From Slough To Ka-Pow In Under Two Hou....rs

The ripple effects of an accidental [pun] appointment with the dentist and the intention of killing three birds with one stone found us late on NYE way up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is every bit as wonderful as the Americanized late hit television series The Office depicts it, as in, not very wonderful. But as we do, we make the best of it, and managed to have an entertaining dinner at the only joint open at 9pm, one Ruby of Tuesday (still the only entity giving any purpose to that specific day of the week), with the company on Susie who downed her fair share of classic margaritas amongst a multitude of randomly shaped/colored pills from a gold brass box she keeps hidden somewhere on her person for just such an occasion, what we can only hold responsible for us now being able to add such visually magical terms as "the shrimp dance" and ... well, let's move on from it.

Laura got her steak so all was right with the world and Yuula enjoyed the challenge in capturing a photo of diners as they stuff their faces one last time for the year.

I felt a bit like I was watching it all happen, as I went for the 8oz of malbec and overheard the vast array of resolutions being made and subsequently broken before they even saw the light of day.

Then the baby boy dropped before the ball in Times Square.

We brought Susie back to her place, recovered from a day of highs and lows, and began the winding roads to our place just before 11pm. By the time we got to our home and got our shoes off, ready for bed, throwing in the towel on 2013, we (Yuula) got a 3rd wind and decided we'd take up our young new neighbors on their earlier invite to their place for a little Auld Langing. When we walked in the door it was 11:44. At 11:45 I was halfway thru a pint of Yuengling. At 11:46 I had a second, as we caught up with some of our other neighbors we'd met once before, but never scraped any surfaces. They were silly, and well ahead of us on the inebriation, considering the four of us were drinking for one. We giggled, one girl admitted to just vomiting moments before. This was a party. We found shelter from the beer pong in the warmth of the front room (I'm not sure this houses rooms have designations yet), as a mad rush to arm the parties occupants with things that make pops and smoke, including the three year old, and as the countdown hit 00:05 someone threw a blanket over me and ran away. I was thinking how strange this all seemed when we started hearing loud blasts coming from just outside, so....

Happy New Years. We were home and in bed by 12:06am.

Closing Up Office

Finale tonight. I think we'll watch. Haven't been such loyal fans to the American remake, but do hold the original dear to our hearts, so maybe out of alternate universe allegiance to David Brent. He did end the BBC version is such an beautiful way, I have hope he had maybe a finger or two in on this one. Even tho I think it should've just ended there (above) I guess "wrapping things up" is necessary when playing to such a fickle audience. So... here it goes... ending... just like the Knicks tonight... maybe...

Making Our Way In The World Today

Today. 8am. Let Me In. Four stars. Can't tell if it's better than the original. Special K oat & honey. 10:30 am. The Station Agent. Four stars. Better than expected. Leftover Auntie Anne's. Worse than necessary. 1pm. Cyrus. Fell asleep a little. Not as funny as we thought. Three stars. Yogurt with strawberries and granola. 3pm. Check the mail. Finally a check. Dress and leave for the bank. 5:30pm. Check Home Depot for pellets. No dice. 5:45pm. Check Target for new vacuum. No dice. 7pm. Home. Chicken & rice for dinner. Four stars. Flipping between Office reruns and Raiders of the Lost Ark. 9:24pm. Took this photo of me. Four stars. Now? Bed. All in all. Good day. Tomorrow? Back to it.

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Scranton? What!

The Electric City! No? No Office fans out there. Well now I'm embarrassed.

President's Day. Washington's birthday. Another holiday we're not quite sure how to celebrate. Let's see: Presidents > old guys > mostly dead > dead people's things > powdered wigs > antiques > ANTIQUING! We'd get there someway or another.

Since we weren't in the market for anything at the time and browsing was our major intention we headed out towards Scranton to a place we'd never been called The Carriage Barn. Assured that it was the largest collection of fine antiques in northeast Pennsylvania how could we go wrong?



Cool building and a lot of interesting stuff but ultimately not our kinda place. We're more into the hidden treasures and great finds, diamond in the rough type stuff and things that have price stickers under say $47,000. But it was a nice place!




We headed into Scranton where we found another antique place, Red Barn Collectibles, but this place was a real pile of junk. I mean literally there were piles of junk all over the place and we weren't in the mood for scavenging. I'm sure there was some interesting stuff there but we felt a little creeped out by the whole place. This was a photo I found the urge to snap while there.



We headed over to the Steamtown Mall to see if we could cash in some of these Auntie Anne's freebies I got over the summer but the Steamtown Mall is the one mall in America that doesn't have an Auntie Anne's pretzel stand and the Bavarian Pretzel Bakery didn't seem amused when we tried to use them there. But boy these Scrantonites seem to really embrace the Office characters. They were all over the place, from adds for Office tours that'll set you back $45 (pretty steep for a show that shoots in Van Nuys California) and murals of the actors all over town. We rode in an elevator with Dwight.



He didn't say much.

We walked ourselves down to the courthouse and took a photo with the Electric City sign, probably the one and only landmark type site found within Scranton, so... there it is.




What else could we do to celebrate President's Day? Let's see: George Washington > couldn't tell a lie > cherry tree > the Cherry Hill Gang > the Indian goddess Ganga > Indian food! We did it again. But mainly we stopped because Laura was starving and she saw this...



Notice the "All You Can Eat" portion of the sign. But you couldn't really miss the place. It stuck out a little.



Here's Laura patiently waiting for me to snap a photo of her first plate of food. Moments later this was all gone. The plate too.



And the best thing about this place was the orange/rose ice cream. Holy crap this was so good I opted out of the rice pudding which after Indian food, c'mon. We need to start adding rose extract to everything we eat.



So Scranton was slightly underwhelming, but maybe we were expecting the hijinks from Dunder-Mifflin or maybe we just were there on an off day. Maybe we were off, but I doubt it.

Feel Like Dancing?

Today I woke up and just felt like shaking a tail feather...

the Classic: Praise You



Chinatown Surprise, Success in the Bush or Anorexia is a Hard Road?



the Genius of Ricky Gervais

The Japanese Office

This is too funny



If you don't get it it means you don't watch The Office and if that's the case, we're not friends. No seriously, The Office is one of the finest shows to come along in over a decade and you're doing yourself a great diservice by not watching. The BBC version is the original and the finest one but the American one ain't bad. I thought it would be but... I made my reparations here.

Sorry The Office

I would like to make a public apology.

Dear The Office,

Please...have a seat.

I would like to take a moment to apologize, to you and to your cast of characters. When I first heard that they would be remaking you into a sitcom here in the states, you were met by nothing but negativity on my part and even a little bit of anger that such a fine program would be butchered by American writers. I did manage to avoid you, tho you aired on a channel that I admittedly watch quite a few programs on and I also have to admit, I was slightly interested to see just how badly the original was being pulverized. But about a month ago, while flipping between some NBA & MLB I found myself staring into the blank, witless stare of Dwight K. Shrute, and have to say, I was intrigued. I flipped back and forth for a few commercial breaks until finally, I had forgotten all about the games I was watching because I was just waiting to see what hijinks the Scranton branch were going to get themselves into next. Since that fateful Tuesday evening I am proud to say that I haven't missed a single episode and plan to, in the very near future, purchase all the past episodes I had missed, even tho I know the general storyline, this American rendition has proved itself worthy of reliving the whole saga, all over again. One can only hope that this slightly bastardized version of The Office outlives it's original BBC mentor.

Apology presented. That said, I highly doubt U.S. Office will ever outdo it's predecessor, along with Arrested Development one of the finest sitcoms EVER. As happy as I am that they didn't slaughter the original, it still cannot meet the bone-dry, seat-squirming humor of Ricky Gervais. When asked how the U.S. Office would compare to the British, Gervais responded with, "they'll have better teeth". And that's about it.