• The Irvington Halloween Festival is this Saturday, from nine in the morning until five in the evening, on Washington Street between Audubon and Ritter in the heart of “downtown” Irvington. Music, food, a pumpkin pie eating contest, a reptile show - even a parade - all crammed into a handful of city blocks. Be sure to stop in at Lazy Daze for a cup of coffee or tea, as it’s going to be a chilly fall morning. Click here for the festival’s blog site.
• Barack Obama will hold a rally at the American Legion Mall on Thursday (10.23). Gates open at nine in the morning, with the rallying to begin at eleven. Tickets are not required, though they would like for folks to RSVP online. I haven’t had a chance to go to one of these deals yet, but I’m on vacation this week and Amy’s on fall break starting tomorrow afternoon - so we may get to take little Jackson to his first political rally.
• Waterman’s Farm Market puts on a Fall Harvest Festival from September 27th through Halloween. Amy wanted to take a hayride at some point during her fall break, and I think this is the one we’re going to try to do. For the bargain basement price of five bucks (on weekends) you get to tour the farm on a hayride, which then drops you off in the pumpkin patch. The website also mentions a “straw hill” that little kids can climb. Setting the now-walking though not-exactly-steady-on-his-feet Jackson to climbing a hill made of straw sounds like comedy gold, Jerry! Gold!!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Why Conservatives Suck (#1)
Pop quiz, hotshot.
It's fourth and one. You're at roughly midfield with around ten minutes left in the second quarter. You're down 10-7.
What do you do?
GO FOR IT!
I don't necessarily think the Colts would have won this game if they had gone for it at that point - Manning's 161 yards and 2 touchdowns in support of the Packers certainly did not help - but it would have been the gutsy thing to do, and Manning, at least, wanted to try. He was clearly displeased as he came off the field - I don't recall having seen many shots of Manning yelling and screaming on the sideline, but I saw it today as the punting unit went on for the fourth down play.
If the season ended today, the Colts would be out of the playoffs. They're currently in a four-way tie for the sixth wild card spot (NYJ, Baltimore, Jacksonville), but the first rule for breaking a tie between three or more teams for a wild card spot is to apply the division tie-break rule - which eliminates Indianapolis because of the loss to Jacksonville.
It's fourth and one. You're at roughly midfield with around ten minutes left in the second quarter. You're down 10-7.
What do you do?
GO FOR IT!
I don't necessarily think the Colts would have won this game if they had gone for it at that point - Manning's 161 yards and 2 touchdowns in support of the Packers certainly did not help - but it would have been the gutsy thing to do, and Manning, at least, wanted to try. He was clearly displeased as he came off the field - I don't recall having seen many shots of Manning yelling and screaming on the sideline, but I saw it today as the punting unit went on for the fourth down play.
If the season ended today, the Colts would be out of the playoffs. They're currently in a four-way tie for the sixth wild card spot (NYJ, Baltimore, Jacksonville), but the first rule for breaking a tie between three or more teams for a wild card spot is to apply the division tie-break rule - which eliminates Indianapolis because of the loss to Jacksonville.
Why I No Longer Support John Barnes For State Representative
Back on April 1st, which was well over six months ago - that’s half a year to you and me! - I replied to an e-mail sent out by the John Barnes campaign, indicating that I would be pleased to put a Barnes sign in my yard. After several months had gone by and no sign had come, I signed up for one at the Barnes booth at the Irvington Farmer’s Market in August - but never got one. Two months later, at the final Irvington Farmer’s Market of the season, I stopped by the Barnes booth and asked if they had any extra signs. And glory be! Don’tcha know, they did!
So I finally had my sign - along with a mess of cheese, some fruit, and a great big bunch of fresh basil that I chopped up the next day and put into the blender with some chopped garlic, toasted pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil and turned into a very nice pesto dipping sauce that paired perfectly with some ciabatta bread I got at Trader Joe’s and warmed up in the oven.
But anyway - that was a week ago, on the 19th. We walked home from the farmer’s market (my house may be a piece of shit, but I can walk to Ellenberger Park) and I plunked my sign down in the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street and was reasonably content.
And then I came home from work this week, either Thursday or Friday, and found yet another Barnes For State Rep flyer in the mail. Our mail over the last several months has contained many of these flyers - and a few for Barnes’ Republican opponent. I’ve perused a few of them but not really paid much attention. The cover of this one, however, said, “On illegal immigration...There is no gray area.” This was on a black and white background in black and white text.
And so, less than a week after getting it, I pulled up the Barnes yard sign. Yes, illegal immigration is a problem; but using a simpleton’s argument - like the one inside this hateful flyer, “No amnesty, no licenses, no jobs for illegals” - isn’t the way to address and correct the problem. It is, however, the way to appeal to xenophobic, racist conservatives. This flyer is clearly a play for the votes of conservative Democrats, and perhaps for the votes of the handful of true scumbags who believe this black and white bovine fecal matter about immigration and think it’s the most important issue we face at the moment. (Um, it’s the economy, stupid.)
Haven’t we had enough of the conservative fearpolitik during the reign of King George II and Darth Cheney? A flyer like this one is not the right signal to send to people who wanted to believe your schtick about being a progressive Democrat. Being progressive means seeing beyond the simple black-and-white parts of the issue and transcending the fearpolitik; it does not mean being a conservative and trying to fool people by putting a cheap donkey mask on your face.
So I finally had my sign - along with a mess of cheese, some fruit, and a great big bunch of fresh basil that I chopped up the next day and put into the blender with some chopped garlic, toasted pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, and olive oil and turned into a very nice pesto dipping sauce that paired perfectly with some ciabatta bread I got at Trader Joe’s and warmed up in the oven.
But anyway - that was a week ago, on the 19th. We walked home from the farmer’s market (my house may be a piece of shit, but I can walk to Ellenberger Park) and I plunked my sign down in the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street and was reasonably content.
And then I came home from work this week, either Thursday or Friday, and found yet another Barnes For State Rep flyer in the mail. Our mail over the last several months has contained many of these flyers - and a few for Barnes’ Republican opponent. I’ve perused a few of them but not really paid much attention. The cover of this one, however, said, “On illegal immigration...There is no gray area.” This was on a black and white background in black and white text.
And so, less than a week after getting it, I pulled up the Barnes yard sign. Yes, illegal immigration is a problem; but using a simpleton’s argument - like the one inside this hateful flyer, “No amnesty, no licenses, no jobs for illegals” - isn’t the way to address and correct the problem. It is, however, the way to appeal to xenophobic, racist conservatives. This flyer is clearly a play for the votes of conservative Democrats, and perhaps for the votes of the handful of true scumbags who believe this black and white bovine fecal matter about immigration and think it’s the most important issue we face at the moment. (Um, it’s the economy, stupid.)
Haven’t we had enough of the conservative fearpolitik during the reign of King George II and Darth Cheney? A flyer like this one is not the right signal to send to people who wanted to believe your schtick about being a progressive Democrat. Being progressive means seeing beyond the simple black-and-white parts of the issue and transcending the fearpolitik; it does not mean being a conservative and trying to fool people by putting a cheap donkey mask on your face.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Why I Support Barack Obama (#1)
There are quite a few reasons why Barack Obama is going to get my vote on November 4th, and I was reminded of one of them today while I was checking the news online at work. One of the weaknesses people point to when they talk about Obama is his lack of experience in the arena of foreign relations. What is not often mentioned in the same conversation is mentioned in this article that was posted on MSNBC this afternoon - that Obama, at the urging of Senator Dick Lugar, soon after being elected to the Senate sought and gained a seat on the Foreign Relations committee, which at the time was chaired by Lugar. Since then, Lugar and Obama have worked together on reducing global stockpiles of nuclear weapons (as well as conventional weapons) by authoring legislation to coordinate the disposal of said weapons. There are even rumors floating about that Obama, if elected, might tap Lugar for a cabinet post - and that would be refreshing. It would be a welcome change from the way the White House has been run for the last eight years.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Blueberry Hill Pancake House
It’s been a good long while since we got out and tried someplace new to eat, but because of an odd schedule change I was able to have lunch with Amy and Jackson Saturday afternoon before I went to work. Amy suggested we go to the Blueberry Hill Pancake House, along the achingly depressed stretch of east Washington Street between I-465 and Post Road. It’s in the little building that used to be a Perkins and was before that a Shoney’s - and is pretty much your run of the mill country bumpkin comfort food place.
Amy and our waitress were apparently connected by the Vulcan mind meld to some sort of warp speed ordering procedure, so I half panicked and ordered the country-fried steak before I even got halfway through the menu. Amy got some kind of Mediterranean skillet creation, which had gyro meat in it. That and the fact that the gyro sandwich occupies pride of place in the middle of the sandwich section lead me to believe the place is owned by Greeks. Also, the guy who hung around the counter and clearly looked like he owned the place also looked like he was Greek. I know that’s probably not politically correct to say - but he was a stocky, swarthy fellow, with dark olive skin and hardly any neck. Either way, if he’s not a Greek restaurant owner, he should be.
But anyway, after a bit the food came out and after we corrected the waitress’ error and swapped plates, we tucked in. (Waitress also might not any longer be the preferred nomenclature, but that’s what she called herself. If you haven’t had the misfortune to sup at this place, I guess you’ll have to take my word for it - no one will ever use the words cosmopolitan or sophisticated to describe any aspect of this establishment.)
Amy pronounced her Mediterranean skillet - with hash browns, onion, green pepper, feta, gyro meat, and two eggs on top - delightful. My country fried steak came with two eggs and hash browns - and both came with either toast or pancakes. Since the word pancake is in the name of the place, I figured I would go with the pancakes. (This was not Amy’s first time, and she didn’t even hesitate before saying pancakes.) Nothing on my plate was exactly bad, but neither was it impressive. You can get the exact same meal, though it will taste infinitely better, at Cracker Barrel - and you’ll still be able to enjoy your meal surrounded by Republicans.
There’s a little bit of everything on the menu - from breakfast items to sandwiches and burgers to salads to Italian food and stir-fry...even crèpes (but that’s worrisome because one of the choices is peach and cottage cheese - and someone needs to pass a law stipulating that cottage cheese is never never never an acceptable substitution for ricotta, not in any dish, for any reason). You can even get Freedom toast. Yes...Freedom toast. Remember when the retarded hillbillies started calling French fries “Freedom fries” after the whole 9/11 thing? Well, they’ve still got ‘em at the ol’ Blueberry Hill Pancake House. The Freedom toast, of course, is just French toast renamed by retards.
Now, having said that - and laying aside the hillbilly naming conventions - the pancakes are pretty good. They’re big and thick and fluffy, with a hint of sweet vanilla flavor. You couldn’t pay me to eat stir-fry or a reuben at a place like this; and even though I normally support the indie places passionately, that faux patriotic bullshit turns my stomach. A return trip? Unlikely - even though it is a mom-and-pop and not a chain. I’m not sure how I could possibly rationalize ever spending any more of my money on the kinds of mental furballs who still use the word freedom in place of the word French.
Amy and our waitress were apparently connected by the Vulcan mind meld to some sort of warp speed ordering procedure, so I half panicked and ordered the country-fried steak before I even got halfway through the menu. Amy got some kind of Mediterranean skillet creation, which had gyro meat in it. That and the fact that the gyro sandwich occupies pride of place in the middle of the sandwich section lead me to believe the place is owned by Greeks. Also, the guy who hung around the counter and clearly looked like he owned the place also looked like he was Greek. I know that’s probably not politically correct to say - but he was a stocky, swarthy fellow, with dark olive skin and hardly any neck. Either way, if he’s not a Greek restaurant owner, he should be.
But anyway, after a bit the food came out and after we corrected the waitress’ error and swapped plates, we tucked in. (Waitress also might not any longer be the preferred nomenclature, but that’s what she called herself. If you haven’t had the misfortune to sup at this place, I guess you’ll have to take my word for it - no one will ever use the words cosmopolitan or sophisticated to describe any aspect of this establishment.)
Amy pronounced her Mediterranean skillet - with hash browns, onion, green pepper, feta, gyro meat, and two eggs on top - delightful. My country fried steak came with two eggs and hash browns - and both came with either toast or pancakes. Since the word pancake is in the name of the place, I figured I would go with the pancakes. (This was not Amy’s first time, and she didn’t even hesitate before saying pancakes.) Nothing on my plate was exactly bad, but neither was it impressive. You can get the exact same meal, though it will taste infinitely better, at Cracker Barrel - and you’ll still be able to enjoy your meal surrounded by Republicans.
There’s a little bit of everything on the menu - from breakfast items to sandwiches and burgers to salads to Italian food and stir-fry...even crèpes (but that’s worrisome because one of the choices is peach and cottage cheese - and someone needs to pass a law stipulating that cottage cheese is never never never an acceptable substitution for ricotta, not in any dish, for any reason). You can even get Freedom toast. Yes...Freedom toast. Remember when the retarded hillbillies started calling French fries “Freedom fries” after the whole 9/11 thing? Well, they’ve still got ‘em at the ol’ Blueberry Hill Pancake House. The Freedom toast, of course, is just French toast renamed by retards.
Now, having said that - and laying aside the hillbilly naming conventions - the pancakes are pretty good. They’re big and thick and fluffy, with a hint of sweet vanilla flavor. You couldn’t pay me to eat stir-fry or a reuben at a place like this; and even though I normally support the indie places passionately, that faux patriotic bullshit turns my stomach. A return trip? Unlikely - even though it is a mom-and-pop and not a chain. I’m not sure how I could possibly rationalize ever spending any more of my money on the kinds of mental furballs who still use the word freedom in place of the word French.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Religulous
Bill Maher travels all over creation - so to speak - in order to confront the faithful with cherry-picked contradictions to the answers they give to his loaded questions about what they believe. His own religious upbringing is muddled - Catholic father and Jewish mother - and he has come to conclude that religion is dangerous. In a sense, he’s right; but he misses, somewhat surprisingly, an important secondary point - which is that conservative thinking is also dangerous. At least, the two have the potential to be quite dangerous - just on their own. Combine them, and the result is a toxic stew of abdicated reason and mental decomposition that, in its very worst extremities, leads people to learn to fly straight so that they can park airplanes in skyscrapers.
He also misses - or chooses to ignore, which is probably closer to the truth - the point that religion does do some very fine things - though I strongly believe that this doing of fine things is directly proportional to how liberal a particular church or congregation is. That’s mostly a supposition based on my belief that little to no good comes from conservative thinking and politics - but it would take some pretty persuasive evidence to convince me otherwise.
But anyway...we’re talking about Bill Maher and his religion polemic. It’s heavy-handed and one-sided, brooks virtually no argument, and ends with several minutes of oddly incongruous anti-hellfire-and-brimstone hellfire and brimstone. And yet...I liked it. But then again, I don’t believe in god and I don’t go to church - and that’s pretty much the target demographic here. I liked the movie, but it was not completely satisfying. Maher seems genuinely interested in why believers believe what they believe, but seems so stuck on what he finds ridiculous about religion that he winds up making fun of the people he talks to rather than having serious discussions with them - a would-be investigative reporter who can’t quite transcend his comedic roots.
See, I don’t think religion is ridiculous. I think its applications can be ridiculous (paging the Saudis) and that some of its most ardent adherents are completely around the bend (paging Rod Parsley, and other such mental furballs) - but not that religion, in and of itself, is ridiculous. (Well...okay, Leviticus is ridiculous.) Treating it as such is unfair and, ultimately, not nearly interesting enough nor satisfying enough - but right up to the last three or four minutes, it’s pretty freaking funny.
He also misses - or chooses to ignore, which is probably closer to the truth - the point that religion does do some very fine things - though I strongly believe that this doing of fine things is directly proportional to how liberal a particular church or congregation is. That’s mostly a supposition based on my belief that little to no good comes from conservative thinking and politics - but it would take some pretty persuasive evidence to convince me otherwise.
But anyway...we’re talking about Bill Maher and his religion polemic. It’s heavy-handed and one-sided, brooks virtually no argument, and ends with several minutes of oddly incongruous anti-hellfire-and-brimstone hellfire and brimstone. And yet...I liked it. But then again, I don’t believe in god and I don’t go to church - and that’s pretty much the target demographic here. I liked the movie, but it was not completely satisfying. Maher seems genuinely interested in why believers believe what they believe, but seems so stuck on what he finds ridiculous about religion that he winds up making fun of the people he talks to rather than having serious discussions with them - a would-be investigative reporter who can’t quite transcend his comedic roots.
See, I don’t think religion is ridiculous. I think its applications can be ridiculous (paging the Saudis) and that some of its most ardent adherents are completely around the bend (paging Rod Parsley, and other such mental furballs) - but not that religion, in and of itself, is ridiculous. (Well...okay, Leviticus is ridiculous.) Treating it as such is unfair and, ultimately, not nearly interesting enough nor satisfying enough - but right up to the last three or four minutes, it’s pretty freaking funny.
Monday, September 29, 2008
The Red Herring: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Accept The Rush Defense
Rush Defense
2008 - 31st, 199.3 (after three games)
2007 - 15th, 106.9
2006 - 32nd, 173.0 (27.6 YPG worse than #31)
2005 - 16th, 110.1
2004 - 24th, 127.3
2003 - 20th, 123.8 (tie, St. Louis)
Average - 21.4, 128.22
Pass Defense
2008 - 2nd, 141.0 (after three games)
2007 - 2nd, 172.8
2006 - 2nd, 159.3
2005 - 15th, 196.9
2004 - 28th, 243.3
2003 - 5th, 175.6
Average - 10.4, 189.58
From 2003-2007, the Colts have averaged 128.22 yards per game given up by the rush defense. In that span, they were no better than 15th in the league in rush defense - and as bad as 32nd. (There are 32 teams in the NFL.) The year they were 32nd, they gave up a remarkable 173 yards per game on the ground. They were gashed that year, in Jacksonville, for 375 yards on the ground - against the same two tailbacks that dropped 236 yards on them a week ago Sunday.
Of course, that was the same season that concluded with the Colts waxing Chicago in Miami and winning the Super Bowl. Is the rush defense a red herring? Absolutely. Not in the sense that anyone is trying to be misleading - but in the sense that it doesn’t really matter. In the same five-year span, the Colts averaged 12.6 wins per season. Only four other teams in the league have averaged 10 or more wins per season in the same span; and of those, only one - New England - has more wins per season (13.2) than the Colts. (The other three teams are Seattle at 10.2 and Pittsburgh and San Diego, both at 10.0.)
Just like they lucked their way to the Super Bowl, the Colts will from time to time luck out and have a decent-to-good rush defense; but this part of the game will never be the focus because it’s not how the team is built to win. This team is built to win with passing - by scoring quickly and often with their passing offense, and by neutralizing the opponent’s vertical game with the Cover 2 defense. This naturally leads Colts opponents to run the ball, which, more often than not, showcases the fact that linebackers who play for the Colts tend to be awful. And when you have Freeney spinning off the end on every play, you effectively wind up with a 3-4 defense that lacks both the fourth linebacker and the nose tackle needed to make that scheme work. The result is that teams can run on the Colts at will - and they do.
People get distracted by the run defense because it’s easy to see how bad it is, and they fail to see the coaching deficiencies that contribute to how bad the rush defense is. Tony Dungy is a good coach. That’s it. He’s not a great coach, and he’s not some wizard when it comes to coaching defense. People think he’s a wizard because of that Tampa Cover 2, but if you’re going to make the case for the Tampa 2, you have to give at least as much credit for that defense to middle (4-3) or weakside (3-4) linebacker Derrick Brooks as you do to Dungy. Brooks is a special talent, the likes of which the Indianapolis Colts have never had at linebacker.
The Colts will never have a great rush defense - nor even a respectable one, very often - for three reasons. The first is that they don’t draft to fill needs - they draft the best player available when their number comes up. This is not necessarily a bad thing - drafting the best player available has allowed the Colts to build one of the best offenses in football and what is without question the best secondary in the league. However, all of that exceptional talent comes at a price; and the second reason the Colts will never excel at stopping the run is that they don’t have the money to play the free agent market in an effort to land that elusive superstar linebacker. They also don’t have the money to keep their good linebackers from leaving at the end of the season - reason #3. Last year’s best linebacker, Gary Brackett (and yes, that is sort of sad), was the first since 2003 who did not depart at the end of the season. The roll call of best-linebackers-who-left-at-the-end-of-the-season begins, after the 2003 season, with Mike Peterson, and continues with Marcus Washington (2004), David Thornton (2005) and Cato June (2006).
But that’s far too much on a subject that doesn’t matter. The rush defense didn’t lose the Jacksonville game. Something else that didn’t lose the Jacksonville game (though I imagine a lot of people think it did) was the Freddy Keiaho interference penalty that put the Jaguars into field goal range. Had the Colts called their plays better on their last drive, it would have been Jacksonville trying to lateral their way to a miracle victory with no time left on the clock.
Instead, they called two pass plays on first and second down with goal to go and less than ninety seconds to play. Those two passes were incompletions that melted exactly six seconds off the clock. Six. Seconds. Off. The. Clock. I don’t recall how many timeouts Jacksonville had left during this series, but I don’t think it would have mattered - if they had had any, they would have saved them to use on their last drive, probably assuming the Colts would score. The Colts should have run Addai four times in a row, even if it meant losing the game. Who in the world thought it was a good idea to score quick and then let the defense - which had been on the field for the vast majority of the second half - try to hold a Jacksonville offense it had as yet been unable to stop?
You might be saying that all of this should have been moot - Rashean Mathis should have been called for interference on the pick he ran back for a touchdown, right? All right...yeah, he probably should have been flagged. And yet the Colts were still in position to win - with the ball, goal to go, less than two minutes - and they blew it. They lost a game they should have won, and of which they had control in the last two minutes, when that control really matters. Losing games they should have won is why Lane Kiffin is going to get fired this week (also because Al Davis likes to fire coaches almost as much as Steinbrenner likes - or used to like - to fire managers).
The rush defense is always going to be bad - but it is rarely going to lose games for the Colts. I don’t keep track of football as much as I used to, but I believe they still award victories to the team that scores the most points, not the team that runs for the most yards. They called the wrong plays at the end of the Jacksonville game, it’s as simple as that. Maybe Dungy made the call, and maybe Moore sent it to Manning that way - but Manning, who can change the play at the line of scrimmage, and does so often, is the one who threw the ball twice instead of handing it off. It was those last two passes that cost the Colts the game, not the rush defense.
2008 - 31st, 199.3 (after three games)
2007 - 15th, 106.9
2006 - 32nd, 173.0 (27.6 YPG worse than #31)
2005 - 16th, 110.1
2004 - 24th, 127.3
2003 - 20th, 123.8 (tie, St. Louis)
Average - 21.4, 128.22
Pass Defense
2008 - 2nd, 141.0 (after three games)
2007 - 2nd, 172.8
2006 - 2nd, 159.3
2005 - 15th, 196.9
2004 - 28th, 243.3
2003 - 5th, 175.6
Average - 10.4, 189.58
From 2003-2007, the Colts have averaged 128.22 yards per game given up by the rush defense. In that span, they were no better than 15th in the league in rush defense - and as bad as 32nd. (There are 32 teams in the NFL.) The year they were 32nd, they gave up a remarkable 173 yards per game on the ground. They were gashed that year, in Jacksonville, for 375 yards on the ground - against the same two tailbacks that dropped 236 yards on them a week ago Sunday.
Of course, that was the same season that concluded with the Colts waxing Chicago in Miami and winning the Super Bowl. Is the rush defense a red herring? Absolutely. Not in the sense that anyone is trying to be misleading - but in the sense that it doesn’t really matter. In the same five-year span, the Colts averaged 12.6 wins per season. Only four other teams in the league have averaged 10 or more wins per season in the same span; and of those, only one - New England - has more wins per season (13.2) than the Colts. (The other three teams are Seattle at 10.2 and Pittsburgh and San Diego, both at 10.0.)
Just like they lucked their way to the Super Bowl, the Colts will from time to time luck out and have a decent-to-good rush defense; but this part of the game will never be the focus because it’s not how the team is built to win. This team is built to win with passing - by scoring quickly and often with their passing offense, and by neutralizing the opponent’s vertical game with the Cover 2 defense. This naturally leads Colts opponents to run the ball, which, more often than not, showcases the fact that linebackers who play for the Colts tend to be awful. And when you have Freeney spinning off the end on every play, you effectively wind up with a 3-4 defense that lacks both the fourth linebacker and the nose tackle needed to make that scheme work. The result is that teams can run on the Colts at will - and they do.
People get distracted by the run defense because it’s easy to see how bad it is, and they fail to see the coaching deficiencies that contribute to how bad the rush defense is. Tony Dungy is a good coach. That’s it. He’s not a great coach, and he’s not some wizard when it comes to coaching defense. People think he’s a wizard because of that Tampa Cover 2, but if you’re going to make the case for the Tampa 2, you have to give at least as much credit for that defense to middle (4-3) or weakside (3-4) linebacker Derrick Brooks as you do to Dungy. Brooks is a special talent, the likes of which the Indianapolis Colts have never had at linebacker.
The Colts will never have a great rush defense - nor even a respectable one, very often - for three reasons. The first is that they don’t draft to fill needs - they draft the best player available when their number comes up. This is not necessarily a bad thing - drafting the best player available has allowed the Colts to build one of the best offenses in football and what is without question the best secondary in the league. However, all of that exceptional talent comes at a price; and the second reason the Colts will never excel at stopping the run is that they don’t have the money to play the free agent market in an effort to land that elusive superstar linebacker. They also don’t have the money to keep their good linebackers from leaving at the end of the season - reason #3. Last year’s best linebacker, Gary Brackett (and yes, that is sort of sad), was the first since 2003 who did not depart at the end of the season. The roll call of best-linebackers-who-left-at-the-end-of-the-season begins, after the 2003 season, with Mike Peterson, and continues with Marcus Washington (2004), David Thornton (2005) and Cato June (2006).
But that’s far too much on a subject that doesn’t matter. The rush defense didn’t lose the Jacksonville game. Something else that didn’t lose the Jacksonville game (though I imagine a lot of people think it did) was the Freddy Keiaho interference penalty that put the Jaguars into field goal range. Had the Colts called their plays better on their last drive, it would have been Jacksonville trying to lateral their way to a miracle victory with no time left on the clock.
Instead, they called two pass plays on first and second down with goal to go and less than ninety seconds to play. Those two passes were incompletions that melted exactly six seconds off the clock. Six. Seconds. Off. The. Clock. I don’t recall how many timeouts Jacksonville had left during this series, but I don’t think it would have mattered - if they had had any, they would have saved them to use on their last drive, probably assuming the Colts would score. The Colts should have run Addai four times in a row, even if it meant losing the game. Who in the world thought it was a good idea to score quick and then let the defense - which had been on the field for the vast majority of the second half - try to hold a Jacksonville offense it had as yet been unable to stop?
You might be saying that all of this should have been moot - Rashean Mathis should have been called for interference on the pick he ran back for a touchdown, right? All right...yeah, he probably should have been flagged. And yet the Colts were still in position to win - with the ball, goal to go, less than two minutes - and they blew it. They lost a game they should have won, and of which they had control in the last two minutes, when that control really matters. Losing games they should have won is why Lane Kiffin is going to get fired this week (also because Al Davis likes to fire coaches almost as much as Steinbrenner likes - or used to like - to fire managers).
The rush defense is always going to be bad - but it is rarely going to lose games for the Colts. I don’t keep track of football as much as I used to, but I believe they still award victories to the team that scores the most points, not the team that runs for the most yards. They called the wrong plays at the end of the Jacksonville game, it’s as simple as that. Maybe Dungy made the call, and maybe Moore sent it to Manning that way - but Manning, who can change the play at the line of scrimmage, and does so often, is the one who threw the ball twice instead of handing it off. It was those last two passes that cost the Colts the game, not the rush defense.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Deflating The Hoosier Dome
This Wednesday, at 10:30 in the morning, former Indianapolis mayor Bill Hudnut will throw a switch that will begin the deflation of the fabric top of the Hoosier Dome. It will take 30-45 minutes to deflate completely, and should be visible from just about anywhere downtown. This may be premature. Though it will be nice to have that eighties-era eyesore gone from the downtown skyline, might it not be wise to retain it as a a backup in case the Colts find themselves unable to win at Lucas Oil Stadium?
Next: Red Herring
Next: Red Herring
Monday, September 15, 2008
Week Two - Colts At Vikings
Let’s see if I even remember how to do this. I think I wrote about all of one of the Colts games from last year, and that would be the season opener, when they waxed the since-Drew-Brees-arrived-perenially-overhyped New Orleans Saints and the Colts receivers made win-the-ring-and-leave (which is okay because you’re not very good, anyway) safety Jason David look like Pop Warner fodder (think of the moment from Seinfeld when the kids in his karate class gang up on Kramer in the alley).
By contrast, this year’s opener was a tough loss to the vexing Chicago Bears. You could argue - and you would be correct, mostly - that a Colts team with an offensive line that was either healthy or experienced or contained Jeff Saturday or did not contain Ryan “False Start” Diem (one out of four would suffice) would have had enough firepower to run even with the Bears, who knew enough, at least, to run run run on the Colts and their hapless run defense.
Alas, this year’s offensive line is so awash with concern that we’re not even talking about special teams - and that’s saying something. Protecting the largely immobile Peyton Manning is always important, since flushing him from the pocket is as key to neutralizing the high-octane Colts offense as constantly running the ball between the tackles is key to neutralizing what there is of the Colts run defense; and without that protection, Manning, playing with the additional distraction of not having taken a snap during the preseason and coming off of the first significant injury of his career, rushes plays and has a tendency to go down like...well, insert your favorite Lindsay Lohan joke here.
So comes week two, which finds the Colts on the road against their second consecutive NFC opponent (that the NFC Norris is so much improved makes the Colts schedule quite a bit tougher than it has been in past years), one with an even better tailback than the Bears and offensive and defensive lines that are probably, in aggregate, the best set of linemen in the league.
I smell trouble. The Colts gave up 120+ yards last week to Matt Forte (who?) of the Bears, so it was pretty much a given that they would be even more generous to All-World Adrian Peterson - and the final box score bears this out, though you might notice that Peterson, who ran for about 1400 yards(!), did not end any of the runs on which he gained those yards by crossing the plane of the goal line. Indeed, the Vikings, though able to run at will and sack Manning like Kurt Warner bags groceries, scored nary a touchdown.
The Colts even got away, for much of the game, from their Cover 2 comfort zone (pun intended), to stuff the front line with upwards of 8-10 guys, though Vikings quarterback Tarvaris Jackson (himself so vexing that surely he’ll be playing for Chicago next year, right?) often managed to find asleep at the switch the one or two Colts safeties who should have been roaming the backfield in coverage.
Penalties and dropped balls - specifically the one Reggie Wayne would have scored with had he not made the cardinal mistake of turning upfield before actually catching the ball (the ensuing touchdown would have put the Colts up 7-6 and done a nice job of turning the tide of the game in the first half) - helped the Colts limp to a 9-0 halftime defecit.
The third quarter was nearly over before the Colts got the kind of miracle play that almost always happens to the other team. Specifically, Anthony Gonzales, at the end of a 58-yard catch-and-run, pitched the ball back to Reggie Wayne, who leaped into the air to avoid a tackle and got the ball as close as it’s possible to get to the goal line without actually “crossing the plane.” The ruling on the field was a touchdown, and I didn’t think there was enough evidence to overturn it, but who am I? I thought the Joseph Addai touchdown three plays later was just as questionable as the Wayne touchdown that was overturned, but Addai’s score was upheld.
The Vikings would not score again, and the Colts actually managed to make the two-point conversion they needed to tie the game with just under six minutes to play - and with three seconds to go, Adam Vinatieri made up for an early fourth quarter miss by hitting a 47-yard field goal to give the Colts the lead for the first time all day. The Vikings attempted a volley of laterals on the ensuing kickoff, though to no avail; they were brought down, and the Colts escaped with a victory over a Minnesota team that would win their division in a walk if they had any kind of passing game to go with Jesus Peterson’s magic legs.
It was an ugly game, to be sure - but the Colts did manage to squeak out a win despite giving up almost 200 yards on the ground, on the road against one of the better teams in the NFC, with what could be described charitably as a depleted offensive line. There’s a lot of football still to be played, of course, and this fragile, conservatively coached team could fall apart at any time - especially if Manning’s age really begins to show or the offensive line fails to get healthy and coalesce. They’ve had success in the past regardless of how good the run defense is, and while I’d rather not have to think about asterisks, it’s undeniable that their road to the Super Bowl got a whole lot easier when Tom Brady’s knee exploded.
We’ll have a better idea of where the Colts stand three weeks from now, after a bye week and two division games. The schedule is tough, but there aren’t more than four or five teams in the league that are better than Minnesota - and the Colts are one of them, even in their currently injured and incomplete state. If they come out in the next three weeks and grab an early division lead over Jacksonville, this could be an exciting year for the Colts.
By contrast, this year’s opener was a tough loss to the vexing Chicago Bears. You could argue - and you would be correct, mostly - that a Colts team with an offensive line that was either healthy or experienced or contained Jeff Saturday or did not contain Ryan “False Start” Diem (one out of four would suffice) would have had enough firepower to run even with the Bears, who knew enough, at least, to run run run on the Colts and their hapless run defense.
Alas, this year’s offensive line is so awash with concern that we’re not even talking about special teams - and that’s saying something. Protecting the largely immobile Peyton Manning is always important, since flushing him from the pocket is as key to neutralizing the high-octane Colts offense as constantly running the ball between the tackles is key to neutralizing what there is of the Colts run defense; and without that protection, Manning, playing with the additional distraction of not having taken a snap during the preseason and coming off of the first significant injury of his career, rushes plays and has a tendency to go down like...well, insert your favorite Lindsay Lohan joke here.
So comes week two, which finds the Colts on the road against their second consecutive NFC opponent (that the NFC Norris is so much improved makes the Colts schedule quite a bit tougher than it has been in past years), one with an even better tailback than the Bears and offensive and defensive lines that are probably, in aggregate, the best set of linemen in the league.
I smell trouble. The Colts gave up 120+ yards last week to Matt Forte (who?) of the Bears, so it was pretty much a given that they would be even more generous to All-World Adrian Peterson - and the final box score bears this out, though you might notice that Peterson, who ran for about 1400 yards(!), did not end any of the runs on which he gained those yards by crossing the plane of the goal line. Indeed, the Vikings, though able to run at will and sack Manning like Kurt Warner bags groceries, scored nary a touchdown.
The Colts even got away, for much of the game, from their Cover 2 comfort zone (pun intended), to stuff the front line with upwards of 8-10 guys, though Vikings quarterback Tarvaris Jackson (himself so vexing that surely he’ll be playing for Chicago next year, right?) often managed to find asleep at the switch the one or two Colts safeties who should have been roaming the backfield in coverage.
Penalties and dropped balls - specifically the one Reggie Wayne would have scored with had he not made the cardinal mistake of turning upfield before actually catching the ball (the ensuing touchdown would have put the Colts up 7-6 and done a nice job of turning the tide of the game in the first half) - helped the Colts limp to a 9-0 halftime defecit.
The third quarter was nearly over before the Colts got the kind of miracle play that almost always happens to the other team. Specifically, Anthony Gonzales, at the end of a 58-yard catch-and-run, pitched the ball back to Reggie Wayne, who leaped into the air to avoid a tackle and got the ball as close as it’s possible to get to the goal line without actually “crossing the plane.” The ruling on the field was a touchdown, and I didn’t think there was enough evidence to overturn it, but who am I? I thought the Joseph Addai touchdown three plays later was just as questionable as the Wayne touchdown that was overturned, but Addai’s score was upheld.
The Vikings would not score again, and the Colts actually managed to make the two-point conversion they needed to tie the game with just under six minutes to play - and with three seconds to go, Adam Vinatieri made up for an early fourth quarter miss by hitting a 47-yard field goal to give the Colts the lead for the first time all day. The Vikings attempted a volley of laterals on the ensuing kickoff, though to no avail; they were brought down, and the Colts escaped with a victory over a Minnesota team that would win their division in a walk if they had any kind of passing game to go with Jesus Peterson’s magic legs.
It was an ugly game, to be sure - but the Colts did manage to squeak out a win despite giving up almost 200 yards on the ground, on the road against one of the better teams in the NFC, with what could be described charitably as a depleted offensive line. There’s a lot of football still to be played, of course, and this fragile, conservatively coached team could fall apart at any time - especially if Manning’s age really begins to show or the offensive line fails to get healthy and coalesce. They’ve had success in the past regardless of how good the run defense is, and while I’d rather not have to think about asterisks, it’s undeniable that their road to the Super Bowl got a whole lot easier when Tom Brady’s knee exploded.
We’ll have a better idea of where the Colts stand three weeks from now, after a bye week and two division games. The schedule is tough, but there aren’t more than four or five teams in the league that are better than Minnesota - and the Colts are one of them, even in their currently injured and incomplete state. If they come out in the next three weeks and grab an early division lead over Jacksonville, this could be an exciting year for the Colts.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Frozen River
How do you make a story about a poor woman trying to save up enough money to buy a double-wide trailer for herself and her two kids by running illegal immigrants across the United States-Canada border compelling enough for a feature-length film? It’s not glamorous, it’s not sexy - it’s not even very hopeful. Even if everything works out, all mom gets is...a bigger trailer. She’ll still have to haggle with her boss at the dollar store to see about being promoted - after two years - to assistant manager; and she’ll still have to worry about whether her husband has actually abandoned the family at Christmas or just gone off on, apparently, yet another gambling bender.
If you’re an aspiring filmmaker and are trying to make something along these lines work - doesn’t have to be the same thing, of course, but something that works with themes in the same ballpark of bleak as those noted above - you would do well to have a go at talking to Courtney Hunt, who wrote and directed Frozen River, a film that tells the story of the woman described above in the first paragraph. Hunt pulls it off, though with the occasional misstep.
The trick is not to condescend to the material. We can’t close our eyes to the plight of the cities, as it were, which swings around to sort of mean that we can’t forget that there are things in this world that we might not ever think of as important, but which mean the whole world to others. We don’t necessarily need to spread the wealth around so that everyone has the same amount of everything, but we do need to be cognizant of the fact that there is more to the world than what we see in front of us each day. Even in white Protestant America, there are lots of different flavors of vanilla; and the simple fact that something is not particularly valuable to you or me does not mean that that same thing cannot be of enormous value to someone else.
In the case of Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo), that thing that has value is the double-wide trailer - with sound insulation - for which she has been saving the money she makes working part-time at the dollar store. The film opens on Ray looking into the glove compartment of her car and realizing that her gambling addict husband has run out on her and their two sons - at Christmas time - with the money they needed to secure delivery of their new home and ensure that they will not forfeit their deposit. She looks out into the distance with eyes that are too tired to be frightened, too worn down to be angry - though she is both frightened and angry.
Desperate to keep what is left of her family together and vaguely afloat she drives to the bingo hall where she believes her husband has gone with the money, only to find that, though his car is there, he is not. When she sees someone driving off in her husband’s car, she is justifiably irritated, and pursues the driver, who turns out to be a Mohawk Indian called Lila, with family issues of her own. Their confrontation ultimately draws Ray into the cat-and-mouse game of running illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Canadian border via the frozen St. Lawrence River. Ray wrestles with the moral and legal implications of these misadventures; and when she finally reaches the dead end at her dead end job, she decides, against her better judgment, to participate in enough of these runs across the border with Lila to raise the money she needs to get her trailer. Though she is not proud of the fact that she feels this is something she must do for her family, it is fairly simple to infer that this is not the first time that she has had to swallow her pride for the sake of her family.
The singular, repetitive nature of the plot - driven by Leo's controlled delivery and tremendous range of emotion contained in what seems to be variations on the same facial expression throughout the film - provides ample space for dialogue between Ray and Lila to occur and flesh out both characters, and for a quasi-symbiotic bond to form between them; and the inevitable involvement of the border patrol serves to develop the dramatic tension, though I don’t know that the whole thing rises quite to the level of “thriller,” as the film is in some places being billed.
The only real quibble I have with this one comes toward the end, where Hunt is required to make a turn - not a twist - in order to proceed to the correct ending of the film. She achieves the correct ending, but the turn feels a bit clumsy, as though the deliberate pace of the story to this point is so powerful that it has drawn Hunt into a comfort zone from which she cannot quite esacpe. The film clocks in at just a shade over ninety minutes, and I think that a few more minutes devoted to extending the suspense of the turn would have been beneficial. It’s a minor quibble, though; the film is otherwise quite rightly praised as a triumph for Hunt in her feature directorial debut. Melissa Leo’s performance and Hunt’s direction and writing, in that order, are the elements that make this a terrific movie.
Leo gets an Oscar nomination for her work here, but probably not the win. I know my buddy Steve isn’t big on the Oscars, but he digs on Kate Winslet (and, quite frankly, what straight guy doesn’t?), and this may be her year. Unless it’s a complete disaster, look for Revolutionary Road, still a few months away from release, to emerge as the favorite to bring home an armload of Oscars, more than likely led by Winslet for lead actress. Hot on her heels will be Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married (though if she wins it will be for the total combined weight of Brokeback Mountain, The Devil Wears Prada, and Rachel Getting Married) - but if either of those films/performances turns out to be less than is expected, Leo could slip in as a dark horse.
If you’re an aspiring filmmaker and are trying to make something along these lines work - doesn’t have to be the same thing, of course, but something that works with themes in the same ballpark of bleak as those noted above - you would do well to have a go at talking to Courtney Hunt, who wrote and directed Frozen River, a film that tells the story of the woman described above in the first paragraph. Hunt pulls it off, though with the occasional misstep.
The trick is not to condescend to the material. We can’t close our eyes to the plight of the cities, as it were, which swings around to sort of mean that we can’t forget that there are things in this world that we might not ever think of as important, but which mean the whole world to others. We don’t necessarily need to spread the wealth around so that everyone has the same amount of everything, but we do need to be cognizant of the fact that there is more to the world than what we see in front of us each day. Even in white Protestant America, there are lots of different flavors of vanilla; and the simple fact that something is not particularly valuable to you or me does not mean that that same thing cannot be of enormous value to someone else.
In the case of Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo), that thing that has value is the double-wide trailer - with sound insulation - for which she has been saving the money she makes working part-time at the dollar store. The film opens on Ray looking into the glove compartment of her car and realizing that her gambling addict husband has run out on her and their two sons - at Christmas time - with the money they needed to secure delivery of their new home and ensure that they will not forfeit their deposit. She looks out into the distance with eyes that are too tired to be frightened, too worn down to be angry - though she is both frightened and angry.
Desperate to keep what is left of her family together and vaguely afloat she drives to the bingo hall where she believes her husband has gone with the money, only to find that, though his car is there, he is not. When she sees someone driving off in her husband’s car, she is justifiably irritated, and pursues the driver, who turns out to be a Mohawk Indian called Lila, with family issues of her own. Their confrontation ultimately draws Ray into the cat-and-mouse game of running illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Canadian border via the frozen St. Lawrence River. Ray wrestles with the moral and legal implications of these misadventures; and when she finally reaches the dead end at her dead end job, she decides, against her better judgment, to participate in enough of these runs across the border with Lila to raise the money she needs to get her trailer. Though she is not proud of the fact that she feels this is something she must do for her family, it is fairly simple to infer that this is not the first time that she has had to swallow her pride for the sake of her family.
The singular, repetitive nature of the plot - driven by Leo's controlled delivery and tremendous range of emotion contained in what seems to be variations on the same facial expression throughout the film - provides ample space for dialogue between Ray and Lila to occur and flesh out both characters, and for a quasi-symbiotic bond to form between them; and the inevitable involvement of the border patrol serves to develop the dramatic tension, though I don’t know that the whole thing rises quite to the level of “thriller,” as the film is in some places being billed.
The only real quibble I have with this one comes toward the end, where Hunt is required to make a turn - not a twist - in order to proceed to the correct ending of the film. She achieves the correct ending, but the turn feels a bit clumsy, as though the deliberate pace of the story to this point is so powerful that it has drawn Hunt into a comfort zone from which she cannot quite esacpe. The film clocks in at just a shade over ninety minutes, and I think that a few more minutes devoted to extending the suspense of the turn would have been beneficial. It’s a minor quibble, though; the film is otherwise quite rightly praised as a triumph for Hunt in her feature directorial debut. Melissa Leo’s performance and Hunt’s direction and writing, in that order, are the elements that make this a terrific movie.
Leo gets an Oscar nomination for her work here, but probably not the win. I know my buddy Steve isn’t big on the Oscars, but he digs on Kate Winslet (and, quite frankly, what straight guy doesn’t?), and this may be her year. Unless it’s a complete disaster, look for Revolutionary Road, still a few months away from release, to emerge as the favorite to bring home an armload of Oscars, more than likely led by Winslet for lead actress. Hot on her heels will be Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married (though if she wins it will be for the total combined weight of Brokeback Mountain, The Devil Wears Prada, and Rachel Getting Married) - but if either of those films/performances turns out to be less than is expected, Leo could slip in as a dark horse.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Goings On About Town
I picked up a flyer at Lazy Daze this afternoon, for the grand opening celebration of a new coffee shop-cum-lots of other things called Earth House, at 237 North East Street (southeast corner of New York and East), inside Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church. Grand opening festivites are next weekend (Friday 9.19 and Saturday 9.20), from five on Friday until whenever, and all day Saturday. Music, yoga, free coffee - all kinds of coffee-shop-inside-a-church-related things. Haven't been round to try this one yet, but plan to stop by next Saturday, since we will also be downtown that day for...
Fiesta Indianapolis, a huge, all-day Latino festival that takes place at the American Legion Mall from noon to midnight. Amy and I have been to this festival a couple of times over the years, but it's not one we hit every year (like the Greek Festival and the Indian Market), which is a little bit odd considering what Amy teaches - but it's rare for me to have Saturdays off. The food lines are always really long, but the festival runs the whole length of the mall and is a whole lot easier to get into and out of than either the Indian Market or the Greek Festival (partly because, unlike those others, there is no admission charge for Fiesta). Tons of booths and activities, and plenty of room for kids (and grown-ups, for that matter) to run around - and much more of a pure diversity experience than most of the other festivals that pop up around town this time of year.
Anybody manage to make it to Tavern At The Temple, that new fine dining restaurant inside the restored Buggs Temple at the north end of the Canal Walk? If not, the window of opportunity has closed. We didn't make it, either, though we're not really into that whole fine dining thing anyway. I heard something on the evening news about a downtown restaurant that was closing, but I missed the actual story. Checked the Star's website later and found that it was Tavern At The Temple, and that it closed tonight. The developers of the Buggs Temple, where the restaurant lived, are said to be working on getting a new restaurant into the space, but I'm not holding my breath. Buggs has been in development since 2002, but just got off the ground this year - and only two of the four original tenants made it to the opening. (A Cornerstone Coffee Shop, Ã la Moe & Johnny's, and a Ritter's Custard never opened in the restored temple.)
Two weeks ago Friday, I heard on the radio on the way to work that Peal, a local pop-rock band, was playing the Biergarten at the Rathskeller, from 8 to 11 that night - with free admission. I didn't have anyone to go with, and couldn't go until about ten because I was at work until then, but I swung by after my shift and drank a beer while they played a few songs. A week from this Friday, on the 19th, local blues-rock artist Jennie DeVoe plays the second set at the Biergarten, 8-11pm.
Fiesta Indianapolis, a huge, all-day Latino festival that takes place at the American Legion Mall from noon to midnight. Amy and I have been to this festival a couple of times over the years, but it's not one we hit every year (like the Greek Festival and the Indian Market), which is a little bit odd considering what Amy teaches - but it's rare for me to have Saturdays off. The food lines are always really long, but the festival runs the whole length of the mall and is a whole lot easier to get into and out of than either the Indian Market or the Greek Festival (partly because, unlike those others, there is no admission charge for Fiesta). Tons of booths and activities, and plenty of room for kids (and grown-ups, for that matter) to run around - and much more of a pure diversity experience than most of the other festivals that pop up around town this time of year.
Anybody manage to make it to Tavern At The Temple, that new fine dining restaurant inside the restored Buggs Temple at the north end of the Canal Walk? If not, the window of opportunity has closed. We didn't make it, either, though we're not really into that whole fine dining thing anyway. I heard something on the evening news about a downtown restaurant that was closing, but I missed the actual story. Checked the Star's website later and found that it was Tavern At The Temple, and that it closed tonight. The developers of the Buggs Temple, where the restaurant lived, are said to be working on getting a new restaurant into the space, but I'm not holding my breath. Buggs has been in development since 2002, but just got off the ground this year - and only two of the four original tenants made it to the opening. (A Cornerstone Coffee Shop, Ã la Moe & Johnny's, and a Ritter's Custard never opened in the restored temple.)
Two weeks ago Friday, I heard on the radio on the way to work that Peal, a local pop-rock band, was playing the Biergarten at the Rathskeller, from 8 to 11 that night - with free admission. I didn't have anyone to go with, and couldn't go until about ten because I was at work until then, but I swung by after my shift and drank a beer while they played a few songs. A week from this Friday, on the 19th, local blues-rock artist Jennie DeVoe plays the second set at the Biergarten, 8-11pm.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
You Will Be(an) Assimilated
So if I decide to go off of Starbucks completely, by which I mean a complete revocation of support for their product, would I have to stop drinking the Starbucks coffee we proudly brew at work - or just always remember to bring in my own cup so that I don’t have to lay out any cash for it? To paraphrase George Carlin (or maybe quote exactly, I’m not sure): These are the kinds of questions that kept me out of the really good schools.
Ooh...does that last sentence make me ineligible to be Vice President of the United States? I did attribute it to the person who said it, of course...but have I ever said it out loud and not attributed it to George Carlin?
Anyway...here’s the thing. Starbucks is currently getting cornholed by the law of diminishing returns, a simple economic principle that has been the Achilles heel of so many greedy CEOs in this goofy country that you would think someone would have learned by now. They built too many stores way too fast (using the Resistance Is Futile business model) and now have two major problems to worry about, along with their metastasizing payroll.
First is competition, mostly from McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts, but also from the independent coffee shops that refuse to die, Darwin bless them. I tried one cup of iced coffee at McDonald’s, and to say that it sucked out loud would be generous. I’ve also tried the coffee (the standard brewed variety) at Dunkin’ Donuts - once. Unlike McDonald’s, though, I would have coffee (and try an espresso drink) at Dunkin’ Donuts again, if for no other reason than that I can also get the most amazing donut ever - the Bavarian Cream. Mmm...donuts.
Where was I? Right - second thing putting the corn in Starbucks’ hole is that whole economic downturn that people are talking about, and high gas prices, and all the rest of it. You’ve heard of this thing, right? I was in Lazy Daze a couple of months ago - maybe longer than that, I don’t recall exactly - and ordered what was then my usual beverage, a four-shot large iced hazelnut latté. They whipped it up for me - and if you haven’t stood at the counter at Lazy Daze and experienced the aroma of their espresso shots being pressed and poured, then your cosmic coffee adventure is tragically incomplete - and then rang it up, and the total was greater than five dollars.
And this caused me to reflect. Most people would probably say that five bucks for a cup of coffee is excessive - conveniently forgetting or not even considering in the first place that my $5 latté is twenty-four ounces, which is at least 2-3 cups in ceramic coffee mugs of the usual size - but I think that five bucks is the upper limit, even for that much joe. And I’m a coffee guy. There are a lot of average coffee drinkers out there who are drastically reducing how many times they go to Starbucks, largely due to the effects of this being a country full of people who are too stupid and Republican to shake the damned oil monkey.
The net result of all of this is that Starbucks is closing some 600 stores by the end of this year, including several here in the greater metro area. And, they’ve brought back Howard Schultz for another go at CEO. Schultz is to Starbucks what Steve Jobs is to Apple, and Starbucks undoubtedly took note of how much success Apple has had since they lured Jobs (and, significantly, the core of what would become the new operating system for the Mac) away from NeXT in the late 1990s.
And the first big idea from Schultz, apart from closing stores and getting rid of those goofy breakfast sandwiches? That would be buying the company that makes a little machine called the Clover, a rather fancy brewing system that makes one cup at a time and is supposedly the very best thing ever in the history of coffee. Or so they say. The best part, though, according to this article from AP, posted on MSNBC, is that Starbucks now plans to stop selling the Clover to other coffee shops. That’s nice, don’t you think? True, it’s plain old capitalism, which we’re compelled to love with all our hearts if we want to be known as patriots in this country, but it also sort of sucks.
I think we run into a problem when we start to conflate greed with capitalism. Starbucks expanded too much, too fast, but instead of fixing their business model, they're just going to buy up what someone else has done and keep pretending that they were doing it the right way all along. I don’t know if the Clover coffee brewing system is in place at any local shops around town (and if so, will they have to give them back now that Starbucks has pulled a John Hammond and piggybacked the technology?), nor if any of the Starbucks stores around here that survive the purge will ever have it - but that’s hardly the point. I think it’s pretty uncool that from now on you’ll have to go to Starbucks to get a cup of coffee from this thing. That’s presuming that you don’t have the $11,000 to pony up for one of your own - if you can still get one.
Starbucks won’t be losing much money from me, because I don’t get espresso drinks there very often anymore - there are plenty of independent places around town, many within walking distance of a Starbucks, that serve espresso drinks and drip coffee that are just as good as (and often better than) Starbucks, including the Abbey, the South Bend Chocolate Company, the Monon, Henry’s On East, and Lazy Daze, and that's not even getting into the atmosphere of those places - but I do go in for a cup of brewed coffee several nights a week after work or before I sit down to start writing, and once in awhile for espresso when there's nothing else around. Not anymore.
Ooh...does that last sentence make me ineligible to be Vice President of the United States? I did attribute it to the person who said it, of course...but have I ever said it out loud and not attributed it to George Carlin?
Anyway...here’s the thing. Starbucks is currently getting cornholed by the law of diminishing returns, a simple economic principle that has been the Achilles heel of so many greedy CEOs in this goofy country that you would think someone would have learned by now. They built too many stores way too fast (using the Resistance Is Futile business model) and now have two major problems to worry about, along with their metastasizing payroll.
First is competition, mostly from McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts, but also from the independent coffee shops that refuse to die, Darwin bless them. I tried one cup of iced coffee at McDonald’s, and to say that it sucked out loud would be generous. I’ve also tried the coffee (the standard brewed variety) at Dunkin’ Donuts - once. Unlike McDonald’s, though, I would have coffee (and try an espresso drink) at Dunkin’ Donuts again, if for no other reason than that I can also get the most amazing donut ever - the Bavarian Cream. Mmm...donuts.
Where was I? Right - second thing putting the corn in Starbucks’ hole is that whole economic downturn that people are talking about, and high gas prices, and all the rest of it. You’ve heard of this thing, right? I was in Lazy Daze a couple of months ago - maybe longer than that, I don’t recall exactly - and ordered what was then my usual beverage, a four-shot large iced hazelnut latté. They whipped it up for me - and if you haven’t stood at the counter at Lazy Daze and experienced the aroma of their espresso shots being pressed and poured, then your cosmic coffee adventure is tragically incomplete - and then rang it up, and the total was greater than five dollars.
And this caused me to reflect. Most people would probably say that five bucks for a cup of coffee is excessive - conveniently forgetting or not even considering in the first place that my $5 latté is twenty-four ounces, which is at least 2-3 cups in ceramic coffee mugs of the usual size - but I think that five bucks is the upper limit, even for that much joe. And I’m a coffee guy. There are a lot of average coffee drinkers out there who are drastically reducing how many times they go to Starbucks, largely due to the effects of this being a country full of people who are too stupid and Republican to shake the damned oil monkey.
The net result of all of this is that Starbucks is closing some 600 stores by the end of this year, including several here in the greater metro area. And, they’ve brought back Howard Schultz for another go at CEO. Schultz is to Starbucks what Steve Jobs is to Apple, and Starbucks undoubtedly took note of how much success Apple has had since they lured Jobs (and, significantly, the core of what would become the new operating system for the Mac) away from NeXT in the late 1990s.
And the first big idea from Schultz, apart from closing stores and getting rid of those goofy breakfast sandwiches? That would be buying the company that makes a little machine called the Clover, a rather fancy brewing system that makes one cup at a time and is supposedly the very best thing ever in the history of coffee. Or so they say. The best part, though, according to this article from AP, posted on MSNBC, is that Starbucks now plans to stop selling the Clover to other coffee shops. That’s nice, don’t you think? True, it’s plain old capitalism, which we’re compelled to love with all our hearts if we want to be known as patriots in this country, but it also sort of sucks.
I think we run into a problem when we start to conflate greed with capitalism. Starbucks expanded too much, too fast, but instead of fixing their business model, they're just going to buy up what someone else has done and keep pretending that they were doing it the right way all along. I don’t know if the Clover coffee brewing system is in place at any local shops around town (and if so, will they have to give them back now that Starbucks has pulled a John Hammond and piggybacked the technology?), nor if any of the Starbucks stores around here that survive the purge will ever have it - but that’s hardly the point. I think it’s pretty uncool that from now on you’ll have to go to Starbucks to get a cup of coffee from this thing. That’s presuming that you don’t have the $11,000 to pony up for one of your own - if you can still get one.
Starbucks won’t be losing much money from me, because I don’t get espresso drinks there very often anymore - there are plenty of independent places around town, many within walking distance of a Starbucks, that serve espresso drinks and drip coffee that are just as good as (and often better than) Starbucks, including the Abbey, the South Bend Chocolate Company, the Monon, Henry’s On East, and Lazy Daze, and that's not even getting into the atmosphere of those places - but I do go in for a cup of brewed coffee several nights a week after work or before I sit down to start writing, and once in awhile for espresso when there's nothing else around. Not anymore.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Wedding Photos (Not Mine)
I mentioned in a previous post that my buddy Steve got married last month. He sent out a link to the wedding photos earlier this week, which can be found here. I haven't looked through all of them yet, but there's one that I suspect is not in the bunch. One of the more amusing things we noted that day was the house across the street from the church. There is - or was, at least, a month ago - a couch perched on part of its roof. Intrepid amateur shutterbug that I am, I snapped a few shots of said couch on said roof of said house - shown below, for your viewing pleasure.
Elegy
David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) is a man who has tried life the way that society says we are supposed to live it, found that it did not suit him, and had the courage to make the changes in his life that were crucial to the truth of his nature. He teaches college literature courses and critiques books and plays for television and radio, plays racquetball and has coffee with his best friend, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet George O’Hearn (Dennis Hopper) - each time at the same table in the same coffee shop - but has no significant relationships with women. He beds the elusive Carolyn (Patricia Clarkson) from time to time, and the relationship is understood to exist for the purpose of satisfying sexual desire only, though their mannerisms toward one another hint at a larger complexity and a larger sense of security, especially on Carolyn’s part.
David lives comfortably - both literally and figuratively - though the comfort comes at the price of having a son with whom his relationship could be described charitably as estranged and of spending most nights alone; and he seems to know the bounds of what he is capable of doing - when his son asks later in the film how he knows that marriage is a prison, David replies by saying that he has served time, even though he knows that it will hurt his son to hear such a statement about his mother. (If you noticed this and other quirky one-liners in the trailer and thought that you were in for something of a dramedy, then I'm sorry to say that you're in for a major disappointment.)
And yet, the way that David evaluates women - heard through his inner monologue while his eyes scan the faces in his classroom as courses resume each semester - seems to betray his preference for avoiding long-term relationships with them - almost as though he might try it again if he ever found someone who yearned for his body in an animal way and could also fit comfortably as she is into the kind of life that he has made for himself as he enters - reluctantly, don’tcha know? - old age.
And so, of course, just such a woman comes along - one Consuela Castillo (Penélope Cruz), a student in David’s class, yet one who is other, in the sense that she is, in fact, one of his students, and yet perhaps not like any of his other students at all. She is impressed by all of the culture with which David has adorned himself in his apartment, and he is impressed with her breasts. If that seems a bit crude, it should be noted that, for all of his scarves and art references, David is, at bottom, a chap who would prefer to be known for the way he forks, rather than the way he spoons, so to speak.
Thus begins their love affair...and I’ve lost all train of thought as to what I wanted to say about this film - though it had something to do with the way the story tries to reconcile the uniquely human notion of sexual desire with the almost pathological need to remain at a minimum distance from the object of that desire, a sliver of theme echoed in the title of the novel and the film. I thought I liked it, but now I’m not so sure. It was remarkably well shot by Jean-Claude Larrieu, a cinematographer who clearly knows his way around a lighting rig and whose oeuvre prior to Elegy consists almost entirely of French films (including one of the segments in the delightful ménage-a-shorts Paris, Je T’Aime). The acting also was quite strong, particularly Kingsley’s work with facial expressions and nuanced voice-over. Cruz was solid, too, as were Hopper and Clarkson.
I don’t want to give away too much of the plot because of the subtle way that the story develops David and Consuela as characters through the first two acts, except to say that one can glimpse the possibility of a pretty satisfying ending as act two comes to a close. Unfortunately, we must bear witness to act three, in which the story lurches desperately off course and nearly derails. The film is based on the novel The Dying Animal, by Philip Roth, one of those literary heavyweights I have somehow managed not to read yet - so I can’t say whether the ending in the film is true to the book or whether it was substituted for the book’s ending by mouth-breathing half-wits. The novel was adapted for the screen by Nicholas Meyer, who aslo wrote The Human Stain, another film based on a Roth novel. Meyer’s filmography also includes, I’m sorry to say, a number of Star Trek movies, including the insufferable one with the whales and the mom from 7th Heaven. I tend to think, though, that the third act of Elegy was a tacked-on contrivance.
Without having read the novel, I can’t say whether the filmmakers made a bad choice in rewriting the third act, whether they mauled the end of the novel, or whether they were working with substandard source material from the outset; either way, the third act is a letdown, one that seriously mars what is otherwise two-thirds of a really good movie.
(And yes, I know it's a bit late to be posting a review of this movie, but it's actually going to hold for another week, which I would have found shocking except for the fact that all but one of the films I thought we were going to open this weekend have pushed back at least another week and the one we are getting - Baghead - only has two shows a day!)
David lives comfortably - both literally and figuratively - though the comfort comes at the price of having a son with whom his relationship could be described charitably as estranged and of spending most nights alone; and he seems to know the bounds of what he is capable of doing - when his son asks later in the film how he knows that marriage is a prison, David replies by saying that he has served time, even though he knows that it will hurt his son to hear such a statement about his mother. (If you noticed this and other quirky one-liners in the trailer and thought that you were in for something of a dramedy, then I'm sorry to say that you're in for a major disappointment.)
And yet, the way that David evaluates women - heard through his inner monologue while his eyes scan the faces in his classroom as courses resume each semester - seems to betray his preference for avoiding long-term relationships with them - almost as though he might try it again if he ever found someone who yearned for his body in an animal way and could also fit comfortably as she is into the kind of life that he has made for himself as he enters - reluctantly, don’tcha know? - old age.
And so, of course, just such a woman comes along - one Consuela Castillo (Penélope Cruz), a student in David’s class, yet one who is other, in the sense that she is, in fact, one of his students, and yet perhaps not like any of his other students at all. She is impressed by all of the culture with which David has adorned himself in his apartment, and he is impressed with her breasts. If that seems a bit crude, it should be noted that, for all of his scarves and art references, David is, at bottom, a chap who would prefer to be known for the way he forks, rather than the way he spoons, so to speak.
Thus begins their love affair...and I’ve lost all train of thought as to what I wanted to say about this film - though it had something to do with the way the story tries to reconcile the uniquely human notion of sexual desire with the almost pathological need to remain at a minimum distance from the object of that desire, a sliver of theme echoed in the title of the novel and the film. I thought I liked it, but now I’m not so sure. It was remarkably well shot by Jean-Claude Larrieu, a cinematographer who clearly knows his way around a lighting rig and whose oeuvre prior to Elegy consists almost entirely of French films (including one of the segments in the delightful ménage-a-shorts Paris, Je T’Aime). The acting also was quite strong, particularly Kingsley’s work with facial expressions and nuanced voice-over. Cruz was solid, too, as were Hopper and Clarkson.
I don’t want to give away too much of the plot because of the subtle way that the story develops David and Consuela as characters through the first two acts, except to say that one can glimpse the possibility of a pretty satisfying ending as act two comes to a close. Unfortunately, we must bear witness to act three, in which the story lurches desperately off course and nearly derails. The film is based on the novel The Dying Animal, by Philip Roth, one of those literary heavyweights I have somehow managed not to read yet - so I can’t say whether the ending in the film is true to the book or whether it was substituted for the book’s ending by mouth-breathing half-wits. The novel was adapted for the screen by Nicholas Meyer, who aslo wrote The Human Stain, another film based on a Roth novel. Meyer’s filmography also includes, I’m sorry to say, a number of Star Trek movies, including the insufferable one with the whales and the mom from 7th Heaven. I tend to think, though, that the third act of Elegy was a tacked-on contrivance.
Without having read the novel, I can’t say whether the filmmakers made a bad choice in rewriting the third act, whether they mauled the end of the novel, or whether they were working with substandard source material from the outset; either way, the third act is a letdown, one that seriously mars what is otherwise two-thirds of a really good movie.
(And yes, I know it's a bit late to be posting a review of this movie, but it's actually going to hold for another week, which I would have found shocking except for the fact that all but one of the films I thought we were going to open this weekend have pushed back at least another week and the one we are getting - Baghead - only has two shows a day!)
Thursday, August 28, 2008
That Was Fast
Whoever just cast the first vote in the new poll did so literally seconds after I posted it. I wanted to add a fourth response - "I go to a theatre that serves slushies," and the little gadget doohickey said I couldn't change the poll because someone had already voted. Who else is up right now besides me? (Actually, I know Ryan is...but who else?)
Vet The Willie!
So while I was out having falafel dinner and enjoying my first experiences with both hooka and Turkish coffee (though not at the same time) at our summer staff party deal at The Egyptian, a self-styled “café and hooka bar” in Broad Ripple, those wacky Democrats went and nominated themselves up one Barack Obama to run for the Presidentiality in the upcoming electorate. Not that it was a surprise, mind you, but now everyone can rest a bit easier knowing that neither Hillary Clinton nor Al Gore’s supporters will attempt any sort of insurrection from the floor.
Bill Clinton gave a speech before Delaware Senator Joe Biden accepted the nomination for campaign attack dog - er, Vice President - and while I’m not entirely convinced that anybody named Clinton is really behind Obama, I am somewhat convinced that they are behind the Democrat. They may not ever like the fact that it’s Barack Obama, but now it’s time to get out there and take the White House away from the Galactic Empire and give it back to the Republic. (The end of that last sentence was steeped in fiction, of course - though that fiction itself was based on the reality of the Roman Empire - but it’s a little too close to reality for comfort, isn’t it?)
It’s time for Barack Obama to prove that he’s a savvy politician as well as a brilliant orator - and the first thing he needs to do after he gets the polls showing the size of the post-convention bump is to set a group of his best aides to work on vetting at least one, if not both, of the Clintons. That there was nowhere near enough time to vet Hillary - a sort of misleading way of saying there wasn’t enough time to vet Bill and where his foundation gets its money - was touted as the primary reason Obama did not lock up the election by taking Hillary as his running mate.
I don’t know exactly how much time they need to vet someone properly. It’s two months and change to the election, and two more months and change after the election to the inauguration; and there’s no real timetable, I don’t think, for filling cabinet posts or ambassadorships, after the inauguration. Bill Clinton himself took quite a bit of time to fill out his cabinet - most of which was spent vetting three different potential candidates for Attorney General. If there is enough time to vet the Clintons properly, Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to call back into service one of the most intelligent, gifted, and popular politicians in the post-war era - not to mention the only politically viable ex-President in recent memory. In what capacity? I’m thinking something really tasty, like Secretary of State. Of course, if Obama is leery of keeping the leering ex-President in Washington, he could make him Ambassador to China. Or India.
He’d have to be confirmed, though, too, which could be a dicey proposition for someone like Bill Clinton. Pollster.com currently shows the Dems adding to their majority in the Senate, though not by enough to break a filibuster on party lines. Their 2008 Senate map, as of this writing, shows 54 Dems and 43 Republicans, with 1 toss-up going Republican, and 2 “other,” which are the two Independents, both of whom caucus (one openly), I believe, with the Democrats. Give the toss-up, North Carolina incumbent Elizabeth Dole, to the Republicans and the two “other” seats to the Dems, and that’s 56-44, four short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster. A simple majority would do it, of course, but I wonder that that might not be a bit of a fight. Either way, Obama needs to swallow his pride and do a good thing for the party by reaching out to both Bill and Hillary Clinton as the general election campaign ramps up into high gear.
Bill Clinton gave a speech before Delaware Senator Joe Biden accepted the nomination for campaign attack dog - er, Vice President - and while I’m not entirely convinced that anybody named Clinton is really behind Obama, I am somewhat convinced that they are behind the Democrat. They may not ever like the fact that it’s Barack Obama, but now it’s time to get out there and take the White House away from the Galactic Empire and give it back to the Republic. (The end of that last sentence was steeped in fiction, of course - though that fiction itself was based on the reality of the Roman Empire - but it’s a little too close to reality for comfort, isn’t it?)
It’s time for Barack Obama to prove that he’s a savvy politician as well as a brilliant orator - and the first thing he needs to do after he gets the polls showing the size of the post-convention bump is to set a group of his best aides to work on vetting at least one, if not both, of the Clintons. That there was nowhere near enough time to vet Hillary - a sort of misleading way of saying there wasn’t enough time to vet Bill and where his foundation gets its money - was touted as the primary reason Obama did not lock up the election by taking Hillary as his running mate.
I don’t know exactly how much time they need to vet someone properly. It’s two months and change to the election, and two more months and change after the election to the inauguration; and there’s no real timetable, I don’t think, for filling cabinet posts or ambassadorships, after the inauguration. Bill Clinton himself took quite a bit of time to fill out his cabinet - most of which was spent vetting three different potential candidates for Attorney General. If there is enough time to vet the Clintons properly, Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to call back into service one of the most intelligent, gifted, and popular politicians in the post-war era - not to mention the only politically viable ex-President in recent memory. In what capacity? I’m thinking something really tasty, like Secretary of State. Of course, if Obama is leery of keeping the leering ex-President in Washington, he could make him Ambassador to China. Or India.
He’d have to be confirmed, though, too, which could be a dicey proposition for someone like Bill Clinton. Pollster.com currently shows the Dems adding to their majority in the Senate, though not by enough to break a filibuster on party lines. Their 2008 Senate map, as of this writing, shows 54 Dems and 43 Republicans, with 1 toss-up going Republican, and 2 “other,” which are the two Independents, both of whom caucus (one openly), I believe, with the Democrats. Give the toss-up, North Carolina incumbent Elizabeth Dole, to the Republicans and the two “other” seats to the Dems, and that’s 56-44, four short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster. A simple majority would do it, of course, but I wonder that that might not be a bit of a fight. Either way, Obama needs to swallow his pride and do a good thing for the party by reaching out to both Bill and Hillary Clinton as the general election campaign ramps up into high gear.
Monday, August 25, 2008
3 Sisters Café
Amy asked if there was anything in Broad Ripple that we should try, so we headed in that direction for a very late lunch this afternoon - and I actually managed to think of a place that we should try before we even got close to Broad Ripple. Before it hit me, we took a brief detour along Pendleton Pike, between Shadeland Avenue and Mitthoeffer Road, wondering if there might be something along that stretch of depressed neighborhood to tempt the palate; but the only thing that would have fit the bill was the Heidelberg Café, and I just wasn’t feeling the German thing today, so we kept moving. Between there and Post Road, we decided on Broad Ripple, so I figured I’d just shoot up Post to 56th Street and get to Broad Ripple that way. No such luck. Can’t turn north onto Post Road from Pendleton Pike due to construction. On to Mitthoeffer! There we were able to turn north and ran into 56th Street almost immediately, and from there to the eclectic hippie enclave of Broad Ripple with no problems.
The destination? 3 Sisters Café, at 6360 North Guilford Avenue - yet another of those places I have passed by many a time without visiting. We lifted the stroller up the two steps from the sidewalk to the porch of the old house that now contains this charming café and stepped through the front door, where we waited in the long entrance hall to be seated. Laminated copies of the menu were tacked to the wall, so we could ponder our choices while we waited (briefly) to be seated. I also noticed a little door at the end of the entrance hall, tucked into the space beneath the steps leading to the building’s second level, and I chuckled and pointed it out to Amy as I realized what I was looking at - the cupboard under the stairs!
We were then seated in what might have been one of the bedrooms when the place was being used a house, but which now contains a handful of tables with non-matching chairs, mostly made of wood and various other materials. A very large window to our left looked out onto the porch, where we might have chosen to sit had it been a bit less hot and humid outside. I was pleased immediately - it was creaky and comfortable and unpretentious, and portended an excellent late lunch (especially with advance knowledge of what might be ordered, thanks to the menus on the wall in the hallway).
The menu consists of an all-day breakfast section, plus sandwiches and salads, with an eye toward vegetarian and vegan offerings and healthy choices even for the carnivores. Daily specials are scrawled on a long horizontal chalkboard hanging on the wall in what I think was the main dining room, but which was visible from where I sat - meaning that I had to sit there and look at the daily omelette special, which contained spinach, mushrooms, mozzerella, parmesan, and oregano. Oh, snap. And yet...I chose to pass on that. Why? Something called the Green Grilled Turkey Sandwich ($8.75), featuring turkey, avocado, red onion, swiss cheese, and...pesto. Once more...oh, snap. Amy selected the Florentine omelette ($6.75), which consisted of three eggs wrapped around tomatoes, spinach, basil, mozzerella, and parmesan. She got a side of calico potatoes ($3.00) with that - roasted yellow and sweet potatoes with rosemary and one other herb that I can’t recall. Damned journalistic ineptitude. There’s an online menu, but methinks it’s a bit outdated, as the prices don’t match what we paid, the sandwich I ordered is nowhere to be found, and a number of things listed on the online menu were not on the menu at the restaurant today. We also ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ($3.50) for Jackson.
My grilled turkey sandwich came out perfectly grilled on marble rye bread, with thick slices of grilled turkey breast and a remarkable aroma of pesto as I took the first bite. It fell apart a bit as I made it disappear, but that pesto was there on every sloppy bite. Sandwiches come with a side, and I chose the homemade applesauce - the first bite of which actually made me recoil, it was that divorced from what I generally expect applesauce to taste like. It was very sweet and tasted almost as though it had been laced with rum, but I eventually got used to it, and it proved a solid counterpoint to the savory sandwich. Amy pronounced her omelette delicious, and the calico potatoes were excellent - perfectly cooked and nicely herbed, if perhaps a bit underseasoned.
Our server was very attentive and pleasant - and even took note of the fact that Jackson was being a cranky little turd. She brought his peanut butter and jelly sandwich out before our food was ready, so we could attempt to get Jackson fed and calmed first and not have to do that while our food got cold. A different person on the wait staff brought a second high chair when it turned out that the first one had a seat belt clasp that did not, in fact, clasp.
This may be my new favorite place to eat in Broad Ripple, even though there is also a Bazbeaux Pizza and a Dagwood’s sandwich shop. (I’ve always preferred the downtown Bazbeaux to the one in Broad Ripple, especially since the one in Broad Ripple moved into the old NUVO building. If you never got a chance to eat at Bazbeaux when it was in that house across the street, you missed out.) A second trip will be necessary to determine that for sure, but I’m fairly certain that my opinion on this one will hold up.
The destination? 3 Sisters Café, at 6360 North Guilford Avenue - yet another of those places I have passed by many a time without visiting. We lifted the stroller up the two steps from the sidewalk to the porch of the old house that now contains this charming café and stepped through the front door, where we waited in the long entrance hall to be seated. Laminated copies of the menu were tacked to the wall, so we could ponder our choices while we waited (briefly) to be seated. I also noticed a little door at the end of the entrance hall, tucked into the space beneath the steps leading to the building’s second level, and I chuckled and pointed it out to Amy as I realized what I was looking at - the cupboard under the stairs!
We were then seated in what might have been one of the bedrooms when the place was being used a house, but which now contains a handful of tables with non-matching chairs, mostly made of wood and various other materials. A very large window to our left looked out onto the porch, where we might have chosen to sit had it been a bit less hot and humid outside. I was pleased immediately - it was creaky and comfortable and unpretentious, and portended an excellent late lunch (especially with advance knowledge of what might be ordered, thanks to the menus on the wall in the hallway).
The menu consists of an all-day breakfast section, plus sandwiches and salads, with an eye toward vegetarian and vegan offerings and healthy choices even for the carnivores. Daily specials are scrawled on a long horizontal chalkboard hanging on the wall in what I think was the main dining room, but which was visible from where I sat - meaning that I had to sit there and look at the daily omelette special, which contained spinach, mushrooms, mozzerella, parmesan, and oregano. Oh, snap. And yet...I chose to pass on that. Why? Something called the Green Grilled Turkey Sandwich ($8.75), featuring turkey, avocado, red onion, swiss cheese, and...pesto. Once more...oh, snap. Amy selected the Florentine omelette ($6.75), which consisted of three eggs wrapped around tomatoes, spinach, basil, mozzerella, and parmesan. She got a side of calico potatoes ($3.00) with that - roasted yellow and sweet potatoes with rosemary and one other herb that I can’t recall. Damned journalistic ineptitude. There’s an online menu, but methinks it’s a bit outdated, as the prices don’t match what we paid, the sandwich I ordered is nowhere to be found, and a number of things listed on the online menu were not on the menu at the restaurant today. We also ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ($3.50) for Jackson.
My grilled turkey sandwich came out perfectly grilled on marble rye bread, with thick slices of grilled turkey breast and a remarkable aroma of pesto as I took the first bite. It fell apart a bit as I made it disappear, but that pesto was there on every sloppy bite. Sandwiches come with a side, and I chose the homemade applesauce - the first bite of which actually made me recoil, it was that divorced from what I generally expect applesauce to taste like. It was very sweet and tasted almost as though it had been laced with rum, but I eventually got used to it, and it proved a solid counterpoint to the savory sandwich. Amy pronounced her omelette delicious, and the calico potatoes were excellent - perfectly cooked and nicely herbed, if perhaps a bit underseasoned.
Our server was very attentive and pleasant - and even took note of the fact that Jackson was being a cranky little turd. She brought his peanut butter and jelly sandwich out before our food was ready, so we could attempt to get Jackson fed and calmed first and not have to do that while our food got cold. A different person on the wait staff brought a second high chair when it turned out that the first one had a seat belt clasp that did not, in fact, clasp.
This may be my new favorite place to eat in Broad Ripple, even though there is also a Bazbeaux Pizza and a Dagwood’s sandwich shop. (I’ve always preferred the downtown Bazbeaux to the one in Broad Ripple, especially since the one in Broad Ripple moved into the old NUVO building. If you never got a chance to eat at Bazbeaux when it was in that house across the street, you missed out.) A second trip will be necessary to determine that for sure, but I’m fairly certain that my opinion on this one will hold up.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Picture Pages, Picture Pages, Fill Your Day With Picture Pages
I have been deplorably lax here lately when it comes to posting photos on my Picasa photo site. August is almost all the way in the books, and nary a shot. I've taken plenty of pictures, just haven't managed to organize them, nor even upload all of them. However, tonight I have made a bit of progress, so without further ado, here are some links to various things I have taken pictures of during the month of August. (I added a link to my photo site up there next to the picture of Jackson and me.)
As some of you know by now, my very good friend Steve got married on August 2nd. I was one of Steve's groomsmen, so I didn't get any shots of the ceremony itself, but I did get some pictures of Steve hanging around before it started, and some of Steve and Kendra during their photo shoot after the ceremony. Click here for a small representative sample of shots from Steve's wedding.
The 2008 edition of the Indiana State Fair came and went this month, too. The three of us went on both Wednesdays during the 12-day run - the first time I can recall that we had the chance to go on opening day. Jackson was - wait for it - a cranky little turd both times, at the beginning and end of the first day, and pretty much throughout the second trip. For reasons passing understanding, he can't seem to fall asleep unless he's in his crib. This, clearly, is not the result of any genetic code that I passed on to him. Nevertheless, there are some pictures from the first day, including a couple of Jackson trying his first corn dog.
I have more pictures to post of various other things we've been up to this month, but I don't have them ready just yet. There will be some pictures from the Irvington Farmers Market and a set from our second trip to the fair, so I'm pretty sure that this post will be updated in a day or two.
As some of you know by now, my very good friend Steve got married on August 2nd. I was one of Steve's groomsmen, so I didn't get any shots of the ceremony itself, but I did get some pictures of Steve hanging around before it started, and some of Steve and Kendra during their photo shoot after the ceremony. Click here for a small representative sample of shots from Steve's wedding.
The 2008 edition of the Indiana State Fair came and went this month, too. The three of us went on both Wednesdays during the 12-day run - the first time I can recall that we had the chance to go on opening day. Jackson was - wait for it - a cranky little turd both times, at the beginning and end of the first day, and pretty much throughout the second trip. For reasons passing understanding, he can't seem to fall asleep unless he's in his crib. This, clearly, is not the result of any genetic code that I passed on to him. Nevertheless, there are some pictures from the first day, including a couple of Jackson trying his first corn dog.
I have more pictures to post of various other things we've been up to this month, but I don't have them ready just yet. There will be some pictures from the Irvington Farmers Market and a set from our second trip to the fair, so I'm pretty sure that this post will be updated in a day or two.
Free Bumper Sticker - Warning! Applying Sticker To Car May Cause Car To Lean Left (#3)
MoveOn, not surprisingly, has a bumper sticker for the newly minted Democratic ticket of Obama/Biden. The first one is free for the asking (including shipping) - and they'll send you five for a mere $3, or fifty for $20. Click here to get yours today, and come on board for the big win! Don't you love your country?
Saturday, August 23, 2008
A Sports Question, Sort Of
From Hey Rube: Blood Sport, The Bush Doctrine, And The Downward Spiral Of Dumbness - Modern History From The Sports Desk, by Hunter S. Thompson (page 79):
"It was Beer that finally ended my career as a full-time Athlete - first Beer, then Girls, and finally a brief fling with Crime. That is a fatal mix for any star athlete."
When did this - the second sentence - stop being true? Was it ever true?
"It was Beer that finally ended my career as a full-time Athlete - first Beer, then Girls, and finally a brief fling with Crime. That is a fatal mix for any star athlete."
When did this - the second sentence - stop being true? Was it ever true?
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