I'm super late to the Mad Men party. I didn't start watching until Season Three, even after reading about how great it was and having family members tell me the same thing. I had heard that it was sort of dark, with all of the cheating and miserable relationships. All day long, I deal with situations that have gone badly; I don't want my entertainment to be about more misery, on the surface or just below.
Then I watched a couple of clips of the show on YouTube. I don't remember what got me to watch the clips, no matter, really. I saw that Jon Hamm can act. Damn, can he act. I immediately thought about running out and buying a grey, two button, narrow lapel suit, and some really big silver square cufflinks. And a ton of self-confidence and poise to go with all of that.
I started watching season three from the first episode and have been hooked all season. I caught up on old season via Wikipedia. But the finale. Wow! It killed. An episode of Mad Men meets the Thomas Crown Affair or Ocean's Eleven, all rolled into one mod caper where the good guy (ok, as good as guys get on that show) finish first.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
In praise of: New auto journalism.
For a while, I subscribed to pretty much every car magazine out there: Car and Driver, Road and Track, Automobile, AutoWeek...I think that was it. I didn't ever subscribe to Motor Trend, because it was underwhelming. (I have to admit, I saw a copy about a year ago or so, and it was pretty good; it must have undergone some massive editorial change.) Then I burned out. The magazines covered mostly the same stuff. The stories were mostly the same. Ok, except for Mark Vaughn's columns in AutoWeek. Mark always had a funny lede and often had a silly angle on a story. He's my favorite AutoWeek writer.
Anyway, other than Mark's columns, you'd get the same stuff, which was mostly dry articles giving the class that the car was in (mid-size sedan, for example), what styling changes there were, a technical overview of the engine and suspension changes, and then some writing about the driving. The driving descriptions lost their appeal to me. They read as dry and sort of technical. There was no excitement. They read like I imagine engineering manuals would read. Maybe because the writers were engineers.
Then something changed. Theres' excitement back in car write ups. The columns are fun. The writers are excited about what they do. The writers reveal that they're having fun with the cars and that they know they have the best jobs in the world. Ezra Dyer is a funny and really entertaining writer, coming up with nonsense like going back to a high school reunion with a Ford GT, and pretending that he owned it, rather than borrowing it for a few hours. Jonny Lieberman is fantastic, every time he posts. Check out his post about a revived Dodge Challenger, and you'll be hooked. And the article that got me thinking about the new auto journalism is Jason Cammisa's piece about the fully electric Tesla Roadster. I wanted to buy one before...if I had a spare $101,500 or so...but Jason made me want to rob a bank and plunk down the cash at a local dealership, all in the name of saving the world, of course.
Anyway, other than Mark's columns, you'd get the same stuff, which was mostly dry articles giving the class that the car was in (mid-size sedan, for example), what styling changes there were, a technical overview of the engine and suspension changes, and then some writing about the driving. The driving descriptions lost their appeal to me. They read as dry and sort of technical. There was no excitement. They read like I imagine engineering manuals would read. Maybe because the writers were engineers.
Then something changed. Theres' excitement back in car write ups. The columns are fun. The writers are excited about what they do. The writers reveal that they're having fun with the cars and that they know they have the best jobs in the world. Ezra Dyer is a funny and really entertaining writer, coming up with nonsense like going back to a high school reunion with a Ford GT, and pretending that he owned it, rather than borrowing it for a few hours. Jonny Lieberman is fantastic, every time he posts. Check out his post about a revived Dodge Challenger, and you'll be hooked. And the article that got me thinking about the new auto journalism is Jason Cammisa's piece about the fully electric Tesla Roadster. I wanted to buy one before...if I had a spare $101,500 or so...but Jason made me want to rob a bank and plunk down the cash at a local dealership, all in the name of saving the world, of course.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Workout update.
I've worked out three times a week for two whole weeks now! But I haven't gotten any calls from fitness magazines to be a cover model yet. They must have lost my number.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Socially acceptable topic or not?
I had the day off today, so I gave our nanny the day off. My wife is out of town on business travel; I took the monkey to school today and had the entire day with her. She was excited about the idea. I was happy that she was happy and that we could spend more time together. Yesterday, we had a great day together, spending a couple of hours in a town on the other side of the beltway that we don't get to very often, checking out local art, taking in the water and the sunshine, and listening to a local blues artist playing a sidewalk show and asking the monkey to join in on kids' maracas.
Back to today. As we were walking out of school, one of the moms, whom I've met maybe once, was talking about a playdate that three of the boys from the monkey's class were going to have. I guess it's not uncommon, because the older siblings have school that runs about an hour or two later than the preschool, so the parents have the kids group up during that in between time. She saw us trailing along and invited the monkey to come over. Far more spontaneous than I usually am, I said why not, and we followed her to their place.
During the playdate, there was the host mom, her sister, and a neighbor. I hadn't met the other women before today. After some chatter about the kids running around and jobs, they asked me if the monkey was our only kid. I said yes, smiled, and volunteered nothing else. The host mom said something about us having fertility issues, as if she knew the situation. I figured that my wife must have mentioned it in another conversation. (I found out tonight that she had not.) This then turned everyone asking me about fertility issues, out of the blue. Not long into the conversation, there was something that took my attention and changed the subject, at least for me.
It is a weird situation for me to discuss. I've never been shy from oversharing or inadvertently blurting out stuff that gets to the line; it's something that I've been working on in the past few years. I know that many people get uncomfortable talking about it and because it can still be pretty raw for my wife and me, I talk about it pretty rarely. But the other day, I saw that Penelope Trunk had created a stir by Tweeting that she was having a miscarriage at work. She addressed the controversy head on, saying that it's a natural thing, that because a miscarriage takes days, it's likely that many other women have experienced the same thing. She said that people should be open about these things and it should not be something hidden away. I totally get her point. But when it comes up, at least among people who have multiple kids and seemingly no problems in having them, I feel pretty awkward. Awkward because I feel like there's something wrong with us. And awkward because of the emotions involved.
But telling the entire internet, that's ok in my book.
Back to today. As we were walking out of school, one of the moms, whom I've met maybe once, was talking about a playdate that three of the boys from the monkey's class were going to have. I guess it's not uncommon, because the older siblings have school that runs about an hour or two later than the preschool, so the parents have the kids group up during that in between time. She saw us trailing along and invited the monkey to come over. Far more spontaneous than I usually am, I said why not, and we followed her to their place.
During the playdate, there was the host mom, her sister, and a neighbor. I hadn't met the other women before today. After some chatter about the kids running around and jobs, they asked me if the monkey was our only kid. I said yes, smiled, and volunteered nothing else. The host mom said something about us having fertility issues, as if she knew the situation. I figured that my wife must have mentioned it in another conversation. (I found out tonight that she had not.) This then turned everyone asking me about fertility issues, out of the blue. Not long into the conversation, there was something that took my attention and changed the subject, at least for me.
It is a weird situation for me to discuss. I've never been shy from oversharing or inadvertently blurting out stuff that gets to the line; it's something that I've been working on in the past few years. I know that many people get uncomfortable talking about it and because it can still be pretty raw for my wife and me, I talk about it pretty rarely. But the other day, I saw that Penelope Trunk had created a stir by Tweeting that she was having a miscarriage at work. She addressed the controversy head on, saying that it's a natural thing, that because a miscarriage takes days, it's likely that many other women have experienced the same thing. She said that people should be open about these things and it should not be something hidden away. I totally get her point. But when it comes up, at least among people who have multiple kids and seemingly no problems in having them, I feel pretty awkward. Awkward because I feel like there's something wrong with us. And awkward because of the emotions involved.
But telling the entire internet, that's ok in my book.
Foo Fighters - Wheels.
Another great song from the Foo Fighters. Talk about being the "go to" band of today.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Mr. Hypocritical, redux.
My wife read the Mr. Hypocritical post. She said, Well, I guess we're not moving back to [home state]. She also noted that it's not like our home state is filled with hillbillies and slack jawed yokels. Maybe not those words, but that idea. She's right. In fact, a recent top 10 list came out and put the city where we'd both work as "smarter" than where we are now. So much for my shoot from the hip analysis. New Diarist's comments also helped put things in perspective.
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