BuggBlog

Day 2 -- Curse of the TiVo

And so then I was faced with the daunting task of watching eleven hours of U.S. Open Day 2 coverage in the span of four hours. It called for tough choices. I couldn't miss Blake v. Rusedski (a wise choice, it turned out). I stayed glued for what seemed hours to the Monfils v. Djokovic all-teen, all-timeout, five set smackdown (dubious choice). Convinced that the looming match between Roddick and Muller would be a blowout in Mr. Mojo's favor, I then spent my time watching Andrei Pavel fire obscenities at an overruling ref (although I sadly missed eventual winner Andy Murray firing vomitus onto the court). And I couldn't ignore a Lindsay Davenport match.

So I missed what will likely be the upset of the tournament because I simply had to go to bed. Skipping through that final match on TiVo, I was mildly surprised to first see Roddick down a set. Then more surprised to see him down two. Then shocked to see him entering a third and final tiebreaker. Guess those American Express ads turned out to be prescient. Even with my reservations about Roddick's demeanor -- Federer and Nadal remain much more inviting and entertaining personalities, to my taste -- he's still a light-years ahead on the charm and grace scale than such notable jerkwads as Lleyton Hewitt. It's kind of sad to see him go. I'm guessing there's going to be a new coach in Roddick's near future.

The upside? Robbie Ginepri may have a clear shot into the third round now that Andy's gone. Woo hoo! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the young (and not-so-young) Americans -- Scoville Jenkins, Blade, Ginepri -- get their day in the sun this year.

One more thing, speaking of Hewitt: As a number of friends of mine have noted, Kim Clijsters looks absolutely great. Obviously, she's never going to be considered a million-dollar model like Sharapova (whose fascination to straight men I simply do not understand), but it turns out that taking a year off from the tour and dumping her dickweed boyfriend made her blossom. Even I feel perky watching her being interviewed.

Thoughts on U.S. Open's first day

I had the foresight to take Monday off from work so I could focus on some important personal projects. Namely, a long, leisurely trip to Harris Teeter (what can I say, I enjoy some strange things) and some quality time with the first day of the U.S. Open. I will say that TiVo has made my televised tennis entertainment a far more fulfilling undertaking over the past year -- even with that help, I don't know how I'm going to get through 10 hours of tennis a day for almost two weeks. But, dammit, I'm going to try.

A few thoughts on the first day:

--Serena's $40K diamond earrings falling apart within the first few two games was about as perfect a moment as you could get. Although far better was the angry, booing reaction of the crowd when the USA buffon interviewing Serena post-match made a crack that the earrings cost more than here Chinese challenger "has earned in her career." Jerkwad. Glad Serena had the good and quick sense to tell the crowd that the crack was "mean."

--Watching Rafael Nadal. Umm, wow. Just an amazing sight to see. And some pretty good tennis, too. Ba dum bum. But how else am I supposed to react to this:

(More shots can be found at www.vamosrafael.com.)

--I can't help feeling sorry for Svetlana Kuznetsova. Seems like she's always struggling to get some measure of respect as a Russian in a Sharapova-dominated world, and this history-making loss isn't going to help matters much.

--Are there any matches more boring to watch than those played by Ivo Karlovic? Sure, he serves big and wins matches that way, and them's the rules. But what a frickin' snoozefest. I'm not a big Mardy Fish fan, but I really had hoped he would pull this one out.

--Eleni Danili-who? What was that all about? Justine Henin-Hardenne must be tearing her stringy hair out.

I'm not checking any scores before I get home to sit down with Day 2, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that James Blake makes it through, plus my new fave Robbie Ginepri.

A Saab story

I bet no one's ever written that headline before. Yeesh. Anyway, my review of the 2005 Saab 9-2X is up over at Metro Weekly. Not a bad car overall, although in large part that's because it's essentially a Subaru Impreza*, a car which I happen to like quite a bit. I think the Subaru probably gives a bit more bang for your buck.

A few notes on some cars in the upcoming to-be-reviewed pile:

-- I just returned the Cadillac XLR to its paternal corporate entity. I have mixed feelings about the big roadster. The retractable hardtop is a nifty engineering trick that draws curious and appreciative stares whenever it's operated -- it's like getting the chance to take Optimus Prime out for a spin. The engine moves things along at a throaty roar that I happen to like. But the XLR is also one of the most insanely impractical vehicles I've ever driven. With the top up, there's enough room for a weekend's-worth of luggage; with the top down, you'll be lucky to get a cosmetics case in there. Given that the XLR is essentially made to be driven with the top down -- when the top's up the cabin feels claustrophobic (though tightly sealed and drip-free) -- that makes the car essentially a $76,000 toy to keep in the garage while you use your real car for everything other than aimless cruising. Not that there's anything wrong with aimless cruising. But if you can only afford one $76,000 car (I cannot believe I just wrote that phrase) you should look elsewhere.

--The Subaru Tribeca is just as ugly as you've heard, and maybe even uglier. My own initial take is in my Saab review, that the Tribeca looks like it was designed by beating the modeling clay with an ugly stick. The race is on to come up with entertaining variations on "How ugly is the Tribeca?" Robert Farago at The Truth About Cars took an early lead by questioning why Subara decided to place a winged vagina on the car's grill, and then going on to describe the resemblance of the dashboard to fallopian tubes. Projection on the writer's part, or a valid description? You decide:

I'm not getting the vagina (there's another sentence I can't believe I just wrote), though it does look a little mouthy. I am, however, getting the fallopian vibe -- and I got it every time I climbed behind the Tribeca's wheel. I've mentioned before that I've built up a good amount of unexpected Subaru love, and I was excited to get a chance to drive the Tribeca. Unfortunately, it wasn't the  fun, positive experience I had hoped for. I'll go into more depth when I do the full review, but for now let's just say that a mid-sized SUV with cramped seating, purposefully ugly design without the cool factor, and an bad-shifting transmission don't add up to a vehicle that will make other SUVs obsolete.

*Corrected from the original, in which I moronically substituted "Outback/Legacy" for "Impreza," which are, of course, two different platforms. The perils of writing too fast. My apologies and thanks for all those Subie fans who so quickly corrected me here and over at Metro Weekly.

Motor Mouth

Andrew Sullivan's on an over-the-top rant against SUVs and all the evil they do. D.C.'s preminent bicyclist (cue the Margaret-Hamilton-on-a-bike music) lays the blame for Al Qaeda's terrorism at the feet of minivan-driving suburbanites, and calls for -- nay, demands -- action to end this scourge of American highways.

We can always stigmatize these SUV-terror-enablers. How about bumper-stickers for non-SUVs that simply say: my car doesn't subsidize Saudi terror. Would that help?

Just don't stigmatize the crystal meth addicts -- you wouldn't want to hurt their feelings, you know.

Lost in the off-with-their-heads hysteria that's more appopriate to the Huffington Post is the real and valid concern raised by Fareed Zakaria in the essay that set Sullivan off. The U.S. needs to reduce its dependency on foreign oil and develop new energy sources. But if Sullivan thinks either a Republican or Democratic government is going to start heavily taxing big engines and high fuel consumption, then he's abso-fucking-lutely high on the fumes.

In some ways, the market's already moving toward a more energy-efficient future with the growing popularity (and availability of hybrid models). And while SUVs naturally make up a huge portion of the nation's daily-use vehicles, that's the result of years of high-volume sales. With sales of SUVs leveling or decreasing, and gas prices going through the roof even in the absence of a new buck-fifty-a-gallon tax hike, people will continue to move toward vehicles that offer a better balance between size (and perceived safety and convenience) and fuel economy.

Do I think there should be some increased taxes on gas and overpowered cars and trucks? Yeah, there probably should be. But it's not going to happen, because people still want all the government they can avoid paying for. But promoting bumper-sticker slogans like "How many soldiers-per-gallon does your SUV get?" brings it down to the same level of claiming that only a mother has the experience to determine whether or not the country goes to war.

But I guess this is what happens when someone tries to drive their Hummer through P'town.

Tattoo you

I snapped up the recently-released Bangkok Tattoo shortly after finishing John Burdett's first novel, Bangkok 8. Burdett's first work was a great read -- fast-paced, deftly plotted, and all the usual superlatives that can be laden upon a novel that compels you to read it in one or two sittings (in my case, I tore through most of it during a car trip to and from Kentucky). Burdett's first-person protagonist, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, was a warm and living creation, often touching in the way he approached and interacted with a world teeming with vivid life -- vivid, but not always safe or enchanting.

In some ways, and we all know from experience, it's the nature of sequels to disappoint. You go back to the well for more, but it never quite tastes the same. But even allowing for that, Bangkok Tattoo is a let down, particularly when its predecessor is so fresh in memory. The vivid scenescapes of Bangkok and Thailand remain, as well as a cast of characters that surround Sonchai with a near tactile reality. The problem is that this time around, Burdett seems more inclined to make Sonchai a mouthpiece for himself, instead of a fully-realized character of his own. Where the devout Buddhist police detective was a masterpiece of subtle observation on his first outing, in Tattoo Sonchai has a distressing tendency toward didacticism. I'm not opposed to the idea that Sonchai -- who's half-Thai and half-American Caucasian -- might have disdain for aspects of Western culture, but it sounds more like the author than the character in passages such as this:

    They do O [opium] tours up north near the Laotian and Burmese boarders, although they don't call them that, of course. Adventure is the word. You get the elephant trek through the jungle, the bamboo raft on the river, all the ganja you can smoke -- and a couple of very special nights in one of those flimsy bamboo shacks you see so much of in Vietnam movies, sharing a pipe or ten with those colorful mountain tribesmen and women (whose children, for reasons lost to history, know all the words to the song "Frere Jacques" and are liable to belt them out at the slightest provocation). And why not? It's not as addictive as TV, than which there is no greater mental pollutant. For centuries the white man was a passionate trafficker, even fighting righteous wars to uphold his sacred duty to alleviate the burden of existence for Asia's teeming billions with a drug already deemed dangerous to white men. (Ring a bell, Philip Morris?) Nowadays there's a lot more profit in prescription tranquilizers and home entertainment...think about it.

Another letdown is the plot itself, which begins like its predecessor with a mystifying and grotesque murder. But after a few interesting by-ways, that plot ends with a letdown resolution, mostly because you realize that all the groundwork Burdett constructs -- the imminent arrival of Sonchai's father, his protege Lek's embarkation on an MTF transsexual journey under the tutelage of the prior book's "villain" -- is simply a bridge to the presumed next book in a series. The solution to Tattoo's main mystery seems bizarre for bizarre's sake -- it has none of the resonance of Bangkok 8.

If I sound harsh on a novelist's sophomore effort, I'm not, exactly. I enjoyed it, to a point. It's certainly better than most others you'll find in the genre. But when a writer sets the bar high with his first effort, it's reasonable to hope he comes within reach of, if not surpass, that level on the next go-around. With a little less authorial intrusion and a little more focus on the present novel as opposed to the next proposal, Bangkok Tattoo would likely have made that goal. As it stands, Burdett only manages to fall entertainingly short.

Like a schoolgirl with a new pony

Okay, well that's kind of a strange headline, but I'm tired from trying to meet this week's Metro Weekly deadline. What has me so excited is what should be waiting for me in the driveway when I get home this afternoon. Namely...

Now, I get excited over any new car that I'm slated to review. The overall increase in quality of cars -- whether American, European or Asian -- means that almost everything is at minimum serviceable, and probably does at least one thing particularly well. Even a car I end up not caring for -- say, the BMW 525 -- can be an excellent car that happens to be marred by some bad design and implementation choices. It's not like I kicked the Bimmer out of my driveway or anything.

Anyway, I'm surprised by the extent that Cadillac's grown on me over the past couple of years. In fact, I'm terrified, because a part of me will always associate Cadillacs with fat-assed, middle-aged white guys with terrible fashion sense. Or pimps. And, while I'm not a pimp, I am a near-middle-aged white guy who's not fully imbued with the gay fashion gene...and we'll leave it at that. And I'll admit I wasn't a big fan of the angular Caddy style at its debut, but it's continued to grow on me (quite the opposite of other high-style vehicles that I loved at first, then quickly tired of. Hello, PT Cruiser). I do draw the line at the new DTS, at least styling-wise. My butt feels bigger just looking at it. The STS, however, is pretty sweet for a land barge.

Then again, what it all comes down to is a simple formula. It go fast = me happy.

I'll let you know later how the equation holds up.

Tongue-tied

I decided to bust out some of my newly-learned Vietnamese tonight while have having* dinner with Cavin's cousins. Very basic stuff, like being able to say something's red (mau do) or yellow (mau vang). I even managed to string together a sentence describing the kids swimming out back (Hai em gai va mot em trai dang bo'i). Still, I have a ways to go before anyone can understand me. In the same way that all the Vietnamese words I've typed out here really have no meaning without all the diacritic symbols to signify pronunciation, my matching of the necessary tones is pretty off, rendering much of what I say into gibberish. I've also found that the program I'm using to teach myself is trying instill a northern Vietnamese accent -- and I'm surrounded by family from southern Vietnam. Guess it's kind of like a a non-English speaker learning Boston English to speak with a southern Alabama family. Or something like that.

*And mistakes like this really make me look forward to learning Vietnamese grammar...

The Joys of August

August just ain't much fun. It's hot, it's nasty, and I tire so easily of hearing about how dead the city is because simply everyone is out of town on vacation. Since that's obviously not true, as I'm still here, as well as all the people who cut me off, slam on their brakes, and otherwise make my drive to work such a daily adventure. When folks on the news or on media blogs go on about everyone being away, what they mean is everyone who counts is away. So get your ass back to toiling so things don't fall apart while your superiors are soaking up the sun on the beach -- they're just itching for an excuse to fire your ass when they get back.

Since I was raised in a family where my dad had his own business, of which he was generally the only employee, and my mom worked at the county hospital, long summer vacations away from home were not the norm. A couple days here, perhaps a long weekend there, that was usually the extent. Anything longer -- Massachusetts, North Carolina -- generally involved visiting family. And this was all for the best, as any trip over 30 minutes generally resulted in my sister getting car sick and at least one family argument.

I didn't even start taking what I would consider real vacations -- involving travel, a hotel, and at least one stop at a destination that requires a ticket and has its own gift shop -- until a couple of years ago. That's pretty much when I started being able to afford them. Although my recent "vacations" with Cavin have generally revolved around playing in gay tennis tournaments, which leaves little time for gift shops. The resolution for this year has been to take a real, non-tennis vacation. It hasn't come yet, and I'm not sure if tacking one on at the end of the upcoming National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association conference is going to count. But we'll try! Next year, I'm leaving during August though -- my ego just can't take it anymore.

But this particular August... Well, let's just say I came home after work today to this:

The sliding glass door on our back deck is broken, from top to bottom. My first, most obvious thought was that someone had been trying to break in. No one had, and given that nothing seemed to be missing or disturbed around the house, I was thinking random vandalism issues. So, call the cops, explain the situation, call Cavin, wait for police. When the policeman arrived, it was pretty cut and dry -- there was no real indication that anyone had broken the window. There seemed to be no impact point on the glass. And then there was the fact that all the glass is still in the frame. So, someone could have smashed it, or, he pointed out, "It could have just been the heat."

Like I said, August ain't much fun.

Roddick, revisited

As I said in an earlier post, while I don't care for Andy Roddick while he's on court, when he's off court he's generally a model of how a tennis champion should behave. To wit, after last night's loss to Paul Henri Mathieu:

Roddick didn't blame the loss on fatigue from the Washington tournament.

"It just felt totally different out there than it did just two days ago," he said. "The court, the balls, they're all a little bit different. You know, I just didn't adjust."

Mathieu, whose win improved his record this season to 18-19, beat a top-10 opponent for the first this year.

"I thought he played great, let's get that out there right now," Roddick said. "He really took it to me so I was playing reactive instead of active."

I know, it's probably more my issue being bothered by his on-court demeanor. But he deserves the praise he gets for everything else. If only I didn't find his style of play so frickin' boring to watch -- God forbid I ever sit through another Roddick-Karlovic serve-a-thon match. But last night's Mathieu match was certianly exciting. Now, I just have to make some time to catch Nadal tonight. Mmmm, pirate pants....

Not-so-love game

The past weekend was one of those that, in retrospect, seems more activity-packed than it was at the time. Of course, that's mainly if you consider watching televised pro tennis an "activity." I do. Particularly when it's so exhausting to watch some of my favorite players fall to Andy Roddick.

As you can probably guess, I'm not a huge Roddick fan. I have to admit to mixed feelings about him, however. Watching him on the court is often an irritating experience for me -- the cock-of-the-walk attitude that occasionally veers into Connors-like territory all oozes the continuing influence of former coach Brad Gilbert. Sure, Roddick dumped Gilbert a while ago, but it's hard not to think that much of the on-court strutting has its roots in that coaching relationship. Yes, Roddick's aggressive and competitive attitude is probably the quality that separates him from other equally (or more) talented players. The idea is that a universally liked, nice-guy player like Paradorn Srichiphan can't break through in the big matches. But then, how would you explain the success of the low-key and nearly-invincible Roger Federer.

Granted, Roddick was nowhere near as grating at last weekend's Legg Mason as he was at this year's Wimbledon, particularly his match against Daniele Bracciali, which proved even straight boys can pull off a diva act.

The reason I have mixed feelings about Roddick, though, is that immediately after the end of a match he reverts to a state of grace -- complimentary of his opponents, self-deprecating about himself, gracious to the fans. In short, everything we should hope for in an age of spoiled-brat athletes. The exceptions have been rare (see Bracciali). His nice guy persona in all other aspects is so winning, I just wish he could drop the act on the court. I would hate to see him evolve into a true Connnors-esque play. Unlike so many with fond memories of one of the tennis world's biggest jerk-wards, I can't stand the man. Every time a rain delay at the U.S. Open makes CBS pull out a tape of the Conners-Krickstein match, I just want to gouge my eyes out. What a vain, silly, obnoxious player he was.