National Stay at Home Week

ABC's Fall season's campaign is National Stay at Home Week, which started yesterday. This is exactly the sort of thing I find so wrong with American culture these days. I mean, Must See TV is ridiculous, but at least its hyperbole isn't hard to see. But to declare a week for people to stay home to watch your shows, while interestingly honest, is despicable. Of course, in the sudden Go Green craze that seems to be appearing everywhere (I had a meeting at work last week about how we could be more Green and whether we want to brand ourselves as such).

I may have to protest and not stay home this week, or at least not turn on my television, especially for ABC. (Thankfully, the one ABC show I'm really interested in watching this year, 'Pushing Daisies,' isn't back until October 1st.)

ABC certainly isn't the only company to encourage our bad behavior. Discover card has a commercial about how being a consumer isn't bad and how they can help with the debt you've acquired while consuming. Yes, there is something wrong with consumption: when it is outside of one's means, when it is valued more than taking care of yourself in other ways (getting good nutrition, good rest, good exercise, good learning, good social interaction).

Cuban Pork Sandwich

I had my second sandwich from Paseo today. Kate and I had meant to go years ago, but never made it. Then, last month, after Daniel and I's failed kayak trip/'Tropic Thunder' outing, I went and got us sandwiches while he went home to wait for the Qwest guy to fix his Internet connection.

I read a bunch of reviews online before going, and one sandwich that got high praise was the Midnight Cuban. It is a grilled sandwich, so requires extra time and Paseo has a reputation for being a place packed enough that you need to wait to order and get your food. There wasn't too much of a line when I got there, either today or last month, but I decided on just getting their original Cuban Pork sandwich (#1 on the menu) and their top-selling roasted pork sandwich (#2 on the menu) and we split them between us. We made the mistake of eating our #1 first without even trying our #2. While #1 is a symphony of flavor, #2 is just a bland pulled-pork sandwich with some grilled onions and jalapeños.

Today, I got the #1 (picture coming!) and it was delicious! In trying to see if their menu was online somewhere, I came across these interesting pieces:

Three Guys from Miami review the place, and let us know that it isn't really a true Cuban sandwich:
http://cuban-food-usa.com/seattle_paseo.html

Esquire has (is?) taken suggestions for The Best Sandwich in America:
http://www.esquire.com/features/food-drink/sandwiches

which lead me to have a dream last night about being in a group that traveled to some Pacific island for a $50 crab sandwich.

Seven years after

I was looking over bumper stickers the other day, since Daniel is interested in getting one for his new car, and I was surprised at how antagonistic so many of them are.

One of them said something along the lines of 'Why do liberals hate the government more than they hate the terrorists.' While I think that's an incredible oversimplification, I think it's a good day to address the question.

Maybe it's that so little has occurred terror-wise in the past seven years, but the kindergarten color-coded terror-levels, the atrocities of Guantanamo Bay, the limitation on liquids when flying, the Patriot Act's erosion of civil liberties, the atmosphere that makes you unpatriotic to question our government's decisions, the unilateral war that costs us billions of dollars but nothing in the way of the war support that went on during the two World Wars nor anything else in the past seven years that has encouraged us coming together as Americans with those rights we do agree to (unless it is to consume more to keep the economy going): all these things have done more to harm our great country than the attacks of 9-11.

And that is not to denigrate the loss our country did suffer, not only of precious human life but of a sense of security on our own shores. But allowing that one attack on that one day to shape us to where we have lost sight of and faith in the ideals that have been most precious to our country and our way of life is not the solution and, in fact, it makes me feel that the terrorists have won. But only because we, especially our government which is only too happy to keep us scared enough that we don't question its unAmerican actions, have let them win. We have changed how we live, how we think, what our priorities are because we fear the terrorists, and that is unacceptable. And the actions of our government in terms of the havoc it has wrecked upon the ideals America had held for so long is itself terrorism.

When the government has acted like terrorists in terms of terrorizing its citizens, why should I hate them any less than any other anti-American terrorists?

Round Table Requiem

It's the second Wednesday of the month, which should mean there is a Society of the Rusting TARDIS (SotRT) video night going on at a Seattle pizza place; but tonight there isn't. For the first time in the old-timers memory (and, despite going to my first video meeting in 1995, I'm not one of the old-timers; at least by my standards!) outside the holiday zone, there is no meeting. The root cause is something that happened in March 2007 when the Round Table on 25th closed its doors. SotRT had been meeting at Round Table for several years before I started going. It had a nice-size meeting room with a television and vcr that usually worked without a lot of futzing.

The location was also very convenient, walking distance from where I lived when I first started going, and generally had enough parking (it was also a hub for pee wee sport team's celebrations, which packed the folks in). And the pizza was tasty. I've realized just how little really good pizza there is in Seattle in the past 18 months, and have even been over to the Round Table in Overlake just to get a good fix.

There was a lot of warning about the closing of Round Table, since the whole block was bought up to build some massive complex they're just finishing up. We moved fairly easily into Mad Pizza on Lake City Way. While it was nice they sold slices, their pizza really was best hot out of the oven and not warmed up. I finally discovered sandwiches, which they sold by halves, too, until they stopped having them all together. The location was also so-so: there was no private room so both noise and traffic were an issue. And there were just a few booth seats facing the television, so it wasn't nearly as comfortable as the old spot. In July, Mad Pizza closed without much warning. The story I heard was that a bunch of people quit so they just decided to close!

Last month, the video meetings occurred at two locales: a community center, which was described as "dirty" and Romio's pizza on Greenwood. It looks like the latter will be the new video home, at least for awhile. Part of me wonders how much longer the video meetings will go on, given the availability of British television online and on cable. It's just not the "must see tv" it was when you really couldn't get it any other way.

As for Romio's pizza, it is decent but pricier than previous places. Left on my own tonight, I tried Valarmos Pizzeria tonight. Very decent, but I prefer a thinner crust. I do like Pagliacci, but its quality varies a lot, which is a problem.

Better late than never?

Over the years, I've had lists of blog topics, some of which have languished for one reason or another. Tonight, I figure I'll start with one of the oldest on the list, since the timing is somewhat right. Hopefully, more of these will appear in the coming weeks. And hopefully the list will empty and stay that way with more frequent postings on my part.