Watch Wednesday Thursday!

Whoops, didn't take me long to screw that up, huh? This is my deadline week at work, and after I got home yesterday I completely forgot about my biweekly watch post. Anyway...

This is a Casio analog chronograph I got about a year and a half ago (on eBay, of course). I didn't realize Casio made analog watches until one time when I saw one that had hands but also displayed all this other digital stuff on the face when you wanted it to. I thought about getting that watch for a while, then I saw this one and liked it much better. Turns out that Casio makes a whole line of watches with analog movements that are accurate, dependable, and reasonably priced. I've gotten two others since.

It also comes in a version with a black dial, but I have so many other watches with black dials that I thought it might be nice to have some variety.

This watch is very large; the face is around 45 millimeters in diameter, which is far larger than someone with wrists as skinny as mine should be wearing, but somehow it looks all right on my wrist when I wear it.

This was another instance of a watch that came with a horrible crappy band, a resin diver thing with ripples. Because the watch is so large, the band is kind of wide, so it took me a little while to find something suitable for it. I ended up getting this nylon thing with a leather backing, but I'm not that thrilled with it, so I'll probably be looking for something to replace it.

The Fog

This season's episodes of Mad Men seem to be getting under my skin a bit more than the previous ones. I think it's because of the ways the characters are reacting to things happening in the world of 1963. I woke up this morning thinking about last night's episode.

(Potential spoilers ahead...)

Last night we had an extended exchange between Don and another expectant father in the hospital waiting room. At first I thought nothing much was going on there, but they kept cutting between them and Betty's troubled labor and Demerol-induced hallucinations, leading me to think that the contrast between the trauma of giving birth and the ennui of waiting for the news was meant as another reminder of how the experiences of men and women are so starkly different in our society, even today.

It looked to me like we might be being set up for something like a stillbirth, but then I thought that probably would be much too obvious a move for a show that's all about subtlety and subtext, what's left unsaid, what's beneath the surface. The baby finally arrived, but even though Betty said she wanted "everything to be perfect" when the baby came, I don't think that's really going to be the case.

(And baby Eugene was born about two months before I was...)

Then in the hallway, the other new dad wouldn't look Don in the eye, like he was embarrassed for having shared his true feelings with another guy. And of course, his earlier words about being a better man remind us again that Don keeps struggling with the same issue, and losing.

And hey: Francine! Where have you been? We missed you. Well, I did. After Anne Dudek's character died on House last year, I thought we'd see more of her in season two of Mad Men, but the opposite happened; I think she was in maybe two episodes last year (goes and checks IMDB... okay, three). Maybe now that the Drapers' housekeeper has left, Francine will come around more often to give Betty a helping hand.

But I thought the most interesting part of this week's episode was (again) Peggy's struggle with her own ambitions and desires. Sneaky old "Duck" Phillips showed up to try to lure Peggy away from Sterling Cooper, which sent Peggy to Don to try (unsuccessfully, for now at least) to get a raise. It seemed like a no-brainer for Peggy to accept Duck's offer, but I have a feeling that she feels a certain loyalty to Don because it was he who first promoted her to junior copywriter, and perhaps she feels that her loyalty and patience will eventually be rewarded. I hope for her sake that does in fact happen. I also think she doesn't trust Duck, which is probably prudent.

This Week in Awesome (9/12/09)

Apologies for the recent, unintended interruption in service (the last post was Wednesday morning). I started working on something yesterday afternoon, but I couldn't find the right way into it, and then the rest of my workday intervened, so it will have to wait a bit.

We're off to RI today, for two main reasons: my (parochial) high school is having a 50th anniversary mass tomorrow morning, and a number of my former teachers are returning for the event, so I thought it might be interesting to attend; and my dad's birthday was this week (he, my brother, and I are all Virgos) so we're going to visit and see if we can talk him into being taken to lunch or something like that (more difficult than you'd think).

So, onward... this Brooklyn store has a slightly unorthodox return policy. I wonder how many customers follow it? (Gizmodo)

I happened across an eBay listing with a strange comment in its description that deftly straddles the awesome/awful axis. Hmm, no bids yet--what a surprise. Please, readers, I implore you: if each of you contributes, say, five cents, we can hopefully raise the $3 needed to get this poor, forlorn idiot woman the fucking lint roller help she so desperately needs. And man, that is one fat dog.

Chelsea Lately is a humor/talk show on the E! channel hosted by comedian Chelsea Handler, sort of a pop culture analogue to The Daily Show (in fact, both shows are on at the same time, which is slightly inconvenient). In the first part of this clip, a reality dating show visits the set of CL (it's not clear why). In the second, much funnier part, Chelsea shows us some of the workplace perks her staff receive. (Hulu via TV Squad)

And finally, this is one of the more bizarre incidents I've seen in quite a while, which is precisely what makes it so awesome. The power of the human spirit is... oh never mind. I don't want to give it away, just watch it. (Chronicle-Telegram, somewhere in Ohio, via Consumerist)

Dodged a Bullet

Coming home from work last night I was waiting for the bus at Wellington. There was a woman standing next to me, not more than a couple of feet away, with a sheaf of printouts she was studying. I was reading the paper, and so not really paying attention to her or others.

Suddenly she shrieked, and the papers went flying in all directions. I looked over to see her looking up in the air, then she looked back down and said, to everyone, "That seagull just shit on me!" (There were a couple of them overhead, looping around aimlessly and squawking. They must have gotten lost looking for Revere Beach.) Sure enough, she had a substantial tannish blob on her right sleeve. She removed her sweater and tied it around her waist.

She said the guck had hit her pretty hard, and at first she thought she might have been shot. I thought about how close I'd come to being the victim.

Under Construction

Hi, we're back. We had a nice, relaxing weekend, plus the weather up here in the Northeast has been fantastic since the last heat 'n' humidity wave left over a week ago. People apparently are still pissing and moaning about what a lousy summer it was, but hey, guess what? It's still summer. Yeah, check your calendar. And September tends to be one of the nicest months around here (assuming, of course, there aren't any hurricanes).

Only one thing marred the weekend: the people next door are having their back porch rebuilt, and whoever they've hired must be in a really big hurry to get the job finished, or something, because they were there working all weekend. Yesterday was the only morning I was in fact awakened by construction noise (to wit, a table saw), and that happened around 8:30 AM, which is not a horrible hour.

Saturday I slept in until around 9:30, and Sunday until 10. The work started right around 10 on both those days, so I do think they were trying to show us some consideration. It just wasn't particularly conducive to sitting out on our own back porch enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee.

This Week in Awesome (9/5/09)

Hello, and welcome to this Labor Day weekend edition of TWiA.

Let's begin with a funny little spoof video for a device no one really needs. Careful with that thing... (CollegeHumor via Gizmodo)

Some wag (from the UK, not surprisingly) with time on his hands decided to send invoices to companies he patronizes, billing them for the time he has lost standing in lines and such. That's kind of cute in a "what an asshole" sort of way, but he actually got a response from one company that's even more amusing. (Consumerist via #sixweeks)

Some clever folks managed to surreptitiously film a comedic soap opera inside an IKEA without getting caught. Nice. I hope they're able to do more of these. (Buzzfeed via Racked)

Now for my favorite thing this week: a candidate for Cambridge School Committee sent out a flyer that was riddled with mistakes. This is quite possibly one of the most awesome things I've ever seen on the web, and also vindicates my decades of grammar, spelling, and punctuation snobbery.

My father-in-law, who was a journalist with exacting writing standards (I'll have to tell you the story about Al Gore some time), used to write campaign pieces like this for a living, and I know he would have been colossally amused by this story, while at the same time horrified that someone else had done such a poor job at it. Thank you, Rachel Rubin. Thank. You. (Wicked Local Cambridge via Universal Hub)

And finally, it you haven't already seen it, People of Walmart. It's awesome and awful at the same time.

Ciao, amici...

Labors

Everyone is hustling to get out of town for the long weekend. My coworkers have been slipping out of the office since the middle of yesterday afternoon. One sent an email this morning saying she would be leaving around 3 today to "attempt to beat some Cape traffic." Good luck with that. I mean, no offense, but that's pretty much what everyone else is doing, right around the same time they're doing it, so you're not really going to be beating anything, except perhaps your forehead against the steering wheel.

To me, the three-day weekends that bracket the summer season are absolutely the worst time to go away to the Cape, or Maine, or any similar New England vacation destination. I haven't been to the Cape in a few years, but for three years in a row we went for a weekend in October, and it was much more enjoyable because the weather is still quite nice, but there aren't nearly as many people around. You get better hotel rooms at better rates, you get seated in restaurants faster, you don't have to sit in traffic for three hours.

So we're staying around this weekend. We don't have any definite plans yet, but as I put it in an email to one friend, "'Go somewhere and eat something there' is about as far as I've gotten. I know it lacks detail, but I'm liking the simplicity of its structure." I've got some bits for TWiA, so there will be a post tomorrow, but after that probably not again until Tuesday. Enjoy your (hopefully long) weekend.

Watch Wednesday (9/2/09)

I've decided a couple of things about this feature: first, every other Wednesday will be Watch Wednesday. It has kind of shaken out that way on its own, and I think it works better when spaced out as such--I don't want to overdo it. Also, I'm going to attempt to alternate between older watches and contemporary ones, so that means this edition's watch is vintage.

This watch is a Caravelle, which was a low-priced sibling line that Bulova introduced at the beginning of the 1960s to better compete with Timex, which was making serious inroads in the market with its low-priced models. Based on some period advertisements I've seen, a Timex or Caravelle sold for around $10 to $15, which at the time wasn't cheap, but was a lot less than typical Bulova prices of the period. Bulova hoped that the halo effect of its prestigious status in the marketplace would rub off on Caravelle, making it more appealing to consumers than Timex's somewhat more hunble image.

This watch is from 1969, and by then there was some cross-pollination going on: the Caravelle line had expanded to include self-winding models to keep up with Timex, and since Bulova was already making some excellent automatic movements, they started showing up in certain higher-end Caravelle models like this one.

Compared to some other Bulova products, this is a pretty rare model; I've seen maybe half a dozen of them for sale in ten years of collecting. It took me a long time to get hold of one--I was outbid on the first couple I encountered on eBay. Eventually I was able to buy one relatively cheaply because it was not working and was in very rough condition. A while later I came across another non-working example that was much nicer cosmetically, and I bought that one too.

A couple of months back, after they'd sat in a box for maybe three years, I decided it was time to talk to a watch repair person and get one clean, working watch out of them. It was also fitted with a new crystal, as neither one was any good. Now that I have one in working condition, it has quickly become one of my favorite watches. I like the juxtaposition of the black and white elements in the design: the days of the week on white background, the date numerals reversed, and how that is echoed on the half-and-half inner bezel.

The rotating outer bezel is also a cool touch. (The lettering looks yellow in the picture, but it's actually a very interesting metallic-looking gold-orange.) Set your corresponding time zone next to the 12 at the top of the inner bezel, and you can see at at glance that it's three hours earlier in the Pacific time zone, or five hours later in London, or something like that. It's a throwback to a time when dealing with someone several time zones away was still not an everyday thing. The little triangle says "GMT" inside it, and on the opposite side it says "DATE LINE." (They were probably hoping pilots would buy this.)

It takes an odd size strap--literally, it's 19 millimeters wide. 18 was kind of the standard at the time, though certain Rolex models did (and still do) take 19 straps. Maybe this was a conscious attempt on Bulova's part to imbue the watch with some perceived glamour, but it was probably a pain when it came time to replace it. I was able to find a very nice strap without too much trouble.

One other thing about this watch that's potentially frustrating: most modern watches that display the day and/or date have a "quickset" feature that allows you to adjust them easily when the month has less than 31 days, or when you haven't worn the watch for a while and you want to reset the day and date without having to keep turning the crown to get to the correct day. This watch doesn't have such a feature, and come the end of this month, I don't know how to get the date to advance without changing the day of the week. Should be interesting...

Overheard: Not Even Close Edition

1:30 PM, Green Line E train inbound, Museum of Fine Arts station: "Does this go by BU East?" Ah, September...

Wake-Up Dog

About a year ago, we stopped crating the dog at night. It was partly because after having her for two years we figured it was no longer really necessary, and partly because she was waking us up by whining, sometimes several times during the course of one night. The reason for the whining was she didn't want to be in the crate while we were home (it didn't seem to matter that we were asleep), so we gave her what she wanted. She started sleeping on her bed in the living room most of the time, reverting to the open crate (where it was warmer) during the winter.

This has gradually led to more freedom for her while we are not around, including leaving her to sleep where she wants during the day while we're at work, and she has behaved admirably. But there are some unanticipated consequences as well. Her latest ploy for attention is a little gimmick we refer to as "Why Aren't You Up, It's Playtime!" She wanders into the bedroom, usually around 6 AM, making sure she walks loudly enough on the carpet to wake me. (This is the same dog who gets bumped into, and sometimes stepped on, because she has a tendency to sneak up on us, so she can be quiet when it suits her.) She comes around to my side of the bed, sniffs, and waits.

If she doesn't get an immediate response, she throws herself into her "play stance," thumping her front paws on the floor with her front legs and torso extended, butt up in the air, tail wagging feverishly. Typically she can barely be bothered to lift her head to acknowledge me when I arrive home, even though she has previously done a happy dance and thrown her stuffed toys around for the benefit of the Mrs. when she arrives home. So I'm not sure why I'm the lucky recipient of the early-morning attention, but it may be because I'm the one who walks her in the mornings before I leave for work. Who knows what goes on in a dog's brain?

If I pretend to still be asleep and continue to ignore her, she starts barking, which is really charming at 6 AM. Greyhounds rarely bark, but this has happened a couple of times on weekends when she has needed to go out, so it's usually wiser to give her a little attention (she's particularly fond of having her ears rubbed) until she decides it's time for her to go back to sleep and she wanders off again. Meanwhile I attempt to grab 15 more minutes of sleep before my alarm goes off.

Style File: Shuron Freeway Sunglasses

I talk a lot about style and putting thought and effort into how you look. I thought it might be fun to periodically explore some of my personal "elements of style" (with apologies to Strunk and White).

I wear prescription sunglasses. I really have to; the sun is just overwhelmingly bright otherwise. When I wore contact lenses I could wear just any old sunglasses, as long as they were suitably dark. When I decided 11 years ago to go back to wearing glasses full-time after 15 years of wearing contacts, I knew I would have to deal with the sunglasses issue.

My first solution was a pair of glasses with the Transitions lenses. They didn't really get dark enough, and I spent a couple of years walking around squinting. In 2001 I purchased a new pair of glasses and a pair of sunglasses to go with them. (I wanted to go with the magnetic clip-ons, but I couldn't find them in a frame style I liked.) I still have both of these, but the everyday glasses got pretty beat up, so I replaced them about a year and a half ago.

Not long after that, I started thinking about getting a second pair of sunglasses. I wanted a change from my standard roundish metal frames. After much searching I happened upon the company Shuron, from Greenville, South Carolina. They are the originators of the Ronsir, which is sometimes referred to as the "Malcolm X" frame style, with plastic temples and brow pieces on a metal chassis. (Tom Hanks also wore these in Catch Me If You Can.)

I was very surprised to learn that they still manufacture all their frames in the United States. I thought it would be great to get something classic, a little retro, and somewhat out of the ordinary while supporting an American company. I was set on getting the Ronsir with a chrome chassis and dark gray lenses, but my friend A Proper Bostonian looked at their web site and told me that the Freeway in tortoise with green lenses would look better with my fair coloring.

Of course, she was right (when it comes to matters of style, she generally is). Shuron has excellent customer service, and since their products are not carried by many stores, they will sell direct to individuals. You can purchase frames from them and take them to your preferred optometrist, or they can make your lenses and fit them to your frames in their in-house lab. You can pay for one frame and they will send you two or three different sizes of it, so you can determine the best fit, and then return the others.

With regular lenses the Freeway looks like Buddy Holly's glasses, but in the "demi amber" color with sunglass lenses it's something altogether different, I think. It makes me think me of those French New Wave movies from the early 1960s that I've never seen. I wish the green lenses were just a little darker, but otherwise I really like them. One other thing: I discovered that they are too wide to wear with curved-bill caps, so when it gets cool enough to need a hat I'll have to revert to my other oval sunglasses, but on second thought, I'm more likely to wear a different hat, so I can keep wearing these glasses.

This Week in Awesome (8/29/09)

Can't believe August is just about over already... but it did have five weekends, so five TWiAs.

This is a couple of weeks old now, but it's kind of cool. There's a public art project going on in Philadelphia that involves painting "love letter" murals on buildings, in lieu of graffiti I guess. (PSFK)

I don't know how I missed a great site like this for so long: Overheard in New York.

Similar to the job interview questions I mentioned a while back, here is some of the crazy stuff people put on their resumes.

After the Bridezillas clip and the KFC thing from last week, I was thinking that we may have to start dividing this feature into "awesome" and "awful." Here's this week's contribution to the latter category, something that as a dog owner I could not conceive of using. (Consumerist, Soup blog, many, many other sites)

Just Can't Get Enough

If just watching Mad Men isn't quite enough for you, the web is happy to help you augment your viewing experience. (I promise this isn't going to turn into an all-MM blog, but I do feel an obligation to point out these things.)

Start with the show's official site, which is full of good stuff, including episode recaps, longer previews of upcoming episodes, interviews with cast and crew members, background on some of the products and companies featured as Sterling Cooper clients, trivia quizzes about the 1960s, a lively fan forum, contests, and much more.

Basket of Kisses is a fan site run by two sisters that has a very active fan community, interviews, and lots of other good stuff. They have an impressive level of access to the show and its creators and actors.

The localish blog Unlikely Words is not exclusively a Mad Men site, but one of its creators has gone to the trouble of sifting through the first two seasons in order to isolate all of Don Draper's lines of dialogue. Wow. (He's also done the same for all of Tracy Jordan's lines on 30 Rock, which is equally ambitious, but reads a bit differently.) They also do episode recaps.

Update 2:30 PM: I accidentally left out what I consider the most interesting of these sites, The Footnotes of Mad Men. They dig into many of the references made in the show that people younger than, say, 50 might not have firsthand knowledge of, like (from just this week's episode) the 1964 World's Fair, the outcry over the plan to tear down Penn Station, Pepsi's Patio diet soda, Yetta Walenda, and so on.

Loafing

Went down to RI yesterday to visit the family. My mother is still recovering from knee replacement surgery, and she asked if we would go and get her some groceries. Since the arrival in her area last year of a branch of the European grocery chain ALDI, she has done a good portion of her shopping there due to their rock-bottom prices, so that's where she wanted us to go.

You find some unusual things in ALDI, many of which are available for only a limited time. While picking up a package of lunch meat, I noticed this. I thought it was so strange that I had to take a picture of it with my phone, but getting pictures off the phone and into the computer is still such a ridiculously difficult process that it's easier just to link to it.

Has anyone ever tried this product? I'd be too scared.

This Week in Awesome (8/22/09)

There's so much stuff this week (some of it held from last week because it wasn't on theme) I almost don't know where to start.

In that case, why not start with another crazy gadget? I can't imagine anyone seriously using this, but you never know. (Dvice)

Remember the guy who wrote the song about United Airlines wrecking his guitar? He's back with the second song. (Consumerist)

This Is Spinal Tap is still one of the most brilliant movies ever made. How could it possibly be improved upon? Here's how. (YouTube)

The rest of these fall more or less in the category of "there's so much I want to say, but I just can't find the words..." You'll see what I mean:

A surprising sighting in a Walmart parking lot. (Autoblog via Bloodhound blog)

Did you know there was a show called Bridezillas? If I didn't watch The Soup I wouldn't have. Maybe this is typical of the show, maybe it's not. I don't really want to know any more about it. (Soup blog)

And finally, a fast food item that is both horrifying and strangely fascinating. (Consumerist again)

Cultural Disconnect

The Mrs. saw my Mad Men cartoon icon and decided to make one for herself to use on her Facebook page. Her sister commented on it, so she made one for her too.

Some time later they were talking on the phone and the pictures came up, and the Mrs. said something along the lines of, "It's really a great show." The SARSiL (Some Assembly Required Sister-in-Law) said, "What do you mean?" The Mrs. explained that the illustrations were related to the show Mad Men, which her sister had not heard of.

See. the SARSiL does not watch television. She has one, but she lives in a fairly remote, wooded area up in the hills north of Santa Cruz. There is no over-the-air reception to speak of, and she does not have cable or a satellite dish. So the TV is only used for watching DVDs, and she's a bit out of touch regarding a lot of pop culture stuff.

In a way I envy her ignorance, but I don't think I could give up TV.

Wet Dogs and Cheerleaders

Can't forget to mention this... you may (but probably don't) recall that last year we took our dog to a dog-washing event to benefit the MSPCA that featured New England Patriots cheerleaders helping to wash the dogs.

Well, it's that time again. This year, the fifth annual "Paw Wash" event takes place this Sunday, August 23rd, from 10 AM to 1 PM in the parking lot of the MSPCA's Angell Memorial headquarters at 350 South Huntington Avenue in Boston (last year it was at Gillette Stadium). It costs $15 to get your dog washed, $15 for a photo of your dog with cheerleaders, or $25 for the combo package.

All proceeds benefit the MSPCA's Boston Animal Care and Adoption Center.

Trade-In Allowance?

In the past three days I've seen three dorks people zipping around on Segways. Are they having an end-of-model-year sale or something? Can you apply the Cash for Clunkers discount to the purchase of one?

Watch Wednesday (8/19/09)

I was all set to shoot some watch pictures with the other camera (the one that's better at close-ups), but it needs a new battery, and it takes a weird lithium one. I keep meaning to stop and get one on the way home from work, but it's been so hot that I don't want to do anything after work other than get home as fast as possible. (Having several nearby coworkers who run heaters under their desks because their feet get cold from the AC means the office is less comfortable than it ought to be.) Since I skipped doing this last week I didn't want to blow off doing it again, so I used the newer camera that doesn't focus as well up close.

After the vintage Bulova, I thought I'd go with one of my contemporary pieces. This is a Momentum M1 dive watch that I bought new three or four years ago, on eBay of course. I'd been looking around for something with an orange face and came across this (it's also available in several other colors). I wear it frequently during the summer, but almost never during the rest of the year. Orange is just more of a summer color, I guess. I don't dive, but divers' watches tend to be highly water resistant, which never hurts. It's also easy to read, which is always a bonus.

This watch has had several straps since I got it, and I haven't really been happy with any of them. It came with a horrible nylon thing that I had no intention of keeping (I often buy watches knowing the first thing I'm going to do is change the strap), so I put on whatever leather strap I had around.

Later I came across someone else selling these watches on eBay who also sold silicone straps with contrast stitching in the same colors as the faces, so I ordered one with orange stitching from him. But it was shaped in such a way that the edges of the strap flared out past the inside edges of the lugs (difficult to imagine without an accompanying image, I know) and I never really liked how it looked. The strap that's on it currently is a faux-Kevlar style, another one that I just had lying around. I still like the idea of the stitching picking up the color of the watch face, so I'm looking around for something else in that vein.

One-Track Wonder

I finished watching the second season of USA Network's very worthwhile In Plain Sight. The show is about a US Marshal who works in the federal Witness Security program (what most people incorrectly refer to as "witness protection"). It's wry and funny, the characters are very nicely drawn and played, and the show made some great strides in its storytelling this season.

Typically, they left us with a cliffhanger that won't be resolved until the show returns next spring. But as the final scenes of the episode played out, they were accompanied by a striking piece of music that grabbed my attention. It was unfamiliar to me, but the show's web site is courteous enough to list songs that are featured in the episodes, so I browsed over to check it out.

I was stunned to learn that the song, called "The Lightning Strike," was by Snow Patrol, the Irish band responsible for that horrible, insipid weeper ballad "Chasing Cars." You know the one, "If I lay here/If I just lay here/Would you lie with me/And just forget the world?..." Ecch, just typing that makes me feel ill. I never would have guessed the two songs could possibly be by the same band.

I only heard a minute or so of "The Lightning Strike" during the show, but it turns out that what I heard was just the beginning; the song is made up of three "movements" and clocks in at around 16 minutes long (link to listen here). Unfortunately, the other two parts of the song are not as impressive as the first, and they probably should have been three separate songs, but I'm just a snarky blogger so what do I know?

And of course, you can't buy the song by itself at iTunes; you have to buy the whole album to get it. while that other piece of dreck is on a different album, I still don't think I'm going to be interested in the rest of this one, based on a quick sampling of the other tracks. Anyone got a copy?

Clickin' Drag

Technology is just great, until it fails you. At work I use a trackball that I bought years ago, but at home we have a small bluetooth mouse because the Mrs. has wrist issues and prefers to mouse with her left hand, and it's much easier to switch back and forth with a wireless device.

On Saturday the mouse, which is three years old, gave out. Actually, it still turns on, but its bluetooth seems to have ceased to work. I have another of those trackballs somewhere (I used to use the same kind at home), but damned if I could find it. So I had no other input device available, which is an odd situation indeed.

Yesterday I made a trip to a nearby OfficeMax. I didn't expect to be able to find what I wanted, and they didn't disappoint me. (Well, technically they did, but I was expecting to be disappointed, so...) They carry one bluetooth mouse, it's made by Microsoft and they sell it for $50. I paid $30 for the dead one, and that's about all it's worth to me.

I asked the upstairs neighbors if they might have a mouse I could borrow, but the only one they could come up with was from a pre-USB Compaq with the old cylindrical type of connector. (I think they're all using laptops at this point, so they don't need modern mice.)

It was weird to spend the weekend unable to use the computer. We have a laptop, but it doesn't have any of my passwords stored, and its screen is too small to use for long periods of time. I have a spare mouse that came with my work computer, which is going to fill in until I can get a replacement, but I couldn't get it until today.

This Week in Awesome (8/15/09)

Welcome. Are you ready for some Mad Men? I know I am.

If you're in the Boston area and feel like getting together with other Maddicts (devotees of the show) to watch the season premiere, the Noir bar in the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square is hosting a viewing party starting at 9 PM tomorrow. Period dress is encouraged, but you already knew that. (I'll be watching at home, because it's a school night and I want to be able to just fall into bed as soon as the episode is over.)

If you haven't had a chance to see the first two seasons and you're looking to get up to speed quickly, New York Magazine has an extremely concise (some might call it pithy) synopsis of the first 26 episodes. If that's not quite enough detail, AMC has put together a four-minute video recap of season two. If you'd rather watch the episodes and find out what happens on your own, I suggest avoiding these links. Come to think of it, that's probably true of most of these...

The food section of Wednesday's New York Times had a fun little piece about the role of alcohol and drinking in the show and the producers' quest for accuracy in this, as in everything else about MM.

In a slightly more serious vein, the Times also talked to Matthew Weiner, the show's creator, about the seismic cultural shifts of the 1960s that serve as the show's foundation.

This month's Esquire has an interview and photo shoot with Christina Hendricks, who plays office manager Joan (Holloway) Harris. The word "hotness" seems ridiculously inadequate. This is (some of) what you're missing if you don't watch, because there's plenty of beauty among the whole cast, the gents and the ladies.

And for something a bit different, here's a well-done video essay on the cinematography of Mad Men.

(By the way, the image above is from the December 2007 issue of GQ. Front, left to right: Christina Hendricks, Jon Hamm (Don Draper), January Jones (Betty Draper). Rear, left to right: John Slattery (Roger Sterling), Bryan Batt (Salvatore Romano), Robert Morse (Bert Cooper), Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell), Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson).

What Gives, T?

And now for the flip side... For the past three years, I've been going to work through Wellington station on the Orange line. My daily travels have generated some observations about how this station could be improved.

When the northern portion of the Orange line was rerouted and extended out to Oak Grove in the early 1970s, perhaps the station's design made sense. I'm not really talking about the aesthetics, because there are none; it's just a big lump of concrete. I mean the functionality, the ways that people and vehicles approach and exit the station.

For pedestrians, entering the station is needlessly difficult. There is only one entrance, with eight steep steps up from curb level, which slows people down. The station doors are almost never propped open, which slows things down more. Once you get up the steps, the corridor is too narrow for the volume of people using it at rush hours, and then you have to make a 90-degree left turn to get to the fare gates. The entire area leading up to the gates is a giant choke point. It seems like every aspect of the on-foot approach was designed to be as difficult as possible, to thwart the movement of people in and out of the station.

There is a ramp, which was probably added later, that is easier to walk up, but the bottom of the ramp is situated away from the doors, away from the direction people are moving. This entrance also serves people coming in from the parking areas. It could be widened and extended outward and made so the whole thing was a ramp instead of stairs. (The ramp could not be built inside the existing structure because of the clearance needed above the train tracks.)

But before people can even get into the station, they have to pass through other obstacles. Most buses enter from the eastbound lanes of Route 16, requiring a tight right turn that also descends a grade. Then they have to stop for crossing traffic coming from a road that runs under Route 16 (some of which is heading into the station's parking areas, some to get on 16 going east), make a left turn, and pull up to the station to drop off passengers.

I think the biggest problem is that buses coming into the station have to mix it up with vehicles near the entrance. There should be a way to establish some sort of priority for incoming buses. I think the best way to accomplish this would be to build a dedicated roadway for buses leading into the station. An elevated viaduct could funnel buses off Route 16 and into the station above and parallel to the train tracks; they would not have to contend with crossing traffic, and passengers could then descend to station level instead of climbing up stairs. Buses would then loop around to pick up passengers where they do now. Access to the roadway would be controlled by transponders in the buses that would activate a gate or bollards (those pop-up pillars used in European parking facilities).

I realize this is just idle daydreaming. It's unlikely that any of this will ever come to pass, especially given the T's always-precarious financial situation. But the station is probably going to have to be overhauled and refurbished at some point. Why shouldn't we imagine how it could also be improved?

Smart Move, T

It hasn't been a good time for the MBTA lately. Lots of malfunctioning subway trains, the general manager being shown the door last week, problems with the launch of the online CharlieCard system, etc.

But I noticed something recently that (to me, anyway) constitutes improvement: for about a week now, the T web site's service alerts page has been including information about delays on bus routes. (Because I'm a bit anal, I check this page every morning before I leave the house, so if there's a problem I can attempt to avoid it.) Most of these delays seem to be due to traffic problems. Prior to noticing this, I can only recall info being posted about diversions due to road closures or station work, but these alerts are of a more up-to-the-minute sort.

Finding out your bus is going to be 20 minutes late may not be what you want to see when you're getting ready to head home from work, but it's better than standing around waiting for a bus that never comes, and not having any information about what's happening. Knowledge is indeed power, and knowing there's a delay can help you reroute, or just kill time somewhere until things get back to normal.

Out of Focus

I didn't do a watch post yesterday, because I'm unhappy with the quality of the pictures I've been getting. I finally realized that my camera just isn't any good at close-up shots. We have an older camera that is much better at this type of thing, simply because it has a different lens that is able to focus on items as close as a couple of inches. When I bought the newer camera I completely forgot about this feature, which is very useful when shooting things for, say, eBay. I'll get to work with the other camera and go from there.

Mulch

Lucky me: I got to do yard work yesterday. It's one of my least favorite things; I'd rank it right above camping, because yard work is over in a couple of hours, but you're stuck in a tent for a whole night, or worse.

Last year, our landlord let the back yard get really overgrown. We tried to tame it with a weed whacker, but it was just too dense and thick. After he finally took care of it, I thought he might hire someone to maintain it. Instead, during the winter he told us he was going to make it maintenance-free. In the spring he had a load of mulch delivered and spread it over the grass. But the weeds grew right back, because he didn't lay down a barrier layer of landscape fabric, like you're supposed to. This year's excessive rain didn't help.

I told him the yard was getting overgrown again, and he needed to come by and deal with it. He put it off, and the weeds grew. When the biggest ones got close to my height, I sent him a photo. He finally came by a couple of weeks ago and cleared everything, and put down some landscape fabric. Last week he had another load of mulch delivered and he came by and covered the fabric with it, so we probably won't have any more weed issues.

After he'd cleared all the weeds and dirt, he put everything into heavy-duty plastic bags and left them by the curb, but last week the trash truck didn't take them. He didn't close the bags, so the contents got wet. Meanwhile, this week is the monthly yard waste pickup, but they won't take anything unless it's in barrels or those brown paper yard bags. Like a sucker, I told him that if he got us some of the paper bags, I'd transfer the yard waste from the plastic bags.

So that was my chore yesterday. There were half a dozen trash bags, and I ended up using one paper bag for each one, plus one more for a pile that for some reason he'd left in the back yard. The toughest part was keeping the bags balanced, because he had pulled everything out including roots, so there were these big, heavy, wet clumps of dirt and root balls and long, wet weeds that caused the bags to tip over. I just wanted to do the right thing and make sure the waste gets properly taken away and turned into mulch, or whatever it is they do with it.

This Week in Awesome (8/8/09)

A full bucket of awesome this week, kids:

Are you a gloom-and-doomer? Do you enjoy speculating about nightmare scenarios? This little exercise is for you. (Slate)

It was only a matter of time... the Snuggie is spawning. (TV Squad)

These go around the web every so often, but I think this is a fresh batch, because I don't remember reading any of them before. (AOL Jobs via Consumerist)

But the most awesome thing about this was a comment posted to the Consumerist story: "After a friend of mine realized he had no chance of getting the job, he replied to one of the interviewer's question with. "KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!" He was promptly escorted from the building by security." Brilliant. (If you don't understand why that's funny, email me and I'll explain.)

And finally, an amusing little clip starring Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen that comically skewers the potential dangers of watching too much television in a way that's very meta. Bonus: it also features Fred's fiancée Elisabeth Moss, who plays Peggy on Mad Men. (Funny or Die via New York Magazine's Vulture blog)

Next week, in honor of the show's return: an all-Mad Men edition of TWiA!

Summer Clearance

If you're fortunate enough to be employed and have money, the end of season clearance sales are in full effect. Fall fashions are starting to hit stores, but the retailers still have stock left that they need to unload. You can find summer clothing for as much as 80% off original prices, depending on the store, and still have a month or two to enjoy it.

But keep in mind that stock will dwindle as discounts increase, so if you see something you like, don't hesitate, especially if you are of a more common size, because if you don't grab it, someone else definitely will.

(UPDATE Saturday 8/8: According to a story I read in yesterday's New York Times about July retail sales, stores have less leftover inventory this season due to more conservative ordering, so your mileage may vary.)

Last night we were at our local Stop & Shop, and I noticed that they were clearing out seasonal merchandise like coolers and outdoor furniture. On a previous trip a little "balcony set" had caught my eye: a high table with a small-diameter top and two tall, barstool-like chairs with backs, intended for small outdoor spaces.

I'd thought this would fit nicely on our back porch, which is only about five feet wide. Yesterday it was 50% off the original $100 price, and there were about half a dozen sets left. Rather than return today and risk having them be gone, I sent the Mrs. to the car with the groceries and went back and bought the set. I intend to spend weekend mornings sitting out on the porch, drinking coffee and reading the paper, until it turns too cold.

Watch Wednesday

After talking about watches again recently, it occurred to me that featuring some of the watches in my collection might make a neat semi-regular feature. (This requires that I expend the energy to take an acceptable photo of each one, which is why it may end up being semi-regular, but I'll try.)

I thought it made sense to start with the first vintage watch I bought on eBay. (I had another, older watch that I had bought from another web site prior to buying this one, but I sold it some years back when money was tight, and I don't really miss it. Also, wristwatches tended to be smaller 50 or 60 years ago, and looking at similar watches now, it was really too small for me.)

My interest in watches is partly rooted in nostalgia, but I also value them for their aesthetics and as functional objects. I appreciate how a small steel container that attaches to your wrist on a piece of leather can encompass all these qualities, and so many more, and you can carry all that around with you every day.

For some reason I have always been drawn to Bulova watches, particularly those from the 1960s. The Bulova Watch Company was founded in New York in 1875 by a Czech immigrant. You can read a history of the company here; the company still exists, and you can find its watches in jewelry and department stores, but it doesn't carry quite the same cachet it once did. A half-century ago, Bulova was a high-end brand sold in prestigious stores; you gave or received a Bulova to mark a special occasion such as a college graduation, promotion, birthday, or important anniversary.

This watch is from 1967. I know this because one of the cool things about Bulova watches is that they are stamped on the back with a date code: a letter for the decade and a numeral for the year. It is not particularly valuable, and there is nothing special about it; it's a manual wind, and the hands are missing their original glow-in-the-dark material (it probably disintegrated over the years), but the simplicity of its appearance is what I like about it so much, and for its age it is in excellent condition.

Finned Glory

I've always been interested in the design of objects, which dovetails nicely with my lifelong interest in cars. The 1950s produced the most flamboyant car designs ever; some were beautiful, others were bizarre, and some could have been loved only by their creators.

The New York Times recently posted a neat piece about 1950s cars and their tailfins, which reached their exaggerated peak in 1959. If this piques your interest, you can check out one of my favorite sites, the Old Car Manual Project archive of car brochures.

This Week in Awesome (8/1/09)

I know it's no longer Saturday, but I like to think of the weekend, and this feature, as a state of mind. I'm a bit underwhelmed by this week's selection, but you know, it's August, and I'm afraid my brain took a quick vacation. Hey, not every week can be stellar.

Continuing with the meme of crazy ads for crazy stuff you can buy from TV or the web, we have two entries this week. This first one I would describe as slightly odd. (Consumerist)

The second one is in a whole other class of bizarre. (TV Squad)

Excerpts from Sarah Palin's farewell remarks, "interpreted" by a master thespian, followed by similar treatment of some of her Twitterings. (Tonight Show via Hulu)

More Chicken, Anyone?

A while back I mentioned our visit to the Revere Chelsea branch of the chicken chain El Pollo Loco. We've been back a couple of times since, and it's definitely some of the best-tasting fast food you can get.

We tried to go on Sunday, but they had closed early for a staff outing. We were trying to figure out where to eat, then the Mrs. remembered that we hadn't yet tried the Guatemala-based chain Pollo Campero that opened in Chelsea a few months back. I'd read a Globe article that claimed their chicken was causing something of a sensation, so we headed over.

The line wasn't too bad, only about eight people ahead of us, and it moved pretty quickly. I ordered three pieces, two legs and a thigh, with a side of cole slaw. (There are also beans, rice, fried plantains, and for you true gringos, fries.) The Mrs. got two pieces and rice. The chicken is delicious, living up to the hype. They also offer grilled chicken, if you're feeling guilty.

Is it the best around? Who knows. That's a mighty big gastronomic project, but I welcome suggestions for other places in the area we should try. By the way, there's also a drive-through, which can be handy for those late-night cravings.

Pollo Campero is at 115 Park Street in Chelsea (if you've been around here a while, it's where Riley's Roast Beef used to be). El Pollo Loco is at 1014 Revere Beach Parkway, also in Chelsea.

Emmys 2009, Part 2: Make Me Laugh

This part is going to be a little easier. Best comedy: 30 Rock. Best actress in a comedy: Tina Fey in 30 Rock. Best actor in a comedy: Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock. Best supporting actress in a comedy: Jane Krakowski in 30 Rock. Best supporting actor in a comedy: well, Tracy Morgan and Jack McBrayer are going to have to slug it out. Yes, both of them are on 30 Rock.

Okay, I'm kidding. Sort of. Fey, Baldwin, and the show all won last year, and expectations are going to be high for all of them to repeat. Looking at the competition, I'd say it's possible, though not a foregone conclusion. Let's look at the other nominees.

Comedy series: The Office had what I thought was an uneven season. The writing is still good, but some of the situations are wearing thin, and it won three years ago, when it definitely deserved it. Weeds: I have to be honest, I've never seen the show, but it looks like I'd enjoy it. Gonna beat 30 Rock? Not this year. Entourage: zzzzzzzz, enough already. Flight of the Conchords: I love this show, and I love that it got nominated, but it's even more loopy and out there than 30 Rock. How I Met Your Mother: four seasons in, the show is starting to get some deserved recognition. but in this race I'd call it a long, long shot. Family Guy: huh? Who does Seth MacFarlane have dirt on? It isn't even that funny anymore.

Comedy actors: heaven help us if Tony Shalhoub wins again. Charlie Sheen, Jim Parsons, Jermaine Clement: all of you play your characters well, but that doesn't mean that any of you should be nominated. The one factor that may keep Alec Baldwin from repeating is that Steve Carell has yet to win an Emmy after five seasons of playing Michael Scott and four consecutive nominations. I thought he really delivered some great performances this season, especially in the stories involving Holly and in Michael's attempt to start his own paper company. Let's give this one to Steve.

Comedy actresses: looking at the five women besides Tina Fey who are nominated--Sarah Silverman, Mary-Louise Parker, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Toni Collette, Christina Applegate--there was excellent work by all of them (some of whom I admit I've only read about). I feel about Sarah and her show the way I feel about Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm: it's a kind of humor I just don't get. Mary-Louise: see Weeds above. Julia won three years ago, and I enjoy her show, but she wasn't up against Tina at the time. Toni: I have no idea. Christina: ABC treated her show horribly, yanking it for several weeks in succession in January, in favor of extending Dancing with the Stars to two hours, but each time they did so it was so last-minute that my TiVo still thought it was recording Samantha Who? There's a slight chance she could get this award as a sort of consolation prize.

Comedy supporting actors: almost the same as last year's group, except 30 Rock's pair knocked Jeremy Piven off the list. Once again, most of them don't make sense: guy from Entourage, again; Jon Cryer's one-note whiner, again; Rainn Wilson over Jon Krasinski, again. As much as I'd like to see a 30 Rock sweep (I'd give the edge to Tracy Morgan), I really think this one should go to Neil Patrick Harris for Barney on How I Met Your Mother.

Comedy supporting actresses: Vanessa Williams, Amy Poehler, and Kristin Chenoweth all repeat as nominees. Elizabeth Perkins is nominated for Weeds; maybe she'll be the one to snag a win for the show. I think most people are familiar with at least one of Kristin Wiig's Saturday Night Live characters; the problem is that if you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all. I think she can be genuinely funny, but isn't given enough of a chance to do so; the show's quest for laughs causes them to keep going back to the same shallow wells over and over. If this one is not going to Jane Krakowski, it should go to an SNL actress, and if that's the case it should be Amy Poehler. Still, Wiig winning here might be preferable to William Shatner winning in his category.

Retroize Yourself

Time for a little Tuesday morning fun: the countdown has begun to the third-season premiere of Mad Men on August 16 (10 PM Eastern time on AMC), and over on the show's official site, you can "Mad Men yourself." This is sort of like that "Simpsonize yourself" thing from a couple of years ago when the Simpsons movie came out, but in this case you don't have to upload a picture of yourself first, because the configurator supplies a number of body types, head shapes, noses, and such.

After you've finished the physical characteristics, you can dress yourself in one of several period outfits and add show-appropriate accessories like cigarettes and drinks, or more traditional accoutrements like a cup of coffee and a newspaper. When you're finished you can paste your groovy MM avatar into a scene with other cartoonized characters from the show, then download it as desktop wallpaper, or grab a cropped head shot for a chat icon. (You'll notice that I've updated my profile picture over on the right, at the risk of revealing the closely-guarded secret of my identity...)

Emmys 2009: More Nominees, More Griping

The 2009 Emmy nominations were announced recently. Maybe two or three of you were wondering why I didn't do a big critique like last year. I admit that I spend far too much time watching and thinking about TV for someone who doesn't get paid to do so, but the fact is, life intruded: I was a little too wrapped up with my monthly deadline stuff at work to comment at the time, but I'm not going to do another elaborate four-part assessment. While it was a good exercise for me, it was also really time-consuming, and I don't think I want to get that deep into it anyway. But I will run through the highs and lows of this year's choices.

First, the television academy did a very smart thing by selecting Neil Patrick Harris to host this year's ceremony, especially after last year's disastrous tag-team reality-show-host clusterfuck. (Hopefully, the loud and clear message from that was "NEVER AGAIN.") NPH has been on a bit of a roll the past few years, with his hilarious appearances as a funhouse-mirror caricature of himself in the Harold and Kumar movies, his role as Barney on the genuinely funny CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, a respectable turn as guest host of Saturday Night Live during this past season, and his recent gig hosting the Tony Awards, which I didn't see (I'm sure you're shocked) but was well received. He is the perfect choice to host the Emmys this year.

Now, the nominees: it seems like the majority of the academy has finally gotten access to a full package of basic and premium cable TV service, or maybe its membership is just getting a little younger, but the nominees are skewed even more toward non-broadcast channels than previously. I don't necessarily consider this a bad thing, because it reminds the broadcast networks that they aren't getting the job done well enough, which will hopefully spur some of the genuine creativity and risk-taking network TV so desperately needs. (Oh, who am I kidding, they'd just end up canceling it.)

The categories have been expanded to allow for six nominees instead of the previous five, and in the best drama and best comedy series categories, there were ties so there ended up being seven nominees each. This resulted in oddities like Lost getting a drama nom. As much as I love Lost, I don't think this season was quite as worthy; the time-travel business that dominated the season's storytelling was confusing and ultimately became tedious, and I think it detracted from the show's impact. Maybe the academy was trying to make up for last season, which I thought was superior to this one, but that sort of strategy usually doesn't work. If the academy really wants to show Lost the love it deserves, they need to start nominating the actors, like I said last year. (At least Michael Emerson got another nod for Ben, but that isn't really enough.)

Same goes for House. This season's "Wilson de-friends House, then they kiss and make up" and "Cuddy realizes her dream of being a mom by adopting a baby, then stresses out from trying to balance work and motherhood" storylines just didn't equal last season's "House gets a new team" (I think I'm in the minority on this one, but I thought those were great episodes) and "Wilson's true love dies a horrible and tragic death" arcs. The academy was probably responding to this season's Kutner suicide story and its aftermath; after all, shows don't get nominated based on an entire season's body of work, but rather on a kind of highlight reel.

House will likely keep getting nominated as long as it's on the air, unless the quality really tanks, but it's a different playing field. Ten years ago it would have cleaned up, but I think it's always going to be a bridesmaid in the best drama category as long as it's up against top-quality cable shows like the rest of this year's nominees: Big Love, Breaking Bad, Damages, Dexter, and Mad Men. (Damages wasn't as compelling this year, might have been nice to see The Wire get some respect on its last time around instead.)

In drama acting, no offense to Simon Baker (nominated for CBS's cutesy crime procedural The Mentalist), but you don't deserve to be in the company of your fellow nominees. I watched your show a few times, and it's popcorn, pure and simple. My mom likes it. I call this Patricia Arquette Syndrome, after her puzzling nomination (and win) for Medium in 2005. It's an okay show, but I actually find Ms. Arquette to be a rather poor actress, so I wondered what the academy was seeing that I wasn't. Same goes for Baker, who is certainly TV-pretty and has clearly found the right vehicle, but his performance on the show is style over substance. Will Bryan Cranston win again after his surprise upset last year? Will Jon Hamm get the nod instead? Will both of them be overshadowed by Gabriel Byrne? I think it's got to be one of those three.

Turning to the ladies, this year's group of nominees is exactly the same as last year's, with one notable difference: the expansion to six nominees allows the addition of Elisabeth Moss, who plays up-and-coming copywriter Peggy Olson on Mad Men. Peggy is the dark-mirror doppelganger to Don Draper. She's every bit as ambitious, and in the structure and context of Mad Men's changing workplace milieu, it's clear she represents the future. As the show progresses, I'm finding her the most interesting character, and she was truly amazing in a couple of scenes last season. But I consider Peggy a supporting character, and I don't understand why January Jones, who plays Don's increasingly aggrieved and unhinged wife Betty, wasn't given this spot. (Again, I said this last year, and if anything Jones was even better this year.) I think Ms. Moss would have been a front-runner in the supporting actress category, but up against an entrenched crop of leads, her chances are slim.

Supporting actors: good to see John Slattery get noticed for Mad Men; although Roger doesn't seem to do much besides drink and philander, Slattery embodies him in a thoroughly entertaining way, plus he's been around and paying his dues as an actor for a long time. William Hurt on Damages: sort of obligatory, had a couple of nice moments. Aaron Paul on Breaking Bad: nice job. Wait, two nominations from Boston Legal? TWO? Jesus Mary and Joseph on a sesame seed bun, what is wrong with these academy voters? Michael Emerson, it's on you to put a stop to it.

Supporting actresses: what's interesting here are the nominations of Rose Byrne, who plays Patty Hewes's young protege on Damages, and Cherry Jones as President Taylor on 24. Interesting because I didn't think either of them did an especially good job, but sometimes that doesn't matter. The competition is from Grey's Anatomy (Chandra Wilson and Sandra Oh, just like last year) and In Treatment (Dianne Wiest, nominated again, Hope Davis for the first time). Wiest won last year, and is probably the front-runner to repeat.

Okay, I guess comedy is going to have to get its own post. But just two parts this year, I swear...

This Week in Awesome (7/25/09)

Hello, and happy Saturday. I should probably be out doing something fun, but instead I'm home posting this, because I care.

Here's a retro-future rendering of what Apple's home page might have looked like circa 1983. Take a moment to absorb and process the implications of that statement... (Flickr, via Cult of Mac)

If you don't think Alec Baldwin is funny, or Tracy Morgan is funny, or if you don't watch 30 Rock, you may not care about this one. If you do, then click away. (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, via Hulu)

This one is old by now, but if (like me) you didn't watch the MTV Movie Awards, then you didn't see it. And no, it's not the Bruno thing. It's Andy Samberg, with Will Ferrell as Neil Diamond--really, that's all you need to know, right? Trust me, it's good. (Lonely Island)

And finally, this is one of those instances where reality is just so much better than anything you or I could come up with ourselves. (Photobucket, via Jalopnik)

Wretched Excess Unit

Sometimes I see things that are just so completely insane, I have to make note of them. This is a perfect example.

I collect watches. I've talked about this before; I have a particular fondness for mechanical (winding) watches from the 1960s. At the beginning of that decade, that most likely meant a watch you wound by hand every day, but within a few years automatic models, which are wound by the motion of your arm, became popular. Unfortunately, within a few more years they would be rendered technologically, if not functionally, obsolete by quartz watches, which are far more accurate than mechanical watches.

If you're the sort of person who cares about this type of thing, chances are you have more than one automatic watch (I have a few myself), but I mean more along the lines of Rolex, TAG Heuer, Omega, Breitling, etc. Fancy stuff. Spendy. You get a few of those, you'll want to keep them wound, because if left unworn (and thus unwound) for long periods of time, the precision of the moving parts can suffer.

It's also a huge drag to contemplate your vast collection of luxury timepieces, trying to decide which one you feel like wearing on a given day, only to realize that the one you're in the mood for hasn't been worn recently and therefore has to be wound and set to the correct time and date. Sigh...

To alleviate such stress, someone invented this thing called a watch winder. It's typically a box made of wood or leather, with a little stand where you park your watch that's attached to a motor that simulates arm movement. These things typically run at least a hundred bucks apiece, but can cost a lot more. Of course, if you can afford a $4000 watch, you can afford the gizmo to keep it wound. (It's analagous to the idea that people who can afford $100,000 cars can also afford to insure and run them.)

Eventually the watch winder people figured out that people with collections of fancy watches might be interested in winders that could hold multiple watches, which led to things like this, and this, and ultimately this: a free-standing floor cabinet for winding up to 56 automatic watches.

And it's only $166,000.

I guess there really are some people who have so much money they don't know what to do with it. If you are in fact the sort of person who has a genuine need for an item such as this, you could pay someone $40K a year, not even one-fourth of what this costs, to keep your watches wound for you. I suspect that person would feel fortunate to have a job, and you'd be doing your bit to boost the economy.

By the way, I don't own any watch winders. Maybe I should, if only to take better care of my vintage pieces, but seeing things like this makes me kind of disgusted by the whole idea.

Fashion Violation

On my way home tonight, I got on the bus and noticed that T-Mobile guy I talked about yesterday, only it must have been his day off, because he wasn't in his fuchsia shirt, so it took me a moment to realize it was him.

Then I got a look at what he was wearing: a long-sleeve knit top (kinda warm out for that, maybe?) that had a pattern that reminded me of a sponge-painted wall, very light-blue jeans with rather wide legs (possibly a thrift-shop find?), and shiny silver sneakers. If this is what he chooses to wear on his day off, maybe he should just stick to the uniform.

Color Keyed

About a month ago I noticed a guy on my morning bus wearing a fuchsia shirt. I'd read a lot of stuff recently about how bright pink was going to be a hot color for guys this year, so I thought he was just being fashionable. He had a shaved head, funky rectangular glasses, and just had a general look of being trendy.

On a different day I noticed he was again wearing the fuchsia shirt, with a black jacket (it was one of those damp days before it got hot) that set it off nicely. I thought, good for you, not afraid to dress sharp. I imagined that he worked at an ad agency or was some sort of web developer.

Yesterday I saw a coworker on my way into the T station, and we started talking. When we got down to the platform, I noticed the guy was standing next to us. Then I noticed that his fuchsia shirt had a big "T-Mobile" above the pocket. Suddenly it all made sense, just not in the way I'd thought.

I think what threw me off was that it was a button-front shirt, because when I think of a typical cell-phone store guy, or even a typical electronics-store guy, I always think of someone wearing a polo shirt. It is kind of the default uniform; for a while I even worked at a such a job and had them. But we also had long-sleeve, button-front shirts with the brand logo embroidered above the pocket, and I'd simply forgotten about that. (Well, let's face it, I've tried to block as much of it as I can.)

This Week in Awesome (7/18/09)

I had a very hectic week at work, more so than usual, but never fear, I still have the goods...

I'm tempted to just post this clip without saying anything else about it. Near the end there's a shot of what looks a lot like the Zakim Bridge, which doesn't make any sense. (Very Short List)

This one is slightly more self-explanatory... eventually. (EA Games via YouTube via Jalopnik)

What is it about road signs that attracts those with mischievous intent? Oh, Canada! (Jalopnik again)

And finally, I'd like to introduce you to my new favorite snark site, The Hater, brought to us by the folks at The Onion's AV Club. It is to pop culture what Go Fug Yourself is to celebrity fashion commentary. Be sure to read the story about how Jon Gosselin is pimping out his kids to Ed Hardy...

Steamed

I hope all of you people who were bitching about the weather are happy with today, because I'm miserable, and so is the dog.

A Piece of the Rock

I'm stuck in deadline week, but I do want to throw my $0.02 on the WBCN story, even though it's now a couple of days old. For those of you who are not in the immediate Boston area or who may not have heard for some other reason, CBS Radio has decided to pull the plug on "The Rock of Boston" after 41 years, replacing it with a sports-talk station as of August 13th.

(The situation is actually slightly more complex than that: the new station will take over the 98.5 FM frequency, and the CBS-owned "Mix" station currently at that spot on the dial, the one that plays music for people who don't really care that much about music, will assume WBCN's 104.1 frequency. Why they couldn't just put the new station at 104.1 is best left unasked, I guess.)

I first became aware of WBCN around 1979, and it was responsible for a significant degree of my adolescent musical awakening. As a bored teenager growing up in suburban Rhode Island, after seeing artists like Elvis Costello and Talking Heads on Saturday Night Live, and then discovering a syndicated show called Rock World, a late-1970s precursor to MTV that showed the early video work of groups like Devo and The Vapors, I was eager for an outlet that would expose me to this sort of new music for more than an hour or so per week (and, since Rock World aired after SNL at 1 AM Sundays, one that would allow me a little more sleep).

One afternoon after school, I was idly fiddling with the radio in my room, searching for something interesting. I have to be honest: given that it was 30 years ago, I can't remember what song was playing when I first stumbled across WBCN on the dial, but I am fairly certain it had to be something adventurous that other radio stations would not have been playing at the time. At first, I was actually a little more impressed with the fact that I was pulling in a Boston radio station from 50-some miles away.

I quickly realized that WBCN was just the sort of station I'd been looking for. There was a Providence station, WBRU, that played much of the same music, but what they were missing and 'BCN had in abundance was attitude: young, brash, rebellious, alluringly cool. Not only did I feel like it was my station, that it belonged to me, but I felt like I belonged to it, that I was part of a club, and cooler for being part of that club. When I decided soon after to go to college in Boston, I felt that listening to 'BCN gave me an advantage over the other incoming freshmen, because I was already tapped into the cultural landscape of the city that I was about to become a part of.

Back then WBCN was considered cutting-edge, and other stations around the country followed their lead. They were early supporters of acts that went on to become worldwide stars, including The Cars and U2. In the spring of 1981 I was one of three people in my high school senior class of about 260 who had heard of U2; I'd heard them played on 'BCN and rushed out to buy Boy.

I stuck with the station through college and the rest of the '80s. I remember they used to sponsor free lunchtime concerts. I went to quite a few of these, back when it was still legal, normal, and cool to do stuff like give away free drinks. You'd get free music, free hot dogs, and one free beer. I recall going to one such concert--the Del Fuegos, I think--before an afternoon final exam in December of 1984, and I went into that exam feeling like the beer had put me in a suitably relaxed frame of mind to properly focus on the test. It did.

Later on, under corporate ownership, WBCN tried being less alternative and more like a competitor to WAAF, the hard-rock station. That's about the time I moved on to WFNX. These days I hardly listen to radio at all. Perhaps if I commuted by car I might behave differently, but at work I'm more likely to open iTunes and fire up an internet streaming radio station. WBCN will continue to exist online in this form, so I'll give them another listen, but it will be more for the sake of nostalgia than anything else.

Radio has become much more of a business than it was 20 or 30 years ago. Everything is so packaged and focus-grouped, which may increase profits but also has the unfortunate effect of making it less interesting and appealing to listen to. I understand the business side of the decision, but emotionally it doesn't make the loss any easier to take. The WBCN I loved ceased to exist a long time ago, which is why I haven't listened in a long time.

Life is about change, and as we get older, the people, places, and things that mattered to us tend to go away, and usually they don't come back. But I'll always have great memories of the years when The Rock of Boston ruled the local airwaves.

Annals of Flawed Logic

While reading the paper on my way to work this morning, I was a little confused to see this headline in the section of little one-paragraph stories: "Arizona: Gun Rules Eased for Bars."

Then I read the story, and went from confused to, well, kind of appalled and scared shitless at the same time, if that's possible: "Arizonans with concealed weapons permits will be allowed to take a handgun into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, under a bill signed by Gov. Jan Brewer. The measure, backed by the National Rifle Association, will require bar and restaurant owners who want to ban weapons to post a no-guns sign next to the business’ liquor license."

Drinking and guns--what a superb idea, because clearly the bar fights out there weren't violent enough already. This is why I prefer to stay in our little ivory-tower corner of the country.

Crumbling Façade

I managed to miss the excitement on Huntington Avenue this morning. I used to catch the 39 bus at Back Bay Station to get to my office near Brigham Circle, but now that I walk the dog in the morning, I leave the house a bit later and catch a later bus, and from past experience with the 39 it gets increasingly unreliable after 8:30 AM, due to increased traffic on Back Bay streets. So now I stay on the Orange Line and go to Ruggles, where any of five or six bus routes will get me close enough to the office.

A coworker came in around 9:15, having been stuck in the traffic backup caused by the debris, and explained what was happening. Strangely, there was nothing on boston.com at that point, and it took them a long time to post any information about the incident, compared to other local media outlets' web sites. I'm glad I didn't get stuck, and I'm also amazed and happy to hear that no one was injured by falling building chunks.

This Week in Awesome (7/11/09)

Jalopnik gave us plenty of good material this week. First, there are these two videos of police chases (Dallas, then Houston, hmmm....) from Fox News Channel. The only reason they were posted to Jalopnik in the first place, and the only reason I'm posting them here, is because of the insanely surreal commentary by one of the anchor dudes. (Apparently this is his specialty over at the creepy channel.)

Moving on, we have this series of photos from an, um, unusual accident scene in Virginia, but what really makes this one special is the accompanying analysis from one of that state's transportation engineers.

Changing gears, so to speak, there's the story of a guy named Dave whose guitar was rather badly broken by United Airlines baggage handlers, in full view of him and many other passengers on his flight. His attempts to get United to own up to the situation and provide some recompense were unsuccessful, so being a musician, he wrote a song about it--a pretty decent song, in fact--and put it on YouTube. Of course, this got United's attention, but it's been more than a year, Dave doesn't even care about the money anymore. (Consumerist)

That's all for now. Enjoy the weekend.

Act Now, Yesterday Only

You know how you sometimes make a purchase at a web site and then get emails from that site forever? That's how it is with me and Live Nation, the concert promoter/ticket seller.

I do tend to look at these emails, to see if there are any shows coming that I might want to see. This morning I found a message titled "Wed Only: $29.99 All-In Concert Experience." I had heard that Live Nation was doing a series of promotions this summer to try to make attending concerts less financially painful.

Out of curiosity I clicked on the message. "No Service Fee Wednesday. Lawn Ticket - Hot Dog - Soda All-In $29.99. July 8th 24 Hours Only." The time stamp on the message was 2:26 AM, today, July 9th., Oops.

Now, I don't care about seeing Toby Keith or Creed or, god help us, 311. And on the rare occasions that I've gone to the arena formerly known as Great Woods, I didn't sit on the lawn because, well, it rains sometimes, and who wants to sit with all the unfortunate plebes who couldn't afford better seats? I really prefer to sit on an actual chair, and I wouldn't be able to see anything from way back there anyway.

But it just looks bad, you know? It gives the impression that your big PR campaign for more affordable entertainment is just a load of crap. Maybe it's time to unsubscribe from those emails.

This Week in Awesome: Bonus Bit

I don't know how I forgot about this. It was on The Soup last Friday, and I should have checked immediately to see if it was on their blog site so I could have included it over the weekend.

Anyway, it's way too awesome to wait until next week. This clip is from the MTV show 16 and Pregnant, which I've heard has been given a second season. Lucky us...

Minty Fresh

I'm the sort of person who tries to have mints on me at all times. I hate the idea that I might be inflicting bad breath on someone, but I was never really much for chewing gum.

Over the years I have carried many different mints in various flavors. The main requirements are that they be easily portable, taste good, and not make noise when I walk. This means Altoids are out, and that's fine because I don't really care for them. They are certainly strong enough to eliminate odors, but their flavors are just so overpowering they are not enjoyable.

For a long, long time I bought multi-packs of Breath Savers wintergreen flavor mints. (The warehouse clubs carry these in packages of 24 rolls, which kept me minted for a couple of months.) Over a year ago, I found myself mintless in Santa Cruz while we were there visiting the Mrs.' sister. We stopped at a local market to get some lunch, and while wandering around the store I discovered cinnamon-flavored mints made by Newman's Own Organics.

I love anything cinnamon (especially cinnamon rolls), but the cinnamon Altoids had been as much of a disappointment as their other flavors. Still, I thought I should give these upstart mints a try, and I loved them. They are not particularly strong, but they do freshen the mouth. The only drawback was that, like Altoids, they came in a metal box (which, strangely, describes them as "hot" but they are the farthest thing from it) with an illustration of a ferocious tiger on it.

When we got home I found that the mints were available locally at Whole Foods stores. I also found that they sold a different variety of the mints in rolls; they are larger than the tinned mints and have a slightly different taste (also not hot). I've taken to buying both kinds; I keep the tin on my desk at work, and carry a roll in my pocket for mobile breath cleansing.

This Week in Awesome (7/4/09)

In honor of our nation's birthday, I thought I'd post a sort of public-service TWIA today.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission wants you to use fireworks cautiously, and to that end they have produced some videos showing the potential dangers of being careless. (There were two more of these, but they aren't working now, bummer.) (Gizmodo)

And for all you dog owners, here's another in our ongoing series of bizarre commercials for bizarre products. Note: if you watch this video and might actually be considering buying this product, you should know that there have been numerous complaints against the company selling it; apparently they thought it was a good idea to take orders for the product before they had product to ship, and they are just now getting around to filling orders from six months ago. Way to go, Potty Patch. (Consumerist)

Have a fun and safe holiday, everybody.

Dance Party in Aisle 5

A few days ago I was in the Whole Foods in Woburn, picking up coffee (you really should try the organic Mexican beans) and a few other things. The store's sound system was playing a fun mix of classic disco songs, like "Get Up and Boogie" (Silver Convention), "I Want Your Love" (Chic), "Boogie Nights" (Heatwave), "Let It Whip" (Dazz Band), even the instrumental "Love's Theme" by the Love Unlimited Orchestra, and others I can't recall now. (I had to look up some of those artists, but being of a certain age, I remembered some of them.)

I grew up listening to these songs, because they were all over Top 40 radio in the 70s. The Mrs. is a bit too young to remember most of them. I don't know if this music comes from a compilation, a satellite music service, or if the store actually employs a DJ (not too likely), but I'd like to tip my digital hat to Whole Foods for not subjecting us to the "light rock" or "adult contemporary" that you're more likely to hear in a store. Someone is thinking about the shopping experience. (On a previous visit to the Medford store, they were rocking the 80's alternative: The Cure, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Thompson Twins.)

While we're on the subject, let's take a moment to acknowledge the place of disco in music history. Disco was certainly derided and even reviled back in the day, and I'm not sure it's really ever gotten its due, but I'm not embarrassed to say that as a teenager I was a big fan (at least until I saw Elvis Costello on Saturday Night Live and realized there was a whole other universe of music awaiting my discovery). In addition to Top 40 radio, I grew up listening to a lot of my dad's Motown, Sly & the Family Stone, Wilson Pickett, and other soul and R&B acts, so it isn't that surprising that I gravitated toward disco.

I'll be the first to admit that a lot of disco music was lyrically slight (as was, to be fair, plenty of other 70s music), but what I think people tend to forget is that many of the groups were formed around studio musicians and backup bands for solo singers. people who had years of solid playing and performing experience. Chic is an excellent example, as is KC and the Sunshine Band. "Get Down Tonight" is kind of silly, but if you listen to the instruments--the bass, the horns, the electric piano--it kicks ass.

The disco performers just wanted to make music that would make people dance and have fun. I'm going to head to iTunes to look over some disco compilations.

How to Say It

Re: the previous post, be careful not to mispronounce "Oregon" in the presence of an Oregonian. You will be corrected, and quite possibly berated. It does not rhyme with "autobahn," but is almost exactly like saying the word "organ" except with an extra "uh" in the middle.

Similarly, a coworker who lived in Reno for 20 years informed me that the correct pronunciation of "Nevada" should rhyme with "claddagh" and not "armada."

Of Course It Comes with Fries

Kind of a quiet week, leading into the holiday weekend. Work has been slow, which gives me time to troll around the web and find little gems like this.

A diner in Portland, Oregon is serving a cheeseburger on a doughnut. I suppose I could be talked into trying that. Once. Reminds me of those mega-meals I linked to the other day.

And in the same vein, just in case you haven't seen it already, there's this frightening site.