Happy Black Friday everyone..

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.

Holy today Batman..

--- Diversion of the Day

Ever worry about the security of your shit?

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.. :)

Now that's a beer?!

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.

Brazilian Pizza.. YUM!

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.

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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..

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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.

---Diversion of the Day

Afternoon delight..

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.

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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.

Another Christian Nation

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.

Off to dinner.. yay Hooters?

39 Degrees

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

Mostly Garbage

Holly just sent me a link to this and I realize I've been slacking on the Diversions.. Anyway, without further ado..

---Diversion of the Day

America's Team, My Ass

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..

Down South Karaoke..

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!

Secret Admirer?

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.

Hate-Lanta Braves?

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:

........| |....| |....| |....| |....| |

........| |....| |....| |....| |....| |

[]-----| |---| |---| |----| |---| |

........| |....| |....| |....| |....| |

........| |....| |....| |....| |....| |

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.

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Class just ended so I'm off for more wanderings..