PopWars

I can’t tell if it is just my Mac centric view of the world or a real phenomena but I’m spotting the glowing Apple logo everywhere. We spotted this copy of the Steve Jobs book in Catalan yesterday and thumbed through the photos. There are more in the book then there were in the the eBook.

It was perfect day for the boiling of the beef. Or for an intervention but that’s another story. I wish I had my camera. Nikon had me send the camera back at my expense to fix a lens cover that wouldn’t spring fully open and then told me the replacement part is on backorder! Grrr. If I had the camera I could have pryed the lens cover open to make a movie of our walk through the woods and then the funky little neighborhood of Bloomington style houses (one was for sale for $87,000- just askin’), down Culver Road past the bowling alley and Mastrella’s where we saw the short Elvis impersonator, by the New York Store where we saw new bicycles made in Queens in the window, by the barking dog in front a house with a beautiful view of the lake to Shamrock Jack’s for a sandwich and a pint.

I can picture falling forward as well as springing back so this “Spring Forward, Fall Back” thing has always been hard for me to envision. I might just set my watch forward tonight and get a jump on things so it doesn’t feel like we really lose that precious hour.

We spotted a few crocuses out in our neighbor’s yard and these yellow flowers are out in our back yard. The geese are overhead, flying north and carrying on their own conversation. I found nine golf balls where the snow was as we crossed the golf course today. And we found these beer cans in the the usual spot on Hoffman Road. We were ready for the cans. Peggi had two Wegmans bags in her pocket and we filled them both. We continue to speculate wildly about who it might be that drinks these 24 ounce cans and then chucks them habitually in the same spot. It’s been going on for a few years now and kids would have grown out this kind of thing. Maybe a neighbor or someone who comes down here to drink beer and look at the wildlife.

Most of the birds are getting out but the smart ones are hanging around for this beautiful Fall weather. It’s not Indian Summer because we haven’t had a frost but that’s only a technicality because we live so close to the lake.

We were headed home from Peggi’s mom’s apartment with the last load of stuff to get rid of and we head this clanging under the car. I couldn’t even see out the back window because the big, green ,overstuffed, lift chair took up most of our cargo space. We stopped at the bank and I crawled under the car. Our tailpipe had broken off where it meets the muffler so I stopped in Jerome’s to have them take a look at it. They put the car up on the lift with the lift chair inside of the car and reattached the tailpipe. Further up the exhaust chain we noticed the heat shield on the catalytic convertor was falling off. I find these in the road all the time while on my bike but I’ve given up collecting them.

We don’t really have a piano player in our band unless Pete LaBonne is in town. Fred Marshall sat it a couple of weeks ago and he sounded great. Jaffe from the old Colorblind James Experience used to come all the time but we haven’t seen him in months. James Nichols threatened to come last week but didn’t. Maybe he’ll stop by tonight. He always sounds great. There’s no piano in the song below but the Little Theatre Café’s grand piano was sitting right next to us when we recorded the track so if you listen closely you’ll hear it vibrating sympathetically.

Margaret Explosion – Ritual

Our neighbor, Leo, lost his teeth and so he puts all his food in blender but he can still gum his way through pumpkin pie. We gave him a few pieces yesterday and I met him at the door this morning when he brought the empty pie tin back. He looked down at this small pile of Budweiser product by our door but didn’t say anything so I volunteered that we found them all down on Hoffman Road when we were walking. After a few month break the Budweiser guy is back in business. I noticed that Bud did a 50 year commemorative 20 ounce can for the hapless Bills.

I miss “Print Magazine” and I’m still an avid newspaper reader but we were certain print was about dead for our business but we wound up working yesterday and today on revisions for an annual report (that was supposed to be at the printers before Thanksgiving) and a neighborhood association brochure (that is due on Monday). It still feels dead even as we work overtime on it, all that fussing with CMYK, traps, dot gain and line breaks. Can’t wait to get back on the MySQL project we started where we imported a database with links on the part numbers that pop open a generic drawing that gets specific measurement data fed to the drawing from the database.

We’ve been eating leftovers since t-day. I sort of feel like that pile of bud cans at our door.

We were out at Peggi’s mom’s place for dinner and wanted to make some brownies for her but she didn’t have any oil. We asked our server at the Bistro for a small amount and he gave us some in a cup. It smelled delicious and it was too good to put in a package of brownie mix but we did so. We brought the leftover home and savored it.

I loved Olive Oyl from the old Popeye show before I knew what olive oil was. I rode my bike up to Rubino’s this morning to replenish our supply. The can we just finished was from Olindo’s and the price was right but it was nothing special. No reflection on Olindo’s, they have so many choices I usually reach for something with an exotic package and sometimes it doesn’t work out. I wish you could taste or at least smell the oil before you commit to such a big supply.

“El Toro” from Spain is shown in the upper right hand corner of the blow up of the shot above. I bought that once because I am partial to Spain. But then I read olives are often grown in Greece, Italy or Spain and then packaged as a product from one of those countries so the label doesn’t really mean much. “El Toro” is not “Extra Virgin” or “First Cold Pressed” and we look for that because Peggi is managing her cholesterol with diet. You need a calculator to compare prices because the cans are three, four or five liters and sometimes noted in gallons, quarts and ounces. I chose the Casale oil shown at the bottom. It was $21.99 for  three liters. I asked the cashier if she knew how this oil is and she said, “It’s beautiful.” I drizzled some on toast when I got home and it is.

Spanish people know how to eat, not just what to eat. They kind of excel in both. Some restaurants around here offer what they call tapas but they aren’t. The proportions are way too large. You like that much of one thing, order the dish three times, ya slob!

Tapas in Spain are served over a counter and you eat them at the counter, often while standing. The plates are small like saucers and the silverware is even small sometimes. Maybe the fork only has three prongs or two. If you’re having a beer, a small plate of olives is often served on-the-house and sometimes the person behind the counter may even slide you a complimentary tapa. These small servings take the edge off before dinner and sometimes that is all you need.

We had a small tapas party on Sunday with our friends, Alice and Julio. They brought some, we made one in advance and then made a few while we talked. We ordered Padron Peppers from La Tienda and followed a YouTube chef”s instructions. Although they are a Galician dish we had these for the first time while in Madrid. The place was more cafeteria than bar, brightly lit by fluorescents and was somewhere near Plaza Santa Ana. It was late and we stumbled on it. It looked like it had been there for a century but we could not find it when we returned a few years later. They were sensational.

We watched a documentary on The Crips and The Bloods last night. Forest Whitaker narrated and the funniest part was when they showed how much starch the gangbangers put on there jeans. “Enough to make ‘em stand up in the corner with nobody in them.”

Never got out today but I did manage to take a nature shot out our office window. We made a round of revisions to the HairZoo website and finished moving the So Many Records site to a new dot com address. We are designing the cover of Annie Wells new cd and we’re updating her site. We are also building a site for the internationally renowned glass artist, Michael Taylor. He has a brilliant show at the Memorial Art Gallery now. The recession is over. I’m going out for a game of horseshoes with my friend and neighbor, Rick.

I checked a few of my blog entries from this time last year (it’s the only way I can keep track of things) and I see the water temperature of our street pool is well above where it was last year. As presidents of the pool association we need to get down there every day to check and record the pool chemistry levels, an awesome responsibility. Our neighbor, Joey, was in the pool with a friend when Peggi went down there yesterday. The water temperature is 71 degrees. Summer is here.

Guinness looks especially good in a “Tweety” glass. I had one after painting class and celebrated my birthday in style.

This morning’s “Beer Guys” column in our incredibly shrinking newspaper was about seasonal bock beers. Legend has it they were originally brewed by monks in Germany during Lent and that the bock beer had extra nutrients for the those who were fasting. They reviewed a few bock beers and I agree with their opinion that the locally brewed Genesee Bock is one of the best. And I was happy to read that it is selling briskly. At $5.99 a twelve pack at Wegmans (w/ Shoppers Card) it should be. When I worked as a stock boy at the old Super Duper they sold Genny Beer and Cream Ale for $1.09 a six pack as one of their “in store specials”. These were products that were sold at or below cost to get people into the store. That was a long time ago. The yesteryear price of the back beer matches the retro packaging perfectly.

My uncle worked for the old Topper Brewing Company, they also brewed Standard Ale, and I have always pulled for the local companies. I don’t understand why they can’t come up with a good craft brew. Both Rorbach’s and Custom Brew Craft put the Genesee/High Falls/LaBatt’sUSA product to shame. Our friend’s, Pete and Shelley drink Genesee Cream Ale, and I gather it is more popular in the mountains than it is here. I like it but I have a hard time with their packaging. Maybe they should bring back Jenny.

Jenny seemed wildly exotic when I first tuned into her. The dark hair, the slinky low cut barmaid outfit, the red lipstick smile, the choker necklace, the mole. I couldn’t wait to meet her in a bar but I was only ten or eleven. I found this picture of her over at Small World Books on North Street.