November 2004


Godzilla: Hollywood star finally

The Big G. gets a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

Where I’m not supposed to move to

For the hell of it I answered the Find Your Spot quiz with exactly the opposite answers than how I would normally answer. So according to them, my top list of places I shouldn’t move to are (keeping the website’s town description intact this time):

  1. Round Top, Texas - Tiny Art Town In Texas’ Hill Country
  2. Lake Havasu City, Arizonas - Arizona’s West Coast
  3. Conroe, Texas - Big Lake Country
  4. Clarksdale, Mississippi - We’ve Got the Blues
  5. Crystal River, Florida - Manatee Haven
  6. Hopkinsville, Kentucky - Friendliest Place in Kentucky
  7. Fredericksburg, Texas - City of Steeples
  8. Kerrville, Texas - Hill Country Shangri-la
  9. St. Marys, Georgia - Georgia’s Oldest City
  10. Eufaula, Alabama - The Bluff City
  11. Green Valley, Arizona - Sunshine Paradise
  12. Bisbee, Arizona - The Copper Queen
  13. Marble Falls, Texas - Hub of the Highland Lakes
  14. Port Aransas, Texas - Always in Season
  15. New Smyrna Beach, Florida - Orlando’s Beach
  16. St Augustine, Florida - America’s First City
  17. Brunswick, Georgia - Georgia’s Art Capital
  18. Alexander City, Alabama - The South’s Best-Kept Secret
  19. Wimberley, Texas - A Taste of Texas Hill Country
  20. San Marcos, Texas - Hill Country Jewel
  21. Ormond Beach, Florida - The Secret Beach
  22. Deland, Florida - The Athens of Florida
  23. Guntersville, Alabama - A Lakeside Haven
  24. Paris, Tennessee - A Hidden Lakeshore Treasure

This list reads like a season’s worth of City Confidential episodes. I have to go to Round Top, Texas now, if only to eat at Royers Round Top Cafe where they promise:

Very soon you will be able to sit on the Cafe’s front porch and connect for WI-FI is coming! Yes, we will be the only “wireless hot” spot in Round Top! We’re bringing Austin to Round Top!!!

Slice of pecan pie, top off the gas tank, and get away as fast as possible.

Where I’m supposed to move to

I’m convinced that all web quizzes are fundamentally broken after seeing my results from the Find Your Spot quiz. According to it, the best suited places for me are:

  1. Cincinnati, Ohio
  2. Seattle, Washington
  3. Knoxville, Tennessee
  4. Salt Lake City, Utah
  5. Tacoma, Washington
  6. Carlisle, Pennsylvania
  7. Kent, Washington
  8. Bellingham, Washington
  9. Asheville, North Carolina
  10. Provo-Orem, Utah
  11. Denver, Colorado
  12. Greenville, South Carolina
  13. Olympia, Washington
  14. Fort Collins, Colorado
  15. Anchorage, Alaska
  16. Ogden, Utah
  17. Johnson City-Kingsport, Tennessee
  18. Charlotte, North Carolina
  19. Nashville, Tennessee
  20. Richmond, Virginia
  21. Bloomington, Indiana
  22. Hickory, North Carolina
  23. Chattanooga, Tennessee
  24. Roanoke, Virginia

The Thanksgiving Dinner That Time Forgot

For several years running, I had Thanksgiving dinner at the Two Sisters restaurant in Inyokern and was thinking about it again this year but apparently it closed after several decades. It’s too bad because the interior and the menu at Two Sisters probably hadn’t changed at all since it opened. I can’t think of a finer example of “vintage eating” around especially with the Thanksgiving buffet which could have been identical to a typical meal from 1960. Information on the place is pretty sketchy, but apparently the last surviving sister sold the place a couple years ago.

Oddly enough, there is a picture of the men’s urinal on the net.

Trio down for the count

I’ve kinda been enjoying the time without satellite television and with the Trio network going off of DirecTV again, I see no real reason to go back to it.

Terry Melcher R.I.P.

The most screwed up thing about this isn’t that Terry Melcher is dead, but that the best headline the Washington Post could come up with is “‘Kokomo’ Co-Writer Terry Melcher Dies”. For crying out loud he played on Pet Sounds and produced The Byrds! The Independent has a vastly superior obituary.

Apple is the new black

The Apple Store: what was initially a questionable retail move is now totally hot. If “the Apple store staff all look like they just wandered in from practice with a local indie rock band” then that probably explains why people keep asking me if I work there.

Essex, CA

Years ago it was the spot on US-66 where you could get free drinking water, but it now seems to peacefully enjoy it’s retirement as a meteorite target.






Not sighted on this trip was the “Thanks to Johnny Carson, Essex has TV!” sign - there’s a story there somewhere.

Dodgy public access television on demand

Satellite television viewers who have been bemoaning the lack of local public access channels rejoice, the Manhattan Neighborhood Network streams all four of its channels on the net.

Anyone want to fund a satellite television network that carries the “best” of public access channels from around the country? Heck, I’d watch it.

The Thing

It’s not quite the same “Mystery Of The Desert!” it once was and the omnipresent billboards on I-10 aren’t quite as numerous as they once were, but The Thing endures (barely) as prime roadside balderdash. Now part of Bowlin Travel Centers, Inc. (whose website barely mentions “The Thing” attraction), The Thing is slowly being reclaimed by disuse, dust, and general entropy. The Thing’s font is to die for though.





Roadside America attempts to describe The Thing.

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