Friday, July 30
An American In America
As promised, Cyzyk's holiday rants. Enjoy. Chyld
I probably ought to start this with an introduction, but won’t, because you don’t want to read about me. It is enough explanation to say I am an American, and something of an anime fan, specifically Final Fantasy, even more specifically a fan of Vincent Valentine.
‘The Armpit of America’. This is what many people refer to the state of New Jersey as. Although the home of Bruce Springsteen, it has little else to recommend it. Flat, ugly, and sparsely forested with scrawny pine trees, it also has high property taxes. Its main virtue is that it has some of the best beaches on the East Coast. (It also has the best casino this side of Las Vegas.)
It was to these beaches that I recently took a vacation. The shore is a nice place- relaxing, not too pricey, has good restaurants, and plenty of girls in bathing suits. Admittedly, not all the aforementioned appeal to everyone, me included. The greatest thing about a beach is the limitless sand. Wildwood is considered to have the best sand of any beach for a hundred miles around.
As a comment on modern society, it seems that the art of sandcastle making has fallen into decay. Three days on a beach, and I was the only person over five making one. There weren’t more than two children under five making them either. Enough with social criticism for now.
Day one was mostly spent dragging my family’s clothing up to the hotel room. If you don’t have a sister, you won’t understand this being a problem. Normally, for a 4 day trip, you need two pair of pants, and maybe three shirts. I think she had at least six of everything. (Insert sexist comment here- Chyld)
I hit the beach, and assemble a small castle, which is nearly finished before the tides comes in and floods it. Annoyed, I went further up the beach and wrote ‘Mitsuhide Akechi loves Azuchi Castle’ in large letters in the sand.
Day 2- I’m working on a larger than usual structure, modeled loosely on the Alamo, and populating it with Green Army Men. Everything is going well, until a group comes marching down the beach and sets up a radio. They were an extended family group of about fifteen Hispanics, of various ages.
Normally I don’t have anything against Hispanics, except that they don’t speak English, and even then that isn’t much. The problem here is that they were playing loud Spanish techno on the radio. Loud, as in ‘ear-splitting ground-shaking 3 digit decibels’. You may not be familiar with Spanish techno, but it’s awful. Even for techno, which is saying something.
Well, I tried gesturing at them to turn it down, since they didn’t speak English, but they didn’t understand. (Probably didn’t try.) So I go back to working on my sand castle, and finish of the tank compound, complete with tread marks. Then something really bad happens.
Did I say there wasn’t anything worse than Spanish techno? There is, and you’ve probably heard it. Britney Spears off a bad radio. And just as loud as before. I gave up at this point, and went somewhere else to complete my magnum opus.
Day 3- I spent it on the boardwalk. Unless you are familiar with the concept, this is a raised wooden platform with stores at the same level. It’s done in case of flooding, since ground level (about three feet above sea level) can get pretty wet sometimes. Now, there are three kinds of venues on the boardwalk.
Day 4- By this point my vacation was winding down. I’d inflicted a crippling injury on myself by slipping and cracking a table on my knee. (Yeah, the table cracked, and not me. Must have been a cheap table.) Having purchased the requisite shore item (fudge), gotten a tan, built several sand castles, and had a rather disturbing dream, I was quite ready to go home.
What, you wanted to hear about girls at the beach? Who do you think I am, Ricardo Montalban?
I probably ought to start this with an introduction, but won’t, because you don’t want to read about me. It is enough explanation to say I am an American, and something of an anime fan, specifically Final Fantasy, even more specifically a fan of Vincent Valentine.
‘The Armpit of America’. This is what many people refer to the state of New Jersey as. Although the home of Bruce Springsteen, it has little else to recommend it. Flat, ugly, and sparsely forested with scrawny pine trees, it also has high property taxes. Its main virtue is that it has some of the best beaches on the East Coast. (It also has the best casino this side of Las Vegas.)
It was to these beaches that I recently took a vacation. The shore is a nice place- relaxing, not too pricey, has good restaurants, and plenty of girls in bathing suits. Admittedly, not all the aforementioned appeal to everyone, me included. The greatest thing about a beach is the limitless sand. Wildwood is considered to have the best sand of any beach for a hundred miles around.
As a comment on modern society, it seems that the art of sandcastle making has fallen into decay. Three days on a beach, and I was the only person over five making one. There weren’t more than two children under five making them either. Enough with social criticism for now.
Day one was mostly spent dragging my family’s clothing up to the hotel room. If you don’t have a sister, you won’t understand this being a problem. Normally, for a 4 day trip, you need two pair of pants, and maybe three shirts. I think she had at least six of everything. (Insert sexist comment here- Chyld)
I hit the beach, and assemble a small castle, which is nearly finished before the tides comes in and floods it. Annoyed, I went further up the beach and wrote ‘Mitsuhide Akechi loves Azuchi Castle’ in large letters in the sand.
Day 2- I’m working on a larger than usual structure, modeled loosely on the Alamo, and populating it with Green Army Men. Everything is going well, until a group comes marching down the beach and sets up a radio. They were an extended family group of about fifteen Hispanics, of various ages.
Normally I don’t have anything against Hispanics, except that they don’t speak English, and even then that isn’t much. The problem here is that they were playing loud Spanish techno on the radio. Loud, as in ‘ear-splitting ground-shaking 3 digit decibels’. You may not be familiar with Spanish techno, but it’s awful. Even for techno, which is saying something.
Well, I tried gesturing at them to turn it down, since they didn’t speak English, but they didn’t understand. (Probably didn’t try.) So I go back to working on my sand castle, and finish of the tank compound, complete with tread marks. Then something really bad happens.
Did I say there wasn’t anything worse than Spanish techno? There is, and you’ve probably heard it. Britney Spears off a bad radio. And just as loud as before. I gave up at this point, and went somewhere else to complete my magnum opus.
Day 3- I spent it on the boardwalk. Unless you are familiar with the concept, this is a raised wooden platform with stores at the same level. It’s done in case of flooding, since ground level (about three feet above sea level) can get pretty wet sometimes. Now, there are three kinds of venues on the boardwalk.
- Beach stuff stores. Plastic shovels, bathing suits, towels, and so forth.
- Various games for prizes. The kind you can’t win, like put a giant basketball through a tiny hoop, or throwing a quarter on a glass plate.
- T-shirt stores. Now I don’t know why you’d want a t-shirt so bad you could run a dozen stores selling them exclusively, but there are. These are generally of a rather off-color variety, featuring lightly-clad women and highly inappropriate captions.
Day 4- By this point my vacation was winding down. I’d inflicted a crippling injury on myself by slipping and cracking a table on my knee. (Yeah, the table cracked, and not me. Must have been a cheap table.) Having purchased the requisite shore item (fudge), gotten a tan, built several sand castles, and had a rather disturbing dream, I was quite ready to go home.
What, you wanted to hear about girls at the beach? Who do you think I am, Ricardo Montalban?
