Whoa, but I owe you guys a lot, don’t I? Sorry. I’ve been distracted, and in the final analysis, hey: It’s summer. When someone asks me if I’d like to spend an evening drinking on a patio and listening to music, I’m not going to say, sorry, gotta blog. We’ve had a pretty excellent summer so far, and this is one where I’m keenly aware of its brevity.
But before I go any further, let me just say how grateful I am that you guys are willing to carry the freight when I’m off seeing “World War Z.” It helps.
So, speaking of which — “World War Z,” that is. I liked it! Maybe my expectations were too low, but I thought it was far better than the weak two stars most critics gave it. The opening scenes of the initial zombie attacks were fucking terrifying, impossible to watch without thinking of any other disaster that could get people running through the streets and looting grocery stores. The later stuff, in which Brad Pitt wanders the world in search of zombie patient zero, weren’t as good, but they were good enough. And may I just say? I appreciated the PG-13. I’m tired of watching limbs being lopped off with squirting arteries. I’m just as happy to have them lopped off out of the frame. I understand that lopping was done; I do not need a surgical tutorial.
All the way home from the theater, I snapped my jaws, zombie-style. Everyone else in the car got a little tired of it.
As for Hooters? It was fun. The waitresses were all adorable, very early-’60s Playmate wholesome. Lotsa smiles and friendliness to man and woman, child and adult, alike. Kate — in the middle of looking for her first paying job — said, “Should I work here?”
Alan said, “I don’t think they’re looking for Daria.” Although personally, I think that would be hilarious — a Daria Hooters waitress. (Link added for you non-MTV fans.)
As for the food? Eh. The unanimous verdict: “This is not the best chicken sandwich I’ve had in my life, but far from the worst.”
So. In addition to all the other crap going on this week, I was in Ann Arbor for a meeting Thursday morning, stepped into the ladies’, went to sit and heard a heart-clutching plunk — yep, after years of laughing at people whose phones land in the toilet, it finally happened to me. It slipped out of the back pocket of my pants. No, I don’t have a waterproof case. Yes, I’ve been meaning to get one. Yes, I immediately spun around and snatched it out — thank god I hadn’t peed yet. The prognosis is still iffy, but it’s looking good. A day in a bag of rice seems to have worked its magic, although all through the meeting, Siri was drunk on toilet water. It kept flashing her message screen, and saying things like, “Nancy, I’m sorry but I can’t find that location in Africa. Should I search again?” or “Nancy, there is no Wide Avenue in Ann Arbor.” Very distracting. But I think she’s sobered up. Cross all fingers.
So, some bloggage? Yep.
Remember Tom Nardone, who runs the Mower Gang, which everyone and his brother, including me, has written about? Now the full truth is revealed: How Tom actually makes his living when he isn’t mowing parks. HE SELLS SEX TOYS. ON THE INTERNET The walk through his warehouse was one of the highlights of that assignment; it reminded me that very early on in my residency here I almost answered an ad to write catalog copy for him, but the money was too low. Everyone who tours PriveCo is offered a gift from the clearance shelf, but I couldn’t accept, and besides, who wants a purple plastic dildo with a rheostat dial on the bottom? There’s a reason it’s on the clearance shelf.
I wonder what Anthony Bourdain was offered.
My entertainment came from watching the pickers in the warehouse, filling mail orders. There’s just something about watching a 300-pound man (named Tiny) plucking penis-shaped chip-and-dip trays off a shelf to mail to a bachelorette party in some distant state. It makes you happy you went into journalism.
Also, this: Stacy Keibler has the best stems in the world. I’d kill for legs like hers. How does she do it?
Have a great weekend, all.
Joe K said on July 26, 2013 at 3:15 am
Guess when you fly all night you get to be commenter #1
Nothing to say but still cool
Pilot Joe
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Brandon said on July 26, 2013 at 4:16 am
Often I’m the first commenter because Nancy usually posts around midnight, which is six or seven p.m. Hawaii time (depending on whether it’s daylight savings time).
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ROGirl said on July 26, 2013 at 6:54 am
Stacy Kiebler may have good legs, but she has a really long neck and a small head that make for a strange “celebrity” appearance. What does she do, anyway? I mean, apart from having been one of George Clooney’s honeys.
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Dave said on July 26, 2013 at 7:02 am
Nancy, you’ve written a zillion words here over the years and somehow, you keep adding to the total. I’d think most of the folks who keep coming back have no objection to you taking time out for World War Z.
I was first commenter once, Joe, and I thought, gee, am I really qualified to be the “first” commenter.
I have to ask, what or who is Daria? Must be a reference to something I know nothing about.
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Connie said on July 26, 2013 at 7:05 am
Stacy Keibler was a professional wrestler. Really.
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alex said on July 26, 2013 at 7:22 am
Wondered that myself, Dave. Daria’s a cartoon character. Let’s just say she’s not a kittenish flirt with big tits and tats.
In reading the piece on Tom Nardone, I remember my old friends who used to produce Libido magazine, who used to worry that they might be thought of as the porno parents as their little enterprise was run largely from the kitchen table and they were always getting comped with sex toys and sex books that were piled all over the house. Not to worry. Their son (hers, really) turned out to be the poster child for perfection. He went from the Lab School in Hyde Park to USC and he’s doubtless a whole lot less hung up about sex than most people.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 26, 2013 at 7:22 am
What interesting to me about zombies and Lucas’ clones & droids is that we’ve come far enough to know that we can’t take unalloyed pleasure in watching hordes mowed down anymore of Nazis, let alone any particular ethnic group, so we need a category that’s okay to enjoy watching go down in mass quantities, because we haven’t come so far as to not need that visceral thrill. Or so it seems. (Unless you’re Quentin Tarantino, in which case you play with our need to humanize even enemies with today’s consciousness, and our still bloody enjoyment of watching some deserving schmucks get theirs.)
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alex said on July 26, 2013 at 7:50 am
An article on the cities with the worst drivers and Detroit doesn’t even rate a single mention. How can this be? Poor city can’t get respect even when it deserves it.
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basset said on July 26, 2013 at 8:49 am
Well, Baltimore’s the only one of the top five I’ve personally been to and it didn’t seem that bad… I have to agree with Houston, though, and New Orleans oughta be right up there too.
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Connie said on July 26, 2013 at 8:54 am
I wondered who Daria was as well. AThen I went to nbcnews.com and there was a headline about a trailer featuring Daria, so I found it. Coincidence.
I must brag about the amazing corn chowder my daughter made for us yesterday. She went to the farmer’s market for the corn, picked that morning. That chowder was definitely sweet corn soup. She also left out the hot sauce just for her tender mouthed mother.
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2013 at 8:56 am
Although to be fair, any of the big cities will have lots of clueless tourists (like me!) motoring around and through them in the summertime…and not for nothing, but some places have oddball traffic patterns and or traditions.
I remember tooling westward on I-70, toward St Louis, and there was a split coming. There was a major-league fork in the road; the highway split and went off into the distance either way, and there was a big green and white interstate sign which said “70 WEST” with arrows going right, and left.
After hours of navigating and going westward, I had about 7 seconds to process that, and then decide which way I wanted to go – after which I’d be going one way or the other by default… didn’t like that!
And don’t get me started on the Michigan left turn.
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Connie said on July 26, 2013 at 9:01 am
Daria reminds me…. My library pages have named all of our book carts, and placed photos of the namee on each one. I had to look a few of the names up, the ones I didn’t know were cartoon characters from TV. I did know Daphne, Hook and others. And I noticed the other day that the Elwood book cart is now sporting the correct hat.
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Connie said on July 26, 2013 at 9:04 am
So Brian, what I remember about driving in San Diego was the u-turn lane that was the inside lane before the left turn lane.
Michigan turns are a pain but they work.
A few years ago a roundabout was built in front of the entrance/exit at the South Bend airport. Three of the four options were labelled Michigan St.
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Connie said on July 26, 2013 at 9:12 am
And another thing. Deborah was wondering about how to get computer streamed shows on your own TV. Google has just announced the Google Chrome dongle. ( I love that word. I have since I first heard it in the mid 80s.) Anyway you plug the dongle into the hdmi port on your TV and it wirelessly receives and plays your streaming video.
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2013 at 9:23 am
Connie – don’t recall the U-turn lane; downtown SD was always a hive of activity, with all the throngs of Comics-Con folks (many of whom were costumed*) in the daytime, and the clubbing folks/partiers in the evening. Lots of construction going on, too – which constricted things.
One thing I liked was that they have lots of downtown 4-way stops, instead of redlights. SLows everything down to manageable speed – for gawkers like me!
One thing that SD-area highways do (and which I was prepared for, as many big metro areas do this) is have two-lane exits instead of one….so that if I was going 75 mph down I-8, I stayed the hell out of the right-most two lanes, and was wary of the left-most lane – because otherwise – WEEEEE – you’re on the 5 and blasting the wrong direction!
Having a navigator in the passenger seat, with a charged up I-phone and some savvy, was indispensable to me. (If I was alone and had a Garmin that I was trying to read while hurtling down the freeway, I’d have flown off of one of those 60′ high over-passes)
*I was a little taken aback by some of the Comics-con costumes. Lots of Star Wars troopers, carrying long weapons down the street. Given the green-haired guy in the Colorado movie theater, this had to be giving the cops indigestion
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2013 at 10:01 am
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11980303/1/5-most-sinful-cities-in-america.html
Here’s a bonbon I tripped upon – America’s 10 most sinful cities, based on a statistical analysis of the Seven Deadly Sins as defined by the One True. I’ll only spoil this much; #5 is Milwaukee, #4 is Pittsburgh, and #3 is Minneapolis (“sloth is big in the Mini Apple”, they say!)
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Connie said on July 26, 2013 at 10:23 am
The Google chrome cast dongle will cost $35. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422228,00.asp
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MichaelG said on July 26, 2013 at 10:40 am
I had no idea who Stacy Kiebler was. I had to look her up:
“Stacy Ann-Marie Keibler (born October 14, 1979) is an American actress, model, and retired professional wrestler and valet”
Quite the resume. We share a birthday (not the year).
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coozledad said on July 26, 2013 at 10:44 am
I always liked the movies where they killed loads of Nazis. Still do.
The Russian films like “liberation” are pretty good for the panoramic Nazi killing.
I think what’s missing from the genre is the movie where Hugh Thompson gives the order to fire on Charlie Company and turn them into a smoking heap of offal. Counterfactual, I know, but I’d pay to see it.
Warrant Officer One Hugh Thompson, Jr., a helicopter pilot from an aero-scout team, saw a large number of dead and dying civilians as he began flying over the village—all of them infants, children, women, and old men, with no signs of draft-age men or weapons anywhere. Thompson and his crew witnessed an unarmed passive woman being kicked and shot at point-blank range by Captain Medina (Medina later claimed that he thought she had a grenade).[16] The crew made several attempts to radio for help for the wounded. They landed their helicopter by a ditch, which they noted was full of bodies and in which there was movement. Thompson asked a sergeant he encountered there (David Mitchell of the 1st Platoon) if he could help get the people out of the ditch, and the sergeant replied that he would “help them out of their misery”. Thompson, shocked and confused, then spoke with Second Lieutenant Calley, who claimed to be “just following orders”. As the helicopter took off, they saw Mitchell firing into the ditch.
Thompson then saw a group of civilians (again consisting of children, women and old men) at a bunker being approached by ground personnel. Thompson landed and told his crew that if the soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire at these soldiers. Thompson later testified that he spoke with a lieutenant (identified as Stephen Brooks of the 2nd Platoon) and told him there were women and children in the bunker, and asked if the lieutenant would help get them out. According to Thompson, “he [the lieutenant] said the only way to get them out was with a hand grenade”. Thompson testified that he then told Brooks to “just hold your men right where they are, and I’ll get the kids out”. He found 12–16 people in the bunker, coaxed them out and led them to the helicopter, standing with them while they were flown out in two groups.
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4dbirds said on July 26, 2013 at 11:02 am
Nancy, you don’t owe us anything but I for one do appreciate and enjoy your posts. Max Brooks, the son of Mel Brooks and Ann Bancroft is the author of World War Z, the book. I recommend it. Not what you think and not really the movie. It was a good read.
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Heather said on July 26, 2013 at 11:08 am
I liked Daria but hardly ever got to see it as I’ve never had cable. I did see it on Italian TV sometimes when I lived there though. Let me just say that Daria is not a character that translates well in Italian. It’s hard to sound dour in such a beautiful language.
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Jim said on July 26, 2013 at 11:09 am
Speaking of Daria, I ssaw this yesterday and thought “I would actually see this movie”:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6904493/daria-movie-trailer-with-aubrey-plaza
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alex said on July 26, 2013 at 11:57 am
Dongle + Berry = Dongle for Blackberry: Dongleberry. Don’t tell Ken Cuccinelli, though; he’ll try to have you arrested.
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paddyo' said on July 26, 2013 at 12:09 pm
. . . although all through the meeting, Siri was drunk on toilet water.
Can the thread winner be from the original post. Damn, nice! Damn nice.
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2013 at 12:17 pm
Well Alex – give the cooch this much credit: his “sodomy” law would have me in prison just as quickly as you!
Aside from that, there’s this:
http://www.chem.info/news/2013/07/us-halliburton-agrees-plead-guilty-spill?et_cid=3389570&et_rid=44004269&location=top#.UfKe243VBe8
which is darkly humorous.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Halliburton Energy Services has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence in connection with the 2010 Gulf oil spill, the Department of Justice said Thursday.
and
The company said in a statement Thursday night that it had agreed to plead guilty “to one misdemeanor violation associated with the deletion of records created after the Macondo well incident, to pay the statutory maximum fine of $200,000 and to accept a term of three years probation.”
and
In December 2011, BP asked a judge to sanction Halliburton for its handling of cement testing and Displace 3D modeling results. Halliburton claimed that its modeling results were “gone” and couldn’t be found, an explanation that BP attorneys said was “at a minimum, highly suspicious.”
“Purposefully destroying evidence because it is deemed to contain potentially unfavorable information that could benefit a litigation adversary is, by definition, ‘bad faith’ conduct,” they wrote in a court filing.
See, the shitheads would never, ever have been called to account, except that an even bigger bunch of shitheads (BP) clobbered them in court
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Dave said on July 26, 2013 at 12:33 pm
Tampa, the entire Tampa Bay area, from Thanksgiving until the spring, is a dangerous place to drive. It’s full of retirees, like us, and not all of them should be on the road. Getting old myself, I still think that it shouldn’t be so simple to keep a license. My father, although he was practically on his deathbed, was mad at us because he couldn’t go out and drive a little bit. It’s tough.
Most folks think they’re wonderful drivers and I’ll leave that statement hanging.
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Basset said on July 26, 2013 at 12:39 pm
Some more of what Cooz has been telling us, just from a different perspective:
http://citiwire.net/columns/north-carolinas-political-u-turn/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dispatch
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Charlotte said on July 26, 2013 at 12:44 pm
I have both the AppleTV and the Roku streaming boxes — and I much prefer the Roku one. It was about 85 bucks I think, plugs into the HDMI port on the TV, picks up your wifi and you’re off. Netflix streaming is a cinch, HuluPlus, and we get MLB.com so we can watch Red Sox games and pick up the NESN feed. I’d get rid of regular TV altogether if it wasn’t for sports … and the streaming TV shows and movies completely spoils you for discs. I got rid of the Netflix disc service altogether.
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2013 at 1:48 pm
Basset, thanks for the link to the informative article.
Here in Fort Wayne, there was a push on for a suburban, privately-owned water/sewer system, but in last year’s drought, our municipal system repeatedly rode to their rescue.
Consequently, the city went to work taking them over altogether – and although this might be like those Friday the 13th movies where the ridiculous bad guy always gets up again, it looks like the good guys are winning.
But, we’ll see
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LAMary said on July 26, 2013 at 2:12 pm
383 on the Slate news quiz in 1 minute and 22 seconds. Also generated my sexting pseudonym, and it’s Esteban Scourge.
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2013 at 2:17 pm
Well, Ms Scourge, you gotta give us the Slate quiz link, yes?
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Brandon said on July 26, 2013 at 2:47 pm
Continuing yesterday’s discussion about whether artworks from the DIA should be sold:
http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/5760/from_the_epicenter_of_the_art_world_a_critic_says_detroit_should_sell_its_artworks
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Scout said on July 26, 2013 at 3:07 pm
Nancy owes us absolutely nothing, and yet what she does deliver on a regular basis awes me. Maybe it’s because I don’t find writing as easy as many of you here, I admire the almost any level of output from others no matter how spotty. I just love, now that the lounge is established, how easy it is for all of us to congregate whether Nancy is boozing it up on the deck or not.
Thanks to statewide monsoon activity, we decided to bail on our camping trip this weekend. I’m bummed but the spouse and I are trying to come up with some fun activities to ease the disappointment. Going to see The Way, Way Back tonight. Tomorrow we’re planning on happy hour and a flamenco show. Not quite the great outdoors fun we had planned, but camping in the mud during thunderstorms wasn’t it either.
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2013 at 3:08 pm
I cannot help but view the potential piece-meal destruction of the DIA as a literal extension of the scrapping scourge that Nancy expounds upon on her Bridge piece….
and that’s even leaving aside that lots of the art specifically cannot be sold, by agreement when it was donated.
It’s a breaking of faith
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nancy said on July 26, 2013 at 3:08 pm
What I find most appalling about the DIA discussion is the utter ignorance so many commenters display about the issue. Worst of all was the trolling by what’s-her-face Postrel, who actually said the art would be better-appreciated in more sophisticated cities AND that it would all end up in museums. IT WILL NOT GO TO MUSEUMS. The museums don’t have the money for it. Maybe a few canvases here and there, but this would be a transfer of public art to private hands. I eagerly await the fate of “Detroit Industry,” the Rivera murals. I guess they could be jackhammered out somehow and reinstalled in the home of some Google tycoon, or maybe a Russian oligarch’s dacha. What an ironic joke that would be.
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Brandon said on July 26, 2013 at 3:19 pm
One more article.
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Art-collection-assessed-as-Detroit-nears-bankruptcy/30144
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2013 at 3:38 pm
I bow to you, Ms Scourge; I got 8 out of 12 answers correct in 1 minutes 14 seconds – for 317 points on the blasted Slate news quiz.
(I tripped over several that I shouldn’t have. for example – Schindler’s List cost me! It must be getting late)
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Kirk said on July 26, 2013 at 3:45 pm
373 in 1:36
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LAMary said on July 26, 2013 at 3:53 pm
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_slate_quiz/2013/07/the_slate_quiz_with_quizmaster_ken_jennings_play_the_news_quiz_for_the_week_1.html
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Deborah said on July 26, 2013 at 3:53 pm
The possible sale of the DIA collection would be a crying shame. I’ve never been there but have admired many of the works from afar, like the Diego Rivera mural. If they get to stay, I will make a point of going there to see those masterworks.
I almost dropped my iPhone in a toilet at a restaurant, it hit the seat and bounced onto the floor, thank goodness. I dropped my sunglasses in a toilet once, left them there. And another time dropped a tube of lipstick in a toilet, definitely left it there. That was in a restroom at LaGuardia, I had to buy another tube at a shop at the airport because I was on a business trip.
Today I finally found a pair of walking shoes that I like and are super comfy, to replace the ones I got 2 years ago that I think I’ve walked over 4,000 miles in. They are a brand called Ecco, and they were on sale. My old ones were Ecco too. I know this isn’t exciting to anyone but I have been looking for months to find something and it feels so good to have done it.
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brian stouder said on July 26, 2013 at 4:02 pm
That was in a restroom at LaGuardia, I had to buy another tube at a shop at the airport because I was on a business trip.
Deborah – you just answered something that puzzled me last week at the airport*.
A woman ahead of us in the security line was making a point of carrying on 6 or 8 metal lipstick tubes. I was pondering why she didn’t pitch that into her checked bags, and your comment seems to answer that.
*pull my finger, and I’ll tell you about our one big mis-step; missed the connecting flight out of O’Hare on our trip west, a mistake that caused ripples in our travel for the remainder of the excursion
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Peter said on July 26, 2013 at 4:22 pm
462 in 1:18. Yeah baby!!!
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Deborah said on July 26, 2013 at 4:34 pm
I can’t imagine carrying 6 or 8 tubes of lipstick with me, I only carry one at a time. I use lipstick more like chapstick. I wear a very natural color, not a bright red or pink. I use it to keep my lips from getting dried out, which feels awful.
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coozledad said on July 26, 2013 at 4:44 pm
Reminds me of another group of anarcho-capitalists taking the friezes off the Parthenon, and christening them the Elgin Marbles. Rich people think shitting money on something replaces the role of the artist, and that shat money is sufficient to usurp authorial function.
The Koch brothers, in their wilderness of randomly collected items, are more likely to point to a canvas and say “Mine!” than they are to say Modilgliani! or Renard!.
This is why the forger occupies a useful place in art. It would be worthwhile for a group of them to begin flooding the market with forgeries of Detroit’s collection (or forgeries of forgeries in Detroit’s collection) to confuse the culturally illiterate who want a Breughel or Grünewald to hang in their fuck basement.
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Deborah said on July 26, 2013 at 4:46 pm
I’m headed back to Santa Fe on Sunday, where I’ll be until I go to my Beaver Brook, NY class (late Aug/early Sept), then back to NM until mid October because Little Bird and I are going to a family reunion on my side of the family in early Oct. I mailed a package to Santa Fe of stuff I can’t fit in my carry-on, some small stuff I got from Ikea etc. The package cost over $20 to mail (!), the cheapest way possible, no hurry, snail mail, and there was a line a mile long at the Post Office. Geez, prices have gone up and the fewest people working behind the counter (one). Times have changed. The poor postal worker complained to me the whole time she waited on me that no one had showed up to relieve her so she could take a lunch break. She didn’t want to close down and leave a bunch of people in line who had been waiting for a long time. I felt bad for her.
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Deborah said on July 26, 2013 at 5:05 pm
I forgot to mention earlier that I was walking north on Michigan Ave on Weds night when I saw Ira Glass of This American Life come out of a building and speed walk ahead of me. I tried to catch up with him to tell him how much I love his show but he was way too fast for me.
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David C. said on July 26, 2013 at 5:39 pm
New $444 million hockey arena is still a go in Detroit
http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/26/news/economy/detroit-bankruptcy-arena/index.html
The Joe isn’t the most up to date arena, but most every game is sold out. That makes it hard to justify in my eye. The new arena has fewer seats, so in terms of economic development, that seems even harder to justify. I suppose it means more luxury boxes, so more of the “right” people may show up. But after the revolution comes and they go up against the wall, they won’t be able to see very well anyway.
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Brandon said on July 26, 2013 at 6:12 pm
For the benefit of latecomers, James Howard Kunstler’s blog post, “Requiem for Detroit.”
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LAMary said on July 26, 2013 at 6:39 pm
Did you know Ira Glass is Phillip Glass’cousin?
Also, Deborah, have you tried Clinique Chubby Sticks? They’re like sheer lipstick and chapstick at the same time and they come in good non-obnoxious colors.
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basset said on July 26, 2013 at 8:57 pm
315 in 41 seconds for me. Would have gotten the “all of the above” if I’d been in less of a hurry.
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Deborah said on July 26, 2013 at 10:05 pm
Yes LA Mary I did know that Phillip and Ira are cousins, first cousins once removed. I use a Clinique lipstick color called Tender Heart, have for years. I’m too old to change unless they discontinue it.
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alex said on July 26, 2013 at 11:37 pm
I once attended a party where Ira Glass was one of the guests. Everyone was trying to make him come out of the closet but he wouldn’t take the bait.
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Brandon said on July 27, 2013 at 12:02 am
I once attended a party where Ira Glass was one of the guests. Everyone was trying to make him come out of the closet but he wouldn’t take the bait.
Literally or figuratively?
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alex said on July 27, 2013 at 8:27 am
Everyone was sure he was gay. He just had that je ne sais quoi, that gaydar-tripping queerness that made the whole thing feel almost like one of those SNL skits. Remember Pat? Remember Lyle the Effeminate Heterosexual? It was like that.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on July 27, 2013 at 10:46 am
257 in 58 seconds. I clearly didn’t watch much news this week. Should have guessed urine just on general principle. And missed the Russia non-answer, duh, Jeff.
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ROGirl said on July 27, 2013 at 11:33 am
Alex, I had a job where on the first day of training for a group of about 30 people I sat near a man who had a gay aura. When everyone had to introduce themselves, and he said he had a wife and kids, I was surprised and thought his wife could have been his husband/partner/whatever. He talked about his wife a lot, but nothing deterred me or anyone else from thinking that he was gay (other people confirmed my impression of him). Eventually, he produced a picture of his wife and kids. She was a woman, and the kids looked like him. I never found out what was going on with him or whether his wife knew.
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Suzanne said on July 27, 2013 at 11:36 am
I won’t tell my score, just be assured it was bad. I should learn to read the whole question and ALL the answers.
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Dexter said on July 27, 2013 at 1:07 pm
I saw a docu about the man who is the chief engineer at Fenway Park in Boston, venerable home of the Red Sox, and the object of a long-term several hundred million dollar renovation. The guy said he has been there for decades but never seen a game; the ballpark is his concern, keeping it going . The biggest toilet cloggers? Right. “Burner” cell phones. Yep, people throw them down the john and flush away. Why not throw them into the trash? I figured that the toilet water ruins them, erases all the info…right?
I have driven cars in most US major cities, LA to NYC, Minneapolis to Tampa, and all the cities in between, and there are no worst city drivers. It is, instead, a percentage thing.
A cop told me about driving on Route 19 in Florida, “…we have old people in big cars, we have families in vans, we have doctors and lawyers in fast sports cars, and we have kids driving at age 15 in all sorts of vehicles, and that is why we see crackups at every traffic light…it’s the mix.”
Never challenge other drivers for anything, just slow down and let them join another traffic pattern ahead of you. Be courteous, don’t do crazy lane changes, and you will be alright. Hopefully.
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LAMary said on July 27, 2013 at 1:48 pm
I know it doesn’t prove he’s straight, but Lynda Barry, the cartoonist, was his girlfriend for a while. He’s married now and yes, I absolutely know that doesn’t mean he’s straight.
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Deborah said on July 27, 2013 at 3:11 pm
I think Ira Glass was married to someone else before, only I can’t find anything about it on-line. I’m probably wrong, as I usually am about such things.
I can say for sure that he is a FAST walker, and I’m proud with of a pretty fast walker myself. I’m always zigging and zagging on Michigan Ave, trying to get around strollers. He’s a pro. I know he lives in NYC now where the show is produced, which doesn’t seem fair since it’s a Chicago show by WBEZ. I LOVE the show, I listen to the archives when I’m out on long (fast) walks. I often cry while I’m walking and listening. Recently they had their 500th show and asked people associated with it to tell their favorites. They replayed one segment about some girls in juvenile detention who sing “I’m Sorry” to their mothers and grandmothers, it is a tearjerker every single time I hear it. There are so many good stories, and I love that it’s only audio, you can use your imagination so much more. They did have a (short lived) TV show, which wasn’t bad, I’ve watched it on my computer through iTunes. It’s just so much better as a radio production.
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Deborah said on July 27, 2013 at 3:14 pm
Oops, should be “I’m proud of being a pretty fast walker myself”. And by getting around “strollers” I don’t mean the kind with wheels, I mean people who meander SLOWLY down the street, when I’m in a hurry for no particular reason.
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Kirk said on July 27, 2013 at 3:31 pm
Deborah, I, too, tend to charge around at a pretty good clip even when I’m not in a hurry, and I get exasperated at people milling around and getting in my way. Probably speaks to some sort of character defect of mine, but that’s the way it is.
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alex said on July 27, 2013 at 5:50 pm
You can always spot the tourists by their slow gait. I understand that’s how the pickpockets and people selling fake cocaine identify them before moving in for the kill.
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Deborah said on July 27, 2013 at 6:07 pm
We’re going to a free concert tonight at Millennium Park, we went Weds evening too, trying to go as often as possible while I’m here. I love these concerts even when there are noisy people around who couldn’t give a hoot about the music. Watching night fall in the city is spectacular. What a great city this is. Kinda cool though, the high today wasn’t supposed to get beyond 67 and the low tonight is to be 53. Love it.
The slow tourists will be out in force for sure.
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LAMary said on July 27, 2013 at 6:31 pm
I think I read somewhere that the pedestrians in LA are the slowest in the country. I will attest to that. It drives me crazy. The advent of texting did not help.
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Sherri said on July 27, 2013 at 6:39 pm
Smartphones are worse than texting for clogging up sidewalks. When I was in Ashland, my hotel was about a half mile walk from the theaters, so I did a lot of walking. I don’t know how many times I almost ran over somebody who had pulled out their smartphone and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to look something up.
Speaking of Ira Glass, his boss Torey Malatia resigned from WBEZ on Friday.
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Brandon said on July 27, 2013 at 8:47 pm
Nancy, have you seen this?
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-25/detroit-is-dead-dot-long-live-oakland-county#r=hp-sf
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Brandon said on July 27, 2013 at 9:00 pm
Officer John Pike, infamous for pepper-spraying students at U.C. Davis during an Occupy protest is now seeking worker’s compensation and disability.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/john-pike-workers-comp-pepper-spray_n_3658316.html
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Deborah said on July 27, 2013 at 9:05 pm
I had not heard that about Malatia, a funny thing about Malatia, on the 500th show he spoke at the end in his own voice instead of the schtick where they play something from the show as him. It was cute. I hope this doesn’t effect the quality of the show.
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brian stouder said on July 27, 2013 at 9:36 pm
L Brooks Patterson comes across as little better than a vandal
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Connie said on July 27, 2013 at 10:40 pm
I live in Oakland County Brian, and I kind of agree with you. My husband’s negative feelings about Brooks has to do with his (Brooks’) outspoken support for the death penalty.
He was badly hurt in a car accident last August, long hospitalization, months away from work, and now in a wheelchair. He had a broken hip, leg, ankle, five ribs and both wrists. He was not wearing a seat belt. There were those who thought he should have dropped out of the November election, as he didn’t know even then when he would back to work.
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Dexter said on July 28, 2013 at 1:46 am
I once heard L. Brooks Patterson on a phoner with WJR radio’s Paul W. Smith. Paul W. asked him if he was coming to a big Tigers’ game. Patterson said he would never cross Eight Mile because he didn’t want to get shot or get involved “in the guerrilla war in Detroit”. What an asshat!
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alex said on July 28, 2013 at 10:30 am
I remember a feature article many years ago that absolutely savaged Torey Malatia and I tried to google it up, instead coming across this interesting back story about the backstabbing incident out of which was born “This American Life.” An even better read, in light of the above discussion.
I still maintain that women are always throwing themselves at Ira Glass to see whether he is in fact gay.
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Dave said on July 28, 2013 at 10:57 am
We were in an accident on Route 19, Dexter, in Palm Harbor, FL, about eight years ago, it totaled the rental Ford Taurus we were driving, rear-ended by a inattentive driver. Shoved us into the pickup in front of us. I looked up the record of the woman who hit us recently, she was driving without a valid license when she hit us. In the years since, she’s added significantly to her very ugly record.
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brian stouder said on July 28, 2013 at 12:09 pm
Alex, that was a great story.
I can take Public radio for about 45 minutes per month, depending on how long and boring the road trip I’m on is
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Dexter said on July 28, 2013 at 12:25 pm
Dave…that’s where we stayed, in a motel in Palm Harbor. On one trip down towards Clearwater , we saw accidents at four straight traffic lights! I wonder if that’s a Florida record, but I bet it’s not. The Phillies’ spring training games were at the stadium with the best name ever: Jack Russel Stadium.
http://www.tampabay.com/resources/images/dti/rendered/2011/11/clw_jackrussell1126_200862a_8col.jpg
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Dave said on July 28, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Palm Harbor is where we go, Dexter, where my mother-in-law lived for better than thirty years. I’ve never been to Jack Russell Stadium but the Toronto Blue Jays train nearby in Dunedin, the next town south of Palm Harbor. I have read recently that they may be leaving Dunedin.
Did you go to Lenny’s, famous locally for their breakfasts, Phillies themes, and generous Danish baskets?
19 is a adventure, we usually try to avoid it. We know several alternative routes but we’ve been going there for, well, since before 1978.
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Crazycatlady said on July 28, 2013 at 4:56 pm
My ‘big boned’ friends and I wanted to open a restaurant staffed with fat women and call it ‘Booty’s’ for dudes who like big butts and cannot lie. And I would go to Hooters if Daria worked there! Kate would get quite an education on how to deal with The Public. Yes, most are nice normal people, but the jerks teach you the most about how to handle yourself with grace. LOL!
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brian stouder said on July 28, 2013 at 7:13 pm
Crazycat – let me just say, I clicked Nancy’s link to see the photos of Stacy Kiebler, and while I agree she’s pretty enough, I wouldn’t call her uncommonly good-looking (pardon the Keebler pun), even as I won’t argue with those who would turn their heads to keep looking at her, as she passes them on the sidewalk.
The woman who grab hold of my attention and keep it tend to have curves and shape, rather then stems and bones….but whatever, yes?
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Dorothy said on July 28, 2013 at 8:57 pm
Yay for fast walkers like us, Deborah and Kirk. Although I haven’t walked fast since my knee job 23 days ago. But i aum to become one again soon!
And I carry 4 or 5 lipsticks in a little zippered bag because sometimes the outfit I am wearing clashes with my favorite lip color. I’m an Avon fan and I have a bad track record for falling for a shade and then BOOM, it’s discontinued. Hence my needing some backups in my purse.
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Deborah said on July 28, 2013 at 9:33 pm
I’m back in Santa Fe. Had an unpleasant experience when I arrived at the Albuqurque Airport. There’s a train that runs between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, it’s really a good deal. Normally you take a bus from the airport to the downtown Albuquerque train station but it turns out the bus to the train doesn’t run on Sundays, so I had to take a cab to the train station. Not that big of a deal, but when I got to the station I had about an hour and a half to kill before the train to Santa Fe. There was a young woman sprawled out on the platform, on her back, who kept horking and spitting, then she was on her cell phone with someone just sobbing her eyes out, extremely loudly. Even noisy kids around stopped and stared at her. It was weird. Finally the train came and she was in a different car than me, thank goodness.
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