Today is Cinco de Mayo. Do you have any idea what you're celebrating? I'll give you a hint: it is totally unrelated to Mexico's independence from Spain.



Last night we went to the Lewiston Waiting in Line Festival - er, Smelt Festival at the Silo on Water St. The food was good, but the combination of the weather and the view made it much awesome. The problem was: there were separate lines for smelt, beer, real food, and ice cream, and they were all kinda long. So you'd get a couple [small but free and really good] bowls of smelt and then ... wait in the beer line to wash them down. Nevertheless, we had a fun mellow time. They crowned a Smelt Queen. She was wearing an elegant dark green floor-length dress with a subtle fishscale pattern, with matching dorsal and tail fins. It was well-executed and too awesome for words [and I say this with utmost sincerity].

We decided that many of the salient aspects of life in Buffalo are like the punchline of a weird joke. The people who either get the joke or who don't realize it's a joke are the people who stick around. The people who don't get the joke or who don't think it's funny are the ones packing their bags. Outsiders typically smile and nod, and they can go either way. I think it depends on whether they've got a warped sense of humor and whether they're too cool for school.

- Z