Story Time: Steve and the New MacBook Air

So as best I can tell, Steve will sell me a little netbook for a thousand bucks. A beautiful, shiny netbook which would, presumably, make me the envy of every Apple nerd in Starbucks. But, as snappy an offer as that may seem, I’m going to have to decline.

Not for religious reasons, mind you; although I mostly use Windows machines, I’m certainly not immune to the lure of devices that work as effortlessly and intuitively as the iPod I’m listening to at the moment. No, it just seems to me that the 500 some-odd dollar difference between the 11 inch Air and the big-boy-sized Acer on which I’m writing this spectacular little missive could probably be better used elsewhere.

That $500 would cover, for instance, 196 of the triple espressos that I compulsively drink at Starbucks while I’m busy not impressing the resident Apple nerds. Or roughly 125 of Amazon’s daily $3.99 Album deals of which I seem to have grown inordinately fond. -(That’s a LOT of Groove Armada, people.)- Or, I suppose that same $500 would buy new shoes and clothes for my kids, but let’s not get carried away.

In short, when Steve speaks, I notice that there are a lot of people with glazed eyes and just a tiny bit of drool running down the corner of their mouths, which, if nothing else just seems a smidge unseemly. Unlike drinking 196 triple espressos, which is, obviously, perfectly reasonable. -Just saying.

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How I learned to stop worrying and love Father’s Day.

As anyone who’s known me for more than five or ten seconds can tell you, I’m not really a fan of attention. Neither am I a big fan of fuss, bother or commotion of any sort. (Which, incidentally, clearly illustrates that my early decision to quit Hermit School, get married and have kids may have been deeply flawed.)

In any case, over the years I’ve been learning to overcome some of these social deficits I’ve been so carefully cultivating and guarding; which in practical terms means that this last Father’s Day I finally decided to let go and milk the day for all it’s worth. So, when my Lovely Bride offered to fetch the necessary boatload of wings and ribs at Costco for the big day, I acquiesced. When Father’s day arrived I promptly went downstairs and, instead of lighting the grill, fired up the X-Box instead and played a full hour of Call of Duty 3.

Then, having stared slack-jawed at interwebs for a bit, I allowed myself to be ushered to the big comfy chair on the deck where I accepted an ice cold Clausthaler. (I also seem to have developed a taste for hilariously pretentious websites, but that’s a post for a different day.) And so, before I knew it, I was surrounded by family, ribs, kids with sticky fingers, Father’s Day cards and a new hammock to boot. All, I might add, while allowing myself to embrace the fuss, which, as it turns out, is pretty easy when you learn to stop worrying and love Father’s Day.

Now I just need to figure out how to make all this work for our 4th of July BBQ. And jeez while I’m at it, maybe Labor Day too.

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World Cup? Sure, whatever. Just flip a coin, why don’t you?

Barbershops, darkened tap-rooms and the sidewalks in front of coffee shops have one thing in common: they are bastions of the testosterone-fueled male banter that inevitably centers around one thing: sports. Sure, current wives/girlfriends and politics also occasionally rear their heads as fodder for stories that are usually as pointless as they are entertaining, but really it’s about the sports.

Anyway, I must admit that that the in-utero genetic lottery in which we are all forced to participate seems to have left me short of one crucial bit of DNA: the gene that makes guys give a crap who hit the most RBIs or three-pointers or however it is that you score touchdowns. I am, quite frankly, Sports Challenged.

I guess as deficits go, my lack of interest in watching grown men run around in Lycra jerseys hasn’t hampered me too greatly; I still enjoy a dark bar, cooking over a fire, jokes I can’t tell my kids, and other ostensibly male nonsense. (Although having said all that, I must admit that I do actually watch the Yankees in the post-season when the games actually matter… at least in the sense that a season-ending elimination matters.)

But here’s the thing that’s truly inexplicable to me: Soccer and the World Cup. But mostly the soccer part. For God’s sake, the games go on forever, nobody ever scores, and even if they do, the games always end in a tie anyway. Which brings me to the most inexplicable part of soccer: the free-kick parties at the end of tied games. Really? Free kicks? You’re going to use an activity entirely unrelated to the game itself to decide who wins after having spent the better part of a day running up and down a giant field? It’s as bizarre and disappointing as if baseball games tied in the ninth were decided by flipping a coin.

Not that it really matters to me, obviously, it’s just that it’s really weird. Just saying. Um, Go USA?

Shaving and a bit of shameless pandering. (For a good cause, of course.)

Well, the snow’s melting and St. Patrick’s Day flags are sprouting up all over the neighborhood like a plague of reminders that it’s St. Baldrick’s season again; so if you’ve ever had the urge to either shave your noggin or at least try to convince one of your more malleable kids to do it, now’s the time.

Anyway, it was time to send out a Thank You email to everyone who supported our youngest who did it last year, and since I hate letting anything go to waste I figured I would repurpose the email and post it here. I am, in short, never afraid to maximize the heart-string-pulling potential of a piece like this. So then here it is:

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3/9/10

Hello all:

First, thanks so much to everyone who supported Ryan’s St. Baldrick’s Day Shavee Extravaganza last year; your generosity is much appreciated.

Now given Ryan’s foray into the exciting world of Type 1 diabetes last year, some might be tempted to wonder why he’s chosen to participate in a pediatric cancer fundraiser again rather than one related to his own thing.

At least partially, it seems that Ryan is excited to repeat the exercise because it gave him a reasonable excuse to avoid what is, apparently, the horrendous chore of getting a haircut. To that end, he has not had even a trim since being a shavee last March.

That said, Ryan’s participation this year is, of course, more than just about his hair. When Ryan was diagnosed last May he spent a week in Westchester Medical Center's pediatric wing. We all learned a lot that week, but perhaps most importantly we were reminded of a lesson that’s all too easy to forget: that there are always, always others less fortunate than ourselves. There is, in short, perhaps nothing more humbling than spending a week with children who are both living with and battling cancer.

So thanks again. The following URL links directly to Ryan’s St. Baldrick’s page where you will find a “before picture” of his unruly (tangly, unsightly mess) of hair that’s long overdue to hit the floor, as well as the links necessary to donate to the cause. (There are also before and after pictures from last year.)

2010: www.stbaldricks.org/participants/RyanReeeallyNeedsACut

Thanks!

Relativistic Ramblings: Is the music good? I dunno, let’s ask the 80’s.

There are few things that live on in perpetuity like those that you grew up with. Or, put simply in deference to you, Kent: everyone knows that the music you grow up with is that which continues to resonate with you long after it has any right or reason to. At weddings or similar events, for instance, you’ll find those who were young during WWII are always shuffling around in a wobbly approximation of swing dancing whenever “Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree” is played. (Quaint? Sure, but at least while grandma and grandpa are occupied on the dance floor the waiters get a break from getting yelled at for not bringing the Harvey Wallbangers fast enough.)

Moving on in generations: Acappella Do-Wop groups that regularly terrorize county fairs and the like are populated exclusively by beefy old guys who came of age in the 50’s and have a penchant for hot rods and size XXXL satin jackets. Do-wop? Really? I say “get some instruments and stop pretending you’re on a street corner in Flatbush, you vagrants.”

Then there are those who came of age in the 60’s, and as far as I’m concerned they still have to answer for Herman’s Hermits and The Turtles. (Is it fair to imply that Herman’s Hermits is characteristic of all 60’s music? Not really, but so what? Yeah you can bring up the Stones, The Who, Dead and Beatles, but it doesn’t change the fact that The Hermits sucked enough to smell up an entire decade. And Tiny Tim… oh never mind.)

Next of course came the 70’s; a dark time during which there was, inexplicably, no music at all. None. Moving on.

Now then, having arrived in the 80’s we find a decade represented by a golden renaissance of melodic genius. All was right with the world. New Wave bands littered the musical landscape like diamonds. (Neon pink and green diamonds.) Hair was big, clothes were all the colors of that neon rainbow, and if it didn’t come from Benetton it wasn’t worth wearing. (But what about Capezios and Members Only jackets, you ask? Yes, grasshopper, they were awesome as well.)

Music from the likes of Fine Young Cannibals, XTC and The English Beat filled frat houses and clubs alike, and there was a singer named Madonna who was, to some, young and attractive. Really! No lie!

The 80’s were fair and equitable though, and there were bands for those who preferred alternatives: That decade also saw, for instance, a few 60’s guys like Steve Winwood and John Fogerty come to their senses and create solo works that still define their careers. To me.

But then, all too suddenly, the dream ended when the 90’s blew in like a bitter wind. A bunch of bands from Seattle started filling the airwaves with their atonal nonsense called “Grunge,” and that, as they say, was pretty much that. Since then the musical landscape, such as it is, has been pretty much dominated by teenagers artificially manufactured in Disney’s musical sweatshops and something called Hip-Hop. Or so I’m told.

So there you have it: an exhaustive, scholarly history of music worthy of the finest tubes on the interwebs… and all in a mere five or six hundred words. Relativistic nonsense, you say? Well sure, but just to raise the stakes, I bet next time I can explain all of the world’s major religions even quicker. So there.

Diamonds in the rough.

As I’m sure I’ve pointed out more often than is good for anybody, there are few activities that I enjoy as much as wallowing in the shiny baubles that magically appear on the interweb each morning. To some, time spent that way is akin to getting caught in a virtual La Brea Tar Pits of link bait and indefensibly ridiculous bits of electronic effluvia; but I’m more than shallow enough to enjoy all of it.

To wit: just this morning I followed a few links on the Times’ Op-Ed page that were part of a sidebar entitled “Resources: More on what books to throw out and why it’s a good idea to clean one’s home library.” One of the links included was this little gem by Lewis Grossberger, which just shows to go ‘ya why one should never, ever, take anything at face value. Grossberger’s “Resource” is, in short, one of those shiny baubles I so enjoy, and even better, it was hiding in plain sight amongst some of the rather solemn bits of literary opinion on which the Times has always depended.

So, enjoy the shiny and have a nice day while you’re at it.