Good Technology, Good Sense of Humor

Saddam Jeeves
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

It was probably a year-and-a-half ago when I arrived at our New York City office on a business trip. It was the same day of the now-famous toppling of the Hussein statue in Baghdad and upon arriving in the office, I found that someone had taken an old Ask Jeeves bobblehead doll and "re-created" the scene. It was simply too funny not to take a picture, so I snapped one (click it for a larger view).

This picture became even more relevant this week when it was announced at an investor conference that the butler is, uh, leaving the building. Pushing up daisies. Making infinite telephone calls from the horizontal phone booth. Taking a long walk off a short pier. Getting himself a new pair of cement shoes. You get the point. The new name, according to the story, will most likely be just Ask or Ask.com. Cool.

My favorite quote of the story comes from Barry Diller, who runs Interactive Corp, the company that bought us this year:

“Not that I don’t like that fat butler,” Diller said, according to a transcript provided by Thomson Financial.

Then, "the company" issued this:

"“This research shows use of the character as the prominent symbol of the brand may inhibit people from recognizing that our search engine has changed,” the company said in a statement."

Good stuff. I look forward to seeing how our company evolves here in the near future. To me, it's less about butlers and mascots and more about how we can compete. I'm excited to see where we go now that we have more, uh, capital.

One idea I'll be submitting to the senior brass soon, though: no reason why we shouldn't just have David Ortiz as our mascot, right? I mean, they're naming a plane after him, why not a search engine? I certainly have found everything I am looking for lately through David Ortiz. Go Red Sox!


By the way, major props to Google for this. Let's hope other large companies rip a page out of that book sooner than later.

 

Awesome!

chewy
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

What an honor it was to have Robin Williams throw out the first pitch at Fenway park last night!

 

Monday's night's episode of Arrested Development may have contained one of the funniest moments in television I've ever seen. Words can do it no justice, but I'm compelled to try.


At one point in the show, Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is talking with his sister, mother and father when, out of nowhere, his father begins making fun of him for always being scared to ask women out. The father proceeds to begin clucking and motioning like a chicken and his mother and sister (Portia De Rossi) join right in.

It wasn't long before Michael's brother Gob (pronounced "Jobe," by the way) walks in the room and shouts "Oh! I have the perfect thing!" and he runs off somewhere. The chicken gyrating comes to an abrupt end and after everything has calmed down a little, Job runs out, now the only one chickening:


Like I said, words probably don't do it justice. But I haven't laughed that hard at a TV show in my life, I believe. Steph and I had to rewind and re-watch it no less than ten times and I have designated it a spot in my Tivo Hall of Fame, right there with the Clash concert and the Red Sox World Series Films - all shows I am now incapable of deleting.

 

Lost In The Foothills Of My Mind

It's taken some time, but I finally got around to posting some of my pictures toFlickr and the whole thing is just superb. For those of you uninitiated, Flickr is a photo service which enables you to post your photos online and organize them any way you please. You can probably post your photos on any old site, but the organization capabilities with this product are just killer. They operated as a stand along company for like 42 seconds before Yahoo came along and saw what an amazing job they'd done and quickly acquired them and have largely left the service alone, knowing a good thing when they see it.

What really gets me giddy, however, is the ability for me to tag and title my photos and share them with friends, family and the general internet. For example, the current slideshow viewer I've been using in the past (skillfully built by my friend Dan), is an excellent vehicle for easily posting a series of photos. What it lacked, though, was the ability for me to comment on certain pictures, which can be a big factor. Certainly some photos speak for themselves, but others may have a small anecdote that is just required for the viewer to understand the context. Flickr allows that. Not only that, but Flickr offers you the ability to search for any photo that has been posted to the site by anyone. So if you want to see a bunch of pictures of panda bears, just type it in and you got it, submitted by people just like you and me. Great stuff.

Oh - one more thing. This isn't to say that Dan couldn't have done some tweaking to make me able to comment on my photos in the slideshow template he designed - I'm pretty sure he could have done it in his sleep, in fact, but he's building real websites! Not Rustedrobot.....heh.

Anyway, check it out. That graphic on the left there is a small sampling. So here's my Flickr page, which is organized and tagged and commented and everything. It's in its infancy stages right now, but I'll be eventually be adding tons and tons more soon.

The next generation web applications continue to blow my mind......there's so much great stuff out there and the degree of innovation is really spectacular. Bloglines, for instance. I simply cannot live without Bloglines, which every internet user in the world should be using. Simply put, why go from website to website to website to website when you can have all those websites content collected in this single web-based application and updated for you each time those sites get updated? No brainer.

 

Don't You See? I Hit You Because I Love You

A recent story in the New York Times reveals that Time-Warner all of a sudden has the warm-and-fuzzies again for AOL (login required to see story). For those of us who have been circulating in this business long enough, we all remember - and now shake our heads in incredulousness - at the fact that AOL actually bought Time-Warner back in the heady days of sock puppets and orange bicyclists.

At the time, I probably had the same opinion as many - that this was the first step into the next world and that would be my generations world, mind you, right there on the internet. Other than pixel sizes and pets being allowed at work, it was no different than the huge swath of disenfranchised kids of the late 1960's who just knew they could change the world. They just knew it.

Much like those kids, things turned out much differently. AOL, in essence, has become no different than an abused spouse. After the deal fell out of favor, Time Warner tried everything with AOL short of bringing it out back behind the barn and shooting it. I mean, did they really think that dial-up was it? Did they think people were going to pay extra for content? I guess that's what happens when you almost have a monopoly - you think nothing will ever change and you're too scared to move off the nipple. In this case, thier nipple was that screeching sound the phone line made when you connected. By the time they realized broadband had lapped them, it was over. Since then, they've lost (going on memory) nearly a quarter of their customer base. Ouch.

So the decision to throw up their hands earlier this year and essentially become a cross-dresser is an interesting one and most likely a last desperate move to stay prevalent. I'll get to that cross-dressing thing in a minute. In case you're still reading, what AOL has done is this: they've opened up the kimono (an ugly corporate adage that I promise to never use again) and are now offering everything up for free, hoping like mad that people will perform the second-most performed act on the internet - search. They're actually throwing thier hat into the ring and are attempting to go up against Google and Yahoo.

The best part? The company they're trying to trump is the one who will be providing them with the lions share of their revenue - Google. Yes! Google is the company that provides nearly ALL of AOL.com's search results, paid or unpaid. Welcome to the wonderful, confounding world of search, people. Come on in and have yourself a seat, won't you? AOL is now Google with hot red lipstick and pumps! She's a man, baby!

So, now that AOL is, in effect, Google, what next? Well, first off, most users don't know or care whose search results are being used, so AOL certainly has that going for them. And since everything Google touches turns to solid gold today, AOL has seen a pretty dramatic increase in revenue, almost entirely due to paid search results, despite the loss in subscribers. Result: Time-Warner goes all public in the newspapers, oohs-and-aahs all over AOL and even goes so far as to say that AOL is back to being a number one priority for Time-Warner. Now would also be a really good time to point out that not so long ago, who was that fighting so valiantly to remove any reference of AOL from their corporate name? Ah, Time-Warner. How we love thee corporate BS!

Don't buy it. These eyes don't believe for a single, solitary second that AOL is a again the apple of Time-Warner's eye. They're doing what any faceless, nameless corporation would do - they're trying to pump this thing up to get more other companies interested in buying it, because they know the endgame with AOL. They've already been through it and they are living it.

Which brings me to my next amusing piece of news: dag-nammit, it seems to be working! It's rumored now that Gatesasaurus Rex is poised to strike again and have MSN merge or even outright acquire AOL! Yo ho ho and a bottle of brass monkey! Wouldn't that be something? Of course, MSN's agenda is to roar loud and breathe fire like they did when they charred Netscape back in the '90s - they're going after Google hardcore, yo, and nabbing AOL would be step one in their attempt to further distribute their new search and paid links products.

At the onset, this even seems like an intelligent and sound strategy. Hit 'em where you can, when you can. But seriously, is AOL relevant? This is the toughest question of all. Is MSN posturing with these rumors in an attempt to get Google or even Yahoo to panic-bid on it? One can imagine BallGates sitting in their offices laughing because they, too, know the cruel fate of AOL. Or do they really think there's something there? I have no idea. I only have my own opinion and that opinion is that whomever buys them is really in for a heap of dung in the longterm.

As usual, there's more to this story than what's above. AOL does own some interesting small technologies and they are really starting to rake in the dough. Microsoft, despite their perception by many as an old battering ram, has some incredibly neat stuff in the queue (check out Robert Scoble's weblog if you can - this guy works for Microsoft and writes a truckload of a blog about it - sometimes he rips them to shreds and other times he heaps on the praise. My opinion: he's the best voice they have, even if he doesn't agree with me about AOL. Screw the public relations department - he's done more for that company in the last year than the PR department has in the last 10. I wish I could do that for the company I work for!

Anyway, an asterik: my opinion is my opinion and is no way, shape or form a represenation or position of the company I work for. Just want to get that out of the way before anyone goes all nutty.

 

MP3 Of The Week: My Head Is Like Lettuce, Go On Dig Your Thumbs In

Settle in, this is a long one. Two stories come to mind when I think of Faith No More. The first one involves my very first week of college at Kent State University in Ohio. My parents and I had driven out about a week early because we had a family friend who worked for CBS Sports and he had managed to get us an all-access-pass to the World Series of Golf in Akron, Ohio. Now, nobody in my family were really into golf, you see. It just so happened that the tournament was only 20 minutes south of Kent and it just happened to be sponsored by NEC, the company my dad worked for. So my dad finagled a business trip out of it!

Now, let's see: friend at CBS, dad's company sponsoring the tournament, all-access-pass, which included food, beer, a golf cart, access to the clubhouse and locker rooms, everything. No reason not to head out to 'ol Ohio a little early, ay?

Those exciting few days ended and I was then dropped off at college. Alone. In Ohio. Luckily, a guy I had met during the golf tournament happened to have a friend at Kent and he told me he'd give her a call and have her get in touch with me so I could get introduced around. Sure enough, a few days after school began, I got a call from I-don't-remember-her-name and we ended up going to some party, of which I have very little recollection. I tend to be a little shy when confronted with a gaggle of people I don't know, so I do remember being a little uncomfortable.

Nonetheless, a few days later I received a call from my golf tournament friend (bad with names, I am) and he let me know that he had two extra tickets to the Billy Idol concert at Blossom, the outdoor music half-shell place thingy in Cuyahoga Falls. I do remember him excitedly telling me that this was Billy Idol!!! The seats were supposedly tremendous. Did I want the tickets? You bet I did. Did I want to see Billy Idol? Uh, no. The reason I was so damn excited about this offer was because the great Faith No More were opening the show. I couldn't care one iota less about seeing Billy Idol. I took the tickets faster than you can say "TaraReidisahoe."

The summer previous to my leaving for Kent was the year Faith No More hit it big. Many remember them for their huge hit "Epic" - the one with the flopping fish at the end of the video and the constant cries of "What is IT?" in the song. That was my introduction to the band, and while later on I came to believe that "Epic" was actually one of their weaker songs, at the time I thought I'd encountered the second coming. Their strange brand of Chili Peppers-meets-Beastie Boys-meets-Pink Floyd had this 19 year old reeling with delight.

So there it was - two tickets to the Faith No More show, 7th row center! If only I had a camera back then. Faith No More just blew my ass away. Why is this so memorable? Well, I had thought it was a terribly nice gesture for that girl to have called me and invited me to that party, so I asked her to go with me, despite the fact that I felt nothing for her whatsoever except that I owed her one. A few days before, I had a met a different girl who really interested me and she loved Billy Idol. I didn't hold it against her. She also loved The Wonder Stuff, The Sex Pistols, The Cult, Faith No More and other good bands at the time, so I cut her a break. And oh, I liked her. So why didn't I bring her to the show? If that wasn't an "in," then what was????!!!! Well, in retrospect I have no idea what fueled me to make such a decision. Maybe I was playing hard to get, because I knew there was something brewing between us from the the very first time I met her and she gleefully admired my Bugs Bunny keychain.

The girl I ended up going to the show with was entirely non-plussed by Faith No More. Disappointing, indeed. But let me tell you, that band put on one hell of a show. Blew Billy Idol right off the stage, not that it's difficult.

It was also the last time I saw that girl. The following week, I began dating the one I liked and we lasted a year. We still even occasionally trade emails today.

It was about a year-and-a-half later during the early summer of 1992 when Faith No More really blew my mind and released Angel Dust, still one of my favorite rock albums of all time. The borderline commercialism of their previous album was completely gone, replaced by what I can only describe as utter madness. Lyrically, musicially, whatever-ly, it was just pure, brilliant crazy-ass music. You had a cover of the instrumental "Midnight Cowboy." You had the white-trash ballad, "RV." Actual cheerleaders sang the chorus to "Be Aggressive." Behind most of it was Mike Patton, the mad genius, whose crazy laughter carried the song "Land of Sunshine" into bliss.

I tell you, I couldn't get enough. I wore that damn CD out so much that it wouldn't "snap" into the CD case anymore, it just rested there without the snap when I put it back in its case. It's got to be my second-most listened to album of the '90s. There is no better way to describe it than the All Music Guide's Stephen Erlewine, whose claimed:

"Faith No More followed their breakthrough success with 1992's Angel Dust, one of the more complex and simply confounding records ever released by a major label."

Here here, baby! Which leads me to my second story, which I promise will be much shorter than the first. Later that winter, when I was back at school, Faith No More's tour of the U.S. hit The Agora on a cold February night in Cleveland. I remember clearly being excessively psyched to see this band again on stage. The frosting on the cake was that another favorite band of mine at the time, Helmet, was opening the show. Their rhythmic, metal-pounding style made me think I ought to invest in earplugs. I didn't and I paid for it. Dearly. It was easily the loudest show I have ever been to in my life. Helmet just blew the roof off and Faith No More emerged later on and delivered one of the finest, most obnoxious rock performances I have ever seen, including a dead-on cover version of the Commodore's "Easy." Yes, Easy like Sunday morning. It sounded exactly like The Commodores version. And then they launched into their own song, "Jizzlobber," whose highlight lyric is "I'm ready to make love to concrete." Yes, it was that kind of night.

It was the first and one of very few times I have ever been in a mosh pit. I left that show with no shirt on. In February. In Cleveland. The shirt had been ripped off me and being freshly 21 and sufficiently oiled, I didn't care one iota. I can confirm nipple hardening, however.

That said, it's time to end today's post with my MP3 of the Week and another box checked on the list of my favorite bands of the '90s.

Listen to: A Small Victory.

"A Small Victory"
A hierarhcy....spread out on the nightstand
The spirit of team....salvation is another chance
A sore loser, yelling with my mouth shut

A cracking portrait....the fondling of trophies
The null of losing....can you afford that luxury?
A sore winner......but I'll just keep my mouth shut

It shouldn't bother me.....but it does

The small victories....the cankers and medallions
The little nothings....yhey keep me thinking that someday
I might beat you.....but I'll just keep my mouth shut

It shouldn't bother me, no.....it shouldn't bother me, no no
It shouldn't bother me, no.....it shouldn't bother me, no no
It shouldn't bother me, no.....it shouldn't bother me, no no

If I speak at one constant volume
At one constant pitch
At one constant rhythm
Right into your ear
You still won't hear
You still won't hear
You STILL won't hear
You still won't hear
You STILL won't hear
You STILL won't hear
You STILL won't hear
You STILL won't hear
You STILL won't hear
You STILL won't hear
You STILL won't hear

 

I Need A Dump Truck Mama To Unload My Head

- Not sure about you, but the pennant races this year seem rather scintillating. Not only does it appear as if the Red Sox and Yankees may have to decide the American League East during their meeting on the last weekend of the season, but what's going on in the AL Central is probably even more breathtaking. The Cleveland Indians, who weren't supposed to contend until next year, are suddenly young and unbeatable, while the White Sox, who lead the division by as much as 15 games (!!!) in August, are now huffing and puffing to cross the finish line - the Indians have made up 13 games and now only trail by 2.5! The AL West finds the A's and Angels in a back-and-forth tilt, too. While the NL is a little more stable, Barry Bonds return to the San Francisco lineup recently has got to be making the San Diego Padres sweat. The Padres are already contending for the title of "worst baseball playoff team of all time." No matter what happens, if you love baseball, this is heaven.

- The new Aimee Mann album, The Forgotten Arm, is still really doing it for me. To think that I had written her off since the late 1980s. This is a concept album about an heroin-addicted boxer returning from duty in the Vietnam War and the experience of the woman who loves him. It's really impressive work.

- There's a legendary moment in the film The Graduate where Mr. McGuire stresses to Ben, "There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?" It's becoming obvious that the early millenium's "plastics" is going to be renewable energy. You're seeing this rise - in visibility, in the press and in the stock prices of related companies. You're seeing it everywhere, it seems, and it's not just the companies who manufacture the hardware. Think about that.

- I see that the White Sox Joe Crede has just homered in the bottom of the 10th to beat the Indians. The White Sox now lead by 3.5 games.

- Speaking of baseball, tonight the Colorado Rockies experienced their season's high point, a 20-1 victory over the San Diego Padres (see? worst playoff team ever!). Most notable: an 8 RBI night for Matt Holliday and a pitching appearance by San Diego third baseman Sean Burroughs, whose "fastball" topped out at a whizzing 75 MPH. He gave up four runs in one inning of work. I love when position players pitch. That leads me to wonder: who is the best alltime position player to pitch in the modern era? I'll have to do some digging.

- Who is the person who Googles "rustedrobot" every morning? Please identify yourself (email link up to the left). I have some questions for you. Seriously.

 

I've Just Seen A Face

Snapped this picture last night as the sun pulled down the curtains on daylight.

One of the more memorable stories from yesterday's Sunday Globe is the story of the Ohio doctor who wants to perform the world's first face transplant (link only good for today). The first thing I thought about when seeing the headline was that scene from Silence of the Lambs where Lecter was in the ambulance, using another person's face to disguise his own. Rarely in the history of seeing movies do I have a reaction like the one I had as that scene unfolded. Unforgettable.

The story centers on burn victims or people who have had their faces severely disfigured through no fault of thier own. The hope is that by having this surgery, they won't forever be branded as freaks and misfits or be the subject of long, sad stares. In these instances, I hope some can take advantage of this still dangerous procedure.

But should this become a successful practice, the cynic in me wonders how long it will be before former Hollywood starlets commence lining up, flipping their credit cards over to make it happen for them. Or drug dealers, who have more than enough money to change their face to the point where it doesn't look much like that picture of them in the post office. There's less fear of the latter, as the article does point out that the patient's "new" face will most likely make their appearance largely similar to their old self, as it's the bone structure that shape a face, not the actual skin (which is coming from a cadaver).

Incredibly interesting stuff, provided it's used with good intentions. And yes, a little gross.

FINAL NOTE: Please watch the season premiere of Arrested Development tonight if you can. It's on at 8pm on Fox and it's probably the funniest damn show I've seen on television. Really. It's that good.

 

MP3(z) Of The Week: In A World Of Hurting, I'm Moving On

The journey in recalling my favorite bands of the '90s makes a stop in the Pacific Northwest this week. And no, it's not Nirvana, it's the far more overweight and underrated Screaming Trees, who never did quite get the attention (or sales) that their flannel-wearing bretheren such as Soundgarden and Pearl Jam got, despite their songs being arguably just as strong. Such is the way of the music business. The Trees had that albatross of being one of those "critically acclaimed" bands hanging around their neck.

Not to say that they didn't have some success, though. Although now just another dated entry in the Hollywood scrapbooks, the movie "Singles" was probably our generation's coming-of-age film circa 1992 and it heavily featured what turned out to be the band's signature hit "Nearly Lost You," a heavy sludge of a rock song that fit perfectly with the times.

While the band broke little ground in terms of inventiveness or lyrical panache, they had what I believe is the most important ingredient involved in what makes a rock band tick and resonate - an insanely distinctive voice in Mark Lanegan, whose throat I'll get to later. Add to the mix the Trees penchant for a catchy song, throwing the drums WAY UP in the mix (skillfully slammed by the immensely talented Barrett Martin) and you've got yourself several albums worth of great music.

While you'll probably get heavy argument on this one from Trees fans, the album I still go back to fairly often is Sweet Oblivion. I should note that there are several others that are more than worthy of a listen, but this 1992 offering is their most accessible and impressive and hit me at a time in my life when I was intensely trying to discover my own music, not what was put in front of me on FM radio. Since you've already heard "Nearly Lost You" a thousand times, I'm going with Shadow Of The Season as this week's MP3 of the week. It's my favorite song on the album.

As if that weren't enough, I feel the need to focus in just a little on Mark Lanegan. Around 1996, the Screaming Trees disbanded and Lanegan set out on his own. Not as a rocker per se, but as a solo artist. While most would describe Lanegan's solo career as hit-and-miss (I agree), when he hit, it was damn impressive. Taking a quieter tone on his solo records, you really get the power of Lanegan's whiskey-soaked and ever-so-recognizable voice as you dig in.

While the 1999 album I'll Take Care of You largely consists of cover songs, it's here where I found Lanegan at his most experimental and interesting. Oh, don't let experimental scare you off. I just mean that his tinkering with all kinds of instrumentation and different forms of songs made for a really compelling record. Maybe he felt the need to fool around a bit since these aren't songs he wrote, but they have his bold signatures on all of them regardless. He made them his. So, as a bonus I'm offering a second MP3 of the Week here, the immensely enjoyable Consider Me, a song that you can just picture playing in a sad watering hole at 2am somewhere in middle-America. If this were the movies, that is.

Anyway, I put both MP3's up this week simply because the two songs each represent such different types of music from one person. In a way, it's also somewhat of a progression of my life and tastes as the 1990s progressed. I hope you enjoy.

Listen to: Shadow Of The Season
Listen to: Consider Me

 

The Moon

 

Sweetness Follows

I made a joke during one my Item Five interviews last year that wherever my wife and I go, destruction, be it mild or severe, seems to follow.

Witness in the last year: we traveled to Sanibel/Captiva Island, only to see it get nearly destroyed by Hurricane Charley, including South Seas Plantation, the great place we stayed at for some of the trip. South Seas still isn't completely open for business - they're still repairing and cleaning up. On that same trip, we stayed at another place called Buttonwood Cottages. Now, I'm happy to report that the hurricane only caused minor damage, but it was enough where they are no longer in business. The cottages were sold to another party, whose intent appears not to offer them anymore as rented cottages.

Strange? Maybe. But how about Kure Beach, NC? We were just there last week, and today, there sits Hurricane Ophelia, a mass of weather that just can't decide if it wants to be a hurricane or "just" a tropical storm. On the heels of Katrina, yesterday officials of Kure Beach (and surrounding areas) are undergoing a voluntary evacuation. The storm remains lurking on the coast.

Want more? Okay. Back when we lived in Somerville, MA a few years ago, we frequented our favorite restaurant, aptly called "Eat." It seemed every time we went there, the place was full (except once when we were there for an early meal) and the food was delicious. They are closed. When we moved to Maynard, we uncovered a little gem next to the movie theatre, called 107 Summer. We ate there twice, loved it, then it closed down and moved about a mile to another location and renamed itself. Unfortunately, the menu changed and so did the quality. Not for the better.

Then there's the numerous times we've planned small one-day trips during the summer where the weather was just atrocious, so much so that at one point, Steph's mother said something along the lines of "if you want rain, just invite Stephanie and Jeff over."

I know there's more, but I'm having a hard time recalling right now. Maybe Steph can chime in. Bottom line: don't invite us anywhere. We'll shut down your restaurants and after we leave, hurricanes will come. All that said, there are, of course, exceptions. Our trip to Kauai, Hawaii saw virtually no rain and Kauai still exists today! Intact!

 

Empty Mouths....Talk About The Passion

I was planning on writing something profound about my Sunday today. How it was the fourth anniversary of the attacks, the beautiful weather, the sad, sad situation in New Orleans, the first day of Sunday football and this year's sudden emergence of ragweed, which is delivering an astounding beating to my sinuses.

Then I realized that, man, I've been awfully serious lately. A friend of mine pointed it out to me, too, asking where the photoshopped Jeff-heads have gone and where the "robot birth" posts have been hiding. He was like "man, it's getting too deep." While I can't apologize for that, I do agree. The direction of the blog is the direction of the blog. Things will definitely skew the other way at some point. I've been thinking about how ridiculous I can get here and the limits are quite boundless. I've even considered posting some self-made videos. I've had ideas for short films. I've mapped out insane mock television commercials in my head. Maybe someday. First step: video camera. Yeah, that would help.

Anyway, in thinking about all this and deciding to refrain from really going in-depth on what America means on this lovely Sunday, I figured I'd write about a topic near and dear to my heart: Ice cream. What could be more American? Baseball? Bruce Springsteen? I dunno.

I do know one thing: if ice cream were crack cocaine, I'd be doing 65-years-to-life in the county pen. I need it like a drifter needs a warm shower. Or, as Bono once sang, like a preacher needs pain. Much like a lot of other retail products, the progress ice cream has made in the last twenty years has been a bit stunning. Today, choices overwhelm and astound. When I was a kid (say, pre-1985), the choices were pretty few: Sealtest, Hood and Breyers was about all we had to ponder. Oh, how I remember opening my grandmother's 'fridge, hoping to find some good ice cream, only to have my soul crushed by the only option: Sealtest Ice Milk. Not ice cream, mind you, but ice milk. Soul crushed, you ask? OK, that's probably melodramatic. If she didn't have ice CREAM, I always contented myself with some Strawberry Quik.

Anyway, sometime around the mid-1980's, "designer" ice cream started weaving it's way into the mainstream. Many will tell you that it was Ben & Jerry's that introduced the idea of wild flavors and mind-blowing combinations to storefronts everywhere. Newsflash: that ain't how it went down. A little place here in New England trumped them in my introduction to ice-cream goodness. Steve's Ice Cream (now Herrell's) made its way into our supermarkets and I was all like "whoa, Skor bars in the ice cream!" Another time I remember discovering Haagen-Dasz Rum Raisin - a flavor I still covet to this day. I remember my mother buying this at one point and telling me that I wasn't allowed to eat it because it had alcohol. Funny.

Anyway, before I get into too much about the history of ice cream, let's just say it's a different world today. You've seen the frozen food aisle. It's silly. In keeping with the theme of the post today, these vast choices have afforded me many opportunities to hit the crack pipe. So, aside from local homemade ice cream joints, who typically bring it to another level, here are five of my recent ice cream faves, in no particular order:

Breyers Vanilla: ok, so the first you're probably saying is, "dude, that's boring." So start your own blog and list your favorite ice creams then, ok? To me, vanilla is one of the most exotic ice cream flavors out there. So many different companies output incredibly different variations of it and Breyers is my longtime fave. No bullshit, either. The ingredients are so simple: vanilla, vanilla beans, milk, cream and sugar. Top that.

Starbucks Low Fat Latte: ohhhhhh. This flavor is insanely good. Especially when you get to the end of your bowl (real men do bowls, not cups) and it gets a little melted and coffee-soupish. I find it a little sad that I have to support a chain like Starbucks, but hell, crack addicts have done much, much worse. Odd note: In all seriousness, I can probably count on one hand how many cups of coffee I've had in my lifetime. I hate it. But I love the smell of it. Just ask my wife, who consistently finds my nose buried in her Trader Joe's coffee can, sniffing away. Don't ask. I clearly love the taste of it, too, as long as it's frozen and in the form of ice cream.

Brigham's Peppermint Stick: the little red pieces of candy are like torture. They taste so good, embedded in that mint-flavored ice cream that it's not uncommon to open the top and see that I've created a tunnel almost to the bottom of the carton because I'd found a series of them and followed the path. They stick to my teeth. So worth it.

Brigham's Frozen Pudding: Simple: when I find the person who made the decision to only make this ice cream available during the Christmas season, I will kill them. Dead. Nobody can take "Cream, Skim Milk, Sugar, Raisins, Cherries (Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sorbic Acid, Sodium Benzoate, Water, Colors Added (Yellow 5, Blue I, Red 40), Sulfur Dioxide as a Preservative, Citric Acid), Rum, Pineapple, Pears, Peaches, Apricots, Guar Gum, Salt, Mono & Diglycerides, Dextrose, Polysorbate 80, Carrageenan and Cellulose Gum" and make it taste this good. Nobody. Most people (wife included) are truly disgusted by this flavor. I say "more for me."

I tpyically stay away from Ben & Jerry's as their ice creams tend to be a little too rich for me. But every once in a while I'll dive in, and when I do, it's Cherry Garcia. Both the regular and the frozen yogurt versions are pretty stellar. It's a great feeling when you start to unearth a cherry in that pint and as you start to dig, you realize it's way bigger than you thought and suddenly you've got a huge crater in there. It's sort of like finding a $5 dollar bill on the ground.

So there you have it. My favorites change from time-to-time, but these seem to be ones that bear repeat visits to my freezer. I should also dole out props to Erikson's Dairy here in Maynard, MA, who have been pumping out the homemade ice cream since your grandfathers were bootlegging whiskey during prohibition. From April to October each year, they pretty much exclusively get my business when it comes to ice cream. Come to think of it, I'll spare the guy's life from Brighams, because Erikson's makes Frozen Pudding available all spring, summer and fall. Nice touch.

Quick sidenote: you must take a few minutes to look at these photographs, a chronological set of photos taken by a resident of New Orleans - there are quite a few, but they are captivating. Hat tip to my friend on the west coast, Fort Miley, whose writing I freely admit to envying. Feel better, man.

Recent ear candy:
Bob Dylan - Visions of Johanna
Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash - Girl From The North County
Son Volt - Afterglow 61
Icecream Hands - Dodgy (coincidence?)
Nirvana - Negative Creep
Warren Zevon - Detox Mansion
Mission Orange - Booze Beaten
Veruca Salt - Don't Make Me Prove It
Folk Implosion - Natural One
Ware River Club - 50 Years Of Smoking
Guided By Voices - Want One?

 

MP3 Of The Week - Elliot Smith

Over the years, I've told whomever will listen that I was never so much into the "solo dude with a guitar thing." By and large, I still subscribe to that opinion today. Give me the post-1966 Dylan, when he was at his absolute rollicking best. As Patrick Henry famously said during the birthing of our country in 1775, "give me drums and electric guitars or give me death." Or something along those lines.

So when I first heard Elliot Smith, I knew right away this was one of the exceptions to the norm for me. While a lot of Smith's songs may seem outwardly acoustic, I kept finding a sweet richness, as if there were a full ghost band playing behind him. If you've seen the movie "Good Will Hunting," then you've certainly heard his music, as his paws were all over that soundtrack and his songs were predominantly featured in that film. His quiet, acoustic side channeled artists like Nick Drake, Pete Ham or even the later recordings of Chris Bell. Smith just somehow made it seem like it wasn't just a man and his guitar - an impressive feat not matched by many. It wasn't all just acoustic songs either. When he did employ a full band, as on 1998's brilliant and mildly rocking XO, it was as catchy as any offering from the Beatles, or T.Rex, or hell, Abba. We're talking that good.

The key takeaway: Smith seemed to be able to do it all. On top of that, he was one of the 1990s best songwriters, from my own perspective. There wasn't a lyricist quite like him. If there was any weakness in his music, it was himself. His writing seemed to consistantly center around his on-again off-again problems with heroin and/or other narcotics. Other songs touched on his clinical depression. But the guy simply put it out there and sang honestly and it's part of what made him so compelling. That, and the fact that his songs stick in my head like crusty food on a nonstick pan.

Perhaps his oddest moment came a few years back when he actually appeared on the Oscars telecast to perform what turned out to be his most well-known song, "Miss Misery" from the Good Will Hunting movie. Per usual, all of the Oscar nominees perform their songs at the show, so what you had on your TV was the ultimate in worlds colliding: Celine Dion singing her atrocious song from Titanic, featuring all kinds of pomp, flashing lights and bombast, only to be followed by Smith, who saunters out wearing a one-size-too-big white suit and carrying his guitar. He sits down in a fold-out chair and goes at "Miss Misery" with his dirty, stringy hair falling in his face. It could have been the local watering hole, for god's sake. Of course, what mattered most was the song: it was haunting, sad, soft and gorgeous.

Celine Dion won the Oscar. Naturally.

Today I offer you my very favorite Elliot Smith song, Rose Parade, from the 1997 album, Either /Or. This three minute song personifies Smith's music. Towards the end of the song, when Smith sings "...and when they clean the street, I'll be the only shit that 's left behind" - that always hits me pretty hard. We've all been there.

In case you're wondering why I keep talking about Smith in the past tense, it's because he's not of this Earth anymore. In typical Elliot Smith drama, he stabbed himself on October 21, 2003. In the heart. A very sad day.

"Rose Parade"
they asked me to come down and watch the parade
and to march down the street like the duracell bunny
with a wink and a wave from the cavalcade
throwing out candy that looks like money
to people passing by that all seem to be going the other way
said won't you follow me down to the rose parade?
tripped over a dog in a choke-chain collar
people were shouting and pushing and saying
and when i traded a smoke for a food stamp dollar
a ridiculous marching band started playing
and got me singing along with some half-hearted victory song
won't you follow me down to the rose parade?
won't you follow me down to the rose parade?
won't you follow me down to the rose parade?
the trumpet has obviously been drinking
because he's fucking up even the simplest lines
i'd say it's a sight that's quite worth seeing
it's just that everyone's interest is stronger than mine
and when they clean the street i'll be the only shit that's left behind
won't you follow me down to the rose parade?
won't you follow me down to the rose parade?
won't you follow me down to the rose parade?

 

A quick note to anyone who uses newsreaders/RSS to read this site: I've recently switched the RSS feed for this site, so if you are reading the Robot using a newsreader like Bloglines or something similar, you'll have to resubscribe to the new feed, which uses Feedburner and can be found here.

Of course, if you're using a newsreader, you're probably not coming directly to my site to even see this message. Whatever.

 

Breeze Blows Leaves Of A Musty-Coloured Yellow

Sure, it really ends on September 21 or whatever, but everyone knows that the de facto end to summer comes today, Labor Day. It's the real Black Monday. We were lucky enough to have spent our Labor Day weekend on Kure Beach, North Carolina (pictured above), a sleepy little hideaway located deep in the southern part of N.C. on the Cape Fear coast, almost bordering South Carolina. All told, there probably wasn't a better way to wrap up the unofficial end of summer than three days at Kure Beach and, as you might expect, it comes with anecdotes.

My wife attended school at Guilford College, located a few hours northwest of Kure in the north-central part of the state. You'll know you're there when you hit that hard left on the policital spectrum (which, as you know, I'm ok with). Anyway, upon walking through the door as a freshman, she befriended quite a few people and those friendships seem as tight and impressive as those early autumn days of 1989. Some came, some went, but the core of people remain friends to this day. So each Labor Day, they all gather to catch up in person, rent a space to crash, hit the beach, laugh, drink and be extraordinary merry on the south coast of North Carolina.

I have to say, it's really something to bear witness to this. I'm even a wee-bit envious that I can't boast of a similar group from my own college. This can be attributed almost solely to gender, however. The majority of the group here is made up of females, whose desire for social interaction and planning skills far outweigh that of their male counterparts. Once the males are there, we're incredibly glad it's occuring, but ask us to plan it and it would inevitably fall apart faster than Tara Reid.

Regardless, it's really admirable and nice to see that a group of people can put aside location, time, work and, in general, the cards that life has dealt them to try to attend, year in and year out. The fascianting and unstoppable march of time has certainly bulged the group - there are now honorary Guilfordians, be it children or spouses who are sharing in the seeds that have been sprouted here. I have quite a few friends from college, equally spread out across the world, and I've probably seen each of them once or twice at best since graduation. How sweet would it be to see them each year like this? To relive our own memories and laugh at our own ridiculous antics from those relatively carefree days? Gosh, that would be sweet.

Those memories will, in all likelihood, remain stored in memory for me and my college friends, rarely to be unearthed and at some point, largely forgotten. Sad, but I'm easily in the majority on that one.

So it was at one point last night when select members of the group were posing for photographs and laughing hysterically when I, perched on a countertop observing it all, turned to one of the other spouses and simply said "isn't this just incredible how these people stay in each other's lives like this?" He nodded, almost vigorously, as if he had also been thinking exactly the same things I had been ruminating over. We both went on to admit mild envy. It was a very short conversation, but it was long in both our minds. It's really fun to watch a bunch of really good people still enjoy the hell out of each other. I can't speak to little spats or run-ins over the years that have surely happened (see: human nature), but it really is a terribly interesting sociological experience.

As I sit here and type tonight, I've got The Rolling Stones "I Got The Blues" playing on ITunes and I'm thinking about the flight home from North Carolina today and then the drive home from Manchester, NH after we landed. Both Stephanie and I were pretty dog-tired and experiencing that weekly impending doom of having to go back to our regular business tomorrow. I've pretty much felt it every Sunday since I had to do homework and study for tests. You know it, too - that gloomy feeling you get at the end of each weekend. Well, today's was particularly bluesy because it marks the end of another summer.

So we're driving home, down I-495 South, beaten, and my wife says to me, "hey, look at the crescent moon." I tilt my eyes up just a smidge and look at, in my eyes, the real last beauty of summer - a thin sliver of a whitish moon, serving as the backdrop for one of those absolutely perfect New England twilight skies - a mix of blue, then light-blue and finally, purple-pink at the horizon. It all made me just wish I was living in a fantasy movie where I could pull the car over and freeze time to just sit there and stare at it, fighting off the ticking clock. But I suppose that's one of nature (and life's) best tricks: dangle something beautiful out there for a minute or two, then take it away, the sole purpose of beauty's disappearance is then for us to wish it back. To be there and witness it again, life intact, when the next crescent moon hangs over that multi-colored sky. Or to be there when a group of friends all see each other again after another year.

Now, it's on to my favorite time of year.