This year, I spent Thanksgiving away from family and with friends who might as well be family. We had a great dinner (for which I supplied the requisite side: cornbread dressing), which was accompanied by good food, drinks, company, Trivial Pursuit (90’s edition) and the Cowboys beating the Jets 34-3.
New York is an interesting scene on Thanksgiving in that it actually gets quiet for a day. It’s not quite Will Smith in the I Am Legend previews that have been lynching the TV lately but still a little eerie and suspicious when you’re walking around the city. Of course if you’re out for a more typical 4am curfew, you can greet the Black Friday shoppers arriving in the city and lining up ready to feed at the trough.
Walking down Broadway through the 20s the next day, I noticed some sketchy-looking guys putting out boxes of random retail product on the sidewalk to move. A crowd would collect around each one until it was sold out and the ravenous shoppers would move on to the next one. It could have been socks or iPhones, but I think just the prospect of getting a deal — never mind how the product came to be in an unmarked shipping box on the street — was enough to attract customers.
My own consumerist thirst - which is rarely quenched - has never been enough to get me out on Black Friday not to mention enough to scope out the Red Hot deals I witnessed on Broadway Ave. For that, I am thankful. And a short list of other stuff like my 5 senses and my health, my family and friends, my career and employment.
Oh and I am also thankful for Dennis Franchione’s resignation, delivered in the press conference immediately following Texas A&M’s win over Texas for the second year in a row.
Texas fans will be quick to point out how that win is nothing compared to a National Championship that they won in 2005 against USC with Vince Young, blah blah blah… But in a year in which Missouri is the #1 team in the nation going into the Big 12 Championship game as an underdog to #8 Oklahoma — not to mention A&M’s mediocre season — you take what you can get.
I was just listening to Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas
With college football season upon us (rejoice), a fellow Aggie points out one of the better pre-season writeups of Texas A&M football, written by a t-sip at Barking Carnival. It even includes a sheep-lust reference with the lead photo. Witty.
I was just listening to LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge
I was just listening to The Walkmen - We’ve Been Had
The Houston, TX legendary TV news journalist Marvin Zindler died from cancer today, two weeks before his 86th birthday. For most who have heard of him, he spread the gospel about “Slime In The Ice Machine“ and other violations of Houston’s food/health codes in local restaurants. For those of us who grew up with him, he might as well be another Murrow or Jennings; a permanent fixture of nostalgia and memory of our televised evening news.
I was just listening to Feist - My Moon My Man
Finally, Intel decided to get off the toilet vs. actually finish their building in downtown Austin. Shortly before I moved to Austin during the tech boom, Intel started construction on a large building on 5th street between Nueces and San Antonio. Then the tech bust happened. Intel got cold feed and never finished the construction leaving a 5 story steel frame to scar the area for the next 6 years.
During that time, there were attempts to use the unfinished frame as a installation for art. There were design contests and UT art students were covering up portions, albeit small portions, of the building with their works. Those efforts, although noble, didn’t exactly thrill anyone as much as seeing the whole thing either finished or torn down.
The irony is, had they finished the building at the time, they probably would have been at least able to sell it for an enormous profit if not a great asset for the company. I assume Intel wasn’t even able to break even considering the demolition costs that will make way for a new federal courthouse.
Times are always a changin’ in Austin and it’s sad to see the city becoming “less weird”. Of all the Austin landmarks, however, this is one I’m glad to see go:
Several friends lovingly showed their concern for my well being, asking if I was responsible for the noxious gas smell seeping through Manhattan this morning. Hardy-har folks but in all seriousness, I don’t believe they ever located the source. Mysterious!
Ironically, several birds (63) dropped dead on Congress Ave in Austin and shut down downtown for a few hours.
Meanwhile, a Houston-area chemical plant accidentally poots ethylenediamine and puts Sugar Land on notice. Having grown-up in the same petrochemical belt, I can say that the locals were probably the least concerned versus the New Yorkers and Austinites.
Note that the wikipedia entry for ethylenediamine already contains an section labeled “The Sugar Land, Texas Incident”.
I was just listening to The Shins - Sleeping Lessons