doodledee

I know the race isn't over, but it's in its closing days and that means it's time for my post race commentary.

• For the record I called race over as soon as Lance passed Ullrich during the prologue. Also, for the record, I was nervous about my pick after Disco blew up and left Lance alone on the sissy climb into Gerardmer at the end of the 8th stage. Colin would say that was all just posturing and faking and that they weren't really that tired, but I believed it then and I believe it now.
• I still think it was stupid that nobody from CSC waited to ride in with the yellow jersey wearing David Zabriskie after he fell in the final kilo of the team time trail. On his blog he claims that before the race the team had agreed they would wait if it was Basso who fell.

• Watching Vino and T-Mobile have a mid-race meltdown has been great. The dude is fearless - in a 'maybe this time I'll succeed in running through a brick wall' kind of way - and he didn't get much, if any, support from his teammates. I wonder how you say "too many chiefs" in Kazakhstani.
• It's hard to pick a favorite moment, but one of the best has to have been the Lance/Popovich exchange on the last climb of stage 10. After setting a blistering pace for the whole day, the 'elite' group at the front was starting to show a little weakness. Lance looked at Poppy, his last remaining teammate, and told him to crank it up. Poppy looked at him and said "when?" and Lance said "now" and the subsequent burst of acceleration basically decimated the field, braking the minds and bodies of the other contenders. Neat.
• The lack of an internet audio feed from OLN caused me to search out other options and I settled on the guys at Eurosport. Not to take anything away from Phil and Paul, but the Eurosport guys are awesome. Jumping up and down in the booth, screaming like maniacs, and oh, yeah, and they also know a hell of a lot about cycling. I found myself wishing they did the TV coverage, too.

The final individual time trial is tomorrow morning. They're showing it live on the bigscreen down at The Riverview Theater so head down there if that type of thing interests you. If I knew for sure that there'd be a ton of people there I'd totally go, but I kinda feel like I'd be the only one in the theater and then it'd just be kinda sad.

We've been talking about getting a dog for years. We've read the books, we've interviewed dog owners, we've consulted with 'experts', and we've reminisced about how awesome the dogs we grew-up with were (her case) and/or how much we've always wanted one (my case). But at the end of the day, for lots of different reasons, it's never the right time. And I'm totally at peace with that. Because I'm also totally sure the issue will come up again and when it does, well, maybe we'll end up getting a dog and maybe we won't. That's the price you pay for having unpredictable cyclical canine consideration syndrome. And we've got it bad.

There's an article in this month's Money magazine about 'designer dogs'. I didn't read it, but I did look at the pictures and that was easily enough to convince me that the next time we have the dog debate there will be a couple of new entries in the 'possibilities' column: the goldendoodle and the labradoodle. For obvious and purely frivolous reasons, of course.

Designer Dogs [money]

It's been a musical weekend 'round these parts. On Friday night, I met the family down at Peavey Plaza for the annual '24 Hours of Music' festival that celebrates the start of Minnesota Orchestra's Sommerfest. I think this was the 5th year they've done it and logistically it was near flawless. Unfortunately I didn't like (or maybe didn't appreciate?) the line-up as much as in years past, but Spaghetti Western String Company were playing a 5pm set in Orchestra Hall and there was no effing way I was gonna miss that. It turned out even better than I had hoped. Witness: they previewed a bunch of awesome new songs from their upcoming EP, the air conditioning in the hall was set to about 66 degrees, and my kid actually sat quietly and watched for most of the show. Seriously, just try and paint a better picture than that. Uh huh, that's what I thought, you got nothin'.

Then Saturday we got up and headed back down for the morning program, which was billed as "family friendly". We got there in time see the last bit of the Twin Cities Bronze handbell choir which turned out to be an *enormous* hit. I think 'transfixed' would be the best word I could use to describe it. After the bells, a couple of ladies from the MacPhail Center got up and played some children's songs and the kids all danced and it was fun but it was also pretty hot which made it somewhat less fun for dads who are out of shape and prone to sweating. At least the nice ladies in the Marshal Fields t-shirts were passing out free water.

Now it's Sunday and I'm home alone and I'm finally taking the time to listen to the 5.1 mix of the new Ben Folds disc at skull-crushing volume. It's the first time I've ever listened to a full album in 5.1 and it's a little weird. I guess if they want to take the time to mix it in surround I'll go ahead and listen, but it's probably not something I'd return to every day. It's also disappointingly predictable: backing vocals? Rear channel. Splash cymbals? Rear channel. Lead vocals? Center channel. Duh. All those possibilities and they take the obvious way out. So lame. Or maybe I was just expecting too much, who knows.

I had some stucco repair work done by Foley Stucco this spring. (Foley Stucco is a stucco company in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.) They were nice at first: friendly and accommodating and they returned my calls and showed-up when they said they would. When I signed on the bottom line they came out and did the work and it looked good and they were clean and everything seemed great.

Then a couple of weeks went by and I noticed some cracks in my brand new stucco. WTF? New stucco shouldn't crack, should it? So I called up Foley Stucco. And - surprise - the dude at Foley Stucco didn't call me back. So I called again. And this time the Foley Stucco dude did call me back. And - surprise - the nice accommodating dude had been replaced by an irrational jerk. And he yelled and screamed for a while about how I was out of line for questioning their work and that I didn't understand stucco and blah blah blah I sorta tuned out the rage. Eventually he calmed down and told me he'd call the guy who actually did the work and get back to me. And a day or so later the worker dude called me and - doing his best jerk immitation - explained to me that I'm the idiot because I didn't know that the new stucco was going to crack even though all he ever said during the sales process was "it'll look beautiful" and not "it'll look pretty good, but it'll have a couple of big cracks in it". In his defense, he probably forgot that part. Whoops. He also said a bunch of other "it's your fault, not mine" type of stuff. I love that crap, but it's not worth typing out.

After a few minutes the worker jerk agreed to come over and have a look. And lo and behold a couple of weeks later he did, though he didn't call first and when he got here he left his engine running. Because I wasn't home at the time, he explained to my wife that the cracks were nothing to worry about because they were small and small cracks are totally expected during this type of work, and, oh yeah, your husband must be an idiot for not knowing how stucco works.

So I left it at that. For all I know the cracks are normal. I don't really think they are, but I've decided it's not enough to stress over for now. Plus, I figure by writing this blurb about Foley Stucco somebody might read it and maybe it'll help them make an informed decision about going with Foley Stucco or not. (Behold the power of the interweb.) If that's you, let me be clear that I'm not saying you'll have the same experience I did, but I'm not saying you won't, either. (I will say that the whole "shouting abusive jerk" act seemed to come come pretty easily, though.) Take my comments for what they're worth. You're welcome.

So this new Aldi store opened at like 64th and Penn a while ago. If you don't know what Aldi is, it's a basically a grocery store full of ‘house brand' products sold at freakishly low everyday prices. And by "freakishly low" I mean "way lower than you'd think they could go and still make a profit even though you know nothing about how the grocery business really works". And that's low.

In reality it's not just the prices that are freakish: the store itself has a reputation for being a little... uhh... different. To wit: they make you deposit a quarter into a cart before using it, they charge for bags, and the only acceptable forms of payment are cash or prepaid debit cards. The lighting is bad, nobody smiles, and when you check out the lady just dumps all your stuff back into your cart and you have to wheel it over to a "bagging station" to pack it up. The whole scene is about as anti-Lund's as you can get. I'm sure some people will pretend that's a great selling point, but I'm not trying to impress anybody so I'll just leave it for what it is. (Full disclosure: I like Lund's.)

I'd read about the store and seen the ads in the paper and it had long since concluded that the place was a joke. (A quarter to use a cart? For real?) But then I downed a few beers with neighbor.food.importer.exporter the other night and he told me the real deal. Turns out it's not a joke, it's just a carefully constructed and managed business model. I know, I know, big whoop, some dude is getting rich by selling canned beans for 33-cents, but stick with me. See, according to neighbory.guy, each product Aldi sells is put through a redonkulously demanding approval process to ensure it's at least as good as the national best seller. What's more, many of the products Aldi sells are actually made by the same people who make the best seller in the first place, they're just labeled with the Aldi house brand. What's more again, many of the products in Aldi's ‘Grandessa' gourmet line are as good or better than the ‘premium' brand name products sold in the non-freakish grocery stores. And get this: Aldi is owned by the same company that owns Trader Joe's, the fancy ass grocery that people literally beg to open in their hometown. Who knew?

So last weekend I drove my newly opened mind down to check it out. And lo and behold it wasn't that bad. It's a small store, and most of what they sell is canned or prepackaged stuff (which we don't really eat), but the stuff they had that we do use (frozen veggies, tomato sauce, etc) all looked great. (Note: all the produce looked awful.) And yes it was all freakishly cheap. And yes I'll be going back, but no, it's not going to be a weekly trip or anything.

I'll also point out that in addition to food, Aldi has the standard "who buys this crap?" section full of cheapo boomboxes, fake tupperware, knock-down shelving, and other miscellaneous household items. I was smirking as I walked by until I noticed they had those swimming noodle things for 99-cents. Jackpot. So now I guess I know who buys the swim noodles (me), but I still don't know who buys the rest of that junk. It's gotta be a tax dodge or something.

Aldi [aldifoods]

Ok, I guess the shutdown is going a little longer than I thought it would. And by 'longer than I thought it would' I mean 'longer than I was thinking I'd have to leave my stupid 'essential content only' page online'. So down it comes. And normalcy returns. And it was good.

But wait. Before I leave the shutdown behind, a few final notes:

1. What would happen if a state government shut down and nobody noticed? Well look around, because that's pretty much what's happening. The shutdown resulted in 9000 state workers being temporarily laid off and the impact to the average Minnesotan has basically been el zippo. Sure, the highway rest stops are closed, the freeway traffic info signs are blank, and you can't get a new driver's license, but as someone who spent the holiday weekend actually *trying* to be inconvenienced, I gotta admit that I didn't really notice the difference. Conclusion: the cynical jerk in me is pretty sure I'm not the only one out there scratching my head and wondering what those 9000 people do all day.
2. My hands-down favorite shutdown moment so far: Steve Sviggum's 2nd grade playground tantrum during last Friday's Midmorning show on MPR. (It's near the beginning of the show, so don't be afraid to listen.) Nutshell version: Kerri Miller asks some awesomely hard hitting questions and Sviggum goes all nutty and starts in with the "well if you're so smart, what's your solution?" comebacks. Profoundly juvenile. Profoundly funny. Profoundly indicative of how this whole thing has gone. Who votes for doofs like that guy?
3. Second favorite shutdown moment: the media coverage of the rubes peering in the darkened windows of the DMV wondering why they're closed. I'm still laughing about it. In fact, who am I kidding, those clueless rubes are way better than a Sviggum tantrum. They get my top spot. Kudos to you, rubes.

I am now probably done with shutdown talk. Nostradoodle predicts that a "lights on" funding bill will pass before the 15th and that, with the pressure removed, no real budget bill will pass until after the next election.

And now back to our regularly scheduled nonsense.