The Dowg Shack

Something I was reading this morning got me in the mood for a hotdog. This was not part of my dietary plan for the weekend, but the calling was loud and insistent.

When we first moved into this house nearly four years ago, there was a little red hotdog hut next to a local car dealership. The Dowg Shack was typically open from May through October. Sadly, something happened that closed them down permanently two years ago. I never heard why. Then, about a year and a half ago, we noticed that a hole-in-the-wall convenience store converted over to a new location for The Dowg Shack. Since the location sucked for the convenience store, I doubted that the hotdog establishment would fair much better. I am thrilled to have been proven wrong.

Today is a bright warm spring Saturday. What a great time to check out the new location of The Dowg Shack. The new spaces is roomy, with video games, radio over the speaker system, and a muted television over one of the display fridges. There's a corner with some kids toys, and some books left lying around (see the book crossing web site).

I ordered a Greek Dowg (Feta cheese, melted cheddar cheese, black olives & green olives). While the chef was making my dog, he asked if I'd like some jalapenos on it. The way he asked was like a drug dealer asking if you would like a little heroin with your pot. Then he asked if I'd like some sauteed onions. I did not turn either temptation down. When my order was up, he included a bowl with a few regular french fries and a few sweet potato french fries. Both were fabulous.

I'm not big into MySpace but they do have a presence there as well as on Facebook. I scanned their menu as a PDF. Hope they don't mind. (grin)

Making a College Years playlist

I've been contemplating making a playlist of tunes my friends and I all enjoyed in college. Hopefully, I can get some help from those of you who put up with me back then !

This list is not meant to be a comprehensive list of early 80s music. I'm just trying to remember what most of us, as a group, liked to listen to. Much of what is here is stuff that I may not have picked up on my own, but owe to the taste of my dear friends:

Adam Ant Friend or Foe
Aerosmith
Blondie
Bruce Springsteen
Cars
David Bowie Let's Dance in particular
Devo
Dire Straits
Duran Duran
Elvis Costello
English Beat, The
Face Dancer "Red Shoes" a local phenomenon
Fixx, The
Fleetwood Mac
Foreigner
Gary Numan
Genesis
Hall and Oates
Heart
Human League
Jackson Brown
Jethro Tull
Joan Jett
Joe Jackson Night and Day and Look Sharp
Journey
Knack, The
Led Zeppelin
Pat Benatar
Peter Gabriel
Police, The
REO Speedwagon
Rainbow's Down to Earth
Ramones
Roxy Music
Split Enz
Stevie Nicks
Stray Cats
Styx The Grand Illusion
U2
Ultravox Vienna
Vapors, The "Turning Japanese"
Yaz Upstairs at Eric's

I look forward to corrections and comments from my droogies.

I still buy CDs

In April, I purchased about sixty songs via iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic. That's an average month for me.

My iTunes library is currently at 16,559 items. While I have ripped a significant portion of my CD collection to my iTunes library, I haven't gotten around to all of it.

Currently, my iPod Nano has about 2400 songs on it.

In summation, I am a music addict. I have a particular fondness for the convenience of digital music. I love making playlists, putting my iPod on shuffle, and burning CDs for long car rides.

The music industry is concerned that music afficianados are only buying one or two songs off an album. CD sales are declining faster than digital revenues are rising.

While I am buying more digital music than ever, my CD purchases have not been eliminated all together. I still buy one or two CDs every month (on top of those sixty digital song purchases). Why do I still buy CDs? If I really love a band's music I like the comfort of having the physical CD. I like being able to control the bit rate at which I copy the music to my computer. I also like supporting bands I really care about.

Prime example how important band support is to me: I had initally pre-ordered the new Dave Matthews Band album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King from Amazon. The price was right, $9.99. However, DMB's online store was offering a great fan package that included a t-shirt and a Live Trax CD from one of last year's concerts. The package cost me $29.99, plus shipping (which I would have been spared from on Amazon since I have Amazon Prime). So, I canceled my Amazon order and grabbed the package from the DMB store. Factoring out the costs of the t-shirt and the live CD, Big Whiskey cost me $14.99 plus shipping. That's at least $5 more than it would have cost me over at Amazon. However, I liked the package and I like supporting DMB.

Some other bands whose CDs I have purchased recently: Green Day, The Fray, U2 and Crystal Method.

I hope the music industry stays profitable and is able to continue to produce CDs for those who want them. Note: At last count, I have over 2000 CDs. I'm thinking I could be a DJ ... hee hee

We'll miss you, Dom

I used to love Dom DeLuise. So I was sad to hear of Dom DeLuise's death

Some youngsters actually do live 'unplugged'

I'll admit it; I joined the collective. As and InfoSec professionally, I understand and soapbox about the dangers of social networking sites. So, when I recently gave in and activated my Facebook account, I kind of felt like a hypocrite. Why did I do it? "Gee, Mom, everyone else was doing it," just seems like a cop out doesn't it.

In truth, many of my friends are on Facebook. I have been a Tweet-geek on Twitter for about a year now. Many Tweeters are also on Facebook. (Twitter: It's a gateway drug.) Actually, the real gateway drug was IM, which I used to do pretty frequently. However, I often don't have a lot of time for IM conversations during my work day; so, I gave in to Tweeting. Twitter allows you to shout out a 140 character message to all who follow you. In turn, I follow about a dozen friends who Tweet. And, it turns out that Facebook is at least a little bit fun. (Yet another time suck in my technologically overstocked life.)

For the uninitiated, I'm sure this sounds like Mega Geek Speak. My apologies, REALLY! There is no escaping this stuff any more.

I absolutely will not do MySpace. That site is so rife with garbage and malware its like being a suburbanite walking down a street in South East DC at midnight (re: asking for trouble).

I sometimes wish I could be like Anna Raassina and Stephen Seaward of Brookline, MA. These two actually live 'off the grid' so to speak. They have no Internet or cable at their house. They only use their television for the very occasional DVD. They don't IM. They only use their cell phones for emergencies (ok, I can relate to THAT). They are near Luddites.

What would my life be like without my constant touch with the Internet? Without my television shows? Without mundane Tweets and emails? Without my silly (and really brief and low-tech) computer games?

I think that is another reason I am looking forward to my meditation retreat in July. I will not have Internet. I will not have access to a television. I will not be able to get a cell signal on the island. (I will have my iPod. Though, it might do me good to disconnect from that as well. But, THAT is just way too scary.)

There's a book I've been contemplating. It's called One Second After. It's kind of a post-apocalyptic themed thing. Think on this: What if terrorists used an EMP weapon to wipe out the majority of our technology? What would our lives be like? How long would most of us last?

There is a series of books that I started years ago based on this premise. S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire. I'm about a third of the way through the second book: The Protector's War. The first book was fabulous. The second lost some of the steam of the original. There are now five books in the series, I think.

In summation: What would you do without electricity and technology? How would you survive? Even if the food/shelter/warmth fairy made sure you were taken care of on those basic fronts, how would you feel about a life devoid of the trappings of technology?