WAGONWHEEL WEDNESDAYS: Massachusetts

Massachusetts is a bitch to spell, so I'm just gonna refer to it as M during this post. I've spent quite a lot of time in M, so I can make this post very long. I probably won't though. Sometimes I think I have a ton to say about a topic and then the whole thing caps out at around two paragraphs. Luckily that didn't happen on my GRE's, where I stunned everybody by getting a 6 out of 6 on the writing section. I'll accept your congratulatory prizes at anytime.

Now that I've adequately adopted the elite tone of a M liberal, let me begin. M is a large state with a few different distinct regions. I spent several summers in the Berkshire mountains at a little camp called Lenox. This is back when I loved to play sports. I still enjoy sports, as evident by my participation in a softball league. But by now I've accepted that I'm not the best athlete ever. I like my role as the X factor just fine: the guy that everyone doubts who can sometimes produce quite well. That's swell. Back then though I really wanted to be great. I had this idea that I was a fabulous hockey player. In fact, I was mediocre at best. Same went for basketball. It was always quite a shock to my system when I didn't get the respect I deserved on the court. I remember making the B team for this one tournament. I cried and cried because I thought I should make the A team. I cried so much so that they made me a starter on the B team. Of course they took me out after two minutes and didn't put me back in the whole game. By now, I've mostly gotten over the hurt.

This has nothing to do with M really. Just wanted to tell you a bit about my camp life. I could dedicate a whole entry to that miserable place. I had some good times for sure, but as I look back, it was mostly awful.... Now let's go on to the state itself. I've been to Boston many times because it was close to Providence (where I went to school) and before that because I had some friends and family in the area. Here's what I can say about Boston: beautiful city, mostly awful people. There are tons of colleges, so drunkards are everywhere. Plus, they had this massive infamous reconstruction project called "The Big Dig" where they rerouted a bunch of highways and bridges to make the city more friendly to pedestrians and drivers alike. Only problem is the thing took FOREVER to complete. In the process, the dig released rats everywhere. Plus Boston's a horribly racist, segregated place. And it's cold. Oh and I hate the Celtics. It does have some good record stores though.

Beyond Boston there's Springfield, MA, home of the NBA Hall-of-Fame. Also of note is Worcester, New England's third biggest city... Oh wait, now Wikipedia is telling me a recent census has it as New England's second biggest city, meaning it's now bigger than Providence... Damn. When I went to school, I was pretty proud of the fact that Providence was number two. Oh well. All I can remember about Worcester is that the local concert venue was hosting Insane Clown Posse the night I was there. Looked like they had a pretty huge turnout.

Other areas of note that I've been to include Fall River (home of ax-murderer Lizzie Borden), Amherst (home Amherst College and Umass) and the absolutely lovely island of Martha's Vineyard. MV is known as a rich person's playground. While that's certainly a fair assessment, it's also a pretty diverse place. It has a sizable Black population that goes back hundreds of years. It also has some of the best seafood on the planet. Oh the grilled swordfish caught fresh each day still makes me tingle all over. Plus, great biking, beautiful bluffs, a wonderful old time carousel complete with gold ring. It a fine fine island. I must return soon. My parents go all the time, but now that I'm on the other coast, it's not so easy to get there. One day soon I hope. Perhaps next summer even.

And there you have it. I guess this turned out to be pretty long after all. I've seen many parts of M as you can see (hmm maybe I should've said MA since that is a legitimate abbreviation). Overall, despite the harsh winters and lame Bostonites, I consider Massachusetts a Top 25 state. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Definitely not Top 10. Maybe Top 15. I'll let you know when Wagonwheel's done and I rank all the states. Until then, look at all the places I've been!

TOPICAL TUESDAYS: LOU DOBBS IS ON TV

Lou Dobbs looks like a very mean man.

I think I'd much rather have a drink with Bill O'Reilly than Dobbs. It's more than not agreeing with Lou's crusade against immigrants. That would be a fair gripe. But I'm more superficial than that. I don't like his face. I don't like the way he pretends to smile. He's never happy. Never. But he'll do a robotic laugh to try to show Wolf and Larry and the rest of the CNN gang that he can have fun too. But you know what? It's not convincing.

I first noticed Lou last year. Has he been around for awhile? Or did they just find him beating a Mexican to death and decide to put him on the air instead of in jail? Let me look it up... Oh wow, he's been at CNN since 1980. Why have I just noticed him now? Let's see... Moneyline. Yes, that's right, I remember that show. Was he such a damn pest then too?

Most people are shocked to learn that Lou Dobbs' wife is Mexican and that he has four half-Mexican kids with her. I want to sit down with the kids and ask them a thing or two. Has daddy ever hugged you? Has daddy ever dressed up as Santa? Has daddy ever done anything to suggest that he isn't just an uglier, angrier, nastier, more miserly Oscar the Grouch?

.. Oh he's smiling now. But smiling in a way that says "suck it, I know you want to suck it." How does his wife live with him? She must be a self-hater like Noam Chomsky.

Still don't know who Lou Dobbs is? Here's a good intro... So Lou, what do you really want to say there at the end?

THOUGHTFUL THURSDAYS: THE LETTER Q

How much do you know about the letter Q? Not much? Me neither.

I know it has a nearly monogamous relationship with U... but from time to time its eye will wander and you'll end up with a word like Qindarka. I know that there aren't tons of American names that begin with Q and that there are no states that begin with Q. But what are some of the more arcane mysteries of Q?

Wikipedia to the rescue... Here are some of the highlights:

*Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet... Well, you could've figured that out but I bet you didn't know off the top of your head

*Q was invented in 200 AD at the request of Noah's great-great-great-great-great grandson. Actually that's a complete and utter lie. Sorry.

*In Fijian, Q represents the pre-nasalized voiced velar plosive... Uh-huh.

*In Unicode the capital Q is codepoint U+0051 and the lower case q is U+0071.

Perhaps Q's greatest claim to fame is everyone's favorite game "Q&A." For those who haven't played, "Q&A" is a game with a single speaker on one team and a whole crowd of people on the other team. The crowd is responsible for the "Q" (which is said to stand for "Question) and the speaker is responsible for the "A" (answer). It's quite a match of wits, let me tell you.

Another place where the Q turns up is in the always helpful "FAQ" section of a website or publication. In this case the Q is frequently asked. You may wonder who does the frequent asking. No one actually. The author of the FAQ presumes the question's frequency most of the time. Having constructed many a FAQ in my day, I can say that the questions you put in the FAQ are mainly the ones you're sick of answering. Sometimes you're sick of them because people ask you three times a day, but other times perhaps only two or three people have ever asked you, yet the answer is just so damn annoying to recite again and again, that you put it up on the FAQ. Technically this is a MIQ (most infuriating question).

No more revelatory thoughts on Q at the moment. Next week we shall return with the letter X.

Wagonwheel Wednesdays: Maryland

Bah I say. Maryland is such a bah state. I spent a good year and a half working in Maryland in the DC suburb of Silver Spring. It's a perfectly fine place, similar to other Maryland DC suburbs like Bethesda. You've got lots of chain restaurants and little personality. There are a handful of delicious eateries that aren't franchises, such as Mrs. K's toll house (home of the best brunch in the country perhaps), but overall it's a fairly bland place.

Then there's Baltimore. All you need to know about Baltimore you can get from watching The Wire. Actually, not everything. The aquarium there is really wonderful. Probably the best I've been to. And the crab cakes. Oh shit, the crab cakes are absurdly delicious. You don't get that from The Wire. But the corruption, violence, and poverty that permeates much of this city of 600,000 is all detailed with artistic flare on HBO's sadly retired epic novel of a show. Although you may not believe it, not all of Baltimore is shady. There are a few nice blocks.

I used to think the inner harbor was a lovely romantic place. That is until my friend from Baltimore told me about the washed up cadavers they always find. Needless to say, you can imagine my outrage when someone once told me Philly looked like Baltimore. To be fair Philly has its grimy parts, but the proportions are far less the B'more. That's all gonna change though! Now that Michael Phelps has won 8 gold medals, The Baltimore Bullet is single handedly revitalizing the city with his spoils. What a champion.

What else has Maryland got to offer? I'll tell you what. The closest Waffle House to Philly! At 2AM, it takes about 45 minutes to get there. Not that bad when you have a craving for the most scrumptious utter crap ever made. I remember when I made my whole health-crazed family eat at Waffle House. They were miserable. My dad secretly liked it because he actually likes good food, my mom complained about the "greasiest grilled cheese" she ever had for hours and my sister refused to eat anything. Sigh. There are things worth eating other than multigrain bread!

You know what else is great about Maryland? Its shape. Certainly one of the most exciting shapes in state geometry. As you can probably infer from the more remote areas, Maryland has it's share of extremely country ass places. It's technically the South, which many people forget. Thus, there are still parts of Maryland (such as the little patch over the 18 mile Chesapeake bridge) where you can find your fair share of dirt roads and people you can't understand. HOW FUCKING ELITIST OF ME. I'm not saying the hillbillies aren't smart. I'm just saying some live off dirt roads and some are hard to understand when they speak. I don't see what's so elite about that...

... Fine, maybe it's a little elite.....

TOPICAL TUESDAYS: WHERE TO MOVE

The common line amongst people my age is that if McCain wins, we're moving. Interestingly enough, whereas 2004 saw a bunch of promises about "moving to Canada," this cycle has folks talking about more distant locales. I've heard Argentina, England, and Africa. But why are we forgetting Canada?

It has to be Sarah Palin. The problem with most of Canada is that it's damn frigid in the Winter. So it's no wonder that the comparatively temperate Vancouver emerged as the city where many disillusioned ex-pats wanted to migrate to. But now we're not so naive. Look at a map. What separates Palin's Alaska from the US mainland? British Columbia. Where's Vancouver? British Columbia. Combine Hawkish McCain with Miss Alaska and you better believe British Columbia will become American Columbia by the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. That's why I'm thinking more along the lines of England. Costa Rica's pretty nice too. There are tons of Americans there. Parts of Mexico too.

Am I serious about leaving this country? I don't know. Probably not. Then again if I honestly believe Obama lost because there are tons of racist Americans, I may have to lead a mass exodus. My main drawback would be my family. Their main drawback would be their friends. I somehow doubt I can convince all my parents' friends to move to another country, but perhaps it's worth a shot. Please understand, that I really love a lot about America. I love the national parks and delicious pizza and American football and on and on. But the possibility of 16 years of Palin... It's beyond a bad Disney movie as Matt Damon suggested. If the first 8 years of Bush was the equivalent of the worst movie ever made and the sequel to the worst movie ever made, then The McCain/Sarah Palin Story is Rocky V. Do you really want to live in Rocky V?

Here's the thing. Let's consider pain for a moment. If you have a really awful sore throat, you probably have a keen appreciation for agony, disease, everything bad. Just as if you eat a raw piece of chicken and get salmonella, you have an appreciation for your digestive system. You may say to yourself "I'll never eat raw chicken again. I don't care how delicious it is, I can't put myself in this position." But then once the Salmonella gets better, you're right back to eating raw chicken. See I can understand if the country elects a Democrat and then in 4 years forgets the pain of a Republican and votes a Republican back into office. But we haven't even had a chance to forget the pain and Republicans are already on the brink of 4 more years. Back to our chicken analogy, it's like if right in the middle of the lowest point of your vomiting and abdominal cramps, you decide to eat more raw chicken. It's like picking yourself up from hours of misery and taking a shot of vodka, e.coli and salmonella to ease your suffering. Not sure who's the vodka but McCain's the salmonella (the old disease) and e.coli is Palin (the new bacteria in this cocktail that Americans are VOLUNTARILY drinking)...

I'm beside myself. Have you ever heard a common English person try to do an American accent? Usually they sound like rednecks. Well if this country votes McCain/Palin, I think I'll have to adopt that accent so I can remind myself at all times that I live in the world's stupidest land.

MUSIC MONDAYS: HAS ALEX STOPPED WITH CDs?

This past week I purchased the new Calexico and Okkervil River albums. No big deal, right? Certainly not blog-worthy. Well not quite. After threatening to purchase new albums on vinyl only, I finally took my first step. Anyone who has ever listened to music with me knows I love old vinyl. I've even been known to buy new vinyl. But accepting the demise of the CD by NOT buying albums from iTunes, instead taking it back to the pre-cassette days, pre-8-track days and going exclusively vinyl? Now that's change I can believe in.

If you like your drums to sound like a three-year-old banging on pots and pans, then stick with digital files. But I like to hear the instruments damn it! Fortunately there are other people out there that realize that mp3s have this terrible tinny sound quality. So about two years ago, record labels started going for a best of both worlds approach. They began issuing new albums on vinyl that also included mp3 downloads. Now I can listen to my physical media at home and the mp3 at the gym. Only problem is that you can't hook an iPod up to my car. I have one of those on-the-cusp cars. They don't have a tape deck, so I can't use one of the tape/ipod adapters and they don't have an aux input either. It's a car in audio limbo.

Now I don't for one minute think that my CD buying has stopped. For starters, sometimes the vinyl version of the album doesn't come out for a few weeks. If it's an album I really want, I can't wait a couple weeks. Impatience is a vice, I know.

My only major gripe with vinyl is that it's extremely environmentally unfriendly. I usually don't drive during lunch though, so I figure my vinyl-induced carbon footprint is less a Bigfoot print and more of a chipmunk print. That's not so bad, right?

THOUGHTFUL THURSDAYS: PRESIDENTS' 'STACHES

I worked on a crossword puzzle today that had the clue "Last Mustached US President." The answer was of course "Taft." Pretty amazing that mustaches have grown so unpopular since then. Plenty of actors still wear the mustache or at least the mustache/beard combo. In the "upstanding citizen" sphere however, mustaches are frowned upon (pun intended). Even newscasters (Wolf Blitzer aside) are facially bald.

It seems entirely plausible in 2008 that we'll have a Black president before we'll have another mustached president.

Who can name the presidents who've had mustaches? Using my good pal Wikipedia, I've come up with this list:

WOW. Was Lincoln really the first president with facial hair!? How is that possible? Insane. Maybe some of the earlier guys shaved before these pictures. Damn. Martin Van Buren had some incredible sideburns. Does that count?

Let's continue with our list.

Ulysses S. Grant... Man, and boy did Grant ever usher in an age of facial hair! The next 6 Presidents had facial hair!!

19. Rutherford B. Hayes
20. James Garfield
21. Chester A. Arthur
22. Grover Cleveland
23. Benjamin Harrison
24. Grover Cleveland (Okay, he's technically the same man as president 22, but he's considered a different number president. Take it for what it's worth)

After that, we had just two more presidents with facial hair (Teddy Roosevelt and Taft).

Now let's play a little game. What if Bush had facial hair? Do you still think he would've been such a rooster fuckamo?