Breakfast Blues

I've always been a breakfast eater. Even in college, I would trek to the cafeteria for a bowl of cereal before heading to class. (I also felt it was a way to ensure I was getting my money's worth out of the meal plan.) But the Mrs. and I are not particularly good at keeping the house stocked with food, so I ran out of suitable breakfast foods. The obvious solution is to stop and get something on the way to work, and since I usually stop for coffee anyway, this isn't too difficult to accomplish. Or so I thought.

[Side note: I always have coffee at home along with breakfast, but by the time I get to work I'm ready for more. When my office moved recently, we got a new coffee-making machine, the kind that uses the little individual cylinders that are pre-filled with coffee and a tiny filter. Unfortunately, this coffee tastes only slightly better than the vile, nasty stuff we used to have that came in individual pouches, so for the foreseeable future, I will have to continue to buy coffee on the way to work. If the T ever has the (unlikely) common sense to install cupholders on its vehicles, I will consider a travel cup, because I need one hand to hold on and the other to hold the newspaper.]

Today I decided I was in the mood for a treat, something along the lines of a pastry, a danish, a cinnamon roll, that sort of thing. That pretty much excludes Dunkin' Donuts. I love doughnuts, but I do not care for Dunkin's doughnuts, and while their muffins are decent, that wasn't what I was after today. So I headed for the Espresso Royale Cafe on Gainsborough Street in the vicinity of Symphony Hall, which is on my way to work and which has a very nice selection of baked goods. I'm particularly fond of the coffee cake they sell, which is served in nice, thick squares with a dollop of raspberry syrup (or something) and a drizzle of icing on top. Mmmm...

The folks at Espresso Royale make an excellent cup of coffee, and the goodies are yummy (I don't know if those are made on the premises or brought in from elsewhere). But they are, collectively, not exactly the fastest group of baristas I have encountered. I'm sure they're all very nice people, but this is Boston after all, the land of people with zero patience who are always in a hurry (myself included). I've been in there probably about forty times over the past three months, and the staff have a distinctly... leisurely way of going about their work. Add in the fact that the students are in the process of returning to the area, and you get a line ten deep that isn't showing any outward signs of moving.

I turned around and headed back to Huntington Ave. There's a Starbucks around the corner. I'm not a big fan of the Seattle leviathan for various reasons, but they do have these maple-frosted scones that I like. Of course, the line in Starbucks was even longer than the line in ERC, so that was the end of that idea. I ended up walking a couple of blocks up Huntington to the Au Bon Pain at Northeastern, where I got a gigantic tub of iced coffee (seriously, it's like a quart) for only $2 and a mediocre cinnamon scone. Now I guess I should start thinking about lunch...

Gift, Interrupted

I love receiving gift cards, but it seems like the ones I get tend to be for stores where I don't find much I like these days. It's a terrible feeling to go into a store with a gift card to spend, look around for 20 minutes (making a second circuit to make sure you didn't miss anything), and not find a single thing you want to get.

I received a Banana Republic gift card from my brother, but I haven't bought anything from BR in probably a year or more. This is pretty much my fault, because he asks my mother what to get me, and my mother thinks I still like to shop there because I have not told her otherwise. Clearly I will need to do that before Christmas rolls around.

I saw a couple of things I did like, but I felt they were overpriced by at least 25%. I saw a couple of other things that I could have gotten but don't need, and I can't see the point of getting something that's just going to hang in the closet and get dusty. I could wait a couple months for some different merchandise to rotate in, but I'm not known for being a terribly patient person in general, and with gift cards, the thing might as well be leaking plutonium. (It's sad, I know.)

I know about the various sites where you can sell and trade gift cards, but they typically charge a fee, and you typically have to sell the card for at least 10% off its face value to get anyone to buy.

So I'm going to try a different approach. At work we have an intranet, and on it there is a craigslist-type bulletin board. Today I posted under Barter looking for someone who wants to swap gift cards, and we'll see if anyone is interested.

The Right to Bare Arms?

Yesterday it was extremely hot (96 degrees) and very humid, so we spent most of the day holed up in the comfort of the house, and ventured out around 6:30 PM to get a birthday present for my brother and have dinner.

In line at the store, I noticed that there were two men of roughly my age ahead of me, one with a wife or girlfriend, the other with a young daughter. Also, both of them were wearing tank tops. I'm used to seeing this choice of clothing among young guys on the T, but on middle-aged guys it gives me pause. I'm not talking about being in shape; I'm talking about dignity. I don't own a tank top, but if I did, I would not wear it out in public. I feel that some items of clothing are appropriate for inside your house, and that's it, and tank tops are one of those items. Exposed armpits and hot, humid days--ugh, I don't even like thinking about it.

Later, at the restaurant, I saw another guy wearing a tank top. Now, shopping on route 1 on Saturday evening is one thing, but going out to dinner? We're not talking about the dining room at the Ritz-Carlton (oh wait, that got sold and is now called the Taj Boston), but we're not talking about the corner diner either. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, or just old, but when I go to a semi-nice restaurant, I don't expect to see male patrons wearing tank tops. Many restaurants used to have dress codes, but they have all but vanished due to the continued overcasualization of every aspect of public life in our society.

To be fair, I was wearing a short-sleeve shirt, cargo shorts, and fisherman sandals, so there are probably more than a few places I would have been turned away from back in the Rat Pack days. (Yes, I have been watching Mad Men, and yes, it does make me nostalgic for a time when men and women knew instinctively, or were taught, how to dress appropriately for any occasion.) The line between casual dining and upscale dining, and the differences in attire and behavior that go with it, pretty much no longer exists, and maybe that's the problem.

Every year around this time, the men's magazines start talking about how "this fall, men will be dressing up again!" But it seems like they're trying to convince themselves rather than their readers. Maybe some intrepid restauranteur needs to step up and be willing to reinstate a dress code and stick to it. You know how certain clubs have a rule about no sneakers or ball caps? No one seems to care much about that, except the occasional frat dude that gets turned away, and you can bet he'll either go home and change or remember how to dress when he comes back next time.

I would be willing to put on long pants, even on a 96-degree day in August, if I knew that it meant all the other patrons at that restaurant had to do the same thing, and if it would assure me I wouldn't have to see any men in tank tops.

The Kindness of Strangers

At lunch today I went to the box office at the Berklee Performance Center to get tickets for the show by the awesome Montreal band Stars on October 19th (I highly recommend going to this show; the BPC site describes them as "beautiful, eloquent indie pop with a flair for the dramatic," and it's only $20, well worth it). As I negotiated the throngs of Berklee students clustered on the sidewalk along Mass. Ave. (is their school back in session already?), I pulled my eyeglass case out of my pocket to get ready to take off my sunglasses when I stepped inside.

As soon as I'd done this, I realized that I had carelessly allowed a $5 bill to slip out with it. I turned around to retrace my steps, and a young guy was already coming toward me with the bill in his outstretched hand. Naturally I thanked him, and then I thought, how refreshingly honest. He could have just put his shoe over it and I never would have found it. So thanks again, unknown Berklee dude. You restored my faith in humanity, at least for today.

Behind the Wheel

Last night we were invited to a casual supper at a friend's house, so on the way there we stopped at the grocery store to pick up the requested beverage and snack. As we pulled into a parking space, we saw a very elderly woman being helped to her car with her groceries by a member of the store staff. She was stooped and it seemed that she could barely walk.

I went inside and got the needed items. When I went to pay, the kid bagging was the same one who had helped the woman outside, and he and the cashier were talking about her, how frail she was, how banged-up her car was. I hadn't noticed that when I'd gotten out of the car, but as he continued, he gestured out the window and said, "She's still out there."

I went outside and saw she was indeed still parked in the same spot, but her car was now running. She had the donut spare tire on her left front wheel, and when I passed to the other side, I could see that the passenger side of the car was scraped from end to end, as though she had driven it along the side of a building or something.

She drove away oh so slowly, and we ended up behind her heading out of the parking lot. The Mrs. said, "She probably shouldn't be driving. She could be dangerous to other people as well as herself." I didn't really have anything to add to that, other than to agree. It's unfortunate, but often true, that as we age our bodies fail us in various ways.

I wondered if she had children, and if so, if they had thought about how to deal with the situation. And if she doesn't have any children, or any other close relatives monitoring her health and well-being, then whose responsibility is it? Should we have called the police? What would we have said? "Yes, there's a woman on Salem St. that we suspect is driving while old."

Bus Stop Musings

When you ride the T regularly, at some point you will be faced with the dilemma of having to choose between two different routes to the same destination, and woe is you if you make the wrong choice. T riders live in dread of making the wrong choice.

Today I went to do a couple of errands in the Prudential Center at lunch, and when I was ready to head back to work, I realized I could either take the 39 bus or the E line down Huntington Avenue to Brigham Circle. I tend to prefer taking the bus along this corridor, mostly because I find the stops to be situated more conveniently for my purposes; because it seems like the bus moves faster (even if it's only an illusion); and also because of my long-standing hatred of all things Green Line, going back to my BU days in the 80's, when I rode and loathed the B line.

So I opted to wait for the bus, which today was the wrong choice. As I stood watching for a 39 bus coming west down Huntington, three buses came from the other direction and made the turn onto Dalton Street within about two minutes of each other. This was a clear warning that I should go down into Prudential station and wait for an E train, because it was going to take at least 15 minutes for the first of those buses to make its way to Back Bay station, discharge its passengers, pick up new passengers, and make its way back around to where I was standing.

For some reason, this warning did not register in my brain. Perhaps I was addled by the heat, but I can't say for sure. (You'd think the heat would have been enough reason for me to opt not to stand around outside waiting for a bus.) I naively hoped that another bus was already on its way from Back Bay, but of course it wasn't.

When you're waiting around for 20 minutes or so, you have time to think about ways the T could do better. Like GPS. The buses are already equipped with it, but it's only used for the stop announcements. How idiotic is that? How hard could it be to come up with some sort of a readout on the bus stop sign posts that indicates how long until the next bus comes? Because, you know, that's information that might actually be useful to someone.

I went to London 20 years ago, and even back then the Tube stations had signs indicating how many minutes until the next train arrived, so I know it's technologically possible, but it would imply a level of accountability that the T is too gutless to undertake. Or they would say, "Oh, that would cost too much." And how much did the new fare collection system cost? The one that allows more fare evasion than before?

Not Buying It

I know the blog posts have been a bit sparse lately, and there are a couple of reasons for that. In the torpor of August, everything seems to slow down, including my brain. The heat and humidity sap my energy, and I just haven't felt especially inspired or come up with any good topics lately. Also, I tend to do my posts during the workday, but I have a new project at work in addition to my regular stuff, making it a bit more difficult to steal time to blog on the employer's dime, as it were.

Our state is about to celebrate the joys of capitalism and potential indebtedness with the latest edition of its annual tax-free shopping weekends. You might think I would be excited, but I am not. As much of a shopper as I am, I'm not planning on buying anything this weekend, at least not anything that I wouldn't be buying anyway. Though the Mrs. and I have discussed some potential large purchases, there is no urgency around them. I've been giving some thought to getting a new computer, but it's not a necessity, and nothing else is pressing enough to entice us to whip out the plastic this weekend.

And really, that's probably a good thing. Sure, everybody loves saving money, but it's kind of irresponsible to go buy something just because you'll save a few bucks on sales tax. If you're a savvy enough shopper, you can probably find the item in question available somewhere (online, probably) at enough of a savings to equal or exceed the money you'd save by not paying sales tax. And most people are already in too much debt as it is.

(Wow, listen to me. I must be getting sensible in my old age. What a drag.)

I've also been thinking about the news reports that say the state loses in the neighborhood of $25 to $30 million in revenue by not collecting sales tax for these two days. That money could do a lot for our cash-strapped state government. I wonder how many shoppers will be thinking about that this weekend, or later on, when they might be deprived of some state program or service because there isn't enough money to fund it?

If you need something, you're going to buy it anyway, whether or not a tax break is involved. And many (probably most) Massachusetts shoppers know they can get a year-round tax holiday by investing in a tank of gas and heading over the border to tax-free New Hampshire for big-ticket purchases. Not everyone would agree that the trip is worth the time and gas money, but it is an option.

We're going to spend this weekend visiting our "country mice" friends out in the rural middle of the state, which will help us me resist the temptation to buy something big and shiny.

Wave That Flag

Boy, it's such a comfort to know that the state of Oklahoma is doing its part to support freedom and sustain our American way of life by issuing "Global War on Terror" license plates. Perusing the list of other special plates available, I see they also have NRA and pro-life plates. What's next, "Secure Our Borders" plates?

(Courtesy of the SmartRoutes "On the Road" blog.)

The Whole Thing

I had an interesting shopping experience the other night. We were in need of a few staple food items--coffee, cream, yogurt--and something to eat for supper. The Mrs. suggested going to Whole Foods because she likes their deli chicken salad, and with some fresh bread it would make a quick, easy meal. She also needed to stop at the Medford library, so after that we kept going through west Medford and Winchester to Woburn, where a new Whole Foods Market opened a year or so ago.

I had never shopped at Whole Foods. I'd been in a few of the stores over the years for various reasons, but I had never gone into one of their stores with the intention of doing any real food shopping for myself or my household. I guess I've always been content with being a mainstream grocery shopper, and Stop & Shop, Shaw's, or Foodmaster was always close enough and convenient enough for me. Also, while I'm aware of the issues surrounding food safety and the desire for food that is less processed, I've always felt that Whole Foods was overpriced, that part of what you're buying there is a lifestyle statement--I want the best, and I can afford it--that I don't identify with.

Over the past couple of years the chain has worked to undo the perception of being too expensive by introducing a line of private-label products, and by placing advertisement inserts in the newspaper showing that their prices are competitive with other grocery chains. But those inserts featured only a dozen or so items each week. and the prices on the rest of the items you'd likely need for your weekly shopping weren't necessarily as competitive.

Their produce is legendary, and yes, it's fantastic. But it's also pricey, and at this time of year, I'd much rather go to a local farmer's market. Nothing tastes as good as locally grown vegetables at their seasonal peak, and more farmers are embracing organic growing techniques. We also have a couple of very good farm stands Calareso's in Reading and Wilson Farms in Lexington, within a short drive, so the produce angle is pretty well covered, and as I think I've said before, I would rather support local farmers and businesses anyway.

Coffee is absolutely essential for me to start my day, and I have to give Whole Foods a thumbs-up for their selection. I saw packaged beans from a couple of local roasters, but what got my attention was the loose bean varieties and blends that are store-roasted. I chose a blend that had been roasted that very day. It was more expensive than the Peet's I've been getting at Stop & Shop, but I chose that out of convenience more than anything else, and I'm definitely willing to pay more for coffee if there's some clear advantage in freshness or quality.

There's a whole section of natural cosmetics that didn't really interest me, but the Mrs. could have stayed there all night until the store closed and they kicked her out.

Some of the store-brand items are a reasonably good deal, others not so much. You could certainly do most if not all of your weekly shopping at Whole Foods, but there's no question you would pay a lot more for it. To some people I guess it's worth it, but I'm also left with the feeling that there are those that do it more to show off than for any other reason, just as there are people who have to drive around in a Lexus when a Hyundai would serve their transportation needs just as well.

And the chicken salad? It was all right, but the chunks of chicken are way too big. It's harder to eat that way, that's all.

Sleep on It

Over the weekend we went back to Jordan's Furniture to check out mattresses. Well, actually we went there for some Richardson's ice cream, but our mattress is getting on in years and is a little lumpy, so while we were there we had a look around the mattress department, which Jordan's somewhat pretentiously calls the "sleep lab." Both the Mrs. and I have back issues, and we realized some time ago that our current mattress probably wasn't firm enough when we bought it back in early 1999.

On our way to test-drive some mattresses, we passed through the bedroom furniture. At one point I decided to climb on a display bed and test the mattress. It was very firm and quite comfortable, so I flipped up the covers to look for a label. There wasn't one, so it seemed logical to me to go into the mattress section and ask someone if they could tell me what kind of mattress was on the bed in question.

The "sleep technician" looked at me a little oddly, but when I asked my question a second time she seemed to understand. "Oh, those aren't for sale." Now it was my turn to look confused. She continued, "the display beds have what we call demo mattresses, they are old and they're just there to fill the space in the bed frames."

Maybe I'm suffering from a failure of logic, but this seems like a lost opportunity to me. I realize the mattress department is right next to the bedroom furniture department, but why wouldn't you want to put mattress you sell on those beds? It couldn't hurt, and might result in some additional sales. And I'm quite sure that when we bought the previous mattress and foundation (from a different furniture store), it was set up on a display bed. I guess they just choose to do things differently at Jordan's.

A Tip of the Glass: Deep Ellum

Summer weekends can be kind of a challenge. On the one hand there's the feeling that I should be making the most of the free time and the nice weather to do fun summer stuff. But if it's too hot and humid, I would much rather spend my days off in a bookstore, a coffee shop, or a dark, chilly movie theater. Or even better, a dark, chilly bar.

One thing I do like about summer is that there aren't as many people around. Many of the students are elsewhere, and from mid-July to mid-August, a lot of people go away on vacation. The city seems to empty out for a while, and things slow down a bit. There's less traffic on the Fellsway when I'm waiting for the bus in the morning, and the subway trains are noticeably less crowded, increasing the chances of getting a seat for the whole ride. Restaurants and bars have fewer patrons, meaning shorter waits and potentially more attentive service.

This weekend I opted not to partake in the hoopla surrounding the Police reunion concerts at Fenway Park; while a great place for a baseball game, it's far from the ideal venue for live music. I also chose not to alternately swelter in the midday humidity and get drenched by downpours at the Lowell Folk Festival. I did, however, pay a visit to the newish, beer-centric neighborhood place Deep Ellum in Union Square, Allston. The food is very good, there are something like a hundred different beers available (about twenty of those on tap), and it's a very eclectic and well-informed selection. They also have a list of intriguing cocktails for folks like the Mrs. who like to get their drink on in a non-beer way.

I neglected to get our server's name, and now realize I really should have because he did an excellent job. He was completely unfazed by the squirmy preschooler in our group, immediately picking up on his desire for a hot dog. He gave honest, informed opinions and recommendations for beer and food, paid attention to us after he'd brought our orders, cleared empty dishes promptly, and generally treated us like visiting dignitaries. He was a true professional, and that's very refreshing. We will almost certainly go back.

Dinged

The Mrs. and I went to the library, and on the way home we stopped to get something to eat. We were walking back to the car, which was parked in a lot behind the building. and turned the corner just in time to see someone backing out of a space and into the driver's side of our car. The Mrs. ran up and knocked on the other driver's window, which was a good thing because she was about to drive away. We're not sure if she even realized she'd hit our car.

Fortunately she was going very slowly, so there's only a tiny little dent no more than a couple of inches long. The other driver looked to be about eighteen and probably was not very experienced. I say this not to pick on her, but because there was a very generous amount of room between the row she backed out of and the perpendicular space where we had parked, and even as someone who doesn't drive, it was clear to me that she had more than enough room to negotiate out of her space without needing to get as close to our car as she did. Hopefully she will incorporate this incident into her future driving experience.

Oh, and by the way, Colleen's in Medford Square has decent sandwiches and excellent frappes.

Road Rage Champions

A couple of the car-oriented sites I read regularly mentioned this story about a highway project that drew so much road rage from drivers that the California Department of Transportation decided to close the road to traffic completely for the duration of the project. One worker was hit by a thrown burrito, one was allegedly clipped by a driver, and one guy threatened to climb a tower and start shooting at the road workers.

First, you have to wonder what sort of brain-damaged subhumans would commit acts of violence against the very people working to improve the road they use. The closure of the road in question has added miles and minutes to drivers' commutes.

Second, how is it that something like this hasn't already happened here in the land of the Massholes?

Verbal Jousting on the T

Yesterday I got on the Green Line at Brigham Circle to head home from work. The train operator came on the PA and said, "The other conductor neglected to mention that we'll be standing by for a few minutes."

A moment later the PA crackled again and another voice said, "Sorry about that, folks. The conductor in the other car is having some issues with his medication."

Short pause. First voice: "Once again, we are standing by for a few minutes. The other conductor's wife picks on him and beats him up regularly."

Pause. Second voice: "Folks, he's going to classes to learn how to be a better human being."

Now this might have been a bit unprofessional, but it certainly was funny. Who knew T operators had senses of humor?

Sure Don't Feel Like Kenmore Square

So Mr. Butch died last week, in a motor scooter accident. This might be news to some of my friends who read this blog from outside the Boston area. It's not my intention to pay tribute, mainly because a lot of other people have already written about it, but also because I didn't have any kind of personal relationship with him. But reading about his death did give me cause to think about how much has changed in the city since I came up from Rhode Island to start college in the fall of 1981.

In the 80's and a good bit of the 90's, anyone who went to BU, or hung out at the Rat, or even just went to Red Sox games during that time, is likely to have encountered Mr. Butch at some point. He was, in his own unique way, as recognizable a part of the fabric of Kenmore Square as the Citgo sign. The Square was, well, scuzzy would be a nice way to put it, I guess. Parents delivering their college-bound kids to school for the first time would come through the "gateway to BU" and raise their eyebrows in apprehension: this is where you're going to school?

I remember going to orientation after arriving at BU and hearing someone say, "the city is your campus," as though apologizing for the school not having rolling hills and a nice big quad. But for those of us who were looking for the opportunities only an urban college experience could provide, Kenmore Square was our quad, and we were okay with that. The grime was part of its charm and allure. It was real, authentic, earned.

Sure, things got a little iffy sometimes. There were frequently fights on weekend nights, particularly outside Pizza Pad, where the bridge-and-tunnel club kids would clash with the in-town rockers, or something like that. A friend was menaced by a crazy old lady with a knife in Charile's Cafeteria. And once when I was walking home alone after a late movie, a guy tried to "make friends" with me. But I never really felt unsafe, because there was always so much going on and so many people around.

But about a decade ago, the rumblings of gentrification started to hit the Kenmore area. BU had long wanted the area cleaned up, and as owner of a significant amount of property, eventually the school was able to exert some influence. They had managed to get rid of the nightclub Narcissus; it became a Gap and eventually a Bertucci's restaurant. Pizza Pad got turned into a McDonald's.

It's my understanding that around this time, Mr. Butch was told by the BU Police that he was no longer welcome in Kenmore Square. I suspect he knew what was to come and probably didn't want to stick around there anyway, so he headed up Comm. Ave. to Harvard Ave. in Allston, which did (and thankfully still does) manage to maintain its funky rough edge, and where he was welcomed by the community.

It was touching to read that a memorial service for Mr. Butch has been organized for this Sunday, including a New Orleans-style jazz funeral procession along Harvard Ave., and that his family will be in attendance. It's clear that he was loved by many, which is really all any of us can hope for in our time here.

A while back the BU alumni magazine Bostonia did a back-page piece on the changes in Kenmore Square, the most dramatic of which was the demolition of almost an entire block and its replacement with the Hotel Commonwealth. I don't get over to Kenmore much these days, but I was there the other night to go to a baseball game, and looking across the square at that hotel, it just doesn't look right.

Sure, Eastern Standard is a nice restaurant, but I look at it and think, that's where the Rat should be. It was never my favorite club, but who I was seeing was more important than where I was seeing them, and I have so many great memories from seeing bands there over the years; its significance in the local music scene cannot be denied, and young kids just starting bands will never experience the rite of passage of playing there.

Instead of Kenmore Army-Navy, there's now Jean Therapy, selling high-end designer denim. Instead of the IHOP that replaced Charile's, there's a boutique chocolate shop. There was an old-school Dunkin' Donuts with sit-down counter service (anybody remember that?), and Deli Haus, and Planet Records, and the India Quality restaurant--now all gone. The hotel has tried to reference the Square's past by designing its street-level retail space with some stores one flight above the street and some one flight below, but it seems like an empty gesture. Maybe the Square is nicer these days, but it feels a lot less vital, and somehow less real.

On the other hand, the Kenmore T station is finally getting a long-overdue fixing-up; it even has an elevator now, and they're building a snazzy new glass-canopy bus shelter that's going to look pretty cool when it's finished. So some progress is good, but some isn't; progress is inevitable, but we don't have to like it.

Would You Call It a "Spiser" or a "Mender"?

Overheard, out of context, in the bleachers at Wednesday night's Red Sox game:

"I'm such a miser."
"You're kind of a miser and a spender."
"Well, I'm bipolar, so that's why."

Supercrap

I'm deeply disturbed by something, and I need to gripe about it: it seems that one of the worst music groups of the entire half-century of the pop/rock era is popular again. I'm talking about Supertramp. I keep hearing them on that damn TD Banknorth commercial that runs nearly every morning on New England Cable News. Blessedly, the name of the specific song in question escapes me, and I'm not about to make any effort to find it out, so you'll have to take my word for it. And if you know, don't tell me--I really don't want to know.

Typically I mute the TV when commercials come on, but I watch a little NECN in the mornings while having breakfast, then I leave the room to get dressed, and the commercial always seems to come on when I'm out of the room. By the time I can make it back to the TV, the song has already triggered that alcove of my brain that stores memories of songs, and it's too late: even though it's been three decades since its inexplicable popularity, it's lodged in there until I can get out the door, get my headphones on, and force it out with something else.

Then the other day I was in a store, minding my business doing an errand, when another song of theirs came on. I felt trapped. I felt queasy. I wanted to run away without buying my shampoo. I know that retailers pay a lot of money to companies to select the music that gets played in their stores, and that makes me think: really? This is the best you could come up with? The soulless, musically bankrupt, late 70's analogue of the Dave Matthews Band? I was only in junior high back then, and I didn't like it the first time.

I know whose fault it is, too. I can pretty much guarantee that some baby boomer working at an ad agency or "branding consortium," someone probably a couple of years older than me, who lost his or her virginity in the back seat of a Duster (look it up, kids) a couple of hours after seeing a Supertramp concert, is responsible for this travesty being forced upon us. I don't care about your blissful memories of sexual awakening. Just stop it. Stop torturing us. I think I actually liked it better when everyone's songs weren't for sale, and we were forced to endure cheesy jingles.

(Beer) Blast from the Past

When summer rolls around, I like to change up my beer choices a little. In winter I like to drink moderately heavy stuff--the various Sam Adams and Harpoon offerings, Sierra Nevada, Brooklyn Brewery, and of course Guinness--but in warmer weather I prefer lighter beers.

The Mexicans have the combination of decent flavor and light body down pretty well, and each year I enjoy reacquainting myself with the pleasures of ice-cold Dos Equis, Tecate, Carta Blanca, etc. (Corona is okay in a pinch, but it's kind of like drinking colored water.) I used to like Rolling Rock as my summer beer, but since it was bought by Anheuser-Busch last year and is no longer brewed in Latrobe, PA, I can't bring myself to buy it anymore.

A couple of weeks ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a guy who bought back the rights to the Narragansett brand and has reintroduced the beer to the marketplace, at least in New England. This was news to me, but being a born-and-raised Rhode Islander, where the beer originated back in 1890, I was curious, so on the way home from work I stopped at the liquor store. They did indeed have it, though only in 16-ounce tall-boy cans. I never buy beer in cans because drinking it tastes like drinking the can, but in the interest of, um, "research" I went ahead and got a six-pack.

I thought it might be amusing to sit on the front steps drinking it out of the can to see what sort of reaction I might get from the neighbors, but I decided that might be a little too Larry the Cable Guy. So I sat on the back porch instead, and used a glass. The results of my unscientific testing? It's not bad. It isn't going to win any awards, but it certainly tastes better than Miller or Budweiser (I've long held that I would rather drink tap water than either of those) and kind of reminds me of Coors, which is probably just a coincidence.

I'm not saying Narragansett is a great beer, but the company's new leadership understands the beer's heritage here in New England. For a couple of decades it was the official beer of the Red Sox, and for many people it was their one and only beer. Both my grandfathers and my great uncle on my mom's side were loyal Narragansett drinkers. Its recipe had been altered several times under its various owners, so the new president went to the trouble to find the company's old brewmaster to return Narragansett to its original flavor.

It was decades of ownership by companies like Pabst and brewing in places like Wisconsin that caused the world to forget about Narragansett. Currently it's being brewed in Rochester, NY, which is a lot closer than Wisconsin and close enough to be almost New England. The company president says he hopes to start brewing it in Rhode Island again next year. I think that would be great. It would be like the Rolling Rock situation in reverse: in an era when it seems like everything is the same no matter where you go, it would be nice to have something with a distinct local flavor again.

Cock Blocks?

Some people in Oregon think the traffic-blocking posts the town had installed are too suggestive-looking. See for yourself.

(From KOMO-TV Seattle, via Jalopnik.)

Hacked-Up Hairball

Friday night we did a couple of errands, then went home to relax (yes, we are boring, thank you). In our cable TV lineup we have this group of movie channels that are not considered "premium" (like HBO or Showtime) but show movies unedited and with no commercials. Frequently there's nothing interesting on any of them, but sometimes we find movies worth watching. In this case, we stumbled on a movie so lame, so cheesy, so stunningly awful, we had no choice but to watch: Hackers.

This 1995 debacle might just be the most awesomely bad movie I have ever seen. It's nominally about a group of high-school kids in New York City (who all happen to be whiz-kid hackers) who must fight an evil computer genius bent on unleashing some sort of virus. At least I think that's what it's about. The main character is supposed to be some sort of super-hacker who caused the catastrophic crash of thousands of computers worldwide, and he's supposed to have done this when he was like ten or eleven years old. Wow. As a result, he is banned from using a computer until his eighteenth birthday--such a cruel punishment!

Whoever wrote it had clearly read a bunch of William Gibson novels and was trying to emulate some of the cyberpunk aspects of his writing, but in a contemporary, non-scifi setting. I like Gibson's books, but you can't copy him; it just doesn't work. Whatever Hackers is, it's a mess. Much of it makes no sense, and as with most movie and TV portrayals, the "hacking" is completely unrealistic. Decent soundtrack though: Underworld, Stereo MC's, Massive Attack, to name a few. (According to IMDB, there were actually three soundtrack albums released for this movie.)

One of the great pleasures of watching cinematic fertilizer like this is spotting the otherwise-respectable actors who stopped by to pick up a quick paycheck and maybe, if we're lucky, chew some scenery. The girl-hacker crush object is played by none other than Angelina Jolie, in one of her earliest film roles, sporting a Peter Pan pixie haircut to make her look tough but still sexy and vulnerable. I give her a pass because she was young and probably didn't know any better.

Hey, there's Lorraine Bracco, in an obvious midcareer slump between Goodfellas and The Sopranos, and blonde no less (dye job or wig?), playing some sort of vixenish criminal mastermind. Huh? Wait, here comes Mr. Lopez himself, Marc Anthony, playing... a Secret Service agent? Yeah, credible. Other folks making brief (luckily for them) appearances include Penn Jillette as a bad-guy hacker minion, Dave Stewart of Eurythmics as a white-hat hacker helping the kids, and Felicity Huffman as a prosecutor.

Now, I have to be honest: we missed the first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie, so there were a couple of things we didn't get that may have been explained in that early portion. But really, it just made us want to see it again, and it looks like we'll get the chance: as the credits were rolling, a message at the bottom of the screen told us what movie was coming on next, then said, "You've been watching Hackers. See it again on July 21st at 9 PM." Hmm, bad movie-watching party at our house?