 |
The Hoppy Couple
Yet again, we made a field trip to Lincoln last night. We didn't have our usual
PTAC with us, though, so we started at FireWorks. Dinner was rather good and
the beer was fine, except for the lack of their Oatmeal Stout (pout, pout.) We
made our way up the street to Old Chicago too. Our favorite beer-tender got a
$75 prize if she sold all of the Murphy's Irish Stout they had left. Stout in
can? Bad Idea. But I took one for the team. That's the kind of guy and I am. We
didn't really have any new beers to speak of, either.
We made the shopping Lincoln Shopping Route today too: Best Buy (I want some
headphones that would cover my ears), Barnes and Noble and then the Mall. Its
sad that Lincoln's main B&N has let there computer book section go so far
downhill. Virtually nothing new or different to speak of, certainly nothing
interesting. A lot of VB6 and ASP books. That just has to stop.
|
The Mall made my blood curdle. I want to find a
little going-away gift for Kelsey (which I did) but along the way, I walked by
bay after bay after bay of nothing but crap beyond crap beyond crap. Even the
Waldenbooks -- one of the first places that nurtured my biblofetish -- was now
essentially devoid of anything other than self-help, yoga and series Romance
novels. The only -- and I mean only -- bright spot was stopping to get a
Carmelled Granny-smith Apple. I sat on the bench just outside of a play area
for the kids who are too young to get their parents to buy them things. A
mother, not unlike my mother, sat her tweener down on the bench and told him
stay there until she got down shopping at Yonkers.
Flash back 25 years and I was that kid. We didn't have a play area, though, but
one of the stores on the grounds of the Mall had a room with this kind of
whacky solid thing that you could crawl in and under and through like as if you
were a worm. That was my bench. I felt like trying to talk to the kid, but in
this day and age thats just a bad idea. Shame too. I could tell he's in sore
need of clue. Glasses, tan shorts and black socks. You need the idea. A nerd
sproutling. He had an FYI bag and was keeping his hands busy stroking some
poster in a tube. Probably either Harry Potter or Hobbits, I guessed. When Mom
was clearly out of sight, he carefully dug into the bag. He was neverous --
checking out all around like he was expecting the parent patrol to bust him at
any moment. Slowly, painfully slowly, he pulled a copy of SPIN. He flipped past
the adds and immediately set about reading what looked to a featured-sized
piece. Mom would probably flip if she knew what subversion goes on between the
covers of that, I thought to myself. Way to go, Kid. Maybe you'll be
okay afterall. Hope I met that Kid again, though, in a decade or so.
I'm letting some ideas ferment: I really like how DotNetBookClub went from
spark to furnance thanks to the fireball that is Jeff Julian. I'm certainly
going to join in. But I've got three other "useless applications for blogs" in
mind.
-
52 Pickups:
People who want to write about 1,000 to 1,500 word submissions about what they
did on Saturday night. The program would run for a year (52, duh, weeks).
Reality TV sucks, reality liturature might not. Might be good material for a
book. Or not.
-
Abductions:
Its early Tuesday morning and you hear a knocking at your front door. You
answer and find a Government agent. Aliens have arrived and you've been
selected as an "ambassador." Start a channel on your blog telling your story.
But please, wait for more details on this.
-
Caption this: I'll post a picture, you write the caption.
By the way, I'm not saying this as any kind of scientific fact or nothing, but
KC Lemson seems to have linking power. She pointed out my
take out on the ITMG and I had the most 0-day and 1-day traffic on a
weekend issue ever.
|