I Want A Coffee

How hard is it to keep a coffee machine stocked?

On the great show Modern Marvels on the History Channel, they showed one of Home Depot's supply centers. It is the size of a one-cop town in the midwest. They execute a just-in-time inventory system. There are trailer loads full of 5/8ths washers, joyce hangers, and washing machines; nothing stays in the warehouse for more than 25 minutes. BUT, I can't get cups, stirrers, creamers and sugars in the same kitchenette at the same f'n time! Seriously, why do all the ingredients to make a cup of coffee come in haphazardly like we're in Bastogne surrounded by Nazis (watch Band of Brothers). This may seem trivial, but it screws up my whole day because now I have to plan a clandestine raid on other kitchenettes as opposed to doing work. Then, when we do get supplies, I have to hoard them like I'm some crazy white shut-in whose sister's death he can't get over so he lives among 8 years of garbage and 7 feral cats. Just keep the coffee supplies readily at hand, so I don't have to celebrate like Captain Planet was summoned every time I want a cup.

Who is the person ordering the flavors also? Do we need 4 rows of house blend? Multiple Columbia and Hazelnut? Yeah, that stuff goes, but give me one drawer of something cool. I mean I work in financial services so every other person is Asian. But, of course we only have two drawers of Green Tea which fly threw inventory to the point where people are clawing at the display case packet. Mix it up and know your demo Admin-who-orders-this-stuff!

-K

C Mailbag

I asked C, "Is this the most pretenious Yelp review ever?"

Timothy M.

Boston, MA

Ok. So I had heard about the charm about Carmen and it's romantic atmosphere in this tiny N. End dining spot. I read Melanie's review as well the others and looked up the Phantom Gourmet's review (which was surprisingly good) but I decided I will give it a try and form my own opinion. I made a reservation as they suggested, since the restaurant fills up fast especially on a Saturday night. The staff was friendly, although you this should be an expectation from everyone where you go and spend your hard earned money. The atmosphere was indeed charming. The dining room was tiny and crammed with small tables. Yet there were many candles giving it a more romantic like atmosphere (although I would not give Carmen the award for romance.) The food - the reason why most of us go out - was disappointing. To say it may be the best restaurant in Boston tells me that many readers hardly ever or never go out and if they do, they don't know what good food is. The truth is the food at Carmen was average or mediocre at best. It might have been better than a Vinny Testa's or Maggiano's but if so it would be a close race. You simply cannot say the food was good when you have other places of comparison such as The White Barn Inn in ME exists (BTW a PG 97 rating http://preview.tinyurl...
Per Se in NYC setting a world wide standard - http://perseny.com/ or French Laundry - http://www.frenchlaund.../ and closer to home restarurants like Clio & Mistral (with only 90 PG ratings BTW.) Before you can comment that the food might be the best ever, you have to first understand the rules. The rules are you must rate experiences on the full range, not in a vacuum. Carmen has not won national or international awards of excellence and it never will. There are good restaurants, great ones, excellent ones and then the very few standing on the top of the pyramid. Those few that do are like the great quarterbacks and athletes of our time. They simply are not that many relative to the population. The simple fact is the food here is what you would expect from the N. End - it was very average. You don't go somewhere and pay north of $25/$30 for a dish an expect mediocracy. You should instead expect excellence. Not here. If you want to try good food then instead of eating out twice or three times wait and save up your money for one of the places above and only then will you experience what true culinary talent can bring to your palete. Sorry Carmen but you are just like alot of other folks- very, very average.

Her response:
I feel like I should write to Tim and be like, honestly pal, great that you threw out two of Tom Keller's retaurants promptly after his new book was published and the James Beard Contenders just came out, but seriously, have you eaten at either of his restaurants???

Also, given his logic, contextually, shouldn't you rate restaurants on their demographic? For example, I loved the wings at the chicken bone, and would've given it 3 stars in that it was a good, convenient wing & beer place and it surpassed my expectations as such. I wouldn't put it up against Mario Batali's restarant in NYC (which PS I have eaten at) or even Strega or any one of Todd English's restaurants because they aren't comparable in their offerings...

I want to go toe-to-toe with Tim. What a dink!

Also, Tim spelt palate wrong. What a tool. I hate him.

She also had some Matt Lauer thoughts/panic attacks:

Matt Lauer cheated on his wife?!? I am more upset hearing this right now than I was over the following (in no particular order):

1.) My bday party invitations being backordered, and subsequently disco’d by the mfr

2.) Big Papi admitted juicing

3.) Tiger Woods train of beautiful, upstanding mistresses

4.) Jesse James cheating on Sandra Bullock. SANDRA BULLOCK!

5.) Britney Spears circa 2007

6.) Jason Varitek getting divorced due to infidelity

7.) Lindsey Lohan’s downward spiral post-mean girls

8.) The package store being closed by time I got home on Monday night

9.) John Mayer’s recent playboy interview

10.) That time you tricked me into watch the NFL draft.

If Matt Lauer (MATT LAUER!) and his hot wife can’t make it work, what are we doing?

...But it’s matt lauer! He isn’t famous really either. He’s supposed to be the all-american everyman! How could he do this?

-K

Artistically Challenged

If TV producers and movie makers could somehow send me promos of shows/movies beforehand, I could save them a ton of cash. ABC is now promoting a new show called Romantically Challenged which looks to be an overproduced, banal-humor-laden, safe, generic pile of crap. It will no doubt recycle lockstep stereotypes, trite, canned one-liners, and ridden into the ground like a Tiger mistress storylines. (But, she's not married, she's divorced!) It's all the same. If ABC had just talked to me, I could have told them, "Stop...stop...stop talking...no it's awful."

There is nothing especially bad about RomChan, (I've never seen an episode, I just know it will be bad. Prejudging? yes Correct? yes) it's just the same lowest common denominator horrible safe humor that network television seems to be all about. It's the same in movies. C gets pissed when I watch the lastest rom-com mad-lib preview and just cannot help myself by finishing the plot. (They fall in love despite the circumstances...every time...without fail.) She almost kicked me out of the theater during He's Just Not That Into You which had promise in the beginning and then turned on everything it believed in half way through. (Don't get married Ben Affleck, you won, she agreed, aaahhhh) I couldn't help but start a social commentary with a quarter of the movie still to go. Everyone of those art bastardizations deadens my nerves a little bit more. (She's uptight, he doesn't play by the rules!) Sometimes a writer will really gamble like author/rebel John Hamburg who pitched Along Came Polly as he's uptight and she doesn't play by the rules. Ugh. It's the same everytime people! Stand up for quality! George Clooney gets his heart ripped out in Up In The Air; oscar-nomination.

Why does it continue to happen? Well, of course money. These are pre-packaged, streamlined, efficient cash cows. Insert name actor and actress here. A self-serving entertainment exec will of course substitute original thought for free cash flow. They don't have any incentive not to. It's the same with actors. Just look at Jennifer Ainiston. She keeps making this same slop every year. At least have the decency to use the film as an elaborate ploy to bang your co-star like Gerard Butler did to you. The producers of these shows are guilty of having sedentary brains as well. Charlie Sheen can not wear a bowling shirt and cargo shorts every day of his life! That's lazy character molding. Do they think if he wears jeans people won't perceive the male fantasy ethos they have bestowed on him? No, don't make them think, aaahhhh.

I'm not an literary elitest snob Slate editor, I own the A-Team on DVD. I just want the entertainment industry to stop rehashing the same tired shit they've been recycling over and over. It's insulting. It's mentally insulting to me. Get some new cookie-cutters Hollywood. But, what do I know The Big Bang Theory is still on television?

At least Lost is on tonight.

-K

LeBron James Is Not Coming to the Knicks

Although this image is what every Knick fan would love to see in 2010, it's just not going to happen. Despite having a girth of contracts coming off the rolls after the 2009-10 season for the Knicks, the spectre of Isiah Thomas still remains. The Knicks DO NOT have a first round draft pick in 2010. Yeah, Utah has it. Eddy Curry, a chubby undersized center, and Jared Jeffries - who? exactly. - are both sitting on the chest of the Knicks' salary cap. Should Donnie Walsh hoodwink LeBron into coming to New York, the Knicks would have a tough time assembling anything resembling a playoff team. When you look at the contract situation for the Knicks, your hopes diminish quickly for a LeBorgasm of NBA championships happening at MSG.

A little math and reasoning will help explain my point. LeBron is going to sign for the max obviously. Under the current CBA, NBA players can earn no less than 105% of their current salary. That puts LeBron at $16,568,908 for 2009-2010, slightly higher than the max salary. This actually would be a pay cut for LeBron because he has a player option for next year that would pay him over seventeen million. But, considering the CBA is up for renegotiation in two years and his desire to play for a contender, he is likely to opt out and lock up a max deal.

The Knicks are not likely to resign any of their expiring contracts. 1) Because most of them are grossly overpaid and/or suck and 2) why would you align them to expire for 2010 if you were going to resign them. The Knicks have four players still on the rookie scale and both Eddy Curry and Jared Jeffries have player options they would be stupid not to exercise. Assuming they keep the Rooks, the roster starts off this way in 2010:

Eddy Curry $ 11,276,863
Jared Jeffries $ 6,883,800
Danilo Gallinari $ 3,304,560
Jordan Hill $ 2,669,520
Wilson Chandler $ 2,130,481
Toney Douglas $ 1,071,000
Lebron James $16,568,908

That's $43,905,132 of a $57,700,000 cap before you build out your team.

Because the Knicks will be under the cap for the first time since the Iron age, salary cap exceptions won't come into play next year. A NBA team can either have cap room or exceptions, but it can't have both. Still, $13,794,868 is a decent amount of cash to sign players.

The Knicks would need a point guard to start off with. Since reactions to Chris Duhon have been tepid at best and suicidal at worst, I think the organization might go in a different direction. The hardcore Knicks fans at the UltimateKnicks forum came up with some reasonable suggestions, mainly Ray Felton or Randy Foye. I'll use the mid-level exception as a proxy for either of those two's salary. The Knicks would need to fill out the frontcourt next. My guess it that they could convince David Lee to resign for $6.5 mil if they gave him a five year deal. That would make the Knicks undersized, but a slow plodding center doesn't really fit in the 7 seconds or less run and gun style of Mike D'Antoni. Sounds like a decent team until you realize you now only have $1,440,868 to fill 5 roster spots including a starting shooting guard. That's not even enough to pay Nate to keep racking up DNPs. If you went with this plan, the resulting roster would be:

PG Ray Felton or Randy Foye
SG 4th best SG from the D league
SF LeBron James
PF Danilo Galinari/Wilson Chandler
C David Lee

That doesn't look like a LeBorgasm, it looks like a LeBortion.

See, this is where having a top 5 pick in the draft would have helped. You could draft a SG or a C and be able to sign him, even if you were over the cap. But no, Isiah had to trade the unprotected 2010 1st round pick to the Suns for Stephon Marbury in 2003. His thinking was probably, "I won't be here when that happens." Maybe he was shrewder than we think...naaaahhh. Just to reiterate: THE NEW YORK KNICKS DO NOT HAVE A FIRST ROUND PICK IN 2010.

So what's the solution? Move Curry or Jeffries? That would be nice, but NO ONE is taking on Curry's contract unless the Clippers stupidly trade Kaman to save a year on his contract and set themselves up for a run at Kobe in 2011-12. Curry is dead weight. No team would take him especially when a lot of other teams are trying to align themselves the same way the Knicks are for the coming free agent class. As for Jeffries, the Knicks have been supposedly been "showcasing" him lately. He has showcased himself to the tune of 4 points and 3 rebounds per game. Again, I don't think anyone is biting.

I hate to say it, but the Knicks just don't have the pieces to lure LeBron to NYC. Even if he was dead set on coming to New York, they would still be a few years away from a championship. The Knicks are in a tough spot especially with expectations mounting. But, the pickings are slim after the top 3 free agents. The Knicks should probably wait this thing out another year. Curry and Jefferies will be gone and they will have a draft pick. I'm hoping one of basketball's cornerstone franchises returns to greatness or even 3-seed Eastern Conference Finals semi-greatness, but it is not going to happen with LeBron in blue and orange. Sorry.

Sources: Larry Coon's Salary Cap Info, Sham Sports' great player salary page

-K

P.S. I would love to see LeBron in NYC, so feel free to shred my assumptions, mock my theory and figure out a better way to get him here.

Gossip Girl

C sent me this link about the Parents Television Council. It of course pissed me off, so I wrote up a response for the CW:

Dear Family Parent Television Council or whatever,

You and your kind are the same people who got television stations to adopt a TV rating system and television manufacturers to adopt the V-chip. The FCC has turned into a completely unchecked authority on broadcast content even though every channel has a standards board. We are choosing to show an admittedly racy episode involving teenage sexuality because that is what our viewers want. You have every right to shield your children from our TV show and to even start a boycott to encourage others to do the like. But, at what point do you stop infringing upon people’s personal freedoms? When to do you stop imposing your morals on the whole of society and allow for individuals and parents to be personally accountable? We live in a free society, so you are free to howl about the immorality of overt displays of young people's sexuality, but we are also free to show it, so f--- you.

XOXO

Seems pretty reasonable right? I mean the show already has Chuck Bass as a character, so it's obviously not based in reality. Lighten up PTC. But, I guess that isn't what they do.

Also, C and her friends like to side with these "save the children" people when it comes to mandating through law that fast food places put up caloric information, but when these same types try to take their Gossip Girl away, look out. Freedom for me, but not for McDee I guess. That's why you just have to let people decide for themselves.

-K

I'm fired up today, don't expect it to last.

Gay Marriage

Never underestimate the power of indifference.

In the fight for gay marriage, laziness not bigotry has been the main opponent. Maine recently became the 31st state to not allow gay marriage. I think one of Newton's Laws of Motion, inertia, is to blame. Every election has zealous supporters on both sides of an issue. But, those people are out-numbered by the part of the voting-age population that could not give a crap. This is what kills the gay rights ballot questions every year.

Religious fanatics (if they are Christian, they are called conservative, if they are Muslim, they are called terrorists) swell the memberships of groups with names like The Family Institute and champion the cause of "family values." They are mostly filled with cheating husbands, prudish wives and self-hating gays. (Do a Google search for Evangelist and either gay or prostitute or both.) Their main assertion is that allowing gay marriage would be an attack on the institution of marriage. This, of course, is complete bullshit because if you really wanted to strengthen the institution of marriage, you would attack its main plague, divorce.

The proponents have one main constituency mainly, gays. Friends and family add to the movement, but they just don't have numbers to compete with the family values people. The family values people play up people's visceral reactions to aberrational lifestyles and the tide is set in motion. The subliminal message is "aren't you grossed out by homosexuality?" So, your family values message gets into the heads of people who are actively choosing to go to the polls and take a side.

This is where the gay marriage movement stalls. I can only attest to this anecdotaly and I admittedly skew to a younger demographic, but I've asked people what they think about gay marriage. Their answer is usually, "Who cares? or I don't give a f--- or whatever or why are you interrupting my sedentary lifestyle with these heavy societal questions, I'm trying to watch TV now shut the f--- up." I bet if you polled these passive observers (people who don't give a sh-t) you would find a (default) acceptance of gay marriage. People ultimately don't want to be bothered. They just want to say yeah, whatever leave me alone.

Your challenge gay marriage proponents is to get these people off their butt and into the game. This is a tough task since a body at rest will stay at rest. The easier route would be to fight the "gross-out" campaign. More Tim Gunn and lipstick lesbians and less making out on the capital steps. Do you remember Al Gore giving his wife a tongue bath? People were grossed out by that and he was straight.

More this, less that:

Ultimately though, gay marriage people your fight is not one against bigotry and intolerance, it is one against the recliner and the couch. Indifference is a great demotivater. Christ, look how long it takes between posts on this site. Did I die of the Swine Flu? No, of course not, because it's certainly ludicrous to be more worried about that than getting killed by say falling debris or being pregnant, or just about anything else that can kill you including the regular flu that's 4000 times more deadly, I just didn't give a crap for a while. Sloth is a deadly sin after all.



-K

...Yep, still a joke