Goodbye Old Friend

I don't remember when we first met... I can't really say the longest we have been apart.  But I do know this is the end for awhile and I am a little broken up about it.  Yup, I am talking about cable TV. With two newborn babies in the mix I have neither the time nor the inclination to drop the $3,095,485/month they charge for the service. I remember as a child waking up early (like 6AM) and watching old cartoon reruns while my dad got ready for work.  Underdog, The Flinstones, Dudley Do-Right. They were all wonderful. The weekend Creature Double Feature on WBZ channel 56 and The Three Stooges Sunday morning. I watched old Three's Company reruns after school always thinking house awesome it would be to hang at the Regal Beagle. TV shows were events. You stayed home to watch The Dukes of Hazard on Thursday night, or Knight Rider.  Old MTV with the VeeJays like Martha Quinn and Mark Goodman... back when they actually played music videos all day and an adolescent could get their boob fix from a Duran Duran video.  HBO was a revelation. That logo flying through the city before every new movie that got you so fired up.  It took like 3 years for movies to get to video and HBO back then not the 2 months it does today.  Plus you had Friday night After Dark which I believe was on HBO before it moved to Skinemax. That was great when you could sneak down to watch it.  I remember how confused I was when I went to a buddies house and he only had 3 channels? Were are the rest? In college I watched very little TV but still usually caught the 5PM Simpsons/Seinfeld hour.  I am a TV junkie and I freely admit it. Even recently I have been know to reflexively flick on the TV when I get home to watch Seinfeld or Sportscenter or even The Big Bang Theory.   Before I got married I loved grabbing the Sunday Globe a coffee and sandwich and watching the Sox on a Sunday.

All gone. All gone.  I turn on the TV and it is just black.  I don't even have an antenna for basic channels.  Sure I have Netflix but you don't have the pure joy of just flipping the channels.  I don't even care what I am watching sometimes... I just flip.  Sometimes I come upon something new and exciting, or at least mind numbing.

So I bid you a fond farewell Cable.  I may see you again and I hope I do but in the meantime we will have to sneak little moments, at a hotel or the bar, illicit rendezvous. I will mourn our lost relationship but I am moving on.  It has to be this way. No no, don't say a word and don't weep... it will be better this way.

Really?

This is why I think the mayor of Burlington is a dud (being politically correct)... There was a suspicious package delivered to the office of Congressman Peter Welch.  I happen to work near by and was watching the whole scene.  They brought in cops, firemen, the FBI, Hazmat.  It was a real scene and kind of intense as local stuff goes. It was the biggest news of the day right?  Not if you are the mayor chief!  He tweets out "RT @julieyn: Het tweeps - what's your fave #btv #vt charity that you'd like to see the #BTV #twestival supprt? cc @BTVMoms..."

What the F*ck does that even mean?  I am sick of Twitter turning us into #f*cking #morons!!!  #F*ck #hashtags!!!!!

I am sure Pete is fine, don't worry about Miro... get back to your Handy's breakfast so you can talk about more projects you will never complete.  By the way, one of the first on the scene?  Seven Days.  I never thought Seven Days would be a place I would go to for breaking news but they are currently one of the most respectable outlets locally.  They cover real stories and are relevant if incredibly Tower of Pizza left leaning.

As an update, the letter sent to Welch was "peculiar" but not dangerous... like my buddy T-Pain!

Jay About F*ing Sequestration

I was set to go for a conference in Charleston this week. I set up easy flights from Burlington, VT to JFK, to SC. I gave myself plenty of layover time so there would be no issues. On my way down the pilot came online and said in Burlington we had to leave early and hope we could land in JFK as sequestration cuts were killing flights. We got to NY and I immediately saw my next flight was delayed by a half hour or so... no big deal.  I also noticed almost every flight to Florida was delayed or cancelled. uh oh.  Well, that 30 minutes turned into over three hours. Needless to say I was pretty annoyed and lit when I finally got to Charleston. They kept blaming sequestration and saying there was nothing they could do.  I had noticed a large chunk of flights were delayed. It was ugly.  The conference was great.  Time to come home yesterday, I was already a little nervous about my late JFK flight, it often is delayed and is already a late one.  Well, sure enough in Charleston we were his with a 30 minute delay that turned into over 2 hours. Apparently there was fog rolling into NYC although we heard from several people that there was very little fog in the area. Don't jets fly via computer for the most part anyway?  Well, I checked my connection and... BAM!  Cancelled.  F***!! I asked them what they could do for me.  They put me on the early flight the next morning and offered me a distressed hotel price call in number.  After being put on hold for 15 minutes I was told to call back, they could not find anything.  I called back and they offered me a room at the Ramada Inn on Staten Island for $190.  Staten Island?!?!?  $190?!?!?! That is distressed?  The only thing distressed was me!!!!  The typical rate for that hotel is $152/ night.  F*** you Jetblue and f*** you JFK.  I was surprisingly cool through the process and karma rewarded me w/ a good guy from our business partner company who offered to put me up for the night. That was a solid and very helpful move. This morning I only had a 45 minute delay on a sunny day waiting for planes to get out.  So write your Congress person and thank them for the Sequestration.  They are not taking a pay cut but sure are f*cking up your day!

I am also officially banning the Cobblestone Deli.  There food is not great and the service is just a complete mess. You might as well bring a tent because you will be there awhile while they write out your order in long hand and then spend 20 minutes trying to cut a piece of ham.

Jay Not About Town so Much

I am going to a business dinner tonight so there might be a real review tomorrow. These days I eat most of my meals cold... standing up... begging one or both of my kids to stop screaming. 2 thumbs down. My daughter is small, and quite precious.  She really is a beautiful little thing.  She farts like a truck driver.  I always thought the volume of a fart was determined by the size of the asshole and the butt cheeks... you know, creating the whole acoustics thing.  I was apparently mistaken.  My little girl weighs less than my cat and rips louder farts than any dude I have ever know.  And they stink. Seriously, she crushes it.  I am not sure whether to be proud or horrified.  I lean towards proud.

My wife said we had our son in bed the other morning and I was tearing ass while the covers had pulled up over his head.  I was giving my boy the old dutch oven!  Sorry champ! Better mine than his sister's farts!!!

Anymore poo conversation?  No?  Well, I guess I am out of ideas.  Good luck Boston... I am thinking of you.

Never be the same

NCAA basketball championship tonight.  I love that tournament.  Will I be watching? Nope. Taking my kids up to bed for the 3 hour go to sleep ritual. Game of Thrones was on last night.  Great show.  Did I see it?  Nope. Iron Man 3 coming out in like a week... will I go see it?  Only if I skip work. New 3 Penny Taproom opening in the Noosk... will I go check it out?  Probably not. I don't do shit anymore.  I clean diapers, feed babies, clean up after babies, sometimes clean up after myself, get ready for bed, calm down screaming babies... repeat.  I think parents do not tell you how f*d up it is to be a parent because they see how happy and relaxed you are and then they lie to you so you will join the parent zombie nation! I love my kids but they are slowing killing me. That said they are cute and when they are great they are really great.

We went on a drive this weekend and decided to throw caution to the wind and stop for a bite to eat at the Prohibition Pig.  On the way in the door the owner who was doing some stuff out front gave us an astonished look and said "Twins?! Boy that must be alot of work!".  We went to the host station and asked to be seated far from anyone else... for their protection!  We ordered a couple beers some duck fat fries and a beet salad.      The food was delicious.  The fries were crispy, a little salty and had a nice potato flavor.  The salad was also very fresh and delicious. About 1/2 way into our food our daughter started fussing.  No problem, my special lady rocked her car seat.  Then the fussing started to get louder. Then the little boy chimed in.  I did not have a pacifier for him, it got lost. Shit.  The fussing was getting louder.  It was fine because the music was a good volume and there was plenty of ambient noise.  People close to us only started looking when the waitress panicked.  That said we had to get our fries packed up and the check... tout suite!  That is my life.  Shovelling in food that is often cold and on the go. 2 more victims of the parent zombie plague.  I can't wait until the kids are old enough to be prodigies we can put on TV... even though I still won't be able to watch it!

Well, what do you know

I have not had a mad Jay in traffic post in awhile but today was epic.  I am usually pretty aggressive out there on the road but in recent weeks my kids have me so beaten down in the morning I just try to get in to work w/out glazing over and driving in a tree.  Today I was cruising up route 7 and people were all over the place. Swerving in and out and plenty of assholes cutting other assholes off sans blinker of course. One woman in a Volvo SUV driving her kid to school was particularly terrifying.  So I get to a place where the road moves from 4 lanes to 6 in front of Denny's.  The far right lane is for turning right onto the Interstate... the far left lane is purely for thru traffic on 7, the middle can go either way.  Naturally this is always a shit show.  So I get in the middle behind a huge Booska moving truck. I am going straight but like to be in the middle lane as it clears out some suckers turning right.  I notice to my left a dingbat woman driving a white Mini Cooper. I know she is trouble.  Sure enough as the light turns green she starts moving right and right at my front left fender without looking in her rear view mirror or putting on a turn signal.  It was not like I swerved into that middle lane... I had been sitting there through a traffic light. So I honk before this train wreck hits me. F*ing asshat flips me off .  I must have missed the memo where you are obligated to flip a person off when you nearly hit them while not paying attention?  Good to know. As I pulled along side she yelled at me and flipped me off again.  Needless to say I returned the bird and mouthed something I cannot post publicly. If you know a middle aged woman who drives a white Mini Cooper in the Burlington area... tell her Jay says "F*ck you douchebag!".  Even if it was not her anyone who drives a white Mini Cooper in VT is probably a D-bag so feel free to pass that along.  Same for the college kid in the gray BMW 525i who was facing straight down texting yesterday. You are also a D-bag.

I guess I am also a D-bag... our cleaning people recently stopped showing up and neither answer or return calls. Ever been fired by a cleaning lady?  Was it my cat?  I suppose the economy must be pretty good to give up guaranteed cash flow.  I am in the wrong business.