Category: Consuming

September is the month for motorcycle manufacturers to announce their new models for the upcoming year. After looking at my favorite manufacturers (Honda and Triumph), here are my thoughts on this year and predictions for 2007.

Honda has brought the 599 (aka Hornet, aka CB600) back to the US after a 1-year hiatus. A top-seller in Europe, it’s well-reviewed, especially for city riding. But the American market loves big-displacement bikes that go long distances on highways, and this is medium-sized and unfaired, making for windy highway rides. That, plus a price-tag well above the competition (notably the Suzuki SV-650) led to poor sales for 2004, and no US release for 2005. I was hoping for a switch to fuel-injection and maybe a cut in the price, but instead it’s $300 more and some suspension adjustments. My prediction: poor sales and the continuation of Honda’s search for something to replace the Nighthawk 750, its previous mid-size standard. I don’t think they’ll find something that can really be loved in the US the way that Europe likes the Hornet: it’s a great, medium-sized bike, and the US doesn’t seem to like anything moderate. I’ve seen people mocked on message-boards for starting with a 500cc bike, which in Europe is considered full-size. Kawasaki is nodding to that fact by releasing one of the only all-new bikes of the year, the incredibly-cool ER-6N, only in Europe.

Meanwhile, Triumph has brought out a couple variations on its current themes, most notably the Scrambler, an offroad-style version of the classic Bonneville. That got me thinking: I saw a lot of dirt-bikes and dual-sports in Barcelona, and they’d be perfect for a lot of city streets in the US as well: they give you an upright position so you can see around you, and they’re great for potholes and sidewalks. Plus, it seems like dirtbikes are becoming cool again, and Supermoto Racing (dirt-track in some sections, paved in others, slightly modified dirt-bikes) is increasingly popular, with segments on the X-Games and sponsorship from Red Bull. My prediction is that we’ll see some interesting dual-sport bikes coming from the major vendors in 2007.

If not, that’s an opening for KTM, which has long been focused on off-road bikes but has built an impressive dual-sport portfolio as well. The new, more street-oriented 990 Super Duke suggests to me that they are perfectly aware of the trend, too. It seems perfect for the US market, too: where else could you sell a dirtbike with a 1-liter engine?

See, you can find some good deals if you’re just willing to look hard enough, maybe consider something further out of town. But if you’re willing to commute, hey, you could get a place described as having only one bad room! And I’m not too sure what they mean by “glory hole,” either– possibly the bedroom comes equipped with a means for poring boiling oil over your neighbors?

Boston now ranked as the most expensive city in the US.

Hurrah! A new Fantasy Cocktail League from Toothpaste For Dinner.

It makes me incredibly sad to think that there are people in the world in need of a device to mutilate anyone who tries to rape them. I mean… just… living in fear. Ugh.

Like living in New Orleans, near a levee that everyone knows needs repairs, and knowing that evacuation orders mean “if you have a car, get out now.” The people in charge apparently regarded this evacuation as more orderly than the last one. They also apparently expected the poor to walk to Texas or something.

No, they didn’t. They expected the poor to drown.

Although there’s good news too: people with boats are doing their own search and rescue thing.

I know that there’s a limited amount of money, and we’ve got a war on, but still… FEMA is broken, mistakes were made, heads will roll.

Give til it hurts seems to be all we can do.

Columbia Valley (Washington State) 2003 Gewurztraminer: $11 at Downtown Wine & Spirits, Somerville. This may be one of the best white wines I’ve had all summer. Incredibly delicious. Slightly sweet, plenty of fruit… great for hot nights.

… another sign that the boom in house prices and sales is finally slowing, as homes have become so expensive in many metropolitan areas that some people have decided to rent instead.

Sometimes, people ask me where they should go for dinner. Maybe this is because they think I’m a smug know-it-all, and maybe it’s because they respect my opinion, but regardless, I have lots of restaurant opinions. For a special-occasion meal in the greater Boston area I have two picks I want to share with you.

Acquitaine is in Boston itself and has a rather traditional bistro menu: try the hangar steak, or anything roasted. They also have an incredible little bar up front, and quite a few people seem to go there just for drinks. The wine list is quite extensive, and the bar has all sorts of small-batch cordials and liqueurs which make the cocktails there really special. One drink involved gin and cassis, a combination which was really good at the bar but which I could not successfully replicate at home. I’ve spoken about the place with a few other people and all of them have agreed with me that it’s excellent.

My absolute favorite place in the area, however, is Evoo, which is actually in Somerville. It’s the sort of contemporary American restaurant that tells you exactly where your baby lettuces are grown. They combine flavors and influences from around the world, but never lose clarity or direction the way these sort of “fusion” places can. Favorites include a salad of celery, watercress, feta, and tart strawberries, a dish called “Duck Duck Goose” consisting of duck prepared two ways and goose prepared one, and the sublime lemon-raspberry tart (really, I’ve never had such a perfect crust). The Evoo wine list is short enough to be manageable, reasonably priced, and populated with some interesting bottles, including a couple of really nice cavas I haven’t seen anywhere else. I do love a place that serves champagne by the glass.

Of the dozen or so people I’ve gotten to try the place, only two disliked it, mostly on the basis that they don’t like their food to touch or have more than one flavor at a time. One guy looked at the sauce on his pecan-crusted salmon and said “oh god, it’s everywhere.” I have not spoken to him since.

In the history of bad TV ideas, I’m not sure where to rank a comedy about eating disorders. It’s probably up there with the Star Wars Christmas Special or something. It’s just… so… awful.

Now, difficult subjects and comedy are not totally incompatible, but it takes a real genius to pull off that kind of thing– Life is Beautiful is a beautiful movie about life and love and laughter that just happens to be set during the holocaust. But let’s be honest here, Roberto Benignis don’t just grow on trees. They sprout wild like truffles and have to be hunted by trained pigs on leashes in the pristine Benigni fields of mountainous Italy.

Do they have comedic geniuses? Probably not. I mean, even the promotions are dumb, too: they’re advertising it in my gym. Next to the ad about how you’re really tough if you show up at the gym at 7AM with a hangover. (You’ll need our powerful deodorant then, because you’ll smell like the sewer you slept in. Or is that the sewer that is your bloodstream? I can’t tell which, they’re pretty close in consistency. How about a campaign for “You’ve got the shakes and puking, but at least you’re not sweating, because you’re a Mitchum Junkie!”)

Another way we can tell they’re not doing this out of a strange sense of genius: they’d be looking for new territory, and Mike Leigh did this back in 1990 in the film “Life is Sweet”. That movie, despite its description and pitch as a “comedy,” is one of the most depressing things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some depressing movies. (Naturally, being a Mike Leigh movie, it’s about totally screwed up British people and is horribly depressing with a slight dose of stiff-upper-lip humor: her boyfriend is the sensitive one and she just uses him for sex… of course, they’re both still miserable.)

So far, they’ve made a pilot and one episode. Maybe they’ll get as far as three or four before they remove the feeding tubes (ha ha get it?) and let the brain-dead creature die.

I mean, I knew it was coming. I read about it in places like Berkeley economist Brad DeLong’s Website and Fistful of Euros, but the Chinese currency revaluation didn’t really hit home until I got this email today (nearly deleted by spam filtering, of course) warning me that all the promotional plush penguins and ball-caps with the company name on them are going to be more expensive now.

Perhaps this is good news for the US novelty, gimmick, and gizmo industry. Or did we shut that down twenty years ago? Do we still have a novelty/gizmo industry in this country?