New Bedford

Made a quick trip yesterday to New Bedford, Massachusetts, about 40 miles from Newport. New Bedford is still a working fishing town, and we poked around the port looking at all the fishing boats. Definitely not built for comfort. Can't imagine being out one one of those suckers. There were a lot in port, partly because of the approach of Tropical Storm Danny, which is soaking us all today.

The main reason was to visit the New Bedford Whaling Museum. It was pretty cool. Some fun facts... New Bedford was the center of American 19th century whaling, and the main reason for the whaling was whale oil to burn in lamps and candles. This is before we discovered oil in Pennsylvania and figured out how to refine and use it, of course. At one point, there were around 750 whaling vessels world-wide, and 400 of them were based out of New Bedford. Pretty impressive.

Downtown New Bedford is nice. Still some cobbled streets, especially near the port. Still a lot of maritime businesses so the port is definitely not a museum piece. Up from the waterfront are a lot of art galleries and artist studios for rent - helped by the fact that UMass and Bristol County College both have set up art schools in downtown NB.

Netflix, This Is REALLY Aggravating

So we're watching our latest arrival from Netflix, the quirky Canadian comedy "Corner Gas." Season one, disc 2, episode 11 - "Hook, Line and Sinker".

We get halfway thru that episode, and the show stalls. No problem, we'll try washing it with a little Windex. Doesn't work. Report the problem to Netflix, put it in the mail, a couple of days later, we have a second disc.

We get halfway thru that episode, and the show stalls. No problem, we'll try washing it with a little Windex. Doesn't work. Report the problem to Netflix, put it in the mail, a couple of days later, we have a third disc.

We get halfway thru that episode, and the show stalls. No problem, we'll try washing it with a little Windex. Doesn't work. Report the problem to Netflix, put it in the mail, a couple of days later, we have a fourth disc.

We get halfway thru that episode, and the show stalls. No problem, we'll try washing it with a little Windex. Doesn't work.

Uncle. How many identically faulty discs will Netflix send us?

The first three discs all looked a bit dinged on the business side. The fourth disc looked PERFECT. But it isn't.

Which leads me to ask, is Netflix making copies from a bad master disc? How many people have had this problem with this episode of "Corner Gas"?

It is extremely aggravating.

Oh and despite this, I highly recommend "Corner Gas." A very funny show.

Kookaburra Feeding

Essayist and humor writer David Sedaris has a piece in the New Yorker about his trip to Australia, and his encounter with a kookaburra. Worth a read.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/24/090824fa_fact_sedaris?currentPage=all

Some First Impressions of Newport

So we made it to Newport, Rhode Island. A few first impressions.

It's Old!

Seriously, by American standards it IS old. It was founded in 1639, and there are some 17th century buildings around and PLENTY of ones from 17-something. It's so old when you see a house built in 1898 you think of it as new.

Most of the old houses are occupied; some look like they're falling apart, but many are still in good shape and/or are being restored now. I'd think this is a good place to be in the restoration business - just up and down the street are three or four old houses with crews swarming over them.

These are the "regular" old houses - haven't gone to check out the mansions of Newport built by the robber barons I mean the Captains of American Industry back in the late 19th century.

Traffic, Good and Bad

Newport isn't a big city, about 36,000. But it's pretty densely populated - and even MORE crowded in August with all the tourists. It hasn't taken me long to sneer at tourists' getting lost or making mistakes behind the wheel, with my solid two weeks of residency here. People here tell is it will be much quieter by October, when most of the tourists have gone home, and the fogs roll in.

And the streets are mostly very narrow. "Broadway" (a main drag) isn't ALL that broad, really! So traffic is kind of at a crawl here - 25 mph speed limits in many places. On the other hand, it's not a bad place to be a pedestrian - cars actually STOP (mostly) when you start crossing the road on a pedestrian crosswalk.

Friendly

Most of the locals we've met - neighbors, restaurant servers, store employees, etc - have been very friendly. So far, so good.

Stuffed French Toast

Okay, I'd never heard of stuffed french toast - but we've seen it on at least four different breakfast menus here. What is it? Two pieces of french toast with bananas, strawberries, or other fruit in between. A couple of places have had an icing of cream cheese and confectioners sugar in the middle; another place had some sort of fresh cream with the fruit.

Oh and in at least one place, it was made with Portuguese sweet bread - a thick, sweet bread just like you'd think. Big Portuguese influence here - Rhode Island is the top destination for Portuguese immigrants to the US, and lots of restaurants have "chorico" (in Spanish, "chorizo") on the menus (a spicy sausage).

The eating here is good - lots of restaurants, from the fancy to the cheap homey sort. Not unexpected in such a big tourist destination.

I've heard some complaints about the PRICE of eating out here. I have to say it hasn't been that bad to me. Maybe that's because I was in Australia, where restaurants were more expensive. Although once you add 8% sales tax and 15% tip you're getting close to Aussie prices!