Hi, everybody.com
I just read an article in our local paper describing the backlash against dot-com internet companies. It was bound to happen, considering the absurd number of startup companies all competing for advertising space on your TV. The local paper gave examples of pets.com, petsmart.com, and petopia.com. My response has been - oh please, do you really think I'm going to order cat food over the internet? Maybe I'm in the minority, but I see shopping over the internet as just a glorified way of ordering something over the phone or through a catalog. Nothing new here, and I seriously doubt that any "revolution" will take place in the way people buy stuff. Plus, I hear that sales of MP3 players are way below expectations, so the audio world may be safe for a little while longer. Oh well - glad I'm not betting the farm on internet stuff.
How about ItsyBitsyTeenyWeenyYellowPolka.com?
Things have been pretty upbeat in GerberLand for the last few weeks. We had a pretty respectable Halloween party, despite the fact that nearly none of my lame co-workers showed up. It was grownups only, so only the cool people showed. Margaret glued some beef jerky to a transparent plastic mask, and went as a facial peel gone sadly wrong. I wore my leisure suit (thanks, Larry), and I looked fi-i-i-ine. We had another couple show up as Spy Vs. Spy, with one in black and the other in white, and three ladies show up as Charlie's Angels, complete with little plastic guns and handcuffs. Way cool.
Margaret and I finally got the chance to visit Grandma in Fort Lauderdale, so we spent three days in Florida at the beginning of November. I hadn't been down there in something like 14 years, and found it a little disconcerting that parts of it looked exactly the same, while other parts had been built up to the point of being unrecognizable. Overall, a wonderful three days with Grandma. We rented a car and drove all over town, including the art deco beaches in Miami, and a trip into the Everglades. (Well, not INTO the Everglades, or we would have sunk to the bottom.) While we were driving on one of the side roads in the heart of the Everglades, we passed a pig that was happily wandering around on the road. There was a pickup truck stopped about 100 feet past the pig, and apparently, the pig had escaped from the truck. Very entertaining, and not something I'd see every day. In case you're wondering, parts of downtown Miami look just like Nogales, the border town near Tucson, only built up a little more.
In the music world, the Crap From The Past empire seems to be expanding. The deal with KOWZ fell through (no moo), which was fine because it would have been quite a bit of non-gratifying work for no pay. I found a new station in town, and they're a tiny little AM station that's geared toward the southwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities. Boy, that's specific! But it's got a great local feel to it, and it doesn't have the typical stench of being part of a corporate entertainment giant. If all goes as planned, I'll be starting up a second show on this little station, which will air Saturdays 11-1 in the afternoon. Nice time slot! I wasn't allowed to run Crap From The Past on two stations in town, so I'll be calling the new show "The Pop Machine", complete with soda can sound effects. (I know it wouldn't work in New York City, where soda is called "soda", not "pop".) And now, both of my stations are streaming live in RealAudio, so if you've got nothing better to do, you can check out my far-reaching Crap Empire:
Crap From The Past, Sunday nights at midnight, kfai.org
The Pop Machine, Saturday afternoons at 11, ksmm.org (starting soon; it's a fun little station even without me, and it's worth tuning in just for their regular programming)
In other music news, the '80s pop band ABC came to town. (The Look Of Love, Poison Arrow, Be Near Me, How To Be A Millionaire, When Smokey Sings...) They played First Avenue, which is a very cool Minneapolis club (it's where they filmed the concert scenes in Purple Rain). Actually, the band is down to Martin Fry and some really tight backup musicians. They were surprisingly good, considering that one wouldn't expect much from a synth-based dance band. Martin's pipes sounded great after all these years, and he's as well-dressed as ever. He played most of the show in a turquoise suit, then switched to a sparkly mirror suit for the encores. I grabbed one of the set lists, and got my "Look Of Love" 45 from Spain autographed. Yippy-a-yay, indeed. Their last Minneapolis show was 17 years ago in '82, and I hope they come back before 2016.
Criswell predicts...
Cars initially all had rear-wheel drive, then over the course of evolution, they all migrated to front-wheel drive. Well, up until now cars have all had front-wheel-steering. I predict that cars will soon evolve to rear-wheel steering, so that drivers can get that uncomfortable little-red-wagon-about-to-overturn feeling all the time.
Margaret and I perpetually joke about how engineers dress. She always gets a kick out of seeing that little white triangle, where the button-down shirt shows off the white crew-neck T-shirt underneath. I call it the "Triangle Of Power". (I'm proud to say that I don't own any white crew-neck T-shirts. I'd go the whole winter in short sleeves, like I used to do in school, if it didn't get so @#$%^&* cold!)
Work has been going well. I got a new job at the beginning of October, and it's in a different building than my old job. The new building is 1.5 miles from my house, so I've been walking to work! It's about 20-25 minutes each way, and I love it. I got myself a good pair of respectable-looking walking shoes, and I've put about 100 miles on them. (Just an estimate; there's no odometer.) Unfortunately, I may have to curtail my walking once it snows, but we haven't had any of the white stuff yet. Actually, we had two days of record highs last week, including one day where it hit 77 degrees. In November! In Minneapolis! Woo-hoo! It won't last; I may get a snowblower this year.
We saw a boatload of good movies lately, all of which we can wholeheartedly recommend: Three Kings, American Beauty, Run Lola Run, The Iron Giant, and Princess [Japanese name here; I forgot what the real title is]. The new James Bond film looks just like "Blow'd Up", the movie parody from one of those dot-com ads. We won't be rushing out to see it.
We just had our trees trimmed, but there's not a whole lot to report about that. I guess you wouldn't want to hear about replacing the doorknob on our garage, either.
Our Christmas holidays are in Yuma again (Colorado - three hours east of Denver, near the borders of Kansas and Nebreska). Oy vey! At least it's only a week. We'll be back here before the new year, so we can watch all the planes fall out of the sky at midnight...
So have a happy collective Thanksgiving, and stay warm.
Ron.crap and Margaret.com
