Ooh, snap!

It's a rare day indeed when I find myself wanting to high-five Christopher Hitchens. I tend to get sucked into his Slate column every now and then and find myself unable to finish it as I click away, muttering to myself.

Today, however, his column is about Jerry Falwell and it's fantastic. Sassy, yet lucid (perhaps because he's not writing about the Iraq war). He refers to Falwell's "carcass" in the lede, so right off you know it's going to be good. He later refers to his "sausage-sized fingers." Sadly, he does not probe how the man's head looked like a nutsack...

Oh, and the content of the column is actually quite good as well. It's very much in the vein of Old Hitch's new book (so far as I can tell), and while I do not consider myself an atheist, I find I agree with Mr. Saucy's point of view after reading this and catching his chest hair-revealing Daily Show appearance. I definitely think that it's a crock that a person with "Rev." before their name gets some kind of credibility without first having to pass some kind of nutjob litmus test.

Anyway, well played by Hitchens. Ranks up there with his Vanity Fair piece on James Joyce, in my book.

I also run on Dunkin'.

Hey, so, did you know? It's, like, summer out there these days.

One of the best things about living in the Northeast is watching the seasons change, and not just because it's funny to say "leaf peepers" in the fall (giggle... it's also funny to refer to the soothing sounds of peepers peeping away around here after the spring thaw).

Of course, my favorite herald of spring is the resurfacing of the gross and weird expandable shark that Claire buried in the snowbank outside my front door:

I'm not sure that this photo accurately conveys the grossness of the expandable shark. After a month or so buried in an icy snowbank, it had expanded in some places and not in others. Eeeew.

But, as I said, the shark heralded the coming of warmer climes... and then, true to New England form, we had a big ass snowstorm, and a whole bunch of rain and now... NOW the season has changed from Mud to Black Fly.

This means driving with the windows down and, if you live in New England, stopping ever hundred yards or so to purchase a swimming pool filled with iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.

It's been quite some time since I last lived and drove around my native New Hampshire and you really cannot swing a dead cat around here without hitting a Dunkin' Donuts. Yes, I know that many other places have them, too, but here in N'Hampshah and Taxachusetts, the chain's ubiquity is quite remarkable. And thank gawd, because I really don't feel right unless I've consumed at least 8 gallons of the stuff each day. The hot coffee is passable, mind. I'll drink it happily. It's not the same as the black gold that comes out of my mom's Jura Happy Coffee Miracle Machine from Switzerland, but it'll get my eyes open and brain functioning in a pinch. But the iced coffee... that's a different story entirely. It is liquid joy. I think that with my next iced coffee cistern purchase, I should be offered stock options. And possibly also a bunch of balloons. That'd be nice.

Happy Spring-Summer (thanks, global warming!), all.

Overheard at Crappy Woburn Sandwich/Salad/Noodle Bar

Woman: Yeah, they're having a guest speaker at the school today, and I guess it's going to be Rosa Parks. And I'm wondering how some school in Reading got Rosa Parks to come speak.

Maybe she should focus on where her public school system found the money to raise the dead.

Beer me that beer, please.

I've been receiving some complaints regarding my delinquency.

I don't have a particularly good excuse for being away from the blog, aside from the fact that I have spent a goodly portion of the past few weeks driving all over the northeast and there isn't much excitement in that. Unless you count the two parking tickets I received in Brooklyn because I'm not quite capable of dealing with alternate side parking like a native.

The trip to Brooklyn was fantastic, however, and I was very fortunate to have the dining company of Josh and Erin as I gorged myself all over the city.

Instead of loading up on Brooklyn Brewery beers this time around, I made a trip to Bierkraft with Josh, where I purchased some bottles from the venerable Victory Brewing Company of PA. We can't get that up here, you see. As the weather warms, my palate yearns for hops. So, Hop Devil seemed a logical choice. I'd never tried it, and I was quite pleased with it, I must say. It's hoppy all the way through with a nice bitter kick at the finish. I definitely recommend it.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for a backlog of photographs.