I am a Moxie virgin no more

I was at a Fresh Market store yesterday and while perusing the various glass-bottled beverages in the refrigerated case, I came across something I never thought I'd see outside of New England: brown glass bottles of Moxie. Talk about a holy shit moment!

Moxie has been sold as a soft drink since 1884, and before that, like many soft drinks, it was sold as a medicine. It remains popular around Maine. I always thought I'd have to order it online to try it. I've always wanted to try it, so that I may enjoy a very obscure bit of American culinary history. It's definitely unlike any other carbonated beverage I've had. It basically tastes like root beer but with an additional medicinal taste, which most likely comes from the "gentian root extract" found on the label. It tempers sweetness with a little bitterness. I can't say I would drink this very often, but I recommend that everyone try it just once, if only for the experience of it.

Grail Diarrhea

I'm trying to figure out an efficient way to mass-produce my hand-drawn version of the Grail Diary from Last Crusade, in hopes of selling them on ebay as an affordable alternative to the prop-quality ones that go for hundreds of dollars, which are aged by hand and bound in leather one at a time. Even if I printed scans of the book onto aged-looking parchment paper, binding a book by hand is a pain in the ass and wouldn't make the selling price worth the effort. I looked at lulu.com but for some reason the wankers don't offer the 4.25 x 6.87 size in full color (which I would need for simulating aged-looking pages).

I'm heading back to Wrightsville tomorrow. This time we'll be more frugal and only eat out twice for lunch. It was a big help last time I was there when I found $42 on the ground while waiting in line for the Trolley Stop. Being an honest man, my first thought was to ask if anyone had dropped it, but my common sense kicked in and reminded me that a dishonest person would answer yes, even if he was not the rightful claimant. There were teenagers in the line, after all. Anyway, the money paid for our lunch and allowed us to indulge in iced-cream. I will consider it a gift from above, as if God were saying, "go forth and haveth fun."

In other news, I think I'll hold off on a car purchase. That 4runner is a great deal, but I can't really justify spending 3 grand on a car when the one I have is perfectly fine mechanically. My only reason for buying it is an emotional one, in that I want to attract less attention to myself and enjoy the nostalgic feeling of a '90s car that I might have actually driven back then (I wouldn't have had a Crown Vic). Plus the car dates from earlier in the decade, giving me greater choice in assigning a particular year to my flight of fancy on a given day. Hindsight is always 20/20; if I hadn't been so obsessed with having an authoritative-looking vehicle and had been thinking like a sane person, I would have purchased something less noticeable and better suited to my personality (and age). But, if I hadn't bought the Vic, to this day I would be longing for one, not understanding the value of looking respectable while blending in. I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger... I think what I'll do is get the money ready, and next time I get to Raleigh, I'll look at the car if it's still for sale, which I'll interpret as a divine sign that I should at least seriously consider buying it. Sure, I'd be out 3 grand, but I'd feel a huge sense of relief that the pigs won't be after me to pin a bullshit impersonation charge on me. Plus I wouldn't have to have all those silly stickers on the back. Just throw in a Surge bottle, put on some Barenaked Ladies, and zoom off into '90s fantasy land.

Narrowing it down

I believe I'll go with another 4runner, 3rd generation (1996-2002). My wife drives a 4runner and it's been practically trouble-free. For a little while there I was leaning toward a 2002 or 2003 Ford Explorer, but research turned up too much risk of major shit going wrong. My father-in-law's '02 had its transmission replaced after 65,000 miles, at a cost of $3500. He claims the '03 had an improved tranny, but other reviews indicate that that year is iffy as well.
4runners, on the other hand, have very little criticism other than fuel economy, which I don't really mind since I don't drive very many miles a week anyway, and I don't give a shit about carbon footprints and all that hippie Al Gore crap.

I've found an ideal candidate, asking $3900, a good price for a '96, but it's in Raleigh, and I already have plans to go to the beach this weekend. Between haggling and trading in my Vic, I may be able to get it for 3 grand. There's a risk that it'll be snapped up before I can get there to look at it. It's in great shape except for a tear on the driver seat, but I can just cover it with a towel until I can do something about it. Interior has tan leather interior with woodgrain trim, exterior is forest green (which nearly matches my Barbour jacket). The disadvantage over the Explorer is that the radio sits lower in the console, so if I wanted to put in a DVD player, the screen would be too low for me to enjoy a movie on long drives.

The other major drawback is that, as a Japanese car, I would never be able to make it look like an "official" vehicle. No amount of antennas or lights would fool anyone into thinking it was a guvmint car-uh. I can't really explain my obsession with having an official-looking car. I have this ridiculous vision of gaining access to an otherwise restricted area or thoroughfare just by having a black American SUV with big antennas and wearing a white shirt & necktie, or parking illegally without getting ticketed or towed. I gradually found that doing such with the Vic was too much of an attention-getter from civilians and cops alike. If I were to park it illegally, with my luck a cop would show up and hang around until I returned, then give me the works about being an impersonator and all that. With a plain Ford SUV, I'd probably just be ticketed. In my fleeting moments of sanity, I know that such a need will never arise. It's time to grow the fuck up and get real, but it sure is difficult.

I have concluded that I'm an SUV man. I prefer the higher ride, commanding presence, and the ability legally to have the back windows as dark as I want them. I love tinted windows. They make any car look better and keep out both sweltering sunlight and prying eyes. An additional benefit with this car is that it generally flies under the po-po's radar. It looks too big and heavy to be speeding, and bears no resemblance to a drug dealer or gangbanger hooptie.

Oh, to have an attractive 1996-vintage vehicle, from those halcyon mid-to-late-'90s. I would have adored this vehicle when I was in high school. I'd probably put in another replica inspection sticker, possibly even my old high school parking permit, and of course some Surge bottles. Why did N.C. have to switch to those damned eyesore red-digit license plates? The blue-digit ones had been around since the early '80s. If I get this '96 4runner, I'd be stuck with red-digit plates, a blatant anachronism.

Maybe it's time to dump the Vic

Fuckin' cops freak me out.

I was leaving my neighborhood, driving my crown vic, to return to work after my lunch break and stopped at a stop sign, waited for traffic to clear, then turned right. An unmarked cop car turned onto my street from the main road, and as I drove up the road I saw him turn around in a driveway and come back the way he came. I ducked into the McDonalds parking lot on the corner and hung out there for a couple minutes, then pulled out again. I kept an eye on my rearview mirror, and the same car, or at least an identical one, was on the road a thousand or so feet behind me. While he was still a good distance back, I pulled into a gas station and sat in the parking lot for a couple more minutes. I didn't see him again after that and made it to my destination unmolested.

Interestingly enough, another Vic identical to mine drove past him up the main road, only this one had a big handicapped parking tag in the dash. So the cop probably dismissed the geezer and decided to go after me, the guy under 60 driving a Crown Victoria.

Was he after me? I don't know. Maybe he was, but lost interest when he saw the colorful stickers on the Vic's rear end and decided it wasn't a cop impersonator. It sucks that I can't drive this very respectable, gentlemanly vehicle without the constant fear that some trigger-happy Barney is going to blow a fuse in his primitive brain whenever he sees a guy who can't yet join AARP driving a Vic. At the time I was wearing a conservative suit, white shirt, and necktie; what about that stirred his suspicion? Or did I pick the wrong day to break out the gray fedora? I'm getting pretty damned tired of always looking over my shoulder for the po-po. It's gotten to where I insist that when my wife & I go out at night, we take her SUV.

It looks like I have only a few options here. The most expensive is to buy another car and attempt to cut my loss by selling the Vic. I'm apprehensive about putting it up for sale to the public, since the kind of folk who are interested in old cop cars are largely an unsavory sort, and I don't know if I'd like them coming to my neighborhood and test-driving it. I could use it as a trade-in at a dealership, but one usually loses out on that deal. Plus I don't really care for dealerships. Another option is to keep driving it, but put more decals and civilian shit on it in hopes that a cop will ignore it. I might go so far as to make a fake handicapped placard to display while driving and get some big geezer sunglasses. One more option is to replace the Vic's trademark eggcrate grille with an aftermarket piece that resembles a Mercury or Lincoln, and maybe even swap in a Grand Marquis rear fascia & taillights. Ugh, I don't know. I love that car for its no-nonsense, heavy-duty reliability, but it's getting to be too stressful just trying to make it to my office without John Law on my ass.

Another Wrightsville Trip

We went back to Wrightsville this past weekend. We're trying to use the place more often to send the message to Granny that it's important to us, and perhaps get her to re-plan her estate so that we inherit the condo, preferably in some manner that avoids estate taxes, which our glorious socialist leader will likely increase during his regime. Anyway, this weekend we didn't encounter quite as many transgressions by filthy huddled masses, but there was a most annoying feeling of overcrowding, particularly when we opted to have lunch at the Trolley Stop. While long lines have been customary, we were not accustomed to being without a table at which to eat. Hordes of dead-eyed teenagers were occupying the outdoor tables, but in very uneven distribution. One table was occupied by six lowlifes munching on individual bags of potato chips, while another was occupied by one cunt-hole sipping a drink, holding the table for herself while her friend purchased comestibles inside. So we had to plop our asses on a bench in the hot July sun and eat without a table upon which to rest our lunch. And of course as soon as we were firmly encamped, a table freed up. My wife says it wasn't this crowded a few years ago.

There weren't quite as many trashy-looking people down there this weekend. Two eyesores who stand out in my memory are a pair of gangly teenagers who were hanging around outside the Trolley Stop, wearing their idiotic plaid garments that are somewhere between trousers and shorts, slung low on their bony waists, with shirtless, precancerous torsos decorated with silly tattoos whose placement seemed to be random at best. Both cretins were sporting the wispy beginnings of what they wish were Van Dyke beards, and their empty heads were topped with those clownish skater baseball caps. You know the kind: muted colors, bizarre patterns, bill perfectly flat, and turned out of alignment with the body's axis. I wanted so badly to bash them with a 4-cell Maglite and tell them to go back to Carolina Beach.

We're fairly sure that on Friday night we were being picked up by swingers. At Lagerheads, when I came outside with our drinks, a couple in their 40s were talking to my wife. The female had approached her and said she looked like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. OK, so she looks like a high-priced hooker? Anyway, they were obviously a bit intoxicated and were making out way too much for a 40-something couple. They didn't actually talk about swinging or invite us anywhere. It was just a vibe we got from them, and something weird about the way they were looking at us. For whatever reason, they wandered off, thank god. Maybe they were looking for a 3-way with a stranger and lost interest when I showed up, I dunno.

The rest of the evening was fun. We moved on to Neptune's and I proceeded to get drunk on Fat Tire, a delicious local brew similar to Boddington's. We stumbled back to the condo around 1AM with a pizza from Vito's and chomped down 3/4 of it before going to bed. This was after having eaten a McDonald's angus burger and large fries on the ride down. Needless to say, the chocolate stork visited me repeatedly the next day.

On a completely unrelated topic, I find myself growing bored with my Crown Vic. I feel like it attracts too much attention, being a former cop car and all. I've put stickers on it, but while they diminish the lawman look, they also make the car look trashy. If I had a few grand lying around, I'd probably buy a used Explorer. I'd prefer a black one, since black cars look badass, and tint the windows heavily. I've wanted to repaint my Vic black, but it costs too damned much. After driving both sedans and SUVs, I've come to prefer SUVs. We take ours on all our long trips nowadays. The high ride helps us see more of the road ahead, and the dark windows keep the car cool in the summer heat. Plus there's that whole '90s nostalgia that goes along with SUVs. I remember the rich kids at my high school getting new Jeep Cherokees for their birthdays. One little shit got a brand-new Land Rover Discovery for his 16th. A late '90s Cherokee or Explorer would be a thrill to drive, just for the '90s nostalgia. I could deck it out in period style like I did with my Vic, with a '90s inspection sticker, period CDs, and my old Motorola Tele-TAC. Remember Frank Black's bright red Jeep Cherokee on Millennium? So beautifully '90s. Looks like it belongs on my high school's parking lot in 1998.

I recall a newspaper article from around 1997 called "Big is Back" or something like that. The main photo featured a man looking at new Ford Expeditions on a dealer's lot. The article talked about big SUVs, cigars, and other extravagances that were becoming hugely popular in the boom times of the late '90s. I dunno, if I can find a bargain-priced '90s Explorer that gets about the same fuel economy as my Vic, and then get some money for the Vic, I'd about break even. I'd hate to lose the Vic, though. It'd be a good spare vehicle, and if the need to impersonate a government agent ever arises, it would be a convincing prop. Ugh, you see why I need lotto money? If not the jackpot, at least a few grand to satisfy my vehicular desires. With about 10 grand, I could buy a used Explorer and have enough left over to paint the Vic black.

Roadside Diner Mystery Solved

On US Route 70 between Greensboro and Burlington, just east of the intersection with Rock Creek Dairy Road near Gibsonville, there's a little red train car on the side of the road. It's definitely seen better days, but looks sound enough to use as a storage shed. I've passed this structure a few times during my travels, and just had to know its story, and the part it played in the life of what was once a primary east-west automobile route. You can view it on google maps with street view. Coordinates: 36.064364,-79.611869

Thanks to Guilford County's online GIS, I pulled up the name and mailing address of the property's owner. The property record indicated that the rail car was built in 1929. I mailed the owner a letter inquiring as to the history of the rail car: was it a diner? When was it in operation? What was the name of it?

Weeks went by without a reply, and I'd almost forgotten I'd sent the letter. Today, I received the self-addressed, stamped envelope I had included, with a hand-written letter inside. The owner was most helpful in filling me in on the rail car's history. She said it was indeed a diner, called the Midway Diner, as it was about midway between Greensboro and Burlington. She and her husband acquired the property in 1956 and continued to operate the diner under the name Halfway Inn. They served basic roadside fare—sandwiches, soup, coffee, sodas, and such. The diner eventually closed around 1972 when it became too costly to keep the building up to code.

The Midway Diner. Think for a moment about the legions of motorists it served during its four decades in operation. Picture the tired traveler who, after jostling along US-70 (still NC-10 on his complimentary road map from the Shell station back in Durham) in his old Chevy headed from Raleigh to Greensboro, saw this beacon of civilization shining brightly in the roadside wilderness, and stopped to stretch his legs and recharge with a bowl of vegetable soup and a homemade grilled cheese sandwich. Perhaps after supper he dropped a dime on a cup of hot, fresh coffee and a slice of pie and hung around to catch FDR's fireside chat or get a few chuckles from Amos 'n' Andy on the Zenith. You don't get that kind of roadside experience much anymore. Nowadays you roll up to a Sheetz, chomp down a gristle burger slapped together by a flunky who speaks about 5 words of English, and fork over the cash to a glazed-over teenager who's so lost in thought over his next shroom party that he can barely get "thankyouhaveaniceday" out of his mouth. I do like their shakes, though.

The McDuck Mansion drove me crazy!

I was a die-hard Ducktales fan. I about shat a brick when it premiered back in '87 in the form of a prime time feature-length movie, Treasure of the Golden Suns. From that night, I was hooked, and watched it religiously, as first-run episodes and syndicated reruns on the Disney Afternoon. At this same time in my life, I had a great interest in architecture, and would often design floor plans of elaborate residences. So it was only natural for me to want a set of floor plans for Uncle Scrooge's mansion as depicted on Ducktales.

I'm afraid the artists and directors working on the series weren't very concerned with maintaining continuity, and severely underestimated the ability of academically gifted 7–10 year olds to notice inconsistencies in set designs from one episode to another. That damned mansion never made any sense, and laying out its floor plan was impossible. Doors that would have led outside weren't shown on outdoor shots. Rooms would change positions, too—the nephews' room would face the front yard in one episode, and the back yard in another. Sometimes Scrooge's library had a huge window, and other times it was windowless. And for whatever reason, Scrooge's study was on the ground floor, but seemed to be accessible only by descending a flight of stairs from an upstairs hall. I even wrote a letter to Ducktales Magazine asking for a set of floor plans, but received no response. I don't think they ever had any to start with. To think a 9-year-old had a better understanding of the importance of continuity in making a program more believable than a bunch of adults.

While I'm on the topic of impossible TV structures, the set designers for the TGIF programs were also smoking something other than harmless tobacco. The exterior shot of the Winslows' house on Family Matters, for example, showed the front door on the viewer's left and a bay window on the right, but the interior set reversed this arrangement, and the stairwell had an octagonal window which doesn't appear anywhere on the exterior shot. D.J. and Stephanie's room on Full House would have been hanging off the side of the house. And anyone ascending the kitchen stairs on Boy Meets World would have wound up in the tree in the back yard. ATTN TGIF: WTF?

At least those responsible for continuity on The Simpsons eventually got their shit together. In the first 2 seasons, the living room and dining room would frequently switch positions, and the staircase would go from one side of the foyer to the other. Sometimes there were rounded windows on the front of the house, sometimes there were bay windows. After 20 seasons we can nail down a layout of the house at 742 Evergreen Terrace (even the house number wasn't consistent for a few seasons), though viewers remain perplexed by the "door of mystery" at the end of the foyer. Sometimes it's a closet, other times it's the door to the basement.

Something I'd like to do with lottery winnings would be to construct an accurate real-life interpretation of the Simpsons' house. I realize this was already attempted years ago for a sweepstakes prize, but the dimensions were all confucktified due to the size of the lot, forcing a bay window to straddle the foyer and dining room. I would make it true to the show, with all the furniture custom-made and painted in garish colors. The kitchen would be stocked with food items bearing labels such as Mama Discounta's pizza, Uncle Jim's Country Fillin', Ham Ahoy, Krusty Flakes, Duff Beer, Buzz Cola, and Lard Lad Donuts. The general public would not have access to such a place, but I would definitely invite friends to stay in the Simpsons' house.

More random musings about why the late '90s were so damned awesome

Here are a few treasured memories from the late 1990s, in no particular order:

Being in college. While I didn't care for the stress of academic responsibilities, I did enjoy the much more flexible schedule. I could have a class in the morning, come back to my dorm for a couple hours for a leisurely lunch and some TV, attend 2 more classes, and be done for the day at 3:30. No cooking or cleaning. I miss playing Goldeneye on my suitemates' Nintendo 64 for hours on end. I never was very much into video games, but that one was addictive. I loved ordering pizza at midnight and watching "Unhappily Ever After" reruns with my suitemate. And I damn sure miss having 4 weeks off over Christmas and nearly 4 months off for summer. Only one of the 8 summer breaks during my college career did I actually hold down a job, where my co-worker and I goofed off and avoided real work as much as possible. The other summers were spent fucking around, watching TV, going to movies in the middle of a weekday, reading, drawing, creating, and doing basically what I'd do if I won the lottery and weren't chained to a day job, except it would be done in my own house and not living with my parents.

The extreme sports fad. I'm the last guy to participate in them, but the scene was cool to observe. Loud, up-tempo music, energetic graphics, and shameless product placement (Surge, anyone?).

The heyday of gimmicky chain restaurants. TGIFridays, Bennigans, O'Charley's, Chili's, Applebee's, etcetera were in full swing back then. The booming economy allowed the average Joe to eat out more often than nowadays, and chain restaurants sprang up all over the sprawling suburban wastelands across our republic to stuff his gut with deep-fried jalapenos, fried cheese, and potato skins. They're still around, but not in as strong numbers as 10 years ago. Apparently Bennigans has gone the way of the dodo. It's saddening. My friends and I used to go to gimmicky restaurants just for the experience of it, to soak in a bit of Generica.

Late '90s pop music. It was mostly mindless pablum and frat-tastic beats, with a smattering of meaningful stuff. Early Eminem, Limp Bizkit, Offspring, Britney Spears, Christina Whore-alera, and such, all reflected the blissful stupor of the late '90s. People were generally happy, the president was getting BJs left and right, and we celebrated with stupid, upbeat music.

Movies of 1999, some good, some so-so, some I got to see for free because a friend worked at a theater: Go, Never Been Kissed, The Mummy, Election, Star Wars Episode 1, Austin Powers, The General's Daughter, South Park, American Pie, The Blair Witch Project, Dick, The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, Dogma, Sleepy Hollow, Deuce Bigalow, The Green Mile, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Analyze This, Big Daddy, Bowfinger, Mickey Blue Eyes, and Teaching Mrs. Tingle. I can proudly proclaim that I never saw Wild Wild West, not even on TV.

Automobile styling. I feel like it reached a peak sometime between 1998-2003. Most cars today are just plain ugly compared to their '90s predecessors (with the exception of the Chrysler 300). My '01 Toyota 4runner is much more elegantly styled than those that came a long in the mid-2000s. Ditto for Ford Explorers and Chevy Suburbans & Tahoes. I was overjoyed when Jeep Wranglers went back to circular headlights around 1998 from those stupid rectangular ones. Lines were streamed and curved, chrome was sparingly but elegantly employed. Today's cars seem to be going for more angular treatments, but not in a flattering manner, especially on the hideous hybrids one sees nowadays. A Prius looks like something Optimus Prime left in the john.

Kids' WB. Yes, I was legally an adult when this was on, but the cartoons were so much more awesome than the horseshit you find on children's programming nowadays. Batman: The Animated Series, Animaniacs, Pinky & The Brain, Tiny Toons, Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, and Histeria were all great things to come back to the dorm and watch after classes.

Cartoons for grown-ups: King of the Hill, The Simpsons, Family Guy, The PJs, and Dilbert. I loved Dilbert. While I hadn't yet had the pleasure of toiling in a cubicle farm, I could nonetheless appreciate how well it must have spoken to those who spent a third of their weekdays languishing in gray cubes staring at computer monitors, as I do today. I guess some things don't change.

Dot-com startups. They were cropping up all over the place. Pets.com. Drugstore.com. Monster.com. Some survived, some died in the dust. But it was all so exciting! You never knew what cockamamie dot-com business was coming next. And every startup was seen as foolproof for investors. Never mind that most of them didn't have any strategy or business model and borrowed more money than they could ever pay back. It was the internet! It was a goldmine! Their offices were staffed by hip youngsters sporting soul patches and douchey orange-lensed eyewear, and had their own espresso machines! I long for those glorious days of the dot-com bubble. A company would come out of nowhere, announce an IPO, and Zoom! Its stock would shoot from a few bucks to over $100 a share the first day. Everyone got rich, at least on paper. The sky was the limit. The dot-com bubble burst in the spring of 2000, which is where I mark the beginning of the end of the glory days of the turn of the 21st century. Things were still OK overall. It remained OK after red-state mouthbreathers and crooked Floridian authorities got Dubya into the presidency. We were still naive; we didn't know yet that he'd become the worst president since Andrew Johnson and his vice-prez was actually Satan with a heart condition. For a time, he was just a goofy monkey-man with a speech impediment. 9/11/2001 is where I mark the end of my generation's gilded age. Everything went to shit from there. The USA-PATRIOT act pissed all over our civil liberties, Alan Jackson wrote that gay song, Ashcroft wrote an even gayer song and sang it in public, everyone got all serious, and the economy tanked, and never again got anywhere near the runaway levels of the late '90s.