(More) Cheese and Beer (to be thankful for)

Today is Thanksgiving. We sit on the couch as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is going by on TV. Pilgrim Man and Pilgrim Woman have just gone by to pay tribute to those pilgrims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving. Chris Issak is now lip synching to "Great Balls of Fire".... Just when you thought it couldn't get too much better the Texas University Strutters are ... strutting their stuff, making the state of Texas very proud and yes, you can get all the music from the parade at iTunes. Here comes Kermit! He has become the family ambassador to New York City, so he's got a lot to be thankful for.

OK, maybe I'll break off the commentary there. Seems a few things have happened since the last entry here. We went apple picking. Seems that most of the people from Columbus chose to go the same Saturday as us and we sat in traffic trying to get to the country for what seemed a very long time. We got there though and got our pick of Winesap and Roma apples (the Fuji's were going fast in another field and sadly the Honeycrisps weren't quite ready or were already gone, I don't quite remember).

There was also the opportunity to select your pumpkin in time for Halloween. As seen above... Yes, that is a man with a cart (trolley) in a bumpy field out to select his pumpkin(s).....  

On TV, Don Mclean has just mimed his way through "American Pie" while people dressed as park rangers awkwardly danced and sung along with the back drop of North Dakota's Mount Rushmore. 

Obviously it being Thanksgiving means being thankful for stuff and I'm sure you've all been closely following my quest for decent Cheddar here in America. You'll be pleased to know a new American effort has emerged that I am very thankful for. Step forward Vermont's Grafton 4 year vintage Cheddar.   Now I just need to work out a place to find it that isn't 2 1/2 hours away in Cleveland!

Lastly a quick note on something else that isn't available in England; New Holland's Dragons Milk. America has definitely turned me into someone that appreciates a good Oak Aged Stout and this is indeed one. At a hefty 10%, my ping pong skills haven't benefited from it's tasty oak, bourbon and vanilla notes.

The President and Pumpkins

It's been two months, so maybe time for another post.... Seems that fall is very much here in central Ohio. How do you know? Maybe something to do with this fairly sizable mural at the end of our street and the small matter of a presidential campaign. The president has been here a few times already this year and he'll be back again on Tuesday. In the last 70 years, whoever has won in Ohio has won the election, so some reason as to why either the president or vice president has made a visit on average every three weeks since they took office.

Oh and of course another reason you might have an idea fall is here... A whole load of pumpkins.

So, yeah the election. On this last Wednesday Ohio boys the National put their time and effort towards re-electing the president by spending time on campus getting voters registered. They the stuck around to play a show at the Newport, just across from campus. It was free, if you could just commit to volunteering some of your time for the campaign. Kristen did, but as I'm not a student I used my "having to work full time" to get out of it. Maybe not quite the attitude required to re-elect the president,  but I did promise I'll encourage all my buddies to get out and vote, maybe that'll do it.

Other election commentary comes from Snoop Dog who detailed just why he won't be voting for Mitt Romney here (Parental Advisory warning for language: Mum, this means you.). My personal fave is his dislike for Romney's (wife's) dancing horse. 

Fried Food and Farm Animals

Last weekend I experienced my first state fair. I had heard a number of different things I was to expect, though mostly people talked about fair food.

The Wienermobile was what greeted us upon entering the fairgrounds. I got to taste the new brand Oscar Mayer Wieners and they went down pretty well.

Compared to prize-winning jam and banana bread the title of best brillo pad artist was.... not quite as keenly contested, but a whole lot more fun to look at.

We made sure that we got in early for the pig racing, almost getting a front row view. There were four rounds, the final one pictured above featuring not the fastest pot bellied swines.

I was told to catch the butter cow. We did. We were impressed. We wondered what becomes of the butter when the fair comes to an end.

We decided against a donut burger. Just in case you were wondering, the meat between those donuts has never been frozen and there is lettuce in there somewhere....

These guys were the undoubted highlight of the petting zoo.

I got some lemonade from here. I didn't get any cheese on a stick.

Fireworks, Guided By Voices and a Bear

This blog entry is a bit late in coming, but it seemed necessary to share my first 4th of July experience and all that it entailed. We decided we would travel back to Pennsylvania to see Kristen's family and because there was work to be done on the freezers at Jenis, I wouldn't have been able to work anyway. We had one of our more pleasant drives east this time, helped by stopping a couple of times; in Zanesville and in the PA state capital of Harrisburg. The trip was, though, even more exciting for the sighting of a black bear on the PA Turnpike. He seemed pretty unconcerned with the speeding traffic alongside him, as he just watched it go by and then scooted off into the woods.

Come the 4th of July, we decided that instead of heading downtown to the main Bethlehem fireworks display we we would drive over to see a more intimate display courtesy of friends of Kristen. PA law states that you are not allowed to launch fireworks that leave the ground and so all the fireworks we had the pleasure of seeing were "grounders". As much as the noise and colors they gave off was fun, even better was the introduction we were given to each by name, before they were lit. Examples included: Wrath Of The Beast, Moonlight Madness, Frog Prince (the one shaped like a frog's head in the picture above) and my personal fave, "One Unbelievable Fountain". The display was a fun time, enlivened by some sort of spinning effort that sent a few rockets towards the crowd of neighbors sat a good distance back on lawn chairs.

Another reason for heading back to PA was to get to see Dayton, Ohio's Guided by Voices... in Philadelphia. Around 10 years ago when I picked up a used copy of "Do the Collapse" in the Replay records in Bedminster I didn't really know what I was starting. I also didn't know that they were about to break up and stop playing together a couple of years later.... and then a few years later that Kristen and I would be living in Columbus, OH an hour or so away from Dayton. After gathering a mere fraction of their back catalogue I was pretty excited that they reformed a year or so ago and waited for them to come over to England. They never did, apparently Robert Pollard isn't too keen on flying. Finally they re-united and started playing shows a couple of years ago, and this year started in releasing new albums, two of three so far.... this year! There seemed no reason not to see them when they announced a summer tour, even if we couldn't make it to any of the three Ohio dates they were due to play.

Even with them playing a bunch of songs from the two of their three new albums, there was still plenty of room for them to play "the hits". Shocker in Gloomtown came early and made me very happy indeed. They came back two or three times, and played something over 40 songs which is certainly value for money. Even though he's pushing 55, Bob still busted out a good few high kicks (here at 1:33) and put away a fair amount of Miller Lite. One thing he couldn't keep up with though was Mitch Mitchell's cigarette smoking ability. I didn't try to keep count, but that he had a cigarette roadie to supply him between, and sometimes during, songs might give an idea of how many he got through! Hopefully it won't be another 10 years before we see them again.

The Power is Out, Save the Ice Cream!

We were making the best seller, Salty Caramel on Friday and our supervisor had just commented how quickly we were going and how this should always be the way it is. Then the lights went out. The power didn't come back all night. In between a lot of sitting around and waiting, people that get paid more than me tried pretty hard to come up with ways of saving millions of dollars worth of "artisan" ice cream. There was a freezer team and a number of refrigerated and freezer trucks and we tried pretty hard to load them up as quickly as possible. I got off about 1am and found out that the power returned the next day and the ice cream was saved, excellent. 

Houses and businesses either side of the ice cream kitchen were fine and it was only when I got home and had to pull a huge branch from our parking spot that I realized the storm might have been quite a big deal. It transpired that the storm winds had hit heights of 80 mph. On the Saturday morning we went out for a walk around the neighborhood. Some streets not even a few hundred feet away from us had huge trees down and here and there a few crushed cars too. While walking around we talked to more people than we have in the 8 months since we've been here. We stopped by one of the record shops (the sign above) and we stopped by a store with one of the owners standing on the street corner advertising the free (melting) ice cream, we both picked up a Twix. We continued stepping over branches and crossed different streets, and turned around in a few places as we couldn't get around the 100 year old fallen tree. We eventually got to Lost Weekend Records and had a good long chat with the owner. He seemed to think that it was only him, the Hustler Store and the supermarket that had power in their section of High Street. As we walked towards home we said hi to a load more people in a sympathetic kind of way and overheard the two men with chainsaws being offered "cold ones" by some chap on his porch watching the clean-up.

The Crew game was delayed by an hour while they tried to get power to all parts of the stadium, much to the chagrin of one caller to a local radio station we were tuned to. "Why do they have power crews at the stadium?.... 85% of Americans probably don't even care about the game on the pitch (as they call it)..... there are old women without power..... it's wrong I tell you....." Or another caller; "this storm is God's wrath on us for the decision of the supreme court to uphold Obama's health care decision...."

Back to the game and the guy above was doing his best to be a part of military appreciation night, or just a bit early on the 4th of July. Real (ahem) Salt Lake looked much the better team and passed the ball really well, but failed to convert any of their chances and before they knew it they were 2-0 down to the Crew. That was how it stayed, the fireworks went off and we walked home in the rain, thankfully without the 80 mph winds.

Becoming a bit more American and Making Ice Cream

Finally we are on the way to becoming a bit more American. Firstly, we enjoyed our first Memorial Day weekend in 90 degree plus heat stood on a friend's porch drinking beer and eating BBQ. It helped that the hosts were grilling aficionados and slow-cooked two massive lumps of brisket for something near 16 hours. I may or may not have suffered from something called the meat sweats. I definitely suffered from being bitten by bugs.

As you may guess from the picture above we have also gone a long way to fitting in here in the midwest by becoming owners of a 2003 Honda Civic, with an amount of miles one might laugh at back in the UK. 144,000 sounds a lot, but when people don't consider driving a few hundred miles for an afternoon out a big deal and still try and sell stuff with over 200k, hopefully it'll see us through our next two years here in Columbus.

In the last couple of weeks I have graduated from the labeling department into production at the Ice Cream kitchen. The handmade nature of the product even extends to taking a pint of ice cream in each hand and "tapping" them on an upturned cooking pot. Tapping is important as it gets any air bubbles out of the ice cream. One of the more unpleasant side effects of tapping is the danger of getting ice cream in your eye. You certainly get it in your face, depending on how quickly it is melting will determine just how much of your face and glasses are splattered.

Since tapping, lidding and boxing (the latter two probably not needing too much explanation), I have moved onto "machines". The machines make the ice cream and you (the operator) give it the ingredients to do so. Even though it is pretty hard physical work, the process is relatively straightforward. Basically, pour a bucket or two of ingredients in and tell the machine how long to churn away. What makes this task a good amount more challenging in certain flavors of ice cream is the presence of flecks of white chocolate that have a habit of clogging the machine. Also, making "White House Cherry" involves hand mixing "sugar syrup-plumped cherries" and "roasted whole pistachios". While mixing, though, you need to be sure that the ice cream isn't melting and that it is staying white and not turning purple as a result of the cherries. Fortunately this is a limited editor flavor and will be done with when the president is inaugurated in the fall.

Nuns and Breck Shea's Hair

Call for the Nuns; our home record is pretty poor

Saturday saw us make our way down the road for our first game of this 2012 MLS season. The Crew hadn't given too much reason to be hopeful of three points so far this season, beating two pretty poor Canadian teams and either drawing or losing the rest of their games. After paying $10 last season and enjoying our $5 food voucher, it seemed only right that this season's student tickets were available at $8.... still with a $5 food voucher, can't be bad. The signs were good upon entering the stadium, in that the first people we saw were the ladies above. 

As the teams got around to lining up for the anthems, our buddies in the Nordeke got their various banners in place. It took us until after the game to work out what all the LH's were about. Lemar Hunt passed away a couple of years ago, but a bit of (Wikipedia) research confirms he was a pretty important chap in US sports. As well as coming up with the idea of a "superbowl" he set about founding the NASL in the late 60's, which his Dallas Tornado team won in 1971. After playing his part in setting up Major League Soccer, he took ownership of the Kansas City and Columbus teams, a few years later he bought Dallas too. Think there are probably rules against this sort of thing in most countries. The section of fans near us seem pretty grateful for him and his creating their team and the stadium we were standing in.

Have some of this Brek Shea!

K and I were accompanied to the game by two of our friend's that had never been to a soccer game before. They loved it. And exclaimed, "It's like the fans do the job of the cheer leaders!" I think I was struck anew this time by just how positive the Crew fans are. Overhearing the lady behind me telling her friend why Emilio Renteria was her favorite player: "He just really hustles and tries his hardest, and I just really like him." What didn't seem too important to her was the fact that as a striker he hadn't scored in all nine games this season and could probably have had a hat-trick before he was subbed off in the 83rd minute.

Brek Shea?

Rooney Mara?

At Half Time they were probably lucky to only be one behind. The defenders were pretty much all over the place and with better finishing from Dallas it might have looked a bit gloomier. Brek Shea and his hair were looking lively, but not long into the second half Dallas had a man sent off and the momentum shifted and it was all Columbus. After a great finish from outside of the box to draw level, there was a pretty remarkably headed goal from about 20 yards out, kind of think the keeper needs to take some of the blame for being beaten from that far out. But we didn't care. The Crew closed out the game pretty well and we came home to an ice cream feast.

Jeni's and Working There

I have started work. It's taken me a while, but I finally have a full-time job. For now I have given up on the idea of continuing to mess about with maps and I'm fully concentrating on helping to make the best ice cream in Ohio, and according to a lot of people, the USA. When I was interviewed I knew I would be getting myself into working 3pm - 11.30pm Monday to Friday, but I've been not working for too long to be fussy about such things.

My training started on Monday and we learned a bit about the company and a lot about health and safety. We also learned about their many different flavors. These included a special limited edition selection for the royal wedding last year. One of the four flavors they created was Eton Mess. Our trainer Steve told us that someone had incorrectly labeled it as "Elton Mess", which has maybe a few unpleasant connotations if you think about it too hard. All new recruits start in the labeling department. It became pretty clear that I was in the minority of 30-something year old men. After reading the Employee Manuel I learned that: ...music is an important part of the kitchen.... for that reason the production manager will oversee music selections...  I had read about Miami rapper Rick Ross before, but I can now say that I know him and his (pretend) drug dealing tales of life very well. I'm also pretty familiar with a good deal of other rapping gangsters that I previously hadn't been introduced to. What I wasn't braced for, though, was our early 20's supervisor taking the day off and leaving the one 50+ lady of the kitchen in charge of the iPod. I like some country, but not 8 hours of bad country (songs about Chevy's and how great America is) interspersed with choice cuts of Nickleback, Korn and Metallica.

Even if the majority of my colleagues are at least ten years younger than me ("You're 32?, that's the same age as my step-dad.. though my mom is a bit of a cougar...") it's been a pretty fun first week, sweetened by the fact that we get to take home ice cream that didn't quite fill the whole pint (our now fully-stocked refrigerator, pictured above). My new fave is Whisky and Pecans; really very, very creamy indeed. Also, I can cycle home in about 20 minutes, which can't be bad.

The Obamas and KBS

On Saturday I attended my first political rally. I thought I'd start big and go for the leader of the free world and his wife. Along with K, her friend S, and 14,000 others, we headed down to the Shottenstein Centre on campus to witness what was some sort of strange cross between a pantomime and an evangelical crusade. We arrived fairly early to be sure of getting in (it later transpired this was never in doubt) and waited in line for a little over an hour. When we got inside the arena (shows coming up there include Van Halen and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers) and through the airport style security, we quickly tried to get as close as possible. We realized that it wasn't going to be all that close. Rumor was that you needed a pass to stand on the floor right up close, or sit much closer than we got, as you can probably make out in the picture above.

There were quite a few warm up speakers before we got the president and the first lady. These included  a couple encouraging us to phone our friends (like, right then, as they waited) to make sure that they were going to vote democrat in November (yes, November is when the election is, this was his first campaign event); I "forgot" my phone. We also got John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit the earth and third American in space. He is also a former Ohio senator. The mayor spoke, a minister  prayed and we were getting closer. Blue Obama signs were handed out to those that were going to be behind, or at least within camera shot of the world's media. We didn't get a blue sign. Finally the time came and Michelle bounced on stage to the funky bass line of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground." People went a bit crazy. She said a few words, spoke about how hard her parents had worked to give her the chance in life she got and then introduced her husband. The place went crazy again and we settled in for Barack's 40 minute speech. I say speech, but it seemed to be more of a series of statements with pauses left for the appropriate response. Either cheers, for the good that has been done so far and the planned good to come, or boos for any Romney/ Republican related fact/ sentiment. Michelle returned briefly, there was more cheering and we were on our way. One of the stranger ways to spend a Saturday morning.

Having previously mentioned Founders brewery here, I had the chance to sample one of their rarer brews this last week. One of my "ping pong" buddies had managed to secure a four pack of the latest release of Kentucky Breakfast Stout (KBS) from Founders. People go a bit crazy for this stuff, so much so that they line up around the block in Grand Rapids, MI hoping to be able to hand over $114 for a case. People went away disappointed this year, even after the brewery decided to sell only 1/2 a case to each person waiting. They have, as a result, tripled their output this year. The beer is aged for a year in bourbon barrels and stored in gypsum caves under the city. It seemed that there may be the danger that the story and the limited quantity of the beer goes before the taste, but fortunately this wasn't the case. It really was a proper stout, poured like molasses, tasted like vanilla and caramel to start, with chocolate and coffee flavors coming through at the end. I was still tasting it hours later.

Real Estate and the Kids

Monday night saw us heading down the road to "America's Longest Continually Running Rock Club",  otherwise known as the Newport. Finally we were getting around to seeing Real Estate. Most recently, snow had meant a trip to Cleveland earlier in the year was abandoned. Prior to this, their two Bristol appearances coincided with us either being in Columbus, or being out of town at a festival. Tickets to this  CD101 (102.5) show were a bargain $5. Now and again the radio station like to put on "Low Dough Shows" and luckily for us this was one. It was also an all ages show, which meant that those of us either in or close to our thirties were struggling to drag the average age up.

The hall is pretty large and has the ability to hold around 1700 people. It also holds a Mike's Late Night Slice pizza counter, which has to be a welcome addition to any gig venue. We made it pretty early and were able to spend a bit of time spotting the bits of the ceiling that weren't peeling off. Melbourne, Australia's Twerps opened the show and after Julia's mic had been turned on they sounded good with their slightly slacker, Go Betweens/ Feelies jangle pop. They seemed really made up to have had the chance to tour with Real Estate and they were pretty amazed by the size (about half full) of the crowd. 

An hour or so later Real Estate came on to what seemed to be a pretty full crowd of maybe about 1500, judging by a few spaces here and there. They seemed pretty taken aback, having mostly played venues of 3-400 capacity on the tour so far. Throughout the set they played pretty much all of last year's "Days" Long player and kept me more than happy by playing both "Fake Blues" and "Beachcomber" from their Self-Titled 2009 album. After about an hour as the smell of pot and the 18 year old screams got a bit more enveloping, the set came to an end. There wasn't much chance of them getting away with not coming back and when they did they brought the Twerps with them. It was all pretty un-rehearsed but they managed to all plug in and have a good go at covering the Clean's "Anything Could Happen". It was a super fun end to a great show, good job to Promoswest and CD101 for getting so many people in at $5 each.

Without my $2 bus fare home, we missed any potential bus and took on the pouring rain. Just as it looked like it might be easing off, we took the opportunity, as you can living here, to buy ice cream at 10:45pm. Five minutes later, the rain got heavier and between the dickhead drivers of Columbus and a lack of drainage on High St, we were pretty soaked. I wasn't too bothered.

Records and Rain

Saturday was record store day here in Columbus, as it was in the rest of the US and the UK. After trawling for the list of exclusive releases for the day I decided that there wasn't really anything I was willing to stand in line waiting outside in the rain for an hour or so to have a chance of getting. Instead, even though it was raining, I decided I would head down to my closest store, Lost Weekend Records, later on in the day. I aimed for 1pm having read that Lydia Loveless was due to play a set outside. I cycled down in light rain, and was happy to see her setting up under the cover of a gazebo. While she was getting ready I went inside to peruse the racks and check out what was left of any exclusive release (not much).

The rain had pretty much eased off by the time she got to playing her set in the shadow of the gazebo. It was just her, an acoustic guitar and chap on double bass. I really enjoyed her songs and the simplicity of her guitar and belting country, but not too country, voice. She played mostly songs from her debut album (above) and also a cover of Elvis Costello's "Alison," which featured on the B side of her record store day release. I decided to pick up her album after she finished in the busy shop. While waiting in line I also found another bit of Ohio country/ garage (rock).

The Heartless Bastards were formed in Cincinnati in 2003 and their debut album (above) had been on my list since I had worked out that one of my favorite tracks on a fantastic, Joff Winterhart-compiled compilation CD was in fact them and not Sleater-Kinney. So that was record store day for another year,    doing our bit to support our local independent record store, not that I'll be waiting to go back until this time next year you understand...

St James and "Craft" Brews

Saturday brought my first trip to the St James Tavern. The bar is in the Italian Village area, not too far away from some parts of town we've been encouraged to avoid. It might be called either a "dive bar" or, more complimentarily, a neighborhood bar. From the front it looks pretty inconspicuous, but once you get inside you are greeted by wood panelling throughout. They started out well in my mind with the catchy slogan: "No crap on tap for 15 years". Not only was there no crap (ie the big three: Budweiser, Coors or Miller) on tap, but what they did have was mostly new to me and all at $3.50 a pint.

I started out with a Founders Red's Rye. Couldn't really resist the opportunity for my first rye beer and I have to say the citrusy flavor wasn't too overpowering and definitely something I would have again given the opportunity. Just when I think I've narrowed down the list of breweries that are new to me whose beers I need to experience, another one comes along. I will be getting on and trying their oatmeal stout before the Ohio summer arrives.

In another first, I turned next to 21st Amendment's Black IPA. It was decent, but the power of the malt seemed to overshadow the supposed hopiness of some sort of IPA. Pleasant enough, but not on the list for a second go. I had previously had another of their brews from a can. As the barrels were being emptied by a busying crowd, the bartender kept returning with new brews and I got the chance for a glass of Monks Blood. Served in a tulip style glass and coming in at a hefty 8.3% this dark Belgium style ale has plenty going on and dangerously does more than enough to mask the fact that it's as strong as it is!

I ended the night with what has to be my current fave: Bell's Two Hearted American IPA. Bell's brewery is in the fantastically named Kalamazoo, Michigan. It's not really on the way to or from central Ohio to Detroit, but I think we'll have to find a reason to stop there sometime soon.

Hospitality and Franchises

Last night we were at one of our local (walkable) venues to check out Brooklyn band Hospitality. I had got around to buying the album with some of my birthday money a while back and have been really enjoying its hooky indie pop tunes. The nights before and after they played Columbus they were opening up for Wild Flag on their massive US tour; seems that Carrie and her buddies fancied a day off while their touring mates were in Ohio. Shame. The excellently named Amber Papini was doing her best to fight off a cold, so was supping on some sort of herbal tea between numbers. As the crowd dwindled after earlier popular Columbus openers, they ripped through the album and even though there wasn't too much atmosphere about the place, I left pretty happy.

Only a few days after the college basketball season had concluded (Kentucky taking the national championship after Ohio State lost out to Kansas in the Final four), the baseball season started last night. Lots of people were watching the rebranded Miami Marlins in their brand new $500 million dollar stadium. The formerly Florida Marlins are notoriously unpopular in South Florida and, last season, played in the Dolphins' football stadium that has the potential to seat 75,000, which meant that their 2000 season ticket holders kind of got a bit lost in all the empty seats. One rescheduled game last season drew 347, less than a bad day at Twerton Park. The image above shows what two of the $515 million that built the new stadium went towards. When one of the Marlins scores a home run, the sculpture is put into action and marlins jump in and out of the water, music plays and there is an LED light show. Nothing like understatement.

Oh and also, there are aquariums behind the home plate, apparently tested with a few 97 mph fastballs before they put the fish in, all very stylish stuff. As well as splashing all that cash on a new ball park, the owner was still able to scrape together a few bucks for a new coach and some players, three of which come in at a total of $191 million. They lost their first home game 4-1.

This, though, is pretty small-fry compared to the contract Albert Pujols (pronounced poo holes) signed to the LA Angels from the World Series winning Cardinals for $240 million over ten years. This is just the bare bones: there are numerous milestones, including an additional $3 million if he manages 3000 hits, nice symmetry there. He is 31 now, so will still be earning millions on his 41st birthday; pretty good going for a pro athlete.

Finally, one last crazy bit of baseball money madness. The LA Dodgers were bought for $2 billion in March. Magic Johnson and a few of his buddies found the cash to buy the most expensive team in history, more than double the $700 million paid for the Chicago Cubs in 2009.

The Final Four and Ping Pong

Ohio State have made it to the "Final Four". This is a big deal. They play Kansas on Saturday night in the Superdome, a 75,000 capacity indoor stadium in New Orleans. The final four is the culmination of the NCAA tournament and what every college basketball team in the country will have hoped to reach when the season started back in October.

I was never particularly bothered by basketball before coming here to the US, but this tournament has converted me to college basketball. What is especially appealing, and seems pretty unique in pro or collegiate sport here in the US is the potential for huge upsets with no comeback, and in this respect the closest thing to the FA Cup over here.

Pictured above is CJ McCollumn on the way to two of his 30 points against Duke. He plays for Lehigh, which has a student population of about 7000 students and were seeded 15 in their region, ie the second to worst; Duke were seeded two and had the winningest (that is a real word) college basketball coach on the sidelines for them. Lehigh came out on top 75-70 to make it only the sixth time a 15 seed has beaten a number two seed. That was it, Duke were out, as were Missouri (2) courtesy of tiny Norfolk State (15).

Still on sport (kind of) I have remembered how much I enjoy table tennis. Except here it is called Ping Pong and you play with a paddle and not a bat. Bar Ping Pong seems to be gathering popularity so much so that at the bar where I've been playing for the last few weeks, the paddles have Pabst Blue Ribbon (not very tasty, popular lager) written all over them. My Friday evenings in the Chard Baptist church hall seem to have stood me in good stead and I seem to be able to beat a good few opponents, even if it is happy hour at the bar.

Super Lemonheads Tuesday

A couple of days ago it was SUPER TUESDAY here in Ohio and the US. Ohio was one of ten states that were going to the polls to try and decide which of the four republican candidates they wanted to run for president. It was said that should Mitt Romney win the nomination here in Ohio that'd be it. We wouldn't have to listen to Newt, Rick or Ron anymore and Mitt would be the Republican nominee. Turns out he didn't win by quite a big enough margin, so the battle goes on. Probably time for another debate.

More interestingly we were off out to see the Lemonheads at a new venue for us, the Basement. Before we got to the Basement we had a quick stop off at Barley's Brew Pub. I decided against one of their own brews and went for "The Reverend" an effort from Avery Brewing from Colorado. At 10% I went slowly, but did thoroughly enjoy the dark, caramel-y taste.

Arriving at the Basement it was pretty clear that there were lots of pillars and the stage was lower than most of the rest of the venue. After we had waited out the openers, we maneuvered (without being obnoxious) and got a decent spot. They arrived on stage and in pretty much no time at all played "It's a shame about Ray" start to finish. Evan Dando seemed pretty together, though he seemed to keep getting his hair in his mouth and carrying on as though it was no big deal. He came back and did a few by himself, including "The Outdoor Type" and then the rest of the band came back. Kristen was holding out for "Into your Arms" but what she got was set closer "Style". She wasn't impressed, songs about drugs and getting high don't really do it for her, and it was a bit of a disappointment to finish what was a pretty fun, relatively tight set.

Seeking temporary Employment

It has been a long time since I last tried looking for a job with the help of a temporary employment agency. It might be America, it might be the fact that I was only ever looking for a job in a microwave meal factory, but here it all just seems a bit desperate.

After a recommendation, I signed up with my second agency. I didn't hear anything for a week and then an email out of the blue asking me to come along as a major company was setting up in Columbus and they were in need of 200 people to start in customer service right away. I made my way over and after filling out my first batch of paperwork and handing over two forms of ID I met with Allison. We came to the conclusion that I wasn't really made for the 3-11pm shift call center work that they had on offer. We talked about some other exciting data entry opportunities and she said she'd forward on my computer tests to determine whether I was any good at data entry.

After a load of tax paper work I didn't particularly understand, the differences being you could either claim jointly and they take less and give less back, or individually and they take more, but give more back, I went for the former. Then it was time for the drug test, oh yes. I signed something and then a chap appeared and escorted me to the men's room. I peed in the cup and after an awkward moment of us both waiting there in the bathroom, it was determined by the magic testing cup that I was drug free, what a relief.

Nearly there now, just my video CV to get through. I think this worked out OK; I answered a couple of questions into the webcam and tried my best to seem like someone that would do a really good job entering data for someone. I'm still waiting for the call.

TV and Radio

There is a war waging on late night television here. It is an ice cream war. Stephen Colbert started by getting the chance to design his own Ben and Jerry's flavor. We gave it a go the other week as it was $1 off in the local supermarket (still $4, but hey you've got to treat yourself now and again). It was decent and I think I favored the caramel swirl a bit more than the waffle pieces; it is though, long gone. We're yet to try the flavor by Jimmy Fallon (his late-night TV competition-cum-ice cream nemesis), but our alliance lies more naturally with Colbert, mainly because he is on an hour earlier at 11.30pm and we (well, normally, I, since K has usually passed out by then) usually catch his half hour of amusing satire. Staying up until 1.30am to watch Fallon does seem a bit much, even if you don't have a job to go to the next day.

Last weekend was the season premier of Celebrity Apprentice. As you may well know, the "boss" of this nonsense is Donald Trump (no relation to former Somerset off spinner Harvey). Obviously Alan Sugar is bad enough, but I feel like the BBC and the "celebrities" involved have the decency to sod off after one program. Not so here, 18 contestants are set to battle it out for, what I'm sure, will feel like forever. On the two hour premier they were to design sandwiches and sell them for a lot of money. The men didn't do all that well, but one of them (that hosts a program about motorbikes) had a friend that donated $300,000, so they won pretty easily. Simple as that. In the boardroom, when Casandra from Wayne's World treated the competition with the contempt that it deserved, saying she wasn't too bothered if she was brought back into the boardroom, the music changed and the sense of trying to turn something very innocuous into major drama was trying very hard to be played out. Trump of Orange gave her a stern talking to and she tried her best to look like she took him seriously. I'm not too keen to see how the guy that was second on Pop Idol a few years ago and the old Incredible Hulk fare in the next weeks, so that's it for me. Sorry the Trump family.

Finally, I've been a bit slow to try our local radio here in Columbus. The alternative station is called CD101 and can be found on 102.5 FM--confusing eh? I found out that they have a show called Independent Playground on Sunday and Thursday nights where only bands from independent labels get played. I gave it a go and there were some good choices; sadly, though, I couldn't tell you who these people were as there was no DJ telling the listeners what he or she had just played. I did later find out that they list each track online as it is played, but I kind of find it hard to believe that everyone in central Ohio was listening online and I was the only one listening on an actual radio. Could be wrong, though.