Damn it now I am hungry. It is hard to tell how big the portions are from the pictures without some kind of scale. Those plates could be very large or normal sized which would make a difference.
I have been to Claim Jumper, in my youth! They have, like, an 18-layer cake.
I think the photos do not, indeed, convey the actual size of the servings. I've never been to Claim Jumper, but I've been to a Cheesecake Factory and the plates and pile of food are unabashedly enormous, much bigger than what the photos there seem to depict.
I've been to Claim Jumper. Everything they serve, including (and this is key) the cocktails, is un-fucking-believably giant. I think you're not getting a proper sense of scale from those pictures. Look at the fries in the picture with the burger: those are normal-sized fries. And it's not just the portion sizes; everything is made in the most calorie-dense way possible. I can eat a ton, but I split a single order of fries there among three people and we could barely finish it.
Naw, they all look like theoretical single servings to me.
I get a meal a day, and the two monsters get 1/3 of their calories, from the lady's lunches, brought home in a doggy bag.
Was watching V last night. The first thing that struck me was the absence of P & G commercials and their like. The second thing was all the chain restaurant commercials.
The US has attained some weird historical peak of decadent gluttony.
Yeah, Cheesecake Factory is comical. I went there once in my youth, and was served an omelet that must have had six eggs in it. It was enormous and tasted truly awful. If you'd backed away from the plate a few feet before taking the picture, it might have looked like a normal-sized brunch.
4 loses the grammatical thread towards the end. I blame America.
4: The avocado is the tip-off to me. Eight slices? If I put four slices that size on a sandwich, I'm eating an avocado sandwich, as in, avocado is the main ingredient in the sandwich.
It's kind of boring to hate things that everyone else here also hates, but I really, really, really fucking hate the Cheesecake Factory. Just an awful institution at all levels -- huge, bad tasting portions, lines, not cheap, boring design.
And, guess what -- I have to go to one for lunch today! To meet someone who suggested going there, and I didn't have the heart to say no. So, I'm pleased to say the CF will be getting my dollars today.
Yes please, I would like an avocado sandwich. And it's very decent of you to first offer me pills that will enhance the size of my penis and then lunch. You are a full-service imaginary friend!
10: I AM SO SO SORRY. I have tried putting my head in a blender but I don't have a blender.
The pictures at the link are also the promotional pictures taken by Claim Jumper. If you're thinking about scale, maybe this will be informative. Even the plates are giant.
And things like this: gaaah! Look at the enormous container of... what, hollandaise? Cheese? What is that? that comes with the potato.
9: you should have suggested Clearman's North Woods Inn. There's still time! Just tell them you have a medical condition where you have to throw peanut shells on the floor.
container of... what, hollandaise? Cheese? What is that? that comes with the potato.
It looks like gravy.
Tweety, that looks awesome. Wrong side of town, but awesome. I believe that I may have been to their sister restaurant the "Steak 'n Stein" long ago, or perhaps that was a different Steak 'n Stein.
The last time I was at a Cheesecake Factory, it was because our women's Ultimate club was trying to connect with the professional women's football team in town. Mostly, we wanted them to send the women who didn't make tryouts over to us. There were three of us and three football players. I usually think of myself as a large person, but there was definitely a huge gap between us and the football players, and I was on the tiny side. They picked Cheesecake Factory.
I've always been impressed a how fast food basically never looks like the picture they show on the menu. I think this just an extension of that phenomenon.
16: it's actually kind of terrible, but in a fabulous way.
I think Claim Jumper is an extremely suburban, red-state franchise. I did a quick tally of their 27 California locations and found 21 were in Republican Congressional districts (and 8 were in Orange County).
I was in a rural location recently and went to a local diner. The standard brunch (average sized menu item) was a 5-egg omelet with hash browns and a side of pancakes.
I think Claim Jumper is an extremely suburban, red-state franchise.
I live in a red state, but the nearest one to me is two states away. Why can't your ginormous portions be closer to me?
The pictures at the link are also the promotional pictures taken by Claim Jumper.
Which reminds me, apropos the discussion of Yglesias' photos, that he did a post on the Double Down using a KFC promo shot as an illustration. Which, of course, looks nothing like an actual Double Down. KFC is good at getting people to get their message out.
If you're thinking about scale, maybe this will be informative.
Whatever that man is eating is more food than an entire normal-sized cake or pie. I am impressed.
I've always been impressed a how fast food basically never looks like the picture they show on the menu.
20, 22: I don't think it's a red state thing so much as a Western thing. The link in the original post says "46 locations in eight states in the western U.S." I know I've never heard of it before now.
11: No worries. The avocado sandwich will more than make up for the fact that the pills didn't work.
This thread is really making me want fast food. That's so perverse. I'm going to eat a double down and regret it, I can already tell.
27 is right, but is not limited to food -- most food photographs badly, as a rule.
I'm going to eat a double down and regret it, I can already tell.
Self-knowledge is a good first step.
30: It's doing the reverse for me. It's not like I'm having a visceral, disgusted reaction, but this thread is definitely making me less inclined at the moment to meat-eating and junk food.
||
Hey ari, you're a historian and all, but is your wife as supportive as Orlando Figes' wife?
|>
I didn't mean to imply by "red-state" that it's at all a national franchise. But it seems to stick to the suburbs in the states it's in.
That burger looks impossible to eat. Nobody's mouth opens that wide except for those dislocating-jaw snakes. And Hippos, I guess.
33: Totally. I've lost both my appetite and my last shred of hope for this country.
Probably also worth pointing out that everyone looked like they ate 5-egg omelets on a regular basis. Not a single person with BMI
I'd say multiplication of eggs results in half as much pleasure derived from each additional egg. One egg is lovely. Two are good, three are sometimes OK, and any more than that is disgusting.
So where does the 12-egg omelet end up on that scale?
Huh. If I'm making eggs for myself at home, I'll usually make five or six. But I'm usually not eating a lot of other stuff alongside them.
Hey, the second half of my comment got eaten by a bracket. It should read "with BMI less than 25, and several morbidly obese folks (insert comment about usefulness of BMI here)."
It's not just crappy restaurants that do this sort of thing, though.
when people ask me to go to places like that, i say ok. then i only order 5 espressos, and maybe a martini.
you're a historian and all
Actually, I'm better known as a life coach and motivational speaker.
40: hah! I was going to link to one of those.
Broken Yolk Café Special (For the iron man or woman)
A dozen-egg omelet filled with mushrooms, onions, American cheese and smothered with our chili and more cheese. On the other half of a 15-inch pizza pan is a generous pile of homefries and two biscuits.
The Broken Yolk Special is Free if you eat it all within an hour.
i mean, places like cheecake factory or macoroni grill
And wash all of this food down with your choice of a Game Day Ice or a Game Day Light, 7-Eleven's new store-brand beers.
From 27, McDonald's Filet O' Fish sandwich actually photographs surprisingly accurately.
Hoo boy. 30 gets it right. This thing is intense.
My father once ate 12 eggs, fried. He was on leave in Denmark just after WWII and hadn't seen a fresh egg for 6 years. A recently liberated Dane took him home to treat him.
Who loves the Cheesecake Factory? Pro athletes. That is certainly the rep here in P'burgh plus they are usually crowded. So I was surprised* at how pedestrian a place it was when I ate there for the first time this year, but portion sizes, wow!
*In retrospect why I had no reason to be surprised.
48: Huh. I don't think it will work unless they can sell it cheaper than Bud, which is the same price.
No time to rest on your laurels, immenso-Americans. Some Japanese, at least, will crush you.
A sumo wrestler consumes 20,000 calories a day, split between two very large meals of 10,000 calories each.
53 Bave got some Trader Joe's beer that was cheaper than Bud and, unshockingly, markedly better. So all things are possible in the realm of marginally palatable, cheap beer.
55: They also routinely pick up and throw around guys who weight as much as the two of us put together, so I'm not going to taunt them.
Actually, I'm better known as a life coach and motivational speaker.
But are you as well known as Dr. Cherie and her sister Marie? (Actually, the sister's name is Lynn, but I think she should change it to Marie for promotional purposes).
When I buy cheap beer I buy the cheapest beer that don't have the words "Ice" or "Light" in the name. At my local store, this generally means Busch, Old Milwaukee or PBR depending on what's on sale. I would be perfectly willing try 7-11 beer, but they fail the ice/light test.
Beth's Cafe in Seattle makes 6- and 12-egg omelets. When I left WashPIRG I had a going-away party there and we ordered a bunch of 'em.
They also routinely pick up and throw around guys who weight as much as the two of us put together, so I'm not going to taunt them.
But they're pretty slow, so as long as you have a two-step head start it should be OK.
And if it comes down to it, you can always get away by dodging across the nearest set of trolley tracks.
62,63: Failure to escape means death by atomic wedgie. Better to just avoid them. Actually, better to pretend Japan is completely imaginary, like Middle Earth only weirder.
64: But then all your imaginary friends will make fun of you for being scared of fat dudes in diapers.
50: Are you really eating a Double Down, Tweety? If so, can you explain, um, what the "Colonel's sauce" is like?
65: hey, I wouldn't want to run into that in a dark alley.
66: I did eat a Double Down, yes, and now I'm preparing to go for a bike ride to somehow expunge the grodiness. The Colonel's sauce appeared to be a vaguely spicy mayo and/or ranch kind of thing. Actually it wouldn't have been so terrible, but the chicken breasts were (a) kinda dry and (b) quite thick, so the experience was primarily one of biting into a four and a half inch thick stack of dry white meat chicken. The mystery sauce was kind of a relief.
68: Have you considered a marketing career if the killer robot thing doesn't work out?
I've eaten at Claim Jumper. They suck, and their portions are big, thus ruining the Woody Allen reference.
The cover article in The Atlantic* that just showed up in my mailbox appears to be about the "obesity epedemic" which I'm putting in scare quotes because a number of people whose blogs I read say it's just kind of a hateful myth with all kinds of nefarious trappings of patriarchal oppression and, and, and...stuff.
I don't know enough about it to say, but I'm expecting to have some not negligible number of misgivings about the article. It's a shame I didn't read it earlier so I could have them out loud in this comment thread. It seems like people here would have interesting if occasionally highly coded reactions to such a thing.
*or..."in the The Atlantic that &c" but I mean no.
Has this week long food diary from the NYT restaurant critic been linked to yet?
71: I keep waiting for the bloggers at Shapely Prose to have something to say about it. Having read it, I can anticipate what some of their objections will be, but Ambinder does a pretty good job IMO of avoiding fat-shaming.
Bave got some Trader Joe's beer that was cheaper than Bud and, unshockingly, markedly better.
Some of Trader Joe's house brand beer is made by Unibroue.
There used to be a terrific little sushi place near my office (with, I think, the only Japanese female sushi chef in town at the time) that would serve, if one asked, extra-large pieces (i.e., two bites to the usual one) of sushi. In general, extra-large sushi is pretty bad, but in this case it was what Mae West used to say about too much of a good thing.
God, I miss that place.
74: The 7-Eleven stuff is being produced by City Brewing in Lacrosse, Wisconsin (an old Heilemann brewery--they also run the old Rolling Rock place in Latrobe) which has a small business with it's own branded beer and a big business of doing other people's beer and stuff like Smirnoff Ice and Mike's Hard Lemonade.
53: 48: Huh. I don't think it will work unless they can sell it cheaper than Bud, which is the same price.
Maybe it just needs attention from the right contrarians.
an old Heilemann brewery
Last time I was in Chicago, I got a bit excited about being able to get Old Style beer, and my family thought I was weird. "Dude. It's just Old Style."
74: I thought that was only their special brews, though. When I've seen the Trader Joe's Unibroue beer, it was in 750 ml corked bottles pretty much identical to those used by Unibroue for their self-branded beers.
The stuff that's cheaper than Bud comes in plain cardboard 6-packs that advertise its ordinary nature, and I'm quite sure it's a different contracted brewer.
77: You mean hipsters? I don't see it happening. OTOH, I didn't see them getting into Coors, either. I understood PBR, Miller, all that, but Coors? Muy misterioso. Also, I missed the part when they stopped listening to indie music and only listened to pop and rap. Boy was it embarrassing when I put my iPod on at a party!!! And I showed up with Bud!
80: You can show show up at my parties with your iPod and Bud anytime, AWB.
Stanley, we are the Baby Bear of hipness--juuuuuust right.
I assumed JP was referring to this irascible contrarian, whose defense of shitty beer is second to none in eloquence or ferocity.
83's link is the reason I first tried Bud. I used to be a beverage snob.
I truly don't understand how anyone could consider Budweiser shitty beer. I mean that. It's not outstanding beer, but it's definitely middle-of-the-road, and above average for mainstream American beers.
85: For real, I had never actually tried it. If someone brought it to a party, I assumed they were being passive-aggressive. Now I bring it to parties pretty often and get the stinkeye myself. Oh, you'll be glad it's here in a few hours when you've made yourself sick on liquor, wine, and stout.
It's not difficult for something to be both above average and shitty.
I still think it's a shitty beer, but that's just because it's a light lager. I don't like even the supposedly great pilsners from really good brewers like Victory. It's just not my thing, until I'm drunk enough to not care about taste much.
But then there's Miller, Old Style, or PBR, and I feel the need to drink Chicago (made by Milwaukee).
87: Budweiser is, above all, a very ordinary beer. To believe Budweiser is shitty is to believe beer must be extraordianry in order to not be shitty. That's crazy.
"Shitty" is just far too strong a word. I wouldn't care if the list of beers you'd use to complete the sentence "I prefer ______ to Budweiser" was massively long; that probably just means you don't like American-style lagers. Fine. But it's not shitty.
that probably just means you don't like American-style lagers.
I don't know Budweiser definitely seems to have it's own taste. I drink a decent amount of American Lager (MGD, Mich Golden, High Life, etc.), and I find Budweiser to be distasteful. That doesn't make it shitty, but I don't think it is pure snobbery to dislike it either.
Michelob is a bit drier, and nicer with pizza, but not much on its own.
I think the operating definition of shitty used by most people is "I don't like it."
The correct definition, of course, is "Togolosh doesn't like it."
I'll try Budweiser and get back to you on the shitty question.
90 is interesting. Okay: I'll grant you, CJB, the right to call Bud "shitty", subjectively. I'm not aware of anyone else who drinks what you drink and feels the same way. (Personally, I prefer MGD or High Life to Budweiser, but I definitely wouldn't call Bud "distasteful".)
Natural Ice? Busch? Keystone Light? Those are shitty beers.
71: It think we should call it the Epidemic of Eating Crappy Food and Sitting on Your Ass All Day Every Day. Then no one could deny that it is real and a real problem. A lot of the solutions on the table now wouldn't change either. Soda tax. Reign in the salt content in prepared foods. That sort of thing.
89: I'm challenging your logic, not your conclusion. I agree that Budweiser is perfectly drinkable when there's nothing better on hand, but the idea that "x is above average" means "x is not shitty" is objectionable.
I don't know about shitty, exactly, but I find Miller astonishingly tasteless. In the Peace Corps, I drank the local beer, Vailima (your basic German style lager) exclusively because it was what was available for cheap. About a year in, I had dinner with some Japanese volunteers who'd brought in cans of Miller from overseas, and I thought it was some kind of a prank, and they'd filled beer cans with seltzer. Couldn't taste beer at all.
94: The one cool thing about Natural Light is that you can fashion a helmet from the 12-pack box and proceed to tell everyone at the party that you're the Natty Knight. Not that I've ever done such a thing, mind you.
I pay around 30 cents a bear for Busch or PBR. Bud is 80 cents a beer, but not really all that much better. I don't notice a difference worth paying for until I get to beers that cost more than a dollar per bottle--Dogfishhead is my fav, but Sierra Nevada is good too.
Reign in
You're homing in on a peeve there. Isn't "reign" just wrong? "Rein in" makes sense, but what does royalty have to do with it?
I'm willing to say that "Budweiser sucks" is merely an opinion, and that "'Budweiser sucks' is the opinion of a right-thinking person" is still merely an opinion, and even that people accustomed to worse beers might think that Budweiser is actually pretty good, but no way are its ordinariness and shittiness mutually exclusive. "Shitty and ordinary" is a key category of American culture (and other cultures besides, but we do it especially well).
102: I was wondering about that when I wrote it, but I didn't bother to look it up. Also, I'm not bothering to look it up now. I'm supposed to be working.
Here's a list of last year's winners at our local brewfest -- this year it's May 1 2010:
Best Lager: Bayern Maibock
Best Light Hybrid: Glacier Brewing Golden Grizzly Ale
Best Pale Ale: New Belgium Mighty Arrow
Best Amber Ale: Green Lakes Organic Amber
Best Dark Ale: Harvest Moon Pigs Ass Porter
Best Strong Dark Ale: Highlander - Missoula Brewing Co.
Best Wheat or Rye: Bayern Dragon's Breath Dark Hefe
Best Belgian: Blue Moon Belgian White
Best IPA: Deschutes Brewing Inversion IPA
Best Fruit Beer: Pyramid Brewing Audacious Apricot Ale
Best of Montana: Highlander - Missoula Brewing Co.
Best of Show: Deschutes Brewing Inversion IPA
I have some Maibock in the fridge right now, as it happens. Stuff's not bad. The whole world's been going to hell in a handbasket my entire adult life, and one of the few exceptions is beer. I'm not planning to waste another minute drinking Bud. (Unless, you know, I'm a guest, and that's what's on . . .)
99: 30 cents is cheap, but if it's one of those tasteless American bears you'd be better off with a badger or perhaps a koala.
105: Fair enough. I see "reign" a lot and cringe, but after the home in/hone in thread I don't feel safe assuming anything about my usage peeves.
104.last is pretty much what I was trying to say, except it's coherent.
I like Inversion IPA a lot.
"Average" media coverage of any significant event is certainly "shitty" -- I don't believe this statement is in any way controversial.
104: that's different than the claim I'm making. What I mean is that I don't believe that anyone (other than CJB) can like American-style lagers but dislike Bud. It's fine to dislike the whole genre, and I'm even okay with "American-syle lagers are shitty" (because hey, everyone's entitled to an opinion), but "Budweiser is shitty" is just nonsense. (CJB excluded.) In a very real sense it's the standard against which all other American-style lagers are judged. (And IMO there are some that are much better, and some that are much worse, and people can disagree about all that.)
97: Miller's MGD and High Life aren't particularly strongly flavored beers, but I think the stuff you had on the remote Pacific island was also hurt by the long distance. Really light beers like pilsners and American lagers don't travel too well. Especially if they make the trip across the ocean to Japan, and then halfway back again.
Germans really got around, and founded a decent lager brewery pretty much anywhere you can go. Always worth drinking local.
I don't have a strong opinion here, because I mostly don't drink mainstream American lagers, but surely what's going on when someone calls Bud shitty is that they're comparing it to a category broader than mainstream American lagers. Lagers generally, maybe, or beer generally.
114: but you can't blame that on Budweiser.
We had some folks over for dinner not long ago and one fellow we hadn't met brought a growler of Cold Smoke. Way to make a first impression!
Growlers are charming, aren't they? Buck bought a couple to put homebrew in, and cracking open a halfgallon jug of beer just feels festive.
I love it when Brock emphasizes lots of words.
Analogy warning, but this would be just like saying "Detroit Metropolitan airport is shitty", when what you mean to say is "I hate flying." You're perfectly entitled to think that all major airports are hellholes, DTW included, and you may even be right, but anyone hearing your statement is going to think "Huh? DTW is probably the best major airport in the country. Why would she call it shitty?"
I'm all worked up, AWB; I can't help it. You should see the hand gestures.
Best Belgian: Blue Moon Belgian White
Huh, really? You know, I've stood up for Blue Moon, which is a perfectly good witbier/Hoegaarden knockoff, but best Belgian?
Budweiser is among the better Budweiser-like beers, for certain values of "Budweiser-like".
122: I find that surprising, too. It's Coors, ffs.
At the local places where you can get Belgian beers, Rfts and I have mostly been drinking Rochefort. (Also Grimbergen Dubbel, which is a great, Skeletor-like name for a beer.)
In a very real sense it's the standard against which all other American-style lagers are judged.
IOW, it's the shitty beer by which other shitty beers are judged.
"It's the beer to drink when you're drinking shitty beer!"
122: Maybe they were using "Belgian" to mean "white", in which case the chief competition is, what, Allagash White and Hoegaarden?
119: I mean, I'll half concede that. But I love beer! I just don't like the variety that includes Budweiser.
Sooo... To keep up your analogy... I would probably say that pretty much any regional airport is shitty (even the very best one!), since it doesn't take me anywhere I want to go. But I will defend the machine-like efficiency and general comfort of Hong Kong's International Airport to the death.
"It's the one beer to have when you're having more than one already drunk."
Around here, that's PBR, but whatever.
128: Yep, and Hitachino (or whatever that expensive Japanese owl brewery is), as well as random local microbrew versions. If I recall correctly, you should be near Great Lakes, who do quite a good one.
I think that's pretty much the one beer type where the biggest traditional brewer just got it right the first time, and no craft version really beats it. Hoegaarden should make their slogan "Why pay more for the same damn thing?".
I completely agree that American-beers (Bud included) are awful by world-beer standards. (Even though I drink them.) It's just singling out Bud that's wrong.
It's Coors, ffs.
Nevertheless, it's not half bad, if you want a witbier.
At the local places where you can get Belgian beers, Rfts and I have mostly been drinking Rochefort.
April is Belgian beer month at Toronado! Twice as many Belgians on tap as usual! whee.
83: PMP was quite right as to the contrarian I had in mind.
120: I'm all worked up, AWB; I can't help it. You should see the hand gestures.
I'm imaging the right-bathroom-stall-is-open celebratory fist pump* when you get in a good zinger.
*Not that I've seen that, either.
I actually prefer Old Milwaulkee (not the Beast) in bottles to Budweiser. But that's just me.
If Hoegaarden didn't enter its very fine beer in the Garden City brewfest, it can't win. The website doesn't yet say what beers are in competition this year, but I doubt they'll be here.
|| I just got a significant favorable ruling in a case -- the other side's counterclaims dismissed without leave to re-plead. Drink up! |>
I am going to help Brock.
For many years, the only beers widely available in this country were cheap American lagers. These were shitty. Budweiser was by far the most popular of these beers, and considered by many to be the best. Nonetheless, it does not taste good (I personally think it tastes specifically bad, worse than the rest of them, but anyhow). It was therefore necessary for people who liked beer that is not shitty to make clear that even if Budweiser is the very best American-style lager out there, it is still shitty beer.
I'm serious about finding it specifically bad, by the way. Budweiser is one of the few beers that I actually won't drink if it's available. Perhaps the only beer?
131.1 - Huh, I haven't tried the Holy Moses. I will do so when it gets a little hotter! The Elliot Ness lager and their porter are fantastic, though.
141: I lived on Dortmunder when I lived there.
Holy Moses white beer is my absolute favorite beer.
Is Hitachino the one with watermelon?
144: I haven't had it if it is. They do really nice beers and I like the owls.
138: OTOH, I recently lost a motion to dismiss I hadn't made.
147: We can drink to that, too.
I got a rejection letter from a job I didn't apply for.
149: We can drink to that, too.
Those owl beers are literally the most expensive beers (per ounce) at my favorite beer place. Much more expensive than any Belgian beer. It continues to baffle me.
I tried the red rice beer. Quite good.
151: The rule is "An occasion for every drink, and a drink for every occasion." I made that up, but it's still the rule. For now, I'll drink to CharleyCarp's good fortune, and to Darnell McDonald.
The rule is, a drink to-morrow and a drink yesterday—but never a drink to-day.
Well.
Yeah, best to steer clear of the well/rail stuff. Go for at least first-shelf.
So, update on the Cheesecake Factory lunch. Not only did the lunch blow, but the city decided that today was the day my parking tickets would catch up with me, and towed my car. People, I am riding the fucking BUS home. You have no idea what this does to me as an Angeleno. A stray pitbull is walking around the bus stop.
OT: Wow. Someone I know from high school just joined a FB group called "DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN."
160: It's possible there's something strange about Facebook.
I'm really enjoying 27's Ads vs. Reality link. I know that food photography is an art, but there's not a lot you can do with some of those realities.
... And now I'm wedged between a woman with a giant stroller and a guy who for some reason decided to take two large vacuum cleaners with him on the bus. Even less pleasant than imagined! F you Cheesecake Factory.
163: at least you're half krd. I admit to slightly
enjoying your public transit odyssey, though. Enjoy the bus! Millions of people ride it every day! (Close
to a million in LA, I think.)
160: I haven't seen that status roll through my feed, but I've seen a bunch of statuses condemning it. And I think, eh, I danced and laughed for an hour when Jesse Helms finally died, and he was many years into powerlessness at that point (of course, I'm a tactless asshole, but I've come to peace with that). Anyhow, I think revealing that you're the sort of person who would copy and paste an all-caps status that manages to misspell both Swayze and Farrah is sufficiently ignominious that I'm willing to point, laugh, and forget it.
Yes, lack of ridership is not a problem. Let me tell you.
It will add to your amusement to learn that I grabbed a copy of Variety at the office to read durin my adventure.
166.1: perhaps the problem is lack of funding for adequate service!
165: It's the particular combination of dumb, unfunny, and homicidal that rubs me the wrong way. I don't care enough to engage about it.
dumb, unfunny, and homicidal
Quintessentially American!
Oh, absolutely. I'm just enjoying being an ass -- I read somewhwere that the Wilshire Blvd bus route is one o the most used public transportation lines in the country, or something.
169: And shitty and ordinary! Five-time all-American!
169, 171: Sort of reminds me of a guy who used to be President.
I took the bus from Silver Lake to Santa Monica for a lunch meeting with a former E.R. writer. It felt world-collidey in a nice way.
To RobErr is Halford.
To RobForgive is Hollywood and da' Vine.
Quintessentially American!
These days we're supposed to be convincing (reassuring?) ourselves that that is not quintessentially American.
OK, made it home alive. The stray pitbull was the scariest part; the 1.5 hour ride, the worst part, the guy who brought his keyboard onto the bus and started belting out his own R&B was the best part. Fucking bus.
And I get to do it again tomorrow. I would adopt RobErr, but I don't think I'm at the nickname-commenter -- Apo, LB, KR -- level yet.
the guy who brought his keyboard onto the bus and started belting out his own R&B was the best part
I've mentioned it before, but the bus system in Santiago, Chile is awesome in this regard. You're pretty much guaranteed at least one music group (yes group) and one popsicle (what the fuck? that word does not need to be capitalized, firefox) seller. Who would always say "cherimoya, cherimoya, cherimoya, cherimoya!" Is there any sound more pleasant on a hot day? I submit that there is not.
Glad you made it home RobErr.
That that is not quintessentially American is not that, which is not quintessentially American.
Wouldn't that make you Rob Aitch? R-Hal is pretty awful.
I'M SORRY YOU FEEL THAT I AM AWFUL, MEGAN. I COULD HEAR WHAT YOU WERE SAYING ABOUT ME, MEGAN.
When Michael Dukakis is in LA to teach, he takes the bus everywhere. "Why would I drive", he says, "when there's this extensive bus system used by tons of people every day?"
Be like Mike, RobErr. Be like Mike.
Not that I ever took the bus when I lived in LA. I did ride the subway quite a bit. Once in a Santa suit.
RobErr's parking ticket fines will fund something or other, anyway.
I took the bus and light rail somewhat often. Every work day morning from Pasadena to Monrovia for a year.
RobErr, if I may: why hadn't you paid your parking tickets?
Parking tickets just stack up in LA. It's impossible to keep on top of them.
I mean, unless you're responsible and pay attention. But for normal people it's impossible.
Sunday I saw a car with about ten tickets shoved under the wiper. It was in spot reserved for the handicapped. The tickets could cost more than the car is worth.
ST, were you in the SantaCon that invaded the big blue Scientology HQ across from Kaiser? My wife went in there two years in a row; the second time, they seemed much more game.
185 -- Umm, incompetence? It wasn't a conscious decision or anything. The tickets do just seem to pile up. At least Tweety has made me feel less alone.
It's actually culturally interesting how deep my anti-bus prejudice runs. I mean, it's not like I mind riding the subway in New York or anything -- when in Rome and all that. And I'm intellectually down with the public transportation. But that 13 year old heart of mine still thinks of the local bus as the "loser cruiser" and that's how I feel.
Well, the actual 14 year old boy in my life (my baby brother in LA) for some reason has completely taken to the LA buses. Likes them better than the metro. Rides them recreationally.
188: I was! I'm not sure if it was the first or second time (I think it was the first?). It was a pretty insane scene; the Scientology outreach receptionist lady climbed up on a desk to try and restore order and all the Santas started chanting "ONE OF US! ONE OF US!"
I think that was the Santacon where the battle between the Santas and the elves turned actually violent. I stayed reasonably under control, unlike one of the previous times where I drank way too much eggnog and ended up in a screaming fight with a wall.
Maybe he could teach me some lessons. Or maybe the times are a'changing for the better.
Let's chip in and get RobErr a bumper sticker.
Rides them recreationally.
You can't go pro until you are 18.
i used to think lager was the worst tasting thing ever. when i first staarted drinking, i'd always ask my adult friend to buy gin or whiskey or something.
With enough college & grad school parties, and some poverty, i've gotten used to it. now it just seems tasteless. i buy the pbr b/c it says 'union made'
the only time i remember 'piss flavored beer' is when i smell some rice wine vinegar, which is that same piss-taste.
Are there a lot more parking tickets in LA than elsewhere? I don't say there aren't: I don't know. Some cities do pile on with the traffic related violations. (It's picking up around here, actually, which mostly has the effect of a corrective tug, as in: Right. I will pay attention at that intersection, about sailing through that yellow light; yes, I get it. It all seems to actually work, and of course the city is picking up some money from these fines.)
I rode the bus today, too. But I always do that when it is raining and I don't want to ride my bike. It's generally pleasant, though I tend to overhear aggravating conversations. (This morning, though, I had to walk to the Kwik-Mart to trade my $20 for a $1, in the rain, and that made me grumpy).
Also, while I'm on the subject of things that make me grumpy. Today, I'm wrapping up class, answering one last student question. It is precisely 6:00. Asshole undergrad in AF shirt opens the door and says, "We have the room at 6. Can you hurry up?" (Note, they've been staring in the window for the last five minutes. And that, 5 minutes into my class, a graduate student from the previous class just wandered in and went looking for her things - interrupting me while I was in mid-sentence, so things have not been going precisely to schedule, and that beyond that the class goes until 6:00.) I said we were almost done, and glared. Finished up with the question, which took me longer than I wanted to because I was thrown off track, and we're out the door entirely by 6:02. Rude fucking boy has the nerve to tell me again that it was 6:00 when he came into the class. I reply, "I realize that. We have the classroom until 6:00. At 6:01 you may make a stink, but really? It's just fucking (ok, I left the expletive out) rude to interrupt a class, and you ended up making the process longer." I mean, really? WTF? It was a club meeting, and beyond that, everything starts 10 minutes after the hour (after noon) at this university to avoid precisely this problem.
197: there is allegedly weekly street cleaning, oftentimes during odd hours when people are at work and can't get to their cars to move them. Also, pretty much every street has different hours.
It probably doesn't help that parking availability in much of the city is at this funny density where you can expect to find parking near your destination on the first try despite the fact that there often isn't much parking available. So when people see empty parking spots they often don't think twice about taking them.
It seems that one good way to earn money from tickets is by deciding to charge for street parking on Sundays and not warning people. Forty fucking dollars. Fuck you, Portland, you've turned me against you.
Addeundum to 200: also, you can pile up quite a stack of tickets before they tow you, and they make you pay them when you pay your registration, so if you aren't worried about penalties the only question is whether you'll accumulate too many in a year.
It seems like people here would have interesting if occasionally highly coded reactions to such a thing.
you mean, someone actually subscribing to the Atlantic?
One of my favorite beers on a hot summer day is a cold Bud Light Lime. Precisely for the flavored seltzer water effect. I sometimes wonder if the archetype of good European craft beer (heavy, deep, intensely flavored) was optimized for the Little Ice Age.
198 is bizarre. I thought it was pretty common for classes to run over a minutes or two; I know mine frequently did (as a student). I wonder what he could have needed to do in there (some elaborate set up, presumably?) that would have made him nervous enough to be asking "can you hurry up?", which is really just rude.
I sometimes wonder if the archetype of good European craft beer (heavy, deep, intensely flavored) was optimized for the Little Ice Age.
That describes a subset of European beer at best. Most German beer, for instance, does not fit that description at all.
One of my favorite beers on a hot summer day is a cold Bud Light Lime
PGD is eekbeat's mom? Who knew?
I'm not sure how anyone could prefer a Bud Light Lime to a Corona with an actual lime. It's easier and cheaper, I'll grant, but preferable seems impossible.
Shorter Brock: Bud Light Lime is shitty.
would have made him nervous enough to be asking "can you hurry up?"
It was unprecedented in my experience, and the worst (best?) part of it was that he did not appear to be nervous at all. No, he simply appeared to have an attitude of complete entitlement. I totally get doing something like that if it is 6:08 and the class still hasn't cleared out - this in fact is what happens to me at the start of this particular class every week. (It's a graduate student seminar and they are always still talking five plus minutes after).
Sometimes you just need to go full schoolmarm.
Parking tickets just stack up in LA. It's impossible to keep on top of them.
I mean, unless you're responsible and pay attention. But for normal people it's impossible.
I guess in some places parking tickets don't become more and more expensive if you fail to pay them within 1 month, 2 months, and so on?
213: no, they do. Up to a point.
Yeah, Corona with an actual lime is supposed to be the thing for that. Not much for beer any more myself.
204: you mean, someone actually subscribing to the Atlantic?
This made me laugh, though I should probably feel badly about that.
212: That was the first time I've ever flat out told a student that they were being unbelievably rude. I've always had pretty conscientious students (and/or they actually listen to me when I explain at the beginning what I do and don't tolerate in my classes). Though of course I get emails that are essentially rude (demanding answers, or other such things) but that's a different category of rudeness for me.
I think what made me so grumpy (and look, here I am, still talking about it! I'll be done soon, promise) was that I'm very conscious of time when I'm teaching and I am very careful to not waste my students time or go over. I'm very aware that at 6:01, their time is no longer mine. But I do get it up until that point, and dammit, the student asked a really good question that deserved a full answer within hearing of the other students.
I don't trust Corona. When you open it, it smells like some dank herb. Which poison are you? Play fair.
200: there is allegedly weekly street cleaning, oftentimes during odd hours when people are at work and can't get to their cars to move them. Also, pretty much every street has different hours.
Yeah, that'll get you. Every place I've lived in which that sort of thing was in place, people just trained themselves and dealt. Which mostly resulted in a pretty comical emergence of people racing to their cars at 10 a.m. on Monday to move their damn cars ... somewhere. And then straggling back 20 minutes later.
But the streetcleaning still is a good thing, so.
My old neighborhood had street cleaning twice a week. Twice a week, I was supposed to park either three blocks down or one block up (across a busy street with no crosswalk) from my home, and because I lived close to campus and close to downtown this meant a lot of parking competition, so you were lucky to get that. Twice a week, they did not clean the streets. No, once a month, they cleaned the streets. So fucking annoying.
Twice a week, they did not clean the streets. No, once a month, they cleaned the streets.
Oh, well see, that's when you're supposed to question the authorities about why the street cleaning isn't happening. Good luck with that, but still, man. We move our cars for the street cleaning if it happens. This is called the civil compact, or whatever.
I think 220 might make me kill someone.
(The experience, not the comment.)
220: That is annoying. Here there's alternate-side parking twice a week, but they are dead serious about street sweeping. They'll mess you up.
What I don't understand is why the streets in communities I've lived with no street cleaning don't seem to be any more (or less) dirty than the streets in communities I've lived with regular street cleaning.
I'm so glad we only have street sweeping once a month.
Here there's alternate-side parking twice a week, but they are dead serious about street sweeping. They'll mess you up.
That's the best. Everybody just gets the picture, fast. Move the damn car. The big machine is comin' down the road.
We used to get notices urging us to move our cars before street sweeping, but most people just didn't bother, so they stopped sending them. The sweepers just go around the cars. Obviously, the city is too preöccupied with shooting unarmed people and screwing me with ridiculous parking tickets.
158, 163: Think of it as research, Halford. Btw, how's the book coming? Keep in mind that my weekend job gives me vast influence over two library systems' collection development policies book purchases nonfiction book buyers, so I can guarantee a sale of at least four or five copies. Even if we are on the East Coast.
What I don't understand is why the streets in communities I've lived with no street cleaning don't seem to be any more (or less) dirty than the streets in communities I've lived with regular street cleaning.
Biking definitely makes you appreciate street cleaning.
228: shooting unarmed people
I hadn't heard about this, I don't think.
sort of like 'street cleaning' - having to remove all your stuff from kitchen and bath cabinets & draws so the exterminators can come and kill a something tomorrow. mostly, i just think, i'm about halfway to just moving out, should just go all the wya.
The Trader Joe's beer bought by me and referenced above was in cans and was not brewed by Unibrow but by some other brewery whose name now escapes me.
I like drinking Bud when I want something light and cheap, although from now on I might stick to this TJ's beer.
I've always assumed hipsters took up drinking Coors for the ironic homophobia.
233.last: that's ironically retarded.
231: Two recent incidents. The first was especially tragic; the victim was a 25-year-old guy who was distraught because his brother had died that morning.
233: It seems that TJs has a number of breweries they use. Have seen Goose Island and Gordon Biersch mentioned (and I think it is regionalized).
Trader Joe's has a house Unibroue? They recently ended a Unibroue sampler promotion that I was quite happy to find. And you say it's been right there under my nose? What does it look like in TJ drag?
235: Wow. The jury's letter in the first link is pretty incredible. Sorry for your city and for the victims.
That's just this year; the PD here has been on a tear for a while. There were also these two mentally ill guys, these two people killed during traffic stops, and this guy. The last link mentions a bunch of others as well. I'm a little surprised Portland doesn't have more of a national reputation for this kind of thing.
It's not Baltimore or DC, I guess, or New York or LA. Or Detroit or Chicago. I don't follow crime stories particularly. Portland still has a reputation nationally for being smallish and progressive. It sucks that there's a policing problem there. Not to mention the victims and their loved ones.
Portland has a national reputation for being fantasically progressive and the sort of place where police brutality is probably rarer than anywhere else.
Biking definitely makes you appreciate street cleaning.
And smooth pavement. I'm a little surprised Portland doesn't have more of a national reputation for this kind of thing. Shooting unarmed people isn't swipple, so by definition Portland doesn't do it.
What does it look like in TJ drag?
750ml TJ-branded bottles. You can look on the label to discover the secret truth, I think.
Yeah, there's a pretty big disconnect. City government is pretty good at planning and services and such, but they've never really exerted effective control over the PD.
you should have suggested Clearman's North Woods Inn.
Yes! So awesomely bad. I haven't been there in ages. How on earth do you even know about it? That stretch of Rosemead isn't exactly a hot destination.
and while cleaning out for the exterminators, i found a paper bag, with something a cubic decimeter or two in size, labeled 'sexual explicit material' stuffed back behind the drawers in the kitchen.
Re: Portland policing. Don't forget that the initial response by the police to a probable neo-Nazi assassination attempt against a prominent anti-fascist activist was to blame it on "gangs" and "immigrants".
246: People label these things? Just in case they forget what it is?
Yes, it certainly does come as a surprise to know that people call gangs and immigrants "gangs" and "immigrants".
neb, Natilo described it as a probable neo-Nazi assassination attempt against a prominent anti-fascist activist.
I suspect we're talking at cross-purposes, though.
I still want to know what it was that yoyo found in the bag.
Thank god we've got that ironed out.
I'm not sure how anyone could prefer a Bud Light Lime to a Corona with an actual lime.
That was precisely the alternative that made me edit my statement to say *one* of my favorite beers.
That's just this year; the PD here has been on a tear for a while.
I'm looking through your links, and so far this tear of shooting unarmed people includes
-man attacking cops with metal bar, shot after pepper spray and bean bag rounds fail to stop him
-visibly bloody mentally ill homeless man advancing on cop with a knife in his hand despite multiple verbal commands to stop
-"nonviolent" man, hopped up on meth and PCP, hurting a three year old child
-fleeing robbery suspect with a gun (yeah, a pellet gun, but they didn't know that before they shot him)
255: It was a cubic decimeter (or two) in size, which means what, about a foot or two square, or cubed? A bunch of videotapes? Stuffed behind the kitchen drawers somehow.
After we cleaned my mom's house out, my brother told me with a bit of a blush that if I ever had to clean his place out, I'd find some stuff in the back of the bedroom closet. I, and we, laughed. Dude, don't worry about it.
I found this article about Phoenix astonishing.
258: The guy with the metal bar had been arrested earlier and, according to witnesses, beaten during the arrest; he was also mentally ill, which is why he was at a psychiatric hospital. The cop who shot the mentally ill guy in the park had a taser. Those two and the guy who was beaten to death suggest poor policies concerning response to mentally ill subjects and use of lethal force.
The "nonviolent" guy may have been nonviolent, without quotes, and the allegation that he was hurting the boy was hearsay. Maybe true, maybe not.
The fleeing suspect was, well, fleeing. I'm sure there are arguments for use of lethal force when someone believed to be armed is fleeing, but I'm not at all convinced that it was appropriate in that case.
The police union doesn't do itself any favors when their spokesman is a prick who condescends to the public and belittles any suggestion that close confrontation and lethal force weren't the only options in each of these cases.
Plus, this, from the last link:
On February 21, local labor activist Rich Lochner was shot at by officers who essentially accused him of stealing his own vehicle. The March Portland Alliance reports that the officers had tried to pull Lochner over, and because he did not immediately comply, they ran his licence plate number, which came up showing the vehicle was stolen. Problem was, it had been stolen, then returned, and someone forgot to clean up the records. Luckily, the officers involved missed Lochner, but apparently hit a nearby US Postal Service vehicle.That's a crappy second-hand recounting ("apparently"?), but still, wtf.
It also probably doesn't do anyone any favors to shift from discussion of policing problems (problematic training and procedure policies, where "problematic" means leading to unnecessary injury and death) to talk of police brutality. Ned went to "brutality" in 241, which isn't necessarily warranted.
he was also mentally ill, which is why he was at a psychiatric hospital.
I'm curious at to what else you think should be tried when a guy swinging a metal bar shrugs off pepper spray and bean bag rounds and comes at you?
The cop who shot the mentally ill guy in the park had a taser.
Tasers have horrendous failure rates. A taser is only used on a subject with a knife when there's multiple officers on scene so that there's at least one guy with a gun out in case the taser doesn't work. I'm not a fan of the taser, but regardless, pulling a taser on a guy with a knife in a one on one situation is an excellent way to get stabbed.
I'm sure there are arguments for use of lethal force when someone believed to be armed is fleeing
This is UT code, and I believe most jurisdictions are similar.
http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE76/htm/76_02_040400.htm
Robbery with a gun is pretty clearly "the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect has committed a felony offense involving the infliction or threatened infliction of death or serious bodily injury".
Granted, shooting at a guy in what you think is a stolen car no es bueno.
oh, it was quite disappointing. some porn catalogues all stuffed in a grocery bag. they looked newish, but looked way cheezy: big hair, international male vibe. they weren't even 'stuck' (that i noticed.) sort of weird to think of porn that one buys, especially in some context other than 'must see this right now so i guess i'll pay for it'
and the discussion of police explanations for why they beat up some people makes me annoyed that the only thing we didn't get out of the police state bush GOP was cameras on every street corner.
260: Are you saying "the appearance of evil" isn't a standard legal term?
His attempts to investigate a board that he represented had "the appearance of evil," Donahoe wrote, citing an old Arizona case.
270 - Own your actions. You hired McMegan, Knecht. You paid for her Himalayan salt and $150 toaster.
198
It was a club meeting, and beyond that, everything starts 10 minutes after the hour (after noon) at this university to avoid precisely this problem.
That's weird. At my college I'm pretty sure everything started on the hour and ended 10 minutes before the hour. Maybe it's just parochialism, but that seems like a better way to avoid that problem.
263
It also probably doesn't do anyone any favors to shift from discussion of policing problems (problematic training and procedure policies, where "problematic" means leading to unnecessary injury and death) to talk of police brutality.
Unnecessary injury and death isn't brutal?
I would be significantly less annoyed by Hitchens overall if he actually managed to arrest the Pope. It wouldn't excuse his behavior, obviously, but it would temper my opinion.
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My High School band made the news with a cool story about people helping out.
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273: Well, I want to thank you, Knecht, for your support for the Atlantic. I'm grateful that your contribution helped get the worthy Na-Tehisi (sic) a great gig.
I had a subscription briefly, but I didn't actually pay for it -- I got it with points from a credit card.
230: I do bike. Or I walk. I almost never drive. So I'm in close physical proximity to the streets, and can tell you there's no appreciable difference.
I'm not claiming that the streets that are regularly cleaned wouldn't be any dirtier if they were never cleaned. What I'm saying is that the streets that are never cleaned are just as clean as the streets that are regularly cleaned. Maybe they only start regular cleaning in places with dirty streets--that would certainly make sense. If that's the case, though, the part I don't understand is why some streets would naturally get so much dirtier than others.
So I'm in close physical proximity to the streets, and can tell you there's no appreciable difference.
Are you not very observant, or what? The difference in biking from the last week in March (before they had done the first street cleaning of the year) and the first week in April (after) was night and day. So much less crap on the roads. Yesterday, when my bike tire blew in half while riding around on the last week of the month? So much crap on the roads. It's not dirt, per se. More like gravel from potholes, and litter, and broken glass, and that kind of crap. Plus leaves in the fall.
In LA it didn't make a difference I noticed, I admit, but I also was never sure when they were actually cleaning the streets, and besides I didn't ride my bike.
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New blackberry=live commenting from traffic court. Feel the excitement! Some guy actually came here from TX to contest a ticket. Cop didn't show, so bully for him. Still, seems less than cost effective.
>
It's the principle of the thing. I've run into a lawyer who got a moving violation who showed up represented at an administrative hearing with a movie on DVD of the conditions at the relevant intersection. Didn't help him.
Somehow I didn't realize Hitchens writes for the Atlantic.
It used to be a pretty good magazine; it's not clear to me what happened. Management change?
In san francisco, the ticket guys immediately precede the street sweepers. You can park without fear of a ticket after they street sweeper goes by.
i got a jaywalking ticket. i go to court to contest it, and hey, what do you know, the person for the DA office is some dude i had a few law school classes with. i asked if he could help me, out, but he said no.
goodolboysfail
i got a jaywalking ticket.
Whoa, really? City hall must be really hurting on revenue.
260 is mind-boggling. We've been thinking of driving from LA to Los Alamos this summer, but I'm really not sure I want to be in Arizona with brownish people in the car.
What's going on in AZ with it's state illegal immigration law is about to create a civil rights violation of epic proportions.
Which I'd just as soon not get caught up in, all things considered.
287, 289: Very wise, considering that if Prince Edward County is any example, some officers will start enforcing this new law whether or not it actually takes effect.
It passed the legislature; governor has to decide about signing it by Saturday. Right now calls to her office are 85% from out-of-staters scared that this is going to be precedent-setting. It's certainly the most horrendous legislation of its kind (that got passed) that I've seen in -- well, ever.
