Tikkabik

A segment on the evening news dealt with the City of Boston's decision to allow Jimmy Buffett to play a few concerts at Fenway Park. It seems hard to believe that as innocuous a personality like Buffett would draw such controversy to the area, but he has, because some vocal folks don't want his kind in town. I suspect some of the bunch who live near Fenway Park have confused them with Deadheads. I guess there is a parallel, but as one Buffett fan put it, Parrotheads are basically Deadheads with jobs.

Fenway Park is, of course, the historic home of the Boston Red Sox. The name "Fenway" is a reference to the area where the park is located. Part of Boston's "Emerald Necklace" -- an interconnected string of parks and green spaces -- Boston's fens were once, as the name implies, real wetlands. But those days are long past, and now the area is a densely populated neighborhood comprising college students and professionals, all of whom live close enough to Fenway Park to hear the roar of the crowds and some live music, when the occasional band plays. They still have really nice open green spaces near them, and the neighborhood is well situated for professionals who work in town, which is why the area has been a strong real estate market for many years and will continue to be for many more.

Anyway, history lesson aside, I found the comments of one person interviewed on tonight's news particularly telling. "We have to deal with the Red Sox," he remarked. Fenway residents shouldn't have to deal with concerts too, was his point.

It was just his body language and tone of voice that caught my attention -- this put-upon manner: He has to "deal" with the Red Sox, despite the fact that the Red Sox have occupied space at Fenway Park long before this young man, his parents, and possibly even his grandparents walked the Earth. Yet somehow, as a resident, *his* needs are paramount.

There's an ongoing debate about what's going to happen with the Sox and Fenway -- will it be expanded? Will it be replaced? And will it be replaced with something in the same location? Neighborhood associations in the Fenway area have taken a central role and great interest in voicing their opinions and raising issues, for obvious reasons.

I don't object to residents of neighborhoods like Fenway Park taking pride in their surroundings and wanting to make sure that all factors are taken into consideration, but I hope they have some perspective -- they've moved into the Sox's home turf, not the other way around. They knew what they were getting into before they passed papers on their cute little brownstones.

Posted by flargh at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bonnie came home with a few boxes of stale Marshmallow Peeps left over from Easter that she got for 75 percent off.

I shoved a few down my gullet and washed them down with Diet Dr. Pepper.

There's an odd symmetry there. A yin and yang sort of thing.

Everyone I've told has had the same reaction. "WTF were you thinking?"

Posted by flargh at 04:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

James is four. Four is a cute age: Kids are totally geared to exploring and understanding their world and processing every bit of data that comes into their heads. Their imaginations are developing at a rapidfire pace and some of the stuff they come up with is really laugh-out-loud funny and cute.

One downside of this is that sometimes, they talk a lot. James has hit that developmental point where he's fundamentally incapable of any sort of thought or even motor movement without sound coming out of his mouth. Every single thought rushing through his fast-developing brain *must* emerge from his mouth.

It's exhausting.

In the space of about three minutes he'll jump tangents from what happened at school today to our cat to our cat that passed away to how his pants make his legs feel to the boy at school that likes to tell fart jokes to Thomas the Tank Engine to the days of the week to what birds sound like to how annoying Emmeline is to when he got a bloody nose to how much he likes fruit snacks to playing in the backyard then back to the cat and what cookies are his favorites (Uh-Oh Oreos) to the game on the PlayStation he likes to play.

Bob didn't quite process data this way. He was -- and still is -- a quieter kid, unless you get him going about something *he's* interested in. Then he'll tell you every intricate detail of Yu-Gi-Oh cards or the latest Game Boy Advance ROM he's pirated off the Internet or what games his friends are playing.

What it reminds me of the most is Emmeline, who's equally chatty at seven, and has been as chatty as James is since she was his age. Putting the two of them in the same room is just asking for trouble.

I just hope he grows out of it, for all our sakes.

Posted by flargh at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tontie is this crazy-ass free game that Frank turned me on to earlier today. The basic premise is not unlike Whack-A-Mole, but with the volume turned up to 11.

The game maps to your keyboard's number pad, and is set up in a 3x3 grid. Little bug-eyed monsters -- cute little baby versions of Sky Deviler from Kaiju Big Battel (well, that's what it looks like to me, anyway) pop up on the grid, and you have to hit the corresponding key on your keyboard to whack them with your hammer. Sometimes you'll get a coin, sometimes some extra health. If you hit the wrong space, you'll lose some health.

This quickly ramps up with red monsters, yellow monsters, mines and other stuff -- the challenge on this game ramps up really fast. You can also power up your gear or charge up your health by trading in your coins at little shops that will appear on the game-grid occasionally.

When it gets really nuts is when these little things pop up with numbers in them. You have to hit the number on your keyboard, then remember to hit the number that corresponds to the space on the grid where the object is to make it disappear.

Give it a shot. It'll make your ganglia twitch!

Posted by flargh at 07:06 PM | Permalink

So today was free cone day at Ben & Jerry's. There's one about a twenty minute drive from the house, so we took off for Hyannis very late in the day -- about an hour before they closed.

The line was going almost to the door when we got there, but it moved fast, and we all got what we wanted. It's a really nice thing they do -- no strings attached.

Best of all, Baskin Robbins is doing their free scoop day tomorrow, and there are a couple near us too. More free ice cream, woot!

Posted by flargh at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So Bonnie came home from the grocery store with the latest culinary advance from the mad scientists at Kraft's Cracker Barrel: pre-cut cheddar slices for crackers.

Cracker Barrel cheddar in the past has just been sold in extruded logs like little bricks of velveeta: Get out a knife and a box of Triscuits and go to town. Recognizing that every second counts to today's busy consumers, however, they now have Cracker Barrel in handy pre-cut slices ensconced in a resealable bag.

Now, the resealable bag is an idea I can get behind -- keeps the cheese from drying out. But the pre-cut slices, separated by wax paper, have even been trisected with perforations so you will, by default, break off your cheesy bits into squares optimized for crackers.

Somehow I never thought that putting cheddar cheese on top of crackers would be a complicated enough endeavor to make a company create a convenience product around it. Somehow I can't help but feel that this is a solution in search of a problem.

Posted by flargh at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

ATT Wireless posted staggering losses last quarter. They blame it partly on a mass exodus of customers -- an effect called "churn" in the parlance of business -- as they took advantage of the advent of number portability. They added record numbers of users last quarter, apparently, but lost an even *larger* record number of users. Promotions and other factors also bit into their revenue. Apparently people are also concerned about the company's pending acquisition by Cingular, and are taking a "wait and see" approach.

Now, I have a real hate-on for ATT Wireless. I think their service sucks and their coverage area is complete crap. I've been a customer of their for two years and I haven't seen it get a single bit better. The only reason I haven't switched is because I have to wait another month or so for number portability to hit the rest of the nation outside of the 100 or so areas it current is offered. But I plan to. Verizon's looking good; I can live with their use of CDMA if they offer a phone (or if I can find a phone that will work with their service) that offers the features I'm looking for -- namely support for data exchange with my Mac, so I can get rid of my PDA once and for all.

So just for shits and giggles, I hit ATT Wireless's Web site a few days ago and played around with the "upgrade your phone" option, just to see what I could get. I was stonewalled instantly -- the system kept giving me error messages telling me I could only use this service if my bill was up to date. My bill *was* up to date, in fact. So I sent them an e-mail.

Today I got a response. A long-winded automated response that never actually responds to my complaint, and at one point tells me that I can upgrade my phone online by logging into the very URL I used in the first place.

I'm still getting the same error message. They haven't fixed a damn thing.

Once again, ATT Wireless proves that they *deserve* to lose customers.

Posted by flargh at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

True story.

I bought a shirt a few years back. It's tan and has this hatchwork pattern on it, and these little grey fish and blue palm trees and orange chinese writing of some kind. It's cut like a hawaiian shirt, and it's comfortable, and I paid like $10 for it. You've seen me wear it at Macworld Expos, if you're the sort who hangs out with me at Macworld Expos.

Three years ago I was standing in line at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, with hundreds of other journalists waiting to cover Steve Jobs' inevitably thrilling keynote address to Macworld Expo throngs. You have to get up real early to get a good seat, and stand in line and wait. So I'm milling about and someone says, "Hey, nice shirt. What's the writing say?"

I'm like, "Thanks. I have no idea."

This friend of mine David looks at it and says, "Those fish look like penises. I bet it says something like, 'White man wears the penis-fish shirt.'"

We all laughed about it and went to talking about something else. But there hasn't been a single time I've worn the shirt since then that I haven't thought, "White man wears the penis-fish shirt."

So tonight I'm picking up some dinner at Tiki Hawaii, the Chinese restaurant up the street from the house. I'm wearing the penis-fish shirt. As he's ringing in my order, the guy says, "Hey, I like your shirt. You buy that in Chinatown? That's Chinese."

"You can read this? This actually says something?"

In truth, I'd always suspected it was just random characters or words thrown together, sort of like the Japlish t-shirts that kids in Japan have worn in the past.

"Yeah. It say 'Six six root.'"

I stared at him for a moment. What he said didn't quite parse.

"You know, route. Like, road," he said.

"Route 66. It says Route 66."

"You know, Chinese is a language with multiple layers and meanings sometime. Things don't always mean what the say. It's like French."

But I'd comprehended the meaning. I bought the shirt at K-Mart. Route 66 is a K-Mart house brand. It's on the label inside of the shirt. In English.

Posted by flargh at 08:54 PM | Permalink

Wears surgical gloves. Given the whole anthrax thing that happened and other such events, I can't blame her. But it really creeps me out that THAT is the world we live in.

Posted by flargh at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

And just like that, it's warm and springy again on olde Cape Cod.

My experience living on the Cape is that it's usually the last spot in Massachusetts to warm up after the winter is over. I expect it has something to do with the weather patterns, since we're farther east and more out to sea than anywhere else in the state.

The last few days -- since Saturday, basically -- have been glorious. Sunny, for the most part, and with the exception of some wind and clouds, positively balmy temperatures -- 50s to 70s every day. The kids have been making the most of it, especially since they're on their April vacation. The plants have noticed the change, too -- our daffodils are up and blooming, other shoots have pushed through the mulch, and trees everywhere are starting to bud.

I've been trying to make the most of it, too. While I've been stuck indoors working, that hasn't stopped me from opening up the windows and enjoying the breezes as the waft through the house and stir up the winter's dust and must. It's been really nice.

Posted by flargh at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

hazy city hydrosphere

alabamian coot baptist began

applicable football ballast myopic mohr

freshen forbes shifty partition

signboard acculturate dock conduit frazier

It'd be pretty, except it's the title of a spam I just got.

Someone should set it to music.

Posted by flargh at 05:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tang is one of those memories of childhood that I never thought I'd inflict upon my own children but have -- and the ironic thing is that it's been through the same infection vector.

In case you've been living in a cave for the past 47 years and have no idea what I'm talking about, Tang is that powder that reconstitutes to a sweet, tangy orange drink that's supposed to be a rich source of vitamin C. The astronauts drank it back in the day when we still had a space program that didn't rely on robotic golf carts, or at least that's what we were told.

Growing up in my grandmother's house, it was a staple of my young diet. I'm not quite sure how Grandma got hooked on it, but she drinks it to this day and offers it to my kids when we go over to her house for meals, which is fine by me -- it's moderately healthier than belting back soda, and my kids have an aversion to real orange juice. Grandma gets it from my aunt and uncle, who buy it in 50 gallon drums from the local warehouse store -- or at least that's what the giant canisters look like at first glance.

In typical fashion, my grandmother rations it out scientifically. She stores the big gallon-sized containers in the entrance to the basement off of her kitchen, along with other dry goods that don't need to take up precious cabinet space. She's salvaged an old instant coffee container and worked the label off in the sink, and that container is used to store a moderate amount of Tang in the kitchen, so she doesn't have to go back and forth to the big can each time she uses up her supply in the fridge.

Tang at Grandma's house is served in a curious glass quart-sized container with a white plastic screw-top lid that I'm quite positive is older than I am. It's the same container that was used to serve my Tang to me as a youth. Looking back on it at 34, I feel this sense of veneration when I see it, almost as if it's a family tradition for children to be served Tang in this container. I'll miss it when it's gone.

Tang was served at Easter dinner -- and it apparently goes well with ham and lamb because it was quickly consumed by my brood. So my kids begged me for Tang when I went to the grocery store last week, and I obliged. Things have changed since I was a kid: Instead of a big can, Tang is now sold in small plastic containers with screw-top lids that have one- and two-quart measuring marks on their inner lips. You get six quarts of beverage out of a single container now. Not very much when three thirsty children can easily polish off two quarts in a day.

Maybe the next time we take a run to the warehouse store I'll get one of the fifty-gallon drums of Tang. I'll just have to remember to save a Folger's jar so I can keep the Tang in the cabinet next to the fridge.

Posted by flargh at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So as you can tell, I haven't been posting here much. It's mostly because I've been so busy with other stuff that I just haven't had enough time to do it, and it's also partly because I've just been getting really burned out with typical "real world" responsibilities that I haven't been able to come up with much that doesn't sound like pointless bitching and moaning.

Mid-April means that the kids are home from school for a week. Ideally, I'd love to take the week off and spend it with them, but I can't do that this year since my boss flew to Vegas to cover the NAB 2004 show -- a major event for our industry -- and then will be off to SF for a week following that. A two week business trip doesn't sound like any fun for me, so I don't envy him. But it does leave me to keep the home-fires burning on the Web site until he returns.

Almost as soon as he gets back, however, I'll be out the door. E3 Expo is coming up, and it's one of the annual events that I live for. That means a week in Los Angeles in mid-May.

What all this adds up to is a busy month, some of it sitting in front of my computer and some of it running around a trade show. Either way, I'm hoping to file some vacation time in there and just relax for a little bit -- I haven't taken any time off in a while outside of holidays, so it's time.

Posted by flargh at 11:18 AM | Permalink

Holy shit, it's back and it doesn't suck this week.

1. What do you do for a living?

Short answer: I'm a writer.

2. What do you like most about your job?

There are almost too many things to count here. If I had to distill it down to one thing, thought, it's that I get to do what I love (writing) in an industry I really love (the Mac).

3. What do you like least about your job?

Because we're a daily news site, there's *constant* pressure to make sure we're on top of our game. It's no different than it is at any other newsroom, I suppose, but the grind does get to you after a while -- the big advantage of this gig is that we can do it from our own home offices and telecommute, which makes a big difference. I suspect I'd like this job less if I was stuck in a cube-farm.

We have a really small staff, so that pace is relentless and it requires an obsessive personality to stay on top of everything. Even when I'm not at work, I'm usually thinking about work -- what I did wrong, what I could have done better, what I can do tomorrow or next week.

4. When you have a bad day at work it's usually because _____...

Typically one of two reasons: I've let things get out of control because of my patently inadequate organizational skills, or someone's written something very unkind or very negative that I take personally even though it is, 99 times out of 100, not directed at me specifically. I shouldn't let either thing get under my skin, but sometimes they do, and I'm inevitably ashamed about it after the fact.

5. What other career(s) are you interested in?

Bacon tester. Coffee taster. Parachute tester. Baghdad traffic cop. Taffy puller. Rodeo clown. Cetacean orthodontist. Human cannonball.

Seriously, every plausible career alternative I come up with gives me a headache to think about after I consider all the possible complications or drudgeries associated with it.

So I figure whatever I do, it has to involve writing somehow, because it's about the only thing I've ever done as a career that I actually look forward to doing when I wake up every morning. Most people *don't* feel that way about their jobs, so I consider myself blessed.

Posted by flargh at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Because the streetsweepers -- those big yellow things that look like Zambonis with circular brushes underneath -- are cruising the neighborhood. Picking up road sand and other detritus.

Now if we could just get someone from the DPW to figure out what's wrong with that storm drain at the top of the street. Every time it rains heavily you need Moses to part the waters for you to get down the street without feeling like you're going to drown.

Posted by flargh at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Just when you think that the government couldn't possibly screw up this Iraq situation any worse, this happens.

Posted by flargh at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Holy crap. Anyone else with a .Mac account noticing an unusual amount of spam lately? I've gotten probably a hundred or two in the past three days.

Posted by flargh at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I'm not much for soda. Too sweet, and the diet stuff is okay, but I won't go out of my way to drink it.

Beer gives me gas.

No, my real recreational beverage of choice is iced tea. Fresh brewed iced tea. With a slice of lemon. And maybe some mint.

Somebody stop me. I'm out of control!

Posted by flargh at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Judge declares Tyco mistrial

"'Juror No. 4 was a lawyer, and the problem with having lawyers on juries is they bring into that jury room with them three years of legal training. And one of the things that legal training does to you is it basically beats common sense out of you,' he [Frank Razzano, a former federal prosecutor] said."

So. What's the rest of the world's excuse?

Posted by flargh at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)