Awesome NYC view from Garret Mountain in Paterson. (Taken with Instagram at Garret Mountain Reservation)
Forget Angry Birds, this just makes me want a game of Agricola. (Taken with instagram)
“Fuck it, it’s cold.”
“Hey, isn’t that Joe Mauer?”
“Hey, isn’t that Atmosphere?”
“Hey, isn’t that Dessa?”
“You going to board game night tonight?”
“Fuck it, it’s cold.”
“I don’t care if it’s 15 out, I’m biking to work.”
“God, I’m SO over Uptown.”
“God, I’m SO over Northeast.”
“What do you mean you won’t pick me up in North?”
“Fuck it, it’s cold.”
“Doesn’t Parasole own that place?”
“Doesn’t Mark Dayton own that place?”
“Doesn’t Garrison Keillor own that place?”
“Do you like Matt Smith or David Tennant better?”
“You going to the Doomtree show?”
“You going to the Bon Iver show?”
“You going to the Cloud Cult show?”
“Gonna be 40 tomorrow… let’s have a porch party.”
“Fuck it, it’s cold.”
“We’re number 1 for hipsters!”
“We’re number 1 for gays!”
“We’re number 1 for biking!”
“We’re number 1 for hotdish!”
“Why would I ever go to St. Paul?”
“Fucking Delta.”
“Fucking Best Buy.”
“Fucking Vikings.”
“Fucking Twins.”
“Y’know, I just really love having four seasons.”
“I swear to God this is my last winter. Next year I’m moving to Portland.”
“Didn’t I see that guy on OKCupid?”
“Didn’t I see that guy on FetLife?”
“Didn’t I see that guy on Grindr?”
“Can I have a Nordeast?”
“Can I have a Surly Bender?”
“Fuck it, it’s cold.”
My baby cousin and my new 3ds. Happy holidays y’all. (Taken with Instagram at Ballins’ House)
You call them “Mini Twiglets.” All I see is broken regular Twiglets. (Taken with instagram)
From my friend mariadiaz:
Reading the blogs of 21 year old really attractive hipsters who ride bikes and pretend to eat a lot of food and drink ironic beverages and have that affected tone that everyone who was raised on facebook seems to have makes me feel so old and insecure and gross.
…me, I felt like an old fart this weekend when I actually admitted to myself that I’d rather live in Park Slope than Williamsburg.
The internet has given me so many more ways than I ever thought possible to convince myself that everyone else in the world is having more sex than I am.
A little bit of Buffalo comes to Minneapolis? (Taken with instagram)
[video]
…even though some of these things aren’t Americanisms at all. Deplane (no. 5) is used in both countries and predates commercial air travel. Scotch-Irish (no. 13) is a perfectly acceptable genealogical term that means something decidedly different than Scots-Irish. And “where’s it at?” is acceptable in a variety of English dialects both here and across the pond, since the “can’t end a sentence with a preposition” rule is a load of crap anyway.
British English speakers are apt to dismiss any lexical feature they don’t like as an Americanism. White speakers of American English often do the same thing, but blame it on African-Americans, on politicians they don’t like, or on regional dialect. It seems curmudgeonly and wrongheaded to oppose language change, but everyone does it, even me—and I studied sociolinguistics in undergrad and am a firm believer in the danger of language prescriptivism and of trying to inhibit languages from evolving. Personally, what gets me is the use of obfuscatory business-speak and psychobabble. Issues instead of problems. Core competencies instead of skills. Leverage instead of use, as a verb. Interface. Touch base. Solutions.
Even worse are the cutesy diminutives appearing everywhere: veggie, rezzie (reservation), sammie, EVOO, yummo/yummers, fro-yo, sesh (session), rela (relationship), adorbs, jeals/jelly (jealous), preggers, bestie, hubby, ciggie. You all sound like a bunch of children. Not everything has to be cute all the time.
…and let’s not forget about good ol’-fashioned hyperbole. Orgasmic, foodgasm, amazing, cooked to perfection, transcendent, abundant, special, beautiful. Love where you just intend to like or enjoy. Hate where something moderately irks you. You call it expressive; I call it gushy. It’s a variation on the “euphemism treadmill” by which toilet became bathroom became restroom. Mark my words, by the time I’m 50 it’s going to be called something even more circumlocutory. How are we going to express actual intensity if all of our “intense” words have been reappropriated for routine feelings of slight pleasure and discomfort?
Meanwhile, if you live in a place with distinctive regional dialect words (and everyone does, unless you live in one of those placeless places like Phoenix, McKinney, or Cape Coral that sprang up out of nowhere in the post-TV 20th century), keep using them and celebrating them, in the face of late capitalism’s intent to have us all speaking a bland flavorless mouth-mush. Minnesotans, don’t be embarrassed by hotdish, rubber binder, or gray duck. Bostonians, keep saying wicked and frappe and rotary over the protests of New Yorkers (who should themselves be proud of stoop and bodega and stand on line). And northern Californians, say hella, no matter how much it annoys your SoCal neighbors.
Steak 'n Shake comes to... NYC? -
I was incredulous when I first heard the rumors, but it looks like they’re true: Steak ‘n Shake is coming to New York City, with a location in Midtown Manhattan right next door to the Ed Sullivan Theater. Just like when I heard the Neely’s Bar-B-Q Upper East Side opening announcement that I discussed five months ago, I should be ecstatic, but I’m not. It’s just more poaching of regional specialties to swell heads in the City of Big Egos. It was bad enough finding Garrett Popcorn on 34th Street just weeks after Macy’s muscled its way into Chicago and wiped out Marshall Field’s. What’s next, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard at Grand Central Station? Voodoo Doughnut at Columbus Circle? Something definitely gets lost along the way when my favorite regional treats become little more than brand names in the middle of Big Apple touristland.
Also, this announcement confirms what I’ve long thought to be the case: that Sardar Biglari, the 80s-style corporate raider who acquired Steak ‘n Shake in a hostile takeover in 2008, has turned this beloved Midwestern institution into a silly caricature. Biglari has closed locations and cut hours, especially in small towns across the Midwest where Steak ‘n Shake was the only non-fast-food establishment open past 10pm. At the same time, he’s been opening up locations that seem like little more than publicity stunts, including the one in NYC and one inside a Las Vegas casino. He took the headquarters out of the Midwest and plopped them down in San Antonio, Texas, a city that didn’t get its first SnS until earlier this year. He’s taken some of the choice off the menu (gone are the more interesting shake combinations, as well as the customizable dinner platters) and given in to gimmicky food trends by introducing “steak franks” (ordinary hot dogs), dry, flavorless miniburgers, and a ridiculous thick-cut bacon that overpowers the classic steakburger. He even ripped off Culver’s by adding a “Wisconsin Buttery Steakburger” to the menu. Soft drinks, which used to be served in real glassware, now come in hulking green plastic Coca-Cola-branded tumblers, while a junior-size milkshake comes in a humiliatingly cutesy plastic kiddie cup. To top it all off, a creepy, cultish picture of a smiling Biglari now greets you at the entrance to every restaurant, and there are rumors that the real china and table service will soon be dropped in favor of a “Five Guys”-type counter service format. Bah humbug.
Biglari’s clumsy retooling of Steak ‘n Shake, along with his opening of locations in such theme-parkish locations as Midtown Manhattan and Vegas, has diluted my once-warm memories of the place. For me, Steak ‘n Shake will always be a road-trip classic; it’s the bright light beckoning off the freeway around dinnertime, the feeling that hits after three states’ worth of cornfields and billboards for Indian casinos, when you’re fueled only by beef jerky and energy drink and your favorite playlist interspersed with NPR and you could probably go a hundred or so more miles before you collapse onto the bed at the Comfort Inn in Cape Girardeau. Sitting amongst the $15 margaritas, T-shirt vendors, and neck-craning tourists of Midtown Manhattan, it’s just… out of its element.