Catjjy and I were cruising through our favorite local art gallery this weekend (i.e., the home decor aisle at Costco) and stumbled upon one of the most beautiful and thought-provoking artistic endeavors since Monet started painting haystacks. We couldn’t believe our luck that such a piece was available for direct retail purchase without having to go through the auction process. Of course, we bought it on the spot. It is currently with the curator of SF-MoMA, who is appraising it for insurance purposes. I can’t wait to hang this up over our bed!
Turns out, this artist, Andy Thomas, holds something of a racket in niche market of inter-generational political recreational re-creationist paintings. Ever had a hankering to see your favorite Democrat presidents, from Andrew Jackson to Bill Clinton, gather ’round the table for a poker game? Feast your eyes on this!
I’m waiting for the GOP Swim Meet painting. Go Taft!
You will never go broke appealing to people's vanity and insecurity
On January 6, And posted this request:
“I want an investigative report on GNC- there are two good sized stores costing I’m guessing a lot of money in at least 2 square miles of Back Bay, Boston. I never see anyone in those stores. I want to know what they are, really.”
Great question, and one that crosses the minds of millions of Americans every time we walk past one of those horrible stores. The answer is below the jump.
The Oscar nominations came out today. I don’t know much about any of the nominated movies, but there is one category I know very well indeed: Music (Original Song). Back in November, Catjjy and I took the Cha to see The Muppets. He loved the music and got us to buy the soundtrack. Since then, we’ve heard it roughly every day. Thankfully, there are a number of terrific songs on the album, all written by Bret McKenzie, whom you will remember as half of the New Zealand musicomedy duo Flight of the Conchords.
Today Bret was nominated for an Oscar for his song “Man or Muppet.” It’s a terrific song and definitely deserves the nomination. My only complaint is that there are 1-2 more original songs from the same movie that are even better but did not get nominations. “Life’s a Happy Song” is, I think , unquestionably better. “Me Party” is also pretty fun, depending on your tolerance for disco (mine is quite high).
In a strange move meant to speed up the awards show, The Academy only nominated two songs for the category this year. The other contender is some fake-Basso Nova Will.I.Am abomination from the already-forgotten animated movie Rio. Should be a slam-dunk Oscar for our favorite Kiwi Hipster. Wooo!
What do you do when your four year old is begging to do a science experiment, your wife is in desperate need of a cocktail, and you are in charge of both duties? Answer: Cocktail Science Experiment! Above are Cha’s findings on the rate of cooling observed when ice was added to a cocktail pitcher of Manhattans. I was a bit surprised by how cold it got, and how quickly it did so. Hat’s off to science!
You all know that I am a huge Everton fan (go Toffees!) and have been for nearly 18 years months. So nothing delighted me more this week than watching US Men’s National Team and Everton F.C . goal keeper Tim Howard bend in a one-hopper from 100 yards out.
Apparently, this is only the fourth time in English Premiere League history that a goalie has scored a goal (which seems hard to believe, but maybe they mean from his own box?). High-five, Timmy!
Ever since that shower-scene fiasco hit the airwaves last week, Rocky has been in a heap of trouble. Every bookie within a 500 mile radius now knows his new look and is in hot pursuit. He needs help, stat. Here, as in so many other facets of life, the Chinese are providing an ingenious solution. Apparently, dyeing dogs to resemble entirely different species is a real and growing trend over there. Rocky has asked for enough money to dye him into a deer, with enough left over for a respectable pair of antlers. He’ll then melt into the dozens of other filthy deer littering the hill around our estate. Seems like a good plan. I’m going to go with him to get it done, because you simply can’t give that guy cash and expect it to go towards its stated purpose. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Christopher Hitchens passed away yesterday at the age of 62. As you may remember, he topped my list of most compelling people a year ago.
Hitchens was a devout atheist, if such a thing is possible. Since the announcement of his terminal illness last year, there has been some chatter about a possible deathbed acceptance of god coming from the religious types he so often antagonized. As far as know, no such admission was made. The NYTimes obituary has a great quote from him on the possibility:
Mr. Hitchens discussed the possibility of a deathbed conversion, insisting that the odds were slim that he would admit the existence of God.
“The entity making such a remark might be a raving, terrified person whose cancer has spread to the brain,” he told The Atlantic in August 2010. “I can’t guarantee that such an entity wouldn’t make such a ridiculous remark, but no one recognizable as myself would ever make such a remark.”
Awesome. I would say “rest in peace,” but I’m pretty sure any such allusion to his afterlife would have been met with an eye roll from him. So instead I will just say, to no one in particular, that I really enjoy his work, and I’m disappointed that there won’t be more of it.
The Cha (4 years old) sometimes confuses the suffixes “ous” with “ish.” This has led me to two different (though very similar) million-dollar yuppie lifestyle blog ideas.
Do you like to vacation at five-star hotels in semi-exotic destinations?
Do your favorite restaurants serve almost-trendy ethnic food in safe, rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods?
Do you like glamping?
Then join us at www.ADVENTURISH.com!
Do you like to go on forest zip lines, but only in countries with strong consumer liability protections?
Do you wear a helmet when you ski?
Then join us at www.DANGERISH.com!
I’m this close to quitting my job to run with this. I’m just not adventurish enough to follow through with it.
My Hose corporate email account has been getting inundated with inquires about the status of our Jets Opponent Theme Meals, detailed in this previous post. You will all be delighted to know that the plan is going GREAT. It gives Catjjy and me a reason to look forward to Jets games (which we sometimes dread), and a way to remember games past. It also pushes me outside my culinary standards and provides a fun distraction to watching TV on Sunday. We have made a few adjustments as the season progressed:
For the first Miami game, we went with Cubano sandwiches instead of ropa vieja. It was a Monday night game, and I didn’t have time to do an all-day stewed meat thing.
The lobstah rolls during the first New England game were so good we decided to do it again for the second New England game. Neither seemed to help the Jets.
We switched the two Buffalo game meals. Catjjy left me alone with both boys for the first Buffalo game, and I didn’t feel comfortable learning how to deep fry wings with little ones afoot.
I was on a business trip during the Denver game (on a Thursday night), so we had to skip that one altogether.
I’ll publish some thoughts and rankings at the end of the season. We will definitely be doing this again next year.
The Detroit post yesterday got me geared up for a larger spread on the best movie for each major US city. I cheated a bit and allowed three spots each for LA and NYC, since they are so prolific. Of the towns, I found Boston the hardest. There are basically two kinds of Boston movies: the new gangster movies (Departed, The Town) which are good and probably the best Boston movies, but too fresh for this kind of list; and then the college movies (Love Story, Soul Man, Legally Blond, With Honors). I ended up with Good Will Hunting because it bridges that gap, focusing both on the Boston’s elite school scene and its gritty underbelly. Likewise, Rocky fans and Gone with the Wind weirdos will not like the Philly and Atlanta choices.
Protests can be powerful tools for rallying public support around a cause. But this Occupy Wall Street thing is a failure and a wasted opportunity for its organizers.
Why? Because they aren’t asking anything specific. I don’t know if it is because the organizers just don’t have any specific ideas (the issues they are grappling with are very complex), or if they don’t want to reduce their crowd by specifying an agenda. Either way, it’s silly.
Look at all the great protests; they always have a specific message. You can usually sum it up in 10 seconds. Civil rights: “we want the same rights and opportunities as white people.” Arab Spring: “depose the dictator, establish a constitutional democracy with broad-based individual rights.” Troy Davis protestors: “Stay the execution.” Even those nutty tea partiers with their half-wit signs are calling for specific action: “Defeat Obama, eliminate Obamacare, reduce spending.” By contrast, here’s the pitch for Occupy Wall Street:
“We will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.”
Hmmm…Okay.
C’mon, guys. You have thousands of people hanging around. Every media outlet is covering you. Heck, even I checked out your website. And this is all you got? Not a single tangible proposal for us to consider supporting? Who exactly do you think is corrupt? How can we expel the corrupt people from positions of power, or change the system so that it is less susceptible to corruption? Is this about term limits? Campaign finance? Public-to-private-sector job hoppers? And how do you propose we go about moderating greed? Is this a call to increase the marginal tax? Move to a VAT or property tax? Abolish capitalism and put all enterprise in the hands of the state? All of the above?
Once the Brooklyn hipsters (which, judging by the pictures, are a sizable component of this crowd) and blue collar union guys use up their roll-over vacation days and drift back to work, this whole thing will fizzle and the organizers will have wasted an enormous opportunity to make their case for policy positions that we all could be debating right now.
Bulgogi Sliders with grilled onion, picked ginger, jalepenos, and spicy cilantro mayo. Ramen dip with Fritos
Oh man, isn’t football season GREAT? Of course it is. There’s the sport itself, of course, and that’s wonderful. And then there is the whole ritual of watching the games: getting the kids in their jerseys, tracking down your Jets underwear, sucking down a few beers, and preparing that perfect football-watching meal. This year we are putting some additional thought into that last part. For the full 17-week season, we plan to make meals that pay homage to the hometown of the Jets’ opponent. Here’s how the menu is shaping up. The first three weeks are done, but we value your input on future meals.
The man above is “famous” guitarist Joe Santriani. Somebody mentioned him to me yesterday so I went to look him up. He is one handsome MF, don’t you think?
On June 30 somebody took a phony credit card with a magnetic strip identical to the one on my credit card and used it to make ten different purchases at three different Wal-Marts 2,000 miles away. Each charge was between $95 and $100, though each was a little bit different (meaning, interestingly, they were not just buying the same $97 item ten times, though they could have been buying the same $94 item and a different pack of gum each time).
I caught the problem in mid-July and my credit card company cancelled the charges and sent me a new card. Catjjy and I went through the laborious process of updating our dozen or so auto-bill relationships with the new credit card information.
Over the course of the last 24 hours, someone using a phony credit card with a magnetic strip matching the one on my new replacement card has been making dozens of purchases at many different stores. And so the process will repeat itself. Cut up old cards; FedEx new cards; update all vendors; rinse; repeat.
I know there are bigger problems in the world (like obstinate delivery men), but it’s a real drag to get targeted for credit card fraud twice in as many months. Now I’m starting to question all of my spending habits. Is there a rigged gas station pump at the place I usually use? Is there a crooked waiter at one of the restaurants I frequent? Bah.
This is exactly why smart guys like Glen Beck and KB1 stick with gold coins for all of their transactions.
NPR ran a piece on the #1 Hit Jam of the Summer this morning. The country’s finest news source named “Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO the hands-down winner, with a charitable nod to “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People for capturing the uneasy, disjointed mood of the Summer of 2011. They also gave a shout-out to urban contender “Sure Thing” by Miguel, which I had never even heard. I think the inclusion of that last one was really just so the reporters could goof on the line “I’m a reporter, you be the news.”
So it’s official now, but don’t forget that you heard it here first. Long Live The Hose!
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