Herculodge: Personal Chronicles

Zebra Has Something to Say About Cultural Appropriation

I'm no expert on cultural appropriation unless we're talking about Elvis Presley, who couldn't hold a candle to James Brown . But I saw this on Twitter, and I rather liked it:

EXCUSE ME, MA'AM. DO YOU KNOW WHAT CULTURAL APPROPRIATION MEANS?

Posted at 06:52 AM in Personal Chronicles | Permalink | Comments (0)

File This Under First-World Problems Department.

File this in the First-World Problems Department:

After many years of hard work, I can now afford a nice car and a luxury timepiece, but I find my lifestyle does not require anyplace to drive other than a mile-long foray to Trader Joe’s and no function to attend requiring power jewelry. It’s as if my younger lifestyle begged for status symbols I could not afford while my older living arrangement negates the need for all the material gadgets that are now within my financial reach but are rendered superfluous, even useless. The trumpets of materialism still blast in my ear, but those sounds are dissonant with my relaxed state of affairs.

Hardly considered a luxury watch, my beloved Seiko Marine Monster is not too fancy nor too shabby but strikes the sweet spot of where I am in this world.

Posted at 04:36 PM in Personal Chronicles | Permalink | Comments (2)

My Claustrophobia Attack on the Harry Potter Forbidden Journey Amusement Ride

I hadn’t been to an amusement park in over 4 years. Yesterday, I bit the bullet and went with my family to Universal Studios. The park seemed more abhorrent than my memories of going there in the 1970s and going there for my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah in 2002.

The 2018 incarnation of the park reeked of Las Vegas money-grabbing, subpar overpriced restaurants, wannabe boat cruise entertainers donned in epaulettes and moth-ball smelling gaucherie who constantly massaged their handlebar mustaches and spoke in fake French accents. Worst of all, I stood in line for 45 minutes to go on the Harry Potter Forbidden Journey. As I sat in a cramped seat, a metal bar lowered and clamped down on my chest and torso, resulting in shortness of breath and a claustrophobia attack. The conveyor belt ushered me into a tunnel of darkness as I breathlessly and feebly cried for the engineer to stop the ride. Complete madness, heart attack, or both surely awaited me.

But strangers nearby, observing my unhappy state, cried in unison so that the engineer was at last alerted that a maniac needed to get off the ride. The conveyor belt stopped, a tall smiling usher about my age approached me. I sheepishly smiled at him and said, “Do you need to speak to me in the debriefing room?”

He chuckled and with an ashen spirit I exited the park knowing I had thrown a wrench in Universal Studios’ well-oiled ride machine all the while knowing that regardless of all my kettlebell training and strict dieting that I will never have the aptitude to be a Special-Ops fighter, an astronaut, a jiu-jitsu specialist, or some other profession that requires my body being pinned into close quarters.

Posted at 05:56 PM in Personal Chronicles | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whack-A-Mole with the Obsessions: Radios, Watches . . . and Now Vintage Coffee Percolators

When it comes to my obsessive personality, I can be a little scared, but I can also stand back and laugh. I love really good radios, watches . . . and now vintage coffee percolators, the all stainless steel kind with pot bellies, swan neck spouts. Old school. The brands that have caught my attention are Universal, GE, Sears, and Sunbeam. I bought two, a GE Immersible and a Sunbeam, on eBay.

I love this blog post about cleaning your coffee percolator.

Here's a Coffee Detective post venerating the vintage percolator. The writer claims that the new Made in China ones are junk. Reminds me of my vintage radio love.

Here's a rhapsody to the GE coffee percolator.

Currently, I have a Bodum French Press, nice but I'm not wild about the coffee flavor. I also have a Bonavita 1900 drip coffee maker. It makes good tasting coffee, but I don't like all the plastic parts.

I'm eager to try going vintage. Also, I love the classic look of an all stainless vintage coffee percolator.