Halloween in college towns has a special meaning. Like in most places, the little kids have fun, get sugared up, the parents steal the best candies and get buzzed off hot alcoholic drinks, plastic kitschy decorations everywhere... but we also feature college girls...
No funny stories happening today, alas, though I'm loaded up with them (starting with my war with a bat, who eventually suffered a Shop Vac execution). But I have deadlines for an article looming and have been heads-down writing and (when realizing that I have some...
One of the hazards of working with my kids is that they are always plotting ways to get hold of my fortune. I'm a thousandaire! I was coming up the steps from our cellar to the cafe kitchen, carrying a large box of fenugreek leaves, and just then the door swung open....
Prime and I had a lovely trip to Cleveland. Other than the game we went there to see. Well, SHE had a fine time at the game. Me... well... Anyway, it had it all, perfect weather, flyovers by a cargo plane (Cleveland doesn't rate fighter jets), black female singers...
Despite her sentimental attachment to The Bills, Prime is not much of a fan of watching football. This is one of her very few shortcomings as a human. Part of this is that even after 67 years on this planet, the majority of them spent in pro football cities (Buffalo...
Prime and I are discussing where to go for our first Big Trip together. Her restrictions: it has to be a country new to both of us. My restriction: it has to be safe for Jews. She hasn't specifically said "No Asia," but that might be a bridge too far. My travel-heavy...
As is our wont in the morning while 10b0t and I are preparing food for the day, we get to talking. We have to be rather circumspect, so it generally revolves around culture. I can't remember exactly how we got there (maybe it started with a conversation about the...
We attract some remarkable assholes at our little café/bistro. Today's winner: guy comes to the counter and asks our girl, "Can I get change for a ten?" "Sure, a five and five ones OK?" "Perfect." So as she's handing it to him, she asks, "Are you dining in or...
Two things have made me very much feel my age: the first is how fast the year is flying by. It's fucking OCTOBER already??? Of 2026, a year in the far future???The second is depressing: how fast cultural touchstones are being memory holed. I found out that not a...
Homecoming weekend here in the Gulch so we've been running at full speed at our café, with overwhelmingly madding crowds. Plus hosting a Dutch visitor. Plus travel. Plus deadlines for articles. Plus a disease that has knocked down half our staff. WebDom is suffering...
Busy week here. I was in Seattle for some tech meetings with a power semiconductor mogul, flew back, then immediately returned to the airport to pick up our semi-regular Dutch visitor. And like any good visitor, he came prepared: some single-malt whiskey from Belgium...
Just for my annual reminder of how enshittified our airlines are, I'm heading to Seattle for a couple days. Business (writing an article about GaN technology)- it's not like I'd pick that as a vacation spot. On the bright side, I'm meeting up with two old friends I...
One disadvantage to being a retailer in the Gulch is that when driving around the village, you can't be rude to anyone- they'll all know who you are and word travels fast. I've been having an ongoing issue with constantly being stuck behind someone in my neighborhood...
My home redo has gotten to the point where I have to start thinking seriously about the esthetics, not just functionality. Problem is, I'm a male, straight, and therefore possess no sense of design. So I'll have to bite the bullet and get someone who knows what...
I will confess to being unsure of the future in a relatively profound way. Will I leave the Gulch? Will I do something a bit more permanent with Prime? Will I make another career change? Many balls are in the air, but mine are hanging in their usual spot. But at least...
It's "Rush Week" at our local college (not the university, which banned frats and sororities about 20 years ago). I don't pretend to understand how any of that works- my college didn't have any frats or sororities and if it had, I can't imagine that I'd have had any...
The funnest part of living in the Gulch is the overheard conversations. This past week, we had a meeting of the Business Association to discuss PR to get people to come here and spend money. Satisfyingly capitalist. When the meeting was over, one of the shop owners...
I always seem to come to popular things well after they're done. Maybe their popularity is what puts me off, then when I finally get to them, it's, "Oh fuck, this really IS good." Angine de Poitrine, Breaking Bad, The Wire... anyway, Prime and Spud both urged me to...
Finishing Stage 1 of a house redo (my second floor) means getting rid of a bunch of tatty old furniture, replete with dog chew marks and bodily fluid stains, and replacing it with more modern options. And given my, ahem, rather isolated location, choices are limited...
Our little café was overrun yesterday with football players; the local university was having some sort of event welcoming student athletes and apparently our food was better. These kids have some odd choices, but we were happy to charge extra and take their money....
It's the official Move-In Day at our local university, which means tired parents, scantily clad coeds, and lines of people ordering complex sugary coffee drinks. "Can I have a double caramel blueberry latte with pumpkin spice, three shots of banana, oat milk, and...
It's that time of year again, the schools are about to re-open and students and faculty are trickling back in. So our café at noon is looking like a menagerie of danger hair, piercings to render heads as ocarinas, look-at-me hot pants (on the guys), fuzzy slippers and...
I heard a noise behind the blinds on my kitchen window. Lifting them, I found this fella hanging upside down. I snapped a photo and sent it to Prime, who immediately responded, "Pie is back!" I ended up capturing him and releasing him into my back yard. Yes, I have...
Much controversy and action this week in the Gulch. There's been an ongoing debate about allowing short term rentals (e.g., AirBnB, VRBO...) to exist in the rarified areas zoned Residential. "We need to preserve the character of our neighborhoods and these things are...
While on vacation, I got several frantic texts from the kennel. Apparently my dogs kept jumping the interior perimeter fence around their pen (a six foot chain link). OK, they had a few dogs in the past manage that, but were contained by an outer wall, a smooth solid...