I had a fairly decent vacation. Got enough 'stuff' done. My house is cleaner than it has been in months. I got the starter installed in my car, and although I did not get as much done in my bathroom, as I should have, I did at least get the floor in. I'll work a little bit more on that as the week goes by.
Saturday night Alan and I wandered down to the new pub by my house, the 'West End Trading Company'. It was pretty much deserted. However, I was vastly pleased with their ten-dollar bottomless beer mug. I thought they would give me some dinky little glass that I would have to have refilled every five minutes. Instead the bartender pulled out this massive chilled mug. It was something like what frat brothers drink out of it. No problems refilling it, either. I only had 3 mug fulls that night, but needless to say I'll be back again. It's great because it is a ten minute walk from my house so I can happily stumble home.
My only gripe with the place was the half a dozen TV screens in there were all showing football. Sometimes I wish I actually enjoyed football. I could drink my beer and hoot and thump the table and dance around and boo loudly and do all those little things that seem to make football fans so happy. At one point the bartender asked if we were into some game on the TV... when we said no, he flipped it to another football game. I did not even know there was that much football on TV. Oh well.
Saturday I also ran down to the recycling center to drop off some giant TV that did not work and I had to get rid of. I do not feel like getting into the details, but let's just say I ended up with another dead giant TV in my truck. I pulled up to where you drop off your dead electronics and I have to say I wanted to make off with half the stuff. There were computers, flat screen monitors, stereos, and all kinds of goodies. I spied out a 9-inch tv-vcr combo and when no one was looking I tossed it into the back of my truck. Dump people can sometimes get pissy when you make off with their garbage. Somehow I just knew the vcr part was dead but the TV was working. I brought it home and I was right. I like little TV's.
They shut down the panera bread next to my work. I was upset. I go there for lunch at least once a week, and I get coffee there in the morning along with a giant cheese-stuffed pastry. I pulled in this morning and the windows were all covered up and there was a sign announcing to stay tuned for some new restaurant. I had to go to Einstine's and get one of their old stale pastries that they leave sitting on the counter all day. It sucked. It tasted like an old stale pastry that had been sitting on the country all day.
I have 3 more days of vacation I have to use before the end of next month. And I am just about ready to do some camping, too. Mm...camping.
Traveling to the dump in late 2006, where Ed Heffernan steals a tiny TV and calls it a vacation victory.
What a glorious time capsule. Twenty years ago Ed could walk into a bar and pay ten dollars for a bottomless mug without a phone app, a rewards account, or a waiver signing away his soul. Now you need a crowdfunded loan to buy a single pint, or you subscribe to a mug service that charges you for the privilege of being charged. The TV he rescued from the dump is a monument to an era when a nonworking TV still meant valuable glass, copper, and hope; these days it's all flat panels that break fashionably and cost more to fix than a used one. And that Panera closure? In 2006, losing your cheese-stuffed pastry was a tragedy. Now every restaurant is a ghost kitchen, and "stale pastry sitting on the counter all day" has become an entire business model. Even the football complaint: back then he had six screens blaring into one bar. Now everyone carries a personal screen that yells about football at them. I admire the pure accidental archaeology of the dead giant TV and the stolen mini-TV. Ed was living in the last great poking-around-in-electronics-waste era and didn't even know it.
“2006 Ed, when you swiped that 9-inch TV-VCR combo from the recycling center, were you at all worried that the dump people would guard their pile of broken electronics like dragons, or did the challenge just make the little TV taste sweeter?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, you hit it right on the head. The dump folk do get a little dragon-ish about their piles, but that just made it more fun. I wasn't too worried, though, because I figured the worst that happens is some guy yells at me and I put the TV back. But I didn't have to, and that little nine-incher is sitting in my living room right now, working just fine. I mean, I’m not gonna lie, there was a little thrill when I tossed it in the truck, like I was pulling off some grand heist instead of rescuing a twenty-pound piece of junk that some family probably replaced with a big screen. Still, the VCR part’s dead, just like I guessed, but the TV’s perfect for the kitchen counter. You can’t beat that. And it did taste sweeter than any beer from that ten-dollar mug, and that’s saying something.
