You guys must be into the Eurythmics

[austin_dern]

The leak in the deli turns out to have been olive oil, watch the spelling, and the source of it was a container with roughly enough olive oil to feed the Roman Army that the guy in the apartment above had got for a barbecue several months ago. He hadn't used the whole thing, and had just left the can of oil laying around in his closet, and in time it started leaking and the leak made its way through the ceiling. Even with that fully explained it doesn't seem to quite make sense, but there's no sense being in a city if you don't want to have things like that happen around you.

The deli did give me the chance to add to my long list of slightly awkward social situations into which I stumble without ever knowing what happened. While the owner went in back for something (I think he was washing his hands) I stepped to the fridge by the side of the counter to slide it open and get out a soda. A guy came in and asked me if he should come around back, which inspired my eloquent question, ``What?'' He tried again, asking where the owner was, and I told him he'd gone in back. ``Of here?'' Well ... I was fairly sure of that. Mercifully the owner came back in front and knew whatever it was the guy was talking about -- I think he was trying to deliver something -- and it appears that he assumed I was working at the deli because, I guess, I was the only person in sight.

Whilst reading the Reuters news feed I ran across a headline about Johan Santana breaking the Minnesota Twins single-game strikeout record in a Sunday game against the Texas Rangers. The thing which had me confused: the dateline was New York City, which as far as I can tell hasn't got anything to do with anything in the story. I'm sure that everyone appreciates how all worthwhile news, if it doesn't emanate from New York City, must at least pass through it to be transformed into something which might be of any interest to the unworthy masses, but there's a point where the dateline just becomes distracting. Particularly because it turns out the article, a summary of baseball activity on Sunday, was written by Mike Shalin in Boston.

Trivia: The original six newspapers forming the Associated Press were all New York newspapers: the Sun, the Tribune, the Herald, the Journal of Commerce, the Courier And Enquirer, and the Express. Source: Gotham: A History of New York City To 1898, Edwin G Burrows, Mike Wallace.

Currently Reading: The Basque History of the World, Mark Kurlansky.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

o/~ for every one with dollar signs in their eyes o/~

Did you recently pick up They Might Be Giants, the eponymous album? Second quote in a week from there. (I more suspect Then:The Early Years as the culprit, but that's because the former is a subset of the latter.)

There's about 5 more likely situations I can picture for an Olive oil leak in a deli than an upstairs neighbor, as well.. but I guess it's plausible enough that people leave things in closets much longer than they should. Especially if it's a kitchen closet, though you usually call those 'the pantry'.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

If it were the pantry I wouldn't think it was that peculiar, but the deli guy said closet a couple times.

I don't actually have any They Might Be Giants albums, much as I am clearly in their target demographic. It's just that in my desperate efforts to keep the song cue thing going I've learned there's some subjects where if there's any song of even remote relevance then it's probably something by They Might Be Giants. (I can't really say what the subjects are; just that some feel like They Might Be Giants, and some feel like Spike Jones, and some feel like I have to go to the tin pan alley song database.)

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

This ought to be corrected, I do think- even if you do have a solid mp3 collection of them. I'd recommend Then:The Early Years or Dial-A-Song for good starting points. (The former, a two-disk edition of three albums plus bonus tracks; the latter, a two-disk greatest hits plus appropriate-career-spanning miscellany.)

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to get an album or two; it's just that some weird thing happens in that when I go to the DVD/CD store, or to that section of another store, my brain instantly forgets what my objective was, and I end up drifting around looking for something I can't identify. Eventually I wander out again without having bought anything but feeling quite sure that I meant to get something specific.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

This is one of the reasons I but much music via Amazon.com. Especially as most recommendations for music come from folks online. (and the $25 for free shipping, and the amazon.visa with earn-gift-certificates, etc.)

The ones that don't are usually from Gar-Dog, which usually means borrowing and ripping the Cd, or a trip to Best Buy.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I have heard of this ``online purchase'' concept, and sometime I must try it. Somehow I never quite got the hang of it.