Hell is Myrtle's Beach Bauble Stores

A nice scene from a recent trip to Myrtle Beach:

And another one, from inside:

Somehow Myrtle Beach had at least one of these disgusting, nauseating stores on every block. Many of these were from the "Wings" chain (which I was disappointed to find out: does not actually serve buffalo wings! Lies!). Along the beach, it was sometimes possible to see two and even three Wings stores from a single vantage point.

This reminded me of a trip to Vancouver B.C., where I found two Starbucks kitty-corner from one another at the same intersection (one was for business-folk, the other was jazzy-hip-folk, as I understood it). I guess the Pacific Northwest has its sickly amounts of coffee shops, and Myrtle Beach has its sickly amounts of beach bauble stores. And mini-golf stores. And doughnut shops. And...

Ahhh, Myrtle Beach.

Not in Seattle anymore

Earlier today on a trip to Krankies:

DW: "What would you like to drink Doodles?"

Doodles (note: former Seattle barista): "Oh... I'll take an Americano. Ooooh, a double-short Americano, mmmmmm...."

--Doodles leaves to snatch a table, leaving me to think "What the hell is a 'double-short Americano?' Oh well... maybe its a barista thing." --

DW to barista: "I'll take two medium Americanos. And can I get one of them *double-short*?"

Barista: **stares at DW blankly**

DW: I don't know what it is either.

--Awkward silence until Doodles comes back--

DW: "What the hell is a double-short Americano?"

Doodles: "Oh, it's just an Americano with two shots of espresso."

DW: "Oh. I see." (*thinks, thinks*) "So a double-short Americano is a double-shot Americano." (*thinks, thinks*) "What do you need that extra 'r' for?"

Barista: "You Seattle people think you are so cool with your high-falutin' coffee terminology."*

* Didn't actually say that, but I'm sure that's what he was thinking.

Bruce Rocks Steensboro!

I'm not a particularly big Springsteen fan, but I do like a good music concert, and somehow my friend Paul was able to score four $100 tickets to get us onto the floor of the Springsteen show in Greensboro for about $40 a piece. So I rustled up Doodles and DJ Dan, filled my trusty flask with whiskey, and we headed off to the show at the Greensboro Coliseum.

Three hours later (including a six-song encore), the flask was empty and we had a lot of great memories from the evening:

	I love to see weird old people come out of the woodwork to rock out with bands that were big 30 years ago.
	Bruce goes through the crowd picking up signs for musical requests -- pretty much any song was game, even if not a Springsteen song. He played "Seventh Son" and "Hang on Sloopy" and a couple others. Sloopy was really fun...
	Town is renamed! (Photo from the Smith Family Times... check out their account of the concert.)
	Just Bruce looking like a fucking rockstar. (Photo by Nelson Kepley (News & Record)

Doodle's in town!

My sister Doodles made it to North Carolina about 48 hours ago for an extended stay after two years in Korea. We were both up by about 8:30 the next day and by 10:30 (without any help from me, btw) the kitchen looked cleaner than it had in months... a cleaning dynamo...

After seeing this level of industriousness, I decided that it was clear what I needed to do: get her to start contributing posts to Blue Ridge Grass.

One of the first things she wanted to do was make a visit to the nearest bakery. We headed to Ollie's, where she walked in and stared at the bread and the pastries for a good while, soaking it in. After a couple years of nothing but white bread that was pretty nasty anyway in Gwanju, Korea, she said "You don't know what this means to me."

She didn't shed a tear though... just bought a loaf of light wheat bread. She's a trooper I guess.

Spring in Charlottesville

Didn't make it to D.C. for the cherry blossom festival this year, but I was able to do the next best thing and see the trees blooming on a short trip through Charlottesville, VA a couple days ago. Here are some trees that I felt compelled to make a stop for on the way through town:
As for Winston, trees are beginning to bloom here as well... the most immediate effects seems to be that the trees over my house are shedding a bunch of crap on my roof. Upside of spring: nice warm weather, beautiful flowers. Downside: yard work... sigh...

Southern Movie Fest

My friend J.J. paid a visit to Winston-Salem for a couple days and we took the opportunity to blaze through a slew of southern movies -- most of which I hadn't seen before.

• To get the Southern moviefest started, we popped in Junebug -- one of my favorite movies of all time. It was on the top five list even before I discovered that it was filmed in Winston-Salem (apparently a number of other movies have been shot in part in Winston-Salem, ranging from Leatherheads to Thank You For Smoking).
  
  
• After this, we went old school and watched Gone With The Wind. I had never watched it before, and now I am all the more confident that I will never have to watch it again. After almost four hours, if I have to hear Scarlet say "Oh, Ashley!" one more time I might have to kill myself.
  
  
• Next up we watched Deliverance, the point of which seems to be either (a) a cautionary tale to avoid canoeing down rivers in the south, (b) an opportunity to show Bruce Reynolds shirtless, shooting things with a bow and arrow, or (c) an attempt to make people feel a twinge of fear whenever they hear "Dueling Bangos."
  
  
• Not done yet, we shifted to Fried Green Tomatoes. Interestingly, I think this marked the second movie that I've seen with Kathy Bates swinging a sledgehammer. This movie was a little less scary than the first, but after viewing this one I will nonetheless probably find myself hesitating a bit before digging into the food at my next barbecue.
  

Blue Outpost

Latest election results from NYTimes.com (11-5-08)

I've felt since I got here that North Carolina was on the front lines of the Red State/Blue State culture wars... sort of along the dividing line between the reliable reds of the deep south and the true blues of New England. On one hand, we have the Research Triangle which is home to some of the best universities in the country. On the other hand, you don't have to drive too far out of town to find Confederate flags waving proudly.

Well, North Carolina didn't disappoint me with my "blue outpost in the South" theory yesterday. It's amazing to think that after last night's votes were tallied, a female Democrat will be taking the Senate seat held for the last 35 years by Republicans Jesse Helms and Elizabeth Dole. And the state looks likely to eek into Barack Obama's column despite North Carolina never throwing their electoral votes to a Democratic Presidential candidate in the last 30 years... Amazing!

Ugly Man Symbol with Magical Powers

A couple days ago I was biking to school and noticed a new symbol lining the side of Reynolda Road. I have traveled the streets of Winston-Salem far and wide but had not seen this strange, vaguely menacing-looking symbol. I can only assume that it is an ancient hieroglyph of some sort. Each looked like a man wearing glasses, or perhaps with two black eyes, with a horribly crooked nose and small pursed lips.

I have not figured out the meaning of these odd symbols that now line Reynolda, but they nonetheless appear to be imbued with special powers. Immediately after seeing these new symbols, I have felt new confidence. Instead of zig-zagging through the neighborhood streets of Winston to get to work, I now bike along these symbols on the busier Reynolda Road, more secure that I will not end up a crush of limbs wrapped around someone's bumper. In turn, I've shaved 5 minutes from my commute. Magic...

Strange hieroglyph sighted on Reynolda Road.

"Yer jest over there smilin'... what d'you got goin' on?"

After getting close to finishing up my 6+ hour session of touching up my latest 60+ page paper at the coffee shop, some guy looked at me from the next table over and said that, just like that.

I'm starting to love the South.