Oh Say, Can You See?

Jen and I spent an impromptu weekend in D.C.

I heart FDR

The Holocaust Museum - An Amazingly Terrifying 4 hours that everyone should see.

The first craft to return astronauts from the moon way back in 1969. Why aren't we flying hover-cars yet?

Here, you see the empty slot below Neptune now that poor, poor Pluto has been demoted to a Dwarf Planet.

I'd call it more of a beige, really.


The stick that Democracy built.

Oh, and I will never, ever, fly Delta again. I'll spend 10 hours camping out in a Jet Blue plane first.

Where is your mother?

Do galoshes still exist? Do any faithful readers know? Due to the nastiness of the road and the ensuing hail-like conditions (a pretty lame Nor'easter, but not too worry, Somerville Public Services is too busy towing cars to actually plow anything) I opted to walk into work this morning. Thus, I donned my Gortex jacket and complimented it with hat, gloves, and scarf. The sidewalks being what they are (Public Services also does not feel especially pressed to enforce the Shoveling Laws) I upgraded my usual pair of old running shoes to hardy boots and pulled over my corduroys a pair of REI waterproof pants.

This, apparently, makes me some sort of stand-out genius.

On my 25 minute walk, I saw not one other person who marked today as anything special when choosing their attire. There was the man pointy, black, dress shoes whose suit pants were dragging in the slush. There was one woman, I kid you not, who wore those clog things that did not even come up to her ankle. She chose to walk in the street. Much better than boots.

Maybe I'm a sissy. Yes, my Mother made me wear my boots and snow pants before going outside in the winter. Despite, I'm sure, some rebellious period in teens, I eventually grew up and found my Mother's wisdom had stuck. Wet feet all day at work is uncomfortable. Carry your pretty shoes to work in a plastic bag if you must. Perhaps if we gave everyone a Cubby like we had in kindergarten, they'd remember.

Hello, Jim. Welcome to the company. The board meeting begins in 5 minutes. Your cubby is the one with your last name scrawled onto a piece of yellowed masking tape. Put your He-Man lunchbox in there and come with me.

Enigma

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Dissapointed

In myself, for not having the strength to resist looking into one of those ominous garbage bags. And more dissapointed to find the bags full of blankets. Could it be more boring? I could have curled up with the contents of one of these bags and taken a nap, so dulled was my enthusiasm.

This morning, the bags were gone. Hopefully, whatever takes their place will try a bit harder.

Enter, TB

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Dare I?

My down the hall neighbor has an odd habit: leaving random things out in the hallway. There have been empty boxes, potted plants, furniture, toys and other random assortments. My building manager agrees that this is a habit to be frowned upon and has informed them so. They continue undeterred.

This week features two large, ambiguously shaped, black garbage bags. The real intrigue is not why the bags are in a common hallway, but the tremendous mystery their contents. What lies in these plastic containers? Could it be mere kitchen trash? Wads of hard cash? A body? The curiosity may kill put me into the proverbial body bag soon. Thus far, I've resisted peaking inside the blackness, but a man is full of only so much willpower. How much longer will they sit, taunting me as I fumble for my keys, crying their inscrutable call? They have been there 4 days.

I'll let you know how I fair and what takes their place.

Setting the Bar

• 
• 
• 

Boston - So Lame

Apparently, my city needs to spend less time being uppity and cold and more time watching adult oriented cartoon programming. According to CNN, two bridges and the entire Charles River were shut down because someone placed the equivalent of 10 Light Brites around the city. The displays were advertisements for Aqua Team Hunger Force and portrayed Mooninites (pictured). Somehow, this was seen as a threat.

Unclear in the article is how someone leapt from rude, alien pictogram to BOMB! but I'm more concerned by the realizations that:

1) Other cities were under the same "threat" and did not react as we did.
2) The pentagon became involved, but did not catch on right away.

I've never seen the show myself, but clearly an organization in charge of the welfare and safety of so many people ought to keep abreast. I suggest implementing a new cabinet position, Secretary of the Contemporary, to do just that. Write your congressman.

In the meantime, the Pentagon should get a few men training on this, just in case.

If I Had An Intern

We Have a Winner

In a feat of spontaneity, Kilgore hopped a bus to Harvard Yard Friday afternoon to attend Vericon's Monopoly tournament. I joined. Those Harvard kids put up a good fight, but clinging to the strategies he gleamed from his experience as an National Monopoly Champion Contestant Alternate, dominating the housing market and generally playing with no mercy, Kilgore secured for 34B yet another kudos in the gaming world.



Okay, so perhaps the competition was a bit lackluster. Maybe there were only a total of 6 people in the game. Still, conditions were far from ideal. It was 8 degrees outside for one. And the 300 pound man with the bald spot and fingernails filed into pointy daggers was certainly an intimidating distraction. You try not to break out laughing as they discuss the merits of their D20 and epic duels between Bobo Fett and Luke Skywalker. And as the giant Edward scissor hands was sure to point out, he'd won this game in this tournament by $3000 in the past. This was no gimme.

You may hear rumors that Kilgore was actually a co-champion, owing to the realization after more than an hour of 1 vs. 1 play that the two remaining contestants were, in fact, richer from repeatedly passing GO and no closer to bankruptcy.

In all honesty, Kilgore did dominate the houses, took the Harvard boys by complete surprise (they apparently never thought of buying up all the houses before) and should have won if just a single player had actually gone bankrupt on one of HIS properties.

Congrats.

A Teaser

Well, it was a good game even if the second half meltdown was a bit of a bummer. I hold no bitterness, however. I suspect a whole slew of New England fans will be rooting for Peyton to win the Superbowl.

Then, maybe, we'll never have to see that pouty lip of his again.

I'm home sick for the second day this week. Somewhere above me, a woman (so I've decided, though I have no proof) plays the same two songs over and over. She did the same yesterday. I might not mind if:

1. The songs weren't so darn loud.
2. The songs were any good at all.
3. There were more than 2 fricin' songs.

I thought about knocking on the door, but I feel like a foreigner (a band which would also be an improvement over what she's playing). I never hear the other apartments unless I'm home during the day, so it's like I'm the one being rude. Besides, if there's one thing Dion taught me, it's that confrontation can be avoided simply by proving your speakers go louder. And if all else fails, I can always cut her internet.

And now, just a little teaser from an idea I've been playing with in my sickly boredom.

Wisdom Wears Matching Green Polo Shirts

I overheard a brilliant conversation while in the grocery store buying tortillas for my end of the semester party (unlike most of my lame excuses for consuming large quantities of tacos, this was an actual party with actual other people and stuff). The Deli Guy was talking to the Butcher Woman (do you think they call me the Slacker Who Comes In At All Hours And Can't Possibly Have A Real Job . . . Guy?) about the upcoming Patriots vs. Colts AFC Championship. It should be a great game and I'm as excited as any other true blood New Englander that we get to beat Peyton on our way to another Superbowl, but their pre-game analysis left me, pathetically, looking forward to some Joe Buck's meandering, over-wrought diatribes.

DG: It should be a great game. It's always a great game when these two play.
BW: Yeah, it'll be good.
DG: Yeah, it will be good. Unless one of them blows the other out.
BW: Yeah, like you said, it will be a good game unless one of them gets blown out.
DG: Blow outs are no good. But this should be good.

Honest to God, I was frozen with a package of organically grown, all-flour, authentically faux-mexican tortillas in my hand trying to grasp the idea that if I ever wrote such a dialogue from my own head, the verisimilitude of my story would be tarred and feather in some public square.

In all fairness, it is not the job of Shaw's supermarket employees to provide brilliant insights in overheard conversations. And of course, they're right. It should be a good game.

Unless it's a blow out.

The Beginning of the End

Recently, I've become aware that a number of people have become "bloggers". These "blogs" have become the main mechanism by which I keep tabs on certain other persons' lives. I also realized that most blogs are created under the duress of a certain life altering event, i.e. the introduction of babies into the family unit. Not having any events of similiar importance to share, nothing "blog-worthty" one might say, I felt no previous draw to join the fray. But this blog thing might just catch on, especially if the internets do not crash and burn as I've so vehemently predicted. In that case, I want to reserve my spot now.

So begins the fluff.