From York Street to Oblivion

I’m going back to Tennessee, back where I come from...

OK, I'm not from Tennessee, but then again, neither is Neil Fallon. Neil -- and his buddies Tim, Dan, Jean-Paul, and Mick -- actually hail from a place called Germantown, Maryland. I've never been there, but I'm sure I've driven trough it on the I-95 approach to Baltimore. But this isn't a blog about geography...

I've lost track of exactly how many times I've seen Clutch play live now -- few times in Connecticut; once in Jersey; Rhode Island for my first show -- never disappointed. Never the same show twice, even if it's twice on the same tour. Strangely, though, it is the same fans twice, or most of the time... of course, Jimbo's there every time, but I couldn't imagine going to see Clutch without him... and after a while, you begin to recognize a bulk of the fans, like they're your distant cousins or something.

Now Thursday night, the crowd was huge. I've been to a couple Valby Christmas shows, and I've still never seen Toad's Place that packed. Clutch is a great band, but I've never known them to pack a house like that, especially around here, and especially on a Thursday. But packed it was, and it was a very good crowd.

Covin was up first; a local original rock band from right here in New Haven. Solid band. Because they're local, I know I'll get to check them out again; give them a solid review of their own. Any band that can pull off a Life of Agony cover the way they did deserves a blog of their own.

No one knows what happened to Puny Human. I was told good things about them, but alas they no-showed the gig. In the end, what I think that really added up to was more time for Priestess.

When Priestess took the stage I immediately noticed two things. The first was that I now knew what it would have looked like to see Mountain in 1972. The second was that the lone dude manning their merch table was indeed to guitarist/lead singer Mikey Heppner. Very DIY... very cool in my book.

The bearded boys of Montréal put on a show of insane ferocity. Wailing guitars and screaming vocals, both kept in time by, and challenged by, Vince Nudo's insanely energetic drumming. That guy is an animal, plain and simple, and you have to respect a guy who can still play a drum solo in modern music. The Priestess set was amazing, but the capper was when, as their final song of the night, they ripped into Lay Down, their single most of us know from Guitar Hero III. Who could help but to green-yellow-red along with it?

So is a short cigarette break, a random discussion on GH:3 and whether or not Slash cheats, a couple bottles of water, and them on the the main event, and a giant Maryland state flag hanging from the rafters.

Barely had the band taken to the stage when, over the roar of the assembled masses, the open chords of Devil & Me started up. The would-be-title-track of the most recent album sent the audience into motion. The opening few songs were played much in the style of classic Clutch, Tim on guitars, Dan on bass, Mick on the organ, and Jean-Paul keeping it all in time while Neil barks, screams, sings, and gesticulates as he ministers to his audience-parish.

Jean-Paul Gaster, who I contend may be the hardest working drummer in rock today, and potentially the most talented, earned his paycheck Thursday night. Beyond his incredible talent, in addition to punching up some of the older tunes to the level of percussive acrobatics he displays in later works, three sprawling solos -- including the one that marked the division of Big News I and II -- not only took the audience on a rhythmic ride of tempo and technique, but gave his band mates some 10+ minutes of breather and beer-break he never saw nor slowed down for.

The second half of the set featured the newest track King of Arizona, another very bluesy track, but with a big, wall of sound dynamic to it, driven by the full and extended line-up instrumentation with 2 guitars, organ, and harmonica. Power Player, One-Eye Dollar, and Electric Worry rounded out the Beale Street component of the set, and the rest of the night was an eclectic sampling of many of their older works, covering just about everything but Elephant Riders -- odd since the merch table seemed to be focused on Elephant Riders and Pure Rock Fury shirts and other swag.

Neil likes to play guitar in the second half of the set, but I was happy to see him put it down to sling a mic over his shoulder to join Jean-Paul the only cowbell duet you'll see at a live rock show. Only Clutch could possibly fuse blues and hardcore, highlighted with a Hammond organ and harmonica. But it completely works. Personally I'm not a fan of the harmonica player. I first saw him last year in Sayerville, where Clutch was touring with his band -- don't ask me which band; I have no clue -- and Neil asked him up to play of the last three, very blues-heavy, songs of the night. His continued presence with the band irks me in some weird way; perhaps its his spastic movement, perhaps its the fact that he tries to scream backing vocals into his bullet mic. Whatever the reason, I am please to know that he's not considered part of the band, and although there were as many as 7 people on stage playing during one song, he's still not one of the five that actually make up Clutch.

All in all and excellent show -- not that I'd expect less. And although I was unable to snag the one broke shard of Jean-Paul's stick -- Gaster is one of the few drummers I've seen who does not toss his extra sticks into the crowd after a show -- I was delighted to be handed 2 free lighters and 2 free shot glasses by the guy at the merch table when I bought my tour shirt. It seems that the folks at Jägermeister Music like to give the fans a little something for showing up. That and the CD I got earlier in the year were really nice of them.

So, the next tour kicks off very soon, with back-to-back shows at Cambridge, Massachusetts' Middle East, starting Thursday, February 21, 2008. I know I'll be there one of the two dates, and I know it'll be another great show.

Twas the day before Christmas...

... and all through the town, not a creature was stirring... can't find rhyming noun.

I rode the 7:48 into the fair Elm City with 6 other people this morning... 3 of whom got on at my stop. I've never seen the train that empty. It was eerie. I guess no one works Christmas Eve anymore. Possibly too busy beating each other over the last Transformer in Toys-R-Us.

Against what I might call rational judgement, I was actually engaging in commerce yesterday. It wasn't as bad as I expected. I even... dare I say it... went to the mall. Granted, the lines were a bit longer, and the toy stores looked as if violent tornadoes had relieved them of most of their merchandise, but over all, not the terror I would have expected.

I finished the grand bulk of my Christmas shopping just after Thanksgiving this year, so I had nothing Earth-shaking I had to buy -- that might explain why I was able to navigate the pre-holiday chaos in a relatively stress-free way. It also allowed me a better opportunity to observe the masses -- to view the last-minute shopper in its natural habitat.

This morning, some of my co-workers shared this discussion, so I must in fairness state that not all of these observations are my own. But, that being said, allow me to present to you some thoughts on the last-minute shopper.

20 or so years ago it was the Cabbage Patch Kids; this year, the toy you'd most likely see two adults getting into a fist fight over: Transformers. I saw plenty of displays for them, but not one actual Transformer on a shelf; a couple in carts. I saw a cashier bringing back some cash register restock with at least on Transformer in the basket -- alas some unfortunate person got to the register only to find they couldn't afford little Joey's Transformer -- no less than 3 grown men, sacrificing their spots in a 2-hour long check-out line, dove on the basket to acquire the single, unidentified Transformer action figure.

This year's big shelf-stocking error: Wrestlers. The store shelves are overflowing with them; there are no less than 80 different wresting figures available from 4 different leagues; there are modern wrestlers as well as figures of the greats going back to the late 70's; sold individually, in 2-packs, 4-packs, and whole 10-packs; no one is buying them.

When it comes to last last minute, people aren't shopping for specific items. If I may dare quote Shannon Hamilton in Mallrats, "...I have no respect for people with no shopping agenda." These people are just buying anything to have a gift to give. If it's on a shelf, the seem to believe someone will want it. Sometimes I'd guess they didn't even know who they were buying for, just buying. 'I'm sure someone will need this pair of size 28 men's briefs.'

I will never understand. I'm not big on holiday shopping to begin with; I prefer to shop online when at all possible. But I will never understand what actions lead people to begin their shopping on December 23rd, or what makes them then acquire the things they do. I guess there's only one thing to say...

Merry Christmas! Enjoy your Wrestling action figure and size 28 briefs.

Can we keep the Holidays out of the office?

I'm not trying to be the big Scrooge here, but I feel like filing for conscientious objector status for the holidays here at work. Yes, I'm agnostic, but that has nothing to do with it.

I celebrate Christmas, not out of religious reasons, but simple tradition. I believe most do. While you're standing in line to let your kids sit on the mall Santa's lap, juggling your 30 bags of commerce, most of us aren't thinking 'happy birthday Jesus'. But I digress.

I'm not against the holidays. I love the holidays. Family, friends, cookies, food, music, log in the fireplace... and heck, gifts ain't bad either. I just don't want the holidays in my office. And I'm not even going to go into the omission of Chanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Festivus. Let's start at the beginning...

Monday, November 26th, still bloated with turkey leftovers, still groggy from 4 a.m. Black Friday shopping, I walk into the office at 7 a.m. to be blinded by the "North Polock's" 700 kilowatt winter wonderland. It's the cubicle next to mine, but it pours over into my space -- a light up animatronic reindeer pokes his head over the wall at me every 45 seconds.

Not to be undone, the big dumb Irishman brings us an electronic tree that looks like something Charlie Brown would have had, should he have been skilled with fiber-optics. Now, not only is this tree hideous, but it blocks my view of the front door, so I can no longer see anyone come in the office. And if that wasn't the worst of it, Jolly Ol' St. Patrick doesn't even work in my section of the office... he just thought it would be nice if he spread his Christmas Joy to our workspace.

Then there's the parties. 5 or 6 Government branches work in my building. Each one with a Christmas party. Day parties, luncheons, evening parties, private parties, public parties... just too many parties. One can do maybe one or two, then just try to duck out of the rest. A bunch of us made our decision on one public, nighttime party, $50, open bar, thrown by a different agency. The one our agency throws is a complete drag, plus it's much better to get ripped when your supervisor, boss, and his boss aren't there.

Office luncheon... no way out of that pot-luck nightmare -- luckily, the boss makes good lasagna. Friday, another office party -- really the in-house drinking party; not possibly legal, but often fun. Now the "real" office Christmas party is Thursday night -- skipping that (as I said, drinking with the boss...). I'm overwhelmed already. I want it over.

Nope, not even close. Secret Santa? I opted out of that. Then it was cancelled anyway. OK, good. No office gift exchanging either? Maybe? Probably not. Christmas eve, my desk will invariably be covered with gifts I don't need from people I never intended to exchange gifts with. Heck, half these people wouldn't even be on my Christmas card list if I wasn't getting these mediocrely wrapped packages containing coffee mugs filled with chocolates, or Starbucks 3-packs.

And a candle swap? I'm not even sure what that is. Everyone brings in a Yankee candle, puts them in a bag... and you pull a candle. If I wanted a candle, wouldn't I buy myself a candle? No, I buy a candle, to exchange it, randomly, for a different candle? Is there a point? This is somehow better than Secret Santa? Again, I opt out.

It's holiday time here...

Can I just opt out of the whole thing?

The wandering blog finds a home... maybe.

This blog has been roaming for a bit. Or, maybe more accurately, in limbo for a while. Haven't posted anything in far too long anyway.

I started blogging on MySpace, but, well, my departure from MySpace might require a blog of it's own. Facebook is all well and good, but not an interesting place for hosting a blog. So yesterday I was talking to Jason Page of ESPN radio, and he was mid-blog, so I asked him about this site. He was happy, so I went with it.

I hope now to return to blogging regularly, and keep up with it in the coming year. I have the distinct feeling that 2008 will present me with enough to say. I feel a good year coming up -- not that 2007 was at all bad -- and here will be the place to present it.

So, with luck, this is more permanent home for the blog. And to those of you who haven't followed me over from the old blog, welcome to my astigmatic view of the world.

First Facebook Blog

Archive of the first Facebook blog

So, here it is... not much to say yet, but, the fact that I can now blog on Facebook means I finally have no reason to stay with MySpace. So, I've all but nuked MySpace. My profile is still up, just so the few friends who I might actually want to talk to there know that I'm deleting my account. Hopefully some will come over here.

Actually, to be honest, I hope only some come over here. It's not that I don't want to talk to people... quite the contrary, I do want to talk to people. I have 60-odd friends here, I can actually talk to them... really keep in touch with them. On MySpace, I had 496 friends. Who has 496 friends?!? Actually, even when I went on and deleted every profile that wasn't an actual person I actually knew... I still have 190 friends.

That's great. I guess it's cool that I'm friends with 190 people... but to make reasonable contact with 190 people... not possible. So I'm happy here. 60 friends... even better, some family... I can say hi, send them a "drink"... basically put, and to borrow from the jargon of such sites, I can "Socially Network". I like it.

In the coming month, I'll probably drag over some of my blogs from the MySpace days, and hopefully have some new things to say here. When it comes right down to it, it was blogging that first brought me to MySpace in the first place. Now MySpace is out of control, but I still love to write.

So, here it is. Welcome to my blog.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to Dreamland

Archive from old MySpace Blog
Current mood: amused
Category: Romance and Relationships

This blog contains graphic scenes of adults of opposite gender sharing a bed together, Reader discretion is advised.

So yeah, bedtime. Last night to be exact. Watching a little classic Trek on DVD, chilling out, zoning out, Molly's out.

Not too long ago, we got a nice new King sized bed. It's great. I love it. Molly Loves it. Not only is a King long enough that my feet don't hang off the bottom, but it gives us room to roll over without smacking each other in the head.

So I'm finishing up Wink of an Eye, Molly's sawing logs next to me...

Molly doesn't normally snore, but I guess she's suffering from a bit of allergy issue, and just, at this point, having a bit of a fitful sleep. She's tossing a bit, rolling over, snoring on and off, and even mumbling.

So, it's about 11:45, I'm relaxing, Kirk's kissing the girl, and the pillow shifts next to me. An abrupt stop in the snoring, that slight stir before someone rolls over again, an arm pops out from under the pillow, and a body rolls over.

Well...

Almost over.

I glance to my right, and discover that Molly has actually stopped mid roll-over. At least I guess that's what she did. Maybe. I don't rightly know what she was doing. But there she was, still tucked in the fetal position, face down in the pillow, knees tucked under her, ass in the air.

I've never seen a person attempt to sleep in this position. I tried to imitate the position later, and without my full weight on my elbows, I couldn't even stay up. Not to mention trying to breathe with my face buried in the pillow. I just don't get it.

But there she was, laying there -- if you can call it laying -- for a full 45 seconds, before she tossed again, into a more typical sleeping position. And I went back to watching Spock repair the entire Enterprise in 12 seconds due to the enhancing properties of the Scallosian water.

12:10, and I've decided not to watch The Empath, in favour of seeing what's on HBO. "Why'd you wake me up?" What?!?

"What?"

"Why'd you wake me up?"

"I didn't."

"No, you woke me up."

"No really, I didn't. You've been tossing and turning, snoring, and just before you were sleeping with your face in the pillow and your ass in the air."

"What?"

"Yeah, you were asleep, face down in your pillow, with you ass sticking up in the air. But I didn't wake you up."

"Uhh... you didn't wake me up?"

It's 10:00 a.m. this morning, Jenni's on vacation, and I'm doing her work, as well as my own, as well as my usual volume of email conversations. "Did you wake me up in the middle of the night last night?"

"No, but you woke up, and asked me if I woke you up, and I told you I didn't but you were sleeping with your face in the pillow and your ass in the air."

"That did happen?"

"Yup. Face down, ass up."

"Maybe I was having a dream and getting laid."

"Maybe so."

Maybe so.

A review I probably should have written in May

-or-

Gríma Wormtongue can still frikkin' rock!!!

Archive from MySpace blog
Category: Music

So, tickets go on sale Friday for Heaven and Hell -- again -- (Thursday, I think, through the local rock station) for a September show at the casino. I'm in a quandary as to whether to buy. I know it's going to be a great show; I've already seen it.

Heaven and Hell played the Mohegan Sun Arena May 15th, with Megadeth (and some other band I didn't see) in tow. In September, they'll play with Queensrÿche and Alice Cooper -- the former I've seen 5 times, and the latter never. The May show was fantastic. September promises to be as good -- if the 3 major bands on the bill doesn't shorten everyone's set. This isn't the show you you want 3 hour-long set for -- after only an hour, each of these bands is only getting warmed up.

Megadeth, on the other hand, is the perfect band to do an hour before the headliner. Why? Because in an hour's time, they can blister and burn through some 10 of their greatest hits and a nice sampling off the new record. The busted on stage, the drummer pinned to the back of the stage curtain by his kit looking like an animal in a cage, and with maybe two words on welcome, slammed into a blistering set that covered everything a fan would want to hear. A couple words from Dave to promote the new album, a couple more to thank the crowd for their enthusiasm -- and who wouldn't be enthused with a set that ran like a runaway train from start to finish of his career. Hanger 18, Sweating Bullets, and a medley of 5 tunes, including the classic Mechanics Dave wrote for Metallica before his unceremonious departure. The best thing about Megadeth medley, though, in 6 minutes, they play 5 songs, start to finish, each normally clocking 3 minutes long. Mechanics reminded me of an important thing: for as popular as Metallica has become, for anything they play (The Four Horsemen, for example, being James Hetfield's lyrical rewrite for Mechanics), Dave and Megadeth can play it bigger, louder, better, and without doubt... faster.

So Megadeth's set closed, and you'd think we'd been playing for an hour, so we went for a smoke and another beer. Cooled off, and back in the auditorium -- our seats, thank to a good hookup at the Sun, were phenomenal, by the way -- we waited to see what was in store for us from the headlining act. Well, from the moment the curtain lifted, we weren't disappointed.

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences doesn't give awards for live performance. They should. And if they did, The Heaven and Hell Tour would undoubtedly win the Grammy for Best Set Decoration. The curtains parted to reveal the ruins of a gothic church, stone arches, torches, and 3 stained glass windows that revealed as video screens displaying images such as angels smoking cigarettes.

On the left (the far end from our vantage point), Geezer Butler, in his elder years now looking like Gérard Depardieu with a bass. At the rear of the stage, Vinny Appice, a menacing humanoid representation of the Muppet Show's Animal, across between Joe Pesci and an Orge. On the right, Tony Iommi... OK, Tony Iommi just looks like Tony Iommi, plastic fingertips and all. And running to the front of the stage, the Angry Gnome of Metal -- scratch that; his prior battles with gnomes being quite well known, referring to him as such seems wrong -- the Gollum-like Metal God that he is, the man who brought us Metal Hand, Gríma Worm... I mean, Ronnie James Dio. But yeah, he really does look too much like Gríma Wormtongue from The Lord of the Rings. He does.

But anyway, enough mocking the appearance of 4 of the greatest men to ever get together and make Metal, they deserve better than the fickle comparisons of my mind's eye. They deserve to get together and make an album. Oh wait, they did. And for an album that spans the "best of" of a career that lasted an entire two studio albums, it truly is an amazing offering. And the tour to support it, amazing as well..

I'd like to stop a moment, and thank VH1 Classic for existing. Not only is it possibly the only place on television to listen to good music, but the VH1 Classic Concert Series has brought us some of the best shows in recent memory. The joy of this series for me, is that I can finally catch some of the bands, that in their hey-day, I was just too young to go see. Pandora's Box of classic shows, of bands I got into too late, or bands who toured when I was still in Elementary School, has been opened. But Eddie Trunk, our modern-day Pandora, need not be chastised for what he has released into the world.

Musically -- and when it comes down to it,musically is what really matters -- the show surpassed my expectations. I had seen Black Sabbath, the real Black Sabbath, at OzzFest not too many years ago -- again, a line-up I had expected had passed me by before I was born. At that show I had been impressed with the musicianship of the original line-up, but that was nothing compared to what I heard at Heaven and Hell. It would be my humble opinion that Black Sabbath really blossomed into true Heavy Metal at the time when they picked up Dio. Tony Iommi is an indisputably awesome guitarist, but this era of the band really allowed him to display the kind of prowess that defines him as a Metal God. Geezer Butler, who almost seems absent in early Sabbath, really shines, and unlike many of his contemporaries, produces a fast, heavy sound without the aid of pick. And of course, there is Vinny Appice. Perhaps moreso than Dio himself, the addition of Appice on drums truly defines the heavier, darker, truly just more metal sound of Dio era Sabbath. The man is a monster... and not just in appearance.

I haven't yet picked up the album this tour supports, but I know I will. There is no way I could not. Perhaps it is in fact a bi-product of the fact that The Dio Years is an eponymous spanning a mere two albums, but everything just fit together. From the heaviest, to the lightest ballad -- well, what passes for a ballad from Dio and Sabbath -- everything just flowed together beautifully. Shockingly, the two of the three new song that they did play live, not only fit, not only were just great tunes, they in fact sounded more like the older works of Sabbath than everything else they played. Ronnie, Tony, Geezer and Vinny truly succeeded when they got back into the studio, and managed to put together 3 tracks that unequivocally deserved to be call Black Sabbath songs.

Kudos, boys.

Now, the question does remain... do I do it all again? I'll have to think on that some more. But in thinking on it initially, I was lucky to have been reminded of what a fantastic show it was the first time around.

Currently listening :
The Dio Years
By Black Sabbath
Release date: 03 April, 2007

WalkAmerica 2007

Achive from MySpace blog
Current mood: optimistic
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

It's coming up on that time of year again. On April 29th, I will again participate in

This year, I am lucky to be participating in WalkAmerica with my loving girlfriend Molly, and a great friend Angela, as well as participating in the Drop a Dime for March of Dimes benefit show.

Premature birth is the leading cause of newborn death and many lifelong disabilities. You can help the March of Dimes fight prematurity by taking steps in WalkAmerica. Join WalkAmerica and a million compassionate people nationwide who care about saving babies. Do it in the name of someone you love: a premature baby, a healthy baby, your own baby, or the baby of a relative or friend.

Even before Kayden was born, I've been involved with WalkAmerica and the March of Dimes, but her birth 2 years ago steeled my resolve in regard to this cause. Kayden was born 15 weeks premature. She came into this world at a baffling 1 lb. 10 oz.

Through the excellent care available at Yale New Haven Hospital NICU, research funded by the March of Dimes, and her own amazing will to be, Kayden made it out of the hospital in about 6 months time.

So, in March 2006, I decided to once again participate in WalkAmerica. In Kayden's name... but not for Kayden. Kayden was home, and would end up coming with us for the walk. Not for Kayden, but for every little one like Kayden who'd yet to be born, for those in the NICU who, like Kayden, wouldn't see home for 6 months, and for their parents and families, who, like me 17 months earlier, needed that extra bit of hope.

In April, my roommate Timmy brought to me the idea of running a benefit to boster extra support for that year's Walk. In 17 days of scrambling we put together the first Drop a Dime event.

So, again I find my self reaching out, asking you for support in my efforts to help those to small to help themselves. Every little bit helps. Together with Timmy, Angela, and Molly, between the benefit and individual sponsors for WalkAmerica, we've set a lofty team goal of $10,000 this year, but I know we can do it.

It is going to take help, though, and there's a number of ways to do so:

First, you can sponsor my walk. Or, if you want, you can sponsor Molly, Angela, Timmy, or our Walk Team directly. Or, if you happen to be in the Grater New Haven area, please come check out Drop a Dime for March of Dimes.

This is for a great cause, to help prevent premature birth. If you're wondering how he got involved with March of Dimes yourself, or walk yourself, information is also available on their site.

Thank you all for any and all support you can give.

The Lost Blog

Archive from MySpace blog
Current mood: reminiscent
Category: reminiscent Blogging

OK, no... I know Molly has told many of you of our newfound obsession with the TV show LOST... but that's not what this blog is about. Instead this is the blog I never got to 2 weeks ago, when this story occurred.

So, without further ado... here we go.

Cape Fear
February 18, 2007

Have you ever got that call? You know, the one where you can win some vacation / trip / prize if you attend their seminar where they try to sell you vacation property. Yeah. What kind of person says yes to that? Well... we found out.

4 free plane tickets, anywhere in the US and Europe. The exchange: a 90 minute sales pitch for a Vacation Club, on Cape Cod. Granted, we'd just won 4 plane tickets with far less strings attached, but really, can one have too many free plane tickets? And what the heck, I'd never been to Cape Cod.

So, 9:30 Sunday morning, we hop in the car. An hour later, we're in Wyoming, RI, home of one of our favourite Tim Horton's. 2 coffees, a water, a croissant, and fruit punch, 10 TimBits, a Canadian Maple doughnut, and we're back on the road. It's a Sunday, but we're making great time to and through Rhode Island. Even a pretty serious car accident outside Cranston only delays us about 15 seconds.

Not too long later, and we're in Falmouth, MA, and at the InnSeasons Resort. Umm... looks like a motel to me, actually. Who cares, check-in time. Present ID, and a credit card. The letter states a credit card or check book must be provided as a second form of ID due to the valuable nature of the gifts, but I learn later, they just want to make sure you bring your money so you can buy at the end. Don't worry, no one swept or got the numbers off the card.

So, we're sitting in the "living room" and in walks our... guide... salesman, whatever, Harry, an 80-something guy in a bow-tie. Harry owns a pharmaceutical R&D company, but chooses to spend his retirement years hocking "memberships" in this "vacation club". Hey, to each his own. But this self-made entrepreneur, a man who graduated MIT in the 40's, is oddly impressed with my last name. Fascinated even. Fascinated... in a vaguely senile way. He wants to know if I've ever talked with my famous Arctic (Antarctic, actually Harry, but close enough) exploring Great-Uncle, who died about 45 years before I was born. OK, maybe the MIT grad is bad a math. Hell, at 80, Harry would have been like 10 when Sir Ernest died.

But I digress. Harry got down to business, and through some amazing computation -- hey, he went to MIT -- he calculated that at approximately $150 a trip, 2 or 3 times a year, Molly and I will somehow spend $867,000 in vacations by the time we're sixty. The be honest, even Harry seemed slightly shocked by the result of this computation. But $867,000 is what the computer said we would spend, and he was certain he could save us money with the InnSeasons program.

The program is simple, you buy a time share in a resort. Then you pay to maintain your share. Then you pay to use your share. Then you pay to have the right to trade your share for somewhere else. Then you pay to trade your share. Then you pay for the right to trade your share internationally. Then you pay to trade your share internationally. Then you pay for the agent that arranges your airfare. Then you pay for your airfare. Then you pay for an extra calculator to help you figure out what on earth you just paid. But fear not, this is the greatest bargain in the vacation world.

Harry takes us on a tour of the local facilities, 3 resorts in Falmouth, all of which are full. It's Mid-February, and all three resorts -- on Cape Cod -- have no vacancies. What on earth would be our chances of actually booking a vacation in the summer?!? Scary. Scarier still is the fact that, aside from the 3 resort properties, everything in this town is vacant, abandoned, and boarded up. It almost looks like we're driving through a Scooby Doo episode, except instead of a talking dog and an arrogant blonde man in an ascot, we have Harry, and possibly the oldest man on Cape Cod driving the van.

At one point, after explaining the fees schedule, Harry asked what I would pay for the actual property. I really thought the answer was supposed to be 0. Alas, it wasn't. Before any of the fees listed above, the initial property (which really isn't property at all) was going to cast us $143,000. Don't worry, they finance on an 8 year term at 15% interest!

So, we politely tell Harry that -- and we blame my upcoming educational costs -- we can't afford this deal at the moment (not like we ever intended to buy 0, and wait for the delivery of our plane tickets. But the plane tickets don't arrive yet. No. First, the Arab horse-trader.

Now I have nothing against persons of Middle Eastern descent, but it does seem when you need someone to wheel and deal and barter and swindle, you just have to bring in the Arab. So "what if I offer you half the points? And see this number... gone. See this... I pay this for the next 5 years. And this fee... you don't pay it. I pay that. And I pay this for 3 years. And I give 3 bonus weeks. And this... no, don't pay that; that you pay in names. You give me 10 names... paid. You give 20 names... I give you $50. You give me 30 names... I pay this, give you $75 dollars, and you get this camel." OK, he didn't offer me a camel, but it was that bad. At the end, the numbers still seemed unreasonable -- not that anything was truly reasonable, since we had no intent to buy anything.

So we thank them both for their time again, and we sign off on the declination of our special deal, and we get our gifts. $25 in dinner, $100 in gas rebates, and 4 round-trip airline tickets. So, being rather hungry since the 90 minute tour took us an hour and 20 minutes, we roll of to get lunch.

The $25 meal certificate is for a place called the Carolina Bar-B-Q Barn Restaurant and Bar. We pass. We're sure we can find something good in Hyanis. So up Falmouth Road we go. And as we do, we pass Cape Mac. At first I thought Molly said Cape Mack, and just thought it was some little town, but it turns out it's a computer store she regularly does business with. We try to stop in and say hi, maybe get a good tip on a place to do lunch, but alas, they're closed. Little did we know that would be the theme of the day.

Continuing on we pass a number of oddly names towns and hamlets. It's odd... we settled this land, drove off the Native Americans, yet kept all their hideously unpronounceable names. Onward we drive. The Old Abandoned Concert Pavilion. Where's Old Man Wiggins? And this place... ah yes, this place...

Something completely awesome about a place called "3 Way Liquors". If only liquor was spelled a little different. OK, 6th grade, I know. Anyway...

Hyanis. Umm... that's what the sign said. OK, I'll roll toward the Center. Umm... OK I'll roll toward the beach. Yup... it's a beach. Sand washing across the small town street, boarded up building line either side... a bustling metropolis. OK... here's my advice here: Don't, under any circumstances, waste your time traveling to Cape Cod out of season. Spring: Great. Summer: Awesome. Fall: Wonderful. Winter...

In the Winter, Cape Cod transforms to an odd coastal version of Appalachia, North of the Mason-Dixon line. Rednecks, in salt-rotting pick-ups, park the clam boats on their front lawns while their teen children congregate at combination grocery-liquor-pizza shops that dot the otherwise abandoned thoroughfares.

OK, I said this blog isn't about LOST, but if any of you do watch LOST, think back to "The Others", when they find the raft and kidnap Walt... "We're gonna hafta take the boy." Yeah, that's Cape Cod in February. We were kind of afraid to get out of the car, so after an hour loop of the Cape Cod beaches, again passing (and finally taking a picture of) 3 Way Liquors, and coming right back to the Carolina Bar-B-Q Barn Bar and Restaurant, we just decided to stop at the local 99 Restaurant. At least it was familiar.