Due to some schedule adjusting, I will be filling in for Bob Townsend at next Thursday’s Muss and Turner’s beer tasting. You will be sampling (and I will be yammering about) 6 beers new to the Atlanta market. The list isn’t final, but I can tell you there will be beer(s) from Utah (pronounced UTAH!!!) that is/are the opposite of suck.

Date: Thursday, 5/22, in the year of our lord, 2k8
Time: 6:30ish - 8:00ish
Cost: $15.00 (includes a 10% discount on dinner if you stay and eat)

There are a limited number of seats and they tend to fill up quick [pats self on back], so call 770-434-1114 or email reservations@mussandturners.com to get your name on the list.

“Oh, your Austin connection is leaving from C17 in in C Terminal. You have to take the inter-terminal shuttle to get there. Walk down to the end of this terminal until you get to gate A2. That’s where the shuttle is.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Sigh. I know where the shuttle is. It’s right there under the blinking sign that says, “This is the part where you have an hour-plus layover, yet you still have to hustle to make your connection.” I’ve written before about what an unmitigated infrastructure embarrassment Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) is, so I’ll spare you most (but not all) of my personal vitriol. It’s like an unindustrialized country’s “My First Airport.” Did you read that horrible story last week about the DC-9 in Congo that failed to takeoff and smashed into the crowded market at the end of the runway? That’s what the Houston airport is like, instead of innocent Africans being caught in the angry path of industrial deterioration, it’s big fat fucking fatasses from Texas getting caught, I don’t know, being fat and stupid in the path of me being cosmopolitan and judgmental.* Insert “Houston, we have a problem,” joke of your liking here. I’ll wait.

I approached the end of the terminal and encountered a large woman on a stool reading a newspaper. It was a typical gate, but all signs indicated this gate was set aside, out of the limitless kindness of Continental Airlines’ hearts, specifically to whisk travelers like me from one terminal to another. I would prefer an airport that was designed by people who design airports like people who are not idiots, but, you know, thanks, Continental.

“Is this the shuttle that goes to Terminal C?”

Looking up from her classifieds, “Yyyyyyyep.”

I stepped toward the jetway door. Let me rephrase. LIKE AN IDIOT, I stepped toward the jetway door. The resulting admonishment was administered in an incredulous tone not often heard outside the DMV. I swear this is a direct quote.

“Whoa there! No no no! You can’t walk down that jetway! In fact, you couldn’t even open that door if you wanted to.”

I could not walk down that jetway. I could not even open that door. Even if I were to have wanted to have. Thankfully, my expectations were already appropriately low. I took a deep breath.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“You’re supposed to wait over there until another bus gets here.”

“Oh, okay, thank you.”

I took my place over with the other three idiots who had dared try to transfer from terminal A to terminal C. We waited. A fellow idiot appeared on the horizon doing the Tight Connection Shuffle with a roll-aboard and a laptop bag. The other idiots and I said, “This ought to be good,” to each other with our eyeballs. It was good. The jetway door, which she had opened, was slammed closed in his face and she demanded to know just where he thought he was going. He needed to get to terminal C. Well, he can just wait for the shuttle with everyone else. You didn’t have to slam the door in my face. As he joined us, we all nodded sympathetically, eyes closed, teeth clenched.

—————————————————————————–

“Is your connection to Atlanta on Continental or Delta?”

“Delta.”

“Oh, you are flying out of terminal A. You have to take our inter-terminal shu-”

“Yeah yeah yeah. Thanks.”

Sigh. Sigh. SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH SIGH.

Despite the fact that I had booked the entire itinerary on Continental (via my corporate travel portal), this IAH-ATL leg, like the ATL-IAH leg the day before, was being operated by Delta. Never mind my primary gripe about not earning points on other airlines with names other than Delta, this multi-carrier shit is just confusing. I can’t imagine a family who doesn’t travel very much on vacation with their kids trying to navigate this cluster. Why couldn’t I have just booked the flight through Delta? Oh, that’s right, because that would have cost $1200. I want to fly Delta because it’s where I’m comfortable and it’s where I earn points. And because they are based in my home city, I want Delta to succeed, yet here I am on a Delta-owned-and-operated jet and my money went into Continental’s pocket. HEY, SOMEONE SIGN ME UP FOR THAT MBA PROGRAM!!

Back on the shuttle [note to self: come up with word that captures phrase Business Traveler’s Short Bus, over], I met a man in an oddly similar situation as myself. He got on the bus and told the driver he was headed to Atlanta. He took the seat next to mine and said, “You know, even with a long layover, you kind of have to hustle around here don’t you?” I imagined this must be what it feels like to make a breakthrough with a therapist. Many emotions flooded forth, but they came out as the phrase, “This is the worst airport I’ve ever experienced.” He agreed, though I could tell he wasn’t the type to join in on venting through vilification so I let it go. We talked a bit. He is from somewhere near Madison, GA. He was quite a bit older than I, but we were pretty much the same; Powder blue shirt, black slacks, black dress shoes, small combo roll-aboard bag, both heading home from one day in Austin.

We chatted as we walked toward the gate. His cell phone rang and he stopped to dig it out. We were being friendly, but we were still very much traveling strangers, so I kept walking. A few seconds later, I heard, “Hey.” Then again, “Hey.” I turned and it was him about a hundred yards back, waving me back toward him. I walked back and he motioned toward the Continental Presidents Club. “We’ve got about 40 minutes until we board. I could get you in here as a guest if you want relax for a bit.” Absofreakinlutelythankyouverymuch. Once inside, he said, “Make yourself at home,” and wandered off. So, for the next half hour, with my feet up, I sipped free bourbon while catching up on email via free wi-fi. I wanted to board early because the flight was on a small regional jet and carry-on space is a super premium, so I left a little early and thanked him on the way out. Never got his name.

When I arrived at the gate, I was dismayed to see that boarding had already started. My seat, I presumed, would be something along the lines of a middle seat in the back over which everyone on the plane would have to climb to reach the bathroom. When I handed my boarding pass to the gate agent, I expected her to laugh, slap me across the face, and shout, “GET ON THE PLANE, MAGGOT!” This explains my surprise and disbelief when the boarding pass scanner beeped the most magical and succulent of all beeps. “Here’s your new boarding card, Mr. Simon. Seat 1D.” There aren’t enough double-us in the entire English language to convey the AWWWWWWW YEAH that I felt.

I sank into my seat, sipped another bourbon, and played All Songs Considered: A Band to Call Your Own II. The first song that came on was Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.

* I’m really glad the worst places I have to fly through are places like Texas and not sub-Saharan Africa.

I’ve stopped doing a monthly search string post because there haven’t been enough good new ones the past several months to justify a quality post each month. And come one, people, I am all about the quality. That said, I was just poking around in the stats files and some of these made me chuckle. My mother taught me to share:

I’ve tried my hand at suburban farming in the past. As with virtually every aspect of my life, I am really good at getting it started and exceptionally shitty at following it through to the end. Why, just last summer, I started a (rather late) container garden at the end of the driveway with some tomatoes, peppers, and herbs. Most of the plants grew enthusiastically, and I watered them almost daily. Then, at some magical point which I can never, ever see coming, I simply lost interest. I got some good tomatoes out of the deal, which became a couple of great batches of salsa, but I didn’t really know what to do with the rest, so I just left it there. There were a couple banana peppers and a handful of cayennes, and I just ignored them to rot on the stem. Quick, someone tag this post with “therapy” so I can point to it when I’m on the couch at some point in the future.

Despite having not read The Omnivore’s Dilema, nor In Defense of Food, nor Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I very much like the idea of producing myself some of the food I eat. It is because of this notion that I have thrown my lack of focus to the wind and started another container garden. I actually got quite an early start this year. So early in fact that I played it safe and started the garden indoors to avoid the risk of late frost (like the 29°F day we had last April that wreaked so much havoc).

I couldn’t put the young plants in any old window because our goonish cats would march right over and chomp away until I came roaring around the corner with the hose and the vacuum. So, I positioned the little buds in a bin to catch drainage and put the whole thing in the window of my office whose door I could keep closed. Here’s a picture right before I brought them down to the driveway and put them in larger pots.

And here we are in our permanent homes. Go to this picture’s flickr page to see what is in each container:

The April frost from last year that I alluded to earlier tried its best to obliterate our fig tree. The fig tree survived, but barely, and like a severely handicapped war veteran with acute PTSD, the tree has been trying to finish itself off ever since. The frost only got a few of the leaves, but it killed most of the roots. A few weeks after the frost, I found the fig tree lying on it’s side like it had just given up. Not on my watch, mister. I grabbed some twine and fashioned a stake out of scrap lumber. Minutes later, he was again vertical. The next day I found him lying on the other side. DON’T YOU DIE ON ME!! I banged out two more stakes and quickly assembled a tri-pod-style support system like I should have done the first time. The tree has remained supported ever since. It kicked out two good rounds of fruit last year, and it is ready to kick out THE JAMS this year. This is one branch:

And there are a dozen or so just like it. I hit it with 2 gallons of dilluted root stimulator and reset the support system. I’m expecting near total recovery. If I can stay interested long enough to keep it watered. You bring the gorgonzola and prosciutto.

Atlanta / Miami 4-piece, Torche released a new album called Meanderthal yesterday. Gchatting with Thomas a little bit ago, I used the description “Melodic, stoner prog.” I feel that’s pretty accurate, but I would also add the words “anthem” and “rumbling” in there somewhere if I could. I’m still on some PR email lists from the magazine days and one piece of press I received used the phrase “bomb-string stoner pop/thunder rock/doom pop classic,” which reads more like search engine optimization than music PR, but it’s also all accurate. If you fancy yourself the kind of person who is into stuff that rules, you should check out Meanderthal.

You can stream all of Meanderthal here. Their MySpace is here (if you’re into that sort of thing).

Torche is playing at Lenny’s on Monday, May 26th with Stinking Lizaveta and The Sword (which is a superb band name).

Well over a year ago I described Starbucks coffee as “Kingsford soaked in hot pee.” It’s not some sort of revelation. Virtually every homo sapiens I know thinks Starbucks coffee is on the licking-the-campfire side of the flavor spectrum. Well, it appears someone very high up at Starbucks marketing reads my blog (or, you know, has identified a tipping point in customer sentiment) because this press release from yesterday announces they’re going to do something about it, starting today.

I came across the press release via this post at Serious Eats, which I only skimmed because Serious Eats updates no less than eleven and a half thousand times a day. I didn’t read the press release at the time either because press releases are dumb. Basically, I saw the Starbucks logo, read that they are going to experiment with not over-roasting their beans, thought, “It’s about time,” and moved along with my morning.

My building, like all office buildings in America, has a Starbucks in it. As I was fleeing the building for lunch, I was accosted by a woman on the street in a Starbucks uniform holding a tray of small coffee cups.

“WOULDYOULIKEAFREESMALLCUPOFCOFFEE?!?!”
“IT’SOURNEWPIKESPLACEBLEND!!”
“WEJUSTRELEASEDITTHISMORNING!!”

If I hadn’t taken one of her cups of coffee, she would have committed seppuku right in front of me, so I obliged. I was actually pleasantly surprised. They managed to take the edge off without losing that deep, dark-roasted character that seems to be unique to Starbucks. I don’t happen to care for that signature flavor, but a lot of people love it and it makes for strong brand recognition, so I understand why they retained it. Acidity is low, and the dominant flavor I got was nuttiness, almost buttery. I doubt the triple-caramel, half-caf, soy latte set will care much, but this is a step in the right direction for black coffee drinkers. If anything they may have toned it down a little too much, but I will be a little less dis-inclined to drink black coffee from Starbucks now.

UPDATE: Initial reactions to the Pike’s Place blend are up at Serious Eats.

Before I address the title of this post, I would like to convey, as I’m sure I have in the past, one of life’s greatest pleasures. Quite simply, I cannot help but smile when my ass hits the toilet seat in the work bathroom only to discover that the seat is icy cold. I’m not sure exactly why I enjoy this so much, but I imagine it has something to do with the idea that no one else’s ass has touched that seat in months. Decades, even. Conversely, a toilet seat that emits any warmth whatsoever is one of life’s greatest bummers.

As I have also conveyed in the past (and my lovely wife can confirm), the regularity of my constitution is remarkably consistent. Astoundingly consistent. Thanks to my colon, I don’t even wear a watch anymore. This Olympic regularity is only coincidentally related to this story, but it is directly responsible for placing me at the scene of the incident I am about to describe.

Now then.

There are three stalls in the bathroom on my floor at work; two regular and one handicapped-accessible. The two regular stalls are annoyingly small. Like, airplane bathroom small. Porta-potties are palatial by comparison. As such, I usually default to the handicapable stall. I have no problem with one of the other stalls if the handicapped seat is occupied, but the roomiest option is my first preference.

Now then.

This morning I entered the bathroom at exactly the same minute I enter the bathroom every single day. There was someone in the middle stall, but the handicapped stall was free. Score. The seat was alarmingly cold. SCORE. If someone had left behind a section of the newspaper, it would have been a hat trick. Can’t win ‘em all.

I set about my business and, as so often happens, my mind wandered. The Weakerthans are playing in Athens tonight and I really want to go see them. But if I’m going to go all the way over to Athens and then engage in an activity as rambunctious as a show of rock and roll, I probably need to just crash over there. But I would have to leave Athens by like 6:30AM if I want to get to work on time tomorrow, which would totally suck. Plus I’ve stayed up a little too late the past couple nights and I can feel myself falling behind on sleep. I suppose I could take tomorrow off.

The guy in the stall next to me finished and left the bathroom. An assortment of people came in, used the urinals, washed their hands, and left.

But I just took a week off, and I’m taking two days off next week, so I probably shouldn’t take tomorrow off just for a show. Plus, whoever I stay with is going to have to get up for work and / or school, which will require me to get up early and vacate anyway. Maybe I could just take a half day tomorrow. But taking half days is such a pain in the ass. (I have to essentially take the whole day in the system and then let my boss know that I have another half day in the bank for use at a later date.) Though I guess I could stay with Mark. He doesn’t have to open the tattoo shop until noon, so I could sleep in. But then I would have that gross slept-in-during-the-week feeling and I would likely be hungover, which would likely cause me anxiety because the rest of society is dutifully working through their Wednesday and I woke up at like 10:30AM with a hangover and didn’t go to work. And then I would either be out a whole extra vacation day, or I would have to come into work at lunch time feeling like burnt eggs. How long have I been sitting here? I should probably get back to work.

Now then.

The bathroom had been silent for quite a while. I finished my business, exited the stall, and froze in place. Sitting before me was a coworker picking at the skin around one of his cuticles. Did I mention he was sitting? IN A FUCKING WHEELCHAIR?!

So here I am, perfectly un-handicapped, occupying the only men’s handicapped facility on the entire floor while this guy sits quietly in his wheel chair waiting for me to finish. Then he has to go occupy the unpleasantness I had just created and muscle himself onto a toilet seat which will be unpleasantly warm.

“Oh. I’m … uh … I’m sorry. Gosh.”

The look on his face said, “This is really awkward. For you.”

I went to the sink as he wheeled behind me toward the stall. He had bandages and braces on both legs from his shins to his toes and both legs were elevated out in front of him indicating not a permanent handicap but a recent injury.

He struggled with the door because of the springs that cause it to close by itself. He would open it and then by the time he could wheel into position, it would close in front of him.

“Do you want me to hold the door for you?”

“No, I need to learn how to do this.”

“What … uh … what’d you do?”

“I jumped off a waterfall. And broke both my heels.”

“Ow. I guess that’ll do it.”

I said, “Ow. I guess that’ll do it.” I said, “Ow. I guess that’ll do it.” What the hell does that even mean? OH YEAH. THE OLD WATERFALL JUMP. A NOTORIOUS HEEL RUINER. YOU SHOULD WATCH OUT FOR THAT.

“Uh. I’ve got it, thanks.”

If you need me I’ll be lying in the road.

This is part of the Home Improvening series.

Several weeks ago, we purchased a new light for our entryway to replace the 1980s smoked-glass-and-brass nightmare that had been hanging there since, well, the 1980s. My plan last week was to devote all of Saturday to “opening the yard,” wherein I mow, edge, weed (and feed), rake, thatch, prune, and plant for the first time of the year. Mother Nature had a different idea, so I was restricted to indoor activities.

The daunting thing about hanging the light was not the act itself of replacing a light. That stuff is easy. The challenge was the location of the light, anchored into the high, angled ceiling and positioned directly over stairs. There isn’t a way to convey the scale of the light’s position in one photograph, so here’s two:

That’s one sexy accessory, no? Awww yeah. Originally, I thought I would have to build some sort of platform over the stairs onto which I could position a regular ladder, and this explains why the new light had been sitting in the garage for over a month. Since I was trapped in the house on Saturday, I decided to make with the trial and error, starting with a weird ladder on indefinite loan to me from Gia’s dad. It’s a knockoff of a Little Giant; same design but smaller and with fewer features. It has four sections. I set three of them straight and angled the top one to essentially reach over the stairs from the floor. Next stop, Cirqu du Soleil:

I can’t articulate the exact physics behind it, but adding an elbow in the ladder like that makes it, how you say, really fucking unstable. I looked like Chubby Checker up there throughout the entire process.

Long story short, there were a few tense moments, several swear words, a modest amount of sweating, and my arms and feet went numb, but the process only took about an hour and could have been much much worse. Doneski:

This parody muxtape comes pretty close to summing up the old guy angst I was trying to convey in this post (via Wired).

Despite my initial whining, I have very much enjoyed touring through muxtapes of friends and strangers alike this week. My enjoyment is derived from A) analyzing people’s mixes (muxes?) as a singular entity and using it to judge the shit out of them, and B) getting to hear so much good new (to me) music.

It should come as no surprise that my muxtape is the best one on the internet, but despite my Federer-like dominance, I encourage everyone to post a muxtape. C’mon, we can judge each other. It’ll be fun.

I went to the dentist on Tuesday. It was super awesome, that is, if you like things like child abuse and genital mutilation. Someone give me some background information:

You may or may not remember my last post about going to the dentist. Basically, gum disease had started to set in as is the case with so many people my age and I had to endure a process known as scaling. It involves scraping and flushing the area between your gums and teeth. Rusty has an excellent description complete with diagrams here. In a word, it fucking sucks.

My problem then, however, was not with the actual process. I’ve had almost every dental procedure in the book and I don’t like to waste time getting all worked up about it. So, you’re going to give me some injections and saw on my head for a couple hours. What. Ever. My problem was with the attitude of the hygienist and assistants who performed the procedure. I found their tone to be unnecessarily condescending and patronizing, and I found her (the hygienist’s) technique to be heavy-handed and crude. The initial scaling was performed almost exactly three years ago. They sent me home with a pre-bedtime antibacterial mouthwash (which tasted like my cat’s ear) and set me up with a barrage of follow-up appointments. I performed the required maintenance despite fuming with rage every night at how utterly disgusting the mouthwash was and began attending the follow-up appointments.

Every time I went back for a follow-up appointment I was met with the same condescending attitude and heavy-handed technique. I would show up, and despite the diagnosis being that everything in my mouth had stabilized, the hygienist and her assistants seemed to want to shame me into healthy teeth by making me feel guilty and ignorant. It would all conclude with me paying them hundreds of dollars.

Finally, I just snapped. Because my insurance was a DMO and they were listed as my PCD, they were the only place I could visit without going through the complicated process of switching PCDs. So, during a routine appointment confirmation call, my eyes clouded over and I said, “You know what? Cancel that appointment. I won’t be coming in.” when asked if I would like to reschedule, I said, “Yes, I will call you when I want another appointment.”

You can probably see where this is going. The correct response is to slowly shake your head and say, “Oh, Tony Toni Toné. You dumb bastard.” For the record, I brush every single morning, and every single evening, and I floss in bursts, meaning I will floss every night for like 3 weeks and then slack off and stop flossing for like 2 months. But, no, I will not try to sugar coat the fact that, until Tuesday, I hadn’t been to the dentist in almost 3 years. They were really mean, and I changed jobs and insurance, etc, but the net result is that I am a jerk.

You ready for some comedy? Recently I started to feel some sensitivity to cold in a couple molars, so I decided it was time to quit jerking around and let a professional in there. I got a great recommendation from a coworker and I called to set up an appointment. I was informed that they did accept insurance from my provider, but they did not accept the DMO variety, which is what I have. After some additional research, I realized I was going to have to go see the dental office listed on my insurance card as the PCD. I’ll give you one guess who that is.

CORRECT!

This time around has been a MUCH different experience. I was up front with my ignorant behavior and the (different) hygienist didn’t make me feel like a bad Labrador as a result. He had me wear giant women’s sunglasses while he “probed my pockets,” which was pretty sweet, and then he simply gave the news like a grown up. He said he sees my condition all too often, but he didn’t blame me for slacking on flossing because, lets be honest, flossing sucks. I’m still early stage but he recommended another full scaling treatment, which I know I deserve. His attitude was at once jovial and understanding and then he would quickly get serious and say something to the effect of, “We need to nip this in the bud early or someday all your fucking teeth are gonna fall out.” I can live with that.

The (different) dentist came in, however, and tried to ruin my afternoon. Two of my six year molars (your oldest adult teeth) are about to buy the farm. Since I was on an honesty jag, I admitted to having a nasty ice-chewing habit and then threw my arms up for protection. Rather calmly, the dentist said, “I don’t need to explain to you why ice-chewing is a recipe for disaster do I,” which I thought was a nice nod to my perceived intelligence. The molar thing is another not uncommon problem for people my age, but it will require two crowns within the next year or so. (That will be one George Bush rebate check, please.) The good news was that I didn’t have a single cavity. I was expecting more than one and bracing for as many as six or seven. Excessive for sure, but I like to prepare for the worst.

So I’m looking at getting to know this dental office quite well over the next year or so. Which is fine, I suppose. It’s always good to get crap like this under control. I’m just glad there are nicer people performing the procedures. I don’t mind if you stab me in the face, just stab gently and don’t patronize me while doing it.