Waiting for Speedway Fowler

Picked this up very cheap at BJ's Wholesale. Hopefully I will be able to put my hundreds of vinyl records on my MP3 player. I haven't quite worked out the bugs yet. My first attempt also picked up all the sound from my laptop's microphone.



Here you see two of the first albums ready for conversion: An early disc by Dexy's Midnight Runners, and McGuinn, Clark and Hillman's one and only (AFAIK) record.

So... just to be able to say I'd done it, I ordered the Donut Burger at Muncheez the other day. It was fine, but nothing special. They do not used Krispy-Kreme-style glazed donuts, but rather a granular-sugar donut variety. It wasn't anything I'd order again.



I also ordered the deep-fried Twix Bar, which the kids got to before I could try it.

Wanna guess who maintains Bank of America's ATM system? They spent all day yesterday at the BoA branch at Tatnuck Square.




Yup, it's those nice folks at Diebold! Three vans. One from South Carolina, one from New York, and one from Virginia.



These folks are very adept at stealing elections. Why would you trust them with your money?




I'm guessing they think their slogan is reassuring.

Saw another one of those strange Bear stickers. This one was on the door of the "It's A Go!" skate shop on Chandler Street.

Catching up on some old photos. Took Seamus out for lunch for his birthday. Ended up at the Wah-Bo Grill in Shrewsbury. Nice place. Good prices. Music was a little too intrusive. GREAT burritos, though.

These are a piece of history! I doubt there are any radio stations that still use these. These were sitting in my garage for 15 years before I finally dropped them off at the recycling center yesterday. Sort of sad to see them go, for some reason. I felt like they should be sent to a museum!

One of my favorite shops in Portsmouth is Bull Moose Music. Bull Moose has ten stores all around New Hampshire and Maine. Each store is unique and the place has a vibe very reminiscent of the late, great Hurdy Gurdy Man Records, which was my favorite place to buy music in Worcester in the 70's.

While searching through the bins, I found something amazing: Bill Chinnock's "Badlands". Chinnock was one of the original founders of the E Street Band. He later moved to Maine and married Dick Curless's daughter, and was HUGE in Maine and New Hampshire, when I was in college. He would regularly sell out gigs at the Cumberland County Civic Center. His album, "Dime Store Heroes" remains one of my favorites.

What's interesting about the Chinnock album is that it has a 2008 copywrite, so I'm thinking that maybe someone bought the rights to all his music and will be releasing it on CD for the first time, which would be awesome. Chinnock died earlier this year after a long battle with undiagnosed Lyme Disease, but it's nice to see that his music survives.


Plus - I found a Southside Johnny Album - "Live in Boston 1978", that I didn't even know existed.

One of the few hobbies I have is planting tomatoes every summer.

This year I planted grape, roma and Early Girl tomatoes.

They have come in nicely and I used some of the grape tomatoes this week to make homemade salsa. 

I don't know why, but 3 Dollar Dewey's in Portland has always had the best chili anywhere. I'm not sure what their secret is, but every time I'm in Portland I make sure I stop in for a cup or a bowl of their chili. It has beans in it, which may offend some purists, but it's better than anything I've tasted at several of the chili festivals I've been to.

Muncheez Pizza has opened at Tatnuck Square in the storefront that used to hold Pop's NY Pizzaria, and before that, Holiday Pizza.

Muncheez menu is very unusual, with fried Snickers bars, Donut Burgers, and Spaghetti-and-Meatballs Pizza. We tried the last one. Not bad!

Owen came in the house the other day after hitting a pothole on the street and going head-first over his handlebars. Check out the damage.

The Storefront Theater.

I think this was over on Russell Street, right near Elm Park, but I could be wrong. Maybe it was off of Pleasant Street.
All I know is that the mural on the side of the building was one of the great freaky, trippy elements of Worcester in the 1970's.

BTW - this photo is just one of Robert M. Johnson's fantastic, AMAZING pictures from Worcester and elsewhere, which can be viewed at www.fullframeimages.com . Johnson is a one-of-a-kind artist.

That was the response from actress Blythe Danner, recently in Providence, when I said to our photographer, "You know, the actress who played the reporter in "Futureworld"."