Our last night in Paris, we found ourselves at Brasserie Balzar for dinner. This place is something of a landmark (even with its recent aquisition by a large corporation) in the center of the St. Germain area. The place is pretty popular, so it was with a certain lack of wisdom that we arrived sans reservations, much to the annoyance of the manager. We explained in our broken Junior High French that yes, we should have made reservations, but that we would be happy to take any table, perhaps the small one there on the terrace? Yes, that would be fine. Having made friends with the manager, we sat down to dinner and entertainment.
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Archive for May, 2005
Service with a Smile
May 31st, 2005 by psuBlueberries Spotted
May 30th, 2005 by peterbThe pints of blueberries have arrived. I am happy, until late September.
The Perfect Storm
May 27th, 2005 by psuIf you ever find yourself sitting in the F terminal of the FilthyPhiladephia International Aiport waiting for a U.S. Airways Express plane to take you back home to Pittsburgh, you know you have had a bad day. Every single person at the gate had the same story to tell. There was the woman who had been four hours late getting out of Seattle and re-rounted half way around the world and back to the F terminal. There was the Westinghouse manager who pulled into the gate with the only food he had had all day, a large latte, and a story about how his international flight had lost an hour at takeoff. And there were several people who, like us, had been two hours late taking off from Paris and, having missed connections, ended up here.
It’s hard to think of experiences more unpleasant than spending 11 hours on an Airbus A330, but really, that wasn’t the hard part of the day. It was the two hours in that nexus of human suffering that we humans call the PHL International Arrivals area that put me over the edge. I believe that U.S. Airways, the city of Philadelphia, the TSA, and the architects who designed the international wing of PHL all should be given some kind of award for accidentally perfecting the optimally bad customer service experience. It must have taken a lot of work over a lot of years to do this, but they nailed it.
Note: I usually try to keep this a family blog, but the following entry is, as Lenny Henry once put it, the result of all kinds of rude words dancing around in my head trying to get out, so be warned.
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Whine and Spirits
May 26th, 2005 by peterbEvery so often, I think that I’ve reached some sort of plateau in terms of how much I hate the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Then I make some stupid mistake, like shopping at a Pennsylvania liquor store again, and I discover new vistas of animosity and contempt.
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…Or Anything By Tom Waits
May 24th, 2005 by peterbIn 1988, LSD was popular among some people at Carnegie Mellon. So much so that when a number of people had “bad trips,” the administration released a public service announcement warning people: “The acid with the picture of the sunshine on it is bad, and has been causing bad trips. Stay away from the ‘bad acid’“. Then, of course, for the rest of the academic year, absolutely everyone on campus used “Whoah, bad acid!” as a catchphrase.
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Ask the Audience
May 23rd, 2005 by peterbToday I saw the first hour and 40 minutes of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
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More Forza Thoughts
May 20th, 2005 by peterbI’m still not ready to give my full review, because I’m still evaluating the game.
That being said, I have spent the past 2 hours saying “well, just one more race,” and my heart is pumping in a way that it hasn’t been since the San Francisco tracks of the original Project Gotham Racing. So I would be remiss if the last thing I left you with for the weekend was my cryptic “Hmmmmmmm” from yesterday.
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Forza First Impressions
May 19th, 2005 by peterbWell, it’s better than Gran Turismo 4, but…
Hmmmmmmmmmm.
I’m not feeling terribly optimistic today. I’ll play it for a few more days before going in to more detail.
Harry Up, Already
May 18th, 2005 by peterbYes, I’m desperate for the sixth book in the Harry Potter series to be published, already.
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Books in a Blender
May 17th, 2005 by peterbTonight, we began playing with book titles, rewritten to include references to food. Or videogames. Or both. We very quickly settled in to a groove. Here are the results.
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