A Subway-less Summer

The MBTA has decided to do work on the Green "D" Line this summer, which means it will be impossible to get from Newton Centre into downtown Boston without having to get off the subway at some point and get on a bus and then get back on another train. This pretty much ruins the summer city outing scene for my family, because taking the T really made outings an event, saved on parking, etc. But all of that on-off-on-off-on-off is just too much nonsense for the already VERY slow Green line. Given that the above-ground Green line is more attractive during the warm-weather months, as well as the increase in city-bound suburbanites when the kiddies are on vacation, why did they have to do this now?

The MBTA seemed like they were starting to figure things out with the introduction of the Charlie Cards, adjusting the T-pricing for us suburbanites and updating the outside station shelters. Of course, it still takes WAY too long to actually take the T anywhere useful (for example, it would take me more than one-and-a-half hours to take the T from Newton Centre to Quincy Center [where I now have the pleasure of working every day] compared to a 35-minute/15-mile drive).

FMI Observations

Just got back from the Food Marketing Institute trade show in Chicago. This is the first event as part of my new career in the retail media industry and it was definitely eye-opening. Part of my duties involved manning a pod in the StoreNext booth, where to my left was El Monterrey handing out taquitos and margaritas and to my right was the Unilever booth. The Unilever booth was showing Axe Body Spray and Wishbone Salad Spray. I had to wonder if they were mixing them up from the same ingredients in the back. The Unilever booth also featured commercials running on a continuous loop on a flatscreen display right in front of me. This one was in seriously heavy rotation.



Edamame, agave, acai, pomegranate and goji were all hot items. There was also a plethora of tea-based carbonated energy drinks. I did have a Budweiser malt offering that was blueberry-pomegranate flavored that was quite tasty. I also tasted some chocolate hemp milk which tastes about as good as it sounds. There were several straw-based drink flavoring solutions that did not really work very well.

Purecart offered a shopping cart sanitation car wash which was kind of clever, but the lasting image for me was Snoop Dogg Dog Toys.

Overkill of Disaster Movies Makes It Hard to Care for Survivors

Thanks to digital cable, DVR and some downtime I've watched Poseiden and The Day After Tomorrow recently. Both movies are similar in many ways: directed by native Germans, have Emmy Rossum as the female lead and feature a shocking amount of death in the opening act. We're then expected to care about six or so of the survivors and their quest to outlast the horrors that have claimed thousands or millions of lives already. Quite honestly, after having an entire cruise ship or half of the northern hemisphere of the planet wiped out, I could care less about a few hangers-on. Are their lives supposed to be that much more important than all of the others who perished? Now, "The Day After Tomorrow" was interesting in how global warming played out, Poseiden was just kind of stupid, but at least the effects were believable. These movies are not alone in this scenario where we are asked to ignore the many and worry about the few, but they're pretty good examples of the reverse thinking we're usually asked to take (such as sacrificing a small number of innocents to protect that larger masses).

Of course, at the same time, I do watch "Jericho" which is about the survivors of a massive series of nuclear strikes in some random town in Kansas. However, I couldn't care less about the people in the town, but rather the larger arc of who set off the bombs and how the country reacts to the anarchy that ensues. THAT is interesting. What happens to a couple thousand people in Kansas after 20 major cities were nuked? Not so much.

Another Quality Off-Beat Sitcom Dies Too Soon

Andy Barker, P.I., had more laugh-out loud moments in its first four episodes than an entire season of most sitcoms, yet it somehow didn't manage to crack NBC's otherwise solid Thursday night line-up. I thought it was right up there with "My Name is Earl" in the wacky characters being driven by the well-meaning namesake of the show. It's a shame the networks don't give these gems a chance to build a following, and it can't have been that expensive to produce.

March Madness Housing Madness

This Washington Post article details how housing for the teams participating in the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament is determined by the team seedings. The net-net is that the higher seeds get the better hotels, but instead of it being that the top seeds are in a Marriott and the bottom seeds are in a Hyatt, it's more like the top seeds are at the Four Seasons and the bottom seeds are at a Motel 6 the next town over. This is just wrong. All of these games are being hosted in cities of a decent size (I mean, they need a 15K+ seat basketball arena) and putting some in a dump while the others are in a fancy hotel just isn't fair. I know the NCAA caters to the big power conferences, but some of those 10 and 11 seeds come from the Big 10, Big 12 and Big East, too. I'm sure the Illinois team (a 12-seed this time around) is probably a bit ticked off they had to stay in a place so much worse than their higher seeded brethren, for example. It seems like this would be really easy to fix and the NCAA should be ashamed of such outright favoritism.

So What Exactly IS an Emergency

Earlier this week, I had the misfortune to cut my hand badly enough that I needed to go to the emergency room. I went to Newton-Wellesley's brand new ER, actively bleeding, but not expecting to be seen right away since you never are. However, amid the brand new chairs, the flat screen TVs, the wood styling and vaulted ceilings, I noticed that I was the only person actually "wounded" in the whole place. Sure, there were other people that didn't look that great, but there were no other bandages, no limping, no fluids spilling onto the tile floor. From the time I first signed in until I was treated it was EXACTLY three hours. During that time, a nice woman for the hospital explained that all cuts were "fast-tracked" but there had been a lot of ambulances coming in which was why the flow of people in the waiting room actually being treated was pretty much nil. When I finally saw the doctor, I asked her what would have gotten me in any faster, and her response was that if I had actually severed my digit, I might have been bumped up a few spots. I also noticed that this woman was the ONLY doctor actually in the ER. There were plenty of people to take your blood pressure or get your insurance card, but not actually treat you. So while the hospital is patting its back on how nice the facility is, I would gladly sit in the old, dingy waiting room and give that money to actual healthcare providers who could speed up the throughput on the place. It, of course, goes without saying that there is also the chronic problem of folks coming to the ER when they should just go see a primary care physician, but that's a whole other story.

Why is Dunkin' Hiring Rachel Ray

Why in all that is donut holey is Dunkin' Donuts hiring Rachel Ray as a spokesperson? Dunkin' Donuts doesn't need any celebrity endorsements, it's whole appeal is being the food of the working stiff, and how does having the omni-present Ray hawking munchkins help anyone? She is more over-exposed than Emeril (she's on the boxes of Ritz and Triscuits in my pantry for some reason) and she, you know, cooks! Isn't the point of going to Dunkin' that I don't have to make my own food, or even my own coffee? Her whole message is how easy it is to cook! So unless the hook will be DIY recipes that have Dunkin' pastries as a main ingredient, I don't quite see the allure of bringing her on-board.