popplers

Scrabble Quickies!

Recently, a record-breaking game occurred at the Lexington Scrabble® Club. The winner's score was 830, the loser's score was 490, and the total was 1320!

• Club statistician Mike Wolfberg offers play-by-play and historical notes.
  
• The Boston Herald has a picture of winner Michael Cresta (but not Wayne Yorra).
  
• Stefan Fatsis has a thorough game analysis and interesting comments at slate.com.

Bonus Scrabble quickie: nifty furniture installation from the London offices of Bloomberg financial services. I want these. (Thanks to everyone who forwarded the link to me!)

p.s. Be careful when playing Iwan in Scrabble.

Mmm... waffle runoff.

I love the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And Jon Stewart loves "food" on a stick. (Personally, I'll take Homer's patented Space-Age Out of This World Moon Waffles over a pancake-wrapped sausage on a stick any day.)

Flamingo migration

Sad news for pink flamingo fans: Leominster's Union Products will be closing November 1st. (They plan to sell Don Featherstone's molds to another manufacturer, so the flamingo may yet live on.)

Tangentially related silliness: modeling our bubble-wrap outwear and proudly displaying our pink flamingos (signed by Don Featherstone himself) at the 2000 Ig Nobel Ceremony.

Friday quickies!

• Ig, Ig, Ig Nobel!
• Gorgeous latte art in NYT feature, complete with how-to video.
• Chris's brother bought an Airstream. I want one for my office, or to do some fabulous tour across the USA in retro luxury (complete with flat-panel TV!).
• Old favorite from The Onion: FDA Okays Every Drug Pending Approval, Takes Rest Of Year Off

Brookline Booksmith. Brookline Booksmith. Brookline Booksmith.

On Wednesday, I raced home from work and drove to Brookline for the second time in a week. Unfortunately, there was lots more traffic this time around. The parking gods smiled upon us and we were rewarded with a parking spot directly in front of Finale. By the time we arrived at Booksmith, there were no seats left, and David Rakoff had already started reading. We stood in the back as he read a few selections from Don't Get Too Comfortable, including a very funny piece about the movie Rent. (Powells.com has an excerpt from Love It or Leave It, and vidlit.com has a multimedia piece that is read by Rakoff.) From Love It or Leave It, wherein our protagonist gives up his Canadian citizenship and becomes an American:

There are about fifty of us waiting for our interviews. Many people are in their best clothes. I wonder if I've adversely affected my chances by having opted for comfort in Levi's and sneakers, but so long as the Russian woman in her early forties is across from me, I have nothing to worry about. She wears painted-on acid-wash jeans, white stilettos, and a tight blouse of sheer leopard-print fabric. The sleeves are designed as a series of irregular tatters clinging to her arms, as if she's just come from tearing the hide off of the back of an actual leopard. A really slutty leopard.

My name is called, and Agent Morales brings me back into her office. From her window I can see the Brooklyn Bridge, hazy under a humid sky the color of a soiled shirt collar. Agent Morales's desk is crowded with small plaster figures of cherubic children holding fishing poles, polka-dot-hankie hobo bundles, small wicker picnic baskets, etc. The walls, however, are almost completely bare. Perhaps it's bureau policy, but all of those typical examples of office humor — that in other work environments might get their own piece of paper, perhaps with Garfield or Dilbert saying them — have all been printed onto the same 8½×11 sheet and listed like bullets in a PowerPoint presentation. There are old standbys like "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it sure helps," along with some gags that are new to me: "Chocolate, coffee, men: some things are just better rich" and "I'm out of estrogen and I have a gun!" — the latter which frankly seems to push the envelope for acceptable discourse in a government office.

While we were there, I also picked up a used copy of Fraud and asked him to sign it. (The line was a lot shorter than at the John Hodgman reading a week ago. We were at Jae's Grill by 8:30, enjoying sushi, pad thai, and a seafood mixed grill topped with a mango salsa-type thing.) More lit fun— Wellesley Booksmith is sponsoring an "Unfortunate Event" on October 16: a double-bill with Lemony Snicket (author) and Brett Helquist (illustrator) in Natick.

Things rattling around inside my head

• Woot! The Tick vs. Season One is finally out! "Come on, Arthur. The night is young and we have umbrellas in our drinks."
• I love Mimi Smartypants:
  Yesterday I was dancing around the house to "Bizarre Love Triangle" and Nora was all like "Mommy, stop" and I had a flash-forward to me and all my friends embarrassing the shit out of our kids at their weddings, when we hobble up and slip the DJ some cash to play all the alternative hits of our youth. Head like a hole! Black as your soul! Whoo, look at those old folks go!
• Cat and Girl: "The villanelle is the most restrictive of all sandwich forms."

Weekend update

Busy weekend, but lots of fun. Friday night was a flurry of gathering and car-packing, followed by yummy dolsot bibim bop and ginger tea at Little Pusan. Saturday morning dawned (not-so-)bright and (all-too-)early. Fortified by lattes (thank you, Barista-Man), Sean and I piled into the WRX and made our way to the shores of Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Webster, MA for the start of TALCAR XXXII. We arrived early, finished decorating the car, met the neighbors, and registered Team Krusty.

The route took the intrepid Team Krusty from Webster, MA through Foster, RI and into northeastern CT (Pomfret, Woodstock, Chaplin, etc.) on nice, windy roads (paved and dirt) through farm country. We got lost during Leg 1 and weren't able to make up the time because we were stuck behind another rallyer with no place to pass. (He didn't make it easy on us by pulling over to the shoulder and letting us "play through".) Didn't get lost on Leg 2 or 3, but I don't really have a feel for how we did, time-wise. We placed 21st in a field of 40-something, which is not bad for seat-of-the-pants rallyeing with no TSD calculations. (They hand you the route instructions at the start line. We didn't even have a stopwatch with us this year, so it was very laid back.)

Arrived at our final destination (the Charlie Brown Campground) around 3 p.m. We had plenty of time (and daylight) left, so we did a grocery run and bought stuff to cook on the grill and s'mores fixings. Enjoyed our celebratory beer and the miscellaneous goings-on. We were quite surprised when the rallye organizers announced that everyone had completed the rallye by 7 p.m., in daylight, and that no one had opened a Lost envelope— success! Stayed until the awards ceremony, then lit out for home. We hadn't brought camping gear, and Sean was still fighting off a cold. Home in Maynard by 9:30 p.m., and asleep by 10:30 p.m.

Didn't set the alarm for Sunday a.m., and had a bit of a lie-in. Made a huge omelet for breakfast with lots of chipotle salsa and plaid cheddar. Sufficiently fortified by eggs and strong coffee, we washed the car (in the rain) and set off for Northampton. Weather was icky, as was the traffic— several accidents on 495, and a really bad one on 90, made for incredibly slow going until we got out past the 84 interchange. The weather cleared as we hit Springfield, and the afternoon was actually quite nice. Did a little shopping and browsing, then headed over to Green Street Cafe for an early dinner.

I was somewhat concerned, as there were quite a few unfavorable reviews posted on various sites. Most said that the food was excellent, but that the service and/or attitude (especially from the restaurant owner) was horrible. We figured that it's been at least 4 years since we last ate there, so we were crossing our fingers that it hadn't changed hands or gone downhill. I'm happy to say that our fears were unfounded; the service was attentive and dinner was slow-paced (in a nice, unhurried sort of way). We had time to talk and enjoy the food and wine and company. We arrived just after they opened for the evening, and started off with a nice bottle of wine and their baguettes with butter and tapenade. For a starter, I ordered the house-cured salmon with eggplant, which was served up on a bed of mixed greens with a light drizzle of olive oil. It was amazing. Dinner was an order of mussels with saffron. I was expecting them to be cooked in a broth, but they were swimming in a heavenly cream-based sauce laced liberally with saffron. Chris's Sri Lankan vegetable stew was spicy and delicious, and Burl ordered the catch of the day (red snapper). Dessert was an old favorite: chocolate pot de creme.

We polished off the wine, and walked out into the rain. Arrived at the Iron Horse in time to catch the last few minutes of the opening act, Lenelle Moise. Erin McKeown played an energetic, intimate set with a good mix of crowd faves and new material. She came out for two encores (appropriately enough, La Petite Mort was the final encore) and we all went home happy.