Encyclopaedia Britannica

I will soon be picking up a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica circa 1968 from the City of Newton Reusable Materials Exchange. I could be like the Encyclopaedia Britannica kid of the ’80s saying, “Hi, remember me? I had a report due on space.” (And if you DON’T remember him, you can view the commercial here.)

Anyway, I am incredibly excited about this set of encyclopedias. I loved encyclopedias as a kid. Our school library had tons of encyclopedia sets. Online encyclopedias are cool, but nothing was more fun to me than browsing through a particular letter in an Encyclopaedia Britannica.

I’m particularly excited about owning a set of outdated encyclopedias, as odd as that sounds. I can’t wait to see their outdated medical terminology (although it would be more interesting if it was an even older set and had words like “lunatic” and “idiot” as technical terms for the mentally ill) and mentions of countries like East Germany, West Germany, Yugoslavia, the USSR, etc, etc, etc.

Wow, I think I might be slightly nerdy.

Ya know what really grinds my gears? Cold bread!!

One of my pet peeves at a restaurant is when they bring you some bread to munch on and it’s cold. It tastes like it had just been sitting on a countertop all day long. How hard is it to stick it in the oven for a few minutes? It really makes a big difference and it’s a simple solution.

When Matt and I used to live in Watertown, there was a restaurant nearby that we used to go to sometimes. They’d plop down a trendy-looking basket filled with some nice-looking bread…but the bread was completely cold and incredibly chewy. Once I tried to take a bite of it and I actually could not get my teeth through the piece of bread. Yucky.

Free water!

Nothing makes me more angry than a bar that charges you for water. If I just spent $10 on a couple of beers and I need to rehydrate, how dare you to force me pay $2 for a bottled water when water comes out of the faucet!

Two notable perpetrators of this are Skybar in Somerville and Harper’s Ferry.

If I’ve been patronizing a place the entire night by paying a cover charge and purchasing alcoholic beverages, I think it’s disrespectuful for the venue to force their patrons to purchase a bottle of water when they can just as easily pour them water straight from the sink. And $2 is such a rip off for a bottled water too.

This ridiculous policy makes me not want to see bands at the venues, and if I do, I am reluctant to patronize them at all beyond a cover charge. Alcoholic beverages are dehydrating, too, so when drinking it’s important to keep hydrated by drinking water. If I’m drinking beer, I like to have one glass of water for every beer I drink to ensure that I stay hydrated through the duration of the night. But if I have two beers at a venue like Harper’s Ferry, I’ll wind up paying an extra $4 just to drink water!

This doesn’t just anger me because I’m cheap. I just think it’s poor business ethics and it’s a turn off to the consumer. I know it’s the establishment’s right to do this but I still think it’s wrong. I no longer make that extra effort to see a cool band at Harper’s Ferry and I won’t go to the Skybar unless one of Matt’s bands is playing there. (It doesn’t help that the latter venue’s cover charges are outrageously high!)

I’m sure Harper’s Ferry makes a fortune off bottled water. People get drunk, people dance, and people get thirsty for water.

I’m not 100% sure but I believe that Massachusetts law requires bars to have restrooms. I think it should also be a law to provide patrons with free water.

Come together, right now…over the Beatles!

There’s an amazing Beatles cover band that plays locally called Beatlejuice. We’ve seen them dozens of times, usually at Johnny D’s.

Beatles music seems to have an amazing affect on people. They attract people young and old, and Johnny D’s is always packed whenever they play. Everybody there knows all the words, and the dance floor is always crowded. From doing the twist to their earlier tunes to spacy interpretive dances you see people doing to Sgt. Pepper era music, it’s always fun for everyone. The 21 year olds are just as into the music as the 60 year olds. The music certainly transcends generations.

Usually by the end of the first set, you feel like you’re friends with everyone on the dance floor. The last time I saw Beatlejuice, there wound up being a kickline of people during “All You Need Is Love” waving peace signs around.

I don’t think there is a lot of music that can attract so many people and generations like Beatles music does. Most of their fans probably didn’t get to see them perform live, since they stopped touring in 1966…so to have a genuinely GOOD cover band that can perform the song inpecably as well as bring Beatles fans together is a really great thing.

Oh, gross!

Karl, Matt’s pet iguana, laid eggs. I’m quite nauseated.

Overheard in the Someday Cafe

“Somerville isn’t really a suburb of Boston. WALTHAM is a suburb of Boston. Somerville is more like a BOROUGH of Boston.”

Good mood morning!

People must be in a good mood today. I spaced out at a red light this morning, and when it turned green I sat there for what must have been a good 20 seconds before I realized it had turned green. There were about ten cars behind me and NOT ONE of them honked! Unbelievable! I never thought I’d see the day!

Woke up, got outta bed…

Wow. I had forgotten what it feels like to break out into a sweat just from walking out of my air conditioned bedroom into the un-air conditioned hallway. And summer hasn’t officially even begun yet!

This is not good

Last night I dreamt about Tom from MySpace. He wound up being a woman.

I think I need to not use the internet for a few days.

Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk

Here I am, urging you to support yet another charitable cause! :-)

Matt and I are doing the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk this September. (Actually, we’re doing the half-marathon, starting in Wellesley…I’m not so sure I’ll have the stamina to walk to Boston from Hopkinton by September!)

Anyway, we each need to raise $200. Plllleeease donate if you can — it goes to a GREAT cause. (For you out of staters reading this, the Jimmy Fund is for cancer research!)

If you want to donate online go here. Unfortunately, I think you need to donate a minimum of $20 if you want to donate through the site…that’s kind of a bummer because I know that’s a little steep for some, but if you still want to donate you can send me a check (or just give it to me in person). Leave a comment here if you want to send a check and I’ll email you telling you where to send it. Make ‘em out to The Jimmy Fund.

Even if it’s just a few bucks, it could make a HUGE difference. Everything adds up and brings them one step closer to finding a cure. So seriously, if all you can swing is $2, send it on over because that’s $2 more than they had before.

And hey…if you’re local, why don’t you join us? We can walk from Wellesley to Copley Square together. It will likely be fun, exhausting, and totally worth it.