Anthony Horowitz, the author of A Line to Kill, once again puts the fictional version of himself-- slightly less famous, more maligned version of himself?-- in the midst of murder . . . murder in an unlikely setting, the tiny Channel Island of Alderney, which last saw any great violence when it was occupied by the Nazis during WWII . . . but there hasn't been any murder since then-- until now-- Tony and his subject, Hawthorne (the rather unlikeable ex-detective with a checkered past, turned Sherlock-esque police consultant) are invited to a literary festival on Alderney, along with a panoply of literary luminaries, including blind psychic Elizabeth Lovell, TV chef Marc Bellamy, war historian George Elkin, beloved children's author Anne Cleary, and French modernist poet Maïssa Lamar-- and the novel quickly goes from an ensemble cast vacation to a version of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians . . . the murderer is on the island and the solution will be elaborate, puzzling, and unexpected-- because, despite the meta-inclusion of the actual author, this isn't reality, it's detective fiction-- and don't you forget that.
Used Car Shopping Phase Three
My wife and I have gained much-used car wisdom in our search-- we're especially wary of strange fees and cars that are not ready for a test drive (or even to be sold) but just because we are wary doesn't mean these things can't reoccur . . .
a phone call (and this was also expressed in an email and a text message)
-- Hi, is this particular car available? . . . we're interested but it's a long ride to Totowa (Totowa?) and we've been burned at some other places, so we are just confirming that the car is operating and ready for a test drive . . .
--Yes, it's ready for your 11 AM appointment
--Great
after an hour-long drive to Totowa . . . yes Kansas, we're in Totowa
--I'm so sorry, the key fob doesn't work so you can take a look
--But we can't drive the car?
--No, the key fob doesn't work
--Wow . . . we went over this on the phone and in email . . . this was a long ride
we took a look at the car, which was scratched up, inside and out, and-- according to the Carfax-- didn't get much maintenance . . . the final number on it was decent but not good enough . . . especially since we were never driving to Totowa again-- so then we stopped in Old Bridge at a Honda dealership and this time, we could drive the car! and it was in good shape! aside from a cracked windshield, which the sales guy said he would fix it . . . and we were damn close to buying it-- but they didn't REALLY want to sell it-- we got the price sheet from a very nice salesman and we said:
--OK, this is close, if you can get rid of the $499 nitro fill fee . . . we don't need tires filled with nitrogen and even if we did, it doesn't cost 500 dollars and you're going to have to get rid of this $499 window etching fee . . . same thing
--Ok and then you'll pay this price, minus these fees
--Yup
--Ok, let me check and see if they agree . . . I can't make this final decision
we wait for a few minutes
--I'm sorry, bad news, they've put x amount into this car and they've got to replace the windshield and they're not budging on this price
but at least at the Honda place it was fairly fast and fairly transparent . . . but these fucking fees are absurd-- and apparently in New Jersey, there's no limit on the amount a dealership can charge for "doc fees" . . . in California it's $82-- which is very low-- and the max is $175 in New York but in New Jersey it seems to be $799 to $899 . . . so maybe we need to try to head to Staten fucking Island . . . I'm sure the used car salesmen (are there any used car saleswomen?) are really sweet and polite and transparent over there.
I Suppose It Doesn't Matter
Sometimes I wonder if my dog actually respects me as her most loyal companion, or if she just knows that I'm the one who remembers to feed her.
Being an Adult is Boring, Annoying, and Infuriating
Completed another tedious but financially signficant adult task today-- and this fits right into the adult tasks I've been grappling with this summer: shopping for a used car, replacing fucked up windows, treating a dog with bladder stones, and trying to find a through-the-wall AC unit that fits the hole in our bedroom wall-- anyway, I serendipitously read something in The Week about skyrocketing home insurance rates and this motivated me to check out Liberty Mutual rate-- which is paid along with our mortgage and property taxes and so not a bill we evaluate or keep track of-- and the fucking dirtbags at Liberty Mutual had increased our rate by several thousand dollars in the past two years-- up to $3800 for our smallish home . . . totally insane, when the average rate for home insurance in New Jersey is $1200 . . . so I switched to Triple A-- which took twenty minutes of clicking--and this brought our rate down by nearly $2500 -- Liberty Mutual, those fucking bastards, are sending us a pro-rated check for most of the money that they would have extracted if I hadn't read that article and gotten curious . . . so my advice is to check your home insurance rate, weird things are afoot in that industry (mainly due to climate change and thus more frequent chaotic, disastrous weather events, which is costing them a shitload of money).
Gettin' Old Feels Like Gettin' Young
This morning I woke up early, as I am wont to do, and so I crept downstairs-- quietly, so as not to wake up my wife-- with the new issue of The Week and my gigantic Kindle Scribe . . . and I started to read The Week on the couch, with a lamp on behind me but the font was a bit small and fuzzy and my progressive glasses weren't in reach and I was like: this is new . . . now I'm so decrepit I can't read magazine font until my eyes have warmed up? and so I switched over to my gigantic Kindle Scribe, which has a paperwhite screen big enough to support a font I can read and still have lots of words on the page, and I felt like a child again, reading the big words in the big book-- getting old feels like getting young.
Used Car Shopping Phase Two
Armed with some decent pricing information from Phase One, Cat and I take a ride to the Sansone AutoMall in Woodbridge to take a look at a particular car from a particular year (I won't reveal what car and what year until the car shopping is complete-- I don't want one of you numbskulls swooping in and buying it) and this time I didn't forget my clipboard . . . although Cat forgot the checkbook and we had to turn around and get it-- and although there weren't as many bizarre fees tacked on, this encounter didn't go all that well . . .
--let me go get the car
twenty minutes later
-- we had to jump it, we're going to have to replace the battery . . . a light was left on
--this car smells like cat pee
--someone also left the window cracked and water got it
Cat feels the front passenger side floor
--it's all wet
--we'll detail it again, of course . . .
test drive, and the car drives fine, despite the pee smell . . . then back to the office
-- ok this car has been in one accident, it needs a new battery, it smells, and it's got more miles on it then the other car we looked at . . . we got them down to around $21,500 . . . so you'd really have to make a much lower offer to offset all this negative stuff . . .
--ok let me see what I can do . . .
the salesman leaves for a few minutes and comes back with a $22k out-the-door offer . . . what?
but there was no more bullshit and we parted amicably-- I think he knew with the water and the smell and the clipboard that this wasn't going to happen unless he knocked five grand off the price . . . so now we enter Phase Three.
I Wrote it Down
I am certain that many many inebriated people, in many pubs across the land, during some sparkling, tangential, bibulously stoned conversation that haphazardly sketched out some compelling (at the time) IDEA, were wont to cry out "Write it down! . . . we need to write this down!" and while many of these propositions should NOT be written down-- for reasons of political correctness, job security, and just a general lack of quality, last night might be an exception-- on pub night, Alec and I always end up spitballing what we think are genius comedy sketch routines, but then we never write them down-- and it's probably better that way-- case in point, I am not writing down two of our discussions: The Polish Triathlete and Tourette Tits, for obvious reasons, but I will do my best to save one scintillating dialogue for posterity, the exception that might prove the rule, anyway last night we were discussing the constitutional right to get a little drunk or stoned, put some headphones on (I just got som earbuds that actually fit my ears) and walk to the bar listening to the music you choose-- nothing is more American-- but then we wondered how this might go down in colonial times, when they were actually writing the constitution but did NOT possess headphones and we hashed out exactly how the skit would go . . . so I am offering it up to SNL or whoever wants to film it;
INT. MODERN SUBURBAN BEDROOM. NIGHT
A teenage kid is listening to loud rock music.
Unseen Parent: Lower that!
The kid turns off the music, pulls open a drawer, opens a little box (you put your weed in there) and grabs a one-hitter and puts it in his pocket. He then puts on his headphones and exits his room.
Kid: I'm going for a walk.
Mom: Okay great. Take out the garbage.
Kid: Fine.
EXT. SUBURBAN STREET. NIGHT
The kid walks down the street, bopping to his music, and meets up with a few friends.
One of his friends says something about the new girl down the way and what a great rack she has.
Teen: WHAT? WHO?
Friend: Your music is too loud! You're talking really loud.
He removes his headphones and they proceed to smoke some pot.
BLACK SCREEN.
SUPER: 250 Years Ago
INT. COLONIAL TEEN BEDROOM. DUSK
A colonial teenage kid (wearing a mohawk wig?) is listening to a three-piece BAND in his room. Drummer, mandolin, fife. They are playing raucously.
Unseen Parent: Tell your band to play softer! Mezzo piano!
The teenage kid waves at the band to stop playing. He gets up, opens a drawer, grabs a flask, and motions to the band.
Kid: Come on.
The kid walks into a colonial family room.
Kid: I'm going for a walk.
Mom: Great. Make sure the sheep are in the pen.
Kid: Fine.
EXT. COLONIAL FARM ROAD. DUSK
The teenage kid walks down the road. His band follows behind, playing some fast-paced music. He meets up with a couple of other teens. They drink from the flask. They chat about the new girl that moved in down the road and her slender ankles. The band gets too close. They can't hear each other.
Other Teen: What?
The main teen motions the band to back up, so they can hear each other.
The teens walk down the road, the band following. The teens bop to the music.
INT. MODERN SUBURBAN DINING ROOM
The teen and his parents are eating dinner.
Mom: And even though I had the receipt, they sent me to wait in a DIFFERENT line . . . it took forever. That's the last time I'm going to that Target.
Dad: Customer service is a lost art.
The teen rolls his eyes at this boring conversation and puts on his headphones.
Dad: No headphones at the table!
BLACK SCREEN.
SUPER: 250 Years Ago
INT. COLONIAL DINING ROOM
The teen and his parents are eating dinner. The three-piece band is in the corner, silent.
Mom: And then he shears Margaret's sheep . . . even though I had clearly gotten into the barn before her!
Dad: I wonder if he had lust in his heart for Margaret. She does have slender ankles.
The teen rolls his eyes and motions to his band. They launch into some raucous music.
Dad: Shut those guys off!
The teen motions to his band to stop.
Then we imagined one final scene, which I don't feel like writing out-- where the suburban parents are watching TV and the music is too loud and they ask the kid to turn it down but he can't hear them and then it cuts to the colonial parents watching a couple of actors perform in their living room-- a parallel for TV-- and the teen's band is playing too loudly for them to hear the actors and they all yell for him to turn it down and that's that.
Used Car Shopping: Phase One Complete
Today Cat and I drove to Raceway Kia in Freehold to complete phase one of used car shopping:
-- hey you've got this car for 18k I'd like to test drive
-- ok sure, here we go
-- ok, this rides great, brakes work, like the control panel . . . what can you do for us?
-- it's 18k so let me just go see what I can do . . .
five minutes later
-- ok, here you go, 24k . . . a great deal
--uh, what?
-- warranty, dealer fees, used car prep fees, sodomize you over a barrel fees, tax, you know . . .
-- what's this $1995 fee?
--used car prep fee . . . we spread that out over all the used cars
--so you add it to every used car?
--yes
--so why not just make it part of the price so we don't get all pissed off?
and then more haggling and high-pressure sales pitching, and then, let's get the manager (this is when the situation becomes so archetypal it's comedic . . . are we in a skit?) and then the calmer, cooler manager steps in
-- can we meet somewhere in the middle?
-- we don't want to go over twenty
-- we've got this other trim model?
-- can you put roof rails on it?
-- I'm not sure, probably not . . .
more salesmanship but not enough price lowering and then the inevitable walk-out . . . because you've got to walk out at least once . . . and maybe more times than that . . . what kind of fucked up business model is this?
Thirty Years Ago
Damp and dank and dreary today, so instead of coming up with something new, I'll post an excerpt written by my buddy Whitney, from a news report of what was going on in our lives thirty years ago, in 1994:
File Under: things you don't need explained to you. 30 years is quite a long time. Like, really long. A generation-plus for humans. The lifetime of a koi. And yet, it was just yesterday in my brain.
So what were you doing 30 years ago today? Summer of 1994?
I know what a couple of you were doing.
Dave was in the Garden State -- in grad school or maybe just having finished. Living in a converted whorehouse on Route 18 in New Brunswick with some reptiles that scared me and some of his old buddies... who also scared me at times. His old mates played in a band and occasionally let the Idiots jam with them for a minute or two at a time. They threw all their spare change into a big bucket every day for a year and then threw a major rager with the take. Dave read a lot of books, especially for a 24-year-old, and he drank a beer called Artic Ice. It was a Coors product misspelled badly, but Dave liked the ABV and it only had 11.5 ounces, which he said cut out the half-ounce of backwash. He also lived with a guy who took his bride's surname, but I think you would have, too. Dave also worked tirelessly to murder a monitor lizard that they should have named Rasputin. 1994 for Dave: it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.
for the rest of the updates (downdates?) on the gang, follow the link and enjoy . . . and thanks for the nostalgia Whit, I forgot about my "Artic Ice half ounce backwash theory" but I still think it holds water.
From Olive Drab to Gray Flannel
The Man in the Flannel Gray Suit, by Sloan Wilson, was published in 1955 and I found it to be a depressing predecessor of Mad Men . . . the book portrays the corporate world and a war-torn veteran trying to make his way within it-- but it's not the exciting, creative dynamic world of the 60s-- when the bibulous Ad-Men bro culture comes into contact with feminism and the counter-culture-- The Man in the Flannel Suit depicts a more boring, staid business world-- and the same with 50's home life-- so the novel is mainly scenes of mundanity and tedium and the commonplace, workplace politics and cynicism, getting along with your spouse, moving into a new house, etcetera-- punctuated by horrific WWII scenes and the psychological and ethical consequences of life during wartime . . . the novel has town meetings and small-town justice and codicils and speechwriting and business meetings and martinis and old age and young children and all kinds of scenes from everyday life, plus the consequences of the war on the men trying to live in this land of plenty . . . easy reading but tough to ponder.
I Wish I Could Watch a Movie Alone
My wife went to the beach with some lady friends for a few days (to see the Black Eyed Peas) and once again, I realized that I cannot watch a complete movie or TV show by myself-- I need someone else sitting near me for the experience to work-- I watched ten minutes of The Conjuring 2 before I realized it's way too scary to watch alone (and I had seen it before) and then I made it a decent way into the high school comedy Bottoms-- but couldn't seal the deal, the plot got utterly absurd and I had no one to voice my opinion to-- and then I watched some of American Fiction, which has some great acting but also kind of an absurd plot-- and it's supposed to be realistic-- and then I started Mad Max: Furiosa . . . and while I could probably get through that one, it's so good that I'll wait to watch it with my wife-- so it's back to reading, listening to music, online speed chess, YouTube pickleball tutorials, and Olympic sports.
The Boognish is Always a Conversation Starter (or Ender)
A youngish dude (and youngish means thirty?) at the pool noticed my Ween boognish tattoo and he told me he had really gotten into Ween lately-- he saw them play the 30th anniversary of "Chocolate and Cheese"-- which is approximately how old my tattoo is-- and then he recommended I listen to some King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard-- and I told him I tried and enjoyed their psychedelic sound but their insanely prolific output of albums (they put out FIVE albums in 2017 alone!) overwhelmed me but I gave them another try-- Nonagon Infinity is fun and accessible and very Ween-like, as is I'm in Your Mind Fuzz I . . . they also have a jazzier album called "Sketches of Brunswick East," the suburb of Melbourne where they record-- and I teach in a suburb called East Brunswick . . . so fun parallel, though Brunswick East sounds classier than East Brunswick.
The Great Irony of Life
When you are young and you have your good looks and a head full of hair, you're too stupid to talk to the ladies.
Horowitz Portrays Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz's The Word is Murder is a meta-mystery on par with Magpie Murders . . . a fictional version of the author becomes Watson to a much less charming but equally talented Sherlock Holmes figure (named Hawthorne) and the investigation of this "true crime" story distracts the fictional Anthony Horowitz from his actual work (such as writing for the TV show Foyle's War) and sends him into an obsessive quest to not only solve the crime but to "investigate the investigation," who is just as mysterious as the mystery . . . and there are plenty of plot twists and brilliant usage of both Shakespeare and spelling autocorrect to provide clues and red herrings-- a highly entertaining read, nine model airplanes out of ten.
Maybe There Will Be Big Fans?
For the first time, I am going to play pickleball indoors today and I am a little nervous . . . one of my main mental tactics is that I never blame myself for a bad shot-- it's the psychological technique of sublimating instead of ruminating, famously studied by Martin Seligman-- but if we are indoors, how will I blame the wind?
Entropy, It's a Winner
The car shopping continues (RIP Toyota minivan) and the engine light has reared its ugly head on the Mazda dashboard, our dog probably needs surgery for bladder stones-- but we're putting it off and trying a special diet and hoping for a miracle-- and while we were able to replace one window (out of the three we wanted to replace) it seems the other two were installed incorrectly by total incompetents back in the 1980s and will require major construction to be swapped out . . . entropy always wins (and in case you were wondering, I checked and there's already a t-shirt with this phrase on it).
Dave Gets Sleeker
When I go to the gym, I normally lift some weights or shoot a few baskets, and then jump into the pool and swim a few laps-- I wear Spandex compression shorts under lightweight athletic shorts and I just swim in that outfit-- but today I had a brilliant idea: after swimming a few laps in my lightweight shorts, but feeling the drag from the pockets and all that, I simply took them off, while I was in the water and swam a few laps just wearing my Spandex compression shorts-- and what a difference, I felt streamlined, like a seal or a squid (a hairy squid) and getting from one side of the pool to the other was much faster and easier . . . and then when I was done, I grabbed my shorts from the side of the pool, put them back on while I was in the water, so I didn't have to parade around in my compression shorts (like an actual swimmer).
It Rhymes if You Drawl
Right now my life feels like a bad country song-- a bad but slightly liberal country song-- my Toyota minivan is dead and gone and my dog's bladder is full of stones.
Breaking (But Very Boring) News
This morning at pickleball, I hit my first clean and intentional backhand ATP . . . it was a thing of beauty, I waited until the last moment and then hit a low line drive around the pole to the deep corner-- and it was as satisfying as knocking in a very long putt or holing a wedge shot or arcing in a deep three-pointer over an outstretched hand or making a difficult combination in pool or scoring a twenty-yard half-volley in soccer or doing something fun and interesting that I don't know about in lacrosse or hockey . . . it was very satisfying.
One Van Left Behind
Another action-packed family vacation in Sea Isle-- Alex and Matt defended last year's random draw cornhole title (and so only Greg and I and Alex and Matt have won back-to-back . . . so we played them and we did beat them-- but they were probably cornholed out from their tournament run . . . they will have to split up next year) and while we're taking plenty of memories back to central Jersey we will be leaving one important member of the family behind-- our 2008 Toyota Sienna Minivan overheated and the engine went, so she is headed to the junkyard, but at least she will spend the remainder of her days at the beach-- a well-deserved vacation from all the family trips, soccer jaunts, teenage shenanigans, work commuting, and general utilitarian duty . . . she served us well, all hail the minivan-- but I can't wait to get a smaller car that doesn't smell so bad, isn't held together by various kind of tape, and contains fewer wasps and spiders (and we were lucky enough to find out the bad news from the garage just as my parents were leaving yesterday, so Catherine jumped in their car and drove them home-- where, serndeipiotusly- our Mazda was because Ian drove them to the beach-- and then she turned around and brought the Mazda to Sea Isle, which barely fit all the stuff-- but we were able to send Alex and Ian home with my brother and they took the train from Hamilton to New Brunswick, quite the game plan . . . we were going to rent a box truck to take our stuff but the garage said they're all out on Saturdays delivering linen).
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