Literary scat for the mind, including thoughts and insight on the world of TV, Movies, Video Games, Books, and other fun distractions in a consumer world.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Back from the Land of Stephen King


Kathy and I just returned Sunday from a week long trip to Maine, spending the first half of the week in Acadia National Park, and the second half in the coastal town of Bar Harbor, both part of Mount Desert Island (pronounced 'dessert'). If you love the outdoors, seafood, whale watching, and watching white people (the latter two could be one of the same), this is your kind of town!

To sum it all up, here's a snapshot by day of trip highlights (notice that the trip starts with ultra phyisical activity and descends into pure seafood gourding):

Saturday, June 17
Woke up at the butt crack of dawn, packed up the gear and was on the road by 5am. Not only did we survived my driving, but made the trip in about 8.5 hours, 1.5 hrs earlier than expected. Set up camp, took a stroll of the Blackwoods campgrounds, made beef kababs over a cracklin' fire.

Sunday, June 18
Crazy ass hiking day. Roughly 13.5 miles. Originally planned for 6 miles, then catch the L.L. Bean island shuttle bus back to camp, until discovering that the shuttle doesn't start operating until Tues. Damn You L.L. Bean and your flannel button downs! Hit Cadillac Mountain via South Ridge Trail, then Sieur de Mont Spring via Gorges Path to Hemlock Trail, then headed south along the Tarn and Canon Brook Trail, back to the South Ridge Trail for the homestretch to camp. The view from Cadillac's peak was absolutely stunning, too bad there were so many Southern Obese up at the top who drove it. Wanted to roll those mofos down the mountain. Sausage and Peppers over a cracklin fire was a quite delicious way to end the day.

Monday, June 19
Crazy ass biking day. Roughly 45 miles. Hit the Jordan Pond House, Jordan Pond, and Eagle Lake in the AM, then took the Park Loop Road back visiting the Wild Gardens of Acadia, Sand Beach, Thunder Hole, and Otter Point. Classic campfire dinner: Nathan's hot dogs and cheese burgers baby!

Tuesday, June 20
Hiked the Ladder Trail (know for it's metal ladders and killer stone steps) and climbed up Dorr Mountain in the morning. Returned to camp for a hot dog lunch. Headed off to Echo Lake in the PM for some sun and semi-frigid lake swimming. More hot dogs and burgers! Finished the camping portion of the trip by heading up to Cadillac Mountain for sunset, which almost didn't happen due to intense thunder booms and fog.

Wednesday, June 21
Checked out of Blackwoods campground and into the Wonderview Inn in Bar Harbor, 15 minutes away. Lucked out with one of the few 2nd floor rooms with a great view of Frenchman's Bay. Walked around town, lunched at the Fish House Grill, researched whales at the Whale Museum, and for dinner, enjoyed the Lobster Bake experience at the Bar Harbor Lobster Bake. Fresh lobsta', ice tea, and all you can eat coleslaw, mussels, and corn on the cob, with blueberry cake to end it, oh it was indeed a fat man's paradise.

Thursday, June 22
Started the morning activities early catching the 9am Whale watching trip off the pier. This, I could have passed on in retrospect. We did actually see whales, at least a few spouts and the occaisional fin and tail surfacing, but if you blinked and missed it, the other sight you could have witnessed were the several asians getting seasick in the galley. (Is it a sterotypical fact that asians don't have sea legs? After this trip, that comment would not offend me.) Staying strong for the first three hours, I thought I avoided being asian sea sick victim #5, but during the final two hours, I was almost one of those poor bastards- head between the legs, wearing vomit upon the sleeve and pantlegs. Luckily, I made it through unscathed, managing to catch view of some puffins on the ride back into port. Finished the day getting my land legs back and dining at Galyn's, a local favorite. Lobster linguine was terrific.

Friday, June 23
Breakfasted at Jordan's Restaurant, an old school diner-like establishment famous for their blueberry pancakes and muffins. Delish! Walked along the Shore Path, mansion viewing, drooling. Visited the Bar Harbor Brewery- great little local brewery run out of a couples home. Great tour, with generous tasting samples. Bought lots o' beer home. Dinner at the Trenton Lobster Bake, delicious lobster, vicious mosquitos in the outdoor table area. Finished the night off with Great Maine Lumberjack Show, featuring Chicks with Axes! (I shit you not). Log rolling, wood chopping, tree climbing, axe throwing competitions- pure friggin' heaven.

Saturday, June 24
Visited the quiet side of Mt. Desert Island in Southwest Harbor, taking a mailboat to Little Cranberry Island. Interesting mix of mega estates and semi-impovished farm houses. Mosquitos galore, almost to the point of insanity. On the drive back, visited the Asticou Azalea and Thules Gardens, very cool zen-like environment. Spent the afternoon pool side at the inn. Enjoyed our last seafood delight at Cafe Bluefin, a charming restaurant with an eclectic seafood fare. And finished the last night off with, but of course, the Ultimate Fighter Finale, the first time I've watched TV all week! (besides catching the all new Making the Band 3 just preceding it- that Diddy sure does good reality boy). Thank you Allah for cable in hotels!

Sunday, June 25
Final taste of Maine breakfast at Jordan's Restaurant, then off we go back to NY!

Monday, June 12, 2006

Season of the Pig

New York City summer street festivals have taken a turn for the worse over the years, becoming so ubiquitous and generic nowadays, it's tough to get excited about them. From the 6th Avenue Summerfest, the Park Avenue Summerfest, the Murray Hill Festival, the Lexington Avenue Summerfest, New York street festivals have become a formulaic weekend event that offers little other than giving New Yorkers cramped in their studio apartments a reason to go outside and providing unaware out-of-town drivers the unlucky fortune of spending an additional forty-five minutes getting across town. At any festival, you'll find the same ol' bag o' shit- street vendors pushing leather wallets, tube socks, cheap jewelry, t-shirts with inciteful messages like "New York Fuckng City," framed photos of the Brooklyn Bridge, refrigerator magnets in the shape of fruit- and food vendors selling cornbread and mozzarella sandwiches, sausage and peppers heroes, zeppolies, gyros, and lemonade.

So it's ever so refreshing to find a festival that adds a little more. And when I say more, I mean more beer, more greasy unhealthy food, more hordes of people goodness.

You know it's summer in the city when the repugnant scent of hot garbage begins to compete with the magical scent of cooked farm animals smothered in barbecue sauce. As was the case this weekend with the 4th Annual Big Apple Barbecue Festival coming to town.

Beyond the crowded food lines for the ten-plus barbecue pit masters: from Texas to Nevada, from North Carolina to....131st Street, the mood was festive, the beer was flowing, the bands were jammin' and the BBQ was finga lickin' good. Bringing the overweight South to the overweight Northeast, it was a grand ol' time. However, for next year, I would only attend again if they improve the food service line operations, considering that even those poor schmucks who purchased 'express passes' for $125 bucks seemed to have waited just as long as us lay folk. I would have been much more upset with the lines except that my less than sharp server mistakenly gave my friend and I four additional whole pork sandwiches, instead of the two waters we had requested. As I slyly left the line with my free booty, convincing myself that the long wait and the over-priced $7 plate justified my in-action to alert the vendor of his mistake, and feeling like a total fatso with 4 extra meals, I couldn't help but be reminded of Popeye's Wimpy: "I'd gladly pay you never for 4 pork sandwiches today."

Friday, June 09, 2006

“The NBA, I Hate This Game!”

Perhaps hate is too strong a word. I could give a rat's ass about who wins this year’s NBA finals, which begin tonight. Whether it’s the Miami Heat , or the Dallas Mavericks, it makes no difference to me.

However, fake news about sports always can make unlikable sports fun. Case in point, this gem from the Onion today:




Sunday, June 04, 2006

Lord Stanley Awaits


Tomorrow begins the last stretch of the NHL Playoffs, the Stanley Cup Finals. Although the NY Rangers have been out of the picture from what seems like an eternity already, I'm looking forward to embracing the final hockey games of the season, regardless of who's in it. The Carolina Hurricanes could be considered the favorite, if you go purely by who had the better regular season record, but to anyone who's been watching the playoffs, the Edmonton Oilers have been on a tear, surprisingly blowing first past the number one seed Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference in 6 games (I'm still amazed that 'Hockeytown' is still standing and not burned to ashes, looted, and declared a city under martial law after that series ended), followed by a California cleanup, taking out the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Mighty Ducks in quick fashion. It's been 13 years since Anaheim joined the NHL, and I still get douche chills every time I'm forced to call them 'the Mighty Ducks'.

After taking out the Canadiens in the first round, Carolina was thought to have their hands full against the New Jersey Devils, who up to that point were seemingly unstoppable since the last few weeks of the regular season, continuing their 15 game winning streak by sweeping the Rangers in the first round. I was hoping the Devils would go far at that point, just to be able to say that New Jersey were simply too good and the Rangers had no shot anyways, but that all changed when Carolina knocked out Brodeur and company easily in five games. It was only until meeting Buffalo where Carolina's Cup fate was in question. The just barely eked out a series win in the final minutes of the seventh game over the Sabers, a first sign of wear and tear possibly starting to show.

I'll be rooting for Edmonton, since it may be their last shot at the Cup before their team gets relocated to a U.S. city (we'll take the hockey team, you keep the terrorists 'eh?). Hopefully winning Lord Stanley it will prevent that move from happening, but the way the business is going, it may be just a matter of time before we are calling them the Texas Oilers.

As for Carolina, it's hard for me to root for a team that used to have a green whale as their mascot, during those days in Connecticut as the Hartford Whalers. Come on, can you blame me?

Thursday, June 01, 2006

F-R-E-A-K-I-N-G P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E

'Aww Damnnn, what the fuck did you just say dogg? Can you slap that shit in a sentence?'

Welcome to Summer TV, where the top season finales have concluded, and repeats, bottom-of-the-barrel reality shows, and oddball specials enter your living room.

Tonight, ABC hosts live the final round of the 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee , two hours of watching awkward pre-teens crap their pants standing on stage while trying to spell crazy ass words like h-e-i-l-i-g-e-n-s-c-h-e-i-n. I must say, in the company of repeat episodes of That 70's Show, The Office, and watching a make-up caked Leslie Nielsen play Let's Make a Deal on CBS' Gameshow Marathon, the Bee doesn't sound that bad, and it isn't. These kids are nervous, awkward, emotional- themselves. It's actually refreshing to see such pure drama, no nutty obstacle courses, no eating crazy contests, no voting people off, just kid versus word.

I'm reminded of my adolescedent days, where I actually thought for a while that getting far in the school spelling bee was gonna actually help me get to 2nd base with the chicks (get to 3rd base at my Catholic elementary school and you might as well have a marble statue built in your name). Boy was I wrong. It seems like epochs ago, where PCs weren't ubiquitous, but rather were a novelty, in the form of a Commodore 64. Spell check was just in it's infancy stage, and the Internet was non-existent. I'm glad these youngbloods are keeping the art of vocabulary and spelling alive. In an age where computers do most of the heavy lifting for the brain, there's something to be said about picking up a dictionary and reading it, learning it, and applying it, old-school style.