K-Cups

It was bad enough that someone found enough idiots floating about to stand in line for a ridiculous amount of time for unbelievably expensive and bizarrely named cups of coffee. And thus Starbucks became a runaway success (business plan: "we count on parting money from idiots and there seems to be an endless supply of both.")

Then a plucky entrepreneur invented a way to separate more money from idiots for their coffee right at home: the Keurig system. The beauty here was packaging the coffee in little bitty things ONLY THEY SOLD. Beautiful. A classic razor-razor blade scam. 

Now I see the ante has been upped yet again: enter The Nespresso VertuoLine system. Whoa, it even SOUNDS impressive. It's essentially the same as Keurig, but adds Centrifusion (a process so absolutely unique and impressive they trademarked the word) to the making of your brew. How have we ever survived without THAT? 

Aand even more money is separated from even more idiots. 

I long for simpler times: you bought your coffee by the pound at the A&P and ground it right there in the checkout lane. Simple. And a damned good cuppa Joe. 

Miss Pork Roll

One of the more dubious New Jersey inventions is a "food" called pork roll. Legend has it that it was invented in Trenton, NJ, a fact that does its reputation absolutely no good. 

For those of you outside of NJ, pork roll was invented apparently during a time when Trenton had a surfeit of sawdust and salt and found that with a little red die number 3 (the FDA banned one, so it was just as cheap as the other ingredients), could fool Trentonites into being a food. Since we're talking Trentonites, this was not particularly difficult. 

An alert reader just called to let me know that the Miss Pork Roll festival and contest was being held this past weekend. It has all the earmarks of a contest (and title) one would NOT want to win plus it was being held in Trenton, which, despite being our state capital, just plain sucks. 

Big surprise - I somehow managed to miss it.  

Talkers

You've all seen on Seinfeld the episodes about people who speak oddly. There was the low talker, the close talker, and the high talker. 

The worst kind of all, in any curmudgeon's book, is the can't stop 'em talkers. We have caller ID on our phone, and if it's one of these, even my Sainted wife will say "I don't have time for them now."

Some years ago, I was late to a first thing in the morning one-on-one meeting with my boss's boss's boss because as I backed out of the driveway, a local can't stop 'em talker caught me. Yes, her husband had just died that week and she wanted to talk about it, but sheesh, just like Spain's Franco, he would still be dead the next week - we could talk then. 

Even now, there's a guy who walks his dog down our street and if you don't prepare your dodge, you're stuck for like half an hour. Hell, if we pass him as we're driving in, we actually drive straight into the garage and close the door before getting out of the car. 

I know what you're thinking: what weirdos actually WANT to talk to curmudgeons. You see how desperate these people are. 

Guard Tattoos? Not In These Parts, Sir

I had hoped that there would be nothing left to annoy me about tattoos, but on our recent trip to Florida, I beheld the be all to end all. 

We buy our sunscreen there because all the namby-pambies up here only want sunscreen protection numbers like 100 or 30,000 or some crap, so that's all you can find at stores. In sunny Florida, you can still buy a good old #2 if you so choose. We choose 4s and 8s, which, being only in the single digits, are impossible to find here in NJ. 

So here we are in an entire aisle of sunscreen in a Florida Walgreens and what do I see? Coppertone Tattoo Guard - "to guard against tattoo fading or blurring." I kid you not. I nearly lost a delicious Sonic lunch right there. It got even more revolting by going on to proclaim "great for larger tattooed areas." 

I kept thinking "we're a doomed society," but then I saw an upside: say I notice a nubile young female in a bikini starting her tan at the pool. She has a small, neat tattoo somewhere tasteful, yet visible. If I had some Coppertone Tattoo Guard handy, I could have approached her under the guise of protecting her. What a great pick-up line. 

However absolutely unlikely a scenario, I had to think a pleasant thought to save my lunch. 

Alertness

Boy! This is a special moment!  An alert reader (I remain astonished that I HAVE a reader, let alone an alert one) noticed that I missed my Friday deadline. 

The pileup of things that your faithful curmudgeon tries to publish can be - and was - overwhelming. 

Herewith I deliver. Oh, so curmudgeony:

Curmudgeons don't like yard work. It's not personal, we're just...above it. But many Sainted wives are into gardening and such, so we huddled and developed a response: one that showed we were interested in what they were doing while, at the same time, requiring absolute minimal effort on our part. 

For example, I declared myself the anti-dandelion person around here. I wander around the lawn for 10 minutes of a spring morning pulling the offending weeds and then take a break for the rest of the day. See? I helped. 

Our new neighbors aren't making it easy, either. They use one of those "natural" lawn services. That's where some guy sprays his last night's dishwater on your lawn, charges you a premium for a "natural" treatment and laughs all the way home. And the next year, I dig up the bumper crop of dandelions that blew my way since the "treatment" is useless. 

Curmudgeons? We use poison: lethal and lots of it. 

Godzilla

An alert reader sent me some articles analyzing the realities of a Godzilla (or for Pacific Rim fans, a Kaiju) showing up on our shores.  Yes, dear readers, there are nerds out there who do these sorts of analyses. 

We will overlook the fact that Godzilla, as a representative of an actual species, has grown in size at (literally) an unearthly rate. In some 60 years, movie Godzilla has grown faster than real Godzilla during the 80 million years of the Cretaceous period. Given the attention span of today's humans, they would never have stood still for Mother Nature. 

It gets better. The nerds calculated that the latest Godzilla would produce some 12,000,000 gallons of urine a day. My personal technical assessment: yuck. 

The good news? He probably only needs to eat a dozen or so humans a day. We're apparently pretty energy rich. 

The Friendly Skies

Flying used to be a nightmare - parking in some god-forsaken lot seemingly located in another state (usually in the rain or cold), waiting for that odd-smelling shuttle bus, schlepping luggage through checkin, those rude, invasive, stupid TSA "security" checkpoints, and all this BEFORE the vagaries of the flying part. 

My most recent trip? Limo to airport, Skycap for luggage, checkin on my iPhone, pre-approved by the TSA - a breeze! I will ignore that I paid a pretty penny for the privilege of some of those things and that the TSA merely relaxed an unbelievably intrusive "security" check to a medium-intrusive check as if it were some benefit but hey - I take simplification of flying wherever I can. 

The actual flying bit is pretty much unchanged, though this charge-for-checked-luggage bit causes nothing but chaos aboard, where as much as you can humanly carry on is free. People are desperate for overhead space. The airlines need to let people like me, when we don't need overhead space, charge the carry-oners for my space. 

Think of the fun bidding wars! 

Ra

We decided to eat at some trendy sushi place while we were in Florida. My Sainted wife loves Sushi. Curmudgeons lean towards food that has actually been cooked. 

We settled on a place named Ra, which she assured me was an  "Asian Fusion" restaurant, apparently affording me some opportunity to find cooked entrees. Turns out the food was quite good - the rest of the experience, however, was bizarre. 

Because Ra seemed to prefer an opaque black curtain between the kitchen and the diners rather than the usual swinging door with a window, the servers had to shout IN! and OUT! to warn potential servers approaching from the other side as they entered/exited the kitchen. Think about this. All the waiters constantly going in and out of the kitchen all night shouting one of those words. Maddening. 

Then they played some sort of Tapas trick when serving us. Although all five of us ordered at the same time, the food came out randomly. Ra committed the unforgivable sin of making a curmudgeon wait for his food long after everyone else's dishes were nearly half consumed. They might as well have had a sign on the menu: "we reserve the right to serve lily-livered raw fish dodgers at our leisure." 

30-odd years of dining out and never have I encountered meals that show up when they feel like it, not when they should. 

Beach Etiquette

Before you start, let me assure you there is such a thing...outside of the Jersey Shore, that is. When you are staying at a nice resorty place, beach lounges and umbrellas are available (at a price, of course) for a relaxing day at the beach. As noted last time, Nick the cabana guy sets you up beautifully. 

So once I've antied up my bucks, there are some things I want to see and hear - surf, wind, and vague background conversation sounds. NOT people bringing their own chairs and plopping down between you and your view and NOT someone conversing loudly on their cell phone, pausing periodically to scream at their kid down in the surf. 

Small kids? There's the kiddie pool for those execrable things - far, far away. 

As for any kind of activity, nubile females in bikinis should be encouraged to frolic about at will. 

See? Etiquette. 

Nick

Part of beaching it at a resorty place in Florida is "the guy" who rents you an umbrella and lounges. Yes, you read that right - my Sainted wife and her sisters managed to find the one resort that doesn't throw that in with everything else. 

But that's how we met Nick - a laid back surfer dude who clearly spends his non-working hours surrounded by a dense marijuana cloud. Nick was in charge of the umbrella renting business. He was unbelievably good at it while - at all times, mind you - acting like the most carefree stoner you ever met. 

Periodically, Nick would pop by to move our umbrella so we wouldn't have to move the lounges to follow the sun. Not too shabby for an amiable surfer dude. Any movie maker would envy this casting. 

He defined being laid back. Pretty much the opposite of a curmudgeon. 

Southern Florida in May

It seemed like a good idea at the time: take a week in southern Florida in early May and get a great start on your summer tan. Also, you'll miss those winter crowds. 

Well, turns out it is already pretty darn hot in southern Florida early in May. And spring is trying its best back in NJ, what with the cherry trees and magnolias in full bloom and dandelions eagerly peppering your lawn. So the weather draw is seriously compromised. 

But there's the sun and the beach and 80 degree surf in Florida. And balmy nights, so we've got that going for us. 

I may be a curmudgeon, but I'm hitting the beach!

Airports

Here's a curious thing. I just recently flew, so I found myself lurking about Newark airport - something you probably want to minimize in life. Did I have time for a quick snack before boarding?  I looked around the concourse - not a clock to be found. 

What the hell? It's an airport. You're there for something that is entirely time-dependent. And no clocks. 

I really wanted to cause a scene, but the TSA agents were everywhere and they have neither a sense of humor NOR patience for the dramatic. 

Misspent Technology Youth

Wouldn't you know it - I spent my career at Ma Bell's being a technology guy. I knew how the telephone network worked inside and out. 

I worked with a lot of people who never bothered to learn technology - even when they were running a part of our technology business. They claimed they had engineers to tell them that stuff. I preferred to double-check the engineers. The Bell Labs types tended to put pure science ahead of practical engineering. My technical prowess was my edge. 

But now I'm retired. Actually for quite a little while. You all know the pace of technology. I no more know how telephony works today than those clueless non-technical types I worked with. Fat lot of good all that technical know-how is doing me now. 

Ain't that a kick in the ass?

Do Not Call Me...Ever

I'm sure you're familiar with the government's "Do Not Call" list offer: register your telephone number and those annoying 1-800 people will stop calling you. 

Sounded good: our taxes were finally paying for something that was useful. But alas, it sounded too good, as is often the case with government programs. As such, it was doomed from the start. Not unlike other areas where the government tackles fast-moving technology (cell phones in planes, VA computer systems, even auto headlights) they didn't stand a chance of keeping up to date. 

So despite signing up, we still get our unwanted calls during dinner. Wily robo-callers are cleverly staying ahead of government attempts to control them. Big surprise. 

But curmudgeons are wily too - we nobly hide behind our answering machines. 

The Lost Art of Dining Out

I have written more than once about the challenges of having a pleasant meal out. I have mentioned the crying babies, hats, tattoos and other things that assail you while you try to eat. Regrettably, there are more. 

We generally make a point of frequenting local establishments when we dine out. They do not make it easy. First off, my town suffers from that lack of convenient downtown parking that plagues so many active, old NJ towns. For reasons that truly escape me, the downtown banks have all the private parking, not the restaurants. This despite the fact that people who actually go inside banks these days are rare birds indeed. 

People do go into the local restaurants, though. Just via catch-as-you-can parking around here. Once we manage to resolve that, we confront the bewildering variety of challenges ahead (as noted at the start of this missive). Recently, we discovered that a new eatery in town ran their show via that bane of "modern" restaurants: someone OTHER than your waiter actually serves the food. Now, in good restaurants, the wait staff carefully notes which diner gets what. In these imitators, some poor clueless blivot shows up asking "who gets the steak?" and the like, unnecessarily interrupting the moment. Aaand yet another nail in the coffin of proper dining is driven home. 

It is a wonder that my Sainted wife and I still screw up the courage to venture out. 

It's a Blessing...And a Curse

I have mentioned in the past that my Sainted wife loves to paint. This wonderful skill - revealed only after we were married (it would have factored heavily to her benefit had I known it beforehand, but happily we didn't need any more supporting evidence) - has served me handily with beautifully painted rooms on the cheap. 

But, (and isn't there always the but?) there is a dark side. See, she loves to paint. Just paint. Not so much the prep work or where to store the dozens of paint cans that seem to multiply like bunnies around these projects. 

It reminds me of the TV show 'Monk' - he called his detecting skills a blessing...and a curse, and so, it would seem, is my wife's enthusiasm for painting. It devolves to me to sand, scrape, putty and otherwise set things up - one of the more under-appreciated and tedious aspects of painting, she swoops in and paints, gets all the glory and swoops out while I put everything away - the OTHER tedious aspect of painting. 

Curmudgeons suffer for their freebies.