I overheard the most surreal discussion while out for dinner tonight. The participants were three high school boys, who looked like they'd just come from soccer or hockey practice. Most of their discussion centered on the girls, most of whose names they didn't know, that they wanted to "get with." Because they didn't know most of the girls' names, they used useful descriptors like "cross-eyed," "skinny... with dimples," and "slutty" to indicate who they were talking about. When they weren't talking about girls, they talked about how they outwitted the cops who were trying to shut down the parties they went to. One of them, in fact, was caught be the "head of all the police in St. Louis," but was able to talk his way out of being arrested. Anyway, here was the best part of their conversation:

Boy with blood running down his leg: I'd like to get with the Kristin girl.
Wingman: Who?
BWBRDHL: You know, that girl whose boyfriend just died.
W: Oh, that's right.
BWBRDHL: I'm not sure though. It might be a lot of work. She hasn't been with anyone since he died.

I guess I hung with the wrong crowd in high school, because I never had conversations remotely like this one. In fact, the conversations I had in high school were often scarily different, but that's not necessarily a good thing. These guys probably don't drive around town yelling "neck" at random strangers, which is probably a point in their favor. We didn't talk about moving in on girls whose boyfriends had just died, which is probably about ten points in our favor.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 21 February 2006 at 6:55 PM

I rearranged my bedroom furniture over the weekend. It's not a big change^* -- just sliding the bed down the wall and moving my desk to the opposite wall, but it feels like a whole new room. At night it feels like I'm going to bed in a hotel room; nothing feels quite right. I suppose things will get even stranger if/when I get around to ordering some new bedroom furniture. I'm leaning toward West Elm, but they don't have the best desk options in the world, so I'm not sure how that will play into things. But I've been thinking about this for nearly two years, so who knows if I'll ever actually do something about it.

 

^* Yes, I have a Visio diagram of my apartment, complete with furniture. Yes, I realize that's a bit strange. Nonetheless, it comes in quite handy when you're trying to decide how to lay out your furniture.

New Layout

Old Layout

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 21 February 2006 at 1:50 PM

I should probably stop pimping for The Wine Merchant, but their tasting this weekend has two things going for it: 1) they have some really good wines on the tasting menu and 2) it's free. So here are the details on the upcoming "Grand Tasting!!!"

Grand Tasting !!!
We cordially invite you to join us Saturday, February 18 at our Clayton & Creve Coeur Locations for another Grand Tasting. Our last Grand Tasting was a grand success. We'll be sampling new wines from around the world along with tasty items from our Award Winning Cheese Departments. Available space is limited. Reservations are required. See store for further details. We've got a great lineup of wines and to show you the value of our Grand Tastings we're including the prices of the wines that we'll be tasting (wines will vary slightly at each store location and we may offer equal substitutes in the event of sell outs). Check 'em out...

Grand Tasting Wines...Here's a partial lineup!

2004 De Bortoli Cabernet-Shiraz $7.99

2005 De Bortoli Chardonnay $7.99

2004 De Bortoli Shiraz $7.99

2003 Protocolo Tinto $8.99

2004 Alarba Old Vines Grenache $9.99

2003 Belle Provencale Cotes du Ventoux Rouge $8.99

2005 Clara Benegas Chardonnay $9.99

2004 Gougenheim Malbec $9.99

2003 Domaine de Montpezat Coteaux du Languedoc $19.99

2003 Domaine de Montpezat Merlot "L'Enclos" $19.99

2003 Domaine de Montpezat Cabernet-Syrah "Prestige" $19.99

2004 Beringer Chardonnay "Private Reserve" $29.99
(92 Parker)

1996 Kalin Cellars Semillon $29.99 (92 Tanzer)

NV Ployez-Jacquemart Champagne Brut $45.99 (91 Parker)

2003 Les Cailloux Chateauneuf du Pape $49.99 (93 Parker)

2004 Kistler Chardonnay "Noisetiers" $54.99

2001 Muga Torre Muga $59.99 (95 Parker)

2000 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon "Napa Valley" $99.99

2003 Bertagna Nuits Saint Georges 1er Cru "Les Murgers" $109.99

The Wine Merchant, Ltd.
Clayton & Creve Coeur Locations...
Saturday, February 18
Noon (12:00 PM) until 5:00 PM

Please call our Clayton store at 314.863.6282 for reservations, or our Creve Coeur store at 314.469.4500 for reservations.

I've had some of the wines on this list already. For example, De Bortoli makes really good low-end wines. I especially like their Chardonnay, but their Shiraz is pretty good too. I'm also really keen to true some of the Kalin Cellars wines, so I'm glad there's one on this list. In general Kalin Cellars aren't that expensive, but they range for $30 - $50, which is too expensive for me. And I'm sure the Silver Oak Cab will be great. So if you're going to be in STL this weekend, you might want to give this a go.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 14 February 2006 at 11:21 AM

The first thing that came to mind when I read about Dick Cheney shooting someone (and I'm not unique here):

You can call us Dick Cheney from the way we're droppin' Whittingtons.

That aside, it's more than a little interesting that the big story we're getting from the MSM isn't about gun/hunting safety or background on the actual shooting, but is instead outraged coverage of the fact that Cheney didn't come running to the press as step number one. I know that we should hold our public figures to higher standards and that Cheney has a history of withholding information from the press, but I know for certain that if I shot someone -- accidentally or not -- I certainly wouldn't be holding a press conference admitting my guilt until I got some legal issues cleared up. I don't offer this as an excuse for Cheney; the public certainly has a right to know when our second-highest elected official shoots someone. But I think the press should concede that this might be a situation that left the VP and his handlers at a bit of a loss. They probably don't have a pre-existing game plan for handling the situation where the VP shoots someone. Yes, the administration has a bad track record when it comes to being honest with the American people, but we should probably cut them a little slack on this one.

Anyway, that's my 2 unsolicited cents. I'll go back to toeing the party line tomorrow.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 13 February 2006 at 10:10 PM

What is it about Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" that makes it so easy to remember. The song is, frankly, awful, but I can remember every lyric of every verse. And I could -- and more often than I'd care to admit, do -- sing the whole song beginning to end.

Maybe it's just me.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 13 February 2006 at 7:42 PM

An article in the NY Times about the large expense of maintaining pandas at zoos has a headline that I'm sure the copyeditors everywhere are getting a kick out of:

Eats Shoots, Leaves and Much of Zoos' Budgets

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 11 February 2006 at 10:47 PM

Anyone out there bought any furniture from West Elm? I'm thinking of buying some new bedroom furniture from them, but I'm reluctant to buy furniture that I haven't seen a sample of in real life. So if you've seen some of this stuff in person or -- better yet -- have some of it yourself, please let me know about the quality of construction and anything else you think might be relevant. If you've purchased from them, what was their delivery service like?

Thanks.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 11 February 2006 at 12:36 PM

The NY Times review of The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism is pretty positive. I finished reading the book about a week ago and my take matches theirs. The book can be slow going at times, but you'll be rewarded if you just press on. Ross King, the author, provides a great deal of information on the French Salons and what the motivations were behind the various juries' refusal to allow works by the Impressionists and other young artists into the Salons. If you want a solid dose of history with your art history, I'd recommend this volume.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 10 February 2006 at 6:11 PM

Sorry about that last post. You probably shouldn't waste your time reading it. And if you do read it, you probably won't understand it. Here's the crux of it, ignoring all the weird technical details: Rational Rose is the bane of my existence. No, you really don't want to know what Rose is. All you need to know is that you should avoid it.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 9 February 2006 at 9:32 PM

If Rational Rose were a person I'd strangle him. But Rose is a software program, so instead I must take out my frustration at its awful awkwardness on myself. Rose is one of those programs where, if there is an intuitive way to do something and an unintuitive way to do that same thing, Rose will inevitably require you to follow the third option that you thought was an option for doing something else entirely. Case in point: Rose's menubar will remove 80% of it's options based on what part of the program currently has focus. You think you should be able to configure model properties while a package has focus? Rose doesn't. Instead you must open a diagram before those menu options reappear. Who cares if they are properties of the whole damn model? Only certain parts of the model give you the privilege of configuring the options. And if you think model properties should persist from one Rose session to another or perhaps be saved when you save the model? Rose doesn't. Instead, every time you open the program you have to spend five minutes reconfiguring everything. If you don't, your generated code will look as unlike Java code as it is possible to make Java look.

I hate Rational Rose.

Comments: 1 Posted by david on 9 February 2006 at 9:20 PM

"Growing up in Missouri, I had a lot of adversity."

    -- Santino Rice, Project Runway contestant and St. Charles, MO native

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 8 February 2006 at 9:26 PM

The Wine Merchant is offering the following class next week:

California Classic Cabs
Thursday, February 16
$50 per person

Join us as we sample some of California's finest Cabs. We'll be featuring some old and new faces here like; Caymus, Egelhoff, Opus One, Mondavi Reserve, Silver Oak and Stag's Leap. This class should sell out quickly...

Please call 314.863.6282 for reservations.

If you like Cabernet Sauvignon this seems like a relatively inexpensive way to taste some fairly expensive wines.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 6 February 2006 at 9:37 PM

The final four episodes of Arrested Development are airing back-to-back-to-back-to-back tonight from 7 - 9 pm, so be sure to tune your TiVos and TiFauxs to Fox. That is all.

Comments: 2 Posted by david on 6 February 2006 at 5:28 PM

Super Bowl Impressions

• Harrison Ford and Dr. Suess. Cute enough but not particularly compelling.
  
• Hidden Bud Light at the office. Eh.
  
• Burger King Whopper show. I liked it. It was weird in the vein of all the BK ads featuring the king and it had this awesome surreal aspect as one girl dropped on another girl and then another and another were dropped on as the Whopper was being built.
  
• Sierra Mist airport security. Kathy Griffin and Michael Ian Black? D-list, indeed. Also, not funny.
  
• Bud Light magic fridge. Eh.
  
• Seattle's offense is looking better than Pittsburgh's right now. I'm sticking with my pre-game pick. Seattle will win this.
  

• Perhaps I spoke too soon. Seattle wasn't able to convert their third and 16 and are punting for the second time this game.
  
• Hybrid Camry. The weird accents bothered me before they explained them at the end of the ad. The ad was boring, like the Camry, so the ad fit the product perfectly.
  
• Dinosaur/Caveman FedEx ad. Memorable if not as funny as they wanted it to be.
  
• Bud Light bear ad. Still no good Bud Light ads.
  

• Three and out for the Steelers and the Seahawks will start at midfield. Seattle isn't looking great, but the Steelers look worse.
  
• V for Vendetta. Awesome graphic novel, awesome movie.
  
• Diet Pepsi and Puffy. Brown and bubbly? I could have sworn that the chorus of that song was "Come and get you some Bud" which seemed like it was advertising the wrong product.
  

• Alexander hasn't really been much of a factor for the Seahawks O yet. Two carries in a row now that haven't gone anywhere.
  
• 3 points from my boy Josh Brown. A great fantasy kicker, FYI.
  
• Aleve and Nimoy. Would have sucked if it hadn't been for the Trekkies in the audience at the end. The worried look on their faces cracked me up.
  
• Fixing a leak in the roof. Finally a Bud Light ad that I liked.
  

• End of the first quarter. Looks like the Steelers will be punting when we come back. Big Ben is off to an awfully slow start.
  
• Jackie Chan and Diet Pepsi. I liked the stunt-double stunt.
  
• Cars. It's not "The Incredibles."
  

• Nearly every great return is the product of holding.
  
• Suzy Kolber. At the beginning of the game she quoted Mike Holmgren as saying "the only people who believe we'll win this game is in this room." We've got some subject/verb issues there and I wonder if Holmgren really said it as she quoted it or whether she messed up the quote.
  
• Wow. I think that incomplete pass should have been ruled a fumble. It looks like he was hit right as he took his second step.
  
• Streaker. A Bud Light throwback to an ad from last season. I approve.
  
• Mobile ESPN/Sports Heaven. It has Jim Edmonds, so I approve.
  

• The Steelers finally got a couple first downs. This is the first drive they've had where they've been able to pick up a first down.
  
• Monkeys in the workplace. Another throwback ad. Is this going to be a trend?
  
• Fashion show/Escalade ad. There are some ridiculous eyelashes on those models.
  

• Interception! That ends the Steelers drive.
  
• MI:3. Not a very compelling ad. Especially when you compare it with the V for Vendetta ad earlier.
  
• Self-esteem fund? A nice idea, but why do I suspect that it's a ploy to get people to buy Dove products. Oh, it's because they paid millions of dollars for that ad and Dove is a company and all companies like to make money.
  

• Fourth and inches. Punt or go for it? Punt early, go for it late.
  
• I'm glad I'm not Randle-El. He got seriously hit.
  
• Shaggy Dog. Awful movie, awful premise for an ad.
  
• Escape Hybrid. The muppets are sell-outs, but I liked the ad.
  
• Michelob Ultra. Me like.
  

• Big play for the Steelers. Midfield to the three yard line. Seattle gave him way to much time.
  
• GoDaddy girl. Another throwback ad. Does everyone think alluding to last year's ads is the best way to make an impression?
  
• 2 minute warning. Pittsburgh is still 3 yards from a TD.
  
• Poseidon. It will suck.
  
• Five blades!? What's next, six blades?
  

• That was NOT a touchdown. His knee was down ages before the ball crossed the line. Big Ben was on the ground when he looked up and moved the ball over the line.
  
• Overstock. Boring. "It's all about the O?" Not a very great tag line. I think they should try "Let us show you our O face."
  
• Bullshit. I still don't think that was a TD.
  

• It's odd to see Seattle with fewer points on the scoreboard, because it seems like they've had no trouble controlling this game in the first half. I guess we get to see how good their 2-minute drill is now.
  
• Two timeouts in a row now with no commercial break. Interesting.
  
• Mental mistakes by Seattle may have cost them some points. We'll see if Brown can pull this off.
  
• He can't.
  

• Halftime. And time for me to get some dinner.
  

• Things aren't looking good for Seattle. To quote John Madden, Seattle "can move the ball but they can't complete the deal." If Pittsburgh gets another another TD it will be tough for Seattle to catch up. Seattle needs to get a stop here and hold the Steelers to 3 points.
  

• Giant Lizard + Giant Robot = Hummer. I'm sure driving a monster appeals to some, but not to me.
  
• Practical Solutions. A lot of money at advertise a household cleaning product. Especially with such a blah ad.
  
• HUGE PLAY! INTERCEPTION AND HUGE RETURN! If Herndon had a bit more gas Seattle would have 7 more points on the board right now.
  

• Seattle finally got a TD. And Stevens, who would have three TDs now if he'd been able to stay in bounds, was uncovered in the middle of the field. What a change in momentum. Things are looking up for Seattle.
  
• Jackasses in the workplace. The monkey ad taken to a new level.
  
• Who is the guy in the Taco Bell ads? I've seen him before but I have no idea who he is. Perhaps he's just been in a bunch of ads.
  

• It always amazes me that there are so many repeat ads on during the Super Bowl. If ads really are so expensive, why would a company pay so much money on a crappy ad like the one for the 5,000 (or whatever) blade fusion razor.
  
• I like the Tacoma ad. It got it's point across just as intended and I'm sure its target audience appreciated it.
  

• Al Michaels really likes Grey's Anatomy. Apparently its a "great" show. Interestingly, Jeremy also seems obsessed with it, as he called me up to ask me to make sure it got recorded after the game. We'll just have to see when the show starts, but recording stuff after sporting events can be tough.
  
• Was big Ben hurt at the end of that play? It seems like he's doing alright on the sidelines, so I'll assume that he's ok.
  
• Seattle has bad field position, but they just need to keep doing their thing and take four or five yards on every play.
  
• Hasselbeck looks pretty good scrambling out of the pocket. He's not exactly Michael Vick, but he got the job done.
  

• We've played three quarters and it's a four point game.
  
• Song for everything: I don't like ads where couches catch on fire. A bit too much like real life.
  
• I can do without Kurt Warner/Christian ads.
  
• This must be the local ad block. What airs in St. Louis in the local ad section? Christians, car repair, and Hardees hamburgers.
  

• Officiating in this game hasn't been awful, but it seems like there are a lot of no calls when the Steelers commit offenses and calls that don't make sense against Seattle.
  
• Emerald Nuts. Druids Under the Stairs. Has there ever been a bad Emerald Nuts ad?
  
• Michaels and Madden just made the same point I was trying to make about the officiating. It's not perfect.
  

• The first Pirates of the Carri bean was fun, so I'll give the sequels a go. Plus, the first sequel opens on my birthday, which seems auspicious.
  
• MacGyver & MasterCard. Awesome!
  

• Hasselbeck was down by contact, but only in a strict interpretation of the rules sense.
  
• More Jimmy Edmonds. I love the Cardinals getting some dap. Even the ads for the baseball All-Star game (a game that had four Cardinals starting) featured only East Coast and big city teams and no Cardinals. So it's good to see a Cardinals as the representative baseball player in an ad.
  

• Am I the only one who thinks the World Baseball Classic will be a big waste of time? The baseball season is already long enough. Plus, I don't know why we need these artificial national teams. It just seems like it will cause jingoism. And all these folks who were born in the US of A playing for teams like Italy. Contrived.
  

• Now that Seattle isn't going to win, I'm no longer interested in the game. Plus, we're in that zone where all the interesting commercials have already aired. Let's just get this over with.
  
• Two minutes to play. It would be a comeback of the ages if Seattle managed to do something here.
  

• Mental mistakes always cost you in the end.
  
• The Steelers beat the spread as well as Seattle.
  

Updates coming as the game progresses.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 5 February 2006 at 5:35 PM

I'm not cut out for the world of art criticism, I don't think. Yesterday, I described one of the exhibits at the Contemporary Art Museum this way:

There was an interactive display in one of the galleries that consisted of (and I'm not making this up) some wooden crates with Busch beer spilling out of one, a tunnel built out of popsicle sticks, a crappy picture of Jackie O. spanning a bunch of letter-sized sheets of paper, a mound of dirt labeled the "Grassy Knoll: National Historic Site," a JFK commemorative LP, a tent, and a bunch of Little Debbie Zebra cakes scattered around the tent. It was utter crap.

That's a very literal description of what I saw and my reaction to it. What is interesting is to compare my description of the exhibit to the one provided by the people at the Contemporary:

Jason Wallace Triefenbach
Hero, Compromised (Autobiographical Fiction/Narrative Medley)

Jason Wallace Triefenbach's exhibition encompasses a multi-media installation comprised of performance, music, spoken word, sculpture, and props. For two days, Triefenbach conducted a live performance at the Contemporary which he videotaped and then edited with additional footage shot off-site. Sculptures and props from the performance reside in the gallery as residue of what previously occurred, and the video is displayed on monitors within the space. With these various components, Triefenbach creates a woven four-part narrative that is part autobiography, part fiction, and is based upon a central character, the Protagonist Everyman, and his frustration with an overabundance of pop culture, fear of living in obscurity, and his attempt to escape from it all. According to Triefenbach, "This piece is a conglomeration of half finished puzzles, jokes, and associations–beginnings of stories or a bit from the middle, but never the whole picture."

The journey Triefenbach's character embarks on signifies one man's experience and imaginings in an anonymous city that could be here (St. Louis) or anywhere. Multiple metaphors, references, and associations pertaining to consumerism, cultural iconography, the artist's life, and political ideologies are embedded within the storyline, thus creating Triefenbach's own fantastical expedition for the viewer to navigate, pose questions, seek answers, and formulate their own conclusions. This amalgamation in Triefenbach's work creates a compelling tension between fact and fiction, which cannot be deciphered into an ultimate conclusion, but rather remains suggestive of multiple potential outcomes.

Quite a difference. I apparently missed all the "metaphors, references, and associations" but I certainly "formulate[d] [my] own conclusions." As I said above, it was utter crap.

Comments: 2 Posted by david on 3 February 2006 at 4:22 PM

I'm going for a trifecta here.

Today was a really great day at work. It was a seemingly perfect day: no boring meetings, a small but engaging task to work on, an no unnecessary distractions. This combination is pretty rare these days and today was the first time in many a week when I felt like I could have stayed there working all night and been perfectly content.

But I had evening plans. Ben wanted to see the Vertigo dance floor at the Contemporary Art Museum's Happy Hour. michael didn't have any plans for the evening and Rachel was off doing something else, so michael tagged along with me, Jeremy, and Ben and we checked that scene out. The contemporary art wasn't all that impressive. There was an interactive display in one of the galleries that consisted of (and I'm not making this up) some wooden crates with Busch beer spilling out of one, a tunnel built out of popsicle sticks, a crappy picture of Jackie O. spanning a bunch of letter-sized sheets of paper, a mound of dirt labeled the "Grassy Knoll: National Historic Site," a JFK commemorative LP, a tent, and a bunch of Little Debbie Zebra cakes scattered around the tent. It was utter crap. Jeremy accidentally stepped on part of the exhibit and we got interrogated by one of the docents for that. I tried to look inside the tent but was told I couldn't because the area I was standing in was art (the quote from the docent was "this is art" as she gestured to the tent and Zebra cakes).

The Contemp was super-crowded, especially in the area around the dance floor where you were allowed to drink the $1 beer. I saw quite a few people I recognized from WashU there, probably supporting the Vertigo dance floor. Speaking of seeing people, it turns out that the "off doing something else" thing that I mentioned Rachel was doing? It turns out that she and her crowd were also at the Contemporary. Great minds think alike, I guess.

We did the Happy Hour scene for about an hour. That was long enough to drink a beer and look at the exhibits. Then we went off for dinner. Jeremy wanted to try Sameem on South Grand (reviews: 1, 2). Sameem's is an Afghan restaurant and it was ridiculously good. The Afghan food is similar to Indian, but it doesn't come in heavy sauces. It's kind of like Indian grill, I guess. Anyway, I had the mixed grill kabobs. This were three different meat kabobs (lamb, chicken, and ground beef) served on a bed of basmati rice. It was excellent. Sameem is definitely worth a visit. I loved it.

So that was my night.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 2 February 2006 at 10:29 PM

NBC has been running ads for a month now advertising that the upcoming winter Olympics are going to be in "Torino, Italy." This confuses me. I would understand it if they were calling the place Torino, Italia or Turin, Italy, but why would they mix Anglicized and non-Anglicized names together? Do they think they can be authentic with regard to the city name because we're Americans and we don't know where Torino/Turin is but that calling Italy Italia would be too confusing? It's just weird to me. I've grown up hearing this place referred to as Turin (think The Shroud of Turin) and it strikes me as odd that we would clean up the city name without also cleanign up the country name.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 2 February 2006 at 9:52 PM

For the bettors among you, I'd recommend that you put money on Seattle beating Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl this weekend. It'll be a close game, but I think Seattle will be able to pull off a win.

FYI, the betting line has Pittsburgh as 4 point favorites.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 2 February 2006 at 6:02 PM