Meaning I had two iced Dunkin Donuts coffees during the day. Yum. That was even after making real fresh ground Peet’s coffee this morning for breakfast. No, I don’t roast my own beans, but I do respect those who do. But I also very much enjoy the thin brown flavor of that local behemoth coffee shop, Dunkin Donuts. Little known fact (unless you read corporate history websites): the 100th Dunkin Donuts franchise opened in 1963, and the 1,000th franchise in 1979! No wonder I feel a kinship with the local chain, and remember Fred so fondly.
But the story isn’t about the donuts, and it isn’t even about the coffee, since heck, it wasn’t that hot today. The second iced was to get through putting my father’s air conditioner in, which always ends up being hot and sticky work no matter the weather. This post is actually about another song of my daughters, titled simply enough “Dunkin Donuts”. I sure hope their lawyers come emailing down my website to complain about trademark violations…
Dun-kin Doooo–nuts
Dun-kin Doooo–nuts
Dunnn-kin Doooo–nuts
The store is very far from heeere
Well, we had just left one DD, and were just driving past another DD on the other side of the road (if you know the Fresh Pond circles, you know what I mean), but it was a very cute song nonetheless. I was really hoping she’d continue, but the next verse to the same tune was about going to the pool, which we were about to do. More later about my theories on the Dunkin Distance, and the average Dunkin Daily Drive Time later.
One fun thing – for me, anyway – with having a fractal commute is that I get to see varied scenery each day. Not only plenty of variety with the side streets I tend to take in my quest to avoid the big stoplights, but also different streets as I experiment with shortest time or with fractality attempts with my route.
Somehow in the past week I’ve wandered into what seems like half of the road construction in eastern MA. Some days I’ve passed by a half-dozen different road crews digging up the road – almost one per mile of commute. And they’re not small ones – no, no, big sections or strips of the road are coming up.
The funny thing is, in most of the cases they’re digging up the middle of the road – either in long narrow trenches for one new pipe, or in big chunks for who knows what. This means traffic can still flow – but usually pretty slowly. In a couple of cases, there are several local businesses that must definitely be feeling the effect of reduced traffic and no parking on their block.
Is this the usual spring/early summer workload to replace underroad infrastructure, and my seasonal memory has just forgotten it over the year? Or am I extra special lucky-guy to have this many road crews right in the middle of the road this month?
Hmmmm. Thinking about the title of my post, that could equally refer to the situation in US politics these days. Sigh.
http://tinyurl.com/36qj7f, via BigHeadDennis. The alarm clock knocks the ball, which rolls into the contraption, which… … which rolls back into the bedroom, and opens the shades.
- Bonus points for cell phone autodial, which calls another cellphone on vibrate to slide down a slope.
- Bonus points for use of the kitchen faucet, but only if the contraption also turns off the faucet aftewards.
- Silly points for ingenious use of an autopilot chess board, although I wonder how they really did that one.
- Points off for the frequent cuts in the video footage, leading to the possibility of it being
several separate events.
You’ll never guess where I thought of these: yes, driving in my car with the CD player going.
Do you lock up your Police discs at night?
Do you ever want to listen to the diVinyls in the original format?
Do you get a rush from listening to them?
Does listening to too much Jimmy Buffett make you full?
Does AC/DC just plain make your head hurt thinking of the load on the circuits?
Does listening to Ice Cube just make you cold?
Is it hard to figure out exactly who’s signing on Various Artists?
If people were fighting over the latest Fray album, would you jump in?
Do you only listen to Dire Straits last?
The entitlement is free speech. A weak title, I realize, but it’s been a hard morning so far.
Yes, it’s that year for me. Not the first big round after college of friends in similar age to you, but the next one. It’s actually pretty surreal, because it completely doesn’t seem real, but it also seems like just the right kind of time to have them.
I’ve only had the chance to go to the parties for two friends, but they were both a blast. It’s also amazing how easy it is to stay up until 2AM – even for a parent of a toddler – when you’re doing something fun with friends. (This post would be notably longer except for the fact of my exhaustion).
In any case, many thanks to Kim for putting on the spectacular surprise party, and for JB for being the consummate host as ever – even of his own birthday party. I’ve always thought that Dire Strait’s My Parties could have been written about JB. And I never imagined that that many lobsters could all fit into the same pot (and come out so deliciously!).
More on birthdays later, I think: but you’ll have to wait, since I tend to be late with things (like presents and cards, sigh).
And many happy returns to all. We’re grilling outdoors today – how about you?
With special greetings and bright thoughts to those readers down in that other hemisphere!
(Shane, cursing himself for not having posted in time, since I messed up the UT calculation of when the local solstice actually is.)
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
Although I think it’s pretty cheap, since they didn’t even include sound! Well, OK, I admit it, I’m connecting over IPv4, so maybe 6 has the sound included.
OMG, I never knew, and it’s been around for over 6 years. Sigh. The internet is too big for hu-mans.
For a variety of reasons, I was recently inspired to look up a number of high school friends and teachers. So this post is my way of saying “Hi, long time no… read about!” to anyone who’s coming to look at my blog.
I don’t know about everyone else – especially those in Europe or outside of the US, who seem to have a very different rythm to their school systems – but high school was really a defining moment for me. The experiences, environment, teachers, and friends I made from sophomore through senior year in high school are still important to me today. I hope I can get back in touch with some of those old friends now. We’ll see. You can’t go back again, or rather, everything is different if you go back. And it really helps to have some better writing in your blog postings too, something I hope to do once I’ve had more coffee today – or less pollen, in any case.
P.S. to some retiring teachers – and those who are still there! – especially S.E.T. and G.H., many thanks for your teaching, humor, and experiences. They did make a difference.
