doodledee

Last week I spent a few days in Kansas City on business and tonight while I was cleaning out my pants pockets for the laundry I found some notes I had taken. Better late than later.

• I stayed in this part of town called 'The Country Club Plaza', which the locals proudly refer to as "the perennial end-all, be-all of the Kansas City shopping scene" and that I like to refer to as "what would happen if the Mall of America puked on a bunch of faux warehouse looking brick buildings". Gross. As a bonus, there was a huge Wal-Mart manager meeting at the convention center so the whole area was crawling with dorks. At least I was able to find [what appears to be] a small, independent coffee shop to recharge in.
• There's a debate raging in Missouri about a proposal to levy a heavy handed sin tax on businesses that cater to the adult industry. The proposal would mandate a $5 entrance fee for every person entering a store/club/etc, and a 20% tax on all revenue generated by the business. Suddenly Minnesota's smoking ban doesn't feel as capricious as I thought it was.
• PBS in Kansas City is brutal. I was working late in my hotel room one night and I thought I'd take a break and catch a Nova or something. Guess again. It's like frickin' CSPAN only instead of some wacko US senator yelling at Condi Rice it's the Missouri legislature standing around talking politely about how they all thought Kansas City was in Kansas. Who watches that stuff? Hint: not me.
• A bunch of us went to "the bad part of town" in pursuit of the end-all, be-all of the Kansas City BBQ scene, a place called LC's. It was ridiculously good. Good as in I ate so much I broke out into a bad case of the meat sweats and I had to sit very still for a while. Sliced pork, sliced beef, and some of the best fries I've ever had. I am *so* going back to that place.
• In the battle of uberfancy hotel beds, I've concluded that the Westin's 'heavenly bed' kicks all over the Sheraton's 'sweet sleeper bed'.

I also saw a car fire, which I thought was kinda neat.

That's it for that then.

What the hell is this? I come back from a leisurely business trip to find that one of my faithful readers thought it would be funny to submit 1000+ poker related comments to my site? (All in under 3 minutes, no less.) Is that supposed to be funny? Well I don't get it.

Ha. Just kidding. I know that I don't have any actual readers. It was probably just some dude who wanted to play poker with me because he knows I'm what professional card players call "a dumbass who loses a lot" and he thought it'd be funny to take all my money. (+1 for the rhyme)

So anyway I guess now I have to figure out how to stop all this crap from happening. For now I just shut ‘er all down. Sorry Adi.

Totes stupes.

Six Apart Guide to Comment Spam [sixapart] - methinks it might be time for an upgrade

Winter finally unloaded on the Twin Cities last Friday evening, dumping what was officially declared to be 6 to 8 inches of light fluffy powpow across the metro area. My driveway had more than that, but seeing as I've long since been declared 'unofficial', I'll just cave and go with what the snow measuring wizards at the airport came up with. Stupid wizards, they think they're so great.

It took us a while to dig out the next morning, mostly because the whole neighborhood was outside shoveling and looking pale and, naturally, we all had to check in with each other and stand around in the sun pretending that we're in good enough shape to move the 4-foot high wall of snow that the plow left at the end of our driveways. Oh, and there was also a parade of kids and dogs going by, and seriously, who doesn't like a parade?

It wasn't all funshine, though. Late Friday evening we were eating dinner and I looked out the window and noticed our neighbor lady was snow-blowing her snow into our driveway. I gave her the benefit of the doubt the first time I saw it happen - big gust of wind, maybe? - but then she did it again and I had to slip on the clogs and go out and "talk" with her. Who needs a confrontation on a snowy Friday night? Not me, that's for sure. But whatever, she stopped and I didn't have to shovel twice as much snow the next day, so I guess that makes it worth the awkwardness.

I think the two cardinal rules of snow removal should be a) don't shovel when it's still snowing and b) don't snow-blow your damn snow into my driveway. Of course there are exceptions to the first rule - sometimes you just wanna go out and shovel because it's the first snowfall of the year and you just wanna be outside - but the second is gospel. Seriously, look it up. Jesus used to blog about snow removal all the time, so I'm sure it made the book.

The food court at the City Center closed down on January 1st. It fell victim to a "new strategic direction" dictated by the owners of the property, who apparently assume that it's better to flush $15MM down the remodeling toilet than it is to maintain a Taco Bell within walking distance of Dave's desk. Doofs. They've clearly never had a caramel apple empanada off the 99-cent value menu. De-lish.

(To be clear, I hated the CC food court. A small piece of me died every time we ate there. (I think it ended up in the tacos the next day.) The advantage it had was that it was easy to find seating for a group of 8-10, which is how big our lunch crowd usually is. So shut it with the food snobbery.)

Without the food court to fall back on, the great lunchless unwashed masses have been left to roam the skyways in search of someplace new to eat. If you're willing to forego convenient seating for large groups there are plenty of good options, but if you've got a crowd you can basically forget it. Just stay at the office and play xbox work or something.

Some good places that I've always liked and am now going to more often:

• L. Phillips - Impossible to google, but good burgers. The fries are average at best and the place reeks like a grease bomb went off, but it's still worth the hike if you're looking to eat a cheeseburger with a bunch of bankers in ties.
• Andrea Pizza - It's kinda like the soup nazi, only for pizza. I actually get nervous when I get to the front of the line. But not a bad slice and the prices aren't bad.
• Brother's Deli - Lordy, lordy, if I could only eat giant pastrami sandwiches every day all would be right with the world. And if I had to do that in the Twin Cities, it'd be a Brother's, baby. All you can eat pickles and cole slaw? Woo hoo.
• Canton Village - Chinese in a styrofoam tub. Cheap. Super cheap after 1:00. Singapore noodles. Bring it.

Some places that kinda suck but are still an ok option I guess:

• D'Brians - I go for the salad bar. It's not a very good one. It's sold by weight, like most salad bars are. Their trick is that they wash their lettuce and - OOPS - totally forget to dry it. So you get a soaking wet salad that costs 40% more than it should. But the croutons are stupid good. And *they* weigh next to nothing. So there.
• Potbelly - Yeah, I know it's a chain, that's why I put it in the sucks list. But their hot, toasty subs aren't all that bad and they're reasonably cheap and it's not like a global monopoly or anything. Too bad the sandwiches are sized so that one isn't enough and two is way too many. Boo on bad buns, but otherwise, booya.
• Marshal Field's Marketplace - Dirt cheap cafeteria sushi. Bingo.

I also want to give a shout-out to Kokapelli's weekly tribute to Thanksgiving, the 10-pound container of 'Turk-n-stuff'. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's big and makes me sleepy, and that's good enough for me.

I'll miss you, empanada.

City Center Food Court Shuts Down [skywaynews]

I called Time Warner the other day and had it out with one of their customer service reps over my insanely expensive new cable bill. I didn't play the angry card or anything, I went with the dumb guy who didn't know his rates were gonna go up and now is thinking about dumping cable.

I think the dude I was talking to was in a Canadian call center. (He was polite and he said 'out' in that Canadian 'oot' way.) After 20 seconds of explaining my issue he just said they'd knock $11.95/mo off my bill no questions asked. I said that was nice of them and I hung up the phone.

I'm still not sure I'm keeping it - is $60 really all that better than $72? - but I was reassured to see that the Theory of Universal Negotiable-ness-ity is still going strong.

i'll miss you fake tivo [doodledee]

I got a telemarketer call the other night asking me to re-subscribe to a magazine I used to subscribe to. The particular magazine isn't important, and I say that because it was Rolling Stone and nothing Rolling Stone has done in the last 3 years has been important unless you define important as "dropping all the good stories and dumbing down the content and replacing it with People-esque one-pagers and a bunch of girlie pics in an sad, sad attempt to become yet-another-Maxim".

Anyway, when I answered the phone the dude on the other end gave me the standard "Is, uhh, Mister Setch-kai available?" and I said "yeah, that's me" and before he launched into his spiel he says "It's cold and rainy down here in Tennessee, Mr. Setchkai, how are things up there in Ee-din-a?"

I thought that was awesome. The offshore callcenter has gotten such a bad name that telemarketers are now going out of their way to reassure you that they're right here in the good 'ol USofA. They might be in prison or something, but hey, I guess that's better than India for a lot of people.

Then I told him it was cold here and that I wasn't interested in his stupes mag and that was pretty much the end of the conversation.

• Head over to the frozen flats of Medicine Lake to see art and ice fishing collide in an only-in-Minnesota winter extravaganza known as The Shanty Project. I'm not exactly sure what it's all about, but it's gotta be worth checking out. "Roll down all car windows, head west" - great stuff. [Jan15-Feb19]
• Brian Williams is bringing the NBC crew here to study how Minnesota's identity is changing. He's taping the show over at the Fitzgerald Theatre and will be interviewing - brace yourself - Garrison Keillor. They're not selling tickets (there's no audience) but if you've got some free time, I think it'd rule to make up a shirt that says "Ordinary Minnesotan" and go stand on the sidewalk in front of the place. Maybe they'd get the message. Doofs. [Jan12]
• Get down with some pick-up hockey. Or maybe just some shuffling around on old figure skates that make your feet hurt. The forecast calls for 96 straight hours of below zero weather, the ice is gonna be mint. Find Minneapolis area rinks, beat the Winter Carnival rush at the Landmark Center rink in St. Paul, or just walk down to your neighborhood sheet. [thru spring]
• It's the last weekend for the Holiday Flower show over at the Conservatory in Como Park. Go for the flowers, stay for the humidity. [thru Jan15]
• Go Vikes.

Today Libby packed-up what's his name and headed down to Rochester for the afternoon/night/morning. This means that I get the house all to myself which, in turn, means I get to a) turn down the thermostat and b) turn up the music. Before anyone freaks out, please remember that doing so is actually my legal obligation, as I believe those two actions are mandated by the Husband's Manifesto of 1931. Seriously, look it up.

Other things I do:

• clean randomly
• eat toast for dinner
• watch basketball

Things I probably should be doing:

• working
• cleaning less randomly
• chipping that stupid ice off my driveway

Sometime around the first of the year Time Warner raised cable rates for their customers in the metro area and it makes no sense to me. I would assume that if you keep growing your customer base, eventually economies of scale would dictate that prices would go down. It's not like they have to hire another dude in a cable van every time they add a new customer or something. They come to your house, they hook up some wires, and then they send you bills until you die. Simple enough, right? Shows what I know.

I had seen the notice in my last bill that the rate increase was coming and I thought it was lame so I called their customer service line and kinda yelled at them for a few minutes. Their response was basically "bite me", which is pretty much what I expected. They must have known I have a giant tree in my backyard that prevents me from putting up a satellite dish, thereby forcing me to sign-on with either Time Warner or one of the other cable providers in my area OH WAIT THEY'RE THE ONLY ONE. Funny how that works.

So last week we get our first bill under the new rate plan. It's over seventy effing dollars. OUCH. Sure, sure, we have the fake tivo thing and 200 channels we don't watch and 500 music channels we don't listen to - all required in order to get the fake tivo box - but seriously, it's JUST TELEVISION. How can any of that be worth $72.83 or whatever it was?

Short answer: it's not. Long answer: it's not.

I'm going to call again tomorrow and 're-discuss' what my options are as far as keeping the fake tivo thing (which I love) and bringing my rates down to a tolerable level. (Reminder: everything is negotiable.) My hunch is that the Bite Me Administration will still be in power, however, and I'll have to stick it to The Man and cancel my service. Well, not totally cancel it, but at least roll it back to the $12/mo 'lifeline' plan that we normally downgrade to in the summer. (Full disclosure: now that the Wolves are on Ch 45 all the time, it's not really that big of a sacrifice.)

Stay tuned for updates.

From an article that loosely details the down-then-maybe-not-so-bad-after-all holiday season that Wal-Mart just had:

Among [the items to be marked-down] was a five-foot-tall Nutcracker, which Wal-Mart's buyers had guessed would be a big hit at $96. It wasn't. "We knew when the doors opened it wasn't selling," [some bigshot] said. "Seeing it would be a liability, we marked it down to $75."

The nutcrackers still did not move, and what is a store to do with a five-foot nutcracker when the season is over? Mark them down again. "In some stores, they got down to $25," [the same bigshot] said.

Ha. Some doof in purchasing at Wal-Mart decided that a 5-foot tall Nutcracker was The Next Must Have Holiday Decoration. That is classic. Leaving aside the fact that you'd have to wake up every day and stare down some crazy-eyed wooden solder in your living room, where are you supposed to store something like that in the offseason? Totes stupes.

You have to wonder if they focus group any of that stuff or if it's all just based on the buyer's gut feel for what's gonna sell. You also have to wonder if the buyer is still employed or if that's a one-strike-and-you're-out type of blunder.

Before Christmas, Wal-Mart Was Stirring [nyt]
5 foot tall Nutcracker - $250 [horchow] - Striped pants make them look even taller

I played some pool on New Years Eve and I didn't sink a single ball. Remember when I used to be sort of ok at pool? Not good, per se, but at least I could make a game of it. It's funny how quickly that skill vanished. It doesn't bother me or anything, it just caught be by surprise.

Oh, and remember when it used to snow at night and you could go out the next morning to shovel and not find a giant frozen slab of snowcrete welded to your sidewalk? I do.

Those were the days.