Wednesday, June 29, 2011
So John Lennon...
....was a closet Republican. That's the big buzz all over the Internet today. But I told you that last December. I guess I better get back to blogging.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Excerpt
"The decision to be a writer had come over [Briggs] while the fleet was cruising in the Caribbean, pausing in St. Thomas, Montego Bay, Port-au-Prince and other playlands where he met fellow Americans and British ladies and gentleman lounging around swimming pools with tall frosted drinks in their hands, being fanned by tireless natives.
"'Who are these people', Briggs had asked, and on being told that these fortunate folks were all writers - novelists, playwrights, journalists - Briggs cried out, 'Then that's the life for me! How do I begin?'
"With the flattering letters these genial professionals obligingly wrote for someone they felt could never be a rival, Briggs had no trouble landing the magazine job when he got out of the service. His honest statement that he had never written anything but clear, straightforward reports for superior officers charmed the City Life editor. Briggs had hoped for assignments in the field of sports but the editor felt that literary training and education were required for that, whereas art was a department where inexperience and ignorance would not be noticed."
Dawn Powell, The Wicked Pavilion
"'Who are these people', Briggs had asked, and on being told that these fortunate folks were all writers - novelists, playwrights, journalists - Briggs cried out, 'Then that's the life for me! How do I begin?'
"With the flattering letters these genial professionals obligingly wrote for someone they felt could never be a rival, Briggs had no trouble landing the magazine job when he got out of the service. His honest statement that he had never written anything but clear, straightforward reports for superior officers charmed the City Life editor. Briggs had hoped for assignments in the field of sports but the editor felt that literary training and education were required for that, whereas art was a department where inexperience and ignorance would not be noticed."
Dawn Powell, The Wicked Pavilion
Finishing Up 2010
I mentioned the Motorola smart phones last week, but didn't mention that we also indulged in a new DVD player for Christmas. We took the old, tired one upstairs to the bedroom and put the new one downstairs where we do most of our TV watching. The DVD player is equipped with Blu-Ray, which really doesn't interest me much. What I like about it is the Internet capability which allows one to stream Netflix movies to the TV. As long as it's available on the Watch Instantly section I can stream it right to the television when I'd like. I watch mostly older movies so almost everything I am interested in is available in this format. I've already taken advantage this week, watching three movies - Our Man In Havana, To Be or Not To Be, and The Man Who Never Was (all three terrific) - with another dozen or so queued up. I'm feeling a bit under the weather this morning so I'll use that excuse to spend New Year's Eve day, and perhaps night, finishing a wonderful book, Dawn Powell's The Wicked Pavilion (if you love biting wit and blistering take downs of the pretentious and snobbish, you'll do no better than reading Dawn Powell, one of America's great writers) and indulging in more movie watching. A Happy New Year to all.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Snow Job
Much has been made about the snow cleanup, or lack thereof, in New York City since the blizzard. I have first-hand knowledge of the nightmare conditions the city experienced in the immediate aftermath: my wife and I drove up on Tuesday morning, a bit more than 24 hours after the snow had stopped. We'd booked a day trip back in November for the specific reason of seeing Driving Miss Daisy with James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave, more about which anon. During the snow the previous day we were a but concerned about the drive up, specifically the conditions on the New Jersey Turnpike, but we needn't have been as the Turnpike was near-perfect. All lanes were open and dry, even around Elizabeth City where I heard they got 31 inches. Not only that but in most places both breakdown lanes were clear. That would never happen in the D.C. area under similar conditions. Here we'd have no breakdown lanes open and the snow would probably be piled up in one of the driving lanes for a few days. Certainly the lanes would not be totally clear of all snow and ice. But all the way up the NJ Turnpike it was as if they'd received no snow at all. Kudos to the state for performing a necessary and vital government function with aplomb. As a result of their good work it took us the normal 3 hours and 45 minutes to get from home to the Lincoln Tunnel exit.
And that's where the trouble started. Normally (during the week at noon, when we hit the exit on Tuesday) it would take us about 15 minutes to get from the exit to where we stay in midtown. On Tuesday it took us two hours, crawling the final four miles to the hotel at 55th and 7th. That's 2 miles per hour folks, virtual stand-still conditions. It was a full hour before we got through the tunnel and another hour through the city. It might have taken longer had I not cut over from 10th Avenue to 8th Avenue - I correctly surmised that the inner avenues would not be as jammed as the outer avenues - where I caught a break at about 40th street and got to 56th in a few minutes, where I cut over to 7th and then to 55th. We arrived at the hotel at 2 pm, our afternoon waning.
We'd planned on going to the American Museum of Natural History because we figured it would be cold and windy, not terrific walking conditions. But it was surprisingly nice outside, the sun shining and the wind down. So we walked through Central Park, taking our time. By the time we got to the museum it was nearly 4 and with the show starting at 7 and dinner plans down at 24th and 9th (the museum is at 79th and Central Park West) we had no time to do it justice. So we walked back, again through the park, which was jammed with people enjoying the snow.
We took the E train, the 8th Avenue local, down to 23rd street, right around the corner from Co. (pronounced "Company") for dinner. We'd heard they had terrific pizza but after looking at their website my wife was more interested in the bread. Which was delicious indeed. We sampled the bread with ricotta cheese and the toast with eggplant and both were yummy. The pizza, on the other hand, was nothing to write home about. John's or Angelo's is better. This pizza was burnt, and I think purposely, to judge by the pictures on their site. Once a pizza has even a little black on it that's all you taste, that burnt flavor. There is a fine line between crispy and burnt, and this place crossed it. I was afraid going in that Co., simply from its name, might be one of those places all the in-crowd start crowing about but isn't really that good and my fears were justified. Add to it the exorbitant prices and, well, we won't be back. Let the chi-chi folks have it. Like I said, you can eat better pizza for half the price at Angelo's. But I'll give it its due: the bread really is delicious.
We walked from 29th St. up 8th Avenue, past Madison Square Garden, to the play. It was good. Not great, but very enjoyable, especially James Earl Jones' performance. Vanessa Redgrave seemed a little bit off and I think it was that she never really got the southern accent down. She didn't seem quite right and I was a little disappointed in her performance given her reputation as a great stage actress. But that's a quibble. James Earl Jones was worth the price of admission.
Not our best trip to NYC given the crawl in but any day in New York is better than most elsewhere. I love it there, even with the horrible traffic conditions. Truth be told, I'm now quite enjoying the spectacle of Nurse Bloomberg taking hits from all sides, even the New York Times, because of the city's response to the snow. And the twitter traffic over the past few days has been quite funny, lots of good Bloomberg jokes ("Alert from Bloomberg to city residents: if you must resort to cannibalism eat only people that are low in transfats"; "The real reason the streets are still not cleared is Bloomberg won't allow the trucks to use salt": "If you really want Bloomberg to do something about the snow tell him some people are enjoying it".) That giant sucking sound you're hearing is Bloomberg's future political ambitions being flushed down the toilet. And I couldn't be happier. The pretentious boob has it coming.
And that's where the trouble started. Normally (during the week at noon, when we hit the exit on Tuesday) it would take us about 15 minutes to get from the exit to where we stay in midtown. On Tuesday it took us two hours, crawling the final four miles to the hotel at 55th and 7th. That's 2 miles per hour folks, virtual stand-still conditions. It was a full hour before we got through the tunnel and another hour through the city. It might have taken longer had I not cut over from 10th Avenue to 8th Avenue - I correctly surmised that the inner avenues would not be as jammed as the outer avenues - where I caught a break at about 40th street and got to 56th in a few minutes, where I cut over to 7th and then to 55th. We arrived at the hotel at 2 pm, our afternoon waning.
We'd planned on going to the American Museum of Natural History because we figured it would be cold and windy, not terrific walking conditions. But it was surprisingly nice outside, the sun shining and the wind down. So we walked through Central Park, taking our time. By the time we got to the museum it was nearly 4 and with the show starting at 7 and dinner plans down at 24th and 9th (the museum is at 79th and Central Park West) we had no time to do it justice. So we walked back, again through the park, which was jammed with people enjoying the snow.
We took the E train, the 8th Avenue local, down to 23rd street, right around the corner from Co. (pronounced "Company") for dinner. We'd heard they had terrific pizza but after looking at their website my wife was more interested in the bread. Which was delicious indeed. We sampled the bread with ricotta cheese and the toast with eggplant and both were yummy. The pizza, on the other hand, was nothing to write home about. John's or Angelo's is better. This pizza was burnt, and I think purposely, to judge by the pictures on their site. Once a pizza has even a little black on it that's all you taste, that burnt flavor. There is a fine line between crispy and burnt, and this place crossed it. I was afraid going in that Co., simply from its name, might be one of those places all the in-crowd start crowing about but isn't really that good and my fears were justified. Add to it the exorbitant prices and, well, we won't be back. Let the chi-chi folks have it. Like I said, you can eat better pizza for half the price at Angelo's. But I'll give it its due: the bread really is delicious.
We walked from 29th St. up 8th Avenue, past Madison Square Garden, to the play. It was good. Not great, but very enjoyable, especially James Earl Jones' performance. Vanessa Redgrave seemed a little bit off and I think it was that she never really got the southern accent down. She didn't seem quite right and I was a little disappointed in her performance given her reputation as a great stage actress. But that's a quibble. James Earl Jones was worth the price of admission.
Not our best trip to NYC given the crawl in but any day in New York is better than most elsewhere. I love it there, even with the horrible traffic conditions. Truth be told, I'm now quite enjoying the spectacle of Nurse Bloomberg taking hits from all sides, even the New York Times, because of the city's response to the snow. And the twitter traffic over the past few days has been quite funny, lots of good Bloomberg jokes ("Alert from Bloomberg to city residents: if you must resort to cannibalism eat only people that are low in transfats"; "The real reason the streets are still not cleared is Bloomberg won't allow the trucks to use salt": "If you really want Bloomberg to do something about the snow tell him some people are enjoying it".) That giant sucking sound you're hearing is Bloomberg's future political ambitions being flushed down the toilet. And I couldn't be happier. The pretentious boob has it coming.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Surrender
As you can tell from the previous two posts, I received a smart phone for Christmas with which I have already become well acquainted. If you've read this blog from the beginning, or the middle, you'll also know that I am, to put it mildly, anti-cellphone. So I guess you can call this my surrender post, surrendering to the technological miracles that have occurred these past few years. But in a way, I really haven't changed those opinions - I'm still anti-cellphone. I didn't get my new Motorola Droid 2 Global in order to be on the phone all the time. I decided to get it for all the other things it can do, i.e. the camera and camcorder, the ability to get mail, weather, and news, the ability to connect on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. I went with an Android phone because I think it will eventually surpass the iPhone. Open-source systems will always win out over closed-source. Apple has the lead right now but I expect that to fade, and rapidly, over the next few years.
Getting the phones themselves was quite an ordeal. My wife has had a cell phone for years and she wasn't due for new equipment until April, according to the Verizon contract. So we called Verizon last Saturday to see if we could get out of that contract in exchange for us both getting a new Droid 2 global and adding me to the plan, along with the new family package. No problem, they said. I spent an hour on the phone with the guy working out all the details. He gave me my order number, I wrote it down, he said I'd have my phones by the following Tuesday, and we hung up. All set.
Not so fast. The following day, Sunday, I checked my email to discover....nothing. Normally when buying these devices you'll receive and email from the vendor immediately after the order is placed. I searched online for the order number I'd been given, to no avail. So I called Verizon back, asking them to check on the status of the order. I spoke to three people, none of whom could find the order. So it was back to the drawing board. We set up the same contract again: my wife kept her old line, I received a new one, we got the 2-for-1 deal on the phone, the contract, and a couple of other goodies thrown in. They said they would overnight it, meaning we would get them Tuesday.
At work on Tuesday morning, my wife called to tell me she received an email from Verizon directing her to sign into our account to look at the details of the new plan. She did and discovered that there were three phones on our plan: hers, the one I got on the Sunday re-call, and some other mysterious number we'd never heard of. I called Verizon back.
After explaining the situation to the salesperson she put me on hold for awhile. When she came she told me that what happened was that since my wife was not due for new equipment until April they had to add an extra phone number to the order to get us the 2-for-1 deal on the new phones. All we needed to do once we received the phones was to activate the mystery number, then call them back for an equipment change to change the new device over to my wife's number. Since we were getting that third line for a $9.99 monthly fee and they were holding a promotion that deducted that fee for the life of the contract, we would not be charged anything extra. Just call us in two years once the contract is up, she said, and we'll drop the third line.
Well, you can imagine my frustration. No one had ever mentioned a third line to us, much less this convoluted way of getting my wife's number changed over to the new phone. I told the woman that some manager over there MUST be able to override this nonsense but she assured me she was part of the management team and that's the way it had to be done. If she could do anything about it she would, but nothing could be done. I called my wife back, explained the situation, and when she started asking me questions I advised her that it was better for everyone if I just stopped talking about it now. She understood.
Fedex tried to deliver the phones on Tuesday but we weren't home. They left a note saying they would try again the following day. Funny though, there were two separate orders from two separate delivery guys. I thought it strange they would send each phone out in a separate order. You can probably guess what happened next. I was home when Fedex came back on Wednesday to deliver the phones. Four phones, to be exact. I realized what had happened immediately. The very first order had been placed after all. Why no one could find it when we called back the following day, who knows? And the third line was the phone number they had assigned to me on the first day's order. It had nothing to do with the way the order had to be placed in order to get us the 2-for-1 deal, as the Monday salesperson had assured me.
After another hour on the phone with Verizon on Wednesday straightening things out, and mailing back the phones from the second order yesterday, we're all set.
I think.
And that's the story of how we got our new smart phones.
Getting the phones themselves was quite an ordeal. My wife has had a cell phone for years and she wasn't due for new equipment until April, according to the Verizon contract. So we called Verizon last Saturday to see if we could get out of that contract in exchange for us both getting a new Droid 2 global and adding me to the plan, along with the new family package. No problem, they said. I spent an hour on the phone with the guy working out all the details. He gave me my order number, I wrote it down, he said I'd have my phones by the following Tuesday, and we hung up. All set.
Not so fast. The following day, Sunday, I checked my email to discover....nothing. Normally when buying these devices you'll receive and email from the vendor immediately after the order is placed. I searched online for the order number I'd been given, to no avail. So I called Verizon back, asking them to check on the status of the order. I spoke to three people, none of whom could find the order. So it was back to the drawing board. We set up the same contract again: my wife kept her old line, I received a new one, we got the 2-for-1 deal on the phone, the contract, and a couple of other goodies thrown in. They said they would overnight it, meaning we would get them Tuesday.
At work on Tuesday morning, my wife called to tell me she received an email from Verizon directing her to sign into our account to look at the details of the new plan. She did and discovered that there were three phones on our plan: hers, the one I got on the Sunday re-call, and some other mysterious number we'd never heard of. I called Verizon back.
After explaining the situation to the salesperson she put me on hold for awhile. When she came she told me that what happened was that since my wife was not due for new equipment until April they had to add an extra phone number to the order to get us the 2-for-1 deal on the new phones. All we needed to do once we received the phones was to activate the mystery number, then call them back for an equipment change to change the new device over to my wife's number. Since we were getting that third line for a $9.99 monthly fee and they were holding a promotion that deducted that fee for the life of the contract, we would not be charged anything extra. Just call us in two years once the contract is up, she said, and we'll drop the third line.
Well, you can imagine my frustration. No one had ever mentioned a third line to us, much less this convoluted way of getting my wife's number changed over to the new phone. I told the woman that some manager over there MUST be able to override this nonsense but she assured me she was part of the management team and that's the way it had to be done. If she could do anything about it she would, but nothing could be done. I called my wife back, explained the situation, and when she started asking me questions I advised her that it was better for everyone if I just stopped talking about it now. She understood.
Fedex tried to deliver the phones on Tuesday but we weren't home. They left a note saying they would try again the following day. Funny though, there were two separate orders from two separate delivery guys. I thought it strange they would send each phone out in a separate order. You can probably guess what happened next. I was home when Fedex came back on Wednesday to deliver the phones. Four phones, to be exact. I realized what had happened immediately. The very first order had been placed after all. Why no one could find it when we called back the following day, who knows? And the third line was the phone number they had assigned to me on the first day's order. It had nothing to do with the way the order had to be placed in order to get us the 2-for-1 deal, as the Monday salesperson had assured me.
After another hour on the phone with Verizon on Wednesday straightening things out, and mailing back the phones from the second order yesterday, we're all set.
I think.
And that's the story of how we got our new smart phones.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Test post using voice functionality on my phone
I'm using the voice functionality on my new global phone in order to create this post. It seems to work pretty well. Here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Blogging from my droid
Just testing a short blog from my new Motorola Droid 2 Global phone. Merry Christmas!!
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