Miscellaneous Debris – Archive

(Hey, it’s not my pun. It’s a real Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream flavor!) Today we’ll do a bit of sight-seeing. A few days ago (2? 3? I can’t keep track) we sped through Vermont during the late morning and early afternoon. It’s a big and empty country, Vermont. About 24,000 sq. miles (the second largest […]

In Manhattan you can’t throw a rock without breaking a Starbucks window, and with Starbucks comes wireless internet. The coffee stinks, but it’s convenient. In Boston we sat in a primitive cafe that didn’t offer wireless, though the coffee was better. Had to keep shifting to laptop around the table to catch a whiff of […]

Outside of New York, near the incosequential town of Elmsford sits the majestic site of the El-Dorado diner.

The casino floor at the Showboat hotel in Atlantic city is a product placement bonanza. I was on a Monopoly rush, coming in from Boardwalk and all, and immediately spotted a Monopoly-themed slot machine. My momentary excitement was swallowed by the realization that there was a slot machine for every franchise, every topic, every theme. […]

This town – or is it this country? – seems obsessed with puns. Whether it is theater taglines like the one in the subject line or names of restaurants all across the city – from A Salt and Battery to the Soy Luck Club. You can see it in newspaper headlines and in billboards everywhere. […]