jmc_bks

Last week was relaxing: I sat on the beach. Read. People watched. Listened to the waves when they weren't being drowned out by real New Jersey housewives. [Seriously, two women settled down way too close to my chair and umbrella and proceeded to discuss their plastic surgeries and their husbands and it was TMI.]

Things I noticed while driving to/from the beach, or while at the beach:

So many election placards. Everywhere. Do I forget between election cycles, or have the economy and widening rift between right and left generated more candidates and fiercer primaries?
One "BATEMAN for Sheriff" sign along Ritchie Highway was defaced to read "BAT MAN for Sheriff". :D Who wouldn't want the Caped Crusader as their local crime fighter?
Kipke for Delegates...my first thought was how would he handle that with SPN? Except wait, Kipke isn't Kripke. Nevermind.
This week was Bike Week. Motorcycles EVERYWHERE. Which was fine (shiny! pretty!) when it wasn't irritating to watch motorcyclists ride up the shoulder or between cars in the back up on Rtes 404 & 50. Yesterday's Darwin Award nominee: the Harley rider without a helmet who was busy talking on his cell phone and driving with one hand. :sigh:
As built up as Rehoboth is today in comparison to my childhood memories, it is nothing compared to the mess of Fenwick Island or Ocean City. RB's "downtown" zoning must be much, much tighter, since it has avoided the high rise mess for the most part. Always think high rises look...not quite right at the beach, like the architecture doesn't match the environment. Of course, the shopping/outlet mess out on Route 1 is pretty unattractive, but since I go to the beach for the beach rather than the shopping, I only notice that on my way in and out of town.

Syllable sadness: in a NY-pubbed book, I noticed that the syllable break of "asshole" was wrong. Unless suddenly the syllables have changed from ass-hole to as-shole. (See p. 1059 of Demon Forged.)

Proper name spelling sadness: Dear English-speakers/writers -- Colombia and Columbia are not interchangeable. They are not even homonyms (the vowels in the second syllable are distinctly different). Please stop using Columbia as the all-purpose spelling. It's really not appropriate to use when referring to that South American country.

Someone in Austin, Texas, seems to want to talk to me, if the 12 missed calls are anything to judge by. Except s/he never leaves a message, so it can't be that important. I've reverse checked the number -- residential listing. I'm almost curious enough to answer the next time. Almost.

A week late: the men's US Open final was pretty good, despite the heinous TV coverage -- F-You very much, CBS and ESPN, for pushing the match to Monday (wouldn't want to mess with Sunday night must-see-TV) and then freaking abandoning it entirely for pregame schtick and Celebrity Bowling. That failure is better dissected here, here, and here.

Djokovic seems to have overcome his latent head-case tendencies. He played an amazing match against Federer in the semis, only to run up against Nadal in the final. He must have been absolutely gutted, but he managed to be incredibly charming in the trophy ceremony and in all the interviews I've seen. Nadal was just en fuego, on a mission to win the major that was purported to be unwinnable for him because of his tendency to stand 12 feet behind the baseline and hit with such spin. But as Pete Bodo put it, "Federer and Nadal may have inadvertently ruined any number of otherwise impressive men." For awesome coverage, go check out Forty Deuce and Nadal News.

The picture to the left belongs to Getty Images, I think, and the picture to the right is mine, taken at the Nike kiosk at the US Open on Labor Day.