jamie lawrence-howard • highly absorbent redundant and superfluous verbiage • clogging tubes since 9.1.98
via digg, a story about how many parents don’t understand the bedtime stories they read to their children.
from the article:
Almost a quarter (23%) skip passages they cannot read or invent words to get to the end of a sentence, the poll found.
well, at least we have this —
…the poll found that reading stories is enjoying a renaissance, with 73% of families preferring it to playing in the park or watching TV.
i’m hoping that the former isn’t true, and that the latter is.
well, the last one if i have anything to do with it. i’ve always thought that i’d love to retire in nyc — i want to retire in a place where i don’t have to drive a car. and since kirk staunchly vetoes sun city center, florida, where i could drive a golf cart to the grocery store, nyc it is.
anyway, yesterday was horrible move weather. torrential rain interspersed with occasional downpours. a string of wackiness made me doubt that it would go smoothly — the movers showed up two hours late, and the moving company kept trying to pull guys off the job to go elsewhere. but the guys themselves turned out to be very careful movers, for the most part, and got the job done well before the building’s 5pm cut-off time for moves.
too much negotiation over the price for my taste, though — one of those situations where cash tips talked loudly. i hate that — i’d not do very well in a lot of cultures around the world. i want to pay the asking price (or not) and have it done with. i hate the dickering.
anyway, the boxes and furniture are in, the cats are roaming freely around the new apartment, the building suffered no damage, a good chunk of belongings were put in storage with more to go, and kirk and i slept on a bed and had clothes to wear to work today. not bad.
hot water would have been nice. it was shut off during the plumbing renovations, and we couldn’t figure out how to get it back on. hopefully that will be fixed tonight.
the unpacking will go pretty quickly, i think. more than half the boxes are books, so once we get the bookshelves in place a lot of boxes will be emptied quickly. and that will give us room to work to get the rest done. we unpacked the four enormous wardrobe boxes last night, which gave us comparative acres of room in the bedroom.
new couch is delivered friday, along with the sink that ikea forgot the last time. then we can finish putting the kitchen together — it’s done now except for the sink installation.
it’s definitely starting to feel like home.
…then just wait, because it will change. or so the saying goes.
at this time last week, i was bemoaning the heat and humidity. we were painting the new apartment, so you can’t close up the windows and turn on the air conditioner. fumes, and being overcome, and all.
this week we are having the floors refinished. and while heat and humidity isn’t ideal for that, i sure would settle for that weather right now.
because it’s raining.
in torrential downpour style, with no end in site for several days. and the only weather worse for refinishing floors than hot and humid is raining, which is of course 100% humidity.
aaaaargh. the weather means that we probably aren’t going to be able to get into the apartment until after this weekend, because the floor will most likely not be dry until then. and with the move date on monday, that means we are moving into a largely unfinished apartment.
but, as i keep telling myself, it’s our very own unfinished apartment.
kirk has consolidated the renovation pictures into one gallery of photos.
i’m exhausted, but we’re almost done. the wood floors get refinished this week, we finish as much as possible next weekend, and we move on monday 7/23.
whew.
i thought kirk had lost his mind when he said we should buy this special paint from benjamin moore.
i went along with getting our friend deana, the color specialist, up to the apartment to choose paint colors. up until this point i had been an enthusiastic advocate of ceiling, trim, and walls all in the same color, preferably white. but i knew i was time to break out and get some color on my walls.
so she brought her voluminous paint sample books, and we chose several colors:
» jalapeno pepper eggshell finish 2147-30 for the bedroom walls
» moroccan red eggshell finish 1309 for the kitchen, one living room wall, the front door, and under the archway
» dash of curry eggshell finish 2159-10 for the living room walls
» driftwood eggshell finish 2107-40 for the bathroom walls
» sandlot gray eggshell finish 2107-50 for the hallway walls
» pale sea mist matte finish 2147-50 for the bedroom ceiling
» alpine white matte finish 2147-70 for the rest of the ceilings and all of the trim
whew.
that’s a lot of color for someone who liked his white walls so much.
and kirk really wanted this aura paint. i guess you can get less expensive benjamin moore paint, and i’m sure you can go to home depot and have them mix up an approximation of the color, but kirk really wanted this specific paint. it’s their best, and it covers well and is more environmentally friendly and has fewer fumes and needs a special machine to make it and blah blah blah.
fine.
and when, in the store, i found out that the paint was $60 a frigging gallon, i gulped but just whipped out the amex. i’d never paid more than $10, maybe $15 a gallon for paint. and, when my ex caitilin and i painted our house in st. augustine, caitilin’s dad got us the paint in 5-gallon industrial buckets, and i’m pretty sure he “borrowed” it from a construction site.
let me tell you. that paint is worth every penny of $60 a gallon, and more.
it went on smoothly, covered a myriad of wall problems, didn’t run down the wall or drip off of the ceiling, or off of my paintbrush onto the floor. the quality of the paint made it a pleasure to paint, and i hate hate hate to paint. the paint made it easy for an amateur painter to get professional-level results.
and the colors are absolutely stunning, and vibrant, and chameleonic. by chameleonic, i mean that the color shifts subtly in various levels of light. the sandlot gray in the hall has an eggplant-y hue in one light, a grayer hue in another light, and a greenish cast in yet another. it’s amazing. you can’t imagine how good they look. i’ll have to post some pictures when i get a chance.
so, benjamin moore. you made me a believer. i’ll never buy cheap home depot paint again.
and really, you shouldn’t either. the extra money you spend is more than mitigated by your spending less time painting. and your time is worth something, right?
and the results. my god, the results.
outstanding.
maybe i’m getting more forgiving as time goes by.
or more lax.
anyway, i’ve been a barry bonds hater for quite some time. to save you clicking through, here’s a relevant bit of what i said:
if he plays and passes hank aaron, and baseball honors the record, that’s it for me and baseball. seriously. one of the few things that keep baseball sacred is the years and years of impeccable apples-to-apples stats. and to honor a steroid-laden asswipe’s breaking of a record that important would dishonor hank aaron’s real accomplishment, and i won’t stand for it.
i’m taking that back. with barry bonds approaching the record, i’ve been doing some thinking. here’s where i am now.
performance-enhancing drugs have been a part of baseball for decades. what do you think amphetamines are? baseball players have been popping speed forever. and no one disputes the records set while players used them.
if you throw out records tainted by steroids, then an appropriate extension of that logic would suggest that you should throw out records from, say the forties on. all those records are tainted too, you know. did hank aaron pop bennies? you’ll never know, and of course at this point he’d never admit it. but if you investigate bonds and throw out his record, then you open a can of worms. should you then investigate hank aaron and throw out his record as well? where does it logically stop? did babe ruth cork his bat?
and how exactly did steroids help bonds? maybe he recovered a bit more quickly from injuries. maybe the strength he gained gave him a few more feet on some home run hits. how many home runs did that add to his total? impossible to quantify, but given that there are so many intangibles in the ability to hit a home run, lets say for arguments sake that the extra time and extra few feet gave him 20 more home runs.
big deal. all that means is that he’d be a bit farther away from the record. he’d still hang around long enough to break it.
and i’ve also come to believe that bonds is the poster boy for an activity in which scores of baseball players participated, but few got caught.
finally, as a mets fan i’ve largely ignored the return of guillermo mota, the mets pitcher suspended for steroid use last season. and, given his dismal performance this year, i don’t think the steroids did him much good.
in the end, i think that talent, coordination, concentration, experience, and willpower are probably far more important to someone’s ability to be a major league baseball player than a few performance-enhancing drugs here and there. you can give me all the steroids you want, and the chances of me hitting a home run in a major league park are up there with those proverbial monkeys trying into infinity to type shakespeare.
am i glad that steroids, speed, and the rest are gone from baseball? you bet. and i look forward to an old age where players who began their careers under the ban break all the records, establishing indisputable legitimacy.
ryan howard’s 800th home run will be a big celebration for me.
in the meantime, let’s let bygones be bygones. let’s not be hypocrites. and let’s not be haters.
let barry bonds have his moment. he deserves it.
i started crying about halfway through this, and couldn’t stop. it’s the most powerful, reasoned, cohesive, intelligent, and provable statement on this issue that one could possibly make.
i won’t spoil his logic for you, but it’s airtight.
i sometimes wonder if our free republic can survive these men. if the next president continues down this same road of consolidation of power around the executive branch, it may not.
a month ago, i was complaining that there was so much to do to close on the apartment, but because of timing there was nothing i could start on.
i don’t wait well. i have a list in my head of what needs to be done, and i know what the deadline is, and i see the clock ticking, and it drives me bonkers that i’m just waiting, with no ability to get things done, because other people have to do what they are doing first before i can begin.
i’m back there.
a month has gone by since i posted that, and we’ve closed on the apartment and torn it apart.
and, as soon as the ceiling, the kitchen wall, and the floor are done, we can start our work — the painting, the installation of appliances and kitchen cabinets, the choosing of new faucets and light fixtures, the replacing of ugly light switches and power outlets, and so on.
we visit every day, and there’s progress every day. and our new super has been, well, super, and has worked and coordinated and sweated along with us to help get it all done.
i. just. want. to. be. done.
now.
aaaaargh.
i’ve gotta be more patient.
to promote the upcoming simpsons movie, the 7-11 people are rebranding select stores as kwik-e-marts. and they look fabulous.
and, there’s one in times square.
i am so there.
goldman sachs says 700,000 — piper jaffray says 500,000 — global equities research says 525,000 — blackfriars says it could be a million.
it all reminds me of the old sparks song, “i predict”:
You’re gonna take a walk in the rain
And you’re gonna get wet
(I predict)You’re gonna eat a bowl of chow mein
And be hungry real soon
(I predict)
in other words, no one knows what the hell the real number is. what we do know is that it’s an earth-shattering number, one that doesn’t include me but will someday, perhaps soon.
and when we do know the number, it will be an actual number of iphones actually sold to actual people, instead of the fake-y pretend numbers of “products in the channel” that you get from most companies like microsoft and sony.
nintendo reports actual numbers sold for the wii as well. you have to read these references carefully. for instance, here’s a quote from a story that went out on the wire today — Nintendo Wii outsells Sony PS3:
Nintendo has said it sold 5.84 million Wii machines worldwide in the five months since its release in November, 2.37 million in the Americas, and 2.0 million in Japan. The Kyoto-based company said it expected to sell 14 million more Wii machines in the fiscal year ending in March 2008.
Sony has shipped 5.5 million PS3 machines in the fiscal year through March.
note the wording? nintendo: sold. sony: shipped. that means that while 5.84 million wiis are in homes being used, 5.5 million ps3 boxes are god knows where. still in the store, unsold? i’m betting that most of them are.
glad that the companies i support with my dollars, apple and nintendo, don’t play these mindshare games.
and i’m betting that the first announcement you’ll hear from apple is that they have sold one million iphones.
and that announcement will come this week, or early next week.
and to that, i unabashedly say, go apple.
day in and day out, fake steve jobs for my money has the funniest blog on the web. even if you aren’t an apple fan, it’s still worth a read. his takes on apple, technology, current events, and miscellany are consistently hilarious.
and often insightful as well.
as was the case with a recent post: 29 june 2007, the day the world changed. it’s set up as a fake message to the apple faithful, on the occasion of the release of the iphone. but here’s what he has to say about the thousands of people lined up for hours, or days, for their iphone:
It’s about saying, Look, I realize there’s something bad happening in Darfur, and there’s some kind of AIDS epidemic in Africa, and there’s some crazies who want to blow us all up, and there’s a war in Iraq where thousands of people are dying for no reason — and yes, those things are important, and someday we may take to the streets to say something about them, if we can think of anything to say about them, but for now we Americans take to the streets for this cause.
i can’t recall reading a better summary of the times in which we currently live.
i’m not going to bother to link to any of the 35,000 articles flogging, explaining, bashing, hyping, or excoriating the iphone. google iphone if you want. there are lots of reviews and opinions out there.
here’s mine.
it [seems to be] revolutionary, user friendly, cost-effective (when you consider the total investment of more expensive phone + less expensive monthly plan), ultra-cool, and a great all-in-one replacement for a lot of separate older gadgets i have. i like that it is basically a small computer, so upgrades will be software based — that means that improving the phone won’t mean replacing the phone, as it does now. i like the form factor, the idea of the touch screen, the utility of the included apps. i’m on at&t (the new cingular) anyway, so i wouldn’t have to switch phone providers.
it all makes sense. the sole major drawback, the slow speed of at&t’s edge network, is not an issue for me in new york city, as i’d be on speedy wi-fi nearly all the time i’d use it.
i’m not getting one anytime soon, though. three reasons:
» i just bought a coop. no extra money in the budget right now for a frilly phone.
» it’s 1.0 hardware. never, never, never buy 1.0 hardware. that’s my personal rule. let the early adopters sort out the issues.
» i get a corporate discount through my employer on my at&t cell phone service. that’s a no-no for the iphone…you lose your discount. that’ll change eventually, i’d bet.
so, strike three. iphone is out. for now.
6 months from now? we’ll see.
of course, i work with some people who’ll get one pretty quickly. if i see one in person, i reserve the right to satisfy my wanton iphone lust at any time.
well it happened. we closed on thursday and have spent the last two days tearing out the kitchen and getting ready for the renovation.
we’ve pulled out all the kitchen cabinets and flooring, we’ve prepped the walls for priming and painting, we’ve scheduled the plaster guys to come in next week and redo the ceiling, we’ve scheduled some tile guys to come in and redo the kitchen floor, and we’ve scheduled a floor guy to come in and redo the wood floors.
whew. not bad for two days, but that’s the exhausted part.
the exhilarated part? we’re doing it all for our very own home. amazing.
you want details? kirk wrote a great post about the closing process, and we have pictures of the empty apartment before the renovation started, and pictures of the apartment after everything was pulled out. along with some bonus pictures of the view, the closing and some other stuff.
tomorrow we take the day off (sort of) and go to ikea to buy kitchen cabinets. and in the afternoon we have a block party with our new neighbors. good timing for us.
via digg, a wikipedia story about this grammatically correct sentence using only the word buffalo.
from the site:
Preserving the meaning more closely, substituting the synonym “bison” for “buffalo” (animal), “bully” for “buffalo” (verb) and leaving “Buffalo” to mean the city, yields
‘Buffalo bison Buffalo bison bully bully Buffalo bison’, or:
‘Buffalo bison whom other Buffalo bison bully themselves bully Buffalo bison’.
needless to say, i absolutely love this.
amy, a commenter on one of my kristen hall posts, asked me about some of my other musical favorites.
i blab on so much about kristen hall, and kiki and herb, that you might think that’s all i like. but you’d be wrong.
although i don’t listen to music nearly as much as i did when i was younger, and although most of the music i do listen to when i listen to it was made before 1990, and although i very infrequently attend live music concerts, and although when i do attend them the artists giving the concert most likely got their start long before said year 1990, i do have some current musical opinions.
even though the subjects of my current musical opinions aren’t themselves very current.
back in the day, when being emo meant you were merely just another black-clad youth, i listened to my cure, and my smiths, and my siouxsie, and my pil, and my depeche mode, and my sisters of mercy.
and i listened to my skinny puppy, and my ministry, and my severed heads, and my moev, and my nine inch nails, and my legendary pink dots.
and i listened to my r.e.m., and my fetchin bones, and my love tractor, and my dbs, and my connells, and my royal crescent mob, and my mojo nixon.
and i listened to my alphaville, and my the the, and my new order, and my cabaret voltaire.
and i listened to my nirvana, and my mudhoney, and my sonic youth, and my dinosaur jr., and my jane’s addiction.
and i listened to my kristen hall, and my michelle malone, and my ani difranco, and my utah phillips, and my michelle shocked.
and of all those, the one i still listen to, and listen to the most, and go see whenever she plays in new york city, is michelle shocked.
she, and her music, is a little bit of everything and constantly surprising and enjoyable. she’s a bit of a troubadour and a story-telling raconteur (like utah phillips), and a bit of a brilliant acoustic musician (like ani difranco), and a bit of an incredible lyricist (like kristen hall), and a bit of a political animal (like michael stipe).
except that it’s all in one package. and she’s creative (each of her albums is completely different), uncompromising (she gave her label the stiff middle finger better than nearly anyone else ever has), and entertaining (self-effacing, spontaneous, and explosive).
not familiar with michelle shocked? if you like acoustic, start with texas campfire tapes; if you like folk, start with arkansas traveler; if you like protest rock, start with short sharp shocked.
but you’ll end up listening to all of them anyway, so start wherever you damn well please, or with whatever is accessible or handy.
yet another return to the big apple bbq block party held each year in madison square park, although a little birdie told me it may not be located there next year.
we again had a bubba pass — a stored value card that lets you skip the long lines and go “behind the scenes” and in special lines to get your bbq. this worked like a breeze this year — they made it a punch card, so the lines moved quickly with no snafus.
i was there on saturday june 9 — my sense is that the crowds were slightly smaller than in previous years. in fact, i’d say that for some stands, you might have gotten your bbq more quickly in the public lines than in the “bubba pass” lines. and many stands had no lines at all.
that meant more bbq for me, of course. in years past, we’d have to return on sunday to get to all the stands. this year, the combination of smaller crowds and better organization meant that we could hit all the stands in one day. great for my day planning, but not so great for my waistline.
at any rate, here’s a quick roundup of my favorites:
» best sausage, best brisket — southside market & bbq, elgin, texas, my consistent favorite year after year. their sausage is, for me, always the best thing at the entire event. but this year, their brisket was my favorite as well. it had the largest smoke ring, and was the tenderest and most flavorful. bonus points for the slice of cheese and the raw onion. sausage runner up was the salt lick bbq in driftwood, texas — it’s more kielbasa-y than sausage-y, but really juicy and good. brisket runner up was baker’s ribs in dallas, texas — nice flavor and outsanding fall-apart consistency. gotta mention this, though — the baker’s ribs beans tasted like liquid smoke. not positive of that, but if true, a big big no-no. that stuff is cancer in a bottle.
» best pulled/chopped pork was mitchell’s bbq, wilson, nc — whole hog chopped up. it’s good, but what makes it great is the vinegary sauce. it’s in a squirt bottle and not obvious, so while i knew to put it on, not everyone might. the sauce makes the whole taste come together, for me.
» best cole slaw — my favorite was big bob gibson, from decatur, alabama. it was mustardy and rough chopped and delicious. kirk and our friend stephen preferred the coleslaw from the salt lick bbq in driftwood, texas, which had beaucoup celery seeds.
» best beans — the multi bean mix from 17th street bar & grill, murphysboro, illinois was outstanding. honorable mention goes to ubon’s champion’s choice from yazoo, mississippi, for the inclusion of tasty burned-y bits.
» best ribs — hands down, 17th street. honorable mention to rack & soul, nyc, for great baby back ribs. jake’s boss bbq from boston had ribs as well, but they were way too saucy for me. didn’t see any dry-rub ribs, which was odd — maybe i just missed them.
» best surprise — the brunswick stew from the proclamation stew crew from lawrenceville, virginia. didn’t expect to see it there, and loved every last bite.
and damn did i miss the smoki o’s people. no pig snoot for me this year. i guess i’m going to have to go to st. louis.
at this rate, i’ll be retired when i finally move in.
seriously, the latest word is probably early next week, with an outside shot at late this week.
aaaaaargh.
aaaaargh. my worst fears have come true. the puppet that replaced kiki and herb at the helen hayes theater won the tony.
words cannot express my fury, and my sadness.
on the positive side, justin bond looked stunning, classy, and totally beautiful on tv last night. for the two seconds we saw him. simple and elegant makeup, hair and dress. perfect. and kenny mellman looked good too — classy (if a bit standard) in his tux.
it would have been a treat to see them onstage, as winners.
i’m sure miss du rane will have many comments about this.
i shouldn’t admit this, as (i say sarcastically) i’m supposed to be a sophisticated new yorker with an impeccable palate, who has dined in some of the world’s best restaurants both here and in europe.
and i live in a city with perhaps more outstanding restaurants per capita than anywhere else on earth. and some of those restaurants are actually affordable and accessible.
as is the olive garden, where i’m having lunch today.
to clarify, i mean that the olive garden is accessible (in times square) and affordable (by new york standards, though i’m sure tourists blanch at the prices on the menu as compared to the olive garden in their hometown). i don’t mean that the olive garden is counted among that number of outstanding new york city restaurants.
but, i have to admit, they make a mean salad. and the soup is passable, though it might as well be a bowl of salted water when compared to the sublime soups that my friend mark makes at red cafe.
so i go, with some co-workers, to the olive garden. occasionally. for lunch. for the soup and salad.
and i like it. so there. yummo, as rachael ray might say. since we’re talking about the olive garden, she’s a good one to quote, i figure.
hey, it’ll tide me over until this weekend, when the big apple bbq hits madison park. fifteen or so of the best barbecue makers on the planet, selling their varied and excellent plates to me via my “bubba pass” (a stored value card that lets you skip the long lines).
now that’s yummo, with a capital “yum”.
but today, i’ll fight the wednesday theater matinee crowd for a table at the olive garden.
that’s what i’m on, waiting for the closing date for our apartment. kirk and i, if you haven’t heard, are buying a coop in riverdale, in the bronx, in new york city. we’ll be homo-wners.
sorry — old, bad, joke.
i’ve done everything i can do, which is the big problem. when there’s something i can do to manage the process, or move it forward, or coordinate efforts, or whatever, then i feel like i’m accomplishing something.
but when i’ve done everything there is to do, and the waiting game sets in, that’s when it gets bad for me. i have to make a concentrated effort not to drive everyone to distraction with constant fruitless pushing. that’s the stage i’m at now.
if all goes right, we’ll be closing on the place next week. the bank does its last bit, and then we get the closing date. i can distract myself for that long, and not drive everyone bonkers.
i hope.