Shopping cart derby

With the CTA, as bedraggled as it is, I don't have to do much driving anymore. Most of my drive time is spent going to the supermarket, Target or some similar location.

Places where Chicagoans love to leave shopping carts sitting around.

Unlike anywhere else I've lived, including rude little Baltimore, Chicago just doesn't seem to feel like walking the few feet to the cart corral, instead leaving carts clustered in parking spaces -- threatening the Prius with their sharp corners and rusty handles.

Just look at them.

Like Sun Drop in Concord and Row Houses in Baltimore, is the shopping cart cluster some kind of folk culture in Chicago? Have I stumbled upon some strange tradition I've yet to decipher?

Or are Chicagoans just laszy jerks when they go to the store?

Just a few more to catch up

The Red Sox Win! The Red Sox Win!

Coming off of a rather frustrating weekend of paint-related customer service nightmares, this win really helped to lift my mood. The inevitablity of the win was, although strange, not such a bad fit.

Sure, a Game 6 or 7 nailbiter would have been more exciting, but this team has the best record in baseball, has worked hard over more than 160 games and, quite frankly, has a lot of catching up to do.

I just hope the Sox don't repeat the pattern of the last century: Winning 5 out of the first 15 World Series in the 20th century, them going 86 years without. But, even so, that means there are at least 3 more left this century.

Why did I log on?

You ever log on to Blogger with some great idea for a post, then forget what it was?

The good thing is this lack of a purpose doesn't necessarily have to ruin the general quality and flow of my blog. I could just keep typing and see what words come out, not having to worry about disappointing anyone.

It sure is getting cold up here. Yep. Like, really cold.

The Red Sox sure are beating up on the Rockies, huh?

I like peanut butter.

I love that dirty water

Watching game 7 last night was nerve-wracking.

You see, Boston has a way of screwing these things up in a big way, 2004 notwithstanding.

So I was nervous, even when the Red Sox were in double digits and Cleveland was still at 2.

But you have to believe.

The two best teams in baseball fought it out all the way to 7 games. But I was sick of Fox playing "Cleveland Rocks" every 10 minutes from games 2-4.

Another great comeback story. And now on to the WS.

It's probably time to start campaigning

With November just around the corner, it's time to get serious about the presidential election. can you believe, it's almost a whole year until the election? That there are still more than 365 days left before this finally ends?


God.


Well, as the second year of campaigning begins, it's probably time to start paying attention. Besides, I think the Democratic debate scheduled for our apartment is coming up soon. Need to find some vegan junk Kucinich can eat and make room for all the Secret Service and staffers. I just hope Kayla doesn't get excited. We don't need an incident ...

Note to Bill Richardson: Puedes contestar nuestras preguntas en espanol si quieres. De verdad, queremos que lo hagas.

Note to Dodd: If you have extra tickets to Fenway for the World Series, you have my vote!

I checked the calendar. There really is just one.

Who knew October was about more than pumpkin beer and free candy?

I only just started paying attention to baseball a year ago, and I can't understand why it took me so long to start watching. Seeing the Cubs collapse after such a promising season was kind of sad, but we're committed Red Sox fans, so their sweep of the Angels more than made up for it.

Maybe I could have been watching when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, instead of just watching the DVD three years later.

I guess I'll just have to settle for watching them win this year.

Oxford American Music Issue 2007

After several weekends of wandering around Chicago bookstores looking for it, I finally decided to to make use of the telephone and call the Border's on Michigan Avenue. It took the girl a while to get back to me after saying she'd go look for it, which made me a bit nervous, but my annual hunt has proven successful!

26 smokin tunes covering the broad and complex spectrum of Southern music. I'm no expert, i don't spend hours digging through the LPs and CDs at the grungiest, most ironic music store I can find (You know who you are), but these yearly albums consistently yield a fantastic, eclectic mix of great music spanning decades, races and genres and geography.

If you like good music, buy it.

Uh ... how does this affect our Super Bowl chances?

Oh Jake.

The Panthers did manage to beat New Orleans without him on Sunday, but you'd think it might have been a little easier to beat a team that hasn't actually won yet this season.

I knew this was going to be a rough season, but ... man.

I suppose it's possible that this could shake things up and give some unknown the chance to come out of the shadows and rock the rest of the season.

Yeah. That's it!

At least I have the Red Sox to fall back on. I'm not sur eif I should root for the Yankees to win this game to keep the series going for as long as possible to wear the winner out, or just hope for a quick end.

Watching sports is hard.

iPods and Rotten Apples

I love my iPod. Really, it's pretty much the coolest thing I've ever owned, it's convenient and works seamlessly.

It should, since it's practically brand new.

Technically we got the iPod as a gift more than a year ago, but after several problems with the original suddenly refusing to work for weeks at a time, we finally gave up and drove down to Charlotte from Concord in July to replace it. We figured the long trip would be worth it, since we were getting ready to move up here to Chicago and wouldn't have time to have a replacement delivered.

After waiting 45 minutes just for an appointment with one of their black-shirted "Geniuses," we had the opportunity to have this certified Apple expert click the on-off button and hold down the menu and select buttons like it says on the Web site, then tell us it doesn't work and we'd need a replacement.

Uh, yeah.

He then told us it would cost $29 to replace our iPod, even though it was still under the original 1-year warranty. (Fortunately, we had just bought the extended warranty, but I still don't understand how Apple can charge me $30 to replace their defective product. Even if it's for shipping and handling, isn't it their job to suck up the costs in the name of customer service?)

But I digress. So I tell Mr. Genius with the backward baseball cap, "But hey I have the extended warranty." "Oh, no problem, we can get you a replacement right now." Great, right?

Well, even though I ordered the warranty online, and this is a cutting-edge technology company, he tells me I can't activate the warranty until the warranty package comes in the mail. So he can't help us. Seriously.

I definitely don't need a genius to tell me what every other customer service rep has ever told me "Uh, sorry, I can't help you."

We should have argued our case, but hungry and frustrated we returned home, where I proceeded to get lost in Apple's confusing customer service Web site before finally getting tangled in their Phone Tree. Once I reached a live human being, he told me he could activate my new warranty over the phone without the package and send us a box so we could replace the iPod. All I needed to do was open the e-mail with my order confirmation and read him a number. Something the Genius at the store could have done, since the store is, big shock, filled with computers.

I explain to the phone guy that we are moving in 2 weeks, and he says no problem, becuase the new iPod will arrive in 10 days -- plenty of time. Even despite some issues with DHL, we managed to send the old iPod back to Apple in time.

But then they decide to tell me that, since the iPod was engraved, it will actually take 2 more weeks to send the replacement ipod, since all the engraving is done in China. (Something the guy on the phone knew when he told me it would take just 10 days). Apparently even though there are plenty of places to get a cigar case engraved for Father's Day, only China has ipod engraving technology.

So after several angry phone calls to change the delivery address to Chicago, and missed delivery dates, we finally get our replacement iPod. And like I said, it's great.

But despite several phone calls to complain about my treatment, I have received nothing more than empty apologies and no results.

I am absolutely apalled at the way we were treated by Apple throughout the process, from the unhelpful store clerk with an attitude to the uninformed phone help to the fact that Apple actually expected us to shell out $30 to replace their broken product. And judging by the way Steve Jobs and his minions have treated iPhone customers lately, I can only deduce that this terrible attitude comes directly from the top.

The only way Apple gets away with their awful customer service is because they know people will always want the next cool thing. Apple isn't the revolutionary start-up it was when it broadcast that "1984" ad during the Super Bowl. It's just another monolithic, indifferent corporation like any other. That shift is bound to come back to bite them in the end.

Your T-Shirt is so Ironic!

Southwest Airline's wardrobe police have been busy lately, having already told two women to cover up their apparently skimpy outfits before boarding a plane. A couple of sad moments for an airline that started with stewardesses in miniskirts and gogo boots.

Now a guy has been acosted, thist time not for showing too much skin but for the words on his T-Shirt.

I have to admit, my collection of ironic printed Ts is pretty extensive, but I've made the effort to keep the words and images I walk around in at the G-Rated level. I've seen plenty of guys walking around with words and pictures printed on their chests that would make a sailor blush. And if I had kids, I wouldn't want them to see these words everywhere they go.

What really bothers me about the Master Baiter T-Shirt is not simply the vulgar inuendo, but the fact that the guys who buy them think 1) I'm so clever and/or 2) I'm expressing myself.

First, unless you actually printed the shirt yourself, you aren't clever. And it's not even that funny anyway. And what are you expressing, anyway? Your middle school sense of humor?

I don't know if it's really Southwest's job to police our clothing, but I'm glad someone has brought attention to the fact that some of these shirts are just plain wrong. Just because we can print just about any vulgar, crude thing on our clothing, doesn't mean we should. it takes all the fun out of the better shirts.

Charlotte Transit, the view from Chicago

Some of the comments I've seen swirling around the transit tax issue in Charlotte seem based on the theory that pro-transit people are either trying to take away people's cars or bulldoze their front yards. The same rumors and acusations were common in 1998 when we decided to create the tax.

This conspiracy theory sets up an unnecessary conflict between urban and suburban cultures, and threatens to do serious damage to my home city.

No one wants your car, and I don't really care how big your yard is. Public transit isn't about taking your car away or forcing you to live in a highrise. It's about giving all people a real choice of how they want to live and how they want to get around.

We've lived in Chicago for two months now, and we have driven less than 300 miles since moving in, thanks to the CTA. Notice that I said driven. We still have our car, and yes we do use it. But because we have an extensive transit system here, we can decide: Do we use transit or not, do we own two cars or one, or none at all?

Unfortunately, living in Charlotte and Asheville, there was no choice: Two cars for two people. We managed to get by with one car in Baltimore by living two blocks from where K worked, but it was incredibly inconvenient whenever the normal routine was altered.

Building Light Rail in Charlotte isn't about taking away your car, it's about letting the rest of us get rid of one, or both, of our own. It's about using your car and transit together for different trips. Take the train to work, drive to the supermarket. Take the train to the Panthers game, but drive out to SouthPark.

We have that kind of freedom here, why can't Charlotte have it too?