Weird Right?

So people freak out about veal.  There is also a fair amount of the population who has strong feelings about abortion.  Is anyone really bothered about eating eggs?  I am not making any judgements other than commenting on how little that seems to indicate we value fowl.  I like eggs and cannot imagine abandoning them from my diet for whatever that is worth.  Plus I like those old brain on drugs ads...

So the other day we have a guy come to pump our septic and he notices there is no sewage actually moving to our tank.  So where is it going?  Come to find out that answer was a combination of the basement and a sink hole next to the house.  Not optimal.  I now have a torn up lawn and a new septic pipe.  Awesome.  Still no windows.  Each quote is more expensiva than the last... except for the folks too big time to call me back of course.  I love owning a house, it kicks ASS!!! 

So I had a quesion for the Sec. of State office in VT.  I was not exactly sure who to ask so I tried a couple of folks that the website led me to.  One person faded me.  One link went nowhere as did the attached email addresses which were not real.  Another person said the "had no idea" what the answer to my question was but they did include a smiley face emoticon.  How many states in the union run like a small town start up?  The majority of porn sites on the internet (from what I am told) have a better web presence and are easier to navigate.  I better shut up now before they raise my taxes to pay for better services.

How about this rally today?  Stocks up a couple percent, oil up 7+points, gold up +47 points, and most credit indices showing strength.  Now all we need is for Europe to actually develop an executable plan and a way to pay for that plan and we will be in business!!!

Jay About Prohibition Pig (and other stuff)

It was a nice weekend, mostly sunny and warm.  After messing around w/ the house on Sat. we went for a mellow hike Sunday and then stopped for a quick bite at the Prohibition Pig in Waterbury.  It was started by the beer guru from the Flatbread/Farmhouse juggernaut.  I had heard very mixed reviews but it was always going to be difficult to live up to the legacy of The Alchemist.  We went w/ low expectations.  The space is nice and well decorated w/ a lovely bar filled w/ pickled vegetables and fantastic liquors. The bar is bigger at the expense of the dining room but I prefer it that way.  The beer menu is extensive as is the liquor and drink menu.  It is also the only bar w/ Heady Topper on tap that I am aware of.  We settled on a Lawson's Double Sunshine and then ordered a pot of pickled veggies and a burger w/ cheddar.  The veggies were nice w/ good vinegar tang and a nice touch of heat from what looked like Thai chilies.  The burger was also good.  There was a nice chunk of cheddar on a well cooked burger on top of a nice buttery roll.  I liked it better than the farmhouse burger, maybe less than that of the Bluebird Tavern.  Overall I thought the experience was good, liked the food and drink... service was good, it was a little expensive. 1 1/2 thumbs up.

Couple other things... We watched Crazy, Stupid, Love on HBO.  It was surprisingly entertaining and worth a look if you have cable.  Also on HBO, the new Jeff Daniels show The NewsRoom.  I liked it alot.  The opening scene was excellent.  One of the better things I have seen on that channel of late.

And today is best of all... While getting my septic pumped we found that the septic pipe was busted and sewer pouring into the basement.  Fantastic.  I know have a hole in the yard, ripped up plants, a big pile of dirt, and tire tracks all over the lawn.  I love owning a house... it's f*ing great... 2 thumbs way up.  My ass!!!!

Uh Oh

I had a delicious Cuban sandwich from Mirabelle's for lunch but a mere 2 hours later I am doing terrible things to our building facilities.  TERRIBLE THINGS!!  The sandwich had slowed cooked pork loin, smoked pickled onions, delicious swiss, garlic mayo that was not gross, buttery toasted bread... and now this.  It is like an episode of NCIS Burlington.  I need one of those top kill procedures they tried to use on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a couple years ago.

We made a terrible decision and watched The Tourist on Encore last night.  What a piece of shit movie.  Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp had absolutely no chemistry. Maybe it was because he had been stung by a bee, in the face. The acting was bad, the stunts were lame, and the plot was dumb. 2 thumbs way down. It made The Recruit look Oscar worthy...  HOOO-AAA

Clemens Innocent Huh?

Does it look like Roger Clemens might have had an additional lawyer... whom he ate at some point?  That guy is a scumbag but proves the rule that if you are rich and famous you are not ever going to jail unless you are an absolute train wreck... DMX I am talking to you!  Even Lindsay Lohan is on here 38th strike (this month).

Why is it that conventional wisdom that And Pettite is a "good guy", a stand up guy, a person widely respected throughout the league and the general public.  This is a guy that cheated, took drugs, lied about it, admitted his crime only after being caught, and then waffled and most likely lied to a grand jury to protect his "friend" who previously threw him under the bus.  If I overcharged you for performance fees effectively stealing your money but gave you very solid performance reviews, did blow at my desk, and lied about my co-worker who defrauded you would you think I was a "good guy"?  What if I seemed kind of nice and never did anything like get caught in a seedy hotel with an underage hooker?  Would I be a stand up guy then?  Would you respect me for admitting after the fact I stole your money but I was really sorry about it?  That is what Andy Pettite just did.  He cheated and lied.  It is that simple.  That is not a stand up guy or a good guy... that is a liar and a cheat.  Nothing particularly alarming to me about that and if I knew him we might be pals... but he is still a liar and a cheater.  I am honest and an idiot.

Hey Roger, the just got out of jail buffet just opened at the Country Buffet... better hurry!

What a weekend

The sun was out and it was beautiful up here in VT.  I played a wonderful round of golf on Friday afternoon and then banged out a bunch of work around the house on Saturday.  We went to a BBQ Sat. night at our friends' place and it was wild.  The guest list was huge and when we arrived (late) it was like another world.  When the door opened it was much like Munchkin Land in Oz.  There were what seemed like 50830388 little people running around like crazy yelling, tossing shit, and covering themselves in food.  I made my way through the first wave and grabbed some food.  I headed out to the deck thinking my wife was right behind me.  Nope.  She stayed in w/ the adults sans kids while I went into the hoard.  It was pretty funny watching them all running round and the tired looks on the parents faces as the watched to make sure their kids did not run into a wall or anything.  I was exhausted just watching and eating my pulled pork.  Big ups to KB&DG for pulling it together.  The food was delicious, it is hard to sort out a big party like that.

That night my special lady and I retreated to the comfy confines of our quiet house to watch a movie. Boomer still yells at us but F* him.  I want to give my house a name and put the sign out front.  Our place is far from an estate but that would make it funny right?  Yeah, why don't you guys come visit us at "Railroad Track's End"!  Anywho, we settled in for a HBO gem of the night, The Recruit w/ Colin Farrell and Al PACINO!!!!!  Couple things... old Al has become such a caricature of himself it is sometimes hard to watch.  It was also interesting seeing Colin tower over him.  Is Pacino 3 feet tall?  I have seen Colin Farrell up close and the guy is tiny.  Just saying.  The best part of the movie was when Pacino is explaining to Farrell how secret a secret agent is and that no one can ever know and this and that.  They then exit the car in the middle of Washington DC and in typical Pacino fashion he starts screaming..."YOU ARE THE NOC (deep cover guy)!!!!!!!"  Is that how you keep the secret?  Yelling like an insane person?  Check!  That said it was fine, just don't pay to see it.  Well, unless you consider $245/month for HBO paying for it.  Seriously... my cable operator should send hooker magician to my house to give me a hummer rabbit in a hat for what I pay each month for cable.  I do love my TV though.  And magicians.

So the show Girls finally and mercifully ended last night.  If it did not have such a prime slot and so much press would I ever have watched it?  I only watched 3 or 4 episodes anyway and always felt dirty, embarrassed, a little angry, and much dumber afterwards.  What a piece of shit.  Guess I am the asshole since I claim to hate it yet watched the season finale and then wrote about it.  No press is bad press I suppose.  Well, except may the whole Syria thing.  That is not so good.

Let's Make it Weird!

Tues and the robust Free Press is 12 pages... 8 of which are even their own content!  Some dude jumped off the 80 foot cliff at Red Rocks and landed ass first.  That must have f*ing hurt!  What an enema right?  that and the bottom of the balls slap.  No winners there, except readers or the article.  

Lot of debate on who is more "real world like able" Mitt or Obama.  Who gives a shit.  I would not want to hang out w/ either one but I thought GW would be great to drink beer w/ and we saw how that worked out.  I don't want a fun person as president... this is not student council.  I want an intelligent driven leader who puts good people around him.  We should be electing down home people to local office and to Congress where they can take our issues to Washington.  The president then needs to be able to listen and work out the various issues, like the CEO of a company. 

Is there a worse thing out there on than internet than naked Snooki pics?  Wait, don't answer that... I know there is and I don't want to see it.

Not saying it will happen, but if you happen to see me naked and disoriented in Burlington?  Bath salts! 

Why are equity traders such assclowns?  Europe is f*d and these morons are pushing stocks up on the assumption there will be additional fiscal stimulus?  That is bad for us.  Stimulus means we are still in a no growth cycle and eventually that market will decline. Too much flow trading, no fundamental analysis, that is a bad trend.

This Syria thing is bad.  Real bad.   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/world/middleeast/violence-in-syria-continues-as-protesters-killed.html?_r=1&hp

R.I.P. Ray, "Fahrenheit 451" was an early read for me that was really quite an eye opener.

Glad It's Monday!

These beautiful sunny weekends are just killing me!  I couldn't wait to get back to my freezer box office where it is 25 degrees, I can't see the outside at my new desk seat, and most days I would like to scoop my eyes out w/ a spoon.  What a relief!  So this was a beautiful weekend.  We went to a wedding at the All Souls Gathering place in Shelburne and it was lovely.  My headache the next morning tells me I might have had too many Bud Lights but the setting in unparalleled, the service was nice, the band was great, and the whole party was quite enjoyable.  Congrats AH!  The next day we woke up early and I painted most of the day.  Not the good happy little trees painting either.  Good to get stuff done around the house though. 

So the new and improved Free Press w/ its bulkier Mon.-Wed. editions?  12 pages today.  12.  Not much going on I suppose.  Except for a bailout of Spain, the French Open, Euro Cup, the crazy Kennedy wife, the Commerce Sec. getting in a hit and run accident, any of the ongoing issues in VT including our aging population, inability to bring in decent size businesses, red tide... but hey, they did give a shout out to Jazz Fest!

So business must be pretty good here in Vermont for contractors. I have been trying to get some windows replaced and it took weeks to get quotes from suppliers.  They were reluctant to advise me on installers which is odd.  I am not going to buy a window if I cannot get it put into the house?  Now I am waiting weeks on installation quotes.  They are just quotes?  Seriously, you are so busy you cannot carve out time to quote a job for several thousands of dollars?  I am not a pro and I may do a shitty job but I am thinking about starting up a construction firm called ON TIME productions.  Our work may be only ok but we will call you back and in a timely manner and then we will give a reasonable time frame to complete a job and then do it in that time frame.  Sounds like a slam dunk right?  One guy that did do some pretty good work for us was Mark w/ Pleasant Valley Landscaping.  Time was a small issue but he did get the work done in a decent turn around and it looks pretty solid so kudos for that... I'd give them another look.

Overall I am not sure why Vermont runs on island time.  This is not Jamaica.  We are very near urban centers and we should strive to do good work on time no?  Instead service here sucks.  Want to get a lamp on a Wed. a 2PM?  Good luck, that store closes at 1 on Wednesdays and is not open on the weekends... on Monday.  Getting your shoes cobbled?  That will take 3 months.  They guy is only open every other Thursday from 11AM-noon.  And he will be pissed to are interrupting his fishing time when you do show up.  How about a beer and burger?  Sorry the waitress is busy chatting w/ the bartender about her weekend plans.  He won't pour the beer either because he is also busy not working.  If you complain they will act put out because you bothered them on "their time".  Enjoy the spit on your overcooked burger!  There are maybe 5 places in this state that take pride in their service and work and I applaud them and will pay up gladly for that service.  Of course I am screwed here and pay up unintentionally for the shitty service too. 

That is why I only post infrequently now... I am turning native!

Burlington Not So Free Press

So the Free Press came out w/ their 2.0 production which featured a revamp of the online and print editions.  You may recall some of my earlier rants about this rag generally centered around poor content, grammar, and spelling.  Layout was never their biggest problem.  So what do you do when you have a problem w/ spellcheck? Revamp it all and distract readers w/ an abundance of colored photos!  Oh yeah, and charge for it!  The online site now features a format similar to the New York Times where readers get a certain amount of free articles and then must pay for access.  The big difference of course is that the Times is a world class paper and the Free Press is a pile of shit.  Why would you pay to read AP stories?  If I need to know about the making of a cocoa Baron in Winooski I can just go to the WCAX site which I will now do.  I like reading local stories online but I am not so interested that I would pay for them.  There are other free sites just as good and frankly & Days had made strides in journalistic integrity that make them a true competitor both online and in print locally. 

So how about the print edition?  Well the new "smaller format" is like a poor man's New York Post.  And by poor man I mean given up on the concept of currency like a Tibetan monk.  It is closer to the weekend circular I get from some local Charlotte/Shelburne group.  Plus my local paper has a better sports section.  I read the letter from the editor Jim Fogler and I wanted to karate chop him.  So The selling points for the new paper are smaller paper that will be easier to handle and use less trees?  It may be easier to handle which is questionable but if you have the same amount of content you would not use any less paper would you?  Unless the type was smaller?  Plus the addition of color must create the need for more ink and different ink delivery systems which are generally difficult to recycle no?  Well, at least there is step 2 where they add more content to the Mon-Wed papers.  WTF?!?!  Why would you add more in the middle of the week to the print edition?  If you are like most people you work during the week and get most of your news via the internet.  Print content is saved for the weekend when you want to get away from the computer and have the time to sit down and read a paper, hence the very bulky weekend editions of the NY Times and Boston Globe among others.  So the Free Press looked at history and went the other direction... smart!  Point 3, "...renewing our commitment to in-depth local news coverage.".  The first 12 articles in the paper are pulled from the AP or the ultimate news rag the USA Today!  You have to get to page 12A to sift through ads and AP articles before finally getting to a local story.  That is commitment!  Of the actual articles there is as always some good and some pretty silly.  One article about Facebook ads has this gem... ""Just like ROI, impact is difficult to measure in the social media realm, unless you have taken the time upfront to think about what impact and ROI mean to you."  That was an actual article in the business section, or the Innovate section, the business page is only 1 page, but I digress.  It was not an opinion piece or letter to the editor.  It was a real article I assume they paid for.  That is one of the dumbest sentences I have ever read. Unless you think upfront about what ROI and impact mean to you?  Are you f*ing serious?  If you are an investor who has not thought about "impact" and or "ROI" (return on investment) before making said investment than you are a train wreck and I have a $2 million dollar kazoo I would like to sell you.  And ROI does not mean different things to different people.  You give your money to a borrower as an investment and you hope that that money is repaid with some monetary upside.  What is returned to you is the "return" and that return is in the form of currency not hopes and dreams or unicorn smiles unless you are an idiot. 

Again, this is our local history being written.  Our paper of record and a reflection of us.  That is why I am so disappointed when this publication repeatedly falls on its face. 2 thumbs down... I will be switching to the Rutland Herald or the Valley News.

R.I.P. Richard Dawson

Richard Dawson the host of Family Feud and bad guy in The Running Man just passed at 79yrs old.  As a kid I was a huge game show fan and Dawson was one of my favorites.  I loved the smarmy kisses, the pinky ring out pointing to the board, and of course his incredulous look/ disapproving head shake when contestants gave terrible answers during the 20 second final bonus round.  It was all great.  As were the huge 70 southern style double breasted suits!  Did you know he was British?  Yeah... crazy, I know.  Of course he then moved to movies as one of the best bad guys ever.  Here is the clip that makes it all happen.



full cliphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC4XwpmJGi0


We also lost another luminary from the internet world.  Trololo guy... we hardly knew ye!



So we were just at Starbucks and there is a new guy working there.  He decides to be the wacky fun barista and starts singing to my boy T-Pain... "howww can I fill youuuuurrr coffeeeeee?!?!?!"  Ok, weird.  He then proceeds to hit an existing full hot coffee over on the counter because he is too busy singing and acting like a fool.  Hot coffee goes flying all over the counter and off the front.  We were far enough back not to get hit.  Why were we standing so far back?  A guy was crouched in front of the counter doing a masonry touch up.  Hot coffee missed him be inches.  He kept on working unfazed and sponged the coffee off of his floor and work area.  I was next in line and  visibly shaken singing barista slammed my cup down shooting hot coffee on my hand.  What a doosh.  Sorry.  Whhhaaaatttt aaaaa Doooooosssshhhh!!!!

Jay About Veritas

Don't tell on me but I might have found a posting loophole?  In any event, my special lady and I met up at Halverson's for the Burlington Jazz Fest kick off.  We had a beer, mingled and cruised out for food.  The spot? A new pizza place called Veritas in the old 156/PlanB/Mexican/Waiting Room/who knows what space.  It is generally a space where restaurants go to die which is too bad as it is a fine building and not too far of the run in terms of proximity to Church Street.  So we read a couple reviews in local rags and it was tough to determine what to expect.  The reviews were so glowing it sounded like the owner's mom wrote them. We went in fairly skeptical.  Well, we were told it would be a 40 minute wait but after an easy trip to the bar for a beer we only had to wait about 15.  The wait for food was another matter. The service was friendly but very slow. For a 5 minute cook time, it took about 45 minutes to get our pies. We started w/ anti pasta which was pretty good.  The salami was very good as was the bread.  The artichokes tasted like they were out of a can. The pizza itself was also pretty solid.  The crust was not too doughy and had a nice slightly salty flavor.  The ingredients also tasted pretty fresh and made the whole thing quite nice.  Prices were fair and overall other than the long wait time it was a good place to grab some chow.  I'd give it 1 1/2 thumbs up. Was it better than the best pizza that ever was eaten?  Probably not Veritas' owner's mom. But thanks for the review... leave it to the professionals!