Even if you don’t believe in luck you have to admit it’s pretty lucky to find a full beer wash up on shore. This can of Lucky Lager made landfall on Wolfe Island, Ontario recently —slightly dented and tarnished but brimming with 355ml (Canada, remember?) of golden goodness.
Lucky Lager seems to be Ontario’s answer to Milwaukee’s Best or Pabst Blue Ribbon: a working man’s brew for folks with few airs and fewer dollars. Fewer Canadian dollars.
You can’t help but wonder how it ended up in the water, eh? Maybe it fell off a fishing boat or drifted away from a vacation cottage. And where are it’s five brethren, anyway? Maybe this can of beer was involved in some sort of Great Lakes maritime tragedy —a small scale Edmund Fitzgerald involving cheap beer, a small boat, and a terrible lapse in judgment.
One thing is clear: you don’t find a can of beer labeled Lucky Lager and not drink it. So drink it I did.
I’m happy to report that the Lucky Lager held up well to its indeterminate time spent floating in Lake Ontario —and had a taste as good as you might expect in an inexpensive canned beer. Never found the other five. And believe me I spent all week looking.
In the past if you travelled to Canada or Mexico or even places like Bermuda you haven’t needed a passport. Until now. Due to new rules our family needed to get passports to avoid a hassle during our vacation this week in Ontario. But the funny thing is you don’t need a passport to get in to Canada, you need one to get out.
The Canadians are very casual about who comes into their country which these days is sort of quaint. Or could it just be that people don’t want to sneak into Canada the way they want to get into America?
Nobody will argue that the last twelve months have been a great time. People have struggled with real hardship and with fear and uncertainty. And if you watch cable news you’d think that Michael Jackson is more important than the US troops fighting in Afghanistan. Yes, we’ve got issues but today if for nothing else you should celebrate this: you still live in a country that people run to, not from. And that’s really saying something.
A week ago the contents of this jar were resting comfortably in a Kinderhook, NY strawberry patch. The peas were nestled in their pods like… well, like peas in a pod. The weather’s been miserable this season for humans but the fruits and vegetables seem to be having a wonderful time.
I’ve written before about how people accustomed to supermarkets enjoy spending a few hours harvesting their own food. As we plucked strawberries, picked peas, pulled garlic from the dirt, and filled baskets with cherries we could see the farmhands doing their chores. Like us they kept an eye on the thunderheads that have been with us every day.
The foreign workers our farms rely on must think it weird that the gringos come out to the fields and do this for fun. It would be interesting to trade places for a day with one of them. I get the feeling that we’d each be eager to get back to our real jobs by the end of the day.
My son Zack is now a graduate of the eighth grade.
It’s a milestone because it marks the end of his tenure at the K-8 Catholic school he attends. All the kids will go their separate way so it’s different than just moving from the town’s middle school to the high school.
The staff and teachers did a great job of recognizing the student’s achievements and time together and capped it off with a nice graduation ceremony.
It was all well and good until somebody walked up and said, “Congratulations.”
Congratulations? I must have responded inappropriately because the person gave me that “You asshole” look that comes after saying something inappropriate. But come on —congratulations on making it through eighth grade?
Excuse me, but what is this, Arkansas —where graduating eighth grade is like getting your medical degree? So sorry if I sound like a jerk but you know what? You’d better graduate from eighth grade. Now go have a nice Summer.
The role of the music critic is to explain why things you love completely suck. The internet hasn’t changed that —and if anything it’s made it worse.
It used to be that rock critics were fairly independent thinkers. They were forced to come up with their own reasons why the music you like isn’t any good —but today everything is different.
Now there are a million people on the web reviewing music so all a writer needs is to do a Google search and presto! He finds someone to tell him what to say.
Yeah, that sounds harsh but think about it. In the old days ideas were not at your fingertips. If you wanted information you’d have to trudge out to the library or newsstand. Today? Endless opinions 24/7 —and if you don’t know what to think you can easily find someone who’s already thought it.
It’s instructive, though, to remember that such works were used as punching bags by punk rockers, who pointed to their pretentiousness and self-importance as embodying the very antithesis of rock.
Hmmm… good point —but original? Here’s a quote from just a few days earlier:
Prog-rock and concept records and ambitious projects like this were kind of anathema post-punk. They were destroyed with the advent of punk rock.
I don’t remember saying I’d like another cat roaming around the house but someone brought this kitten home over the weekend. What am I going to do say, “Bring it back”?
You can’t tell from this picture but she has no tail. Maybe that’s why she was free.
Chris Rooney doesn’t like when cars drive too fast down his street.
Have you ever heard anyone complain that they drive too slow? Of course not. We all think they drive too fast —but what are you going to do chase after them and get all up in their grill, so to speak? That may have worked for T.S. Garp but it’s not a good idea these days.
In The World According to Garp, Garp gets into the habit of chasing after cars speeding through his neighborhood. In the book he’d catch up to them at the stop sign and give them a piece of his mind. It worked. Try that today and they’ll run you over.
Years ago the town showed up and yanked out the stop signs on the corner where I live. When I complained they helpfully explained that the signs created an unsafe situation and actually encouraged people to drive faster. I don’t know about that —but I do know that as soon as the signs came down the speed of the cars went up.
I decided to take matters into my own hands and request people slow down by yelling at them when they drove past. This did nothing to slow the cars but a number of people did return to yell back, threaten me, etc.
Now when they zip past I keep my mouth shut —instead seeking revenge by doddering along that road like an 80-year-old, driving a speed safe and reasonable for a place teeming with kids: 20 MPH.
The new campaign for the Lexus IS C shows folks mixed up in all sorts of cinematicaction —but the best one of the series by far is the zombie commercial.
In this one the protagonist is dashing down the street barefoot from a crowd of what could only be zombies. And these are fast zombies like those in the 2004 re-make of Dawn of the Dead —not clumsy, slow, lurching Night of the Living Dead zombies.
The internet is full of discusions about what vehicle would be best during a zombie apocalypse but I don’t think the Lexus IS C will be on anyone’s list. I’d say you want 4-wheel drive and then it’s a matter of preference: SUV or pickup? Gas or diesel? Maybe the Hummer H3T? There are pros and cons all around.
Even if you don’t believe in luck you have to admit it’s pretty lucky to find a full beer wash up on shore. This can of Lucky Lager made landfall on Wolfe Island, Ontario recently —slightly dented and tarnished but brimming with 355ml (Canada, remember?) of golden goodness.
