This Blog Has Moved

Do me a favor, please: Forget all about this Blogger bullcrap and go to my new, hopefully more functional and prettier version of The Prettiest Denny's Waitress. And update your readers, links, bookmarks and what-not so that together we can continue filling the internet with our witty musings. See you there.

Feelin' Kinda Funky

Some say Sunday is the Lord's day; that's fine with me, just so long as the Lord wants to rock out a bit. Either way, rock will be had, seven days a week. Or eight, if you're a Beatles fan.

So it was that the lady and I, along with four friends (sure, two of them we were meeting for the first time, but I found them wholly agreeable, so I'll be loose with the "friends" tag) found ourselves at the Buckhead Theatre on a drizzly Sunday evening. It was only 5 o'clock and the doors weren't scheduled to open until 8, so we went around the corner to a tiny Greek place for dinner. The owner of the joint was the real thing and had either no concept of or no interest in following the pacing that accompanies a typical restaurant experience in America, which was fine by me. Upon pushing together some tables for us he deduced, with no input from anyone in our group, that we wanted an appetizer and a round of waters. Out came a platter full of hummus, tabbouleh, baba ganoush and an assortment of other spreads and random vegetables, accompanied by a pile of sliced up pita on a paper plate (?), all of it delicious. And then... nothing. We hadn't seen a menu and no one bothered us for a good 15 minutes after we had eaten up our paper-plate's worth of pita. When the owner eventually came over again, we asked him if there were menus or if we just order off the pictures of food above the counter.

"Oh, you want menus?"

Um, yes please.

And then after we had looked over the menu, he tried to talk the second person who ordered the falafel gyro into getting something else. His English, I should add, was enthusiastic but broken, spoken in the way of an immigrant who has lived here probably for decades but who became confident in his language skills far sooner than he should have and makes up for it with volume and frequent laughter. We did end up getting what we ordered (which was surprising,) and it was all fantastic. It was definitely a strange dining experience, but I will absolutely go back there (Cafe Agora) next time we're in the area looking for food. Just not if we're in a hurry (although they do have takeout.)

So back around the corner through the drizzle to the Buckhead Theatre we went. Recently reopened after extensive renovation, the theater was formerly The Roxy and I'd seen three shows in that incarnation: the Verve (my first real concert, freshman year of college,) Drivin' n' Cryin' (for the second time,) and Frank Black (for the fourth time.) It's basically just been snazzied-up: new carpet throughout, fresh paint, uniformed staff (friendly,too,) and big, gleaming restrooms. Every time I end up in a place like that for a concert (meaning a place with a little class,) I think back to what I came to expect in my youth from a rock venue: surly staff, sticky floors, a thick fog of cigarette smoke, decrepit bathrooms and a sense of impending violence.

None of this was to be found at the Buckhead Theatre last night, although I doubt violence has ever accompanied the band we were there to see: Better Than Ezra. If you're like me, your memory of Better Than Ezra begins and ends sometime in the mid-90s with their radio hits Good, Desperately Wanting, and In the Blood. Actually, I do have a little more history with them, as Courtney and I caught the very end of their set at Voodoo Music Fest in New Orleans in 2001, which was the college trip from which we came home a couple. Courtney's a fan and our friends are fans (and I do know much of their first two albums by heart), so we made sure to park ourselves right in front of the stage.

Better Than Ezra were good, playing all the crowd favorites, but I honestly didn't get into it until relatively late in the set, when they broke out their fantastic cover of James' "Laid." The sound could've been a lot better, but that's a common complaint and I've heard much, much worse. All in all it was a good time and I managed to let loose with some singing along from time to time.

The highlight for me, though, was the opening act, Big Sam's Funky Nation. If I had a band, I would not want to follow them, a compliment Better Than Ezra's Kevin Griffin actually articulated on stage. It was the best opening set I've ever seen: an opening band only gets so much time to impress the audience and these five guys hardly paused between songs, ripping from one funk jam right into the next. The two guys up front on trombone and trumpet also handled vocal duties and danced almost non-stop. On top of the ridiculous level of energy, they were also amazing players, the guitarist shredding hard enough to break a string and the bass player bringing that fat-bottom sound right to the forefront. The trombone player, Big Sam himself, had some wicked dance moves and had himself soaked in a combination of sweat and the output of his horn's spit valve in the span of just a few songs: that guy really worked for his audience.

Big Sam, being from New Orleans, threw in a few rounds of Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?, a question to which I never considered a response until I found myself shouting "THE FALCONS!" They also threw in a rip-roaring cover of Hard to Handle, a shrewd move as a sure-fire way to get the crowd to sing along. I don't own a single funk album, but that kind of big-band funk never disappoints when you catch it live.

At one point during one of the many call-and-response parts of the act, Courtney found the microphone in her face as Big Sam leaned down from the stage. She had no idea (I later learned) what the repetitive three-word line was he'd been singing and so she shrank back from it, leaving me to lean in from behind and try to pick up the slack. Until she reads this, she still doesn't know what she was supposed to sing. At least one of us was feelin' kinda funky.

(And this I have to share: Blogger spellcheck doesn't like "Buckhead" as one word [or "spellcheck," for that matter.] What does it suggest I replace it with? "Fuckhead." Seriously.)

NaBloPoOhWell

Eh, so I missed an entire week of NaBlo. NaBlo me.

("Umm," you may ask, "isn't that the kind of crudeness you should start backspacing since your mom reads your blog?" My answer: Probably, but she's a librarian, and librarians are historic foes of censorship. Also, making this blog entirely parent-appropriate would be much less fun for my many readers, who would miss out on witty, hilarious wordplay such as "NaBlo me." On a related note, email me if you want to hear about the time I tried to buy heroin from a Taiwanese prostitute.)

(Kidding about the heroin and the prostitute, Mom. If I had a kick-ass story like that, I'd totally put it on my blog, mom or no mom. Also, I never check my blog email, so that entire sentence was a lie.)

Where were we before my mother so rudely interrupted? Oh, right- NaBloPoMo, or more specifically my failure to make it past day 3. Did I really think I could more or less ignore my blog for a year and a half and then suddenly flip the switch and start posting every day? Apparently, yes. But then Thursday rolled around, I didn't feel like writing anything and I had to bank another three or four posts because I was going away for the weekend, and, well, bleh.

So I'm a failure.

But I did spend a long weekend in the mountains with my friend John at his family's cabin. I actually camped out in the back of my truck the first night and experienced the first snow of the season because John couldn't make it until Saturday. I sleep incredibly well when the temperature is in the upper twenties. My sleeping bag is rated to 20 degrees, but somewhere around 30 seems to be the real sweet spot.

John and I did some light hiking, found some of the largest trees in the state, briefly lost his dog, also caught said dog eating a discarded deer stomach (totally gross), burned through a bunch of firewood and generally enjoyed the crisp, clear, fragrant fall air of North Georgia. And I didn't write about it until now; I refer you back to my opening sentence.

As best we could figure (following the hiking guide,) this poplar is the thickest tree in the Chattahoochee National Forest at about 18 feet in circumference. If trees could talk, this one might say, "Dude, at least buy me dinner first."

This is me admiring (respectfully this time) another behemoth in the so-called Valley of the Giants. To get here you drive several miles off the main highway beyond where the pavement ends, park in an unmarked pull-out and hike an unofficial and unsigned trail. Needless to say, we were the only ones there. My kind of place.

In rural backwoods Georgia, graffiti gets to the point. Bonus points for correct spelling! I have to ask though: Is this a phenomenon found in other states? In Minnesota, do they spray-paint "fuck north dakota" on abandoned silos? It's a thinker.

There's Always Room For Jello

All day long I've had the Dead Kennedys' "California Uber Alles" stuck in my head. Do you think that in 1979, when Jello Biafra sang the words

I am Governor Jerry Brown
My aura smiles
And never frowns
Soon I will be president...

that he had any idea that 32 years later the same dude would be back in the California governor's mansion? Shit, that was the year I was born, and Jerry Brown had already been in office for four years! Of course Jello was wrong; Brown never did ascend to the presidency (neither did Biafra, losing the 2000 Green Party nomination to Ralph Nader.) "California Uber Alles" isn't exactly a glowing ode to Brown's leadership, so I'm guessing Jello has not been silent on the subject. My guess is he's already updating the song for 2011, having already changed it once for Governor Schwarzenegger.

Among Many Other Things...

Are you?

As long as we're talking stickers, here's the one you get if you go to perhaps the most inspired roadside attraction in all of Georgia:

And where does one become a Goat Ranger?

Duh. Goats on the Roof! Where they feature... (drum roll, please)... GOATS!... on the ROOF!

Yeah, it's pretty much the best thing ever. Of course the buildings beneath the goats provide you with many ways to part with your money, the best of which are coin operated goat-food dispensers for loading up the hand or pedal crank goat feeders. How else would you feed goats on the roof?

These two were showing off with some full-on head-banging, horn-locking goat shenanigans. But don't worry about the goats; they have access to the ground and (thanks to Courtney) are very well fed.

And as long as we're talking roadside attractions, here's my favorite: Carhenge, western Nebraska.

In summation, election day = rooftop goats = half-buried Detroit steel. Any questions?

This Was the Lead Story Today on AJC.com

More dangerous: Alcohol or heroin?

A new study says drinking alcohol is deadly for you than even heroin or crack cocaine.

[sic]

And just for kicks, here's the photo illustration that went along with it, in case you needed some help picturing which one is the alcohol and which is the heroin (the one with the citrus wedge is not the heroin, although fruity cocktails taken intravenously may not be a bad idea.)

AJC file photos

The reason I'm sharing this little piece of journalism FAIL from the website of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is not my outrage over the missing modifier in the subhead (this sort of typo is all too common) or the lack of imagination evident in the illustration (I would have gone with Ewan McGregor done up like Renton in Trainspotting with a needle hanging out of one arm while he hoists a bottle of Glenfiddich with the other, because if there's one thing that movie taught me, it's that Scottish people know their narcotics and their alcohol. And also to choose life, or something.)

Nay, the reason I find this moderately infuriating is this: THIS IS NOT AT ALL WHAT THE STUDY FOUND. The study they are referring to looked at the varying effects of drugs on both the individual and society at large. Not surprisingly, it found (among other things) that while drugs like heroin and crack are incredibly damaging to individual users, their cost to the rest of society pales in comparison to that of alcohol. Duh. That's because far more people consume alcohol than heroin and overconsumption of it generally kills you slowly (with all the medical costs, traffic accidents, and idiot streakers interrupting sporting events that entails.)

But again, that's not my point, although I do find any scholarly work that furthers our understanding of substance abuse generally interesting, especially as it relates to our ongoing failure to address the issue with logic or compassion. What bothers me today is the simple and obvious misreporting of facts, right there in a headline. Of course alcohol is not more deadly than heroin! I had two beers just last night, and I feel great!

There are three possible reasons why the AJC would run an erroneous headline like this:

A) The writer and/or editor who wrote the head is stupid.

B) The writer and/or editor who wrote the head didn't really read the study, which is irresponsible and stupid.

C) The writer and/or editor who wrote the head knows what the study findings are and decided to mash up the facts a bit to get a juicier headline, which is stupid, irresponsible and maybe a little bit evil.

I didn't even read the AJC article because I'd already read one that covered the same study on Salon, where they managed to be both accurate and devoid of sensationalism, which is all I want out of my news, which reminds me of another plea I've been dying to make, and this is aimed at every single media outlet there is: Can we please stop reporting the findings of polls as news? Every day I see splashed across the internet the latest numbers indicating the Democrats are in trouble, or they're not, or the president's approval ratings are up or down, or 9 out of 10 dentists recommend Oral-B. At best, a well-conducted, comprehensive poll can give you an idea; at worst, they give you the wrong idea. The questions asked of respondents can be and often are worded in such a way as to guarantee the outcome the pollster is seeking. They are never definitive and should not be reported as such, and because of this I don't think they should be reported by mainstream media at all because I don't believe most of us know the difference. Also, I have never been contacted for a poll. This is suspicious.

And with this rant I begin NaBloPoMo. I keep meaning to get back to the blog and what better way than to post every day for a month.

Nucking Futs

You know how people like us, that is to say "earthbound" folks, tend to view skydiving as maybe the scariest thing we can think of this side of a Tea Party rally? Apparently there are people very much not like us (and I don't just mean neo-cons,) people who derive no thrill from simply jumping off of or out of something and plunging rapidly toward the hard earth and certain death, with only the hope of being saved at the last second by a carefully folded sheet of nylon, people who have decided that skydiving is not enough- that they want to skydive really, really close to stuff.

Just watch this short video, and then call your mom and promise her you'll never do anything like this.

No Visit to Roanoke is Complete Without a Side-Trip to New England

Yeah, it's been awhile. Weird, too, because I've had plenty to write about, starting with our big trip to New England, which I built up in my last post two months ago and then left you hanging. Two months ago. Damn.

So we did in fact take our long-planned trip, or as I kept referring to it "Our Vacation to Roanoke" which only happened to include one night in that mid-size Virginia city. Of course I was kidding, because nobody plans an entire vacation around Roanoke (although it does seem like a lovely place to live), but Roanoke had the last laugh, providing me with the most photo-worthy scene of the whole nine-day journey:

It looked like a pretty nice hotel room (by my loose standards) even before I peeked in the bathroom (which I always do before I settle in just to make sure there isn't an organ-harvested body in the bathtub.) Apparently the "quality" in Quality Inn means being able to order a pizza while simultaneously making a delivery of your own. Amenities indeed.

This isn't to say that the rest of the trip was downhill, but the toilet phone did set the bar high. Luckily, New England was up to the challenge, thanks in no small part to NPW, who graciously (which is an understatement) lent us some real estate in her living room (okay, all of her living room) and a high-end air mattress for four days and nights in Massachusetts. She also drove us around the whole time, paid our subway fare, acted as tour guide for much of Greater Boston, and bought us cannoli from Mike's Pastry in the North End. See what I mean by understatement? Oh, and she's cool and makes good coffee.

Things to do in Boston when NPW is showing you around:

-Climb the Bunker Hill Monument on your first evening in town, ensuring cramped quadriceps for the next few days.

-See every single thing you can think of that dates from the Revolution. This is Boston after all.

-Eat a sausage from the Sausage Guy at the Boston Food Truck Festival.

-Pee on the Bucky Dent-shaped urinal mints in Quincy Market. (Not really. I didn't actually even use the restroom at Quincy Market but this is what I daydreamed about while waiting on my companions who did. No word on whether girls get things to pee on, or if they are shaped like former Yankees players. Also, I watched the pigeons.)

-Visit Harvard Yard and wonder if you really are as smart as you think you are.

-If you are a lady, drink a Boston Cream Pie Martini. If you are a dude, drink a beer and watch the ladies drink Boston Cream Pie Martinis.

-Have dinner with Aaron (who may be even funnier in person than he is in writing) and his fiance Mara (who is equally charming but has more hair), who are obviously in league with NPW in trying to prove that the term "Northern hospitality" is not an oxymoron, as people from the overrated South would have you believe.

And when you've had your fill of Boston (for now), visit historic Salem, where NPW will treat you to the Salem Witch Museum, which she assured us would be the cheesiest, lamest, most low-rent Hall of Presidents-style musem ever, and an absolute must-see. (She was right: it was either gloriously stupefying or stupefyingly glorious, I'm not sure which.) Also, when riding the historic tour trolley, do not get off at the first stop. It will not be coming back around shortly as they claim and the cooler stuff is still to come. When you are done with witches, clean your palate with a drive up to Newburyport, an absolutely charming seaside town with no known history of crushing people to death with stones.

Eventually, you will wear out your welcome in Massachusetts or NPW will have a plane to catch to Denver, one of the two. That's your cue to take the scenic route up to Portland, Maine and spend a few days there drinking local brews, eating lobster as often as possible, strolling the cobblestone streets and kayaking the island-studded coastline. Now that you've laid low in the most eastern of states, sneak back into Massachusetts for some more history in the charming village (there is no shortage of these) of Concord, where not only were the first shots of the American revolution fired, but a suspicious number of famous authors put pen to page. (I'd say it must be something in the water, but I had an iced coffee there and didn't write jack shit for two months.)

By now you're probably sick of all this damn New England charm that seems to be in such abundance, so spend the night in Worcester, where you'll drive around for an hour before finding an area that even seems safe enough to stop the car, let alone actually get out and find some dinner. That's sometimes the price you pay for avoiding the Crapplebee's by the interstate.

That's one scenario, anyway. The first step is cozying up to NPW, internet-style, so she invites you up in the first place. After that the rest takes care of itself. On our particular version of this vacation to Roanoke (the rest was just gravy,) Courtney and I also spent a night in New Haven, Connecticut where we walked around Yale University and ate a pizza on New Haven Green, attracting the attention of just one of the alarming number of homeless people there. If you have six hundred dollars you want to invest in a revolutionary new exercise machine (or maybe just some pizza you're not going to finish,) I know the guy you need to see.

For more amazing photos of our trip, none of which are from the inside of a bathroom, click here.

Good Thing We Don't Get Our Lobsters From the Gulf

It's taken three months, but someone (in this case in an article for The New York Times) finally asked where our outrage over pollution in the Gulf of Mexico was before the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. In the time that the broken-off well has been gushing oil into the sea, no one (at least among the publications that I read) had made the comparison to that other, infinitely larger horizontal pipeline, the Mississippi River, that's been discharging its filth ever since we first began fouling it up a century or more ago. The Mississippi constitutes the largest drainage basin on the continent, meaning that every bit of runoff - the fertilizers and pesticides from farms and golf courses, every drop of oil that drips from a car onto a parking lot, and even the pharmaceuticals (human-filtered and otherwise) that get flushed down the toilets - between the Rockies and the Appalachians ends up discharged straight into the Gulf, creating, according to the NYT article "a zone of lifeless water the size of Lake Ontario just off the coast of Louisiana." You know the saying- "Every time someone pees into a storm drain in Pittsburgh, a fish dies in the Gulf." Okay, you've never heard it before, but it happens to be true. We've capped the oil leak (for now), but as of yet nobody has suggested we plug the mouth of the Mighty Mississippi with shredded tires and golf balls. Boy, that would sure ruin Mardi Gras next year.

---

In other news, the lady and I are taking a trip to New England about a week from now and it may include some camping on the Maine coast. Knowing that we'll have to feed ourselves at some point, and not being too excited about the idea of eating the same old camp fare, I came up with another possibility: Since most camp food involves a boiling pot of water anyway, and since we'll be in Maine, why not... and you're probably way ahead of me on this one... go ahead and shout it out if you know it... think Maine, the cold waters of the Atlantic, dinnertime... LOBSTAH!

Courtney thinks this is a terrible idea.

I just figured since cooking a lobster is no different than boiling a hot dog (except the hot dog died long before it hit the water, and probably in a much more gruesome, unsanitary fashion), it would make less sense to not take advantage of the fresh, local (and oh so delicious) catch. One of the campgrounds I've been looking at even sells the large crustaceans in its camp store, along with bug spray, postcards and marshmallows. Sure, it has the potential to be a tad messier than the average hot dog, but that's part of the fun.

And no, this is not one of my patented schemes to save money and deprive my lady friend of a romantic dinner. On the contrary, what could be more romantic than watching the sunset from a rocky outcrop over the sea with a bottle of wine or a bucket of cold local brews while tugging the meat from the steaming, splayed-open carcass of a crustacean while it looks up at you with its beady, lifeless eyes?

Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

By the way, if any of you have been to Boston or Maine or really any part of New England aside from Vermont (we won't be making it there on this trip unfortunately), now would be the time to tell me about anything that we absolutely must see while we're there. NPW can abstain from this part of the discussion (or not, if her enthusiasm simply can't be contained), since she will be sharing her local expertise in person.

Go West, Young Man! And Then Go Northeast.

Have you ever seen an RV with one of those maps of the USA on the back with all the states filled in that the RVer has visited? You'll find it just below the sweet airbrushed panorama of a dolphin jumping over a sea turtle or a wolf howling plaintively at the moon as a giant comet streaks by, unless it's a rental, and then you'll just see 1-800-GO-RVING and a back-up camera. You'll know they're full-timers if they're showing off both their map of interstate conquest and appreciation for soft-focus animal portraiture.

I've always wanted an RV (Because what's better than owning your own home and being able to park it wherever you want?), but so far I've had to make do with my compact pickup truck. I know what you're thinking- "What better canvas for a mural of a wolf fighting a grizzly bear or a galloping herd of wild mustangs than the back window of a pickup?!" Believe me, I've thought about it, but my truck has a sliding window, which is good for breezes but bad for murals- it would break up the flow, you see. Yeah, there's plenty of room back there for Calvin to be pissing on random shit for sure, but that's not my style either. Actually, my ride is devoid of all personal expression, unless you count the gigantic dent on the side which clearly implies "Yep, I'd rather pocket the insurance money than have a dent-free car." I'm waiting for someone to run into the other side so I can buy a kayak.

While I don't have an RV on which to display my intracontinental travel tick-list, I do have a blog. So here's my map, graded in color. In blue are the states I've both driven and slept in. In purple are the states I've only driven through, not stopping long enough to sleep. Red states are the ones I've visited only from the inside of the airport. White states have yet to feel the tread of my shoes or tires, along with Alaska and Hawaii.*

The reason I was thinking about this is that I should be filling in a few more states with blue or purple before long, because the lady and I are planning a trip to New England in August that could see us knocking off perhaps five more. Exciting, no? That would only leave eight states entirely unvisited for me, but I have no reasonable expectation of ever seeing North Dakota. Who does, really?

*Also, my truck and I have both been to Canada, but not at the same time.

The furthest I've ever been from home (even though we were homeless at the time), Redwood National Park, California.

I also have a post up today at the Greenists, if anyone's interested.

For My Viewing Pleasure

But I'll give you the opportunity, as well.

As promised several weeks ago, I put together a video of the trip Jacob and I took on the Chattooga River Trail. It features waterfalls, a bit of wildlife and, as usual, too many shots of people walking. Also, music.

Chattooga River Trail from dennyswaitress on Vimeo.

Things I've Done (and Eaten) Over the Past Week

-Realized it's July.

-Ate three different kinds of tacos with Traveling Em: pork, goat and beef tongue. Both the goat and the tongue were firsts for me. Goats are cute and it's a bit unsettling putting something that was in another creature's mouth into my own (except for the Dutchie, whatever that is, which should always be passed on the left hand side), but the tacos were excellent. I highly recommend Mr. Taco in Roswell, although I couldn't tell you why they went with Mr. instead of Sr., since the menu was in Spanish and the TVs were tuned to Univision.

-Watched some soccer. Turns out it's not so bad once you make peace with the fact that there is only marginally less chaos on a pitch (that's soccer for "field") full of international stars than one with a bunch of grass-stained eight-year-olds. The difference is subtle, but it's there. Actually, I've watched damn near every match (that's soccer for "game") of the World Cup and my appreciation of the sport has grown considerably, from "Maybe if they could use their hands they'd actually score a goal now and then" to "This would actually be a decent way to spend two hours if the players didn't act like such pussies every time they got kicked in the shins, the matches didn't so frequently end in a draw, and the officiating wasn't so random and inconsistent." A game that can end in a tie? Really?*

-Spent the 4th of July (also known as the day we asserted our right to call football soccer, the ultimate middle finger to those limey bastards**) at a cabin in the woods, where I ate meat, drank beer and climbed a waterfall. In that order. Photos here.

-Cleaned the apartment in anticipation of Courtney's return from D.C. I like to give the lady occasional reasons to keep me around (see also the sweet potato waffles I'm about to make her for dinner.)

-Drank beer, ate wangs (which of course is a typo for "wings," but I'm leaving it) and watched more soccer with Traveling Em and Courtney at Taco Mac, where the tacos are nothing like the authentic little tongue-stuffed gems at Mr. Taco but the draught list is incredible.

-Wrote a blog post in list form. Just what is it that you want from me? Narrative? Structure? Write your own damn blog then! (I did manage to include the descriptor "tongue-stuffed." That's got to be worth something.)

*Actually, I was totally digging the World Cup and the game itself, but being critical of soccer is the American way. And the players really are total pussies.

**Actually, soccer is a term coined by the English themselves; we stuck with it once a different variation of the game was created that involved use of the hands, an oblong ball, Don Knotts and a mule.

Ned Beatty Was NOT Invited

Although Burt Reynolds would have been more than welcome to come along.

My friend and fellow blogger Jacob and I took a little three day backpacking trip this week down the Chattooga River Trail. Although for many people it's a running gag to invoke the first few notes of "Dueling Banjos" when entering the woods or venturing into a particularly rural part of the country, a trip along the banks of the Chattooga makes it a little less funny because this is where the classic 1972 film Deliverance was actually shot.

While it would have made for a more interesting blog post, I'm happy to report that nobody squealed like a pig nor were we forced to kill any toothless hillbillies with a bow and arrow. But we also didn't get to enjoy the company of a cocky and strangely bare-lipped Burt Reynolds either, so I guess there's always room for improvement.

What we did enjoy was a trail that follows one of the most beautiful rivers in the southeast, if not the country. And I'm not the only one who feels this way: The Chattooga was designated a national Wild and Scenic River in 1974. It is well known among whitewater enthusiasts for it's wild, roadless nature and imposing rapids, and I'm sure this is well-deserved. For now I'll have to take their word for it, though, because the lower half of the 30-mile trail kept us well away from the river, up on the ridges among the impenetrable forests. We could hear what sounded like some serious cataracts down on the river and the occasional whoops and hollers from exhilarated rafters, but the action was well out of view.

The upper half was a different story: the trail spent long stretches winding beside the river and we encountered a slew of waterfalls and trout-filled pools. Our campsite the first night was actually located on a tributary between two scenic waterfalls, the lower of the two cascading directly into the river, creating a nice deep pool that was perfect for a pre-dinner swim. Not too shabby as campsites go.

Other highlights included a close encounter with a copperhead snake, Mark Doucette's left-behind fuel canister (writing your name on your litter must be worth a merit badge), a spirited thunderstorm that drove us to seek shelter in a conveniently located and temporarily unoccupied camp kitchen (probably saved my camera) and innumerable downed trees and a washed-out bridge resulting from the deluge.

You can see some pictures of our journey here. I highly recommend it. And coming soon, I should have another shaky video set to music you've never heard of. I can feel the anticipation building already.

Greetings From Nordstrand!

Not really, but this morning's World Cup match between Denmark and the Netherlands, besides proving once again that I will watch anything competitive, even when accompanied by an incessant buzzing that probably hints at what it's like to have kazoo-blowing wood nymphs infest your inner ear, reminded me to take another look at my family history.

See, I had a source that possibly put my paternal lineage in Nordstrand, a peninsula in northern Germany near both Holland and Denmark. I just hadn't bothered to connect me to it. Through the magic of the internet and thanks entirely to someone far more driven than I who happens to share my last name, I now know who my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was and where he came from: Nordstrand, when it was a part of Denmark. I'm a Dane (or at least part Dane,) which means I'm retroactively pissed that my guys went down 1-0 to the Netherlands. Damned orange-clad tulip-sniffers. Legos rule, windmills drool.

Arguably more interesting, I also learned some cool stuff about all 10x great-grandpas. Some high(and low)lights:

-9x shipped to America in 1638 with a Swedish fellow named Bronck, whom he also leased farmland from. Bronck's name was attached to a river that ran beside the farm and was eventually misspelled as Bronx.

-9x also was convicted of selling his wife (my 9x great-grandmother,) resulting in his banishment from New Netherland, which I believe is how most people end up settling in New Jersey.

-4x was murdered by his wife and a minister, the two of whom were alleged to be intimately related.

-3x met a similarly violent end to his father's, bringing a pistol to a shotgun fight. He took one barrel's worth in the stomach, expiring several hours later. He apparently had it coming and was known to have previously killed two men himself.

And those are just my direct ancestors. Along the line there were also soldiers (Revolutionary War, Civil War- both sides,- and one guy who fought in the "Mormon War" in Nauvoo, Illinois,) scalpings by indians and a stolen keg of gin. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Obviously, the genes for violence and adultery have skipped me entirely, although I did recently attend a seminar on the marketing and selling of wives. Couple that hobby with my blue eyes and Lego skillz to rival any Zack (He's a Lego maniac!), and my connection to the motherland is clear. Now all that's left is for me to spearhead a revolt that wrests the state of Schleswig-Holstein from Germany and returns it rightfully to Danish rule, inspiring statues in my Scandinavian image and songs celebrating my name. That way when I visit I'll never have to pay for a beer. But the gin's on me.

STAY

Famous by association. Or maybe reflected glory. Either way, I know a real, published author. I just finished a wonderful new book by our dear friend- fellow blogger, founder of theGreenists.com, famous novelist- Allie Larkin. And none of that has anything to do with my review of her work (Okay, it might- I'm only human. But I tried to set that aside when reading the book.)

Honestly, Stay is not the sort of book I'd normally pick up off the shelf. It's about relationships. Love. Heartbreak. There's an adorable dog on the cover. The last book I read before Stay featured triple-homicide, prostitution and lots of unpronounceable Swedish place-names. Stay doesn't offer any of that, although some consonant-heavy Slovak does pop up from time to time.

What Stay does have plenty of are remarkably well-drawn characters. Every one of Allie's players could have easily been one-dimensional caricatures, the kind we see time after time in books and movies, but she manages to give every one of them the complexity that both the characters and the readers deserve. It's not so much that the characters aren't what you think they are at first, it's that that's not all they are. Except the dog. The dog is exactly what you think.

Altogether, I'm really impressed with the book. Allie has a gift for details and dialogue, both of which she uses to build an entirely believable world that brings the reader into the story. And it's funny. Really funny. You should read it. I'm already looking forward to the stories Allie will be sharing with us in the future.

A Free Man has an interview with Allie over on his site. Check it.

Black Helicopters Put Me On Edge

I haven't made a movie since last fall, so I took my camera with me yesterday on a hike up Mt. Yonah in the north Georgia mountains. It was a perfect day and I'm happy to report that the new (to me) trail is fantastic and a huge improvement over the old arrangement. Previously, access up the mountain was via a gated private road that is maintained with public funds (through the Army) but closed to all vehicles with the exception of the people who own cabins along the road- another raw deal for the taxpayer. It's nice to now have a dedicated parking area and trail maintained by the Forest Service (although secured through a purchase by the Access Fund)- a use of public funds that can actually be enjoyed by the public.

The mountain is used by the Army Rangers for training in climbing and rope technique and a helicopter was buzzing around the peak yesterday, even landing once at the lower LZ. Next time I go back, I'm definitely taking some ropes and gear to take advantage of some of the low-angle and heavily bolted routes found all over the main face.

I had plenty to shoot video of and it was an easy decision to put all that Georgia scenery to a Georgia soundtrack. Take your shakey-cam motion sickness pills and enjoy.

Mt. Yonah from dennyswaitress on Vimeo.

Stop. This. Now.

Seriously. Enough with the word(period) word(period) word(period) bullcrap. It's done. And I'm sure I've just offended someone, because I think it's that sort of cutesy syntax that starts with bloggers and I know we've all done it or are still doing it. But enough already. It wasn't all that clever the first time and now it's all over billboards and magazine ads. I even saw it used in the middle of a direct quote in Sports Illustrated today. I assume the guy being quoted just slowed down his speech for emphasis, but lately we've been throwing periods around like we all have a good friend who owns a punctuation factory and he's got a warehouse full of periods he needs to unload.

The unfortunate truth, however, is that punctuation marks are unlimited in supply, so it's up to us to show some restraint. Give the period a rest. Please.

Also, if anyone has a dependable (read: Mac) laptop they're trying to get rid of, let me know. I'm not spending another dime getting this Compaq fixed and I'm sure not buying another. It has once again decided to disavow all knowledge of its own wireless capability and I'm considering that the last straw. And that's also why I haven't been around the internet much lately.

How about radicchio-stuffed pizza rolls? Would that help?

Like many of you, I'm completely fascinated by our society's ongoing confusion over just what we should eat, despite a million years of evolution driven largely by our need to do just that. That's why I always click on news articles with headlines like Pricey Grocery Stores Attract Skinniest Shoppers. That particular piece on MSNBC.com, detailing a study in Seattle that found that only 4 percent of Whole Foods shoppers are obese versus 40 percent for lower-cost Albertson's, includes the following explanation for the discrepancy:

[It's] likely because people willing to pay $6 for a pound of radicchio are more able to afford healthy diets than people stocking up on $1.88 packs of pizza rolls to feed their kids.

Bullshit. BullSHIT. BULLSHIT. Just in case we're not clear, I'm calling bullshit on this one, and let me tell you why: It's not radicchio that makes people skinny, it's lack of pizza rolls, and not buying pizza rolls costs no money at all. It's not the $6 that keeps a person out of the obese column, it's that they know better than to spend it on pizza rolls. I've been to Whole Foods and seen a cornucopia of cheese puffs, sugary sodas and bacon-wrapped filets on display. And Albertson's has piles of fresh spinach and reasonably-priced radicchio for sale.

Every grocery store in America, or the world for that matter, offers much healthier and cheaper options than pizza rolls. I'm tired of being told that poor people in this country have higher rates of obesity and its associated diseases because they can't afford or don't have access to good, healthy food. Has anyone priced rice and beans lately? They're about as cheap as it gets. In fact, the cheapest foods are probably the healthiest: rice, beans, flour- heck, most vegetables are pretty damn cheap.

And all of it can be prepared with little effort or expertise. All you need is the smarts to avoid the pizza rolls. It's not income that is the key to eating healthy, it's awareness. I'm poor, but I know what to eat (or rather what not to eat) and it's a simple matter of following through when I'm at the store. Black beans good, pizza rolls bad. It's that easy.

Besides, if poor=fat, how do you explain all the skinny people in third-world countries?

Stand Up and Be Counted

Interesting turn of events: I went to work today (the title of this post is a clue as to my new-found occupation.) Yay, me.

On a completely unrelated note, if someone knocks on your door, leash your pitbull and put away the shotgun. Please.

Gesundheit!

Lady Friend: "ahh-CHOOO!"

Me: "Bless you."

LF: "Thank you."

Every once in a while the preceding exchange, which occurs several times a day with the roles reversed on fully half the occasions, strikes me as exceedingly weird. My lady friend sneezes, I give her my blessing, she thanks me. The strange part is the gravity with which we undertake our respective roles: I speak with a seriousness that implies an absolute confidence in my ability to bestow blessings, like a high priest of holy sinus ejection, and Courtney thanks me for my largesse, as if a sneeze gone unblessed would be truly bad fortune.

Of course, the more proper, formal dialogue would precede "bless you" with "God," passing the authority for the actual blessing further up the line and it would probably be more of a request than an assumption of immediate blessing. But most of us have dropped that formality in the service of brevity, in the process taking the mantle of official blessor of violently aspirated mucous onto ourselves.

And woe be to anyone not participating in this back-and-forth of divine implication. At one point during college, in one of my periodic fits of rebellion, I decided that the whole blessings-for-sneezes program was ridiculous and I would henceforth not be taking part. Who was I to go around tossing blessings at every a-hole with allergies? Sure, I knew that my silence in the face of a sneeze would make me the a-hole, but any good revolution requires sacrifice.

About a month after I kicked off my uprising, I was having an argument with my roommate, who was like Comic Book Guy but without the social skills, genial demeanor or hygiene. At the peak of the heated and definitely non-friendly debate he reminded me, as if laying down his trump card, that he had sneezed, weeks before, and I never said "Bless you." He was completely serious, having held on to this point of contention all that time knowing he could hold it against me when the situation demanded it. I conceded the point and refrained from reminding him that he smelled perpetually like pizza and body odor and would never enjoy the touch of a woman, because I may be an a-hole, but I'm not that big an a-hole. No sense destroying the poor guy, right?

Point is, people notice when you don't play your part in the sneezing game. I eventually gave up my non-blessing crusade, redirecting my revolutionary energies toward more important goals, like making Toby Keith feel unwelcome in continental North America by way of my unrelenting, if subtle, ridicule (Seriously, Toby: You can have the Aleutians. Really. You'll be safe there and then we can both go on with our lives. Just don't infect the local salmon population with your greasy Country-dickwad shtick, because I like my wild-caught Alaskan salmon dickwad-free.)

On second thought, that's too big a risk. Does St. Helena have any vacancies? Or Mars?