Journals : 2006 : April
1 April 2006 | Link this
No wonder Grups like today’s indie music: It sounds exactly like the indie music of their youth. Which, as it happens, is what kids today like, too, which is why today’s new music all sounds like it’s twenty years old. And thus the culture grinds to a halt, in a screech of guitar feedback.
I think I have a headcahe...
3 April 2006 | Link this
Happiness is a shiny, sparkling, clean Oldsmobile. I'm really looking forward to having my own driveway and my own hose. I'd forgotten just how nice it is to be able to wash the car properly.
5 April 2006 | Link this
Yer Humble Host, twenty-five years ago this week. I was mopping the floor at the now-departed McDonald's in Greensboro's Four Seasons Mall. I'm very happy that the words "McDonald's" and "mall" are pretty much no longer in my vocabulary, and that "mopping" is only a peripheral part, at best.
What the photo doesn't show is that I'm about too hit the little brat over the head with my mop handle for walking across my just-mopped floor. I'm also very happy that the words "hit the little brat over the head" are still very much a part of my vocabulary.
6 April 2006 | Link this
Aspartame apparently doesn't cause leukemia and lymphoma as some had previously suspected. That's a comforting thought as I chug down my Caffeine Free Diet Coke this morning. Really. It is.
Note that the link above is to the CBS News website, mainly because that's the first link I found to the story in question. It's ironic that today's journal entry was originally going to be about the utter irrelevance of the "big three" networks' evening news given the hoopla over Katie Couric's new job as anchor at CBS. But Tim Goodman at the SF Chronicle said it better than I ever could: "CBS just spent a lot of money to put an iPod in its Edsel." That pretty well covers it.
I have to go buy a new windshield and a new tire or two now. And maybe an iPod for my Edsel...
8 April 2006 | Link this
I have a commitment coming up which will require me to be somewhere every weekday for three and a half weeks. No, it's not a full-time job, alas. But I'm thinking of getting out of town for a few days next week while I still can.
I'm torn between the following:
- Cincinnati, with a stop in Knoxville.
- Nashville, with a stop in Knoxville.
- Norfolk, with a stop in Richmond.
- Jacksonville, with or without a stop.
Any
suggestions from those of you who are in touch with what I like to do on road trips? Note that I'm NOT looking for people to hang out with. In fact, I don't really want to have any plans of that sort at all. I'm just looking for some semi-informed opinions on which direction to turn when I get on the freeway.
By the way, if you're wondering why someplace like Cincinnati or Norfolk would be on the list to begin with, you probably don't quite "get" my road trips and you should probably spare me your feedback anyway. Thanks.
8 April 2006 Later | Link this
It ain't one of my best (outgrowths of message board postings seldom are), but I've already written the damned thing now, so I may as well post it:
9 April 2006 | Link this
Y'know, The Wall is a great album and all, but I really didn't need to be listening to it through the wall from an adjacent apartment at midnight last night. That's just a little too much of a Saturday night stoner cliché, isn't it? And did they have to skip around and only play the "hits"?
9 April 2006 Later | Link this
I like my car. Despite the bad shocks, disintegrating paint, and a few cranky moments during the past year (most of them, alas, while we were in the process of driving cross-county), it's been the most dependable car I've ever owned. And it's very happy when it has new tires and I take it on a little road trip like today's drive up to Winston-Salem.
My 1991 Corolla already had more than 50,000 miles on it when I bought it nine years ago, and I've upped that total to nearly 160,000 now. It survived eight years in The City of Doom. It's taken me cross-country in 1997, 1998, and 2005, from one end of California to the other (and everywhere in between) on numerous occasions, to Portland and Seattle and Vegas, and more. And it's only given me real trouble a few times: requiring a major tune-up in San Diego, a new muffler in Fresno, and a tiny rubber o-ring in the middle of Texas. Other than that, it's all been routine maintenance, tires, and brakes.
I'm not the sort who feels the need to express myself through my choice of vehicle. My penis is of average size, but it's large enough that I don't need a monster truck to make me feel better about it. I'm very materialistic, but that's more about "stuff" than about expensive cars. And while I like a nice, comfortable car, a hand-me-down Oldsmobile or Buick would be quite sufficient. And you couldn't pay me to drive an SUV, because they're ugly as shit and handle like tanks -- and use almost as much gas.
My car looks like hell, and the shocks are pretty much gone, as is the radio. I guess it's probably not realistic nor cost-effective to fix these things, but I can't help thinking it's got another five or ten years left in it all the same. Either way, I admit I'm going to be a little sad when its time finally comes; I've had the damned thing almost as long as I've had this website, and several years longer than I've had Mark, although I have to say I like him better.
10 April 2006 | Link this
I stopped. I looked all over. I just couldn't find anybody having one.
I hate misleading signage.
10 April 2006 Later | Link this
Is it wrong to reject a house just because it's on a street with a really stupid name? I just couldn't quite imagine telling people I lived on Billie Sue Drive.
10 April 2006 Even Later | Link this
I'm leaving in the morning and I still haven't decided exactly where I'm going. I'd sort of decided on Cincinnati and then I realized I'd miscalculated the time -- and found a glitch in Yahoo Maps -- and I realized I didn't really want to drive quite so far for a three-day trip.
But if you don't hear from me for a few days, it probably means I ended up somewhere.
14 April 2006 | Link this
Anybody have a guess where I disappeared to for the past three days?
More to come...
15 April 2006 | Link this
You're about to experience the hottest day of the year so far, with a high of 89. You're about to die from all the pollen. You're worn out from a long trip. Your betrothed, who is even more heat-sensitive than you, is coming home home tonight after being in a cooler climate for three weeks. The next event in this cycle is what?
Problems with the air conditioner, of course...
15 April 2006 Later | Link this
In case you're tappped out after paying your taxes, or looking for a way to spend your refund, Becky's having a sale.
I remember when I used to get refunds.
24 April 2006 | Link this
Sorry for the long absence. There's been a LOT of stuff going on for me lately, much of it positive. We'll talk soon.
And yes, I really am planning to post those Columbus road trip pictures eventually.
25 April 2006 | Link this
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006)
Today, some very good things are happening for me, which I'll talk about at some later point.
But I'm also very sad. Jane Jacobs, who was without question the past century's most important voice on urban planning and other issues died this morning in her adopted hometown of Toronto. It's difficult to express how much her ideas and writings have influenced the way I think about cities. And I think about cities a lot, so she was a pretty major figure in my world. Jane Jacobs was one of those few famous people on earth I would really like to have met and talked with at some point in my life. In fact, she was probably number one on that list.
This paragraph from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, originally composed in 1961 to describe the destruction wrought by the urban renewal programs of the previous decade, rings even truer today:
But look what we have built with the first several billions: Low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Middle-income housing projects which are truly marvels of dullness and regimentation, sealed against any buoyancy or vitality of city life. Luxury housing projects that mitigate their inanity, or try to, with a vapid vulgarity. Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums, who have fewer choices of loitering places than others. Commercial centers that are lack-luster imitations of standardized suburban chain-store shopping. Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the re-building of cities. This is the sacking of cities.
She was equally comfortable fighting leftist utopian and right-wing anti-urban foes. She stood up to Robert Moses and won, something no one had really attempted before. She wrote a book that should be -- and now, finally, is -- required reading for anyone entering the field of urban planning. She just "got it" in a way very few people ever have.
The world needs a Jane Jacobs in it as much (or more) today as it did forty years ago. She will be very much missed.
25 April 2006 Later | Link this
If you'd told me ten years ago that I'd be faxing a purchase contract today to buy a 3000 square foot ranch-style house in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with a boy from Fresno, I'd have told you that you were out of your mind.
I'd have been wrong.
We're home...
27 April 2006 | Link this
Random thoughts for a Thursday afternoon:
- Moron of the week: Timothy Dwayne Carter of Reidsville NC, who decided that he couldn't survive his trial on drug and domestic violence charges without carrying a dozen vials of crack into the courtroom with him.
- Anyone who really believes there will be no changes at the San Jose Mercury News under its new owners has obviously never spent the 45-50 seconds it takes to read the same owner's Oakland Tribune on the average day.
- There hasn't been a first-run episode of The Andy Griffith Show since 1968, but it's apparently still essential to the ongoing profitability of CBS. I'm not sure if that says more about the strength of Andy or the weakness of CBS.
29 April 2006 | Link this
Gosh darn it, y'know what we need? We need us a Constitutional amendment to protect The Star Spangled Banner. Yup. That's just what we need. Uh huh. That'd fix everything.
30 April 2006 | Link this
So I'm moving away from Charlotte again. I did it once before, in 1989, and once again in 1991, if you count that two-month temporary gig here as a period of residence, which I don't.
It's not like my flight from San Francisco. I've never left Charlotte because I hated it here. I like it, all in all. In fact, we had a real estate agent in both Charlotte and Winston-Salem until just a few weeks ago. It just always seems to end up making more sense to be someplace else. In 1989, it was because I was going back to school full-time in Greensboro. This time, it's because we've found a house and an environment we like in Winston-Salem, which also has the benefit of being both cheaper and closer to my family.
I'm not severing any emotional ties this time around. I don't really know many more people here than I did last June when we arrived, so I'm not particularly broken up about leaving. There are some things I'll miss, of course, but it's not like I'll be all that far away anyhow. I can be at Gus' Sir Beef or the Landmark in about 70-80 minutes, depending on the condition of I-85 through Salisbury.
Last year, we moved from Neilsen DMA #6 (SF) to #27 (Charlotte). And now we're off to Greensboro (#47) which falls right between Albuquerque (#46) and Las Vegas (#48). Stay tuned. It's May Sweeps. You never know what other surprises I might spring on you so I can compete successfully with the finale of "7th Heaven", and of The WB itself, for that matter...