If they can’t get that right

My local CVS pharmacy seems so confused about so many little things I am beginning to wonder about the big things — like are the pills in the bottle what they say they are?

Recently it’s the sales tax. In the city of Albuquerque the tax is 7% since July 1st. Outside the city, but in the same Bernalillo County, it is 6.0625%.

The CVS I visit is in the county but not the city, so it should be charging 6.0625%. Today they added 6.625%, which means they are using the old city rate. It seems they don’t know where they are or even when it is.

I’ve found other mistakes. The wrong number of pills. The wrong cost for generic prescriptions (almost always).

How hard can it be? Don’t they have computers?

Not encouraging line of the day

“New Mexico ranks 47th among states [and D.C.] in the number of 25 to 34 year olds with an associate’s degree or higher …”.

New Mexico Independent

“[R]oughly 28.5 percent of New Mexicans aged 25 to 34 possess an associate’s degree or higher, which compares unfavorably to the national average — 41.6 percent.”

Only West Virginia, Nevada, Louisiana and Arkansas have a lower percentage. Massachusetts is the best state with 53.4%. The District of Columbia is 63.5%.

Five Guys Named Best Fast Food Burger

[T]he voters at the Zagat Guide recently chose Five Guys as the best burger in the country.

In a survey of 6,500 fast food fans, Five Guys beat out all other burger chains for top honors, followed by In-N-Out — last year’s winner — in second place. Rounding out the top five were, in order, Wendy’s, Burger King then McDonald’s.

Among full-service chain restaurants, Red Robin reigned supreme. The rest of the top five were Stake ‘n Shake, Cheesecake Factory, Ruby Tuesday and Chili’s.

The Consumerist

I believe it is Steak ‘n Shake, but no matter. Eat enough of the burgers at any of these places and you might as well drive a stake through your heart.

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, which was released [51] years ago today, is a nearly unique thing in music or any other creative realm: a huge hit—the best-selling jazz album of all time—and the spearhead of an artistic revolution. Everyone, even people who say they don’t like jazz, likes Kind of Blue. It’s cool, romantic, melancholic, and gorgeously melodic. But why do critics regard it as one of the best jazz albums ever made? What is it about Kind of Blue that makes it not just pleasant but important?

Fred Kaplan tells us Why Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is so great.

The sextet consisted of Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Cannonball Adderley (alto sax), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums) and Bill Evans (piano). Wynton Kelly replaced Evans on “Freddie Freeloader.”

Everyone — every one — should own this album (if you own it, you will listen to it). It rarely costs more than $10, and you can get it from iTunes right now.

“Kind of Blue isn’t merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it’s an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence.” — allmusic

To this day Kind of Blue sells 5,000 copies a week.

August 17th

Maureen O’Hara is 90 today. Once voted one of the five most beautiful women in the world, Miss O’Hara is proabably best known now as Natalie Wood’s unbelieving mother in the classic Miracle on 34th Street (filmed when O’Hara was 26); or perhaps as Esmeralda to Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul is 78.

Robert De Niro is 67 today. De Niro has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar five times, winning for Raging Bull in 1981. He also won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role as the young Vito Corleone in Godfather II. De Niro’s other nominations were for Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings and Cape Fear.

Belinda Carlisle is 52.

Novelist Jonathan Franzen is 51 today. His The Corrections won the 2001 National Book Award.

Sean Penn is 50 today. Penn has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar five times, winning for Mystic River and Milk. Penn’s other nominations were for Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown and I Am Sam.

Football coach/commentator Jon Gruden is 47.

Davy Crockett — frontiersman, soldier, three-term congressman, restless soul — was born on this day in 1786. As congressman 1827-1831 and 1833-1835, Crockett opposed many of President Andrew Jackson policies, particularly the Indian Removal Act. Crockett published A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett. Written by Himselfin 1834. When he lost reelection that year he went to Texas, where he died at the Alamo on March 6, 1836.

After seeing Mae’s jewelry the coat check girl exclaims, “Goodness, what lovely diamonds!” Mae replies, “Goodness had nothing to do with it.” That’s screen legend Mae West in Night After Night. Ms. West was born on this date in 1893.

Before August 17, 1896, Americans had little interest in Alaska, a far off “district”—not even a territory—full of wolves and ice and forests. That attitude started to change [114] years ago today, when a Tagish Indian known as Skookum Jim spotted something shimmering among the stones in a creek near the Yukon River. The Klondike Gold Rush began as soon as news of the discovery reached the states, and between 1897 and 1899 1 in every 700 Americans abandoned home and set out for the “Golden River.”

There’s more at American Heritage, including this nugget: “At a time when workers were lucky to make 10 cents an hour, gold was worth $17 an ounce.”

The Girl Who Played with Fire

We saw The Girl Who Played With Fire (Flickan som lekte med elden) this afternoon — the Swedish film (with English subtitles) based on the Stieg Larsson book, the second of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. It’s a terrific action drama and Noomi Rapace is even more remarkable as Lisbeth Salander.

Read the three books. See the movies.

(The third film, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Luftslottet som sprängdes) was released late last year in Europe but not in the U.S. yet.)

Making a Splash

Been hanging with some of The Sweeties for this past week — with more to come. That means, of course, that I’ve been in the National Capital Area. Love it here in late July and early August: 95 degrees and a billion percent humidity.

The divisional swim meet was Saturday and three of The Sweeties competed and won a passel of ribbons. On Sunday Aidan (6) and Mack (9) were recognized as their 315-kid team’s most improved (for boys 6-and-under and boys 9-10 respectively). Aidan won the same trophy last year. Kiley (7) should win a lot of points next year when she’s among the oldest kids in her age group. Alex (5) and Reid (4) will compete next year — each has already swum a complete 25 meter lap.

Glad to have such strong swimmers for grandkids, especially after the tragic news story from Arkansas earlier this week. I’m a very poor swimmer myself and didn’t even learn until I was in college. According to a couple of studies reported at Slate, one third of adults claim they cannot swim the length of a pool (25 meters) and more than half of teenagers cannot do more than splash around in the shallow end.

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold ran in April 1966 and became one of the most celebrated magazine stories ever published, a pioneering example of what came to be called New Journalism — a work of rigorously faithful fact enlivened with the kind of vivid storytelling that had previously been reserved for fiction.”

A long, but exceptionally rewarding article for any fan of Sinatra’s young or old, and for anyone who appreciates great writing.

Redux post of the day

From three years ago today.

Hello, Mini-Maids

Wow, this house has more spiderwebs than Peter Parker’s bedroom. I just pulled one down (highlighted by the early morning sun) that could have trapped small mammals. Kind of pretty; maybe I should have left it until Halloween and just back lit it with a candle.

NewMexiKen used to have a house cleaner but she mostly just relocated all the stuff on shelves and tables so that it took me (not that I’m anal) almost as long to realign everything as it would have to clean myself.

Alas, but I don’t clean myself. I mean the place is tidy; no dishes in the sink, counters shiny, no papers on the floor, bed usually made, trash always out to the curb early Wednesday.

I just don’t dust, mop or vacuum much. Spiders like that in a housekeeper.

July 24th

Today it’s the birthday

… of cartoonist Pat Oliphant, 75.

… of Ruth Buzzi, 74.

… of Cosmo Kramer. Michael Richards is 61 today.

… of Wonder Woman. Lynda Carter is 59.

… of Pam Tillis, 53.

… of Barry Bonds. He’s 46.

… of Kristin Chenoweth. The Tony award-winner from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, is 42, all 4-foot-11 of her.

… of J Lo. Jennifer Lopez is 41.

… of Anna Paquin. An Oscar winner at age 11, she’s now 28.

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24th in 1897. She disappeared at age 40.

It was on this date in 1847 that Brigham Young gazed at Utah’s Valley of the Great Salt Lake and made his famous declaration: “This is the place.”

Enchanted Places

How many of these enchanted places have you seen?

New Mexico Department of Tourism’s Top 10 Attractions:

Another ten enchanted places:

What’s worth seeing in New Mexico that isn’t listed? I’d include El Morro National Monument, Lincoln State Monument, Taos Pueblo, Acoma Sky City (the pueblo, not the casino), and a pueblo feast day.

NewMexiKen has been to 13 of the 20 listed and “sorta-kinda” to four more (been near, driven by, checked out the price of admission). And, obviously, I’ve been to those I would add to the lists.

Hot, you call this hot, well back in the old days . . .

On this day in 1936, the Dust Bowl heat wave was so intense that Kansas and Nebraska experienced their all-time hottest temperatures, unbroken to this day. In Alton, Kansas, the temperature was 121 degrees, and in Minden, Nebraska, it was 118.

During the summer of 1936, a total of 15 states recorded all-time hottest temperatures that still have not been broken. And not all of the states were in the Dust Bowl region. Earlier in the month, Runyon, New Jersey, was 110, Moorhead, Minnesota, hit 114, and Martinsburg, West Virginia, 112. By early August, Ozark, Arkansas, and Seymour, Texas, had hit 120 degrees.

The term “Dust Bowl” had first been used on April 15, 1935, the day after “Black Sunday,” when dust storms were so bad on the Great Plains that the sky was totally black during the day and there were winds up to 60 miles per hour.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Here’s a list of the 50 state records. I count 13 all-time highs from 1936.