Today's commuter follies

Well this morning I was seated near the dueling throat-clearers. I don't know if your throat gets any clearer the louder you clear your throat, but these two seemed to think so. TGFiPods.

Then this evening, there was emergency construction on two of the Parkway's local lanes. There was so much traffic on the Turnpike before the exit to the Parkway, and on the Parkway before the Driscoll Bridge, that the bus was rerouted to exit 8 on the Turnpike (for route 33). I guess it was better than sitting in that traffic. It took two hours to get home, but I'm sure it would have taken longer if we stayed the course and went our usual route.

But the cherry on the top of my sundae were the 14-something teenagers skateboarding at the park and ride when we pulled up. About half of the boys had stripped down to their boxer shorts and a couple ran and scrambled to get their pants back on when they saw the bus. Very strange.

Friday the 13th

And in today's commuter follies:

 

I missed the 6:54 bus, which is OK because another one comes ten minutes later. Only that one was a little late as the driver had to switch buses because the first one broke down. She told the Old Bridge attendant this in great detail at which point one of my fellow passengers yelled out "let's get going!" Traffic was light and we got into Port Authority by 8:30, which is good. On bad traffic days, the bus ride takes two hours.

 

Once in Port Authority, I got on the downtown E train, which paused at 34th St. for more than usual because of congestion on the tracks; the conductor recommended that we switch to the A, which is express. Only by the time I got out of the train, the track cleared up and the train moved on without me. I went to the A tracks anyway figuring it couldn't hurt. But two local trains came and went while I waited for the A, so I decided to go back and take a local. The local train I boarded was slow as molasses and before we got to the next stop, two A trains passed us by.

 

So far, no other bad luck has happened. I wonder if this is all due to the stray black cat that hangs around our house. Maybe he crossed behind my car early this morning...

Update: As I drove home, a black cat ran in front of my car. Damn it!

What's the meaning of irony?

I've come to realize that there's only so much New York irony I can take. Hearing more than five minutes of it makes me want to throw something. It's like hanging out with an unfunny Groucho Marx. He had a sense of humor about himself, which is sorely missing in NY irony.

 

Tell it to my poor ears

Is Taylor Dayne making a comeback or something? I've heard her two hits every day during the past four days in various places. Friday it was at the Chelsea Salvation Army thrift store. Saturday she was on the radio as we flipped through stations. Sunday it was Home Depot. Today it was in Port Authority. And now she's playing incessantly in my head!

If I Had a Hammer

I've been listening to the Smithsonian's series of podcasts, which is very good, about the American Folkways record label. As I was listening to Pete Seeger lead his audience in singing "If I Had a Hammer," I realized how powerless the person in the song is. He/she has all these wonderful intentions of hammering for justice, ringing in liberty, and singing with his brothers and sisters if only he/she had a hammer, a bell, or a song.

 

But the person doesn't have a hammer, or a bell, or I guess a song (but isn't this the song he/she wished they had? What song do they want?) so what are they going to do in the meantime? Sit around and wait for those things? I mean, what are they going to do about it?

 

If I had some eggs, I could make some ham and eggs, if I had some ham.

Also born on my birthday

I've lived all my life thinking that the only famous person (of whom I've heard) that was born on December 20 was the actress Irene Dunne and today, courtesy of Wikipedia, I've found that

 

1957 - Billy Bragg, English singer and songwriter

1957 - Mike Watt, American bassist

1966 - Chris Robinson, American singer ( Black Crowes)

 

were all born on that day, too.

 

That's better.

 

Bad timing

I took my MacBook to work with me today so I could finally watch Throne of Blood, which is one of my Netflix picks that's been collecting dust for about 3 months, on the bus to work. Just my luck, today of all days I happened to sit next to a young fella reading his day's Bible study.

When I got to the part in the movie when one of the lord's soldiers brings in a big bundle that looks like it could be a human head wrapped in a sheet, I turned it off. I figure that I'd like my fellow passengers to try not to do things that annoy me, so I didn't think my neighbor would appreciate seeing too much gore. Not that they show the head...

Dancing with the Stars

Right outside of the subway entrance in the Port Authority today were two people in gold star costumes and someone taking a picture with them. It was an ad for Dancing with the Stars! A woman shouted at us to remember to watch it tonight.

 

I guess it was partially effective because I remember that I saw them but I'm not planning on watching the show. Then again, it could have been a dream as I was not fully awake from my nap on the bus.

 

Come to think of it, it's a really smart campaign. If the MTA gives them the counts of how many people came in and out of the subway during the time the gold stars were there, they'll know exactly how effective the ad is by comparing the show's ratings with how many people saw the ad.

 

The best donut I've ever had

This morning I had an 8 am meeting, which meant that I had to catch the 6:15 express bus into the city. A lot of my fellow meeting-goers might not have been as "inconvenienced" as I was, but they were equally frustrated by the early start time. Luckily, the guy who called the meeting saved the morning by bringing us a dozen donuts from The Donut Pub on West 14th St. They make their donuts often, by hand, and they're open 24-hours.

Wow.

I had the plain cake donut and it was the best donut I've ever had. It was so crispy on the outside and so moist on the inside but not greasy at all.

Now, I like my donuts with some bite and substance to them so I personally don't go for the Krispy Kremes. If I were to get one off the conveyor, I might not even think they were the best. We had a little showdown about that at the meeting.

How precious!

This has got to be the best commentary on the War on Terror^tm yet:

Send in Jack Bauer!

Dad: Honey, where's your teddy bear?
3-year-old girl: Oh, the terrorist are hiding him.

Overlake Hospital
Bellevue, Washington

Overheard by: Nurse says what

via Overheard in the Office, Aug 31, 2006

Lower My Bills

Have you seen those LowerMyBills.com web ads? They usually have bizarre animated GIFs run on a continuous loop that don't seem to have anything to do with mortgage refinancing and debt consolidation. Sometimes it's a bunch of cartoon cheerleaders - one for every state in the union. Sometimes it's a series of photos turned into an animated GIF. Today I saw one of a silhouette of a woman in a long dress gingerly walking the peak of a tile roof. Bizarre. But damn them, they always get my attention.

The only candy with the exploded caramel

I can't have coffee or other caffeinated beverages for a while because of my problems with acid reflux. I'm not supposed to have chocolate either, but I hardly got any sleep last night and I'm crashing. So I bought a caramel Twix from the machine at work to help me out.

 

Lately I've been getting momentarily upset at the ad on the back for peanut butter Twix, thinking I mistakenly bought a peanut butter Twix when I actually did buy the caramel. So after my second of worry and relief, I opened up the package only to find that about half the caramel had exploded into one end of the wrapping.

 

Let me tell you, the Twix chocolate and cookie isn't the same without the Twix caramel and the Twix caramel isn't the same without the Twix chocolate and cookie crunch.

 

I want my money back! That was not a Twix! That was caramel, chocolate, and cookie, but that was not a Twix!

Lunch today

Today is pretty foggy and what I imagine to be London-y (I've never been), so I tried the split pea soup at Hale and Hearty Soups in the Chelsea Market . It was indeed hearty and very tasty. I had a small size and a half of a tuna wrap - they completely stuffed me. I think I'll just go with a small soup next time.

Mr. Softee

I'm ten floors up from the street but I'll be damned if I can't hear the Mr. Softee truck down there now.

name of my new MacBook

I came up with a good name for my MacBook as I drifted off to sleep on the bus to work today: Chiclet!

 

The MacBook looks like a white chiclet - it's smooth, rectangular, and shiny. And who knows, maybe I'll use my MacBook write a novel that'll be categorized as chick-lit. Not that I love chick-lit, but whatever the publisher decides is out of my hands.

 

I love it when form follows function.

Bruno Kirby, R.I.P.

It is with great sadness that we here at Mime is Money pay our last respects to actor Bruno Kirby, who died Monday from complications related to leukemia.

 

He had a long career: he was in such early-70s TV shows as Room 222 and the pilot of M.A.S.H.

 

Most notably for us, he played Rat Pack fan and limo driver, Tommy Pischedda, in This is Spinal Tap. The outtakes on the Spinal Tap DVD of Kirby crooning in his tighty whities is as good as anything in the released movie.

 

Bruno Kirby was certainly no fad.

 

Cat in the photo booth

Strange checking out my new MacBook.

Christmas in August

Yesterday, I ordered a white MacBook with 1 GHz RAM and an 80 GB hard drive. I can't wait for it to arrive - I feel like an eight-year old waiting for Christmas!

 

My six-year old Compaq PC is showing its age. I plan on reformatting the hard drive (again!) and installing more memory (if the thing isn't too old for that). I'm only going to use it for personal business- and work business-related functions; I'll use the MacBook for the fun stuff like ripping and burning, man! Maybe I'll buy a video camera somewhere down the line and make video films, Bren Bren! Yeah!

 

(That reference to video films and Bren Bren is from Brendon Small's cancelled cartoon, Home Movies. The character who said "video film" and called Brendon "Bren Bren" is Fenton, voiced by Sam Seder, currently of Air America's Majority Report. Every now and then you can hear Fenton's voice slip out when Seder gets agitated.)

After success with Family Guy, manatee takes on New York

If he can make it there, he can make it anywhere.

Summer Reading: Little Children by Tom Perrotta

I just finished reading Little Children by Tom Perrotta, who also wrote Election (they made that one into a movie with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick).

 

Rather than being about literal little children, the book is really about adults behaving like children on a playground and infatuated, horny teenagers.

 

Todd, a stay-at-home dad, and Sarah, a stay-at-home mom, have a summer fling: they think they're going to leave their spouses and run away with each other. But what will they live on? Their giddy adolescent feelings for each other? Neither one of them has ever held down a job good enough to raise a family on.

 

In the primary storyline, Perrotta deftly recreates the feelings of desperation felt by a girl with a crush: in a flashback, Sarah is in high school obsessing over a theater geek and finally gets to kiss him. The next morning, her father drives her to the SAT test; on the way, Sarah is giddy with the assumption that she has a boyfriend. Her heart is broken when, in line for the test, her "boyfriend" coldly explains that the kiss was a mistake.

 

In the present time, Sarah obsesses over keeping Todd and over his pretty wife Kathy. Sarah parks her car in front of Todd and Kathy's apartment and sits there for hours waiting for a glimpse of Kathy. When Kathy does finally come outside, Sarah's heart sinks at just how pretty Kathy is.

 

Minor characters include a child molester with the mentality of a 10-year-old weakling being bullied on the playground, his present-day bully: an ex-cop bent on driving the child molester out of town, Sarah's husband Richard, whose philosophy is to never fool himself into thinking he can fight his base desires, and a group of stay-at-home moms acting like a snotty band of popular teens.

 

The book ends with a suspenseful point-of-view switching scene in which the major and some of the minor characters reach their respective epiphanies. Todd and Sarah even realize that they've been acting like irresponsible teenagers, though Todd has to be hit on the head to finally get it.

 

Little Children is a deceptively quick read: its dialogue and prose belie a deeper meaning than a mere chronical of events that take place over one summer.

 

Recommended!