host now? Seriously? What a useless waste of whatever metal those statues are made of. Their collective "bit" was that they didn't have any material prepared, and it fell flat. It was clear that the audience thought the hosts were just fooling around, but the joke was on them, and those of us watching at home: they really didn't have anything prepared.

That right there, inside the first ten minutes of the show, should have warned me to change the channel or go find something else to do with my time. But I didn't, to my regret. A bit later on we were "treated" to singer Josh Groban (who is he, again? I've heard of him but I have no idea what sort of stuff he does) performing a medley of TV show theme songs. I hit the mute button and went to the kitchen to get some ice cream. Next year I'll just wait until the show is over and read the list of winners online.

With regard to the shows that won the awards, today the critics are noting how the majority of the big winners were shows on cable networks, with the exceptions of supporting actress in a comedy (Jean Smart for ABC's Samantha Who?) and NBC's great 30 Rock's wins for best actor, best actress, and best comedy. 30 Rock is always going to be an underdog in the ratings, because it lacks the mainstream appeal of workplace comedies like The Drew Carey Show or Mary Tyler Moore. It's point of view is deliberately absurd, and much funnier for it, but as long as it collects awards and critical praise, NBC will probably keep it around.

By now, a lot of people have heard the story of how Matthew Weiner, the creator of critical darling and last night's best drama winner Mad Men, pitched the show to HBO when he was working as a writer on The Sopranos, and never got any kind of response from them, not even a rejection. Surely HBO's execs are kicking themselves now. Awards and buzz don't translate into revenue in quite as direct a way as ratings do, but you can be fairly sure that AMC is planning to start charging more for ad time on Mad Men now that it's the network's signature show.

And it's not always entirely about ratings. A show like Damages might draw two or three times as many viewers if it aired on one of the big broadcast networks, but when people who do watch it start talking about it to their friends, and then people who don't watch the show see Glenn Close win an Emmy, it raises the cultural profile of the FX network along with the show.

The proliferation of drama shows on cable networks is a clear sign that the television audience is becoming more fragmented and less of a mass audience than, say, a decade ago. But more importantly, it shows that quality shows are finding audiences on cable channels, and being recognized by the academy for their work. I believe this is due at least in part to the networks' over-reliance on reality shows. How ironic, then, that the networks fill much of their schedules with this debris, then have to sit by and watch as cable channels like HBO and even basic cable networks like AMC and FX reap the most prestigious awards.

To be fair, there are reality shows on cable too. There are plenty of people who are happy to watch reality TV; my mother is a huge fan of The Amazing Race, and my understanding is that it's better than most other reality shows. But there are also plenty of people like me who prefer scripted TV, and will seek out the thoughtful, entertaining shows on whatever networks they air.

A Proper Introduction

Well, my friend LT has made good on her threat promise to start her own blog, so I will refer to her henceforth by her new nom de blog, A Proper Bostonian. Expect intelligent opinions, sharp wit, and plenty of words about food, especially cake.

Counterfeit City

September brings us the beginning of another new TV season, and you all know how much I love my TV (both the set itself and the shows). A couple of new shows have already started, including Fringe on Fox. (Fox tends to start its fall shows ahead of the other networks, because their annual coverage of the baseball playoffs consumes a significant chunk of their prime time broadcasting in October.)

Fringe comes to us courtesy of J.J. Abrams, who has also given us Alias and Lost. (He seems to like those one-word titles.) Fringe is about an FBI agent who is called upon to investigate a mysterious occurrence at our own Logan Airport that may have a supernatural connection. Though Mr. Abrams would probably be reluctant to admit it, Fringe plays an awful lot like a certain other Fox show that premiered fifteen years ago, in which two FBI agents investigated mysterious occurrences with possible supernatural connections.

But I'm not looking to compare and contrast the two shows. This morning I followed a link from a Universal Hub story to a critique of the things that Fringe has gotten wrong about greater Boston. This is absolutely not intended to malign that writer's observations; I'm merely using it as a jumping-off point for my own thoughts.

I agree that some of these inaccuracies--referring to Back Bay as having its own police department, moving Stoughton to the coastline--are fairly egregious to us locals, but as someone astutely points out in the comments, it's entirely possible that the producers and writers are not making any particular effort to be locally accurate. This can happen either due to ignorance or deliberate intent. I'm inclined to extend benefit of the doubt and assume the latter. Any fictional universe, be it in a book, a movie, or a television show, is a creation of the imagination, and while many of these bear a strong resemblance to the places we live and work, we should not be too surprised when artistic license is taken.

A New Yorker might be appalled if a writer referred to a character driving north on Broadway, but I remember seeing Dennis Lehane speak several years ago, and someone asked him about a scene in one of his books in which a car drives on Washington Street downtown, but in the opposite direction from how traffic flows on it in real life. He basically shrugged it off, saying (paraphrased) "It's my story, so I can make the traffic go however I want." So when an agent on Fringe pursues a car "south on Fenway" after leaving a hospital and we all know there are no hospitals on the portion of the Fenway that goes south, we just have to let it slide. It's probably in there so the folks watching out in Missouri can go, "Oh yeah, Fenway, like the baseball park."

There have been hundreds (thousands?) of TV shows over the years that take place in one locale but are made in a different one. It's the nature of the business; location shooting is an expensive drain on the budget of a weekly television series. What helps them conjure an authentic sense of place is a nice batch of pretty, atmospheric establishing shots: aerial views, skyline shots, nighttime vistas of twinkling lights in buildings that we all recognize. This is where Fringe comes up short in its depiction and use of Boston; I don't believe that any of the exteriors or establishing shots they have used were filmed locally. I certainly haven't recognized anything.

Sure, they're shooting the show in Toronto or one of those cities that gets used as a stand-in for many other places. Fine, but not even a few authentic cityscapes? That's kind of lazy. Send a crew out here, shoot for a few days, add some CGI snow if necessary (the pilot took place during the winter, but who knows when it waa shot), then come back one or two more times to get some assorted shots in different seasons. Shows don't bother much with opening credit sequences anymore, but when done right, they can look great, and make our city look great as well. How about it, Fringe folks? Show us some local love.

Icy, Hot

On an unseasonably warm and soupy morning like today, could there be any feeling better than getting on the bus and finding it's nearly as cold as a walk-in freezer? I don't think so.

Conversely, two of the people who work in my section of the office keep portable heaters under their desks because air conditioning makes them too cold, and they both had them cranking today, so the cool indoor air was blunted.

Kickin' It Old School

Driving through Porter Square this evening, we were stopped at the traffic light on Mass. Ave. when a guy crossed the street in front of our car. In each hand he was carrying an old-style boombox by the handle. Both of them were on and playing "Come As You Are" by Nirvana, so they were probably tuned to the same radio station. Or given the hardware, who knows? Maybe he'd copied the music onto cassettes and pushed play on both decks at the same time. Rock on, my friend, rock on.

I'm Your Guy

This morning our weekly bagel breakfast was combined with a goodbye party for a departing coworker. During the event, his phone rang a couple of times, with a ringtone of the theme to the Clint Eastwood movie The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. We all had a chuckle on that.

He ignored the calls, but it turned out his wife was trying to reach him (probably because he'd brought their baby into the office for us to admire). So eventually he answered the phone, at which point one of my other coworkers asked, "What is that from, anyway?" I offered the answer, and she replied, "You're such a... treasure trove of useless information."

I'm kind of proud of that. Everyone needs to have something to aspire to, right?

Spoiler Alert

This morning I was on the T, minding my own business as usual. Generally I read the paper in the morning, which occupies my mind enough so that it doesn't wander off and start listening in on other people's banal goings-on.

But for some reason, today I started picking up on the voice of the woman sitting on my left. (Maybe it's because she was right next to me; if someone is a few feet away, it's easier to tune out their voice.) She was talking to a friend sitting on her other side about the new TV show Fringe, which premiered last night. After a minute or two, I realized that she was not just talking about the show, but describing the entire episode.

These days I do most of my TV watching via TiVo, and while I did record this show last night, I haven't watched it yet. Therefore, I did not want to hear any of what happened, especially secondhand. I quickly yanked my earbuds out of my bag and got my iPod going. (I often don't listen to music in the morning, preferring to concentrate on what I'm reading; going home after work, I'm much more likely to listen to music as a way to relax.)

Meanwhile, to my right I had a guy who was sitting with his legs spread so far apart that I was forced to sit sideways, and his leg was still touching mine. What's with that? It's one of those displays of general ignorance that we tend to ignore or let slide. I was in fact just about to ask him if it was really necessary for him to sit that way, when he got up and left the train. I believe this is an example of why commuters like the single seats on trains and buses so much.

Couchgate

Like a lot of other people in the Boston area, we live on the first floor of a two-family. Our apartment used to be the owners' unit, but after they had a baby they decided they needed more room, plus they saw the income potential of collecting monthly rent from two apartments, so they moved to New Hampshire and rented to us. Three people live upstairs, and we've been very fortunate that they are friendly, responsible people and have been excellent neighbors.

A week ago, one of the upstairs residents moved out, and someone else moved in. The one who moved out told us a couple of months ago that she was leaving, and the other two roommates posted their ad on craigslist around the beginning of July. They had all the interested applicants come by over the course of a few days, and had their decision pretty much wrapped up within a week. We did not meet their new roommate; I trust their judgment, and they are the ones who have to live directly with their choice, after all.

We were pretty busy last weekend, and it seemed like a good idea to stay out of the way anyway, so we were gone most of Sunday at one place or another. At one point we came home, around seven in the evening, and found a bunch of stuff on the sidewalk, not exactly blocking our way into the driveway, but hindering it. There were two people sitting on the steps, but it turned out that neither of them was the new roommate but rather friends who were helping him move, and they were waiting for him to come back with some additional help to move these large, bulky items.

We went back out and returned a couple of hours later. By now the stuff had been cleared from the sidewalk, but there was a black leather sofa on our front porch, and later, when I went to take the dog out, I found a piece of exercise equipment sitting by the back steps. I'm assuming that the new guy and his friends had tried to move these things up the steps and had difficulty. The older houses common around here have notoriously narrow stairways, plus the ones in this house curve around 180 degrees on each flight.

Everyone has a story like this; when we lived in our old house, we had a new mattress and box spring delivered, and the box spring would not go up our stairs; fortunately we were able to get the furniture store to swap it for the two-piece kind, but it took another week to get it.

The next day the treadmill got moved up onto the back porch, but otherwise the couch and the treadmill (at least I think that's what it was; it was folded up into a vertical position, and I didn't look at it too closely) sat outside all week. We figured the new guy was planning on selling them or giving them away. I didn't care too much about the treadmill, because it was in the back, and not really in anyone's way. But every day I'd come home from work and look at that couch and think, great, it's still here. It just looked tacky sitting there, and I was worried that the mailman would complain about it blocking access to the mailboxes (postal workers can be funny about things like that).

The Mrs. said, "I'd love to have something out on the porch to sit on, but that couch isn't made to be outdoors, so it's gonna get all gross and mildewy." So now it's been there a week, and while this past week's weather was quite beautiful, we had the remnants of a tropical storm blow through yesterday and overnight, and the couch is now rather wet. This morning when I took the dog out, I noticed that the treadmill is gone. I can't say for sure if it was still there yesterday, but I think it was. One down, one to go.

Computer Blues

I'm excited because I'm getting a new computer at work, but it's sure been a dragged-out process. For about a year and a half I've been using a laptop (connected to a big LCD monitor) that used to be my old boss's computer. He got a new one and passed this one along to me. It's never given me any problems, but its performance has been a little sluggish in certain programs for some time now. And I have no real need for a laptop, because I don't have the sort of job that requires me to do work at home, so I don't need to lug the thing back and forth.

More importantly, there are one or two little tasks I need to do each month that, for whatever arcane reason, can only be done in Windows; even though I'm using Word on my Mac, there are differences from Word for Windows (that are just too ridiculous to go into, trust me), and one of them affects my work. So each month, I have to trundle down to the conference room. where there's a Windows computer setup. It's connected to a nice big Samsung LCD TV so that it can be used for presentations and stuff, which is sweet, but it's still a pain, and sometimes I have to shuttle back and forth a couple of times.

So I suggested to my boss that it might make sense to get me a new Mac, something with a lot more RAM and a bigger hard drive, that can run Windows so that I could switch back and forth on the same machine and thus work more efficiently. She presented the argument to her boss, who agreed. Naturally, these types of purchases have to align with the budget, so they told me to wait for the start of the new fiscal year, which was July 1.

July came and went, so I figured I should remind someone about it, and as I suspected, they had forgotten. After that, it took a couple more weeks for the business manager to come around and spec out what I needed, then another few days while he did the same thing for someone else in the office, then another couple of days for it to be processed...

Sorry, didn't mean to put you to sleep. My new iMac with the big-ass 24" screen actually arrived a week ago, and the two giant boxes (mine and the other person's) have been sitting in the business manager's office ever since. On Wednesday I stuck my head in and said, trying to seem really casual about it, "So, what do we have to do to get this puppy up and running?" He said, "I just put in the request to IT for them to come and set it up." Okay, I know it was a long weekend, but what were you waiting for?

Today the business manager came by and said that he was still waiting for the Windows software and the virtualization software that will work with it to arrive, because he wants IT to be able to do everything all at once, which certainly makes sense. But it's really killing me knowing the thing is just waiting there, twenty feet away from my cubicle.

Oh, and the boss's boss wants my 23" LCD monitor, since I won't need it anymore. Seems fair.

Sweet Spot

A couple of weekends ago, we found our way to Flour Bakery for the first time. They have two locations, South End and Fort Point. South End is the original one, but we never find ourselves in the South End. (Does that make us bad Bostonians? Everything about the area feels pretentious and, well, New Yorkish.)

Flour's other location, which we were told opened two years ago, is tucked away on Farnsworth Street, which is off Congress Street a couple of blocks past the Children's Museum. On that Sunday afternoon the area was pretty dead, but that meant there was no line in the bakery. I sampled a chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream icing that was light, almost fluffy. While it wasn't cheap (most of the pastries are $2.75), it was delicious, and generously sized as well (some of you may remember the brouhaha last year about tiny, dry, pricey cupcakes). The Mrs. had a sticky bun which she declared "awesome" and said she could have eaten another one immediately.

This weekend we went back. Unfortunately there were no cupcakes, but plenty of other goodies. I tried a raspberry-filled doughnut, which was much denser and chewier than a typical doughnut, but otherwise not so special, and then Flour's version of a granola bar. This was much more special: three distinct layers, from the bottom a base very much like coffee cake; a layer of "cranberry-apricot-apple jam" according to Flour's web site), and a layer of oats, honey, walnuts, and seeds. It was about four inches long, and very substantial. I wasn't hungry again until around 8 PM that day.

So it appears we have a new favorite bakery. The Mrs. said we should make going there a regular Sunday thing, and I'm inclined to agree with her, as long as we plan on going for a walk afterward to work off whatever goodies we've had.

Lunch Is Hell

I couldn't decide what to get for lunch today. I was already in the Longwood Galleria, but I wasn't in the mood for my usual Sami's falafel and tabooli combo, so I decided to get something from Subway. I really should know better. The line seemed short, but it took me five or six minutes to escape with a small tuna sandwich.

I'm fairly confident that hell is going to turn out to be very much like waiting in line at a Subway. There are five or six people behind the counter, and at first it appears that each one has a specific task to do as part of the assembly-line preparation of your sandwich. The first person gets the basics: what you want, and what kind of bread you want it on (they have five kinds, in case you haven't been in a Subway in a while). And that person always asks, "Do you want cheese on it?" Did I ask for cheese on it? But see, "with cheese" is the default setting, unless you say otherwise. At least they ask, right?

But in reality, chaos reigns. Everyone is running around and bumping into each other and talking to each other all at once. Meanwhile, your bare, open sandwich sits there on the counter while one person is refilling the bins of onions and lettuce instead of moving your order along, and you're standing there thinking (hopefully not aloud, for your sake) MAKE MY FUCKING SANDWICH, YOU MORON.

Eventually my food got the attention of the person whose job is to add the toppings. Now, I have to be honest, one of the things I do like about Subway is the variety of stuff you can get on your sandwich. Most places have lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and maybe pickles. Subway has cucumbers, several varieties of peppers, and olives. I love olives, especially on tuna, so this pleases me. Also, they have all these sauces, like teriyaki and sweet onion. These are just salad dressings, a trick I've used on home-prepared sandwiches for decades, but they do add to the overall sandwich flavor experience.

However, an abundance of toppings doesn't excuse or make up for poor service. Just as my sandwich was about to be passed to the cashier, a rather hefty woman slid up on the other side of me and distracted the person at the register. "I just want six cookies." The cookies are in a little plastic case in front of the register, so I guess that means if you just want a cookie (or six, you pig), you don't have to wait in line like everyone else. How convenient for you.

I'm trying to eat more sensibly these days, and about the only reason I even go there at all is because their small sandwich, on a 6" roll, is just enough food for lunch. But it's just not worth the trouble, because I'm afraid I could end up murdering someone while waiting for my 6" tuna sub, and I suspect a prison diet would be very starchy.

Too Good Not to Share

Oh, how I love the internet. Today's moment of weirdness.

(Source: AutoUnleashed, via Jalponik.)

Bagel Day

It's the last week of August, and I admit I'm looking for things to write about. As I've mentioned before, in my office we have a weekly bagel breakfast on Wednesday mornings. Staff take turns supplying the grub, and this week it was my turn. (There's a master schedule, and each person ends up feeding everyone else about twice a year.)

But one can't just get some bagels and be done with it. Additional forms of sustenance are required. Naturally, there needs to be cream cheese. There also needs to be some sort of fruit, for the appearance of healthiness. (We publish health newsletters, after all.) And there's a certain amount of what I guess I'd call "light peer pressure" to bring other things that are tasty and interesting. There usually ends up being at least one sort of baked good, and some other snacky stuff: possibly some type of nuts, or maybe some candy, or dried fruit, or trail mix, or yogurt pretzels, etc. There are at least a couple of people I work with who like to bring something homemade. Good for them.

If I drove to work, I would probably just leave my house a little early and stop at a supermarket along the way. Since I don't have that option, I've found that it helps to plan out my bagel day strategy ahead of time. First I made a list of everything I wanted to get. Then, on Monday evening the Mrs. and I went to the grocery store, where I picked up a coffee cake and some peanuts. Can't buy baked goods too far ahead of time, but a day doesn't make much difference.

Yesterday afternoon, I walked over to the Stop & Shop near our office and bought fruit (grapes and strawberries), beverages (cranberry juice and Newman's Own limeade, which has proved popular at other recent bagel days), two kinds of cream cheese (plain and chive), and a bag of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms. That took about fifteen minutes. I deposited all of this in our office refrigerator, so all I had to carry with me this morning was the peanuts and coffee cake.

(Speaking of carrying, I'd gotten about six steps off my front porch on the way to the bus stop when one of the handles ripped off the Trader Joe's bag I was using to carry the coffee cake and peanuts. Not helpful. And it wasn't even heavy, so it must have had insufficient glue.)

Next, where to get the bagels? Obviously, they have to be fresh (otherwise what's the point?), so they really should be purchased on the way into the office. In my opinion, the best bagels that I can pick up easily on my way into work are from Finagle A Bagel. (If I lived in Brookline, I'd probably go to Kupel's, but from my current commute that would be seriously out of my way.) There's a Finagle right on Boylston St., across from Copley Square. I can walk up Clarendon St. from Back Bay station and be there in a couple of minutes.

Since I've done this a few times now, I go so far as to prepare a list of how many of each kind of bagel I want and hand it to the cashier, who hands it to the order packer. It seems that they appreciate this, as opposed to the people who stand there staring at the bins of fresh bagels going, "Um... two plain... um... two sesame..." while everyone waiting in line is sighing and tapping their feet. (This place is pretty busy in the mornings, and it's small; today the line went right out the door onto the sidewalk.)

Bag of bagels in one hand, bag missing a handle in the other, I scurried across Boylston and diagonally across Copley Square to the 39 bus stop across from the Copley Plaza hotel. A bus pulled up just as I got there, which was nice. Once I was on the bus, I consolidated everything into one bag, and made it to work about ten minutes later. I got out some trays and bowls from the kitchen, arranged everything on the conference room table, and then it was time to eat.

The coffee cake was a hit, as such things usually are; by the time we were finished, it was completely gone. There were only a few strawberries left, and no grapes. There are usually a few extra bagels, because not everyone eats a bagel, and not everyone who does eats a whole one. But these are often gone by lunchtime. Anything else left gets nibbled away as well. In all, it went fine. It would be easier to transport everything with a car, but it's not that big a deal.

Hopefully, no one will ever decide to have their bagel day catered.

Wet Dog

Yesterday the MSPCA had its annual "Paw Wash" benefit dog-washing event, but unlike in past years, it was not held at Angell Memorial in Jamaica Plain. This year they had it down at Gillette Stadium. The dog needed a bath anyway, and eventually I was able to convince the Mrs. that it was a cause worth driving out of our way for.

The MSPCA had help and support from LaundroMutt in Cambridge, where we've taken our dog a few times. Oh, and did I mention the actual dog washing was being done by New England Patriots cheerleaders? Yeah. They even treated the dog to a leave-in conditioner, so her fur is soft and lustrous.

But wait, it gets better. You could also have your dog's picture taken with cheerleaders. So of course we had to go for the whole package. I don't have the pictures yet; they're going to email them to me. The Mrs. thinks we should use it for our holiday card this year. Not exactly Christmasy, but certainly different.

Sportin' Wood

This goes a bit outside the usual scope of my ramblings, but really, shouldn't part of what I'm doing here be trying to expand your horizons? (Don't answer that.)

Anyway, this is actually right in line with one of my big personal interests: cars. I've been fascinated by and enamored of cars since I was about three years old. (It's a particularly pointed irony that I can't drive, then, isn't it?) Even though my family never had new cars when I was growing up, each time we traded in our car for another one was a big, exciting deal for me. As a kid, I was often tasked with looking through the used car ads in the newspaper to find suitable possibilities to see and test drive.

Over the years we had several station wagons, and about half of them were the kind with fake wood trim on the sides and back. (I wish I had some pictures, but I don't have access to them at the moment. Check out this site for scans of tons of vintage car brochures.) Several of our neighbors and friends' families had them as well. And the names they had: Kingswood Estate, Country Squire, Grand Safari, Sport Suburban. Smell that? That's the scent of pure marketing fantasy, cut with hot vinyl seats on a summer day.

The wood-sided station wagon is an icon of 20th century American car design, but as station wagons faded from popularity and were supplanted, first by minivans and then by SUVs, as the family-hauler vehicle, the vinyl wood decaling faded as well. Literally and figuratively, heh.

Which leads us to the point: someone has seen fit to bless the world with fake wood trim kits for modern cars. This is not exactly new; such kits have been around for the Chrysler PT Cruiser for a while. But this company, Woody Wagoons, has taken the idea a step many steps further, offering kits for cars like the Scion xB (the little car that looks like a saltine box) and the Honda Element (the car that looks like a slightly larger box with gray plastic fenders--how about it, DM?)

This is all gloriously cheesy, because these cars were never designed to have this crap stuck on them, plus the kits seem to be executed in a very amateurish way. The one that actually kind of makes sense to me is the Jeep Commander, because it's a spiritual descendant of those big old Jeep Wagoneers that used to come with wood trim in the 70s and 80s.

And when I first saw the new Ford Flex, I immediately thought, "someone needs to come up with a 'Country Squire' fake-wood trim kit for this thing," because Ford can call it a "crossover" if they want, but this car is a station wagon, and indeed a modern equivalent of that 70s suburban staple. But I have to be honest: I was wrong. The wood trim kit looks terrible on it. I guess you can't go home again after all.

Paleolithic Packaging

We went on one of our periodic sojourns to Costco last night, this time for food items, but I spent a little time wandering around and looking at some of the other stuff. I was idly browsing the aisle of books, DVDs, and CDs, when I came upon a CD encased in something I believed was extinct: a longbox.

That's right. Those of you born before the dawn of MTV will probably remember that CDs used to come packaged inside a shrink-wrapped cardboard sleeve about six inches wide by twelve inches tall. This was originally conceived as a way for what used to be called "record stores" to stock those newfangled CDs in their existing racks, which were originally intended to display LP records, as well as a theft deterrent.

[The Mrs. found another CD nearby that was not packaged in a longbox. It was a Journey CD. You can go ahead and insert your own joke here--I'm on deadline, and it pretty much writes itself anyway.]

Longboxes were phased out in the early 1990s, in response to increasing pressure from environmental groups regarding the wastefulness of the excess packaging. So why is Costco still using them? That's an excellent question. Why are their bundle packs of things like toothbrushes or deodorant packaged in swaths of cardboard and hard plastic? Why does a pair of discounted movie tickets need to be sealed in a sheet of plastic a foot wide?

I know that the answer is mostly to keep people from walking out with the stuff, but Costco is a fairly progressive company in general (one of the reasons I choose to spend my money there), and it seems like they could devote some resources to devising some more eco-friendly packaging options. For example, things like the movie passes and gift certificates could be sold at the customer service desk, where they could be kept in a locked cabinet or case.

I'm not necessarily singling out the warehouse clubs--some of their econo-size packaging is actually less wasteful than buying multiple smaller size packages of the same item--but they do seem to be particular offenders with certain products. I don't regularly frequent BJ's or Sam's, so I don't have any comparative evidence. Anyone?

Unfriendly

Earlier last night, we found ourselves in Swampscott. Having had dinner with friends, we were in the mood for dessert, so we followed them to an ice cream place. We drove past it and turned into a big parking lot, which belongs to a restaurant called Anthony's Pier 4 Cafe & Hawthorne by the Sea Tavern (a satellite branch of the Boston waterfront restaurant). The lot probably holds four hundred cars (it looked like the kind of place that hosts a lot of weddings and other functions), and at around 9:30 on Saturday night, it was maybe a quarter full.

We parked the car and got out, and a guy came walking across the lot toward us. I thought he was some sort of valet (he was wearing a white polo shirt and black pants) but he said, "Are you going to the restaurant?" We said no. He said, "I'm sorry, but you can't park here."

I imagine that North Shore locals are familiar with this place and its policy, but it really struck us as dickish. It's not like there was any shortage of spaces, and we probably weren't going to be there more than fifteen or twenty minutes.

We drove back onto the street and found a space nearby, but it's just such a selfish and unfriendly thing. The idea that this place feels it's necessary to pay someone to stand out in the parking lot and chase away the riff-raff makes me pretty sure I'd never want to go there.

Party On, Dude

We had a little excitement last night in our corner of Medford. The teenagers who live in the house next door had themselves a not-so-little party, and they managed to draw the attention of Medford's finest. The only bummer is that I missed all the action, even though we were home and awake at the time.

These kids have a few parties each summer, but this one was bigger and rowdier than the previous ones. When I took the dog our for her "last call" around 11:15, there were about 25 kids in the adjacent back yard. In the past we've usually had the AC on during their parties, so the noise hasn't kept us from sleeping, but it's been nice enough lately that we haven't needed the AC. (Of course, we could always turn it on if we needed to block the noise, but when the houses are this close together, people should have a little more respect for their neighbors.)

About an hour later, I was watching TV, and the Mrs. was engaged in one of her Wordscraper games on Facebook. We were kind of waiting for the party to burn itself out so we could go to sleep with a reasonable chance of not being disturbed. Suddenly she jumped up and went outside. At first I thought she'd gone to get something from the car, but she didn't come back. Turns out the arrival of the police sent kids scattering, and she wanted to make sure that none of them used our yard as an escape route. She came back inside about ten minutes later and told me what was going on. Somehow, I didn't notice that any of this was happening.

In the light of the morning, we could see that not only did the departing kids leave a swath of debris in the next-door back yard, but they also managed to pull down part of that yard's back fence as they climbed over it. Sweet. I'm sure their landlord will be excited. I can't help wondering where he was last night, since he lives on the second floor of the house next door. You'd think that given the previous parties, he'd want to keep an eye on things. But they're his tenants (though maybe, not for long?) so they're ultimately his responsibility.

And I don't know who called the cops, but I'm glad someone did.

Rain Gear

With all the rain we've been having this summer, I thought it might be a good idea to get a lightweight rain jacket of some sort. Indeed, it's a little odd that I've managed to get along without one for this long, but I'm starting to feel a little silly on the rainy but warm days, standing at the bus stop wearing shorts and holding an umbrella. So it seemed like a simple jacket in a breathable fabric with a hood would be a smart choice.

I do have a waterproof rain coat with a removable hood that I like, but it's too warm to wear in summer and is kind of large on me anyway (it's cut very full to take a fleece liner, plus it's a tall; I got it on clearance for next to nothing and that's all they had left). And while I know that Gore-Tex fabrics have long been the standard for waterproof breathability, I was hoping to get away with not spending so much, and there are newer fabrics that claim to do the same thing just as effectively but cost less.

I thought finding something suitable would be a quick task online, but it's become one of those things that lands in the category of "easier said than done." This part of the outerwear category is dominated by makers of outdoor clothing like Patagonia, The North Face, and Marmot that make products that sell in outdoor stores like REI for premium prices. A simple rain jacket from one of these companies can easily run upwards of $200, which is simply ridiculous. I was hoping to get away with spending $50 or less. Also, many of these jackets are really, really ugly.

Somehow my online wanderings led me to the web site of a company in New Jersey called Campmor that sells all kinds of outdoor gear. I was familiar with the company, because my brother has been getting their quaint catalogs (which are printed on newsprint paper and are filled with line drawings of the merchandise) for probably three decades. I occasionally get them myself, but I never look at them, and I had never been to their site (which, thankfully, features photos of the products instead of drawings).

Campmor carries the fancy brands, but they also have clothing manufactured for them under their own brand. I have no problem with house brands as long as they're decently made, so I browsed their selection of rain gear and decided to buy a jacket called Storm Venture (I think this is meant to reference a similar style of jacket made by The North Face called Venture). Campmor's jacket had a "regular price" of $65 but was being offered for $39.99 in five colors. It looked plain enough, so I chose "cobalt" and ordered it. I thought to myself, that was easy.

It arrived in two days via UPS (New Jersey isn't that far away), and when I unpacked it, I could see right away that the color was off, definitely not anything you would call cobalt. Not a terrible shade of blue, but not what I wanted. This is not that uncommon; monitors render colors differently, the art department decides to pump up the colors so they pop off the screen better, etc. But more importantly, the thing just looked cheap, because it was cheap.

Of course I needed to try it on before making a final decision. I unfolded it and started to unzip it. The zipper gave me a lot of trouble, which was another bad sign. Then I saw the interior of the jacket. Many of these jackets have sealed or taped seams to ensure their waterproofness; in this case, it looked like someone had literally slathered clear tape over all the inside seams. It made the outside look classy. I did try it on, but I already knew it was going back. Just for fun, I showed it to a coworker. She made a face and asked me how much it cost. I told her, and she made a different, even more unhappy face.

I packed it up and sent it back for a refund, but that means I still don't have a jacket. I spent some time browsing some other sites, and found myself back at old faithful L.L. Bean. I guess I should have looked there in the first place. There are two styles that I'm interested in, one of which is a breathable fabric called TEK 2.5 (seriously, that's the best name they could come up with?) and the other is Gore-Tex. This breaks my price rule, but I'm starting to think that I'll be more satisfied in the long run by buying what I really like. Also, the proximity of a Bean store means I can try on the jackets and inspect them in person. But it will probably stop raining as soon as I buy something.

Yard Work

We have a cute little backyard at our house. At least, it used to be cute, as you can see. But these days, it's looking pretty junglesque, thanks to all the rain we've had in the past month or so.

Things have gotten out of hand. Normally, the landlord comes by every few weeks and tidies up the yard and the shrubs in front, but we haven't seen him in a while. I usually communicate with him by email, so I'm not sure what, if anything, is going on. Meanwhile, the weeds and grass have gone crazy. This made me feel somewhat guilty, even though we have no explicit responsibility for taking care of the yard or grounds (aside from a winter snow-removal arrangement). I don't like doing yard work, or for that matter any other sort of outdoor labor, especially when it's hot, but it bugged me just the same.

Finally, I decided to visit the local home-improvement megalith to see about getting a string trimmer. Not being a homeowner, I don't pay much attention to outdoor power equipment, so I found these things kind of crazy expensive, at least the gas-powered ones. I really couldn't see the point of buying a gas-engined trimmer, for a few reasons. The high cost of gasoline is a pretty significant one, plus the hassle of getting the gas, and the potential hazard of storing it. An electric trimmer seems like a good alternative, until you realize that means you need a long extension cord and a place to plug it in.

Eventually I settled on the idea of a cordless trimmer that runs on a rechargeable battery that snaps into the trimmer's handle. It eliminates the main disadvantages of the gas and electric models, while still providing decent power (the battery is about the size of a standard brick, and weighs about as much). The battery charges in only an hour when snapped into its charger (which, of course, is sold separately). Also, these things are part of a line of power tools that can all be powered by these same batteries, so if someday I need (or just feel like buying) a cordless drill, I already have a battery and charger that will work with it.

Last Monday, I got home from work and set out to do battle with the yard. I didn't realize that the grass would still be wet down at the roots from the previous weekend's rain, and the trimmer quickly became caked with clippings. I gave it another 24 hours, and tried again. The grass was still a little wet, but the trimming went better. Another thing I hadn't realized was that I would have to keep pressure on the trigger, which quickly grew tiring. I persisted until my hands hurt from the vibrations. I managed to clear about 20 40 percent of the yard, a large enough space for the dog to wander around and pee when I take her out just before bedtime.

Of course, we've had a good bit more rain since last Tuesday, so I have not been able to make any further progress on the yard. Maybe later on this week, things will be dry enough. But I'm now thinking that when we do buy a house, it might make more sense to buy into a condo association that hires someone else to do the yard work.

Troll Trolling

I have a troll. Not one of those hideous plastic dolls with the stand-up shock of hair, but an anonymous commenter who seems to have it in for me.

Whenever I write a piece about men's fashion, this person pops up. The commenter seems to think that an interest in fashion makes me gay, and the comments are generally disparaging, mocking, and homophobic in nature. The first couple of times, I went ahead and posted them (you can see an example here). Also, I have written a couple of posts about the strange behavior I've witnessed in the rest room here at work, and the troll seems to think that this also makes me gay (example #2).

Eventually I decided to stop posting these comments, but that doesn't stop them from coming. Here's the latest:

Warning! This Blogger is seriously Gay

Gay! Gay! Gay! I mean really, why would a grown man prefer to look at other men's pants? I bet you would like to see men in shorts. Really short shorts. Who wears short shorts?

Why don't you talk about something serious that would greatly help the average consumer. Like women's bikinis?

Either it's someone's lame idea of a joke, or someone who has a real problem and doesn't know how to deal with it. But seriously, enough's enough. I decided to confront the problem head-on by posting about it, on the assumption that the troll will read it, since he (presumably it's a male; I really can't see a woman writing these things) seems to follow the blog.

So, Anonymous: what the fuck is your problem? It doesn't even matter that I'm not gay, because your comments are just as offensive to me. I believe in tolerance, not ignorance. It's 2008, and believe it or not, most people are a bit more enlightened these days. Those who are not are eventually going to be marginalized and, hopefully, ostracized for their hateful, backward views.

Besides all that, you're missing the point. I'm not looking at men's legs. Sure, there happen to be legs in the photos that accompanied the article I referenced in the post that prompted your most recent response. But if I did want to ogle men's legs, I'm sure I could easily find better material, like Olympic athletes. I'm critiquing the fashion industry, and I'm going to keep doing it, so if you are not interested in reading that sort of thing, maybe you should just stop visiting my blog.

In fact, I'd prefer that you stopped visiting. I'm sure not going to post any more of your comments. You are no longer welcome as a visitor. If I could figure out how to block your IP address, I would. Just go away.

Shorts Sighted

I continue to be fascinated, bewildered, and sometimes appalled by the disconnect between the clothes real men wear in their daily lives and what the fashion industry thinks men should be wearing.

My friend LT (who swears she is starting her own blog any minute now) asked me if I had seen an article in the Style section of the New York Times about men wearing shorts to the office. I thought, I wear shorts to work, what's the big deal? But I guess the point of the article was that these were professional men, who would otherwise be going to work in suits and ties.

But wait, there's a picture accompanying the article of a guy wearing a blue blazer, dress shirt and tie, and... khaki shorts, along with what look to be suede wing tips. Oh, and did you see that other picture, to the left? The guy wearing the matching jacket and shorts? What do you even call that? A shuit? (Shorts + suit.)

Excuse me for a moment... Sorry about that, I was just laughing my ass off. Holy gilded crap, could you imagine walking down Franklin Street in an outfit like this? Newbury, maybe. Maybe. But still, iffy.

I guess the reporter went out and found some guys on the street who were dressed this way (because if they were dressed and posed, that would be fabricating a story, right?), but I look at these pictures and can only think this must be some designer's fantasy of how men should dress on Planet Runway, because it sure doesn't look like my planet. Also, all the shorts these guys are wearing look like they have an inseam of about six or seven inches, which is fine for playing tennis, but too short for my liking.

I have a neighbor I know from the bus stop. He's around 30 and works in banking, a pretty conservative field as far as dress is concerned. His office has a summer dress code, which means no jackets or ties; short-sleeve collared shirts are okay, but he still has to wear business casual pants and shoes. I didn't think to ask him about this, but I can pretty much guess what his reaction would have been.

I also have a close friend who is an attorney. I solicited his opinion, and here's what he had to say: "The place where I work now would never tolerate this. We are a relatively conservative law firm (still expected to wear at least a shirt and tie most days, and suits for court, etc.) We do not have a set dress code, though open necked dress shirts appear relatively often on days when no clients are being seen by the wearer. You often see shorts on clients coming in for real estate closings or if they have just come from the golf course, but never on lawyers. Things are more relaxed on the weekend and shorts are seen then. I used to work at a much smaller firm with no dress code and while shorts afforded a comfort level, they tended to detract from the professional feel of things."

And the shoes? Loafers, driving shoes, sandals, sure. But lace-up dress shoes with shorts? It just doesn't make sense. You're either dressed up, or you aren't. To me, these outfits say, "I'm trying too hard." I can only conclude that this look is for guys who work in creative professions, or possibly the fashion industry, who are fashion-forward individuals to begin with and who expect their attire to be critiqued by their coworkers and business associates.

As for semi-professional office drones (like me), if your office, like mine, has a relaxed summer dress code that allows shorts, then why, if it's warm enough to warrant shorts, would you want to add a jacket and tie? The whole point is to be casual and comfortable. Right?

Coined

The Mrs. was talking to her cousin on the phone earlier this evening. His wife's father passed away unexpectedly, and his wife is originally from the Czech Republic, so they had to fly to Prague for the funeral. He said, "You know, it's terrible that her father died, but it's also a trip to Prague, so it's like a funecation."

Weird Stuff, The "I Don't Have a Problem" Edition

Just a quick one, for lack of any other inspiration at this hour. I'm not sure what sort of circumstance would warrant having one of these, but if you need to hide your booze in a fake cell phone, I submit that you have problems that stealth drinking ain't gonna cure.

Note the "testimonials" from the allegedly real people. Frankly, they all sound fake to me, but in different ways. Five stars from every single reviewer? Come on. Self-described cheapskates? If you don't want to pay for a couple of drinks, stay home.

Family Plan

We added my mother to our cell phone "family plan" a couple of years ago because the prepaid phone she had at the time was all but dead, and it was an easy and relatively inexpensive way to assure that she had a phone in the event of an emergency. Also, the unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling included in our plan means we can call each other any time without depleting our monthly minute allotment. (It was only last month that I was able to convince her that it was no longer necessary for her to give me the $10 per month that her line costs.)

Her phone has been acting weird for a while; almost any time we have a conversation, the call drops at some point. There could be any number of possible explanations--low signal, low battery, interference--but it seems to happen pretty regularly when I talk to her, and not when I'm talking to anyone else. She's had the phone for a couple of years and is eligible to get a new one.

Yesterday we went to RI to visit my family, and since the weather was lousy, I thought we could go look at some phones, and maybe get her set up with a new one. We drove to the store and went in. Verizon Wireless has a simple phone that is kind of geared toward seniors--good-size screen, large font, dedicated emergency number keys, no extraneous features--and I thought this one might be a good choice for her.

I pointed out the phone to her and she immediately said, "It's ugly." It hadn't occurred to me that she would have any sort of opinion about its looks, so I said, "Okay..." She said, "It's black. I don't like black, I like silver, like mine." I didn't want to disappoint her by telling her that cell phone makers have largely moved away from silver, so I decided to just show her some of the features. Unfortunately, the phone was not a working model, but one of the dummy models the stores sometimes use, so I couldn't really show her much of anything.

She asked me, "Is it going to work the same way as this one?" I started to explain what things would be the same, but then I realized it would quickly get complicated, and instead feebly offered, "Most things will work the same way, but you can't expect everything to be the same." Finally, she wanted to know how much it cost. The salesman looked up our account and said, "$40." So of course the next question was, "Don't they have a free one? This one was free when you put me on your account."

The salesman, displaying what I thought was remarkable patience, looked at her phone and said, "To be honest with you, the phone we have that you could get for free isn't as good as the one you have now, so you should probably just keep it." Okay, but that doesn't solve our original problem. After looking around for another couple of minutes, we left. I figure that the time it would take her to learn how to operate a new phone is probably not worth it, as long as she has a phone that mostly, sort of works.

Going Mad

In my Emmy-nominations extravaganza last week, I promised I would talk about the return of Mad Men. The much-praised drama begins its second season tomorrow night on AMC. So, what's the big deal?

For one thing, it's gorgeous to look at. It's set in the early 1960s, and every detail is lovingly fussed over: the office furniture, the home decor, the clothes, and the cigarettes all emit period authenticity. For a design fetishist like myself, it's a blast to watch. But the show is more than just looks. Beneath the pretty, polished surfaces, there are depths. Each character is richly drawn and complex, and after the first season's thirteen episodes, I felt like we'd just begun to understand them.

Setting a story four or five decades in the past allows its creators to use the vantage point of the present to examine how people behaved back then, and how things have changed. Office politics, women's empowerment, domestic life, gender roles, sexism, racism, classism, anti-Semitism, birth control--all of these have been addressed, without preaching or pandering. And while our 2008 selves may not approve of the behavior being portrayed, it's important to remember that it was a time of conformity. People did not want to be seen as different, so they probably said and did things that they didn't necessarily agree with or believe.

The show is much more than just a soap opera about the lives and loves of office workers. One of the things I appreciate most about the show is that it treats its characters' problems and situations seriously, and in an adult way. It's a show about grown-ups, for grown-ups. It's smart and sophisticated, sexy and subtle. It captures these people at a moment in their lives when the post-World War II status quo was about to give way to enormous change. They don't know that change is coming, but we do. If we're lucky, the show will be around long enough for us to see how its characters experience the upheavals on the way.

Now Showing

Last night we went to see The Dark Knight. We had tried to go on Sunday afternoon, but the theater was so crowded, we couldn't even find a parking space. I'd never seen the parking lot more than half full, except maybe back when Star Wars (Episode IV) got rereleased back in, um, '97 was it?

I'm not big on buying movie tickets ahead of time, mostly because I resent paying the surcharge, though I will admit that it's convenient, and it makes sense to do it for "event" movies with high demand. Also, I get discounted passed through my job, which you have to redeem at the box office. Anyway, I figured that going on a weeknight would be slightly less crazed, but still busy, so we left the house at 6:40 for a 7:35 show time. We got to the theater right around 7, and waited in line between five and ten minutes to buy our tickets.

The Showcase chain, in an attempt to swank things up a little (and to get people to spend more money), has tagged a few of the screens in the Revere multiplex with the "Director's Hall" designation. Basically, this means you get to choose specific seats, which is done via a little touch-screen display at the ticket counter. When you then go into the theater, there are actual ushers who show you to your seats, and they will also take your concession order, go and get the goodies for you, and bring them to you at your seat before the movie begins. Oh, and the seats are a bit nicer than the ones in the "regular" theaters: they're leather, and have thicker padding.

For these privileges, you pay $2 above the standard ticket price, which I believe is now $10.25. However, I get those aforementioned discount passes for $7.75 each, so even adding on the extra to see a movie in Director's Hall, it's still costing me a bit less than standard price. This was our first time trying out this frillery, but we figured we should give it a try. The movie was showing on at least three other screens in the theater, so it wasn't like we had to do it. The start time just happened to be convenient for us. What I'd really like is to be able to get a beer or a cocktail to go with my movie, like you can at the Somerville Theatre, and while we're at it, why not make the booze-serving screen an over-21 theater?

Oh, the movie? Yeah, it rocked. A bit long at two and a half hours, but very little of it felt extraneous. I missed some bits of dialogue because the music was very loud in places, but this is certainly not the only movie or TV show to be guilty of that. The visuals were often stunning, and Heath Ledger was nothing short of amazing, making his death that much more of a shame.

Testy Time

Coming into work this morning on the T, I happened to be standing next to two women whom I determined to be coworkers. They were having a conversation about an event taking place at their workplace that day, and seemed a bit concerned that they were going to be late. This led to one of them saying, "What time is it?" She started to rummage in her purse, presumably looking for her phone to check the time (hmm, where have I heard that before?).

I glanced at my wrist and said, "Five minutes to nine." Instead of a smile, a thank you, or a nod of appreciation, I got a nasty, withering look from the woman. She then extracted her phone from her purse, looked at it, and said to her coworker, "8:54."

Okay, then. I was only trying to be helpful, but I guess it wasn't worth it. I can imagine what she said after they were away from me. "Can you believe that guy, telling me what time it was? I don't need him giving me the time."

Ice Cream Hassles: The Uncanny Aftermath

When I got home from work, I told the Mrs. my unhappy ice cream tale. When we'd finished eating dinner, she said, "I want some ice cream." I said, "You want ice cream? I was robbed of my ice cream today!" So we hopped in the car and headed down to the Stop & Shop near Wellington Circle.

When we got to the ice cream aisle, I noticed an older couple, woman maybe late fifties, man somewhat older. Actually it would have been hard not to notice them. Each one had a cart strategically parked on either side of the case that held the Ben & Jerry's, and into these carts they were placing pints of the ice cream, in neat rows. They were taking turns diving into the freezer case and coming out with armloads of three or four pints each. (The B&J is on sale this week, and I guess they really, really like it.)

I stood there waiting for them to get out of the way so I could grab a pint, but they didn't seem to notice me, or maybe they did notice me but didn't care. But after a couple of minutes they took a breather, or consulted a list, or something, so I saw my opening and seized my chance. I slipped in, worried that they'd already taken all the good flavors, as there were several gaps on the shelves, but I was able to grab a pint of Oatmeal Cookie Chunk and escape unharmed.

As I walked away I took a quick look at their carts, and because they had arranged their frozen treasure so precisely, I was able to total it up on the fly: each cart had at least two dozen pints of Ben & Jerry's in it. Let's call it fifty pints of ice cream between them, and they weren't done yet. I wonder if they're in charge of an ice cream party somewhere...

Ice Cream Hassles

Today there was an ice cream party at work for the whole campus, outside on the lawn. One of my coworkers sent an email suggesting that those who wanted to go should meet in our lobby and we could all walk over together. When we arrived, there were probably about a hundred people already in line in front of us, so we got in line and waited. Someone came along and asked if we were all from the same office or group, and snapped a few photos of us.

The line moved along, and when there were about ten people left ahead of us, someone came up and said, "I'm sorry, but we've run out of ice cream." I looked behind us, and there were (I'm estimating) about another two hundred people in line. We looked at each other, shrugged, and headed back toward our office. One of my coworkers turned around and said, "I thought she was kidding!" Another said, "What did they do, buy five gallons of ice cream and figure that would be enough?"

We were disappointed not to get our treats, but the predominant thought among us was, how could such an event have been planned so poorly? It was teased via email for a week. Is there no rough estimate of the number of students and staff on the campus on a given day? Would an ice cream riot have been an inappropriate response?

And the Nominees Are... Part 4: Comedy Acting

Let's begin with the leading ladies: I don't have a single complaint with this category. I think the academy got it just right. Tina Fey was nominated but didn't win last year, so I'll certainly root for her, but I'd kind of like to see Julia Louis-Dreyfus win this time. Her Christine Campbell is self-centered and competitive, but she comes across as a real person with good qualities as well as flaws. I also think Christina Applegate did a fine job as amnesia victim Samantha Newly, trying to make amends for her past behavior on Samantha Who?, but this was the show's first season, and I think the character needs time to develop and hopefully grow a bit more complex. America Ferrera won last year for Ugly Betty, so even though she's nominated again, I'd like to see the academy spread the love and choose one of the others. Oops, I forgot Mary-Louise Parker on Weeds. Nice job, maybe next year?

Actors: once again the academy is stuck in the James Spader rut of nominating someone over and over, even though he doesn't necessarily deserve it over and over. I'm referring specifically to Tony Shalhoub's Adrian Monk. Ricky Gervais won last year for Extras and I had no problem with that, but prior to that, Shalhoub had been nominated six times (not counting this one) and won three times for Monk. We get it, already: he has OCD and about a squillion quirks that go with it, but he's still a detective genius. Give someone else a turn, why don'tcha? Like, say, Josh Radnor as Ted on How I Met Your Mother. It's an ensemble show, but he's the central character, so I would say that qualifies.

Alec Baldwin's portrayal of loopy but sly network exec Jack Donaghy is one of the absolute best things about 30 Rock. Think what you want about him as a person, he's dead-on in this role. Steve Carell should probably win one of these years for his antics as the nightmare boss who wants to be everyone's friend on The Office. Newcomer Lee Pace did an excellent job as the deadpan center of Pushing Daisies, but it's probably too soon. Charlie Sheen? Funny enough on Two and a Half Men, but like the show, the performance is one-note. I'd have preferred to see Jason Lee get a nomination for My Name Is Earl; even though I thought the jail and coma storylines were not that effective and the show had a very uneven season, Lee made us admire Earl for his sincere efforts to be a better person, and he has first-rate comic chops and timing.

Supporting actresses: The nominees: Kristin Chenoweth for Pushing Daisies; Jean Smart for Samantha Who?; Amy Poehler for Saturday Night Live; Holland Taylor for Two And A Half Men; and Vanessa Williams for Ugly Betty. Naturally I would have liked to see Jenna Fischer get nominated for The Office. I'd probably give her Jean Smart's spot on the list. I liked Smart as Samantha's doubtful, pushy mom, but I thought she overplayed it a bit.

Vanessa Williams is a hoot as the wicked-witch Wilheilima Slater on Ugly Betty, but I thought Judith Light brought more depth to the character of long-suffering matriarch Claire Meade, while also making her extremely funny. Chenoweth is a Broadway vet who gave verve and spunk to Olive's unrequited love on Daisies. As for Poehler, what more needs to be said? She's hugely talented, and it's great to see her getting this recognition. Taylor has been nominated four times, including this year, for her role as Evelyn, Charile and Alan's iceberg of a mother on Two and a Half Men. She's easily the best thing about the show, and maybe it's time for her to get a statue, so she can move aside for new blood.

Supporting actors: eh. The nominees: Jeremy Piven and Kevin Dillon for Entourage; Neil Patrick Harris for How I Met Your Mother; Rainn Wilson for The Office; and Jon Cryer for Two And A Half Men.

Let's start by throwing out Piven and Dillon (sorry, guys) and replacing them with Jack McBrayer and Tracy Morgan from 30 Rock. Both their characters--McBrayer's addled hayseed Kenneth Parcell the NBC Page and Morgan's (intentionally?) outrageous actor Tracy Jordan--are completely insane, in completely different but equally hilarious ways. Next, let's get rid of Cryer (see Sheen, above) and slide in Jason Segel, who makes Marshall's quirks so sweet and lovable on How I Met Your Mother.

Last, substitute John Krasinski for Rainn Wilson. Same show, totally different vibe. Wilson's Dwight is intentionally overplayed, but it's getting harder to find the funny Dwight moments among the annoying Dwight moments, and the character of Dwight is the biggest reason people are turned off by The Office. Krasinski's Jim Halpert is given much more to work with by the show, and does much more with it. People get hung up on his puppy-dog eyes, but Jim has grown into a much more complex and rich character as he gradually realized it was time to grow up, while maintaining the mischievous edge we love (my favorite prank: putting Dwight's desk in the men's room).

But even with all those changes, my choice for this category is Harris, as womanizing bro-meister Barney Stinson on Mother. Sure he's an arrogant pig who uses people, but he has also shown us how much he cares for his friends Ted and Marshall. Harris's gift is in bringing all Barney's disparate strands into one whole person, and somehow making him likable in spite of his selfishness. Deep down, Barney just wants to be liked, just like everyone else. He just doesn't know how to show it, yet.

So, there we go. I guess I'm going to have to watch the awards this year. We'll revisit my ramblings on September 22nd and see how I did. And yes, you would be justified in concluding that I spend far too much time watching television.

And the Nominees Are... Part 3: Comedy Shows

Television comedy has been having something of a fallow period for the past few years, which is not to say that there aren't any funny shows on, but compared to a decade ago, the number of comedy shows currently on the air is much lower. Part of the problem is that new shows take time to gain traction with audiences, and networks are notoriously impatient for immediate ratings successes. Also, a lot of shows just aren't funny (how is According to Jim still on the air?).

Networks have tried to freshen their comedy offerings by turning away from the traditional three-camera sitcom, shot on a soundstage in front of a live audience, to single-camera shows without laugh tracks such as Arrested Development and The Office. Personally, I prefer shows without a laugh track--I'm comfortable figuring out when I'm supposed to laugh--but it's more important that a show is funny. One of my favorite shows is How I Met Your Mother, which is done on a soundstage with a laugh track. I wouldn't care if it was filmed in an alley, it makes me laugh after a long day.

This year's Best Comedy nominees represent NBC (30 Rock and The Office), HBO (Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage), and CBS (Two and a Half Men). I think the academy got it about half right. I don't have HBO, but I have sampled both its entries on DVD, and I don't like either of them. Curb is very much an acquired taste, due to the persona of its creator and central character, Larry David. I watched a few episodes and found him to be more despicable than funny. I know that's supposed to be the point, but I couldn't stand him or anyone else in his orbit. But then, I never cared for Seinfeld, which David was also behind. I found the characters on that show incredibly unlikable, which for me largely precluded finding them funny.

The bits of Entourage that I've seen just bored me. The general consensus among critics is that this past season was not its best, but academy voters have shown a tendency to nominate shows somewhat retroactively, i.e. it was good before, so let's just go ahead and nominate it again.

As for Two and a Half Men, I watched it pretty regularly for a few years, and it's fairly funny, but it's a one-note show. Ninety percent of the jokes are of a crude sexual nature, which can be funny but not over and over and over. The other ten percent of the jokes seem to be about youngster Jake's bodily functions, har har.

30 Rock's gleefully absurd take on the behind-the-scenes workings of a sketch-comedy show is filled with so many jokes, sight gags, and tossed-off lines that it almost requires you to watch each episode twice (which I often do, thanks to my TiVo).

The Office is a sardonic and often surprisingly real look at what life at work is like for many cubicle dwellers, albeit with an exaggerated buffoon of a boss in Michael Scott (Steve Carell). I'll admit that I occasionally grow tired of Michael's infantile behavior, as well as that of his sycophantic and clueless underling Dwight Schrute, but when that happens, the other characters always manage to make up for it, particularly Andy, Kevin, and Angela.

I love both 30 Rock and The Office, both of which have previously won this award (in 2007 and 2006, respectively). I also have fairly large crushes on both Tina Fey (the Saturday Night Live alum who created 30 Rock and stars as harried head writer Liz Lemon, who must play ringmaster to her circus of writers and actors as well as her flaky boss, gloriously played by Alec Baldwin) and Jenna Fischer (The Office's sweet and plucky receptionist Pam Beesly, who holds things together at Dunder Mifflin's Scranton office). The Mrs. refers to them as my "TV girlfriends."

Given the nominated shows, I'd pick 30 Rock to win, mostly because I feel like its creators work really hard to make each episode as funny as possible. If I were choosing the five nominees for this category, my list would include The Office and 30 Rock, ABC's freshman fantasy Pushing Daisies (which was on the list of semifinalists), and CBS's How I Met Your Mother and The New Adventures of Old Christine.

Daisies is a candy-coated visual acid trip wrapped around a throwback detective show, wrapped around a classic story of life, death, and true love, and it's thoroughly original. But it isn't a comedy in the traditional sense--in fact, it defies a label of any kind--and that may have thrown the academy voters. Mother is a three-camera ensemble comedy in the tradition of Friends, but with sharper characterizations and the framing device of a father in 2030 relating to his children the stories of his friendships and relationships as a younger man (shown in flashback as the primary action of the show). Old Christine is also a traditionally shot soundstage show about a divorced woman (Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus, somewhat more likable here) trying to raise a son and maintain a cordial relationship with her ex-husband and his new love, also named Christine but younger and dumber. This show succeeds mainly because of the hard-working cast, and because it's genuinely funny. Hopefully, as these shows evolve they will get the recognition they deserve.

Still to come: comedy acting nominees.

And the Nominees Are... Part 2: Drama Acting

(NOTE: This entry was originally part of the first Emmys post, but I decided to break it up. No particular reason.)

As in the show category, Jon Hamm's portrayal of Mad Men's central character Don Draper was a wonder to watch and he's probably going to be the favorite, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Michael C. Hall's Dexter Morgan managed a dark-horse win. Hugh Laurie could get the nod for House, and if it happened I wouldn't say he didn't deserve it, but I'd feel Hamm was robbed. The surprising but deserved nomination of Bryan Cranston for his intense and fearless turn as a science teacher turned meth-maker on Breaking Bad made me happy, and I've also heard good things about Gabriel Byrne's shrink on In Treatment, though I haven't seen the show.

As for the ladies, I feel about Glenn Close's Patty Hewes the same way I feel about Damages, but my gut tells me she's going to win. (My choice among this year's nominees would be Kyra Sedgwick for The Closer.) I don't watch Brothers and Sisters, so I don't have an opinion about Sally Field (though I'll point out that she won last year), and I can't even watch the commercials for Saving Grace, so I don't have anything nice to say about Holly Hunter in this role.

Mariska Hargitay on Law & Order: SVU finally got her statue a couple of years ago, but I think the show peaked right around that time, and has gone downhill since then in general. She usually gets one or two really good episodes each season, which is why she keeps getting nominated (presumably those are the ones that get submitted to the nominating committee), but it would be nice to see the academy loosen up a little. I think part of the problem is how "lead actress" is defined; I think Mad Men's January Jones deserved a nomination as Don Draper's wife Betty, but I suspect her role was not considered a leading one because Don's domestic life took a back seat to his work (and his indiscretions with a client and a bohemian Greenwich Village artist).

In the supporting-actress category, I don't have much to say about the women, only because I don't watch any of the shows in contention. I used to watch Grey's Anatomy, but halfway through this season, around the time new episodes dried up due to the writers' strike, I gave up. I couldn't stand the whining anymore, and I didn't feel that the storylines were going anywhere interesting. The two performers from the show who did get nominated, Chandra Wilson and Sandra Oh, probably annoyed me the least and deserve their nominations. When I was watching, Dr. Bailey was easily my favorite character, so I'd like to see Wilson win, but I think some of the women on Lost should have been nominated here, especially Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet) and Yunjin Kim (Sun).

For the supporting actors, the only real disappointment is knowing that it's impossible to acknowledge the great work of all the excellent actors in the Lost ensemble, but at least they got it right with Michael Emerson's riveting, enigmatic Ben. [Okay, I lied before about not mentioning Boston Legal: how the hell does scenery-chewing William Shatner get nominated over Naveen Andrews (Sayid), or Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), or Jorge Garcia (Hurley), or Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), or Josh Holloway (Sawyer)? How? It's inexcusable.] If any show deserved to have more than one actor nominated in this category, it's Lost. I so hope Emerson wins, for all of them.

Elsewhere in the category, I've never cared much for Ted Danson's work, even on Cheers, but the way he played the numerous facets and shades of gray of Arthur Frobisher, the target of the litigation on Damages, was fantastic, and for me it was the best part of the show. Zeljko Ivanek, who played his attorney, was also nominated. He's been around TV for a couple of decades, and it's nice to see his work get acknowledged as well, but this slot probably should have gone to one of the Lost guys mentioned above.

Phew, that was tiring. And that's just the drama categories. We'll tackle comedy a bit later, or perhaps tomorrow.

And the Nominees Are...

With yesterday's announcement of this year's Emmy nominees, I thought I should start acting like what I claim to be (someone who cares about good TV) and offer up a few thoughts. This year the academy took the unusual step of announcing the category semifinalists a couple of weeks ago, which allows for both some insight into the nominating process, and for some snarky second-guessing (which is where I come in).

One criticism leveled at the academy is that its members do not make nominations based on the totality of a series's season, but on selected individual episodes. The best evidence of this is the inexplicable, perennial nominations for Boston Legal. I know a couple of people who watch and enjoy this show, and more power to them, I guess, but its selection over Friday Night Lights (which I don't even watch, but I'm well aware of its acclaim) or The Wire (ditto) only makes me wonder what flavor crack the academy members have been getting in their gift baskets year after year.

Also puzzling is that there are six nominees for best drama instead of the usual five; it's as though the academy intentionally bent the rules to shoehorn this insipid, ridiculous show into contention as a favor to someone (and did the same thing with the show's star James Spader in the best actor in a drama category). I won't dignify any of the show's nominations by discussing them; instead I'll simply ignore them and pretend they don't exist. Each nomination this show received means another, more deserving show or actor was shut out, and it isn't right.

Now that the ranting is out of the way, the real news in the Best Drama category this year is the nomination of not one, but two series that air on basic cable networks, Mad Men on AMC and Damages on FX. This is heartening because it affirms that the shows being produced on these channels are as good as, or better than, the big networks' offerings, and that prestige shows don't necessarily have to be on premium cable channels like HBO or Showtime. Hopefully this will demonstrate to show creators looking for homes for their projects that cable networks can provide a hospitable and nurturing environment for quality shows, without as much ratings pressure as at the big networks.

While Damages was certainly an entertaining show, I'm not sure it deserves to be nominated for best drama, because I felt it just wasn't in quite the same class as the other nominees. Mad Men, on the other hand, is one of the most nuanced and most quietly fascinating shows I have ever seen, and is my pick to win the category. The second season begins next Sunday, July 27th, and I'll have more to say about the show next week.

Lost had an awesome season, as it continues to fascinate, perplex, frustrate, and challenge viewers with the mysteries of the plane crash and the island. Aside from a few concrete answers, what more could you want in a show? A thoroughly deserved nomination.

House invigorated itself by bringing in a new group of doctors for Dr. House to torture, but the cases mostly followed the show's now-familiar formula, and the series still rests on Hugh Laurie's shoulders. That's not to take away anything from him or his portrayal, or any of the other actors, for that matter, but the show is not quite as intriguing as the character is.

Dexter: I have not yet seen the second season, but you already know how I feel about the show after having seen the first one. Season 2 drops on DVD on August 19th, and I'll be buying it right away.

On the Wrist

I've been buying (and selling) stuff on eBay for nearly a decade. It was a slog back in the days when I still had a dial-up internet connection, so lunchtime surfing became (and still is) a regular part of my workday. My long-term relationship with eBay came about because of my long-term interest in old watches. Not pocket watches (though there's nothing inherently wrong with those), but wristwatches, primarily mechanical watches from the 1960s and 1970s.

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved watches. I got my first one when I was in first grade; I think it was a Christmas present, but memories from that far back are getting a little fuzzy. It had one of those striped ribbon-type straps, and a piece of plastic surrounding the watch face that was supposed to resemble a saddle. (I was six, and didn't know any better, but that would change.) In ninth or tenth grade I got what was then a bold new bit of technology, an LCD watch. Never mind the LED models; I skipped right over those. But by the time I graduated from high school, I had a renewed appreciation for watches with hands.

These days, many people don't bother to wear a watch; when they want to know what time it is, they look at their cellphones. But to me, a watch is much more than a utilitarian object; it's a bit of style as well as a bit of substance. A well-chosen watch shows that you pay attention to the details. The best of them are little pieces of art that you attach to your wrist and carry around with you all day. I often look at my watch not to see what time it is, but just to appreciate the craftsmanship and style of it.

(I like modern watches too. A $30 quartz Timex will keep better time than a 40-year-old wind-up mechanical watch, even an expensive one, ever could, so I appreciate them for different reasons.)

Before the internet, I rarely came across old watches for sale, except for the occasional find at a flea market or antique store. So the discovery of a vast marketplace largely free of geographic limitations was a joyous occasion. The first item I ever bought on eBay was a watch. The most recent thing I bought on eBay was a watch, which leads me to what I was getting to all along: for the first time since I started using eBay, I received the wrong item.

According to the seller, the item was in its original packaging, and he did not look inside the box before shipping it to me. The watch I received was similar to the one shown in the listing (I'm guessing he used a stock image from the manufacturer's web site), but different enough to matter, to me at least, so I've returned it. As someone who has sold items on eBay, I question his explanation, but it's not worth making an issue of it, as long as he refunds my payment. I'll just have to keep looking, and the searching is at least half the fun of it.

That's Entertainment?

You know you've been married a while when your spouse suggests a "night out" at the local furniture emporium... for the food. And you agree.

Let me point out that we had other plans. We were supposed to see one of my coworkers perform at the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square, but the show had already sold out. He'd warned us, too. He put up a flyer in our office kitchen listing his upcoming shows, and it said "This show WILL sell out." So, my bad. He's performing there several more times over the next couple of months, so we will definitely catch one of those shows, and I promise to not be a doofus and buy the tickets ahead of time.

So yes, we spent our Saturday evening at Jordan's up in Reading. You all know by now how much we love Richardson's ice cream, which is sold inside the store. Well, there's a Fuddrucker's hamburgers inside the store as well. They are not the world's greatest hamburgers, but they are decent, and when you're hungry, a juicy burger and some delicious ice cream sounds like a pretty good combo. Plus, you can eat yourself silly for around $10.

We looked at some furniture, too, mostly to kill time between the burgers and the ice cream, to allow some digestion to occur.

Watch Where You're Pointing That Thing (Crazy Gadgets Unit)

You sure do find some interesting stuff on Amazon.com. I never knew I needed one of these, but now that I know I can get it so easily and cheaply, well, maybe I'll get two.

(Insert obligatory Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference here.)

Bring one of these to your next performance review or salary negotiation. Just walk in and set it on the table, but don't look at it or acknowledge it in any way, and see how things go. Of course, if your employer does not have a sense of humor, you might find yourself looking for work elsewhere.

Oh, the fine print: "Crossbows, Bolts and Compound Bows cannot be shipped to NC; D.C.; MA; Canada or Puerto Rico." Man, our state is no fun at all. Guess I'll just have to have the package sent to my mom's address in RI.

(Source: SlickDeals.net via Consumerist)

Holding My Water

I don't drink soda, and I've generally had my daily allotment of coffee by 11 AM, so I tend to drink water throughout the day. The easiest way to do this at work is to keep a bottle at my desk filled with the nice chilled, filtered water we have available in the kitchen.

Until recently, I would buy a one-liter bottle of Aquafina and reuse the bottle for a couple of months. (I like the Aquafina bottles because they have a wider opening, which I find easier to drink from and refill.) However, it was pointed out to me that these bottles are not supposed to be reused for extended periods of time because they will probably give me cancer or some other unpleasant disease, so I decided to get something more suitable.

Let me say here that I am not an outdoor person. I think most of you have already realized this, but I would seriously rather listen to John Mayer, Jack Johnson, and Dave Matthews on a continuous loop than spend a night in a tent, so I don't often find myself in REI or EMS or any of the other places where outdoorsy people buy their water bottles. I see people carrying water bottles all the time, but it's just not something I had paid any attention to before.

One of my coworkers has an eye-catching aluminum bottle made by a Swiss company called Sigg. I had never heard of them, but apparently this is what all the cool kids are using now. I stumbled across some for sale last week at Whole Foods (still not a place we shop regularly, but sometimes we go there for chicken salad from their deli counter) and was shocked to learn that these things cost $20-22. For a bottle? I know everything is expensive these days, and I imagine these would cost more to produce than plastic bottles, but it just seems excessive. I guess you're paying for that precision Swiss manufacturing, just like with a watch.

I took a look on eBay, and there were plenty of bottles available. Most seemed to be going for full retail, which doesn't make much sense. If you're bidding on an item on eBay and end up paying the same as what you'd pay in a store, plus shipping, you're missing the point. And anyway I felt that bidding on a metal bottle was kind of a waste of my time.

Over the weekend I happened to be at the L.L. Bean store in Burlington, where I saw the same pricey metal bottles, as well as the more traditional plastic Nalgene bottles for $9. Fortunately the whole BPA thing has already played out, and the manufacturers have introduced reformulated bottles (with a big sticker that says "Now BPA-Free!").

Maybe it's just me, but I still think $9 is too much for a water bottle, but at least the Nalgene bottles are made in the United States. I probably should have checked in Target or CVS, but I did not feel like devoting more time and energy to this task, so I bought one. It's swell, I guess. The water tastes fine, but the price of the bottle leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Holiday Weekend: The Lazy Edition

Did everyone have a nice holiday weekend? I hadn't planned on being completely absent from posting, but when you get into the "rhythm" of doing nothing for a couple of days, it's all too easy to forget about things like blogs, or laundry, or household chores.

We are not trek-to-the-Esplanade people, so we spent most of the Fourth just hanging around the house. I made it an even lazier day by sleeping until a bit past 11 AM, after having gotten up around 8 to walk the dog. As soon as my feet hit the floor I thought, "I'm going to try to go back to sleep when I'm done walking her." I don't usually sleep so late on my days off, but I never get enough sleep during the work week, so I'm on a constant sleep deficit, as I imagine most people are, and I guess it just caught up with me.

In the evening we met a friend of the Mrs. at the Showcase in Revere and saw the action flick Wanted. It will never be mistaken for a great movie, but it's plenty entertaining and has some really impressive stunts and action sequences, and sometimes that's more than enough. If you're any kind of fan of the action genre, you'll enjoy it. Saturday was more or less a repeat of Friday, except I didn't sleep quite as late, we saw a different movie (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) at a different theater (the Capitol in Arlington), and no one joined us.

Yesterday we met a couple of the Mrs.' former coworkers for breakfast at SoundBites, then we did some errands and shopping. We left the house fairly early and were gone all day, until almost dinner time. It was weird to be up and out so early on a Sunday, since it's not our usual style. Each time I looked at my watch during the afternoon, I expected it to be about two hours later than it was.

Today it's back to the reality of work, laundry, and household chores. When's the next holiday?

Seasonal Attire

My bus route seems to carry a fairly diverse cross-section of the local population, but I don't see too many men in full business dress, especially in the summer. When I got on the bus this morning, there was a guy sitting near the back wearing a light tan suit, light blue dress shirt, and a striped tie. He looked fairly put-together, in spite of the summer warmth.

I sat down across from him, and noticed that he was also wearing a pair of flip-flops, in almost the same color as his suit. He was holding some sort of bag, which probably contained his office shoes, but who knows? Maybe his employer has a peculiar seasonal dress code that still requires suits and ties but allows summer footwear. Maybe it was "flip-flop day," in the vein of the "Hawaiian shirt day" in that minor classic, Office Space.

Fortunately my job has a very relaxed dress code, so I spend the summer wearing shorts and sneakers to work. But if I did have a job where I had to dress up year-round, I think in warm weather I would carry my office clothes with me and change when I got to work. Riding the T is just too unpredictable; most of the buses have air conditioning these days, but it doesn't always work that well: on my way home last night, for example, the bus's AC was blasting, but for whatever reason it wasn't cool inside the bus. And every now and then I get on a subway car without working AC. In a suit, dress shirt, and tie, you could end up drenched in sweat by the time you got to work, which is not a good way to start the day, and probably wouldn't go over too well with your coworkers either.

Orthographically Yours

Dear Simon & Schuster,

I saw the very pretty full-page color advertisement for Chasing Darkness, Robert Crais's new Elvis Cole thriller, that you placed in today's New York Times. Good stuff. Usually I just skip over these things (last week I think there was one for James Patterson's new book, but who reads his books anyway?), but this caught my eye. I have to confess that I have not managed to get around to reading the Elvis Cole series, but I know that the books have generally received good reviews, and I do enjoy a good mystery, so I'm sure I'll get to them someday.

I hate to nitpick, but there is something I feel I have to bring to your attention. The ad copy makes reference to "a series of grizzly deaths." Really? How terrible. How many grizzlies died? Oh wait, did you mean "a series of grisly deaths"? Yeah, because that's something kind of different. Somebody over there in marketing screwed up big-time, huh? Damn that spell checker in Word. It's smart enough to know if you've spelled a word correctly, but not smart enough to know which correct spelling is the right one for a given sentence.

And none of those bright, shiny employees of yours caught the error, eh? Embarrassing. You do have people who proofread these things, right? I work in publishing, so I know how it is. Stuff needs to be right before it goes to the printer, or you can end up looking pretty stupid. I know a couple of people who are good at this sort of thing that are looking for work, so if you need some help in that area, just let me know. Have a nice day.

Your intrepid blogger,
Some Assembly Required