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I Love Tuesdays
You know what I love about Tuesdays? I get to eat with my father at Oso Burrito. I love Oso. Great food in a local joint served by friendly people at reasonable prices, and all within walking distance of my office. My dad and I have been doing the Tuesday Oso routine for quite a while now. I don’t remember for certain when we started, but I’d guess it was over a year ago. We chose Tuesday because the special is jerk chicken burritos. Tasty stuff.
The bad news is I have to wait another 15 minutes before I start my walk toward O Street. That makes my stomach very angry.
In Case of Emergency
Here’s an interesting idea hopping around the internet:
The idea is that you store the word “ I C E “ in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted “In Case of Emergency”. In an emergency situation ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them. It’s so simple that everyone can do it. Please do. Please will you also forward this to everybody in your address book, it won’t take too many ‘forwards’ before everybody will know about this. It really could save your life. For more than one contact name ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc.
Snopes has the whole scoop. Snopes is a bit pessimistic toward the idea, but I happen to think it’s not a bad idea at all. Creating a standard way to store emergency contact information certainly won’t hurt anything, and its potential benefits are definitely worthwhile. One could also use ICE contacts to help return a lost cell phone to its rightful owner. It is very frustrating to find a cell phone and not have any idea which of the myriad contacts could help you get the phone back to its owner.
The Final Inning
Tonight are my final two baseball games of the season. There are more games to be umpired, but I have decided to stop after tonight’s double-header in Pleasant Dale. This season has been a difficult one for our umpiring organization. To say that the association’s management has royally screwed up would be a substantial understatement. Many, many bridges have been burned, and the future of the organization is uncertain.
I’m looking forward to polishing off the season tonight. With any luck after tonight I will have, for the first time, completed a season without having to eject a single coach or player. For that matter, it will be the first time I have ever completed a season without having been verbally abused to any significant degree. That may not sound like much, but when you consider how many people I have interacted with over the season, and how many of those people were in less-than-perfect moods during our interaction, it’s actually pretty remarkable. In fact, I think I really matured as an umpire this year. I’m even considering, if only a tiny bit, attending a professional umpires camp some day. (Not to become a professional umpire, but to learn from them.) My own personal successes this year make our association’s all-but-imminent demise all the more unpleasant.
On the plus side, not having any more games means that I can dedicate more of my time to Lincolnite. Hopefully it also means more garden time and more friend time. And, of course, more time with The Missus and Daisy. We spend a goodly amount of time together already, but a little more wouldn’t hurt.
Besides, I have to rest up for soccer season. Did I tell you? I’ll be reffing college games this fall. I can’t wait.
A Lazy Sunday
What a beautiful morning. Well, ok, it’s pretty humid out there, but not obnoxiously so. Daisy and I took a walk to Lamar’s this morning for a donut and milk. Do you realize how difficult it is to eat a donut and drink milk while trying to walk a dog? It’s very tricky. Especially when you’re also trying to carry a poop sack. That’s a juggling act you just don’t want to see.
The Missus comes home today. She has been in Albuquerque these past few days visiting her parents. It was a quick trip, but it was sort of a now-or-never sort of deal. She probably won’t see them again until Thanksgiving. They have come up here the past two Thanksgivings; hopefully we can keep that tradition going this year. Despite our wildly different food preferences, The Missus, the in-laws, and I manage to have a really dang tasty Thanksgiving meal each year.
My plan for the rest of the day, save for an hour or so to pick up The Missus, is to get as much of Lincolnite’s redesign finished as possible. Wish me luck!
Quickie Review: Great Wraps
Today I had a tasty meal at one of Lincoln’s newest restaurants, Great Wraps!, which opened earlier this week. The wraps part of their name is a bit deceiving; their menu includes not only wraps, but a whole variety of sandwich-like items.
The overall experience was very pleasant. The restaurant is clean and freshly remodeled (it’s in the old Harmann’s Camera location), and the staff were friendly, if a bit inexperienced. I witnessed a few kinks—two orders were switched, the ketchup pump was a bit explosive, some of the seating is too “cozy”—but the problems should be easily fixable. My dining companions enjoyed their food, with reactions ranging from “It was good” to “I love it.” My garlic mushroom philly cheesesteak was very tasty. Not exceptionally authentic, but tasty. Their fries were not very memorable, but I’m not a huge fry fan, so you may wish to judge that for yourself.
Great Wraps! gets bonus points for having Mello Yello in their pop machine. Schlotzsky’s is the only other restaurant in town (as far as I know) that offers Mello Yello.
It will be interesting to watch Great Wraps! duke it out with Pita Pit, its closest competitor food- and style-wise in the Downtown market. My money is on Great Wraps!; my dining companions had inconclusive feelings, but most were either neutral ("I don’t really eat at Pita Pit") to pro-Great Wraps! ("I’m not a big Pita Pit fan"). Pita Pit just seems to lack that je ne sais quois that is so crucial to surviving in the crowded Downtown restaurant market. That’s not to say that Great Wraps! has it. It’s far too early to say for certain. The difference, in my opinion, is that while Pita Pit felt like a goner from day one, Great Wraps! appears to have some momentum.
In any event, Gr
eat Wraps! is worth a visit. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Chip, Chip, Chipping Away
Free speech takes another beating. I really want to say “There’s no way this will be upheld on appeal.” Unfortunately, reality forces me to say something more along the lines of “There’s a chance this will be overturned on appeal.”
Morgan Spurlock Watch
I dislike Morgan Spurlock for pretty much the same reason I dislike Michael Moore: he intentionally misleads and lies to the public while passing himself as an impartial documentarian. Fortunately, Radley Balko is willing to pick apart his claims.
Two Years Ago
On this date two years ago The Missus and I were married in a small ceremony at a beautiful pond-side outdoor setting. At times it hardly even seems that a year has passed, much less two. Time flies when you’re having fun, right?
War of the Worlds
On Thursday I saw War of the Worlds. It has received pretty good reviews, including four stars from the Lincoln Journal Star’s L. Kent Wolgamott. On average, the critics seem to be giving WotW a B to B+.
I have to give it a C+ or B-. It’s a good movie and it was certainly worth the 6 bucks I paid to get in, but in the end my first reaction was: Eh. In part that’s because the film ends fairly abruptly and not very convincingly. [Implied spoiler!] The ending is about as convincing as if Apollo Creed had had a heart attack to end the fight at the end of Rocky.[/end spoiler]
Most of the film’s biggest problems are pretty small. But that’s what makes them so annoying; they would have been very easy to fix. In a post-9/11 world, why in the heck would everybody in Tom Cruise’s neighborhood run toward obvious danger? Why would a bunch of people run up a very steep hill to watch the goings-on on the other side when they know that doing so will substantially increase the likelihood that harm will come to them? Why does the aliens’ “fertilization” process require so many steps and inefficiencies? I could go on, but I’d need too many spoiler warnings.
One thing I loved about the movie was Spielberg’s minimal guilt of CGI abuse. Too many directors these days think that every effect has to be computer generated. Spielberg did a good job of using CGI only where necessary, and then to good effect.
The story itself is very good, and it has been updated to modern times very effectively. Folks will try to read various political messages into the movie, but it’s not a very explicit political film in and of itself. The biggest weakness in the story, in my opinion, is the par
t involving Tom Cruise’s son. The character isn’t terrible (although his zeal is unnecessarily exaggerated), but as the movie progresses that story line becomes less satisfying. You’ll probably figure out what I mean after you’ve seen the movie.
In short, WotW is worth a visit to your local cinema. It may even deserve a place in your DVD collection. But I have to disagree with Mr. Wolgamott—it’s no four star film. There are far too many fixable flaws to deserve that rating.
You Say July 4th, I Say Independence Day
It’s pet peeve time, ladies and gents. I’m not really sure when I developed this quirk, but for at least a couple years now it has bugged me when Independence Day is referred to by its cruder and less descriptive name, The Fourth. I realize that Independence Day falls on the 4th of July each year, and that there is a worldwide precedent for referring to the holiday celebrating certain events by the date on which they happened (e.g. Cinco de Mayo). But I prefer Independence Day.
I prefer it for the same reason I prefer Christmas over “The Holidays.” When you refuse to call a holiday by its real name, you help that holiday to lose some of its oomph. When was the last time you saw baby Jesus—the Christ in Christmas—used as a marketing gimic to sell Barbies? You haven’t see it, of course. Instead, you see Santa and snowmen and all that. And what words does Toys R Us use in its advertising? Happy Holidays. Never Merry Christmas. Parents would feel too damn guilty about exploiting their Savior’s birthday if they had to see Christ (the word or the image) while fulfilling their childrens’ materialistic demands.
The same can be said for Independence Day. It’s easier to wake up on the morning of July 4 and scream ”Let’s blow some shit up!” when you treat the holiday as The Fourth of July rather than Independence Day. What do Black Cats and sparklers and roman candles have to do with Independence Day? Not a thing. But they define The Fourth of July. Having managed fireworks tents for three years I can say with some authority that nobody (+/- 1%) who buys more than $10.00 of fireworks has any intention to celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. Independence is one of the last things on their mind while they ignite their Chinese-made fireworks.
Independence Day should be about evaluating our country’s progress (or lack thereof) toward
the goal of bringing freedom to the world and about our application of it (or not) here at home. That’s not to say that fireworks and family and grilling burgers can’t also be a part of it. Fireworks are a great way for us to give ourselves a pat on the back and say “USA, you rock!” It may not always be true, but hey, a once-per-year gloat-fest is good for a country’s collective identity. And family? Every holiday should be celebrated with family.
I’m not really sure what my point is. It’s Friday afternoon and I’m tired and hungry. You didn’t really expect anything profound out of me, did you? I suppose the one thing I want you to get out of this is simply an appreciation for Independence Day over the generic Fourth of July. Think about why you use the term you use, and decide for yourself if it’s appropriate. For me, The Fourth just doesn’t work. If you use The Fourth, that’s fine. But don’t just use it because some marketing agent told you to.
What Do My DVDs Say About Me?
The other night The Missus and I purchased some new DVDs. Well, they aren’t actually “new,” but they are new to us. We hardly ever buy new DVDs.
Anyway, the three we choose say a lot about us, I think. Judge for yourself:
Closer
The Incredibles
Team America: World Police
OK all you budding Freudian psychoanalysts, examine away!
A Heap O’ Trouble
Julian Sanchez examines Raich and Kelo in light of the sorites paradox. It’s definitely worth a read.
The Reality of Kelo
Radley Balko lists some of the many eminent domain abuses waiting to happen in light of the Kelo decision.
I’m Rich! II
Well heck, I really am rich. Yesterday I received a Wilderness Ridge newsletter in the mail. Did I get a (massive) raise and nobody told me? If so, it hasn’t shown up yet in any of my bank accounts.
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