The lead singer of the American band The Breeders between songs:
We're going to play a Beatles cover. We think this song is really one of the classics ... What's the Mexican word for 'classic'?
- You're not in Mexico right now.
- Mexico is not the same as Spain. You flew nine hours to get here, not three.
- You're lucky no one understood what you said. Because they only speak Mexican.
- In general, it is more embarrassing to attempt cultural literacy and fail (see: 1 through 3) than to just accept that you don't know very much about the culture you're experiencing and take it from there. None of the Swedish or German or British or French bands tried to speak Spanish. They just played music, spoke the esperanto-English that Europeans deploy when they run into each other, and tacked some graciases onto the end.
- The word is classico. I know this is difficult to know, since it does not appear in any Taco Bell menu items, but you could have asked a roadie or something.
- Mike always stands up on public transport
- Mike loves showering in other people's houses, and using their products
- Mike finished 'Disgrace' by JM Coetzee on the plane and can't stop thinking about it
- Every time Mike hears 'chorizo' he wants to shout 'fo shizzo!'
- Mike feels justified taking two showers a day in Madrid, since he only takes about one a week in Copenhagen.
- Nonetheless, after three days of unsuccessfully seeking shade-asylum, Mike smells incredible
- Mike loves learning the public transport systems of other cities. Turnstyles! Hanging commuter-straps! 'Proxima estación', colon! Geographic information on European capitals may be the only knowledge Mike possesses that cannot be classified as trivia.
- Mike accidentally ordered anchovies
- Mike got winked at by a Madridian homosexual. Internal panic, eyes snapping to ground indicate Mike has lived in Denmark too long.
- Mike has spoken Danish to at least three Spanish people
- Spain is the only European country Mike has been to where the alcohol is not measured into bubbling centiliter standardizers before being poured. Mike thinks this should be the subject of an EU Directive.
That's right, the 14-day waiting period between music festivals is over. I'm off to Madrid to see the following nonsense:
2manydjs — Blondie — Breeders — Cornelius — CSS — Etienne de Crécy — Foals Grinderman — Ian Brown — Interpol — Kings Of Leon — Kooks — Mogwai — Primal Scream — Raveonettes — Sex Pistols — Shout Out Louds — Sons & Daughters — Tiga — Verve — We Are Scientists
Then I'm northing to the worn-out, inflatable lovedoll that is London for some extracurricular traipsery. My goals for the next 10 days are cartoonishly humble. See some friends, listen to some music. If I can't pull that off, I might as well move to Belgium.
Although we typically post on Team Vox to let you know about things that are going on with Vox (to, uh, state the obvious), once in a while, we like to let you know about other cool things that are happening around the blogosphere. And we think the idea of four hilarious mommy bloggers traveling across the U.S. on their way to the BlogHer '08 conference - all the while blogging and video blogging the journey - is one trip you will not want to miss.
Four adventurous bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group were selected to participate in the Summer Road Trip '08 and blog about their travels, hotel stays, media appearances, time away from their families, and life on the road. Six Apart helped them partner up with General Motors, who provided the blogging mommies with a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV to help make their journey comfy, safe, and a little more green.
In case you're not familiar with them, SV Moms is a group of over 200 bloggers who showcase the ups, downs, outrages, struggles, victories, and everyday humor of motherhood. There are currently nine regional and demographically tailored sites that give mothers from D.C., New Jersey, the Deep South, Rocky Mountains, L.A., and Silicon Valley a powerful voice and sense of camaraderie across the country. Whether you're a mother, a child, or just a person who enjoys a good blog, you'll really love reading the words of these amazing women.
The moms buckled into their Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV on July 11th and even got an encouraging message from Katie Couric to kick things off! They are currently somewhere in the middle of America making their way to San Francisco where they'll attend an SV Moms Group Party, as well as BlogHer '08.
You do not want to miss these entertaining and irreverent bloggers -- or their spontaneous contest giveaways! -- as they blog from the road. Experience the journey at MomRoadTrip.com.
And let us know about your summer road trip - or plane/boat/bus trip - in the comments! (I like to live vicariously.)
Here's an anecdote by my new favorite blogger about a War of Attrition that ensued after he ordered an espresso poured over ice:
And the guy at the counter looked me in the eye with a straight face and said “I’m sorry, we can’t serve iced espresso here. It’s against our policy.”
The whole world turned brown and chunky for a second. Flecks of corn floated past my pupils, and it took me a second to blink it all away.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll have a triple espresso and a cup of ice, please.”
He rolled his eyes and rang it up, took my money, gave me change. I stood there and waited. Then the barista called me over to the bar. I reached for it, and he leaned over and locked his eyes with mine, saying “Hey man. What you’re about to do … that’s really, really Not Okay.”
I could hear the capital letters in his voice, could see the gravity of the situation in his eyes.
He continued: “This is our store policy, to preserve the integrity of the coffee. It’s about the quality of the drink, and diluting the espresso is really not cool with us. So I mean, you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and I can’t stop you, but”
I interrupted. “You’re goddamned right you can’t stop me,” I said. “I happen to have a personal policy that prohibits me from indulging stupid bullshit like this — and another personal policy of doing what I want with the products I pay for.” Then I looked him right in his big wide eyes and poured the espresso onto the ice.
I seriously love this. Maybe I'm getting older, but I find immense satisfaction in the tiny, quotidian revolutions that we save for interactions like this. This reminds me of my old friend Tim, who used to demand to rip his own ticket whenever we went to the movies together.
Usher: [holds out hand]
Tim: Oh, if you don't mind, I'd actually like to rip my own ticket.
Usher: No, I'm sorry, I rip the ticket.
Tim: I'd really just like to do it myself. I'll give you the stub.
Usher: No, we rip all tickets, sir.
Tim: Why can't I just rip it? I'm right in front of you, I'm not going to pull some trick or anything.
Usher: Sir. Sir. We rip the tickets.
Tim: [not breaking eye contact, rips ticket, hands stub to usher]
Usher: No, I'm sorry I can't let you into the movie.
Tim: I just ripped my ticket and handed you the stub. Precisely nothing has just occured here. This is a routine transaction.
Usher: I'm sorry, you can't be allowed into the theater.
I started getting to movies half an hour early so Tim could do his routine. It always ended with the usher's head dipping down to his shoulder-walkie and beckoning either the manager or security. Tim stopped after we got bounced while trying to see 'Desperado'. Come to your senses indeed.
There's something human about reverting to the default 'No!' when confronted with behavior that is outside of the norm. I can't help but think that the reason I can't get married really just comes down to a million of those movie ushers, voting or legislating or evangelizing or word-of-mouthing their 'this is how its done' paradigm. Every once in awhile me and Tim would get an usher who just went 'whatever' and straightened his fez. The only thing I learned from The Regularly Scheduled Uprising of Tim, ultimately, was that a little apathy goes a long way.
This was my mpg reading when I got home today - I averaged 60.1 mpg over the 62.5 round trip of my commute. A personal record, I think! (I drove carefully, caught most of the lights, didn't need to pull out fast into traffic, was able to drive with the windows up and no A/C, and it's a 5-speed - all good means of "hypermiling") It's too bad all cars don't come with an mpg gauge such as this one, where it displays a bar (at the bottom of the screen there) at all times showing you your mpg as it varies in real time - you can really see which driving behaviors affect it the most, and then it's like a game to beat your previous record on that same course.
Have I mentioned that I love my little car? [I think maybe I have...]
Now, you may ask (and you'd be justified in asking)... how do I reconcile this post with yesterday's afternoon at the races, where hundreds of gallons of fuel were consumed? Er, well, um. I would guess (though I'm just making this up) that vintage cars use less fuel than, say, NASCAR or definitely than dragsters. And I'm afraid it's just plain fun to watch those old cars in a road race once a year. Maybe I'm saving enough gas to make up for it? Well, let's do the math: I've driven 135,000 miles in my hybrid, averaging about 52 mpg (that's more normal than today), vs 25 I might be getting in a regular sedan of some sort = 2,800 gallons of gas I've saved [yeah, I know I could theoretically drive fewer miles, but this is really only commuting 60 miles a day and trips to take the kids to school etc.] So, well, don't judge me too harshly, please - I'm trying, anyway :-)
The Red Runt got a little bling in the form of a brand-new Scorpion exhaust system, just in time for the Mini picnic on Sunday. Also, it's now "no longer cute" :-)
Today we went to BeaveRun racecourse to watch the finals of weekend #1 of Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix racing. They generally run some of the more recent and more powerful cars at BeaveRun, which is a road-style course, but not so winding as the course at Schenley Park where they'll run the real oldies next weekend.
Here's a map of the track. We had lunch and watched the races from the BMW/Mini tent, which was at Turn 11.
We had expected to find lots of friends for the Red Runt, but there were only 2 little buddies at the tent. I think the weather kept a lot of people away. It was sprinkling now and then, and then shortly before the first race of the afternoon, it really poured - we were walking around the paddock at that point, and we had to take refuge in the Kart racing pro shop, which was kind of interesting.
The BMW/Mini tent was a nice location to watch the race from, and lunch was good (catered by Pandolfo's restaurant in Bridgeville) - dijon pulled chicken or BBQ sandwiches, coleslaw, and various little cakes. We didn't know anyone there, since this was the first event we've attended, but we plan to go to more events, so then we'll get to know people.
Paddock photos:
And here are the races:
Group 1: muscle cars basically (Mustangs, Corvettes, Cobras, Porsches) - though only 6 of the 16 entrants actually went on to the track, probably because it was so wet. You can see the spray coming up from their tires.
Group 2: vintage small-bore (Triumph, MG, Porsche speedster, any pre-war) - this was a fun group, though 2 of them ended up in the grass going around the bend in front of us, again due to the wet road.
Group 3: BMW / Porsche Challenge (just a race between members of the local BMW and Porsche clubs, all years and models). There was another downpour during this race, and the lead car spun out around that bend you see there; the driver got an award at the end of the day for "saving his car while doing multiple donuts" [and another car narrowly missed him].
Group 4: vintage big-bore & historic small bore (Jaguar, Maserati, Aston Martin, Mini Cooper, etc). Another car spun out in this group, but no harm done - though he had a hard time getting back out of the grass. The Jaguar here in the photo was having a hard time keeping it on the road every time he took this bend. More rain during this race, which had to be difficult for those with open cockpits.
Group 5: Formula racers - these guys were really zipping around the track!
And Group 6: Historic medium-bore (MG, Triumph, Porsche, Alfa Romeo). During Group 5 we moved to the balcony of the main grandstand, where we could see the start and finish, and also Turn 7 coming down the hill to Turn 8.
By this time, the weather had broken, and the sun was out... but the races were over.
Fun afternoon!
Nikki liked so well what Al did with our coffee table last Fall, that she decided to try the same with the coffee table she found on CraigsList for her new apartment... only she's using some of her very own handmade tiles which were part of her capstone project when she got her degree last December.
She and Al worked together to choose and build the wood frame, and lay out and grout the tiles.
I think it turned out really cool, and is definitely more interesting than the plain oak (and waterstained) table top that was there before.
July is national ice cream month! What's your favorite flavor?
Submitted by LittleWiseOne.
Especially yummy with sliced bananas on top!
