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Saturday, July 22, 2006

Well, the family and I went “downy ocean” (hon) last week, as always, the second full week in July. Same old, same old, for the most part, which I guess is a good thing, really.

Two exceptions that I noted are the closings of the Hobbit Restaurant in O.C. (81st St.) and Gartside’s Family Restaurant (on Rt. 20 in Roxana, DE). The Tolkienian place is scheduled to reopen in 2008, here’s hoping, but Gartside’s might be gone for good, replaced by a Moose Lodge (?!).

But, all hope is not lost. Two outstanding options for resort-area dining are (still) the Cottage Café and Warren’s Station. I think I blogged about ‘em both in my O.C. Saga from ’02.

Anyway, on Sunday, I scribbled in me wee notebook to clear my mind, and here’s what I had to say:

Just thought I’d jot down a few musings, kind of in the tradition of my O.C. Saga from a few years back; I’ll try not to be so snarky.

It’s 1:00 in the afternoon, meaning we’ve been here in O.C. just about one full day. Something I’ve noticed over the last few years is less traffic and generally less overall congestion at restaurants and shops. I doubt that the reason for this is that fewer people are taking vacations, but maybe folks who could afford to come down to the Eastern Shore more than once a year in the late-90s now might not wish to swing the $90 SUV fill-ups required for the trip (at least gas is ~$2.75/gal down here, over a quarter [25¢] cheaper than it is back home.)

I think my point is that when things were heating up and all the restaurants had hour-long waits to get a table, you could be assured many members of my dining party did not hesitate to voice their displeasure with the situation. But I can’t say I recall ever hearing anyone expressing a positive appraisal of our fortunes (upon arriving here in record time, getting a table nigh-immediately, etc.) We could all probably be a little more appreciative, that’s all I’m trying to say.

On a lighter note, it sort of dawned on me - don’t the soft drinks “Mountain Dew” and “Sierra Mist” literally mean almost exactly the same thing? It’s not as if one is a cheap knock-off of the other – both are Pepsi products, with Sierra Mist developed recently to compete with Sprite and 7 Up (sort of a replacement to Lemon Lime Slice).

Did some marketing wonk in the Division of New Soda Nomenclature (DNSN) at Pepsico take the already-successful MD moniker, toss it into some half-rate English-Spanish web translator, then take that result and reverse translate it back to English? Confused? Let’s try it out!

“Mountain Dew”
http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr
= “Rocío De la Montaña”

Now to reverse the translation:

“Rocío De la Montaña”
http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr
=“Dew Of the Mountain”

A-ha! Am I on to something, or have I had more than my fair share of benzene ‘n’ caffeine...?

One last snippet
Teevee shows I approve of and enjoy (besides these, you can take your tube and... watch it):

“I Love the 19[decade]s” (70s Vol. 2 was on in O.C. – awesome... err, I mean, “groovy” as expected)

“The Daily Show” (4 days of inspired funniness a week. Sometimes I read the news of the world a think, “It would be hilarious, if it weren’t so tragic/absurd/scary.” TDS shows that it still can be.)

“Chappelle’s Show” (The first of the “Lost Episodes” was on the Sunday we were in O.C. It was kind of... sad, seeing the leftovers from an aborted project, all splayed out with little to hide... remarkable, though, that moments of brilliance (albeit fairly dark and bitter) remain. And of course the first two seasons contain so many instant-classic comedic moments that I hardly need mention them. Shows like it come only rarely and while it’s a shame that it’s over, perhaps now it’s best to let the talent move on to future work as they see fit.)

“X-Play” (a/k/a “Extended Play,” which actually makes sense, video game wise. Yes, this is an electronic entertainment review program, but the hosts are clever enough and the bits just plain funny enough, that even if you don’t care a whit about the subject, you might be amused by the show itself. Give it a shot sometime, it’s on ZDNet, I mean, TechTV, I mean, G4/TechTV, I mean G4, I mean you, “that channel.”)

posted by Steve 7/22/2006 11:22:00 AM

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Saturday, July 22, 2006

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