As it happens, Cinnamon, Brandon and I took a trip down to New Orleans together at this time in 1998. We took Amtrak down, leaving June 4 and returning June 9. A full 36 hours of that was train time. Other than some strange incidents (including but not limited to: an unexpected mid-night stop for the police to remove a knife-wielding stow-away, air-conditioning on all night but not during the day, and a pack of good-ole-boy fraternity brothers making mildly racist comments while draining a cooler of beer) the train was OK, but I'll probably never take that long of a train trip again without booking a cabin.
To tide you over till I get back, here are some selected passages from my journal. You might also read the most recent monthly Huff Report, or peruse the archives. See you in a week.
"The red cap people mover is non-habit-forming." ---Brandon, mishearing an overhead announcement at Central Station.
"Went directly to Cafe du Monde after we got our room. Mmmm, coffee + beignets. We wandered around the French Quarter ... ate at ___?____ at 777 Bourbon St. -- crawfish and hurricanes -- the only ones of the week. we then wandered up to Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, where a horrible lounge singer was playing. [Receipt from "Rev. Zombie's House of Voodoo for one chicken foot ($4.95) attached to page]
"Top of the Mart" -- bar at the top of the [New Orleans] World Trade Center. We drank bad mint julips as we revolved once. ... Preservation Hall -- Olympia Brass Band. At times Cin, Bran and I were the only ones clapping. Good ole N.O. jazz.
Emeril Lagasse's place in Le Vieux Carré 11:30am. Wow! Amazing food! ... We left in such a food high that we were immediately ensnared in a shoe shine scam that cost me $20 (what's a trip to Nawlins without getting ripped off?)
[back on the train, heading home] In lower Mississippi, a group of 10 kids and 3 adults got on and sat right behind us. One little kid was talking to his cousin (one of the adults) about his sister, NuNu. He said, "She's so fat they nammed her twice."
Cinnamon and I are leaving for a week's vacation tomorrow morning. We're heading to New Orleans, where we'll be staying in a little bed&breakfast in the French Quarter. This'll be the first vacation we'll have taken alone since we moved to Chicago; every other time, there's been a friend or family member along.
It'll be nice to be alone for once -- not that we don't like you guys, it's just that sometimes you need some privacy, and having friends and family around can cramp our style. So, one more post later tonight, then it's radio, er, web silence till June 7th or 8th. Unless we find an Internet cafe in the Big Easy...but don't hold your breath.
"Now you see I've learned my lessons...
...And I don't even wanna hear about your confessions."
When I was in high school, one of my saviors was a black cassette tape with a little cut-out piece of label that said Violent Femmes in black and purple ink. The tape contained a dub of Violent Femmes' first album, taped over my brother's (also dubbed) copy of Def Leppard's Hysteria.
When I was in a bad mood -- pissed off at my parents, broken hearted over some girl, or upset about some probably superficial slight -- or if one of my friends was, we'd jump in the car, pop that tape in the stereo and drive aimlessly round the coutryside, venting our spleen and singing along at the tops of our voices.
Vent we did, wasting gas and terrorizing empty roads between moonlit pastures north or west of town, shrieking out "Add It Up" or sing-songing through "Please Do Not Go." I know every word to every song on the album -- there aren't many songsI know all the words to, let alone any other albums.
So thanks Gordon Gano, Brian Ritchie and Victor DeLorenzo, for making it easier to take out my frustrations.
Helluva weekend, this. Cinnamon's brother, Chris, was in town for a visit, and we filled it up about as well as we could.
Saturday, we grabbed breakfast with Brandon up at A&T Restaurant (A&T stands for "abundant and tasty") and walked around our neighborhood for a while, then went downtown to ESPNZone (Chris is a big sports fan). The place turned out to be divided up into three areas: a restaurant, a sportsbar that looked like the sports betting floor of a Las Vegas casino, and a gameroom. The gameroom was populated almost exclusively with racing games -- you could race cars, motorcycles, jet-skis, even semis. We burned through $25 worth of games before getting bored and moving on.
We went to a White Sox game that night, in which the Sox demonstrated their general superiority over the Detroit Tigers. Despite sitting between a group of over-sugared kids, a compulsive talker and a family who was nursing the adult daughter's unhealthy crush on Sox pitcher John Garland, we had a great time. Our seats were on the first level just past third base, just under the overhang so if it rained we'd be dry. The weather held out, though, and we were treated to a nice fireworks display after the game.
Sunday, we gave Chris a driving tour of Evanston and Chicago, swinging by Cinnamon's office, making a pit stop in Clark and Belmont, and walking around the Sears Tower before hitting Pizzeria Due for lunch. Chris works in a pizza shop in Columbus, so we wanted to give him a taste of Chicago deep dish before he headed home. Afterwards, we walked down Michigan Ave. for awhile before driving him to O'Hare. Cinnamon and I picked up donuts for the week at Krispy Kreme out on Manheim Road before heading back into the city.
Stay clear of the roads today, if you're smart: Memorial Day Weekend (what a silly, contradictory phrase) traffic was already starting to get nasty at 10am here in Chicagoland.
Another reason: I get my car back today. Should be looking brand-new by 4. You know what that means, of course: I'll be back to my tailgating ways, driving all the suburbanites mad with my city-style driving. Yeeha!
Enjoy the holiday weekend.
I am quite fallable. For instance, I just spelled fallible wrong. And yet it felt so right.
As like most people, I hate to be wrong. I have argued my opinions until long after it's clear I'm mistaken, made turns in the wrong direction, said things I knew were untrue. I've lied to you to your face.
Simultaneously, I have a strong reputation among my friends and coworkers for telling it like it is, for being brutally honest. I am forthright, mostly ethical, and generally courteous when not behind the wheel of a car. I hold doors for people and don't give strangers bad directions on purpose.
Maybe it's a centrally human characteristic to be paradoxically split, to be both Iago and Desdemona, and therefore Othello.
Tuesdays have become Cinnamon and my "appointment TV" nights. We watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then Six Feet Under (sure, we could watch it on Sundays like most people, but we prefer to consolidate our television viewing).
It's kind of funny how TV infiltrates your life. In college, I rarely watched TV, usually turning it on for movies or to catch an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. My last year in school about the only show I ever caught was Real Stories of the Highway Patrol at about 3am while I wound down from the sandwich shop. When we moved to Chicago, the plan was to not have a TV at all, but my mom bought one for us without asking.
So we've been TV-full ever since. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes a bad thing. I would have missed watching the events of September 11 live (can't decide if that would have been good or bad), but I'd have back countless hours spent mindlessly watching the lighted box.
Such is life.
Whew! Sorry, kind of a late blog today. I was tied up getting the software for my camera installed, then I had an appointment downtown, then I had to hike it back up to Evanston so I could get my new front teeth -- see:
No, I didn't get dentures. I got a new bond on my front two teeth. See, back in, like, the '80s, I was playing with one of Danny's toys, a "bouncy chair," which was essentially a seat positioned on the outside of a spring-loaded chrome hinge -- put the kid in the seat and s/he gets to jump up an down with the aid of the spring. Lots of fun for an 18-month-old. Anyway, I had my head under this thing and was bopping it up in the air with my hands while I watched GI Joe or something. One time, I missed. Now I have a bond covering up the back of my tooth so the nerve isn't exposed. Ow.
While the dentist was in there, though, he decided to help me out with the gap between my front teeth. He filled it in by putting a bond on both the teeth instead of just the one. Looked great for the first few years, but then I discovered coffee, and a coffee-colored stain developed where the edge of the bond was, right down the middle of my OK tooth. And the tip of the other one started deteriorating...anyway, it was time for a fix-up.
The job didn't take long. My new dentist (as of two weeks ago) is a very efficient man. Lots of (painless, thank god) scraping and coating and buffing, and afterward I felt like I had two Chiclets for front teeth. The feeling went away quickly, fortunately, but in the meantime, I'm now obsessively rubbing my tongue over my new front choppers.
Got my new camera today: a Canon PowerShot G2. Veddy nice. Expect more images to pop up around this place.
My legs are still a bit sore from Saturday, when we condo owners shoveled, wheel-barrowed and raked a half-ton of mulch all over our yard -- first step in landscaping, you know. We rewarded ourselves for three hours of heavy lifting with four hours of brat grilling, beer drinking and backyard porch hanging. It's great that we have such friendly neighbors; so far there's no one rocking the boat, no rivalries or bad blood. Hopefully that lasts a good long time...at least long enough for us to move out before things get nasty.
(I refuse to make any drug references in relation to the above number. I refuse to make any drug references in relation to the above number. I refuse to make any marijuana references -- d'oh!)
There are certain words and phrases that just bug me. There's one that comes up in marketing/communications/consulting talk a lot: metric. As a noun. As in, "We need a specific metric to track coverage of this thing."
Dictionary.com defines the noun form of metric as "a standard of measurement." I suspect that this definition is new, added to accomodate this new use, because trusty OED lists no such noun form of the word. So while technically a valid definition, it nonetheless bothers me considering the options.
Metric is essentially the nounification (not a real word) of an adjective form of another word, which has the exact definition of the new word. In this case, metric takes the place of meter. If you're looking for a device or method of measuring something, why not just say meter? "We need a specific meter to track this thing." Or for that matter, how about measurement? "We need a specific measurement to track this thing." Makes sense, doesn't it?
Well, maybe not. Maybe what the people who came up with this new use for metric were struggling with was that measurement doesn't sound like a tool but rather the output of such a tool. One could say measurement tool, but that's not very efficient. Marketers and consultants (and especially maketing consultants) like to talk fast and efficiently, and a long phrase would slow them down. Meter is OK, but perhaps it connoted a unit of measurement too strongly (although the absolute first thing I think of when I hear metric is the metric system, so that's not much of an argument).
Metric filled the need for efficiency and speed without sacrificing clarity too much. It conjured up thoughts of an organized system of measurement, which is exactly what was called for. But I can't help but think there's a better word for it, an existing word that avoids turning adjectives into nouns and holds its own little niche for this definition. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to keep gritting my teeth in marketing meetings.
Hung out with a bunch of Chicagobloggers last night at The Map Room. Pretty cool place, though I still prefer Hopleaf.
One point they had over Hopleaf though: Duchesse de Bourgogne on tap. Hopleaf has it in bottles only. Duchesse de Bourgogne is a Belgian ale, red in color with a deep, fruity taste that we determined reminded us most of balsamic vinegar. It's amazing, and much better on tap than in a bottle. I highly recommend it.
Coca-Cola =
Aqua
Burn
Chivalry
Dr. Pepper-Ko
Eight O'Clock
First
Georgia
Hit
Ice Cold-Mix
Jesus
Kapo
Love Body
Mer
Nusta
Ok
Pop
Qoo
Ripe n Ready
Superkools
Tavern
Urge
Variety Pack
Wannabe
Youki
No Z for some reason. Might I suggest Zero Taste?
[via ktheory]
Update: Coke pulled Jesus off the list, but the Google cache remains (scroll down -- the alphabet shortcuts link rather than jump for some reason).
A discussion on MetaTalk got me thinking about the nature of Googlebombs. For the sake of space, please follow that link if you don't know what a Googlebomb is. I'll wait here till you get back.
Googlebombs are essentially free advertising for ideas, rather than products. The idea is to push an idea -- VeriSign sucks, for instance, or the name David Gallagher -- to the top of a list of ideas as compiled by a computer. The more people link to the bomb, the bigger it gets. The only other way to accomplish this feat in a search engine is to pay for a "sponsored link," which is basically an ad.
Taking it further, Googlebombs could also be thought of as a form of PR: the concept behind sending out a press release is to get journalists to write about a product or service, rather than paying for an ad. It's all about third party endorsement: people are far more likely to believe what they read in a newspaper article about an item than what they read in an advertisement for the same item. The same is true of a Google search return -- the links Google turns up are seen as more trustworthy than the "sponsored links," which everybody recognizes as advertising.
Currently, the blogging community offers a diffuse form of Googlebomb that is evidenced on indexing sites such as Blogdex and Daypop. The hot meme of the day -- usually also the big news of the day, or else some trivial bit -- slowly rises to the top of related searches simply because lots of people linked to it. Imagine if all those people used the exact same wording in their links; that's all a Googlebomb is. With a modicum of effort, people, organizations and even legitimate PR firms could use Googlebombs as a tool to draw attention to interesting news, important issues, even new products or services. That's a solid PR tactic.
On the flip side, if Google doesn't devise a solution to block Googlebombing, VeriSign, X10 and a zillion other spammers and spam-like entities will soon be using Googlebombing as a tool to grab eyes -- call it GoogleAdBombing. (They're probably plotting such a tactic right now, as we speak. The Church of Scientology already has.) The effect would be two-fold: The grassroots effect of Googlebombs would diminish as the technique is exploited and such links are distrusted, and all the earnest Googlebombs would quickly fall in the rankings behind the GoogleAdBombs. The PR tactic would quickly become hucksterism, undermining the credibility of all search returns.
Besides crashing my car, I did a whole lot of cleaning last weekend. My parents are building a new house, so the detritus of 15 years in their current abode must be sifted through and removed.
I don't think there has ever been a time when their garage is as clean as it is now, after close to five hours of work. My mom helped for the first two hours, but she and my dad had to go to a surprise party. Peter came out and helped after they left (I don't think he wanted them to see him work -- it'd ruin their image of him) and we plowed through the piles of garden supplies (they have six rakes -- three of both types, yard and garden. Six!), sports equipment (dead basketballs, frisbees, baseball bats, etc.) and pottery (my mom's a ceramicist), tossing stuff no one wanted and pushing like items into stacks and cabinets. By the time we were done, there was a huge pile of garbage next to the trashcans, which were all full. We felt pretty successful.
My voice was gravelly and my hair felt like I had sprayed Aquanet all over it as Pete and I sat down with Danny and ate pizza. Danny then put Rat Race in the VCR -- it's his new favorite movie -- and we listened to his commentary while we relaxed from the day. I drove home in the pouring rain and showered the dust out of my hair, then fell into bed.
On Mothers' Day, Cinnamon and I headed out early so I could help with the upstairs closets. My mom and I plowed through the bedrooms as quickly as possible, making separate piles for To Keep, To Toss and For Garage Sale. To Toss was the largest pile, taking up the entire upstairs hallway by the time we were done. We found sheets that hadn't been used for years, my great grandmother's tablecloths, and my first jean jacket.
It was so much more stressful than the car accident, going through the keepsakes and collateral of a lifetime in a house. My mom more than once looked like she was going to cry. It was strange having to decide whether we wanted to keep things or not, knowing that we would never, ever see them again.
I got in a car accident Saturday. My car now looks like it's snarling.
It happened like this: I was driving north on Sherdian Road Saturday, on my way to my parents' to help them clean out the garage. I had just been to the dentist and found out I didn't have any cavities, so I was pretty happy, despite the heavy rain. Because I know my car doesn't handle as well in the rain, I was giving the car ahead of me more room than usual. I glanced in my rear view mirror, and when I looked back the car in front of me was braking. I braked, but it took me a moment to realize he was nearly stopped (the car in front of him was turning left) and I needed to brake harder. When I did, my brakes either locked up or I hydroplaned but either way I skidded into the back of the guy's car.
Fortunately, I didn't do much damage to the other car -- some chipped paint and a small crack in the plastic -- but my grill is gone and the hood latch mechanism got bent back, which caused my hood to buckle. It's still firmly latched, but it looks like my car is growling; if I wasn't going to have it fixed right away, I'd make a row of scary styrofoam teeth to go it its mouth.
About four years ago, I worked at a big PR firm downtown as an intern. One of my jobs was to check the email from a website connected to one of our campaigns. Most of the emails were from kids asking for copies of the ads for this particular beverage*, which had photos of famous people displaying the campaign's trademark, a moustache of the beverage, and the tagline "[Beverage]: Where's Your Mustache?"** For some reason, there were kids collecting these ads. I would respond to their requests by sending the kids mailing address to a fulfillment house, who would send them five ad slicks (8x10 prints of the ads with nothing on the back).
During the three months I was there, I probably read a thousand of those requests, but one little girl stands out even today. She claimed that there was an older boy who was threatening to kill her if she didn't give him a complete set of ads by such-and-such date. We had a stock reply for kids who requested extra ads; I responded with it. She wrote back that this was unacceptible, that she would die and her blood would be on our hands. I took her about as seriously as one would anybody who claimed to be in mortal peril over a bunch of advertising.
Over the next few weeks, as the girls deadline approached, she implored more and more stridently for a complete set of ads. About three days before she was to die, she sent us an email claiming the bully had been hit by a car, so he wasn't going to be in school for a week or two and we still had time to send her the ads she needed. I had been telling the other interns about this girl for weeks, so when I got that note I taped it up at the entrance to "the pit," the cattle pen-like office eight of us shared. We all got a kick out of it.
A month after I left, the intern who replaced me forwarded one last email from the girl. She was back to exhorting us for ads, claiming the boy had recovered from the accident and was now threatening her with a gun. They sent her another batch of slicks and never heard from her again.
*I'm being coy for a reason: I don't want to get yelled at by the PR firm. Let's just say it's does your body good.
**Both spellings are correct, but I prefer the French; "mustache" looks like a mold allergy symptom to me.
Have you ever read a cookbook cover to cover? Me neither, but I'm well on my way with Alton Brown's "I'm Only Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking." Brown is the host of Food TV's "Good Eats," which is flatly the best cooking show on television right now (in my opinion, anyway).
Instead of focusing on beautiful recipes full of hard-to-find gourmet items, Brown looks at the different methods of cooking, giving you the knowledge to really work with the technique. He throws in a couple recipes to get you started but otherwise lets you take what you've learned and apply it to your dinner. It's a great companion to the show, which delves into the how and why as much as the what, and always with a shot of humor.
Speaking of food, there's a new blog at Kiplog: FOODBlog, a great mix of interesting recipes and resources for cooks. Beautiful food pix. Check it out.
According to the Wall Street Journal today, the ring of an unanswered cell phone is one of the top workplace annoyances. A survey of 6,000 Australian office workers cited "irritating mobile phone rings" number one, ahead of "riding on the work of others" and "body odor." It turns out that the average frequency of a cell's ring is 2.64 kHz, about the same as screeching tires.
I've got a cell phone -- it's very practical, considering my hour-plus drive to and from work, and I use it for freelance reporting assignments so as not to run up other people's long distance bills. That said, I hate cell phone rings, especially when they're allowed to go on for too long. One of the secretaries at the office has a cheap Nokia set to the default ring, that simultaneously lilting and piercing tune, on high volume. It drives me nuts. I never set my volume above medium, and in loud environments or meetings it goes to vibrate.
My uncle Tom had a thought back in '94 of putting together a cell phone lobby in Washington. The intended purpose was to protect cellular users from price gouging; with rates dropping like crazy, there's little danger of high charges nowadays. Today, I think the opposite lobby is needed, one that would represent those *around* cellular users who have to put up with annoying rings, inattentive driving and the "world is my phonebooth" effect.
That huge "Big Game" lottery prize a few weeks ago got me thinking about what I'd do with the money if I won. I meant to post my thoughts back when the event was fresh, but somebody won and I let it drop. Something brought it to mind again (along with a certain Barenaked Ladies song, unfortunately) so I thought I'd share.
If I won the lottery, I'd give a large amount of money (more than $1 million) to a local public radio station -- if possible, enough to pay for a year's programming with enough left over to set up an endowment. In particular, I'd give money to WDCB, College of Dupage Radio, so they could increase the power to their antenna again and not have to be concerned about fundraisers. Good jazz would flow throughout the region again.
I'd also give money to websites like MetaFilter, Movable Type and Blogger to help keep them open and free.
I think I might open a restaurant or a café. It wouldn't be a big place, just something small and neighborhoody, where I could sit outside and read or write or whatever. And I'd be a patron for my friends: Brandon would get a stipend to work on his book, Christian would get enough money to work less so he could get serious with his art (or maybe he'd just work part-time at my café), Mike would get investment capital for his restaurant.
I would go down to my old friends at The Northern Trust and have them help me set up the proper trusts and asset management plans to keep the money growing over time. I'd set up a trust for Danny, so that when my parents pass there would be money to help him live independently. I would have my uncle in New York, who's a bond broker, invest a portion for me.
I'd buy a larger home -- maybe a whole building. I'd but a new car, something nice but not too nice. I'd invest in wine. I'd be a good consumer.
I dreamed this weekend that I had burned myself. I poured gas over myself and lit a match, but I didn't die. I felt no pain. I was severely burned, and my face in the mirror was forribly disfigured, but still recognizable as me. In my dream, I was eating lunch at a restaurant, and I looked up in a mirror and realized that I didn't have to burn myself to get what I wanted (although I don't remember what that was, if it was part of the dream at all). I was very disappointed, but not sad somehow. In spite of what I had done to myself, I was not upset.
I woke up wondering what the dream was about, and I realized late the next day that I had dreamed a story I heard on This American Life, a true, autobiographical story of a man who, in 8th grade, set himself on fire. I had put myself in his place, living through the incident described in his matter-of-fact memoir reading, then imagined the aftermath by way of my reactions to the story. When I heard the story, I thought to myself, "He didn't have to do that. There were such simple alternatives." And that's what dawned on me in the dream as I looked at my scarred reflection.
Thinking about it further, I think the recollection of the story was triggered last Friday, when I passed a burn victim on the street on my way to catch a bus. His whole head had been burned, and his face had a rubber mask look to it because his features had melted away and scarrification had left his face thick and monochromatic. I saw the man for only a split second, and I quickly glanced away so as not to make him uncomfortable (which probably just made it worse).
I can't remember the last time I inserted myself into a media piece in a dream. Probably, it was when I was a kid, playing the role of Superman or some other action hero. I also had no idea that episode of TAL had affected me so deeply, or that the glimpse of a burned man would bring it back so vividly.
First of all, the new monthly Huff Report is available for your perusal.
Second of all, Verisign sucks.
Thirdly, it's Friday and the sun is shining.
Lastly, a poem (not mine):
I eat my peas with honey;
I've done it all my life.
They do taste kind of funny,
But it keeps them on my knife.
Have a good weekend.
We watched as two sparrows streaked across the yard in a tandem stunt-flying display. Wizzing by, they performed hairpin turns and rapid ascents and descents, stopping just short of barrel rolls in their aerial demonstration. As a third bird joined the pair, we noticed a little yellow spot engaged in evasive maneuvers just about a foot ahead of the trio. The moth swooped and zig-zagged its way down the street, trying in vain to lose its persuers. Once, it landed in some brush in the gutter, but the camouflage wasn't effective, and it took to the air again with moments to spare. The chase continued up into the trees, where the sparrows lost their target among the blossoming buds the same color as the moth's wings.
I look forward to the chance to sit on my deck and gaze up at the stars half-hidden by the glow of the city, to watch jets veer over the lake to line up for landing at O'Hare, to listen to the sounds of sirens and car stereos on the streets below, to sit and drink tea while the city throbs around me. I look forward to summer nights.
Tonight it will rain, and after the rain it will start to warm up, to feel like spring is almost over. The sky will clear up and I'll be able to take my bike out of the basement and ride along the lakeshore with several hundred others, all content to be out in the sun and the breeze. I'll be able to sit on the stone walls surrounding the lake or in a sidewalk cafe and people-watch through the afternoon, along with thousands of others. I'll walk neighborhood streets in short sleeves and no socks, no longer wrapping myself against the cold. I look forward to summer days.