June 2005
August 18, 2005
Last Meal
I had a depressing dinner. A friend and I went to a new chain Italian restaurant in Durham called Johnny Carino's. It is next to P.F. Chang's which is busy around the clock. The parking lot at Johnny's was near empty. When we got inside it was slow. The atmosphere was like a tinny reproduced 70s' Italian restaurant. The menu was so uninspired. I ordered the safest bet which was the lasagna and a salad. The salad came full of iceberg lettuce with two hot-house tomato halves and a plop of dressing in the center. It was up to me to toss the salad myself. Bad tomatoes in summer are a sin. These were the same crappy tomatoes they use all year round. During the salad my waitress came back to tell me the kitchen was out of lasagna... at 6:15 with over half the tables empty and no one else I can see eating lasagna. "They make only so much and when it's gone, it's gone," she explained. They couldn't even plan for a small crowd. She asked if I wanted the three cheese ravioli instead since that's the closet thing. I asked to see the menu again and settled on the four cheese mannicotti. One more cheese! When it came it was so hot I had to sit back in my chair. You'd have thought it was London broil or something but the pale color of the cheese on top told me what produced it - a microwave. When I tasted the sauce it had all a freshness of the canned tomato paste it came out of. Then came the questions. "How is everything?" I could handle the waitress. "Fine." She can handle that. Then a guy in a too-tight double breasted suit came around acting all manager like. "Did we fill you up tonight?" I nodded. What the hell am I supposed to say? "I find your entire approach to food and dining, outdated, packaged and wrong." The place will be closed in six months. The only comforting thing about the experience was that it wasn't busy. If people were lining up for this crap I would have been totally depressed.
August 11, 2005
Controversial Topic!
My vote for the most overused word of 2005 is "controversial". If one person objects to something it is controversial. Let me correct that. If one conservative person objects... Mainstream, backwards-thinking, superstitious notions are never labeled controversial. So a few fringe elements might object to them. We live in a democracy and the majority rules. We have to protect the children. Creationism, oops, I mean, Intelligent Design isn't controversial. It's an equally valid explanation that should be taught side by side other views of the origins of life.The word is also used when someone wants to sell something or draw attention to increase viewership. "Next on E!, the controversial story they didn't want you to see. You'll be shocked when you see it." The only people who would be shocked are the people who shouldn't be watching E! anyways because E! only shows programs that shock their sensibilities.
August 10, 2005
Gimme Some Skin
Last night PBS aired the National Geographic show. The topic was skin and delved into everything from sweat to tattoos, touch to wrinkles. They even showed people walking around in nothing but skin. Naked. Well, actually they didn't show it. That would be too much for out sensitive eyes. They blurred out every buttock and bosom. What if children were watching?!! Let me see if I got this right. In 1954 when one in three households in America received National Geographic magazine it was okay to show naked people (as long as they were primitive tribe people or depicted in European art) but fifty years later it is a moral outrage. And who are the people objecting to seeing the naked body? Conservative christianists? Why would they be watching a show about the search to find out how human skin evolved the way it did? Would that not be a greater objection of theirs?To those people who would be so offend by the sight of naked human skin in a scientific program about skin I say that I am offended by your childish Puritanism. To those who censored the show with blurry dots I say I am offended by your gutless cowardice.
August 01, 2005
Moving
I'll be moving this site to a new host over the next month. The server where I am currently squatting is old and on death row. So like in some Japanese horror thriller I will be transplanting the brain and memories of my blog into a younger and more vital host. At present I am not planning any changes to my site design but I suspect that the move may necessitate certain revisions which may kick off a fury of other changes. My summer vacation is planned about a month from now so I hope to be up and running in my new digital digs by then.Vacation this year is to California. I’ve never been to San Francisco and will kick off my travels there. I’ll spend a few days roaming around, seeing the sites, visiting spots made famous in books and by people who write books, eating and drinking and having a good time. Maybe I’ll see a Giants game. Eventually I’ll meet up with my friend Chad and head down to Los Angeles for a few days. Really looking forward to some time off.The last of the summer garden corn is gone. Three days of sweet goodness. Yesterday my friend Ray and I put up some pickled cucumbers and green tomatoes. We also smoke some pork ribs which were amazingly good. Summer is about half over it seems and I have yet to go to the beach.