nadsat

As of Thursday March 30th, my home state of North Carolina will have a lottery. After salavating at the profits the rest of the southeast was enjoying, the state finally broke down and decided to join the party.

I’m pretty much against anything that gives the government money, but the lottery leaves an especially bad taste in my mouth. Under the guise of “helping the children”, the government fills its coffers by preying on the lower classes. It’s no secret that the only people that regularly “play” the lottery have no business doing so in the first place as they are probably already living beyond their means. It has often been described as a “tax on the poor”.

The amount of money people throw away on this sort of thing is mind boggling. I was reading in the Raleigh News and Observer about the various border gas stations and convience stores in Virginia and South Carolina worried about losing business. Specifically there was one store just across the Virginia border on I-85 that sold $40,000 - $50,000 in lottery tickets a WEEK! I can only imagine what the border stations close to Charlotte in South Carolina must rake in.

On the plus side, I was happy to read that the newspaper in Dunn, NC is refusing run print ads for the lottery. The editor had a quote about not wanting to support the lottery for very similar reasons to those I expressed above. Good for him on taking a stand for what he believes in. I wish there were more like him.

I enjoy watching Seinfeld and since it’s pretty much always on, this is not hard to do. While working out this morning I was thinking about all the crazy antics they do (I think about a lot of weird stuff while working out) and if they really work or not. Think about on, on the show they are relatively normal people and hilarious, ironic things always seem to happen to them. Is this just the function of good writing? Yes, Larry David is a genius (he takes this similar formula to a new level on Curb Your Enthusiasm) but a lot of it is based on experience. How does one gain these experiences (specifically George’s since I find his some of the best and also since they are the most based on Larry David)? Thats what I’m trying to figure out.

Some may be easier than others since they are more social experiments; like where George gets the idea that women are more attracted to married men and starts wearing a wedding ring around. Others can be a little harder, like getting into a fight with a boy in a bubble over trivial pursuit or killing your fiance by licking envelopes.

I’m hoping to construct a list of things I can do to live like George (outside of getting fat and bald). Here are a couple of things that wouldn’t be too tough:

-Leave my car at work so it looks like I’m the first to arrive and last to leave, always

-Turn the area under my desk into a little bed for sleeping

-Always look frustrated and angry while at my computer at work so people think I’m busy and won’t assign more work

-Wear a wedding ring out and see if it makes me more attractive to women (April has already instructed me not to do this)

-Take a book off the shelf into the bookstore bathroom and try to put it back on the shelf (gross but you know, its the best place to read, I’ll try to do it with a crappy book no one should read or buy anyway like “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin)

Thats all I’ve got for now. I’m looking for suggestions on this and obviously my readers will be the first to know if I succeed in any of these endeavors (or even if I don’t succeed, I’ll still write about it) .

The wikipedia article on George Costanza was a big help in the creation of this post.

What did I like about Vancouver?

I really liked the walking nature of the city. At least from her place downtown, most anything we needed (with the notable exception of a supermarket) was within walking distance. It wasn’t just the poor college students walking either, everyone did. For some reason I really liked this concept of being able to just walk around rather than being forced to drive.

Obviously it helped having several destinations to walk to. There were a lot of neat little bars, shops, and cafes in her area. This is probably the biggest part of Vancouver I would like to translate to Atlanta (or I guess the southeast in general), just walking.

The variety in the city was another thing I liked. I’m used to the suburbia hell that most of America has become, but Vancouver was different. Sure there were a lot of the big name stores if you went into the mall, but there were a lot of unique little shops and places to go into all around. I like to support locally run businesses and these seemed to be the norm in the downtown area. For instance, I walked into a store that did nothing but sell buttons (like for shirts and stuff). It was a little weird but how many other button stores can I say I’ve been to?

There were other things I like and disliked about the city, but these were the ones that stuck out in my head. Also, I haven’t even spent two weeks total in the city between my two trips so it would be hard to make a lot of judgements about it. I’m definitely looking forward to spending an extended amount of time there this summer. If nothing else it will be another just another living experience, which is important as I try to figure what I’m going to do with my life (graduation is right around the corner).

As of now, if you are ever in the area, I recommend you check out Vancouver.

For the uninformed, I spent March 1st - 7th in Vancouver (yes, the one in Canada). Why go to Vancouver? April is there, of course.

It was a good trip overall. Obviously the main focus of the trip was to see April but I also got to experience the city and get a feel for life there (which I’ll get plenty of this summer). It’s a different place for sure. How so? Well I’ll give you my impression.

First off, April lives in downtown Vancouver (the Gastown area for those that know the city), so that is what this impression is based on. Also, her part of the city is not the nicest part. She lives on the edge of a tourist area right where it starts to get seedy. Not that the area is unsafe, but it looks a lot worse than it is. To be frank, it looks like shit.

This leads me to my first complaint; the bum problem is monumental. Atlanta has a lot of bums but it does a good job of cleaning them off the street (to where? Who knows. I’m waiting for Soylent Green to hit the market). Vancouver needs to take a lesson from this. People do not like to step over sleeping bums on the sidewalk or being hit up for change at every corner and bus stop. To Vancouver’s credit the bum problem seems to disappear when you get to the nicer areas of downtown. So I think it is just concentrated near April because that is where a lot drug dealing takes place and most of the bums are junkies.

My second complaint is the price of alcohol. I was under the impression that Canadians were big drunks and beer flowed like water, apparently that stream stops somewhere east of Vancouver. Since when is $3.50 a pint a special!? Ok, so beer cost a lot in the bars, just go the grocery store, buy it yourself, and drink in the comfort of your own home, right? Wrong.

There are no grocery stores downtown (no gas stations either). There are these little corner grocery places and some shops that sell groceries so you can get food, just not beer/wine/liquor. Even outside of downtown grocery and liquor stores are sparse. By now you are thinking, people have to get beer somewhere and they do. Some of the bars do “carry-out” beer. I did not investigate this but I’d imagine it’s the doggy bag of the bar world. I’d assume the price is the same or more than what you pay inside, which brings me back to the price of beer in bars. All the local beers I tried were very good though, so that’s a positive.

Those were pretty much my only complaints. Sure things are pricey but I chalk that up to being downtown and the lack of big chain stores like Target and Walmart to drive prices down. There is also the issue of coin money versus paper money (I can’t stand coin money) but that is a Canadian thing and not specific to Vancouver.

What did I like? I’ll post that in part 2 sometime later.

So while I was home this past weekend the subject of me needing a new belt came up during supper. I was just curious if either of my parents had one of those handy tools to punch new holes in your belt and I found out that my Dad just uses his drill (crude, but I guess it works). Anyway, after supper my Dad dissappeared for a few minutes and returned with this:

Yes that is a vintage Coors belt. The damn thing is older than me. My dad was guessing 25-30 years old! Needless to say this is my new belt of choice. Pete has suggested I no longer speak when ordering beer at a bar; I simply show them the buckle. Coors is not a bad a beer, it’s just hard to find anything but Coors light in a bar and I would far prefer to drink Coors Original or something.

But anyway, seeing as how I’m about to become a Coors man, I did some research and found some interesting stuff.  Besides Coors Light and Coors Original, there is also Coors Extra Gold.  The fine people at Coors are also responsible for the Keystone line of beers, Blue Moon, and Kilian’s Irish Red! On the downside, Coors is also behind Aspen Edge and Zima.  These are minor idealogical differences though and in the grand scheme of things I think I’m going to be happy with Coors.  Sorry Bud… I still love you but it’s hard to argue with The Buckle.

Yes, faithful fans, this is a rebirth. The old design and idea of nadsat had grown stale and I was totally disinterested. With a design so comes a new spirit for nadsat. I will try to keep this as more of personal site and less a drunken story telling section. There will still be humorous stories and it won’t be a daily journal like a xanga, so no need to fear. More information will come later on.