The Last of 2004

2004 is nearly over. Plenty of news agencies have come out with summaries and best ofs, year in reviews, ect. Here is ours:

Tsunami, dioxin, blog, Freedom, Mt. St. Helens, Paris Hilton, iPod, Arafat, Papa Simpson, Insurgent, Truffle, $10,000 Martini, and joblessness.

The Edge of Civilization

With a new camera in hand, we walked around New York practicing our photography. The camera after all is a completely manual Minolta XG-A. [Not as exciting as the X-300 that was stolen, but very close].

In either case, we walked to the west side and for the first time in at least a decade saw New Jersey from New York. [We're normally accustomed to the reverse].We then continued to the southern tip of the little island and started up the East side. We saw the heliport.

We're excited about our photos.

Lovely Rita

On our way to the train station today we came across a meter maid ticketing away on Little Albany Street. Since we had a good number of quarters and since we hate the New Brunswick Parking authority, we started popping in quarters to expired meters twenty feet in front of her. We hoped this helped a few folks out, but more importantly, hope New Brunswick didn't steal their hard earned cash.

Cookie Monster

We just finished a marathon session of cooking baking. Mandee, a coporate slave, finally was released from her chains around 8 pm. Two hours later after travel and food, we turned her kitchen into a virtual factory.

We baked 5 types of cookies including oatmeal-M&M, Lindsor, Riccotta, Candy-Cane Twists, and Toffee-Chocolate-Hazelnut. A batch of ginger bread was left uncooked, awaiting to be rolled out at a future date.

The whole thing was fairly easy, except for the Baking Soda. Apparently, Arm and Hamor, finding the limitations of Baking soda to not simply be cakes and toothpaste, has now come out with baking soda specifically for cleaning stainless steal. Why this is still called "Baking" Soda or why its sold alongside flour, sugar, food coloring, nutmeg, and chocolate chips befuddles us. In either case, the first round of oatmeal cookies was deposited in the trash since "Baking" Soda for your sink cannot be ingested. Shouldn't this be Cleaning Soda instead?

7 Hours Later

After our car window was replaced we hit the mall. We'll admit it, we hadn't done any shopping this year until yesterday [we did some shopping in New York the day before, but that hardly counts]. We started at 3:30 at the Garden State Plaza. Then we worked our way up 17. When we had milked Bergen County for all it was worth, we hopped back onto the freeway and headed torwards Willowbrook. Another hour in the Target and we were finished for the night. Almost. We then went grocery shopping. We're about halfway done now, but we feel we covered the important stores and North Jersey. Tonight we head south. Stops in Elizabeth, Woodbridge, Edison, East Brunsick, North Brunshwick, and Piscataway expected.

Instead Buying of Braclets, Why Not Just Pay Your Taxes?

Yellow Braclets. Pink Braclets. Red Braclets. Blue Braclets. They all mean something to some charity or another raising money for research for one or more diseases. The Times is of course well ahead of the curve reporting on the phenomenon.

The Lance Armstrong Livestrong bracelets are approaching sales of 30 million. Hopefully that means close to $30M is on its way to fight cancer. Target has contributed $600,000 to breast cancer research through its pink bracelet.

Since all these charity bracelets are little more than a band of rubber, they are by no means providing the buyer with any kind of service--other than looking cool. All these sales are some form of disposable income for people, but in really small amounts.

While the money raised by the sale of these bracelets are all going to good causes, wouldn't it just make more sense to as a society make the decision to find a cure for cancer and dedicate the resources of the federal government to solve the problem?

When the United States built the atomic bomb, many people thought it was physically not even a realistic goal. Yet, in a little over two years, the project dropped a bomb on the Japanese people. But we still have cancer.

Our elected leaders need to stop prancing around in little yellow bracelets and make a real committment to stomping out these diseases.

New

We got a new computer today; not for ourseleves, but at the office. Normally, this sort of thing would not be worth mentioning, except that it is.

Two, nineteen inch monitors. We can now browse the internet in one screen and do real work in another.

400 Gigabytes of harddrive space. That's right, 10 times what our home computer has.

256 MB graphics card. Yeah, the graphics card has more RAM than our computer at home. This saddens us a little bit.

16 fans. This sucker is so how not only does it have a copper heat sink to displace some of that excessive energy, but also 16 fans to keep it from melting. These fans also have green neon lights, and the case has clear plastic. Its like a damn hotrod.

Well, we're still moving our files and updating our software, but it seems to be a pretty good thing so far. Indeed.

And the Best Part Is

Local [that is, within the state of New Jersey] declare that nothing can be done until after the holidays [Christmas or New Years or St. Patricks Day?]. So much from buying a car from them. And let's not forget that auto centers are closed on Sundays. You can't buy, sell, finance, or repair a car on the lords day.

Except of course, at Sears. Sears auto center though, refuses to do auto windows. And why should they have to?

If that wasn't enough, local predictions: Snow and Rain, High of 42 degrees.

Next time someone breaks into our car, we'll call two weeks in advance to make an appointment for the repair. Fuck Open Road Honda.

Time to Bulldoze New Brunswick, Reason #47

Black Honda Civic: window smashed. Fuckers.

Worst Idea Since Agent Orange

The military has decided that turning off the GPS system in a time of crisis might be a brilliant way to thwart terrorists who rely on the system to navigate around the country. We didn't know that this was an epidemic.

We think this is a bad idea because while terrorists might use GPS to coordinate attacks, civilian rescue teams also use GPS systems to navigate. GPS is an intrical part of shipping since most boats now rely on GPS to navigate.

The best part of the whole thing is that the Europeans are developing Galileo, a similar system to GPS. The US did their best to convince the Europeans that they didn't need their own navigation system since GPS was already there. The Europeans, being smarter than that, started launching Galileo satelites a few years back.

No doubt the Chinese will soon be launching their own network [by soon of course, we mean within 20 or 30 years]. Terrorists could still use that system while American ships run aground because the GPS system was turned off.

So again, we say turning off the GPS system for any reason is about as smart as dropping Agent Orange on your own troops.

Desktop Searching

A few weeks ago Google released a desktop search program that lets you search your harddrive for files, just like you would search the internet. Yahoo! released a similar client this week, and Microsoft not to be outdone has promised something similar.

Microsoft of course dropped the ball and failed to build a good search engine for harddrive data. In fact, from windows 2000 to Windows xp, the search feature actually was made worse. Sure, its more "user friendly" because of cute graphics, but its actually harder to search your data.

For instance, presently, we're trying to retrieve a file from a subfolder in our My Documents folder. We know what directly its in, but there are literally hundreds of files that we need to sort through. However, windows refuses to let us specify exactly which folder to look in. The best we can do is Search the entirety of My Documents.

So instead of being able narrow down our search, Windows needs to search through literally thousands of extra documents.

Dear Bill Gates,
Seriously, WTF?
Thanks

Meanwhile, google's search tool opens up computers to new forms of virus that with a clear map of your hard drive [like its internet search, google indexs all your files], virus writers will have easier access to your stuff. Amazing.

Bridges, Vol 2

Pulaski Skyway
The twisted hulking bit of metal was once the longest elevated road in the world. An extension of US 1&9, the Skyway was an ultra modern [1923] superhighway. Now its rusting away and is more an impediment to traffic than anything else. One thing we've learned: never take the Pulaski Skyway. The road is narrow and easy for bad drivers to snarl traffic, not just at rush hour. And worse yet, once you are on the road, you are on until the end.

The Skyway crosses the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers; other bridges in the area are still antiquated drawbridges, including the PATH train bridges.

George Washington Bridge
We once watched a documentary where people from [of all places] Texas thought the GWB was a "covered" bridge. What perhaps they didn't realize was that there is an upper and a lower deck. Its hard for such a traffic causing nightmare to be romantic, but we suppose it is.

Of course, one of our favorite books when we were younger was The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge about a small lighthouse underneath the GWB.

Rumors are that the George Washington could hold another entire layer of traffic or a rail line if the Port Authority ever chose to build it. Or Both. The bridge was built to handle many times more weight than engineers originally thought it can handle.

Bourne Bridge
Access to Cape Cod! The Bourne Bridge is one of two vehicle bridges that connects Cape Cod to the mainland, sliced off when the Cape Cod Canal was built at the turn of the century.

There really isn't anything special about the bridge except that it means you are on Cape Cod. Why would you need another reason?

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel
A Tunnel? A Bridge? No its both. How cool is that? The Bridge Tunnel is both a bridge and a tunnel for one important reason: the Navy. Sure, bridges can be high enough to let boats in and out underneath them, but if a bridge were ever to be attacked and destroyed, the debris could impede the route ships would take to the open water, hence the tunnels.

This is one of the longest bridges we've ever ridden on; its long, trust us. There is even a rest area half way across. Of course, if it weren't for the tunnel part, this would just be an ordinary bridge not worth mentioning.

Chopsticks Are Fun

We spent our formative years unable to use chopsticks. It never seemed to be much of a problem since we didn't really like take-out chinese food, [and even if we had liked chinese take-out, we probably would not have been allowed to eat it].

By the time college rolled around, we had found Asian Porn fascinating. About the same time, our college roomate was dating a Korean girl. Suddenly the need to learn to use chopsticks became apparent: if we were ever going to date an Asian girl, we'd need to know.

As luck would have it, the College student center had a cheap Chinese food counter. We learned over the course of a semester to wield our chopsticks over bowls of General Tso's chicken. We became addicted. Soon we were having the General over to eat several times a day. [Combined with drinking cheap beer, you can imagine what our bowels thought of all this].

We've never dated an Asian girl, but we feel secure enough in our use of chopsticks that we could if we had to. And as it turns out, the propensity of our coworkers ordering Sushi has engaged our skills almost daily.

All thats left for us is to use our chopsticks to Snatch a Housefly.

Oh, God! Look, Its a Blog!

Gawker has Casually Jested about the Times Article attempting to be trendy by talking about blogs.

One choice Segment:

One of the first to make the transition was Baghdad blogger known as Salam Pax, who wrote an online war diary from Iraq. Last year Grove Press published a collection of his work, "Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi."

When we were in the 5th Grade we remember reading Zlata's Diary, the tragic tale of a girl surviving the war in Sarajevo. Many people at the time had compared it to Anne Frank's Diary, though Zlata is still alive collecting royalties from the book. We imagine Salam Pax's Diary to be much the same: the token war diary to commemorate the life of some poor schmo.

Maybe we're just jealous our Blog hasn't yet turned into a book deal.

Though we know that Some People are expecting this:

An editor "found my blog only three weeks after I started it and asked if I was interested in doing a book," he said, adding, "I was so surprised I thought he was my friend Larry playing a joke on me."

Also according to the article there are close to over 10 million blogs. If only all those people could read. Or maybe we're just jealous they aren't reading us.

Bridges

We've always been a pretty big fan of bridges. Today, the French opened The World's Tallest. Suddenly we want to go to France. Instead, however, we decided to Blog about some of our favorite bridges.

Tacoma Narrows
Located near Tacoma WA., this bridge is perhaps better known as Galloping Girtie. The suspension bridge was built in such a way that the wind in the narrows would cause vibrations in the steel.

From the day it opened, the steel in the bridge would bend and sway. Finally, the virbrations were too much for the bridge and the stress and collapsed. Interestingly enough, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is of the same design, but the vibrations are not nearly as bad.


The Tappan Zee Bridge
The Tappan Zee Bridge [aka "Tappan Zee Ass"] connects the New York State Thruway to i-95 over the Hudson river. This is a hulking sprawling, ugly bridge that causes congestion and has a high toll. But it has a special place in our heart as being "on the way" to scenic Cape Cod. [that is of course, if you are headed north from Northern New Jersey].

As we said, it is Not So Attractive and too tiny. The center lane actually has a mobile divider that expands one side of the bridge or the other side, depending on whether it is the morning rush or evening rush. To say the least, the bridge is too small.

But as it turns out, Expansion is Imminent. Finally it seems, the tattered Tappan Zee will have a real suspension.


Royal Gorge
The highest suspension bridge in the world until the French opened the
new world's tallest suspension bridge, Royal Gorge crosses the Arkansas River in Colorado [we know, we were confused by this too]. In either case, Royal Gorge is a Tourist Attraction more than it is a bridge. Its built for walking rather than driving. But we've been there, at the bottom of the Gorge and on the Bridge. We only mentioned it because the viaduc de Millau displaced its place in history.


Trenton Makes Bridge
Funny how we keep bringing up utterly useless bridges. The Trenton Makes Bridge is so named for the giant neon sign suspended on the side reading "Trenton Makes and The World Takes". Once, this may have been true.

There are no factories left in Trenton [except of course perhaps, illegal underground sweatshops where political interns are forced to stamp out lapel pins for statehouse politicians. We've seen it man. It ain't pretty.] But the Trenton Makes Bridge is so Beautiful, how could the city planners ever think of tearing it down. That and its free, while route 1 has a toll.

We really like bridges, and think we'll be posting about more, again, soon. Until then, enjoy.

All the Books in the World, and Not a Word to Read

The Harvard Library may have a reputation as tougher to get into than Yale's secret society the Skulls, but Google might just be Changing That. The whole process uses a new, google designed scanning process that is more gentle on books and promises to allow users to scan through tens of thousands of books [Harvard has promised 40,000 books, though if all goes well, their 15,000,000 volumes could one day, be online].

But here's the trouble. What good is all this, if we don't read anything anyway?

Once, We Ate Tofu. Again, We Do.

Our mother was a former flower child turned yuppie and so when we were five, we were fed Tofu, bean sprouts, and other all natural alternatives.

Years later, when we were a disgruntled teen, we refused to eat things like Tofu and bean sprouts. This was about the time when the ban on commercial television was unilaterally lifted in the household. We were told, "You used to eat Tofu".

As a child, cold cearal was banned with exceptions made for Cheerios and Corn Flakes. This is why we're better than you.

About the time we were eating Tofu and Cheerios, we had amassed a large collection of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars [We Prefer Matchbox]. Then, it was easy to Christmas shop for us; another Matchox car please.

But anyway, we'd take our cars and line them up in giant traffic james extending from one end of the room to another. Inevitably, we'd have our emergency vehicles race to the scene of a terrible traffic accident.

Of course, now we sit in traffic james. And we eat Tofu and Of course, now we can't stop consuming the latest marshmellow filled movie tie-in. "Shreks" are delicious.

Robot Monkeys Dressed in Polyester Thongs

We thought we might have something interesting to say about Robot Monkeys, especially if they were dressed in Polyester Thongs. Unforunately, not.

Actually, the reason we bring this up at all is both "Robot Monkey" and "Polyester Thong" were terms people searched google, and found us using.

We contend that one day, robots, controlled by monkeys, will destroy the world. The robots, no doubt will wear thongs.

If Robot Monkeys and Polyester Thongs were not enough for us, which they are not, we regret that "Deer Blood" did not return this site.

You Hate Us. We Know.

Yesterday we wore a suit to work [we looked hot]. Why? We were involved with putting together a press conference. We know, you don't really care about politics. But you care about this one, trust us.

Famous People showed up for the event. We were within a yard of each, but did not bother introducing ourselves, despite the fact that it was suggested we should. Nor did we have anything signed [We had no balls, literally]. We could have, we just didn't.

In either case, our responsibilities today included tracking down newsclips from various television channels. We hate television, and receptionists. NBC and ABC both gave us the cold shoulder. CBS was extremely helpful.

Now we are expected to find contact information for studies on sleeping. WTF, right?

Home Improvement

We came home last night to find that our downstairs neighbors, in an effort to lead productive lives, decided to paint the hallway walls and trim. This would have been a nice improvement if we didn't think they were trying to take over the entire house.

For instance, they have two little yapping dogs. One morning we found dog shit in front of our door. No, not the door outside the house, but instead, the door inside the house at the top of the stairwell, leading directly to our apartment. We were not amused.

But back to their paint job. First of all, they didn't patch any of the holes in the walls before painting. [though we can imagine they think pasting plaster over these holes after they paint is the way to go]. But this isn't really what concerned us. What concerns us is the red trim. Its like a fiesta everytime I walk in the house now.

She Gave Me Wood

In you aren't reading out favorite Gawker Media publication, Fleshbot, you may have missed the mention of our favorite contemporary poet, Alexander The Poet, famed for his appearences at Rutgers poetry readings including several hosted by our favorite literary journal The Anthologist. Its like a virtual favorites fuck-fest!

Really though, why would you want to miss the Chest Hair. But if you have no idea who we're talking about, Reading This might spark a memory.

And in the great tradition of the rest of us, he now has a Blog. We expect this to become a favorite featured in a future favorite fuck-fest.

18 Miles of Books, and a Restroom

We visited the Strand last night for the first time since their renovation opened an elevator and a second floor. We must say we were impressed with the selection of art books and of course, the restroom.

Most of the time, conquering the Strand requires a pre-determined item to be sought and either found or not. Browsing the shelves for a treasure is tough to do because unlike most pre-owned bookstores, the Strand is simply too big to browse and find something of interest.

We came unprepared and so started to browse by author. Impressed with Heavy Water by Martin Amis [We read a good bit of this on a toilet in Cambridge], we decided to start with him. Sadly, the entire Amis section was on the top two shelves. We were impressed with the selection, but unable to reach it.

Instead we settled on searching through some carts with books littered on them hoping to find a jewel. One book caught our eye because the binding was facing the wrong direction. We pulled it out to see what it was: Night Train by Martin Amis. What a find.

We were confused becuase there was no price. We know the Strand usually has half off the publisher's price, but this was in pounds and Australian dollars. We don't carry either currency. Deciding though that finding this book was fate, we cut our losses and headed to pay.

The book rang up for $2.69. We had two single dollar bills in our pants pocket. then we pulled a virtual miracle: our jacket had exactly 69 cents. 1 Quarter, 1 nickel, 3 dimes, and 9 pennies. We're taking this as a sign.

Things We Found Interesting

We've been reading Prada Princess even though we're unsure if the author is real. Either way, we've had a good time and think you should too.

Also on our recently read list is James Howard Kunstler's website. He's a man after our own heart: obsesssed with sprawl and writing, only he's a professional. What really is worth your time though is the Eyesoar of the Month. Pictures of rather silly looking buildings combine with his great editorials. We especially liked These.

If perhaps some of your recall a little game called snowfight from about 5 years ago, well, there is a new Improved Version we've been playing. The original SnowFight involved you throwing snowballs at an advancing army of similarly equiped fools. It was easy to spend hours playing, and several times we almost missed last call at the Dinning Hall because Some People wouldn't quit playing. Anyway, the new version of SnowFight is a 3D flash game where the object is to knock down the snowmen while not getting pound raw with snowballs.

And finally, if you didn't notice Keaggy pop up on our list of links, its a great place to waste several hours of your life. It was also featured a few weeks back in the times Magazine, but despite this fact, it actually is a good site.

We Played With Dolls

Is it 1984 all over again? Apparently, Cabbage Patch Kids are a "hot" item for the 2004 shopping season. Cabbage Patch kids are rather low tech considering things like a model R2-D2 robotic action toy.

So anyway, we'll admit it. We had Cabbage Patch kid dolls. Growing up on the hippie commune, we did things like eat bean sprouts and tofu [supposedly; we don't believe these rumors]. And we played with dolls.

So in either case, we had a little brown haired, brown eyed CPK that resembled us, and if we recall correctly, a pretty girl CPK too. As the grandson of a tailor, we also had the resources to sew clothing for our miniture self [though, we will say, our Teddy was the largest recipiant of suits, pants, and shirts].

Well now it looks like we can relive our childhood memories. Besides their new found popularity, there is going to be movie. We have to say we rather have brought back the Fraggles than the CPKs.

Needed: Ghost or Image of Virgin Mother

We wrote about the Virigin Mary grilled cheese that sold for $28,000 via ebay. Then we told you about the a woman's father's ghost she was selling. Well, It Sold for $65,000.

Also for sale recently at the giant auction house were such items as Britney Spears's genuine chewing gum, spit out at a previous concert.

We think its time we got down to business.

Stigmata soaked cloth:
Really looking to get in touch with God? Try our new blood soaked handkerchiefs fresh from the bleeding hands of God's own messenger.

Tooth of an Apostle:
Have a toothache earthbound dentists just can't seem to fix? Then you need a tooth directly from the mouth of an apostle. Simply rubbing this ancient tooth over your gums ensures years of devine protection from toothaches, gingivitis, and cavities. Never brush your teeth again!

Howard Stern Toe Nails:
You thought this shock jock was abrasive, just wait until you get a hold of clippings of his toe nails. Grind them up for special Asian remedies or keep them in a locket, its your choice.

Cowboy hat Similar to One Worn by George W. Bush:
You don't have to be the President to look good in this look alike George Bush Cowboy hat. And its not just for Yankees; Europeans love American style westerns, and no doubt they'll have lots of fun with Bush's cowboy hat.

Kate Moss Toilet Tissue:
Have you ever just needed something a little bit special from a celebrity to show off to your friends at dinner parties? Well now you can with toilet tissue straight from kate Moss's ass. Skid marks included on every piece!

Welsh Porno

We watched Trainspotting last night, one of our all time favorite movies. We're glad to see we still enjoy it. Afterward, we decided we wanted more, and since we were not particularly thrilled by other productions by the director, we assumed it was the writer who should be given credit for our enjoyment.

Irvine Welsh wrote the novel. [He also appears in Trainspotting, we learned, as Mikey Forrester]. A few months back we were intrigued by the cover art of Porno, and since it was on clearence, and because we knew Welsh wrote Trainspotting we bought it. We finally decided to start reading it [despite that we heard Trainspotting was nearly impossible for a Yank to read due to the obscure Scottish diction].

We realized we were right in crediting Welsh with our solid enjoyment of Trainspotting when we read on page 4:

"Even as I'm shovelling it up my hooter, I realise the sad truth. Coke bores me, it bores us all. We're jaded cunts, in a scene we hate, a city we hate, pretending that we're at the centre of the universe, trashing ourselves with crap drugs to stave off the feeling that real life is happening somwhere else..."

Welsh has some people pegged [There are others, less famous, that we could name; but they might be reading]. Aye, in either case, we're looking forward to reading the rest of Porno.

Faux Pop Tarts

We're enjoying some faux pop tarts [referred to as "pastry"]. The A&P brand "America's Choice" makes many of the faux products we enjoy [We're still waiting for America's Choice Gin]. But one of the big selling points is the 7 Vitamins and Minerals.

Wait. its a pop tart. We know its unhealthy. Why ruin it with vitamins and minerals? We think if they stripped out this last bit of nutrients they would taste a lot better.

Fried

We were forced to stop at Starbucks to bring the office coffee. While there, the girl and boy behind the counter were discussing KFC vs. Kentucky Fried Chicken. The boy claimed the name was changed because of the abuse that KFC wrought on poor innocent chickens. [We explained "Fried" is percieved as a negative in light of recent health crazes; yet Americans are still fat].

The incident brought back memories of our discussion of vegetarianism and Some People's complaints with the treatment of animals. We think the logic borders on Crazy Talk. Not that we want to see baby kittens mauled by a tractor or anything, but we don't particularly like chickens, and frankly don't care if they are ground up and turned into sausages and patties and nuggets.

With all this nonsense, we'd kind of like to think that KFC protestors would take things to the next level, ambushing KFC delivery trucks while dressed in chicken suits, or storming their headquarters with an army of chicken clad members. Until then though, we're happy not eating their on the basis that we think its just not very good.

Political Party Parties

So we were wrong. The ratio of people we dislike to people we like was actually only 3:1. Still, not very good odds.

We started out the evening with three [four] glasses of wine. Before we went. After all, do you want to talk to those people sober? We drank some free beer [we lost count] and some cheap wine [that made our cheap wine taste really good].

We started out the evening shaking hands and wondering who some of these folks were. Most of our conversations went like this:

"[Our Name], I work for [boss lady]".
"I think we may have met"
"Oh yes, from the [hope they fill in blank]"

Our inebriation surely didn't help. Conversations than move forward with:

"And what are you doing now [because we have no idea why you know us; contexual clues may help fill us in]?"
[fill in something they do; they brag about what it is they do. For instance:
"oh, yes, I'm over at Transportation now" means "jesus, I'm lucky I got this job cleaning homeless people's shit out of buses after I screwed up the finance reports and cost us the election"]

Then after a few minutes more and a few dozen more awkward introductions [and re-introductions] and drunk women who pretended to know us in case we knew someone who could help them [2], we were requested to hush up and listen to old bloated white men talk about things, as compensation for the free beer. Instead, we enjoyed the bounty of free food [until this point, we had been too busy drinking to really get a hold of any food].

The evening ended with wishful farewells.

[In fairness, there are several folks we wished the best of luck to, and mean it. For most of them though, no.]

No thank you, we'll be insecure

We hate flying. Hate it. But since Europe is rather far, and more importantly, US Air begged us to buy magazines with our accrued milage [over 8,000 of them], we thought perhaps it would be rather interesting, just for the hell of it, of taking a look at various flights.

When we browsed through available flights, it seems US Air can charge $10 for the September 11 security fee. We weren't planning on flying on September 11. [though we suspect flights originating on that day fail to fill up and cheap tickets might be found]. Anyway, we think its the government's responsibilty to keep us secure [we know, call us crazy]. So we think we should be able to waive the fee [and the groping we know we would endure from the wandering hands of security personel] and fly insecure. After all, we know we're not a terrorist.

Leave Us Be, Phone

Our cellular phone has by no means been as Much Trouble as Others. But we think it could do with a little less beeping.

Like a child, our phone beeps at us all the time. Sometimes it wants us to know there are unread messages or that it needs to sleep. Thankfully, it is a phone a not a child. other wise, it would have suffered shaken baby syndrome by now, be sure.

Naan

We're obsessed with Naan, the Indian flat bread. So we decided we should finda recipe, which we did at Barnes and Noble. But we neither copied the recpie nor but the bought expecting to find a similar recipe online. We bought the ingrediants, and went home to foodtv.com.

Unfortunately, none of the recipes were particularly similar. Certain people we cook for accidentally put baking powder instead of baking soda into the mixture. In fairness, the recipe we found at Barnes and Noble called for both.

In either case, when cooking up our faux Naan, instead of getting light and puffy, we got essentially, a flat bread biscuit. It wasn't so bad, but would have been better with jam and butter than as a compliment to our meal. Oh well.

What Did They Expect, Really?

A Canadian ATM Spat Out Coupons instead of Canadian dollars infuriating customers. But really now, what did they expect from Standard Currency that Looks Fake and Has No Value?

We love you, northern neighbor, but we can't take you seriously while your money looks like it was printed by the Parker Brothers.

Horray for Jughandles

We've spent years cursing the New Jersey Phenomenon known as a jughandle.

[(1) A U-turn / Left turn past the intersection allowing cars to smoothly merge immediately onto the cross street; (2) a Jughandle before the intersection where U-turn and Left turning vehicles must first turn onto the cross street; both models are superior to left hand turn lanes down the center of a highway]

But after spending some time in Pennsyl-tucky, our minds have changed. Horray for Junghandles. Certainly there are jughandles in other states, but New Jersey has dozens in every square mile.

The situation: on multilane highways outside of the Garden State, traffic light intersections often have a dedicated lane down the center for left turning vehicles. Before the highway is given a green light, vehicles from both directions are given a green arrow to turn. This makes no sense since now vehicles in opposite directions are making left turns while coming head on at each other. Not only is this dangerous, but it adds congestion to the highway by lengthening the green light for highway traffic and often leading to left turn backups.

The jughandle on the otherhand allows cars to queue up on the cross street rather than in the middle of the highway. Traffic runs more smoothly because the highway is given a green light faster. Trust us, in New Jersey, we know traffic congestion.

So lets celebrate the jughandle. Hip hip Horray!

We Were Drunk, Found Jesus, and Blogged

A few weeks ago we meant to blog about an experience we thought we had. [Maybe we did, and now, as a result of two martinis, two pints of Harp, Two glasses of medicocre red wine, and two Cape Coders, we couldn't find it].

It went like this [excuse us if we've already mentioned it]:
Walking by West End Cafe we were acknowledged by a fellow who knew us, but who we did not realize we knew. We asked how and why and where we should know this person from or as. We had no idea. When we said as much, he responded with, 'someday, you will figure it out'. We were concerned that we had a chance encounter with Jesus.

Indeed, we did not. As it turns out, the fellow was a sexual partner of a former editor of a certain literary magazine we once edited. Speaking of, we just bought, and recieved, an issue dating from 1966. We are excited.

Ahh, drinking.