August 2003 Archives

Know what will dull a utility blade, just. like. that? Fiberglass and kraft paper. Luckily, back in about 1985 I bought the Stanley Lifetime Utility Blade Supply. I'm not even halfway through it, which is good, 'cause I plan on being around for a few more years.

Nutritional information on the side of everything you can imagine eating can be a plus or a minus. Currently, recent readings have placed marshmallows much higher on my list of desirables than previously they had been; Twizzlers, however, are on the shit list. Three crummy Twizzlers make 120 calories? Who knew!?

Also this weekend, "The Road to Perdition," which I was never sure I wanted to see. Not a big Hanks fan, and in this one he seemed to feel the need to butch down his voice to a monotonal grumble. But I'm willing to see just about anything with Paul Newman in it (and Lee is more than willing). I can't believe it's been nearly 10 years since "Nobody's Fool", which I think is his greatest performance. Okay, he was great in "Hud", too, but who can notice him with Patricia Neal smoldering up the set? And now I learn that he's to play Max Roby in the movie version of "Empire Falls." That's fitting, since Sully and Max are just different variations on the same theme (Richard Russo, don't ya know). "Perdition" was good, despite a lot more blood and shooting than I can normally tolerate. When it was over, I started scanning the channels for something that didn't involve blood-spattered walls. The first thing I hit on was "Gun" on Trio's "Brilliant But Cancelled." CLICK! Next: "The Untouchables" on Bravo. CLICK! I gave up and went to bed.

Non-gunshot wound movie: "What a Girl Wants," which was for the girls. Bekah apparently found the whole thing too much, the thought of a girl who doesn't know her father practically did her in. Well, it would do me in, too, but it's a movie. She cried a lot and kept saying, "This is not my kind of movie." Now they both popped out of bed at 7:00 this morning to watch it again. And again.

Books? Finished "You Shall Know Our Velocity," as I may have said. Fantastic. One of those books you wish you could live in for a very long time. Then I went back to some old Hammetts, having delivered a screed against the old boy not too long ago. Found "The Red Harvest" to be terse, witty, exciting. Finding "The Dain Curse" to be the major drag I've always found it to be. It's just about impossible to follow. Better luck with "The Glass Key," I hope. And then I started in on a wonderful little book about bicycle racing, called "The Long Season: One Year of Bicycle Road Racing in California"by Bruno Schull. Very nice writing, lovely descriptions of races, and some gentle instruction in the intricacies of bicycle racing (though not as good as Lance Armstrong's explanations, I will say -- better off here having some understanding going in.)

Today: Insulation Day! (Seems like there should be a U2 song about that).

We had an incident at a wonderful little amusement park in Montreal, LaRonde -- which, if I had any parentheses left, I would point out is also now owned by Six Flags, as is the Great Escape -- several years ago. I think Bekah was only three, and the greatest trouper in the world, for we had her walking all over Montreal. We went to this little park and they were riding "Chats et Souris", cat and mouse bumper cars. Grownups were not allowed to ride, and Hannah really wanted a car to herself, so we let Bekah ride by herself. We told her what to do to get going, and she seemed to get it, but after a minute she had banged into someone and couldn't get going again, and I don't remember anymore if she had just decided to change cars or if she was scared and trying to get out, but she just got up out of her little cat car and started walking across the bumper car floor. The music was very loud, so she couldn't hear us calling to her, and the attendant was yelling to her in French, which was perfectly reasonable on a ride called "Chats et Souris," but it didn't make much impression on her. She got scared and we had a little bit of a scene, and we had to calm her down and then get her to go on it again so she wouldn't be afraid anymore. (I think Hannah agreed to ride with her the second time.) She's a tough one, and she did it and was thrilled with herself once she figured it out.

Since then, because we are parents and cannot remember particulars of what happened but cannot forget what it is like to watch your daughter running between bumper cars, just waiting for her to get crushed, we have a certain concern about her and amusement park rides. It's never happened again, but still, that fear lingers. So, yesterday, after we'd already done one big scary ride (a giant pendulum thing that swings you over the top and scares the daylights out of me -- I got out my Lamaze breathing exercises for that one) and a couple of lesser ones, they wanted to go on the thing where each rider is in an individual swing, and you just get raised in the air and swung out in a circle. Not a big deal if you place your faith in chains, but the kind of thing where we were nervous she might suddenly change her mind mid-ride and get scared or worse. But the memories of the incident de la chats et souris were wiped from our consciousness as she sat up in the swing and screamed as loud as she could, "FASTER! FASTER! IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT??!! BRING IT ON!!!"

Other highlights: The new Canyon Blaster coaster. Fun, no upside-downs. Stops quick, though, and Bek bonked her nose the second time through, but they brought her ice right away and treated it very seriously, which impressed me. About all the coaster I can take. The Comet looked like it went way too fast for me, way too high in the air. The dive show was really good. The waterpark was a little limited, having lost a lot of its lifeguards to the opening of college, and a number of obnoxious patrons were giving Long Island a bad name by acting like Long Islanders and berating a poor lifeguard at the top of the tube slide who was just doing her job. (Nothing against my Long Island readers, but you know what I'm talking about.) All the old Storytown stuff is still there, the Alice in Wonderland walk-through, the cow jumping over the moon, Moby Dick . . . all of it a little lame but very sweet to those of us who grew up with it. They've actually done a nice job integrating the old with the new, keeping the park a reasonable, walkable size, and, most miraculous of all, maintaining shade trees throughout the park. On a day like yesterday, that was critical to enjoyment. That and a big-ass Camelbak.

So, a delightful day. We were there 10-7 with nary a complaint or breakdown (well, a couple of little ones), and then we had a lazy supper on a patio down the road, and both my little wonders fell asleep while I listened to the latest Weakerthans on the way home. What could be better than that?

But then VH1 hobbled the ball. They presented it commercial-free, so it ended at an odd time. They went into some other filler, and I started flipping around and found, on sister station VH1 Classics, video after video by Warren Zevon, including a presentation of songs from the new album (set to video from the special) and all his old stuff. Don't you think they could have promoted that?

The man who wrote "Splendid Isolation" and "Searching for a Heart" doesn't owe us anything, but this new album sounds excellent. And they are starting to digitally remaster his older albums, which need to be rescued from '70s California laid-back production values.

Point being, there is some kind of creature that lives in the mudflats at the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, a creature that even the Iroquois feared but had no name for. Or at least not a name we bothered to ask them for. But if they had had one, it would translate as "Some kind of bug in the mud that eats your ankles while you're pushing your canoe into deeper water and leaves gigantic welts that itch for days." Benadryl doesn't even touch the itch. I hate nature.

Now would be a good moment to recall a time when I was doing election work down in the Howard Beach section of the city, and some city union guys from District Council 37 were ferrying us around, showing us every restaurant where there'd been some famous mob hit or another, and one of the local sites was the basketball court where they used to play with Bobby DeNiro. "Bobby da Horse, dey called him." Why was that, we asked? "Dunno, just Bobby da Horse. It's just what we called him."

Yesterday was a 7-year-old's birthday party at a town beach, which was very nice. The lake was massively warm and dangerously turbid. I snuck in a nice two-hour bike ride with some killer climbs. I don't think I went 20 miles, and about 4 of them were on dirt-and-gravel roads. Know what works well on dirt-and-gravel roads? NOT MY BIKE!! A perfect September day, plunked down in late August.

My CD player knows it's a year old, almost precisely, because it was making an alarming noise before. We found all the warranty information and everything else and were preparing to open fire on the people of Harmon-Kardon so hard they wouldn't know what hit them. Then, just because, I tried the time-honored repair of hitting the appliance. No more alarming noise. Now I almost wish it hadn't worked, because if it ever comes back, it'll be post-warranty. But if I take it in now, they won't be able to find anything wrong. (Like my truck, which has a squealing noise that is annoying deaf people, but which the mechanics can't seem to hear.)

Helen Keller?

Now, I didn't love the New York quarter, but it's hard to even choose what to put on a license plate in this state, because there are so many choices: one of the 4700 landmarks of New York City, the Catskills (Rip Van Winkle?), the Adirondacks, the Erie Canal, two Great Lakes and one Niagara Falls to connect them. Finger Lakes, High Peaks, Revolutionary battlefields, Washington's headquarters, and, for the contrary among us, most of the battles of the War of 1812 (Plattsburgh's burning!). So, our choices were difficult, somebody went with the Statue of Liberty just to give New Jersey a poke in the nose, and off to the mint we went.

Now just imagine how that meeting must have gone in Alabama. "What've we got?" "Well, the Gulf, but it's hard to portray tides in silver relief. Muscle Shoals sound studio, that's a good one. Picture of a microphone or something. Then we got that big Alabama Shakespeare Festival, but I don't know how a picture of some guy in breeches would go over out there. We got golf, lots of golf. And we got Auburn, maybe a picture of some ivy. " "Hey, how about that Courteney Cox? She's cute as a button, and she's from Birmingham." "Now you may be onto something there, Cooter. Somebody famous. We'll have the only quarter with a person on it." "Ohio's got John Glenn, but you can't see it's him in that space suit." "How about Tallulah Bankhead?" "How about Harper Lee?" "You kiddin' me? Why don'tcha just say Truman Capote. I always had my doubts about you, Cooter..." "Well, ya know, there's always Helen Keller. . . ." At least they didn't go with Zelda Fitzgerald.

1960 is surprisingly heavy1960 is a two channel unit with each channel comprised of a completely natural sounding "soft knee" vacuum tube compressor and an extremely low 1960 is a unique commercial off the shelf 1960 is a lightweight color printer featuring thermal inkjet technology 1960 is presented in the following table 1960 is a mature 1960 is so thin 1960 is approximate 1960 is the result 1960 is 89 degrees 1960 is part of a new series of small paperback books put out by the world of art imprint of thames and hudson aimed at providing introductory 1960 is a digital only phone 1960 is a safe bet 1960 is curated by william b 1960 is an intelligently 1960 is "native" to this era 1960 is a stationary glass panel constructed for a high humidity environment 1960 is their own music 1960 is presenting their production of the broadway smash hit 1960 is great 1960 is beginning to gather in the lake weir high lunchroom 1960 is quieter 1960 is also good news 1960 is still used by a lot of my clients 1960 is often considered a low point in pop history 1960 is no exception 1960 is now 25 miles from the shore of the aral sea 1960 is one of the most memorable conventions in american history 1960 is outdated 1960 is plugged in when the system boots up 1960 is "peeping tom's" probing and iconoclastic nature 1960 is invalid 1960 is now also a substantial commercial and shopping area 1960 is shown in table 12 1960 is 23 times of that in 1905 1960 is verlopen 1960 is the 1960 1960 is really a better than average showcase for one of the music's best 1960 is to compare against the number of known abusive priests in this same time period 1960 is a book well worth perusing for its aesthetic merit 1960 is available at

My punishment? I can't get They Might Be Giants' "Edison Museum" out of my head. Think of the spookiest song and voices you can imagine:

The Edison Museum, once a bustling factory Today is but a darkened cobweb covered hive of industry The tallest, widest and most famous haunted mansion in New Jersey

But that was before I heard a prank caller, posing as Ricardo Montalban, call up George Takei of Star Trek semi-fame. And hearing George answer as if Ricardo Montalban called him all the time, and give "Ricardo" the whole story of his upcoming Star Trek cruise, and his beautiful dog, etc., and finally catching on that perhaps it wasn't Ricardo Montalban who was calling and proposing that they pick up hookers together...

Then I read in one of the newsletters yesterday a quote from someone at one of the energy think tanks, a respected one, that this should never have happened and wouldn't have happened if we had a direct current system. And HE was completely serious.

So I guess it's time to electrocute a few elephants, in order to prove the dangers of DC again. It'll be fun.

Also, yesterday's worm attack on the Microsoft world is annoying and upsetting. Annoying because my mailbox is full of crap, and upsetting because once again my e-mail address apparently got spoofed and people (or their ISPs) think I'm sending out viruses. I'm on a Mac; I can't send Windows viruses. And unlike most worms, these had subject lines in English that made sense. That combined with a trusted return address made this one pretty dangerous. But it didn't come from my machine!

Q: Is western Rensselaer County hilly? A: First of all, it's really hard to think of "western" Rensselaer County. Sandwiched as we are between the mighty Hudson River and the Taconic Ridge that separates the Empire States from the Massachusettses, we are so eastern in orientation, New York State-wise, that it's hard to think of us as being western in any way. So, let's rephrase the question: Q: Is the less-eastern part of Rensselaer County hilly? A: Why yes, yes it is. It's pretty much a roller-coaster between here and the Bay State. If you don't train in the hills, you may want to stay home. If you try it, don't say I didn't warn you. Q: Is that why your average speed hovers around a pathetic 14.6 miles per hour? A: I'll take issue with "pathetic," but, yes, what you ride down you must ride back up, and even with the aerobars, you can't always catch the advantage when sharing the road, and the hills are bears. Q: What's the fastest you've ever gone on a bicycle? A: Thanks for asking. It was just this morning. On a long, easy descent with clean pavement and no cars, I hit 45.6 miles per hour. Q: That's insane! Mad props! A: Yeah, kinda. Thanks for the props. Q: Does butt cream work? A: We prefer to refer to it by its name of "Body Glide," but yeah, baby, butt cream works. Look ma, no chafing! Q: Isn't a bicyclist's tan about the goofiest thing imaginable? A: No. In fact, it's a sign that the tannee it out there, doing it. That's cooler than an overall tan. Q: Yeah, right. A: Whatever. Q: Do the cows care? A: The cows do not care.

I need an American International picture. Perhaps with Bruce Dern. Perhaps with Peter Fonda. Perhaps one that features people being hassled by the man.

My ass still hurts from sleeping on the ground for a week.

If you don't get choked up, just every now and then, listening to Richard Shindell of Cry Cry Cry singing "Cold Missouri Water," the story of the tragic Montana wildfire of '49, then mister, you ain't human.

So, here's the deal on the week in Burlington. For starters, the town is cool. One of the biggest small towns I've seen. The trustafundians are a bit oppressive, and it is possible to get tired of being confronted by pierced body parts everywhere you turn, but the city's as bike-friendly as they say it is, and , well, let's just put it this way: you'd probably assume that someone called "Speeder" knows something about caffeine, and you'd be right.

What did we do? Camped along the bike path and took full advantage of it, although, owing to extreme allergies, I never really got a seriously long, hard bike ride in. We went south and we went north, we took the bike ferry and rode on the causeway, we sat at Auer's Boat House and enjoyed cold candy bars and Gatorade. We had lunch and dinner on the waterfront. We went to cheer on our team at a baseball game in an old concrete stadium, and saw the best Tri-City Valleycats game we've seen (and, oddly, we weren't the only Tri-City fans there, either). We went to the wonderful ECHO center, a kind of discovery center for Lake Champlain. We went to a rock climbing gym and had a blast. We blew a bazillion dollars at the bike store. We toured the Ben & Jerry's factory and the Lake Champlain Chocolates factory. In the same day! We went swimming nearly every day. We took showers every chance we got, because it was really really hot and really really humid. We hunkered down in our tent every night because it poured, but we were cool with it because we had our rain gear. It was all very nice. Second time we've spent a week there, and I'd happily do it again. On the way home, we took the ferry back to New York and made a little diversion to Fort Ticonderoga. I hadn't been there since I was in elementary school. It hasn't changed much, but it was well worth the side trip. Plus, it gave me the chance to explain to the girls that when Hannah was a baby, we used to tie together upside-down laundry baskets to keep her in the living room, and we called it Fort Tyke-on-da-rug-ga. This was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.

So, the allergies. On the oppressive side. But even worse, I've had to go 72 hours without any drugs at all so I can prepare for a massive pricking tomorrow morning. I'm living the life.

Odd search requests this week: "old BX cable", "The Wild Angels ride tonight" (oh yes, I used that phrase in its entirety, and I'm not ashamed of it), and "CNN femmy weather." I have no idea what that means, but someone from the Netherlands was seeking it out. We're not afraid of the Dutch!

I know, the pre-written posts were cheesy, but they were all I could do. And, no, I have no idea why one post appeared 6 times, or why I can't delete it. Some thngs were just meant to be said over and over.

Patty loves to rock 'n' roll. A hot dog makes her lose control.

What a wild duet!

Posts will be few and far between, if at all, this week, so I'd advise my loyal readers (who would easily fit into a compression sack, by the way) to look in the archives and see how much my blogging has improved in the past year. Or look at my fotolog. I'd send ya over to Mimi Smartypants, but you'd never come back.

• People always say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. But a bridge isn't hurt by a single broken rivet.
• When I'm paddling on the river, I see patterns in the waves. From my window above the river, I see entirely different patterns that can't be perceived by paddlers on the river. From an airplane, I see yet a third set of patterns in the waves. They're all true.
• Blame is the wrong way to say "I need you."