Tuesday, August 29, 2006
OLIVE GROVE
Last night my wife and I wanted to stop for dinner after work, but we wanted someplace close by so we could get home to work on the room. We were leaning towards G&M Restaurant in Linthicum since it’s been a while since we’ve had one of their great crabcakes, or the Ruby Tuesday near the Hoyt’s move Theater on Nursery Road, which has great steak specials but triggers my aversion to chain restaurants. We settled on The Olive Grove in Linthicum, since it is practically around the corner from our house. June had recently added it to our list of restaurants to try, but it was not one I would initially consider. In the past few years, they have added the most obnoxious video sign this side of Las Vegas out front, which is as eye-catching as it is off-putting. Still, I had heard enough good things about the food that I didn’t have to avoid them just because of poor design choices.
The building itself is pretty nice, both inside and out. The menus were a bit of an adventure, as they included several extra pages of weekly and daily specials. It was easily sorted out, but we did have to ask the waitress for a few extra minutes just so we could wade through all the combinations of choices. Since it was “Crab Night”, I opted for the Crab Cake Platter. I figured that since we were just up the street from G&M I should do a comparison. It was quite large, and I will have to give them credit for knowing that a good crabcake should be more crab than cake. Where G&M uses local spices to give theirs a down-home feel, Olive Grove uses a different blend of herbs to remind you that you’re in an Italian restaurant. I wanted to bring half of it home, but was unable to keep nibbling at it until it was all gone. My wife ordered Spinach-Stuffed Ravioli, which was wonderful from presentation to execution.
The salad came in one large bowl that was left on the table for us, which while a nice touch it also came with the powerful dressing already mixed in. I didn’t have any problem with it, but my wife would have preferred to at least have the dressing offered as a choice, or at least on the side.
I was a little taken aback by some of their wine prices, though. I fully understand the restaurant mark-up, but when the price per glass is more than two-thirds of the cost of a bottle you can walk across the street and buy then I think they’re pushing things. I did find the price on their house wines reasonable, though, and I fully enjoyed the Chianti I ordered.
An excellent dinner, all in all. I don’t know if we’ll go there often enough to accumulate any bonuses in their frequent diners club, but I’m sure we will be back.
Last night my wife and I wanted to stop for dinner after work, but we wanted someplace close by so we could get home to work on the room. We were leaning towards G&M Restaurant in Linthicum since it’s been a while since we’ve had one of their great crabcakes, or the Ruby Tuesday near the Hoyt’s move Theater on Nursery Road, which has great steak specials but triggers my aversion to chain restaurants. We settled on The Olive Grove in Linthicum, since it is practically around the corner from our house. June had recently added it to our list of restaurants to try, but it was not one I would initially consider. In the past few years, they have added the most obnoxious video sign this side of Las Vegas out front, which is as eye-catching as it is off-putting. Still, I had heard enough good things about the food that I didn’t have to avoid them just because of poor design choices.
The building itself is pretty nice, both inside and out. The menus were a bit of an adventure, as they included several extra pages of weekly and daily specials. It was easily sorted out, but we did have to ask the waitress for a few extra minutes just so we could wade through all the combinations of choices. Since it was “Crab Night”, I opted for the Crab Cake Platter. I figured that since we were just up the street from G&M I should do a comparison. It was quite large, and I will have to give them credit for knowing that a good crabcake should be more crab than cake. Where G&M uses local spices to give theirs a down-home feel, Olive Grove uses a different blend of herbs to remind you that you’re in an Italian restaurant. I wanted to bring half of it home, but was unable to keep nibbling at it until it was all gone. My wife ordered Spinach-Stuffed Ravioli, which was wonderful from presentation to execution.
The salad came in one large bowl that was left on the table for us, which while a nice touch it also came with the powerful dressing already mixed in. I didn’t have any problem with it, but my wife would have preferred to at least have the dressing offered as a choice, or at least on the side.
I was a little taken aback by some of their wine prices, though. I fully understand the restaurant mark-up, but when the price per glass is more than two-thirds of the cost of a bottle you can walk across the street and buy then I think they’re pushing things. I did find the price on their house wines reasonable, though, and I fully enjoyed the Chianti I ordered.
An excellent dinner, all in all. I don’t know if we’ll go there often enough to accumulate any bonuses in their frequent diners club, but I’m sure we will be back.
Monday, August 28, 2006
TUBING, ALMOST
Last week, a bunch of my friends decided to go inner tubing down a river and they wanted to have as big a group as they could. I have never been tubing, so I happily joined in. The main organizer e-mailed suggestions for what to bring, directions on where to meet, and instructions for renting or buying your own tube. Saturday morning, I packed up my beer (in cans, no glass in the river), a mesh bag (the river water will keep the beer cold, but a cooler will sink), and a change of clothes (because you’ll want something warm to wear after soaking in the cold river).
I drove up I-83 to the Mt. Carmel exit, drove a few miles down Monkton Road (which wasn’t actually marked from the road but was easily identifiable as the only road it could be if that makes sense), and rented an inner tube at Monkton Station. Monkton is in a charming area in the country, and the station sits at the crossroads of Monkton Road and a popular bike trail. Given the large number of people with inner tubes heading down the trail, I imagine the river must be nearby as well.
I was driving to the nearby rendezvous point when I got a phone call telling me the tubing was canceled. Since it was cloudy with a chance of rain, they decided to call it off. Apparently, if it isn’t blazing hot out it can get uncomfortably cold on the river. I was disappointed, of course. I never even found out the name of the river we were intending to float down. I returned the inner tube, and thought about where I wanted to stop on the way home. There was a winery in Mt. Carmel, and if I had remembered the crap that local wineries had been dealing with for the past year I would have made a point of stopping there to pick up a bottle. Eventually, I just went straight home and helped my wife paint the room we’re converting into an office.
What I kicked myself for later was not realizing that I had a case of beer in the car and no place I had to be for a while. I should have called up one of the tube trip organizers and said, “Okay, so where ARE we gathering today?”
It’s probably a good thing I didn’t, since the obvious response to that is “Your place.”
Last week, a bunch of my friends decided to go inner tubing down a river and they wanted to have as big a group as they could. I have never been tubing, so I happily joined in. The main organizer e-mailed suggestions for what to bring, directions on where to meet, and instructions for renting or buying your own tube. Saturday morning, I packed up my beer (in cans, no glass in the river), a mesh bag (the river water will keep the beer cold, but a cooler will sink), and a change of clothes (because you’ll want something warm to wear after soaking in the cold river).
I drove up I-83 to the Mt. Carmel exit, drove a few miles down Monkton Road (which wasn’t actually marked from the road but was easily identifiable as the only road it could be if that makes sense), and rented an inner tube at Monkton Station. Monkton is in a charming area in the country, and the station sits at the crossroads of Monkton Road and a popular bike trail. Given the large number of people with inner tubes heading down the trail, I imagine the river must be nearby as well.
I was driving to the nearby rendezvous point when I got a phone call telling me the tubing was canceled. Since it was cloudy with a chance of rain, they decided to call it off. Apparently, if it isn’t blazing hot out it can get uncomfortably cold on the river. I was disappointed, of course. I never even found out the name of the river we were intending to float down. I returned the inner tube, and thought about where I wanted to stop on the way home. There was a winery in Mt. Carmel, and if I had remembered the crap that local wineries had been dealing with for the past year I would have made a point of stopping there to pick up a bottle. Eventually, I just went straight home and helped my wife paint the room we’re converting into an office.
What I kicked myself for later was not realizing that I had a case of beer in the car and no place I had to be for a while. I should have called up one of the tube trip organizers and said, “Okay, so where ARE we gathering today?”
It’s probably a good thing I didn’t, since the obvious response to that is “Your place.”
Thursday, August 24, 2006
ONE LESS PLANET
Well everyone else is going to blog about it, so why not?
As my wife put it, “the Death Star of astronomical nomenclature” has removed Pluto as a planet from our solar system.
I’m of several minds on this, as all in all I don’t see how it affects anyone in the least, with the possible exception of all the people who worked on those decorative orreries that have been built since 1930. Personally, I think anything that has its own moon – or two – should be called a planet. However, I also think it’s neat that in future anything not quite a planet is going to be called a “Pluton”.
As long as we’re at it, though, maybe we should cut some excess from some other areas of scientific overabundance.
Seven colors of the rainbow? What the heck’s indigo supposed to be, anyway? Hey, we might be able to ditch orange while we’re at it.
Seven seas? Hey, if it’s not big enough to be an ocean then just call it a bay or an inlet.
Twelve months in the year? It’s never really matched up with the Earth’s rotation, and they have to adjust the atomic clock every so often because of that. Adjusting an atomic clock just to make the calendar salesman happy? Just decimalize the thing already and we can have a nice even ten month year.
Seven deadly sins? If sloth really counted for anything, then no one would blog at all.
I guess that last one was more theological than scientific, but I think we’ve got a real opportunity here and we shouldn’t squander it. I noticed that most of the examples I came up with dealt with groups of seven, but we are down to eight planets now, and you have to know that Mercury’s days must be numbered…
Well everyone else is going to blog about it, so why not?
As my wife put it, “the Death Star of astronomical nomenclature” has removed Pluto as a planet from our solar system.
I’m of several minds on this, as all in all I don’t see how it affects anyone in the least, with the possible exception of all the people who worked on those decorative orreries that have been built since 1930. Personally, I think anything that has its own moon – or two – should be called a planet. However, I also think it’s neat that in future anything not quite a planet is going to be called a “Pluton”.
As long as we’re at it, though, maybe we should cut some excess from some other areas of scientific overabundance.
Seven colors of the rainbow? What the heck’s indigo supposed to be, anyway? Hey, we might be able to ditch orange while we’re at it.
Seven seas? Hey, if it’s not big enough to be an ocean then just call it a bay or an inlet.
Twelve months in the year? It’s never really matched up with the Earth’s rotation, and they have to adjust the atomic clock every so often because of that. Adjusting an atomic clock just to make the calendar salesman happy? Just decimalize the thing already and we can have a nice even ten month year.
Seven deadly sins? If sloth really counted for anything, then no one would blog at all.
I guess that last one was more theological than scientific, but I think we’ve got a real opportunity here and we shouldn’t squander it. I noticed that most of the examples I came up with dealt with groups of seven, but we are down to eight planets now, and you have to know that Mercury’s days must be numbered…
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
THE BALTIMORE EXAMINER
The Examiner is a new phenomenon that started showing up on people’s doorsteps a little while ago; I don’t think it’s been a whole year yet. It bills itself as an alternative to the Baltimore Sun (not to be mistaken for an “alternative newspaper”). Whatever. I get it because it’s free and it started showing up on my doorstep, right next to its aforementioned competition.
The format differs widely from most newspapers in that the articles it presents are pretty short and don't go into much detail. Usually it;s just a headline and a couple paragraphs. There are letters to the editor and essays in the back, but it has a very rushed feel to it. Omissions of text and typographical errors are common, and they are constantly printing corrections of same. In their rush to save space, aside from errors they sometimes wind up with unfortunate choices of grammar. Such as an article in today’s Examiner:
“COSBY DELIVERS MESSAGE AND LAUGHS AT THREE SCHOOLS”
Now, I know he’s been very public about his viewpoints on the state of affairs in the black community, but I have to ask: why did he choose those three schools to laugh at?
The Examiner is a new phenomenon that started showing up on people’s doorsteps a little while ago; I don’t think it’s been a whole year yet. It bills itself as an alternative to the Baltimore Sun (not to be mistaken for an “alternative newspaper”). Whatever. I get it because it’s free and it started showing up on my doorstep, right next to its aforementioned competition.
The format differs widely from most newspapers in that the articles it presents are pretty short and don't go into much detail. Usually it;s just a headline and a couple paragraphs. There are letters to the editor and essays in the back, but it has a very rushed feel to it. Omissions of text and typographical errors are common, and they are constantly printing corrections of same. In their rush to save space, aside from errors they sometimes wind up with unfortunate choices of grammar. Such as an article in today’s Examiner:
“COSBY DELIVERS MESSAGE AND LAUGHS AT THREE SCHOOLS”
Now, I know he’s been very public about his viewpoints on the state of affairs in the black community, but I have to ask: why did he choose those three schools to laugh at?
Monday, August 21, 2006
ACE OF CAKES
I first met Duff Goldman at a Smalltimore festival last year. It was some shindig at a theater on North Avenue, I think (someplace in the Bermuda Triangle that is the Station North Arts District anyway). Several local theatrical troupes were invited to participate, including Fluid Movement, so I went to help out. Duff Goldman was kind of the emcee, but more sort of the celebrity guest star. He made crabcakes for the audience, and kept things moving along. He was wearing his signature chef’s jacket with a Food Network patch on the shoulder, so we chatted a bit backstage about some of the shows. He told me about some of the Challenge shows he had appeared on, and he was able to confirm for me that a certain Food Network celebrity was just as much of a jerk in real life as he appeared on TV. Smalltimore being what it is, I ran into Chef Duff again at another Fluid Movement show later that summer, where he played a giant lobster.
After that show, he asked everyone to come over to his place to celebrate a cake he had just made. Apparently, a Food Network producer was doing a segment on holiday cakes, and asked Duff if he could a) make a cake that fireworks could be launched from and b) have it ready the following day. He of course said yes, and invited everyone over for a “Fourth of July” party where we watched the fireworks get launched out of a red, white and blue cannon-shaped cake. The cake got set up on a dock by the water’s edge, the camera filmed the crowd’s reaction to the fireworks, the fireworks were launched (so the camera could then film them), we hid from the police helicopter, the cake was cut and the creosote-covered upper layers were discarded, and then we dug in.
Duff is the owner and proprietor of Charm City Cakes, a fast-growing and interesting specialty cake bakery based here in Baltimore. Most of the employees have backgrounds in art rather than baking, and Duff’s love of metal-sculpting and power tools usually shines through. He has appeared on several shows on Food Network, most notably on Food Network Challenge in several cake bake-offs, as well as an episode of Sugar Rush described above. I don’t believe he’s won any of the challenges, but his appearances are notable simply for his charm and character. I’m pretty sure one of the reasons he didn’t win the Elvis Birthday Cake Challenge was due to his use of a blowtorch to melt butter in one of his bowls. Some judges have sensibilities about such things apparently, but you shouldn’t ask Marilyn Manson for fashion advice and expect to walk off with a button-down sweater vest. In any case, he must have impressed someone at the Food Network because they offered him his own show.
Ace of Cakes follows the day to day operations of Charm City Cakes. The first episode focused on a cake he made for the Preakness, but the best moments involved the staff interactions during the work week. What’s really fun for us is watching all these people we know from Fluid Movement shows being filmed at their job. I believe they filmed six episodes, and hopefully there will be many more. They are running the episodes quite a bit, but it is a pretty confusing schedule. The first episode aired Thursday at 10:30, and the next episode aired Saturday at 10:30. The second episode will be on again this Thursday at 10:30, and will be repeated this Saturday at 10:30. What bugs me is that our DVR caught the second episode, but since I thought it was just a repeat of the first episode I deleted it before we watched it. (Several people had mentioned that the schedule was bizarre, but I just couldn’t understand why they would run them that way and I didn’t understand what they meant until after the fact.)
I first met Duff Goldman at a Smalltimore festival last year. It was some shindig at a theater on North Avenue, I think (someplace in the Bermuda Triangle that is the Station North Arts District anyway). Several local theatrical troupes were invited to participate, including Fluid Movement, so I went to help out. Duff Goldman was kind of the emcee, but more sort of the celebrity guest star. He made crabcakes for the audience, and kept things moving along. He was wearing his signature chef’s jacket with a Food Network patch on the shoulder, so we chatted a bit backstage about some of the shows. He told me about some of the Challenge shows he had appeared on, and he was able to confirm for me that a certain Food Network celebrity was just as much of a jerk in real life as he appeared on TV. Smalltimore being what it is, I ran into Chef Duff again at another Fluid Movement show later that summer, where he played a giant lobster.
After that show, he asked everyone to come over to his place to celebrate a cake he had just made. Apparently, a Food Network producer was doing a segment on holiday cakes, and asked Duff if he could a) make a cake that fireworks could be launched from and b) have it ready the following day. He of course said yes, and invited everyone over for a “Fourth of July” party where we watched the fireworks get launched out of a red, white and blue cannon-shaped cake. The cake got set up on a dock by the water’s edge, the camera filmed the crowd’s reaction to the fireworks, the fireworks were launched (so the camera could then film them), we hid from the police helicopter, the cake was cut and the creosote-covered upper layers were discarded, and then we dug in.
Duff is the owner and proprietor of Charm City Cakes, a fast-growing and interesting specialty cake bakery based here in Baltimore. Most of the employees have backgrounds in art rather than baking, and Duff’s love of metal-sculpting and power tools usually shines through. He has appeared on several shows on Food Network, most notably on Food Network Challenge in several cake bake-offs, as well as an episode of Sugar Rush described above. I don’t believe he’s won any of the challenges, but his appearances are notable simply for his charm and character. I’m pretty sure one of the reasons he didn’t win the Elvis Birthday Cake Challenge was due to his use of a blowtorch to melt butter in one of his bowls. Some judges have sensibilities about such things apparently, but you shouldn’t ask Marilyn Manson for fashion advice and expect to walk off with a button-down sweater vest. In any case, he must have impressed someone at the Food Network because they offered him his own show.
Ace of Cakes follows the day to day operations of Charm City Cakes. The first episode focused on a cake he made for the Preakness, but the best moments involved the staff interactions during the work week. What’s really fun for us is watching all these people we know from Fluid Movement shows being filmed at their job. I believe they filmed six episodes, and hopefully there will be many more. They are running the episodes quite a bit, but it is a pretty confusing schedule. The first episode aired Thursday at 10:30, and the next episode aired Saturday at 10:30. The second episode will be on again this Thursday at 10:30, and will be repeated this Saturday at 10:30. What bugs me is that our DVR caught the second episode, but since I thought it was just a repeat of the first episode I deleted it before we watched it. (Several people had mentioned that the schedule was bizarre, but I just couldn’t understand why they would run them that way and I didn’t understand what they meant until after the fact.)
Saturday, August 19, 2006
HEADLINES
At this morning's breakfast table my wife was reading the Baltimore Sun and announced, “There's a headline we've been waiting for all our lives: TWO COMPANIES SELECTED TO DEVELOP SPACESHIP.”
Apparently it's Northrupp Grummann and Lockheed Martin (which I thought already were two companies), who are well known for their aerospace ventures, and Space X, which I think is well known for it's line of tupperware.
Reading further, my wife said that it's going to be a partnership-
“A Partner Ship?” I interrupted. “So that's what they're going to do with all the gay people who want to get married. 'You want to get married? Step right in here, sirs. Okay, it's full. Launch!'”
I'm sure actually reading the article myself will reveal quite a different perception, but I try to never let the facts get in the way of a good joke.
At this morning's breakfast table my wife was reading the Baltimore Sun and announced, “There's a headline we've been waiting for all our lives: TWO COMPANIES SELECTED TO DEVELOP SPACESHIP.”
Apparently it's Northrupp Grummann and Lockheed Martin (which I thought already were two companies), who are well known for their aerospace ventures, and Space X, which I think is well known for it's line of tupperware.
Reading further, my wife said that it's going to be a partnership-
“A Partner Ship?” I interrupted. “So that's what they're going to do with all the gay people who want to get married. 'You want to get married? Step right in here, sirs. Okay, it's full. Launch!'”
I'm sure actually reading the article myself will reveal quite a different perception, but I try to never let the facts get in the way of a good joke.
Friday, August 18, 2006
I COULD KICK MYSELF
We had an out of town visitor at work today. He got done around noon, and his ride was about to leave for the airport to drop him off. He lamented that he would have nothing to do until his flight at 7:00 p.m. I know BWI has been built up a lot recently, particularly the Southwest wing, but it’s still an airport and not an entertainment center. All I could do was commiserate with him and send him on his way.
Thirty seconds after he left I realized I should have told him to hop on the Light Rail at the BWI stop and ride it to the Inner Harbor and hang out there for a few hours. He would have had to watch his time, and there might have been a matter of dealing with his luggage and procuring his boarding pass, but the point is I didn’t even think to suggest it.
Sure, there are other destinations accessible by Light Rail that he would have found enjoyable, but the Inner Harbor is the simplest and most obvious. One of the reasons I started this blog was to shout out about Baltimore, and it doesn’t occur to me to give some plain advice to a tourist? I suppose he will be hanging around the airport, and so he might discover the light rail on his own, and if he’s adventurous he might explore it anyway.
But probably not.
Dang.
We had an out of town visitor at work today. He got done around noon, and his ride was about to leave for the airport to drop him off. He lamented that he would have nothing to do until his flight at 7:00 p.m. I know BWI has been built up a lot recently, particularly the Southwest wing, but it’s still an airport and not an entertainment center. All I could do was commiserate with him and send him on his way.
Thirty seconds after he left I realized I should have told him to hop on the Light Rail at the BWI stop and ride it to the Inner Harbor and hang out there for a few hours. He would have had to watch his time, and there might have been a matter of dealing with his luggage and procuring his boarding pass, but the point is I didn’t even think to suggest it.
Sure, there are other destinations accessible by Light Rail that he would have found enjoyable, but the Inner Harbor is the simplest and most obvious. One of the reasons I started this blog was to shout out about Baltimore, and it doesn’t occur to me to give some plain advice to a tourist? I suppose he will be hanging around the airport, and so he might discover the light rail on his own, and if he’s adventurous he might explore it anyway.
But probably not.
Dang.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
LITTLE BIRDS
My wife is in the unenviable position of working for three bosses. Essentially, they share the cost of her job among their individual cost centers. The saving grace is that the one boss she sees the most is really cool. When this boss started working from home, she had my wife move into her former office. This is especially nice because it’s large and has a window.
The window has a tree just outside it, and to improve the view as it were, my wife hung a bird feeder on it. Now she enjoys a constant show of finches and grackles all day, with the occasional Blue Jay, Cardinal, Goldfinch, and some white finch-like bird we haven’t yet been able to identify. She has taken to filling the feeder daily; when she doesn’t, the birds perch on her windowsill and stare at her mercilessly. Not much of an extortion technique, I guess, but she tells me it’s pretty effective. I’m amazed at how much seed they go through in a day. She fills it up when she arrives in the morning, and it’s empty by the time we leave. This morning, one of the birds was perched on a car in the parking lot as we pulled up, obviously waiting for the feeder to be filled.
I commented on how the birds were stuffing themselves, and my wife said that they had to get fat for the winter, which is SIX months away!
I pretended to be the bird and said, “Well, you know the story of the grasshopper and the ant don’t you? There was a grasshopper and an ant and I ate ‘em both. I love that story.”
“Got any food?” my wife chirped.
My wife is in the unenviable position of working for three bosses. Essentially, they share the cost of her job among their individual cost centers. The saving grace is that the one boss she sees the most is really cool. When this boss started working from home, she had my wife move into her former office. This is especially nice because it’s large and has a window.
The window has a tree just outside it, and to improve the view as it were, my wife hung a bird feeder on it. Now she enjoys a constant show of finches and grackles all day, with the occasional Blue Jay, Cardinal, Goldfinch, and some white finch-like bird we haven’t yet been able to identify. She has taken to filling the feeder daily; when she doesn’t, the birds perch on her windowsill and stare at her mercilessly. Not much of an extortion technique, I guess, but she tells me it’s pretty effective. I’m amazed at how much seed they go through in a day. She fills it up when she arrives in the morning, and it’s empty by the time we leave. This morning, one of the birds was perched on a car in the parking lot as we pulled up, obviously waiting for the feeder to be filled.
I commented on how the birds were stuffing themselves, and my wife said that they had to get fat for the winter, which is SIX months away!
I pretended to be the bird and said, “Well, you know the story of the grasshopper and the ant don’t you? There was a grasshopper and an ant and I ate ‘em both. I love that story.”
“Got any food?” my wife chirped.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
DINING OUT
I’m not a cheapskate. I don’t need to use a coupon for everything I buy, or wait for something to go on sale before I buy it. However, I also think there’s a point to thriftiness and I don’t like paying more money than I have to for anything. I enjoy eating out, and I have come up with a number of techniques to save money. Most require forethought and planning, so if I leave work or I’m out shopping and decide on the spur of the moment to go out to eat, I’m as likely as not to just settle on the first place that looks good and ignore the cost. (Within reason, of course, I do pay attention to my budget.)
Every autumn I buy a new Entertainment Book. You usually see those sold by schools or clubs as fundraisers, and they have a lot of coupons for local businesses and services. The book pays for itself very quickly if you actually use it, particularly for hotel rooms, car rentals, and restaurants. The restaurant coupons, or the card it comes with for “higher-end” restaurants (i.e., any restaurant that wants to call itself high-end by dispensing with paper coupons, but still desperate enough for customers that they use such a gimmick) are usually good for a free entrée with your meal. I try to make a note of the restaurants I’m likely to go to, but I usually check it first whenever we’re looking for a place to eat.
A useful reservation tool I employ is Open Table. It’s a web site that allows you to make reservations at any restaurant that subscribes to that service. I like the convenience of making the reservations on line, as well as searching for several restaurants in an area at once. It also gives you the option to give them brief notes about your reservation, such as “Seat us near a window” or “It’s a bachelor party so we’re going to be loud and obnoxious” or “It’s a birthday dinner so please bring a cake for my wife but if you sing I’ll throw cutlery”. Now, this service is only used by restaurants that will connect to the internet for a reservation service, so it pretty much exclusively means “higher-end” again. However, if you use it enough times, you do get a dining certificate you can use at any of the participating restaurants. (I actually haven’t used it enough times to qualify for one yet.)
While planning our Las Vegas trip earlier this year, I came across a fantastic discount site, and by extension, another one. For the purposes of dining out, it’s important to use them in reverse order. First, go to Coupon Cabin. It links to a lot of sites that offer on line discounts, including Restaurant.Com. Be sure to click on the link that reads “See all Restaurant.com Coupons”. Usually they offer 40% off your order, but sometimes they run specials that offer more. Click on whichever offer is best, and that will take you to Restaurant.Com. Type in the zip code of your area, and a list of restaurants offering discounted gift cards will come up. These usually are $25 gift cards which you can buy for $10, but since you went through Coupon Cabin you can get them for $6! Net savings = $19. Be sure to read the fine print before you buy one, though. Some are only good on certain nights, and it is one per trip, $35 food order minimum.
Remember, no matter what type of discount you’re enjoying, always tip the wait staff according to the original price of your meal. Don’t take money out of someone else’s pocket just because you’re keeping more in yours.
I’m not a cheapskate. I don’t need to use a coupon for everything I buy, or wait for something to go on sale before I buy it. However, I also think there’s a point to thriftiness and I don’t like paying more money than I have to for anything. I enjoy eating out, and I have come up with a number of techniques to save money. Most require forethought and planning, so if I leave work or I’m out shopping and decide on the spur of the moment to go out to eat, I’m as likely as not to just settle on the first place that looks good and ignore the cost. (Within reason, of course, I do pay attention to my budget.)
Every autumn I buy a new Entertainment Book. You usually see those sold by schools or clubs as fundraisers, and they have a lot of coupons for local businesses and services. The book pays for itself very quickly if you actually use it, particularly for hotel rooms, car rentals, and restaurants. The restaurant coupons, or the card it comes with for “higher-end” restaurants (i.e., any restaurant that wants to call itself high-end by dispensing with paper coupons, but still desperate enough for customers that they use such a gimmick) are usually good for a free entrée with your meal. I try to make a note of the restaurants I’m likely to go to, but I usually check it first whenever we’re looking for a place to eat.
A useful reservation tool I employ is Open Table. It’s a web site that allows you to make reservations at any restaurant that subscribes to that service. I like the convenience of making the reservations on line, as well as searching for several restaurants in an area at once. It also gives you the option to give them brief notes about your reservation, such as “Seat us near a window” or “It’s a bachelor party so we’re going to be loud and obnoxious” or “It’s a birthday dinner so please bring a cake for my wife but if you sing I’ll throw cutlery”. Now, this service is only used by restaurants that will connect to the internet for a reservation service, so it pretty much exclusively means “higher-end” again. However, if you use it enough times, you do get a dining certificate you can use at any of the participating restaurants. (I actually haven’t used it enough times to qualify for one yet.)
While planning our Las Vegas trip earlier this year, I came across a fantastic discount site, and by extension, another one. For the purposes of dining out, it’s important to use them in reverse order. First, go to Coupon Cabin. It links to a lot of sites that offer on line discounts, including Restaurant.Com. Be sure to click on the link that reads “See all Restaurant.com Coupons”. Usually they offer 40% off your order, but sometimes they run specials that offer more. Click on whichever offer is best, and that will take you to Restaurant.Com. Type in the zip code of your area, and a list of restaurants offering discounted gift cards will come up. These usually are $25 gift cards which you can buy for $10, but since you went through Coupon Cabin you can get them for $6! Net savings = $19. Be sure to read the fine print before you buy one, though. Some are only good on certain nights, and it is one per trip, $35 food order minimum.
Remember, no matter what type of discount you’re enjoying, always tip the wait staff according to the original price of your meal. Don’t take money out of someone else’s pocket just because you’re keeping more in yours.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
BONEFISH GRILL
We originally set out to find dim sum. We had seen a place in Brooklyn Park, and some friends of ours had eaten there and said it was good, so this would have been our first time. Alas, sometime in the last sic months it must have closed. Too eclectic for the neighborhood? Maybe just poor management, who knows? My heart wasn’t broken, really. My wife really likes it, but I’ve found most dim sum lacking in enough variety to be truly enjoyable. Still, it would be nice if more places in the area offered it than the Chinatown Café.
Continuing our drive down Ritchie Highway, we stopped at the Bonefish Grill at the Glen Burnie Mall. The sun was setting, and we debated on asking for a seat outside, although as much as they strived for nice ambience I think our view of the parking lot wouldn’t have been much worth it. It seemed like a nice place with a unique atmosphere, but I had no idea it was a chain restaurant until they placed the pager in my hand. Oh, well. After a short wait (outside on a bench, although the lively bar area looked tempting) we were paged to our table inside the main dining room.
This restaurant tried to live up to its name, and had several varieties of grilled fish highlighted on the menu. I eyed the Chilean Sea Bass, having enjoyed a fantastic one at Jesse Wong’s last February, but I heard the species is getting overfished, so I opted for the Mahi Mahi with an Oriental sauce. My wife ordered the Trout with a lemon butter sauce. I ordered a white wine with my meal, and I felt kind of bad since the name of the vintage was obviously designed to make someone order it for all the wrong reasons, but who can resist a Menage-a-Trois?
While the sauces were great, I found the fish to be mediocre. It wasn’t un-tender, just not very soft and tasty I guess. The wine was crisp and smooth and paired excellently, though. Our very friendly and knowledgeable waitress did steer us to their Bang Bang Shrimp appetizer, which was fantastic.
So it was a nice meal at a nice place in an area that has been experiencing some needed refurbishment, and doing well by everything we could see.
We originally set out to find dim sum. We had seen a place in Brooklyn Park, and some friends of ours had eaten there and said it was good, so this would have been our first time. Alas, sometime in the last sic months it must have closed. Too eclectic for the neighborhood? Maybe just poor management, who knows? My heart wasn’t broken, really. My wife really likes it, but I’ve found most dim sum lacking in enough variety to be truly enjoyable. Still, it would be nice if more places in the area offered it than the Chinatown Café.
Continuing our drive down Ritchie Highway, we stopped at the Bonefish Grill at the Glen Burnie Mall. The sun was setting, and we debated on asking for a seat outside, although as much as they strived for nice ambience I think our view of the parking lot wouldn’t have been much worth it. It seemed like a nice place with a unique atmosphere, but I had no idea it was a chain restaurant until they placed the pager in my hand. Oh, well. After a short wait (outside on a bench, although the lively bar area looked tempting) we were paged to our table inside the main dining room.
This restaurant tried to live up to its name, and had several varieties of grilled fish highlighted on the menu. I eyed the Chilean Sea Bass, having enjoyed a fantastic one at Jesse Wong’s last February, but I heard the species is getting overfished, so I opted for the Mahi Mahi with an Oriental sauce. My wife ordered the Trout with a lemon butter sauce. I ordered a white wine with my meal, and I felt kind of bad since the name of the vintage was obviously designed to make someone order it for all the wrong reasons, but who can resist a Menage-a-Trois?
While the sauces were great, I found the fish to be mediocre. It wasn’t un-tender, just not very soft and tasty I guess. The wine was crisp and smooth and paired excellently, though. Our very friendly and knowledgeable waitress did steer us to their Bang Bang Shrimp appetizer, which was fantastic.
So it was a nice meal at a nice place in an area that has been experiencing some needed refurbishment, and doing well by everything we could see.
Friday, August 11, 2006
PIRATES!
My wife likes cephalopods. She bought a stuffed octopus once, and continues to add to her garden when she comes across a new one. It's a collection that could eventually be as dangerous as Grandma's spoons or Aunt Ida's clown figurines, but she's not incredibly fanatical about it right now. My sister-in-law and her fiancé introduced her to the new expansion for Pirates while they were visiting. Pirates is a table-top game played with snap-together ships sold as decks of collectible cards. She has always thought the ships were cute, and we have a few packs from previous editions. The latest edition is called “Davy Jones Locker” and includes cursed ships and sea monsters. One of the sea monsters is a giant squid, so naturally my wife’s eyes lit up with desire.
So last night we went to Savage Mill to pay a visit to the Family Game Store, an incredibly well-stocked and friendly shop I’ve heard a lot about. Unfortunately, not only is “Davy Jones Locker” the hot new exciting edition of a hot exciting popular collectible game, but it also happens to mysteriously (and by pure coincidence I’m sure) tie in with a certain summer blockbuster starring Johnny Depp. So everyone is looking for their own giant squid and the Family Game Store was completely sold out. However, the nice guy behind the counter mentioned that he had seen them at Target.
We went to Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Q at Dobbin Center on 175 in Columbia for dinner. I try to avoid chain restaurants, but that location will always hold a sentimental spot in my heart (Before it was Famous Dave’s, I took my wife there when we first started dating and it was where I first told her I loved her. There’s a lot more to that story, actually.) We ordered the feast for two, which we both knew would be too much but it assured us lunch for the next day. It came served on a trash can lid, which was a nice touch, I suppose, but it didn’t make the food particularly easy to eat.
After eating, we strolled over to Target, and found a box of the Pirates game with four packs left, so we bought them box and all. Sadly, no squid in any of the four packs, but the box included a display which did! We’ll keep looking, but it’s a nice consolation for now.
My wife likes cephalopods. She bought a stuffed octopus once, and continues to add to her garden when she comes across a new one. It's a collection that could eventually be as dangerous as Grandma's spoons or Aunt Ida's clown figurines, but she's not incredibly fanatical about it right now. My sister-in-law and her fiancé introduced her to the new expansion for Pirates while they were visiting. Pirates is a table-top game played with snap-together ships sold as decks of collectible cards. She has always thought the ships were cute, and we have a few packs from previous editions. The latest edition is called “Davy Jones Locker” and includes cursed ships and sea monsters. One of the sea monsters is a giant squid, so naturally my wife’s eyes lit up with desire.
So last night we went to Savage Mill to pay a visit to the Family Game Store, an incredibly well-stocked and friendly shop I’ve heard a lot about. Unfortunately, not only is “Davy Jones Locker” the hot new exciting edition of a hot exciting popular collectible game, but it also happens to mysteriously (and by pure coincidence I’m sure) tie in with a certain summer blockbuster starring Johnny Depp. So everyone is looking for their own giant squid and the Family Game Store was completely sold out. However, the nice guy behind the counter mentioned that he had seen them at Target.
We went to Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Q at Dobbin Center on 175 in Columbia for dinner. I try to avoid chain restaurants, but that location will always hold a sentimental spot in my heart (Before it was Famous Dave’s, I took my wife there when we first started dating and it was where I first told her I loved her. There’s a lot more to that story, actually.) We ordered the feast for two, which we both knew would be too much but it assured us lunch for the next day. It came served on a trash can lid, which was a nice touch, I suppose, but it didn’t make the food particularly easy to eat.
After eating, we strolled over to Target, and found a box of the Pirates game with four packs left, so we bought them box and all. Sadly, no squid in any of the four packs, but the box included a display which did! We’ll keep looking, but it’s a nice consolation for now.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
THE URBANITE
I really like The Urbanite, Baltimore’s free monthly city-boosting periodical. It’s full of articles about the city, as well as event announcements and reader letters. What it’s full of more, though, are ads. Mostly for boutiques and restaurants, which is fine because those are the ads I prefer to see. I feel like if I know where the shops and restaurants are, I can find my way around the city better. (I’ve been here fifteen years, but it’s only been this century that I’ve really started exploring the city.)
One little blurb included in the latest issue was for a “Twilight Canoe Escape” in Middle Branch Park. It’s advertising a short canoe trip in the Inner Harbor for a modest fee. It sounded like fun, so I looked up the address and found out that that park is five minutes from my house! I had no idea it even existed, and that’s what I love about the Urbanite.
I also read Baltimore’s City Paper on a weekly basis. Unlike the Urbanite, it’s full of in-depth journalism and tries to walk off the beaten path in both its approach and subject matter. It has a rep as an underground periodical, and it wants to hold on to that image with both hands. The Urbanite is more like a magazine, and tries to focus on life in the city itself. What it really tries to do is show off how nice it is to live in the city. It’s not a bad endeavor in and of itself, and the articles seem well-researched; I’d be hard pressed to label it as “fluff”, which a project of this kind could easily become. I understand there are other local publications whose reputation has become exactly that…
The Urbanite requests non-fiction stories on given topics each month, and I cut out the list at the beginning of the year in the hopes that I could come up with something to submit. The next topic up for submission is “Duplicity”. With any luck, I can come up with something to write about, but given that particular subject, I don’t think I’ll feel too bad if I don’t.
I really like The Urbanite, Baltimore’s free monthly city-boosting periodical. It’s full of articles about the city, as well as event announcements and reader letters. What it’s full of more, though, are ads. Mostly for boutiques and restaurants, which is fine because those are the ads I prefer to see. I feel like if I know where the shops and restaurants are, I can find my way around the city better. (I’ve been here fifteen years, but it’s only been this century that I’ve really started exploring the city.)
One little blurb included in the latest issue was for a “Twilight Canoe Escape” in Middle Branch Park. It’s advertising a short canoe trip in the Inner Harbor for a modest fee. It sounded like fun, so I looked up the address and found out that that park is five minutes from my house! I had no idea it even existed, and that’s what I love about the Urbanite.
I also read Baltimore’s City Paper on a weekly basis. Unlike the Urbanite, it’s full of in-depth journalism and tries to walk off the beaten path in both its approach and subject matter. It has a rep as an underground periodical, and it wants to hold on to that image with both hands. The Urbanite is more like a magazine, and tries to focus on life in the city itself. What it really tries to do is show off how nice it is to live in the city. It’s not a bad endeavor in and of itself, and the articles seem well-researched; I’d be hard pressed to label it as “fluff”, which a project of this kind could easily become. I understand there are other local publications whose reputation has become exactly that…
The Urbanite requests non-fiction stories on given topics each month, and I cut out the list at the beginning of the year in the hopes that I could come up with something to submit. The next topic up for submission is “Duplicity”. With any luck, I can come up with something to write about, but given that particular subject, I don’t think I’ll feel too bad if I don’t.
Monday, August 07, 2006
WORDPLAY
After dropping off my sister-in-law and her fiancé at the Convention Center for Otakon on Saturday, a simple errand for which they were phenomenally grateful (I’m guessing they must have had several issues getting to and from the con in years previous), my wife and I decided to go see a movie at the Charles. We had just missed the first show, so bought our tickets for the next one, and walked around the Station North Arts District for a while. Not that there was a lot to see or do; I guess artists aren’t typically up and about before 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday. I was hoping to find a café where we could sit and chat, but aside from a McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner, the closest restaurants that might have been open were further south on Charles than we wanted to go. (The two places next door to the Charles, Tapas Teatro and Sofi’s Crepes, were closed and packed respectively.) So we hung out in the Charles’ lobby and read the City Paper and the Urbanite until show time.
Like so many others, my wife and I have a ritual of solving the puzzle pages in the Sunday Baltimore Sun. We have developed quite an affection for the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, so when we heard there was a documentary being released about crossword puzzles, the Times puzzle in particular, and by extension its editor Will Shortz specifically, we knew we wanted to see it. It was interesting, well-made, invoked a decent amount of suspense when it focused on the annual National Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and while it may not have been as exciting as Pirates 2, it was certainly more satisfying.
After the movie, we stopped by Comics Kingdom in Hampden, and then went to Fells Point to hang out until we were called for a pick-up back at Otakon. We picked up some curtains and towels at one of the shops, and then sat down at Slainte to have a few beers while we waited. Of course, as soon as we sat down, the phone rang, so we chugged down our beers and left. Despite Saturday traffic, a Yankees game, and a disturbing number of emergency vehicles, we made it back to the Convention Center in ten minutes. We were originally planning on taking them to a local restaurant such as Pazo or the Thirsty Dog , but it was so late by then that we decided to just go home and pick up a bucket of chicken along the way. We spent the rest of the evening, catching up, watching videos, and introducing them to the Venture Brothers.
After dropping off my sister-in-law and her fiancé at the Convention Center for Otakon on Saturday, a simple errand for which they were phenomenally grateful (I’m guessing they must have had several issues getting to and from the con in years previous), my wife and I decided to go see a movie at the Charles. We had just missed the first show, so bought our tickets for the next one, and walked around the Station North Arts District for a while. Not that there was a lot to see or do; I guess artists aren’t typically up and about before 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday. I was hoping to find a café where we could sit and chat, but aside from a McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner, the closest restaurants that might have been open were further south on Charles than we wanted to go. (The two places next door to the Charles, Tapas Teatro and Sofi’s Crepes, were closed and packed respectively.) So we hung out in the Charles’ lobby and read the City Paper and the Urbanite until show time.
Like so many others, my wife and I have a ritual of solving the puzzle pages in the Sunday Baltimore Sun. We have developed quite an affection for the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, so when we heard there was a documentary being released about crossword puzzles, the Times puzzle in particular, and by extension its editor Will Shortz specifically, we knew we wanted to see it. It was interesting, well-made, invoked a decent amount of suspense when it focused on the annual National Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and while it may not have been as exciting as Pirates 2, it was certainly more satisfying.
After the movie, we stopped by Comics Kingdom in Hampden, and then went to Fells Point to hang out until we were called for a pick-up back at Otakon. We picked up some curtains and towels at one of the shops, and then sat down at Slainte to have a few beers while we waited. Of course, as soon as we sat down, the phone rang, so we chugged down our beers and left. Despite Saturday traffic, a Yankees game, and a disturbing number of emergency vehicles, we made it back to the Convention Center in ten minutes. We were originally planning on taking them to a local restaurant such as Pazo or the Thirsty Dog , but it was so late by then that we decided to just go home and pick up a bucket of chicken along the way. We spent the rest of the evening, catching up, watching videos, and introducing them to the Venture Brothers.
Friday, August 04, 2006
OTAKON
My sister-in-law and her fiancé are coming into town tonight to stay with us. They’re coming down from New Jersey for Otakon, a huge anime convention that is taking over the Baltimore Convention Center this weekend. By huge, I mean that they have to cut off their attendance at 25,000 due to fire marshal regulations. They could probably have twice that number of attendees if they had room.
I used to find the large number of attendees at anime conventions a little strange. After all, I’ve attended Science Fiction conventions and Star Trek conventions in the past. While the Star Trek conventions (actually, with all the science fiction TV shows around nowadays, they are more properly referred to as Media conventions) usually have larger numbers than the average Science Fiction convention, the number of attendees even they attract can’t hope to compete with an average anime convention. It puzzled me for quite a while why anime conventions were so wildly popular, and it was only recently that I put it into perspective.
See, ask anyone who goes to any of these conventions why they go, and the answer will usually be the same: “Because it’s so much fun!” Fine, but why is one so much more fun than the other, and another so much more fun than that? Well, boil it down to basics. The average person who goes to Science Fiction conventions enjoys reading Science Fiction books. That’s their starting point, and they extrapolate their fun from there. The point is, they start out reading. Lots of people, though, consider reading a chore. A sad fact of life, but true. The average person who goes to Star Trek and Media conventions is usually a fan of certain (Science Fiction) television shows. The point is, they enjoy watching TV, and lots more people like doing that than read. The average person who goes to an anime convention is a fan of Japanese (or Japanese-inspired) cartoons. Who doesn’t like watching cartoons? And there you go.
My sister-in-law and her fiancé have both attended Otakon in the past, but I understand neither is as into the scene as much as they once were. They will be arriving late tonight and spending the night at our place. Tomorrow morning, they will awaken bright and early and head to the con. We may or may not rendezvous with them for lunch or dinner, but we’re leaving that up to them. They were enamored of The Chinatown Café on President Street when we took them there last year for dim sum. Sunday, they have to leave by 1:00 p.m., and I have an afternoon meeting anyway, so we might do brunch somewhere.
We probably won’t go to Otakon ourselves. I did find it really neat at my first one when my sister-in-law ran into a girl dressed as the character she voiced in a fan parody she helped with, and the girl was dressed as the character from the parody. This year, Bill Holbrook, the creator of
My sister-in-law and her fiancé are coming into town tonight to stay with us. They’re coming down from New Jersey for Otakon, a huge anime convention that is taking over the Baltimore Convention Center this weekend. By huge, I mean that they have to cut off their attendance at 25,000 due to fire marshal regulations. They could probably have twice that number of attendees if they had room.
I used to find the large number of attendees at anime conventions a little strange. After all, I’ve attended Science Fiction conventions and Star Trek conventions in the past. While the Star Trek conventions (actually, with all the science fiction TV shows around nowadays, they are more properly referred to as Media conventions) usually have larger numbers than the average Science Fiction convention, the number of attendees even they attract can’t hope to compete with an average anime convention. It puzzled me for quite a while why anime conventions were so wildly popular, and it was only recently that I put it into perspective.
See, ask anyone who goes to any of these conventions why they go, and the answer will usually be the same: “Because it’s so much fun!” Fine, but why is one so much more fun than the other, and another so much more fun than that? Well, boil it down to basics. The average person who goes to Science Fiction conventions enjoys reading Science Fiction books. That’s their starting point, and they extrapolate their fun from there. The point is, they start out reading. Lots of people, though, consider reading a chore. A sad fact of life, but true. The average person who goes to Star Trek and Media conventions is usually a fan of certain (Science Fiction) television shows. The point is, they enjoy watching TV, and lots more people like doing that than read. The average person who goes to an anime convention is a fan of Japanese (or Japanese-inspired) cartoons. Who doesn’t like watching cartoons? And there you go.
My sister-in-law and her fiancé have both attended Otakon in the past, but I understand neither is as into the scene as much as they once were. They will be arriving late tonight and spending the night at our place. Tomorrow morning, they will awaken bright and early and head to the con. We may or may not rendezvous with them for lunch or dinner, but we’re leaving that up to them. They were enamored of The Chinatown Café on President Street when we took them there last year for dim sum. Sunday, they have to leave by 1:00 p.m., and I have an afternoon meeting anyway, so we might do brunch somewhere.
We probably won’t go to Otakon ourselves. I did find it really neat at my first one when my sister-in-law ran into a girl dressed as the character she voiced in a fan parody she helped with, and the girl was dressed as the character from the parody. This year, Bill Holbrook, the creator of
Thursday, August 03, 2006
MODERATTO
At the first meeting for our Fluid Movement performance, our director announced that she was looking for a Spanish version of “Eye of the Tiger". Apparently one of the other directors heard it once and they agreed that it would be perfect for our Mexican wrestling scene in the Charles Darwin show. Unfortunately, she had “looked all over the internet” and could not find it anywhere. I decided to take a look for myself.
The next morning, I googled “Ojo del Tigre” and got about a million hits. (The director stated later say that she did look for it under the Spanish translation but found nothing, so I have no idea what search engine she could possibly have been using.) My wife was looking for it at the same time, and even enlisted the help of our message group. That kind of miffed me, since I wanted a chance to exhaust all our resources before calling for help.
Finding the song’s existence was not the problem. Many sites quoted the band Survivor’s wikipedia entry which stated that the Mexican band Moderatto covered a Spanish version back in the 80’s. Moderatto’s home page was easy to find. They started out in the 80’s mocking glam rock stereotypes and covering Spanish versions of popular American songs. They are positively huge and have kept up the act to this day. The funny thing is, surveys of their fans indicate that most of their demographic don’t understand that they’re a parody act.
The real problem was the fact that this song was released on vinyl in the 80’s. I was hoping to just find the track on napster or trapster or wapster or whatever, but no such luck. On-line sources for Moderatto’s recordings only had their recent albums. I was unable to even confirm on which of their first few self-titled albums the track appeared. My wife had by that time discovered another band, Aracner, that apparently had also done a cover, but it appeared it was in English and again we couldn’t find the actual track anywhere to check.
On a hunch, I started searching for Moderatto’s albums with the word “tigre”. One of the hits was for a Spanish message board. I found the entry, copied it, pasted it into a translation page, and while the translation wasn’t perfect, or maybe the message poster used the same sterling grammar as everyone else does on message boards, the poster did indicate that the song “Ojo del Tigre” appeared on a soundtrack album, and they included a link! At CDUniverse, under that soundtrack album, there was the song “Hijo del Tigre”, which included a short preview track. In Spanish, “ojo” means “eye” and “hijo” means “son”, so I can only imagine that they changed some of the lyrics just so the translation would actually scan to the song, but it definitely was the version we were looking for.
I sent the link to our director, and she was amazed and impressed. I was just pleased that an exhaustive search had paid off. At our cast party, it’s traditional for the directors to hand out awards to everyone in the cast for something or other, and I’m betting that’s what I’m going to get singled out for. It’s not like I’m going to be up for “Best Abs”, but there’s always next year…
At the first meeting for our Fluid Movement performance, our director announced that she was looking for a Spanish version of “Eye of the Tiger". Apparently one of the other directors heard it once and they agreed that it would be perfect for our Mexican wrestling scene in the Charles Darwin show. Unfortunately, she had “looked all over the internet” and could not find it anywhere. I decided to take a look for myself.
The next morning, I googled “Ojo del Tigre” and got about a million hits. (The director stated later say that she did look for it under the Spanish translation but found nothing, so I have no idea what search engine she could possibly have been using.) My wife was looking for it at the same time, and even enlisted the help of our message group. That kind of miffed me, since I wanted a chance to exhaust all our resources before calling for help.
Finding the song’s existence was not the problem. Many sites quoted the band Survivor’s wikipedia entry which stated that the Mexican band Moderatto covered a Spanish version back in the 80’s. Moderatto’s home page was easy to find. They started out in the 80’s mocking glam rock stereotypes and covering Spanish versions of popular American songs. They are positively huge and have kept up the act to this day. The funny thing is, surveys of their fans indicate that most of their demographic don’t understand that they’re a parody act.
The real problem was the fact that this song was released on vinyl in the 80’s. I was hoping to just find the track on napster or trapster or wapster or whatever, but no such luck. On-line sources for Moderatto’s recordings only had their recent albums. I was unable to even confirm on which of their first few self-titled albums the track appeared. My wife had by that time discovered another band, Aracner, that apparently had also done a cover, but it appeared it was in English and again we couldn’t find the actual track anywhere to check.
On a hunch, I started searching for Moderatto’s albums with the word “tigre”. One of the hits was for a Spanish message board. I found the entry, copied it, pasted it into a translation page, and while the translation wasn’t perfect, or maybe the message poster used the same sterling grammar as everyone else does on message boards, the poster did indicate that the song “Ojo del Tigre” appeared on a soundtrack album, and they included a link! At CDUniverse, under that soundtrack album, there was the song “Hijo del Tigre”, which included a short preview track. In Spanish, “ojo” means “eye” and “hijo” means “son”, so I can only imagine that they changed some of the lyrics just so the translation would actually scan to the song, but it definitely was the version we were looking for.
I sent the link to our director, and she was amazed and impressed. I was just pleased that an exhaustive search had paid off. At our cast party, it’s traditional for the directors to hand out awards to everyone in the cast for something or other, and I’m betting that’s what I’m going to get singled out for. It’s not like I’m going to be up for “Best Abs”, but there’s always next year…
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
THE 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT
This is a fun artistic project for would-be film makers. Anyone can enter, so long as they can pull a team together. I suppose a single person could enter on their own, but it would be that much tougher to make a movie. As the name implies, you only have 48 hours to make a short film. Why not film it beforehand? Because at the designated start time, you are randomly assigned the genre for your film. At that time, each team is also given a character and a prop that they all have to use in their films. It’s all done to focus attention on independent filmmakers and it’s a fun exercise of creativity and commitment.
We first heard about it last year, and my wife has been anticipating it for months. We contacted several friends about getting a team together, and we were all set to make an entry. Unfortunately, we also signed up for the Fluid Movement show, and the final dress rehearsal was set for the same weekend. A little disappointed, we decided not to participate this year. However, in typical Smalltimore fashion, at our first Fluid Movement rehearsal who should walk in and sit down with us but Rob Hatch – the local producer of the 48 Hour Film Project! We were taken aback at first, after all, if we couldn’t participate in the one because we were doing the other then how could he? Well, he just needs to be available for a few hours at the beginning and end of the weekend; he isn’t making a film for that entire time so scheduling around the rehearsal is easy for him.
We did go to Café Hon in Hampden, where all the teams were dropping off their films. It was a lot of fun watching these exhausted folks walk in and hand off their films and asking them about the genres they wound up with and how they did. Since we were hanging out with Rob for several weeks, we did wind up helping him out the night of the screening at the Baltimore Museum of Art. We manned the ticket table while he worked the crowd and dealt with other matters a figurehead should. (I gathered he manned the ticket table himself last year, which is just insane on top of running the event as well.) We’ll also be going back tonight to perform the same job at the screening of the winners.
My wife does want to participate next year, and we probably will if it doesn’t conflict with anything else. We may not be able to churn out a product than can compete with the winners, but she’s confident we can do better than the worst films that were produced. We’ll see.
www.48hourfilm.com
This is a fun artistic project for would-be film makers. Anyone can enter, so long as they can pull a team together. I suppose a single person could enter on their own, but it would be that much tougher to make a movie. As the name implies, you only have 48 hours to make a short film. Why not film it beforehand? Because at the designated start time, you are randomly assigned the genre for your film. At that time, each team is also given a character and a prop that they all have to use in their films. It’s all done to focus attention on independent filmmakers and it’s a fun exercise of creativity and commitment.
We first heard about it last year, and my wife has been anticipating it for months. We contacted several friends about getting a team together, and we were all set to make an entry. Unfortunately, we also signed up for the Fluid Movement show, and the final dress rehearsal was set for the same weekend. A little disappointed, we decided not to participate this year. However, in typical Smalltimore fashion, at our first Fluid Movement rehearsal who should walk in and sit down with us but Rob Hatch – the local producer of the 48 Hour Film Project! We were taken aback at first, after all, if we couldn’t participate in the one because we were doing the other then how could he? Well, he just needs to be available for a few hours at the beginning and end of the weekend; he isn’t making a film for that entire time so scheduling around the rehearsal is easy for him.
We did go to Café Hon in Hampden, where all the teams were dropping off their films. It was a lot of fun watching these exhausted folks walk in and hand off their films and asking them about the genres they wound up with and how they did. Since we were hanging out with Rob for several weeks, we did wind up helping him out the night of the screening at the Baltimore Museum of Art. We manned the ticket table while he worked the crowd and dealt with other matters a figurehead should. (I gathered he manned the ticket table himself last year, which is just insane on top of running the event as well.) We’ll also be going back tonight to perform the same job at the screening of the winners.
My wife does want to participate next year, and we probably will if it doesn’t conflict with anything else. We may not be able to churn out a product than can compete with the winners, but she’s confident we can do better than the worst films that were produced. We’ll see.
www.48hourfilm.com
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
A COLD DAY IN AUGUST
It always begins with almost no warning. I always wake up stuffy, so there’s no tip-off there. If we dusted more often, or didn’t own rabbits or owned an air filter, maybe it wouldn’t happen every morning, but I’m pretty used to it and usually it’s not so bad. However, when it happens, it happens with a very specific progression every time: I feel fine on the drive to work, I enter my office, sneeze once or twice, start dripping, and by the time I get around to popping a couple Sudafed my handkerchief is already soaked and the realization has descended. I’m not having an allergy attack; I have a lousy summer cold.
I’m not all that surprised, really. I’ve spent the past month hopping in and out of a public pool rehearsing and performing a physically taxing water ballet. It’s gotten so hot that I’ve been taking a cold shower right before bed, where I lay in front of a window fan all night. Fine, I deserve it, but I do things to maintain a healthy immune system. I eat plenty of fresh vegetables, mostly from our garden. If I don’t have Total for breakfast I always take a vitamin supplement. I do take Echinacea every day, although not as many as the bottle directs (twelve pills a day? No wonder vitamins are such an industry). But everyone gets sick sometime, so I can only hope it doesn’t stick around for long.
The smart thing to do when you have a cold is to go home and rest. Your co-workers appreciate it and you’re going to feel like hell trying to do your work while you feel like hell. If the only thing your supervisor compliments you about on your annual review is that “you’re always here”, then you both know you’re a pretty pathetic employee and there’s no use in pretending. No one admires your fortitude when they’re afraid to pick up anything you’ve touched that day. Me? I’m probably going to stick it out. I don’t have that much contact with other employees anyway. I could say I’d like to save the time off for when I’m feeling better, but who spontaneously takes a day off when they’re feeling good? All in all, I’ve felt worse.
It always begins with almost no warning. I always wake up stuffy, so there’s no tip-off there. If we dusted more often, or didn’t own rabbits or owned an air filter, maybe it wouldn’t happen every morning, but I’m pretty used to it and usually it’s not so bad. However, when it happens, it happens with a very specific progression every time: I feel fine on the drive to work, I enter my office, sneeze once or twice, start dripping, and by the time I get around to popping a couple Sudafed my handkerchief is already soaked and the realization has descended. I’m not having an allergy attack; I have a lousy summer cold.
I’m not all that surprised, really. I’ve spent the past month hopping in and out of a public pool rehearsing and performing a physically taxing water ballet. It’s gotten so hot that I’ve been taking a cold shower right before bed, where I lay in front of a window fan all night. Fine, I deserve it, but I do things to maintain a healthy immune system. I eat plenty of fresh vegetables, mostly from our garden. If I don’t have Total for breakfast I always take a vitamin supplement. I do take Echinacea every day, although not as many as the bottle directs (twelve pills a day? No wonder vitamins are such an industry). But everyone gets sick sometime, so I can only hope it doesn’t stick around for long.
The smart thing to do when you have a cold is to go home and rest. Your co-workers appreciate it and you’re going to feel like hell trying to do your work while you feel like hell. If the only thing your supervisor compliments you about on your annual review is that “you’re always here”, then you both know you’re a pretty pathetic employee and there’s no use in pretending. No one admires your fortitude when they’re afraid to pick up anything you’ve touched that day. Me? I’m probably going to stick it out. I don’t have that much contact with other employees anyway. I could say I’d like to save the time off for when I’m feeling better, but who spontaneously takes a day off when they’re feeling good? All in all, I’ve felt worse.
