Time keeps on slipping into the future

I don't know what everyone else's experiences have been, but I'm not sure that age 26 is usually the time when people start feeling kind of weird about their lives. I don't mean weird in a bad way, here - it's just strange to think about, if not how old I'm getting, the fact that everything around me makes me feel old. Not everyone I know is married, but a pretty sizable percentage are at least engaged; Rudnik, who's just two years ahead of me, will be a father in a few months. Even the people who aren't engaged are often in long-term relationships that could well be headed in that direction, as Alma and I are. We've been together almost five years now - five years in January - which really is as long as I've ever done anything. I only spent four years at any given school, for example. She makes me happier than anything in the world, and I know I'm going to spend the rest of my life with her. I guess it's still just a little strange to think of myself as being ready for that step, but I do work a full-time job (even that has been more than three years now, although I wasn't officially full-time for all of that) and all that stuff. I'm pretty sure I'm more or less of a grown-up. And at any rate, we probably won't get married for another 2-3 years or so, at which point I'll be almost 30. Now that's old.

All of this was brought on by (what else?) something I saw in the elevator today, which is that the state quarter program is finally reaching its end with the release of the Hawaii quarter. Seems like an odd thing to trigger a quarter-life crisis, I know, but think about it - the first state quarters were released in 1999, when I was still a junior in high school. Think about how long ago that was! When the first state quarters were released on January 4, 1999, I:

* Was a year and a half away from going to Australia and New Zealand
* Was nine months or so away from applying to college
* Had not met almost any of the people with whom I regularly talk nowadays
* Had not ever had a serious girlfriend
* Was almost a year and a half away from converting BigFlax.com to a dated entry format
* Had never seen The Shawshank Redemption

That is a long fucking time ago. Bill Clinton was still two years away from leaving office. 9/11 was more than two and a half years in the future. Hell, George W. Bush was still five months from even declaring his candidacy for president, and was still known only as "that Texas governor who used to own the Rangers and whose father was president" to the nation at large. The Star Wars prequel trilogy was months from starting in theaters. The Daily Show had just been taken over by a young comedian named Jon Stewart previously known mostly for a string of failed late-night talk shows; his first show would air on January 11.

Ten years is a long time, but when you really think about it - at least when I really think about it - it's kind of amazing. I was already in college by the time Bush was "elected," but it virtually feels like he's been president my entire life (we only have had four presidents in 26 years, with Obama about to be the fifth), possibly because he's effectively been the president for my entire adult life - the first election I voted in was 2000. The idea of that not being true anymore is pretty appealing, to say the least.

I had originally intended to do a review of all 50 state quarters now that the program is coming to a close, but I think that's way more than anyone could possibly be interested in. So, instead, a few quick comments on what I thought were some particularly good and particularly lame ones:

Delaware



The first state; the first state quarter; also one of the lamest. Some dude on a horse? Well, it commemorates the ride of Caesar Rodney, a delegate to the Continental Congress who cast the deciding vote for independence in 1776 after riding 80 miles. This would be fine if not for the fact that the nation already has a pretty famous horse ride around that time, and who outside of Delaware has ever heard of Caesar Rodney? On the other hand, what else was Delaware going to put on a state quarter?

West Virginia



By contrast, here's West Virginia, accurately taking pretty much the only thing it's known for - and a pretty awesome feat of engineering at that - and slapping it on the quarter. It's not the single most exciting reverse I can think of, but it's a combination of attractiveness and simplicity that, really, a lot of these quarters just don't have. (There are quite a number which just cram way too much onto the back, though I don't address them specifically here.)

Kansas



"Dah-hurr, we got sunflowers... and a buffalo." Is Kansas known for its buffalo? It is known for its sunflowers, but the sunflower is kind of a second-class citizen. Again, of course, it's Kansas - they can't exactly show a majestic mountain profile.

Utah



Another good one. Look at that great golden spike driving right in between the trains! It may or may not be what Utah is most famous for, but it's not like you can just put a bunch of Mormons on the quarter. (One of the finalist designs was of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Yeah, that's real timeless.)

Arizona



Possibly the best quarter there is - nice image of the Grand Canyon (certainly the most famous thing in the state), pictures of the saguaros and prickly pears, and the sunset (or sunrise?) in the background. Classy all the way.

Montana



"Montana: Where Things Go To Die!" Really, Montana? Really? That's how we're doing this one? What came in second, a picture of the cabin that Ted Kaczynski lived in? A bunch of camo-clad militiamen?

Go west, Old Men

I saw my first movie in theaters in months, No Country for Old Men, since it was the Coen Brothers and since it had been almost universally raved about by critics. Turns out... it's not really all that good. At least I didn't think so. The one positive is that it's actually got me a bit excited about film criticism again, and I'll probably try to see some more movies in the upcoming month or two as work is on the slower side and film hits its peak season. Tomorrow I'm hoping to steal off to the River East after work to catch The Darjeeling Limited before it packs up and leaves town (it's down to one screening a day, at 5:15, which works out well if I can get out of work on time) and then perhaps I can make a similar pilgrimage for Michael Clayton on Thursday. Those were two of the only movies of the fall season that really had my eyebrows raised, so catching them before they leave theaters would be nice.

To which I'm sure you might say, "Why see them in the theater?" The fact is that, in spite of its obvious cost disadvantage, I enjoy seeing movies in the theater. It's just an experience that can't be matched by simple home viewing. The good news for me is that neither Darjeeling nor Clayton is likely to have many people in the theater so late in the run. While I like the theatrical experience, I like the people-free theatrical experience even more. So, I'm a misanthrope. What of it?

Anyway, the review for No Country for Old Men is here. I've actually been engaged in a fairly lively debate with some backers of the film on the Rotten Tomatoes boards (needless to say, they feel I "don't get it"), which is something else that hasn't happened for a couple years now.

Attack of the 50 Foot Lack of Proportion

Full disclosure: for nearly a decade, between ages 9 and 18, I woke up every morning to WFAN, 660 AM in New York. And on every weekday, what was on WFAN at 7 am was Imus in the Morning. As a pre-teen and teenager, I liked the show, even though in my early days of listening to it some of the language went over my head (once leading to an embarrassing encounter at the dinner table involving my use, despite not knowing what it meant, of the word "boner"). They did parody songs about the OJ trial, Bill Clinton impressions, and so on. By the time I was 14 or so I probably appreciated the humor of Imus' show as much as anyone in the country. But, perhaps tellingly, that's about where it peaked.

Today Imus was fired from CBS Radio, one day after MSNBC pulled the plug on its TV simulcast of his show. I can't say I'm surprised; so many sponsors had pulled out that CBS probably couldn't have afforded to pay Imus even if they'd kept him on the air. I don't know what, if anything, he'll do next - at age 67 he's old enough to retire, and it's hard to imagine anyone being able to put him back on the air for several years anyway.

It would be ludicrous to attempt to defend Imus at this point, and I have no intention of doing so. His comment about the Rutgers team was utterly tasteless, and it certainly wasn't funny; while it's arguable whether or not it was a dismissable offense, the outcry and sponsor pullout made that inevitable. All that said, I find it more than a little strange that this is the straw that broke the camel's back. Imus has a history of saying things on the air that rub people the wrong way; the most widely-reported almost all happened after I ceased to be a regular listener, and I typically only heard a small portion of his show anyway, so I can't speak to what it was like hearing them live. But it seems to me, first of all, that he has said much worse things on the air, as have members of his staff. His sports guy once likened the Williams sisters to wild animals (and not in some sort of "misguided flattery" way), and he himself said of Gwen Ifill that it was nice of the New York Times to "let the cleaning lady cover the White House." Note, however, that while these were widely reported in the wake of his recent comments, I don't have any recollection of hearing them before.

I think two things really doomed Imus here, and neither of those was his history of similar comments:

1. The people Imus attacked were amateur athletes.
There seems to be some sort of perception in the mainstream media that virtually any public figure is fair game for ridicule or disdain because, as people effectively paid to be in the public eye, they are capable of handling it. Heckling athletes is considered an art form in some circles, and many fans boo their own players with relish if said player does not succeed at a particular task, as though they were automatons that were built to work every time. (Remember, even a .400 hitter makes an out six times out of ten.) So when Imus' show attacks Ifill, or William Rhoden, or runs jokes about Chappaquiddick three decades after it happened, that's all well and good. After all, these people are professionals.

But listen to some of the comments by and about the Rutgers women. "A slap in the face?" Really? Again, this isn't to defend what Imus said, but the idea that their whole season was "ruined" by what one guy on the radio said strikes me as over the top. I'm sure none of them listened to, cared about, or probably had even heard of Imus until someone mentioned it to them; the women weren't gathered around the radio for their morning Imus powwow when, to their shock and dismay, he attacked them. However bad it was, the level to which the comment has been skewed seems terribly outlandish. True, I'm neither a woman nor black, and I'm not accusing anyone of falsifying their feelings on the incident. But I am saying that the vehemence with which the nation has turned on Imus would be better directed at real racial issues, not a more or less offhand comment by a shock radio icon who gets paid to be controversial. If not for all the sponsors pulling out, Imus probably could have gotten a raise from CBS, simply for drawing so much attention to himself and the show, more than he's had in his entire career.

The key quote comes from Linzell Vaughn, father of one of the players, as quoted in the CNN piece: "Do not disrespect our children." These women are legally adults, but as college students and amateurs there seems to be this sense of overprotection that Imus unwittingly stumbled up against. His comments were wrong, but the PC coddling of the youth in this country gets worse every year.

2. Imus actually had some credibility.
Far worse comments about a diverse range of people emanate from the mouths of radio and television mainstays like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity on a daily basis. If five comments in ten years seems like a lot, try five comments in ten minutes. The difference? These are all right-wing nutballs who no one takes seriously to begin with. Even when the story occasionally makes it into the mainstream media - like Coulter recently calling John Edwards a "faggot" - there is some quick condemnation and then everyone goes back to their business. Was there any call for Coulter's firing from anything, by, say, Edwards? Of course not. Because (a) Edwards is a public figure who has dealt with attacks before, if not of the same kind and (b) everyone knows Coulter is a space cadet. Firing Ann Coulter for saying something nasty about a Democrat is like firing John Moschitta for talking too fast.

And that was exactly Imus' problem. His show was basically Howard Stern's - except replace Pamela Anderson with Maureen Dowd. Amidst all the relatively low humor (albeit certainly not as low as Stern's), Imus ran charity telethons, discussed politics seriously, interviewed authors - it was like NPR with dick jokes. The problem is, when you do that, people tend not to focus on the dick jokes - until you go too far. And that's exactly what happened. Imus was hoist by his own petard, the petard being his credibility. Put Imus' words in Rush Limbaugh's mouth and he's on the radio right now.

So maybe that's the biggest problem I have with this whole thing. Why should the standard be so much different, just because Imus does some serious interviews? If it's national news and a firing when one person says it, it should be national news and a firing no matter who said it. But I can guarantee you it wouldn't be. The story is being reported as "Imus fired for his comments," but that's bullshit. CBS and MSNBC fired Imus because of money and because of their images, not because they were so bent out of shape over what he said. That doesn't mean it's okay to say, but of all the incidents that have ever gotten radio or TV personalities fired, this has to be among the tamest.

Finally, I liked Jason Whitlock's take on the issue (that's the first time you've ever seen those words in a row), and he's exactly right (and comes at it from a better perspective than I do). Imus' words were distasteful, but were they really that virulent? Were they really so harmful to the black community? It's hard to believe, and I wonder when I think these things if I just don't have the perspective to appreciate them, but Whitlock confirms that at least some members of the black community feel the same way. Imus' remarks should have been frowned upon, and he should have been suspended (as he was prior to being fired), but the end of his career, as this very likely will be, seems a steep price to pay for an insensitive remark that became the cause celebre of a slow news week.

In defense of the CTA

As my Chicago readers, and possibly select others, will be aware, the Brown Line is currently undergoing a series of renovations wherein stops are closed for a while - this "while" has usually turned out to be a year, which I'll admit at least sounds like a lot - to increase capacity, as prior to the start of renovations the Brown Line was incapable of handling trains as long as those on other lines, even though it presently services some of the fastest-growing and most popular neighborhoods, and thus seems to be turning into one of the busiest routes (especially in relation to the overall distance it covers, especially in its NW-of-Belmont non-overlapping-coverage section).

This has left people along the route, including certain friends of this blog, feeling kind of put out. And I'm not going to say that that's entirely undeserved, but I think in general the CTA gets a bad rap. Open a Red Eye sometime - it seems like at least once a week there's a piece the general gist of which is, "Hey, the CTA sucks, right? We interviewed five twentysomethings who didn't grow up here for the answer!" And the MOTS interviews commence, with Rebecca, 28, Lakeview (but probably having grown up in Kansas) citing the one time she ever had a problem with a bus as proof that CTA buses are like Dante's Inferno on wheels.

The CTA isn't perfect - it would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise - but is it really worse than mass transit systems in other cities? (New York's trains have more coverage but their buses are harder to figure out; Washington's trains are nicer but are only comparable in coverage and none of their lines run all night [a good way to gerrymander the cleanliness, I'm guessing]; LA's system is kind of horrible in my limited experience, but then LA is horrible in general from a transit perspective.) More importantly, does anyone have any real solutions?

I actually once complained in this space about the CTA after I had a particularly bad morning, but in retrospect, that's by far the worst morning I've had - I mean, by far - in a year and a half of commuting five days a week. The commute most days is exactly the same - I leave the apartment, get to the bus stop 7-8 minutes later, and I'm on a bus within 10 minutes depending on how well I've timed my arrival. Even on bad traffic days I'm at work within 25-30 minutes of boarding the bus, and it's usually more like 20. This really isn't bad at all, and it's the case for 99% of my year.

To be fair, this is only one person's experience, but a lot of people seem to feel about a late bus the same way they might feel about, say, their food being late in a restaurant, and I think we all know the kind of shit-fits you'll see in those situations. There are people responsible for your service, not automatons. If 9 times out of 10 there's no real problem, why kick them in the butt on the tenth? Yes, people can be made late for work by transit problems and being late for work is traditionally frowned upon, but the CTA isn't making you late on purpose. No, not even when they do track maintenance. You know what makes you late? Tracks falling apart underneath the train. No one ever made any friends by slowing people down with preventative maintenance, but God forbid they didn't do this stuff and something fell apart? Do you suppose a lot of the same people would be first in line to condemn the CTA for its inaction (and, of course, for the fact that a busted track is now making them late to work)?

Here's the thing: the Brown Line serves Roscoe Village and Lincoln Square, two of the most newly-happening neighborhoods in the entire city. And it wasn't built with that in mind. What's wrong with a desire to increase capacity? Sure, it's a headache now, but this isn't the kind of work that can be done by elves while the shoemaker is in bed. The whole idea is that it's a year of hassle now for years of no hassle (or less, anyway) later.

The CTA's slogan is apparently "Leave early, leave late, alternate," those being the three possible ways to avoid big human gridlock at peak hours. Leah's opinion is that "Nobody in Chicago thinks this is going to work." I agree, but her reason seems to be that it won't work because the CTA always sucks, whereas I think it won't work mostly because 99% of people aren't actually going to do that. They're peak hours for a reason; people are going to pin their hopes to "Maybe other people will try those things" and do exactly what they do every day, and things will get worse and worse. To be fair, "Leave early" isn't the best solution if you like sleep, and "Leave late" isn't the best solution if you like work, but frankly I see no reason why "alternate" couldn't work. Consider Leah's situation as stated in her blog - she lives three blocks from Damen and less than that from Montrose, which puts her pretty close to Montrose Avenue itself. Well, checking the CTA map, we see that the 78 (Montrose) bus goes eastbound to the Wilson Red Line stop. Assuming that the average of every ten minutes in the 78's schedule holds even close to true, this gives us:

1. Less wait time in the morning (highly unlikely you'd be waiting 23 minutes for a bus)
2. Slightly longer transit time to the Red Line (probably 10 minutes instead of 7, oh nooo), but:
3. No waiting at Belmont, plus the Red Line will probably be a little less crowded when it gets to Wilson than it would have been at Belmont.

All told, I honestly doubt this commute would be much worse even than a non-renovation-affected Brown Line commute of two years ago. This may very well be the "alternate" experiment route that Leah is planning. I'll be very curious to see how it works out. That said, be wary of generalizing off one day - the post linked above seems to imply that the CTA is garbage because this one time a train was late, which I find to be specious reasoning.

I've had few problems with the CTA, personally. I think it's easier to navigate in combination than pretty much any city's system you could name that covers a similar amount of ground. And I think that most people who complain don't consider the alternatives enough. Train issues? Try a bus. Don't like fares going up? How else are they going to pay for the more modern buses I think all us bus riders prefer? People want to kick the CTA whenever it's down but they also resent paying to help make it better. What world are we living in? The real one, or the one where taking the train is something I do when my unicorn is too tired to fly me to work?

I say, give the Brown Line capacity increase a chance. If they fix up the stations and lengthen the trains and things still suck ass, then by all means, complain away.

Watch it, Coney

Alma has a box of Joy waffle bowls that she got for ice cream (obviously). Now, yes, waffle bowls are fun to eat ice cream out of, but I think the people at Joy are a little full of themselves when it comes to their product. Don't believe me? Let's check the side of the box.

Before we get into the text (which I'm sure you can't read, which is why it's reprinted below), let me just say that I love the royal parchment letterhead on which it appears. "Hear ye! Hear ye! Ye Olde Joy Cone Company has issued the following proclamation about their waffle bowls and the methods in which thou might useth them!"

Joy® Presents
The Perfect Waffle Bowl

All right, Joy. First of all, nobody's perfect. Second of all, it's a freaking waffle bowl. But let's see where you're going with this.

Compare our waffle bowl to other waffle bowls –
* Compare the flavor – ours is the best!
* Compare the shape – ours is perfect!
* Compare the size – ours is twice as large so it holds twice as much!

Nice math on that last one. Wow, 2 = 2? You've shown me the light! I'm going to skip over the flavor one, because Joy's website actually implies that there are independent flavor-testing panels that rate Joy cones above all other cones, regardless of how silly that sounds to the casual observer. I do have to wonder about the second part, though. Is "perfect shape" really what anyone asks from a waffle bowl? As Alma noted, part of the charm of the waffle bowls you find at ice cream parlors is the crimped edge, implying that they were hand-crafted. Joy's "perfect shape" counterproductively implies a soullessness in the creation of the product that I can't imagine provides that much of an attraction. Frankly, I can't recall seeing too many waffle bowls on the shelves at all, so I'm guessing that Joy doesn't have as much competition in the retail department as it might like to think.

Give us a try. Our waffle bowl is a sweet treat, so it tastes best with foods that complement the sweetness.

Well, there goes my idea to fill it with chili. Must you dump all over my dreams, Joy?

You'll see some yummy ways to try our waffle bowls on the sides of this package.

I don't know anyone who has ever eaten anything but ice cream from a waffle bowl. Unsurprisingly, two of the other three sides of the package do in fact picture ice cream. The third pictures a cartoon child gesturing at a surprisingly robust fruit salad, which by my count contains at least six different kinds of fruit.

My question is, if you've gone to the trouble of getting yourself a healthy dessert, why do you want to crap up that endeavor by putting it into a waffle bowl? (Granted, the waffle bowl is hardly the worst thing ever, at just 80 calories, but it's certainly greater than the zero of using a real bowl. After all, if you're not going to eat the waffle bowl, there's no reason to use one at all.)

For other delicious combinations, try the following:

* Vanilla yogurt and granola cereal.

* Your favorite fruit slices and your favorite yogurt flavor.

Wait a second, Joy: I thought you were going to come up with the ideas! Now all of a sudden I'm called upon to do the legwork? Come on, it can't be that hard to think up a popular fruit and type of yogurt.

* Create sundaes limited only by your imagination.

Let's hope my imagination isn't as limited as this copywriter's.

* For parties (children and adults alike), put out a variety of ice cream, toppings, fruits, nuts, you get the idea, and let everyone make their own dessert.

The strangely jocular familiarity (to say nothing of the egregious grammatical error) implied in "you get the idea" weirds me out a little bit. Also, I'm fairly certain that you've already named everything that could possibly be associated with ice cream, so what is even left unspoken by "you get the idea?" This doesn't even touch on the idea that fruits and nuts are types of toppings. They go off on this list, end it with "you get the idea," ha-ha implying all the myriad things you could put on your ice cream, but they totally gerrymandered the list to make it look more impressive. I'm on to you, bastards.

* Pudding topped with whipped cream and shaved chocolate.

Finally, something novel. I probably would have put this earlier on the list, because I think devotees of waffle-cone-box recipe hints would probably have wandered away before this point, having been told several times in a row, "Eh, come up with it yourselves."

For additional recipe ideas, visit our web site at http://www.joycone.com

"Additional" recipe ideas? What on earth else can you even do with a waffle bowl? A quick check of the website confirms: not very much. I'm glad they actually went to the trouble of suggesting types of ice cream you could put into the bowl, rather than informing you curtly that any sundaes are required to be the products of your imagination, but negative a million points for ending every recipe with "EnJOY." Hey, also prepare to be BOWLed over by the taste! Ha ha! You see what I did there? It's like, part of the product name!

The "make-ahead" preparations are also rather hilarious. This isn't like a real recipe where you'll need to let the Andes mints marinate overnight. "Chop Andes mints, saving some for garnish. Clean/dry fresh mint. (Be sure to do this at least two hours in advance, because all that work is going to tire you out, and you'll need some time to recuperate before preparation of the sundae can commence in earnest.)"

I was going to conclude this post with a note about how the small print on the box describes the company as "independent" and "partly family-owned," and give them a break because maybe they do a lot of the box design and/or promotion themselves. But the same small print also refers to "the art of cone baking." Calm the fuck down, you guys.

You mean coitus?

So I assume many of you will at least have heard of this online clothing site, Bluefly.com. Their big thing is designer brands on the cheap, I guess (or cheaper, anyway), and recently they appear actually to be making ads for television broadcast. But honestly, I don't know how much play ads like this are going to get:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSCoYi_tGRc (for the record, I would avoid watching this or anything below at work)

I mean, really? I'm as much a fan of taking clothes off as the next red-blooded guy, but this was made for television broadcast? The insane part is that this is the 90-second version, and of course we rarely see commercials that long. So maybe this wasn't intended for TV broadcast so much. But the 30-second version, which cuts through all the fooforah, hardly dispenses with the all-but-nudity.

And then there's the 15-second version. At this level the plot is barely even comprehensible - the whole point behind "What did you think I was going to wear to work today?" is lost. In 15 seconds the ad is pretty much just "Bluefly.com - The perfect post-fucking attire for the modern woman." (Of course, that could easily be the slogan at the end of the 30 and 90 spots, too.) For that matter, it almost plays like an ad for an escort service.

This sort of ad is evidently nothing new for Bluefly; consider this 2005 spot which I can only presume was Internet-only. And then, after I commented to Alma, Drew and Karen that the only way the original ad could be more soft-core pornographic was with thrusting and actual nudity, I ran across this one, which gets pretty much halfway there. This was the "uncut" version and never was supposed to hit TV, but compare it to the 30-second version - was there really that much of a difference?

Sex sells and we all know it, but I can't be alone in feeling like these ads are getting precariously close to the line of what it makes sense to have on TV. Even more so, though, I just hate the tagline on that last one. "Turn every head in the place, even if you never make it to the place?" What? So I should spend a bunch of cash on clothes that I'm only going to wear long enough for my amorous spouse to take them right back off? Money well spent! This could easily have been an ad for Viagra, and frankly it makes a lot more sense that way.

I fully expect the next Bluefly commercial just to be a 30-second clip from a porno movie, and right as they hit the money shot, the announcer comes in: "Bluefly.com. Apparently we sell clothing."