The new home of "The Frank Report."

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  If you're ever in DC, you need to swing by for lunch at High Noon; an upscale taste bud extravaganza. It's a bit pricey for salad/soup/sandwich fare but every penny is worth it. The list of stores can be found HERE.
posted at 8:11 AM

  Just to show how far things have changed, I came across a memo listing valuable websites while cleaning out my boss's cubicle last week. Why was I cleaning out his cubicle, you ask? Because the available space (desktop and under desktop included) was down to 2 square feet. Ended up throwing out a dumpster's worth of junk.

Anyway, this memo, dated February 2000, lists all kinds of useless websites that in the past two years have either folded, been bought out, or are obsolete. For instance:
free online disk space (www.freedrive.com), who does that anymore?;
(www.onlineelephant.com) an online reminder service, which requires you to share your e-mail address -- and we know where that leads. Everyone has a palm or blackberry now;
(www.votepote.com) to create your own surveys...I don't think that's a 'new' feature anymore;
the skworm and ssspider search engines (www.skworm.com/www.ssspider.com), everyone's using google now;
HumanSearch, (www.humansearch.com) where for $8 you could send search requests to their team of professionals to have them find it for you. Now everyone uses google.

And this is only a partial list. Just amazing.

posted at 7:58 AM

  Because I work with the FederalGovernment and it is casual Friday, I'm willing to extend a great deal of leeway towards the dress and hygiene of my fellow cube trolls, but some guy was coming into the building this morning wearing a ninja jacket and tabi socks. There has to be a point where someone steps in and says "enough is enough." Like the point I reached when I put up signs in the men's bathroom reminding them to flush. Not "flush twice just to be sure", but "for the love of God, please just flush when you're done."

In case you didn't know, if you continue to fill a urinal and do not flush it, it will overflow. My coworkers do not understand this concept. Nor do they understand that if you fill a urinal to the brim and then flush it, the additional water added to the mix in the process of emptying the contents will cause it to overflow.

That being said, tabi socks and ninja costumes are not appropriate dress for the office except on Halloween. And if you're hair looks like you've just stuck your finger in an electrical socket, you either need a haircut or a pint of gel before coming to work in the morning.

Not looking for miracles here. Just basic hygiene.
posted at 7:46 AM

  Little Green Footballs has a screen capture today of the Middle East maps used by certain German car companies. Both of them relabeled Israel as 'Palestine.' You can see it here.

There's a good series of back-and-forth letters at AmericanValues.Org which deals with the issue of why we're fighting the war on terror - and responses from other intellectuals.

And if you, like me, think that all these cameras are just a tad bit too totalitarian get your BigBrother fix at Obey Giant. It's the latest thing, and as we all know, I've never met a fad I didn't like.

I'm off to see a Baltimore Ravens game tonight and then out for a second round of pistol training this weekend so I can qualify for my concealed weapons permit. More blogging to come.


posted at 7:38 AM

  What a banner day it's been! Not only did I finally find a distributor who carries Transylvania University merchandise, but I've finally managed to track down a motivational cassette that I used to listen to back in college. Been searching for it for over 10 years.

I know it doesn't seem like a big whoop-de-doo, but it's resolving these nagging details from my huge world-spanning to-do list that makes it all worth while. (And no, the satisfaction has nothing to do with "buying things.")

posted at 12:24 PM

  This is why I have such a hoary skepticism of evangelical religious practicioners. Back in the day, Satanic cults and their originized abuse and molestation of children were all the rage and accepted as gospel. Now everyone can see them for the hysteric panic that they've always been.

I've always thought it would have been interesting to live during the time of the Salem witch trials. Little did I know that I would live long enough to see a similar hysteria sweep through my own time. Be careful what you wish for and all that.....

While I'm on the subject, has anyone else been following this "Left Behind" phenomena? Some people actually believe that the series is fortelling the end times which are occurring RIGHT NOW. Back in the 80's, Hal Lindsey wrote a similar series of books starting with "The Late Great Planet Earth." It was wrong and hysterical then. It's equally wrong and hysterical now. If the end times come, I have no doubt that it will be painfully obvious -- and too late to do anything about it.
Enough immanentizing the eschaton for today.

posted at 2:12 PM

  Sussex County, New Jersey, and the surrounding environs are now styling themselves as "The Skylands," a pretentious name if ever there was one.
Three strange places that I remember from growing up: Fairy Tale Forest, Santa's Workshop, and The Land of Make Believe.

Being exposed to these things at such a young age probably explains a lot.

To continue our Santa/childhood theme, if you, like me, ever wondered where the phrase "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," came from, check out THIS. (Site will work even if you don't dowload the software it offers.)

This site comes up when searching for "Okley sunglasses Clones." Sunglass clones be warned.

posted at 1:52 PM

  I love how Pennsylvania builds roads. West Virginia will force it's highways to hug every curve of a mountain, not daring to blast away a single rock. (That they leave for the strip mining companies.) Maryland, will force drivers to make a steep ascent, and then cut a channel through the top - just to take a bit off the drive without being too anti-environmental. Pennsylvania, just slaps a tunnel through anything that would be a pain to go over. Maybe that's why it costs $20 to drive from end to end.

Pittsburgh is one wacky town; a little bit West Virginia and a little bit Ohio; a little bit Chicago and a lot New York, with a dash of San Francisco on the side. I thought I was driving through a movie set for a Batman movie: two way streets that turn into one-way cobblestone alleyways, highways that feed under buildings, tunnels, bridges, more bridges, towering gothic skyscrapers, a red light district, an allergy to "grid" patterns, 5-way intersections, giant neon billboards - a general mishmash of styles right out of a 50's comic book or Tim Burton film. I haven't seen that many underdeveloped hillsides since Portland and Seattle. Come on! Who puts a two story house atop a mountain with a commanding view of the city? You level off the top and slap up a gigantic condo tower.

My stay in Pittsburgh was cut short (I plan on returning) because a Pittsburgh Pirates game was being played. The last thing I wanted to deal with was two lane closures on the main artery out of town and 10,000 fans all trying to squeeze into that last open lane at 11 o'clock at night.

So instead, I went down to party in Morgantown, West Virginia. Had driven through it before, never stopped. Without the college kids in town, there wasn't much to see or do. (I can hear you thinking to yourself: "what's there to see or do in Morgantown even with the kids around?") Ended up driving down to Charleston to have another wild night. Did so. Unfortunately, three major events were in town for that weekend, so there was (just like for the baby Jesus) no room at the inn. Instead, ended up sleeping in the car at a rest stop on I-79. Drove back through Maryland the next day. (Scratch "drive through Maryland panhandle" off to-do list) Did much sleeping the rest of the day. Eyes were irritated from all the driving. Need to "baby" my peeps after the LASIK.

1000 miles, 7 stops, in 2 days. Not my personal best, but not a bad haul for a spur-of-the-moment weekend.

posted at 1:44 PM

  The third stop on my tour was Somerset, Pennsylvania; site of the recent miners rescue and crash site of ill-fated United Flight 93 which crashed on September 11th. I went to see the crash site and pay my respects.

The memorial is small but heartfelt. You can't walk the crash site (for obvious reasons) but can view the field from a distance. Personal items are tacked up onto a big memorial board, and heartfelt messages are written in black magic marker all over the metal fencing that surrounds the parking lot.

Two sheriffs were on duty. Sad when that type of security is needed to safeguard what is basically an impromptu shrine.

If you find yourself on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the middle of the state, I highly recommend a quick visit. It will take 60 minutes altogether (20 minutes to the site, 20 minutes back, 10 minutes to visit) and the tollbooth staff have directions pre-printed and available upon request.
posted at 1:27 PM

  My second stop was at HersheyPark to take the "How We Make Chocolate" tour. Every NJ kid at one point or another has stopped by HersheyPark on a family vacation. I felt "deprived" not having done the same. Rather than do the amusement park, which I imagine is much like all the other amusement park's I've ever been to, I took the free Chocolate World (management's term, not mine) tour because it was, well, free.

Ah pity me, the poor sucker. I thought I'd actually get to see chocolate MADE. Instead, we were all treated to a motorized chocolate version of "It's A Small Refinement-Manufacturing-Distribution-And-Marketing World After All." From my plush seat at the front of my plastic motorized cart, I was whisked through the simulated bowels of a simulated factory where I watched simulated cocoa beans be turned into simulated chocolate. It was, hands down, one of the dumbest things I've ever experienced. (The animatronic cow added valuable bonus points to put the Hershey tour over the top on the list o' dumb things.) Only three things made the process bearable. One - some prankster had glued a Wrigley's chewing gum wrapper to the floor of the carousel where we waited before boarding our tour carts. It takes guts to slap a competing marketing label into the heart of enemy territory and it gave me plenty to smile about. Guerrilla marketing at its best. Two - some prankster had glued "Got Milk?" on the side of a miniature milk trunk in the miniature dairy display (next to the animatronic cow.) I can't imagine how many trips to took to case the joint and implement properly, but the perpetrator deserves mad props. Three - the final celebration of Hershey consumers - the requisite public photos - was very multicultural. By _very_ I mean that minorities outnumbered caucasians. That's something you never see in marketing materials.

I had heard through word of mouth that free chocolate was dispensed at the end of the tour, and I looked forward to this with great enthusiasm. For the Coca-Cola tour in Atlanta, visitors are invited to drink as much product, of all the various brands, as they like. It's dispensed in tiny paper cups, but hey, at least it's free and unlimited.

Hershey (that miserly bastard) was only giving out one mini-nub per person. Might as well have been giving out single kisses. And the end of the tour dumps you into a chocolate-laden gift shop and food court. So after you've been smelling and learning about food for 30 minutes, and just when you get a taste of it in your mouth, they dump you into the middle of a binge buying zone. (One day there will be an open revolt against this type of blatant manipulation and I will be standing atop a heap of marketing execs leading the charge, bayonet raised, red flag waving.)

To compound the horror, each piece of chocolate given away is individually wrapped. You do the trash math.
posted at 1:21 PM

  Gettysburg, HersheyPark, Somerset-PA, Pittsburgh, Morgantown, Charleston -- all in one day.

Took advantage of ridiculously low car rental rates to scratch a few more items off my "to do" list. Since they were all along the same trip route, I decided to make a weekend of it. The first item was to visit the Gettysburg National Memorial.

The first thing you should know about Gettysburg is that the staff will do everything in its power to keep you in the dark - from the useless website to the lack of any coherent maps of the area - this is the government kept secret YOU WERE NOT MEANT TO KNOW. I started my trip at the Visitor's Center, because as many of you know, the new doctrine of tourism in the 21st century is that everything worth seeing must have a visitor's center, just like every "proper" home has a living room where no living takes place, or china that is not sullied by food. When I heard one of the staffers announce that "since this is a Federal facility (!!?!!), anyone with a "backpack, daypack, large pack, knapsack, or large purse, will have to leave the building," I left the building. I am all for being vigilant in the face of terrorism, but the chances of al Queda blowing up the visitor's center at Gettysburg, are slim to none. I think this is where the "unreasonable" part of "unreasonable search and seizure" that the Founders had in mind.

Gettysburg doesn't get much of a breeze, so if you don't like you're vacation hot and sun-exposed, it is not the place for you. Also, if you have any allergies to dirt, dust, mold, grass, pollen, or hay it is not the place for you. If you have an aversion to "Ye Olde History Tours", with personnel in period costume, Gettysburg is not the place for you.

I stood near the monument marking where Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address. (Perhaps you've heard of it?) How cool is that? I also saw plenty of other monuments and markers that I wanted to see, but in line with the Park Service philosophy for this park, was unable to reach them through the redundant barriers of hedges, fences, walls, gravestones and trees.

I decided to make things easier on myself and do a self-directed driving tour instead. There were a few notable markers and sights that I wanted to see.......Only to discover that the driving tour, like the walking tour was a maze of dead-ends, one-way streets and cul-de-sacs. I must have spent 15 minutes driving around and around, trying to get near a particularly impressive old tree.

Everywhere you turn there's another odd marker, stone, historical monolith, or statue. A visit to Gettysburg is much like what I imagine a trip to Egypt or Greece would be like (only cooler and with more humidity.) Literally, you are tripping over history with every step. It can be creepy, or humbling, depending upon your point of view. (Note: Everyone understands that obelisks have a phallic shape; understands and overlooks. Making obelisks crowned with an enlarged bullet-shaped stone at the tip is just obscene.)

The Confederate side of the battlefield had an interesting eight story watch tower open to the public that gives a good aerial view. (When was the last time you climbed eight flights of stairs?) The tower, made out of flimsy rusted metal, was not the safest place to be during the lightning storm, but once I get an idea into my head (ie - "Climb this tower, Frank. See The View!) it's very hard to get it out. You may want to choose the butt of the person climbing in front of you with great care for your visit. You'll be seeing a lot of it.

Just to piss off the Confederate ghosts, I played Janet Jackson and En Vogue on the CD player during my trip. Nothing like a sassy and successful black woman to piss off a 19th century racist misogynist.

posted at 1:04 PM