#30 - la isla bon eatah.

as of just under two weeks ago, there's now a trader joe's in brooklyn, at the dividing line between downtown & bococa, right at the corner of court and atlantic. it's an interesting area of brooklyn.

to the south, there's red hook and its box store expansion, with ikea & in due time, a bj's wholesale club (which led to the inevitable headline "after ikea's success, red hook to get bj's") and the current filming of mtv's the real world: brooklyn.

to the east is the pending construction of the barclay's center (soon to be home to the new jersey brooklyn nets). this monstrosity (will somebody please take away frank gehry's license? i mean, really ) is part of a larger project, the atlantic yards project, which will drastically transform the intersection of two of brooklyn's largest streets--flatbush ave & atlantic ave--with the arena & towers & such.

4th ave, the street i live on, starts at the same intersection & runs six lanes all the way south through brooklyn to the bottom of the island, where it ends at the intersection of the verrazano bridge to staten island & jersey and the belt parkway, which runs along the bottom of brooklyn all the way east past jamaica bay & jfk airport into long island. i'm about 30 blocks down from the atlantic yards area & all down 4th ave to my apartment, tall apartment buildings are sprouting up thanks to rezoning fallout from the project. my landlord's putting in an 8 story one next door...& so there's now a trader joe's up the street. map here. scan around.

in my life, i've had a good deal of exposure to trader joe's. there's that one in coolidge corner that i definitely went to on a number of occasions but don't recall all that well. it's apparently one of 16 in massachusetts. then there's the union square trader joes, divided into a wine store & a grocery store because of liquor laws (i assume). i usually only go to the wine section when i need a bottle of wine for some reason & can't spend more than $3. i've gone in the grocery section twice & the cramped, crowded aisles infested with nyu students drive me into panic attack mode. i hate going into the union square trader joe's grocery store. hate it.

the other day, i paid my first visit to the brooklyn trader joe's. when you initially enter, you can't help but notice the long ass line to your right. when i returned today, it was still there. i can only assume that it's there in perpetuity. usually, their lines move fast, but it's still intimidating. on that visit i just scoped the joint out. the combination of the signage, the shelf layout, the way the store is divided up & some other factors really rubbed me the wrong way. i vowed to give it a second chance though.

#30 - la isla bon eatah.

snack: spanish olive mix
drink: garnacha de fuego 2007

overall, i know a minimal amount about wine. i usually at least have good luck at picking out a decent wine. i'm not entirely blind. as an example, i can tell the difference between trader joe's brand wine (not available in brooklyn) & well, actual wine. there's a wine store in my neighborhood, adam's wine and liquors, that is owned by a cute couple in their 50s(?). they are wonderful at suggesting wines, obviously knowledgeable & usually offering samples. it is the only place i go in brooklyn to buy real wine. they have one of those frequent buyer cards, where you get your 13th bottle of wine free.

my number came up the other day & i decided that tonight i'd try out that unlucky bottle of wine, a garnacha de fuego 2007. it's from spain. "fuego" means fire en espanol. it's pretty good & tastes a bit fruity & a bit spicy. read the wine weekly review i link to. i'm pretty sure they actually know what they're talking about.

i also decided that i'd head back to trader joe's tonight to pick up some fresh mixed olives to snack on with the wine. turns out trader joe's brooklyn doesn't have fresh mixed olives either. some girl even went & checked for me. sadly, she never returned. i can only assume she is dead. i know a lot of people, my own sister included, who swear by trader joe's, but really, i hate it. i don't care how many dang mangoes they put in their salsas.

instead, i just went a block down court street to pacific green gourmet food, where i found myself an olive bar with an entire bin devoted to "spanish olives." there are some dark red ones with pits, some less-dark-red ones with pits, some big-ass green ones & some smaller ones with pimentos. they're in an oil with a bunch of minced garlic. during the course of writing this, i've eaten about 50 of em. they're pretty friggin' good, although during the course of writing this, i've also made my way through 250ml 300ml 350ml of the wine, so that could just be the fuego talking for my taste buds.

#29 - fluffycreamycreepysmooth.

tonight i'm watching the second vice presidential debate, featuring questions from myspace. take that facebook. the debate also features rules, which are to be wantonly flaunted in tom brokaw's face. he just keeps bringing them rules up & the candidates just keep giving him the ol' "don't make us oust you again, tom."

when obama speaks, he's always composed. he answers questions intelligently. this is probably a plus. i mean, it worked out really well for both gore & kerry. wait a second. mccain just replied to something obama said with something about nailing jello to the wall? did he just accuse senator obama of wasting dessert? oh, never mind. budget metaphor. obama not evil. jello safe. he's still not getting my vote though.

john mccain wants to sit down & reach across the table. bad table manners, senator. i really wish he would stop calling me his friend & chopping at me. i attended a taping of the daily show a year or so back & he was the guest, promoting a book or something. he was definitely charming then. now he just creeps me out. tonight, he keeps shuffling forward toward the audience like a mummy as he answers their questions. i bet you he's breathing his pharaohvian breath on the people in the front row. maybe he could throw silver dollars at the good people of america from high atop a building. i'm pretty sure he'd get the lenny vote.

here is the question i would have asked:

as a male in his mid-thirties who is so spectacularly disenchanted with the political system that i am considering going back to the green party & voting for cynthia mckinney just to say that i participated in the process, why should anything either of you say not sound like it is coming from the mouth of an adult in a peanuts cartoon?

i would reserve the right to fully emphasize the words "spectacularly disenchanted" and sing these words loudly whilst making hammering or baseball bat-swinging motions to emphasize my point.

the last question was from amherst, nh:

q: what don't you know & how would you learn it?
a: well, what i do know is that at the end of this question, you still won't know what i don't know.

#29 - fluffycreamycreepysmooth.
snack: smart ones chocolate eclair
drink: silk 11 fl oz chocolate soymilk

in honor of tonight's debate, i'm having myself a smart ones chocolate eclair. it is a perfect metaphor for the debate, except for the "smart ones" part. it is fluffy. it is creamy. it won't make me feel guilty about eating it. it needs to be taken out of the freezer & thawed out for an hour before consuming. it goes really good with silk soy milk, especially when it is the chocolate kind drank out of a wasteful american single serving sized bottle. perfect. metaphor. oh & they're both not very good.

#28 - farts.

as i try to think back into the way back & remember my first fart, i just can't. it is too far in the way back. i'm sure it was pretty early in the game though, likely shortly after birth...and it likely stank...and since i was born with messed up hips, it probably got trapped inside the cast...note to self: ask parents how i pooped as baby with cast...and when i farted as a baby, i bet at least once, my parents thought it was rather hilarious & there was much rejoicing around the apartment. people in their early 20s love farts.

one weekend a few years back i was on a road trip in massachusetts with the girlfriend at the time. at one point, we made a stop at a convenient store/gas station, where i picked up a 27.5g tabasco spiced slim jim (the better measurement is 13"...the "unlucky slim jim"). by less than 6.5" into the stick, i had no choice but to fart or sacrifice my stomach to the demons that dwelt within it. if i remember correctly, we were in a car at the time. she has a really keen sense of smell that one.

same girlfriend, different time...we were home at my parents for xmas playing lego time cruisers with friends & family. if you have ever played lego time cruisers, you know how fun it can be. if you haven't, let's just say that you will accidentally let loose an audible fart of joy at some point during the game & it will be ok. i know i did that xmas season.

#28 - farts.

snack: 27.5g tabasco spiced slim jim
drink: simply lemonade

...so tonight's late night snack with the sox game is the 27.5g tabasco spiced slim jim. the tabasco slim jim is definitely slimier than your average slim jim. it contains both beef & chicken, so i've got those food groups covered. as a kid, i used to always put a slim jim in my lunch. lord knows how i stayed so damn skinny. their website brings you to spicy town. there is a woman named insane kim there. i'm not entirely sure that she can't be clicked on. total slim jim consumed tonight = 8.5".

to contribute to the inducement of an acidic o.d. ulcer, i've picked up a late night bottle of simply lemonade to go with my late night slim jim. i'll say this for lemonade...i never had a lemonade stand, but i did play the computer game.

in conclusion, the only thing funnier than farts? poop. i know at least one female who agrees with me 100%.

ladies, i am currently available.

#27 - my spicy home state.

at the age of four my father & i took a trip from my parents' chelsea, ma apartment up route 93 to windham, nh, where my parents (then aged 25 & 27) were in the process of building their first & only house. as i remember it, he & i walked around on dirt through the shell of the house as men hammered around us. you could still see through the stairs to the second floor, where the bedrooms would eventually be. a house had become more of a priority for my parents, as my now-28-year-old brother was on the way, upping the kid total to three. we would move in soon after & that's where i lived from then until i moved 45 minutes back down route 93 to boston for college. new hampshire sweeping upbringing assessment...good education, boring surroundings. a few nh facts fo yo mind:

- new hampshire has no sales tax, so people from massachusetts come over the border to shop, particularly at our state liquor stores, located both close to the border & directly off the highway, they're like rest areas with no place to pee but a wealth of "the cure for what ails ya"...very convenient for mass area fraternities looking to purchase grain alcohol for tubs of punch...i'm jus' saying is all.

- we host the first state primary, which i think makes us a skew corollary to the color red. bonus political fact...if it wasn't for arizona, we would have been the last state to declare mlk day a holiday.

- we've begat one president...franklin pierce...yes, his actions did result in the creation of the republican party & he is the only elected president to seek the nomination for a 2nd term but not get it & is often referred to as one of the worst presidents ever. thanks for noticing.

#27 - my spicy home state.
snack: lindt excellence chili dark chocolate bar
drink: v-8

turns out that lindt & sprungli (lindt usa) is based out of my home state. stratham, to be exact. just southwest of portsmouth. i'm snacking on one of their lindt excellence chili dark chocolate bars. i've been all about the fancy gourmet chocolates these days. in my book, i figure if i'm gonna need to consume chocolate to remain sane, a fancy imported chocolate bar beats a lame-o possibly-been-melted-in-the-bodega hershey bar any day of the week. gourmet chocolate (& specifically dark chocolate) is the future, people. if you've invested in clean technologies, i'm sorry to have to break that news to you.

omg. so i had been feeling guilty about drinking so much soda & thinking of what i could replace it with & thought about drinkable chili chocolate complements & went for the "tomato/vegetable goodness" of v-8. tomato...chili...sounded right to me...big mistake. i couldn't even get past the half way point of a 12oz glass. v-8 is nasty. i mean, on one level, it is only one letter & 32 numbers away from being a toxic lubricant. at first, i told myself the reason why i couldn't drink it was because i was in the middle of watching true blood (specifically something that happens in the 2nd episode) but it goes deeper than that. i will say it once...tomato juice is good for nothing but creating bloody marys. you can try to tell me that it's good for me. you can try to tell me it'll make me straighter (as if that's possible!). you can call it "splash" and pair it with berries. you can lock me in a room with nothing but v-8 & yoo hoo and i will choose yoo hoo every time.

that is how awful v-8 is. it almost ruined this blog entry...i originally wrote 95% of this on sunday night, but my life was thrown into such a whirlwind by the awfulness of the v-8, that i just couldn't finish it until now, three days later...new slogan = v-8...tastes like puke, but without the vodka & tabasco.

#26 - shawn's fantastical hoighty toighty ice cream sandwich.

...so i'm watching the emmy awards tonight on abc & it's a three-hour show, so that means tons of commercials & of course, that means tons of commercials for abc's fall lineup. that means tons of commercials for a lineup that includes samantha who?, ugly betty, desperate housewives, boston legal, brothers & sisters, eli stone, dirty sexy money, life on mars, grey's anatomy/private practice and pushing daisies...oh, and the crappy reality tv shows.

the best part about the ads for these shows is that each commercial ends with the note that next week is, "national stay at home week," an occasion created & announced by abc's pr team about a month back. what this means is that with tomorrow being the start of fall, we should avoid the outdoors at all costs & plop our asses down on the couch for the next week to absorb the abundant wonders of abc's fantastic fall lineup.

if you choose to not celebrate national stay at home week, you're disobeying a national holiday & not only would that make you a communist, but christina applegate would probably never talk to you again. samantha who? sassy christina applegate, that's who!

#26 - shawn's fantastical hoighty toighty ice cream sandwich.
snack: bierkraft's dark chocolate gelato & cherry blondie
drink: lakefront cherry lager beer

with the emmys, i'm enjoying a dark chocolate gelato & cherry blondie from bierkraft, the local yummy beer & cheese & gourmet food shop. a few weeks back, i went there to buy some beer & on the way in, noticed a sign they had posted on the door that suggested pairing their chocolate chip ice cream sandwich with a smuttynose old brown dog ale. i passed on that particular occasion, but filed it away for later.

the other night, i decided to go back & pick up the combo. i got the smuttynose but when i saw the ice cream sandwiches in the freezer, the dark chocolate gelato & cherry blondie made getting that pathetic chocolate chip one a non-option. at the register, i discovered i was purchasing a $5 ice cream sandwich. hoighty toighty. that night, i totally drank the smuttynose & then the freezer door got left open for a couple hours at some point during the evening, so the ice cream sandwich got a little thawed/melted. undeterred, i went back to bierkraft today & picked up the lakefront cherry lager to pair with it.

they're both really tasty. the ice cream sandwich itself is so rich & tasty & filling that it's a two-sitting ice cream sandwich...it'd better be for $5! as for the beer, it's brewed with wisconsin cherries, which i assume are good based solely on their work in the field of dairy.

in closing, yay mad men yay!...and people sure do love tina fey, huh? "the elaine may of our time," according to alec baldwin's speech...which means she has both a mikey & nickey and an ishtar in her. people probably love tina so durn much because she's wittier than any other female on earth & a verifiable stone. cold. fox. seriously, i'd give my left...