mercredi, novembre 14, 2007
too sober to sleep, too drunk to cry
I did something wrong when planning our Buffalo trip last weekend. I assumed that since the concert venue was right downtown we'd be able to find a hotel room in the vicinity and we'd be all set, so no need to make a reservation, right? But apparently there was a hockey game on Saturday - maybe even against Toronto - so it turned out that all the hotels downtown were pretty much booked solid. Eek.
We were cutting it close to show time, so when I saw the "Lafayette Hotel" sign shining a few blocks ahead of us, I figured it was worth checking out. Well, the word from this website is that "In its heyday, the Lafayette Hotel was considered one of the 15 finest hotels in the country", but let me just say that it is far, far from that state now. Hell, it was built at the end of the 19th century, so it is well past its heyday. Full of potential, but not living up to it. Definitely needs a little love...
When we got to the front desk to say we wanted a room, the woman handed us a key and told us to go look at the room first before deciding to register. We laughed most of the way up in the ancient elevator, down the super-wide hallways, to room 609. The room was not fancy, that's for sure, but I didn't quite know what we were looking for. It was clean, too hot, and seriously old-fashioned, but we were a little anxious about finding something and weren't about to be too picky. It ended up being super-cheap, too, so that was a bonus. One thing we hadn't anticipated, however, was the super-thin walls and the super-trashy neighbours who spent most of the night yelling at each other. I even knocked on the wall at one point and was able to request in a non-yelling voice that they respect our decision to, um, sleep given the late hour. Pretty amusing, that whole adventure. But I don't recommend it, especially given that it was in an end of downtown that seemed a tad sketchy.
It really was surprising how rundown, dirty and poor a lot of that city seemed. Maybe I'm just good at finding the roughest parts of cities (I've toured them in Seattle and San Francisco too), but it seems like many US cities are struggling. Devin and I talked about how the US may not tax its wealthier citizen as much as we do in Canada, but isn't it something to say that, to a certain extent, we at least take care of our own..? Healthcare, education, social assistance of various forms - I'm proud that we are better at sharing our wealth. You just have to read the various articles outlining random facts about Americans having a higher infant death rate (in my shared items recently), or the one about how most developed countries have citizens who are progressively getting taller, but in the US, because of the unequal distribution of social services and basic healthcare, they're not keeping up. Kinda random, yeah, but food for thought.
More randomness:
I've started watching the ABC show Brothers and Sisters this year and am loving it more and more with each episode. They were kind enough to do a re-cap show at the beginning of this season, and I'm pretty much hooked. The only problem is that I keep forgetting to watch it on television, am not even sure what night it's on (Sunday maybe?), so I end up downloading it. This week's episode was particularly good, I thought. Check it out if you're looking for a quality show to watch.
When I upgraded my banking fee package recently at the Royal Bank, they were kind enough to send me a $150 gift card for the Bay as a token of their appreciation. So a couple weeks ago I went appliance shopping. You see, I'm a fan of minute rice, mostly because it's so quick and easy (and goes good with cheese!), but I know it's not really the best rice you can eat. I just never had the patience to wait for traditional rice to cook on the stovetop, and wasn't really a fan of the way it turned out. Enter in Stacey's new rice cooker: add rice and water, turn on and walk away. The machine just knows when the rice is cooked and shuts itself off. Pretty quick, too - genius! I'm totally going to start buying fancy rices like Basmati.
My second purchase was a small food processor. For pureeing stuff, I suppose. Monday I took it on its first test drive with potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots, for a kind of cream-of-potato-and-carrot soup. It turned out awesome!
And because I know you want to see more of the Blue Rodeo show, here's a clip of them accompanying young Justin Rutledge (an amazing Canadian artist in his own right). It was a "Blue Rodeo & friends" show, so Ron Sexsmith and Luke Doucet also made appearances. What a show.
| ¶ 2:24 p.m.
We were cutting it close to show time, so when I saw the "Lafayette Hotel" sign shining a few blocks ahead of us, I figured it was worth checking out. Well, the word from this website is that "In its heyday, the Lafayette Hotel was considered one of the 15 finest hotels in the country", but let me just say that it is far, far from that state now. Hell, it was built at the end of the 19th century, so it is well past its heyday. Full of potential, but not living up to it. Definitely needs a little love...
When we got to the front desk to say we wanted a room, the woman handed us a key and told us to go look at the room first before deciding to register. We laughed most of the way up in the ancient elevator, down the super-wide hallways, to room 609. The room was not fancy, that's for sure, but I didn't quite know what we were looking for. It was clean, too hot, and seriously old-fashioned, but we were a little anxious about finding something and weren't about to be too picky. It ended up being super-cheap, too, so that was a bonus. One thing we hadn't anticipated, however, was the super-thin walls and the super-trashy neighbours who spent most of the night yelling at each other. I even knocked on the wall at one point and was able to request in a non-yelling voice that they respect our decision to, um, sleep given the late hour. Pretty amusing, that whole adventure. But I don't recommend it, especially given that it was in an end of downtown that seemed a tad sketchy.
It really was surprising how rundown, dirty and poor a lot of that city seemed. Maybe I'm just good at finding the roughest parts of cities (I've toured them in Seattle and San Francisco too), but it seems like many US cities are struggling. Devin and I talked about how the US may not tax its wealthier citizen as much as we do in Canada, but isn't it something to say that, to a certain extent, we at least take care of our own..? Healthcare, education, social assistance of various forms - I'm proud that we are better at sharing our wealth. You just have to read the various articles outlining random facts about Americans having a higher infant death rate (in my shared items recently), or the one about how most developed countries have citizens who are progressively getting taller, but in the US, because of the unequal distribution of social services and basic healthcare, they're not keeping up. Kinda random, yeah, but food for thought.
More randomness:
I've started watching the ABC show Brothers and Sisters this year and am loving it more and more with each episode. They were kind enough to do a re-cap show at the beginning of this season, and I'm pretty much hooked. The only problem is that I keep forgetting to watch it on television, am not even sure what night it's on (Sunday maybe?), so I end up downloading it. This week's episode was particularly good, I thought. Check it out if you're looking for a quality show to watch.
When I upgraded my banking fee package recently at the Royal Bank, they were kind enough to send me a $150 gift card for the Bay as a token of their appreciation. So a couple weeks ago I went appliance shopping. You see, I'm a fan of minute rice, mostly because it's so quick and easy (and goes good with cheese!), but I know it's not really the best rice you can eat. I just never had the patience to wait for traditional rice to cook on the stovetop, and wasn't really a fan of the way it turned out. Enter in Stacey's new rice cooker: add rice and water, turn on and walk away. The machine just knows when the rice is cooked and shuts itself off. Pretty quick, too - genius! I'm totally going to start buying fancy rices like Basmati.
My second purchase was a small food processor. For pureeing stuff, I suppose. Monday I took it on its first test drive with potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots, for a kind of cream-of-potato-and-carrot soup. It turned out awesome!
And because I know you want to see more of the Blue Rodeo show, here's a clip of them accompanying young Justin Rutledge (an amazing Canadian artist in his own right). It was a "Blue Rodeo & friends" show, so Ron Sexsmith and Luke Doucet also made appearances. What a show.
| ¶ 2:24 p.m.
