p e n g u i n d e v i l

So we’re back from Maine. We never actually made it to the coast, in fact the getting and coming wasn’t too great. But the day that we spent there was quite nice. And on the trip there we passed through a beautiful, foggy area that I must hike around in sometime, and I train that I must take. It was called Crawford Notch.

But anyway, Portland. I feel like we would rather have spent the last few years living there than in Big Portland. It was just a cool place. The old town seemed quite old. The sidewalks were bricks that must have dated from somewhere in the 19th centry, lots of nice old buildings and, though it only shows a population of 63,000, it felt a lot more citylike than that. In a lot of ways, it felt more citylike (at least “east coast city”) than Big Portland, which is many, many times its size.

But to counter my impressions of my last visit, the Old Town/Shopping district didn’t seem irritating like I had though it did, places have Veggie options on the menus, there are a good number of places to grab a beer and even micro-breweries! There were some good stores too. We found “Books Etc.” a “new book” store downtown that, while small, had a good selection and “Yes Books”, a used book store that, while disorganized (one of those “books stacked on the floor” kind of places), seemed a fun place to browse and they had a nice history section. It once again led me to wonder if the “Powells phenomenon” has really drained Portland of good, old books. Also, and I thought quite exciting, we stumbled on a little basement music store, “Bull Moose Music”, that I wandered around in and found not only a nice selection of new and used horror and Sci-fi DVD’s, but they actually had a “new and used” extreme metal section! While I didn’t find anything I needed, I imagine that it’s probably the only section like that in New England outside of Boston, so it’s good to know that it was there.

We discussed the notion of moving there, rather than Vermont… As it would be easier in a lot of ways, but I think we are still leaning towards the small town kind of community as where we want to settle.

We are about to set off on a vacation from our Vermont vacation. A two day trip to Maine! Portland, the coast? We are unscheduled and plan on just driving around looking for a nice play to stay somewhere in the Old Orchards/Portland/Freeport area. Hopefully not too close to Freeport, though of course we will have to go there to take in the outlets and the LL Bean store.

Really we just want to enjoy the coast and wander around Portland. Our friend Chanin lived there for years and it sending us some links of good places to go, and I really just want to check it out, as I’ve been there once before, many years ago, as wasn’t as taken with it as I had expected to be. So I feel like I might be in a bettter place to get it now. But we’ll see.

And I am curious about the coast because I’m not familier with the Atlantic but once we’re out here, it will be the local ocean, so I’d like to see what’s what. I think that Maine has a pretty rocky and stormy coast, which is my favorite kind, so I think it will be nice. Of course, the other thing is that I certainly won’t be finding time to make a post tomorrow, so I’ll be missing the goal once again, though I’ve been expecting this one.

I think about “nightlife” every time that I am in Saint jay. If this were a same size town in Oregon, it would probably have 20 “bars” in it. Here? Not so many. I know of maybe 5. There is the Dawghaus (where I would never go for I believe that it is worse that its neighbor). The bar next to the DH (which I don’t remember the name of), I went there once and it was one of those loud, well-lit, “paneling and bud light posters” kind of places… fine, I suppose, but certainly not what I am used to. Then there was the Underground, which I also had been to, some kind of dance club in the basement of an office building that seemed more like a junior high prom in a poor suburb in the 1980’s than a nightclub (I think it is a sports bar now). The lounge at the bowling alley (I haven’t been there, but I imagine that it’s the pick of the bunch) and then there is the place that I went for the first time tonight, The Black Bear. It is one of those old style restaurants with a banquet room off to one side and a little bar area in the back with baseball on TV. I had a fine time and chatted with some nice older ladies from Tennessee and California who were here for the foliage (“leaf peepers”). They had a half dozen beers on tap (luckily none of them were the big boys): their own ale, something called “Knuckleball Bock”, a Sam Adams, a red and a brown that were local, a Magic Hat… A much better array than I had expected.

What this leads me to think of is, of course, the bars back home. There are a whole lot of them, some of which I really like. Which ones? Well, my top home town bars:

The Horse Brass. The best drinking establishment in Portland. Thick smoky atmosphere, thickly smoked walls, crowded, old European pub interior, European football on TV if you are there at the right time, extensive beer menu (especially British), extensive whisky menu, lots of darts. Just the best place to have a beer and feel “the pub thing”.

The Cellar (Ringler’s annex). My personal favorite. the narrow, cavern-like basement of a narrow, windowed old triangular building on a corner downtown. The Cellar is dark, bricked, with large candlesticks thick with old wax and an oddly arranged set-up of tightly packed tables. As soon as I walked through the hatch and first descended the steep stairway down from the sidewalk, I felt like I was in some old underground bar in Europe. It is the perfect atmosphere to drink and read or share a beer with that special someone.

Dot’s Cafe. Just plain one of my favorite places, period. Nice beer, nice basic pub/”mexican” menu, nice booths, dark dark dark, filled with both tattooed hipsters swilling that PBR stuff and families out for a cool, dark place for lunch. I’ve been going here regularly for 15 years and haven’t begun to get tired of it.

The Little Red Shed. The best of the six or so places to get a beer at McMenamins Edgefield complex. The Shed is exactly that. A small brick building with enough room for the bartenders space and one table and then a little window-enclosed outer area that can hold maybe 8 people. Sometimes it seems a bit full if you aren’t the only party there, but with a good beer and a little snack it can seem just right.

Beulahland. A nice place right up the street. I used to work across the street and ended up going there about everyday. Since then, they have expanded to included a dining room space, but I’m still not too sure about that. Beulahland opens early for coffee, has some nice lunch food and at night is a rather crowded and noisy hipster bar, but it is a real neighborhood bar, and t looks like an a beat-up old neighborhood place. Great beer selection, and lots and lots of regulars

The Laurelthirst. Another place I used to go all of the time after work, they have the annoying habit of having bands play there, which is good if it’s someone you want to hear, but if you are just there for some daily beers, sometimes you would rather they just didn’t. But again, a neighborhood bar with a funky and cozy feel to it, great beer selection, good food (I especially like the Cannonball with beans), dark and laid back and a great place to go for breakfast, as barely anyone seems to go there for that, but it’s good.

The Basement Pub. A fun place, crowded, very smoky, low ceiling, and you will always run into at least one person that you know. Though it can be hard to find a spot to sit, they have a nice big fish tank, pinball, great beer, not much for food, but some little-sized options for $1.00, which is hard to beat.

The County Cork. I used to really like this place, years ago. But then they moved and I hadn’t tried out the new location until recently. But now I really like it. Very comfy inside with a rustic decor, good beers, some good food options, not crowded, a very nice mix of clientele, and kid and family friendly

The Hedge House. It is part of the Old Lompoc family of bars and is right up the street from our business. It is a cute little (very little) old bungalow with a side patio that continually gains in size and functionality, as this place can be much to popular for its little size. As with the other Lompoc’s it sells their own beer, but it is a great variety of great beers and a quite good food menu. The Lompoc’s each have their own version of Nachos, all of which are quite good.

I’ve been a bit grumpy here it VT. It’s been too hot (which makes me grumpy) and it was too sunny at the farmers market (which makes me grumpy and a bit naseous) but finally today it cooled down, became overcast and started to rain. It was a beautiful day! I would say that four of my favorite things are, and always have been: solitude, quiet, walking and rain. So once it started to get a bit dark, I finally stumbled on the idea of walking up the road before dinner. It was actually raining pretty hard and this is basically a hard-packed dirt road, but it was a pretty darned good walk, encompassing all four of those things. Though it didnt seem like the safest stroll, with how folks drive down these little roads, it was very calming, as I could feel tension well up in my back and then dissipate. I even made it to the little (very little, maybe a dozen souls) cemetery up a little slope off the road. I could only read one stone in the darkening, “Charles Adams, died 1845”, but it was nice, nonetheless.

I love the rural areas. Being here at the house or on the road or in the villages, I really do love it here. I love the people and the places, the little villages and their churches and the wonderful farmhouses and the streams and the hills. The towns, well… Brattleboro and, especially Montpelier, I do like a lot and I am very fond of Saint Johnsbury, but they do remind of some of the things that I want to get away from, the buildings and the traffic and all that. Though it hardly compares here, it is still the same idea as in a city, just on a much smaller scale. But maybe I was just grumpy when the thought occurred to me. The more we think about relocating here (four years now, we’ve been thinking) and the more time we spend here, the more I begin to get an idea of the changes in store for me. The obvious ones are the weather, the jobs, the movies and pubs and bookstores and record stores, but in a lot of ways it is the people that will be a tough one. Well, not the poeple themselves, as I’ve met dozens and they have been great folks, in a lot of ways I find them much easier to bear than some folks back home, but I am very used to Portland folks. By which I don’t mean the 60% of the population that has moved there, but the remaining folks who are from there. Portlanders tend to have a special little something. Something a little sarcastic, counterculture, resigned, and hermit-like, with a tinge of bemused hostility that I feel I’ll miss being away from. But then again, when ever one moves away from home, I imagine that there is alwasy something one misses, that doesn’t mean that it is not for the better. And I truely do feel that, especially in the long run, it would be a good move.

I was checking out some blogs (being the only person awake in the house compells me to stay that way) when I came across Wineplz, a new blog and another of the “31 for 21” gang. She mentioned that the October 3rd was “the Great Mofo Delurk day”, where you are supposed to actually comments on the blogs you read. I had to comment on that, as I thought it was a good idea. I am one of those who likes to comment (though, admittedly my comments tend to be: not entertaining, a little too opinionated and maybe overly long… Suprise, suprise). Commenting is an interesting idea and I have wondered about how the “average” blog’s “comment dynamics” work. I once decided that a blog gets one comment for every 70 visitors, that blogs tend to have a core group of regular commenters, some bloggers respond to the coments, some bloggers don’t, they tend to (for me at least) come in waves… And then there are the different styles: the brief “yeah, alright” comments, the short “thoughtful response” comments, the long-winded “here’s my take” comments… All are good (though I don’t normally do the first and I’m not too good at the second), not just for the sake of reading but because I think that everyone who writes a blog likes to think that someone out there is reading it and agrees or disagrees with something you’ve said.

That said, I do understand why someone might think, “what’s really the point of commenting? Of making a response to some random things that a stranger out on the internet said.” I suppose that you could say the same thing about blogging in the first place. Though I am by nature a lurker in all aspects of life, blogs get a bit more out of me. I imagine that people who tend to blog, tend to comment and probably find it fun to comment, plus it is another way of being an active participant in this funny little community of those who do this typing for all the world to see.

So as you can see, lord know who kind of stuff this 31 for 21 will get out of me, away from my movies and all…

You can tell I am getting old (or maybe it is just growing up), I finally felt the need to own something with some level of water resistance. While Portland may not be the rainyland people think it is, it certainly does rain. And though I have long conducted most of my transportation either on foot or on bicycle, I have never owned a jacket that had any ability to keep out water. Well, except for the ability to absorb it to some level. Today though, getting off work with nothing but a cotton cashmere sweater and a t-shirt… And thinking of the two miles and two errands between me at home… the fast and thick rain outside the office window led me to stave off leaving, especially since I knew I wouldn’t be able to use my headphones in that mess. So at the halfway point, and though it had pretty much stopped raining, I stopped in Next Adventure and picked up a used North Face jacket (you know, the yellow and black ones). So there. My first wet weather kind of coat. So we’ll see how it goes. it makes me feel more prepared for Vermont in the fall, though I don’t have much idea about the weather there, and also allows me to face the daily rain that is ahead of Portland for the next 5-6 months in a manner of preparedness unmatched in my 23 years of cross-city biking and walking.

Now if only I had some water proof shoes..

In slight movie news. I must here admit that I have had a long liking for Ralph Bakshi. When I was teenager I really liked both Wizards and The Lord of the Rings. In fact, I like his rotoscoping technique quite a bit. I know a lot of animation fans don’t like it, but then again, I don’t tend to like animation, so maybe it all makes sense. Any so the liking of Bakshi inspires some curiosity about his projects and when I recently realized that he had made a movie with Frank Frazetta, Fire and Ice. I just had to see it. Well, see it I did.

our heroine, always running

one of our heroes gets heroic

The story of two kings at war. When the daughter of one of them is kidnapped, she escapes her captors and most of the movie is her fleeing from the bad guys, with some heroic help. Though the dvd cover looks promising, the movie doesn’t look good and seems rather boring. the buxom animated girl wearing a little see through harem suit running through the woods, some uninteresting fighting, uninspired animation and a rather cliched storyline made me want to fast forward through the whole thing. If I am going to watch something like this, I’d pick
Heavy Metal over it anyday. At least that has Richard Corben and a good soundtrack!

Our friend Tricia at Unringing the Bell has got an agenda, to get as many people as she can to blog everyday this month! It’s the “Get it Down, 31 for 21 Challenge” and I am accepting the challenge! For a variety of reasons, it seems like crazed chaos to me, since I’ll be spending the next two weeks at my in-laws in Vermont, I won’t have enough access to my stuff to do the movie/metal/complaining that I regularly do here… I don’t even have any idea what my blog set-up will be out there (since I no longer have a laptop), but I will be trying to blog everyday.

Oh and, remember that what ever I do manage, it is all in honor of Down Syndrome Awareness Month! So blog everyday, read the 31 for 21 Blogs, learn one thing about Down Syndrome and stop by Unringing the Bell and say hello to Georgia and her fine folks!

WordPress 2.3 is out, I fear that means that I may update and also take this opportunity (as I imagine will thousands of others) to, yet again, tinker or trash this blog layout. Not only is it sad because I always end up making a fun little mess for myself, but also because I never really find anything that I am totally satisfied with, so consider this fair warning!

Some other little piece of interest, I was listening to Am I Evil? (yes, Metallica and no, I don’t like them either, but I am fond of this particular tune), when the line “My mother was a witch” came on. It reminded me of something that I saw at work on Wednesday. Someone sold us a little old handbound book of four pamphlets. It didn’t look particularly exciting on the outside but inside were not just any pamphlets, mind you, but pamphlets of contemporary accounts of the Salem witchcraft trials and related writings.

What makes these interesting is that they are original pamphlets! Actually dating from the seventeenth century. They were in remarkably good condition considering that they’ve been floating around since before the United States, and they were quite nicely printed. Anyway, I thought it was a neat little surprise, a hand bound (probably bound 300+ years ago) volume of four Witchcraft tracts (including two by Cotton Mather) in the original 1690’s printings. Of course, it was a bit creepy too, thinking that this was maybe someones reference book at the time. Sadly, even though its subject matter falls under my umbrella, its rather excessive cost meant that the Rare Books folks got to keep it. But still, seeing the occasional item like this reminds me of one of the great joys of working around used books, you really never know what might some your way.

I like blogs. I like to have one, and I like for other people to have one. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if everyone had one. Heck, why not? I don’t spend as much time with them as one might though. Honestly, I wouldn’t even call myself a blogger (I feel like I would need a bigger readership before I could throw that word around…), but I like them. Aside from the great fun and interest in reading them, another great thing about blogs is finding online quizzes you can take.

Over at Thud I stumbled on the Blog Addict quiz, I didn’t rate too high, but I’m not really surprised. But I thought it was fun…

65%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

But enough about blogs, for there is non-blog tech news. I finally ponied up for DSL. I can hear people saying… “what are you implying? You switched from cable to DSL?”. No, I were dial-up. I’m been 56k since 2000 when I moved away from the DSL that I got in ’98 while I worked for a local ISP. I haven’t had much interest in bandwidth since then. I don’t download much music since the sad demise of the old school Napster (macster) and the original MP3.com, I have never downloaded a movie and I tend to use the same stinky software year after year…

We’re only about an hour into it, and I haven’t really figured out what to do different, since most of my online interest is in text, but I imagine that I will become quite used to it again… As long as I can restrain myself from spending all night downloading Immortal videos from youtube… Something that has consumed too much time while on 56k.

Oh, and stay away from (excessive) Quake III Rocket Arenas…

Speaking of using the same stinky old stuff, after 4-5 years my old 2nd gen iPod is giving me trouble. I think the headphone jack is getting iffy. Yes, I have been interested in getting a new one for years, but I can’t justify the expense (even for a color screen), while I still have a functional one, and who cares what the display looks like? Well? I do. I’ve taken over a Nano for the time being and it’s fresh! Sure, I need to be more selective with what tracks I put on (since it holds less than mine), and the screen is little… But everything looks better, it’s black, the screen is color, the text looks nicer, it has some nice functionality (rating songs on the go? Great!) and, strangely important, you can see the album covers! Now that may sound frivolous for something that just sits in your pocket, but have I devised a justification. With all the song shuffling and such that goes on, albums are losing their albumness, just becoming a bunch of songs. But I change my mind a lot while listening so I am always taking the thing out and switching songs… I feel that seeing the album cover for each song adds a sense of continuity between the tracks on the same album…

Or so I thought today…

Speaking of the dead, and the right/wrong way to do things. I have been living in a little conundrum lately. You see, 4 years ago, in the peak of my movie obsessiveness, I got a region-free dvd player, because I couldn’t exist one moment longer without those movies that weren’t released in the USA in a timely fashion. Now that that has died off a bit and, honestly, every movie that I own in a foreign format is now available domestically, so I am rethinking my need for a region-free. Also, the machine is starting to die, anyway. What this leads to, of course, is the need to evaluate whether or not I should replace all of those movies that I have in region 2 or 3 or whatever. Maybe the project should flow naturally.

For instance, this week, I found, used for $7, a dvd of the American (Anchor Bay) release of Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore). Now I have had the Italian “Medusa” dvd of this delightful film for a number of years and this American one not only has more lasting power, but it also seems to be clearer on the image quality. And what is this image? It is basically a romance, Rupert Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte, a cemetery watchman who falls in love with a recent window (Anna Falchi). Once she is killed due to a tryst with him on her late husbands tomb, she has a tendency to reappear as other people. But that isn’t too surprising because in this particular cemetery, about a week after burial, the corpses come back to life and crawl out of their holes. Once this happens, Francesco has to shoot (or axe) them in their heads. He is used to this routine, going about it with his nearly mute assistant, but of course “love” rears its troublesome little head. As might expect, when the corpses come back to life so readily and have to be quickly put back down, death starts to lose some of its unique importance. So this leads to a number of deaths, both by gunshot, and spade and corpse.

It is certainly another humorous comedy splatter/zombie movie, with many corpses: Boy Scout’s, priests, you name it, being re-slaughtered. It is a lot of fun and easily a movie with much re-watching strength.

love

Death