When Dollhouse first aired me, Jessie, Ryan and Sara watched the first episode. I remember really liking it and we added to the season pass of our TiVo but that was on our old TiVo before it died. During the TiVo replacement process we decided not to deal with copying off Dollhouse because we figured we could just watch it on DVD when it came out. So.. Fast forward a bit.. Dad got Dollhouse on BlueRay and a few months ago got us an awesome BlueRay player. When we got the player we borrowed Dollhouse Season 1 and it sat in a pile, we never watched it because it seemed like so much to watch and we never have the time..
We had Christmas Eve dinner at our house again this year. I made a lime chili tilapia with acorn squash and Jessie made her raw pasta sauce. Towards the end of the night Jessie started to feel strep like conditions, when we got up Christmas Day we were in no hurry to run over to my brother's house because we were both now feeling sick and even debated going to the emergency room because urgent care was closed on Christmas Day..
What do you do in the winter when it's cold outside? Stay inside... Add to that not feeling good equals LOTS of staying inside and lots of TV. We caught up on all of our shows (Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Iron Chef America, Chopped and Monk) and went into the BlueRay pile.. First - My Name is Bruce which was a crazy silly Bruce Campbell movie, it was pretty funny but the movie was overshadowed by the theme song! (see diversion of the day)..
Speaking of Monk.. Wait, were we? Sure... Why not... Anyway, Monk.. We watched the last nine episodes over the last few days, if you ever liked that show I recommend watching at least the final few episodes. It could have been one of the best series finals of all time.. I was not a big fan of last season, but this season (especially the last few episodes) really made the entire show. You will be missed Mr. Monk... Thanks go out to Tony Shalhoub for brightening our lives for the last eight years!
Back to the Dollhouse.. Buffy, Angel, Firefly and now Dollhouse, all on my list of all time best TV shows.. Joss Whedon has created four very distinct and very great shows. The only annoying thing about Dollhouse is that we now have to wait to watch the final few episodes in real time. There are three episodes left to the series. Low ratings and an odd concept led to a very early cancellation, at least this time he has gotten the chance to wrap up the storyline unlike Firefly.
It snowed Sunday like a bitch... Well, Saturday evening into Sunday.. We got at least a foot or two.. Welcome back, right?
I have not blogged in a while because I didn't have internet on my PC for the ride home and as you know it can get away pretty quick.. I just got home from Tuesday dinner and am watching ICA while Jessie makes food for her luncheon tomorrow. Gwen made a turkey today and it came out really good, I don't normally like turkey but I enjoyed it quite a bit tonight. Joe brought Setcube which is the game of Set in a Scrabble type setting and Kevin brought Monty Python Flux so it was a fun night filled with fun games.. :)
So, back to my last blog... When last I wrote I was getting ready to leave for Animal Kingdom. I was happy to see that they added quite a bit to Animal Kingdom since the last time I was there, the safari was better than I remember and they opened Everest (a roller coaster) as well as the completed Dinosaur play area. Speaking of the safari.. I was getting on the ride and the guy on the platform looked familiar, I looked closer and realized it was a friend of mine I hadn't seen in years! When I worked for Lechters I met Justin who had at the time recently moved to the North East after working for Disney. We both left Lechters for Natural Surroundings and from there we both went to Best Buy. He left Best Buy and last I heard had moved out to the middle of the country so it was pretty crazy to see him working back at Disney! I hung out with him for a few minutes on his lunch break, we were going to hang out that night but he ended up having too much school work to do. Instead I ended up at Downtown Disney, Disney Quest and Pleasure Island.
Disney Quest was pretty lame for a single player, most of the games are at least two players if not four players so there was not too much to do by myself. Disney is in the process of changing over Pleasure Island to a sorta restaurant row. All of the old clubs are closed and they are starting to open up some new restaurants, I ate at one of them (forgot the name now, but it was the South American restaurant) which was really good. I got a skirt steak and sat outside on the water listening to live music, Downtown Disney is across the lake from Saratoga Springs and they had the Tree Houses lit up so you could see them across the lake.
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When I arrived at Disney I saw a advertisement on the table in the hotel room for 40%-45% off your next trip provided that trip is booked while your currently in Disney and as long as you come again during 2010, well since me and Jessie are planning to go in Oct of 2010 I called the number and booked our trip. You actually had to call from the room which makes sense. I set up a week in a Fort Wilderness Cabin, if you set it up online it's almost $3,000 and by setting it up while there I ended up paying $1,500!
Monday me and dad went over to Epcot and finished up the Kim Possible missions that were available. Uncle Larry, Tina and Cameron came over and met us but we didn't stay long as we had dinner reservations over at Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom. Cinderella's Round Table was an interesting experience, I guess I did once before when I was younger but I don't remember it. I was expecting the food to be somewhat generic because I figured you were paying for meeting Cinderella and sitting in the castle but the food ended up being real good. I had a salmon crab cake for an appetizer which was probably the star of the meal.
I woke up early Tuesday and headed out. I probably would have done better waking up later because I got stuck in real bad rush hour traffic in Orlando. Once out of Orlando it was mostly smooth sailing to get to North Carolina. This time I went to Keith and Beckie's house and Beckie made dinner. Rich came over but Harry and Nicole did not because Harry had the bronchitis.. Beckie made Taco Pie which was croissant dough in a baking pan with ground turkey, cheese, chips and spices, it was very good and I think I will try to recreate it for one of the Tuesday dinners. Speaking of great, she made a salsa which was so good I actually had her print me the recipe. I always enjoy hanging out with Keith, Beckie and Rich and it was nice to see them again.
Wednesday I drove from North Carolina to Virginia. Hung out with Robyn for lunch before heading over to Amy and Mitch's condo. I probably have not seen Mitch in five years and it was very fun to see him again, I was surprised at how young he still looks. I saw Amy earlier in the year but it's always awesome to see her, we had a great night doing nothing but playing cards, talking and listening to music.
Thursday was a LONG day on the road! I went shopping with Amy in morning before leaving which was the best part of the day. Got stuck in DC traffic, missed my exit in Delaware and ended up driving about 40 mins out of the way up 95. Got stuck in accident traffic in both Trenton NJ and crossing the bridge into Staten Island. By the time I finally got to Amber and Kris's apartment we had just enough time to eat before they left for a midnight showing of Avatar.
Friday I got up early and grabbed the Ferry from Long Island to Bridgeport CT. Friday ended up being a pretty great first day home. I met Holly for lunch and Lynz on her way home from work/doctors's appointment before finally getting home to see Jessie. I wanted to get home before Jessie but traffic nailed me again, this time on 395, so I got home a bit after her. Hung out with Jessie for a bit before meeting Lynz at a Barnacle concert in Johnston RI. Barnacle is a good band and the percussion guy was amazing, he had a set of bones in each hand and was playing two different percussion lines! If that was not amazing enough he grabbed a shaker in each hand and had that going while still playing the two bones.. Enough already? Nope.. He grabbed a tambourine and dropped it on the floor and started playing it with his foot!!!
Saturday, Sunday and Monday was a whole lot of cleaning and catching up on TV. Monday night I went out Christmas shopping with Lynz and Anja. Today I finished cleaning and wrapped all my presents. I came up with this great idea to make the boys (Tim and Rowan) boffer daggers, I could find any CPVC or pipe foam so I ended up ripping apart my old staff to make them daggers. I did the entire project (ripped apart old staff and made two daggers) in less than one hour!
2nd day in a row I'm the first one up.. Spent the day over in Epcot yesterday.. Me, Uncle Larry and Cameron got over there for 9am (park opening) and did Test Track, Mission Space and Energy all before the crowds showed up, we were able to basically walk onto each of those rides. From about noon-close Test Track had around a 110 minute wait so it was good that we got on when we did. spaceship Earth was the first ride where we hit a line and that one was not too bad (20 minutes). Dad and Tina joined us after Spaceship Earth and we went over to the Land pavilion and Soarin. Soarin's line said 50 minutes but it ended up being over 90! They added some interactive stuff to do in the line but it was still pretty painful to wait that long.
After Soarin we ate lunch at the quick serve place and I got a goat cheese and beet salad and some corn chowder. Went from there to the Land ride and the Lion King living with the land movie to finish off the Land pavilion.
They recently changed the Sea pavilion, the replaced the entry with a Nemo ride and added a "Turtle Talk" show which is like Monsters Inc. Crush comes out and talks to the audience, I am in awe at they way they do those two shows. Obviously the lips don't sink 100% with the voice but it's close and the movements do sync which is crazy. Journey into Imagination and Honey I shrunk the Audience ended the day.
How big is Epcot? We went from 9am - 7:30pm and completed the 7 main buildings of Future World. We didn't step foot in Innoventions or the World Showcase.
Ate in the Land pavilion at the Garden Grill which is the rotating restaurant.. Cameron loved it because Chip, Dale, Pluto and Mickey were there and kept walking around and interacting with everyone. Chip snuck up on him (I don't really know how) and Cameron was so excited he fell out of his chair! The food was good and pretty cheap so no complaints on that end.
Dad left after dinner and the rest of us went to the UK for some beer and Illuminations. We managed to get a table in the Rose and Crown, when I say a table I mean the best table in the house. It was located outside and in perfect line with the show, we were so close firework debris landed on the table!
Today is Animal Kingdom and last I checked the weather it was going to be in the high 80s. I guess that cold front is thankfully over..
Not much has changed at Disney's Hollywood Studios except the name. Actually I guess that's not entirely true. We got to the park and upon looking at the show times decided to head over to Star Tours because they had an early morning "Jedi Academy" show. The Jedi Academy show is not supposed to be funny but when kids are involved there is usually some good laughs. There is a line of kids waiting to be Padawans, they take a bunch up on stage and teach them how to use a lightsaber. The guy who played the Jedi Master had an awesome sense of humor and he kept having to tell these two kids to face the audience. He would be teaching and almost every other sentence was "it might work better if you faced this way", or "it might work better if you turned around".. The Jedi Academy show might have been my favorite part of Hollywood Studios because the Jedi Master was just that cool, at one point he made a real bad joke and the audience didn't laugh so he waved his hand and said "you will find my jokes funny" and told the same joke again, of course this time we all laughed... :D
The other new things.. American Idol.. They have auditions in the morning and shows in the afternoon into evening, the audience judges and the winner gets a real American Idol audition. Toy Story ride.. I didn't ride it because the line was too long, it's a shoot 'em up ride where you get guns attached to your cars and have to get points while you drive around. Narnia show and props show.. They bring you into a cave and show you the entire plot to Prince Caspian and then open the doors so you can walk around to see clothes and props from the movie.
I left Hollywood Studios around 4 and went over to Epcot.. Epcot was very crowded and I spend the next few hours doing Kim Possible missions, I've now done missions in Mexico, Norway, China and Germany. While in Germany my locator tab broke, I went back to the booth to get another one and one of the guys who works there came with me to test it and we ended up hanging out while I finished Germany and did China. He had just gotten off work and was looking to hang out for awhile before going home, he was a nice guy but I was kinda glad when he left.
It had been cold all day and I finally caved and bought a new sweatshirt, it's an Epcot one of course but it's different than the one Jessie has. I got over to dinner a little early and they were really crowded, I ended up getting seated just a few minutes later than my appointment. Does cold weather effect Iron or am I looking for excuses?
I was having a real big problem warming up so I decided to get warming food, if you looked over the menu you would probably assume I would get the fish dish which was an entire fish cooked with oil, olives, greens, fennel and other spices. What I got instead was a Cinnamon chicken dish over rice which was good but certainly not Iron, I actually think my cini-maple chicken is better than her dish. My first course was a roasted red pepper and chick-pea soup which was very tasty and really did a good job of warming me up. Next came the chicken and the wine. Cat Cora has a series of signature wines, I had the PinotNior with dinner and every time I would start to think this meal is just eh I would have a sip of wine and be blown away once more, there are more flavors and textures in each sip than there were in the entire meal. I bought two bottles to take home.. For dessert I got doughnuts which came with raspberry and vanilla dipping sauces. I tried each separately which was good and then both together which was better.
So, to sum up.. I would not put her in the same realm as the other Iron Chefs but she is certainly not anywhere near as bad as Nakamura.. I will update my Iron Chef list blog later and rank them.. :)
I was the first one up this morning.. :D Going to Epcot with everyone today.. I thought today was Animal Kingdom but they were wrong when looking at their restaurant reservations.
Yesterday started the night before.. When I was getting ready for bed we realized we had no blankets or pillows for the living room beds.. I called the lobby around 11pm and finally got blankets and pillows at 1:30 after calling them 3 more times.. Between that frustration and my dad watching TV in his room it took me a long time to get to sleep so I was extra upset when at 5am uncle Larry turned on all the lights to make coffee! He came in and was trying to turn on just the light above the sink but there didn't seem to be a switch to do that. After he started coffee he went back into his bedroom and I was now wide awake and grumpy.. Took a shower in the living room bathroom which was lame because that shower has a single shower head and it sprays in a straight line so it's like pouring a pitcher of water..
Dad was hanging out when I got out of the shower and I tried to convince him to come to the Magic Kingdom, but he decided to wait for them to get up and moving. The Magic Kingdom had "extra" morning hours yesterday so I went over for the early opening. I went on a few rides and was very impressed with the Monsters Inc show. The Monsters Inc show is a new addition to Tomorrowland, while you're in the waiting room for the show they tell you text jokes to them so they can use them in the show which I thought was a joke but turned out to be real. I don't know what magic they use to do this but it's an animated movie where they interact with the audience! Imagine being at a comedy club but the comedians are cartoons, at first I figured it was pre-programmed but then the person sitting next to me got harassed so I knew it was real. I would be bold enough to say that one show is worth going to the Magic Kingdom. They also changed up the line for Space Mountain and added video games you can play while waiting in line. Met up with everyone as they were coming off Pirates and I went on Splash Mountain with uncle Larry and Cameron and got soaked! I've been on that ride many many times and never got as wet as I did this time..
Back to the hotel for a nap and change of clothes.. After nap I went over to Epcot and quickly remembered why that is the best part of Disney. I didn't get real far actually, I went in and found me and Jessie's "Leave a Legacy" marker right away, man we looked young in that (put up in 2001). Next onto Starship Earth which they changed a bit, they updated some of the special effects and added a computer to the cars which asks you questions about how you want your future to look and then shows you some of the new or upcoming technological advancements that can make your future a reality! The ride now drops you off into an area which has some activities, one of them tested your reaction time, memory, and hand eye coordination and showed how in the future they can use a machine like this to perform physicals, uploading the data to the doctors office. They also had a 3D operation game which was really neat looking.
Went from there to Innoventions where I spent the rest of the day. I played a waste management game, they would ask you questions about your usage and then you get a "truck" of garbage, you have to bring the truck over to the recycle station and separate trash from recyclables, then to a trash burner to burn whatever you can and finally to a land fill where you can make a nature preserve with your remaining trash. Also played a Piggy Bank game where they teach you how to save money by bringing a piggy bank from station to station and collecting coins, diversifying your loot to hide it from the wolf and fighting the inflation balloon.. From there I went to "Sum of all Thrills" which shows you how you need math to do things like build roller coasters, once you build it you ride it on a mechanical arm which whips you about to simulate the motion of your coaster. From the wild to the mild, the next stop was the Segway which I got to ride up and down a pre-set course for free! It was a bit tricky at first but once you get the hang of it you can move around pretty good, it steers like a motorcycle and the only thing that was tricky was mounting and dis-mounting. What else? Oh, right, then I played a fire prevention game which was there before but still lots of fun and watched the effects of wind and weather on a house.
Finally left Innoventions right around 6 and went up to Canada to watch Off Kilter which had their last show of the night at 6:15. I got two more of their CDs and there are apparently two more which they were out of yesterday. If you don't know Off Kilter, they are a band very much in the vain of Kilt and Great Big Sea. Check your iPods because you may already have their first CD.. ;)
Decided to eat while I was in Epcot so I went over to the UK and had me some fish and chips while sitting on a quiet bench at the lake. The fish and chips was very good and apparently got me in the UK mindset (more on that later).. After dinner I accepted a Kim Possible mission which led me from the UK to Norway to Mexico. The way it works is they give you a cell phone which gives you hints to lead you from place to place, the cell phone interacts with items around the park to make them change, etc. These could possibly be the best thing that could happen to make Epcot even better, there are (from what I've been told) 7 different cell phones, in each cell phone there is a mission in each of the Worlds so that's a lot of different missions! I see a long day of me doing nothing but playing these ahead.. What a great way to make sure you see everything in the World Showcase.
After I solved my mission I went over to America to watch some of the Candlelight Performance which was very pretty, the left and right side of the choir was dressed in white to look like snow, the middle of the choir was dressed in green and those at the top of the tree in gold so that when you stood back it looked like a giant Christmas tree! I thought it was going to be a parade but it was just a stage show of choir music. I watched a song before heading back to the UK to get a seat for the fireworks show. I went up and ordered a beer and the guy said $8, I handed him a $10 and then pulled my coin purse out expecting a $2 coin! Silly America and our reluctance to use coins..
I filmed most of the fireworks show with my camera phone but can't post them because the hotel blocks youtube as R rated content.. I will have to post it later.. After the park closed I went over the Boardwalk so I could see where Cora's restaurant was. Got back to the room and all was quiet because dad and uncle Larry went to the store to get breakfast stuff. I turned on the little light over the coffee maker and went to sleep so that there would be no "lights on" event again this morning.
Got up and took a shower in dad's bathroom which has a great shower, it has a real shower head and a rain shower head so it was a nice happy making shower. Uncle Larry made egg sammiches and I'm now sitting in the lobby on the WiFi because dad is using the room internet to do work.
Today.. Heading to Hollywood Studios (used to be called MGM)..
Last night I relaxed in the hot tub and watched some Daily Shows on my laptop. Lag time was pretty horrible and kept buffering but I got caught up to date.. Woke up this morning and finished the drive to Disney.. Got to Disney at the same time as my dad, uncle Larry, aunt Tina and their grandson Cameron. Me and dad went over to the Magic Kingdom to get me my annual pass and food discount card, I managed to convince him to come into the park with me and we went to a few rides before meeting back up with Larry, Tina and Cameron to head to dinner.. The lines were all very small which is a good thing. I was a little disappointed in the lack of Christmas decorations, the only place that was decorated was the Main Street area.
Tonight dinner was at Citricos which is in the Grand Floridian hotel. I had Berkshire Pork Two Ways which was Pork Tenderloin and Braised Pork Belly with Herbed Gnocchi, Heirloom Apples,
Swiss Chard, and Madeira Broth. The wine they recommended with it was the King Estate Pinot Noir, Oregon ’07 which was a little too sweet for me. I thought the meal would have been better with a more full wine but oh well.. For dessert me and Tina split a Warm Chocolate Banana Torte with Vanilla Ice Cream which was really good.
We are now in the bar/observation deck in the hotel. We are in the Bay Lake Tower which is at the Contemporary hotel. Our room is on the 12th floor and we have a wonderful view of the Magic Kingdom. The only problem I have is that the room does not have locks on the bathrooms..
Speaking of hotels, they re-opened the tree houses. There are 60 units and they attached them to Saratoga Springs which means they are part of the Disney Vacation Club..
Went to dinner with Harry, Nicole, Josh, Keith and Beckie at a place called Wasabi over by Keith and Beckie's house. If you remember from the other day I had sushi with Jessie, Holly and Louie and had these things I had never seen called Johnny Mussels.. I almost died when I saw "Spicy Mussels" on the menu at Wasabi because they were the same thing.. So, now I saw (and ate) them twice! They were just as good at this place.. The regular sushi and maki was not quite as good but it was still very good. It was nice to see Beckie and Keith again and we had a great time over dinner.
After dinner Harry, Nicole, Josh and I went to Rodie's Tavern which is a biker bar over by Harry's house. The owner was an awesome guy who seemingly bought the bar to have fun. He goes around to each person and offers them challenges like beating his score at a boxing game for a entire day's worth of food and drink. I was shocked to see they had Yuengling on tap, I even more surprised to find it was only $1 per beer and/or $6 for a pitcher! We played a few games of pool before the owner came over and asked if anyone wanted to challenge him to a game for a beer. Harry took the bet. This guy was good and Harry was just as good if not better! The owner won the first game and they played double or nothing on game 2 which Harry won. Very fun night.. I really felt at home at Harry's house and was kinda sad to leave..
Left Harry's with the intention of meeting up with people in Duluth but as I was most of the way there I found out nobody was available that night.. doh.. I could have just stayed at Harry's house another night, but oh well.. Since I was almost at Duluth I figured I would stop at the sports bar and get a Fat Tire while I figured out my plans. After some research I booked a room using Marriott points in Jacksonville Florida. After a long drive in which I got pulled over I arrived at the hotel here. I was talking to Jessie and being very aware of the speed limits when I passed a cop. I checked my cruise control (65) and checked the speed limit (55) and figured I was safe. The cop pulled out and insisted I was going 80! I argued with him for a bit once it was obvious he was going to give me a ticket and he basically said since I'm out of state he knows I won't fight it but that he would write it out for 75 in a 55! WTF!! I guess the lesson here boys and girls is don't drive at night on back roads in Georgia with Gay Rights and Mets bumper stickers!
This morning I got up and went for a walk around the hotel, ate lunch, went to a state park in the swamp and went to a state park on a peninsula. Took lots of pics and even one video which are posted to Flickr and Youtube respectively. I have been taking some very nice pics this trip if I do say so myself.
Tonight? I don't know.. Go to the pool? Grab some dinner? Just be lazy.. Tomorrow I drive to Disney.
I'm sitting at Harry's house in North Carolina.. We are going to go get lunch and see a movie soon but I figured I would try and bang out a blog since I have not in a week. I tried last night but I was exhausted, I did however upload lots of new pics to Flickr last night (some from Nov and some from Dec).
Sunday night (last Sunday) me and Jessie met Kaitlyn and her friend Bean at the People's Pint. When I checked their website they didn't have anything listed for entertainment so I was pleasantly surprised to find the Trad Sessions were indeed on for the night. My favorite beer of theirs is the Slippery Slope which was apparently making it's return to the menu that night! They switch between that and a few others to keep things new so it worked out well that we had postponed dinner from last week. Not only would Slippery Slope not have been there but there would have been no trad sessions because they are every other week. The session players started out small but grew as the night went on. Kaitlyn had just come from her family's house and had a bunch of left over desserts in her car so after dinner we walked out and ate a bit in the parking lot before coming back in for some more beer and music. Didn't get home till real late but it was a great time..
Monday was a somewhat quiet day, Nurit came over for lunch and I had dinner with Janine. Nurit and I went to the Courthouse and then spent some time at Victoria Station and Wonderland Books, I found out that not only is there a book that Howl's Moving Castle was based on but there is a sequel! I added them both to my Audible wish list. Janine and I ate at Red Robin in Millbury.. The Millbury FYE is closing so they have everything on clearance sale, the prices still are not very good, but they are better than normal "in-store" prices. I went to look up if all FYEs were closing or just that one so I went to Trans World Entertainment's site and found out that they own Suncoast now!? Both Suncoast and Saturday Matinee are listed as their stores now.. Odd...
Tuesday.. Me and Jessie went down to NYC to see Storm Large at Joe's Pub. The trip was not too bad and we arrived a bit before the show, parking was easy and there was a Starbucks and Gamestop nearby so we had no problem wasting time before the show. We had dinner reservations for 6:00pm with the show starting at 7:30pm. The dinner was just ok, but that's not why you go there.. So... Storm.. The reason to drive to NYC in the middle of the week? You betcha, she was amazing. I would say the best thing of the show was seeing her do I Want You to Die and Hopelessly Devoted to You. I know there a few of her concerts on the web and I really hope that show will show up. I was trying to grab Hopelessly Devoted for my diversion but the only live versions have really bad sound quality. The only thing I feel robbed about was that they didn't sell shirts between the shows. They had them (I saw them being counted before the show) but they didn't want to sell them because they needed to clear the house.
Wednesday.. I went to lunch with Lynz, I picked her up at work and we went to a lunch place we have been to before, funny thing.. That lunch place is right near Holly's house! It was really funny, I was driving there going I know this place and then I realized why.. Two times South in the same day.. After lunch I got my oil changed for the trip and then I went back South with Jessie to meet Holly and Louie for dinner at Johnny's Peking Tokyo. They have an appetizer called Johnny Mussels which are mussels with eel sauce, tobiko and a few other things. They are so friggin good! Apparently Holly and Louie get them every time they go there, I can see why.. I got tuna tar-tar and bunches of sushi & sashimi, everything was great and I want to go there more.. After dinner we played pool and I lost all three games! Game 1 was me and Jessie v. Holly and Louie.. Game 2 was me and Louie v. Jessie and Holly.. Game 3 was me and Holly v. Jessie and Louie..
Thursday.. I packed and went to Lynz's house for lunch, we went to a cafe near her and got sammiches.. After lunch I drove to Matt's house in NJ.
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Drive to Disney part 1..
I picked up Matt at his job and went to his house for the night.. Sile made dinner and afterwards we watched a Ricky Gervais stand up DVD. I never saw him do stand up and it was very very funny.. He did a bit about an HIV awareness pamphlet for gay men, I was laughing so hard it hurt.. That and his bit about glory holes were probably the best bits of the DVD.
Woke up early and drove to Virginia, got to Robyn's house around 2pm. Hung out and chatted for a while before going to get an early dinner at a fish restaurant near her job. They had a Gorgonzola bacon special sauce which I got on a Sea Bass, it was really good and the portion size was not too big.. After dinner I drove the grip to Harry's house in NC. I got a ticket on the way when they randomly lowered the speed limit of the highway from 75 to 65 and then to 55! They had cops at each lowering point and were pulling everyone over. Finally got to Harry's around 11pm.. Hung out and went to bed pretty late which made the early rise and drive a bit annoying..
Well ok.. That's not really what made the drive annoying.. The Rock Slide on Rte 40 which was the first part.. Rte 40 on the NC/Tenn boarder is closed and has been since October, apparently there was a bad rock slide and they are estimating March to clean it up. The Blizzard was the other part! It was raining when I left Harry's house around 6:40am and by the time I got to the boarder it was snowing BAD! I decided to listen to the gps which told me to take 40 to 25 which went over and through the Blue Ridge Mountains. The ride over them was nice but would have been much better if not for the blizzard. Anyway, after 7+ hours of driving I finally got to the Parthenon in Nashville. I really don't think you can get a real idea of how big the Parthenon is when you see it on TV, I took some amazing pictures which are up on Flickr.. The one of me standing in front of Athena will give an idea of how big it is.. The Parthenon in Nashville was first built in 1897 but they had to fix it up a few times, the statue of Athena was finished in 2001. The entire place is painted as it was in Ancient Greece.. They have an American Art museum in the basement (under the Parthenon) and they have some of the original sculptures in the main room against the walls. 7+ hours of driving got me back to Harry's around 10:30pm.. That's right, left Harry's at 6:40 and returned at 10:30.. Long ass day of driving...
I slept late today (around 10am) and lazed about with Harry.. We went to the Jockey underwear store and ate lunch.. Now we are just watching stuff on YouTube before dinner..
Long time no blog.. I have been having some issues with my work laptop over the last few weeks, it started when I got home from Duluth. Apparently I got some sort of virus while using the in flight wi-fi. The laptop was running real slow all of a sudden and I went into the services running and saw two CTFMON.exe, I ended them both and ran a scan which found nothing.. I ended up having to run a FULL virus scan (including looking inside all zip files) before it finally found a SpyWare. Ok, lesson learned, is it really that important to have internet on the flight? I don't think so, and if I do that again in the future I will be jacking my security settings before hand.
Spyware - gone.. PC back to normal for a day or two before it just locks up, wtf!! I go to move mouse, bring up task manager, anything and realize that the laptop is REAL hot.. I turn it off and feel bottom which could probably cook an egg.. Turn it back on and it runs.. I was in the airport on the way to Brazil when this happened the first time so not much I can do.. Get to Brazil and find out the IT guy there will not take my laptop apart but suggests I wait till I get back to corporate, in the meantime I grab a little metal frame which will hold the laptop up and make it not overheat as much. Get back to corporate and after a day of fighting with India and our IT group I finally get a local IT guy who cleans out the fans which had collected MASSIVE dust bunnies.
Overheating - gone.. So, you know how when things run hot it can have adverse effects on the long term life of your parts? Well, although the laptop has no more dust bunnies it still is overheating? Bad mother board? Probably, I have an appointment with IT to bring it on Monday because of the holiday weekend. What to do in the meantime? My friend happens to have an extra Dell D630 which he brings over and we swap the hard drive..
Overheating II - gone.. Now to relax and resume normal PC operation.. Not so fast, overheating PC = crashed operating system.. Hard booting crashed operating system = corrupt files! My laptop is going to need to be re-imaged because anytime I load things like Chrome, Java, Flash the PC hangs. Not that overheating kind of hang, but the operating system dying kind of hang. Well, I uninstall Chrome and re-install to try and fix the issue.. Now it only does it when I close Chrome.. Switch to IE.. Same problem.. Ugh.. Back to re-image idea.. Well, as you may or may not know I've been wanting to replace my work laptop with a lighter smaller netbook. As it turns out Radio Shack has the Acer Netbook I want on sale for $250 on Black Friday.. 5am journey to the store yields favorable results amid the crazy shoppers..
So, I wake up on Black Friday at 5am, throw some clothes on and head over to the Shack.. They open at 5:30 and can't really be that busy right? I know it's Black Friday, but they are Radio Shack not Walmart. Speaking of Walmart, I drove by them and found their parking lot and all the nearby parking lots filled! On to Radio Shack, I got there around 5:15 and there was a pretty decent sized mob hovering around the door. By the time the store opened I would say there were just under 50 people waiting, they were shaking the doors and yelling for the Shack employees to let them in early.. When the doors were finally opened at 5:30 much pushing and shoving ensued, luckily for me I was standing near some big dudes and followed them as they pushed their way through. This little maneuver made me the 2nd person to the counter and the 2nd person to get a Netbook. They only had three which I knew going into it so I feel pretty lucky..
One of the deciding factors to me buying this Netbook was that, although it came with Vista, it got a free upgrade to Windows 7. So, first thing I do is go to Acer's website and register for my free upgrade only to find out that this netbook is NOT eligible for the upgrade! I call Acer customer service who informs me that:
1 - the website does indeed say the AO751h is eligible for the upgrade but only if
2 - the netbook came pre-loaded with Vista Home Premium and that
3 - this netbook came with Vista Home Basic and therefore
4 - it is not eligible
Odd, ok.. Do any of the AO751h configurations come with Vista Home Premium? No! That is not a valid operating system choice for this netbook! What are your valid choices you ask? XP Home and Vista Home Basic. You really have to love false advertising! Oh, and even if it was eligible for the upgrade I found out that I would have gotten Windows 7 Starter which is not even a full version of Windows 7!
Well, there are some amazing deals on Windows 7 right now, you can get Home Premium for $29.99 if you're a student or an educator at a university. The only thing you need is a .edu email address.. If you have a .edu look it up because I can't imagine you will get a better deal.. Oh, well, maybe.. Worcester State College is selling Windows 7 Professional for $39.99! Speaking of .edu, I really think EMC should have .edu email addresses for people who work in education. The Microsoft deal will work for both students and teachers but I can't prove I'm a teacher.. Either a .edu or some form of EMCU ID, I'll be bringing this up next time I'm at work.
Next time I'll be at work will be Dec 23rd.. I have an ass-ton of vacation left for the year so I am (as of last Wednesday) on vacation. I'll be heading down to Florida in a few days (probably leaving on Thursday) and will return around the 19th. I do actually return to work on Dec 21st but I will be teaching a TTT via Centra at 5am on the 21st and 22nd so I won't be going into the office.
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So, short story long is I'm typing this blog on my brand new Acer Netbook which is at the moment running Vista but will be upgraded to Windows 7 later today.
Anything else happen? Well.. Last I blogged I was heading out to the Galeria and to meet Luana. The Galeria was indeed open when I got there and pretty crowded since everyone was getting off early on Thursday for the long weekend (Friday was a holiday in Brazil). I wondered around the mall for a few hours and was a bit disappointed honestly, the last time I was in Sao Paulo the mall seemed to have more diversity.. What I mean by that is, more stuff from more bands.. This time it seemed that most stores had the same stuff, if not the same stuff it was different stuff for the same bands. Not only did they all seem to have the same bands, but those bands were almost all American bands, they didn't even have any Tuatha De Dannan shirts or dvds this time. I was really hoping for a bootleg concert DVD of theirs and I was trying to find Jessie one of their shirts. Another disappointing thing was the prices.. You may remember that KISS recently released a WalMart exclusive CD (Sonic Boom), they had that CD for over $100! Yes, I mean the "$" sign not the "R$".
After a few hours there I walked over to Augusta St to meet Luana. We meet and went to get some food, I was wanting something healthy since I had not eaten much greens since I was in Brazil so we went to a mall that was up the street. The mall was just like an American mall and we went up into the food court which had things like Subway and Starbucks. She suggested one place which had really good salads and I got a salad/steak combo meal, the steak was ok but the salad was indeed really good. After dinner we walked down to the club she had to do sound check at and after I walked her to the subway before catching a taxi back to the hotel. She is a very nice girl and it's a shame we didn't have more of an opportunity to hang out..
Brazil taxes imports up to 70% depending on the item. They do this to encourage people to buy Brazilian which I guess I understand, but why tax imports when there is no Brazilian counterpart? To make the rich richer right? Only reason I can think of..
Friday I checked out and went to work to hang out with Paulo a bit, we went to a mall for lunch because it was the only thing nearby that was open. We ended up eating at a sushi restaurant which is always a good thing.. It was very good sushi and I was amazed that everyone there, even the little kids, were using chopsticks! I guess it's really just North Americans that can't figure out how to use chopsticks.. After lunch we went to a few stores and looked at TVs, laptops and DVD/Blue Ray discs. I am amazed at how much electronics in general cost in Brazil and I really think they need to relax that stupid import tax on things like TVs and computers. US and Japanese car companies build cars in Brazil and are still taxed with the import tax because they are not Brazilian companies.. I was sorta surprised that some of the mall stores were cheaper than the galeria on heavy metal CDs & DVDs, and I'm not talking a little cheaper either. Paulo convinced me to buy City of Gods on DVD, I have not watched it yet but he says it's quite possibly the best movie ever made in Brazil.
After lunch Paulo took a few calls and then had to leave for a few sites. I hung out a bit more at work and then left for the airport. They say you want to get to the airport early right, well not too early in Brazil.. I arrived around 7pm for my 11pm flight and found out the Continental ticket counter was still closed, there was a big line waiting, I asked the lady where the "elite" line was and was pointed to a MUCH smaller line. In line I met a really cool guy from PA, we ended up chatting for a long time and after we finally got through security we went and got some food together. Turns out he was on the same flight, and not only the same flight but the same row of seats! Certainly made the trip back more enjoyable.
Speaking of enjoyable, I watched "GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra" and "Julie and Julia" on the plane. GI Joe was much better than I expected, I don't know if it was really a good movie or if it was good because my expectations where so low. Either way, I really enjoyed it and would probably watch it again because it's always tough to watch super special effects movies on the little screen on the plane, not to mention that they probably cut some stuff too to make it more family friendly. Julie and Julia was a cute movie and was very well done, they mixed in just the right amount of Julia's life to let you know what her life was like before she became the TV superstar.
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While we are on the subject of TV superstars and cooking for that matter.. I landed Saturday and we decided to go to Bar Americain (Bobby Flay's restaurant in Mohegan Sun). We're not stupid enough to think the place won't be crazy crowded so we call, and call, and call.. Not once did they answer so we figure we will just go down, how long can the wait be? So, funny story.. They were closed for a Private Party on Saturday night! It was apparently the official opening night with the ribbon cutting ceremony and all.. So, Summer Shack it is.. We had a very nice meal at the Summer Shack and then headed home. During the day on Saturday we were trying to convince Christian and Mara to come down, luckily they didn't since the place was closed! Sunday we made attempt number two, once again we called all day and once again there was no answer. We went down somewhat early and were asked if we had a reservation.. How could we have a reservation when you don't answer the phone? Oh, we have the wrong number? Apparently both Bobby Flay's site and Mohegan Sun's site have the wrong phone number.
They sat us anyway after a very short wait and all the hassle was worth it.. I may have mocked Bobby, well, ok, I mocked him a lot.. I will not mock Bobby anymore, he is truly an Iron Chef. When Fuji TV was looking for the first American Iron Chef they turned to Bobby Flay and he showed how American he was by dis-respecting the kitchen and standing on his cutting board after the battle. I guess I never looked past that one moment. What I should have realized is that they picked him to the be the first and, at the time, only American Iron Chef and they obviously had reason to do so. I have now eaten at most of the Iron Chef restaurants, I have Cora, Batali and Garces left, and Bobby is certainly in the top 3 in my mind. The whole meal costs around $130 which is a pretty good deal when it comes to Iron Chef meals and I highly recommend his restaurant if you ever want to eat Iron Chef quality American food!
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This blog is getting out of hand so I am going to start ending it. Here's the quick week in review.. :)
Monday - Dinner with Holly, we went to dinner by her house and then back to her house where I finally met Brutus! I was about to write a big thing about how Brutus is a really cool dog and how I'm really glad we got along but I really don't want this blog to be 100 pages.. Oh, bah.. Nobody ever said you had to read my blog right? I assume if you're hear it's because you want to hear my ramblings so 10 pages or 100 pages it doesn't matter right?
So, after dinner we went back to her house.. First she let Ruca out, I met Ruca before and we seemed to get along so let's start easy.. Ruca came out and seemed to remember me which was good. We bonded a bit and then I held her leash and gave her a dried bull penis to keep her busy while Holly let Brutus out. Brutus came out and seemed surprised to see someone in the house, he was not upset, just surprised. He turned the corner into the living room and just stopped. Brutus is a much bigger dog then Ruca and I think he is the kind of dog who does not realize how big and strong he is. After some time, tricks and treats Holly brought him over to smell me, after a few minutes he was eating out of my hand. He is very gentle when taking food out of your hand, it could be the most gentle I've ever seen a dog take food from a person actually. After a little while I tried to give him his bull penis but unfortunately Ruca finished hers too quick so now she wanted his too. Brutus was let outside, then put away while Ruca was let out. Then Ruca was put away and Brutus came back out to hang out a bit more, I gave him his bull penis (I really just like saying bull penis) and we got along well. After a bit more he was put away and Ruca let back out with no leash while we played some Wii.
Tuesday - Dinner.. We had our own little Thanksgiving celebration with Turkey Burgers, stuffing, sweet potatoes and egg nog. I made Brazilian pizza with Catipuri, ham, onions and egg. I know, it's not very Thanksgiving, but it was in honor of Sao Paulo.
Wednesday - Played and lost the OOTP World Series.. Caught up on lots of TV..
Thursday - Thanksgiving at my mom's house.. Lots of food, lots of fixing computers and lots of good times..
Friday - Radio Shack (see above) and Joe's birthday party. Joe's party was zombie themed and most of the food was in the shape of brains.. He boarded up his front window and put caution tape up which made the house look really cool from the outside.
Saturday - Anja's birthday party, hung out with Dagmar again.. She is really cool and we need to get her to Tuesday dinners.. Me and Jessie caught up on more TV and played Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. That game is really not very good, the song choices are pretty bad and the sound mixing makes it hard to play. We have to keep reminding ourselves it came out between Guitar Hero III and IV, they obviously rushed it out.. Saturday night Kevin and Sarah came over and we played MULE, troubleshoot his PC (bad video card) and watched most of Red Dwarf Season 1.
Sometimes you know you're shit is not secure and sometimes you think it is. But remember, even when you think you're shit is secure it may not be.. Well, this morning I made a realization that my shit was certainly not secure.. Apparently the lock on my hotel room door does not work. I am usually really good about jiggling handles when I close doors to make sure they are locked, I guess I had not done that before today. Imagine my surprise when I jiggled the handle and the door opened!
I tried it a few more times just to make sure, but sure as the night is long my door does not lock. I had my iPod in the safe but for the last few days my laptop has been sitting on the desk. Luckily nobody else realized my door does not lock. Tonight I'm going to lock my laptop up in the safe too.
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Last night I went to Paulo's apartment and his wife made a wonderful meal that even had veggies! I had my first helping of veggies since being in Sao Paulo last night.. Palm, broccolli and a passion fruit. I never ate a passion fruit before, what you do it cut the top off and scoop out the insides with a spoon, the insides are like jello. It's very good and I'm glad I got to try it. Speaking of trying it.. I tried the Caracu beer on it's own and it is a very good stout. I also tried a white "mead like" wine called Halberth Niagara. I got some Catipuri in the store and I'm going to bring it home. I hope it stays good on the flight, I'm going to pack it in my luggage but I hope it does not get too warm during the trip.
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Class is over and I'm heading to the Galeria de Rock again. Afterwards I'm going to meet Luana at a rock club to see a local band.
Oh, speaking of the Galeria, if you remember I went to Casas da Mortadella after the Galeria the other night. I forgot to talk about the bathrooms. There is a very steep and very dark staircase that goes upstairs to the bathrooms. The bathrooms doors are so small I had to duck! Also, the bathrooms had no lights except the open window.
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One more thing.. I uploaded pics to Flickr today.. :)
Last night after going to the Galeria de Rock me and Paulo went to Casa de Mortadela which is a restaurant downtown that serves, what else, mortadela sandwiches. They also have a really good sausage sandwich too. Oh, speaking of the Galeria de Rock.. I looked online and found that the Galeria closes at 8pm, what they failed to mention is that most stores close between 6 and 6:30.. We got there with not much time to look around, most of the stores were either already closed or just about to. I did get a live Blackmore's Night DVD/CD which is PAL and from some crazy region and I got Jessie a Helloween shirt. I saw some amazing Blind Guardian long sleeve shirts but none in my size. Well, Friday is a holiday which means I don't have to teach so I can come back right? No.. The entire Galeria is closed on Friday! I'm going to attempt to go back Thursday after work, hopefully I can get there earlier this time so I can spend more time looking around.
Back to Casa de Mortadela... Are you ready for this?? This is a beer that they serve there, it's actually the reason we went there... It is... Caracu hit with oats, egg, peanuts and powdered guarana. I know it sounds nasty but it was REAL good, it was like a chocolate/coffee milk shake. The only bad part was the end which had all the ground up peanuts floating in it.
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I really need to get my laptop taken apart and cleaned, the heat off it is crazy and it's froze a few times on this trip already from overheating.
I've been to a lot of different places in the world and I've had some really great pizza but there is little that can compare to Brazilian pizza. What makes it so good? Catipuri! Jessie found a way to make catipuri back home which is to mix muenster and cream cheese, it does a good job of emulating Catipuri but having just had the real thing it does not fit perfectly. It's good, but not the real thing.. Last night I went with Paulo to the pizza place near the hotel and had some amazing pizza. We got one pie split three ways, one was porteguese which is ham, onion, egg and catipuri, the second was bacon and catipuri and the third was mushroom and mozerella. If you ever find yourself in Brazil make sure you get some pizza. We ended up going to dinner later than we wanted because Paulo got stuck in some cases he was working so I didn't get back to the hotel till after 10.
Other cool news.. OKC brought back the WTF reports in a way, it's called "the two of us" and it lets you compare answers the other person made public. When I looked at it last night you had to go to each question and select make public, when I looked this morning they added a button that makes all questions public. I'm happy that feature is back because it really helped to see why someone was a high or low match.
--- Hoyle sent me a petition to sign to get Dock Ellis' no hitter aired. Dock Ellis pitched a no hitter in 1970 while high off his ass on LSD. Apparently he hit a bunch of batters, including the same guy three times, and walked eight men but in the end managed to complete a no-hitter. I am assuming MLB network has not aired it because of the LSD scandal but I say air it. I for one would love to see it..
--- Today I'm going to the Galera de Rock to spend way to much money on metal dvds, cds and shirts. If there is anything you want me to look for drop me a message and I'll see what I can do.
No, it's not sex.. It's the afternoon snack.. The classes here are all catered, they bring in breakfast around 10am and snack around 3pm.
Their idea of "breakfast" today was ham and catipuri sandwiches with pizza rolls and pastries filled with fruit. Their idea of "snack" today was mini cheese burgers topped with catipuri, twice dipped chocolate strawberries (white chocolate on the inside and dark chocolate on the outside), coconut covered chocolate balls and some unidentified pastry which was tasty.
--- Last night I did end up going to Hooters for dinner, I had a burger and fries. The best part of the meal was the hot waitress who was roller skating around the restaurant.
I just got to Sao Paulo today and found out almost everything is closed.. I went and walked the city a bit this afternoon and found that the only thing open are gas stations and chains like McDonalds. I guess I'm going to eat dinner at Hooters since I assume they are open and they are right by the hotel. If they are closed I guess I'll eat at the hotel.
The taxi from the airport cost me 120 Reals which is outrageous, I guess I'm glad I can expense it.
The flight from Boston to NJ was delayed but they got me on the earlier flight so I ended up getting to NJ about the same time I would have if I had gotten the correct flight. As I was wondering around the Boston airport I found out they now have a Harpoon brewery on site which had Winter Warmer on tap! I was so excited since it's one of my top 5 beers of all time. I got to NJ and ended up going to the Brooklyn brewery and chatting with a girl from LA. She is working on a dating site geared towards lawyers, we talked a lot about OKC and my relationships which gave her some ideas for her site.
The flights were pretty uneventful but I should mention the plane was going real fast on the flight from Boston to NJ. He made it from Boston to NJ in about 34 minutes! While I was on the plane getting ready to take off they announced that they had too much weight and they said they were taking all of the later flight passengers off the plane to correct the weight. They announced like 10-15 people but I was not one of them, I guess it helps to be "Elite".
The week behind.. The biggest thing since my last blog was Future Imperfect, it was an awesome time! If you don't know what Future Imperfect is, it's a sci-fi LARP that takes places on a newly colonized world. In just one short weekend I got sworn in as a deputy and made lots of friends. I can't wait till the next event. The FI dates do not conflict with Laire which means I will not have to miss one over the other. After the game I went and saw Kevin in a vampire musical called Nightsong. The story, dialog and lyrics were all very good but the acting was BAD, I really hope that someone else picks this play up and does a better job with it.
Thursday night me and Jessie went to Bella's and had some great food as usual. Dianne came up after dinner and we hung out for a bit before bed. Friday we went to see WPA which was a great show, it was at Passim and somehow they got 6 people and a drum kit on the stage. Not much room for them to move but they did a great job. We were supposed to go to the 7pm show but Jessie must have clicked on the wrong show when buying tickets so we ended up wondering around Cambridge for a few hours while we waited for the late show.
I woke up this morning and it was 39 degrees in Duluth! I guess it's getting me ready to go back home..
Last night was a quick night, when I got out of work I went over to Dave & Busters.. It had to be the lamest Dave & Busters I've ever seen, they had a very small arcade area and most of those were the stupid "win tickets" games.. I went to Olive Garden for dinner and then over to Barnacles for a drink. The place was empty so I only stayed for one drink and went back to the hotel. I was planning on going back out a bit later but I decided I was tired and stayed in for the rest of the night.
I remember loving Olive Garden's Alfredo sauce but for some reason it was really lack luster last night. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong or maybe it was just a bad night for the chef. I'll give it another shot before I condemn it.. :)
Flight today is early, I'll head home and probably shower before heading over to Future Imperfect. Check in is between 6 and 8 so I should have plenty of time..
---Diversion of the Day http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2009-10-06/index.html
I went down into Atlanta yesterday after work. I got down the Lov'n it Live (a raw vegan restaurant just south of Atlanta) around 4:30, my original idea was to kill time around the restaurant before dinner. When I got there I found that there was very little to do so I ate an early dinner. I had Nori Wraps for an appetizer, Mushroom steak for a main course and Pumpkin Pie for dessert. For a beverage I had a fresh veggie drink. It was all very good and I would highly recommend eating there if you're ever in the area.
After dinner I went to Turner Field! I have to say, and not because I'm an anti-Braves fan, the outside of the building is very generic and run down looking. I walked to the front of the stadium and the main gate was open so I went inside. The inside area was really nice and I was actually liking what I saw until.... They have a Statue of Liberty all decked out in Braves clothes!! wtf!! seriously!! How dare they take a NY icon and put Braves clothes on it! I was bitching at the bar about this later in the night and someone made the comment that the Statue of Liberty is an American icon and the Braves are America's Team! Fuck that shit!
Speaking of baseball.. I was wearing my Mets/CitiField shirt yesterday when I went into Barnacles, apparently (and not surprising) Brandon is a Braves fan! I walked in and he started jokingly threatening to smash his beer bottle over my head. We had a great argument but where able to come back together over our hatred of the Yankees. A few new friends, one guy who worked as a salesman for Infinity Auto was trying to convince me that Infinity had a better AWD then Subaru.. The other new friend was a Cubs fan who moved to Georgia, he has been to 21 stadiums in his baseball tour so we ended up talking about what we liked and disliked about different ones.
All in all a great time last night, except for the Yankees winning the World Series..
Last night I tried to get Jessie an iPod case but neither of the places here had the one she wanted for the size iPod we have. They had them for the iPhone and iTouch but not the regular iPods..
After that failed attempt I started looking for food and started getting real disgusted by the chain restaurants in the area. This area is like two Framinghams worth of stores and chain restaurants all squished together into a few block radius. Anyway, I debated going to the pool house/sports bar but I saw their menu the other day and was not impressed. As I was driving around I saw a sign for Karaoke Extravaganza at a place called Barnacles. Sure, why not..
I got there about 8:30, Karaoke started at 9. My first surprise was that smoking was welcome there! I figure no big deal, it won't be too bad right? Well the place was pretty empty and they sat me at a long bar like table near one of the only other guys in there eating. I had a good view of the massive TVs on the wall and ended up getting in-tranced by the Monster Truck rally they had on. This was one of those dirt tracks that had jumps and smashed up cars, the idea was to drive around the track and do the jumps, etc. You got points for style, how far you got into the track and how long it took you. None of the trucks finished the track but it was a lot of fun to watch. I had a burger which was good and ended up talking to the guy, he as it turns out is a real Georgia boy. You know, when you think of Southern boys you think of him. Our waitress was real cute but looked real young, we ended up calling her over and asking her age and after that she ended up coming back around every once in a while and chatting & hanging out with us.
Karaoke started at 9, but by the time the first person went up to sing it was almost 9:20. All in all I watched 4 people sing. One was real good, one was REAL bad and the other two were just ok. I ended up leaving right around 10 and heading back to the hotel. The smoking got annoying as the night got longer and the place got more crowded. I will probably go there again tonight after dinner to watch some of the game. The Georgia boy (name omitted to protect the innocent) will be there, he goes there most nights on his way home from work for a beer or two, and I know our lovely waitress will be there too.
Oh, I almost forgot. Before going on the failed quest for an iPod case I played a mini-golf place right by the hotel. It's between the hotel and Fry's so I ended up stopping there on the way. You know a course is hard when the guy at the counter tells you to take an extra ball so that if you lose one you don't have to come all way back to the ball counter. It was a 27 hole course, the first 18 were the standard holes, the last 9 were the harder holes. I didn't lose the first ball till hole 24! Let me tell you, there were certainly a few times you could lose the ball. The course had a bunch of holes where you had to jump a river. Ironically the one I lost it on was not that hard, it had a big rock in the way and I tried to bounce of the wall and go past the rock, it didn't bounce off the wall but instead hugged the wall and went out on to the path and up a hill into the trees! The par for the total 27 holes is 61 and I shot a 75 with one hole in one!
Last night I went to Fry's and Micro Center to look at netbooks. I really want to replace my work laptop with an Acer netbook. The new one is $298 at Fry's which is an amazing price, I just don't know if I can justify spending the money on it when I have a working work supplied laptop.
After wandering around a bit I went to Red Lobster for dinner.. You know, when in Georgia eat local food right? I don't know what I was thinking.. After eating lobster in New England a Georgia lobster is not going to cut the mustard as they say. I did really enjoy the crab cake I had as an appetizer but the lobster was tough and not all that tasty.
After dinner I went to the Pool House/Sports bar again and watched the World Series with some of my new friends.. I met two new really cool people last night, I was sitting at the bar when a guy and girl came and sat next to me. They were together and talking about their phones and they dragged me into it. She had just gotten rid of her Storm and replaced it with a new Blackberry. Anyway, we ended up chatting and hanging out for the entire game. She had gotten a beer from a "secret admirer" and a little while later I got up to hit the bathroom and a guy stopped me to ask if she was with me. I said no, but she's married (her husband is in Afganastan). A little while later she got a second one! I don't know if it was from the same person or not but jeez, how come guys never get free drinks from "secret admirers"?
I finally mailed my Son of Sandlar boots back to them today so hopefully I will get them back sooner rather than later.
It is so nice out here today, 71 degrees and very sunny! I don't know what I'm doing for dinner tonight, I was thinking of wandering around the mall but I may see what else is near by. I am thinking of going into downtown Atlanta on Thursday after class since it will be an early day.
So, I just got to Duluth GA last night. I flew into Atlanta and was geared up for fist-a-cuffs with some f'n Braves fans, not really - but it sounds good.. The airport here is oddly laid out and very big. I had to take a tram to the baggage claim it was so far away from my terminal. The layout is sorta like this:
........| |....| |....| |....| |....| |
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[]-----| |---| |---| |----| |---| |
........| |....| |....| |....| |....| |
........| |....| |....| |....| |....| |
Each of the | | is a terminal with the dotted line being the connecting point between them. So, if you came in on the 4th terminal back (which I did) you have to walk to the center of the terminal and then up the connection walk or take the tram which runs on the dotted line.
When you get to the square (ticket area, baggage claim and rent-a-car) you pass the rent-a-car area before getting to the bags. I grabbed my bag and came back to the Enterprise counter. I filled out paperwork and then went outside to grab a bus which brought me right to my car. I ended up getting a Kia Spectra, man it's hot! It does not really have any balls but it is comfortable to sit in and the radio has an Aux input so I can listen to my book while driving.
Drove to the hotel and then went out wandering Duluth. Duluth is a shopping mecca, there is a Best Buy, MicroCenter and Fry's all in a matter of a few blocks. There are also tons of places to eat including Red Lobster. Last night I went to a Sushi BBQ place which was a Japanese/Korean restaurant, all the servers spoke Japanese and they had real wasabi and didn't offer me a spoon for my soup! Holly asked me to show her a picture of what real wasabi looked like and I got busy with class so never did.. Here you go Holly, a picture of real wasabi..
After dinner I went to a pool hall/sports bar and watched a bit of the World Series while drinking a Fat Tire. I was shocked at how many people in the place where Yankees fans! Not a Braves fan in site, wtf! I ended up hanging out with a few guys and having a great time but left after the 6th because my tattoo was itching like crazy and I just wanted to get back to the hotel and take my shirt off.
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Saturday me and Jessie went and hung out my dad during the day and my mom at night. During the day we went to Lou Rocs, which is a diner up in Worcester, and then went to Best Buy and Staples to look at netbooks. I want to get one to use instead of my work laptop. I think I've decided on the Acer Aspire One which I can get at Radio Shack for $349.99, it has an 11" screen with 2GB memory and a 260GB hard drive.
I am going to see how cheap they are down here at Fry's and maybe MicroCenter.
At night we hung out at mom's house and watched WC Fields' You Can't Cheat an Honest Man. It's been years since I've seen it and it is still pretty funny after all these years.
I really don't understand why baseball would allow crazy biased announcers on the World Series. I was watching last night's game, which was a great game, and the announcers were so blatantly rooting for the Yankees it was ridiculous. I felt like I was watching my brother announce a game.. The Phillies came to back in the 7th down by 1 run and the announcers were pretty much like "well, the Yankees only have to worry about the next 3 outs because we talked to Joe before the game and asked him what he thought about using Mariano for 2 innings today, he didn't even blink an eye and said yes. That means only 3 more outs before Mariano time!"
I'm not even a Philly fan and I am so irritated by this I want to call FOX and complain.
Anyway, I just saw this silly video on ESPN.com and figured I wanted to share...
So, when last we left out intrepid traveler he was in the San Jose airport about to a "new york style bagel".. I ate it on the plane from San Jose, it was ok but certainly not a "NY Style bagel".. I guess I didn't really expect it to be. The flights home were uneventful but good. Got home, hung out with Dianne, Jessie and Joe on Saturday night.
Yesterday I finally got my tattoo, after years of design and waiting I finally have it. It only took about 2 hours and was not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. Pictures on Flickr. The only part that was real painful was the top of the shoulder by the neck. After the tattoo me and Lynz went and got some dinner at the Courthouse. They were slow and I convinced the waitress to give me potato skins instead of fries! So good!
Tomorrow I have to go to the Brazilian Consulate to finally get my Brazil Visa.. I just found out I may be going to London now as well as Georgia and Brazil.. If that's the case it will be, fly out Sunday to Georgia, leave Georgia on Friday, go to Mythical Journeys Future Imperfect, fly out on Sunday to London, fly home Friday morning and go to WPA Friday night, fly to Brazil on Saturday!
Class got out before lunch, I changed into my MChat shirt and headed up to SF (that becomes important later). I got to the pier area and to the Alcatraz ticket line right before 1, but by the time I went through the ticket booth I missed the 1:10 boat so I got a ticket on the 2:20. I walked the pier for a bit while I waited and ended up eating a nasty hot dog for lunch because it was the only thing quick in the area.
The boat ride was actually quite enjoyable, I stood up on the 3rd deck in the front. At one point a group of kids were trying to get their picture taken and asked the couple standing next to me who ended up being from London. I ended up chatting with them on the boat and hanging with them a bit on Alcatraz during the Cell Block Audio Tour.
Got off the boat and walked the long way up to the Cell Block, and by long way I mean I walked all over the island before finally making my way to the Cell Block. The island is actually quite beautiful, it had a small town outside the prison that housed the guards, warden and their families. I walked by the old school, post office, shops, etc. Most of them were either ruins, rubble piles or at the very least very run down. The only thing that is in what I would think is usable condition is the actual prison.
When you enter the prison you go in as the inmates did, past the entry point and the showers before getting the audio unit and starting the tour. The audio tour was done by four former inmates and four former guards. Having them do the tour really added to the "realism" of the place, without the audio I can see some people not feeling this place could really be that bad. The cells themselves were so small I don't know if a tall person could actually lay down, there is a small cot, two metal "shelves" (one was a table, the other the chair), a toilet, a sink and two actual shelves above the sink/toilet. I took bunches of pictures and will sort through them before posting to Flickr, I hope I got some good ones but it was pretty dark in there. The audio did a good job of explaining how it felt to be there. It talked about a few escape attempts, one of them involved a prisoner making a "bar spreader" and scaling the bars to open a hole in the area where the guards had guns. It was crazy to hear about that and to have the inmates pointing to the exact bars the guy climbed, etc. The only escape that every actually worked was the one where three prisoners dug out a passage using spoons, the guards on the audio were saying how they think the guys drowned at sea, the inmates were saying they think they made it to Mexico. Nobody will ever know for sure I guess. The tour then brings you into the area where bad prisoners go, they have two stages of bad. The first is an open cell but away from everyone else, those cells were actually bigger than the ones in the normal cell blocks but they were facing the setting sun and the city.. According to the inmates on the tape you could hear the sounds of people laughing and partying from the yacht club which made being in there worse even though you had a bigger cell. The other level of bad was the "hole" which was a room with four steel walls. Apparently it's now a federal law that any solitary confinement had to have at least a light on, it was not back when Alcatraz ran so they would lock people into a four steel walled cell with no light or anything. After the tour I ended up jogging down the island to get to the 4:20 boat.
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Back on the mainland I saw the double decker tour bus getting ready to leave. It was the last tour of the night and I jumped on at the pier which was the first stop. The tour was about two hours long, all in all it was pretty boring. Most of the city is very bland looking and I couldn't get off since it was the last bus of the night which meant the few places that did look really cool (like Haight) I couldn't really go check out. Next time I'm in the area I must go spend some time on Haight street, it was the heart of the hippie movement in the 1960s and still very much looks that way. Looks like it would be an awesome place to kill some time. Speaking of Haight St, I saw Amoeba Music which is sorta like Powell's Bookstore but for music. Unfortunately I couldn't stop.. We went over the Golden Gate bridge and back, it was a nice bridge I guess, we went through some really nice parks I would like to visit and we went by the adult street. The bus didn't go down that street, just by it. Speaking of didn't do, the bus didn't go down to Lombard St which I thought was odd, I figured it would have to drive by at least the bottom of that block. As the bus got more and more empty it ended up just being me and this one girl, we were both on the top as it was getting ready to go over the bridge so we moved downstairs and ended up chatting for the rest of the ride.
Interesting fact: SF has the lowest mean summer temperature of any US city, but it hardly ever gets frost in the winter. It's just a steady 60-70 degrees for most of the year, too cold for me..
Oh, and we passed the building that Godfather was written in. They say that the first ever espresso was served in that building too. I want a fact check on that one.
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After the tour I decided to get something to eat on the pier, I had seen signs for a place advertising seating area over looking sea lions. Apparently the restaurant is only open for lunch but I did get to see the sea lions. This may be the oddest thing of my trip, I was walking along the pier and a girl stopped me and commented on my shirt. Now, I've had comments in the past like 'cute shirt' or 'hey that's funny', but I've never heard anyone actually say they heard of the comic or let alone something like (I remembered the actual quote last night but now I don't because it's 5am and I'm sitting in the airport) 'Nice shirt, I love monsieur chat'! That's right, a lady in SF is a loyal reader of MChat, I guess Joe's little comic isn't so little anymore.. :)
After my failed attempt to eat near the sea lions I ended up eating at the Crab House. The place was pretty crowded so they put me at the "fireplace" which is a bar seating area with a firepit in the middle. The lady on the left of me was a food critic working for Zagat the lady on the right was Kim from Arkansas who is in SF on business. I was debating the menu and was going to order the Crab Enchilada when the food critic told me that the only thing worth getting was the crab, just the plane old crab, by plane old I mean cooked like New Englanders cook lobster. The butter was not plane however, it was a garlic butter and was so good. Ended up hanging out with Kim for a while and finally headed back to the hotel.
When I got back to the hotel I went to hang out with Ashley, I was pretty exhausted so I only hung out for a few minutes.
Now I'm at the airport and about to get a bagel and get on my flight.
So, I finally contacted Mike about moving the Bella's URL over to me. I had him change the IP address to point to Steve's new server which is where I will be hosting. A lot of credit goes to Steve who is in the process of upgrading his systems to Windows 7 and took time out of setting things up to setup my website.. :)
I worked with Steve to get everything up and running last night and the URL started pointing there just an hour ago or so. I of course have a bunch of updates I want to make to it, right now I don't have FTP access to that site (it's not setup yet) so I have to send the changes to Steve and he will update when he gets home. Basically I changed the main logo to include "gelateria" and cleaned up some of the images to make them crisper.
Once I have own the URL I will see about setting up a .mobile version of the site. And onto other web news, Allen told the guy who owns the new BBQ place in Putnam that I did his website so I may have another customer. More free food?
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For dinner last night I went to Yo Yo Sushi which is by work, I got a 10% coupon from the hotel and had been wanting sushi so it works.. The place was pretty good, they had a boat moat that you could grab off but I went with a set sashimi meal which was actually quite a bit of food. After dinner and website playing I hung out and chatted with Ashley (the girl who works at the counter at the Residence Inn) and the two guys from Denmark again for a long time before finally heading off to bed.
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Today/Tonight.. Going back to SF to check out Alcatraz and possibly eat at Cafe Gratitude again.
Last night I went to play Mini-Golf in Milpitas at Golf Land USA. They have 3 courses which are rated easy, medium and hard. I left to head up there (about 10 miles) right around 5pm so I was a so glad to have the Prius and all-access to the carpool lane! The traffic was stopped on the highway and I was doing 65 next to them! Anyway, as I got closer I saw a wonderful mountain range.. The way the sun was playing off it was so pretty, I took a crap ton of pics of it to capture the beauty. I posted 2 pics from the drive to Flickr. The Mini-Golf place was right at the base of the mountain range so I took another good pic from the parking lot.
Anyway, so.. Mini-Golf.. I decided I would play both the medium and hard courses. I played the medium one first as a warm-up and shot a 52 on 18 holes, I think I had one hole at 5 but everything else was in the 2-4 range. One thing I thought was really cool, well ok, maybe more than one.. First, the putting area changed colors at points which made a really neat trick of the eye when trying to read the hills. Second, the entire course was covered in "mini-golf carpet". When I say the entire course I mean the whole place, the hills, the walkways, everything. It was like immersing yourself into a mini-golf world.
Onto my second course.. Oh, wait.. I forgot to mention the most supertabular thing about this place! When I grabbed my pencil out of the pencil bin it had LETS GO METS carved into it in orange writing! OK, now on to the second course. Remember this is the "hard" course. I was actually talking to Lynz for most of this course so she can vouch (in a way) for my awesomeness. What, what, can't hear you over the sound of my awesomeness.. :D Right, so.. I actually hit two consecutive Hole-In-Ones! The first one was one of those holes that you just have to hit it up the ramp in the middle and you automatically get a hole in one but the second one was a brutal looking hole. It had a MASSIVE hill in the middle of the green and then at the end had a V right after the hole so if it came down the hill too quick or at the wrong angle it would pass the hole, hit the V and head out into the outskirts of the green! So, continuing on with my amazingness (couldn't use awesomeness, it would have been repetitive), there was one hole that had two choices, picture of it on Flickr, one choice was to go up a real steep hill into the mouth of a tree which presumably would bring the ball near the hole, the other choice was to hit it straight through a really thin passage. I shot the hole twice, once up the tree and once down the passage. Both times I got a 2 on the hole, both times I was right near the hole after the first shot! I can't believe I made it through that thin passage.. Oh, wait, yes I can, because I am that awesome.. ;)
After Mini-Golf I went to the Great Mall to check on yet another Verizon store. I told the stupid guy I had a Z6c World Edition and needed a charger that would work with my international adapters (they slide onto the old charger and won't fit the new one) or I needed new international adapters. He said that they don't make international adapters for my phone and the only one they have them for is the blackberry and that the blackberry charger won't work for my phone because the blackberry is micro-usb and my phone is mini-usb! I really wanted to punch him, why in the hell can't a Verizon rep know that my phone, first of all, does exist and second of all does NOT use the same accessories as the Z6TV! So, after explaining that my phone was indeed micro-usb (which by the way he argued with me about) he pulled out the blackberry charger and it worked! No "unsupported charger" or anything, just straight up charging! So, I want to buy.. Nope.. They don't stock that charger, but he can order me one which will take approx a week to get in. No thanks.. Ordered one on-line and it will be at the house maybe as early as Friday, but no later than Monday.
That guy get's a "random people - douches" tag! Anyway, speaking of the "random people - cool" tag.. I went back to the hotel and spent some time chatting with Ashley, the girl who works the night shift behind the counter, and two of her friends. They are all in college and the one guy is doing a project where he has to come up with original game ideas, Ashley was doing Spanish homework, put those two together and you get... "Language Brawl" Language Brawl is a game idea the three of us came up with.. So, here's the idea.. You're driving down the street and you hit a car, you get out and so does the other driver. The other driver does not speak your language, instead he speaks the language you're trying to learn. As he speaks it shows up on the screen and you have to translate it and answer him, if you don't answer in time he kicks your ass. Figure the beginning levels will have the sentence in your language except maybe one word you have to translate but in the end you could have to translate the whole sentence. We even figure you can do a multi-lingual one (for our European friends who speak many languages) where you hit a car which hits a car and both drivers speak different languages and you have to translate them both in the alloted time.
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Food TV is doing another "Next Iron Chef", the last time they did one it was to replace Mario Batali who had a contract difficulty with Food TV. So, I was trying to figure out who was leaving this time.. Well, I too can add 1+1 and get 2.. For years now Cat Cora said she would not open a restaurant because she could not juggle her personal life, the show and a restaurant. Apparently she opened a restaurant in Disney World called Kouzzina. So the only question now is, do I go there this year or do I wait till next year and go with Jessie. I have to figure that out soon because if I'm going this year I need to make reservations.
---Diversion of the Day (watch with sound to truly enjoy)
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