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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
« Nom Appetit! | Main | Dinner Just Got Served »
Jeez. Leave it to me to screw up a 'site improvement' project.
I finally got off my kiester and made a couple of adjustments to the old blog that should bring smiles to your happy, shining faces. Mostly, the drivel will just load a little faster. Nothing too earthshattering. Still -- speedy, efficient drivel is better than long, slow drivel, no? This isn't sex we're talking about here. Or baseball.
Most of the improvements aren't so interesting. A few of the lists on the sidebars are hosted through BlogRolling, which is long, slow, and needlessly painless. (So hey -- maybe we are talking about sex, after all.)
Anyway, I moved all of that stuff to the right sidebar. Does it still take forever to load? Yup. But at least now the main section -- you know, with all the drivel -- loads first. So you can get your nonsense fix while the linkies load. Better.
Also, I finally hooked up -- and, of course, butchered the link for -- the Cliche-O-Matic, over there at the top left. So, I re-linked it. Far be it from me to get my own fricking link right the first time. Douchebag, thy name is 'Charlie'.
Finally -- last and anything but least -- I hooked up a script whipped up by my new friend Gordon (who prefers to remain mostly anonymous, at least for now), which serves up the Simpsons quotes (available in human-edible form on this page) and random taglines that you see at the top of each page. Previously, all the quotes and tags were imbedded in the page. And there were just over 400 of them, combined. So that should speed things up as well -- and encourage me to get off my ass, again, and add to those lists more frequently, now that I don't have to rebuild the whole frigging site to get new ones to show up. Thanks a million, Gordon! You're the coolest.
Apart from that... eh. I got nothing, really. I'm just distressing over this dinner the wife and I are going to tonight. Not that dinner won't be a good time -- we're just out with a few friends, so it should be hootly -- but it's at a 'Nice' restaurant. Capital 'N'. And italics. I heard them when my wife told me this morning. Here's what she said:
Wife: 'So, dinner's tonight, don't forget. And I don't think they have a dress code, but it's a 'Nice' restaurant. So... you know, try to dress appropriately.'
Yikes. 'Appropriately'. I don't like the sound of that. I mean, I live in shorts and rugbies. If you've ever watched any of the standup clips I've posted -- that's not some sort of far-fetched, 'no-fashion-sense-guy' costume. I go straight from work to most of those gigs -- which tells you how many weekend shows I'm asked to do, dammit -- and I don't consult my wardrobe consultant in between. So 'dress appropriately' -- or even the more realistic 'try to dress appropriately' -- strikes fear into my ghetto-fabulous-on-a-good-day heart.
Plus, fancy restaurants are always confusing, what with the nine forks and the proper manners and the 'no slurping' rules. How do rich people ever finish their bowls of soup? I ask you. Besides that, I'm still a little traumatized from the last nice place we went to. A couple of courses into the evening, I needed to use 'the facilities'. Because you can't ask a snooty waiter, 'Yo, Jeeves -- where's the john?' Or even 'the little boys' room'. It has to be a proper term, like 'the facilities', or 'the washroom', or 'the lavatorium'.
Well, in this particular establishment, there were two bathrooms. Were they labelled 'Men' and 'Women'? No. Too easy. How would they keep riff-raff like me at bay with clear markings like those? Was it 'Gentlemen' and 'Ladies'? Nope. 'Pointers' and 'Setters'? Too crass. 'Mars' and 'Venus'? Too cute. 'Lords' and 'Ladies'? Too pompous -- but just barely. 'Chickies' and 'Dickies'? Decidedly not.
As a matter of fact, they apparently couldn't find any labels that suited the ambiance of the place, because the bathrooms simply weren't marked. I walked down the hall, to the left, as instructed, and stood staring at two blank green doors. Had I gotten the directions wrong? Were these broom closets? Storage pantries? On-site slaughterhouse rooms for the veal calves?
There was no way to tell. And the light was fairly dim, so I leaned in close to one of the doors, looking for any hint or clue that maybe I'd missed. Maybe there was a huge 'M' on one of the doors in braille. Or a motion-activated recording that would chime, 'You are now entering the Mens Room. Enjoy your stay!' I didn't know. So, I inched close and peered at one of the doors, reaching out to feel the surface... and a woman opened the door.
A large woman. Well-dressed. Old. Haughty. Opened the door, and almost ran into my out-thrust nose and grabby fingers. That was a little embarrassing. She ran off in a huffy cloud of *harrumph*s and 'I never!'s. And I used the other bathroom, and only found out later that they're both for everyone. Hell, with that big hippoess charging at me, I almost didn't need either of them.
More importantly, though, who doesn't label their bathrooms? Who the hell is that helping? Even if they're both unisexually intended, at least put a 'Rest Room' sign on the damned things. Something. If I ever go back, I'm taking a dump in the pantry, just to teach them a lesson. Hey, who's to know which door is which? We'll see how 'Nice' the restaurant seems then. *Harrumph*, indeed.
It's easy to tell which fork to use--always use the one furthest from the plate. The waiter will (or should) take it away when it's time to switch. The bugger part is learning how to set such a fancy table--have sympathy for those poor waiters!
Ooh, and I remember the first (and only, come to think of it) time I went on a date to a really fancy restaurant. Between each course they served what I later found out was a sorbet to "cleanse the palette". I thought it was cool that we got dessert in the middle of the meal, but somewhat disappointed that the "ice cream" was so tiny!
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LOL, Very funny.