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While getting my car washed. What a miracle!

Labels: minutia

Some giant pounding outside woke me up. Not in my head like some normal early mornings (though I usually sleep for another hour or two like that). No, this was like somebody was slamming on a door. I had to take the trash out so figured I'd check it out, finding nothing but a recollection of a dream about watching a financial news network where a couple of the personalities were doing magic tricks between news. It had to be Fox. One of the guys did a trick while talking about Michigan's governor Jennifer Granholm. Just before saying he thought shorting oil was a good idea.

And now I go back to sleep.

Labels: dreams, minutia

This could be the end of a 160 year tradition in Michigan. Kind of a sad story but considering I've never been and I guess nobody else is, should we really hold onto things just because they're old? You'd think some benevolent person would step in with some cash but maybe even the most charitable person doesn't see the point in throwing good money after bad.

Labels: minutia

I've always thought people should do more put-pocketing but I assumed people would get the beat down. I guess the badges make it official so I approve.

Anyways, it has such great potential, I mean I'd love to have somebody come over to me and shove $20 in my pocket; it'd be like being a stripper for the day. But thankfully (for everyone) with my clothes on.

Labels: minutia

What's the deal with people using mixed capitalization within words? I've seen a few people on facebook using this for their status messages (I saw somebody post "is ahhh...soooo ExCitED"; wtf?!), but maybe that's just what the (stupid, ign'nt) kids are doing these days. Not only are they spoiled to all get out, but they now don't need to follow conventions of grammar or spelling. Let them all burn in hell!

Labels: minutia, rant

Central Market had some deal where you bought two pounds of peel-an-eat-shrimp, you got a CM cooler, and a specialty cocktail sauce. The cooler's pretty nice but the resulting 12 shrimp cocktail's even better. I cooked them all up in some lemons, cracked red pepper and crab boil (though I omitted the sponge). Might have to have some of these shrimp with a pasta salad later...

Labels: cooking, minutia

I was checking the mail and I have a nice handwritten letter basically saying the time of Noah are upon us and if I don't repent I'll be among those left behind. I don't have time for such things, I've got a party to prepare for.

Labels: minutia

Seems kind of an odd thing to have lying around, just a good thing I didn't notice until leaving today.

Labels: minutia

I don't know if this thing is really a gyroscope, maybe it is a pendulum, but it sure was annoying. It supposedly knocks down all of those stones every two days.

Labels: minutia, travel

I guess they never decided to update the exterior of this Sears. It's totally retro now, but I'm sure they had to fight to keep it like that for during the 60s & 70s. Off to the museum!

Labels: minutia

The day blended into night about the way one would think when I was asked to sit outside (the heat had lessened and I had a few less articles of clothing (on)from caring). Meaningful conversation was had, at least on my part, between big hits of beer. And then a tray of deviled eggs magically appeared (there is little in this world that I stop a train for and one of them is deviled eggs). I ate probably a dozen (they were exquisite, some fancy recipe that I can only hope to someday acquire) plus there might've been an over-stuffed spinach quiche but don't quote me on those (ok, overstuffed and GOOD). Either way, I'm home and hoping nothing else hits me in the head between now and Thursday.

Labels: food, minutia

I'm spending money like I have it.  But there were jackets on sale, 50% off, plus a pretty cool shirt so I had to do it.  Who cares that I won't be able to wear them in this insufferable heat.

Labels: minutia

Man, these guys disgust me. I can't imagine ever getting involved with somebody to such an extent that I'd feel like it was ok to dress with the same shirt. Relationships aren't like being on a sport's teams. Fools, damn fools, I say! And their stupidity is disturbing my cooking class (Food & Wine from Italy) down at Central Market. But there's pasta, soup and more lamb on the menu so I might be able to survive.

Labels: food, minutia

I've got to get this unpacked and loaded with numbers for my folks.  What a great son I am!

Labels: family, minutia, technology

Hearking back to days gone by, I'm on Mopac from the Saucer to my house just to head back to the Saucer (before going to a cooking class). I should get on the JMVC plan and bus or bike everywhere. Well, that will never happen.

Labels: minutia

The bleakness of the day got much better as I took a nice walk at Town Lake, caught up with a friend of mine, some relaxation by the pool then grilling up some bacon wrapped hot dogs. Now I'm knocking out a few episodes of Season 1 of Breaking Bad so I can get that back off to its owner.

Then it'll be watching as the Red Wings try to take an 2-0 lead off the DVR! No commercials for this chump.

Labels: cooking, hockey, minutia, television

Not only did I pick up a blow torch, but lit it up next to the bourbon. Not maybe the best of ideas.

Labels: cooking, drinking, minutia

neolefty sent me this awesome site with the most awesome content, texts from last night. And I think the updates are pretty constant so the stupidity is always new.

Labels: minutia, neolefty, stupidity

It has been raining crazily the past couple of days but I got this shot while sneaking out between outbursts of showers.

Labels: minutia, weather

I killed in Monopoly tonight! My brother and nephew put a valiant effort but were trampled in the end. I do like that they took their beatings like men and never thought of giving up, even though they should have.

Labels: family, minutia

We've got some trouble in Austin and it ain't just the cold temperatures! Is it the end of the world? Do we need to save ourselves behind lock doors? Or maybe some jackass has too much time on their hands. Maybe they are trying to surpass putting cones in my street.

Labels: minutia

Some crazy person has blocked off my street with magical cones.

Labels: minutia

Wow, this story about Miss Brazil is horrible. This is an absolutely disgusting story. What the hell kind of misdiagnosis can cause amputations?

Labels: minutia

Our newest President has arrived at the saucer. If the guy didn't have enough pressure on him, now he's got to live up to having a plate on the wall. Now I need to find the one for Dubya.

Labels: drinking, minutia

neolefty is leaving on Sunday for Washington D.C. for next week's inauguration and he stumbled upon this bar that rewards perfect attendance. This Tombs place must be the Flying Saucer equivalent in our nation's capitol D.C.

Labels: minutia, neolefty

There was an intention to do a lot today but I have only bought groceries (necessary materials for the jagerschnitzel I'll be making tonight plus sammy stuff for the week) and stopped by Aces place for a penny portrait that I'll be using as a late Christmas gift.

Labels: aces, minutia

This is awesome, there are three Carl Jr.'s in Hawaii. Only seven months away! Though I should head down to the one in Van Ormy. That's in Texas, in case you were wondering.


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Labels: food, minutia

neolefty sent me a pic from outside In-N-Out Burger and it made me realize how much I miss Carl Jr.'s. And it made me wonder why there isn't a Carl's here. And then it call came back to the difference between the West Coast Carl's Jr. and the East Coast Hardee's. Take a look at the maps of both locations.

Carl's Jr.

Hardee's

Notice how they have no crossover, but still there isn't one of either within 90 miles of ATX.

Each restaurant is part of the CKE Restaurant chain but the menus aren't the same, but the web sites are strikingly similar. And Hardee's is more of a breakfast place where Carl's Jr. is lunch/dinner city. Regardless, if only they both had the Ranch Crispy sandwich. I love that sandwich and I think its only gotten better; now it has Swiss cheese and bacon. Got to love that.

Labels: food, minutia, neolefty

I finally got my hotmail account to work. Not on Firefox, just on IE. The funny (read: not so funny) part is that they upgraded it to a new, less shitty version. They've joined the early 2000's by actually having a search option.

Labels: minutia

I woke up around 3:30 and couldn't for the life of me fall back asleep. Well, not until close to 6. And you know what that means? Sleeping in until past 8:30. Good thing the office lost power so nobody noticed me showing up at 9:45.

Labels: minutia, work

Some crazy spider in my pool intake. I've omitted the after pictures of it floating away all dead and such. Its death came right in the middle of a glorious day of sitting in the backyard and listening to the Tigers beat the Phillies. It almost felt like I was back in Michigan. Except I had a job and wasn't 13.

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Labels: baseball, house, minutia, sports

Look what I found! And when I say 'found' I mean was able to exchange a non-working one for brand new one.

Labels: minutia

I think I am now worse than old people. I was in bed before 9:30 pm last night. Though unlike old people, I slept until past 8:00 am. Grandma's got nothing on me.

Labels: minutia, sleep

So that's my foot. I thought it would be a lot brighter.

 

Labels: minutia

I know it is a bit dark, but, yes, that's a suit of armor in my back seat. Doesn't everyone have one of those?

Labels: minutia

Yesterday I was home again, but I'm braving the elements to hit the office today. I just can't stay at home any longer, plus I've got a cooking class tonight.

Labels: minutia

With the weather so crappy, me and the roommates have been pretty much locked in the house the pass few days. It got so bad that we played an Austin variation of Monopoly. Good times!

Labels: minutia, weather

Man I tried for a better shot, but this is as good as I could get. I successfully avoided going to work until nearly 1 and then saw this SUV in front of me all decked out in Metallica bumper stickers and the like. Well, I was mesmerized by those and then looked down at the license plate. It read, I swear to whatever god I worship, I AM EVIL. Maybe I'll worship that guy.

Labels: house, minutia

>So this is the worst tasting shit ever. Short of literal shit. Some cute girl was giving out samples so I bought a bottle a few weeks back. And this stuff isn't cheap, either. Damn cute girls!

Labels: minutia

I think that's John the Baptist down the bottom of my chip bag. Though they're so good I won't be seeing him pretty soon. If that makes me blasphemous, then so be it.

Labels: minutia

The boarders rented Inside Man with my recommendation so I was able to check it out (please note, I don't actually have to see something to recommend it). It was pretty good, but it's one of those things that seems less good the more you think about it.

Speaking of less good, I saw the season finale of Rescue Me and it sure was a let down.

Labels: jmvc, minutia, movies, television

I don't know if I've chronicled my issues with my license plates, but it's been a big pain in the ass. I decided to set myself officially as Texas resident (and this is three years past due). It helped that my license and tags both expired on 8/10. First step was last Thursday to get my driver's license. So here is the breakdown:

• Wait in line at the license bureau; I'm told I need to register my car first
  
• Go to register my car (another line); I'm told that I need to have my car inspected first
  
• I get my car inspected and wait about 45 minutes, but do get a Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwich at the nearby gas station
  
• I head back to the register my car (another line, of course). I get my plates, but get to enjoy several uncomfortable moments where the clerk was telling me how lucky I was to be white because black people get pulled over for having expired registration.
  
• It's almost 4:45 when I leave and barely get back to the DMV to get my license; they say they've got time, but I don't have my social security card. And I don't know where that is, so I'll have to head downtown to get a new SS card.
  

Needless to say, I'm not getting my new license for a while. But then the fun part came:

• I didn't have nuts or bolts for my front license plate, so I went to Lowe's to get some. The guy matched me up, but I got out to my car and they didn't work (and it was past closing time, so I was stuck for the night).
  
• I went to Autozone and matched up the screw exactly. There were length choices and the guy at the counter "guaranteed" the short ones would work.
  
• Headed to Chilly's place and the short ones didn't work so I stop and pick up the ones that did fit.
  
• I get back to my place, put in the front plate and I'm set. I go to the back and the right screw is stripped and I can't get it out and I end up tearing off my FSU license plate.
  

And the beat goes on.

Labels: minutia, sports

I went out to get a late lunch and there were fire trucks outside the parking garage. And one of the fireman said to watch out as the floors were slick. Slick was an understatement as there was a constant flow of water going down ever flight of stairs. And not just water, there was some funky black gunk along for the ride. I tried to find out what happening, but I'm hoping some exec parked their car on the top floor and some resentful bastard set the mother on fire.

Labels: minutia

I had this crazy crock pot cooking class tonight. I should've known better for a variety of reasons: 1) the main claim to fame of the crock pot is its simplicity so spending $40 on a class is silly and 2) I don't own one. But I signed up and figured I might learn something to convince me to pick one up. And it did have its quality moments.

So I show up amidst the oncoming bad weather. And I noticed something indeed odd: an attractive woman in the class. Some might think that these cooking classes should be chock full of beauties, but that's a misconception I learned early on in these classes. If you're out to meet unattractive (in all aspects of word), older, or married, this could be for you. I'm there for the cooking and anything else is just gravy. Anyway, she said in the row in front of me, one seat to the right over.

The class starts up and the instructor is fourth tier at best (I know him from other classes where he's the assistant). He started, and continued, to pepper is session with little cooking tidbits that should've been obvious to everyone (but everyone took this as gospel). First thing on the menu was a spaghetti sauce with shrimp. This wasn't setting a good mood for the night as I need very little help with marinara sauce, but I don't think myself so high and mighty that I can't learn something.

Well, while the dude went through the paces of showing how to put the sauce together, the wine came out. First mistake was not taking the wine that comes along with the class. I figured (and rightfully so) that I still have had enough booze after last weekend's odyssey that I can take another night off. But the funny thing about the wine is what I saw from the attractive woman sitting in front of me because I swear I saw a nipple.

Now the casual observer will think: "Cooking class? Nipple?". Well, I'm right there with you and wasn't sure if what I thought I saw was what I saw. See the girl had some low cut top on which usually doesn't work out so well for people behind to see anything, but when she lifted up her wine glass I could see right to the side of her breast and what may or may not have been a nipple. I thought it best to avoid this as much as possible.

So the shrimp and spaghetti comes around and it is HORRIBLE. I ate the shrimp on principle, but the sauce was just so acidic that I couldn't tolerate it. And that's when something else shocking happened: nearly everyone was killing the stuff and saying how good it was. I can only imagine how my sauce would do with this crowd.

Next up was some chili (which the instructor had a tough time explaining why he browned up ground beef, removed the grease then browned up the onions. Some people need to be eliminated, but that's another story) then corn bread then tamale pie, all somewhat decently tasting, but all through that is avoiding the woman in front of me. Granted all I wanted to do was lay on the table and moo, but I was at a table with other people and the last thing I want to do is get banned from the cooking school for molesting some large breasted bandit. And I assure you, no court wold've convicted me.

Eventually it all ended. And I went home, but I'll always have the...

Labels: food, minutia

Man, that Michael Clarke Duncan guy was on Cold Pizza this morning to promote The Island and he got into an argument with Skip Bayless about Lance Armstrong. Clueless Bayless was saying something about Lance not being an athlete because bike riding wasn't a real sport. I don't know exactly what, but Duncan was refuting his claim instead of being interviewed. He was sitting in another portion of the studio just hollering over everyone and they had haphazardly put together shot of Skip responding. It was great TV.

Labels: minutia, sports, television

Somebody at Ace's party had actually run a triathlon today. I think she makes up for my lack of inactivity by quite a bit.

Labels: aces, minutia

But not before I in back to sleep. We ended up getting some grub at Denny's after the GD service at the Golden Horseshoe forced us to leave. We stuffed ourselves like Kings then stopped of for some brews at the strangest place here: greasy spoon slash find store slash liquor store slash overall shit hole. But it then I realized my dining mistake when I say Carl's Junior. I almost stopped in for a Ranch Crispy just cause. So I think the strip eventually today, but now sleep.

Labels: food, minutia, travel

From incognegro: "it's official. our VP of creative is a megalomaniac." I don't know about you, but I love megalomaniacs.

Labels: minutia

Man, it was a beautiful day yesterday. In the mid 70's with lots of sun but there was a pleasant little breeze. I got to get some more of my VPN stuff, so I got to take a run outside around noon. Then I went to take, I mean get, some shots (rabies) in the afternoon. I could have stayed out all day. But I ended up sitting my ass on the couch. Until Vlad called up. He had run out of gas off of I-35, so I got to go get him. More time outside. But that was dealing with rush hour traffic and the convoluted Austin roads, so that wasn't as much fun. Though that non-fun was followed by a great dinner. So that tempered things a bit. All in all, a good day? Hmm, I won't be so quick to judge. Oh, the evening was quite nice, so maybe I will judge. Maybe.

Labels: minutia

Why didn't anybody tell me that Texas is joining the Mega Millions multistate lottery? This is important stuff. This thing routinely gets into the nine figures and the chances will only increase with Texas joining the fray. I can't wait until my first series of disappointments of not winning. It's the white trash within me trying to creep its way out.

Labels: gambling, minutia

Ever go to a restaurant and have the bill comped? Well, ever for the reason of an electrical fire?

So I go to the Carrabba's for dinner with a friend of mine. Vino, viand and good company, what more could you ask for? It was a pretty rainy evening and we arrived a little past 8:30 pm. We had appetizers and everything was going pretty well. The staff was very friendly so we weren't surprised when the general manager stopped by our table. We were surprised when he said that there was smoke coming into the restaurant and that it wasn't coming from the kitchen; the fire department had been alerted and were on their way. Great timing as the bread, calamari and salad had me filled up. So we headed out to the porch and hung out and talked. Lots of fire trucks, police, and EMT units arrived. The wait staff came by with some more wine to help kill the time.

We waited outside until past eleven, but they were done for the night. We had the intention of getting some dessert but that'll have to be another time. Our waitress bagged our remaining food. I had no cash to give her, but MA did. Good thing for people with money. As for fires, this was a pretty good one.

Well, I'm going to have myself a glass of port and pass the hell out.

Labels: food, minutia, near-death