Cruisin' in New England

Things I learned during my recent 7-day cruise through New England:

- People in Newport are very proud of the wealth accumulated by some of their residents. 80% of a bus tour we took focused on mansions overlooking the ocean.

- A sure sign you've attained a certain level of success/wealth in life is when your house has its own name such as "Rolling Meadows" or "Eagle's Nest." With that in mind I've decided to name my condo. The leading candidates so far are "Leaking Roof" and "Chateau de Mosquito."

- In olden days pirates inhabited the waters around Boston but many of them were mute. This is because they had a tendency to drop their aaaarghs.

- Paul Revere lived in a tiny house that still stands today. He also had something like 16 or 18 children. It's not in the history books but I'm betting he decided to participate in the Revolution mostly just to get out of the house.

- The trolley tours in Boston are kind of pricey but well worth it, especially if you get a bald driver named Benny.

- In Bar Harbor, lobster rolls aren't nearly as fancy as you'd think. Basically a quarter pound of lobster on a hot dog bun or, if you're lucky enough to get one where I did, on a slice of Wonder bread.

- You can travel all around Bar Harbor for as little as $5 thanks to their island bus system. Some drivers will even provide interesting facts along the way.

- Initially you'd think there's not much in St. John, New Brunswick other than the highest tide in the world (which actually reverses the flow of the St. John River every 6 hours). However, it's also home to some damn tasty microbrews and an excellent pub about two blocks from the harbor where a bartender named David will treat you like family and convince you that St. John is a pretty good place to live - even in the winter.

- Halifax may have more bars and pubs per square foot than any place in Canada or even North America for that matter. One should limit one's consumption of alcohol in St. John if one really wants to enjoy these establishments. Not that I would know - I'm just guessing.

- Princess Cruises doesn't think of passengers as guests as much as a captive market to push product upon. A certain ship photographer should be thanking his lucky stars he didn't get his lights punched out during one disembarkation - and that goes for the guy/girl in the giant lobster suit too.

- Seven days aboard a ship with some 2,000 New Yorkers is more than enough for a lifetime. A more rude, inconsiderate, whiny bunch would be hard to find - and all with accents that make Southerners sound Shakespearean by comparison.

- Much like looking out an airplane window, I could stare at the ocean for hours and hours without tiring of the view.

- You can't beat some quality time with family. :)

Deja View

I do not have cable.

(Insert disappointment, disbelief, snide remarks here.)

It's not that I dislike cable or that I spout a type of cultural superiority when I point this out. It's simply that cable costs more than I'm willing to pay. Sure, there are negatives - according to many the finest writing on the planet currently can be found on cable. Just recently I discovered the brilliance that is, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and I've yet to see other acclaimed shows such as "True Blood", "Weeds", "Breaking Bad" and more.

As anyone that's been even ten feet from a TV over the last year knows, recently the industry completed a digital transition which - for those of us without cable and with an older set -required the purchase of a converter box. Either technology has taken a giant leap backwards or the cable industry was behind the design of these little, plastic demons. Reception is spotty, inconsistent, crappy - and if you want to watch something during a storm you might as well give it up and find a nice book to read. I imagine quite a few people have caved in and signed up for cable as a result, or tossed their sets out the friggin' window.

That said, I have found one huge benefit of the transition and the box - Channel 38.3.

Channel 38.3 is a little slice of broadcasting heaven called IZ Videos. IZ Videos is simply this: music videos from the 1980's played back to back, almost non-stop, without titles, artist names or information of any kind. Every so often a voice identifies the station, it's Mexican accent so thick it sounds like Count Chocula. "Yooo are watching I...Z...Veee-deee-os; vee-dee-os from Fee-nix, Ar-eee-zon-a." Every time I hear it I wait for the Count's cartoonish chuckle to follow but sadly it does not.

Every once in a while one of two commercials airs - either for an auto dealership in south Phoenix or for a loan company targeting people that probably shouldn't be given loans. The voice used in each sounds suspiciously Count-like as well and the content/production value is really something that must be seen to be believed.

There are two points to this post - the first being if you haven't checked out Channel 38.3 yet and you have access you really should. If you are a child of the 80's or just a fan of that era's music videos you will not be disappointed. I guarantee a warm, fuzzy feeling of nostalgia. Just the other night I found myself sitting on my living room floor, eating peanut butter and jelly on Ritz crackers, watching Bow Wow Wow's, "I Want Candy" and oogling the Mohawk-sporting lead singer's miniskirt...just as I was doing 25 years ago. This brings me to point number 2 - that I seem to have matured/progressed/advanced not one friggin' bit since the 80's. In fact, I've actually regressed a bit. Back then I had cable.

Rush to Judgement

So the Dems are now trying to make the Republican Party synonymous with Rush Limbaugh. Of course, the colossal gas bag doesn’t represent that party any more than Michael Moore represents the Dems, but I must say I find it all very funny. Rush, trying so hard to get past the illegal drug conviction and become relevant, may finally get what he desires - but to such an extent that it damages his party.

Oh sweet irony.

Random Thoughts for January 8, 2009

• The Democrats reversal on their decision to seat Roland Burris in Congress has reaffirmed my decision to never register as anything other than Independent. Thank you very much.
  
• We are all just pawns in Big Oil’s sick game. Here we are, in the middle of winter – traditionally when fuel prices are at their highest – and gas prices are less than one-half what they were just three months ago. So much for the whole supply and demand argument. They raise prices, people start buying more fuel-efficient cars. So they drop prices and people, short-sighted as they are, start buying gas-guzzling SUVs again – ensuring more consumption. The cycle repeats. And repeats. And repeats. Price fixing, price gouging, call it what you will but we’re all Big Oil’s bitches, helping them attain record-setting profits every year.
  
• I wonder if there are any bipolar polar bears. Or bisexual, bipolar polar bears. That would really be something.

New Big 3 Auto Advertisement

Photoshop. So much bad but the occassional good makes up for it.

It's beginning to look a lot like Lex-mas!

In a season full of rampant consumerism and television advertisements designed to keep it that way, one annual campaign always makes me laugh. The setting changes each year but always ends the same way – in a driveway with one happy person giving his/her spouse a brand-new Lexus with giant, red bow on top.



Every year I see these ads and wonder…

Who are these people?

Successful, established corporations like Lexus/Toyota don’t produce and run ads unless there is a proven target audience. As this message has been repeated by Lexus for a number of years one can assume that there are people out there, a bunch of people in fact, that can and do drop seventy grand on a single Christmas gift. I just don’t know any of them. I’d like to. In fact, I’d like to know them well enough that I had a place on their shopping list.

Sure it would be awkward at first:

“Here ya go Rob, it’s a new Lexus LS.”
“Wow! You shouldn’t have! This is great! Oh, and this gift certificate to Cracker Barrel is for you. They have really good pie! Merry Christmas!”

(Luckily, nothing masks or completely alleviates guilt like the quality, luxury and superior customer satisfaction promised by the Lexus web site.)

Let’s say you have the means and the desire to get someone a luxury automobile for Christmas. How do you maintain that level of gift-giving? You’ve set the bar kind of high. What could you possibly get next year that wouldn’t be a let-down, besides another, more expensive car? And even then you risk having your creativity and thoughtfulness questioned. “Another car. Great. I haven’t even got the new-car smell out of the old one yet. I guess you were too busy to put any thought into a gift this year… jackass.”

Another possible pitfall would be the whole Christmas-religion connection. A $70,000 present may not do much to impress the traditionalists out there - those still clinging to the outdated concept that Christmas isn’t really about the gifts. These are the cheapskates that prefer family togetherness or helping those less fortunate. If you’re thinking of buying them a luxury car I might suggest adding a complimentary item in an effort to sway them – like a WWJD bracelet, telling them that it really stands for, “what would Jesus drive?”

When I see these commercials I also can’t help but wonder who makes those giant, red bows. Is it a bow company making many different sizes, or a company that just specializes in giant versions of all sorts of products? If anyone out there knows please share.

Happy Holidays.

Buckets

Our company recently reorganized. According to our CEO and senior staff a lot of us were placed in different "buckets".

So not only do I work in a little, fabric-covered box, but a little, fabric-covered box within a bucket.

It simply can't get much better than this.