so I complained about $6 Yuenglings at the 930 Club in a previous post, and told DCist.com about it, who put a piece on their site about it. Pretty cool.

Also, I read a book called The Vikings and America it was really interesting. The guy argues that the Vikings settlement in the New World, Vinland, was probably in northern Maine, not Newfoundland like some people say. He makes pretty logical arguments about it, and it's an interesting book anyway, talking about the history of the Vikings' western exploration.

I guess the fall is making me think of cold stuff, because I also read some interesting articles on the affect of global warming on Alaska and the Arctic. Pretty neat. Here is number one and two.

Sufjan Stevens at the 930 Club

sufjan
Originally uploaded by squidpants.

So first off, $6 for a smallish cup of Yuengling is ridiculous. The 9:30 Club must be going bankrupt or something. But I went to see Sufjan Stevens (and his band, the Illinoisemakers) there the other day there and it was enjoyable. I was hoping they'd be in some kind of costume, and they didn't disappoint, with Sufjan in a kooky American flag jumpsuit and the rest of the band in University of Illinois cheerleader costumes. They started with a song about the 50 states, part of which is here, and which continues with lots of rhymes about states and things. People would cheer when he said their state, which was sort of cheesy, but oh well. The band sounded really good though, very clear and together, and interspersed the songs with funny cheers (since they were dressed as cheerleaders) about the various songs they were going to play. The cheers sort of lost energy towards the end, but I bet they've done the same cheerleader chants 100 times. And unfortunately, the super hot xylophone player wasn't there. Sufjan (pronounced Soof-yon for those who care) called her their cheerleading captain and said she hurt her ankle or something. But they were fun anyway, and played most of the songs I want to hear (the ones on Illinois sort of run together, so I forget which ones they didn't do). I enjoyed them all though, including a very different version of the Star-Spangled Banner. One thing that struck me was when Sufjan said he was going to play a song about his favorite holiday, Casimir Pulaski Day, and a few dudes in the audience yelled "yeaaahhh!!" really loudly. They probably liked the song, or possibly the holiday, but considering the song is about a girl dying of cancer, it was a strange reaction. Same with the reaction to the beginning of the one about John Wayne Gacy. I did wish the encore were longer, and he doesn't seem to be the best banjo player, but I'm not exactly Earl Scruggs either. But minor complaints aside, it was entertaining - at one point I considered naming a kid Sufjan, but eventually decided against it. Sufjan's voice did sound just like on the CDs, which I wasn't quite expecting, since a lot of the time it's pretty quiet. The opening guy, whose name I forget, was decent. I saw a few songs and he had a good voice, but was sort of boring. People talked over him the whole time, which is too bad, but I was guilty a bit too.

so I just read on DCist.com that Cafe Saint-Ex is asking customers to put their collars down before they come in. That's awesome. Saint Ex is now my favorite bar. I hate the popped collar thing, it looks retarded. I always want to say to poppers, "hey, you know your collar is up," but haven't yet. maybe soon. I put my collar up once years ago out of idle curiosity, and I don't see what the attraction is. Come to think of it, not a lot of people talked to me then.

so the other day I walked outside to go to work and it was dry and a little chilly and the sky was clear blue, I didn't see a cloud anywhere. it made me think of when I used to go to Air Force Academy football games back in middle school, and how I always think of that kind of weather as football weather. I always loved football games, we'd coo out in the parking lot with lots of other folks from the base I lived on, we'd eat chili and whatnot and my parents would have bloody marys (or is it maries), which i always thought looked gross. If the games got boring, the kids would all go play football behind the stadium in a grassy field, until one kid got his collarbone broken on a tackle - it sounded like an NFL crunch, except nobody was wearing any pads.

There's also college basketball weather, which is similar, but I feel like is more chilly - from going to GW games early (noonish) on Saturdays. Word.

Williamsburg and Jamestown

shipsinjamestown
Originally uploaded by squidpants.

So I went to Williamsburg and Jamestown last weekend with my parents. It was pretty fun, and I do like historical stuff. However, it was also a little strange - Williamsburg is pretty antiseptic. The town was founded in 1699 and was the colonial capitol, but most of the buildings are rebuilt, only 80 out of 500 or something are original. Which is fine, but it just seemed a little Disney-ish, with spotless old houses and such. It's still kind of a nice atmosphere though and there are lots of little shops along the main street. It was nice walking around, especially at night. And talking to people about how much they loved the town (and also how people actually voted Disneyworld's Main Street USA as the best part of the park) made me think of how people really like traditional townscapes like that.

But anyway, they had a lot of historical reenactments, like soldiers and drum and fife corps, craftspeople making wigs and furniture and blacksmithing and such, which was interesting. Some of the reenactors were interesting and funny, but some were insufferable and annoying, especially the younger ones. I guess they are probably all theater types who think they're great actors. It was also weird seeing black reenactors dressed as slaves - accurate, but sort of unsettling. Anyway, here's a picture of soldiers marching outside the Kings Arms Tavern, which had pretty good food.

The town is centered on the old main street, Duke of Gloucester Street, and most of the historical stuff is within a block of two of that. It's actually laid out a lot like DC, with the Lincoln Memorial corresponding to William and Mary's oldest building, the Mall being Duke of Gloucester Street, the White House where the Governor's Palace is, and Capitols in the same place. I assume L'Enfant used Williamsburg for inspiration (map of the historic area here). There's also a few museums, like the Dewitt-Wallace Decorative Arts museum, which had silver and jewelry and crap like that, but also a really interesting exhibit on old maps, with lots of originals - John Smith's map of Virginia, lots of others from the 1600s, and so on. It was neat. The William and Mary campus is neat too, lots of old buildings. Here's the back of the Governor's Palace. It's sort of hard to tell, but there are 10 foot tall cylindrically trimmed boxwoods that look really cool.
There's also the normal, modern day town of Williamsburg, which is nothing special, but there was a good Mexican restaurant called "Casa Maya". I recommend it, it was more Mexican than Tex-Mex, and things were flavored differently than normal Mexican food.

After Williamsburg, we went to Jamestown, which is actually two parks. There's the original site of the settlement, called Historic Jamestowne, which is run by the Park Service and a group called the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, and there's the Jamestown Settlement, a reconstruction, run by a pseudo-state government foundation, the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. It's kind of confusing. We went to the reconstruction first, and I expected it to be corny, but it was actually the better of the two. They have a huge visitor's center with movies and food and all, and a gift shop with lots of stuff, from historical things to cheesy tourist crap. The park itself starts with a rebuilt Indian village, which was sort of interesting. The tour guide was a big high school looking kid in a Pocahontas-ish costume that was sort of funny, but was probably accruate. Then we went to the ships, pictured above, which were really interesting. One of the ships was being worked on, so it wasn't there, but the biggest and smallest were, the biggest is pictured. They're reconstructions also, but seemed very well done, and are seaworthy - the big one sailed across the Atlantic, and apparently is in an upcoming movied called "The New World" about Jamestown and such, with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. It actually looks pretty good, and also has Wes Studi, who is also cool. He was the bad dude in "Last of the Mohicans."

But anyway, we got to walk all over the ships, which was really intersting - it would suck to have to cross an ocean in one. The smaller ship was meant to be for exploring the area around the colony, and was actually built smaller than it should have been, but was still pretty tiny. The fort and town inside were really neat too, very primitive, and the reenactors were doing things like making food and working on armor. It was very hands on, more than at Williamsburg. I enjoyed it, you really got a feel of how much in the wilderness they were.

The Park Service/APVA Jamestown, however, was bad. There was a lot of construction going on, which is fine, but it seemed like they didn't pay much attention to park visitors. After going to a rebuilt glass furnace (pretty neat), we went to the main part of the park. We couldn't find a real visitors center, but did find a little gift shop. So we wandered across a bridge over the swamp which leads to the island the town was built on. It was basically unguided, since we didn't get a map (couldn't find the visitors center), and the park really didn't tell me anything. There was a big obelisk from the 300th anniversary, and there were foundations of buildings with some small plaques, a partially rebuilt church, and that was it basically. It left me with more questions than when I started, and that was after already learning about Jamestown - it must have been nonsense to people who didn't go to the other park. For example, there was a big plastic dome over one area. I assume it was to protect an archaeological dig, but there weren't any signs or anybody to tell me what it was. We didn't see a park ranger until after we had finished everything, and he was leading a tour. Where the tour started and how people found out about it, I have no idea. And it's not like we came in the back way, there's only one way in and one place to park. So the Park Service section was nice and peaceful, and gave you a good idea of where the place was, but I really didn't learn anything additional. I wrote them an email about the crappy experience, and they wrote back soon saying these were problems that were going to be fixed, but still. But not interesting park aside, I'm glad I went, and I enjoyed it all.

So that was the trip. Here are links and a couple more photos.

the non-Park Service, better Jamestown park. Dumb URL.

The Park Service site for Jamestown

Colonial Williamsburg. It's crazy they got "history.org" as their domain. They must have registered it 20 years ago or something.

Now pictures, here's the ceiling of the Governor's Palace. Those are guns. Apparently this was common back then.


Here's a crazy-shaped tomato from a garden in Williamsburg.


And here's me chilling with my pal Thomas Jefferson on the main drag in Williamsburg.

So I read that Don Adams died today, which is too bad. He did the voice of Inspector Gadget and was also Maxwell Smart on "Get Smart." Both shows were really cool, but being a kid in the 80s, I loved Inspector Gadget. I wish they still showed it somewhere, I’d watch it. Unfortunately the movie with Matthew Broderick was lame. "Get Smart" was a good show too, I loved the opening sequence where he went through all the doors and all the puns and goofiness. I remember watching it on Nick at Nite back in the day. The Yahoo article says he served in the Marines in Gualdalcanal and as a drill instructor, which is pretty wild, since he looked like a small dude and he had that nasally voice. IMDB has a bit more on him and there are a few videos and things on Amazon and Ebay too.

so I'm going to Williamsburg (VA, not Brooklyn) tomorrow. Here are some news articles I've been liking recently.

Yahoo has an interesting one about how hurricanes get their names.

Stereogum has a discussion about people who used to be in bands who now have real jobs.

the AP has an interesting piece about Congressional earmarks, which are programs that nobody asked for or recommended, but that congressmen put through anyway - i.e. pork. What struck me was that Alaska has the third highest amount of transportation earmarks, mostly for roads and bridges, which is ridiculous. It's not like these bridges link Manhattan to Brooklyn or France to England, it's linking some sparsely populated places to some other sparsely populated places. The Knik Arm bridge is the most ridiculous, they're spending $250 million on it this year alone, for a two mile bridge across a fjord. I guess they can sell a few more seals or ice cubes or something when they finish it. How stupid.

And the Post has a good article about local officials in Mississippi and Louisiana trying to get equipment for their cities - sometimes making them break into lots and take tractors out, because FEMA things take forever to arrive.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/krwashbureau/20050920/ts_krwashbureau/_wea_katrina_congress_1

99 bottles of Borf on the wall

borfobottles
Originally uploaded by squidpants.

So here's an old Borf thing in Shaw, there are 99 bottles of beer painted on the wall. Pretty cool.

In other news, I forgot to wear a belt to work yesterday, which was kind of embarassing. i didn't notice until I was waiting for the elevator to go to my office. So i did the "pull the shirt out a bit and put it over the belt area" thing, which hid it pretty well. I think belts are kind of dumb anyway though, it's not like my pants are going to fall off. Sort of a pointless article of clothing. Maybe I should get one of the belt buckles with the LCD screen, I can wear it to work and have it say "WORK RULES" or "I LOVE MAPS" or something.

so i was thinking about bands "selling out" recently and why it annoys me. The Rolling Stones, in particular, piss me off lately. They have to be extremely rich already, but they've been in some stupid commercials lately with these insurance people saying how cool it is to be at a Rolling Stones concert. I think that automatically makes your band lame, if your concerts are praised in insurance commercials. I'm sure they got paid a ton to do it too. And they're probably going to tour soon and charge $80 a ticket.

Then there was the whole Verve thing, where the Rolling Stones sued the band the Verve for using a very short and nearly impossible to notice sample of an orchestral version of a Stones song - not even the band themselves playing. The sample was in "Bittersweet Symphony," which was a huge hit for the Verve, and the Stones won all past and future royalties on the song, which they then licensed in lots of commercials - something I'm pretty sure the Verve had refused to do. So the Rolling Stones basically made a ton of money on a song they never wrote or performed and rubbed it in the Verve's faces. The Verve, who had been hailed as the one of the best bands of the late 90s, broke up not long after. It's not like they stole an entire song or were making fun of the Rolling Stones or anything - the sample was like six notes on a violin, nothing obviously by the Stones or really impressive musically or anything. I saw an interview on MTV or something with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards about the whole deal and they were furious that the Verve had dared do that. What a bunch of dicks. They're obviously just out to line their own pockets however they can.

Another example of what I think is a sell out are the Black Eyed Peas. They don't make me as mad as the Rolling Stones, but have been in so many commercials, magazine ads, etc, sometimes for the most tenuous reasons, that it's ridiculous. I feel like they're more of a spokesband than a real musical group now. Which is too bad, because their old stuff was pretty good, like Bridging the Gap, which was before they got the girl singer. I also think part of what annoys me about them being in so many commercials is that a lot of the commercials basically say that they're a cool group. If you have to be told that something is cool, then it's probably not. And since when is Best Buy or some car company the arbiter of cool? Plus commercials seem to decrease coolness exponentially - being in one commercial is not bad, but you rapidly get less cooler as you appear in more commercials. I thought Moby's Play cd was great, but after he licensed every song to commercials, it became not very cool. He's almost a joke now, and none of his CDs after that have sold very well. Even Snoop Dogg in commercials is getting old, it's almost rote - here's Snoop, he's dressed like a pimp, he says "izzle" a couple times, and our company is now cool.

But along the same lines, I wonder what else it is that makes me feel like a band sold out? I think what a band is selling is a big factor - Ikea wouldn't be too bad, but some chips or Pontiac cars would be pretty lame. Devo let the Swiffer mop thing use a version of "Whip It" in a commercial as "Swiff It," but apparently they said OK because it was such a bizarre idea, which I think is a good reason. Maybe how obscure the band plays a role too - for example, I think I heard an Iron and Wine cover of "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service in a car commercial, which I thought was cool. But I heard a Postal Service song in another car commercial and thought it was lame. Iron and Wine are definitely more obscure, and I've heard the Postal Service a lot more often, so it seems like more of an attempt by them to get famous. But why don't I think that way about Iron and Wine? They were both in car commercials? It's odd. Maybe something about Iron and Wine makes them seem less corruptible or something.

And a corollary is that if the band is obscure and a little old, I think it's fine - like I just heard Civ's "Can't Wait One Minute More" in a Nissan or Toyota commercial - good for them! That was a minor hit maybe 10 years ago, I think it's cool they're getting paid for it again.

But if I ever make music and people want to use it in a commercial, I'll only consider it if it's a cool commercial that isn't on very much, and it's some product I like. Assuming that ever happens of course. I probably would need to music some kind of music first.

Stereogum has a thing about Paul McCartney in a commercial too.

Pickle Chips

picklechips
Originally uploaded by squidpants.

so I saw these the other day at the deli near work and I decided to pick them up. I like to try different kinds of chips. They were pretty tasty, and really do taste just like pickles, it was kind of uncanny. They weren't super strong flavored either, which was good, unlike some of the flavored chips. It was just like eating a chip, then eating a pickle. Maybe pickles are now obsolete. The only bad thing is that it didn't taste very much like dill, more like a vinegary pickle, which is too bad, because I really like dill. But they were tasty anyway, and I recommend them. It seems like there have been a lot of new kinds of chips recently - salt and pepper, sweet potato, lime, etc. My friend Tuck from Canada talks about pickle chips and also ketchup chips, which he claims are amazing. I haven't seen them though.